Start of the Semester

Today was my first day of class.

I left the house at 7:08 am to walk three minutes to the front gate where I boarded the school bus, destination, New Campus, a campus 5 km outside of the city in the countryside surrounded by farmland.

It was a wet day, a drizzle in the air. Hopefully if the weather turns for the better, I will be able to ride my bike to new campus twice a week. Today though, I needed a guide to show me my classroom and to show me how to use the equipment.

My new classroom is shiny and new. It is huge with 66 computer screens and 132 stools. It is a listening lab, and I am there to push play.

However, today NONE of my sophomores showed up.

Some kind of mix up?

In China, I live in a world of an infinite number of unknowns. I have learned to just shrug them off and go look for something else to do. I have stopped asking why and have stopped trying to figure things out. Just breathe and move on.

The next school bus wouldn't be leaving until 10 am, so I walked around the campus feeling the atmosphere of freshmen arriving with their one piece of luggage looking for their department's booth, being assigned dorm rooms, and standing in long lines to pay money.

Since my next 4 classes are Freshmen, I have no more classes to teach this week. They don't start till next week.

Will anyone show though?