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So this post has been very delayed because in the 2 weeks that I have been back in the States I have been to NYC to Maine back to New Haven. So I've been trying to absorb everything I learned over this summer, while simultaneously running around New York for a week trying to see all my high school friends, getting ready for A cappella and our insane month of "rush," AND packing for/moving back into Yale. I'm still incredibly busy with the latter two (and the first two except now with Yale buddies), but I can already start to feel my summer experiences settling in my mind and letting me look at things differently here.

Firstly, my new roommate speaks Mandarin (maybe we'll tell secrets in Chinese!)

But in a less superficial sense I actually have already been put in this unfamiliar position of constantly comparing two cultures. I wasn't in China very long, so I'm not having very strong reverse-culture shock, but now I am starting to look at everything Americans do (me, my friends, strangers and all) through a different lens. I just read a very interesting graduation speech by David Foster Wallace (thanks Hye Mi) about how a liberal arts education's best purpose isn't to teach us what to think about but to teach us how to think. That was my very inarticulate attempt at a one sentence summary. But I'm feeling it's sentiment so strongly now. Even things as simple as how people wait in line to get groceries can be viewed from so many different perspectives (ie. economic, emotional, societal...etc) Then extend that lens to how people raise their children or what their expectations of their government are.

I miss a lot of things about China, from the crazy fast elevators that you had to run into or risk being crushed, to the loving teachers and their stories about Chinese college life. And haggling. god I miss haggling.

Now I'm just figuring out when I'll go back....

北京之夜 (One Night in Beijing aka our talent show)

So my last week was probably the most stressful here. I didn't start memorizing vocabulary until about 11pm each night, which is only an hour before my ideal bedtime. So I lost lots of sleep trying to simultaneously prepare for my job as one of the MCs for our talent show AND for the two acts I was in. I treated it as a mini-boot camp to prepare me for Yale. Because at Yale I'll have lots of theatre/a cappella related things to rehearse for and keep up with schoolwork. So it wasn't complete torture because I was doing what I love.

北京之夜wasn't 3 hours of complete boredom like I expected it to be. All the acts were impressive. The students here are all so talented and it was nice to see them shine in their talents outside of pure language ability. It was even great to see people make jokes in Chinese and actually be entertained by a completely Chinese show. The fact that I finally memorized and performed a song in Chinese by myself hopefully bodes well for my future career as a Chinese pop star. (fingers crossed!) It was great to see everyone dressed up and excited and you could tell the teachers were so proud of all the work their students had put into this show and how strongly our improved Chinese was reflected in this show.

We went out to celebrate our last Saturday night in Beijing. This morning we went to our last touristy stop Summer Palace. It was pretty. We took pictures, and mostly just went there to relax and look at the view. I'm glad I will still see most of the friends I made here back at Yale. But we won't spend this much time together and this experience is seeming more and more like a uniquely China sort of thing. I'm also going to miss some of the Harvard friends I made too. And again...I can't even BEGIN to think about how much I'm going to miss these teachers. I really wish we had less homework so I could hang out with them outside of class more often. It's going to be interesting to be able to talk to them in English on Friday. Friday will be our last time for bonding with them. And then 4am I'm off on the shuttle to the Airport. And after some weird time warp I'll be home in NYC at about 3 in the afternoon on Saturday. I can't believe I'm almost home.