Monthly Recap: December and January

These have been a crazy two months for me. I have been traveling, writing essays, taking exams, and celebrating the holidays. Here's what I've been up to.
Places I went

Nanjing, China

Tamil Nadu, India

Bangkok, Koh Lan, and Koh Tao, Thailand

Chengdu, China

Best on the Blog

2016 in Review - I collected all my favorite pictures from 2016 and put them into a blog post, which also notes some of the big experiences I had last year.

Best on Instagram  

@catherinearnett - This one is is from my last day on Koh Tao in Thailand, right after I finished my scuba diving certification. Hopefully there will be a blog post up soon.

Books I Read

I still was having issues with my Kindle until recently. I also spent most of December working on an essay, so I was mostly reading articles about the history of classical Chinese nature poetry. Now that I've got my Kindle working again and I'm traveling, I am reading the third book in the Outlander series. Such a good holiday read!

Inspiration

Travel these couple of months has really gotten me motivated about traveling even more. Also being outside China makes me think about all the things I like about China. I really missed the food! I missed being able to communicate (or at least try) in people's native language. I really missed understanding what was going on. I am spending all of February traveling in China, so it's really good that I feel inspired to travel and to appreciate China!

I met some pretty cool women in the past couple of months. I have also been thinking a lot about women's rights after the Women's March in DC, which my mom and many friends attended. The combination of these two things has put me in quite a feminist mood. One of the coolest people I met was a Kuwaiti woman who was on the same boat as me to Koh Tao. She is the first Arab woman scuba diving instructor. She taught for many years and has traveled all over to go diving. She now splits her time between Kuwait and Thailand diving just for herself now. I talked to her for a while and am glad I met her. I met a few other people with equally cool stories. I find it so fascinating to learn about other people's lives, especially those of bad-ass women.

Highlights

I finished my first semester in China! It's a highlight in the sense that I survived the semester. I'm halfway through my year abroad (which is not okay). There were moments where I couldn't really picture being this far. I think my Chinese has improved a lot. Although I am still humbled whenever I talk to a Chinese person with a regional accent or who talks too fast, I think I'm improving.

Going to India was a huge highlight for me. I have already written a few blog posts about it and will write the rest of them soon. I have really been wanting to go to India for about 5 years. I got the opportunity to go, and I'm so glad I went. I definitely feel like it will be my first trip of many (I already have an invitation to come back later this year, but we'll see).

I got my PADI open water diving license! This was a bucket list item for me. I'm so glad I did it. It was even more amazing and overwhelming than I imagined. I am already planning my next diving trips.

Challenges

I spent Christmas in China. This wasn't my first Christmas away from home, but it was my first Christmas without any family. It was alright, but it makes me really appreciate at least being in a country that celebrates Christmas during December. Most Chinese people don't know when Christmas is or what it is, really. But I did my best to celebrate and be with friends.

December and January were the months of all my essays, deadlines, and exams. I had to write a 3,000 word essay on the history of Chinese nature poetry. I had to do planning for my dissertation. And I would have taken my final exams in January, except I got super ill when I came back from India. I still don't know whether it was the anti-malarial, the black mold that was growing on my walls while I was away, or the pollution (or indeed a potent combination of the three). It took my a couple of weeks to really get over it.