Back to school

Back to school....I don't know about you but I hated that phrase when I was a kid, plastered everywhere trying to sell school clothes and equipment to troubled parents at the end of the summer, for me it seemed to hold some sort of message of doom.

Well, anyway, I'm signed up for my Chinese language course, with only a physical examination to go for my application for a residence permit so I don't have to leave the country every two months as I do now on my holiday visa.


As you may or may not know, I will be attending Shanghai Normal University. It seems to be a nice place and the people working there seem to be a lot nicer than the ones Yaning and I encountered elsewhere. The next step is to go for my physical on Wednesday, do a little exam on Thursday (which I may be able to skip as I am a beginner..woo hoo) and then be assigned my class and buy my textbooks, then I am a fully fledged university student and I can wear my complimentary Shanghai Normal University t-shirt with pride! As shown in the picture below...lol


Registering for the course was no mean feat. There are less levels in a game of Sonic the Hedgehog! Here's a quick rundown:

1. Earlier in the month I was assigned a place by the handing over of the 50USD admin fee
2. Next was to go to room 103 to get my first registration form
3. Next was room 105 to pay the registration fee (9130RMB, about £630), only to find they don't accept bank cards so I had to wait about an hour for a minibus to take a group of us to the bank, I was served first and then had to wait another hour/hour and a half for the rest to get sorted, blasting my 8:30am 'early arrival to beat the crowds' out of the water
   
4. After divvying up the reddies (and 100RMB notes are red too!...lol) it was off to room 104 to get my details put on the system. A snake like queue that wound along one wall of the outside corridor and into an arrangement of seats along all the walls of the room, ending at the door where you can then be seen to
5. Next was room 106 to get my photo taken for my student ID card, I don't know why as I coughed up six passport sized photos when I payed my admin fee about a month ago
6. Visa assistance was next, here I had to choose between a residence permit (if taken I have to have a physical examination and will be able to leave the country and come back freely without the loss of my visa) or a student visa (if taken I can't leave the country until my course is finished, otherwise I will need to apply for another visa). In addition to the physical I need to go to my local police station and prove I'm living at the address I used to register for the course and as a little prize I get a yellow certificate which is to be presented at the visa alteration day on the 20th Sept
7. Finally, for today, I had a little interview with one of the teachers to evaluate my level of chinese. I say little, as that was what it was, one line of chinese from her and me sitting dumblike opposite her. Needless to say she marked me for the elimentary class...lol

Well, that's it for this installment, I'll update this post with the rest of the details later in the week, who knows what may be in store!

P.S. There may be a drop in image quality in the future as I am now the proud owner of a mobile with a camera, yes I have been dragged into the 21st Century of mobile phone technology. The reasons were two fold, first I wanted a lighter camera than the one I have been using to get snaps for the blog more easily (carrying the big bugger about was a pain!) and second I can write in both english and chinese in the text messages so I will be able to communicate with any none-english speaking/reading friends and get to practice my chinese reading/writing.