I know many of you have been praying for me. Like "Oh God, please prevent derrick from killing himself in Beijing." or "May he be able to survive in the land of chinese." Thank you so much for your prayers, but guess what? Im doing really really well here.

You heard me right. I am totally enjoying my time here. Ever since i got to the school on sunday, i have made about 20 new friends from all over the world. There are people from the states, Hongkong, Indonesia, France and even Singapore. And we are having a great time together, whether it is exploring to the place to find good food to eat or enduring the chinese classes together. And these people are smart people... like real smart...

For example, im rooming with a korean guy from PRINCETON. In case you don't know, princeton is just the best university in the world. No big deal. And he is pretty cool.




And there is another girl heading to Columbia University this fall. oh well... at least they know about nyu stern...

Oh and i made a new best friend. Her name is Nikki and she is from Georgia, USA. We totally click since day one.



The course has been really fun so far. On day one, we were given a test to determine how good we were in chinese. We had to say out loud the chinese alphabet thingy, whatever its called, and read some words and sentences. Obviously i didn't do too well with my chinese garnish with a lil american accent. You see, i cant really speak chinese well, but my vocab and writing is pretty good, if i may say so myself.

Chinese lessons were not very fun though... The first lesson was about the history and culture of China. For 3 hours, the professor droned on about the dynasties that existed in china for the last 4000 years, and giving a little detail for each dynasty. He then went on about the culture and the literature and stuff. Honestly, i wasn't really listening. I was trying to fight the Z monster the entire time. I have zero interest in History, let alone CHINA history. Not to mention he was speaking in english so he pronounced words like "darn-nasty" and i couldn't really understand him half the time.

Then we had our actual lesson. Our teacher is creepy... It's this old dude who has PERFECT pitch and tone for every word. He is so perfect, he sounds like the guy who reads to us the text for our listening comprehension in national exams. And he is so strict... he demands we all pronounce our words perfectly and he will keep making us say the word until we get it right. Not to mention we had to do TONGUE TWISTERS... omg... si shi si shi bu shi si ma...

On some mornings, we have shadow boxing lessons aka taiqi. When i first saw the programme of the course and saw shadow boxing, i was like omg... you got to be kidding me... I knew i was just going to burst out laughing the moment we start. And i was not wrong... i couldn't help myself... i had to try really hard to suppress my laughter. And after 5 minutes, i got myself together and decided to get into it. And you know what, it wasn't that bad. It was actually pretty interesting if you visualise yourself doing some kungfu moves. In the end, we all really had fun.

Just thinking about the last few days, i realised something. China/Beijing isn't exactly a great place. Singapore is much more fun... and Tsinghua university isn't that impressive looking. It look somewhat like NUS. But the company i have has made the time really really fun. And i am truly enjoying myself. This is kinda like a sneak preview into college life, and im loving it. I can't wait to get to NYU Stern in end August. I am so going to have a great time in New York City.
Signing out - 7/02/2008 10:08:00 PM

I know many of you have been praying for me. Like "Oh God, please prevent derrick from killing himself in Beijing." or "May he be able to survive in the land of chinese." Thank you so much for your prayers, but guess what? Im doing really really well here.

You heard me right. I am totally enjoying my time here. Ever since i got to the school on sunday, i have made about 20 new friends from all over the world. There are people from the states, Hongkong, Indonesia, France and even Singapore. And we are having a great time together, whether it is exploring to the place to find good food to eat or enduring the chinese classes together. And these people are smart people... like real smart...

For example, im rooming with a korean guy from PRINCETON. In case you don't know, princeton is just the best university in the world. No big deal. And he is pretty cool.




And there is another girl heading to Columbia University this fall. oh well... at least they know about nyu stern...

Oh and i made a new best friend. Her name is Nikki and she is from Georgia, USA. We totally click since day one.



The course has been really fun so far. On day one, we were given a test to determine how good we were in chinese. We had to say out loud the chinese alphabet thingy, whatever its called, and read some words and sentences. Obviously i didn't do too well with my chinese garnish with a lil american accent. You see, i cant really speak chinese well, but my vocab and writing is pretty good, if i may say so myself.

Chinese lessons were not very fun though... The first lesson was about the history and culture of China. For 3 hours, the professor droned on about the dynasties that existed in china for the last 4000 years, and giving a little detail for each dynasty. He then went on about the culture and the literature and stuff. Honestly, i wasn't really listening. I was trying to fight the Z monster the entire time. I have zero interest in History, let alone CHINA history. Not to mention he was speaking in english so he pronounced words like "darn-nasty" and i couldn't really understand him half the time.

Then we had our actual lesson. Our teacher is creepy... It's this old dude who has PERFECT pitch and tone for every word. He is so perfect, he sounds like the guy who reads to us the text for our listening comprehension in national exams. And he is so strict... he demands we all pronounce our words perfectly and he will keep making us say the word until we get it right. Not to mention we had to do TONGUE TWISTERS... omg... si shi si shi bu shi si ma...

On some mornings, we have shadow boxing lessons aka taiqi. When i first saw the programme of the course and saw shadow boxing, i was like omg... you got to be kidding me... I knew i was just going to burst out laughing the moment we start. And i was not wrong... i couldn't help myself... i had to try really hard to suppress my laughter. And after 5 minutes, i got myself together and decided to get into it. And you know what, it wasn't that bad. It was actually pretty interesting if you visualise yourself doing some kungfu moves. In the end, we all really had fun.

Just thinking about the last few days, i realised something. China/Beijing isn't exactly a great place. Singapore is much more fun... and Tsinghua university isn't that impressive looking. It look somewhat like NUS. But the company i have has made the time really really fun. And i am truly enjoying myself. This is kinda like a sneak preview into college life, and im loving it. I can't wait to get to NYU Stern in end August. I am so going to have a great time in New York City.