it's beginning to end

It's back to the grind again. This time it's the beginning of the end, my final semester in China. Maybe it's just that beginning of the semester feeling, but the grind is a little more comfortable than I remember it. I'm working as hard, but I think my language is good enough now that I can get past mind-numbing, out of context vocabulary and grammar and get interested in some content. My class on the Confucian school of thought is especially interesting. I've been getting glimpses and hints about that pillar of Chinese culture by osmosis all along, but it's been teasingly incomplete. Finally taking the thing head on is like scratching a bad itch. As an added bonus, memorizing and reciting Confucian proverbs is a cheap way to come off as really smart to the Chinese.

The new crew is looking good, probably even more studious than last semester. We're missing a couple of key players that kept us all on our toes last time. My suitemate no longer knocks on my door at 6 in the morning with a black eye and puke on his shirt, shaking his head and grinning like he just spent the night with the girl of his dreams. That Russian accent always came out a little heavier with the words "Man, you'll never believe what just happened..." Ai Youzheng, come back and visit any time, and after last semester I'll believe almost anything you tell me.

I've got a request pending for a ping pong teacher. I'm hoping to get some regular lessons going. Improving my game was one of my goals for China but it got lost in the busy schedule for the first couple semesters. No longer. I'm also going to take some cooking classes offered through CET. Tonight is the first one. I don't want to have to stop eating this awesome food when I go back home, and I see no other way to avoid that than making it myself.

Tomorrow we're going to hop on a train heading up to Yabuli and check out how the skiing is in China. I had a disappointing experience with a short, flat 'mountain' over the break, but Yabuli is known throughout the country as the place to go for skiing. I'm still skeptical, but would love to be proven wrong.