walking the line

I seriously have to pinch myself every now and then and remind myself that i am at the other end of the world!!! crazy! anyways, i got into a course on problem based studies of Japan, another on social change in east and south east Asia, and finally a most interesting course on Poverty Alleviation and Foreign Aid. my Prof is an active Burmese NGO worker, in Burma. so, maybe he can change my little foreign aid jaded heart... we'll see. should be interesting... my face has healed and i seem a little less scary. my ID card looks like i did some serious time...still no anarchists in sight. i still have yet to smoke, it's so damn complicated to here anyways. you gotta go a million miles out of the dorm and school campus beforehand and i am not a fan of the seemingly Malboro monopoly here....when i need to smoke, i need to do it ahora, not after a 15 minute expedition, and smoking fines are around 800$USD AND security is wack here...i still cannot find a route where i am not on film at least four times. there's ID cards to enter the Residence, to enter yr building, to enter yr room, to use the computer, to go to the library, the cafeteria. i someone from the rez visits yr hall, you have to sign them in, they can't stay past 12 and no one can sleep over...mmmm....it's odd here, people do not look where they are going and just walk straight into you... so yeah, people just walk where they're headed and if they bump into you they just keep on going as if it never happened or you didn't exist...it's quite an odd feeling, ...my daydreaming is seriously hazardous (also due to the fact that my shoes for some reason are even bigger than usual, although i swear they were the same size as the last pair, and i keep tripping over myself..i also tore off several pieces of my ankle when i tripped on the escalator...woo hoo) walking disaster. Aurelia gave me the lo-down...just go forward, don't apologize, walk into people, it's u or them, women and children too...mmm..not so sure if i could pull that off...i apologize when people bump (mm..smash) into me, and they look at me like i'm loco! then, yesterday, i honestly accidentally bumped into someone...full on..and before i could say anything..THEY apologized???? i'm also glad i didn't bring my bike, jesus, they drive on other side of the road, if i don't trip over my feet or get smacked into, i am bound to get hit by a bus....but i'm good for now. ok, hope you're well. send some news. r

stranded on my own island

I am OK. it's really hard adjusting here, I never thought I would say that but it really is. Half my classes are in Cantonese, nobody really speaks English other than the teachers. Well, this is obviously my fault. when i knew i was accepted to come here, a whopping 3 weeks before leaving, i would have trouble with the language. Anyways, i am miss ritual de lo habitual and have signed up for 6 3-credit courses and auditing 3 others...yeah! but i scored an urban design and an architecture in Hong Kong course with losts of site visits so i'll get the inside scoop on the city....ok, so i could also go out and party like the rest of the exchange students, but on an overgeneralization, they 're not my type...going to the Crescent-like all inclusive expat bars with bad beats and boring folk...so i'll just continue the nerdster trend....speaking of white people, check out this blog: stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com. i'm also auditing a curatorship course, an installation art course and a intro to contemp. arts. so stuff to do!!!! hey, it's my last semester...i can pull off nine courses!!! The weather is cool, rainy, kinda like October or April. ...it's just different here. Everyone walks into you as if you don't exist...a way to deal with so many people, my roommate told me. Some guy from France jumped of our building on Monday...I was one of the lucky ones that didn't here him scream as he "fell"....my physics class is way over my head....and i am not really big on hanging out with all the other exchange students...i've piled on tons of classes and as usual am not short on things to do...it's just exhausting to communicate for anything..cafeteria food is the only affordable stuff here as prices are the exact same thing for everything as back home...just different and exciting...but the cafeteria folk don't speak english and it's always a huge ordeal of having 3 or 5 people gathered around me trying to figure out that i just want a coffee. so, explaining that i am vegan is like a mission from hell, so no, to the dismay of all my vegan familia but hey, i gots ta adjust. i order steamed vegetables and get curried fish balls, vegetable dumplings and i get a pork burger....The air conditionning at school is below sub arctic temperatures, so much so that i have long johns, a hat, mittens and my jacket on just to get through the classes...my courses are really interesting on the flipside but everybody talks during class so much so that i can barely hear what the teacher is saying, and the teacher's english is often rather challenging to get as well, and nobody does their homework and no one participates either. my roomate was explaining to me that students just go home and learn the textbooks by heart for the exams...my health is good though...i have actually met a couple folks..from Canada..the great Quebec-Ontario family..nothing like diversifying but seriously, it's coincidental and they rock so... ..everyone looks gay but no one is...the androgenous hotness of folks here is pretty fuckin amazing, the girls dress a la L Word Shane style, and often totally pass as boys, the boys carry purse-handbags, dress in tight ants and are increadibly queer looking...but this seems to be just an illusion...or maybe i am missing something...i thought i had found queer heaven but it seems inded that it i hetero land in disguise---tease!---....best new story yet, my roomate pointed out how people are BECOMMING more and more gay because of high divorce rates..this is definitely the first time i hear this. i am adding it to the list of other similarly ridiculous reasons...we sat down and had a little gay/queer/trans 101 rundown and cleared up a few misconceptions...this followed a few nights previous explaining suicide 101. After my roomie starting off being convinced that the guy also "fell", by the end of the conversation, my roomate who could not fathom why someone would kill themselves was now convinced that she too might become suicidal one day...was this a smart move? do we call this progress? maybe i should watch myself a little more.....so i try to take some time to see the sights and i've been to some nice art exhibits and i realize that the solution to this feeling of disorientation and frustration is taking the occasional bus ride out to the coast and being blown away by the sudden change of scenery..incredible beaches surrounded by green mountains..it's incredible..and the architecture here is unbelievable, paper thin 100 story convex buildings coming out of the mountainside....hope this doesn't all sound too depressing, i'm really lucky to be here..if i had known it would be this difficult to communicate, i probably would not have come here....but i'm here now and it will all work out..i feel a lot of empathy for non English and/ or French speaking immigrants who come to Canada and have to struggle to get by, unlike myself, since i have the luxury to come here out of choice and i am from the dominant western world where English has somewhat imposed itself globally to aid my mobility...so i feel just these two weeks have taught me a lot about what i took for granted. anyways, miss having familiar faces to talk to..just being able to carry on a conversation in English...casually, without struggling to be understood...and i feel like such a fuckin annoying tourist who hasn't bothered to lean the local language....next blog will be brighter i swear, but i can't just talk about the fun stuff..i hope this doesn't sound too bitchy, i just feel really stuck.....