Finals =(

Hello Everyone, my apologies for such delay in writing a new post. Unfortunately, this post won't be to enlightening for you either :( as I am swamped with studying for finals and writing term papers. Since I don't have the time to do my updates justice, I'll be writing again in just a couple more weeks with all the details on what's been going on with me so far.

Look forward to hearing about my trip to Singapore, my latest creative endeavors, school updates and more! I just wanted to write to let you know that I'm still thinking about you, and I've got some exciting new things to share with you shortly!

Sincerely,

Kyle

My Room

For anyone who is interested, I made a short film showing the different setups I've used in my room. I think you'll all agree that my new one is better ;)

Wow -- What a Great First 2 Weeks!

Phew! So many things happened since I got here, I feel like I'm already 40! But 40 is the new 20 anyway, so really its like I only aged a year :) But anyway, on to the update!

Firstly, I took care of a ton of bureaucratic stuff (and there's plenty left!). I got my philosophy courses all approved, so I'm right on track to complete my philosophy minor. I got my student visa renewed (even though it had already expired). The school ended up renewing my scholarship, even though my GPA was lower than their threshold :), so I was extremely grateful for that. My schedule is pretty much locked in now, and I've scheduled all of my tutorials as well. I have a pretty brutal Tuesday-Thursday, but I managed to have NO obligations WHATSOEVER on Fridays, and I don't start till 3 on Mondays.

I got my tricking sampler finished (finally), and I encourage anyone who does not know what tricking is to watch it :

I also finally got a chance to go tricking with a Hong Kong tricking group, and I will now be training with them regularly. They are very good, and I've already begun to learn many things from them. Most of them don't speak English, so it is also a fun way to practice Cantonese :) Over the next few weeks, I'll be working on making a Hong Kong sampler, so you can look forward to seeing some new tricks from me sometime soon!

I also went to my first jam night last night at a bar called Swindlers. Every Sunday night they have an open jam night, where anyone can come up and play, and it is such a blast! There were so many great musicians from all over the place. There were a bunch of Filipino guys who were just virtuosic at every instrument they touched. I even met a guy from Columbia who is here teaching music, and we conversed in Spanish for a bit, which was a fun experience. He is the second person I've met here that is from South America. It was pretty daunting to jump in with these guys and play jazz-fusion improvisation, but I gave it a go and I love it! Toward the end, the manager of the bar got on the drums and we got to play some metal together \.(-.-)./ I'll definitely be going back next week.

Meanwhile, back on campus, I've been collaborating with my German friend to start up a Cross-Disciplinary Student Think Tank, dubbed X-Tank. We currently have no think tank on campus, and the modus operandi over here is so parochial; just study, study, read, work, study --- but not really much thinking, so we figure this is just what the campus needs. We are seeking to make a think tank that will take our students' forward thinking ideas and combine the skills that students from different faculties have acquired to bring those ideas to life.

On the home front, a lot of my furniture arrived this weekend, so I've been cleaning up my room and getting it set up to be maximally conducive to my studies and recording projects. Its like an executive office now, and everything fits just perfectly in the room. The door literally has just a hair's width to open fully. I'll try to get some pictures uploaded soon. I am so excited to begin working in my new office! It is a stark improvement from what I was doing before!

Things have been picking up at Foundation Global, where I work as an English tutor, and they integrated me into the team right away. I've been teaching English to students in mainland China over Skype for them, and also been doing some private sessions here in Hong Kong. I basically work to help these kids get into schools in the U.S. by improving their foundational English, test-taking, writing, and interviewing skills. The money is pretty good (non taxable ;), but I think the most valuable thing is the experience I am getting teaching such a diverse set of kids.

I teach one class of 4 kindergartners who can barely speak Chinese, much less English, and have an attention span about as long as the beat of a fly's wings. That is a serious challenge to keep them all captivated and learning, but the parents are coaching me a bit, and I hate to say it, but I think I'm growing fond of the little children.

I also have this one kid who is a genius. He's like 7. Our whole first session he pretty much ignored me, and I kept talking to him like I though a 7-year old would respond to best. I guess I came off a bit condescending, because when he finally spoke he went off on a tirade about politics and the one-child policy in mainland China. Since then we've come to better terms, but he still stubbornly refuses to write anything for me.

Regardless, I enjoy it, and I am working hard to improve my teaching skills. I've actually come to the conclusion that everyone should work as a teacher at some point in their life, because the skill of conveying information in a way that someone else can understand and apply it is essential in any management position. As Einstein so eloquently puts it, "If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough."

Sorry to wait so long since my last post, I've just been so busy with all this work recently. Things look like they're starting to calm down though, and I'm starting to get into the swing of things, so these posts should be coming more frequently (and be a lot less lengthy!). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one, and feel free to give me an email if you want to know more!

Till next time,

Kyle

It has begun....

Yes, I'm afraid it is true.

Our worst fears are confirmed in these harsh times of privation and desperation. Although we have pulled through so far, it is my only remaining conclusion to say that we will not be so fortunate this time. There is no way out, and we may as well concede now any effort to repel the evil forces that assail us ever so tenaciously, and relinquish all hopes and dreams for a brighter future. Because, quite frankly, they are nothing more than delusional and a small step short of insanity. Let us just go forth now, and not prosper, but perish. Let us not succeed, but abort, default, abandon, disappoint, neglect, flounder, and die nothing more than the billions of insignificant and impertinent molecules that we once were.

The end has begun, and I dare say it is less than favorable.

:'(

HAHAHA! Now that is an impertinent and grossly false pile of regurgitated rhinoceros dung, if I've ever seen one! I was totally kidding! I apologize for any tears or fright that may have caused, but I believe that sometimes the best way to fully understand something is to see its antithesis. In this case, the above garbage would be the antithesis to the way I feel right now!

I just got into Hong Kong last night, around 6PM and got to meet my new roommate, who seems like a great guy and I think we have some fun times ahead of us. He, my other roommate (whom I was greatly excited to see again), and myself shared a few drinks and made some conversation, then we watched The Hangover (which was pretty funny) in ghetto chinese bootleg quality, which tired me out quite a bit. So, I fell asleep around 11PM, and woke up bright and early at 8:30 this morning, WITH NO JETLAG :). I couldn't have asked for a better start.

Today I'll be running around taking care of all my arrival duties and getting everything set up, but hopefully in the midst of the upcoming begging-of-semester-chaos I'll be able to stay a heck of a lot more faithful in making my blog posts this year.

So we see, it has indeed begun. But the only end this marks is the end of an amazing summer, and its true purpose is to mark an epoch of even more exciting times here at HKU.

Anyway, I apologize for making this post so melodramatic, but I felt it was the best way to convey how ecstatic I am right now. I hope you will enjoy reading about my experiences (or at least find them amusing), and I look forward to another great year in Hong Kong.

Best Regards,

Kyle

P.S. I've now enabled commenting for anyone (not just members of blogspot), so EVERYONE feel free to comment as much or as little as you want, I'd love to hear your responses, advice, admonitions, condemnations, opinions, or any other thing you wish to convey!

The Rest of Beijing

We woke up 2 hours late again. But not matter, we sprang up to start our day! We started by visiting the Military Museum, which was pretty sweet. We got to get on life-sized tanks and hug big statues of Mr. Mao and other despots. 

Afterward, we went to the bus to take us to the Great Wall. I had a short conversation (in chinese) with the bus driver about how much she loves tall people and why I should play basketball in China. I'm thinking about dropping out of school to join the Chinese NBA. I could be America's response to Yao Ming. I am from Houston after all. 

Anyway, we got to the wall without a problem. We came, we saw, and we left. There were so many people on the wall it was hard to get around. We got to see about one kilometer of it, and it is 5000 km long. I can't imagine how they built all of that. But, after you've seen one km of it, you've seen all 5000, so we were contented pretty quickly and we left to do the next thing.

We went to see Financial Street, which is supposed to be the largest financial market in all of mainland china, but the buildings were not that impressive. Hong Kong and Shanghai appear to be much more developed. 

Then, we left to see the National Acrobatic Troupe perform at the Tian Di Theater. It was quite a spectacle, and some good inspiration for tricking. We left the theater and went to see the new CCTV tower, which has a very interesting design. The building has two legs that come out of the ground at a slant, which are connected by a jagged crosspiece, leaving a giant hole in the middle. It was still under construction , but it still looked vicious. 

Now we will sleep and get some rest. Pictures are on the way...

Taking the Duck out of the Nest, drowning it in the Cube, and eating it near the Square and the City

Today we saw the City, the Square...and not the Wall :(

We began our day by waking up at 10:00, 2 hours later than planned (because we spent all night looking for some food and came home empty handed because everything was closed), and missed out on the hotel breakfast. But we had no time to squander on eating, so we left straight for Tiananmen Square. We jumped on the subway, and after 5 interchanges and 2 miles of underground walking, we made it to the square. It is quite an impressive area of empty space. 

After quickly taking in the Square, we ran to the City. However, we had to pass through 8 gates before we got into the true Forbidden City. These canny Chinese built the 500 year old city on top of 15 layers of monolithic stones, so that no tunnels could possibly be built to invade it. There are 9,999.5 rooms in the entire city, because the emperor who built it liked the number nine, but the Chinese believed that heaven had 10,000 rooms and no city on earth should surpass it. Why not build 9,999.9 rooms then?  

We ravaged the City, and made haste to find some fine peking roast duck before heading to the wall. We walked about a mile to find the Quan Jude Restaurant, but unfortunately it was closed. We took the subway and made 3 interchanges and walked another mile to find a second Quan Jude Restaurant (this is the best peking duck in the city), but surprisingly enough, IT WAS ALSO CLOSED! They had just gone on rest the minute we arrived. 

So, we made do with some simple beef stir-fry and set off through 3 more subway lines and a score or two kilometers of travel a-pie to the bus stop that would take us to the Great Wall. When we finally found the bus, they had stopped running for the day, and we were not ready to pay 400RMB for a taxi, so our plans for the Wall were stymied. However, we shall have vengeance tomorrow! We are going to wake up at 8:00 and sprint to the Wall and sprint back to do the rest of our itinerary. 

With our spirits crushed, we limped toward the Olympic Green (they should have an Outward Bound--Beijing), and four railway transfers later we landed. We arrived just in time to see the Bird's Nest and the Cube illuminating. It is astonishing how much better the Olympic Green looks than the rest of the city. 

But we still wanted our peking roasted duck! So we set forth determinedly to get it! This time the restaurant was open, and we got a number, but the wait was over an hour. In the meanwhile, we scrambled around the Square and the People's Hall in an attempt to find the National Center for the Performing Arts before we had to be back to eat our peking duck. We found it, and it was quite amazing. The way it was illuminated was pretty cool. 

FINALLY, we returned to have a nice warm peking roasted duck. It was undoubtedly the best meal of the trip so far. We savored the nice duck and scurried back home to get some rest. Tomorrow we will dominate the rest of the city, and of course...the Wall. I will post pictures of what we have seen when I can.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! Yesterday was the Chinese New Year, and it was amazing. This is the year of the ox. If anyone is having a baby this year, you can expect your little one to be tough and able to handle pressure. If you don't want a crybaby, this is the year for you to have some children.

Unfortunately, they will be stubborn, narrow-minded, and have no public relations skills. 

On Saturday, we went to see the usual tourist places.... the bund, the pearl tower, the people's square. Then, after we watched the sunset over the magnificent skyline, we had a drink atop the Jin Mao tower and got to see the skyline from a bird's eye view. It used to be the tallest building in Shanghai, but it has now been surpassed by the SWFC, which will probably be trumped next year by some other. The city is actually sinking because they're building so many skyscrapers. 

For New Year's Eve, we managed to reserve a table through connections in Hong Kong at club M1NT to watch the fireworks. The club is on the top storey of a building that has a panoramic view of the entire city, and a perfect view of the river and the pudong district. The scene was like nothing you've ever seen in the U.S. The ENTIRE city was lit up with fireworks for the whole of an hour. Fireworks are legal in Shanghai for the new year, so every kid in town was shooting them off at midnight. It was actually much better than any orchestrated one I've ever seen.  

For the first day of the new year, we slept all day because EVERYTHING  was closed. at 8:00 PM, we woke up and went for a hot pot meal, and got kicked out at 10:00 when they closed and our bellies were awfully distended. Of course, we had to have our share of the firework fun as well, so we stocked up on an arsenal of fireworks for $10 and blew them off in our hotel room, which caused a formidably sized fire, but most of the room was still intact after the sprinklers finally managed to put it out. We're still disputing the damage liabilities with the hotel, but they shouldn't be more than a few thousand dollars. 

....Just kidding! We just caused some mayhem for the amusement of a couple old chinese men in the street outside of our hotel. 

All in all, Chinese New Year was a great experience, and a great chance to really practice mandarin, because so few people speak even basic english. Now I am in Beijing, and even fewer people speak english here. Tomorrow we are going to see the Wall, the City, and the Square...