SUNDAY ROUTINE? (2015/04/24)

她去年9月里写的。我乱翻电子邮件的时候找出来，存在这里。

May Zheng, 11, leads the life of an average eleven-year-old. She is an only child with Chinese parents and is proud of her heritage. She lives in Pike Run, a quiet suburb in close proximity of her friends. For the most part, May enjoys school and is in Pre-Algebra. Outside of school, she also has a variety of activities outside of school- piano class, violin class, tennis lessons, art class, track, writing class, and also takes part in the Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey, where she is a violinist. May enjoys reading, writing, drawing, hanging out with her friends, playing tennis, running, and most of all, sleeping. May spends her Sundays making art and playing tennis, as well as leisure.

FAMILY TIME AT BREAKFAST

I usually wake up at around 8:30 on the weekends, a good hour and a half later than I wake up during weekdays. After spending half an hour being idle and lying in bed, I roll out, brush my teeth, scrub my face, and tromp down the stairs, towards the source of a spectacular smell wafting up to me. I always get a good tuck-in at breakfast, and due to my mother, and my parents always take the time on a lazy Sunday morning to discuss their grown-up things. I, being an only child, have no one else to talk to, so I spend most of the meal staring out the window, turning the past week's events on my head and prospecting at the week to come. I get my turn after breakfast has been devoured, usually Chinese pancakes, I state what I want to share, about the week and what's been on my mind. Then, everyone goes off on their separate ways. I practice piano, do the math, and read a little, while my dad does things on his computer and my mom begins preparing lunch, sometimes going on her computer to look up a recipe or two.

SKETCHING WITH FRIENDS

My mother drives me to art class in Plainsboro. I stay for an hour and forty-five minutes, sketching on huge papers with friends. I'm currently working on a sketch of a lady. She is Asian from the model picture, but the way I depict her she is European. As I am sketching, I also socialize with my friend, Cordelia, who is two years older than me and likes to hear about my times at school, and then tells me about life two years later. She reminisces, I learn, and everyone is happy. Sketching is also very enjoyable, and I think I'm getting better. I can truthfully say that I really enjoy the one and a half hour drawing. My teacher is very quiet and gentle, and always stops by to help. He is never impatient with anybody, and I find this an admirable feat. It is hard, but I am learning.

TENNIS-THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY

After art, we go directly to tennis for another ninety minutes. These ninety minutes is utter bliss. Tennis is my game, and I revel in it. I am pumped full of adrenaline and energy, and I dominate the court. The feel of the racket in my hand is almost natural, as though it's a part of me. The sound of the strings hitting the ball is music, and I savor the swoosh of the racket as I swing it to make contact with the ball. I love it when I hit a ball over the net in a smooth, fluid motion, and it's heaven for me. Considering I only started a year ago, I guess I've made a lot of progress from a weedy girl holding the racket as though it might bite to a full out tennis player who feels at home on the court.

LUNCH AS A RECAP

When I've finished exulting in tennis, I'm shipped home in my dad's giant dark gray cage- a Honda SUV. I tell him about my morning while he listens, then he tells me about his morning while I listen. As soon as I walk into the door, a wonderful smell never fails to blast me full in the face. My mother is an excellent cook, and always makes her dishes extra extravagant. As we tuck in to her truly one-of-a-kind cooking, we each take turns relating our experiences to each other. My dad talks about what he found on the news today and his plans for the week. My mom shares a lot of information about her work again, as well as a lot of description of the food and what she tried today. I just go on a roll about what I learned from Cordelia and how awesome tennis was. Sunday lunch is a really great time of the week, full of food and smells and talk and laughter.

"THE CHORES"

Of course, with good comes with the bad. And when the better times are over, bad times are sure to arrive on cue. After lunch, my mom makes us all just float around the house for half an hour, because she claims that if we immediately start doing things after we eat, then it'll mess up our digestion and have to get surgery. So after the half an hour, my parents resume their computer time, which never ends except in sleep, and I have to slave away at the piano, the violin, and unfinished homework. Does this sound fun, I ask you? No. Pounding and banging away at the piano for 45 minutes, my fingers marching up and down the keyboard like little soldiers, is what my piano practice looks like. Then, I spend another 45 minutes sawing at the strings of my violin, which absolutely refuses to create music instead of noisy screeching. And then you can imagine homework. An endless monotony of equations, open-ended responses, hypotheses, and famous dusty old dead people. Really! It's not like for a job application that someone's going to ask you what x equals in some mad equation! All of these forms of torture require a total of usually two and a half hours, and by that time I am so brain-dead that I simply collapse on the couch for thirty minutes.

ESCAPING WITH A BOOK

After I fully restore myself, I get up, find my books, stack them on a table, and curl up on an armchair and begin to read. Nothing more needs to be said. I ride dragons, face bullies, get caught stealing a priceless jewel, run through forests and scale thousand-foot towers. I let the stories push away the depressing feeling that comes after chores and lose myself in the adventures. Sometimes I get so absorbed in the book that it takes several calls from Mom to drag me away from the yellow brick road and into dinnertime...

SETTLING DOWN FOR THE DAY

Dinner is the last real commotion of the day. Mom and Dad debate about some world issue, and sometimes I pipe in since I read  Bloomberg News every week and am pretty up to date on the world. Then I just put in little bits of my thoughts from time to time while my parent's jabber and talk and blather on 'til the cows come home. After dinner is over, usually the whole family quiets and has a bit of downtime. I spend it reading drawing, and sometimes writing, and my parents go and do their things. My dad goes on his beloved computer. Every time I look over his shoulder, I always see Microsoft Excel and PowerPoints with tons of crazy numbers and symbols. My mom usually goes out for a walk, and then joins my dad on the computer, looking up new recipes to try out tomorrow. I get to relax until around 8:45, a bit earlier than I go to sleep than Friday and Saturday, since tomorrow is Monday, and go upstairs and perform the usual tasks before bed-brushing teeth, changing into my PJs, and getting into bed. And with that, I sink into sleep and am thrown into Monday after a way too short weekend.