Pause

I am officially done with all my classes.

With that knowledge comes the ambivalent feelings of being relieved that the summer truly is upon me but also the impending fears of leaving this niche that I have so comfortably nestled in. I just had to fill out a survey for the UC education abroad program that asked me some basic questions about how my academic experience abroad compared to my home institution. I took me about five minutes to sum up my position on the education I received here vs. in Berkeley. I had less hours of class, the lectures were not as intellectually demanding but also not so esoteric, the teacher’s all really seemed to care about what they were lecturing on, but the caliber of lessons did not match the level at which we are being graded. I basically have no clue how my grades will end up here (in case you are all just dying to knowJ) but I can assume that I should have a deep appreciation for the person whose sole job is to reassess my grades in Hong Kong into the UC grading system.

But classes are really besides the point of what I am trying to get at here. With the end of classes come the last “reading week” (where I actually will be working on some papers and studying in Hong Kong before I depart for Beijing) and with the end of reading week comes finals and that word “FINAL” is key. This brings me to the end of my time here. People are leaving, flying off in ever which direction and I can only take one thing at a time so I don’t blow myself up with stress of all the coming unknowns. I have managed to get myself sick anyway but I think that might just be programmed into me about this time after how many sessions of finals already under my belt. We had a roof top gathering the other night and I just took a reflective moment to look around at what a strange, eclectic group of people I managed to land myself with but how I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. There is something truly unique about being an exchange student that you can’t get from traveling and that you can’t get rooted in your own culture. Exchange is what you do—ideas, stories, culture, food, spit, politics, lifestyles and perspective. I once was fearing that the month of April looked blank and drab, now it is nearly over and I find myself clinging to the days in May that I still have on this island where women burp in elevators, where fresh juice is sold on the street, where the elevators never seem to break down, where you can be in CA and then be in China in the matter of a block and where I have come to feel fully acquainted with the buildings that reach for the sky and the friends that look up at them with me.