Graduation

Yesterday we had our final exam, and it went all right, and the moment I got back to my room the phone rang.
Me: Wei?
Voice on Phone: Ni hao!
Me: Uh, Ni hao?
Voice on Phone: Hi! It's me! Your mom!
I talked to my family for a really long time, especially since this was only the third phone call since I've been here. I have been complaining a lot lately, and my mum was worried, I guess, but as it happens things are still pretty okay and should continue to be so.

After the phone call, I went to go buy my train ticket to Chengdu - Y400 for a hard sleeper. It's weird, buying the ticket means I actually am going on this trip. It's hard to believe. I'm not a person who deals well with uncertainty, and the fact that I don't clearly know where I'll be a week from now is stressful, but I suppose the key is to take it one day at a time. My mission in Chengdu is to buy a pair of shorts - it's pretty tropical down south - and to find a guidebook, especially the Lonely Planet one because it's great. I've been copying down all the information in my roommate's copy, but that's not really the best methodology. I'm also going to visit a monastary or two, because I never get sick of looking at Buddhist and Daoist places of worship. I might even go back to Wenshu Yuan and have my fortune told by the blind fortune tellers who line up outside the gates with clay bowls and bamboo spills.

Then I returned home and worked on the speech I was asked to give at graduation and watched American Idol and Oprah with my roommate and her boyfriend, Lili, and Mi Yike. At three thirty we split up to dress for graduation - ostensibly a semi-formal affair but a lot of the boys wore jeans and a lot of people had been drinking since 10 a.m. when they finished their tests. (Not me though! I waited until after noon to share a Bacardi Breezer with Lili!) My speech went all right, but I was extremely nervous and it messed up my rhythm. It wasn't an especially good speech, but I mentioned cursing the ancient Chinese who thought it would be fun to make a tonal language, and that got a laugh. Actually there was an entire cluster of teachers just laughing their heads off at a part that wasn't intended as a joke, which made me even more anxious because in Chinese you never really know what you're saying. But it was got through, and then the language pledge ended.

I will tell you, internet: I did not obey the language pledge the entire semester. I obeyed it a lot, but ... And I feel bad about it, kind of, but on the other hand there were several times when I had such a great time with my friends (and usually foreigners who didn't speak Chinese, which was normally why we broke the pledge) speaking English. Everyone is leaving now and I won't see them again and I wouldn't trade a single one of my memories with them, so I can't feel too bad about the English speaking.

After graduation I wasn't sure what to do with myself. My roommate had locked me out by accident, which has always been a dream of mine because when you're locked out you get to climb in the window. But I was wearing a skirt, so one of the boys did it for me. I was so disappointed I went and put on pants, locked the door again, and climbed up to let myself back in. It was great fun but I scraped my arm rather badly.

Then all the teachers and students went out to the nearby Beijing Duck restaurant, which was disappointing - Lili and I got stuck at a half empty table of people not interested in making conversation, and of course neither of us eats duck. One of our teachers got drunk and started speaking fairly okay English, but in a very embarrassing way - he's one of my favorite teachers and so it was awkward and weird. We went back to the dorm, feeling uprooted and off-center, and chatted with Mi Yike and Yi Weida. I'm going to miss people a lot, and I know I'll never see any of them again, and it's kind of a depressing thought. But at the same time, I know that a lot of the social errors I made this semester are avoidable next semester - I'm going to have another chance, and I am looking forward to that. Summer semester is going to be good. I'm hanging onto that.

It was a bit early to go out, so we hung around in the dorm for awhile, chatting of this and that and watching the Simpsons. Geqingr, one of the nanzihan Yale lads, had torn his jacket and asked if anyone had a needle and thread, which of course I did, and when I gave them to him he asked if anyone knew how to use them. So I made him hold my Tsingtao and sewed up his jacket. He was so pleased he kept showing people my handiwork, remarking that my stitches were so neat and even, and I couldn't help but feel gratified.

Eventually I went with a big group of people to San Li Tuanr, the bar district, for dancing. A lot of ACC students were there, as well as some teachers, and we danced for awhile and then got bored and went across the street for french fries and cider on the patio of a little fish and chips place, followed by more dancing. We didn't actually stay out past eleven-thirty, but we'd started early so a lot of people went home much earlier than I'd expected. Lili and I went back to the dorm, where we ended up talking until past three with Mi Yike, Jiani, and Zhiwei about women's colleges (which everyone is opposed to for some reason except me), saying goodbye, and so on.

Saying goodbye is stupid and wrong. I hate it. Even people I never really got to know, but whom I am so used to seeing every day. I will miss my roommate, Mi Yike, Zhu Meina, Yi Weida, and most of all Lili, who put up with so much of my weirdness and hung out with me and was such a good friend all this time. But I am going south, where they eat goat cheese and noodles, and I will read Moby Dick and it will be good for me.

My next post will be in Chengdu. The adventure has only just begun.