A couple of my friends who have gone abroad have ostensibly (favorite word) taken days to pack. This is ridiculous. I just did it in two hours. The only things I still need to pack are pictures of my family and a bottle of our world-class wine, which I am bringing my hosts as a gift. Sadly, since I am that awkward age where the government deems me capable of dying for my country but not sufficiently responsible to buy a Mike's Hard Lemonade, the wine will have to wait until my mom gets back from the store. Otherwise, my life is in my suitcases, except my Reefs, which I am not bringing. I like to think I'm keeping them at home because they weren't on the Recommended Packing List, but really it's because I couldn't stand it if anything were to happen to them.
People keep asking me how I feel about going abroad for a semester.
Are you excited? ask the random acquaintances. Of course I am; I'm going to China for three and a half months. Come on.
Are you anxious? asks my mom. Not really. I'm a little worried that I'll have a hard time communicating with the locals at first, but it's post-Olympics Beijing, so they probably all speak English anyway. Besides, my Chinese is certainly good enough to get around, if not hold a conversation. The only thing I'm really worried about is the thirty to sixty new words we're required to memorize every day of class. Look, maybe in the Chinese schools this is normal, but I'm a product of the American education system. From the earliest ages, we eschew reading and math for naptime, playing in the dirt, making musical instruments out of shoeboxes, and self-actualization. Then we complain about our jobs getting outsourced. This tangent is over...now!
Are you scared about getting SARS? asks the kid who worked with me at the fair. Shut up, kid, you work at the fair. (Wait, crap!)
Mostly, I am curious. Curious as to who my host family will be, curious to come to know a city that's modern enough to build architectual wonders but backward enough to sentence political dissidents to "re-education" through labor, curious to find out what a scorpion tastes like, curious to set foot in all the places I've read about and seen on TV.
The next time I update this, I'll be in Beijing. If there's a fried scorpion stall in the airport I'll be able to answer one of those questions. If not...they will have to wait.
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