Friday Nights

Most young people my age like to go out on Friday nights, especially in such a big, international and exciting city as Shanghai. It is a bit like the reward for working hard and surviving another week in this place. You have managed to dodge the crazy taxi drivers and old Chinese men on their motor-scooters to live another week. You have put up with the second hand smoke and gross loogies (“the nasal form of mucus“ says Wikipedia).

I, on the other hand, usually prefer to stay in on Friday nights to recuperate from all the mentioned above. I like to grab dinner with friends, perhaps. Have little hang outs. But I’m not usually the type to stay out all night. Just my style. I don’t mind. Some people will call me boring that I’m not out having fun and savoring the moments, but meh ... Friday nights are my time to rest up from the long week of having had to teach and play with hundreds of kindergartners.

Of course every once in awhile I’ll feel in the mood to do something and if that is the case than okay, it will happen.

Unfortunately, the deadlines on my thesis are coming up fast. Faster than I had anticipated. It’s amazing how fast time will fly when you are trying to live life, go to work all day and try to squeeze in some research and writing time. My original plan had been to use the 3 hour lunch break that I have everyday to do some thesis work here and there, but for the past 2 weeks that 3 hour lunch break had been taken up by me covering a grade 3 (kindergarten) class for Ryan who is on holiday. I don’t mind covering for him because it’s just at my school and does make the ”break“ time past by faster. Supposedly once he gets back from holiday he will be taking those classes again. So besides the addition of the ”Dr. Zhu“ classes, I should be getting my long lunch break back. My goal is to have a significant portion of the draft complete before October holiday so that I can email it to my advisor for his feedback while I go off to South Korea for some cultural fun!!