A Day In The Life

I have always tried to avoid the tediously diaristic style of many bloggers, but....... well, I've just had such an improbably long, packed, and dangerously stress-filled day that I felt I ought to try to itemise its myriad irritations - as much for personal catharsis as for your entertainment. Sorry.

I think this would perhaps more aptly be titled: A Day In The Not Life

3.50am Woken up by stifling humidity. Parched, and soaking in sweat, I down a pint-and-a-half of water, and reluctantly turn my bedside fan on - blissfully cooling, but just too loud to allow any proper sleep from there on.

4.45am Turn fan down to lowest setting, in hopes of it being quiet enough to allow me to nod off again. Soon begin to sweat once more.

6.20am Finally give up on fitful, sweaty, unsatisfying sleep, and start to get active.

6.30am Begin working on the computer: anxiously scan e-mail Inbox for latest round of "discussions" I'm having with an American company about helping them to launch some of their educational programmes in China. Nothing. Damn. I apply myself to finishing off a couple of blog posts I'd started but given up on late last night, and draft a couple of rather important business-related e-mails. I also try to download e-mail attachments of the seminar materials I'm going to need tomorrow..... and find that my dratted computer can't/won't open & save them now. I wonder what's going wrong there.

7.55am Second cup of coffee of the day. Shit, shower, shave. Just about to have breakfast when I notice an incoming e-mail from my "new Chinese business partner" and have to draft another long, careful response.

8.35am Pack for the day. Realise that I still haven't sorted out all the fa piao I need for avoiding tax on the monthly pay claim I am hoping to collect today. In too much of a hurry, I stuff a few handfuls of the bloody things in a pocket of my laptop bag. A few more e-mails. Clean teeth, dress, doublecheck I have everything I need for the day.

9am Heading out of the front door. "Breakfast" is a banana as I descend the stairs. Strange dearth of cabs outside on my street. I start to fret that I'll be late for my morning recording session.

9.10am Finally get a cab. While away time en route by sending SMS messages - to my letting agent, trying to get her to arrange a time for landlord to collect the next quarter's rent; to the studio, apologising for my likely lateness; to my recording partner, ditto; to my contact at the British education company I'll be visiting at lunch time, to try to make sure that she's still expecting me and will have last month's pay ready for me.

9.38am Arrive at the studio. Our Chinese engineer isn't there yet - but arrives a couple of minutes later. My recording partner is even later than I am.

9.52am We finally start work in the studio.

12.31pm We finish the session. I have to hang around for another 5 minutes frantically sorting out and counting up my fa piao.

12.37pm Dash into nearby supermarket to pick up a couple of A4 notepads (it's the only place in this country I've ever seen that has notepads in this size!). Decide to walk to British education company's offices, nearly three miles hence - this at least allows me to wolf down some fried street snacks as I go, by way of "lunch" (I never like to eat in cabs, for fear of offending the driver..... or subsequent passengers).

1.21pm I phone the HR assistant at the IT company I'll be visiting next, to check that everything has been arranged for the preliminary English level assessments I'm supposed to be conducting there later in the afternoon. She's a student intern, and doesn't inspire confidence. I cross my fingers and hope for the best.

1.24pm Arrive at British company's offices. The building also happens to house a department of the Ministry of Education, and security is particularly elaborate at the moment (not especially secure, just elaborate) because of the imminence of the national College Entrance Exam: it takes over 10 minutes for my contact to collect up all the various countersigned chits she needs in order to gain me access to the building.

1.37pm In the office at last, I pick up copies of the seminar materials for tomorrow, and start working through my pay and expenses claim for last month. I discover that, in my haste to get ready this morning, I have left behind or otherwise mislaid the taxi receipts that actually relate to travelling expenses I can claim back (newly tightened regulations mean that I have to produce the specific fa piao for journeys I've undertaken on behalf of this company, even though we're mostly talking about pennies in English terms - actual dates and times may be checked!), which may leave me 300 kuai out of pocket. Damn! Even worse, although I've brought fa piao to a total value of well over 1.5 times the amount I'm trying to get paid, a large number of them are, for various obscure and irritating reasons, not eligible. We have to go through them one by one, and I come up nearly 1,200 kuai short of my target. Double damn!

2.10pm I finally manage to extricate myself from the protracted fa piao fiasco. At least they have trusted me to bring in more of the things later in the week, so they've given me all of the money due to me bar the taxi expenses. I'm now running dangerously late.

2.12pm I'm lucky enough to run into a cab that's just dropped someone off outside the building. Unfortunately, the traffic is absolutely horrendous mid-afternoon, and it takes me fully 25 minutes to cover the mile-and-a-half or so from Tsinghua University to the 4th Ringroad at Zhongguancun. Things get better after that, but not much. I call the HR intern to tell her that I'm probably going to be a little late.

3.02pm I arrive downtown at the office where I'm running the English assessments only a few minutes late. I take another couple of minutes to duck into the loos and change into a smarter (and less sweaty) shirt. When I meet the flaky intern, I discover that the arrangements for the written tests have been thoroughly botched up, and, moreover, nearly one-third of the employees to be tested are unexpectedly absent from work that day. I manage - just about - not to blow my top, but do point out rather heavily that they could perhaps have let me know this so that I could reschedule the session rather than, you know, wasting my time by having to come there twice (or thrice, or.....). I salvage the situation as best I can.

5.14pm The afternoon doesn't go so badly after all. 3 of the 5 absentees reappear in the office (although I'll still have to make an extra trip to catch up with the other 2; and it's going to be a 'mare collecting the written tests from everyone....). I wrap up the one-on-one interviews (only 15 or 20 minutes later than planned) and dash out of the door.

5.18pm Luckily, my two afternoon appointments are both adjacent to the brand spanking new Line 5 subway. I've just missed a train and have to wait 5 minutes for another one, but apart from that it's a very smooth and painless transition between the two venues. Fit in another brief blizzard of text messaging to set up a further recording session for the middle of next week.

5.50pm I actually arrive at my destination with a few minutes in hand and am able to sit on a park bench and quickly review the materials I'm about to be using in class (and scarf down a bag of crisps by way of "tea").

6.02pm I arrive for my early evening business English training gig in good time, as usual; well, just enough time to grab a mug of tea, set up the fan and the CD player, clean the whiteboard, etc.

7.50pm Class hasn't gone too badly, considering how exhausted I am; but I think students and teacher alike are glad when it's over. I take the subway home (usually I walk, but I've got a heap of work still to do at home).

8.14pm I nip into a neighbourhood Muslim restaurant for a quick bite of supper (definitely too weary to cook for myself; and worried about all the work I should be doing when I get back). I opt to try a new dish, a beef & tomato stew which looks marvellous on the picture menu but is severely ordinary when you meet it face to face. My letting agent still hasn't got back to me about arranging for the landlord to come round tomorrow, and I can't face trying to clean and tidy the flat tonight (it would probably keep me up all night!), so I decide to suggest postponing it until the end of the week.

8.56pm I find myself getting sucked into the melodramatic historical soap opera on TV in the restaurant. I realise it is probably just procrastination.

9.14pm Finally tear myself away from the TV and return home.

9.26pm Put on a load of laundry, check e-mail (nothing important, thank heavens), run through PowerPoint presentation I'm supposed to be using tomorrow. I fail several times to copy some other materials I need to CD, and realise with horror that my computer is often freezing up over even the simplest of tasks. In desperation, I crash it and relaunch it. It's running better, but still not great. It's still not letting me burn CDs. I am mightily vexed. I fear it's just getting too darned old and needs replacing.

11.10pm I give up on work for the evening (planning early start tomorrow for seminar preparation), and decide to embark on this post.

11.50pm Damn it - I've ranted for nearly 40 minutes. I hope there's actually something here worth reading after all of that. You be the judge.