A Third of a Year
Hey look at that! I leave tomorrow. That was fast.
My last week was filled with lastweek-esque stuff. Getting little details worked out, seeing friends as often as possible, doing things for the "last time in China" (last dinner in China, last homework in China, last poop in China, etc.). Things of that nature. Had a last fun hangout in my room on Wednesday night, and saw friends for the very last time today. I'm gonna miss them; now I know what it feels like to be a foreigner coming to North Central and bonding with the other foreigners.
And I got my grades back:
口语 (speaking): 85
汉语 (general): 82
阅读 (reading): 70
That reading class was the ridiculous one, the one that had no plan or direction and just threw characters at me left and right. We had an evaluation form to fill out at the end of that class, and one of the questions was "What percentage of characters in an essay should be new, or more difficult?" (we read about one or two essays a week, and analyzed them). The lowest available multiple choice answer was 10%. 10%! Most essays were 500-1000 words, meaning that 50-100 were going to be ones I didn't recognize. What? That's how it was for me at the beginning of the term at least, and I'm proud to say that I've improved a lot since then. That 70 was damn hard to get. It is the first C I have ever gotten for a class though...
I don't really want to do an over-arching summary of my time here. It was great, China's weird, I learned a lot, and I know that I love both China and the U.S. more after this. I made new friends and ate a lot of dumplings. I went to church and explored Beijing. Overall, a very worthwhile experience.
Hey, flight tomorrow! Man. I decided to go with Air China, just to see what it's like. My hope is that it'll exude the professionalism of JAL, but I'm sure that in reality there will be people smoking in the cabins and bored, uninterested flight attendants. I bought an 800 page Dune prequel to pass the time ("The Machine Crusade").
Some last pics from 中华人民共和国:
Taisi (my Cuban friend) at karaoke last Friday night
Rongmei (a Chinese friend) and me in my room on Wednesday
My last dinner in Beijing - Dumplings and Won Jiye. Wait.
一会儿见
My last week was filled with lastweek-esque stuff. Getting little details worked out, seeing friends as often as possible, doing things for the "last time in China" (last dinner in China, last homework in China, last poop in China, etc.). Things of that nature. Had a last fun hangout in my room on Wednesday night, and saw friends for the very last time today. I'm gonna miss them; now I know what it feels like to be a foreigner coming to North Central and bonding with the other foreigners.
And I got my grades back:
口语 (speaking): 85
汉语 (general): 82
阅读 (reading): 70
That reading class was the ridiculous one, the one that had no plan or direction and just threw characters at me left and right. We had an evaluation form to fill out at the end of that class, and one of the questions was "What percentage of characters in an essay should be new, or more difficult?" (we read about one or two essays a week, and analyzed them). The lowest available multiple choice answer was 10%. 10%! Most essays were 500-1000 words, meaning that 50-100 were going to be ones I didn't recognize. What? That's how it was for me at the beginning of the term at least, and I'm proud to say that I've improved a lot since then. That 70 was damn hard to get. It is the first C I have ever gotten for a class though...
I don't really want to do an over-arching summary of my time here. It was great, China's weird, I learned a lot, and I know that I love both China and the U.S. more after this. I made new friends and ate a lot of dumplings. I went to church and explored Beijing. Overall, a very worthwhile experience.
Hey, flight tomorrow! Man. I decided to go with Air China, just to see what it's like. My hope is that it'll exude the professionalism of JAL, but I'm sure that in reality there will be people smoking in the cabins and bored, uninterested flight attendants. I bought an 800 page Dune prequel to pass the time ("The Machine Crusade").
Some last pics from 中华人民共和国:
Taisi (my Cuban friend) at karaoke last Friday night
Rongmei (a Chinese friend) and me in my room on Wednesday
My last dinner in Beijing - Dumplings and Won Jiye. Wait.
一会儿见