1/25/18

Endings are always tough – there’s not much you can say that fees “good enough.” When we said goodbye to the Lingnan professors at lunch today, it was pretty casual – “it was great meeting you, call if you ever come into town.” The weird part is that on one hand we haven’t really known each other for *that* long – even with the friendliest of the Lingnan students, there hasn’t been enough time (at least in my experience) to form a really deep, personal friendship. But on the other hand, there’s definitely the capacity for one. If we were spending a whole semester here, or even another month or so, I think we’d grow really, really close to the Lingnan students, or at least some of them. But as is, we mostly just have the feeling of that monumental possibility, instead of the relationship itself. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it – I’ll admit that there also this hanging feeling that everything needs to be poignant and meaningful, since it’s the *last* this, and the *last* that, but in reality each this and that is pretty similar to all the this’s and that’s that came before, so it can end up feeling underwhelming. But all in all, I think today was a fine send off. Nothing super out of the ordinary happened, and that’s as it should be – we’ll all remember the best days of the trip, but today was a reminder of how great all the ordinary ones were too.