The past few days have been incredibly busy – I’ve been playing floor mom for all the new teachers. They’re a decent bunch, although they don’t seem to be adjusting at all. They’re struggling, to put it mildly. Here’s an example: Saturday I took three of the new teachers to the Lido Hotel – the Lido sits in the middle of a great bunch of DVD stores and close to a couple of foreign import stores. We arrived and two of them headed straight to one of the import stores. They purchased loaves of French bread, went outside to the curb, sat down, and ate the entire loaf. I was surprised by the display (as were the masses of Beijingers who teemed past.) So I made sure that they had some lunch and answered more questions. I’ve answered more questions in the past week than I ever have. I mean that sincerely. I’ve actually posted hours on the door of my apartment, because the newbies seem to have no sense of time – have you ever had someone ask you at three in the morning where to buy cheese? I have. (The person in question was very homesick as well as concerned about dairy products.)

More newbies arrive tomorrow; I’m writing a short guidebook that should answer most of their questions. I also bought English maps of Beijing to give them and hopefully this will solve most of their problems here in Beijing. The problems that they’ve taken with them I can’t do anything about.

It’s thundering outside, and it’s bound to start raining at any minute. The sky’s all ugly and bruised, so it’ll be a doozy. The air was thick with pollution today, but tomorrow it’ll be clean and crisp for awhile – until the pollution rolls back in (around noon, most likely.)

Well, that’s enough for now.