Friday, September 25, 2009

One foot in the West, one helluva large and possibly swollen foot in the East

Posted by 雯雯 at 2:17 PM 1 comments
That's it folks, now I've been here in H.K. for a little over a month, and everything and nothing has happened.

Firstly, my school is the best. I attend St. Paul's Convent School, a Catholic girls' school in Causeway Bay. The students are perky and nice, and the teachers are extremely kind too. The lessons are exciting, and whenever I fall asleep in class, it's because I don't sleep enough, or because it's the lesson right after lunch.
According to a classmate, Causeway Bay is one of the most polluted areas in Hong Kong, but that hasn't stopped it from being propped full with small restaurants and eateries. It makes you wonder how they keep from going bankrupt, but go to Causeway Bay a Wednesday afternoon during lunchtime and see how throngs of school children, businessmen and women, and regular people flock EVERY SINGLE EATING PLACE, and you'll understand.

The actual school subjects are rather hard to keep up with, and the workload is so huge that I'm getting more and more sleep-deprived. Unlike Norway, where you usually get a big piece of homework with one week to finish, here in Hong Kong, you get a little homework from every subject, every lesson, and that adds up to quite a bit. The subjects are, as mentioned before, very interesting, though, so I survive, somehow.
I've also errr "joined" some societies at school, mostly to show that I'm involved, or because the people promoting the clubs asked me so nicely. So far, I'm a part of the French Club, and the English Debating Society (oO). I wanted to join the Film Society too, but before I noticed, it was too late. Dawwww.
I've also started Tai Chi in school, as we have a "Diversified Interest Program" every Wednesday, where people pick a cool activity like Tai Chi and learn it. Allthough they call it Tai Chi, it's more like slow dancing with a fan, and I'm really enjoying it.

I would also like to tell you all about my favorite Hong Kong candy, which, for some reason, comes from Japan.
The first one is "Milk Candy", which is basically candy... that tastes like milk. So simple, yet soooooo good!
The second one is Pocky, and well, Pocky is super good. 'Nuff said.

Whatever I do when I don't have homework, aka my spare time, depends. If it's a regular day, I'll hang around the house, watching a movie, surfin the net. If it's a weekend, going to the movies is very great. I've seen more movies since I came to Hong Kong than I did in Norway last year, and there's this new one that just came out that I REALLY wanna see. It's a movie from mainland China, with all the big Chinese stars (allthough I recognize few of them) about the making of the People's Republic of China, one of my favorite parts of history! I would also like to know how the Chinese movie-maker person depicts the characters involved.

I have also started taking piano lessons, and it's a real pleasure every time the teacher comes. My sister and I will also be starting Judo in a little while, and as soon as we do, I'll write a letter to my Judo club back in Norway (as per the request of an extremely nice person who trains there) telling that I'm having fun and that Chinese people are scary.

The Cantonese is going slowly, though I'm picking up new stuff mostly every day. I can even hear the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese now (something that was impossible when I first got here)! Maybe I'll be able to pick up some phrases after all?

That's the update for now, here are some pictures:




Sunday, September 13, 2009

Singing... in the RAIN oO

Posted by 雯雯 at 1:01 PM 0 comments
In writing moment, it's raining like hell. Seriously. Got thunder and such too. If the weather stays like this, I get a free day tomorrow!

*cough*, moving on.
School has been very school'y and I'm actually right now taking a break from the mounds of homework I need to finish before tomorrow. Which is sad, really, the 14 and 15-year olds here get more homework then I ever did in Norway.

I would also rather be playing with my new shiny laptop, that I got yesterday, but alas, my homework calls to me. My old laptop was dying in the heat here, so I got myself a new faster one to help meh.

lol just heard a loud bang from outside, sounds like the wind knocked something over oO

Also, just today realized how polluted the air here is, we were driving around in Hong Kong looking for school books, and it was like fog seriously. You could only hardly see the buildings on, say, another island not too far away.

Oki, back to homework again..
HMM

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

'Norwegian fails at phones, school and life in general'

Posted by 雯雯 at 1:58 PM 2 comments
So yeah, I fail. This is at least the keyword for today's blog!

My second day of school today, and it was quite okay. Well, once the school actually started..
The day, you see, started off awesomely bad. My host mother, you see ("Auntie"), comes into our room early in the morning with a worried expression, and asks if I'm not going to school soon. I tell her that it's fine, I'm not starting before 8, so I have put on an alarm that will go off at 6.30. The train ride to the school takes about 45-60 mins, so I need to get up early!
However, her concern worried me a bit, and so I couldn't sleep again. I reach out and grab my cell phone. According to it, the clock was 7.36.... lolwait, 7.36? EEEEEEEEEEK

I hurriedly grab my stuff and school uniform, muttering oh shit oh shit under my breath. My host sister (who doesn't have to get up as early) then tells me that it's not 7.30, it's 6.30.
o_o
I then checked my cell phone again, and it read 7.37.... pm.
Apparently, when my alarm went during school assembly yesterday (eep), and I quickly took out the battery to prevent further... alarming, it reset the time on my cell. I'm so glad Auntie came to check if I wasn't going soon lol ><

Okay, so I get dressed at the proper time, get on the train and get there in time. Our school is very cautious with the Swine Flu here, so we have to write down our temperatures and such every day. Before leaving that day, we took my temperature the regular way (hand on the forehead, yaknow). My temperature was nothing out of the ordinary, so I wrote down what I thought was an ordinary temperature on the sheet.
At school, I line up with the other students, but wooops, apparently a temperature of 37.3 up from 36.9 is scary, so I had to go sit in a corner with a face mask while the teachers ran back and forward trying to figure out what to do D;
I missed the assembly, even missed the start of my lesson, but after a few temperature checks, they found out that my temperature was regular.
Quote Hilde "There must be something wrong with the thermometer at home.."
*cough*

When I finally came into my classroom, I was oddly enough greeted by most of my class with a cheery and most perky hi. The classroom was chaotic as it has been every time I've been there. We had chemistry, math, english (mostly just handed in forms), history, mandarin and french (I got a free period), before I could go home at 12.50. I also had a nice chat with my class' teacher, Miss Lee, about midnight sun and classes.
What surprised me the most during the school day was
1. The girls seemed not to like the chemistry teacher, which I could not understand. He seemed like a very nice guy. Apparently, it's just because it was the first lesson of the year, and my classmates assured me that he'd start yelling at us asking where we left our brains soon. Reminds me of a certain someone who I have very much respect for, so yelling is fine(I think o_O)
2. Hong Kong school is SCARY
Except for the history class (which I thoroughly enjoyed), the level was amazingly high (considering that I'm in school with 14-15-year olds), and most of the teachers even randomly picked students to answer questions or solve stuff in front of everyone. I was sitting "don't pick me, don't pick me" through the entire chemistry and math class D;
I hope I get used to that.

After school, I went to meet my host sisters Angel and Winnie, plus Tracy, for lunch. We were going for Japanese food, so we went into a sushi place (eek).
I ordered a very safe dish of rice and pork, but as that took so long time to prepare, I got to taste the things that the other people ordered, like miso soup, sushi and other weird stuff.

And now I'm at home. I'm pooped. Really pooped. Getting my school uniform off is so nice that I forget to take a picture of it. Every. Single. Day.
You won't believe how hot it is.

HMM

Also, best article EVER at Dagbladet (you may need a translator tool): http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/09/02/nyheter/innenriks/rus/vold/7917580/
 

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