No rest for the weary Part 2
Wow. Where do I start? It's been a whirlwind of stuff. I'm still quite blur as to what's going on. I've only just figured out how to get internet access yesterday. No benefits of orientation and those little scraps of paper with important info that most of us take so lightly.
Ok. The obvious. Everything's in Chinese which isn't so bad, until someone engages me in conversation. I can barely speak without stumbling over my words. I can more or less understand stuff. Depending on who does the speaking. Definitely NOT when someone does sales-talk on me, though. I lack the confidence when speaking. And my vocabulary is rather dismal. I'm gradually getting used to the speed at which most people talk. I only understand in context since a lot of words are the same, the difference being they have different tones.
Weather-wise, I was expecting it to be warm here, but was sadly mistaken. It's so cold and windy here. And sandstormy! Hence, I am rather under-dressed, unprepared and freezing my butt off here. It certainly didn't help that I had great weather during my brief 14 hour stopover in KL. (nice cool night, which was ruined by that stupid motorcycle gang that decided to congregate right at my gate. useless cops down the street)
The hours here.. ppl do everything very early. Wake up early (class starts at 8am), eat early (lunch in the cafeteria is served btwn 11.30-12.30 but I only finish class at 12; dinner is ridiculously served at 5-6pm!). Tubes end at 10 something! The cafeteria in itself is an experience... hordes of hungry students rushing for food (queuing is a foreign concept) so it helps if you're either really tall and can see over the other ppl's heads, or really short and squeeze/dodge your way to the front. "Cap-fan" style. You see what takes your fancy and get the server's attention and tell him/her. Then there's the obstacle course. The mini-obstacle course of a dining hall. Loads of spilt gravy/soup and what-not on the floor; the danger of slipping and sliding is very real. And avoiding other ppl's trays while stuck in the clamouring crowd of hungry students, lest they soil your clothing.
Shopping here is really tiring. Thank goodness I don't like shopping.. it's an even bigger pain to shop here because you have to bargain for every single item you want. It's very draining. The opening prices are ridiculously high, especially since they can tell that we're not local from the moment we OPEN our mouths. It takes about an hour to get into central Beijing.. akin to living in Zone 6 in London or living in Cyberjaya in Msia.
I'm still rather exhausted from last week's crazy crazy hectic week (no "burning the candle at both ends" comments, ok!) and ended up falling asleep in class the first two days. The placement exam turned out to be more informal than I thought. The lady at the office pulled out a basic book and asked me to read out loud, which wasn't a problem then she gave me a list of chinese characters and told me to write the pinyin for the ones I recognised. Got my books and headed to class (just my luck to be placed at the top floor of each building I'm in! classes+dorm). Spent my first day in class in a dazed blur, just trying to understand all the explanations which were given in Chinese instead of English as I was used to! Luckily I wasn't too behind in class. In fact, I didn't have any problems other than the lack of vocabulary which mainly involves memorising anyway. 3 days of fighting sleep and boredom in class later, I finally decided to request a class change to something more challenging. i.e. go from intermediate to upper intermediate. I spoke to my teacher and she gave me a note to take to the office this morning. Unfortunately, when I went into the office I was told that the upper intermediate class was full and she suggested I go to the advanced class instead! She let me have a look at the advanced class book... nope.. the FIRST lesson was similar to the really difficult passages that I used to be given in Thurs classes (which I almost always skipped because it took me over an hour to look up all those words and figure out the passage only to discover that it was some lame-ass story that wasn't worth the effort). After I told her it was too difficult for me, she stuck me into the upper intermediate class after all. It's a good thing that the classroom happens to be bigger than the others and they actually had a couple of spare desks.
So.. half of today was spent in my "old" class (which I spent all of 3.5 days in) and the other half was spent in my new class. Had a dictation in my new class which I couldn't do, of course since I hadn't been around the last 1.5 weeks. A fresh batch of names to remember now.. all chinese names too. The japanese ppl seem quite friendly.. I was hanging out with my Japanese classmates from my old class.. and half of this new class are also Japanese.
Oh yes. A couple of days ago, when I was walking out of the admin building after sorting out my student ID, I walked right into this group of ppl doing aerobics (with music and all) outside. Super synchronised too. Felt like I was right back at MC with Narendra shrieking at us in her horrible high-pitched voice, jumping up and down like a frog and getting us to toss those ugly candy striped cheapo plastic balls into the air and catching 'em, with those guys from MBS sitting on the wall watching us and laughing.
Ok. Gotta head to the dining hall now before they stop serving and get past the obstacle course. *deep breath*
Ok. The obvious. Everything's in Chinese which isn't so bad, until someone engages me in conversation. I can barely speak without stumbling over my words. I can more or less understand stuff. Depending on who does the speaking. Definitely NOT when someone does sales-talk on me, though. I lack the confidence when speaking. And my vocabulary is rather dismal. I'm gradually getting used to the speed at which most people talk. I only understand in context since a lot of words are the same, the difference being they have different tones.
Weather-wise, I was expecting it to be warm here, but was sadly mistaken. It's so cold and windy here. And sandstormy! Hence, I am rather under-dressed, unprepared and freezing my butt off here. It certainly didn't help that I had great weather during my brief 14 hour stopover in KL. (nice cool night, which was ruined by that stupid motorcycle gang that decided to congregate right at my gate. useless cops down the street)
The hours here.. ppl do everything very early. Wake up early (class starts at 8am), eat early (lunch in the cafeteria is served btwn 11.30-12.30 but I only finish class at 12; dinner is ridiculously served at 5-6pm!). Tubes end at 10 something! The cafeteria in itself is an experience... hordes of hungry students rushing for food (queuing is a foreign concept) so it helps if you're either really tall and can see over the other ppl's heads, or really short and squeeze/dodge your way to the front. "Cap-fan" style. You see what takes your fancy and get the server's attention and tell him/her. Then there's the obstacle course. The mini-obstacle course of a dining hall. Loads of spilt gravy/soup and what-not on the floor; the danger of slipping and sliding is very real. And avoiding other ppl's trays while stuck in the clamouring crowd of hungry students, lest they soil your clothing.
Shopping here is really tiring. Thank goodness I don't like shopping.. it's an even bigger pain to shop here because you have to bargain for every single item you want. It's very draining. The opening prices are ridiculously high, especially since they can tell that we're not local from the moment we OPEN our mouths. It takes about an hour to get into central Beijing.. akin to living in Zone 6 in London or living in Cyberjaya in Msia.
I'm still rather exhausted from last week's crazy crazy hectic week (no "burning the candle at both ends" comments, ok!) and ended up falling asleep in class the first two days. The placement exam turned out to be more informal than I thought. The lady at the office pulled out a basic book and asked me to read out loud, which wasn't a problem then she gave me a list of chinese characters and told me to write the pinyin for the ones I recognised. Got my books and headed to class (just my luck to be placed at the top floor of each building I'm in! classes+dorm). Spent my first day in class in a dazed blur, just trying to understand all the explanations which were given in Chinese instead of English as I was used to! Luckily I wasn't too behind in class. In fact, I didn't have any problems other than the lack of vocabulary which mainly involves memorising anyway. 3 days of fighting sleep and boredom in class later, I finally decided to request a class change to something more challenging. i.e. go from intermediate to upper intermediate. I spoke to my teacher and she gave me a note to take to the office this morning. Unfortunately, when I went into the office I was told that the upper intermediate class was full and she suggested I go to the advanced class instead! She let me have a look at the advanced class book... nope.. the FIRST lesson was similar to the really difficult passages that I used to be given in Thurs classes (which I almost always skipped because it took me over an hour to look up all those words and figure out the passage only to discover that it was some lame-ass story that wasn't worth the effort). After I told her it was too difficult for me, she stuck me into the upper intermediate class after all. It's a good thing that the classroom happens to be bigger than the others and they actually had a couple of spare desks.
So.. half of today was spent in my "old" class (which I spent all of 3.5 days in) and the other half was spent in my new class. Had a dictation in my new class which I couldn't do, of course since I hadn't been around the last 1.5 weeks. A fresh batch of names to remember now.. all chinese names too. The japanese ppl seem quite friendly.. I was hanging out with my Japanese classmates from my old class.. and half of this new class are also Japanese.
Oh yes. A couple of days ago, when I was walking out of the admin building after sorting out my student ID, I walked right into this group of ppl doing aerobics (with music and all) outside. Super synchronised too. Felt like I was right back at MC with Narendra shrieking at us in her horrible high-pitched voice, jumping up and down like a frog and getting us to toss those ugly candy striped cheapo plastic balls into the air and catching 'em, with those guys from MBS sitting on the wall watching us and laughing.
Ok. Gotta head to the dining hall now before they stop serving and get past the obstacle course. *deep breath*