First week of Midterms

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So i haven't got much to share; it's midterm period so i'm a little preoccupied to go off flirting with gay men purely for your entertainment this week.

Sunday i did however have one of the best days i can remember. On paper, it doesn't sound extraordinary but i think it's one of those "you had to be there" moments. Frans, a dutch friend, celebrated his 25th with a yacht party and twenty five friends. Armed with two freezers of alcohol, a hammock of cake, a desk of cheesits and all sorts of other snacks we set off from Yau Ma Tei to a quiet bay off the mainland. We had an afternoon of swimming, wakeboarding, banana boating...all activities accompanied by a can. After a very intense academic week, this my little luxury. The birthday boy and I swam to a deserted beach for a while. On the return leg we stopped to talk to another boat party in the bay and were told it was a protected turtle nesting ground with a $10,000 fine for trespassers...hence deserted.
Slightly burnt and more than merry, the party returned to harbour. Frans, now slurring his words, found the wadge of cash he had collected from us earlier to fund the boat rental, and offered us all a meal at Mr Wong's (a restaurant i've previously mentioned: All you can eat and drink for 4GBP). We obliged. After even more food and drink, including Mr Wong plonking a bottle of vodka to aid lubricating the jubilations, i finally left the party and made my way back to HKUST. Another blissful day with sun, sea, great company and a couple of beers will unfortunately have to wait until next term as Hong Kong looks to being cooling down and the workload is only ever getting heavier.

The only other highlight this week was dragon boating this morning followed by a team dim sum with the coach. I was the only exchange to turn up so the (cantonese) conversation was hard to keep up. At one point I had a good chat with the coach who seemed very glad to hear i was staying for a year, meaning i was available for team selection. He taught me the names of the dim sum in Cantonese and taught me some of the customs of eating dim sum. For example, before starting, you clean your chop sticks and crockery...with the Chinese tea. You swill it round or pour it over your utensils to make sure they're clean then discard the tea into what i thought at first was a spit bucket. Also, when your cup is filled by the waitress or a friend, instead of saying "thank you" or "cheers", you just tap the table next to the cup twice as a sign of gratitude. I naturally filled the coach's cup on occasion like the little puppy craving attention that i am.

Now i'm off to the library. I have had two midterms. One lecturer has already voiced his disappointed in the yet to be released marks. The other, i got 94%! (MISSING)Yes, i smashed it. We will overlook the small fact it is an engineering course aimed at non-engineers.
I have two exams this week, and one a week Wednesday, wish me luck!

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