Here I go again.
On the evening of August 25th, I am blasting off to Heilongjiang University in Harbin, China. I know I said that I was going for a year last time, but this time I'm serious. No jokes - one year. It's not like coming back to MSUM is an option this time around.
I was bummed for a few days about not getting to go back to Nankai University, but I think it's for the best. In my mind, if I were to fly to Tianjin tomorrow, I would get to go back to living with Yu-Hye and hanging out with Kasia, Jo, Agata, Lisa, Jihye, Genvieve, and Neil. And this is just not true. They are all back in South Korea, Poland, Germany, Quebec... and I'd probably be even lonelier there than I will be the first few days in Harbin, because I won't be expecting to know anyone. I do feel bad that I won't be able to see Iris, my very good Chinese friend, but hopefully I'll be able to go to Tianjin to visit.
Leave it to me to find the one place in the world where my winter will be colder than it was in Fargo. I swear after this stint in China I am moving to the South Pacific to thaw out for a year.
I'm getting more excited about going day by day. I don't know a single person there or have a clue who to talk to or where to go once I land. I also haven't really spoken Chinese since 2007. Strangely enough, none of this scares me at all. 中国，我要回来了！