27

Monday was our first official choir practice of the second semester (there were a few false starts and then auditions for new members). This semester it's all student run, which will be a little hectic but fun all the same. This time we started on "You Raise Me Up".

Megan finally got her wheelchair on Monday as well! We were all so excited that we went off campus to celebrate with sesame sugar bao zi! 

Tuesday, we performed our musicals (The Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Ballad of Ricky Bobby). They were pretty hilarious and now we are moving on to bigger, better and more public musical adventures...

Tuesday afternoon, our boys played their second match of the soccer tournament. We won again (2-1) but this game was much closer and quite rough. Luca and Koki both got a little beat up, although all is well now! Soccer is probably my favorite (conventional) sport to watch and it's a sweet feeling to have an awesome team to cheer for!

On Wednesday, we had a really good discussion in our comprehensive Chinese class about environmental protection. I always love when I find myself having the same kind of serious/philosophical conversations that I might be having in English but in Chinese rather than just the "what are your hobbies?" type. 

Wednesday afternoon, Maike and I went to the graduating IB students' art exhibit, where there were some really excellent pieces, especially those by our friends Miu and Linda who will be studying in Chicago and NYC next year, respectively. 

Miu's work:

Linda's work:

Maike and I also decided to continue our crafty adventures with some poetic corpse drawings, poems and stories. 

I drew the head and feet: 

I drew the torso: 

I'll also share the poem where I started with one line, Maike wrote a line without looking at mine and so on until we filled up the post card on which we were writing:

You taste like sunshine and smell like rain.  

Sweet misery cooks the soles of your feet, footsteps raw and tang-blooded. 

Frozen feet gaggled around tightly-knit mittens, an homage to armless boys who know which path. 

They speak with muted gestures and longing.  

Heavy thunder under worn out clothes, hearts carved out by Mayan doctors and Transhumanist soldiers.  

Why Mr., your hat is grand. And so we began our fedora worship.  

Swinging between can-do and claw footed bathtubs, rooted pianos and throats made of glass. 

Threading beginnings into endings crawling like lizards out of skins yellow eyes and lipless mouths. Hungry ghosts twirl around my lamppost, wrapping themselves into bolts of cloth.  

Our neighbor was a woman with a floating voice and flour-fried hands she sang lullabies you write the lyrics.  

Fingernail tips introducing you to the chocolate ice, we fall again
3...2...1... Blast off  

The atmosphere like a flower unfurls, those watching fold their pinkened hands and weep.  

Stas never looked so beautiful.