Settling in slowly but surely, emphasis on the slowly

So as the title suggests life in Shanghai is starting to attempt to come together. I met with the SLP (speech language pathologist) on Wednesday. She showed me around her school, told me about the different students, and even included me in one of her group sessions. I'll be going back on Tuesday to basically shadow her for the day and we'll see what happens from there. She told me of a few different projects she'd like me to work on that all sound exciting. That being said, she seems like an extreeemely busy, semi flaky woman, so it might take a little while before everything settles down on that front.

Aside from that, I'll be taking my first Chinese class on Sunday. Originally I had hoped to survive by communicating in English and using hand gestures and the like but that seems less and less possible every day. Today it took me two hours to plan a trip to a Supermarket "City Shopper" that I was told sells western food. I whipped out my handy map and looked up each of the 7 branches. I couldn't decide whether to choose the one that was on the subway line near my house, the one that was the closest, or the one with the street name I could sort of pronounce. After a whole bunch of investigating, and too many reasons to bore you with, I ended up with only one choice - the street name I could pronounce. I headed out and hailed my own cab (sadly a huge feat for me). I made my best attempt at pronouncing the street correctly and handed the driver a big sheet of paper where I had written the number of the building I was going to. After a long ride, where, I think, he attempted to make conversation, I not only made it to my destination but spoke my very first words of Chinese in public- xiexie "thank you"! Yes, it is kind of a lame adventure for the likes of me, but it's a start.

On the way home I had a reaaaally tough time getting a cab (though I was offered two motorcycle cab rides, which is apparently normal here)but still felt energized from my mission accomplished. I was so pumped up, in fact, that, for the first time, I had the guts to push myself into a mass of Chinese people and order dumplings at one of the many street vendors. Boy were they good.

So, as of now, that is all the news that's fit to print. I promise that my future posts will be far more exciting.

All for him.