For more than 3 weeks now I have not been able to teach...I continue to wait. I have my Thanksgiving lesson planned (I was unprepared for the Canadian Thanksgiving so I may still be on time for the American Thanksgiving if I get to teach this week) and I am also working on some Christmas lessons. However, I have always worked better under pressure so while I try to come up with good ideas for interesting lessons for the next few weeks I most definitely don't have 10 lesson plans ready to go yet.
Last weekend I went to a city about 2 hours from here to spend time with other foreigners again. It's always great to go there - the people are wonderful and I even got some whole wheat flour and icing sugar there...some luxuries that are not available where I live. After I visited one family for dinner I found myself standing along a busy street by myself, in the dark (besides headlights of the cars), in the rain, trying to wave down a taxi. As I stood there I was amazed by how I can be somewhat independent in a 'world' so completely foreign to me. This weekend I was so encouraged. Every time I told taxi drivers in Chinese where I wanted to go they understood me right away...I was even able to negotiate the fare with them without using my fingers. On several occasions I was aware of the fact that they were trying to rip me off so then I would just walk to the next taxi in line (it's much harder to fool me now!). I realize that they are only trying to charge me a few yuan extra (maybe half a Canadian dollar) and if the taxi driver looks poor enough I don't mind paying that, but in general I appreciate it when the drivers charge me the same as local Chinese people without taking advantage of me because I don't know the language so well.
If my work visa is still not worked out by Thursday I hope to go to the city again to celebrate American Thanksgiving with the foreigners there. I realize it is somewhat unpatriotic for a Canadian to take part in American Thanksgiving but there's nothing wrong with focusing on being thankful twice a year...especially if it involves lots of good food. Hopefully though my visa issues will be worked out by then so that I can teach my students about Thanksgiving so that we can all be thankful here...that would be cool!
We shall see. In short, all is well!
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