Recap of the Xmas festivities

I had a fantastic Christmas. The CCEPers had a Christmas party at Steph’s place two weeks ago and last Friday all the foreigners were invited to a party held by the government. The past two days, I’ve been treated to dinner by my school. My classes have given me apples or cards or some other kind of gift. I might be making dumplings on Monday with one of my classes. At least I hope I can go. I felt bad because this past Thursday I said I’d go and then I got the invitation to go to the school sponsored dinner which is compulsory. So I couldn’t go make dumplings. : (

The wrapped apples and oranges are popular gifts here because apples signify peace and security and oranges signify happiness. Tomorrow I’m going to Beijing to meet up with Jeremy, CJ and Michelle. I might meet up with Jenna and Aleks because they’re also going to be in Beijing. I think Steph and Kelsey might be in Beijing too, but I’m not sure. CJ is leaving for good on January 4th. It makes me sad. She’s also a really cool, chill person to hang out with. She’s moving on to grad school, so I guess it’s for the best, but I’m still going to miss her.

It still seems surreal that I’ve been here for 4 months now. I’ve been contemplating staying another year. I just really like it here. My Chinese is progressing albeit slowly and I’ve settled into a nice routine. Routine is a relative term in China as anything can happen at anytime. Classes are winding down and finals are beginning here. I’m officially finished January 18th, but the last day of classes is January 4th. Then I’ll be off until February 24th. I’ll be traveling with fellow CCEPers. We’re going to go to Harbin up north for the ice festival and then we’ll make our way down south to Hong Kong and Sanya, Hainan. Sanya is where the Miss World pageant was held recently. This is where Miss China was crowned Miss World. Another interesting fact to note, she was born in Shijiazhuang, where I live. How nuts is that?