A (week) day in the life of...me.

I thought I'd share a bit about my life as a teacher...as teaching is what my life consists of these days.

Every morning I get up at around 6 a.m. because I teach my first class at 7 a.m. every day of the week. Three times a week (Mon., Wed., Fri.) I start by teaching a class of senior 3 (grade 12) students and twice a week I teach a smaller class in the school's library - Tuesday mornings I teach the top students of senior 1 (grade 10) and on Thursdays I teach the top students of senior 2 (grade 11). This first class of the day is only half an hour long but with the senior 3 students I accomplish about as much in half an hour as I normally do in 45 minutes with the senior 1 and 2 students.

Some mornings I like to go out for 'you tiao' for breakfast. Basically that is fried bread (hmm...I think it tastes like donuts) that you dip in sweet, hot soymilk - definitely my favorite breakfast ever...though I doubt it is very healthy. I buy the you tiao at a stand at a street corner in town and even though some people like to take the food to go I like to sit down at the knee-high round tables and watch people. I've had random people come sit with me...'formal' businessmen who have a meeting as I sit there because they realize I don't understand a words anyway and mothers with children who grab a quick breakfast before school.

After breakfast I usually go home (unless I have to teach) and do some lesson planning. Normally I don't get too much accomplished in the mornings because that's about the only time of the day that I can communicate with people back home...a good distraction!

After I get tired of working in my office (and really not accomplishing anything) I like to go to the market to get fresh food for lunch. The process of buying, preparing, and eating food can be quite time consuming but also lots of fun!

In between the classes that I teach I normally do some lesson planning. I find planning a good lesson takes lots of time - and keeping up with how far a class gets in a lesson and where to continue the next week can also be challenging. Throw into that the fact that classes are regularly canceled for community health events, sports games (only around this time of year) etc. and you end up with a week filled with 16 classes...all at different stages in my little home-made curriculum. Aaah, it's all good!

Throughout the day I love to look out my windows and watch students, especially during morning exercise time and after classes (during dinner break) when the school yard is always filled with students playing basketball or volleyball. On the days that I don't dread walking up and down 7 sets of stairs I go down to cheer along with the students...yup, I am learning to cheer like a Chinese person.

My last class of every day finishes at 5:30 p.m. I usually eat dinner afterwards...either at home, with students at a restaurant, or at some random street stand if I am too tired to prepare anything myself.

The evenings can be a bit quiet sometimes because all the students are in class but I tend to keep busy. One night a week (usually on Tuesdays because that is my most busy day) I get a 1.5-2 hour massage and the other nights I either read, plan lessons, go for a walk, bake, watch
The National with Peter Mansbridge, call my friends in university, watch an episode from my First Season of Gilmore Girls, or hang out with Suzanne. I haven't been too bored yet!