Day 118, 119, and 120: Goodbyes are Always Difficult

Our last week in Chong Qing was a very rainy one. It was as if the city was crying at the idea of letting us go home. (On Wednesday night, Alexandra even said that that was an old Chinese saying. "When it is raining, the host doesn't want to let the guest leave.")

Monday started with a few hours of working on grading models labs and the models exams, and then I took an early bus to Campus A so I could work on finishing my last drawing on that campus.

I spent about an hour and a half finishing it up, and a student was over my shoulder, watching me for a few moments, then moved away. When I finished, I decided to show it to him, and he was thoroughly impressed. He started talking to me in Chinese, and I apologized for not understanding him. He switched to English, and we started talking. He introduced himself, compared my drawing to the real thing (pretty close, according to him), and I started talking to him about his studies. His name was Leo, and he studied mechanical engineering. I found out that a lot of mechanical engineers in China worked at factories, which really surprised me. Another girl, named Jeny, came over and also started talking. She was in marketing, and she said that she had seen me around drawing several times before.

We talked for a while about classes, interests, and plans for the future. We exchanged Wechats as well, and Jeny had to head out the earliest for class. About 20 minutes later, I had to leave in order to proctor the heat transfer exam, and wished Leo goodbye.

I went downstairs to the room the exam was supposed to be in, but found it was being used by a different group of people. Jane was there too, and we waited outside, confused, as we weren't able to find anyone else. She called someone else in the class, and I called Pablo, and we found out the exam was in another building! Both panicked, we ran there, with her ahead, and me making it a bit after the bell.

Pablo was fine with it though, and he explained what he needed from me. I needed to stay in the room, and stay alert at all times, because he was going to go in and out of the room to help Celia and Robert scan ABET material. I stayed in the room, answering questions, and the test was over in about 90 minutes. Afterwards, we had to talk to one of the students who had lost one of his midterms, and gave him a chance to go find it before he had to retake it again. (The JCI office needed to have a paper copy of each midterm- partly for the Chinese government and partly for ABET certification.)

A statics student was in the same boat, so I walked with Pablo and Celia to Pablo's apartment to print off the statics exam while I waited on the student to find his exam. He stopped by a convenience store, buying a to go meal for himself, as well as one for me as a thank you for the work I had done all semester. He did find it, and as we walked back, Celia volunteered to get the test for me to give to Pablo, so I could catch the bus quickly.

Getting to campus D, I was able to get some sushi, and a milk tea before going to the TA office, reading for a bit and then continuing to grade the models exams.

A bit before seven, the student showed up for his models test. It was a weird system for the retake. He had to get exactly the same score as before, and I had to keep checking on him, stopping him when he got to that point. Apollo also came in, giving me the other tests that we had to collect from the others students, and we chatted for a few moments.

The student was done pretty soon, as he had gotten a low score the first time, but I stayed in the office a bit longer, doing grading before heading home.

Tuesday morning, I started off with grading for a while, and going to the JCI office to turn in all of the tests that I had collected the previous night. After grading a bit more in the TA office, I went to have lunch with Heather before I headed out of China. We talked about how I felt about going back to Cincinnati, leaving China, and some plans she had for the next few weeks.

my last time eating lotus root in China

She walked me back to the TA office under her umbrella and we said sad goodbyes for a while, before she had to head out. I graded until about 3 pm, taking occasional breaks to clear my head, and then went to the pond at the back of campus to finish my last drawing of the semester.

Before that though, I needed to print off the paper I had for funding for research, and I was able to do that with the usual finagling of the translator. I walked out of the printing shop (aka printing closet) for the last time, noting the beginning of the end.

printing closet

I made my way past the swan lake, and was delighted when a few of the swans came right up to me, honking softly.

At the pond, I sat for a while, waiting on Pablo to get to Campus D so I could help him with the JCI certification. I finished the drawing, to my delight, and then made my way over around 5.

I walked over, and found out that the office didn't really need my help after all. Pablo had brought my umbrella back, since I had left it at his apartment yesterday. But, he had a bit of time before the bus came back, and I showed him to the food court, and the tomato bread. He agreed it was delicious, but said it was too loaded with carbs to eat all the time. I walked him to the bus stop afterwards, and said my goodbyes for now. He would be traveling in the summer, but would be teaching Models 1 in the fall.

After that, I went to the room where the semiconductor physics presentations were going to be that night, and passed the time by grading, and talking to Alexandra when she came in. The presentations started at 7, and we got through 5 of 9 groups. The rest would be done tomorrow, and we headed home. At home, we ran into Wei Wei, and we asked him what to do with the keys on Thursday morning. He told us just to leave them on the tables in our rooms, along with the cafeteria and subway cards.

Wednesday was a very bittersweet day. It really hit me that it was the last day in Chong Qing, and my emotions acted accordingly. I finalized the grading, giving the exams to Sean to input the grades, and headed out.

Suri had said that she wanted to meet up with me the previous night, and we met up at the TA office at around 11. Robert was also there, and they were organizing paperwork for Wei Wei's classes. To my delight, they gave me a bracelet that Suri had made, as well as a ring. They were both gorgeous, and I talked to them for a while about this past semester, and how they would like UC when they came there.

After saying goodbye to Robert and Suri,  then I went for the very last lunch that Heather wanted to go on before I left.

She took me to a restaurant I had never been to before on the top of one of the buildings on campus. I loved the retro decorations, and we ordered cabbage and tofu soup, a chicken and Chinese cookie dish (not a fortune cookie, but a braided cookie that I hadn't seen in the US, but was common there), and a spicy beef dish that had way too many peppers. We ended up not being able to eat too much of it, but she took it back for her roommate.

We talked more about our plans when for after I got home, including some news concerning my other international co-op that I got when I was sitting there talking to her, and her plans to get a cat of her own. She walked me to the gate, and then we said our final goodbyes, with her promising to go to the US one day.

I walked to Sunny Block to see if the art museum was open, and surprisingly, it was. I had to walk back to the apartment to get my camera because rain had gotten into my phone camera, and along the way, seeing the pet store with the suckling puppies, the art stores I had stopped by several times, and all the sculptures outside the art school brought back so many memories.

I had to delete a few pictures off of my camera, and walked back to the art museum.

It was still raining a lot, and the guard made me throw away my water bottle, but other than that, everything went smoothly, and I wandered around the art museum for a while.

I saw many people taking pictures and the security guards not saying anything to them, so I knew it was ok for me to take pictures too. I walked around into the different rooms, and took pictures of the few pictures that really stood out to me. The only thing that disappointed me was the few people who didn't even stop to look at the paintings, just taking picture after picture and moving on, like the stereotypical Asian tourist.

When I was leaving, I tried to go outside into the pavilion that I saw other people outside at before, but the lady at the desk got my attention and shook her head at me.

I was a bit tired after that, so I headed to the TA office to rest for a while and read. I ate an exotic fruit that I believe is a different type of plum only in Asia while I read. Robert came in a bit later to grab some more papers. I was surprised to see him again, but I wished him well as he left.

After that, I decided to take one last tour of campus to remind myself of all the good times that I had had there. It was raining somewhat heavily, but I decided to take my bike and get somewhat soaked, letting my mixed emotions wash over me in a similar way.

I headed back towards the one garden in the back of campus that I had done philosophy homework at a few weeks before, and I was delighted to see that some of the flowers had bloomed.

After that, I decided to go a different way from before, and I was able to see a whole new area that I hadn't seen before.

The flowers in and around the lotus pond were also blooming, to my surprise.

The swan near its house as I said goodbye

I stayed by the pond at which I had finished the last drawing for a while, letting memories wash over me, knowing I may never see it in person again.

My final stop was on the other side of the lotus pond, and I made my way around there, resting for a few moments at the top of the hill.

I went back to the TA office for a few moments, resting a bit before dinner. I had invited Rebecca, Amanda, and Apollo to dinner, and Alexandra, Wei Wei and Dom also joined. It took a while to meet up with Amanda and Rebecca, and then trying to find Apollo, but we eventually got everyone.

I used up the last of the money on my student card, getting a orange juice and some oreo wafers after a bit of finagling, as well as dinner consisting of rice, noodles, and a potato chicken dish. We chatted for a while about co op, classes, and how much fun we had had this semester, enjoying each other's company.

After dinner, Apollo, Amanda, and Dom left, with the rest of us going to watch the rest of the semiconductor presentations. We had some sad goodbyes, and I had thanked Rebecca and Apollo for recommending me for this job when I had worked with them in the summer as SOLs. Amanda was going to be at UC in the summer for the WISE program for research, so I was going to see her soon. I had given her a duct tape rose pen as well, though.

The presentations took about an hour and a half, and at the end, Wei Wei asked me to give a short talk about how their presentations were similar and different to American presentations. I said that it was mostly similar, but their energy levels and pronunciation of words could use some work, as well as their memorization skills of the material.

At the end, we took a group picture with the class, and then a picture with me, Rebecca, Alexandra, Nick, Jessica, and Wei Wei. I had to head out to go finish packing, and said teary goodbyes to Alexandra and Rebecca.

I worked on packing for a while, and Nick had offered to make grilled cheese later that night to use up the rest of his stash. I went over, and we ended up watching a movie, called "The Kingsman", and I decided to finish writing my philosophy paper in the morning. It was totally worth it, and we ended up staying up until 1 am, and then I headed to sleep right away, planning to finish cleaning the apartment in the morning.

-Zoe