Xinyu University has arranged for buses to come and pick up teachers living at the old campus, like myself, and take us to the new campus every weekday morning. The bus leaves at 7:20 and we arrive at around 8. I took the bus yesterday morning to meet Doreen and some of the other staff and faculty at the school. Doreen is the head of the Foreign Affairs Department and the Vice Dean of the Foreign Languages Department. I met her soon after I got to school and she introduced me to more faculty members including Andy, who, I think, teaches English, and Bob, who is the Dean of the Foreign Languages Department and the Foreign Languages Department Communist Party Secretary. Doreen explained to me that every department in the school has a secretary from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Bob also happens to be a big fan of sports and is currently learning how to play tennis. He asked me to play with him later that afternoon, so at around 4 we went over to the school's courts located in the southeast corner of campus. They have five or six courts, all of which were quite fast. But they're brand new so they're still in good shape and without any cracks.

Not long after Bob and I started hitting, the school's tennis teacher came down to the courts. Bob went to go hit with some other players on the court next to us while the tennis instructor and I hit. There was a group of students who were in the middle of their ROTC training, which is mandatory for all freshmen students at Xinyu, and many of them stayed to watch us hit after they had finished. A small group of students and adults interested in tennis also came and watched us play. After we finished, I got to meet some of the students, some of whom I may have in class.

After tennis, I was invited to go out with Doreen and Bob to a dinner that was being hosted for some of the faculty at school. There was a lot of toasting going on throughout the dinner and Doreen provided me with some useful information about toasting etiquette. Some of the attendees were pretty drunk by the end of it, one guy in particular. Luckily, though, the guy who drove me and a couple other people back to our apartment was not one of the drunk ones.

I start teaching tomorrow. I have two classes of oral English. I'll mostly be teaching that class, but I'll also have two classes of business English. Doreen says I don't need to know anything about business, so I suppose I'm qualified.