spring festival/spring break
The former is, of course, the euphemism chosen by the PRC for Chinese New Year -- I guess they didn't feel like it was "modern" enough to have New Year's not on Jan. 1. The latter is what this last week has felt like, and I'm thinking more of freshman year of college than senior year. Beginning with going into town a lot the week before (which, with my commute back home, was itself a string of late nights), my sleep schedule has been completely wrecked. This week has included visits to a couple flower markets (for which the "best" time to go is after midnight), some last-minute shopping (since there are apparently a lot of things you aren't supposed to buy/do at the beginning of the new year), and a couple nights of (*sheepish smile*) playing Starcraft in the office. We've also had the week off from work responsibilities, based on the reasonable assumption that no students would show up. (for most jobs in HK, the holiday is a half-day on wednesday and then thursday, friday, and saturday off)
And to top it all off, I've been temporarily evicted from my dorm. Signs went up a couple weeks ago, informing us that our hall was going to be sprayed with "toxic, poisonous pesticides" the Friday of Chinese New Year week. In all common areas (kitchens, hallways, bathrooms) as well as each individual bedroom. This of course makes perfect sense for most of the students there, since everybody went home earlier in the week, and they won't be back until sunday night at the earliest. Unfortunately, we ETAs don't have family members to stay with for the weekend. It's now about 10am, and I'm writing this from my office, because the fumigation/pesticide application was scheduled to start at 9. The flyer posted in the building said we're not supposed to re-occupy our rooms for at least 24 hours, which means I'm on my own until at least tomorrow afternoon, possibly tomorrow night. A friend is fine with letting me and another ETA crash at her place tonight, but that only really takes care of the evening through tomorrow morning. In the meantime, there will be a lot of hours spent in our (for some reason unheated today) office.
Nevertheless, I want to wish everyone a happy new year! Kung hei fat choy!
And to top it all off, I've been temporarily evicted from my dorm. Signs went up a couple weeks ago, informing us that our hall was going to be sprayed with "toxic, poisonous pesticides" the Friday of Chinese New Year week. In all common areas (kitchens, hallways, bathrooms) as well as each individual bedroom. This of course makes perfect sense for most of the students there, since everybody went home earlier in the week, and they won't be back until sunday night at the earliest. Unfortunately, we ETAs don't have family members to stay with for the weekend. It's now about 10am, and I'm writing this from my office, because the fumigation/pesticide application was scheduled to start at 9. The flyer posted in the building said we're not supposed to re-occupy our rooms for at least 24 hours, which means I'm on my own until at least tomorrow afternoon, possibly tomorrow night. A friend is fine with letting me and another ETA crash at her place tonight, but that only really takes care of the evening through tomorrow morning. In the meantime, there will be a lot of hours spent in our (for some reason unheated today) office.
Nevertheless, I want to wish everyone a happy new year! Kung hei fat choy!
posted by sam at
9:34 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home