to-do list (sort of)
Plans for the rest of the week/weekend:
--get Hong Kong Resident Identity Card saturday morning: I have to take the train really really early in the morning to make sure I arrive at my appointment on time. There are only five bureaus where you can get a card, and they're very helpful to have, so appointments are hard to come by. I lucked out getting one during a time slot when I won't even miss classes or anything.
--get multi-entry visa to China: Supposedly, the PRC makes this very difficult for Americans, that if it's your first time applying, they'll only give you single- or double-entry visas. However, our program coordinator heard that if we have HK resident cards, we can get 6-month multi-entry visas (no matter how many entries, all visas to China cost the same, she told me), or 12-month if we're going "on business". So basically we have to wait for our HK ID card appointments to be made and cards to be processed before we can realistically apply, even though the border crossing is just three train stops north of us, much closer than HK Island or even Kowloon.
--practice Cantonese: I keep putting it off at night because I'm tired and not well-motivated. Even though I know (from experience) that dialects of Chinese are difficult, and require study every day, it's hard to keep discipline. Especially when our morning classes on teaching English are so unstructured and sleep-inducing (admittedly, I have always been an in-class sleeper); this cuts into our morale, I think, and makes studying the language just that much more difficult.
--send emails: I promise. This is getting a little ridiculous. I have some food in the dorms I can reheat tomorrow night, and then just sit down and write to everyone.
--sign up for fitness center training course: Although they gave us a staff allotment of free visits to the gym/athletic center, you aren't actually allowed to use any of the machines unless you take a two-hour training course. I guess I should just hope that either the machines are really different, making the training necessary, or that the course is in Cantonese, in which case I can just kind of tune out the content in favor of using the time as listening skills practice.
--clean off half my furniture: Because (like some other college we may be familiar with) HKIEd overbooked its dorms, and so now they need the second set of furniture from our rooms to refit study lounges and common areas into sleeping spaces.
--beg some music off other ETAs: I've been without hardly any since my laptop got stolen last spring, and the little I did manage to copy onto this computer is starting to wear out its welcome.
--if it's sunny, go to the beach: And try not to get seriously sunburned.
I guess that's kind of the shape things are taking now. I have a mobile phone number if anyone wants to call (it will do wonders for our friendship), so let me know if you're interested. Running out of "essentials" to shop for, so it's turned into mostly just browsing for now.
Oh, and the typhoon shut down public transportation friday night, but we're pretty protected from the direction the storm came in from, so it did next to nothing here. We were dorm-bound by lack of means to leave campus rather than by weather (which would have been so much cooler).
--get Hong Kong Resident Identity Card saturday morning: I have to take the train really really early in the morning to make sure I arrive at my appointment on time. There are only five bureaus where you can get a card, and they're very helpful to have, so appointments are hard to come by. I lucked out getting one during a time slot when I won't even miss classes or anything.
--get multi-entry visa to China: Supposedly, the PRC makes this very difficult for Americans, that if it's your first time applying, they'll only give you single- or double-entry visas. However, our program coordinator heard that if we have HK resident cards, we can get 6-month multi-entry visas (no matter how many entries, all visas to China cost the same, she told me), or 12-month if we're going "on business". So basically we have to wait for our HK ID card appointments to be made and cards to be processed before we can realistically apply, even though the border crossing is just three train stops north of us, much closer than HK Island or even Kowloon.
--practice Cantonese: I keep putting it off at night because I'm tired and not well-motivated. Even though I know (from experience) that dialects of Chinese are difficult, and require study every day, it's hard to keep discipline. Especially when our morning classes on teaching English are so unstructured and sleep-inducing (admittedly, I have always been an in-class sleeper); this cuts into our morale, I think, and makes studying the language just that much more difficult.
--send emails: I promise. This is getting a little ridiculous. I have some food in the dorms I can reheat tomorrow night, and then just sit down and write to everyone.
--sign up for fitness center training course: Although they gave us a staff allotment of free visits to the gym/athletic center, you aren't actually allowed to use any of the machines unless you take a two-hour training course. I guess I should just hope that either the machines are really different, making the training necessary, or that the course is in Cantonese, in which case I can just kind of tune out the content in favor of using the time as listening skills practice.
--clean off half my furniture: Because (like some other college we may be familiar with) HKIEd overbooked its dorms, and so now they need the second set of furniture from our rooms to refit study lounges and common areas into sleeping spaces.
--beg some music off other ETAs: I've been without hardly any since my laptop got stolen last spring, and the little I did manage to copy onto this computer is starting to wear out its welcome.
--if it's sunny, go to the beach: And try not to get seriously sunburned.
I guess that's kind of the shape things are taking now. I have a mobile phone number if anyone wants to call (it will do wonders for our friendship), so let me know if you're interested. Running out of "essentials" to shop for, so it's turned into mostly just browsing for now.
Oh, and the typhoon shut down public transportation friday night, but we're pretty protected from the direction the storm came in from, so it did next to nothing here. We were dorm-bound by lack of means to leave campus rather than by weather (which would have been so much cooler).
posted by sam at
11:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home