While I wish I was posting something about how it doesn't end because I get to go back, that is not what I get to say.What I do get to say is that I am continuing my link to Asia here. I jumped on the opportunity to become a BGSU buddy for one of the some 500 exchange students we have (I had no idea we took so many!). I requested a student from China and was graciously paired with Liwen,an MBA student from a province in middle Mainland China. She is here with the College of Business, looking to stay for 2 years to gain an MBA in Applied Statistics, then work for a few years here in the states before returning home. There were so many BGSU students that wanted to help that I was also paired with a BGSU politics major, Ashley.
We have been asked to give at least an hour of our time a week to spend with our buddy, but we will have no trouble with that! We had our first meeting today and we decided to put the bowling in Bowling Green and played 3 games down at Al-Mar Bowling Alley. We were all pretty terrible (in 3 games only one of us broke 100 once). However, it was a ton of fun and we really got to know each other, so it was totally worth the failure at bowling (I did manage a few strikes in some crazy strokes of luck). After our adventure bowling, we ventured over to Panera Bread to have dinner and this was a real treat. Any one who has had it knows, Panera has the best Mac and Cheese, and Liwen has never had Mac and Cheese before (like never, never!). She had also never had a salad she actually liked, so this was the perfect place to go :). Liwen got the half and half (a great deal) with the Mac and Cheese (of course) and the steak and blue cheese salad (I don't like blue cheese and I want to get that salad) and loved every bit of it.
The best part was, that after the delicious meal, we sat and just talked about things, and I was able to learn so much! I was glad to hear that the one child ban placed on citizens living in urban areas in China has been lifted (the population is growing older so they need to counter act that with higher birth rates). Plus, I was extremely surprised to hear that on Weibo (the China version of twitter) if you have too many people retweet or like a post of yours you can get in serious trouble for being too influential.
To round out the night, I drove Liwen home, and (because it is customary to give gifts when people do favors for you like drive) Liwen gave me a small gift. It is a set of 6 bookmarks that clip to the top of the page. The best part is that the look like traditional Chinese figures (like the emperor from mulan) and I absolutely love them!
I can't wait for our next meeting (there is so much to do with Liwen- like ice skating and trying chipotle for the first time)!
