Hi! newbie with many questions

[you101]

i'm an overseas chinese in the philippines planning to study in china. i have some background in Mandarin. not too good in speaking it though. that's why i plan to study and immerse in china. i listen to chinese music and chinese movies. i can say that i understnad around 70% of it. i'm graduating from college and plan to enroll in a chinese language program there. i have some questions to ask to help me in preparing for it. i've consulted the 菲律宾华教中心 and they provided me with some information

1. how are the prgrams there. is chinese language the only thing that is taught in the program? are there no other subjects? people at the center told me that classes are usually for half day only.

2. where should i study? beijing, shanghai or other places. is there big diffrences in each place?

3. i've never been overseas before. should i do the application process all by myself or find a middleman. 菲律宾华教中心, seems like a chinese government office here in our country and they offer services in the handling of the papers to selected schools. do you think they are charging extra money for it?

4. are there scholarships for short term (1 term) chinese language studies? i've heard about the CSC but unfortunately don't have time to go to the Chinese embassy. If there is scholarships for short term studies, are they limited? are the limits by country?

5. i would like to find a part-time job to help me finacne my stay. are there jobs around school for foreign students?

6. in china, they use simplified chinese. i'm more familiar to traditional chinese as this was what was taught in school before. i recognize only a few words written in tradtional.do schools teach mainly using simplified or do they also teach in traditional. i would like to learn how the traditional are written in simplified.

7. are there schools offering classes around april or any other months earlier than the fall semester? the i'll finish school around early april and would like to go to china as soon as possible.

tnx. in advance.