Back to School at 8:24 PM

These are all pictures of my school some are class room buildings, the one with a big open square in front of it is the school office building.We do have a lake. Man made, but it comes with fish and some really cool paths over the water.Across the lake, depending on where you stand, you can see student dorms and the track field. There's one picture of a building with loads of clothes hanging on every level. Those are the student dorms. Those students are totally packed like sardines. They don't really have closets, I think that's why there are so many clothes outside. Just beds and a bathroom shared among 12 kids each. I also took some pictures just of random stuff across campus. Keep in mind that even though this is a school there are like 10 apartment buildings on campus where teachers, other school staff, and their families live. I live about a 2 minute walk from all of my classes. I have to say, I like it a lot and during the school year this place is pretty clean (that's cause they make the students clean it). There's also a big silver structure that looks like hands and some wierd orb floating on spikes. That's our hands upholding the sun, or the students, our future.

The last picture I want to point out is the basketball courts that also have cement ping pong tables. This is where we do Tai Chi in the mornings, followed by ping pong. I love this place.
Sometimes going back to school isn't that bad.

Let me finish with one story.
When I first got to Lingling (My current town of residence) I was brought to a hotel for an awesome dinner. There I met a guy named Luke Liu. He said he was(is) an english teacher at my school and that we would be colleagues. His English is actually really good, and since he was the only chinese person there who spoke english, we talked for quite a while. It didn't take him very long to start bragging about our school though. I think that's pretty normal here. One of the things he said was, "We have very beautiful school. Maybe even #3 most beautiful school in Hunan, maybe #2! Maybe even #1 most beautiful school in ALL of Hunan!" He was pretty excited about it. Now when ever I talk with the other teachers about our school I can't help but do the countdown from "maybe #3 to maybe #1." And it's twice as funny in  Chinese Accent, but I do have to say, he was right. This is a really beautiful place.