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Monday we had our finals! All the NSLI-Y Americans did, that is. We leave a couple weeks earlier than everyone else, so this month's monthly test (月考) counted as our final. 

We tested in listening, comprehensive Chinese (writing/reading) and speaking. For our speaking test, we each had to speak for 3 minutes on a picture we were given during the test. We also had to prepare a 5 minute presentation over the weekend on a topic our teacher gave us. Our speaking teacher Ge Lao Shi is pretty hip and so the topics were as well. My topic was "乐活族" (le huo zu) or those who have lifestyles of health and sustainability (LOHAS) and who basically live by the mantra "do good, feel good, look good". This group of people is definitely becoming larger and larger in China and it was really fun to research (I also happen to fall under a lot of the groups' characteristics such as doing yoga, eating healthily and working to protect the environment, etc. which is funny because we chose our topics from a hat...) 

The others' topics were also very interesting! Maike talked about Chinese heritage sites (世界文化遗产); Keiondre, about the "low carbon life" (低碳生活); Reo, about online trading (网络代购); Paris, about gender differences (男女有别); Carmen, about "doing what you love and loving what you do" when it comes to employment (爱一行改一行，改一行爱一行); Saori, about the slow movement (慢活族); Yas about the weak/spoiled "strawberry generation" (草莓族); and finally Brady gave us a look into the secret lives of fire fighters (消防员背后的酸甜苦辣).

All the tests went well and it feels oh-so-good to be done! 

I also got the chance to finish knitting my scarf Monday afternoon! Just in time for summer! ;) 

Tuesday was the singing competition! 

Maike and my Zebra duet went well as did our version of "Bruises" with Sara, but the real stars of the show were our Japanese friends, who belted out everything from local Okinawa folk songs to contemporary Chinese rap:

Wednesday we had off because a bunch of important world leaders came to Shanghai for an international meeting so I went with Megan, Tilden, Sara, Maike, Chihiro and Julia to Tian Zi Fang. It was such a wonderful summer day and a great girls' day out! 

Thursday in our speaking class we watched an awesome (although slightly confusing) movie called "Secret" (不能说的秘密) about love, pianos and time travel. 

On Friday after school, I went to meet Chen, a Chinese student studying astronomy at the U of A in Tucson who my dad and sister befriended at a science lecture a few months ago; he is traveling around China for the summer and currently in Shanghai! We went to a cool old water own; it was nice to meet him and realize again how very very small the world actually is. 

Saturday, I spent the day with Sara and Megan at a Korean spa! It was probably the most relaxed I've felt in my 9 months in China. There were four different flavored nude pools (a rose one, a ginseng one, a super hot one, and a cool one), a regular steam room and sauna as well as saunas with volcanic rock and infrared beds, an oxygen room, and even an ice room! We also got salt scrub massages, which were awesome. And the best part of all was that it all came out to only be about 25 U.S. dollars for the entire day! I am definitely going to have to get used to how expensive everything is in the States!