The so-called “14-day self-health management” system, which is just a prettified way of saying “14-day quarantine,” is a perfect example of lazy governance.

This afternoon, I dragged a large suitcase and a big package of deliveries to the gate on Guangfu West Road. The package contained replacement bedding. The reason I had to carry it around myself was that the closed-campus policy does not allow couriers to enter, forcing me to pick it up from the Cainiao station and bring it back to school.

At the gate, a clumsy security guard told us to line up for “identity verification.” The cursed facial-recognition system showed the same dead expression no matter who stood in front of it: “Recognition failed. Please swipe card and try again.” So we had to register on paper one by one. I later learned that the return-to-campus verification system apparently had not been loaded with any student information at all. In other words, the machine that kept repeating “Recognition failed. Please swipe card and try again” was nothing but a decoration. Every student waiting for “identity verification” had to register manually.

Perhaps my ten-digit student number was too complicated. The security guard acting on orders simply could not find my information in the thick student roster. So, while several girls behind me dragged suitcases and waited anxiously, I had to search the roster myself, fill out the form myself, pass through a “temperature check room” with no staff inside, and finally enter the campus I had not seen in a long time, smoothly and quickly.

After settling in, I packed up the bedding that had lain alone for eight months during the pandemic and mailed it home together with a Mi Band 3. Since I had prepared a brand-new set of bedding for this return, the old, possibly moldy “lonely bedding” became extra stuff that had to be shipped away. I sent the dead Mi Band 3 back too because 33 wanted to use it as her alarm clock and phone notification device, exactly the way I had used it.

Since becoming homeroom teacher of the international class at Beijing No. 11 School, her habit of being unreachable by phone no matter how urgent the matter seems to have improved. Apparently what really makes a person mature is not gentle persuasion from a loved one, but a beating from society. I am quite pleased by this small change in her.

I did not expect registration at this magical school to close at 4 p.m. today. So after calmly enjoying a surprisingly good dinner at the Hexi canteen and walking to the check-in machine near the entrance of Building 40, which had been standing there dumbly waiting for people to swipe cards before 4 p.m., I found that the machine had disappeared. Soon after, the class monitor sent a notice: “Registration closes at 4 p.m. on the 13th. Students on the following list, including me of course, did not register in time. Please complete supplementary registration tomorrow at the terminal on the first floor of Building 40,” which was exactly where I was standing.

At night, it suddenly rained heavily during my “cross-district shower.” I should explain that I am not adding “cross-district” before “shower” to be mysterious. At this magical school, almost all students living east of the river, except those in Building 1 who have their own bathrooms, must cross Suzhou Creek to shower in the public bathhouse on the west side. As everyone knows, Suzhou Creek is the boundary between Putuo District and Changning District. So every night’s shower is, in the strictest sense, a cross-district operation.

Considering Shanghai’s status as a directly administered municipality, what we cross while showering is actually two city-level administrative units. You can imagine our mood when a downpour hits during this cross-district shower. Especially when we saw two sets of bedding by the roadside completely soaked by the rain. Regrettably, their owners seemed to have forgotten the basic common sense that bedding should be brought in before dark. Our good mood became even better.