Well, I landed on the 28th safely (took China Airlines, lol.). Anyways, too many things have happened since then, thus I’ll summarize these two weeks the best I can.
- Met my assigned buddy, Vera for the first time at my hall. Checked into the hall and walked to the campus to register myself.
- Bought daily necessities and stuff.
- Weather is sweltering hot. Waking up almost everyday sweating and at 7pm too (no matter what time I sleep).
- People in Hong Kong are freaking fast walkers. I wonder how they can walk that fast and not break a sweat too! *salutes* Janet and Wai Kuan should really come over here.
- Went for the faculty’s orientation and the orientation for international students. Met some friends which were really crucial to my future social life here at HKU. Seriously. Among them were Mani and the Malaysian people. Was really a loner and my classmates, most of them already knew each other and were divided into gangs plus it was really hard for me to click with them. Mani and her friends were really helpful and nice. (horror stories of HK people are to be disregarded!)
- Joined AIESEC and Music Club. I want to continue learning the guitar! Oh and speaking of guitars, I found out that I won’t be able to come back right after holidays start as I’ll have to stay behind for industrial training or workshop training or whatever you call it during my summer! I’ll only be having maybe one month of holiday instead of three. 1st year and 2nd year. Both. Thank god this is a 3 year course. T.T. HGT! /noo.
- Realized that going to a big and established university is a really totally different experience. You can set your own timetable and they offer you so much courses unrelated to your course. I am going to take up German as it was the only language which fit my timetable. HKD 2000 for 100 hours, around RM1000 for 100 hours which is actually cheaper than going for tuition in Kasturi or whatever right? 10 bucks per hour.
- Was finding Practical Chinese Language for Engineering Students really tough. The course was like taking chinese lessons back at Kuen Cheng High all over again. Got to learn those ‘wei yu, bing yu, zhu yu’ stuff, which characters have the same pronounciation, which characters were wrong etc. OMG! Just imagine the horror I felt. What’s even worse is that the notes were all in TRADITIONAL CHINESE CHARACTERS and the lecturer was conducting the lessons in Cantonese! We had to take a little test to see where our standard lay and throughout the whole thing I was chuckling to myself, tembaking along the way. LUCKILY, I found out from my coursemate who comes from India that he was exempted from taking it and he just had to take another language course. Thus, I went to look for Mr. Sze and he told me I just had to write a formal letter informing the faculty and I too could just take another language course too compensate that exemption. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! I’m planning to take Spanish for Beginners next year as I couldn’t find any language course which fits my timetable this year.
- Went for the basketball recruitment thingy. It was the uni-team selection. Within 20 mins, I sprained my knee. I fell and felt my left knee *krak krak* and when I got up it went *krak krak* again. Their training was really like back in KC, running full court BUT with the exception that there were just 12 of us and instead of the whole basketball club back in KC which consists of more than 60 or 70 people maybe? Sigh. Having not played for so many freaking months plus the 3 months of rotting at home didn’t do me any good. Now I can’t put any pressure on my knees and it feels loose without the knee support. And when I went to the University Health Service yesterday to have a doctor look into my knee, the nurse or whoever told me that the earliest appointment booking was on Tuesday (I sprained it Thursday night) and I was like WTF? It’s like they expect people to know when they’ll fall sick or get injured. What’s the point of even getting the service free if I would have gotten better by the time of the appointment? Very very weird. Anyways, I still booked an appointment. Just to make sure it’s okay. I don’t wanna be not able to play sports for the rest of my life. T.T
- Funny language. I noticed that when I talk to the locals in English, I naturally put on the Canto mode, as in I don’t talk Manglish no more. And when I talk to people from Mainland China, I have to put on that horribly fake China accent and that fake American accent talking to the English speaking students. If I don’t, they never understand me!
- Meals. Usually eat in the cafeteria or just cook instant noodles or those microwave-able rice, Ding Ding Fan! It’s super tasty though!
I am going to venture cooking rice myself as soon as my knee gets a little better and I can go grocery shopping. Nyahahahhahaha!
Think that’s all for now. Gotta go cook myself some instant noodles and figure out how to add in carrots and vegetables in it.
