A Day in the Life

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Thought I'd include a fantastic English sign mistranslation:

"When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."


I've now lived in China for 4 months and I thought it was about time for me to give you a glimpse into my daily activities.

Enjoy!


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MERRITT AMELIA WILSON SVALESTUEN

8:30 AM

Rise and shine, sunshine! My mother used to say this to me every morning as she threw upon the blinds on the windows in my room and bounced up and down on my bed. I think the reason I am not a morning person is largely due to this fact.

8:45 AM

The actual time I deign to rise from my bedchamber.

9:30 AM

I depart from my apartment complex and embark upon the treacherous 15-minute journey to school on foot.

9:31 AM

I have my first near miss of the day, as I foolishly cross an intersection after looking left and right only 5 times each. In order to cross safely, one must continuously turn one's head in a panoramic fashion so as to see every possible perspective of oncoming cars, trains, buses, bicycles, motorcycles, pedicabs, running pedestrians, runaway trailers, dogs walking without leashes, low-flying aircraft and other objects that hold similar hazard.

9:32 AM

I dodge a sizable amount of hawked loogie on the sidewalk.

9:32:10 AM

I sidestep another.

9:38 AM

I am heckled by a passing pedicab driver as I walk to school. Although it is only a 10-minute walk , the drivers believe that all laowai are lazy and so would jump at the chance to be chauffered to school.

9:40 AM

I pass a group of construction workers who are obviously from outside of Beijing, as they stare at me as I pass them on the sidewalk and actually turn around to walk backwards in order to keep staring after I pass.

10 AM

Chinese class. Our teacher has begun to give us nicknames. Agatha is "barbie doll" because she dressed as Barbie for our Halloween celebration. May is “zhu wa" because "zhu" means pig and she was born in the year of the Pig. I have yet to be given a nickname.

11 AM

We are given a short break in the middle of the 2-hour class. I am fervently grateful that I am past the days of "Is this your bicycle? Yes, that is my bicycle. Do you have a bicycle? No, I do not have a bicycle". Instead, our dialogues consist of newly-learned slang and insults we pick up from our Chinese students.

11:15 AM

We dutifully return to class. We learn several new grammatical patterns, pages upon pages of new vocabulary and how to say "Play that funky music, white boy" in Chinese.

12 PM

Class is concluded. I text my host sister in Chinese to say hi. She's in class, but she furtively texts me back. I'm left feeling happy that I'm such a responsible role model for her.

12:01 PM

I'm bored. I don't have technically have to report to work until around 2 PM, so I head to the Starbucks that is in the same business complex where our office is located to sip delicious, overpriced coffee and study more Chinese.

12:10 PM

I run into another foreigner at Starbucks. We exchange the usual pleasantries-- "Where are you from? What are you doing in Beijing? Do you speak Chinese?". I'm left feeling superior because my Chinese is better than his.

12:27 PM

I have the same conversation with a different foreigner. Her Chinese far surpasses mine. I resolve to dive even further into my textbooks and head downstairs to the main floor to persuade the Starbucks employees to correct my pronunciation and teach me new words.

1:05 PM

I finally get around to ordering my coffee and in my eagerness to let the sweet coffee goodness delight my palate, I burn my tongue. I learn how to say "I've burned my tongue" in Chinese.

1:45 PM

I repeat the same conversation, once more, with yet another foreigner. I swear to myself that I will never come back to Starbucks again.

1:47 PM

I realize I'm being silly. Starbucks is too uplifting and too convenient not to come back. Plus, the employees know me and help me practice Chinese.

1:48 PM

I head back to school to begin my workday. I get caught in the wind tunnel between the high-rise buildings in the area and practice my recently learned Chinese equivalent of "Oh, s***!"

2:00 PM

I find a seat in the tiny, overcrowded closet we laughingly refer to as our teacher's prep room. I locate the materials I will be teaching that day and spread them out in front of me to prepare. Before I insert my iPod earbuds, I catch snatches of the conversations swirling around me. The teachers are boisterous, joking around with each other and creating a mood of general silliness. I fit in well.

2:01 PM
I get lost in the melodious harmonies of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

3:10 PM

I emerge from my zone of concentration and realize the teachers' room has emptied out. I take a break, get a cup of tea and chat with a few students who are hanging out in the exchange area. As I walk back to the teachers' room, a chorus of "Goodbye, beautiful teacher" follows me. Sometimes, it pays to have such a fair complexion (the ultimate of beauty among many Chinese women).

3: 11 PM

I return to my preparation.

3:30 PM

I remove one earbud and look up to catch snatches of conversation around me: something about Stonehenge and vomit to my left and an arguement about the proper way to pronounce 'hookah' to my right. Directly across from me, 2 of my male colleagues are involved in an intense punching contest. I shove my earbud back into my ear.

3:35 PM

I feel adequately prepared for my classes. I put my materials back into my cubby and look at the clock, only to realize that I still have 2 hours left to go before my first class begins.

3:36 PM

I snag one of the five computers in the teachers' room and check my email. I resolve to write back to everyone who has written me in the past week.

3:41 PM

I finish my correspondence. I am incredibly bored.

3:42 PM

I head outside to get some air and take a walk around the JianWai SOHO complex. Nine buildings already stand at the site and an additional six have been built across the road behind our complex. I take a tour of the new buildings and discover an Apple store located in one of them. I feel very relieved, because I'd originally thought I'd have to send my computer to Hong Kong, should any problems arise. However, given that I have a Mac, I don't anticipate any problems arising.

4:15 PM

I return to the office. I still have an hour and 15 minutes before my first class. I pull out my Chinese book yet again, and have a covert conversation with one of the students in Chinese. Technically, I should be speaking only English at the school, but the students know my purpose in being in Beijing is to learn more Chinese, they are eager to help me achieve my goal.

5:00 PM

Dinnertime! I pull out the dinner I brought from home and tantalize my coworkers who are still waiting for food they ordered by eating slowly and savoring every bite.

5:20 PM

I finish my dinner. My colleagues continue to wait for theirs.

5:30 PM

I report to the exchange area for help desk. Essentially, this is a period of 'free talk' in which the students pick a topic and practice using everyday English with a native speaker. This time is also beneficial for me, because when a word or phrase comes up that I dont know, I ask the student to tell me how to say it in Chinese.

6:30 PM

Help desk is over. I head to my next class, which is a pre-Intermediate level elective class. Topics are assigned arbitrarily based upon level of English. I happen to be assigned to teach a class entitled "Mozart and Schubert: Musical Giants". Needless to say, I am beyond pleased. I introduce a brief biography of the two composers and play selections of their music for the class, which I conveniently had downloaded onto my iPod. I present a study done on The Mozart Effect .

7:15 PM

Half of the class looks bored, while the other half already knows the information I've given them. I jump around and flail my arms in an attempt to get their focus back on me.

7:20 PM

Jumping around reminds me of the Wisconsin Badgers football game tradition in which House of Pain's "Jump Around" is played at every game after the third quarter and the entire stadium shakes from the force of thousands of students literally jumping around. I share this hilarious insight into Western culture with the class. They sigh and look at the clock.

7:21 PM

I cleverly turn the tables on my students and tell them that THEY are going to teach ME about Western classical music. I give them 10 minutes to prepare and then have them present at the front of the room, using whatever visual and/or aural aids they can think of. They do a great job and I'm impressed by what they remembered from the lesson.

7:40 PM

After the presenations, we have 10 minutes of class left and I tell the students we can free talk. I ask them what kind of English words they'd like to learn. They confer with one another and it's a unanimous vote for swear words. Of course. I use my teacher status as veto power and override their vote. I tell them we can compromise by learning slang such as "your mom" and "kiss a**". They're satisfied.

7:50 PM

Class is over. I am exhausted and dripping with sweat from the effort exerted in keeping the students entertained the week before they all get 9 days of vacation from work/school and get to journey home to see their families for the Chinese New Year. My own 7 days of vacation can't come soon enough.

8 PM

My pre-Intermediate Core class, and last class of the day, begins. As usual, only 2 of the 8 students listed on the roster for the class show up. I don't mind much, because Jessie and Yolanda are both very bright, motivated and hardworking students and I'm glad that I can give them extra attention. We spend the first 10 minutes on 'girl talk'-- discussing husbands, boyfriends, Valentine's Day and other similar vomit-worthy topics.

8:10 PM

We open the core class textbook and learn the new vocabulary. As I'd suspected, they'd both already gone over the lesson on their own and learned the vocabulary. We skim over the rest of the text, making sure the main concepts are understood and they are satisfied with pronunciation of new words.

8:40 PM

Yolanda mentions that she might be moving to Spain soon, prompting Jessie to reflect on her own job status as a domestic tour guide who wants to become international. One topic leads to another, and both women are speaking rapid-fire English without realizing it. I sit back and listen to them, just amazed at how well they can express themselves in a foreign language at only the pre-Intermediate level. This constant level of improvement inspires and motivates me in my own language study.

9:20 PM

Before we know it, class is over and I say goodbye to Jessie and Yolanda. I check my email before I go home and see that I missed an audition for the International Festival Chorus that was held at 7:30 PM the same evening. I feel a pang of regret at having such an abnormal schedule that I can't become as involved in community activities as I'd like to.

9:30 PM

I trek home with some of the other teachers. The nighttime journey back to our apartments is treacherous. The poor lighting along the streets makes it difficult to avoid the lurking loogies that you see right before planting your shoe directly on top of it. The cold temperatures makes this an especially dangerous situation, as the loogie may already be frozen, and thus, slippery as ice. More than one of my colleagues has slipped and nearly fallen upon a frozen sidewalk loogie. Drivers at night are apparently afraid of burning out their headlights, as these silly things that serve only to save one from certain death are only turned on after pitch black and sometimes later than that.

9:45 PM

We make it home safely and nod hello to the guard who mans the gate to our building.

10:00 PM

I have a late dinner and try to pretend it's as result of my European background and not because I've had no other opportunity since 5 PM to eat that night.

10:30 PM

I pop in a DVD and attempt to learn new words by reading the Chinese subtitles and listening to the English dialogue. I'm halfway into the movie before I realize that the subtitles and movie dialogues don't match up because I bought a pirated copy on the street of a movie that has yet to be released in the USA.

11:30 PM

Bedtime! I clutch my teddy bear to my chest and relish my grand adventure in China.




I hope you enjoyed this brief vignette of the life of Merritt. Stay tuned for more episodes......

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Photos

Wen Lei and I
My best friend, Wen Lei, was in Beijing for the first 3 months I was here, studying at Beijing University for a study abroad requirement.
Mom and Dad-- you should note that both Wen Lei and I are grasping bottles of grape juice in our little paws!

My friend, Evan, and me
Apparently, there was a smell in the room.

David
We teachers make the funniest faces
Anything to help the student learn...

Girls' Night Out
Ellen, May, Meg, Jaime, me and Felicia

Hilarious truck
The company name is apparently "Sankyu", which, to me, sounds like "thank you" with a french accent.

The George Institute
The students are bright, motivated and eager to laugh, which makes for a fun teaching experience.

The George Institute
One of my two corporate clients, The George Institute is a medical research foundation headquartered in Syndey, Australia.

Together Bar
Tiny little hole-in-the-wall bar near my apartment. This is me with the resident dog at the bar. Health code standards just aren't the same here in China...

Chinese lanterns
The streets are still decorated for the New Year.

Jian Bing Lady
The most delicious late-night snack in China-- jian bing: a type of pancake with all sorts of ingredients rolled inside.
I apologize for the blurry picture, but I had to covertly snap it, as she didn't want her photo taken.

Comments

[Thai]

Conversations about Stonehenge and vomit huh? And a punching contest? Since when did RLE incorporate these electives?? Wow went really downhill after I left ;-) Good thing you didn't have to teach about punching contests..hehe. p.s. those loogies will sneak up on ya! be careful!

[Julie]

Shades of scampy
I want a neighborhood bar with a dog! Health codes be damned.

[Mom]

Disclaimer
Just wanted to add this this comment as a disclaimer regarding your statement that I threw open the window shades and proclaimed, "Wake up, sunshine!" each morning when you were a child. Had I done so, I would not have survived to the ripe old age of. . . well, nevermind. It must be the distance--or perhaps the smog--that has befuddled your memory. However, upon your return home, I will be glad to submit you to the (alleged) experience in the same fashion as you claim it occurred! Love, Mom