As the end of the year quickly approaches, there’s a sensation across campus that both professors and students are going into panic. Papers, experiments, projects, presentations, tests and exams are all being rushed in at the very last minute. And if that isn’t enough, one can always worry about registering for next year’s classes and room assignments, finding a place to store your stuff for the summer or figuring out plans for the next few months.

For me, room assignments were nearly as stressful as registering for classes. People are assigned a randomly generated number based on seniority, then amongst themselves sort out whom they want to room with (if they want to room with anyone at all) and whom they want to share a suite with (if they get a double or single that shares a bathroom). The groups with the highest numbers get first pick on which room/suite and which dorm they want. People with lower numbers have to settle with whatever is left.

Storage is also something that nobody really wants to think about until the last minute. It’s a hassle to make numerous phone calls to various storage places to compare rent prices and sizes of spaces, and then having to organize a group of people you want to share it with to save money. Then of course, there is packing up. (If only everyone had one of those super-duper tidying machines like the one in The Cat in the Hat!)

Wake Forest’s summer break is 15 weeks long – twice as long as it was for me in high school. In this great expanse of time (which will surely pass much faster than anticipated), there are so many possibilities. Some people go work at a summer job or internship to earn a little pocket money; others go home and once again enjoy being doted upon by their parents. For them, going home may be as simple as a quick 45-minute drive to another town, but for people like me (which there aren’t many at all), it involves a very long series of flights that can add up to anywhere between 20 and 40 hours. After comparing ticket prices online for various itinerary possibilities and sorting out visa renewals and extensions, all I can do is cross my fingers and hope there aren’t any flight cancellations.

For those traveling around the world on cruises, lying on foreign beaches, and taking in sights and exotic foods, summer vacation can be rather exciting. After all, who doesn’t like a little bit of leisure? Since I am returning to Beijing, I’m lucky enough to combine the best of both worlds, as one such faraway-land is a place I call home. I am even more excited to return this summer because of the Olympic buzz and my friends reuniting.

That is, if I can make it through these last few weeks of school first.

Everyone has seen or heard of the movie Animal House; if not, they’ve at least seen one movie about crazy college kids partying out of control and failing classes as a result. And when most hear the word “fraternity,” they probably think of wild parties, trashed houses and hazing – that is, forcing a new recruit to do embarrassing and sometimes painful things.

But here at Wake Forest, I’ve found that these negative stereotypes could not be further from the truth. The majority of universities in the US have some form of Greek life – whether it be a fraternity, sorority or service group. The names of these groups are made up of two or three Greek letters (e.g. Phi, Alpha, Beta) and are often national groups with chapters represented at a university. They are brotherhoods, sisterhoods and societies that have initiation processes, requirements and traditions.

The initiation process differs from organization to organization and university to university, but hazing – contrary to what people might think – is prohibited nearly everywhere. Potential new members, or PNMs, go through a process called “rush,” which typically lasts about a week. During this week, they go around to each of the organizations that are represented on campus and choose which they like the best, narrowing down their choices each day.

The organizations, likewise, choose the PNMs they like best, and if these match up, the PNM can continue going to that organization. At the end of the week, the PNM is offered a “bid” to the organization that wants to initiate him or her, and if they accept the bid, they become a “pledge.” Pledges are assigned a big brother or sister within the organization, who serves as their mentor.

Greek organizations are great if someone is looking for a group of people to become very close to. A lot of fraternities and sororities think of themselves as families with both big and little brothers and sisters, and every Greek organization shares in a few philanthropies, such as helping to fundraise for causes or charities. Members are also required to maintain a certain grade point average and hold study hours to ensure their members do equally well academically.

It can’t be denied, however, that Greek people also know how to have fun. They are well-known for social events – themed parties (e.g. togas, luaus, ‘80s flashbacks, etc), date functions, mixers, and mountain weekends, to name a few. In some universities, particularly ones with large student populations, these events can be exclusive – that is, only members and invited guests are welcome. Luckily, at Wake Forest we have something called an open Greek system, which means that most of the time anyone can participate in the events.

Not everyone chooses to join a fraternity or sorority, but at a university with an open Greek system, that is perfectly acceptable. I decided not to pledge with a sorority because I felt that I needed some more time to figure out what I wanted. But if I do decide to, I’ll have another opportunity come fall. Until then, it’s good to know I can still enjoy the events that go on and learn more about each sorority from all of my friends that did decide to “go Greek.”

We have all heard the saying, “so much to do, so little time,” and for me, it never rung as true as it did towards the end of last semester. I experienced plenty of sleepless nights full of homework, studying and a steady buildup of pressure with the coming final exams.

Many people have said to me that college life is easy because “we college students have so much free time.” In high school, it used to be that writing a good paper would take me roughly two to three hours. I would sit down in my room, turn up the music and take a go at it. Here at Wake Forest, however, it is not so simple. Writing a paper might take me up to a ridiculous eight hours – not necessarily because we have to write considerably longer papers, but more because when you live just a 10-minute walk from all your friends, distractions are inevitable. Oh, procrastination! If it were offered as a major, I’m sure it would be most popular.

But the most stressful period for freshmen like me is probably registering for classes. I have had to do it twice now, once for the last semester and again for this one. After making a long list of all the possible classes you can take to fill your divisional requirements, you have to find which ones can fit into a schedule. While making this schedule, you have to check virtualratings.com to see which professors are going to make life impossible. And unfortunately for freshmen, we are the last to register, as we are the furthest away from declaring and fulfilling a major.

So while the upperclassmen begin registration, us lowly freshmen are constantly “stalking classes” by checking space availability online, since each class only accepts a limited number of students. If a class fills up, we need to estimate how far down on the waiting list we would be and then calculate whether waiting is worthwhile; if not, we need to find another class that fits into our schedule, and if no such class exists, it’s back to square one. This process usually happens a few times as each day passes until it is finally time for freshmen to register.

As a way of relaxing and keeping fit, my hall’s RA (residential advisor) gives us a few opportunities every week to join various workout programs. There are multiple ones offered every weekday, and they are open to everyone. If I feel like relaxing, I’ll go to yoga; if I’m up for something more intense, I’ll join the “ab attack” or “metabolic effect” class.

After working out, it is usually a good time to do the laundry – a deceptively easy-sounding task. In my particular dorm, there are six washers and six dryers for approximately 210 students. If you are lucky enough to get to the laundry room when there’s a free washer, there is still the possibility that it is the one that doesn’t work so well and will leave your clothes soaking wet. And timing is everything: If you don’t go back down to the basement in time to transfer your wet clothes to a dryer, someone might take your clothes out for you and put them somewhere. Or a dryer might not be available because some people like putting clothes in for an extended amount of time. If you’ve managed to get this far without a problem, you still might find that by the time you make it back downstairs to take your clothes out of the dryer, someone has taken them out for you and left them on the folding table in a wrinkly heap, and until your next laundry session, you’ll just have to walk around with that just-rolled-out-of-bed look.

Once you overcome such obstacles in the day-to-day life of a college student, however, there is something wonderful and amazing to look forward to: winter break! I’m much more excited about it than I ever was in high school, and it’s probably because classes in college only last one semester – once completed, there are no more assignments or research papers to worry about; all there is left to do is relax. And I plan to do plenty of it when I’m on vacation and back together with my family in Beijing!

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by my new environment: a new campus, a new climate, new food, new classes, new friends. At times like this, my thoughts turn to home. So this is what homesickness feels like.

Sure, the weather in North Carolina is beautiful, and so is the campus of Wake Forest: luscious green grass – soft and ideal for lying on – and old brick buildings surrounded by magnolia trees full of fragrant white flowers. At night, I look up at an endless sea of stars, twinkling brighter than I have ever seen in Beijing.

But I must admit, I do miss the towering office buildings and endless cranes that fill the Beijing skyline. The food on campus is good, even though (like with everything else) it’s very expensive in comparison to good ol’ Chinese food. And by Chinese food I don’t mean fortune cookies, fried wontons, sweet and sour pork or the other strange concoctions that pass for Chinese food here. The things I miss are Peking duck and dim sum, Sichuan food and rou chuan’r. I miss being able to buy food off little bicycle carts on the street – jian bing and little styrofoam boxes with rice and delicious veggies, candied fruit and roasted yams. I suppose it’s just more to look forward to on my visit home this December.

My classes are interesting and the professors are friendly, but I can’t help but miss my old teachers and classmates at the Western Academy of Beijing. The other day I was writing an e-mail to my teachers to update them on how things were, when a sudden rush of memories flooded back to me, and I felt a longing to be home.

Social life here at Wake Forest is so different from Beijing. For one, it’s hard to rival WAB for diversity in nationalities. I have also jumped from a class size of 54 to over a thousand. Even though some state universities can have tens of thousands of students, it still feels like a big enough change for me. It’s nice though, in the sense that I can still meet new people every day.

I’ve been to a few fraternity parties, where we listen to music from the ‘80’s and play games like pong (which involves being in teams of two and throwing ping pong balls into the opponents’ beverages). This is all fun, but after a while I begin to think of wandering the loud, thumping streets of Sanlitun, or floating on Houhai holding sparklers, eating cotton candy and watching candles float past atop paper boats.

Back in Beijing I used to speak Chinglish (a mixture of Chinese and English) around my parents and friends, slipping phrases like wo buzhidao (“I don’t know”), weishenme (“why?”) and shenme shang (“what’s up!”) into an English sentence. I haven’t quite broken out of this habit here, with the result that the conversation falters for a moment as my new friends give me looks of incomprehension. I know I should make more of an effort to break the habit and become a full-fledged English speaker, but another part of me doesn’t want to let go of this little piece of home.

Every day I’m reminded of things back in Beijing, my family and pets above all. My new life in the US is amazing, and it is certainly a thrill being on my own, but sometimes when I’m left with too much time, I think of home. I am thankful for the Internet, through which I’m able to keep in touch with friends and family via Skype and Facebook. Otherwise, I don’t know how I would cope with this case of Beijing withdrawal.

After having lived in Beijing for ten years, Alex Crossman started her freshman year in Wake Forest University in North Carolina in the fall of 2007. Between keeping up with her classes and her new life in the States, Alex misses eating chuan’r back in Beijing.