Today was one busy day. The morning started early with a flag raising ceremony for all 4000 students…and the guest speaker was me. It was pretty amazing to see all of the students and teachers standing out there on the basketball courts and track---all in their uniforms. They were great and my speech (that is what Mr. Feng kept calling it) was short and sweet and of course he provided the translation. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about all of the things that I had on the schedule today and am relieved to have them in the past and I think that they went fairly well.

After the flag ceremony, I observed several classrooms. Including one that has sort of become my favorite. It is an 8th grade class that I feel very welcome in and they are so much fun. I have visited them a few times now and today they sang me a few songs and I really enjoy watching that teacher (Mrs. Guo) teach. There are a few students in there who I have talked with quite a few times and they are such nice kids. I can see the stress that school is in these kids lives and I wonder how they deal with it. Everything has to do with competition and where they are in the rankings. In classrooms they are constantly put on the spot and then analyzed by teachers---"Which one is better? This one from (student a) or this one from (student b)?" It is amazing to watch the resilience that the students have as they take the feedback from kids. Maybe it is a good thing.

I also was able to observe an art class. They only have art once a week and there is only one art teacher per grade (about 600 students per grade), so he is able to visit each classroom once a week. They only have music once a week also and then they have PE two days a week. The fifth day is for a class meeting in which their class lead teacher goes through some things with them. It is an interesting schedule. Because the art teacher only comes once a week, they weren't doing anything too impressive.

I was able to sit in the class of my friend from yesterday, Mr. Coa. His class was very reminiscent of our classes in which there are a few students who can't seem to stay on task. I was surprised to see this. One of the teachers later told me that "students can do whatever they want in class". I thought this was pretty interesting. I imagined things to be much different, but they deal with some of the same motivation and engagement challenges that we do---but there are 60 students in a class instead of 30.

I had lunch in the cafeteria once again. The head cook there loves to load me up. She doesn't stop until I have to ask Mr. Feng to tell her to stop. She is so gracious and lovely and I am grateful that she keeps me well fed.

In the afternoon I had two big meetings. The first was about 2 hours of professional development that Mr. Feng had asked me to do with all of the English teachers. We talked about how we teach English in the U.S., then I shared with them a few strategies that we use. It was really fun to work with them and of course they all spoke English (some better than others). I was surprised that we were able to take up the entire two hours, but it went very well. I hope that it was helpful to them.

The last meeting of the day was with the entire faculty of the school. They meet in a huge auditorium since there are almost 250 of them. I had to give a speech about the educational system in the U.S. and then a description of the challenges and successes of my school. It also went well and I hope that they got something from it. It really is a fantastic school with great staff and wonderful students. You can tell that Mr. Feng is a great leader and I am thankful everyday for the match that I was given. We are very similar in our leadership styles and place a huge amount of importance on building relationships. I am going to be extremely sad to leave all of these new friends.

Tonight we went to dinner with a 78 year old principal of a private school, a Chinese professor that is here this week but currently working at a Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho of all places, and then a family of one of the students from the private school. We ate at the same place we ate on Saturday, but the selection of the dishes wasn't nearly as good. I felt bad not trying everything, but there were a few scary things that I just couldn't try. Every time that we go to one of these nice restaurants with a private room and a round table that they load with probably 20 different dishes, I just want to know how much it costs. It has got to be a fortune. I was incredibly tired and the student from the school sat next to me and kept wanting to speak in English and I was trying so hard to indulge her, but was so looking forward to getting back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Xi'an and I have to admit that I am getting quite sad to go. This school has welcomed me with open arms and I am sad to say goodbye.