It’s been a full month since I last posted and for those of you who don’t like my time markers, maybe you lead a very different life from me. Since my last post not only did we start a new semester, but we had TWO breaks (中求解 / Zhong Qiu Jie / Mid Autumn Festival and 国庆节 / Guo Qing Jie / National Day Break) during which I managed to hop down to the Philippines for a week.
And that’s the curious thing about this year, I’ve been restless. I don’t know if it’s because I went home to Canada for a month this summer and so I feel as jf I need to move a little bit more or if simply the travel bug has bitten me again. As it stands, I made it to Japan this past summer for two weeks and then the Philippines for a week and now, I’m making plans for my Winter vacation. For the last couple of years staying in was no problem, now I have to make a concerted effort to stay in and either work or do the other things I need to do (like write these posts).
Speaking of doing other things, I haven’t been able to get to the gym very much since getting back from Canada because of this stop-start semester. I recently weighed myself and see that I’ve dropped 5 kgs (11 lbs) since July! I’m sure that that’s because I haven’t been going to the gym and so I’ve lost quite a bit of the muscle mass that I managed to put on at the end of last academic year.
I do need to focus on my languages this year. I’ll be cutting down on the number of times I will see my Chinese teacher but (hopefully) increasing the amount of time I spend on reading / listening to my Chinese textbooks all in an effort to increase my vocabulary. This desire to hone my Chinese skills may be partly to blame for my desire to get out of the city: in Beijing, everybody either speaks English well enough or they don’t want to deal with someone who doesn’t speak Chinese very well. I respect that feeling since it’s the same feeling I get whenever someone stops me to become their language partner. So, other than textbooks and meeting my Chinese teacher, I hope to make a few weekend trips outside of the city limits both in an effort to see more of the country and to practice my Chinese language skills.
I don’t have a lack of things to do. I’ve recently been given another course which takes me up to 24-26 hours of teaching per week. The good news, however, is that it doesn’t feel like I’m working as hard since much of my material has already been prepared and, more importantly, I have an idea of how the semester should unfold. It’s probably the first time I’ve had a job in which I can reuse whatever materials I make one year with the next set of students. I think back to my time working on farms, I can’t really reuse any of those materials.
And so, in essence, with it being time to work the weeks now follow a familiar pattern of sleep, teach, eat, prep, repeat. It’s at a time like this that I feel like I go to sleep on Sunday night and when I wake up it’s Friday. So too with the months: Go to sleep in October, wake up and it’s January. I now see that the last few posts have all about getting back to Beijing and starting work and yet, here I am, writing that things are just getting going again.
If you haven’t already, follow me on Instagram or Twitter as I’ve been posting quite a few photos there lately. I recently hit 500 posts on Instagram after being on the thing for just over two years. I guess that’s a new picture every day and a half.