Structure, Discipline, and Routine Sets Me Free!

For the past two weeks I have attempted to implement a structured schedule to my life here in China. Over the past couple years, I have become aware that I am the kind of person who needs to know what is coming next, or at least what is possible to make plans for. That's why I like going on trips. I like the planning process, the fantasy day-dreaming about what my experience will be like (even though, looking back, I have never been right), and the actual execution of the well-thought out itinerary. It keeps me hoping for the future. For the future to come and teach me something new. Yes, planning keeps hope alive.
So now that I have settled into teaching, Jiaxing, commuting to Shanghai, and portions of Chinese culture, I can, or rather, need to start planning my life in more detail. In other words, I can now schedule my days and build a routine that feeds my soul with a sense of accomplishment, as well as giving me a foundation from which to jump. So, Monday thru Thursday I teach in the afternoon. The mornings are for lesson planning and general reflection/meditation. I go to the gym Monday and Wednesday nights. Thursday nights I play badmitton with Kelly and 7 (her boyfriend). Fridays I go into Shanghai and hang out with my friends until Sunday, when I take the train home and have dinner with some of the other foreign teachers. My schedule not too strict, and it does allow me freedom to change and flow with the wind, especially in Shanghai where anything goes. Woo hoo!! It is flexible.
Chinese scaffoldings are made of bamboo - not just two story homes, the skyscrapers, as well. It is really a sight to behold to see 80 stories of bamboo sticks holding up a new skyscraper, with all the construction workers, and their tools. It is unbelieveable, yet total reality. Bamboo is strong like steel, but it can bend when need be - like during a storm of change and uncertainty. It is strong enough to withstand both nature's and the train ticket clerk's wrath, over which I have no control. It is not tight and brittle. It is flexible and can bend so that it need not break. I aspire to be like chinese bamboo. So I model my daily schedule after the chinese bamboo scaffolding I see all around me - my new schedule is strong yet flexible.
I also have recently purchased a dian ping che - electric bike. Part moped, part Vespa - all fun! I was inspired by my friend in New York, Danny, who got a sweet classic Vespa before I left. It is so cool and getting errands done takes half the time. As some of you know, I rode a bicycle in NYC for the past year and totally loved it. It changed my life considerably - no aching feet, more clients, more money and the breeze blowing thru my hair. Ahh, freedom! So it only seemed natural for me to acquire a new chinese set of wheels ASAP. I have had it only a week yet it has helped me keep to my new schedule. I get the funniest looks fom people on the street. As I pass them by I notice they always look twice - first in awe and then (when they see my white, foreign devil face on a chinese mode of transport smiling with glee) the smile that I love so much: big, wide and sometimes toothless, but always genuine. It is really fun, really! Maybe seeing me on my dian ping che will plant the seed that us whiteys are not all evil capitalist pigs and that we think some chinese ways are just as effective, and maybe even better than some western constructs of doing things. I mean, it must be the case; they have a billion more people then the US. Somehow they are being fed and surviving, some even think they are driving the new millenium's challenges of global economies and anti-western hegemony.
So in short, riding my little electric bike through the streets of little ole Jiaxing is encouraging China to believe in itself and emerge as a world super power. Being a teacher is more than imparting knowledge - it is instilling confidence and courage to go forth and change the world for the better. Now all I have to do is practice what I preach - one day at a time. Wish me luck!