Chinese Invasion

#237: Wit's End

Excuse me, can I just complain?

I'm trying to study for my last two final exams - the two last things that stand in the way of pure freedom. The problem is, our apartment, over the past few critical days, has turned into Party Central. And not only does my flatmate have guests at our apartment multiple times during the day (and night), she also invites them to come in groups of 3 or more as if there was a volume discount to be had. Worse is that they all speak in a language I can't understand. People talking loudly and simultaneously while you're trying to study or trying to recover from sleep deprivation (because of all the studying) is annoying in and of itself. Have everything done in Chinese and I am feeling like kung-fu fighting.

As much sentimentality as I am able to muster about leaving Illinois and the whole Kellogg experience, I am not capable of feeling sad about leaving our dismal apartment. Goodbye smelly kitchen with dirty stoves, unwashed pans and half-eaten food/weird ingredients on the counters! Goodbye toilet that doesn't stay clean with strangely-colored stains and unwrapped used napkins in the bin for all the world to see! Goodbye wet bathroom floors caused by someone who seems to like jumping out of the shower in mid-shower and deliberately missing the absorbent floor mat!

Wont miss this for sure.

It was an interesting arrangement which tested my patience, challenged my self-control and brought out the little neat freak lodged inside of me. I am now more appreciative of Monica (my flatmate in Sydney) and very repentant of my previous apartment sins (less grave than these, I promise you, but probably as annoying to neat Monica as these were to me). I'd also like to say that I'm very happy that my future husband/lifetime roommate does not have to use sanitary napkins nor does he come from mainland China. I don't want to have to live like this ever again.

Diesel

#236: Says Goodbye

Wow. I'm almost done with my term here in Kellogg. The countdown timer that told me some time back that I had 89 long days to go before I head home now says I have 9 days.



And for some reason, I'm starting to see people, courses, and activities in a different light. It's weird that such overwhelming appreciation is hitting me this late in the term. Gloria, my Kellogg guide/buddy, said that maybe I'm just so happy to be going home that everything is being colored by that joy. Maybe. But I sometimes wonder if I'm naturally predisposed to being critical of things at the beginning, hence it takes a lot and a long time for me to completely give things a chance. Unfortunately, by the time my walls thaw, it's time to move on again. Maybe I'm like diesel. It takes a bit longer to warm me up.

Today, my Marketing Channel Strategies group and I gave a great presentation in class. To be able to get to that point, I had to go through a lot of stressing over many weeks about the level of commitment (or absence thereof) that some group members had been demonstrating. Yesterday, for some reason, we had a really good group meeting for a change. We got things done and then we capped it off by going out to dinner together. It was the first time I was seeing my two groupmates as people with stories rather than just team members with work requirements to deliver.



I've also started attending activities being organized by the bazillions of student clubs they have here. I attended this optional talk on Business Leadership the other day vs. locking myself up in a group meeting because I realized that heck, what's another group meeting compared to hearing one of their 'celebrity professors' here give a talk on something practical and usable for the rest of your working life? A few days ago, I went to this Comedy Club with a bunch of strangers from my dorm who 'won' slots to see the show on subsidized tickets... and I ended up meeting for the first real time, some nice folks whom I'd regularly see in some of my classes but never really bothered to say 'hello' to.



I've also started going to cafes and restaurants around my dorm that I've ignored over the past 9 weeks in favor of my pile of course readings. My frozen meals remain untouched in our fridge because I'm realizing, "hey, I only have 10,9,8 days to make sure I leave with a real 'taste' of Evanston. Why should I eat another one of these meals that I've repeatedly consumed over the past 9 weeks of the term.?"

Today, in my Negotiations class, the professor capped our last session with an awards ceremony. Classmates voted for each other for these awards and as the 'sometimes-anti-social' (or maybe 'sometimes-socially-awkward') exchange student, I didn't really expect anyone to vote for me. But in a class of 36, I ended up being voted for two awards. I thanked the professor personally for conducting the best course in my Kellogg experience. People congratulated each other, exchanged goodbyes and thanks.



Come to think of it, it may just be the natural perspective that the end brings. Maybe that's the most logical explanation for why I seem to always start seeing reasons for staying in companies right after I've made my decision to leave; for why the value of relationships with people I'm leaving seem to hit me with the greatest impact after I've told myself that I'm ready to go. The finality of it all - the possibility of not having further opportunities to excel, experience, extend one's self to others after a specific point - is a strong motivator to seize what you can while you still can.

Maybe this phase isn't so unique after all. Maybe it's just what happens when humans say goodbye.