My life in Shijiazhuang

It's been almost three weeks since I first landed in China. I was set up with my host family, who is great! My teacher, Dong, he goes by Tom, is also wonderful. I wake up every morning around 7:30am, sometimes earlier if my 3 year-old Chinese brother is up early and crying about going to preschool. He is very sweet, but as he is only a toddler, he throws temper tantrums quite frequently. My family provides me three square meals a day, and breakfast usually starts out with a hanbao (chinese hamburger - usually just eggs and onions) and a bowl of milk. Then I take the elevator downstairs from their apartment on the 22nd floor. I usually see 3 or 4 school children along the way. They always stare at me and giggle.
Then I find my borrowed bicycle and ride through the busy streets to my school building. Tom is usually about 5 minutes late, so I wait outside room 303 and review the lesson from the day before. Classes officially start at 8:30am and the lunch break starts at 11:30am. I go home for lunch, which is awesome. I love the break in the middle of the day. Not to mention having a great, hot Chinese meal cooked just for me. I head back to the classroom at 1:30pm and when I arrive Tom is usually asleep. His chief complaint is that someone put some sleeping pills in his meal. We speak Chinese for another hour or so before riding our bicycles to the program's main office where I check my email, chat with other students and eat some snacks before heading back home. Like an elementary school student, I practice writing my Chinese characters for about 2 or 3 hours before dinner. Dinner is usually a comedy. My host parents (Jiu Li and Chen) are trying to talk to me in ChinEnglish, only asking their 16 yr old to translate on occasion, while Didi, the 3 yr old, is going nuts over what he wants to eat and doesn't want to eat, changing the children's DVDs he watches constantly every 3 minutes, and the dog, PiaoPiao barking up a storm at everyone who is eating good food except for her.

I'm in bed by 10pm. It's hard work learning Chinese.