you know you are starting to get used to life in Shanghai when you feel perfectly safe in a taxi here. the driving here is madness...Geu and Xu would hate the driving here, and somehow would fit in perfectly too. everyone drives out of their minds, running every light possible, not obeying any rules of traffic. yet, it all works together somehow...there are almost never any accidents, or at least i dont see them or hear about them.

So Mai Kao and i are now almost fully settled. we still need a couch, rug and coffee table, but we realized that all you really need to feel at home is a fully stocked kitchen! this past week, mai kao and i devoted much money at IKEA and all the foreign grocery stores to stock up on kitchen wares and hmong spices/sauces. so this week we've been eating out less. i love mai kao's cooking, and she loves cooking. a win, win if i ever saw one. some stuff that we've made at home: tomato chicken, sausage/cabbage stir fry, spring rolls. good eats.

this is for Johan...a day in the life of JOSH XIONG...Foreign Teacher Extraordinaire.

1. school starts at 8:30, and teachers report to offices anytime before then.
2. monday and tuesday, i have 4 and 5 classes (out of 7 periods)...crazy days, all i do is teach, run to the next room, teach some more and hope that i dont pass out or strangle some jerky kid before the day is over. the next three days i only have 2 classes a day. right now in fact is one of those days...i use these days to lesson plan and goof off. unless i plan all my stuff before the weekend, Sunday nights are usually my busiest day, lesson planning and all the other time consuming stuff like grading, making copies, etc.
3. we are required for the most part to stay until 4:10, mon-thurs, and 2;30 on fridays. i've been putting this time to good use on my easy days and lesson plan for the upcoming days or even week.
4. most of our nights are at home...we probably go out on the town at least 3 to 4 times a week. for those of you who lived in Chicago, you know how annoying it is to trek to another part of town...mostly, you find out your favorite local shops and restaurants and hit those up often.
5. i kind of stopped pirating so much because our local dvd shop is bone dry right now. all the good movies have been bought by all us teachers! sadly, there are hardly any CD shops around. the only ones i have been able to find are street vendors who sell out of cardboard boxes...the selections are slim, but you can find some decent stuff out of them.
6. my most proud purchase was a Radiohead japanese import CD with lots of alternate takes on songs and a rare acoustic only song by Thom yorke, its a pretty good song too. currently, i am in the process of making a mix for all the lovers!

okay, its getting long. peace for life.

josh out