Date: Dec 1st 2008 6:53p.m.

Contributed by:
andreawong

Home

8:00am

Kiss the wife goodbye and start hitting snooze.

8:30

I roll out of bed, get washed up and dressed quickly, and take my puppy Newton out for a quick walk. Then I hop on my too-ugly-to-get-stolen bike and fly through the back alleys behind Zhongshan Park, along Suzhou Creek to the office.

The Day Begins

9:00

I arrive in the office and greet the (mostly) cheerful, very international Praxis Language crew. Morning chatter in five languages buzzes in my ears as I check my e-mail, and then I start prepping with the ChinesePod staff for the day's podcast recordings. My mind is still a bit groggy, but there's nowhere I'd rather be working.

Language, Please

10:00

I snag a cup of coffee as I head into the meeting room with Ken Carroll and Jenny Zhu to discuss the day's lesson content. Dialogues in hand, we go over the key lexical items, important grammar points, and interesting cultural tidbits. More than a few jokes are passed around (no, it's not time for another fart lesson yet!), which may or may not find their way into the final podcasts.

11:00

I watch SpanishPod's latest grammar review video. JP Villaneuva and the SpanishPod team have done it again ... only they can make irregular verb conjugations hilarious. I then go over to discuss some production issues with [ItalianPod](www.italianpod.com and FrenchPod. In a system as complex as ours, the occasional hiccup is inevitable. It's a good thing I'm good with computers and plenty patient!

Lunch

12:30pm

I'm torn between a 50 kuai Subway ...