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Megan's leg is finally better! No more cast! That also means back to night study for us... It's all good though; I've decided to take my cozy attitude with me to the classroom to study, so all is well. Plus we only have 2 months left, so I might as well squeeze out every ounce of the Chinese high school experience that I can! 

Monday was an eventful day! 

The director of the new international exchange program at my old high school (BASIS) came to my current high school (Jiao Da Fu Zhong) to talk to the parents of Chinese students who are planning to spend a year studying at one of the BASIS schools. She said that they hope to have BASIS students do an exchange and study here in Shanghai as well someday! It is truly such a small world! 

During art, Sara and I led an activity based off of Judith Klausner's Oreo sculptures: 

Actually trying to sculpt Oreos gave me a new found appreciation for her work (it was actually really difficult!) but was super fun. Everyone enjoyed eating their masterpieces afterward as well. 

Mine

Klausner's

That afternoon, Tilden, Maike, Sara and I accompanied Megan out to get a blonde streak dyed in her hair. Maike, Sara and I ended up stopping in at a Chinese medicine / massage place as well. Then we ate out at my favorite Xin Jiang restaurant (I am such a regular there, it's almost embarrassing but I'm actually totally unapologetic because their fried rice and thick homemade noodles are to die for). 

Wednesday I had lunch with YiChen (my language partner). She's trying to decide between going to a summer school activity in the States or Spain over the summer and so we discussed the pros and cons of both. Personally I would totally take the Spain gig! 

On Thursday, I went with Maike off campus to explore.  We used this technique called psychogeography where we decided to get off at a random metro stop and then made other random decisions like following a color around. We found a beautiful river path and some creepy abandoned train yards. It was a great opportunity to expand on my people-in-front-of-doors photography obsession. 

I spent this weekend at the dorm one last time because my new host family was going back to their hometown of Hangzhou this weekend to sweep their ancestors tombs for Qing Ming Jie. I did meet my new host sister though and she is the cutest and sweetest person ever! I am so excited to be a part of their family for these last two months. 

On Sunday I went with Megan and Tilden to the Wild Animal Park! It ended up being quite the adventurous public bus ride through the countryside to get there and although there were some depressing parts (such as the habitats being completely unsuited to the animals species and people throwing fruit into the enclosures and feeding fish with baby bottles), it was definitely a worthwhile experience. My favorite were the ostriches because of their sass, but the lemurs and baby meerkats were pretty splendid! And of course it wouldn't be a Chinese animal experience without China's favorite diplomats: the giant pandas!