Another week

Week one at work is almost over! Man, only 8 weeks left. And I feel like I haven't really started yet. I think this is mostly due to the fact that my supervisor is not going to be in until next week. And when he gets in, he's going to have a ton of stuff to do so probably won't have any time for me...

This summer feels very short. Feels like I'm counting down to when I'll go back to MIT already. Part of me really wants to learn more at my internship. Get to know more people, do more important stuff, etc. But part of me really wants to be back at MIT. I know, there's no good food, it's not relaxing, and won't get much sleep. But still, having been away for a year makes me appreciate it so much more. I miss it a lot.

Those summer goals that I wrote about earlier? Haven't made much progress on any of them. I've discovered that I really don't have much time after I get back from work. I eat dinner, then check email, shower, take care of random stuff, and then have 2 hours max of doing my own stuff. Being at home, I have a lot less time to do stuff. Have to chat with parents, play with brother, entertain the cat, even dinner takes more time. I haven't even started on Book 3 of the 2001: A Space Odyssey series yet, even though I borrowed it from the library. Too sad.

Other news: I just ordered a few things from amazon including study books for the GRE and FE/EIT (licensing exam for engineers). So now I need to treasure the next few days because I still have an excuse as to why I'm not studying for these things. haha.

I should also post an entry in the MIT admissions blogs. Maybe a summary of the year. Don't know. Last night I had 2 separate dreams about Cam. One of them I dreamed that I was with a group of Cambridge engineers doing a project. We biked around, did the required stuff, and then biked to this big building by a lake where they used to take exams. In the next dream, two of my friends came to visit me. I was living in this big house on the second floor. It was raining so we didn't go out and just hung out inside the house. When they left, I really regretted not showing them around Cambridge. I felt that they came all this way (from America) and didn't even get to tour the city. So maybe I secretly miss Cambridge? It's strange because I usually don't remember my dreams. They would fly away when I try to remember them.

Done!

Stayed up until 5am this morning finishing up two reports. But they're finished and turned in. So I'm finally, officially done with all the academic stuff at Cambridge! Wow...

Leave for Amsterdam soon.. yup. =)

Meeting Cambridge Engineers

This post is about something that is a bit lame on my part. I've realized that I haven't really met any Cambridge engineers, especially 3rd years, until these past few weeks. This is primarily due to the fact that there are 2 other people from MIT in the exchange who are doing civil engineering: Mahalia and Stella. We sit together during lecture, usually have supervisions together, work together, etc. Well, I noticed this at the end of last term when I did the Engineering Area Activity. So at Cambridge, the engineers take general engineering classes for their first two years and then specialize during their 3rd and 4th years. And each engineering area has its own Engineering Area Activity (EAA), usually in the form of many labs. The EAA for civil engineering is surveying, which takes place over few continuous days after the end of classes.

So Mahalia and Stella decided that surveying sounded really boring and not meaningful so they chose to do the EAA for mechanical engineering instead. So I got to the first lecture of surveying and the instructor informs us that we have to be in groups of 2 or 3. I look around and see that everyone already knows each other, has friends, and forms groups really easily. I realized that I didn't know anyone so I just asked to join the 2 people who happened to be sitting in front of me. And now for the 3rd year projects that are due this Friday (ahh!!), the same thing happened. Mahalia and Stella chose to do different projects and I end up sitting in rooms with people that I don't know...

But luckily, my first project is a group project where the professor split us up into groups (by alphabetical order). So I started to spend a lot of time with people in my group and their friends. There are only about 20 something people in both of my projects and everyone already knows each other. These are people I've seen all year but never really made the effort to get to know them. They also already know that I'm from MIT but never got around to talking to me either. Anyway, this whole thing is just kinda sad but at least I got to know a few of them now. In fact, I'm spending so much time with them that I've almost started talking like them. Almost, as in, the use of words like "I've got..", "surely", "literally", and other things that I can't think of at the moment. Don't worry, still can't bring myself to do the whole accent thing.

Not too sure what the whole point of this post is, other than to procrastinate from writing my reports. I guess on one hand, I'm really glad I did this exchange with a program, had MIT people all around, many of whom I got to know a lot better (and bonded with). But on the other hand, there's enough of us that it's too much of a safety net and I didn't have to reach out and find friends. I remember during freshman orientation, everyone was really eager to reach out and meet different people because none of us had any friends. That sounds a little desperate but it's the truth. We didn't have know anyone, didn't have friends, so we made the effort to get to know other people.

So I guess the lesson here is to consciously reach out, network, and get to know people whenever I'm dumped into a new area. MIT-CME people don't count because they didn't become friends through a conscious effort. We sort of just bonded because we were all sharing a similar experience. Like I said, this realization is really lame...

An update

Last week was really hectic. Physically and mentally exhausted by the end of it. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the bulk of my surveying project happened. We were split up into 3 people teams and were each responsible for surveying and mapping out the Coe Fen behind the engineering department. It rained a lot the weekend before and we were wet as soon as we stepped out into the fens. The grasses are all as high as my knee, sometimes my waist. It was muddy so we were all wet from our knees downwards. It's really uncomfortable to be working when your feet are totally wet. By Thursday, my shoes smelled pretty bad with swamp water. I dumped everything that went outside into the washing machine.

Actually, I wasn't out in the fens for very long on Wednesday because of my Chinese exams. The listening exam was in the morning. We started a little late because one of the students showed up late. And then as soon as he got there, the power went out. This is very bad since this exam depends on us listening to things recorded on the computer. Luckily, the power came back pretty quickly. I think I did pretty okay on this part. In the afternoon, I had my oral exam. This did not go as well as I thought it would. The topic was money. This was the one topic that I didn't revise. So sad. I managed to make coherent sentences but I feel like I kept saying the same stuff over and over again. I think I improved a lot from last October but it could've been better. And I thought it would be more like a conversation but it was more like a scholarship interview instead. Anyhow, after the exam, I helped my group with surveying and then went to meet Yalu.

Yalu's flight came on Wednesday and one of our friends, Maria, went to the bus station to meet her. She let Yalu stay with her until I was done with my projects. I'm really glad since I don't know how I was supposed to be doing 3 things at once. Anyway, I had to meet up with my project groups the next day so I gave Yalu a map and sent her off to the Fitzwilliam museum. Mahalia also had some friends visiting so Mahalia gave all of them a tour of Cambridge in the afternoon. I also got really lucky here (Thursday). Not only was I able to find some company for Yalu, my surveying group had a really easy job that afternoon. Tuesday and Wednesday, it was wet and sprinkled a little. But on Thursday, it poured. It was raining so hard that the instructor felt sorry for us and got us all candy bars. It was that bad. My group had the easy job and was able to finish in 2 hours instead of 4 or 5 hours that was required for the other jobs.

On Friday, I worked with my group on some design stuff in the morning and then went off to London with Yalu. I feel kinda bad about this but we did get a lot of stuff done that Friday morning. And I did a lot of the calculations. Anyhow, we left at around 1pm along with another friend, Yaoyao, who had to go to the Japanese embassy to get a visa for working there this summer. Yalu and I walked along the Thames River and saw most of the touristy sights in about 3 hours. We met up with Yaoyao who spent the whole time sorting out her visa stuff and the three of us walked around some more, ate dinner in Chinatown, and got back to Cambridge at nearly midnight. This was one exhausting day.

On Saturday, Yalu and I went on a tour that took us to Avebury, Stonehenge, and Salisbury. This tour group operates from Cambridge and takes overseas tourists around sites in England. I didn't know it was meant for overseas tourists. But the price was pretty reasonable. Anyway, we saw a lot of stones in Avebury and Stonehenge. There were stone circles in Avebury that predates the Stonehenge. Everything was built to astronomical events. I found that pretty impressive. We always think that we're more advance than people who lived thousands of years ago but they figured out where to put the stones and moved these things without the help of machinery.

On Sunday, Yalu and I went to London again. We took the bus this time and walked around Buckingham Palace and attempted to watch the Changing of the Guard ceremony. There were so much people! I was more impressed by the amount of people who turned up to watch this than the ceremony itself. Granted, we didn't see much of the ceremony but still. After this, we just walked around some more and chatted until it was time for Yalu to go to Heathrow and catch her flight to Paris.

On the way back, I took the bus again. The driver didn't let anyone sit in the front seat behind him and was really rude about it. One lady tried to sit there and he yelled at her to find another seat. She was like, "I always sit in the front." and the driver just shouted "No!" She was too surprised to argue and just found another seat. Then a few stops later, a man tried to sit there and he and the driver got into an argument. The driver grabbed his ticket and tried to take his bag. Neither of them spoke English very well but the whole thing was pretty clear. The only explanation the driver gave was that he wanted the seat for his stuff. He even turned off the engine and just sat there, expecting the man to give up. The rest of the passengers shouted at the driver to keep driving. Another passenger walked up and tried to get the driver to keep driving and threatened to call the company. The driver seemed unconcerned and was like "No one is in the office today. Sunday." Anyhow, he drove on after a while. I filed a complaint against him on the National Express website. This is another reason why I prefer the trains over the bus. You have to deal with these bus drivers. Most of the time, they're really nice but sometimes they're just down right mean and rude.

听中文歌学中文

I've been listening to a lot of Chinese songs lately. And I've discovered that it's actually really rewarding to go look up the lyrics and learn the words because a lot of songs use the same vocabulary. Most of the songs out there are about love so... there's a lot of "buzz" words, especially among songs that are about the same things like the sad kinds about lost love, the motivational songs, etc. I've started a notebook (a while back) with all the Chinese words that I care about and want to learn. It's really exciting to see a word that you've written down, looked up the pinyin and English for, made into sentences, etc. used somewhere else and you can understand perfectly because you've put in all this effort. Let me assure you it's a lot of effort.

I've also discovered that since I've been putting an enormous amount of time into this that I've began to be able to decipher words that are similar to words that I know. People who have no background in Chinese are always like, "well, it can only be easy if you can remember all the characters!" But they fail to realize that a lot of these characters are very similar and you can guess their sound and meaning from words that you already know. It's not so different from languages like English that depend on an alphabet.

Okay, so I've always known this as a fact but it has never helped me until a couple of days ago. I was able to look at characters, guess at their pronunciation, and look up the pinyin instead of going through this guessing radicals and counting strokes business (it takes forever!). I've also been able to make use of the sentences given by my dictionary. I have Collins and I don't think it's very good. Some of the English translation is just bad. I've always had problems with their example sentences because they use some fairly sophisticated words in them. I think a good dictionary would try to give you a sentence that uses simple words but still show the meaning of the word that you looked up clearly. Anyway, it's not such a big problem now since I can usually read the sentences. Do you understand how annoying it is to look up other words in an example sentence? Especially Chinese words?

I also realized that my memory is really awful compared to... before college. I remember I had this Chinese-Chinese dictionary back in first grade. You know how you have to look up the radical, then it gives you a page number or some other number, and then you have to count the strokes of the rest of the character? Well, back then, I could remember which number corresponded to which radical. So I was able to skip the whole looking up the radical part. Which saves a lot of time. But now that I actually care about saving time, I can't do this at all. I even have to count the strokes of the radical because I'm lame like that! Um... all that was to show how much time knowing the pinyin helps.

Anyways, wish me luck on my Chinese exams on Wednesday!

on language learning

Taking a break from my massive cramming for Chinese exams... Again, I feel like I am totally not ready for these exams that are coming in a week. I think I could've put in a lot more work and in get a better grade than what I will get. You know, I figured out freshman year that if I wanted an A in a class, then instead of trying to see how much I need on the final to get an A, I need to decide in the beginning of the semester that I want an A in this class and therefore will put in the effort necessary. Since then, there have been many classes where I have wanted an A but I haven't found that will power to go through with, "it's enough to put in 3 hours but if I want an A, I need to put in an extra 2 hours". Maybe it's because there are too many things out there that I want to do. And if I actually put in the effort to get really stellar grades, I won't get to enjoy other things. Um... that would be me trying to comfort myself.

Anyway, this also happens to be how I feel about language learning. After blindly stepping off the plane and starting my summer in Germany, I suddenly found out why some people have so much motivation to learn other languages. All throughout middle school, I've told myself that I really don't like learning languages and that now that I've gotten a grasp of English, it's good enough. And actually, English is such a global language nowadays that I got by with it in Germany. But there's something about being able to understand a conversation in another language that's really exciting. I've always believe that culture differences and differences in ways of thinking is linked with language. The way people express themselves leads to the way things work.

I've also really appreciated how different languages relate to each other. In Denmark, we found that Danish is pretty similar to German. Similar enough that we can get by (with Mahalia's German, of course, not mine). I was talking with a friend in my college yesterday at dinner about different languages. He's from Finland and is fluent in Finnish, Swedish, German, Danish, Norwegian, English, and I'm probably missing something. When I said I wanted to start learning Spanish again (Spanish is not as popular here as it is in the States), he said that he would really like to learn a Latin language like Spanish because it would allow him to learn Italian and Portuguese quite easily.

I'm really glad that I now have some background in German and Spanish. I think once you've taken a beginner's course and 打好基础, the rest is really up to you. Once you've gotten the background, then you can move on to reading on your own, listening on your own. I really believe in listening. A lot more than I do reading or writing. Because listening to conversations lets you start to create your own. I think speaking is by far the hardest thing to do. With reading and writing, you can do that on your own pace. With listening, you only have to pick up key words. But to speak a sentence requires vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, thinking, and it's really about putting everything together.

But language learning takes a lot of time and dedication. The problem is, there are so many languages out there that I want to learn. I'm really glad that I took Chinese here. But if I had stayed at MIT, I think I would've taken Japanese. I just recently got a book titled Read and Think Spanish which contains articles written in Spanish with all the vocabulary on the margin for easy reference. It came with a CD as well. But... I don't have time in the next month to look at it! I have Chinese to study for now and projects to do. And I should probably try to learn a few key words in Dutch and French before I go to Amsterdam and Paris.

I should make a list of "key words to know". Here's a start: thank you, excuse me, hello, chicken, beef, pork, fish, (believe me, the biggest challenge is reading the menu), yes, no, [feel free to add].

Noise Pollution

After living in the City Center for a while now, here are 2 things that I vow I will NEVER do:
1. Go to a church that has bells for service.
2. Pay street performers

Why? Because they're both a source of noise pollution that is very irritating to people who live nearby. The churches here ring their bells for 2-3 hours every Sunday, like continuously. And on some days, like Monday night, they have bell ringing practices. That's right. People go and ring bells for fun. I read an article in some Cambridge university journal that was entitled "The Joy of Bell Ringing". I felt like writing them an angry letter telling them how annoying it is to hear bells ringing for 2 hours straight. What I really should do is find out how loud (in decibels) it is in my room when these bells ring and find out if it's over the limit to be considered noise pollution. I bet it is. I should do noise calculations for these people and show them that they're way, way too loud.

Same with street performers. Once there was this band, yes, a whole band, performing right under my window. They were loud and not very good. And yet, people crowd around, listening, and then pay them. Why would you ever pay for bad music? I don't think I will ever watch another street performance ever again.

Engineering Projects

Today was quite a busy day. After Chinese class, I rushed over to engineering for my 2 projects. Let me just say that I was not impressed by these projects. During my first project, the professor said that this project requires us to work in groups and that this is something new for them. Some accreditators came and commented on the lack of group projects and teamwork in the department. So the teaching office put a requirement to do at least one group project in the third year. That's right, in the third year, one project, and that's it!! Far cry from my engineering classes at MIT where we were required to work in groups of 3 to do homework and only have to turn in one set of answers. What's really lame about this is the requirements for this first project. We were split up into groups of 4 or 5 to design something. We have to make 2 presentations on it but only 1 person presents during each of the two 15 minute presentations. Even my teammates were baffled by this one. And then, we're supposed to write 2 reports, individually. How are we supposed to do a project together when we're have to write individual projects? It's like in middle school when the teacher assigns you to do a group project and no one wants to work with anyone else so we would just split up the work, do our own research, and then come together in the last minute. That's so stupid. In my engineering design labs sophomore year, we had to work in groups for everything. And all my memories involve writing one report per group and our group would get together, sit in a computer lab, and write this thing together. We might be writing different sections but we're all there, discussing the project and proofreading each other's papers. I think making us turn in only one report makes it important that we (the team members) talk to each other. Because you can't really just copy and paste everyone's writing together, like in middle school. Everything has to make sense, reference each other, and flow together. Don't worry, I'll definitely let the project leaders know what my opinion of their "group work" is.

And in my other project, the lecturer handed us huge stacks of notes. He said that last year's group said that he lectured too much so this year he's just going to give us all the notes, skip them in the lectures, and let us read them ourselves. Dude, if you don't go over it in lecture, it must not be important. That's my view anyway. He's trying to chuck a whole semester's worth of geology and soil mechanics at us. I really feel sorry for people who haven't done soil mechanics. They must be so lost. I don't mind lectures though. Better than fake group work.

After this, I went to dinner, picked up the sleeping bags and travel journal that I ordered from Amazon, and forgot all about a talk that I was planning to go to. Luckily, Mahalia reminded me by sending an email. We met up on the way and go there a little late. The topic of the talk was "The Maoist Discourse and the Mobilization of Emotions under Mao" by Dr Yu Liu from the Departement of Politics. I think this was her dissertation. It was very interesting. She mostly talked about the Cultural Revolution. After hearing her talk, I have a renewed interest in learning history through a historian's point of view. I feel that "history" wasn't taught properly in primary and secondary school. I learned a whole lot of facts but not much about "how were people persuaded to do...", "how did they feel about...", and all the human aspects of history. It is, after all, a humanity subject, a social science.

This is one of the reasons why I'm really looking forward to going home this summer. I can go to the library, borrow lots of books like always, and read again. I didn't get to do this last summer in Germany. The Oakland libraries generally meets my needs since I always have a bizillion interests. I don't know where I am going to find the time to explore them all.

Cinco de Mayo and Denmark!

This morning, during my exam, I had a sudden craving for Mexican food. I told Mahalia about this after the exam and she was like, "Oh! Today's Cinco de Mayo. Xin and I were planning on making Mexican food, you can join us if you want." It was amazing. We made sooo much food. We made enchiladas, rice, ground beef, scrambled eggs, kidney beans with onions (which was surprisingly tasty), and had tomatoes, corn, spinach, and cheese. It was a really amazing meal. We also had corn tortillas and salsa from Trader Joes.

This weekend (wow, didn't realize it was actually this weekend...), Mahalia and I are going to Denmark! Not to Copenhagen though since that's expensive to get to but to Aarhus. Aarhus is the capital of Jutland. So it's in the middle of country instead of being out there like Copenhagen. Both of us have always wanted to go to Denmark so this is really cool. We're going early Friday morning and then coming back late Sunday night. The round trip flight was 60 GBP, which is one of the reasons we settled on this city. 2 nights, 3 days, it should be good. We seriously need a break from Cambridge. haha

Revision

I really should not be blogging right now. I should be either studying, eating, or sleeping. Which is mostly what I've been doing these days. My daily schedule has been: eat breakfast, study, eat lunch, study, nap, study, eat dinner, study, sleep. Seriously, that's it. So I really shouldn't be blogging. But my pen ran out of ink so I thought this is a good time to take a break and blog.

What's really funny is that we talked about blogging during Chinese class today. I think we were supposed to read an article during break. I vaguely remember the teacher mentioning it but I also remember having no clue what she said. Imagine someone saying "blog" with a Chinese/British accent... Anyway, none of my classmates blog apparently. They all tried to compare it to Facebook. We discussed it in groups of 2 and 3 and my partner said he's never touched the stuff. And here I am with 2 blogs... haha. Anyway, I suggested to him that when he does his study aboard in Beijing University, he should keep a blog since he'll have friends in the UK. He seemed to like the idea. I would've talked more about this subject since I have a lot to say except I 发现自己不会说普通话。I haven't revised (this is the term they use here instead of study. So it's revision not studying.) any Chinese stuff. The only Chinese stuff I've been doing is listening to music. Apparently that doesn't help very much. I've gained a couple of vocab, maybe.

Anyway, exams. I have to take 7 engineering exams and have taken 2 so far. They were last Friday. I'm really glad I already have 2 of them over with. I really can't tell you how I did. I have nothing to compare it to. It's not like at MIT where I can be like, "well, it wasn't as hard as the midterm."

In all of these exams they let you chose (usually) 3 out of 4 questions to do. All my engineering exams are 1.5 hours long. There is 10 minutes of reading time beforehand where you can read but not write anything. You're supposed to chose which questions you want to do in that time. Unfortunately, in the first exam, I read through all the problems, thinking "which one do I NOT want to do...", and then concluding that I didn't want to do any of them. Sad. I think I managed to make pretty good headway through the 3 that I chose to do though. The 2nd exam was better. It was water engineering and 1.060 (fluid mechanics, sophomore spring semester) gave us really good preparation for this class. So the reaction to the problems was the opposite, "if they give me more time, I can do all of these."

But of course, they don't give you enough time. I think I know the material but it takes me time to think. If I were to memorize everything, the procedure to doing each type of problem, and just don't think when during the 1.5 hours that we have, then I would finish the exam. But I can't do that. (1) Way too likely to make a mistake and (2) I don't think I can physically do that. Anyhow, unless everyone memorizes everything, which is unlikely given that the regular students have 10 exams to take in a period of 3 weeks, I think the end result is pretty much the same as in the US. At MIT, if we don't feel like we were given enough time for a test, we can request that the next test be shorter or given more time. So the distribution of grades are higher and the students feel better about themselves. So I mean, it's the same deal in the end, just an A here is 70% whereas an A in the States is 90% (generally speaking). Conclusion: I think Americans like to feel good about themselves, even if it's fake.

I've also updated the MIT blog with a couple of entries. They aren't very exciting but people have left comments so must be okay.

The next 4 months...

Did you know it snowed here in Cambridge while I was away? Amazing. It was so warm in January and February that we gave up all hopes of snow. Anyway, glad I managed to miss out on terribly cold weather this year. I was only in Boston for one blizzard.

Life this past week has been really boring. All I'm doing all day every day is studying. I don't have any more engineering classes to go to. My Chinese classes don't start until late next week and they're 3 hours of class max. I've found out that I really like routines. I am much more efficient with things if I have more things to do and less time to do them. E.g. sophomore year, very productive.

So somehow I will survive through this monotony for another 3 weeks. And then I have to do these projects which, for various reasons are not looking too exciting for me. I don't plan to put a whole lot of time into them anyway. Hopefully my group mates will be chill about these projects as well. My Chinese classes will end in 4 weeks and then I don't have exams for them until probably the first week of June. So after my Engineering exams are over, I plan to do some traveling around Britain and Europe, probably on the weekends. I'll still have plenty of time for these projects and studying for Chinese.

Life will get even more exciting starting the last week of May. Yalu is coming to visit on the 28th (a Tuesday) and is staying in England with me until June 1st (Sunday). So we'll spend some time in Cambridge and then head over to London that weekend. I think the plan is to try to see as much of London as possible as well as hopping over to see Stonehenge and maybe Bath. Again, I have Chinese exams that following week and will also be finishing up my engineering projects. So after that Friday, June 6th, I'll be free of all academic stuff.

So that Saturday, June 7th, Yalu and I are planning to meet in Amsterdam and stay there for a night. I'll fly there while she takes the train. And then I'll spend the 2nd week of June in Paris with Yalu. And then that Saturday I'm taking the Eurostar back to London to meet my parents and Victor who are coming to visit. The plan for their trip is that we're going to Cambridge first and staying for 2 nights. Then I'll pack up everything and we'll all go to London and stay there for 3 nights. We'll spend a good part of one day in Oxford as well. I don't think we can fully explore London in that amount of time but we'll be able to see all the tourist attractions. That should be enough. It's not too rushed although our last day in England will just be getting up and going to the airport. Not very exciting but it's enough. I mean, it's not like we're staying anywhere for only one night, which is what I usually do and that's pretty rushed for a family trip.

So I'll be flying back to the States on June 19th and then starting work on the 23rd. That would conclude my year in Europe. Well, I wasn't really in Europe for a whole year, more like 9 months of a period of 13 months starting from late May 2007 to late June 2008. Will I come back again? Probably. MIT has this program where you can take Spanish II in Madrid...

Anyhow, this summer: I'm planning to work 9 weeks, stopping on August 22nd. I'll probably spend the weekend with my family before flying back to Boston in the middle of orientation week. Yalu is not going to be back from Paris until the 27th, a Wednesday. Which is not bad since I was planning on going back on a Tuesday or Wednesday anyway. That would give me the weekend at home and a couple of days to straighten out things at home. And when I get to Boston, I'll have time to unpack, get over the jetlag, and maybe do a fun thing or two in Boston before the school year starts and while it is still warm. My brother will mostly likely start school the week I fly back to Boston so no point in me staying home for that whole week anyway. Yup, thinking about the summer, picturing a blue sky, bright sun, and warmth on my skin made me happy.

Cambridge once again

After spending 2 weeks at home and then 2 weeks at MIT, I'm back at Cambridge. One of the other CME people told me that when she thinks about her dorm room at MIT, she sees a bright happy picture of her and her friends who live next door. And then when she pictures her Cambridge room, she sees this dark little hole in the wall. I had to agree. I mean, I've taken steps to make my Cambridge room more homey but it's not the same. And when I came back from grocery shopping earlier tonight, I discovered that my living room light is out. So right now I'm actually sitting in a dark room, typing this up. I think my Ethernet cable will extend into my bedroom though so I might be over later on. I can't stand sitting in the dark. It's too depressing.

Anyhow, the whole journey was pretty uneventful. It took like half an hour to get through security because there was a huge bunch of British kids, probably just finished touring Bosnywash on spring break. They took their time going through security and spend a lot of time just standing there, not going through the metal detector. There was a group of kids on the plane I was on. Not sure if it was the same bunch. But luckily, I wasn't in the same compartment as them. The plane wasn't very full. I had a window seat and there was no one in the middle seat. Food took forever to get to me. Whenever I sit in the back, they would decide to serve from the front and vice versa.

The only movie I watched was The Golden Compass. I think those shots of Jordan College were taken in Oxbridge. Looks exactly like Cambridge (haven't been to Oxford yet). And now that I've been to Cambridge, the terms "fellows" and "scholars" make a lot more sense. It was a pretty good movie as well as pretty good representation of what happened in the book. I haven't read the book in a long time though. I hope they'll make the sequels. The little girl who played Lyria was really good.

I didn't managed to watch any other movies but watched some sitcoms and cartoons. I fell asleep to Jay Chou's November's Chopin. It was part of Virgin's music collection. I had my big headphones on instead of Skype ear buds and they were great at keeping the airplane noise out. I couldn't believe how noisy it was in the cabin. But it was tricky to sleep with the headphones on. I managed to sleep more on the bus. When I got to customs, there was a huge line. There was another flight into Heathrow from Boston that arrived a little before we did. So it took forever to get through the long line. By the time I finally got to baggage claim (they call it reclaim here), everyone else on my flight was gone. Luckily, both of my bags were still there, sitting to the side of the conveyor. I got to the bus station and saw the bus to Cambridge pulling out from its stop. So I had to wait 40 minutes for the next one.

When I got to Cambridge, I met a lady on vacation from Malaysia. She asked me where the uni was. Cambridge seriously does not have a campus so I didn't really know what to do other than have her follow me to the city center and pointing out Kings College and Trinity Street to her. She also wanted to see the Economic School. I gave some vague directions. I hope she found it. It's really not very exciting. She thought about taking one of those bus tours but I told her that those buses just go around the town and you don't really get to see the insides of the colleges. I really don't know what you would see if you take one of those tours. I can't imagine it being exciting.

I also pointed out Market Square to her as we passed it. She asked if the stuff there is cheap and I said no, it's really for tourists. And she answered that she wanted to see where the locals go. Somehow I found that comment really... strange for a place like Cambridge. I had to keep myself from laughing out loud. I guess the Market Square is not really for tourists. A lot of "locals" go there too. But they sell really expensive stuff there and I realized that the students and residents here are all pretty well off and can afford to spend that kind of money. They want a place like the Market Square where it looks like a haymarket type place but actually sells not-so-cheap things.

I've always wondered at the "go/do/eat where the locals go/do/eat" comments. Is it an attempt to understand the local culture? I always wonder why people always try to understand the local culture when they're only staying at the place for a few days. How can they pretend to understand the local culture just by eating where they supposedly eat? Or try to fit in when they're only staying for a few days and are doing nothing to contribute to the community? I think you really need to live in a place and call it a home for a period of time before you can even pretend to understand it. Don't know how I really feel about all this. I just know that I actually like hanging out in the touristy areas whenever I'm in a new city. It's usually the busiest part of town and I like being around people. Not talking to them or interacting with them or anything like that. Just walking in areas with lots of people.

Life as a Student at MIT and Cambridge

Last night I went to a dinner sponsored by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers. They have a Student Night dinner every year, mostly to hand out scholarships and other awards. The program was a nice dinner, followed by a lecture on Saving Venice by the former department head of Course 1. The last part was the presentation of the scholarships. It was pretty cool to see other Course 1 students again and I had a chance to talk to some 1E people who I haven't seen for a long time.

The part that I really appreciated was the statement by both our current and former department head of how students are the life and blood of the department. The dinner cost $40 for professional members to attend. But our department had paid for all its students to attend. (There were students from other schools as well, namely Northeastern and Tufts.)

This type of thing would NEVER happen in Cambridge. There is a student organization in Cambridge for the Engineering Department but you have to pay for everything. You have to pay for membership, dinners, etc.

At MIT, we have CEESA (Civil and Enivronmental Engineering Student Association). CEESA membership is free. There is free food provided at meetings, courtesy of the department. They hold study breaks, arrange tutoring sessions, and will even talk to professors on behalf of students to get things like more office hours, less homework, or even to inform the professor that he/she is going too fast and should slow down. Last year, the community service chair of CEESA organized a group to volunteer at the Boston marathon and the department paid for the renting of a car.

I just feel that the Cambridge University Engineering Department does not care about its students. Students are not their first priority. Maybe that's just the way they are, the way they do things. But I don't like it. As an undergrad there, I don't even have a place to eat lunch. Which is crazy because the graduate students get a lounge where they can buy hot food and professors get a huge tea room next door where they can hang out. What do the undergrads get? Vending machines in the basement. It's not like this in other parts of Cambridge. In the Sigwick site, where a lot of the humanities are, there is a small cafe (run by the university) where you can buy hot food for lunch. In the Asian and Middle Eastern Faculty, where I'm taking Chinese, there is a common room for ALL students and faculty to use.

The more I think about things like this, the more I realize how much MIT cares about its students. The administration really tries to take care of the undergrads. They look after our well-being, not just academically, but physically and mentally. It's not perfect but at least they try.

A lame post...

I seem to be behind in my plan of getting work done. =( So sad... I don't think I learned too much these two terms. Not looking forward to taking these exams.

Other then attempts to study, during this past week at MIT:
- gone swimming twice
- got certified in CPR
- watched 21
- played Starcraft
- went to Le's at Harvard
- went on an Easter egg hunt

Hm... I'm sure there's more. I should start bringing my camera around with me.

Not a cloud in sight

Back home again! The past week has been like a long dream. I was so busy. Not "hosed" as in stressed but I had so much to do that I just did everything on autopilot. Last Monday, the Dean of Education and Head of Financial Aid came to visit us. A lot of people showed up for the buffet dinner and discussion. I might write about what we talked about in a later post. The cat is behaving badly again... I spent the last part of the week learning the basics of surveying (land surveying). Trying to get heavy equipment exactly over one tiny speck on the ground in freezing wind and rain was not fun. After that I had to take my German test on Saturday. Poting was there to do her French test and we walked back together.

The rest of Saturday was great though. I made brunch with Stella, Mahalia, and Mahalia's boyfriend. Mahalia and her boyfriend were heading off to Geneva for a week that afternoon. Hope they have fun! After that I decided to get a mocha at Cafe Nero because I really like their coffee and will miss going to coffee shops back in the US. There was a huge line because it was Saturday and there was a science festival going on. They were so swamped that they punched my order in as redeeming a loyalty card and I got a free drink. It also might've been that she didn't want to count the huge stack of change I handed her. After enjoying my mocha, I packed my room and suitcases, all in one afternoon. That night, I went out to dinner with Sophia and some of her friends and we ate and chatted for a few hours.

I got up at 4am on Sunday and heading to the bus station. It was still dark outside and raining. Since I had 2 suitcases, I couldn't use an umbrella. I thought about taking a cab to the bus station but didn't see one on the way. I had arrived way too early again and ended up taking an earlier bus which is actually slower since they take a longer route. But it still gets to the airport earlier and it beats standing in the rain for half an hour more. On the bus, I saw Jenn and her mom. They're going to Croatia for a week. Hope they have fun too!

I was really worried that my luggage were overweight since I'm bringing back all my notes. But I had a smaller suitcase that I stuffed with all my books and heavy things so it was fine. You can't imagine how happy I was when I weighted my luggage and they were both under the limit. After checking in luggage, I had to wait until it was 2 hours before my departure time to go through security. That's right, wait to go through security. Ridiculous? Yes, that's Heathrow airport for you. The reason is, airlines there don't have permanent gates like in other airports. There are just too many airlines and airplanes so they have a huge waiting area instead. And when your plane lands and parks at a gate, they'll announce it, and everyone goes to that gate number. I spent a long time walking around this waiting area, trying to decide if I want to buy anything to eat.

My plane was delayed about 30 minutes for boarding and because of that, we had to wait 2 hours on the plane because there are only so many runways and we had lost our place in the queue because of the initial delay. Luckily, the winds were on our side so we were only delayed by about 40 minutes arriving. I watched Juno, which was really good. The food was not bad. The guy next to me doesn't like cheese and gave me his. I also watched Lust Caution, which was pretty good as well. It was mostly Mandarin with a bit of English and some Cantonese and Shanghainese. I also watched some other random stuff including an interview with Wang Lee Hom and listened to a Jay Chou album.

My plane had really amazing views of the Bay Area as we were descending. I had a window seat and sat on the "right" side to see everything. And then I was back! My family came to meet me at the airport. I swear security is more lax now than before. I didn't even have to take my laptop out at Heathrow and the passport control people didn't ask me anything. I was ready with answers to questions like "what were you doing in the UK?". We had hot pot for dinner last night and I slept for 13 hours.

It's been a while since I've seen sunny skies like the one I'm staring at now. It was so amazing when we were driving home. It was warm, sunny, and not a cloud in sight.

I can now go to a casino

I turned 21 this past Sunday, March 9th. I hadn't planned anything besides going to a formal dinner at St. Catherine College, which Poting had organized (for CME people, not for my birthday). Anyway, I had mentioned it was my birthday a few days back when Cindy was making a card for Jeremy (other CME people), whose birthday is March 8th. I commented that since I was born in China, our birthdays are actually on the same "day". Mahalia asked if I was planning on doing anything, and I was like, "uh, writing my FTR?"

So on Sunday, she showed up with some other CME people with a cake. A normal looking yellow cake but made from scratch (by her), coated with heavy cream, and topped with strawberries. It was amazing. And that morning, she send out an email to all the CMe people plus Sophia (my former neighbor). They had managed to get candles and "attacked some Chinese tourists to get them lite" but the wind blew them out before they could get to my room. I was really touched. I can't believe she did all of that for me.

I guess that's one of the best things that came out of going on this exchange: I got to know people that I otherwise would not have. I knew Mahalia and Stella before the exchange. Course 1 isn't that big. But after a year of struggling at Cambridge, cooking together, working late, we've gotten to know each other much more. Same goes to the other CME people. We have a lot of get formals and get togethers here and I just find it so nice to talk to other MIT people. Not that I wouldn't have enjoyed living with Yalu and working with Xiumin and Zawadi just as much but we got along so well that I would've just stuck with them all the time. Doing this exchange forced me to get to know these other MIT people at a level that I would've never done if I had stayed at MIT. I think this is a side effect that none of us really thought about but that I know goes true for all the other CME students.

Sunset in London

London Pics!

Just realized I haven't posted any pictures of me in London. I went there with a few people the weekend after Chinese New Year to see the parade and enjoy the other celebrations. Poting and I went around London for a little while after that.

Not sure why I don't look too happy in these first two pictures... Anyhow, we weren't really sure where we were going. I had a guide book. But then we saw the London Eye (that big ferris wheel in the back) and started heading towards it.

Westminster Abbey. Sadly we didn't get to go in since it was Sunday and they didn't want any tourists on Sundays. We peaked inside like all the other tourists and it looks pretty amazing. Hope to go back one of these days.

Big Ben! Yay. I should've taken a picture of the subway station next to it. We talked about it in geotech class and how they had to put in a lot of reinforcement to keep the Big Ben from tilting when they put in the tunnel.


As we were crossing this bridge, Poting and I speculated on the price of a ride on the London Eye. I said 10 pounds which seems reasonable. But when we got there, we found out that it was 15 pounds and they're called "flights" not "rides". And actually, a Thames river cruise is cheaper than a flight. We found this confounding. 15 pounds is a little too much for us. And it was getting dark when we got there so we didn't go on.

more rants about Customer Service

I could not find ground turkey at Sainsburys (the local grocery store) yesterday. I complained about this to a fellow CMEer and neither of us likes the fact that Sainsburys doesn't restock properly. Their restocking things are either always sitting in the cramped aisles, blocking space or there would be empty shelves where my favorite brand of muesli is supposed to be found. It's very annoying since I only go to the grocery store when I really need something and don't want to make another trip back. Sometimes it means I have to go to another store or somehow eat breakfast without milk.

Why does this happen? (I) It might be that the store is just too small. At certain hours, the entire town seems to want to get their daily necessities all at the same time. The lines are super long and shelves are robbed of all the popular goods. And since the store is not very big, (i) can't have an infinite supply of ground turkey on the shelf and (ii) can't restock fast enough. (II) But actually, this might also be a case of seeing things through American eyes. We're a society where if our demands aren't met the right way the first time around, we complain and go somewhere else. Maybe that's just not the way it works here. Maybe the people here don't mind when they can't get their ground turkey and are okay with just coming back some other time.

A Sunday Morning

I woke up this morning and did not feel like eating cereal/musli. So I went out the Marketplace and got an ostrich burger and a mocha (pronounced mod-ka). The burger was amazing. They have this caramelized onion sauce that is also delicious as well. This whole experience made me feel like a local. The marketplace is actually a tourist attraction, full of souvenir things. But instead of waitinig until 1pm and wait in long lines to get the burger and coffee like everyone else, I went at 11am and got fresh burger and coffee with absolutely no lines. By the way, these two items cost nearly $8. Well, can't get an ostrich burger anywhere I guess.

I want to write an entry titled "It's the little things" in which I would tell my audience about all the little cultural differences that make studying/working/living aboard such a rich experience. But that would take a lot of work so I'll just write a paragraph or two whenever I realize something. Maybe I'll compile it later for an entry on the MIT blog.

So yesterday, I was watching Yahoo! news, New York edition, about the Starbucks closing its doors for 3 hours nationwide to retrain their people. I had already read about this earlier but watched it nevertheless. In the boardcast, one of the hosts said he's a regular customer and the only thing he ever orders is a ice latte with light ice. But the part that attracted my attention was that he said he refuses to call it a "tall" because it actually is a "small." See that cup of coffee to the left that I got this morning? That's a regular. I should really put a penny or something next to it but it's pretty small. It's like an extra-small cup of coffee in the US if they have something called extra-small. Kids sized. And it probably costed me more than getting a Verde coffee at Starbucks in the US.

So Starbucks closed its doors for 3 hours to reteach its people how to make espressos, steam milk, and how to give better customer service. But the only thing that the news boardcast people talked about was "I'm glad they're retraining their people because the service is terrible." Nothing about the coffee itself. Just complaints about the service. Customer service is a huge part of American culture. It's very important to Americans. I didn't realize this until I went to Germany this summer. People elsewhere do not value good customer service. They do not expect it or want it. Living aboard is actually not learning about other cultures as it is about learning about your own culture. Culture = the way we do things here = the things that we value.