19

The first week of break was filled with both exhilarating exploration of Shanghai and some much needed relaxation. 

My host sister still had to go to classes, so we stayed at our apartment by the metro station, making galavants around the city very convenient. 

Sunday I went with my NSLI-Y chums to the Science and Technology Museum. There were rad exhibits about space, 3D printing, human health, ecology, and more! I particularly enjoyed the Chinese IMAX feature we went to called "Wired to Win: Surviving le Tour de France" which explored the neurology of cyclist competitors in persevering through phenomenal physical challenges. There were also overwhelmingly sublime shots of French landscapes that made me miss the mountains back home so much. 

After exploring the museum, my friend Maike and I decided to get the traditional Chinese medicine cupping (拔火罐 ba huo guan) treatment. It was great for our stressed muscles and I was happy because I got to start some of my research for next semester's project. I have actually made a lot of headway on prepping for that this week! 

On Monday I recorded my singing voice for our Nanjing project. We'll be teaching fun songs to the children at the disabled home in Nanjing and are making a CD that we can leave for the home after we leave. Maike and I recorded "Wheels on the Bus" and "If You're Happy and You Know it", which along with others' voices will actually be mixed by my RD's big-shot music producer JFish (who apparently has mixed for Kanye West and the like) so I have high expectations. Haha. 

After recording, I went with Tilden and Maike back to the postcard palace / café for a while where we drank Thai tea, chatted and wrote our hearts out. 

Tuesday I met up with Heather, a friend from the States who used to manage the B-line restaurant in Tucson but who now manages a restaurant company in China, splitting her time between Shanghai and Hong Kong. 

We had lunch at the delicious Sichuan Citizen restaurant in the French Concession neighborhood. It was great to catch up with Heather and explore that part of the French Concession a bit  (not to mention the food was so good! Yay for spice!) 

I took a few days to relax a bit, but on Saturday I went with Tilden to a yoga class and went café hopping in the French Concession. 

We also went to the iconic center of Shanghai: People's Square, where we found out that the museum of contemporary art is exhibiting Yayoi Kusama (an amazing Japanese artist who I adore)! The line to get into the exhibit literally wound around the entire park, so although we decided to come back before it ends in March, it was so exciting. 

We also found ourself in the middle of the infamous "Singles' Market", where hopeful parents come to find spouses for their unmarried children. It was definitely a disconcerting sight. 

All in all a great day of city exploration though! 

And we leave for our trip to Nanjing tomorrow morning bright and early. So excited!

18

This week was my birthday! It totally snuck up on me; I still can't really believe I am 19. 

Over the weekend, my host mom made me a delicious (early) birthday dinner of the traditional 寿面 (shou mian) or birthday noodles that are extra long to represent long life. Chinese noodles are basically my favorite thing so that was awesome especially since she paired them with my favorite tofu dishes (stinky tofu and this soy-sauce variety that I'm not exactly sure how to explain since we don't even have this type of tofu / su ji in the States) and a bamboo/egg dish! She also bought me a very fuzzy warm jacket and pants, which I am so delighted about! 

On Monday (my actual birthday), I went out to dinner at Pancake Day with my American girlfriends (Tilden, Maike, Megan, Sara, Carmen) to celebrate by having "breakfast for dinner" (another of my all-time favorite things). There were blueberry deckers, apple-cinnamon capote, banana-walnuts, banana-strawberries, chocolate and milkshakes! Tilden even brought along the local Vermont maple syrup she has from the States. 

My friends went around and told me each a thing they appreciate about me and made me some of the sweetest cards I have ever received. 

Quick shout out to my generous mom for sponsoring this outing!

During night study, my Japanese friends (Reo, Saori, and Yasu) surprised me with handmade paper cranes and Johanna (from Estonia) gave me the the cutest socks in the world (taking the opportunity here to plug a pic of the hand-knitted socks Tilden's grandma made for each of us for the holidays).

After night study, everyone gathered for birthday cheesecake in the courtyard! Yasu gave me the most heart-felt and dramatic rendition of "Happy Birthday" in English that I've ever had the pleasure to hear. That boy is such a diva! I love him so much! No one had a lighter, so I ended up making a wish on imaginary candlelight. I'm not worried though, so many of my wishes are already coming true! 

All in all it was an awesome first birthday abroad. The love I felt from back home was enormously heartwarming and I am so honored to have such lovely friends here as well. 

In our Tuesday music class, we watched a really disturbing but enlightening movie called KeKeXiLi (可可西里）about the devastating poaching of Tibetan antelope and the rangers who tried to end it. It's pretty brutal, so I don't recommend it to the faint-of-heart, but it was also a pretty powerful film about preservation and sacrifice. 

We also let our new year lanterns fly on Tuesday. 

On Wednesday and Thursday we had our final exams, all of which went well! 

Thursday night we went out to celebrate our Germans (Noah and Jens) who were only here for a semester and will be leaving to go home next week! We'll miss 'em so much! 

We went to a really rad cafe/bookstore that sells a huge variety of postcards. You can send yourself postcards years in the future! I wasn't in the writing zone that night, but I'm definitely going to come back before the end of the year. 

On Friday we had a little ceremony where I won two "outstanding student" scholarship awards and where Megan and I won a cash-prize for having the cleanest dorm room on our floor! 

That afternoon we packed up everything for the month-long Spring Festival vacation! 

My last hurdle before I could start relaxing though, was the HSK (Chinese language level test) on Saturday. I rode the metro with my Japanese and Italian friends Saori, Eriko, Rachele, Susanna and Luca to the testing center to take the paper-based level 4 test. 

I'll find out my scores in one month, but I felt really good about it. 

And now I am finally free! Yippee!!!

17

This week has been pretty crazy! 

It was a little strange being in school for New Year's Eve, but it also made me realize how arbitrary the meaning really is that we give to some days of the year. 

It's another year full of possibilities, but the opportunities to live my life to the fullest don't just start when I enter into 2014. I do feel empowered to continue taking good care of my body, mind and spirit so that I can feel proud of my language progress and make the most of my overall experience in China though.

Also in our art class this week, we did write down things we'd like to see / make happen in 2014 on these awesome red lanterns that you let drift off into the sky. Returning to the States in June and starting school in September will be much larger transitions than that between December 31st and January 1st, so that's when most of my lantern-list will be realized, but in general I feel really excited and optimistic about this coming year. 

As for this week: 

On Monday we gave our NSLI-Y 1st semester research project presentations! It was fun to see what my American classmates had discovered through their research: 

Sara's project was on student diet and health; Tilden explored the world of Chinese wedding culture; Megan looked at child-rearing; Brady described Chinese gaming culture; Maike's topic was Shanghai's elderly population; Carmen talked about foreign trading in Shanghai; Paris discussed Chinese math curricula; Keiondre did his project on Chinese social networks; and of course I examined the cultural role of public green space (parks and squares) in Shanghai.

They were all excellently researched/presented topics and it feels really good to finally be done, at least for this semester. 

For next semester's topic, I'm planning on researching Chinese medicine, which will give me the push I need to go out and explore that part of Chinese culture a little more. 

Tuesday night I spent at my host family's to celebrate the New Year. I took it pretty mellow, staying up with my host sister and watching Inception (which I had never seen). 

Although Shanghai is a very international Chinese city where there is a large party/performance downtown (a little of which we watched online), the shift from one calendar year to the next isn't a huge deal here. Lunar new year on the 31st of January is where it's at! 

I really look forward to celebrating that here this year. 

New Year's Day I made dumplings with my host mom and grandma. I'm definitely improving the aesthetic quality of my dumplings and look forward to making them all the time for everyone when I come back to the States :) 

After the brief respite, I went back to school for night study and to finish up the rest of the week. 

Next week is our last before winter break! We have finals and the HSK and then we're freeeee! I'm quite stoked.

16

It has been an exciting week, the conclusion of which brings me to the four month mark! 

On Monday, we got to make 饺子 (dumplings) in our culture class! It was fun to cook with the cafeteria Ayi's again, and the dumplings were simply delicious! 

Tuesday was the Christmas Eve assembly (晚会 or "party")  in which I performed with the choir, singing "This Love", "Silent Night", and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". There was about 3 hours in total of IB Chinese performances including dances, plays and comedy routines. It was awesome to see some of the hidden talents and passions of my schoolmates. 

That evening, we got to watch a movie during our normal night study time (6:30-9:15). We watched the Bollywood film "Three Idiots". Even though it isn't directly related to anything christmas-y, in my opinion, it is one of the best movies in existence. Luckily my NSLI-Y classmate Paris shared this sentiment and bought the DVD at a local video store. Everyone on planet earth should watch this movie. Period. 

We also exchanged our NSLI-Y "Secret Santa" gifts! Brady got me the perfect gift: a t-shirt that he had seen me eying when we were at TianZiFang. See the design of super cute pandas performing all the 太极拳 (Taiqi) moves below.

Our Resident Director Shasha also made us all "granola bars" (basically oatmeal cookies with tons of oatmeal in them), which were great! And Tilden's grandmother also hand-knitted us all socks! They are pure coziness! 

Wednesday (Christmas day), the school treated all the international students to an amusement park trip. We went to Happy Valley (欢乐谷), which is the biggest theme park in Shanghai at the moment (they're currently working on a Disneyland that'll be larger). It had some pretty wicked roller coasters! There were also some bizarre themes such as a haunted house and old mining town which were all a riot!  We also met a man from Djbouti dressed as a Santa selling sticks of honey-covered fruit who tried to convince me he was Russian because he thought I was. 

It was all in all a great time: I enjoyed some really wonderful tears-of-laughter and front-row-hands-up-roller-coaster screams. 

Wednesday evening, we all got to go to KTV (a private karaoke room) and sang and danced our hearts out. It was rad to hear Smiley (from Korea) rap the entirety of Gangam Style and Eric, the Norwegian go hard to "Livin' on a Prayer". Such a blast! 

Friday was the international student speaking performance, where Luca (from Italy) and I were the hosts.  

There were so many great essays  and poems written in Chinese on the topic of our "impression of China". 

I ended up reading my poem 五味中国 (The five flavors of China)!

Saturday, I went back to the XinTianDi Y+ yoga studio for a workshop taught by Jessica and Stéphane (friends from the U.S.) and translated by Duoduo. It consisted of an excellent physical practice based on the five elements (土，火，水，风，空间：earth, fire, water, wind, and space) and then a great sutra lesson on the 8 limbs of yoga with relation to Buddhism. 

It's always was very enjoyable for me to study these philosophies, but it was even more cool to do it in Chinese! 

15

There was a lot of rain at the beginning of this week.  Although it felt cleansing, it was also a little unfortunate because it was also accompanied by a huge temperature drop and I'm not a huge fan of damp cold. However, it made me greatly appreciate my tea and fried-egg-and-vegetable noodle soup every morning:

it also provided me with the opportunity to snap this cool shot in our school building's lobby: 

The weather cleared up on Wednesday for our 月考 (YueKao: monthly test), which went well! 

Thursday, during our culture class, we got to make and taste the traditional Chinese dish: 火锅 (huo guo: hot pot). Because the city of Chengdu (famous for its huo guo) was my first Chinese home, I have a special love for this spicy spicy dish. Although it wasn't as good as Chengdu, it was pretty great! It was also fun to get to go back into the school cafeteria kitchens and help the "ayi's" ("aunt" is what everyone in China uses to respectfully refer to cleaning/cooking staff as well as middle-aged female strangers in general): 

(Reo, Carmen, and Maike)

(Yasu): 

Thursday we also had a fire drill, which was an interesting experience. They actually had fake smoke and we had to run from the dorms with a wet towel pressed to our faces. They also had a fire extinguisher demonstration after we all successfully "survived". 

This week we wrote middle-school-esque essays about The Kite Runner for our Writing teacher. They're going to put them up on the wall too which is kind of embarrassing, but I am also surprisingly proud of my work because this type of thing is a kind of a language milestone in Chinese. Next up is my semester research project presentation, which will take place on the 30th of December! 

On another note: I mentioned before, I have discovered a new love of jazzercise while in China. I want to share the best jazzercise song that my PE teacher plays for us. It could just be the best song, period. Enjoy! 

加油歌 (jia you ge or "go go song") 

Also I wanted to share some evidence of the burgeoning recycle system:

I'm so proud of the Chinese IB Roots and Shoots Club! 

This Saturday I went to bustling shopping district XinTianDi （新天地）for another NSLI-Y outing. We got to visit a museum that exhibited the gorgeous intersection of historical Chinese/French style architecture and interior design:

I then took Tilden to a flow hour class at the Y+ Yoga Studio at XinTianDi, which was awesome. 

After class, we celebrated the Solstice with some delicious apple crumble pie and explored some. We found a lot of really excellent street art: 

14

The pollution finally cleared up this Tuesday with the onset of some pretty frigid weather! 

I have never been so happy to see a blue sky and breathe fresh air! :) 

Even though I hope I won't be needing it again any time soon, I also received the special mask with a PM2.5 filter that our teachers ordered for us. It's purple and quite stylish! I guess I've also never been so excited about the fashionable qualities of a face mask...New emotions and experiences in China everyday! 

In choir this week, we prepared for our Christmas concert at the assembly which will take place either next week or the week after (I'm never quite clear with the timing of events here). 

I'll be singing the alto part in a "Silent Night" harmony along with a smaller group of IB Chinese girls (Chenglu, Xieyi, Francis and Miu) as well as "This Love" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with the whole group. 

I want to congratulate Miu (one of the cutest, most fashionable and kind people I know) on her acceptance to one of her top college choices: School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 恭喜恭喜！

I'm also really excited though because I found out that Xieyi runs the "Roots and Shoots" club, which I wanted to join at the beginning of the year but couldn't because their meetings coincided with my classes. Although I still can't attend meetings, I've starting helping with the school's recycling program, which is the club's main objective this year! I'm excited because I hate seeing how much material is wasted at our school. 

This week we watched The Kite Runner in our Chinese character class! I know it's pretty random, but I'm not complaining. 

It's such a devastating story though. 

On Saturday, my host sister came along with me on our NSLI-Y excursion to TianZiFang (a famous architectural site and shopping area in Shanghai), which we were supposed to visit last weekend but couldn't because of the pollution. 

It was nice that my host sister came. We had good Chinese discussions on the metro about hairstyles, astrology, and child adoption and then she got to practice her English with the other Americans. 

At TianZiFang, we walked around in the maze of little shops and ate some really delicious and genuine pizza! 

The NSLI-Y crew is also holding a "Secret Santa" Exchange on Christmas Eve, so it was a great opportunity to buy our gifts for that. I'll certainly be returning there to buy gifts before I come home to the States in June as well! 

13

I can't believe that we're already a week into December! 

We have a Christmas Day trip planned for the 25th (not sure where they're taking us, but last year the students went to a roller coaster park and went out for a Chinese classic: hot pot). 

Our research project presentations will also take place at the end of December. I'm basically done with all my research and just need to neaten it up and practice presenting it. 

We'll have three days off in total for New Year's Day (元旦 yuan dan), but I'd actually rather not because the government makes up the missed days by taking away our weekend (having two weeks straight of school with no break does not sound fabulous to me). 

After we take our finals (early January) and the HSK on January 11th, we get our month-long break for the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival (春节 chun jie), for which I am totally stoked. 

The air pollution this week was horrendous. We saw the most severe levels that Shanghai has ever had. 

Levels of PM2.5 (particulate matter of 2.5 nanometers) were above 500 (0-50 is good; 50-100 is moderate; 101-150 is unhealthy for sensitive groups; 151-200 is unhealthy; 201-300 is very unhealthy and 300+ is hazardous). 

Check out this website if you'd like more information and for a real-time air quality index of Chinese cities. 

Notice that the track is closed due to the air. Although it may look like morning mist, it's not. The first picture above was snapped just outside my dorm.

Although some schools closed down completely because of the pollution, Jiao Da Fu Zhong marched on (our track was closed though and our daily morning exercises and flag raising were canceled due to the conditions). 

I've been wearing my scarf wrapped around my face as a mask, but our teachers are ordering us special masks with filters for the future. Luckily, the levels are a supposed to go way down after this weekend though. 

Because of the pollution, of course we spent our PE classes this week indoors: we've been playing ping pong, learning a kung fu sequence and I have now come to realize how unbelievably fun jazzercise can be. I love our PE (jazzercise!) teacher. She also asked me teach yoga to the class and is just the coolest. 

Also due to the pollution, our NSLI-Y excursion to Tianzifang this weekend was canceled (everyone was encouraged to stay inside), so I'm taking this weekend to study and chill out a little bit. 

I'll be working on my first Chinese poem (for a speaking competition in late December that is happening along with a photography competition in which I'll also compete)! 

Although the air quality has been pretty disturbing, I feel like it's a very real Chinese experience and one that is so important in tangibly understanding why we need to act in ways that sustain and protect our environment--the consequences of not doing so are very severe. 

That being said, I have been very lucky in my life not to have been directly exposed to environmental hazards or injustice and still feel lucky to be living in a city now where this is at least not the norm, compared to many other cities in China.

Stay safe everyone!