Hey Everyone,
Some things have happened in the interim; We had midterm exams in April, and today I finally had my HSK language exam. Now I can officially attend a Chinese university and take regular classes ( not that that was my goal to begin with ). Anyways, this pretty much concludes my project "Learning Chinese in Shanghai", from now on it's coasting all the way home. I still have about four weeks here, with final exams on June 10th-15th. My flight back to Germany is on June 18th, and I'm already looking forward to coming back and seeing all the old places people again. For those who want to come visit me when I'm back: I'll be in the same place as before, just one floor down ( single appartment, too, yeah! ).
I plan to spend my remaining time on seeing some things I haven't seen yet, doing some stuff I haven't done ( I still haven't taken my trip to the countryside; ; my one Chinese friend promised to take me there soon ). I'm sure now that I can 'speak Chinese' it'll be much easier to get around and all. Really though, ten months are hardly enough to build up a working knowledge of this language. While I can now have conversations with native speakers ( of Mandarin, not one of the countless dialects ), I still wouldn't dare pick up a newspaper. No choice really but to keep on studying..!
What else happened? I had another encounter with the Chinese hospital and this time I got the Middle Kingdom's universal treatment of choice: the IV drip. It may seem kind of drastic, but here they prescribe those even for people who come in with a common cold. What can I say, sitting in a room with 40 old Shanghainese people for three hours ( multiplied by three days! ) is boring, but the stuff actually works. Doctors make more money, I get well, fine by me.
That's it for now. Sorry about the short post, but I was mostly busy with studying the last couple of weeks - not that much else going on.
Best from sunny Shanghai!
