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On Sunday, I went with Paris to help out at the education globalization expo where we performed last Friday. 

We got to give out gifts/information, answer questions and hang out with some really cool Chinese students from our school who will be going to college in the U.S. and England this year.

On Monday we celebrated our NSLI-Y comrade Carmen's 19th birthday at Pancake Day! 

She'll be attending NYU Shanghai this fall and staying here for 4 more years, so we decided as a group to buy her the practical college-student gift of a rice cooker! 

Tuesday, a new American-born/raised Chinese girl, Julia came to our school. She'll finish up the last couple of months this year studying Chinese with the class 1 students before returning to the States. 

Thursday and Friday were our mid-term exams, all of which I feel pretty good about! 

On Sunday, I went with Maike, Megan, and Tilden to my resident director's roommate, Min's Korean church for their Easter gathering! It was pretty fascinating to attend an "underground" church (only a couple approved religions here can officially have churches/services)! The pastor who led the English bible study group was so sweet and we got to meet some fantastic people, including Min's German-Korean boyfriend Daniel; Kinsa, a Korean-American attending NYU Shanghai; Fabio, a Korean-Brazilian studying abroad at Fudan University along with Bo from Thailand and Eddy, from Indonesia. 

We ate a Korean lunch, sang together, talked about resurrection and letting go of fear and decorated eggs that we gave to each other, as part of a Korean Easter tradition. I got Min's which was covered in cutely drawn math diagrams / formulas (as Ms. Yoo she teaches IB math to the Chinese students at our school). 

Overall, I really enjoyed the community and atmosphere at the church and was very grateful to experience it! 

Also I thought I'd include this random photo of flowers. 

I took it while exploring on Monday and thought it captured some of the spring feelings floating around :)

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On Monday I FINALLY got a chance to check out the climbing gym at the Shanghai Indoor Stadium! 

Although the routes were pretty limited, the walls were tall and I couldn't have been happier to get my hands on some (fake) rock. 

The vibes of the place were great too! There were lots of awesome local and foreign climbers. 

My fellow NSLI-Y chum, Brady, came with me and we climbed for a bit until he had to leave to meet a friend from his underground Christian church. I then made the acquaintances of a nice Austrian guy and his girlfriend; a Bluegrass guitarist with blonde dreads from Virginia and his Japanese friend; and Larry: a fellow gap year student who spent most of this year interning in Nancy Pelosi's office on Capitol Hill and is now traveling around China before going to Harvard next fall. He's headed to Beijing for the rest of this month, but I plan to meet up with him and his friend Grace when they come back to Shanghai in May. 

I'll probably come back a couple of times before I leave, but I can't believe we only have 7 more weekends left! 

Excited to return to Rocks and Ropes in Tucson and explore the real rock of the Southwest and California in the near future though!

This week, a new student came! Her name is Chichiro (like the protagonist in Spirited Away)! She is a Japanese 15 year old who lived in both America and England for many years and thus has perfect English. We're all excited to welcome her into our international student fold.

On Friday, we participated in the 11th annual Shanghai education globalization expo. 

Our school had an exhibition along with many other schools in Shanghai and we also did a performance. We performed what we did for the sports meet earlier this year (Kung fu, yoga and singing). Three of my Chinese friends from choir also performed a drum/guitar/singing number. Next year they'll all be going to college as well! One (Didi) is going to Purdue, one is going to Canada, and one is choosing between UC San Diego and Occidental. There were also many awesome dance, song and sword performances by other schools' students! 

Friday afternoon, I finally went home with my new host family!

My new host parents are SUPER chill. My host mom is a stay-at-home-mom and my host dad runs a construction company from home (my host sister and I actually sleep in an apartment next door that has also been refitted as a bunch of offices). 

My new host sister (Yang Xin or Sharon) is so cool and sweet. She's 17 and really into films (runs the movie review club of the IB department); we gushed over Miyazaki for a while and our relationship is off to a good start! 

My host brother who is 13, is also super cute! 

Saturday, we had a NSLI-Y outing to the movie museum and then I explored some other fun parts of the city with Tilden, Maike, Sara, Brady, Paris.

30

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! 

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春天终于到了！Spring has finally arrived!

The weather has been absolutely stunning this week; even on rainy days, it feels warm and sweet. 

This Monday was the final soccer game of the tournament! Our boys took first place (4-0) in a gallantly played match against the Xin Jiang team. 

Maike's Thai friend Yok who was in town came to visit the school that day. She is so sweet and cute! 

On Thursday, I signed up for the HSK (the language level test required by my program). It'll take place May 10th. 

I decided to take the HSK 5 rather than the 6 (the highest level) because I would be the only one doing it and although I think it would be possible for me to pass the 6, I'd have to spend the next month studying my buns off. So I decided I'd rather do swell on the 5, be with my friends and and enjoy other aspects of this experience during the last couple months. 

Additionally, the HSK is only really used in attending Chinese university or getting jobs in China and since it expires after 2 years and I'll be at university in the States for 4, there's no point to stress over it just for bragging rights. Finally, the AP Chinese test (which I'll take May 7th) is actually more important/useful to me because Stanford will take it as a language credit! Anyway, it seems I just have the final academic hurdles of the HSK, AP, finals and research presentation in May left! 

Friday we went to the Shanghai botanical gardens, which was not as impressive as I was expecting (a tad bit too manicured for my taste), but was pretty splendid all the same (especially since I am slightly obsessed with plants). 

Saturday, I went back to my host family's apartment in the suburbs one last time to say goodbye. 

Due to a variety of complicated factors, I am unfortunately having to switch host families. It makes me quite sad, but honestly it's best for everyone involved.  I am so grateful to them for opening their home up to me this year and know that we'll still maintain a good relationship into the future. 

The plan as of now is that I will meet my new host family this week and go home with them next weekend (which is actually a long one because of the tomb sweeping festival or Qing Ming jie 清明节). 

There is apparently a sister (who is in the IB department and plans to study abroad for college) and a younger brother! They live very close to my original host family's old apartment (about a 10 min walk from school and a 5 min walk from the metro station). 

I look forward to spending these last couple months with them and having more access to all that the city has to offer during the weekends.

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On Monday, after grocery shopping at Tesco and going out for sesame sugar bao zi with Sara and Megan, Maike and I hit up the huge knitting factory that we stumbled upon last week behind the metro station. We bought some yarn and needles to start knitting some sweet scarves! 

The third soccer game of the tournament was this past Tuesday. Our team totally ruled and won 4-0. 

The final competition will be next week against the Xin Jiang students' team, which will be a close match! Those students are all brilliant athletes. 

This Friday we had our 月考 (monthly tests) in comprehensive Chinese, oral Chinese and Listening. I feel pretty good about all of them! 

I stayed in the dorms this weekend, so Friday after school I went with Maike (who was also dorming it) to a famous street where they film lots of movies just a few metro stops away. 

We then got our nails done and ate some delicious Xin Jiang spicy sour cabbage fried rice (酸辣白菜炒饭). It was a nice night out on the town. 

Saturday morning, we went to an absolutely rad barcamp "unconference". It was kind of like a mini TED conference: a free-for-all where Shanghai locals and foreigners from all walks of life could give talks and share ideas on a variety of subjects (mostly related to technology and innovation). 

I went to a load of interesting and inspiring talks. There was one on the real time web that was cool. Another was on using the Internet to create networks of girls in privileged/unprivileged communities to build creativity and leadership by helping each other learn math/science/language. I thought the aspect of emphasizing equal exchange between communities was pretty neat: instead of it just being the privileged girls tutoring the less-privileged girls, they both learn and help each other simultaneously; girls in a rural Chinese village can teach American girls Chinese as they learn math or girls in Shanghai and Ghana can tackle a computer science program together, for example. I also thought that the idea of using these grassroot club networks to encourage the development of extracurricular confidence, creativity, and entrepreneurialism in Chinese school girls was a meaningful endeavor. 

Some of our own also decided to give on-the-spot talks! Maike got so inspired that she decided to give a wonderful talk on the way that writing can change the way we perceive the world. Keiondre also decided to give an awesome talk about utilizing today's technology in the language learning process. 

The last talk I went to in the afternoon was given by Sven, the Shanghai regional director of the burning man festival (who was actually present at the first burning man). He showed a video about the original Nevada burn, talked about the principles of the festival as well as alternative art and technology in general. He also discussed the upcoming satellite burn that they are planning to hold on an island a couple hours away from Shanghai in early June (actually beginning the 6th, the day I return to the States). I really look forward to going to the festival in the States someday and found it really interesting to see the way that they are trying to adapt the ideas here to attract a Chinese audience. 

All in all, it was a wickedly sweet day and made me really excited to totally nerd out with rad people in college and beyond!

27

Monday was our first official choir practice of the second semester (there were a few false starts and then auditions for new members). This semester it's all student run, which will be a little hectic but fun all the same. This time we started on "You Raise Me Up".

Megan finally got her wheelchair on Monday as well! We were all so excited that we went off campus to celebrate with sesame sugar bao zi! 

Tuesday, we performed our musicals (The Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Ballad of Ricky Bobby). They were pretty hilarious and now we are moving on to bigger, better and more public musical adventures...

Tuesday afternoon, our boys played their second match of the soccer tournament. We won again (2-1) but this game was much closer and quite rough. Luca and Koki both got a little beat up, although all is well now! Soccer is probably my favorite (conventional) sport to watch and it's a sweet feeling to have an awesome team to cheer for!

On Wednesday, we had a really good discussion in our comprehensive Chinese class about environmental protection. I always love when I find myself having the same kind of serious/philosophical conversations that I might be having in English but in Chinese rather than just the "what are your hobbies?" type. 

Wednesday afternoon, Maike and I went to the graduating IB students' art exhibit, where there were some really excellent pieces, especially those by our friends Miu and Linda who will be studying in Chicago and NYC next year, respectively. 

Miu's work:

Linda's work:

Maike and I also decided to continue our crafty adventures with some poetic corpse drawings, poems and stories. 

I drew the head and feet: 

I drew the torso: 

I'll also share the poem where I started with one line, Maike wrote a line without looking at mine and so on until we filled up the post card on which we were writing:

You taste like sunshine and smell like rain.  

Sweet misery cooks the soles of your feet, footsteps raw and tang-blooded. 

Frozen feet gaggled around tightly-knit mittens, an homage to armless boys who know which path. 

They speak with muted gestures and longing.  

Heavy thunder under worn out clothes, hearts carved out by Mayan doctors and Transhumanist soldiers.  

Why Mr., your hat is grand. And so we began our fedora worship.  

Swinging between can-do and claw footed bathtubs, rooted pianos and throats made of glass. 

Threading beginnings into endings crawling like lizards out of skins yellow eyes and lipless mouths. Hungry ghosts twirl around my lamppost, wrapping themselves into bolts of cloth.  

Our neighbor was a woman with a floating voice and flour-fried hands she sang lullabies you write the lyrics.  

Fingernail tips introducing you to the chocolate ice, we fall again
3...2...1... Blast off  

The atmosphere like a flower unfurls, those watching fold their pinkened hands and weep.  

Stas never looked so beautiful.