I made it!  Sorry I didn't write last week.  I was excited and forgot.  Here's the scoop: I am living in a duplex with one of the other foriegners (Daniel) who has been teaching here for three years already.  My half of the duplex includes a bedroom, dining room, living room, bathroom (shower only), washer/drier, and kitchen (no oven).  Pretty much amazing in my opinion-  I was expecting more like a one room flat with kitchenette, so I feel like a king in this huge domain of 5 rooms >D

Daniel has been very helpful in showing me the city and getting me adjusted :D We bought road bikes a couple days after I got here, and being able to bike as fast as traffic is a nice plus for city travel.  We went to the lake yesterday for a swim, but the water was still a bit chilly for us, though many locals were swimming in it no problem-  I imagine the temperature change was more drastic for them.  This last Tuesday or Wednesday the average temperature went from 40s to high 50s and even a 60 for a little every day.  For me, coming from Cambodia's pleasantly tropical 80+ this has been FREEZING, but everyone out here sees spring coming haha. I've gone biking on my own as well and seen the main Chinese foreign market, the Walmart, and the local markets which are wayyy cheaper and usually just lightly used goods (or perhaps goods that got caught outside during a rain).  

I've begun teaching (started last week).  I have two freshman classes who speak very basic English, and one sophomore class (who is majoring in English) who are much more proficient.  This week, being Easter, is all about the Easter story.  Last week was about shopping.  The class focus is on speaking, but the students are very shy; so it has been a little bit of a learning curve for me.  I'll get it figured out though.

I've met a number of foreigners (pretty much all of them that live in Xinyang) and am having Easter dinner potluck with them.  It's a good group of people, and I look forward to getting to know them better.

I also went to one of the CSV scholarship student's last Wednesday.  CSV has a number of children who cannot afford the high school tuition, and works with the schools to give them scholarships (the school typically waives tuition, and CSV pays for the housing and food for the kid).  It was pretty cool.  I hope to see more of the students.

That's about it (Well, Daniel and I bought some PVC pipe + insulation yesterday and made swords and beat each other up) but I'll try to keep posting updates as they come.