Back in the Big Apple!

Hi everyone! It's been a long time since I last posted and so much has happened. It was definitely sad to say farewell to IUP, but at the same time I'm extremely glad to be home.
So my last two weeks in Beijing were filled with so many amazing highlights:
-going to 十渡and climbing the mountain, the view was amazing on the top
-eating at the IUP farewell dinner at Kro's Nest (supposedly the BEST pizza in Beijing) and wearing 旗袍's (Chinese traditional attire) with teachers and classmates
-attending an underground Beijing rap concert!
-spending my last night eating on the 后海 lakeside
Going overseas really gave me a chance to explore a city in a way that I wouldn't do with NY. Even though NY is probably surrounded with just as much tourist attractions/events to go to.

Overall, though I wouldn't say I loved IUP and loved Beijing, but it was a good experience. Being away from home, exploring a new city on my own and become friends with IUP classmates and teachers have all become valuable experiences. Coincidentally, one of my teachers was actually on my flight back to NY!

After having had completed Level 5 Chinese at Yale, I entered IUP taking one of the highest level they offered during the summer. While I would say that my Chinese improved a lot, I wouldn't necessarily describe it as learning a lot. IUP was more of consolidating a lot of what I have learned already, helping me master vocabulary usage, solidifying grammar rules that I kind of have picked up instinctively, and become more fluent and smooth when speaking. It was a great way to bring together things that I already kind of understood but was never formally taught. The two year minimum that IUP requires definitely makes sense to me now because IUP isn't about bombarding and exposing students to more vocabulary (which is what HBA and PIB do) its about mastering usage and verbal skills. I also got to learn a lot more about Chinese society and culture through the small class discussions that we engaged in. Because of the small class sizes each of us had adequate speaking time and were actually able to launch into discussion if we so wished (as opposed to regular language classes of 8-10 people where the teacher is doing most of the talking).
Here are some pictures!

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Almost done!!!!

Only two more weeks left! By this time I think I'm basically ready to go home, I miss my parents, my friends (at Yale and NY) and I miss food at home. While we're on the subject of food, I just went to Pizza Hut with a bunch of friends and now I think that I've gotten so used to the food here that I can't eat fatty American food anymore, the roof of my mouth feels swollen, something Chinese people would say is 热气太多了　also know as "too much hot air". I'm going to drink some Chrysanthemum tea since that's suppose to be "cold air"and reduces hot air (all stuff my aunt told me).

So back to this week. Well, its been crazy hot for the last two days because of the humidity, 78% humidity, can you believe it? Usually when humidity is over 50% that means rain but I guess not in China. Therefore a good idea is to stay indoors during this humidity, but of course I don't stay in. Instead I head to Forbidden Palace, which is mostly outdoors and takes hours to get through. Was not a good idea. But at least now I've knocked it off of my bucket list of things to do in Beijing. The Forbidden Palace was nice, but eventually it all started to look the same and there was still way too many people there in the disgusting heat.

Aside from going to Forbidden Palace, I did get to see a movie this week called Aftershock or 唐山大地震, with some classmates and teachers. And it redefined the term tearjerker. I went in not expecting to cry at all, but ended up crying a total of 7 times throughout the movie. It would have been so embarrassing if the rest of the audience hadn't been crying. My teacher emerged with her face all puffy and red. During the first day it was playing in theaters, they handed out packets of tissues to each person! Though this movie definitely made me cry, I don't know if I can objectively say it was a great movie; there were many loopholes in the story line. But as the first IMAX movie in China and as such a tearjerker, it is definitely worth seeing! I can't wait till I get back to the States to see Inception and Toy Story 3, heard they were amazing also.
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