End of November

Time flies.

And I really didn't expect myself to leave this place blank for like....3+ months?
Hmm....sorrylah Alan, Eng Hwa and those who had paid frequent visit to this long isolated blog as I've been disappointing you guys whenever you click on to this link.

Well, so you can guess how busy is my life here. It's near to end of November now. Mid-terms has passed, tonnes of assignments has been due, most presentations over, now down with one final presentation, final recommendation report and FINAL EXAMSsss....

Oouch, sounds kinda sad.

UST Campus~~ Streets in Mongkok
I guess I'm supposed to describe life in Hong Kong. And how have I been so far.
To be frank, I don't feel that there has been any major changes to the hyper active Sherlyn, BUT, many of my friends here said that I looked more and more fatigue day by day, as though I haven't sleep for weeks or even a month? Haha, well don't worry, bet you guys can still recognize me when I come back. Hehe.
Night view from the peak(blurred)
Hong Kong is all about fighting for more time. You just don't feel that there is 24 hours in a day.
Time is just not enough. Imagine having 4 assignments on-going at a time, a final exam, a presentation, a campaign and the list never stops. Owh, and your engine is expected not to stop too. Haha. Busy, busy, busy. There's only one more week of classes ahead and it's back to study study study time. After a successful group presentation ^ ^
Okay, I should say something positive ; )
It was pretty fun in the orientation week back in end of August. We have 10 Malaysian freshies in HKUST(My Uni-The Hong Kong University of Stress and Tension, whoops, Science and Technology), which there are 2 from the island, 3 from Butterworth, and the rest from the other states. Owh, one thing to note, my flight was delayed for 2 days because of the No.8 Typhoon Signal and I missed the best typhoon which will seldom happens in HK!! And I was stuck in KL with no one, no money, no extra clothing and no phone! Hahaha....you can't imagine how miserable those two days were. After reaching the campus, I managed to meet all Malaysians in the first few days and we bond pretty well.

Orientation@ Repulse Bay~The Malaysian Girls

The International and Mainland Students Program Office organized a series of orientation activities for all the international students which includes visits to some famous tourist spots in Hong Kong(of which most I've been there before), some interesting talks, as well as a free dinner at Jumbo Floating Restaurant! Malaysians Say Cheese!~ At the Jumbo Floating Restaurant
After a week, school term starts. At first, we still manage to arrange time for some sports games e.g. badminton, ping pong and swimming. I think that lasted for the first 3 weeks? And I guess you know what happened next...hehe. I'm registered to 5 subjects, Accounts, Business Statistics, Business Case Analysis, Calculus and Organizational Behavior. And NONE of these subjects are EASY to score.=(( Grading system here is totally different from what I use to have in TARC. They'll grade you according to the mean of the group's score. Which means, scoring 85 doesn't guarantee you an A and scoring 65 doesn't mean you will have zero chance of getting an A. Confusing? Haha. it's Normal Distribution. Feeling kinda lazy to explain all these here, nudge me at MSN if you wanna know more.

Studying here wasn't really enjoyable at first. That should be caused by the difference of culture.

[Gotta leave at the moment, busy schedule=.=]
[update later]

Okay, continue updating.

I have locals, taiwanese, chinese and english as my lecturers. Bermacam-macam.
Who's the best? I guess it's my accounts professor, the Taiwanese.
He's quite humorous and his lectures are pretty interesting as he taught quite alot real life cases which I find useful learning.
For the rest, sadly, I could say that they're slightly below my expectations. Well, maybe this is just the first semester of my first year and things are just getting started so I'll still need some time to meet with "geng" professors. That's what the seniors say.
Diversity: Internationals, Locals, Mainland BBQ at the UST BBQ pit~Cold Night
I've met with people from different regions different continents of the globe. But still, I'm closer with most Malaysians. Haha. Anyway, locals are quite friendly and they have SUPER DUPER high spending power. However, when it comes to academics, only a portion of them will make you feel satisfied with their work. As for the mainland students, I guess 95% of them are SUPER DUPER diligent. Library is like their second home. Studying is their life. Some of them are friendly too, such as the one I had in one of my group assignment and business case competition. A few of them are super "kia-su-s". I MEAN SUPER. And as for international students, most of the westerners enjoy university life, beer, parties, Tsim-Sa-Tsui and Lam Kwai Fong .....
Mid Autumn Festival Steamboat Happy Birthday to ME^ ^
Me? I managed to keep my uni life busy(Yaya, we all know), balanced friendship between diversity, and not enough sleep for many many many days! So far, there are activities that I'm happy to be involved in. Being in the Rotaract Club and being part of the sub-committees in organizing a Science Day for the underprivileged kids was really meaningful. As I never had chance to be individually involved in such larger scale community service, I really learnt a lot from this experience. To see the kids smile, to see them listening to what you actually say, to see them bringing back their "science products", to see their eyes telling you that "we had a nice day" is really memorable. Wine appreciation
MadLab Science Day for Children
Besides, I also registered myself to the International Service Trip which aims to help in reconstruction work of schools in the mountainous areas of YunNam. In conjunction of this trip, we had a fund raising event which lasted for 3 days in campus. It was also a good experience as we were to asked to raise HKD10 donations for a pen to be given to those children. At first I thought this will be quite a tough task as most UST-ers are busy and are neither interested nor responsive towards any booth-set-up activities, but in the end, it ran smoothly. The response was really positive and satisfying and we managed to achieve our target~~Yay, all prepared for the trip!

What worth mentioning about me studying here is the huge difference of tertiery education life in UST and in Malaysia. Within these 3++ months, I've been involved in numerous self development talks, from the CEOs, from theatre artists, from career development center, from company executives and the list goes on. The opportunity of self enrichment and learning additional non-academic skills are never ending. I've even learnt wine tasting, negotiation skills, and even forex, metals and futures tradings. Owh ya. a stimulation was even prepared for us for this trading activity. I also managed to secure a place for the preliminary round for International Student Trader's Trophy and the 2 hours session was really enjoyable. There was also chances for mock interviews where challenging interview questions will be addressed and instant feedback will be given to your performance. So far, I'd also attended 2 company visits which includes Cathay Pacific and Firm Town Gas. Cathay Pacific's Building is SUPER COOL!~~~~and i had a HKD160 buffet luncheon at the top of the CX tower with some of the CX executives. Wooohooooo....Although super expensive, but the experience is worthwhile.

One more interesting activity I'm involved in--Air Cadet! Hoho! I've been to Saikung for hiking once, and lately a 2 days-1 night camping with fellow cadet officer trainees(that's what we call ourselves!) First time sleeping in a Mongolian tent, and camping at a place between the mountains near the ocean with no water and electric supply, only TORCHlight~~~Other than that, we were taught basic aviation knowledge, and some radio telecommunication skills. Who knows, I might have a chance to fly my own private plane or helicopter in the future! Hahaha.....
Hiking Trip at Saikung
Well, weather has changed from summer, to autumn till now, between 13-18 degree celcius? A lot has happened for the whole semester, and this blog is just a summary for it. I hope this gave you a picture of what has happened to me here?

Hehe, exams lining up in mid-dec! Wish me luck guys!!!
Owh ya, I MISS PENANG FOOD! and all the people there too!!!