A day in the life

So many of you are bugging me to post things that are more relevant to my life and what I'm doing in China. Ask and ye shall receive.

For the last couple months (damn, I can't believe it's already been almost 2 months) I've been settling in; getting used to any sort of routine I could get into. Finally it seems as though I've figured it out. The weather was really nice until the beginning of this last week. All of a sudden it went from Summer to early winter in about 2 days. However, I haven't had winter in two years now, so I'm actually kind of excited that the weather is turning. Right now it's brisk. It's about 15 degrees Celsius and windy as heeelllllllll. honestly, the wind is unbelievable. I've never experienced wind like this before. It's making the biking more interesting.

Speaking of biking, the other night I was in Wu Dao Kou which is about 6 miles away or so and as my friends and I were leaving to head back to the school area (we all live right around the school), Me on my bike, them in a taxi, I said "I'll beat you home." Guess what? I did. I didn't even think I could pull it off since it was evening and there wasn't any traffic. But man was I cruising. They caught up to me about a mile and a half from home but had to drop someone off and I took full advantage of that, threw down and beat them back home. Take that automobiles. Also, in case you couldn't tell from that recollection, I'm loving the biking here. It's busy and a little crazy, and a lot of people here are morons when it comes to riding on the right side of the road or against traffic or in the middle of the street etc. but there are ample cars to race, buses to challenge and motorized scooters to draft off of. That said, I am wearing my helmet, surprisingly.

So I mentioned earlier that I can't believe how fast time is moving here, something I've been thinking about a lot here. I'm fairly certain it's because my time is really full now. I've finally developed some sort of routine and here it is:

6:30am - wake up, exercise a little, take a shower
7:30am - Get to the office, check email, eat breakfast, get ready for classes
8am - 12pm - Teach 4 classes in a row(health, music, health, music) followed by a 20 minute advisory period.
12:15pm - go get lunch somewhere close to school
Anywhere from 1 - 1:30pm - Get back to school.
1:30pm - 4:00pm - Grade work while watching a week old, downloaded episode of the Daily Show followed by the corresponding Colbert Report. Also, I plan work for the following days classes and waste time on the internet.
4:00pm - 6:00pm - Teach another class for the Chinese students to work on their English.
6:15pm - Walk back to my apartment, change, hop on my bike and head towards Wu Dao Kou by 6:30pm
Sometime around 7:00pm - Arrive in Wu Dao Kou and grab some sort of snack so I don't starve in my Chinese class.
7:15pm - 8:45pm - Learn Chinese
9:00pm - Eat Dinner
Sometime around 10:00pm - Bike home from WDK
Sometime around 11:00pm - Bed Time.
Repeat Every Week Day

This has made me appreciate the weekends much more. For instance, today I have done nothing except finish a book, eat lunch, watch a colbert report episode at the office and write this blog. Oh, I also sent my Absentee Ballot. Anyways, I'm still liking it here. I'm finding myself missing India a lot lately though, I'm pretty sure in part due to the many similarities between India and China. They're both fast-developing-nations, but one of the huge differences is that while China is very ready to abandon it's heritage and embrace new, faceless, americanized/international culture, India clings on to their heritage like it's their job, and I love that about that country. It was a little annoying sometimes, but it really makes that country incredibly unique, and I miss that a lot. On the opposite side of that, I love being in a city. I got a little bit of the cabin fever on that mountain last year, and there hasn't even been a hint of that here. I've been checking my buddy Neil's blog (kodaikaneil.blogspot.com) and that's been tugging at the old heartstrings when it comes to missing India. BUT, I'll stop the nostalgic rambling now and say peace out home slices. Keep it sleazy.

-B