I'm coming home.

I found out on Friday that I'm only scheduled to teach two days of the week. When one of my major problems has been lonliness and too much unstructured free time and all I have had to look forward to was a full work week starting this week, this was a major letdown. That was sort of what got me thinking about whether or not this job was right for me, and the conditions in my apartment have deteriorated so much that I just can't stay here.

The fact of the matter is, the University knew I was coming at the end of August; I signed my contract at the end of April. That contract said that the University would be responsible for providing me with a living space complete with appliances and furniture. Since I got here three weeks ago I have spent 16 nights in a hotel after being told I would be moving into my apartment "in a few days". I finally moved into my apartment, which I was very excited to do since I would be able to unpack and make the space somewhere I would like to be instead of a white hotel room... and it is not a livable space. There is no shower ("in a few days" they tell me. sounds familiar). My bedroom door and my bathroom door do not fit in their frames and don't close, and my front door will not stay closed unless I lock it. Last night I got home to find that my toilet leaks. When I flush it there is barely any water flow, and there is water leaking onto the floor from around the toilet.

The major issue that I can't forgive them for is that because they knew I was coming they should have either made sure the building was finished (it is brand new), or at the very least warned me that I wouldn't have anywhere to live for a while. Kelly told me that the problem is a lack of communication between the people running the university and the people in charge of the construction. I told her that I can't live like this, with 'wait a few days and maybe you'll have [insert appliance of choice]' being a common phrase. As it stands right now if I want to shower I'm out of luck; today they took me back to the hotel since its a holiday weekend and the public shower next door was closed. If I need to go to the bathroom I have to go to the office building next door. Not okay when I have to go in the middle of the night. I know that I could wait all this out but I don't trust the ability of the University to provide what I need from here on out, if it takes two weeks to find out when my furniture would be delivered.

Anyway, the way I see it is that they have broken the contract twice; in failing to give me a living space of my own (after nearly a month), and in only giving me 10 hours of teaching time (the contract specified 18-20). I'm hoping to get some help in buying my flight home for late this week but I don't know what I'll be able to do.

I have major mixed feelings about this... on the one hand this was something I really wanted to do, spend the year here. It was difficult getting through the homesickness of the first few nights in the hotel, but I did it. I thought that was the hard part. I really wanted to take my chinese up a notch. I've met some very helpful and friendly people here, and I feel like I am letting them down in leaving. But, it would not be good for my mental health to stay, without a place to live for the time being, and without a full-time schedule of work. Two days a week... what would I do the other five days? I know I could find some activities, meet some people... but five days worth? In a part of the city where I haven't yet seen another westerner? And what if my radiator starts leaking on a saturday morning in the dead of winter... am I going to get "wait a few days and maybe it will be fixed"? I'm going to miss the ice festival, and I won't get to go to Shanghai and visit Stephanie or show mom and Kelli around Beijing and Xi'an or take the train to Tibet or carry out any of my other wild (and probably impossible) plans. But I will get to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at home, and not all alone in a broken, leaky apartment driving myself crazy with boredom.

If anyone wants any DVDs or anything else from China let me know, tomorrow I'm going downtown to pass the time until Tuesday... tomorrow's still a holiday so I can't talk to the real director of the program until Tuesday (I talked to another foreign affairs person today).

Maybe someday I'll come back to China older and wiser and make sure these things are very clear ahead of time.