First day of work today. Must correct something I wrote earlier. Some of the Olympics are being shown on the tv here, but only on cable, which I don't have which is why I couldn't find them. Feel a bit isolated from news here. CNN is banned, as is much since the controls are on what influences the thinking of people here. They don't much care what the foreigners do though which is interesting. Certain sites are intermittently banned without access, like U-tube. We were informed today that Internet is scanned, sites we visit on the web monitored, but all the same, foreigners have more leeway than natives.

I will definitely get in shape while living here, one of my own wishes for this year. It is a 20-25 minute walk to work. Then our campus consists of 3 large buildings all 5 stories high plus 1 story below ground. There are no elevators here. My classroom is on the third floor. The teacher workroom is the story below ground. So, between the walking and the stairs, think I'll do pretty well. The pool will open in two weeks. Then I'll add swimming each day for 1/2 hour to my list. There is double motivation for this. I understand that the showers in our pool area have hot water.... since there is no hot water at home, I think swimming and taking a hot shower is a nice reward and solves the problem that I am not willing to stand under cold water long enough to wash my hair. So, problem solved. As Americans, we really are spoiled.

The best news is that we got our Apple Computers today. What that means is that soon, I won't have to lug my computer back and forth to work. Better yet, when the downpour comes each evening and we get instant flooding I won't have to use my umbrella to protect my computer, which means I end up dripping wet. Plus, even better part is that they train us on parts of the Apple software that I am unfamiliar with at the moment. Yippee! That stuff I like.

Okay, now for the best part. Imagine going to a grocery store and having all of the writing in Chinese. How would you know what to buy? Wanted to buy vinegar to put in my water and Clorox to add to water while I soak my feet each night, but can't read the containers to know what is what. Laundry detergent comes is plastic bags and I only figured that one out because there was one group of sacks that all said Tide on them with the familiar Tide logo. Bought the item sitting next to Tide as I figured I don't use Tide at home, so why start now? Finally decided that Clorox had to be that from the shape of the bottle. Vinegar was the only item in the store that was labeled in English, besides margarine. So seeing margarine helped me to figure out what must be butter. Shopping was like one giant puzzle. Was so pleased with myself when I figured out what was grape seed oil, but then took forever to find the popcorn. I wasn't leaving without my popcorn and trying to explain popcorn to the store clerks was just a laugh in itself. Oh, salt only comes in Baggies and there is no sea salt! This I know for a fact as it was the very last item on my list and I finally found an English-speaking store clerk. Wow, was I excited. Guess what the one brand of salt they carry is? Morton’s!

This grocery store is huge and has an import section in it for foreigners that has all kinds of things like Philadelphia cream cheese, A & W Root beer, cereals galore, etc. with really hefty import prices to go with each item. Just to share some prices for the sake of interest as we all think everything made in China is so darn cheap; avocados were $7 each, grape seed oil $20 for the small bottle, small broom with dust pan $40, rice was almost free, cherries were $16 a handful, watermelon was cheap, Bok Choy was cheap, and oh my, I forgot to get toilet paper again. It would have been soaked in the rain anyway... must improve on this. Oh, got a cell phone today on a school outing! Don't know how to use it, but have one. We have a workshop on that on Monday.