Dim Sum and sushi and more meetings and rain

So I went in to school early this morning to meet with Phil, a senior faculty member and technology lover who has agreed to be my mentor teacher.  (Actually, what he said was that I probably know more about it than him and so he didn't really see the need to mentor me, but that I could stop in anytime to chat.  Good enough.)  It was interesting - both the school, and Phil in specific, have done a lot to try to encourage the use of technology in class and so it's exciting to hear some of his tales about what did and didn't work.  I'm still too overwhelmed to think a lot about it, but once I'm in
the groove it will be fun to try to incorporate some online projects into my classes.


Then we had our first meeting for all the faculty, which was informative but not super relevant to me since the Teaching Fellows are kind of on the fringe.  Even our office is on the outskirts - it's in the farthest corner, right next to the rat poison.  Really makes me feel better knowing it's there.  (Kind of like those signs in restaurant bathrooms telling employees to wash their hands.)  That's my boring cube above.  I need some more decor to make it me, so if anyone wants to send me photos or posters or maps or drawings, please do.  My walls at home are still pretty blank as well. 

After the meeting we all went out for dim sum on the ELC's dime.  It was tasty and a fun chance to chat with some new people.  Carol insisted on making us try chicken feet even though I've had them before and then further insisted on documenting the event with a photo.  Beth also tried one for the first time, so I'm including her as well since I'm told some of her family reads my blog.  Hey y'all!  She's doing fine!

After lunch I went to the bank to fill out a form and present my passport so I could have access to their online banking.  Even though I initially spent about an hour there setting up my account, it was necessary to tack on another 30 minutes and more paperwork to give me internet access.  I'm like, can't I just do this online?  No, and in fact it took 3 separate passwords, one for the online access, one for the login, and one for approving transactions.  And they all had to be different lengths.  Awesome.  Bank of China is all about the convenience.

We share our office with a woman named Amanda, who is a Research Assistant and is pictured at the lower right.  She gave us a ride home after work and then walked around with us for a bit trying to help Angie find some comfortable teaching shoes.  After a little while we noticed the sky growing darker and figured we'd better get indoors before we got soaked.  Amanda and Angie headed home, but Beth and I tried out a new sushi place for dinner.  It was a little more than we'd wanted to pay, but the food was good and we avoided the downpour, but just barely.  I thought the clouds looked really pretty and tried to capture them in the photo below.