A Typical Day in the Life of AKIC

• I get up at 5:50 AM, I grab my phone which is, of course, by my bedside, and head for the toilet.

• On the toilet, I do a lesson of either French, German or Spanish on the Duolingo App.

• I prepare hot tea for Tony & Jenny while I wait for them to get up. I also prepare noodles that Tony can take to school and eat for lunch.  Finally, I prepare toast for Tony & Jenny to eat for breakfast.

• At 6:20 AM I tell Jenny it is time for her & Tony to get up.

• I try to finish three lessons on the Duolingo App so I can collect rewards for having completed my daily goals and kept my daily streak going. If time, I will then do a lesson on the Basic Chinese Skills app. I will also check out my Feedly App for updates from all my favorite websites and the Wechat App (the popular Chinese social app) to see if anything interesting is happening with people in my social network. Usually nothing happens on WeChat but, fool that I am, I look at it compulsively.

• At 6:50 AM or so, Tony & I leave the apartment. We walk to the car which is parked in an underground garage in the building that is across the lane from our apartment building. I start the drive by telling myself to not lose my temper at the locals I will encounter who have barbaric driving habits. Anything I do that is not cricket, I justify to myself by thinking of what they say about behaving in Rome...

• On the drive, I listen to music on the car stereo; either "my" music (usually the Kinks) or "Tony's" (Bon Jovi or Guns & Roses). I let Tony play games on my mobile phone.

• When I drop Tony off at school, there is always a traffic jam with impatient drivers trying to change lanes by cutting in, or muscling in, to the other lanes without warning and without turning on their turn signals. If they do this close to me, I don't yield to them and even try to block them. I'll stop on the road near a crosswalk where there is a traffic attendant.  Tony will get out. I continue down the road, having a easy right turn to make at the next intersection because traffic going in the three other directions is always clogged while somehow always leaving daylight for me to go right. But then on the road I have turned onto, I always have to wait at least two lights before I can proceed on my way home. While waiting I get annoyed at seeing the drivers who cheat either by trying to cut into the lineup stuck at the lights or by driving in the lane reserved for cyclists.

• 7:30 AM or so, I am backing up the car in our apartment parking space. If I am lucky the BMW isn't parked in the spot beside. As I have said in the blog, I back up beside a pillar that is on the passenger side.

• Back in the apartment, I either continue on with my language study or do my daily reading which includes devotional passages, Catholic prayers in various languages, poetry, Nicolás Gómez Dávila aphorisms, and whatever other non-fiction or fiction book I am in the midst of reading.

• Sometimes during the morning, I post a Dávila aphorism, in English and Spanish, to WeChat.

• I shower, shave, and hang the load of laundry that Jenny put in the washing machine before she went back to sleep. While doing these duties, I try to listen to a podcast, usually the Andrew Klavan podcast or whatever other politics/culture podcast strikes my fancy at the moment.

• My breakfast will consist of tea and toast.

• I leave the apartment about 11:00 AM to go to work. I walk to the bus stop. Along the way, I stop at my local small shop and buy water, gum and throat lozenges. I wait for the first bus that comes along that can get me a subway station. If the 25 bus comes, I take it to the Xi Zhuang station. If the 602 bus comes I take it to the Xi Bei Canal Station. If the 650 or 617 bus comes, I can take them to the Yanqiao Station. Usually, I catch the 25 bus.

• On the bus I listen to a podcast. Walking to the station and waiting on the platform, I listen to a podcast. Boarding the train, which I usually do at the front of the train because that's where the seats are usually unoccupied, I pull out my Ipad and read.

• I get off at the Nanchang Temple station. I take the stairs to go up instead of the escalator which all the locals will inevitably take. I walk to the 85 Degree Bakery and ask for "一大杯美式咖啡，热的." This translates to a large cup of hot American Coffee. Along with the coffee, I get some bread for our morning toast. If the lineup at the 85 is long, I will just purchase the bread  and instead buy my coffee at the Family Mart convenience store which is by our school's entrance.

• My shift starts at 1:00 PM and I am usually at school at least thirty minutes before that time. I first spend the time pulling out binders for the lessons and printing out what materials I may need for them.

• Depending on how many classes I have (five is the maximum), I may have a lot of time or a little time to continue on with my language study which involves playing with the language learning apps I mentioned earlier or practicing my Chinese character reading by typing text on the computer using a pinyin typing app that I have installed on at my work computer. I may also do more language study with the Duolingo app. I work through a lesson and enter new words and sentences into a notebook. And if I remember, I enter something into my blogging file. It is my habit now to edit and edit and edit the blog file before I dare publish it.

• I have many options for my dinner which I will have at 4:00 PM : I can have noodles at the nearby Muslim noodle house, fried dumplings from another nearby local restaurant, foreign fare at a restaurant called BMC (that was established by an Australian), a hamburger at the McDonald's near Nanchang Market, or a sandwich from the Subway restaurant at Sanyang Plaza.

• Whenever my classes have all been taught, I can go home. If I am finished before 8:00 PM, my preference is to take the 25 bus. If I finish at 9:00 PM, I have to take the subway. If on the bus, I read or listen to a podcast. When I get off the bus, I can walk home in five minutes, which is why I prefer taking it to the train in the evening. If taking the train, I will just listen to podcasts or music (on the Netease app). I will get off at the Yanqiao station which is the terminal stop of Line #1 of the Wuxi Metro System. I will then have a twenty minute walk home. I sometimes take a three-wheel pedicab taxi for a fare of five RMB home is the weather is bad or I am not feeling energetic.  If I do walk, I can take various routes. One route is along the main drag and I have to skirt e-bikes that may pass; another route I take through a apartment complex where I have to skirt around many parked cars until I get to a street lined with shops, restaurants and service places.

• Back home, I talk to Tony, take a shower, go to bed with Tony until he falls asleep. I then read, talk to Jenny or watch video on my computer.

• I put everything down at about 11:30 PM and go to sleep.