again in china

i know i have been horribly out of touch recently. in october, i returned to wuhan for a second year of teaching at hubei university of technology. the school has about 20,000 students and is located on the outskirts of wuhan. wuhan is a giant, sprawling metropolis in centra china, that we often refer to as 'the world's largest village.' it is huge, but wild and disorganized. most of the time it doesn't have the feeling of a big city at all. it feel more like a million small towns were smashed together, and resulted in wuhan. i guess this is partially true, though. three formerly distinct towns, hankou, hanyang, and wuchang, now make up wuhan. i live in wuchang, on the south bank of the chang jiang river. it is an hour and a half bus ride for me to get to the river. i don't think anyone really knows how many people live in wuhan, i think the most accepted estimate in around 8 million. could be more, but it probably isn't less.

i teach mostly university freshman. my teaching situation is radically different from what it was last year. this year, i have 6 classes of 40 students each, making it impossible to get close to the students. we are in week 16 of the semester, and i'm sad to say i haven't even mastered all of their names! last year, i had a core group of 47 seven students, who i saw for about 20 hours each week. we became very close, and i really miss having that in the classroom this year. i am responsible for teaching the students reading and writing. the hope is to get their level to the point that they can go and study in canada, if they should so choose. the students are pretty typically freshman, but some of them seem so young. they are having a lot of the same problems that american freshman face. the most frustrating, as their teacher, is that they haven't quite yet learned to balance their time. some are managing beautifully, while others have chosen to forget that homework exists at university. and then there are those that have forgotten that they came to university to attend class. ha.

i will update about teaching in china and my activities and travels. i came back to china because there is a lot more of this country that i want to see. also, i have a fantastic chinese teacher, and i have a faint glimmer of hope that i may, someday, be able to speak mandarin.