Day 27 - Graduation Ceremony 毕业典礼

Please see the post from Flora

This is the last post from session 1 as on Saturday July 8th students fly home or to their next destinations.  Thanks for following this blog!

Today is our last day on this journey in Shanghai with CIEE, the last day we are going to see our host family and new friends. This morning we presented our IPA presentational role play, the last grade we are getting for this trip. We also had our graduation ceremony, our last official get together. Awards were given and pictures were taken as the last tangible memory. As we leave the lobby, with the conscience of never being able to see everyone on the program gathered all together again, we make plans to get together with the closest people we surround ourselves with everyday at the local meeting spot, Global Harbor. We go there with the same conscience of how we will never be there together after tonight but we still try to make the most out of our night. We sit together at tables separated by a few inches at a popular American franchise, McDonald's. We talk about our families, both in the US and in Shanghai, our friends, and how just the next day we will be scattered hundred of miles apart on that large piece of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. We talk about how when we visit states, we must "hit each other up". Shanghai changed our mindset, it inspires us to travel the world. Shoot, it inspires us to travel in our own country. to book a flight to a whole another state, just to visit a friend. Although I was not able to be with everyone tonight, I am writing this blog not to display just my own feelings but to display the feelings of everyone along with me. Tonight was magical. This whole trip was magical. I hope everyone reading this would keep everything that's happened in their memories, to keep new friends in touch, to appreciate your teachers, program leaders, and host family for everything. I am extremely blessed to have this opportunity and to be able to write this blog about our last day of this journey. I will miss this wild but beautiful city as well as these beautiful souls I surrounded myself with this past month.