学期的结束 (SEMESTER'S END)

Our final exams were held on Friday, thus ending my second semester of classes at IUP and marking the retirement of my very favorite notebook:

Here is the back-side:

Oh I do love me some bizarre Engrish translations! (even if this kind of sounds like it could have been spoken to General Stuharto by Vanessa)

I won't be shedding any tears over the passing of this semester. Honestly, it was a grueling one, and I wish I felt the gains I've made in Chinese were worth all the mental and physical exhaustion of the last weeks. It didn't help that there was only a one-day break between this semester and the last, and so all of us students are relishing the upcoming one-week vacation. Jessica and I are off to Chengdu, Sichuan on Sunday morning. Although it is a little cold there right now, I don't think I can wait much longer to see the Giant Panda Reserve. It seems it is prohibitively expensive (and really kind of foolhardy) to get close to a giant panda, but you can hold a red panda (aka "firefox"), as seen below, for a mere 6 dollars. I know it's kind of wrong, but I don't know if I will be able to resist...