19 March 2012

19 March 2012

The 1^st day of the week today!! This is where Mr. Lim teaches us the 2^nd part of Chapter 3 and doing tutorial questions in class. We ended at 12 and the next lesson was shifted from 2.30pm to 1pm so I have not much time to eat when I went back my dorm to rest, so I called my friend to take away the fried rice for me. When heading to the teaching block, I was walking while gobbling up my fried rice and in time for lesson.

Unfortunately, some never heard the updated news and came late for lesson like around 1.30pm. 

 
Today’s lesson was taught by an elderly man who is skilled in paper cutting art for 40 years. Sadly, he cannot speak English so non-Chinese have to sit with the Chinese students but I am not good in translating Chinese to English and my partner, Vignesh, having a hard time understanding me.

We spent 2 hours having fun in cutting and folding paper to make nice shapes like butterflies, lanterns and stars. I made a bat and all of us gathered to take a photo to show our best paper art. It was fun and considered the best IS module I ever had!!

Dinner time, I tried pig’s blood in the form of tofu and it is quite delicious like tofu with a little salt, it’s called hong bai tofu. Yat Ming, Fu Dian and I ordered 4 dishes but one of them was bitter gourd and I am the only one eating it because they find it too bitter to consume.

18 March 2012

Today is the weirdest day, lesson on a Sunday. This was because we spent our Thursday going to the car factory and shifted our lesson on Sunday. Today Mr. Lim taught us Chapter 3 and most of us were bored to death because it is difficult to understand it and he kept going on and on for 2 hours long. After lesson I went to collect my headphones back from the shop and paid him 50 Yuan for changing my faulty wire and in good condition. We went out with our China friends downtown to shop and walk around the city area and returned like around 6pm. We ate fish steamboat just outside school which was good but very spicy, it costs S$3 per person and unlimited food supply. How do you get that in Singapore where everything is expensive!!!!

In the evening, there was a party held in a classroom 310. The students sang songs, upload videos to watch and dancing. My two friends, Hakim and Shakir, went on stage to rap and all cheered for them for their confidence and talent. Once the party is over, I took photos with the China students to remember the wonderful time we had in their classroom.

17 March 2012

8.20am is where we gather together for a trip down to the earthquake site where the incident happened in 2008 and there were loss of lives. It was a long 2 hours journey to the site, and when we got down we saw buildings fell apart and developed cracks on the main structures. Workers were to rebuild the place from scratch and it is a lot of work. Nearby there, a clock tower is standing but the clock internal mechanics broke down during the incident and this allows us to see when it happened. We took a group photo in front of the clock tower to remember the day we visited the site.

After our trip, I came back to the school campus with others while the remaining when down town to do shopping. When I got back to my dorm, a local Chinese approached me to improve the internet system which will be less tedious to work with when installing and less problem of not entering the web.

Also, I learnt how to hang my clothes above my dorm which is open air and non-shelter where there is sun and wind to dry my clothes faster than in the bathroom. It took me 3 days to dry my shirt but 1 day only if it is hung outdoors.

Unfortunately, I do not have enough hangers so I borrowed some from my roommate so it would be easier to hang more clothes to dry. Later, that same place is where I also jogged about 8 rounds to get fitter after all those oily food I ate for the past week. I showered and went out for dinner with Yat Ming and Fu Dian to the dim sum place as also to buy a water dispenser just beside the dim sum shop. This is because our tap water which we boiled it was dirty and does not look drinkable to us.

16 March 2012

Its TGIF, results are finally out!!!

It was dawn at around 7am; I rose from my bed and anxiously turn on my laptop and type in the school address to see my results. Things became better when I actually beat my previous semester results from 3.72 to 3.75 for my GPA. Everyone also behaved the same. During class, teacher asked about our results and some people were happy and delighted while some are depressed. It shows that a little effort will put a smile on every one’s face or not.

In class, teacher taught us the last of chapter 2 and also to do tutorial 2 and submit it at the end of the lesson.

Lunch time (12 noon), class has ended and I went out for lunch with Xiao Jie and 2 of my classmates Yat Ming and Fu Dian to the dim sum place. We ate lots of food still we were stuffed and it is my treat to them but they refused to accept my offer. So SAD!!

Our IS lesson is about China's economics and the different types of groups of people throughout China. The class was quiet as it was boring us out. After lesson, we want to take a group photo with him but he quickly left without saying goodbye.

In the evening, I called my parents about my results and they were impressed about that I have improved by 0.03.

15 March 2012

Today we have no lessons, in the morning at about 8am we took a bus and left the school campus to visit the Volkswagen car factory. It is about a 2 hour journey to get there and the bus ride was horrible, all of us were bouncing up and down inside the bus and find it hard to sleep in there. When we got there, we toured around by a tour guide to show us how the car is made. At the factory, only two models are made, they are Jetta and Golf. I saw various processes, the machine press the sheet metal in to body panels and they weld the chassis together and assembly. We walked around the factory but the guide talked in Chinese so most of us got bored even me. Secondly, we arrived to the school’s branch out campus where the students there do practical work like milling, turning and machining. It is a small campus where only about 200 students are there to do practical work. Next, we went out for lunch with a few China students and its Mr. Lim’s treat, we went to a fancy restaurant nearby and he treated us to a 20 course meal. The food was great and delicious, there was like fish, lots of beef and importantly lots of chili. Once lunch is over we head to a nearby old town where there are a lot of eateries like roaches and candy. We fetched the China students back and went straight back to the main school campus.

We reached home at about 5pm and met our China friends for dinner at a nearby town not far from school. At around 6.20 pm we attend their English Corner lesson where we get to meet and greet the local China students. Their English was not that good but still acceptable, just that we have to speak to them slowly. Lesson ended in 2 hours and our new friends and us practice dancing together until 9pm at night and ended with a game of pool till 9.30pm to call it a day.

14 March 2012

14 March 2012

Wednesday, after finished learning Chapter 1 of SOM, we learnt Chapter 2 which is about torque and torsion. Similar to chapter 1 but more on moments. Today both lessons IS and SOM were dry, most of went quiet and sleepy. IS lesson we have Ms. Liu teaching us about the three main religions in China. They are Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. It taught us about the holy places in China, the gestures and the founders’ of these religions which lived long ago like 2000 years before us. In China, Buddhist drink tea that is bitter to enjoy life better and this few weeks we will be visiting E’mei Mountain which is the tallest Buddhist Mountain among the 4 in China with the largest Buddha statue ever made centuries ago. A big event happened today where Ngee Ann versus China local Students in a friendly basketball match after lessons at around 5pm to 6.30pm. During this match, I get to talk to the local China students when we were watching the match and made new friends while introducing ourselves. During dinner, my friend, Yat Ming and I met up with Xiao Jie and talk about our stay here in Sichuan and after that we went for a stroll around the campus and on their track and field. She called some of her friends over to meet me while my friend went back to do homework. Her company and I went round the school field 2 times before I showed them my apartment. Once they were up there, they met some of my friends and gain more knowledge of how Singapore students live their lives. We talked in our apartment for 30 minutes before they went back to their dorms to rest for the night. In one week, I made many new friends, I will remember them for the rest of my life and treasure them and my trip experience. Friendship is powerful!!

13 March 2012

13 March 2012

Today was quite relaxed as most of us have finished our homework and we started doing our blog during SOM lesson time and finish up the tutorial 1 we owe Mr. Lim. The second lesson was IS and Ms. Li was the lecturer that taught us more about Sichuan, the geography, history, cuisines and other statistics. She also taught us how to pay respect to the teacher when lesson starts by bowing and greeting her name. After every IS lesson, we take photos together with the teacher because we have 7 teachers teaching us about China.

In the evening, our China teacher came to us and gave us our Internet account code and finally, for so long being isolated, can use the internet to surf. I used Facebook and Skype to communicate my parents and friends all night long.