Adventures in China

6:30 Wake up either by sun coming in my window or by my alarm.
6:35 Turn on the water heater.
6:40 Connect to the internet and try to download my mail.
6:45 Reconnect to the internet after having my connection drop.
6:50 Read my email and start writing responses.
7:15 Take a very quick shower, about 3 minutes, until the hot water runs out. Turn off the water heater.
7:45 Eat breakfast. Usually crackers, sometimes eggs.
7:55 Leave my apartment. Walk past the students going to class. Say "Hello" and "Good morning" a lot.
8:00 Sign in for work at the front of the school.
8:05 Get to my office. Everyone else has a cleaning schedule that I am not a part of. They dust the furniture, sweep the floor, mop the stairs, and go to get hot water. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I will get to work first and go get water. Usually I sit and read.

8:20 Go to the preschool rooms and teach two classes.
10:00 Have morning exercises.
10:15 Either stay at the preschool to play with the students and talk to teachers, or go to my office and sit. Sometimes I'd talk with other teachers or prepare teaching materials.
11:30 Go back to my apartment before the students are out of class and make sure my dishes are clean.
12:00 Get lunch from the cafeteria. Usually rice, bread, and two dishes.

12:20 Rinse my dishes and get on the computer. Either write email or attempt to connect and send email. If it is a particularly stable internet connection (related to how calm the wind is), I might try to chat with friends, online.
1:00 Take a nap.
1:25 Leave my apartment.Walk past the students going to class. Say "Hello" and "Good afternoon" a lot.
1:30 Sign in and walk to my office.
1:35 Spend time in the office talking with teachers, reading books, practicing my Chinese, and teaching classes. I usually taught two classes in the afternoon.
5:45 Go to my apartment to get my dishes. Walk with students to the dining hall. Say "Hello" and "Good evening" a lot.
6:00 Get dinner from the dining hall. Usually rice soup and left overs. I would sometimes cook dinner at home.
6:20 Put dishes in the sink.
6:30 Spend the evening on the computer, reading, writing, running, or watching crazy Chinese TV. Occasionally try and do laundry in my washer. I have to manually drain and refill the washer, which then swirls the laundry for a while. After about 5 cycles, I hang it up to dry. Because of the dust, it is usually dirty by the time it is dry.

8:30 Decide I'm a bit homesick and go out to the shack to buy a Coke or some Oreos. The shack was a small structure built just outside of the school gates where you could buy cookies, drinks, ice cream, pencils . . . the family of 5 who owned the shack lived in it, behind a partition. The woman who was usually behind the counter was wonderful; she never overcharged us.

9:30 Either wash my dishes or panic because the water has turned off and I can't wash my dishes.
10:00 Bed.