Placements!

The time has come! The list was posted at midnight and I was roused from my bed my an extremely excited compatriot to check out my future. Elbowing my way through the crowd I spotted my name in the middle of the 170 strong list of candidates:

Kathryn Forsyth

Guangzhou Linggefeng Language School

Guangzhou City

Guangdong Province

Primary and Middle School

Can you spot where I'm going?

To give you a little information about Guangzhou: it is the third largest city in China, heavily industrialised and a Chinese stone's throw away from Hong Kong (aka 75 miles). The temperature is currently 18C and hits 45C in the summer!

I have very little information about my school as of yet, but apparently it is a language school that loans us (myself and Sophie my new colleague) out to a couple local schools. One of them is the Zhi Xin Middle School on whose campus we will be living!

Check it out!

http://www.zhxhs.net/html/main.html

Also, in our 'Teaching in Chinese Schools' lecture, they showed us this video clip, which I thought you mighit find interesting. It certainly opened out eyes to the kind of environments we are heading into!

Chinese School - Episode 1: The Year of the Golden Pig - Watch Free Documentary Online - BBC, Marcus Jones

I am typing this as Emma packs behind me- we are due to depart on a 22 hour train in a couple of hours. There are around 50 of us heading to Guangzhou Central Station to be picked up by our respective schools (and 20 to head across to Hong Kong to fix visa mishaps).

There have been tears and heartfelt goodbyes; all interns have bonded and become extremely close over the past two weeks. At the local last night someone stood on a chair and told us not to think of today as a goodbye but rather a 'Seeya later!'. So with that in mind I will drag my suitcase stuffed with now useless winter clothing down the stairs to bid 'Seeya later' to all!