Unfinished Business

Semester schedules vary based on country, customs and college. In the case of SCUT School of Foreign Languanges the semester will finish around mid-January. Spring Semester begins in early March directly following Lunar New Year.

Here in the states Lunar New Year goes by virtually unacknowledged while in China it is the biggest holiday of the actual year. Conversely, the Christmas season here stops everything. We’ll close schools, government offices etc. In China there is knowledge of the holiday but certainly nothing quite like in the West.

Naturally the school schedule is in keeping with the culture and custom of the country it belongs to. Which means for me, my SCUT semester is not quite complete.

I still must finish grading student work (which I brought home with me) and then submit final grades for the semester. The deadline looms.

This week has been full of joy and presents and fun and distractions. The grading must be done and it always helps tremendously when I shut down my social media accounts to tune out distraction.

So even though in one world I am on vacation, in the other I still have unfinished business to attend to. Back to business for me.

Happy 2020!