talkshop

Its finally over. Working so hard on EE2011, taking on night after night of latenights just to understand the links between the different parts of electromagnetism. I gotta say, working my ass off over it, its worth every single cent.

Next midterm to draw bood. Computer communications, 10 MCQ at 20%. This is so living life on the edge.  

As the days draw close, the impending interviews will come soon. And then it will also be my test on the strength of my mandarin. The idea of picking up the language is daunting. Daily reading of Zaobao.com does not seem to help much.

The dictating part is cool but the speech and communicatuion is still lacking. As my uncle has mentioned, we wll try to convert English phrases into Mandarin, hence our long pauses or blankouts when speaking in mandarin.

Think my next big idea will be tuning into mandarin radio stations like 933, 883, 958 and 972. The latter maybe old but they feature better chinese conversations! Haha 

Today we (the bulk of NCSH07) met Janice today. She is in the NCSH06 Jan 06 batch. Having some business to return to Singapore, she kindly met with us to chill out and plug any queries we had about the programme.

As confirmed over and over again, we will be left to fend for ourselves once we land in China. No one will help us for the next one year, somewhat literally. I quote someone: "The only guarantee we can give you is… NONE!".

Janice gave us some practical and work related advice and experience. We learnt that in China:

1. Take care when public, the roads are not safe, drivers, riders or cyclists assume you have a pair of all-seeing eyes.
2. The Chinese are loud and fierce. Its their way of life. Don’t worry or be shy, just shout at the waiter! 伙计！！
3. Do not go to the local chinese doctor, go for the foreign (ang moh) ones, supposedly more reputable and you can claim insurance..
4. Woman do not shave, their armpits are a display of fluff. Must feel morbid for guys like us after looking at it for awhile.
5. Watch for the spit. On the floor, in the air or hurtling out of anyone’s mouth, especially if its coming fast at you!
6. Public transport can be messy with the mega crowds. Take care of your private parts unless you d not mind people stuffing themselves against your parts..

Close to three weeks since the good news of NOC.

Earlier in the week, we have submitted our resumes. For Shanghai, we are expected to write both english and chinese resumes… Duhhhhhhhhhhhh But that is a challenge with all the english to chinese translation moments.

It only means one thing: Need to brush up my chinese or what’s left of it. Can’t start or end a chinese conversation without pausing to do a live translation of the word im thinking about (in english) of course!

Needless to say, most of us spent the night before rushing through them to make them perfecto perfect. The ugly truth is that we are not proficient with MS office reared its ugly head. The formatting gone awry, chinese words go haywire and computers that don’t respond when you least expect it..

My email submission failed. NUS servers thought I spoofed my email using gmail accounts and had it bounced. No wonder, Angel called later in the day to ask about my submissions. She needed them in before they close shop for the day I guess. 

I havemy regrets though. I added my industry and skill preference in the resume. Bascially it means none. I should have bee more targetted in the resume. When you are sharp and focused, your results will also be so. Hope for the best I guess..