Some maybes...

1. We may have internet in our rooms in about a month. Or two. (So please don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't respond to a message! I may not have made it to the teacher's office that day, or like much of yesterday, the power may have gone out...)
2. I may be teaching third grade English.
3. I may also be teaching third grade music.
4. There may be a curriculum for said music class.
5. School may start tomorrow.

Actually, though, it sounds like school really does start tomorrow. It is less clear, however, what exactly that means. The students will be arriving tonight (at least the c.a. 900 of them who live at school rather than in the town itself), but tomorrow's schedule is still entirely unknown to us fellows.

Other Teach for China fellows in our district came to town today so we spent a while just visiting and chatting. Apparently the fellows at the other schools have been told that the reason they haven't started yet is because they're waiting for our school. The rumor is that our school is in the process of combining with another school which is why there's so much construction and we're not ready to start yet. This was news to us!

I was, however, able to obtain a copy of the third grade English textbook! The look on their faces when I asked for it was rather amusing. It was something like: "oh, I suppose we could get that for you if you really want it..." I'm still waiting for the purported music textbook. I just hope I can understand some of it!

Third grade is the first year of English here. In other regions sometimes they don't start until seventh grade (and are then expected to pass a difficult English test in ninth grade in order to be admitted to high school). It's going to be interesting finding the "partial immersion" line between them not understanding anything I say and them not getting enough practice with English.

The textbook begins with hello, good morning, my name is, etc. Which, for oral English, is a good start. But no one has taught them the alphabet yet. So I'm going to work that into the first few weeks of the curriculum too.

This is the final story of the book (to be finished in December):

I could deal with fairies painting the flowers for spring to come, but butterflies?