All in a Day's Work

Hello, all! We hope that today finds you enjoying a beautiful fall day!! It occurred to me (Melissa) that maybe you are curious to know what a typical day is like for us. Well, I'll attempt to describe what a "typcial" day is like. About the only thing that remains constant is our quiet times in the mornings! After that, it is different depending on the day.

Most mornings we spend a couple of hours on homework. During that time, we also try to get some laundry done (that is, if the clothes on the drying rack from the previous load are dry). Since it takes so long to wash one load, it works really well to run the washing machine during our study time. Multi-tasking at its finest!!

Then, if homework doesn't take any longer than a couple of hours AND if we're not waiting on something to be delivered (like water or gas) we'll head downtown to shop or visit with our friends who work downtown. Usually after being downtown for a couple of hours or so, we need a break before language class. So sometimes we'll spend a little time at home before going to class. We might review our homework and/or vocabulary or just rest our eyes/minds for a few minutes. Class is about a 20 minute walk, so we get some good exercise (up and downhill) on Mon., Tues., and Fri. evenings! Now that I'm meeting more of the ladies in my apartment building, I'll be spending less time downtown and more time at afternoon teas. Yummy!

After class, we sometimes stop by the market to pick up some groceries before cooking supper. Or we might stop by a restaurant on the way home to get something to eat. We discovered a great one on the way home a couple of nights ago!

Then after supper, we try to get caught up on e-mail, maybe work on some homework, watch a little local TV, read, fix something not working on the computer, do more laundry, finish our house chores, etc. You get the picture. We're hoping that soon we'll start getting some invitations to have dinner or evening coffee with our friends in their homes.

It all sounds like lots of fun - and it is - but it is also quite demanding and draining mentally! In order to become proficient speakers of the language in a timely manner, we are following a program that is designed with at least 30 hours of language learning activity each week - that's like a full time job. We are getting 6 hours of language class time each week with a teacher. We are also required to spend at least 6 hours a week in personal study (homework, vocab. review, etc.). We have the option to employ a tutor for a few hours each week, but in two weeks our tutors haven't shown up at all. We aren't sure what's going on. Then the biggest chunk of time is to be spent in the community with native language speakers - at least 12 hours, but since we haven't had a tutor, we're supposed to be getting about 18 community hours. That's the hardest part!! Right now, our community time is spent listening to people speak and trying to figure out at least the topic they're discussing. Then if we're really thinking clearly, we might be able to formulate a response. We are understanding A LOT more than we did a month ago, and we are very grateful for that!!

So there you have it! No two days are exactly the same, but that's about what we can expect each day. Living in a place where the norm is to expect the unexpected, to never get in a hurry because people will be late, and to chunk your to-do list after being awake for only an hour or two is teaching us so much about taking things one day at a time and enjoying each moment as it comes. I hope that you will take some time away from your to-do list today, quit worrying about what may or may not happen later today or tomorrow, and enjoy the life you've been blessed with at this very moment!! Remember the flowers of the field and the birds of the sky . . . you are more precious than both.