My new study space

As a mom of two young kids who love me, I can often find it hard to accomplish anything at home.  Even when Adam watches the kids so I can work on homework or do admin stuff, it's nearly impossible to actually do these things if I'm at home.  Leaving the house to do such work requires not only commuting time (which decreases the actual amount of time I have to work) but also a purchase of some kind (because the only places available to "camp out" here are restaurants/coffeeshops). 

Imagine my joy, then, when I discovered this space on the first floor of our apartment building:

It's actually the smallest and most tucked-away of three rooms in a kind of "lounge" area near the elevators.  I occasionally would see different groups using this space (old men playing cards in the afternoon, a kindergarten in our building used it as their rec space in winter), but I had always thought that this section was locked up and so could only be used for "authorized" people.  The other week, however, I discovered another door into this area...a door that was wide open!  I creeped in and spent a delightful hour in this sunny spot working on Chinese and replying to emails.  No one bothered me a bit or questioned why I was there, so voila! my new study space!

I was down there this morning working on some stuff (I'm really trying to use my two non-class mornings to doing a better job of keeping up with "can only do by myself" kind of work, like studying, correspondence, blogging, etc).  I was a little nervous at one point because a group of older ladies came down into one of the rooms and saw me.  They didn't kick me out though, they just proceeded to have some kind of vocal practice.  What better accompaniment to writing Chinese characters than this!  I have no idea what they're singing (I should've asked them), but they were able to tell me what a couple characters in my homework were that I couldn't read!