Wo shi yingwen laoshi -- a day in the life :)

I realize that what has become such a normal routine to me in virtually unknown to many of you! Here's what a typical day is like for me as an English teacher in Zhongshan:

Monday through Friday I wake up somewhere between 7:00 and 7:30, depending on how tired I am and how diligent I was the night before picking out my outfit. We try to be down to the school cafeteria for breakfast by 7:30 but that has become less and less the trend as the weeks go by ;) We walk down 4 flights of stairs from our floor (which 4 is a number that represents death in Chinese culture--we try to not take it too personally) and walk across the street to the school. The school is fenced off and there are nice guards that stand by the door. We usually exchange a "ni hao" when we pass them, and some of the girls here have picked out their favorites ;) We walk into a smelly cafeteria where I eat a hard-boiled egg and a steamed roll every morning. Different pastry-type things are served every day so I'll get a third item depending but it is crazy how much I've come to love and seriously look forward to my steamed roll and hard-boiled egg every morning. when we sleep in on the weekends I am honestly disappointed! From there we head over to the building where kindergarten is held. We walk up the stairs to our classroom on the third floor and split into 2 classrooms, three teachers in each. I teach 24 kids with two awesome girls named Debbie and Erin. We set up tables and such and about 10 minutes later we hear them coming--and brace ourselves. They trickle in and we get "opening" started by 8:30. Opening consists of songs, talking about the weather, asking them what day it is and going over the rules of the class. They are usually so naughty during opening, it's not even funny! One of us will lead it and the other 2 are crowd control. It was really awkward at first to lead opening and yell loud enough and be exciting enough to keep them entertained but it's getting better. We then split up, with 8 kids each and do our first rotation. For the last 2 weeks I've been teaching Shop activities, making awesome stuff like binoculars out of toilet paper rolls, playing with playdoh, launching pom poms with catapults, etc. It's SO HARD to come up with activities and start a routine at the same time but I survived--luckily. 5 or my 8 homeroom kids are boys, and let's just say I used to be afraid of having all sons someday, thinking that those moms have to be so touch to keep them under control. Now I think, yes, it would be tough, but I think now I would be able to handle it because a) they will be mine and I will love them, b) they will speak English, c) husband can help discipline, d) they won't all be FIVE!! Lesson well learned. My kids' names are Peter, Martin, Hocking, Andy, Lee, Eva, Tiffany and Lauren. I'll write more about them individually later but they are just so cute and mean so much to me already. They give me grief but I love em. We do activities for 10 minutes and then rotate twice. Then it's time for snack and start the next rotation, back to my homeroom kids but teaching Drama this time (which is NOT truly drama because they just throw the props around, so it's more like storytime ;) ). After that we have store with our homeroom kids, and depending how well they have spoken English that day they will be able to buy things with their tokens. I love store :) it reminds me of playing house with the girls at home but it's real! Not just pretending to buy our own toys ;) We count their tokens out and they can buy something with what they've earned that day or save for larger prizes. Don't forget the language barrier, that makes everything all the more hilarious/frustrating. From there we head straight to lunch...which is not at all as impressive and exciting as breakfast. I don't know why it surprised me but we really do have rice for EVERY MEAL. No joke. I mean, yes I'm in China but it seems almost cliche, you know? Haha but as much as we eat it, it's amazing to me how good plain white rice can still taste. We eat on metal trays with metal chopsticks, and the other day while I was eating I tried to think back to before I was a chopstick master and I had to laugh a little--it's just life now! We have lots of weird tasting things (plus it cafeteria food, compare school potatoes to mom's home cooking and you understand the quality...) in all textures and flavors. Eggplant, chicken feet, ham (probably my favorite! mm mm!), bok choy, pig's blood, beef, chicken, fish (with pointy little bones that really hurt the unsuspecting eater's mouth), cauliflower, lots of eggs, potatoes and the rest are unidentified, most of the time I don't really know what I'm eating, and even more often I'd rather not know. On their own the main dishes taste pretty bad but when you mix it with rice and some soy sauce we got from the market? Yum yum yum, I am all set :) We finish lunch and head up to the supply room (once again on floor 4, are they trying to tell us something??) to get our lessons for tomorrow planned and our materials together. It used to take hours but as we get more efficient it takes less and less time. We kinda do whatever all day: check the internet, take a 5 minute bus ride to a little supermarket called the "1+1", take a 40 minute bus ride to downtown Zhongshan, where we can indulge in McDonald's or KFC, shop around, etc, and dinner of the same sort of mush is served in the cafeteria at 5:30 and some of us girls have starting going over to the school at 8 to run around the track and use the hilarious gym equipment outside. Shower and time for bed! Oh and our shower? Not really a shower at all. There's a detachable hand sprayer on the wall and you just shower right there on the tile! We have a shower curtain dividing the room from the sink and the shower, but you could potentially use the toilet and shower at the same time. Lovely, right? And afterwards you just squeegee the floor! No biggie! I am still morbidly afraid of the comforter and sheet that were provided for me. The humidity is a menace and once I found black spots on my pillow it was over for me-- I went out and bought a new pillow and a sheet to keep me clean. I put my sheet over my comforter and wrap myself like an omelet. Perfect :) My bed is really hard but my pillow is extremely poofy-- I think it must compensate wonderfully because I sleep so well every single night. Then it's off to crazy dreams every night, and up the next morning to do it all again! Pretty exciting, huh?