"What Are Your Travel Plans this Summer, Becky?"

With only a week left of classes, I’m getting the same question over and over again. “Where will you travel to this summer?”
During the summer I always spend at least a month traveling all over China, and my students and friends know me well enough to expect it by now. So I like to surprise them by saying, “Nowhere. I’m staying in this summer.”
Yep, old fleet-footed Ances is hanging up the backpack this summer for some slightly more mundane activities.
You see, several months ago, I set myself a goal of taking the HSK 5 (a Chinese language test which has 6 levels, 5 is the second hardest). I knew I wouldn’t have enough prep time while teaching classes, which was a correct assumption, so I decided to give myself an entire month of non-working prep time. So I planned to take the test at the end of July. (I just hired one of my chinese teachers to help me study for it!)
So I’ve known that I’m staying here the month of July for a long time. The question was, what to do with August? And the options were unlimited. I want to go back to Taiwan, because there is still so much to see and friends I miss, and I want to go back to Kunming, as a bunch of us were planning a little mini reunion. I was also thinking about Korea or Japan, both places I’ve never been but have been wanting to go for awhile.
And then I got a job offer in Hangzhou. A very, very tempting offer in which I work very few hours and make a ton of money (much more than my salary) just for the month of August. And a friend offered me a place to stay while I’m working and with my savings not as high as I like, I found it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
So it’s a stay-cation for me this summer. In the hot, humid, horrible weather of Zhejiang Province. But I’ll be surrounded by friends, and can retreat to the silent fortress that is my college (it is basically abandoned during the summer with most students leaving and most shops by the uni closing up for the holiday).
And while I prefer to be traveling, I will say my time is already filling up quite fast. Me and a friend are working on a secret project (which I will hopefully announce here at a later date) and I have a lot of friends who will be around. Plus, with the pressure of my test finished I’m hoping to have some more free time to get a few projects finished.
Also, next year will be my last year at my current school. My favorite students are going to graduate and I figure 5 years is long enough in some tiny city. Time to move on to a new place in China, explore new places and make new friends. So I’m going to soak in my time here, not take anything for granted, and enjoy my last summer in a place that I have grown to really love.
So I’ll be staying here this summer, and while not long ago I would have thought it complete torture, things have changed and I’m actually looking forward to it. Only 8 more days of class and then school’s out (for summer!)
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