A Typical School Day in Xiamen

Mike asked me about my typical day in Xiamen and I thought that would be an excellent blog post! So here is a run down of my typical “school” day in Xiamen. My “school” days are Mondays and Wednesdays.

Wake up at 7:00 AM and get ready for the day. Do a little reading. Get breakfast at the hotel which consists of a hard-boiled egg, a steamed roll, and some sort of warm milk – I think it is rice milk . . . maybe. And take a multi-vitamin.

breakfast

Have a prayer with the group in Catherine’s room at 8:25 AM.

Walk to class on Xiamen University campus and marvel at how hot it can be that early in the morning (the temperature variation between night and day is only about 5 degrees!). When walking to class we hear all the cicadas in the trees. There are a lot of them. They are so loud that they sound like one of those electricity power stations that are always humming. And we also walk under some trees that appear to be spitting on us – we’re not really sure what the liquid is that is falling on us. Hopefully it’s not cicada spit or pee. Ha!

a dead cicada on the ground

Start class at 8:55 AM. We always have to turn the air conditioning on once we get to class since they turn it off if there isn’t a class in there. So there is no immediate relief from the heat when we first get to class and I’m always ready to pull up my hair by that time since I try to start out the day with it down.

I sit in the front of the classroom by my Chinese teammate, Sky. She’s a hoot. Then Carol teaches the class and gives us some time on occasion to discuss what she’s just talked about with our Chinese teammates to make sure they are following the lecture. Generally, Sky is pretty good about keeping conversations on topic, but every now an then she wants to ask me (out of the blue!) what I think of a Chinese person marrying and American, or if her friend that has been promiscuous with men should tell her future husband about her promiscuity. Ha ha!

Class gets out at 10:55 AM and, at first, I went to lunch at the canteen with everyone. But now that the other BYU students have wanted to take day trips on Tuesdays and I can’t say “No,” I have to stay back at the student lounge and work. And I have to work long hours! Like 5 hours on both Monday and Wednesday so that I can be sure to get my full 10 hours of work logged.

Before I get started on work, I’ll Skype my family and Mike. And then I’ll respond to some personal emails or mess around on Facebook for a bit. Then I’ll start working around 1:00 PM.

working in the student lounge or coffee shop

Then around 6:00 PM, I go “home” to the Luxury Hotel and . . . work on homework and do laundry. Some times we’ll all go to dinner together, and sometimes I have to say “No” so I can work on homework.