The program just kept going by faster and faster. And this last week is going to be super short. Mostly because I don't have a full week left in one place.
So, in the midst of all of the chaos, I'm going to talk about the holidays!
Our group is incredibly lucky because we have someone named Emily. The same Emily who pushed me to dance with everyone for the Mid-Autumn Festival. She saw to it that we had a Halloween party, and she also made sure that we had a Christmas party. Alliance provided Thanksgiving.
Our "cranberry sauce" which we had with pizza and Chinese food.
At our Christmas party (which we rented an apartment for and cooked for and invited our roommates and teachers to), Orion opened his present.
Hugging the calligrapher.
Did I mention that we did Secret Santa? We totally did. My Secret Santa was Daniel, who got me the notebook he caught me admiring. I was Shelby's Secret Santa. How perfect is that?
Look at Joey and Emily having fun.
We played games and made food (including mashed sweet potatoes and grilled cheese and taco salad and anything else we could make without an oven), and it was pretty awesome. Our group is really close now. Riding camels and getting sick one after the other will do that to you.
It's so weird to be leaving. Today marks the end of my last weekend in Xi'an. I have a lot to do to wrap up and not a lot of time to do it. We're planning our last meals here and everything. And trying to cram in things like "One last trip to the Muslim Quarter - I forgot to have a persimmon cake last time!" and "We need to watch another movie all together!"
A big part of reverse culture shock will come from the breaking of our Fellowship (Allianceship?) here. We're so used to speaking weird combinations of Chinese and English together. And being a short elevator ride away from even the farthest person.
I'm currently previewing my last new lesson for the semester. It's the second part of Chapter 21 in the second book. It's not all that far, but it's a long way from knowing nothing at all!
I'm going to stop myself from getting too reflective here because I have a couple of essays that need written before our study party tonight. The internet has been finicky, but I should be able to post more throughout my last week here.
This time next week, I'll be boarding my plane.
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