Living on Campus

I've been teaching for a two weeks now. I'm living on the old campus of Anhui Normal. It's in a built up part of town. Looking out my apartment window, I can see office buildings looming just outside the walls.  We're close to the lake. The apartment stands just up the hill from the west. I can see the neon displays of walking street from our balcony.

I imagine living here must be like living in a math. I wonder how long people will study here. Apart from the walls there is a pillbox. It seems untouched by war. For some reason, I can't imagine it being built before th 50's. The school was built on the side of a hill. The front gate looks out across the lake. The ground appears flat, but it has been rising gently since the lake-shore. It continues to rise gently until disappearing behind the main builing. Here the ground swells upwards, the grade increases. Two roads flank the mainbuilding. flanking them are basketball courts.

The hill levels off after a twenty foot climb. On this ribbon of flat earth, that wraps around the whole hill, I imagine, is an elementry school, the life sciences collegge, the international college, and teacher housing. The ribbon is intersected by roads and stairs leading still higher, but beyond this next ribbon is a sharp fall. Taking worn out stairs, you can venture into still more teacher housing. The hills begin again. The roads are flanked by buildings. At first, these are two storey brick row houses. Going deeper, the buildings become six and eight storey tenenments. High up the hill the buildings give way to shacks, forest, and darkness.

We decide to turn back for the night.

Discussing it between ourselves, we decide we've approached this hill from the other side. That side was no better. I wonder how much of the hill remains unknown to us, how long is that final stretch of road. With the trees so thick, there's no telling.

Tomorrow, first light, we'll venture back and fill in the map.