Update Numero Tres

Boy, I keep forgetting to make note of things as they happen. Oh well...I'll try my best to remember what happened in the past.

Saturday was another day on the town. Well, at least part of the town. We went to the "downtown" area of Suzhou. Basically, think of a gigantic outdoor mall. Well, it's a little more than that, but that's the best way I can think of of describing it. There are so many shops, both brand name and not-brand name, that you literally get confused by everything there is to buy there, including food. Though the best part of the area, in my opinion, was the temple in the center. I am not sure what religion it was (I believe someone said Buddhist, but I could very well be wrong), but oh my god, it was absolutely awe-inspiring. Side note: I use "awesome" to describe a lot of day-to-day events, items, and ideas that really don't leave me in awe. It's part of growing up shortly after the 80's and into the 90's, I suppose. But this temple truly left me without breath, and that does not happen as much. The statues inside were absolutely amazing, the architecture was unlike anything we have in the West...I just loved it wholly and completely. Though that isn't that surprising, I suppose; I've always preferred Asian art to Western. Not quite sure why, but, eh, what can you do?

After our time in the downtown area, we then went over to a park. The most "spectacular" part of that park, whose name eludes me at the moment, was "out of order", so to speak, because of the construction of a nearby light rail. But still, there was something about the park that was just...nice. Today, I think I finally figured out what it was: it wasn't the same as the city. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm a city-boy at heart. I spent eight years in the country-side (at least, I considered it that), and as peaceful as that was (minus some personal problems...), I still had to get my city fix every so often. But I'm talking about American cities here. Even Seattle at its craziest is nowhere near as hectic in day-to-day life as Suzhou. Or maybe that's because it's our first week here and we've done a lot, or I could just still be acclimating, who knows? Regardless, I liked the park. It was quiet, relaxing, and just a nice reprieve.

The last two days have been nothing special. Sunday we had to ourselves, and I spent a good portion of it just watching my Angel DVDs and talking to my mom for the first time since I arrived. Monday was our first day of class, and although there's something I will talk about shortly, all in all, it was pretty average. I was happy with how much spoken Chinese I really understood, and I'm sure my own speaking ability will increase by such a large factor by the time I'm done here. Monday night was also our last night with Feng Laoshi (our teacher from Seattle U. who came to Suzhou to make sure our first couple of days went well), so that was a little sad. But hey, now we're on our own, free to make our own decisions. I just hope that most, if not all, of those decisions lead to positive outcomes.

So since the "tourist" part of our time in China has come to a close, minus any holidays or weekend excursions we partake in, this blog will most likely become a personal journal of my feelings and whatnot. At least, the ones I choose to share. One of those feelings is a leftover from the last quarter of school at S.U. that even I had forgotten about. If you didn't know, spring quarter 2008 was one of the most difficult times I've ever had in school. I did not want to go to any of my classes, I didn't want to do any of the homework or study, hell, I didn't even want to be in the area. I was just done with everything school-related. It took all my effort to get through that time, and although I'm satisfied with the results, I still apparently have some of those feelings. I realized this when I woke up to go to class today and just went, "No." I remembered how much it took to get through that time, and I didn't feel like I wanted to go through it again. However, I'm going to try. I may need some help sometime, and I may not always do my best simply because I won't want to. But, so help me, I am going to try. The question remains, though: what will I do when I leave China? I'm going to look into a couple of different options, but the ones I've thought of so far are a) continuing to go to school and see how it fits me; if it doesn't, I'll take spring quarter off, and b) taking winter quarter off, still performing my service project for my Freeman-ASIA scholarship but also working nearly fulltime. There's some variation in there between both of them, but that's basically the jist of it. Of course, I may come back, eager and ready to learn and never need to take a quarter off at all. Who knows? Que sera, sera, right?

Anyway, I'll be back soon with more thoughts and whatnot. Man, this is the most writing I've done in a long time...and it's mainly stream of consciousness. How odd...I used to hate that. Maybe that can be my next talk. :)

再见！
杜楷