Prior to departure

I leave for Beijing in less than a week and I hope I have fully prepared. The past week has been spent frantically reviewing my lessons and making sure that I can, in fact, read, write, and speak Mandarin moderately well. Spoken Mandarin has always been my weakest area and I have high hopes that being inundated by the language will make me much better at it.

Things to look forward to this week: studying for finals, taking finals, more Mandarin review, my last weekend in America for some time.