Arrgghhh

Shenzhen is the "bastard child" of my company. I was told that when I first got here. The branch has been open for years, but it seems like it just opened yesterday. I like all my supervisors, but I think it's something about the collective whole that's flawed.

Next week every teacher is off for National Day. A few of us were planning to hit up Guilin, the city famous for the gumdrop mountains and beautiful misty lakes. I was gung ho. I've been working 28 classes weekly [part of why my posting has slowed - I'm tired], which is 13 more than the average Chinese teacher does. I've been racking in the overtime covering for the girls who quit. That's, at minimum, 840 students.

On top of just discovering yesterday I'm supposed to do 32 classes this week, I just found out I need to go to Hong Kong on Tuesday. My visa expires on the third and they've waited - as always - until the very last minute to do anything. I wasn't even working my first two weeks in Shenzhen. I pestered them constantly about doing it then so they wouldn't wait to do during National Day week. There's no one person to blame, of curse, it was a collective failure.

This isn't some barometer of my overall feelings of teaching here, but this particular incident really, really makes me angry. I don't mind putting in the hours, I do mind of being deprived my travel plans because of incompetence.



I leave you with a photo from the side of a preschool in the alleyways around my neighborhood. I think it says something about my mindset teaching those little devils tomorrow and now Saturday too.