Life moves on
Yes, I'm back! I've been busy, then lazy. This is a summary of what I've been up to since my last post.
- Started a part-time contract at SAA. It's a very small class, lovely students at Pre-Intermediate level. I'm using the new Cutting Edge, which is definitely an improvement over the previous edition. I like the longer terms they have in this school, which allows me to teach (and the students to learn) at a comfortable pace. This one ends in mid-December, which is great if I get to start a new job in January.
- Went to China on holiday with my parents. We joined a tour of the classic Jiangnan cities of Hangzhou (pleasant), Suzhou (got barely a glimpse), Wuxi (underrated), Nanjing (duck!) and Shanghai, with a stopover in the canal town of Wuzhen (if one more person tells me Zhouzhuang is better, I'll scream). Also wasted a day (and night) at Hengdian (Hengdian Movie and Television City, where we never got to see the really interesting bits) and Yiwu (Small Commodity Market, humongous and a complete waste of time). Shanghai, well... Shanghai has to be seen to be believed. Probably a fantastic place for pampered expats to live in, but doesn't have that much to offer tourists. Has a great museum, and the food is good if I don't have to eat Shanghainese every day. All in all, an attractive region of China, I think. More beautiful than the northern cities and more historical than the cities south of it.
- A tied the knot with her honey! I was maid of honour, and the wedding was beautiful. The 2-day affair was fatiguing, but I had fun lah.
- I got my first interview! This was at a place far, far away, called Boon Lay (haha). It was quite a formal thing, with a panel of 4 interviewers, but I came out of it relatively unscathed and I really don't think I could have done better. That said, I'm not sure if I want to commute to Boon Lay on a daily basis.
In other news, well, there's no other news, that's the problem. I had been waiting patiently for my MT result, until I's came out (congrats again! what an accomplishment!!) while I was in China. 3 weeks later, I'm still waiting (not quite as patiently) for mine. I've refrained from bugging CR about it, since I figured (correctly, as it turns out) that the markers have probably been too busy to get around to marking my MT. It looks like I won't be able to graduate until March, which is just as well. I need time to save up $$$ and summer in Melbourne is quite miserable anyway.
