Muse

“You cannot expect emotional stability from a Pisces” – my schoolmate mentioned this to me the other day. I think that’s a pretty good description of Pisces, at least of me. I haven’t blogged for quite a long time. One of the reasons is my frustration with the Internet in China. I love to blog and I love to share my pictures and research on issues and ideas on the Internet. However, in China, things just ain’t that simple. You go onto the non-Chinese Google or Yahoo sites, the first page is loaded. But when you type in something and hit “search”. A lot of the time, you’ll see “Page cannot be displayed” or something like that. You search for something, the English Wikipedia link comes up at the top, but when you click on it, the page is just not loading. Thanks to FireFox’s add-on “Gladder”, I can view a lot of the banned sites via proxy. But the thing is, the website address displayed will not be the original one. You’ll see the proxy address with the whole chunk of nonsense in the link. In other words, linking a web page (especially on Wikipedia) becomes a hassle.

Now, enough of the Internet problem. I know I’ll figure out the ways around things here. It just takes a bit of time. But time is the scarcest resource for me now. School started on Aug 21. The first 2 weeks until Sept 1 are the Orientation weeks. But I really didn’t expect the Orientation weeks could be this intensive. Day starts at 8:45am and ends at 6:00pm. There were briefing, body checkup, seminars, workshops, classes (we had to prepare for a case study in one of the classes!), and test (to see if our math is up to a certain standard – those who failed would have to take an extra class on top of the 6 subjects during the school term). Everyone is trying to meet everyone within a short period of time. International students are trying to adjust to the environment. Everyone is trying to sort things out. At the same time, there are already a lot of activities being organized. Towards the end of the Orientation week, I got involved into the organization of the Welcome Party. Feel like driving on a highway. Every thing’s going very fast. Every day we’re bombarded with all sorts of ideas and cultural shocks. Slept at 3 and woke up at 7:30. One night, thoughts were out of control and started wandering here and there. I asked myself, “Am I really ready for this?”

Everything should be fine.

At least the 10 sq. meter room works out to be quite nice and cozy. I started to like my room and I’m still trying to put everything together. I’ll upload some pictures later once I’ve set up everything in here.

It’s Saturday night. School will officially start on Monday. Went out to some places these two weeks. Shanghai is a very unique place. A place full of gems, some of which are hidden, waiting to be explored. I have a feeling that I’ll like this city. Or maybe not. Afterall, we’re still in honeymoon. I may hate it in 5 months.

First clubbing experience in Shanghai was Club Muse in Puxi. It was ok. It seems that Chinese people don’t like to move their bodies.

First dining experience was @ a Korean restaurant at DaMuZhi Plaza near school. The food was pretty good. Our Korean friend really knows what to order.

First lunch experience was @ an Indonesian restaurant near Jin An Temple. The food was really good. I loved the rice. Finally… I’m feeling a bit alive again.

Been listening to Muse for the whole night. After blogging, feeling much better now.
Good night everyone.