At times, it's hard to believe I've been in China for 10 months. Alot has happened. Talk about self-analyzing, and the introspection of the things that were ingrained into my pysche by the American environment I was born and raised in. Upon arrival in China, I just remember my open mind and ignorance. I was alot younger then, I'm not reffering to mere age in numbers, but a sheltering, an innocence if you will that China exposed and turned into awareness. I have seen more of China than I have seen of my home country, and perhaps I understand China more than I do my native land, that's scary. Scary because I feel as if I understand very little of China. These last three months, since I've been in southern Shandong, I've had the most incredible feelings. I feel so enriched by this experience. Before I left, I craved life experience. I felt as if I was slowly suffocating, my horizon was narrow. China beckoned. I dreamt, I came, and that is only the beginning of the story really. When I got here, I was met with challenge, and although I had alot of expectations, struggling through challenge was not one of them. Shows how much I had to learn. Overall, I feel that I have adjusted remarkably well during my time here. I have no problem eating in the rattiest of hovels while sipping baijiu with local peasants. Witnessing first hand the struggle taking place between an old and new China leaves me breathless at times, and at other times leaves me shaking my head in confusion at how such a country as this; with some 1.5 billion people could have slipped into such dire poverty and backwardness. The simple life that most Chinese live is one of the things that I find most charming about being here. Work, family, food and keeping warm are what keep most Chinese people getting up every day. I find that remarkable. There are so many things that I find remarkable about China, it's hard to keep track. The frantic pace, the mind numbing population density. The simple observation of these things, the experience of eating with chopsticks, quite mundane I know, but something I quite enjoy, conversations in broken Chinese, all add up to something I'm incredibly grateful for, and something that has allowed for the life experience I desprately needed to enter adulthood with. Thank you China.