Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

End of a semester

My semester at Tsinghua University is coming to an end. Tomorrow I'll have my first finals. As this picture above illustrates, my classmates and I are all quite exhausted.

For almost the past five months we've attended classes from 8 am to noon. Each week we seemed to learn hundreds of new Chinese phrases and characters, only to forget and re-learn them for the tests. I'd say we all deserve a good break once winter vacation rolls around.

But soon we'll have to say goodbye. Even though I'll be continuing one more semester at the university, sadly, some of my classmates won't.

We are a diverse bunch. They are those like me who hail from America. But I've also had the pleasure of making friends with students from Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and even all the way from Uzbekistan. As a result, Chinese has become are main mode of communication between each other. Our friend from Uzbekistan can even rap in Chinese.

They've been a great group to hang with, and have helped me explore and learn more about Beijing.

Outside, my part of Beijing is still covered in snow, with the temperature feeling like its zero degree Fahrenheit. Still, I've had to venture out in this frozen mess. These past weeks I've been looking for a new place to live off campus. Worst timing ever.

A friend back home said the weather here sounded like it was "colder than a witch's tit." Indeed it is.