600 hours.

Today at 2:30pm I felt that familiar anti-clamatic feeling...

Another chapter is ending, people are leaving, another set of routines and familiarities is changing.

Today was my last day of Chi.nese classes. We now enter finals week (and I will be taking the HSK smack dab in the middle of it on Sunday - talk about test stress).

Technically, the semester ends next Wednesday with my last final, but for all intents and purposes, today was the end. Many foreign students peace out on finals week and go traveling before heading home to their countries. I must take the tests since I am a university student.

I've been waiting for today. I'm thankful this year of intensive Chine.se learning happened, and I am just as thankful that it is over (just being honest). I want to continue learning Chi.nese for the rest of my life (I believe language learning is never-ending), but I want to do it on my own terms, in real-life situations. I want to learn from the people, not an out-dated Commie-slanted text book.

After class this afternoon I marched out these doors...

took a few memory snapshots of the foreign student building (I will have my PhD classes at another campus about 20 minutes away beginning next year)...

hopped on my trust/rusty pink bike with a broken bell and questionable tires...

took a few "yippeee!" shots to the amusement of the Chine.se students around me...

and peddaled away.

20 hours a week for 30 weeks = 600 hours of Ch.inese class in 2 semesters.

That's a lot of learnin'.

walk slow. xoxo.