Usually by December I’m teaching class in my winter coat and hat (no heat in the classroom) but this year we’ve been especially lucky. It’s been a long and beeaoootiful fall. Cold nights, but clear, sunny, warm days.
My school is a forestry school and has a beautiful campus with all sorts of interesting trees and bamboo. We don’t quite have the fall foliage of my New England hometown, but there is a special kind of fall beauty here. Or, fall with chinese characteristics you could say, because the trees that changes color is the Ginseng tree.
Our campus has these trees all over the place and in the fall they change into a beautiful bright shade of yellow, carpeting the ground with their unique leaves. In the sunshine the trees positively shine and the leaves flutter down with the slightest of breezes.
I feel especially lucky because I’ve decided that this will be my last year at my current school. So everything I do has a slight sentimental feel to it. My “last” Thanksgiving, my “last” fall semester, my “last” autumn. The good thing is I am taking nothing for granted and trying to soak up every minute. And when the weather is amazing, and the days are beautiful, it makes it very easy to appreciate.
The photos make me Lin’an-sick