Instant coffee and coconut milk. It's working for me.

As I try to stay motivated through my final papers (they are each 3,000 words long, one in English and three in Chinese), I am looking forward to future adventures! I will be crashing in Korea on January 10th. "Crashing" here is probably pretty literal. This semester has been a challenge, and I am already very much in need of a break. There isn't really much of a plan between arriving and leaving in February, but I don't really think anything needs to be added to a month and a half on an island south of Korea with Christian. Hopefully this thought will propel me through 12,000 words and two languages of papers (though I should say that while 3,000 words of English is about 10 double spaced pages in English, 3,000 Chinese characters is only 5 or 6).

And THEN, next semester, my mother and friend (there's a better word for you in Chinese than English, dear- 阿姨, friend who counts as family）and aunt are coming during my spring break in April. I am really excited to show them around, and to see more of China myself.

AND THEN, next summer Nicole is coming! For two weeks. This will also be excellent times.

After that, Xiaoxuan has invited me to stay with her family in Hebei province for a little while, and then I'll fly out of Beijing and finally see North American again! Hopefully by that time I will know what I'll be doing in North America. I'll be getting decisions from grad schools in February and March, but may deferring to spend some time in the real world before I dive back in to more grad school. It's a little crazy in here.

Xiaoxuan and Xiaochun took me to a fantastic book store on Saturday. I wanted to buy some things to read over winter break so that my Chinese doesn't atrophy. I have the first in a series of books about Ming dynasty history, which are written in a novel-like manner and are some of the most popular books in China right now. Xiaoxuan also recommended a book about a man during the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命）who gets sent to the countryside of Inner Mongolia to be re-educated. She says that both she and her father like it very much. It's called 狼图腾, or Wolf Totem. All by myself I picked out the most recent issue of an academic journal, which Xiaochun later told me was quite influential. It has a couple dozen articles, mostly having to do with deciding where China is and should be heading as a country.

I am going to go back and buy a dictionary of Chinese idioms, or 成语，because I hardly know any right now and they are necessary for understanding Chinese and not sounding very unsophisticated and awkward when I speak. Then I will have way more than I can possibly ingest over the next couple of months, and will call it good.

Countdown to Christian: 26 days.