Last week of our exchange is starting soon… Time here just runs and runs, I cannot believe it!

All kinds of funny and not so funny things have happened and made the life here even more interesting that it has been before. To name a few, we had a nice dinner in consulate in general's home last week, we have kept on travelling and seen so many new places and get to know new amazing people, but also my phone was stolen in our neighbour cafeteria and the usage of chinese internet has become even more restricted (they have extended the censorship) and I had to find out some not so leagal and acceptable ways to update this blog... Well, eventhough it was not nice to loose a good phone to another student, at least I cannot complain that my life here would be dull! ;)

Language courses have gotten harder and harder all the time, and right now I feel that I cannot ever complete them! But I have to admit... I have been pretty lousy student when it comes to the language lectures. I have not talked Chinese to people around me or studied in the evenings. I also did a huge mistake with my studies and I recommend you to be wiser… In the Chinese classes suddenly we just changed the pinyins to characters, so now we should understand the Chinese characters completely. All our listening and reading tasks are only in characters. Maybe it wouldn't be impossible to learn them, so don't do the same mistake that I did if you're going to attend to this program: When we started studying, I thought that I won't need characters so much and I always just wrote down the pinyin sentences from the blackboard. First weeks I didn't learn even a one character and now I can't make the courses without knowing them. So, from the beginning till the end, remember to study also the characters that are mentioned in the lessons! It will be a big process, but surely worth it. Now the final exams are coming next week and I have to study 250 characters at once… Won't happen because I just cannot do it, and I am almost mad for myself because of that. Well, the other exams seem to be more reasonable for me and I wish I'll get better results of them.

But, back to spring as a whole. Time has really gone fast but so many amazing things have happened. I have seen many different cities and other places in China and I have also learned about the culture through practice. One of the things I never could imagine is the benefit of this experience in work life. Of course I knew that it will be a huge advantage that I am able to show the employers that I have experience from China, but I couldn't ever imagine, that companies would recognize this immediately when I got it. I started to look for summer job and internships when I knew that I am coming to study here. I sent three applications to different places and I got all the jobs. Can you believe, all the three! Last summer I made 58 applications and I didn't get any job! Unbelievable! I chose two of them, so now immediately my three months stay changed to be 10 month stay. I will do two internships in a row and come back to Finland in 2010, scary but exciting! :) I wish next AE group will enjoy their stay here also and take all the advantage if this experience what you can just take.

I will write you one last text and say goodbyes next week. Now I really have to keep on studying so I will pass the exams. Bye! :)