Student Blogs

The Present

April 21st, 2014 shjin15

At this point in time, we are already almost halfway into our semester, and time just flew right on by. For the CET Spring Intensive language in Beijing semester students, there’s only 1.5 months left. Although i’ve only been in China for four months, I feel like i’ve been living in China for a few years. My mind functions 100% in Mandarin Chinese now. Sometimes, Chinese words come quicker to me than English words.

It’s also at this point that I want to bring up this quote:

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.”

A lot of the students, myself included, have been feeling a bit homesick lately. It’s definitely a lot of pressure to be speaking in a second language 24/7, and the pollution in Beijing has been quite harrowing. We have all settled too comfortably into our daily Chinese lives that we forgot to grasp the present and explore! Even though you can learn from the past and you should most certainly plan for your future, most of your time should be spent living in the moment. I think that’s one of the biggest lessons i’ve learned being abroad. We waste so many days waiting for the weekend and so many nights wanting morning, but you get the most satisfaction from what you’re currently doing – true happiness occurs at the present moment.

Cheers,
Sophia
金羽庭 (Jin YuTing)

P.S. I’ve been chosen to be a Student Correspondent for my Beijing program, so i’ll also be blogging for my program here!

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