Adrenaline Rush

Posted in Exchange, Nanjing on December 9, 2009 by tingzi

Pannie! I’m now a step nearer to the dream we were talking about last time! =)) Tell you guys about it again next time when I see you. =)

Anyway, it’s almost a month away from my return date. I yearn to fly back, but I have a million things waiting to be done before I leave. 2 exams and 5 papers to be exact. I need to finish a paper every week if I want to get my results before I leave this place (God knows how long they’ll take to return us our transcripts after we leave).

Gah whatever.

Oh, today’s Semantics class talked about lies. Although the teacher taught it in an uninteresting manner, the content itself was already enough to grasp my attention throughout the lecture. I feel like typing each and everything that came through my mind onto this post. Okay, maybe not. I think it would bore you people out. Haha.

The lecturer caught me flipping through this psycholinguistics journal article that I was reading, and he got quite surprised that we read these, according to his words, “professional” papers. I was pretty surprised by his words too. We’re in a university! We’re here to contribute to the academic field! Why aren’t the students in the university reading these articles? He said that he usually assigned introductory readings to his students. And from the book that he recommended to his students, it was pretty much a Chinese version of our 1101E textbook. Well, I can only conclude that their field of linguistics research is still at a toddler stage.

A last random rambling before I end off this post: My timetable for next semester is super screwed. Thursdays 9am-6pm and one lesson each day for the other days. =.=” I wanted to tear my timetable up when I first saw it. Then I realised it didn’t help much. I’m still considering if I should spend my weekday nights at my friend’s PGP room since he only applied for it out of record purposes. But as you can see, the person’s a he, so it’ll be very inconvenient if I want to bathe and erh, move around. And if someone complains about me, it wouldn’t be very good a “record” for him too.

Unless there’s another female saint out there, I guess I’ll be having a hard time travelling to and from home next semester. *Wails*.

Okay, time for some serious work.

I’M FINALLY HERE.

Posted in Exchange, Nanjing, Shanghai, Travel on December 4, 2009 by tingzi

OMG. I tried no less than 500 times before I could gain access to my own dashboard. In fact, the login page still doesn’t work for me, and I have to sign in via the forums before I could navigate from there. Irritating.

Anyway, I’ve been “blogging” on MSWord all these while, so now I’m going to update you all with the “posts” that I’ve previously written. =)

—–

24 November, 2009 Tuesday 21:00

Back from Shanghai, tired but happy!

We went around for shopping and had our most sought-after SINGAPOREAN FOOD in Raffles City! At that particular moment when the chicken rice came, we loved Shanghai for its availability of Singaporean food. Anyway, the chicken rice chicken made me miss home. We used to dabao the chicken from The Chicken House at Thompson Road home to eat every Sunday. =) Anyway, after shopping at 华盛街, we went over to Yan Ning’s apartment for dinner. Isaac (yes the one who was in my Beijing class) was there also, and he was feeling so cold that he was wearing tights at home. Oh, on the way to the apartment we met Jia Mein and other people. Jia Mein’s my primary school mate. Singapore’s really small! Adding Yan Ling (Ah He’s friend) to the list, they can map out my life from Primary 5 and onwards.

We had some fun chatting over dinner and watching a wee bit of Click before proceeding on to our next destination at 11.30pm: KTV! We met Jeremy (Mag’s friend who previously came to visit Nanjing and helped carry my bag remember?) there and sang all the way till 6am (just to escape from the troubles of finding accommodation in Shanghai). The only ones left standing were Kaiying, Yen Chun and me. Mag was quite traumatized when she woke up as she saw me singing very animatedly. LOL. I shall not elaborate on that point.

After which, Jeremy took us on a “Grand Fudan Tour” where we took photos before grabbing something along the way for lunch and proceeding to 人民广场 again for more shopping. It wasn’t our fault – our initial plan was to tour 1933, some artistic architecture district in Shanghai, but we were too tired to travel there and we had too little time to visit it either. And then, it was back to Nanjing again! Kaiying and I didn’t sleep on the train ride and chatted about random secondary school memories (and secrets!). Haha. Looking at it now, I really wonder how we survived without sleeping (and constantly on the move) for so long.

The short weekend getaway was really good. I felt so much more relaxed after the essay-crisis before the weekend. I’m left with a tired body and a happy soul. =) And it’s time for me to start paying my sleep debt too. Hahaha. Goodnight guys.

—–

28 November, 2009 Saturday 23:49

Happy 21st Birthday, Chao Kiat!

Was chatting with him over the webcam and giving him comments about his hairstyle when I realized that I missed my friends. There’re a lot of people at his party that I missed dearly. When I called his house just now, Zhen Bin said that half of him hoped that I would give Chao Kiat a surprise by arriving at his doorstep. If I have a sack spouting gold infinitely, I’d definitely do so. Haha. Then again, I guess the homesickness would fade a little when Hui Jun, Liyan, Audris, Yan Ning and Ying Kit visit Nanjing in the near future. =)

That’s all for now! Off to vet through my 《红楼梦》校注 homework before turning in.

—–

Yepp. Just two posts. The blog-hiatus felt like eternity though. Haha. I guess when something’s readily accessible, we’ll take it for granted until we lose the access to it.

Anyway, I’d been really elated these days. Other than the very 晴天霹雳 news that the 文学批评史 module’s gonna have a closed-book exam and I have really no idea how to compete with those swallow-word-then-vomit-all-out students. Well, when you’re in Rome, do what Romans do. I guess I’ll just have to clench my fists and survive it somehow. But really. Other than that, I’m pretty happy. The CBM I’m going to pursue next semester is going to be about music AGAIN. I think I’ve already done 3 papers so far (including my ISM) that touch on the topic of music. Like what I’ve said on Facebook (when I didn’t have WordPress to write on), I might as well have majored in Music. Haha.

Oh, the heater was down for the past week, and the hostel’s staff FINALLY came to repair it after I went down with a severe flu and acted 楚楚可怜 in front of them. Now we have hot air in our room. Muahaha.

Okay, time for dinner. Will try to update again ASAP!

Heylos.

Posted in Exchange, Nanjing on November 20, 2009 by tingzi

Haven’t been blogging for quite some time. Haha. And I really don’t know what to blog about.

Weather’s getting a little bit more comfortable (around 5 degrees Celsius) after the snow at the start of this week. Relativity’s amazing. A while ago, we’d complain if the temperature drops below 10. Now we’re just satisfied if it doesn’t threaten to be near 0 or go negative. LOL.

The campus was beautiful. We reasoned that maybe it’s because of the suburban-feel at our campus that makes snow so beautiful. The snow at our hostel is amazing too, but because it’s located in the city, they just get swept away very soon after the snow settled. Some pictures of the snow:

A big snowflake that floated to our window sill.

Taken at the walkway between the two hostel blocks.

Our 仙林 campus.

Kaiying and me -- all wrapped up.

The snow was really heavy, and it came a month earlier than usual (you should have heard this from the news). We’re expecting spring to arrive before we leave Nanjing, if the whole weather calendar really gets pushed forward. Heehee.

Oh, we went mountain-climbing again last weekend. Haha. Mag’s friend, Jeremy, visited Nanjing last week and he joined us on our mountain-climbing trip too. We went to 栖霞山, where it’s well-known for its maple leaves and autumn view. Well, we could only see one autumn-reddish maple tree for every 20 trees seen. Still, the view up there was much more spectacular than that of 紫荆山. =) As usual, we had our fruits + peanut butter bread near the top of the hill. Hee. OH. One thing to mention. I really have to thank Jeremy for carrying my backpack throughout the journey. It was loaded with fruits at the start of the trip, and initially we promised to take turns to carry my bag. In the end it was him who carried it throughout despite my frequent offers to carry my bag myself. =.=” Anyway, photos again!

Purplish maple~

Another nice maple =D.

View from the top (with Mag in the picture)

When we reached the foot of the mountain again (we went the other way instead of tracking our steps back), we realised that we were already OUT OF NANJING!!

Map TO Nanjing. HAHA.

And so we took this little thing to the bus interchange.

I was sitting on Mag’s lap all the while lah. =.=” After quite a long time, we finally got onto the bus and went for our dinner. That sorta marked the end of our little mountain trip. Hahaha.

Anyway, we got back our 批评史 paper yesterday. I thought I didn’t do very well — 84 marks — for a thesis-driven essay. We reasoned that maybe it’s because of the topic chosen. The teacher scrutinises the structure of the essay, the grammar, the title and how it’s phrased… Whatever you can think of. They’re still quite conservative in terms of topic-choosing. Not that it’s a bad thing — they can really go in-depth and from there, open new sights for the field of research. Then again, it limits their creativity and the curiosity to try out new research arenas. Of course, I agree that whatever research done has to be academic-based and not like some pop-pseudo-academia that serve little use for the field. But, with their capability, I’m sure they can widen their field of research a lot more if they break through the psychological (and perhaps social) barriers limiting their choice of topics.

I’m so far OK with my grade, since it’s an S/U anyway and I’m really grateful that I passed. I’m just worried about the next paper that I’m going to work on. From what Sherilyn and the professor of that module discussed, it’s quite evident that he doesn’t really venture into new things that the Singaporean scholars have done about languages in Singapore. It’s back to the “unique” features of Singaporean Chinese (which N scholars have done before) and stuffs like that. I’m quite glad that I’m just an exchange student here, hence it’s less harm done even if I decide to do some bombastically new topic that the teacher disapproves of. I won’t fail lah, I’ll just get a lower grade that doesn’t show on my graduation certificate. =D.

Oh, on a lighter note, we’re spending this weekend in Shanghai! Isn’t it exciting. We’re spending the night at the KTV so as to save up on lodging. Hahahaha.

Okay, that’s all for now! Shall blog again when time permits. =D.

It’s SNOWING!

Posted in Exchange, Nanjing on November 16, 2009 by tingzi

Okay I know it’s not a big deal. I bet a huge portion of the globe has snow at different times of the year. THEN AGAIN. It’s still so thrilling to be able to see snow!!! Nevermind the chilling winds, nevermind the cold. IT’S SNOW!

This post is just to mark this special moment. Haha. It’s not my first time seeing snow (third time in fact), but it’s really thrilling to be able to scream and jump about with a bunch of friends at the first flake of snow. =)

Okay I should sleep.

Something that kept looping on my media player.

Posted in Music, Videos on November 15, 2009 by tingzi

It’s freaking funny how he tries to look suave by turning his cello around. And please listen carefully for his signature “Wooo!” towards the end of the song. I almost died laughing when it came out.

Then again, I like this song. Haha. And the woman is super zai.

It’s like getting a 金钟奖.

Posted in Exchange, Friends, Nanjing on November 14, 2009 by tingzi

This is a long overdue post — Wanted to finish the post and update this blog on Monday, but I was too tired and too worried about my 批评史 essay that my mood for blogging was totally killed. We handed in the essay yesterday… All was fine. And nothing much happened, other than the sudden dip in temperature (can you believe it it’s 3 deg Cel outside now) and strong gusts of the Northern winds. Argh I want the Sun and the heat back. Brr. Okays back to the blog post.

—–

Yepps, we’ve finally finished the whole birthday celebration for Chun and Kaiying. I hereby proclaim our three-day celebration a successful one!

Everything started long before their actual birthdays. Let me just list out our birthday plans one-by-one on a timeline. =)

Saturday — Chun’s birthday

1) We decided to prepare a true blue Singaporean breakfast for Chun. So before that, we checked the opening time for the cafe downstairs such that we could buy toasts from them, and planned how we could sneak Sherilyn’s bottle of kaya from her friend (who’s living right beside our room) before the breakfast. Initially we wanted a Singaporean-breakfast-in-bed thing, but considering the fact that Chun loves her bed so much, we decided to have the breakfast prepared in Sherilyn’s room instead. And so, we had a 3-pieces-of-kaya-toast-plus-two-hard-boiled-eggs-plus-coffee breakfast surprise for her! Everything went on quite smoothly, except for the buying toast part, as the cafe was catering for some event and couldn’t bother to entertain us, so Kaiying they all had to toast the bread manually. ><

2) Spaghetti with canned sardine. This wasn’t a surprise. It’s just hilarious to think that we spent less than an hour cooking but wasted about 2 hours trying to pry the cans open with a lousy can-opener. And I ended up with a bruise because I pried them open using force. LOL.

Sunday — Combined celebration for both girls

Nothing much happened this day actually. Sherilyn went to buy the cheesecake in the morning just in case they get sold out later in the day. It was so difficult to plan birthday surprises with the 主角 living in your room! I had to go “Repeat the choices?”/”Ya the first one sounds good. The first one. NO. The first one you mentioned lah!” throughout the whole conversation. =.= So she bought the cake and lent space in the fridge from Saeka (who’s our immediate neighbour LOL) to preserve the cake for dinner.

Initially we wanted to bring the cake for dinner, but after some considerations, we decided that it wasn’t very appropriate to bring it since we’re going to have buffet afterwards. Luckily we didn’t, as there wasn’t much space on the table to put the cake. Haha.

It was during the evening when things started getting more exciting. We went to this atas Japanese Teppanyaki Buffet restaurant and spent a whopping 150RMB (that’s roughly S$30) on the buffet. BUT. Omg it’s so super worth it. Alcoholic drinks were included in the buffet as well. =D. And I satisfied my cravings for Japanese food such as unagi, sashimi and whatnots! Besides, the meat dishes were so good. The beef was tender, the chicken was full of flavour and the pieces of fish were superb. =)) OH and that ice-cream-on-fried-banana thing. Yum! I think it can be the 招牌菜 for that restaurant. =)

So after the dinner, we were so full that we walked all the way back to our hostel, laughing and chatting on the way. We went to bathe and slacked around while Sherilyn went to get the cake from Saeka. Once the clock struck twelve, we sprung a surprise on Kaiying! And the most exciting thing was the gift-presentation, where we presented them with the videos we’ve been preparing since five weeks in advance. I felt like I was like getting a 金钟奖 award when they watched the videos. Haha.

We ate the cake, chatted and nua-ed around for a bit before we went back to our rooms to sleep. It was already 3.30AM by the time we climbed into our beds. Haha. And apparently we decided to skip the class on Monday. =S

—–

The two fortunate birthday girls had been receiving parcels and letters from their family and friends even till date! Today Kaiying received a package from home too, with her birthday presents all inside. Aww how I envy them! But I know it’s impossible for me to demand any package, since my birthday is really near the date that I’m going to leave Nanjing. Aww. My mom hinted to me today that my birthday present for this year’s going to be really big. I asked her to send it over and she said that it’s too big to be sent over. O.o I really wonder what it is. Hahahaha. So exciting!

Anyway, weather’s been really bad these days. I don’t even dare to step on the floor barefooted. My journey around the room is like, step on bed – step on chair – step on another chair – step on bed – reach for what I want, and back. I’ll buy heat-tec from Uniqlo tomorrow to save me from wearing the same pair of tights for the whole winter. I don’t want to grow moss. Haha.

Okay, time for some supper (I bet it’s the weather’s fault lor — we keep getting hungry around 11+pm) and some research before sleep. =))

Protected: 不说了

Posted in Thoughts on November 7, 2009 by tingzi

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


I’m Busy.

Posted in Exchange, Nanjing on November 3, 2009 by tingzi

I reckon if I repeat that over and over again, I’ll hypnotise myself to actually get down to work and finish those essays.

One week more to the I-look-nice-but-I-give-shit-grades-and-I-love-to-torture-students 批评史 teacher’s essay. I haven’t gotten past half of 陆机《文赋》, neither have I had any motive worth writing the essay about. We just got to know yesterday that we’re not allowed to borrow books, and since the photocopy room requires us to borrow books before photocopying, we can’t do anything except to sit in the library and do the traditional pen-and-paper copying. My shoulders are giving way soon. Slouching over a book for almost two hours and ripping off paragraphs isn’t the most pleasant way to start off your essay spree.

I keep telling myself that I need to do work. I need to do work. But once the laptop is turned on, Facebook is up, blogs are up, and everything else disappears into the background. I NEED SOME SELF-DISCIPLINE.

Then again, a little voice keeps telling me that hastiness produces better essays — better flow, more solid arguments, better trains of thought. Okay shut up, little voice.

Shall finish an article within this hour and bathe. Then I shall have dinner when the girls are back from school, before watching 妻子的诱惑 on TV and looking through journals for ideas. =)

Back from Yellow Mountain

Posted in Huangshan, Travel on October 30, 2009 by tingzi

FYI, the mountain itself is not yellow. Haha. It’s named after 黄帝 who’s believed to be one of the ancestors of Chinese people. Well, Google it if you’re interested.

Anyway. I should finish this blog entry before the memories fade out. I’m already starting to forget bits and pieces of it (all except the stairs — it’s like a replay of a never-ending thriller).

We started our trip on Saturday with a 5-hour bus-ride from Nanjing to the foot of Huangshan. After we put down our luggage at the sub-standard three-star hotel, we set off for our first destination — some rock-seeing place. Haha. See, I told you I’ve already forgotten certain details. Anyway, the place was quite uninteresting. Rocks after rocks, and we really have to unleash our imaginations to picture tortoises, pigs, 美人s and what-nots. Other than the semi-beautiful scenery over there, I struggle to think of any other reason that’s worth a feature. Then again, I applaud the Chinese for being so creative and imaginative, using stories from the traditional Chinese culture to give life to these non-living things.

IMG_0316Here’s my favourite one — 癞蛤蟆头上插花     臭美. (OKAY. I forgot the exact phrase. But it’s a toad and it’s 臭美 that’s for sure.)

And next up is the 漂流 thing that we we had been looking forward to. After donning our raincoats and keeping our valuables (other than my camera) away, we climbed onto the rubber rafts and went off! The rapids were so exciting. Magdeline and I were sharing a raft. When we reached the foot of the first rapid, our raft got stuck, and water kept gushing into our raft. Before we could do anything, our raft was already filled to its brim. Haha. Their employees were around to help, so we got out of it after some time. As expected, our clothes were drenched, so we left the place wet and cold and shivering in the autumn winds.

IMG_0335

At one of the calmer stretches of the river. By then, the sun was already setting.

IMG_0343

Yen Chun and Kaiying (they lost an oar on the way).

IMG_0340Gaiatri and Sherilyn.

We borrowed a hairdryer from the hotel reception (which had to go opposite the road to borrow a hairdryer from another house) and spent most of the night trying to blow-dry our shoes and jeans. Oh oh, another interesting fact. Sherilyn and Gaiatri’s room was just opposite ours and both our rooms were at the extreme end of the corridor, so our toilets were next to each other. The soundproof facility was so non-existent that we could hold a conversation across the rooms! Fascinating.

Second day was a warm-up to whatever we were going to face on the third day. Took a cable car to the mountains, and it was sight-seeing around the area. Up the slopes and down the stairs we went, before checking-in the hotel and walking up-slope (it was really tiring — 56 degrees upslope plus the fact that we hadn’t had any proper lunch before that) to see the 飞来石. In the end we just looked at it from a distance and proceeded back to our hotel where we finally had our dinner. We were so tired that when we reached our hotel in the evening, we took a shower and immediately climbed onto our beds to rest at 7pm or so.

IMG_0378IMG_0370The view was breathtaking. It’s like as if we’d stepped into some 山水画 or 武侠 novel. 超赞!!

The third day (and the last), which is also the most exciting day (I think) started very early. We woke up at 3am for breakfast and some packing-up before leaving our hotel at 4am to scale the mountains. The night sky was so super star-studded! I swear I’ve never seen so MUCH stars in my life. If I were an astrologist, I would have easily identified the different constellations. Anyway, with two torchlights (one of them was PMS-ing and we had to hit it to make it shine) and our barang-barangs, we climbed the stairs again. Although we had our luggage on us, the journey this time round was much easier. Maybe because everything beyond where the torch light shined was pitch-black, we didn’t really know how much more steps we were supposed to overcome before we reach a certain place. Psychologically, the darkness of the night made things so much better.

When we reached the top, it was already about 5+am, and there were a lot of people already there, chope-ing good places to watch the sunrise. Some even went wrapped in blankets. Haha. We were quite happy that we brought our thick winter jackets along, if not we would have become snowmans on 光明顶. Well, as for the sunrise, I guess I’ll let the photos tell you how beautiful it was.

IMG_0436IMG_0446IMG_0475Look at those clouds! They were the exact reason for this trip. =))

We thought that it was nearing to the end of our tiring yet fulfilling trip. Alas, the tour guide told us that there was another 13.6km of stairs to scale before going downhill in the cable car! We overcame all the flights of stairs and conquered the 百步云梯 (which was WAY more than a hundred steps continuously) before bidding goodbye to Huangshan. By the time we got onto the tour bus back, we were more than lethargic.

When I went with the Singapore tour group ten years ago, walking wasn’t as much as what we’d experienced now. I think Singapore’s tours give a much more relaxing package as compared to these agencies in China. Singaporeans can’t walk too much for nuts. Hahahaha.

Our aching calves have recovered by now, and in place of fats, we now have a wee bit more muscles on those legs. Hahaha. (Soon they’ll revert back to fats again.)

I think I’ll go back again for the 3rd and 4th time. It’s simply too beautiful! If you haven’t visited China or haven’t visited Huangshan, please do go before age and health catch up with you. I plan to revisit it again before I turn 30. Hee. Maybe I’ll go during spring, or summer. Heh.

S for Singapore, S for Slums.

Posted in Thoughts on October 23, 2009 by tingzi

Click here for the article.

So… I gather that Singaporean employers do not view people from third-world countries as humans.

OK it’s simply too late for me to process this article and write something about it (I spent quite a significant amount of time trying to organise my thoughts for the previous entry).

This is really the last post before I leave for the weekend. Hahaha. Till then~