A certain sense of Bloomington

SHANGHAI -- I have been in this city of 16 million people for nearly three months now. Already, Bloomington is a memory, and a faintly unbelievable one at that. Can any city really have only 100 thousand people living there? Does the town really have that many ethnic restaurants? Are college students really rich enough to have their own cars, computers and apartments?\nI exaggerate. Slightly.\nMy class graduates in less than a week, but I am not nostalgic yet. I learned I would be studying in Shanghai midway through finals week last semester. I couldn't indulge myself in sentimental reveries because I had to finish my exams and papers. I had only had time to take a single farewell stroll around the campus and the city. At the same time I was saying goodbye, I had to psyche myself to go literally halfway around the world to a country whose history I barely knew and of whose language I spoke not a word.\nMy classmates, by contrast, have had months to take their leave of Bloomington. They've gone through all of the rituals of the end of senior year: Slacking off on finals, sitting in the Arboretum to watch the flowers bloom once more, and seeing old roommates in awkward coffee-shop meetings.\nWhile they've been playing these roles, I've been doing other things, like learning how to talk with taxi drivers in Mandarin (useful phrases like "Turn left," "Turn right," and "Oh hell, I am going to die."). Instead of winding down my academic career, I've gone to more classes than ever -- they \nactually expect me to show up in class every day here. That must be the Chinese torture I keep hearing about. Worst of all, instead of meeting my friends at Crazy Horse or the Runcible Spoon for half-cheery, half-teary evenings, I've been catching up by e-mail. And as nice as it is to hear from them, it'd be nicer still to see them now.\nOften, as I've been reviewing vocabulary lists or reading Qing dynasty histories, I've let my thoughts drift back to my years in Bloomington. There is a natural inclination to remember only the good parts of your college experience -- to remember happy or profound moments without the bad times in between. When I am honest with myself about my time at IU, I remember that it was much less happy than I want to recall. I want to forget the times I was anxious, lonely and frustrated.\nNormally, I succeed in forgetting the unpleasant -- but not always. And when I remember the whole truth, I have to tell myself that I will never again leave home for the first time, that I will never again have to go through such an acute and constant shock of exposure to the real world, and that I \nwill never again have to be so alone. I tell myself things will be easier from now on. It's a lie, but it helps anyway.\nAt IU, I've managed to accomplish nearly all of the goals I set for myself when I was applying to college in high school. I took a different path, and a rockier one, than I thought I would. And when I finally arrived at my destination, I found it wasn't at all like I imagined it would be. More important than the journey were the people -- teachers, classmates, friends -- I'd met along the way.\nIn the end, I am left with a certain sense of Bloomington. Many of the nights I remember best are almost the same -- At night, with snow or rain falling, I meet a friend somewhere for dinner, beer and conversation. And we sit there late into the night, talking, confiding and laughing, with the chill of the winter wind blowing outside.