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The six-weeks-left mark has come and gone! It's crazy to think that before this experience, 6 weeks was the longest I'd ever been away from home. Time in general is so trippy, but the six-week period of time has come to feel both simultaneously infinite and non-existent. I do really look forward to coming home and spending the summer based in glorious Tucson sunshine before heading off to the Bay Area to start college in September, but I know I will also miss this place so much and so I'm trying to soak in every lovely moment of it that I have left! 

This week was pretty eventful! 

On Monday night, we went to an opera performance with the NSLI-Y group. My RD Shasha surprised us with her parents, who are in town from Pittsburgh! It was so cute meeting them. 

The show itself was pretty awesome too! I appreciate 越剧 (Yue Ju / the opera of this region) A LOT more than 京剧 (Jing ju: Beijing opera). The story was kind of hard to follow (the subtitles on screens to the side were helpful but the plot, which regarded family drama, was pretty complicated). The costumes and music were magnificent though! 

And even though we got soaked trying to catch a cab back to the school and almost didn't make it before curfew, it was really sweet to spend some evening time in downtown Shanghai. It's definitely then when I can really appreciate the grandness of the city. 

In our Tuesday music class, we practiced for the upcoming singing competition. 

As a group we'll be singing 最炫民族风 (Zui Xuan Min Zu Feng) where I am grouped with Vitaly from Russia and Kohe & Haiete from Japan as well as rapping with Keiondre, Yas, Paris, and Brady and having a solo of my own.

As a large group we'll also be concluding the competition with the catchy song 再见 (Zai Jian). 

For our individual Chinese song: Maike, Megan and I will be singing 斑马斑马 (Ban ma, Ban ma or Zebra, Zebra)  by 宋冬野 (Song dong ye). It's so beautiful!

We'll also be covering Chairlift's "Bruises" for our English song. 

Wednesday was a foreigner hay day! A high school basketball team from Canada came to play our school's team (the captain of which is Tilden's new friend, Simon). They were visiting a sister school in Tokyo over the past two weeks and no one (including the Canadians) were quite sure why they were here exactly. Regardlessly, they beat us pretty badly, but it was a really good game and fun to meet them! 

A group of French students also came Wednesday to study for two weeks in the Chinese department. 

It's really so weird seeing so many foreigners and hearing so much English! I realized that's going to be such a bizarre aspect about coming back to the States. 

On Friday, Keiondre, Paris, Maike, Tilden and I went to the Fudan international high school for the AP pre-aministration. We got to take a practice test, which made me feel super confident, but we also got to explore around that school a little and found a bizarre international used-book store where I found lots of ancient Arizona travel guides of all things! It was super weird, but also quite awesome. 

On Saturday, I went with Tilden to Qi Pu Lu, a humongous fake market / shopping area. It was pretty nightmarish and overwhelming for me because I hate shopping, but I ended up getting a totally decked out case for my phone (very China, but I was still psyched)... 

We also had fun getting lost in a random abandoned mall a few metro stops over. 

Also I just want to include this picture of kittens! One of the feral cats in the courtyard outside our dorms gave birth!