About our day...

Some of you might be asking, 'what does you day look like?' and so I thought it might be helpful for me to comment on this question...

We work Monday to Friday, a regular work week. We teach in an academic setting, so we follow the school's academic calendar. The school doesn't 'open' until 8am, so we usually never arrive before that time, although we teach an 8am class on Wednesday, making for an early start! (We have our own keys to our office, and the campus is 'open,' with open hallways exposed to the air, so we can get in whenever we like.) The office closes at 5:45, however, we rarely stay that late.

In the first weeks of school, as we were planning our courses and getting organized, we worked 12 hour days and stayed later than anyone else, but now that the semester is in full swing, we don't need to spend that much time at the office. As seminary professors, we work 'flex-time,' a very liberating and enjoyable work style. This means some days we come in before 8am, other days we arrive at 10am, and we leave when we need to/when we have completed what needed to be done. We try to do all our work on campus in our office, for our personal sanity and so our students and others can easily access us, but I have done some editing from home (if I really need to concentrate to get a heavy piece done faster). And, I have to admit, Ryan has made us come in some Saturdays (blasphemy!) if he didn't think we were prepared enough for class on Monday! (That's the potential danger of 'flex-time:' it can abuse you if you allow it!)

Chapel or 'Morning Prayers', are held Monday to Thursday at 10am, and last around 30minutes. The format varies depending on the person leading worship, and how long they preach, etc... I think you all know how that goes! It is usually in Cantonese and we listen to an interesting English translation with head phones (there are also headphones translating into Mandarin). The gear takes a little away from the worship experience, as static, or low batteries can really affect your enjoyment of a service, and some days we run out of head sets if we have many foreign guests, but it's really neat that so many different people can attend chapel together.

Lunch starts at 12:30 and is shared 'family style' in the dinning hall. This reminds me of camp! people line up for a bowl and chopsticks, and then fill their bowl with rice. Then they sit down at a big table and enjoy three different dishes that go on the rice: steamed fish with soy sauce; steamed greens with pork and soy sauce; and a third dish, usually with pork, such as curried pork or aubergines and pork. People just reach for some fish, for example, and put in on their rice bowl, and reach for some green bits, and add that, and keep going like that.... They also get a bowl of soup, some veggies with meat in a very watery broth and a sweet dessert soup at the end of the meal, such as red beans with sweet milk water. They don't have a beverage, I think soup is like the liquid. Myself, I bring water and a salad, as I cannot digest the soy sauce and other wheat-products. But Ryan, bless his heart, eats the 'caf' food. Although a former vegetarian, Ryan is a sport and now consumes copious amounts of Chinese pork dishes.

Lunch is very social, and we eat at different tables. Today we ate with some international students and one of the other faculty members, a German theologian. We discussed eating dog, who had, who hadn't, what it tastes like, whether people should have dogs as pets, and so on. People in Korea and Indonesia eat dogs. It's illegal in Hong Kong, and we couldn't go there anyways, but it seems our German colleague is not a dog lover and was quite clear on that! He's very funny. The Korean student also wanted to know why Paris Hilton was famous... how do you explain that one? Grammar questions are better.

In the afternoon, we have a class, conversation groups, or work on editing or lesson planning. No two days are alike, and we try to be flexible with whatever comes our way. I never thought 'fades' was a hard word to pronounce, but I have just gone over it several times with a student and apparently it is very hard for a native Cantonese speaker to make that 'd-s' sound. Suffice it to say, we are never bored and rarely lonely.

Peace,

Katrina and Ryan