January 5, 2005

• I am barely half way through my first week here in Hong Kong, and I’m sooooo tired…

  Ok, so first of all, classes. Trying to add/drop my classes has been an utter pain in the old rear! So the only class that I really wanted to take while here in HK was a business law course, which was offered to me. Ok, upon arriving here, instead of telling us when the language courses would be beforehand, they schedule it at a time that conflicts with the one and only course that I want and got into. Additionally, they have it scheduled MWF, so that that’s the only course that stands in my way of having a 4 day weekend. This totally freakin’ sucks! Ok, but that’s not the irritating part. So CUHK has this stupid policy of making exchange students go to all the respective departments and get their approval if they want to add that specific course. Doesn’t sound too bad right? Well, it wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the fact that the damn university is built on a damn hill and you literally walk up at least 50-60 flights of stairs and hills before you get anywhere. SOOOOO ANNOYING! Anyhow, the story gets better. So I try to switch sections, the system won’t let me. I try to talk to my advisor, but she’s so slow and can’t really articulate herself all that well, so I just wind up being more confused. I try to talk to another advisor–one that speaks English, and he tells me that I can’t add the new section online, I have to go get the department’s approval. The department tells me that I have to do it online. My Chinglish speaking advisor tells me that I can’t do it at all and must wait. This went on for TWO DAYS!!!! I WAS SOOOOOOO CONFUSED!! It turns out then that because I’m not a business major, I can’t take the course, but for some reason, the Business Administration Department offered me a spot in that course. So I have a spot, but I can’t go to it, but I want it, ARGH!!! THE FRUSTRATION!!!

  Ok, so that was the academic side of things. In terms of settling into my room and all, it’s coming together. It’s taken a while, multiple trips out to Shatin Mall, a fried Sonicare toothbrush charger (damn, I have to use a regular toothbrush now), and a huge trip to Ikea, but I’m almost there. YAY! So I also have a real roommate now. Our room is smaller than my room in Berkeley, but whatever it’s cheap. He’s cool. We don’t talk much, he’s usually studying and I’m usually not here, but eh, whatever, we get along. I didn’t explicitly tell him that I’m gay, but I’ve tried to be as obvious as possible: I have my rainbow ribbon displayed quite clearly on my satchel, I have all my research books about queer identity on my bookshelf, and finally, I’ve been trying to surf gay pages whenever he’s in the room, hehe. Whatever, if he wants to say anything, he knows that he’s more than welcome to ask…

  So I haven’t really seen any cute guys yet. I know they’re out here somewhere, I just haven’t seen them. I’ll head over to Lan Kwai Fong this weekend and explore to see where the hotties are at though, hehe. Well, this is it for now, I’ll try to keep up my entries, but no promises. Here’s to Hong Kong!

  • 7:12 am
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