Today was the final day of new teacher orientation. Tomorrow we will be thrown in to the mix of the entire staff, and so we will have a lot of new teachers’ names to learn. I have met most of the music staff, and they are all beautiful people. I am very excited to work with all of them!

The administration in the middle school is very good about giving us time to get done what we need to. Angela is a little more occupied during the day, so today I did an important errand for our apartment. Angela is very good and found a woman who is moving back to the United States and needs to unload some of her belongings. She decided to buy some pots and pans and a drying rack from this woman, but the only catch is that she lives in the French Concession. I had no idea how to get there, so today I went with a new friend of mine who has lived in Shanghai for a year already to find this woman’s apartment. The trip took us a total of two hours. We took a long subway ride on the very clean subway. Well, it was clean until we witnessed a poor older man throw up all over it! There is an important emphasis on ‘saving face’ in China. In fact, I think one could assume that this saying may have stemmed from China (this is a big assumption on my part). I found it interesting when the man threw up, though all of the nearby riders quickly moved away, nobody drew any attention to him. I was a little queasy, though! After we arrived in the french concession, we had to walk for many blocks until we found her house. She is a freelance artist, and has been living in Shanghai for six years. We were successful in obtaining the goods and headed home. This evening we had a small outing with a few friends, and played ‘Cards Against Humanity’ afterwards. Glad to know people all over has sick senses of humor!