A day in the life of...

I realize I haven’t posted in awhile. Sorry I get so busy and always think “I need to blog this” and then get home and start doing something else. I am still loving it here and learning more and more everyday. Over the last couple weeks it has started to sink in that I am really living in China. I know that sounds stupid, but for the first month it didn’t feel real. Everyday living here has made it more real. I am getting to know my colleagues more each day, getting better at mandarin ( I still have a long way to go), familiarizing myself with the locations of important places/stores, getting organized in my classroom and planning, and spending time with as many locals as I can trying to understand the Chinese culture more.

It is funny because although I am half a world away, some things are the same. My daily routine is pretty much what I would do in the States, except I’m in China. Here is an average day:

5:00 AM –Run with Sarah to the beach and back. (only Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays)

6:00 AM –Shower, do quiet time, call people back home, and/or check my Facebook J

7:00 AM- Head over to school, it is about a 5 minute walk. I love walking there everyday it is so peaceful and beautiful.

8:45 AM- Welcome my students in at the front of the building. Since our school is relatively small we all wait out in the courtyard and greet them and then walk our classes up to our rooms. I love this time of the day because a bunch of the kids and I play games, like old school hand patting games (Miss Mary Black, etc). We all teach each other the ones we know, it is interesting to say the least.

3:45 PM- Walk the students out to the courtyard and wave bye as they leave in their drivers’ cars or school bus.

3:45-5:00 PM- Work on school stuff or attend meetings, it really depends on my day. On Wednesdays I have my Mandarin lessons and Thursday I teach the little ones soccer.

5:00 PM – Head home and either make dinner or most likely go to the café for dinner. The food is decent and super cheap. A bunch of us normally go and unwind from the day.

After dinner I either do school work, hang out with friends, or go into KaiFiQu. KaiFiQu is the town close to us that has TONS of shopping. I normally go in on Tuesday nights for grocery shopping and dinner and then on Thursday nights to play basketball with Jon, Joe, and Kiko.

Bedtime is really whenever I get tired.

Sorry I know that is probably really boring to most of you, but just wanted to give you an idea of what a day for me is like. Of course the weekends aren’t as scheduled and are much more “China”. Which leads me to my next post on Panjin.

I love learning the language, it is really interesting. The tones make in incredibly hard, but I am determined to learn it. Last weekend this woman told me my Chinese was great! I only asked her how much it was and then said thank you, but hey it’s a start! I figured if someone was living in the US I would expect them to learn English, so why should it be different for me. I am living in their country; I want to learn their language. Remind me of this when I am ready to give up!

Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.

One of the minority groups dancing in the square in KaiFiQu

More dancing!

Sarah and I trying to bargain for some handmade hats!

This was at the ATM, I think they meant to say receipt