Nathaniel and Sheree back in Australia

Hi everyone,

Lets get the big news out of the way first. I’ve
finished studying Mandarin and in April I got a full time job as a
System Administrator. Now that I’ve got that out of the way lets go
back to march and work our way forward from there.

After everything that happened in March was a fairly boring
month after the spring break in February. Here’s what happened in March:

• I finished my Mandarin coarse on the 2nd of April and we had the breakup party on 30th of March.
• I applied for a job at the beginning of March but they ended
  up stringing me along for the rest of March before telling me that they
  couldn’t hire me.
• Because I was job hunting I stopped tutoring.
• I wrote some software for my Dad which is on ice now that I have a job.
• Our Cat “Mimi” has three kittens on the Monday the 12th of March which is also Sheree’s mother’s birthday.

March
was a fairly laid back compared to February but it was also rather
depressing because I was still looking for a job and I wasn’t doing
anything else. luckily April was just round the corner.

April was fantastic. April was by far the best month I’ve had in China so far.

• I
  went to a conference on Tuesday the 2nd of April. At the conference I
  got three more job leads that I followed up when I got home.
• Two of the leads were really interested in me. In the end I accepted the offer from http://www.languagecalls.com/.
• The company agreed to let me take the last 2 weeks of April off while Caleb, Peter and Penny were visiting.
• Caleb arrived safely on the 15th and Peter and Penny arrived on the 19th.
• Before Peter and Penny arrive Caleb and I just relaxed around the house took it fairly easy.
• On
  the 17th I went with Caleb to my work and picked up my Laptop which had
  finally arrived. It was running a little late so we went to the old
  summer palace and checked it out. I never realized that the west raped
  and pillaged China so much during the Boxer revolution.
• When Peter and Penny arrived I turned into a tour guide and
  we went to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen men Square,
  etc.

As you can see April was really busy but lots of fun. I
loved spending time with Caleb, Peter and Penny. I’ve been a bit slack
uploading photos but over the next couple of weeks I’ll upload some
more photos.

At the end of April everyone left and then in May Sheree left
and went to Thailand during her May holidays. She had lots of fun and
got to ride an Elephant and pat a Tiger. While she was in Thailand I
moved to Wudaokou and stayed in the company apartment so I didn’t have
to travel so much. If I used one word to described May it would have to
be “travel”. It takes me 2 hours to get to work and then another 2
hours to get home. That’s 4 hours of travel every day. The only reason
why I put up with this is because in June we’re moving into the City in
the middle of June. So after I finish traveling to and from work I
really don have much time left to do anything so there isn’t much else
to talk about.

Nathaniel & Sheree Brown.