If I could dig a whole to China...

Good Morning.
Well, I have been holding back about writing about my latest possibility because it has not been made official as of yet, but it would seem that we are getting closer and closer to the moment where it is going to become official.
I am attempting to go to China to teach English.
I have been in correspondence with a University in the Hunan province for the last 10 days about coming over and teaching English for them on a one year contact. The process has been somewhat tedious in the sense that there is a language barrier at a time where we are trying to negotiate the terms of the contract.
It does appear that I have been officially offered the position as of this morning, but there has not been any official documentation rendered as of yet, but I am now satisfied with what I see that the rest of the negotiation process is going to be operating smoothly.

Here are the details, for those of you that are detail oriented.
Xiangnan University is searching for 4 English Teachers to start teaching from Sept 1, 2005.

Job description:
Courses to teach: oral English, writing, British&American literature, British & American general survey etc.
Contract period: Sept 1st,2005—July 30th, 2006 and renewable based on mutual interests.
16 class hours per week(45 minutes per class hour), if extra class hours are needed, you will be paid at 50RMB yuan per class hour

Benefits:
Monthly salary(RMB):3500,(negotiable if you are better qualified)
Travel allowance: (RMB):2200 on completion of the contract
Free furnished housing (private), facilitated with air conditioner, internet access, TV, DVD player, refrigerator, water heater, phone, and cooking utensils, everyday furniture
Monthly telephone allowance(RMB): 100
Free round trip airfare(currently outside China) or one way trip airfare(currently in China)
Safe insurance

Successful candidates should have
At least a Bachelor’s Degree in any majors of linguistics, literature and education;
Qualification of one of the followings: TESOL, TEFL, ESL;
Minimum two years of working experiences in teaching;
Native English speaker proficiency.

About Xiangnan University:

Located in Chenzhou, Hunan province, Xiangnan University is a public unversity specializing in teachers training and medical science. It consists of 18 departments which offer over degrees in 46 majors covering fields such as art, science, medicine, economics, management, law and so on. It has an enrollment of 15000 full time students. The university has a teaching faculty of 1470 with library book collection of 650,000 volumes.

About Chenzhou city:

Chenzhou, located in the south of Hunan, near to Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, is one of the top tourist cities of China, and is known as the south gate of Hunan and the “Backyard Garden� of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. It has a total population of 4.56million and convenient transportions such as the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway, National Highway 106 and 107. With over 2000 year’s history, Chenzhou is rich in natural resources. It enjoys such reputations as “Hometown of Nonferrous Metals�, “World Museum of Nonferrous Metals�,“Silver City in China�, “Major Forest Region in Southern China� and “Energy Base for Hunan�. Chenzhou is an ecological kingdom, with abundant tourist resources. Chenzhou is a fast developing tourist city, also a charming and open city.

It almost sounds too good to actually be true, but the more and more the discussions move forward, the more I am seeing that this is a reality. The only difference that I can see from the contract this morning and this is that they reimburse for the airticket 90 days before you are set to arrive home. This makes sense, but I am not certain I can actually afford to do this. Other than that, it would appear that we are getting to the point where this is about to become a reality....

More details later- I actually have to work today so that I can go and get me shots on Wednesday. It's a mad, mad world.