Since my last post I hired five teachers for our team at Hanghai and Headstart Elementary Schools in China, finished up the year at P. H. Miller, (bittersweet with lots of tears), helped Pat get our Visas, cleaned our home office so Tim can move in, prepared for our China party and squeezed in weekend trips to see the boys and the rest of our family.  Currently I am sitting in the IronBank Coffee shop in Columbus, GA where Colleen, John’s girlfriend works. John and Pat are golfing.  Columbus, Georgia is our first stop in our cross-country visit to see John, Colleen, Bayden and Nutekit on our way to see Chris, Anna and Evie.  So sit down with a beverage of your choice and I will share with you the adventures before the adventure.

In China we will be implementing a new program, which means hiring staff.  Best International would like us to hire English-speaking, American teachers if possible.  It is hard to find teachers who are ready to move to China but we were able to hire three teachers pretty quickly with experience who were excited to go to China.  We interviewed in the evening through Skype, it was an interesting experience.  The other two teachers we hired are not traditional teachers but have experience teaching English in other countries and enjoy traveling.  This is just a sampling of the experiences these folks have: teaching in Abu Dhabi, South Africa, China, teaching scuba abroad, speaking Polish, Mandarin, doing yoga, using film to teach.  I am very excited about getting to know all of them and work with them.  I found out that another couple who will be teaching at Kinglee High School live in Yorkville.  The next step for me is to focus on our curriculum and be prepared to learn with my staff how we can best teach English to our Chinese students.

My last days at P. H. Miller with students and staff were bittersweet.  We had our annual Spring Kindergarten Concert which was a great success.  I am always amazed at the work Ann Arends, our music teach does with our students.  Fortunately I have a copy of both the winter and spring concerts to play next year.  The staff and students gave me a beautiful send off which I will always treasure.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead Pat and I were busy cleaning in preparation for Tim to move in while we are gone.  We also had a party for family and friends.  The party was on a warm day in June and it was great to see everyone.  Chris flew in unexpectedly from San Diego.  I want to thank everyone who came, it always seems like there is never enough time to talk with everyone.  Oh yeah, we also sold the Mazda to Michael whose car died on his way to the party.

Hovering over all of our activities are thoughts about how do we get our visas? What do we bring? Will our phones work? What about our computers? How will Pat keep Sales Babble  going? How quickly can we learn Mandarin?

We do have the answers to the visa question, our visas are in our hands!!!!!  WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!!!!

This was not an easy task.  We will fly over on a tourist visa, once there I will get a work visa and Pat will be attached to that by our “authenticated” marriage certificate.  Since I will be working there I also needed an “authenticated” diploma.  To be authenticated we had to get our diplomas notarized at the bank and then go to the secretary of state office in Chicago to get a letter that said the notary really was notarized before going to the Chinese consulate to apply for the visas and to be officially “authenticated”.

We went to the bank got everything notarized.  Completed the visa applications, being careful not to say I had a job there.  I organized everything into folders with copies, our passports and letter of invitation to visit China from Mrs. Lee, (owner of the school).  Pat went to Oak Park and took the blue line into Chicago.  At the secretary of state office they told him we should not have notarized the marriage certificate because it was already  notarized and they pointed out we had not signed our passports! Ugggggggggg!

I called Tim who took me took get a new copy of our marriage license at the Kane County Court House.  Pat took a long frustrating trip home.  Thursday night – we sign the passports, make copies, and reorganize the folders.  Have a glass of wine on the deck.  Pat got up at 5:30 to drive to Chicago to be first in line.  Everything went great at the secretary of state and went to the Chinese Consulate which opened at 9:00.  He got there at 9:30 and was number 212!  He still needed more copies, ran down to Fed Ex, got back in line and by 10:30 the Chinese government had accepted our paperwork.  We had to wait until Thursday, June 30th to pick everything up.  Pat got up early again to drive down there at 9:30 am Thursday morning it was official – we had all of our paperwork!  We are going to China!

Coming up next:  The Great Firewall of China