Graduation: Last Day of Class

Welcome back everyone, and thank you for your patience. I said I’d try to get the final posts for graduation up by June and it is now halfway through August. But a lot has happened over the summer, there were some things I wasn’t ready to write about then that I am now, and the story is the richer for it. Some come join me now for the exciting conclusion (at least it was exciting to me).

A note about navigation before we begin. There will be a total of 10 posts, 9 of them with ‘Graduation’ in the title. The easiest way to read through them all will be to use the Previous Posts section on the right hand side of the blog, below my Profile and the links list. I’ve arranged them in descending order instead of chronological order, so you’ll want to begin with the post at the top (this post) and proceed down the list to the last post called ‘Graduation: Finale’.

Given that it’s August now, I don’t remember the last day of classes very well, but I remember it enough. It was Monday August 30, I had three classes: Chinese, Urban Economics, and Asian Art Humanities. I went to Chinese in the morning for our final oral presentation, which went easily for me since I’d spent a good deal of time memorizing my presentation. Chinese was a funny class in that I never enjoyed it as much as most of the other students in the class did, although I did learn an awful lot, and not just about Chinese. In spite of having a large class, we finished early and our teacher Ma Ningwei (Ni3 hao3 Ma3 Lao3shi1!!) let us go early, which was rare. The feeling that school was truly over began when I walked out the doors of Kent Hall.Urban Economics was very laidback for the last lecture, and again the class let out early. I was pleased that the class applauded our professor, something I think very important and respectful to do. (We applauded Ma Laoshi too, even though this is not something that is commonly done in classes in China. She was a little embarrassed, which was great) And if I remember correctly, the last day of Asian Art Hum I skipped, just because I could. It was a beautiful day outside; they were already beginning to put up the tents and the bleachers for the graduation ceremony, even though grad wouldn’t be for more than two weeks yet. But it was a very good day, and it was the beginning of what I felt then and see now were many good days to come.