Post the Tenth - First Down

I've been in Hong Kong for over a month now. It didn't strike me until now. Probably because a distraction from Physics was inevitable. But it's weird to think that it's almost the end of February. It feels like January just ended... like orientation was just two weeks ago.

A question I've gotten a lot from both people back home and here is... why Hong Kong? Why HKU? A lot of it was a suggestion from my dad, a good portion of it was the experience of being in a country that would have been nothing like the places I've been to, some of it was the chance to get away from life, and whatever percentage was left... I think it was fate. I lost a geography bee in seventh grade because the British did not leave Guatemala in the 1990's (I was guessing at this point, and what pisses me off to this day is that we'd just studied that. But that's another story in another life). Hong Kong disappeared from life until the summer of 2007. I was in India at the time, and this movie was coming out that had some of the most beautiful Hindi music i've heard... and a very beautiful skyline in the picture. When I got ahold of the CD, I flipped it open to find a form for a contest to go see Hong Kong, where the movie was shot. I didn't pay much attention to it; who wins these things anyway?

Whenever I see the skyline now, I can hear that music playing. It's haunting and beautiful, much like the city itself when it's foggy (which is more often than not).

Why HKU? At the time I was planning all this, my initial plan was to go to City University, but this place was internationally ranked and the website was all in English, which spoke volumes
to me. I was also looking to study abroad with a friend, but that fell through unfortunately.

A lot of what I've done to this point was not what I planned on doing... what I'd dreamed of doing as a kid. Am I okay with that? A good portion of it, yeah. This experience is one of them.

I have the first week of March off for what's called Reading Week. Following the week is midterms; my first exam is the first Quantum exam the Tuesday we get back, then CS that Friday. GPII is the following Thursday I believe, and Stats is yet to be announced. I'll have another Quantum exam right before classes end.

My Thursdays have turned into a living hell; I've got class from 11:40 to 6 pm with a half hour break from 1:30 to 2 since we now have labs. Each class has two labs, so I should survive... hopefully...

I'm starting to do an English Teaching Programme on Mondays too (my spelling will be forever altered by this place); I'm paired with another girl to help encourage local students to speak English. I'm also participating in a psych study this Friday, so I'm keeping fairly busy. It's a pretty good life (minus physics, but physics is always a killjoy).

So from Hong Kong, good morning.

Post the Ninth - Routine

Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? I still have loads of pictures to post, so I'll get to those, I promise!

Chinese New Year was pretty good; I got a miserable cold for most of it, but it was really nice to just relax and do things at my own pace. Most people went on vacation; a lot of the girls here went to Thailand, but I just hung out with whoever was here. It was really nice to sleep in and just go out at night. I watched Scrubs and Chuck, which was fun. I also got the chance to really know a couple of girls.

A couple of the things we saw was the Chinese New Year Parade; it was a bit of a let down, but the floats and things were quite nice (I think it was because we were on the other side of the parade and the floats didn't come down our way). But the thing that I will never forget were the fireworks. We saw them from the Avenue of Stars, and even though it was super crowded (there was all sorts of crowd control; the area was divided off at different points and no one could get through), it was AMAZING. Totally blows July 4th out of the water. I have never seen a display so beautiful. The crowd all 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed together, like we were little kids, but it was fantastic. Words cannot even begin to describe.

We also ate out rather frequently. The most memorable restaurant was a place called "Modern Toilet". That's right... the theme was the bathroom. There was a wall of light up urinals, and the ceiling lights were in the shapes of piles of dung or plungers. The seats were toilets. I kid you not. They had themed lids too (mine was an American flag, haha). The drinks were served in urinals and the food was either in a toilet or a bath tub. DESSERT WAS EPICALLY BIT. They served a mound of chocolate shaved ice covered in tiny sweets and chocolate sauce/ice cream with coffee jelly in the center. On the side was a tiny cookie with chocolate sorbet (think PAR ice cream) in the shape of... well... shit. Very fun.

Now I'm back to school, where everything is getting much harder and the students here are crazy smart (I think the professors are part crazy too). But I'm still really happy to be here. I look around me and really, there's nowhere else I want to be.

So from Hong Kong, good morning.