9

First: my deepest apologies that the last post was a bit on the late side. I don't have access to the Internet at my host family's Pudong house (where we spent last weekend) and then when I got back to school, they had installed new wifi policies which took a few days to figure out. It's been a little frustrating. We now have to constantly enter our personal school codes (mine is 20140105WC--yes I have it memorized) any time we are trying to access the Internet. Regardless, it's mostly sorted out now. 

This week was mostly spent preparing for our mid-semester exams, which were on Thursday and Friday. 

Choir practice on Monday was great this week though! Our "Amazing Grace" harmony/canon medley is really coming together.

Oh! I don't think I ever mentioned the Italians... 

Three Italian students: Luca, Rachel and Susanna came to Jiao Da Fu Zhong about a month after we did. Because of their program requirements, they were separated from us and have been stuck at the back of a Chinese classroom completely not understanding any of the physics/math/literature lessons taught in Chinese... This week though, they were finally able to transfer to our more productive international language-focused department, so they'll be joining us! They are such wonderful people and I'm excited to get to know them better. 

I was a bit nervous for our two-day-long midterms (comprehensive and oral Chinese, Chinese culture/geography and listening) this week, but I felt like they went well! 

My PE teacher asked to me to teach a little yoga at the beginning of every PE class, which makes me really happy. Being able to do a full yoga practice a couple times a week as well has been really important for me. 

I also taught a meditation class to my classmates before our midterms! I'm definitely the resident Buddhist-Hippie-EcoFeminist-Musician of our group haha

This weekend I went to another of Duoduo's yoga classes at Y+. After class, we ate some lovely pastries and then went to the theater to see Thor with his friend from primary school. I'm not usually into that kind of movie, but it was definitely interesting, especially spending the time trying to understand all the Chinese subtitles and noticing little things like that in one breakfast scene Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings have my favorite brand of goat milk on their table!!! 

Duoduo and his friend also taught me some Shanghainese lingo, which was cool, and it was fun getting to explore the city more! 

We leave this Tuesday night on the overnight train for Beijing! We'll be there until Friday night. 

I'm so stoked!