singing "Nanjing welcomes You"

This is just a quick blog entry to note that I am back in China after a safe but chaotic and exhuasting adventure hopping between trains, planes, and automobiles to arrive at my destination in Nanjing comfortably 1 hour before the hostel I had booked closed. To keep a long, interesting story short and bland: a lot of little things went wrong, but the big things went right. That I arrived is all that matters, right? Well, I imagine you might be thinking this blog entry would be a heck of a lot more exciting if I could report that I had to spend my first night back in China sleeping on the streets? It would have been manageable... I could have made a castle out of the library of books that I brought between my two 50 pound suticases. And then just tuck mysef to sleep under the thick quilt of humidity in the Nanjing air. Anyways... that didn't happen... I got my secure, air-conditioned, wifi access room! Luck always be mine in the end!   Some other notes:  (1) THe blog: many communication and social networking sites are still blocked in China (recall that we talked about this as a consequence of the Xinjiang riots back in July). I can't access facebook. And I still can't access my blog. So how am I writing this? Well I am emailing this message to my blog. THat means the formating is probably a little weird and it will take an extra step to add pictures. It also means I can't check my own blog. So I have no idea how any of this appears or that it even appears at all. I can't read any of your comments, but please do continue to comment if you please because EVENTUALLY this block will be lifted (or at the very least I'll return to America, where even hate-spewing racists are allowed to blog) and then I can go back and read all of your comments, which I enjoy doing. Hey that run-on sentence was longer than my flight across the Pacific! (2) Things are looking more and more encouraging with my new position. There will be at least 3 other foreign teachers at our school. What a change from HuaiYa! What's more, I am hearing amazing things about the quality of this school's campus and facilities... but let's save details until they can be verified. There's still a lot of pressure, but I am feeling more relieved because on the one hand (A) the other 3 teachers who are going with me to Jiangyin are young and new to AP and teaching and on the other hand (B) the older, more experienced teachers who work in Nanjing are helpful, encouraging, and available. In other words, the workload and standards are just as intense as they ever were, but the atmosphere seems pleasant. Anyways, let a few months go by before you accept any verdicts from me...   Okay, folks, that's it. Nothing interesting about this blog entry. Just an update.