All Eyes On Us

It was a loooong day for Montana and LuRue today. They had an early wake up to give time to get up, eat breakfast and meet Baoli at 7:40 in the reception area. Baoli led the group outside, she waved down a taxi and they were off to the Xi’an Biomedical Technical College for a 4-hour orientation. Could time go by any slower for Montana?  Good thing she brought her “notebook”, so it could look like she was paying attention and taking notes when she was actually in her own little world. She did pay attention to the team building and what they going to be doing for the next several weeks. LuRue, on the other hand, WAS paying attention to the whole orientation, asking questions and ACTUALLY taking notes. Baoli talked about the origin of Global Volunteers, health and safety, the 12 essential rules, policies, etc. with a 10-minute break in the middle.

The group then went to a restaurant just across the street and Baoli ordered 5 dishes…way too much for the group! She has learned her lesson now. It was a great meal with food like sweet and sour chicken, an egg/greens dish and fried onions. LuRue even went back for seconds!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We headed back to the hotel for a 30-minute break and to get professionally dressed (or as professional as we could get with our clothes), then headed off to the Shaanxi College of Communication Technology where we would be teaching for the next few weeks. We walked into the room and did a double take. There were tables nicely set up. There was a circle of tables in the center, and a half circle around the back of the room. There were nametags for us on some of the center tables. We walked to them and politely/awkwardly sat down and waited. The room was filled with teachers, students and other important people of the school. The room was silent until the principal came in. He introduced himself and told a little bit about the school. Baoli introduced Global Volunteers, and then put the spotlight on us to introduce ourselves. That was a little nerve wracking for both of us, but we got through it fine.

We got back to the hotel with half an hour to spare before dinner at 6. LuRue spent the time starting on her Global Volunteers journal while Montana took a shower. The group met at the restaurant for dinner - another delicious meal. Baoli only ordered 3 dishes this time, so more than half of the meal was eaten. YAY!

After dinner LuRue finished the Global Volunteers journal, while Montana went to the “Fitness Room”. After we were both done, we discussed what we were going to do tomorrow, then went to bed, still not ready for the early mornings to come.

(P.S. There will be no photos for a while due to the three-day rule, whatever that is - Eric)