Daily occurances in Xuzhou

Day to day life in Xuzhou was pretty normal. I would typically get up at about 6 am and head to the shower. I would dawdle around for a bit and leave for work after grabbing a bottle of frozen water from the freezer. Depending on how much I dawdled I would either walk the mile and a half or take a taxi to work. On the way I would stop and get one of the amazing "Egg McMuffins" (if I was running late this was pushed back an hour during my break). I started work at 8 am with a C2 class. C2 is an hour long and filled with 6-7 year olds. I then had an hour break where I would typically prepare for my next class which was C5 (10-13 year olds). I then had C5 at 10:15 for two hours. After that came lunch. Depending on if other foreigners were working that day or not determined what I ate for lunch. If there were foreigners working we would all go to lunch at a nearby restaurant. If I was the only one there I would wander around, find some food, and go back to school to eat. At 2:00 it was time for class again. I had a C1 class filled with 5 year olds. This lasted for an hour. Those children were adorable but they went crazy during break when I had to leave. They would grab onto my shirt, pants, and backpack and try to pull me back in the classroom. Originally, I would leave the classroom, go to the teachers' lounge, then leave the school. Eventually though I ended up fighting 10-15 5 year olds to get to the teachers' lounge then I would hang out there for about 10 minutes until the kids were back in class so I could successfully leave the school. After the C1 class I had about an hour to get across town to Aston 2 for a C3 class. I took the bus and usually got there about 20 minutes later. C3 started at 4:15 but I usually had about 30 minutes before that class. On nice days Patrick (who exclusively worked at Aston 2) and I would sit out on the front steps and talk and smoke. After a few weeks of this some of my C3s started arriving at school early so they could sit on the front steps with us and talk to us. C3 lasted an hour. Patrick's 3:15 class lasted 2 hours so I would usually hang out and wait for him so we could share a taxi or ride the bus together (depending on the weather). When we got home we would usually order up from a restaurant near our building that would deliver to your apartment. The evenings were either spent lesson planning or talking to the roommates or spending time on the Internet.

I always had Wednesday and Thursday off. Because I was working the summer intensive program I was typically exhausted and took full advantage of these days off by sleeping and lazing around the apartment. Occasionally I would go to the store or just wander around town for a while.

Daily life in Xuzhou was pretty hum-drum and uneventful.

Pictures of my kids and the schools.

One night the foreigners decided to have an international potluck. The Australians made Bangers and Mash. The rest of us were Americans so we made the following: Dan-Nachos, Elizabeth-Mac and Cheese, Me and Pat-Spaghetti and Garlic Bread. We invited some of our Chinese friends. One was Elizabeth's boyfriend, one was a girl that Patrick was kind of seeing, and the other was our friend Bob's boyfriend (Bob had recently returned to the States).

If we weren't too exhausted we would spend evenings at Shao Kao (BBQ), KTV, or the club.

Random pictures of Xuzhou.