Easter is coming.....

 

Easter is coming coming coming.....

I never thought Easter could be such a big thing, in Hong Kong as well as in Australia. We have a week long holiday in Hong Kong, and 10 days holiday including Good Friday in Australia. We call that Easter Break, or Easter Holiday.

I never really noticed what Easter is like in Hong Kong. But in Australia, there's a lot happening during Easter. First of all, there has been a lot of sales regarding Easter. All supermarkets sell a variety of chocolate, some a lot in the rabbit shape, and others in the huge egg shape. They are sooooo cute, and definitely tempting. Owh, and some sell rabbit fluffy toys as well....

Other than that, there are a lot of events happening throughout Easter. I shall update you guys when I attend those events.

The Unimates Students Association had their coffee and cakes session themed as "Pre-Easter Coffee & Cakes". It was a fun session with some cute food serving a lot of people. Too bad, I didn't have enough time to spend there making more friends as I only had my 10 minutes break of lecture for this....

Another tutor of mine gave us eggy chocolates during tutorials too. How sweet is that!!

given by my tutor ^.^

So, yeah, it seems like a huge celebration that I've never experienced before....Happy Easter everyone!!

And a lil update over here, I will be spending time at Melbourne for 4 days 4 nights this Easter! =)

The football game

We have a lot scheduled for today.

 Isn't the rabbit very cute? =)

First, a local town festival. There were a number of stalls selling and promoting stuff. There are farm animals and creatures on display too. Locals bought themselves a cup of coffee, sat back, and enjoy the music and performances from some bands.

Next, the Thai Festival. This is a bigger one, at Tumbalong Park, near Darling Harbour. Well, I think most people in the festival are Thai. Haha...there were some thai products on sale, and of course a lot of yummy Thai food. Well, yea, they look indeed very yummy, but too expensive. There were some Thai performances on stage too. As usual, people sitting on the grass, enjoying their bottle of beer or wine.

 Then, we went to meet a HK star at Paddy's Market =.= Haha, yea, you heard me correctly, HK star, Joey Yung, she's goinna have a tour in Sydney tomorrow. Well, I think if I were the star, I would be disappointed with the crowd on a Saturday afternoon, well despite the fact that this is not a Chinese country. But she looked way too thin to me. Hmm, like people who hasn't been having enough food for some time.

 Then we walked to Central station, for the highlight of our day. The football game!! Well,  this is definitely my first time watching a football game live in a stadium, and I can't believe I gave it to an Australian football game. It is the Swans (Sydney) against the Saints (Melbourne). I think it's pretty fun, it got excited at some time, and it got kinda funny when supporters of different teams sit close by to each other. Well, I said this because there was a group of people supporting the opposite team, and a lady in that group shouted like hell throughout the game. =.= Haha, and the funniest thing is that she acts as though she's the coach or something, trying to get the players do what she think it's right to do...funny funny. Overall, I think it was a good experience, although we had to sit there from around 7pm to almost 10pm. Anyway, the Swannies did not win the game, we heard that the Saints used to be a strong team, and they made it to the finals last year.

What a hot and tiring Saturday. =)

Owh, week 4 of studies is over already!!!!!

The Malaysians Meet-up

When you're at a foreign country, it's always glad to meet with people from your own country~

I remember myself getting really excited to know the Malaysians when I first reached Hong Kong, and we are like a small lil community. It's always comfortable hanging around with people who will make you feel like home.

When I came to Australia about 6 week ago, I was excited about meeting Malaysians too. (As I heard that there are a lot of Malaysians around here) Perhaps, I got too excited. During Orientation Week of my uni, I went to a booth called SUAMS (Sydney University Association of Malaysian Students), and when they asked if I were a Malaysian, I "excitedly" answered "Yeah, yeah!". But all I got back was just some "Owh kay, would you like to join our association then? We have a lot of Malaysians here......" And from that kinda reaction, I just realized that, well, it's really not something unusual to see people from your own country. And when it's not something unusual, it won't be exciting anymore. A little disappointing at first, but I got used to it not long after. Now I realized that Hong Kong is so much less diversified compared to AUS. They have tonnes of Europeans, Americans, Africans and Asians (including Japanese....I'm saying this because there are ZERO Japanese in HK) in one uni (excluding faculty and staff). We have? 40 Malaysians, growing to 50 or 60 maybe, 30 Europeans, no Americans, 10 Africans....err. Well you get the picture. Perhaps it's because my university is still too young, and HK does not use English as their first language, hence not much people will opt HK for tertiary education.

Nevertheless, I managed to contact some friends from Penang, who are doing full time in Sydney. The funny thing as we only heard of each other during high school (diff high school somemore =.=), and we never get to know each other. This time, we got introduced by another friend whom I'm not any close to either. Haha.

I was glad to be invited to his place for dinner. It feels.......sooooo much more like HOME. Cause they cooked CURRY CHICKEN! =) And we can speak Hokkien, and most important of all, Malaysian Chinese!! Hahaha... I had a great time in their beautiful unit, and thanks for the hospitality. Thanks Sheng Yu!

I still do hope that I could meet Malaysians who are excited to meet other Malaysians though. Haha ~~

Career Fair

I accidentally noticed that there is Career Fair in USYD yesterday. In their advertisement, there are 7 big prizes to be given away, and one of them is a 1TB HARD DISK! Haha, so craving for all the prizes, I tried attending the fair despite having full day classes~

As I was in a rush, I forgot to bring my student ID there during my first visit.

And ya, the weird thing about a huge career fair is, it only starts at 12pm, and ends at 4pm. ONLY 4 HOURS.

But anyway, I managed to get in the second time. There were quite a lot of companies recruiting, mostly business related, and quite a lot of people too. I had a lot of fun getting lotsa free gifts from different companies, pens, notepads, chocolates, even a shampoo!! And I realized that a lot of them give out stress balls, so I guess Australian people have stress too? Hahaha.

Anyway, back to careers in Australia. Well, Big4 firms only hire people who graduated from local uni-s. As for the rest, they'll require you to have Australian Permanent residency before you apply for the grad job. Hmm....so it seems not possible for me to work here at all? But the salary package here is so attractive!!! One of the positions offered, a trader, earns you AUD100,000 per year!! Another job that I was really interested in was the Management Trainee like position by Qantas Airways. It is a two-year program and I really think that it will be fun. But still, the condition applies. I have to be a PR before being eligible to apply for it. Aih~~

And so, these are the freebies that I got from the fair. Haha....Owh, but I missed the free cup of coffee given by Deloitte (or 1 of the Big4 firms...)~

Emergencies Everyday

Something REALLY extraordinary here!!

You will hear emergency sirens all around the place every single day, especially during night time. This means accidents or perhaps fire happen here everyday. Well, no wonder people think that this is not a safe city, or a safe country. But to be honest, I don't really know what kinda accidents are those. But the sirens just made me feel so uncomfortable. Police cars, fire brigade, and ambulances. It's just so weird to see them around everyday. =.= Haha.

And today, it happened in my uni. The fire alarm rang in the building after I finished my tutorial class. Luckily it was AFTER the tutorial class because I seriously hate interruptions. But I just walked out slowly as though nothing is going on as I thought it was just another false alarm, or perhaps fire emergency practice? Apparently, most people vacated from the building. And the THREE fire brigades came =.= But, I still don't see any fire or smoke or any scenario that seems to need help from them. Oh, this is weird. 

Haha, but anyway, just to tell you more about life here.

Cross Ocean AGM

Well, that was truly an experience. I definitely wouldn't say that it was fun (because my ear aches badly throughout the 5-6 hours), but it really made me feel that I miss these people so much. It feels like, home, a lil. OMG, I can't believe I'm saying that HK is like my 2nd home now.
You should know how badly I hope that I could be there. People are so funny around, and I can laugh even by just some super random chats with all of them.

Overall, I think I just got less than 50% of the full AGM. I heard a lot of stupid stuff, and I really thank my dear jong members for helping me to answer quite a lot of stupid questions. Well, now that I have been a year of exco member, and gone through all those jong matters, I kinda understand more they wanna make it this way. BUT still, I do think that it doesn't really help much. Evaluations should be held, just not in AGMs. Now what, we don't have a P, IVP and the EVP anymore. So the society is stuck there?

This is just not right. But too bad, I am not the one who can change all these. I just hoped that people do realize one day.

The point is, I do want to be there, with those familiar faces that I miss a lot. Well, only a quarter of year to go, it should be pretty quick right? =)

Spit to Manly

Manly is just another beach.

I actually can't believe that have been going to all these beaches since I arrive. 3 different beaches in a month? Wulala....I don't even go to the beach near where I stay back in Penang that often, although it's just within walking distance, unless, hmm, maybe on some special occasion. To be honest, I'm not that much of a day beach person, meaning that I prefer going to the beach during evenings or perhaps night time. Not that HOT marr....and well, Penang beaches are so not comfortable to swim in =.= unlike what it is here in Sydney. People swim, surf, play balls in the sea, even bringing their tripods to take photos in the sea. So you can imagine how clear and clean the sea is over here.

This is another activity organized by Unimates. We were supposed to gather at Wynyard station at 9am = SOO early on a Saturday morning. And then we took a bus to North Sydney and started our walk to Manly Beach. It is supposed to be a 3-4 hour walk, and mentally I was definitely not prepared to do this as my mind was still sleeping at 10am. Haha. But still, I wanted to do this. Exchange is meant to be tiring, and it's definitely not just about sleeping till 12pm everyday.

Anyway, it was sultry hot!! I heard people saying that it was about 35 degrees Celcius on that day. Imagine that, walking under such hot weather for 4 hours? Ya, and the result is, the super tanned me again =.= Ahh....an extremely sad thing. But I don't regret joining this trip though. We walked pass a few nice beaches, and a lot of super nice and huge bungalows on our way. Really really cool bungalows indeed, they have huge swimming pools in it, and all of them have seaview!! Other than that, I really felt the life of Australian people extremely relaxing~~Everyone is just having so much fun with their family during the weekends, it just makes me smile =)

See? Relax~~~

Compared to the previous 2 beaches that I have been to, Manly is the most crowded one. The whole beach is almost full, be it on the sand or in the allowed swimming area in the sea. It was still very HOT!! And people are enjoying themselves sun bathing. But amazingly, the water was really cool, and we had fun walking on the shore, as the sand were sooooo smooth!!! Owh ya, there were few emergency sirens while we were there, sharks were cited! Too bad I didn't get to see them...haha.

It was a tiring day. And we even had a sort of Japanese Night invited by a Japanese friend after that. Oowh, I supposed this is good exchange experience? =)

Week 3 @USYD

Things are getting tensed up. I am currently settled down with 6 course, 36 credits, while normal people only takes 4 courses with 24 credits. I managed to arrange my timetable and am currently enjoying a 4 day long weekend. Yippee.. However, I do have 2 clashes in such a timetable, and I will listen to the recordings of those classes that clashes. One more thing, I don't really have any lunch time for schooling days from Mondays to Wednesdays. This means....STARVE! Yeah I'll only be having breakfast, and then dinner 9 hours later.

I have been interviewed by the Starbucks manager and he likes me and he said that he's goinna give me a reply by today or Monday (either to work at his store or other stores, but amazingly, in this huge NSW, there're only 9 Starbucks in total =.=). I have tried making sushi at a Korean-run Japanese Sushi place in Broadway Shopping Centre, one place across the street from where I stay. I would have to say that making sushi is definitely fun but.....making sushi at a korean place just doesn't sound right, owh ya, and the pay is freaking low.

Other than that, I just got accepted into the Internship Program for Study Abroad and Exchange students of the uni, which means that I MIGHT end up with 7 courses (because the internship is credit based), and that will kill me, and people thought that I am insane. It's an internship working with Sydney Observatory - a project on planning a holiday program for kids. Well, it definitely has nothing to do with my future career, but I supposed it will be a good experience for me, working with people that are extremely laid back? I haven't decided, as I'm kinda stuck with the number of courses I am allowed to be enrolled into. This is pretty much what happened throughout the week I guess?
One more thing, I have been really trying to study these few days, but I guess all my attempts weren't that successful. Oh gosh, can someone just gimme some suggestions on how to be more diligent? And how to extend my concentration span?
Being too busy during exchange definitely isn't good. I need some free time to hang out with people, to visit more places that I am supposed to, and to explore as much as I could. Hmm, how am I goinna achieve that?
I'll have a busy weekend again I think. Well, I guess this is what an exchange is supposed to be like.....there's never ending stuff waiting for you to do!!

In case you are wondering what the hell is the photo doing in the middle of my blog, this is one of my meals that I made here. It is a sort of instant food, and it took me around 105 minutes to prepare it. It only costs....I guess AUD1.50 the most? Haha, a great way for poor people to save money huh~~

People here

I am goinng briefly talk about the people here.

Well you've heard of them being laid back, and to me that's a huge issue!!!

Things normally get delayed for 1-2 weeks, such as....

1) My scholarship!! - I have submitted all relevant details by 22nd Feb, and finally I just got the money yesterday. It took them almost a month. And within that period, they keep telling things such as "I have already done this and that, and it should be there by XXX". Owh, it was pretty frustrating.

2) Internship! - I applied for the Study Abroad and Exchange credit-based internship 2 weeks after I came here as I was not sure whether I get to enrol into the courses that I really want to. I got a reply for a meeting with them in one sunny day, and when I emailed them regarding my free time to meet up, there was no reply until after the day was over, I then only got a reply from them the day after, after I EMAILED them AGAIN. Ok. They still met up with me anyway, and we discussed about the internships that I might be interested in. Then I was told that they will be keeping in touch with me soon. And so I waited and the add course period was over last Friday and I have yet to hear from then, and poop all of a sudden, this Monday, I was sent an email regarding the first training we are supposed to attend for this internship course. The whole thing was weird. I did attend the training which was extremely boring, and after the traning when I asked about the internship, their best answer they could give is just wait, because they haven't receive a reply from the employer yet. In my mind I was thinking, can't you inform me that you have already sent my application to the employer and we are awaiting for their decision soon after you have done so? I was about to forget about this whole internship thingy as I managed to enrol into the courses I wanted to and out of the blue, I am involved in it again. And so I waited for the employer's reply. The coordinator called me today, and told me the "good news" that I am accepted by the employer. But I'm in deep trouble. I am now enrolled into 7 courses, while I am supposed to be in at most 5 courses. She asked me to drop my other courses, which I really don't want to. And she told me she'll be sending the details of the internship to me immediately after we hang up on the phone, and I have not received any reply up till now. What a thing =.=

3) My courses! - This was quite some time ago, when I just arrived and start dealing with my enrolment. I was supposed to get someone to approve me for taking higher level courses. I was referred by my advisor to go to the Student Information Office of the School of Business and Economics. And so I went there and the lady asked me to see/email the ACCT UG coordinator in charge. I went to his office and he was not there. His colleagues doesn't even know when he will be coming back. And so I emailed him, and there wasn't any reply. And so I contacted the SIO again, and she said that I could refer to the professor teaching the course I wanted to enrol in. I emailed the professor and he said that I should be going back to SIO to start the application of approval process all over again. And meanwhile I still haven't got back any reply from the SIO guy. And so it dragged on and it frustrates me a lot. People in HKUST at least replies in 1 day the latest for such urgent matters. But people here, they just push you around, as they don't really care what other people is supposed to do, they just do what they are supposed to do.

I guess I have much more stories about them being extremely slow, not responsive and definitely inefficient. Most Asian people including some Americans have the same complaints too. I guess this is the culture shock that I am experiencing. Haha. In conclusion, this might not be a good place if I wanna live a rapid and efficient life. I will just be kek ki all the time...haha.

The nothing-much-to-do Sunday - White Valentines

We were supposed to go to the zoo today.

But, everyone was too tired. Tired of the not-supposed-to-be-tiring beach activities yesterday, and tired of schoolwork perhaps, tired of spending too much $$ in a weekend?

And so we decided to just sit back and relax at home, and finish whatever we have to to prepare for the next week.

I wasn't that obedient to stay at home though.

There were so many things happening outside and I really want to get myself out of my room and check them out. There was a food fest at Centennial Park, and a Wine Fest at Hyde Park. But all requires head charge to test the food or the wine. Well, I decided to go get some photos. I didn't go to Centennial Park though because it was a little far away, by foot.

It was just another weekend, shopping at Paddy's Market, wondering around the city to check if there're any other employment opportunities and photo taking. I did tell you that I'm desperate for a job right?

Owh ya, and it's White Valentines too, a day where guys are supposed to give back girls chocolate, if the girl gave the guy chocolate on 214 Valentines Day.

Well, honestly, I just found out that this day is originated by the Japanese, reflecting their unique culture of 「お返し」--giving back. http://www.tanutech.com/japan/valentine.html -- this explains a lil more if you're interested.

Second beach

Sydney, or perhaps Australia, is really famous for its beaches.

We have been to one, the Bondi Beach before school starts, and we decided to explore our second one, Coogee Beach.

Our initial plan was to spend our afternoon there; swimming, walking around, and perhaps playing some card games until we see sunset.

We reached there around 2.45pm. There were so many people at the beach, sun tanning, and swimming in the sea. Yeah, it was a sunny day, I guess it's a good day to go to the beach. There were almost 10 of us I remember, and only 4 of us can swim....hmm. So we went into the sea and started our battle with the waves. I'll have to admit that it was really hard, really really hard as the waves were extremely strong that day! Anyway, it is kinda my first time swimming in a real sea (I don't really feel that those in Batu Ferringhi can be named "beaches" and "sea"), and I had fun. Although I was really tired spending time understanding the ways to tackle the waves (Of course, I didn't go far enough, I wasn't that brave this time)

This time around, we played some other childish stuff, bury someone into the sand =.=

Haha...well some photos were taken and well, I think it is still fun to do such funny stuff with a bunch of friends occassionally.

And then....all of a sudden, the weather changed. =.=

It rained cats and dogs, and we hid at the lifeguards' shelter for awhile. It was around 4.30pm, and so we had end the beach day. We ended yet again with another meal of Fish n Chips, this time with two bonus calamari rings!! =)

And the exciting part of this trip is that.....we saw a HUGE RAINBOW!! It is huge...~~~ Everyone got so excited about it~~

And when we got back to the city, it was soooooo windy and cold. All of us can't wait to rush back home. Haha.

Well, all of us are goinna have a nice rest today!

Changes

Things got better in my 2nd week of lectures. I'm settling down with classes. I am not attending random lectures anymore. I am starting to plan for a perfect timetable, perfect as in having a 4-day weekend. I am maximizing the opportunity of taking courses here and transferring it back to HKUST, taking 6 courses, 4 of them are my core courses.

It was still a busy week for me. Some of my classes are scattered around the day. One at 9am, and the other one at 3pm. So I tried really hard to swap and play around my schedule. It was a really tough process, as people here generally do not know clearly what they are doing, and what they are supposed to do. I nearly gave up by the end of the week. 

Again, I realized that I will go broke again towards the upcoming week, as that will be the time for me to pay my fortnightly rental. And my scholarship money is NOT HERE yet.....!! Awh. This is definitely bad as

1) I won't have money to eat

2) I can't go out and enjoy

3) I might have to borrow money from people who have just known me for a few weeks?

4) I just can't do anything without money!

And so....this week, I was desperately looking for a part time job as well. The bad thing is, most places either do not want to hire international students on a student visa (max working hours per week=20), or they will not want someone who will only stay here for a few months, OR they want someone who can speak Japanese (because I tried several Japanese restaurants).....

Ahh....so finding casual employment is definitely not an easy thing to do. I'm still trying hard, hoping that perhaps Starbucks will hire me.

What else happened this week?

Owh ya, and books here!

Well, one thing that suits me here is that most lecturers encourage a lot of institutional reading.

BUT, most of them require textbooks, and textbooks are EXPENSIVE over here. Most of the new ones are sold at AUD120 and above. Second hand ones will still cost AUD50 and above. Mahalnya =.=

And the worst part is, most of the textbooks selected are the latest editions. They don't put any copies in the libraries (although there are like 8 libraries here?), or even if they do, a lot of copies are stolen.

YEAH, you heard me correctly, stolen =.= The librarian even told me, accounting books are quite slippery over here....ahh. So they knew the problem.

Evening! Fisher Library =)

So I guess that's pretty much about uni this week?

I gotta study real hard next week onwards!

The Amazing Race

It was not so much a race actually. An event organized by Unimates, a student run organization, mainly for international students, for USYD.

After dealing with all the crap the night before, we were actually very tired to wake up and to run around the city. But then, we didn't want to waste our first Sunday after school reopened sitting at home.

By the way, we meaning me and my roomates - Shinetin and Stephanie.

The marching band-They look as though they're just in middle school or something~

We gathered at the Harry Potter building at 11am. There was some school band playing some songs in full uniform. Don't really know what happened though. But the amazing this was, they have 18 snare drums in a small band!! Haha.

Me looking super idiotic in the air =.=

Then the whole thing started at around 1130. The reason I said it was not so much of a race is because there was no competition or any incentive to make us run faster, or complete all tasks sooner. We just have to solve the clues and that's it!

Our first few stops were pretty close to uni, places that we have been there before. Glebe Market, Wentworth Park and Fish Market. Owh, and I bought myself a AUD10.50 seafood platter again. Yummy.

Then the real thing starts. 1st destination was to Darling Harbour, OMG I have been visiting this place too often, and I really don't wanna get sick of it so soon...haha. Then Chinatown, Oh this is even worse.....and it made me think of giving up and just go back home to sleep. You know how sleepy I was....but then, because we were already in a small group, it feels kinda bad to just leave like that. So I stayed on.

We had 7 destinations in total.The next one was Queen Victoria Building, then Town Hall, Hyde Park, St Mary's, Art Museum and Rose Garden. Luckily, I haven't been to any of the last 3, so it made my day better. Those places were really really nice. The Rose Garden is such a romantic place for people to get married. Haha.

Then the race ended without any "closing ceremony" or some "words from the organizer"....We then walked to Sydney Opera House...and we saw the bridge across the sea. Spectacular view, and I believe that will be so much nicer during night time.

It was a nice day, we thought, and it would be so much better if that homeless idiot did not join the race. And one more thing, perhaps I would not be that sleepy if there were some cute guys for me to chat with in our group. Hahaha =)

The Aquarium!!

We wanted to go to the Taronga Zoo at first, but then, the weather forecast said that there will be showers throughout the weekend or something. And so...we changed our plan to see the fishes and marine creatures instead.

The Aquarium is located at Darling Harbour. 11 of us gathered there sometime after lunch. Yeah, there were ELEVEN of us, because we wanted to purchase the group ticket (28% off normal rates), but the bad news was, the group discount does not apply for student rates. Hmph~ Anyway, we paid AUD22.50 per person as entrance fee. Pretty expensive huh~

 PENGUINSSS!!!!

There were many types of nice marine animals there. I love the huge turtles and dugongs, and I enjoy watching the penguins most!! Owh you just can't imagine how cute are they!

There were also quite a lot of dangerous and apparently scary ones, like the huge stingray, sharks, and jelly fish. But sometimes, I still do think that they look cute. Haha.

The whole tour took us around 2 hours.

Most of us thought that the aquarium should be a HUGE one. Well, I wouldn't say it is small, but everything's pretty much below our expectations. But we did have a good time together.

And owh by the way, it was so sunny on that day. The weather forecast is so unreliable.

1st few lectures

Everything is pretty new to me.

Getting lost on my way searching for lecture rooms, meeting lecturers coming from different parts of the world, being in a fully diversed class up to a size of 400+ people and some sitting on the walkway, having a hard time trying to keep myself awake for the 2-hour lecture.....

This is something funny that the Professor posted within his lecture slides~~I dunno whether you guys can read it....

It was fun I would say. At least I'm not the one sitting on the floor. Haha.

I will be comparing what I have over here to what I had in HKUST.

One of the lecture theatres

Well I'll talk about the good things here. 

Lecturers and instructors generally speak good English. Those I had in Psychology and Sociology classes are pretty humorous. They conduct very enjoyable lectures.

I prefer how they have 2 hours lecture and 1 hour tutorial here. As I believe that tutorials are definitely important in the learning process (ya, I'm a tutorial person...haha). But perhaps, the 2 hour lecture should be split into 2 sessions, cause I have extremely bad and short attention span. Owh ya, the part that I like MOST! It's absolute grading!!  They have your marks printed on your transcript, so everything is very transparent~

And the bad things?

Hmm. I would say that they have way too many people in a lecture. Some of mine fits more than 400 people, and the whole course actually gets 2000+ students enrolled!! Amazing figure. Other than that, lecturers here prepare notes in a pre-set 3 slide or 6 slide pdf files, which I don't like as I'm unable to customize it for printing to save printing cost as well as paper. One other thing that I noticed here is that, quite a number of my lecturer are not PHD holders! (Hmm, how could that be....) And another issue that I notice might be there are 6 teaching staff (means you'll have 6 lecturers just for one course, taking turns to teach) and a few more tutors for a course~ This is so different from HKUST, well I guess this practice has its good and bad. Hmm, well instructors here like to get their students to purchase latest edition texbooks pretty much too! Well you know how much do they cost? Around 120-180 each!! Classes here are dispersed all around the whole freaking huge uni! And most classes dismiss at the hour and leaves you with no time to move on to your immediate next class (even worse, when you have to walk 10 minutes to another building for your class) And some of the lecture theatres are pretty old school with weird sittings and stuffy environment too =.=

From here, I noticed that HKUST is indeed a research university. My lecturers are all PHD holders, and they perform a lot of research (that's why most of their teachings are very boring!!!) I guess this made me realize the most suitable method for me to learn. I won't conclude now though...haha. I really wanna enjoy myself learning here, and to find back my momentum for studying.

Owh, one more thing!! There are like 85% Asians in the Economics and Business Faculty. And I hear people speaking Mandarin (Putonghua) all the time =.= This makes me wonder whether I'm in the right continent. Haha....

Well, I shall settle down with my courses soon. It's good news! I'm goinna get all the courses that I wanted to transfer! Yippee~~~