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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