Hui Jia

Alrighty, it's been a while since my last post, but I'm swamped with finals. I leave for America on Saturday morning, and at first I was not at all happy about it. I love it here! I've made great friends, worked on two shows, had a cool internship, and traveled a huge and fascinating country. But I miss home, and Christmastime, and my family and friends, and at this point I'm really, really excited to get there. I can't wait, in fact. I have a lot of Christmas shopping to do and I actually need to buy a lot of things.

Like shoes. I've destroyed a lot of my shoes in China and have found no replacements due to my gargantuan, Western-sized feet. Also, like those glasses I never got around to buying. I hate flying without glasses, because it means I either have to have my contacts in and be uncomfortable/sleep with them in or not wear them and be blind as a bat. I usually choose the former. So I'm super stoked about replacing my poor lost glasses, which are probably wandering the Gobi Desert with Seabiscuit, my camel, looking for me.

Since my last post, I've been working on essays, studying for my Chinese final (which I finished today!!!!!!!!!!! WO HEN GAO XING!!!), and roaming the city. I'm trying to take advantage of all the time I have left here, which means very little sleep. Oh well, I can sleep on the plane. The sixteen hour plane. On which I will be wearing my contacts.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want this blog to be once I leave China, and I think it'll be mostly the same as it was before but I do want it to chart two things. A few years ago I decided I wanted to watch all of AFI's Top 100 movies and I've made considerable progress. And then last year I decided to finish Time Magazine's Top 100 books of the last century (though they define "century" as being since 1923.) I've also made considerable progress on that, though nowhere near the amount I've made on the movie list. I've even finished For Whom the Bell Tolls here in China, which I never thought I'd do due to my distaste for Hemingway. (For the record, it was pretty good: almost every book on that list has been mindblowing. Thus far, the only exception is At-Swim Two Birds. I think I wrote a post on it over the summer.)

In any case, I'll be home soon, and if you're in California I look forward to seeing you! Hope all's well and that you're having a great holiday season!