Studying in China has been an incredibly positive experience for me so far - but of course, I haven't gotten any marks yet. My biggest fears, though, that I would be taught in the traditional Chinese post-secondary style (mainly, little class participation, mostly rote memorization and testing, heavy cheating, etc.), have been squashed - UIBE, as it turns out, is a very open-minded and forward-thinking school.

The fact that I even have the opportunity to gain a degree in International Business, taught in English in a country like China is mind-blowing. But the fact that I actually seem to be doing pretty well in the program makes me really excited.

See, I'm not really doing this the way that most of the other students are. Most of the people here are trying to finish their Masters' Degree in one year and then go off somewhere else; I'm planning this out for a slow burn, two years, so that I can get things right. I have the opportunity to have an internship with a Chinese company, and I'll be writing a Graduate thesis - pretty exciting stuff for me.

So far things are going well - I had my midterm exam this past monday for my Fundamentals of Economics in International Business course, for which I studied an entire week or so, catching up on the old reading, highlighting, and doing all sorts of practice problems which didn't show up on the exam. No matter. I know I got one question wrong, but the rest of them seem in pretty good shape.

My International Business Relationships class continues to be exciting and interesting, while simultaneously requiring me to do very little work. Beyond the reading, our only other assignment has been to write a midterm essay, which is due next week - I'm starting it soon.

And my stats class - boy, that one's exciting. No, seriously, I'm not joking - my Business Statistics class has taught me a crapload of information in a very short time - and the teacher says it's a pretty slow book, which blows my mind. I'm keeping up on the homework (have some to do tonight) and there apparently isn't a final - great news for me.

I spend most of my weekly worktime preparing to teach my Thursday class - something I won't be doing next semester. It's been rewarding but I need to take more classes and focus on getting my degree finished.

In general, though, the classes are nice - all of the teachers speak pretty good English, although one of the teachers doesn't speak anything but bollocks with his English. Still, though, the accents aren't bad, and the IGPIB kids are treated really well here.

Exciting upcoming news: I've got an on-site visit with Lenovo next week and another with Hyundai motors the week after - I have to remind myself to shave...