Tangent Time! … Where Do I Live?
OK, so today we are taking a quick break from Bangkok to tell you about where I live in Xi’an. If you don’t know where Xi’an is, look it up on Google maps or something. I would have posted a picture with a nice big marker on it, but it’s not immediately obvious to me how to edit a picture like that (suggestions anyone? Or am I just being retarded?) and I’m too lazy to figure it out. So Google it! Do it right now, seriously. I’ll wait.
Back? Cool. Now, I live on the campus of my school in a special residence hall reserved specifically for foreign teachers. We each get our own one bedroom apartment that is paid for along with utilities. What we do have to pay for is gas for the one burner stove and water bottles for the water machine. The water machine is a device very similar to water coolers you might find in offices all across the US (the bottles are about the same size too). However, these are different because they can boil water. The water in China is not filtered at all, so you have to boil it before you drink it. Also it makes washing vegetables and table ware a pain. Alright, on to the pictures!
The building I live in. My apartment is on the second floor, all the way at the far end.
Looking in through my front door
First door on the left: the bathroom
Second door on the left: the kitchen. Behind the table is the water machine (I have two for some reason)
The rest of the kitchen. Awesome stove, right?
Second door on the right: the bedroom. At the bottom is the rug I bought in Thailand
First door on the right: the living room and the porch
So what do you think? There’s pretty much nothing in it because I’ve just moved in and I’m sort of waiting to settle in more and get into some semblance of a routine before I start buying lots of crap for the place. Any questions about it? Any suggestions for stuff I could get for decorating? And before you say it, no, I am not going to pain the walls. I’m way too lazy for that and honestly the white does not bother me that much.
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Dude! What up with those swimming pics?
Awesome album. When do you start teaching?
Mike thought it was absolutely amazing that my camera worked underwater, so he wanted to take a bunch of pictures. Also, he wanted to recreate the the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album so that’s what the deal is with the pictures of us with dollar bills.
I’m glad you liked the pictures! I start teaching on Monday.
What kind of book learnin are you going to teach? Do they give you a set curriculum or what? I’m curious as to how different it is from teaching in the states (which, I’m sure, is very).
Basically I am going to be teaching conversational English. They already know grammar and sentence structure and all that stuff, what I’m supposed to be teaching is basically “survival English” so that they can learn the language for day-to-day stuff.
There is no set curriculum, I can basically do whatever I want. It’s kind of cool in that I have free reign to do whatever, but it’s also kinda scary because I don’t know the first thing about teaching. I guess I’ll just have to learn as I go!
You can take screen shots using a program on your computer called ‘grab.’ It should be in your applications folder. I have SnapProX or something which is quicker and easier to use, but both work. There should be some sort of default application for editing pictures on a mac. I just don’t know what it is. I use PhotoShop CS.
Also I like the animal at the bottom left of your blog.
Would you even be allowed to pain the walls?
In my experience, don’t bother decorating for only six months. I wish I didn’t have so much crap in my room in Switzerland when I moved out. When I left the marshals I was very glad I never bought anything for my trailer.
Yes, I can paint the walls if I want to. But I’m way too lazy, so it’s not going happen. I plan on buying a few things for the walls. Stuff I really like from China and any other places I manage to get to. Stuff I would really want to have at home that represent all of the different and colorful places I’ve been. I already bought a block-print picture that is really nice and I will be getting framed soon.
Thank you!