My experience at Jiangsu University in Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province has been educational and interesting to say the least.  I arrived here with a suitcase and a worried mind and when I saw the size and lack of cleanliness of my apartment, I can’t say that I felt better.  My apartment had one room (I have since moved into a bigger one), a bathroom with no bathtub or shower curtain (just a shower head on tile… think locker room) and a kitchen with no oven, a washer but no dryer.  Living in a Western country my whole life, these seemed like major misfortunes.  I lamented my choices but soon I settled in and immediately went shopping for supplies and food.  I cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned and did some more cleaning until finally, I felt it was home.  I have felt that way ever since.  The apartments are not luxurious, the furniture is not nice but it is livable, comfy and very easy to personalize and make into a home.  I feel now that I love my apartment here better than any apartment I had in the states because I spend so much of my time in it.  It is my escape from a world that will be overwhelmingly different at first but gradually you will begin to love.

            Jiangsu University is very scenic but the area around the school is quite dirty.  You will get used to a different level of cleanliness here.  The city is very comfortably sized and the transportation is simple, reliable and quick, taking you anywhere you would need to go.

            The teaching assignment was given two days before classes started and I was lucky and received Postgraduate non-English majors.  My students are very hardworking and eager to know foreigners.  I find that I want to please them.  It is so different from back home where my high school students didn’t want to learn.  These students want to glean as much information as possible.  They are so desperate to learn English and want to practice all the time.  Some of my students’ oral English is pre-intermediate but they try very hard and are so apt to learn.  I love my students.  I teach 5 classes about 12 hours a week and all of them are Postgraduate Oral English classes.