An American Expat in China

It has been a full week since I arrived in China.  I have a pretty steady routine going.  Every morning I wake up at 6:00 and exercise for thirty minutes.  I start with stretching and yoga and work my way into pushups, sit-ups, squats, windmills and other abdominal exercises.  I finish my workout with a cardio. Either I do jumping jacks for 5 min straight or I run back and forth from wall to wall in my balcony space for 5 minutes.  It is a pretty good workout all things considered.  My workout is typically accompanied by local radio.  My morning routine includes at least 15 min of mandarin lessons, which I do on the toilet.  Breakfast is typically outside my door by the time I get out of the shower at 7am.  I eat, brush my teeth, and then continue my mandarin lessons until about 7:30 when I sit down to start working.   I teach daily from 8:00-8:50, 11:40-12:30, and 14:35-15:25.  Between classes I am grading, planning, meeting, ...

I am on my second full day of quarantine in Shanghai.  The journey was exhausting.  Following the 13 hour flight on Friday 9/23, I spent 4 additional hours in the airport going through customs, testing, and waiting to be released into quarantine. Then there was a three hour drive on a bus to the quarantine site.  The quarantine site resembles a college dormitory.  I cannot get the TV to work but I am keeping busy with various other things.  As a teacher there is always work to be done with planning, grading, and training.  When I take breaks from work I spend time reading, practicing my mandarin, playing guitar, exercising, meditating, napping, listening to local radio, blogging, and watching videos online.  Three meals are provided daily and they are palatable and nutritious.  I might loose weight since my calorie intake is thusly limited and I am exercising, this would be good since I put on a few pounds since stopping my gym membership in early...