大学 [dàxué - University] for reference.
This post is mainly gonna be about the University registration process [which is long as, and will probably end up being another virtual rant], the new people I've been meeting, and some of the old ones from Edinburgh. I don't have any pictures, so you're gonna have to make do with descriptions or - for the more professional readers - facebook stalking my recently added friends.
So the actual process of paying fees, registering and getting my books was a long and strenuous process, lasting about 2 weeks. Needless to say, besides the 4 photos requested, the university seemed to need an extra photo at every stage in the registration process, delaying it by several days. And though the tuition fees are £850 a term, they neglect to mention before I got to China that they would need an extra £50 for registration fees and another £30 for my books. Then they had to confiscate everyone's passport for about a week to change the Visa, which unhappily coincided with me needing to photocopy it to give to the people who had stolen my luggage [I now consider them thieves]. So this Friday had me running around photocopying, faxing and flat out demanding from Chinese people who don't know how to be anything but aggressive or off-hand, and don't understand you if you're neither.
Well at least the testing process was [relatively] painless. It consisted of two tests: a writing/reading/listening which I thought I did well in and a speaking test which I obviously did not do so well in. The reason I say this is because I was put in a class lower than had wanted, but it was to be expected really. Holly was put in one class above me and Serrena two. They were surprised that I wasn't in a higher class, but I wasn't. It was more of a reality check for me and besides they had been in China for a while, so it was probably obvious that they were going to do better than me.
But that aside, the people that we met during, before and after the tests ranged between interesting and the aptly named [by Serrena] 'wet fish'. So I'll make a sort of list. There was an over-keen American [or eager-beaver, Holly's label of choice], a couple of Russians [a 'nice' girl and a Pokemon-catcher], and some cute Japanese girls [and a boy]. Now, to explain the above children's cartoon reference. Basically, a Pokemon-catcher is someone who's fishing for Asians, male or female. The particular male mentioned above actually stole my seat without so much as a backward glance to talk to a cute Japanese girl called Yumi-chan whom I had been chatting with. The term has been bandied about ever since. I love it.
As for the Edinburgh 'crew', I was never really that close to them to begin with and so didn't really expect any of them to...'beg it' shall we say. Most of them don't, of course. When we first arrived we only knew each other [and then the american sort of latched on to an Edinburgh student with the same name-sake], so of course we hung out together, Holly being the most forward and friendly of our flat. However, a certain female who I shall not name here for security reasons has begun to... beg it slightly, a sort of continuation of her behavior in Edinburgh. Well, I don't shirk new friends often, but even I have to say there's a limit to soliciting friendship.
And that's it really for now - just a quick update. Other news besides includes the fact that my stuff still hasn't arrived and I've found someone who knows how to enabled a blackberry in Dalian! But I'll save news on the small community of waiguo ren in Dalian for a later post
For the more pedantic of readers, the reason there's so many grammatical errors in my previous post [and probably this one as well] is because I'm not using my own computer at the moment and writing mainly on a friend's iPad. So stop judging.
Comment & Questions ;) xx
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