Dong'an

Physicals for Chinese Visas: $160

Chest X-Rays for said Visas: $162

EKG: $70

Blood Work: $190

Visa Fee: $358

Living in China for a year: Priceless.

If you didn't know 'priceless' was coming, you should be kicked out of America. I thought I would update you all with some news of our Asian Adventure. First of all, the medical exams we had to get were ridiculous without insurance... and I was a little bitter about it, until I started to realize that I am ABOUT TO MOVE TO CHINA! For so long it's always just been the next thing on our list... finish school, move to China, and start grad school, but now that it's getting closer, I am so excited that I smile every time I think about it.

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We are leaving from San Fransisco August 19th at 1:02 am... and arriving in Beijing! We'll stay there for a few days and then take off to Hunan, the province we will be teaching in. Our school assignments have changed, and we are now in a smaller city called Dong'an... and guess what? We found the blog of a girl, Danielle, who is teaching at the school that we are going to right now! She went through the same program and everything, we are basically taking over her classes! We have been obsessively reading her blog ever since we found it, and I'm so glad that she had one! From the looks of things... Matt and I may be on our own in this little city, which kinda scares me, since our original school was in a city where there would be several other teachers and the program director. Oh well... all you need is love right? hehe

Oh yes... in reading Danielle's blog, we learned that blogger has been banned in China! I was so excited to finally have interesting stuff to blog about! Danielle emailed her dad her posts, and he put pictures with them and published them for her, so maybe I will have to enlist my mom in the same thing. Otherwise, I was thinking that I would just post a link on here to my photobucket, and then just upload pictures and put lots of comments with the pictures... any other ideas? Now I'm not sure what websites will be blocked over there, kinda funny to think about. Hopefully I will still have google reader to keep up with you folks!

Wow. I am really scared, and really excited for our move! (I'll finally get a dumb stamp in my passport!) But, since my blogging may be limited... I am just wondering what people would want to read about whilst I'm there. I, having never lived abroad, think that EVERYTHING would be interesting enough to post about... but I'm not sure you folks would agree! (and I'm not sure my mom would want to devote her entire year to being my proxy blogger) So, you'll just have to let me know! (I think I will post some about lesson plans... hope that doesn't bore you to tears, but I haven't ever been able to get a clear answer out of people about what they actually taught! And, I am a teacher by profession after all :)

Sorry for the lack of pictures... I am sure that will change when I'm in China!