Last test before the rest

I spent the last few days studying for my Chinese final, which I finished today, ending the semester except for a two week long study trip that we set out on tomorrow. As I labored over page after page of grammar and flashcard after flashcard of vocab, it was gratifyingly evident how far I had come in a very short time. It was also painfully evident how much I had learned for just a day or a week and then immediately forgotten.

In my experience, this is bound to happen in language learning. To use an analogy you Americans still working on Thanksgiving leftovers might appreciate, imagine throwing all the food that graced your table last Thursday at a wall. Some, like the mashed potatoes and the pumpkin pie, will really stick, like the vocab and grammar that easily stays in the mind because it interests you or because you use it daily or because it is similar to English. On the other hand, the turkey and stuffing and ham are going to hold on for just a moment before falling to the floor, just like a large portion of vocabulary and grammar that slides to the floor unnoticed and unused.
It is that grammar and vocab that I was really focusing on as I studied yesterday, attempting to give it a good coating of cranberry sauce or gravy before again throwing it at the heavily loaded wall. Again, some slid down the wall just moments after finishing my final, but more and more get entrenched in mashed potatoes or crystallized in cranberry sauce.
I'm done, but I am also well prepared for next semester and more Chinese.

I apologize if that analogy was a bit much for you, and especially if you, like me, have no leftovers (or even recent memory of a Thanksgiving meal) to sate the hankering for Thanksgiving food that you just got.

I will leave tomorrow evening for a trip going to Luoyang, Xi'an, Xi'ning, Lhasa (Tibet), and Chengdu. We will see a number of monasteries (including the famous Shaolin Temple), ride on the highest railroad in the world (from Xi'ning to Lhasa), and see an incredibly large Buddha among other things. I will be unable to post anything during that time without my computer with its newly repaired VPN, but I assume I will have many photos and experiences to share when I return.