New career choice: full time Lion trainer.

I have a new boss... a 1st grader named Lion.  As an aside, Lion does not top the list of wild Chinese names.

Here's how this happened:
Saturday night: Roommate Miles tells me there are pleanty of jobs on echinecities.com for white (female) english speakers.
Sunday morning: I apply
20 minutes later:  I get a phone call for an itnerview
Monday afternoon: interview success
Tuesday evening I meet Lion

I rode the metro and then walked an unbelieveably long distance in the cold to their home (damn you Shanghai for literally being the worlds largest city by landmass and population). They're actually Korean-chinese and live in a neighboorhood full of Korean restaurants that I must try.  Lion did his homework on a low asian style coffee table and we sat on the HEATED FLOORS.  His mom listened in a little bit, I don't think she always will, and said she would help me learn chinese :)  Instead of walking that awfully long walk the parents drove me home in their BMW which smelled heavenly (apparently my heaven is either a car dealership or a leather tannery).

I get the sense that his international school is a lot better than the one I teach at.  He gets a new short picture book to read every night and his mom is suppose to sign a sheet saying he read it.  Even in the elementrary school at Jin Cai, parently involvement is still very low.

So why would I give up five precious hours of my week to help Lion?
Because I want to am going to Europe.  All hoping Spring Festival 2011 in Japan works out with Katherine Collins, we will be going to Europe together this summer.  So many American 20-somethings dream to travel through Europe by train.  Well we are going to one up them and travel TO Europe by train (the New York-London train is currently unavailable).  The plan is finish school June 30 then take the TRANSIBERIAN through Mongolia, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, German and Holland!  Ok so the plan is still in the works but as I slaving away doing 1st grade homework I will think happy european thoughts.

Also, I am SEVERELY underpaid.  I teach math so of course I think in numbers.  If I just tutored for two hours a day, instead of working the eight I work now, I would be making the same salary. I think there is a book called the 20 hour work week?  something like that... anyways meet the ten hour work week wahahaha.

Oh and for the record: I actually like tutoring.  Teaching isn't really my thing though.  Maybe because I teach math and math is never FUN.