Moving, moving, moved

The moving process for me was extended over almost two weeks, but on Tuesday morning some people from the church helped me load everything into the big church van, which the pastor drove to my new place. I stayed in the church a couple more nights, and Thursday was my first night to sleep in my new apartment! I'm thrilled to be here, to be in my *own* place. It's practically a rite of passage for me.

My class in Luodong this week was tons of fun, and the kids' behaviour was MUCH better than last week at the other church. My summer evening classes started again, with some interesting times. Wednesday's beginner class only had 8 students and one parent, who did everything short of learn English for his son, and didn't seem pleased with any imput I had to give, all the while coaching his son to speak in sentences which more often than not had glaring errors. It was hard to know what to do, and even harder not to laugh at how ridiculous it was. Is it bad to hope they don't come back?

With such a low turn-out on Wednesday, I figured Friday would be much the same, after all, it's summer vacation! I made about 8 copies of the worksheet I was going to use, and my students just on kept coming! By the end of the class I had double that number, and had to run downstairs twice to make more copies! That Friday class I can tell already will be one of my favorite classes of the summer. I have a lot of old students, both from last semester, and from last week's camp, and a few new ones who hopefully can be brought out of their shells. I have a couple of very charming older students who compliment me any chance they get, it's hilarous. For example asking them to tell the class 5 things about themselves, they'll say something like "I've been studying English for 40 years, and now I'm so happy I can be in class with a beautiful teacher like Charlotte." They crack me up. I've got a triad of older teachers (male) , and a gaggle of high school girls, and a couple of other students of various ages including a nurse, an accountant, and a university student. Some of my students were in another teacher's class last week, and I really missed them!

It's the weekend, and soon I'll be having my first guests to my apartment since I moved in - Ariel and Richard! There's a typhoon headed this general direction, but hopefully it won't interefere with our plans! So far there's no rain, it's just incredibly, indubitably, insufferably hot.