Daliy life in Xizhou

Many of my avid readers have been flooding my inbox with questions about when my next blog post will be!  Sorry to keep you waiting, I would write more posts, but our days here have been very monotonous, the same thing happening day in and out; which is exactly what I'm going to write about!  Our typical day in Xizhou, China:

Waking up precisely 3 minutes before 7:46 AM, (for some reason) the day starts for me.  My breakfast is always pancakes and potatoes, something that I'll probably despise for the rest of my life after eating it everyday for the past 6 months.  School begins at 9 AM, with our homeschooling teacher, Peter, kindly reminding us to get our butts upstairs and into the classroom.  Our curriculum is called Calvert, an American home school, umm, curriculum.  The subjects are math, history, grammar and art, to name a few.  Our studies go until noon, where my family, Peter, Adrian (a friend of our family), and any guests get together for lunch.  This meal is always tasty.  Our 2 chefs make remarkable food, especially with not much former training.  One day we could eat local veggies, meat and cheese, and the next day it could be pizza with chocolate cake.  There is no limit to their food knowledge!  

Once lunch is gobbled up, Bryce and I reluctantly go back to work.  This study session goes until mid-afternoon, when school is finally over.  

What we do in the afternoon is always a mystery.  Sometimes we take a walk to the lake, hike on the mountains, read, play video games, learn Chinese, bust out Dogopoly or Uno, or be forced to write a blog entry.  The list is endless!  

Our dinner is as interesting as lunch, we don't know what is going to appear on the table. Finally, after supper, we might watch a movie, try out some card games, read some more, or even play Family Feud.  One time we started the Feud and we got about 10 guests playing with us.  It's a great game!  

Now, in contrast to all of that, school for Chinese kids is much different.  From what I've gathered, school for them goes from 8 am to around 3-4 pm.  They have an hour and a half lunch break, in which they go home to eat, not at the school.  The days they go to school, on the other hand, is much more complicated.  Most students have a Monday-Friday week, just like American kids.  But I've heard people talk about half days on Saturday, while some other people talk about half days on Sunday.  Even other pupils have no school on Saturday or Sunday, but night school.  I don't know where they get these days, but they are doing something right, considering their test scores are higher than the US's.   

There you go, hopefully this will keep my thousands of avid readers happy for a while, my inbox was running out of space!  In the meantime, I will try to keep my eyes open for more blog-worthy events here in little town Xizhou.  Thanks for reading!  

-Shane