A typical weekday

Hi all!
So I've just made a cup of some sort of medicinal tea type thing and figure it's a good time to attempt a life in China blog entry.  I realize this is a fairly broad topic and there's so much crazy stuff here that sometimes I forget what is crazy and what's normal.  I'll start by describing a typical day.  Obviously every day various quite a bit but I'll choose a Monday:
Somewhere around 6:30am a loud horn/alarm gets blared to wake all the kids up.  Unfortunately I'm right by the speaker so it wakes me up too.  Around 7 they start blaring loud, highly annoying, kids songs for about half an hour.  I've started sleeping with earplugs pushed way into my ears and lots of times I manage to sleep through these.
About 7:45 my cell phone alarm goes to wake me up.  Fortunately I have my own heating unit in my room so it's not frigid in the morning.  Most people don't have this luxury but the heat should be turned on throughout the province on the 15th.
When I get up, if the internet is working I check out the news and my emails then I warm up some yogurt in the microwave, add oatmeal, honey, and a chopped up banana and eat it for breakfast.  The school would provide breakfast but that's at 7am and consists of rice water and an egg.
I feed and give water to Balthier the chipmunk who has probably just woken up as well.
I have to be at my class 15 mins before it starts which is a bit annoying since I prefer to set up my room the night before so I have lots of time if I need something extra.  The problem is that if I set up the night before then I have nothing to do for 15 mins.  First class is at 8:45.  Sometimes they arrive up to 10 mins early, sometimes they are 5 mins late.  Either way when they get there I have them line up.  They know their lines from other classes and always have the same order.  Boys on the left, girls on the right.  When the bell goes to let them in I get them quiet and then call "attention!" they say "1-2!" I say "Look front!" they say "yes!"  This is a ritual they know well from other classes.  Sometimes the class leader will do it as well but I do the last one to take control.  I then let them in the room.
A typical lesson goes as follows:
Me: Good morning class!
Class: Good morning Mr Josh!
Me: (say something about the last class, what to expect this one)
Me: Today is ______ Who can tell me, what was yesterday and what will tomorrow be?
Student answers, I give him/her a sticker to put on his name at the back.  When he gets 10 he gets a candy.
After this I have to teach a song.  Each week there is a new song to be taught.  I have 4 classes to teach it in.  I generally dislike this part but some of the classes really love it and really get into it with actions and everything which makes it more fun.  No one seems to care that I can't sing at all.

How many different foods does the cafeteria have?

Next up I teach whatever new words we're doing that day.  Usually I'll pick about 3 or 4 words out of the week's list.  I'll tell them about each word then ask kids questions about them.  ie: this is a carpenter.  He makes things from wood.  What could he make? Students say chair/table/door/etc.
Then I'll often have some sort of sentence I need to teach such as "what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a  ____ because  ____."  To do this I have a large ball and throw it to a kid to ask the question then he throws it back and I give it to another to answer.  They seem to love that ball.
After that I'll do various activities to get the kids speaking as much as possible.
At the end of class I go to the board and add up how many points a class has remaining.  They start with 9 and I erase if they are misbehaving.  Based on their score I move their car along the racetrack I created.  When they get to the end they get a party.  I've had 3 classes finish now.  Some are way behind.
After the 35 min class I let them go.  There's now a long break while there is a daily assembly for all the kids outside.
I have 2 more classes in the morning ending at 11:15.  I then head to lunch at the cafeteria.  Sometimes I eat with the Chinese teachers, sometimes with one of the foreign couples but never together because the couple doesn't eat with the other teachers.  Anyway, lunch will consist of various dishes.  There will be 2 huge bowls.  One will have potatoes of some form and the other will have zucchini .  Of course these change but those 2 are pretty common.  They'll be dished out by the man behind the table.  Chinese teachers swipe a card as they pay 2RMB for a meal.  Foreign teachers just have it included.  After receiving whatever delicacies the cook is giving I get a spoon (at the beginning of the year they had chopsticks but the only people that used them were the 3 foreigners so they stopped putting them out) then go to the rice bowl and give myself a good portion of rice.  There are no drinks at the caf, only rice water which the Chinese say is awesome and the foreigners think tastes like dishwasher runoff.
Most of the teacher's tables of spicey sauce on them which I pour all over the rice.  This allows me to manage to eat potatoes and radish.  The best food they make is a tomato and egg combo but it's not there everyday.  At lunch the kids are in the same area and it's exceedingly loud.  When done you dump your tray into a huge bin and put the tray/spoon in another bin.
Now I have a break until my next class at 1:55  If the 5 day market is on I'll go explore it, otherwise I'll do some prepwork, sleep, or attempt to study Chinese.
The afternoon consists of 3 more classes ending at 4pm.  At which time I leave my class and head across the open space back to my room.  Sometimes a few of the Chinese teachers are there and want to "play the frisbee" or sometimes students will want to play.  If they do then I usually throw it for awhile.  Some of the teachers are actually getting to be ok at throwing.  Still not enough for a team though.
I'll have a bit of time to kill until dinner which goes from 4:30 to 5.  Pretty much the same as lunch except there are no kids and often only about 5 teachers eating at once so often I'll end up eating by myself.
At 5:30 until 6 I go to a teacher's office and teach a grade 1 girl and grade 2 boy.  In return the girl's mom teaches me Chinese on Tues/Thurs.  It's hard because the difference between grade 1 and 2 is quite significant.
The evening is then relatively free.  I'll prepare for the next day, watch some tv episodes, talk on QQ (the Chinese version of msn messenger), or play some DDR.  Obviously I don't have the actual game but there are free versions of it for the computer.  No controller you say? You'd be correct but I did find some large foam squares which I can duct tape to the floor and pretend it's a controller.  Works pretty well as long as I'm not trying to actually get a real score.
Showering works fairly well.  Each room has its own water heater and it can get incredibly hot.  There's no actual shower/bath.  There is just a shower head on the wall in the washroom.  The TP is covered but everything else gets soaked.  Still, makes cleaning that room fairly simple.
Somewhere around 11 I'll put the earplugs back in and go to bed to start it again.

That's a pretty normal day from Mon-Thurs.  This entry was a bit more dry but a lot of you were asking what a day is like so I figured I'd write it up.
I'd like to also try an entry on life in general outside the school but I have already talked about a lot of little things.  If there's anything specific you'd like to know or if you have an idea for an entry please leave a comment or send an email!
Zai jian!
Wiseguy1
PS: New pics added on Picasa including some shots of the go karting I did today.  They were some powerful karts on slick cement.  Made for some tricksy driving around the hairpins.  Good times.