Well, this is my last week of teaching - I will be leaving Yantai for good on Friday, after which I will spend a couple of days at Tai Shan (not the mountain itself unless I go to see the sunrise, since I've already been there) and Qufu (the birthplace of Confucius). From there it's back to Beijing, where I'll visit a few more places I didn't get to the last time I was there. And then, on July 1, I fly home.
It's strange, because I'm getting the same funny feeling in my stomach I had just before I came here. Whether it's just the excitement/nervousness of traveling, or the realization that I'm leaving something dear behind, I don't know. For though I may not be Chinese, this country has grown on me quite a bit. There are still annoyances, to be sure, and I don't think I would want to live here long-term, but I've developed an affection for this place. It's so very different from anything I had imagined beforehand, and I only wish more Americans could come here and see what I've seen - if nothing else, it would serve to disabuse many people of their false and downright ignorant views of the Chinese. I can always hope, I guess...
Rob (the other volunteer at my school) left on Sunday, and I've taught half of my final classes. My impending departure won't really hit me until I start packing, but I always leave that to the last minute anyway :) I can't say I'll miss the teaching itself, but the students and teachers at the school will always have a little corner of my heart. And while I'm loathe to leave them, I know that a visit here will be made the next time I come to China.
Perhaps the hardest of all is parting with the friends I've made from among the other volunteers here. I understand that throwing people into a strange and new situation can cause them to be closer than they might have otherwise, but I honestly think that I would have been just as close with my friends here had we met under other circumstances. And yet, I might never see most of them again, or only after a very long time. That's the unfortunate reality when people are coming from all over the world.
If all of this sounds a bit melancholy, I don't mean it to be. I am grateful for the time I have spent here, and for the opportunity to have met such a wide-ranging group of people. Leaving is never easy, but like so many things in life, we are wont to focus on the bad and not the good. And so I choose to focus on the good, remembering all the good times and laughs I have shared with others, safe in the knowledge that, could I do it all over, I wouldn't change a thing.
Currently feeling: calm