After a two month hiatus, I'm back to blogging. Exams finished off the first semester, I visited Beijing for a week, flew home, and flew across the country six times to visit grad schools. I figured there wasn't much to write about, but actually it was an interesting experience: being home for break from China, reverse culture shock (e.g., getting abnormally excited by the Arby's menu), attending ambiguosly defined recruitment/interview/visit weekends at seven schools and thus introducing myself and my somewhat nontraditional circumstance to about 30 people at each school (that's a lot of explaining why I'm in China. it's funny to see who asks 'why do you study Chinese?' and who asks 'why do you study Biology'). Perhaps there will be a future post on how to (or not to) choose a graduate school from China. In any case, the word will be out when a decision has been made on the matter.
Meanwhile, my current circumstances: I'm up at 4am, battling jet lag and the exhaustion from such a long trip. Going over 24 hrs with almost no sleep and then having day and night officially switched is not easy. I find myself drained but unable to sleep well, and sorta sick on top of it. I don't know if that's the travel or the air now that I'm here. I'm constantly thirsty, so I'm on constant tea and online for now, glad I bothered to pay for my internet reconnection yesterday, being quiet for Yuri sleeping behind me but her phone beeps every 10 minutes with a message she hasn't read yet, and on rare occasions she mutters a slew of something in Korean (in fact, it's very nice to see her again). I'm thinking over my first day and a half back:
-coming in on the bus, from afar, Lanzhou sure looks like a city. I saw a lot of cities while I was home, and from where we were crossing the Yellow River outside of town, it looked like it could be anywhere. Maybe the buildings were a little shorter, but they were many, and lit up, with even one or two with notable color schemes like you get in a metropolis.
-but alas, it isn't anywhere, it's the middle of China, and the guy next to me was showing me his lawyer's certificate and inviting me to visit his homeland sometime, which is somewhere in shandong province. I smiled lightly and noncomittally complimented his province as a great place to visit. Chinese occasionally but regularly invite me to where they're from, a place they're very proud and fond of, and which I mostly don't think they expect me to take them up on which is a good thing since I wouldn't.
- I walked 15 minutes down the street and through the university to Zhuan Jia Lou. I could have taken a cab for a dollar, but was so eager to walk at all that I ignored the weight of my bags and the looks around me, figuring that as a reinitiation rite for Lanzhou foreigners.
-it's been incredibly nice to see friends and people here in general (the office, the desk in my building, etc.). With few exceptions, I don't communicate by internet with people here and so haven't been in touch. It's a reminder that I do live here, with six months of habituation behind me.
-Class started last week, and though I've only been to one so far, I've gotten some of the lowdown from classmates. I've moved up to the advanced class, the top of the ladder, and although I'm not sure I deserve that status yet, I think it'll be better than last semester. The atmosphere is more serious and skilled, but in a very good way. I've only got three classes this time - reading, speaking, and newspaper-reading. There's also a prep class for the HSK, the Chinese equivalent of the TOEFL, both of which (the class and test) I'm undecided about taking.
So, basically I just want to let you all know that I'm back in Lanzhou, back on the web, and planning to be back in the lab next year; but first, I'm planning for a super five months here, and even more first, planning to get back to the Korean sitcom dubbed in Chinese that I've been watching, until I'm sleepy or have class, whichever comes first.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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