Just Another Week

Hello all! Sorry for the last pretty depressing post. I was not having a good moment and feeling a bit discouraged about certain things. But my friends and family are wonderful and cheered me right back up again. This week was rather unexciting. I didn't do much besides go to class, catch up with friends back home, eat, do a bit of homework, and read.

This Thursday I had the first meeting with my group for our Hong Kong Popular Culture presentations. Our topic is postmodernism. Yuck. That kind of thing has never interested me, whether it be in art, culture, or something else. Anyway, the three other girls in my group are local Cantonese girls. They are all third year Cultural Studies students. Since Lingnan is only a three year university, they are in their last year here. I discovered while we were talking about our project that I had very different ideas about what a presentation should be like. The approach they wanted to take was one that my professors at Washington College would've considered more appropriate for a high school presentation. I decided that rather than argue for my approach, I would go with theirs because I am not sure about the expectations here. Because I am the only English speaker in our group (and in our entire tutorial), I got stuck with doing the theory part. Everyone who knows me will understand that this is not something I will enjoy doing because, in general, I dislike theory. That is why philosophy was not a good field for me to pursue. Oh well, I hope our presentation goes well and the girls in my group seem nice enough.

This evening I spent a good amount of time budgeting and looking at my past spending while I've been here (yes, I am that dorky. I spend my Friday evenings planning my budget. Oh man...). I also happened to see lot of photos on Facebook from other peoples' study abroad experiences (whether they are high school classmates, college peers, or other students at Lingnan). They have been so many places while studying abroad and I can't help but wonder how they get all that money! I worked two jobs this summer to save up money and I managed to splurge on a wonderful weekend trip to Japan. But if I had gone to Japan for any longer... I would be broke right now. Plus I had also considered going to Thailand and Korea. There is no way that is feasible unless I want to come back with absolutely no money. I am comfortable now, I've had lots of fun in Hong Kong and haven't been a complete hermit, and I will have money left in my account that will let me do fun things of winter break until I restart my jobs back at school. Do they get all the money from their parents? Probably. I would feel so guilty asking my parents for that much money. They are already paying for my college tuition (and my sister's too since she just started college this year) and they paid for my plane ticket. Plus my mom and grandmother spent a lot of money to come over here and visit me (an amazzzziinngg opportunity and I am so glad they came). BLAH! Money is such a stressful and worrisome thing and I know I have just begun the journey of budgeting and worrying.

Today was a rainy day. I was going to go to Hong Kong Park today and take some photographs. But when I woke up and it was raining cats and dogs outside my window, I opted to have a lazy day. I stayed in my pjs all day, read an entire book, chatted with Megan who just got back from Kyoto, and had bean burritos for dinner. A pretty awesome and relaxing day if I may say so. Tomorrow will be much busier and I will update again to let you know what I did!

There are many days when I feel like I am the black cat.