Begin again

Being back, seeing the freshmen's brand new faces, seeing the green quad and new Val and beautiful New England night skies is absolutely amazing. Everything feels familiar now (despite the drastic changes to our dining hall). I no longer wear my lanyard on my neck, I don't need to write down my mail combination, and I know where my classes will be this semester. With a year of college under my belt (1 year! 1/4 of my time here is over! What!) I feel much more prepared to take on this year.
My new dorm will take getting used to, it's the Spanish and French house and there are some TAs from both countries. I have to get over my language fear of messing up and just talk, but after being in frikkin' China for 2 months my French skills have diminished drastically (although everytime I couldn't think of a Chinese word, the French word would pop in my head. Language works in funny ways).
I got a letter from myself today from last year's FOOT (First-year Outdoor Orientation Trip) and I was kinda disappointed by it's boring qualities. It was written on my leg in a campsite in bad handwriting, and it just said "I hope you become friends with the other FOOties...I hope you enjoyed all your classes...Be nerdy and don't spend all your money...I hope you aren't making stupid decisions."
I thought that was funny, because I did make stupid decisions. I made lots of them. Note, nothing ridiculously unintelligent, just the regular freshman awkward decision making. If I hadn't made these awkward, bad, stupid decisions, I would have learned nothing from this past year. Sometimes you have to mess up to learn more about yourself and who you are...who you want to be.
So basically this is my sappy, nostalgic (already, what?) take on the beginning of sophomore year. What what what

Missing Zhongguo...

"After two sessions with Mr. Xi, Mr. Biden went with his granddaughter Naomi and the new United States ambassador, Gary Locke, to a small restaurant north of Tiananmen Square that specializes in bowls of intestine for breakfast. The restaurant, tucked away behind the ancient building known as the Drum Tower, was crowded with Chinese patrons at lunchtime, many eating small pork buns and stir-fried vegetables. One yelled out “Beijing welcomes you!” in Mandarin Chinese and others shook hands with the vice president. A woman spoke to him about her relatives living in Minnesota."

I was reading this article, "Cooperation Is Emphasized as Biden Opens Talks in China" on the NYTimes website (link below). It describes Biden's talks with China's vice president and probably soon to be president, Xi Jinping. The two discussed various matters concerning America and China...economy, exports, Taiwan, and Tibet.
This little description about the food made me laugh to myself. Those "small pork buns" are bao zi and those fried vegetables are chao shucai. I love the bit about intestines for breakfast...gotta shock that American audience right? And even better, "Beijing Welcomes You." I only recently learned that the Olympic Game characters of 2008 are named Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini. Together, Beijing huanying ni or "Beijing welcomes you."
I love the details about the Chinese people shaking Biden's hand and conversating with him-I half wonder if they knew who he was, or if it was just the lao wai-ness that made them curious.
The little things I've learned over two months come together to form this new, wonderful image of China (and Asia) that I could never get from just reading the NYTimes.
So I'm so grateful for this experience.




http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/world/asia/19china.html?_r=1&ref=world

Walking through Detroit airport was one of the strangest experiences of my life. Well, first I had to retrive my camera from the plan which required going to three different desks and finally getting the nicest Delta worker ever (he was a French man!) to get my camera.
Phew!

Other than that, it was really strange to walk through there. The smells of Chili's and McD's were turning my stomach, the amount of laowai was astonishing (but I'm not in China, I would think to myself) and the cleanliness of the bathrooms was amazing.

No squat toilets? What am I going to do with myself?

I made my dad take me to Cookout and had the Oreo milkshake I've been craving all summer.

I have lots of gifts to bestow and lots of sleeping to do.

I also have HP to watch.

This can't be real, I can't be here already, what happened?

McDonald's Runs:
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