I'll miss you Altruda's!
In A Corner of My Mind.....
So I got a lot done this weekend.....but oh so much more to do!!!! It's so overwhelming that I'm actually looking forward to the 13 hour flight to Beijing from Chicago because then I can SLEEP! :) I did make great headway this weekend and rented my storage space for the year. I just hope it's enough space! I have so much to do while at the same time working all this week. It's far more than I counted on. I thought I'd quit work on the 31st and have at least a week or so to get things situated. But you know what they say. Just when you make plans......
Was that a crazy wired post late last night or what? I'm so tired. But here's the facts. I'm overnighting my visa application today, I've purchased my ticket and I'm leaving next Sunday, September 2, at 5:44 a.m. for Chicago and then on to Beijing, arriving at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, September 3.
So I just got off the phone with my DOS (Director of Studies), who will be my boss in China and who is female and American, and we have ironed out a lot of details. I also was able to talk with the CM (Center Manager) of my school who is Chinese but speaks with excellent English (I'm SO glad). So here's the deal. It's a very real possibility that I am going to be leaving for Beijing in just ONE WEEK! Yep! And there is a trip to Hong Kong in my future to obtain the proper working visa that I will need. The trip will be at the expense of my company so.....can you believe it? I'm going to get to see Hong Kong, even if just for an overnight stay to obtain my working visa! Trust me, I will use those 24 hours to see all that I can in Hong Kong and a friend of mine knows someone who lives there who might be willing to host me!!!!! Oh.....the things I need to do!!!!! I might be up all weekend packing and working out all the details. But I couldn't be more thrilled. I'll have time to sleep later, right? :) This is how China works, folks. I should have expected it. After so long of "I'm not sure, I'm not sure".....all the sudden I AM sure and now I must leave sooner than expected!!!!! Man. Unbelievable. More tomorrow (Friday) when I know more of the details. It's a good thing that I've been preparing. It's nearly midnight on Thursday night and I'm not sure WHEN I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. I very well may be overnighting my passport to Washington DC tomorrow!!!! Oh the EXCITEMENT!!!!!
I'm blogging to you from home so no interesting photo with this blog! :( Things moved slowly at first but now they are definitely picking up! Although there are still some issues, it looks like I may be jet-bound for Beijing on September 5 which means I'll arrive the afternoon of September 6. Yes, folks, I could be blogging to you from the future (I'll be 12 hours ahead of all in the U.S.) in less than 2 weeks. I'm very excited but also overwhelmed with all I have left to do. Forgive me if there aren't many posts in the next few days but I will definitely update with results. I'll be setting up a new blog just for China and it will be with typepad.com because currently blogspot.com is blocked in China. I can post to this blog but I won't be able to see it so I'll do most of my blogging from my new website which I'll post on this website so no worries. I'll also continue to post to this website, which I can do from China, I just won't be able to see it. But you folks will be able to see it. So I may post to this blog only about once a week or so but quite frequently to my new blog. I'm thinking of calling it "tinchina." Get it? "T" in China? Okay......logging off for tonight and perhaps some more definite news tomorrow! Lucy Blue is definitely excited about the day to come! I could be eating delicious Chinese food in less than 2 weeks! Honestly? I just can't wait!!!!!
No new news. Still waitin' on the golden piece of paper!
I finished my lessons! Yay for me! :) Now I just need to get them graded, receive my certificate, send it off to China, have them do their thing, send me the thing I need to do my thing (get my "z" visa), fly to Beijing and TEACH! I've worked very very hard these last seven days. Every minute after work and all weekend. The staff at Panera Bread know me very well now because that's the nice, quiet environment I chose to hunker down. Too many distractions/temptations in my house. I'm done! Now I can get down to the business of packing (the house, that is; packing for China will come later). I hope to leave the first week in September but that may be too optimistic. It all depends on how fast I get my certificate and how fast the Beijing government processes my immigration papers. Oh, the excitement of it all!
So busy that I bought my very own laptop this past "tax free" weekend.....and I still haven't cracked open the box. Now I'm pretty much an instant gratification type of person so the fact that this computer has sat in my foyer for four days is quite amazing. I hope to open it up and try it all out by this weekend. Until then, I'm still plugging away on my TEFL lessons and making good progress. It's too bad I wasn't in Beijing today. There were wonderful celebrations in Tiananmen Square as Beijingers marked the one year countdown to the 2008 Olympics. I would have been there. I would have taken lots of pictures. I would have put them on my blog for all you nice people to see.
I received an email today from Andrew in Shanghai. The local government in Beijing must have a copy of my TEFL certificate before my papers can be processed. Therefore, I'll be double-timing it with the rest of my lessons, meaning there will be no time to blog this coming week. Once I get my TEFL certificate, scan it and send it to China, everything should be fine.
I had a great conversation this past Monday evening with Andrew, another Brit who works for the company I will be teaching for. He said everything is fine. They will start working on my immigration papers, etc. He said he'd email the next day and I would probably also receive a call from the DOS of my school (Director of Studies). Five days later and there's no call, no email, no nothing. My Chinese friends would probably just say "Oh, don't worry. This is just the Chinese way." But it's very frustrating for me because there's things that I absolutely have to do by next Monday (stop certain payments, etc.) so I need to know something concrete. I will not consider this whole life-changing trip a guarantee until I have signed a contract. I have received no emailed contract. Geez. No worries, though. I have a Plan B.