Nothing very interesting is happening in my life. Except I am having a Shadow for these few days, who is following to lectures and practicals. She has been to Cambridge before so things are not new to her. Think she was quite terrified by the 4 hours of lectures and 4 hours of practicals I had on Monday. Oh well. I am terrified myself.
There are some changes to people around me. A few of them got attached, and a few of them are not having too good a health. Wish them the best in everything.
Week 4 is coming to an end. I have now almost completed half of my undergraduate educations. These are the best years I am having, and so sad that days are kind of numbered now.
21 comments:
Monday is also the worst day in the week for me, however it is nowhere near as intense as yours. We have just three hours of lab works in the morning and three hours of lectures after a two hours lunch break in between. I find taking a good and a long sleep the day before really helps in preparing the body for a busy day like that =). Also, as the weather is becoming warmer lately- more summery like, and with the days getting longer I think it's a good idea to eat lunch outside in a park or somewhere like that, rather than being stuck inside a building the whole day. For us, we are quite lucky to have a HUGE patch of green and a few small lakes next to our campus in the middle of London, which is perfect for mini break times!
Yeah it's really scary to think about how fast the time has gone and how much is left. I hope you make the most out of your remaining university days. Enjoy every moment of it! On a quick note, I'd like to share how fun it is to teach Chinese to non-Chinese speaking students. We give free weekly Chinese language and culture lessons to foreign students (I mean 'we' as in the people in the Chinese society whom are involved in the cultural promotion sector). It feels awesome to give something back to my mother tongue and really really exciting to see everybody speaking Chinese, and not to mention it's also a wonderful experience to be a teacher. I strongly recommend this if you have the opportunity too!
Reading your comment just made my day! it was a big surprise, and served to cheer me up quite a lot.
I love eating lunch outside. We have a big patch of lawn in college and last easter term i had most of lunches on the bench beside it or just on the lawn itself. They were good times, better if exams were not so close. I would imagine the grass would stand out more and be more lovely in London. Which university are you in?
Ha it must be quite fun. Sadly there are no such opportunity as far as I know, but probably because that I didn't look for it. Glad that you enjoyed these experiences.
Likewise, reading your blog has always managed to bring a smile on my face. It's like reading a very good book but a book which I can relate so much to.
It's quite amazing how sometimes I feel like I'm the narrator too lol. Since my little brother is growing up so quickly I have to keep up with his changes constantly; now that he can walk, run, talk, and play (non-stop!), and you name the rest, it is not surprising that he is no longer a baby or a toddler or somebody who sleeps through most of the day. The Easter holiday is approaching, I really would like to spend more time at home especially now that I don't see him very often since I left for uni. However, as much as I love him, he can be time consuming too! which is not very helpful when I'll have so much revisions to do for the exams next term :S. I see challenges ahead but I'll try my best to adjust to suit him and to use my time most efficiently at home (hopefully!).
I still remember the first time I visited your site and you wrote something on Chinese philosophy from 大学. It was awesome! I was kind of lost in life at that time because my grandmother has been hospitalised under very critical conditions for one week and a half. Doctors advised my family to be prepared for the worst news anytime... But the words from 大学 suddenly reminded me of the importance to be '静', which also reminded me of what I learnt from my grandmother when we spent times together. I felt so happy after reading it because I felt she was so close to me. It was quite a tough time to go through but I'm glad I remembered to be 静, it seemed like it was a gift from her. During those times, I find myself debating with myself on whether or not I should go back to China. I had so much to tell her; so much to ask her however time was never on my side. I soon realised I was not, by any means, a free soul. It was too sad that I was bounded by too many constraints. Without doubt, I would have went back: if I had the money; if I had the time; if I didn't have to sit the exam at the time; if I could miss lectures until whenever my grandmother recovers; if I could miss practicals and still not let my lab partner down; if only I could stop the time. Now that it's all too late, I fell extremely ashamed of myself for being so selfish to allow myself to worry so much about those little things in my life that I truly missed out on the big... Lessons learnt.
Anyways, I hope I haven't ruined the lovely sunny Saturday by talking about something quite heavy.
A little about myself: I'm a second year student from Imperial College London; the park I talked about was Hyde park which is literally next door :D. Where am I from? Well, that is one of the questions which I never have straight answers to. My answer depends on whom is asking. If it's from a Chinese person, then I'd answer Sichuan; if it's from a British person then I'd say Manchester or Bradford; if it's from anybody else, then my answer would be China. It's hard to define where I belong to. My parents are from Sichuan but I was born and then 'semi-raised' in 石家庄, then I spent the other half of my life in Manchester. Later, when I moved to London my parents moved home to Bradford. I guess it's still not as bad as how my brother will encounter the very same question when he grows up. Hehe.
i totally can relate to you! my brother is 5 years old, and every time i went home, he will just take over my life. it is great to play with him, but not when you want to have something done or just have a nap.
i'm really sad to hear about what happened. it is sad that we have to deal with these tragedies. 苏轼 summarizes it really well with 人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴园缺. also so often true was that we dont realized something was so important to us until we have lost them. there can be no perfection, and our judgment are limited by our perception at that point in time, which might change over the course of our life, sometimes drastically over such events. I hope you have got over those sad times and memories.
haha i have a few friends doing 2nd year phyisics in imperial. I went to hyde park once last year. it was amazing! such a nice place to hang out in the middle of london. haha thats quite an interesting history. I guess it is also getting quite common to have such an "elaborate history". in a sense that it is such a globalized world now. I myself was born in china, and studied in singapore until high school, and now in the uk for undergrad. life is so full of surprises and wonders.
Thanks for your words, I have moved on positively now. =). haha what a small world. I also have some friends doing NatSci at Cambridge.
I just came back home- on my secretly planned surprise visit. Funny how my brother recognised me instantly whilst my father had to pause for some times before he could have said something. It was as if he was waiting for me to introduce first! I know it must have been a shock to him to see me home a week earlier from the 'information' that I've told him before. Yup and as usual, I am now fully occupied and accompanied by my little brother. =D.
How did you find your stay in the UK? Was it a lot different to Singapore? I would imagine the weather is totally different! Last year when the freshers were moving into our hall, I remember having a very long conversation with a Singaporean mother as she was deeply worried for her son's welfare in London. One of her biggest issue was that London was apparently too cold! I really couldn't understand at the time why that was because a)it was a nice hot summery day, b) it has been sunny and wasn't raining at the time and c) compared to where I came from the summer period in london was longer, hotter and just way better lol, so in a way I felt quite fortunate to live here now.
Haha I hope you have a good Easter holiday.
Haha that is actually so true! many of my friends in singapore find UK extremely cold. they complain about it and just stay indoors for a significant part of their time. its not surprising since the temperature in singapore does not change throughout the year, and only varies from 24 to 34 degrees given any day. However, i quite like the weather here. mainly because i grew up in china, where it is colder, and then also i really hate hot weathers.
There are many cultural differences between singapore and uk. Here people are more open and drink a lot of alcohol. The ways things are done are also very different. Sometimes I dont know which i like more, but british has definitely a system of doing things that made them so strong for hundreds of years, that we need to learn.
Even though I speak English and everything, it is extremely difficult for me to be that close to the locals.
being far away from home is also not easy, but as the years go by, I'm getting more and more used to it. really nice for you to be spending time with your brother. treasure it! haha.
I'm quite enjoying my easter holiday. Hope you're enjoying it as well!
Aw, that means you guys never have winter? and snow? I guess too much sun can be a problem sometimes too, on that note I think I prefer British weather too haha.
Even though I lived in the UK for so long I still don't quite get the hang of the British way of doing things. But at the same time, I don't feel like I can mix in with the people who came straight from China either. I guess it is an odd time for me to come to a new place at the age eleven. Most of my friends are 'British brought-up Chinese' hehe.
You've raised an interesting point actually. What are the factors for a powerful nation? Does it depend on the way of conduct/thinking the people have? Take the current two of the super powers Japan and UK as example; the Japanese people are more like nationalists (i mean they would consider the consequences on others first before any decision making) whereas the British are more like individualists. I might be totally biased with the comparison but still, clearly both nations are very different but they both thrives.
It must be hard living so far away from home. Good that you have settled down well. Keep up the positive mind! There are treasures waiting to be found in every corner of the globe if we know where to look. :D
no winter and never snow. the high temperature is only part of the problem. humidity makes up the other part. I think it's such a relief for my body to be away from Singapore for a while.
Haha true I find more common topics with people from Singapore than from China. This is the thought that gave me the idea of the quantum analogy of life. We are more like a wave than a localized particle. LOL
There are so many factors that determine if a nation is strong. Historic reasons, people's mindset, government, technology and so on. If the people obey a set of conduct, be it Oriental or Western, and allow different opinions and exchange of ideas and people chances that you'll succeed.
Haha thank you very much. I hope the same for you
i rlaely lkie yuor ieda of the quntaum alaongy to lfie. It's lkie the cihense poplee's enregy moludus suqrae deos not mtach up extcaly to our enregy gpas and, hcene are not asbrboed by us. haha.
You are pborbaly wneornidg why my ltertes are all jumelbd up. hehe You may aerdaly konw tihs but the leetrts are aactluly mxeid up in a sipcfeic way. The frsit and lsat ltretes are aawlys in the rihgt pcales. I've herad auobt a rseeacrh dnoe in Cabmridge on how our birans 'raed'. And as it can be seen by tihs eaxmlpe taht our bairn sees a seentcne form wrod to wrod as a wlhoe, iasnted of form ltteer to letetr. So it deos not matetr how we odrer the ltetres in beewten, our biarn can slitl mkae snsee of it. lol I tnhik it's qtiue cool so dicede to try it out for the frsit tmie. I hpoe you can raed tihs oaky.
I can smell summer in the air already. YESSSS!!! It's going to be the best part of the year! (apart from the exams :S )
Haha I can read that with no problem. Strange how our brain workds. But just wondering how much effort and time does it take for you to write them?
Yes the spring is finally here!
haha not too long actually. I wrote them out properly at first. Then I went back to delete one or two of those in-between letters,and finally randomly inserting them back into the word again. Unfortunately it wasn't any quicker or easier so I'll stick with the normal way. =p
Oh by the way, just realised how rude i was for not have mentioned my name yet... My name is Bo Li, or Li Bo in the chinese way. Really nice 'meeting' you. haha
hahahahaha i just couldn't help it but burst out laughing when i read your name is "li bo". this is because i have a friend in cambridge who has the exactly the same name, at least phonetically.
sorry didn't mean to offend you or anything. what a coincidence! nice meeting you too!
Oh really?? wow what are the chances of that! Maybe we have different characters, mine is 李博. Judging from your initial reaction when you heard the name 'libo' your friend must be a very comical person? lol
I also know one person whose name has exactly the same characters as mine at Cambridge. I think he's a second year and is from Singapore... I know we're probably talking about different people here but this making me feel the world is so tinyyy :D
omg! there is only one li bo from singapore probably in the entire Cambridge. I'm pretty sure we are talking about the same person... what a small world
OMG!!! It was so random how i met the other libo too! I met him after watching some drama/musical show. I travelled to Cambridge by myself one day; it was a few weeks after hearing the news about my grandma. You know those moments when you just want to escape everything. Well I chose to get away from London to somewhere different, somewhere with more open space. A few days earlier I was browsing around the local areas on the web to see if there was anything interesting going on- I was hoping to find somewhere where I could drop by during my little day trip. So I came across an advertisement for some kind of drama production at Cambridge. It sounded interesting so I booked a place. Woah now that I think back onto it, it sounded so crazy... It wasn't just the craziness of travelling alone but it also just happened to be the time when I've lost my bank card; I've spent literally all my cash on that one return coach ticket, sadly all I had left in my purse was just a pathetic 28p!.. eek *how embarrassing*... @.@ good thing that i brought food with me that day.. Nevertheless I was still glad that I went there because Cambridge was just so worth seeing, it was so breathtakingly beautifully! I walked around the river, the fields, some tourist attraction sites, window shopping along the way, walked through a market and got surprised by a food vendor selling ostrich meat burgers!, sat in a chapel to watch an orchestra practice, and i even managed to stay in the library in trinity college for a while (*shh!*). It was truly a memorable and adventurous day for me! loool... although i dont think i could repeat those kind of days again because it only made sense under those circumstances at that time. You're so lucky to live there; i wish London could be more like that too.
Btw, do you know Grace? She’s a fourth year. I met her after the musical as well. ^^
i see. was it the musical he acted in? did you like it?
ya i can imagine those moments. i have been through some of those as well but just not courageous enough to do something you did. How does it feel to "run away"? maybe i should do something like that someday.
glad that you enjoyed cambridge. i have not been to trinity library myself, and all i can say about the college is that i was chased out from the college twice, even though i am a member of the university. haha. ya i know grace. she is sort of the "grandmother" of cambridge, as most people in their 3rd or 4th year would not bother turning up to even but she is very enthusiastic.
In fact he was the lead actor in the musical, Grace also had a small part but I think she mainly worked behind the scene. It was so enjoyable! Everybody looked professional in their acting. The musical started off on a high note with a typical, traditional chinese fortune teller, it was hilarious. One of the highlight for me was the use of Korean music in parts of the musical. I love Korean music, even better to hear it in the most unexpected place. It really made my day!
Haha! ‘running away’ makes me sound like a bad kid xD. It is a great feeling and it definitely brings a lot of fun and the much needed relief! I actually felt like a pioneer, an explorer for the whole day; everything looked new, bright and wonderful hehe. Of course I had doubts about this idea many times before, but eventually I convinced myself to just follow my initiative, and try not to think twice. The first step requires a lot of courage but I think it is worth it.
How were you chased out of the college, twice?! Oops... I’m assuming nobody was injured right? hehe
i watched the musical as well, probably the mantinee show. agreed that it was really very professionally done. The directors wrote the songs and lyrics as well. and it was so hilarious. It was also the first production of its kind by the singaporean community in cambridge.
haha definitely did not mean to say you are a bad kid. But i think that the chinese way of bringing up kids really discourage them from taking such bold actions, which i feel sometimes would open up the world to them and let them realise things they would have never thought about in the classroom. I quite of feel short changed having not done those things when i was younger. haiz was too obedient, and now it is just not the same anymore.
haha no as in the porters asked us to leave, rather rudely. went inside with friends from trinity. it was very nice. did you go into the wren library?
:O… wow I was in the matinee too, I was sitting near the stage. It’s funny as pen-pals none of us would have a clue even if we met lol. I was very impressed with the songs too and the little lyrics booklet that they made was just too cute. That has actually inspired me to try audition for a part in a drama production in whichever society next year, hopefully I’ll get the time to do that, it will be fun.
Haha I know, don’t worry about it. I was too obedient as well as my parents were quite strict on me when I was a child, like most other Chinese parents. You’re right, I don’t think it’s good because it doesn’t allow the young people to think freely or to develop into who we think we are, instead most of the children are been moulded into a generic type which the parents think would lead their kids to good academic success and great job prosperity. I suppose the children needs to be disciplined at times because they are still too young to know everything but the Chinese way is a bit too extreme I think. Luckily I think my brother will be brought up in a much different way to me because I feel my parents have changed certain things in the way they think, besides I am now here to hopefully inspire him one way or the other. Haha I was still nineteen when I went on my great expedition (aka the run away). Although I know im suppose to be an adult now but I just don’t feel any older. I don’t like this transition from teenage-hood to adulthood… it’s scary… everything I used to think about the world seems very unrealistic now… =(. My brother is turning four this year I don’t really want to increase our age gap more, sometimes I think it’s unfair on him that his sibling is so much older than him.
awww how rude of the porter! But why would he do that though? How many libraries are there in Trinity? I’ve only been to the one right towards the back in a corner. I’m not sure what it was called though. Yes it was very nice hehe.
Really sorry for the super late reply for this. I was really busy with exams, and then after exams probably too busy with travelling and not doing anything.
Ya drama production seems to epitomize college life as people cooperate and try to fit different timetables together. I too wish to try out in a production next year, but it will involve quite a lot of commitment.
Ya the transition is not easy. I just dont know where I am on the line? Have I passed the turning point or there are multiple turning points. haiz its really confusing.
I think he'll actually benefit in a different sort of way from and older sibling, especially someone who cares for him so much. You'll get to spot the things your parents would have done wrong. But definitely without a sibling to "fight" with can be an disappointment!!
I'm not sure. probably 2 of them. one for students and another for the more historically important documents.
by the way do you mind telling me your email? i think it would be easier to communicate through that.
Don't worry about it =). I know what the exam period was like. In fact I've also been busy these days with what seemed like a cascade of never ending tasks -.-. Straight after exams I was assist teaching full time in a high school for a few weeks; but in between i had to joggle my time around so many stuff like house hunting, house moving, not being anti-social etc. ect.... and even a physics summer school! :O However to top it all up, things didn't go smoothly either; it just kept on going wrong *face palm*; even tubes were being slow, buses were messed up because of some major road works, aarrgh it was rather challenging. =(. But at least it's all over now as i am sitting comfortably at home recharging myself from those hectic days.
Hope travelling was fun for you! Where did you go?
Oh yes, i'm currently working my way through a secondary school standard Chinese text book on 三字经 lol. its rather embarrassing because there are quite a few characters which i don't know but im only on the third chapter ><....
Here's my email address: artemis_0323@hotmail.com =). All the best!
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