Hopefully a more positive jam

Hey all, thank you to everyone for the flood of support and words following my admittedly depressing previous e-mail, it means a hell of a lot to hear from everyone, and know that everyone has my back at home. I talked to the head of the program and told her about my concerns about my location, and I was met with the vocal equivalent of a blank stare. I got some words about the strong history of the region, my close relationship with Miles, and the high level of the students at the school, but nothing that really addressed my problems with the situation. There's no chance for me to be moved, so I'm just going to have to muscle my way through things and hope for the best.

My experiences with talking to my director bring me to another point, and it comes from our group discussion about the summer camps. I brought up the point that communication needs to be improved, and was met with yet another blank stare, and the response that poor communication is simply the Chinese Way, which was kind of a shitty answer for the group. I suppose there's not a whole lot that can be done about it though. Won't keep it from driving me crazy, though.

We renewed our visas today, and we've found ourselves in a pickle that indicates to me that there isn't much inter-office communication. You see, to renew our visas, we have to give the Chinese government our passports, and then have them returned in about a week. Thing is, we leave in less than that, and some people are taking a plane, which means I'll be traveling through China without my passport, and no way of knowing when I'll get it back, and I'm only taking a train. The folks getting on a plane have it even worse. We'll see how that situation plays out.

We're going to the Great Wall tomorrow, so look forward to photos of that. Other than that, there's not much to report. News as it breaks from here in Beijing.

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago,

-Cooper