It was really hard to get out of bed this morning. I was tired and I knew that the only thing we were doing in Chinese class was watching a movie (I Hope You're the One/Fei Chan Gu Ra (?), the first in the series of which we watched the second last week). I went, though, and was the first one there. I did well on my final, and ended the summer with the highest marks for my class, which I am very proud of since I did put in the work. Yao Laoshi gave each of us mooncakes as a parting gift, went over the exam with us, we watched the movie, then practiced for the talent show. In the middle of our rehearsal, Gu Laoshi came in and handed out our program polo shirts, so that was exciting.
I had two eggs for lunch from the baozi cafeteria, then I finished the cafeteria money on my card by buying a soda from the convenience store. For the early afternoon, I walked all over Bei Da's campus so I could make sure to see everything one last time. I got to take pictures and vlog a little, and it was pretty emotional to realize how much this campus has come to feel like it's mine and that I'll really miss it. The vlogging was pretty sentimental, particularly because I felt like it was my present self talking to my future self so I could remember how I was feeling as this program was ending.
I know I've talked about the program ending for a while now, but being the last day of actual programming, it's feeling more real than the time crunch countdown that I've been feeling. I really leave the day after tomorrow. There is absolutely no time to find more things to do. It's ending. It just hit home a lot harder when I was walking around.
When I got back to my room, I did some more packing and organizing for departure, and then I did some computer business. I had a couple of e-mails to answer, my camera needed uploading and charging, I charged my electronics for the airplane, and I took the time to fill out my program evaluation for the office at my university. The survey took a lot longer than they said it would, but that could be my own fault for taking a long time to write detailed answers. I hope it helps them. After all the business was taken care of, I had a little more than an hour before the talent show, and I used that time to watch some videos and generally relax before our final program. And, yeah, hitting 1700 photos was pretty exciting!!!
The talent show was at 6PM in Shaoyuan Building 7, the same place we had orientation and welcome lunch on the first day as well as the 4th of July celebration. I met with my classmates to walk over at 5:40 so we could be there a little early, and we arrived in time to greet our teachers and find seats before the program started. We sat by class, which was both nice and limiting, and Gu Laoshi began the evening with a speech (in Chinese) welcoming everybody and introducing the different groups of people present. There were not only the students, but also the Bei Da officials, our language teachers, some alumni from our American university, and the incoming international students from Beijing and their parents. Next, the head of the language program at Bei Da made a speech about how well we did learning Chinese, and we got to eat dinner when she was done.
After dinner, we had the talent show. Our class went first and sang "Nan Zi Han" from Mulan. The problem was that our Jackie Chan video was not playing loudly enough for us to hear, so we didn't do as well as we had practiced. Then Brian from class 2 sang "Swing Life Away" while accompanying himself on the guitar. The next act was class 3 reading a poem, followed by the Beijing freshmen spontaneously (at Gu Laoshi's suggestion) singing "Beijing Huanying Ni," which is still my new favorite song. We did our charades (which felt very silly), then class 5 re-enacted a Chinese dating show, class 3 sang their song, class 2 sang "Good Riddance" but wrote a new verse about being in China using both Chinese and English, and class 4 wrapped the show with their songs performed by the class band.
After the talent show, we mingled with the freshmen and took photos. I had some great conversations with three of them, one of whom is going to live in my dormitory! That was very exciting. I gave them my e-mail, and one of them saw the Chinese vocabulary I had written on my legal pad that I was carrying. She asked how long I had been learning Chinese and was impressed that it had only been eight weeks. I am so excited to see these new students on campus, and I hope that I can hang out with my Chinese dorm-mates to keep up what I've learned here. I'm so excited for them to come to join my university!! Their energy is fantastic and they are so ready to jump into everything.
I walked home with Andrea and Sam, and we got to talk about successful Chinese langauge experiences in the world rather than the classroom, and I began hugging people good bye because I don't know who I'm going to see tomorrow before I go. It's tough, but I know that I will be seeing the majority of them in just six weeks, so it's really okay. I just need to do the hugging to put a capstone on our time together here.
By the time I got home, it was after 10:00, so I had some relaxing time before going to sleep.
Today is awesome because I got to meet a new member of my residential college. Today is notsome because of saying good bye.
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