So a couple of people have asked me what we do on a standard day here at Zheda (I’m looking at you, Mum). Here’s a quick outline that I actually wrote on Thursday but was too lazy/busy to post until tonight:
6.45am: Wake up for class
We start class at 8am but if you want to get breakfast, you need to head to the dining hall around 7:15. Also, I know that it takes me at least fifteen minutes to actually get out of bed so I’ve calculated my wake up time accordingly. This morning it was super cold so I switched my heater on from bed before I got up.
7.15am: Breakfast
The dining hall serves breakfast from 6-9am. You have a choice of noodles or wontons, as well as some other fried noodle thing, eggs and some sort of hashbrown. You can also get soybean milk, which is surprisingly nice. Breakfast ranges from about 2RMB to 6RMB depending what you get. I usually go for the wontons because I find the noodles a bit oily. If I don’t feel like eating downstairs I’ll just have an apple and some soybean milk in my room. I’m not a huge breakfast eater at the best of times so that fills me up until morning break.
8.00: First class
I start most days at 8am with Comprehension class. There’s 22 people in my class from a wide range of countries around the world – Indonesia, Korea, Sudan, America, Japan, Italy, Austria (to name a few). Our teachers can’t cope with my English name, so I’ve had to resort to using the Chinese name that my Australian teacher gave me in first year. In Comprehension class we go over vocabulary and grammar, learning around 40-50 new words a day.
9.30: Morning break
We have a half hour break in our morning between classes. We usually just chill in the courtyard outside uni, sometimes buying snacks and coffee from across the road. Often my friends and I make our lunch plans while we’re on break.
10.00: Second class
I have either Listening or Speaking class in this time slot. They’re pretty easy at this stage because we’re reviewing stuff that the class covered last semester. We always get some homework from these classes, usually just to finish off the exercises from that day.
11.30: Lunch break
I finish class at 11:30. The whole International department has from 11:30-1pm off for lunch, so usually my friends and I grab something to eat in this break. Today we went to a delicious dumpling place near uni – 4RMB (about $1) for 10 dumplings! We vary between eating out and eating in the dining hall, depending on what mood we’re in.
1.00: Afternoon classes
Apart from Monday, I only have morning classes until our electives start. My friends vary between morning and afternoon so sometimes we just study in our rooms, or sometimes we’ll find a cafe to study in. If we need supplies this is often the time when we go to the Education Mart or the fruit shop across the road.
6.30: Dinner
We started out eating dinner at 7 and then found we were getting hungry too early. So now we’ve shifted back to 6:30. Most weeknights we eat in the dining hall or cafeteria because it’s cheaper and easier. And it involves less walking/transport time. A couple of times a week we’ll eat out to try some of the local restaurants. On Monday we went to Waipo Jia (Grandma’s Kitchen), which is a modern Hangzhou-inspired Chinese restaurant. For 31RMB (about $8 each) we ate heaps of amazing food.
8.00: Free time
After dinner we pretty much do our own thing. Some nights we’ll hang out on Level 2 with other students, if we have homework or study we’ll also do it in this time. Last night we spent a couple of hours playing card games with some European students which was fun.
So this is a typical day at Zheda. Well, as typical as a day can get. Oh also – my mother has informed me that Kay and Cynthia’s parents are also reading my blog. For the record, they have blogs of their own (but feel free to keep reading mine!) Kay’s can be found here and Cynthia’s can be found here. Happy reading!
