an article from last month...

I am SO sorry.... I should have posted that note earlier... but I am pissed off at this life here at uni... just because it's so close to be the Xmas break.... anyway....

The weather’s starting to cool down and exams are approaching, which makes you staying your room and study and work on projects a little bit, well, much more since, I won’t lie, being in an university is completely different from being at Toulouse Business School. You think it would give you more independence: it does for work life but having to stay on the campus changes your view about the whole university life here in Hong Kong. It made me think about it, I wrote about my life in Hong Kong, how I go out and party and how there are things to discover and do here, but what is life at this uni like?

It’s been 15 weeks since I’ve been here in Hong Kong, at Lingnan University.

And as far as it been, life in Hong Kong is really nice, wicked shops, good bargains, a real atmosphere that is overwhelming sometimes but definitely sticks to the image you have of China and even more of the Asian Continent. Mongkok for example is overcrowded, some streets smell really bad, like REALLY bad, you have this shops everywhere, Asian people everywhere and markets all the way.

Hong Kong Island is nice when you want a break from that kind of life, when you need to ‘westernize’ yourself a little bit, when you miss home a little bit. You go to CityU, which is a grocery store in Central at the IFC mall, and there what can you find? All you have ever wished for if you’re from Toulouse: magret de canard, confit de canard, foie gras… You go crazy and you don’t think life is as hard as it seems.

But as soon as you go back to the University, what do you find:

- noisy people that run in the corridors until 4 or 5 am

- dirty bathrooms, where can you have a shower since there’s not a girl that knows that you pick up the hair that’s fallen and you put it in the rubbish bin because if you leave there, it blocks everything …

- dirty toilets, because it seems like even if you’re girl and you don’t need to aim for the hole, the girls here just can’t get to aim properly and make everything dirty. They just won’t leave stuff clean.

So , once you have your ‘final destination’ for your exchange year: know that it really is your ‘Final Destination’, for the ones who saw the movie.

Bring along bleach, and invest in cleaning products because you might need to show these guys how to clean the toilets and the bathrooms.

Also, bring along good pillows and buy a good mattress, because these beds are as hard as hell, it feels like you’re sleeping on a wooden plank, you wake up and the next thing you know is that your back hurts and that you are 60 years older and you need a new hip since the one you used overnight is already damaged. The beds are bad. That’s all I can say about them.

Now living in the dorms are like, if you’ve already lived by yourself and you have never thought of living in a residence where your curfew is 11 pm or 12 am depending on the hostel, this might be a nice change. You have to be in YOUR hostel and not in another one passed a certain time, if not, you get warnings: something like points are going to be deducted from something something, I don’t even know… Promise, I’m getting more info about this.

Also, please do not have naked guys in your room, romance is not allowed in the uni, unless you’re a local. If you are, you may be allowed to have showers with your partner and have him or her in your room no matter hostels’ rules and regulations. Some might say it is unfair, I am talking about cultural differences... Welcome to Hong Kong, welcome to Lingnan University, welcome back to kindergarten…