Shirley Sun

A tiny thing in a day can really brings about a happy mood. I was waiting for the lights to turn green the other day. A lady next to me suddenly asked, "Are you going to cross this road?" I replied, "Yes." "Can I hold your arms?" She continued. I looked at her and just realized that she could not see things. "Sure." I helped her to cross the street with some little conversation. I told her that it is a very nice day although it is a little chilly in the shades. I did feel very satisfied afterwards, but also wondered whether she should find someone everytime she wants to cross the road...

More than a months have passed and I fall behind a little bit with my course work. During one lecture, an exchange student sat in the front row and I saw him take out all the printed-out lecture notes and the reading materials with a lot of sentence being highlighted and commented. That truly shamed me, because I am also supposed to study hard, instead of being immersed in the total slack learning environment.

I am not sure whether it is the melody of the piano lingering in the dining hall that makes the whole a little bit sentimental...well, not really...

Today's my last time to do the compulsory self-help. (We must do 9-hour compulsory work in the garden, kitchen, otherwise we should pay 0.) I've been worked in the kitchen on the past two Mondays. I still clearly remember my feeling on the first day. The lady in charge is a little but grumpy, and very picky about our work. I guess everyone got pissed off. We should set the table for 300 people in half an hours, including knife, fork, spoons, bread, fruit bowls, water, glasses, napkins, butter...and all the cutteries and dishes should be exactly aligned with a certain distance from the table edge. The lady checked things carefully and we've got to redo the work if we don't live up to the standards. The nightmare continues...we have to serve soup, main courses and desert to four tables under our charge and clean everything on the table afterwards. Of course, the table must be wiped and every dish and glass have to be washed and put back. Now I can understand the feeling of overseas students doing part-time job in restaurants for their tuition fees. Things are actually getting better. All the staff in the kitchen are so nice. "Hey, girl, I like your smile. Give me a smile otherwise I won't give you the food. A lot of people just look shit when they do the self-help..." Although the work is really gross and tiresome, we do it in a very happy and responsible way. We start to be proud of ourselves when we see the whole dining hall to be clean again. There's a guy from Malaysia who seems to have a rich father, and he did his first shift of self-help today. Obviously, he hates doing all the wash-up. A young kid like him still don't know how hard the life is and probably he won't even have the chance to find out later on. I told him my true feelings, but that actaully doesn't help much.

Lygon St. is a famous Italian street here. We go there almost every week to have wonderful icecream. Today, we went past a restaurent and the waiter (a white guy, should be Australian) tried to get us into it and eat. He pretended to fancy our orange juice and I joked with him for a while when he asked where we are from. I asked him to guess. "Hmm...must be KL, Singapore...China?" I was always shaking my head. Some of us said that we are from Korea and the guy spoke one Korean and a whole bunch of fluent Chinese. (That surprised me!) "Sorry, we're not from China, so that I don't understand what you just said now. We're from Japan." Then, that guy started to speak a whole lot of Japanese...oh my goodness! We escpaed before trying more languages with him.

Yesterday it was Chinese National Night in International House. It is the tradition for IH to have cultural night each semester featuring a certain country. Cuba and Greek were the lastest two and this time it happens to be China and of course, all of us Chinese are very happy about it.

The food is kind of strange, but it is Chinese. We've got steamed bread and Toufu as entree, and the main course is eggplant with port, chicken and vegetables (with Chinese sausage and mushrooms). This reminds me of the formal lunch with the head of Foreign Affairs Office on Friday. The food is great, and that was in University House, which is the university restaurants for professors and guests all over the world. That lunch was held in a room decorated with many great paintings with a long dinning table. That was also the first time that I know where the most important guest should sit on the western banquet table. The entree was shrimp and the main course is beef. Desert was icecream with strawberries and other fruits, and then coffee. They tried to make each course very Chinese, but failed. I love it anyway. Okay, back to the Chinese National Night. I am surprised to see that people actually know a lot about Chinese history (Confusius, Emperor, Chairman Mao etc.) and even put it on stage. There were also Australia people singing songs of Tao Che, which is truly awesome. Chinese people are really everywhere. Nowadays, Australians start to realize that they actually belongs to the Asia Pacific instead of being closer to Europe, so people start to learn Asian languages, esp. Chinese. I was just arguing with a Chinese boy who came to Australia when he was four years old about whether Chinese people are smart and whether they are always the top students in top universities. His mother has done some research with very interesting conclusions and data.

I've been to several Information Sessions for recruitment here (UBS, Goldman Sachs JBWere, Deutsche Bank etc.) in order to explore the features of the job market here. What I've found out that people don't work too hard and they put a very clear border for work and entertainment. I do appreciate that kind of way of life, although it is a little slack, however, the society itself doesn't really require the people to think about complicated situations and compete with each other fiercely for a decent job. The information sessions are all in the same module. Each company gives out a show bag including some pretty decent stuff as gift as well as the information about recruitment. The presentation will be done by staff of each recruiting department and in the end there is refreshment (wine, soft drinks and very nice cakes and cookies). There's actually no much difference in the way of recruiting.

A friend of mine just reminded me that blog is a good way to disclose information instead of writing emails to friends. Although I don't prefer the not-too-personal way, but that is still very convenient.

-My pictures are online. (Not all of them, but I choose some good ones) You can find the link under "My Pictures" which leads you to http://community.webshots.com/user/sunjun_shirley

-Add me in the online networking platform "Tianji" and you'll probably many common or new friends in our networks. http://www.tianji.com/inviteCheckFrom.php?FromInvite=inviter&LinkUserID=37504&UserCheckCode=6d8ca8b20b0c97 I don't bother to send out the invitation then.

-If you want to hear my voice and talk with me for free online, use Skype. http://www.skype.com and my Skype ID is shirley.sunjun. Add me in when you finish installing it.

A lot of people have been asking about my life in Melbourne: Lectures, tutorials, parties and travel have kept me really busy and I haven't updated my blog for long.

We wanted to go to Sydney and we just went there. It was a sudden decision by Laura (a friend from PKU) and me and Kevin also came along. Without much prepraration in advance, plus the fact that we don't trust travel agencies, the trip is quite adventurous. We took the train by "Countrylink" to save money. The 10 hour is a long time. Since the economy tickets were sold out, we had to take the first class ones with discounts. The seat is bigger and there are not two many people in the first class, I could lay on two seats. It is very cold during the evening and the people walking by can easily wake you up. Luckily, I am the kind of person who can sleep well in whatever condition.

Our first stop is the Darling Harbour, because it is walkable from the Sydney Central Train Station. We got excited about the city very soon, for it is really like Shanghai. The maritime museum, the light house are interesting places, but nothing special. We took the ferry to Circular Quay, which is close to Opera House. The famous Opera House is not as beautiful as I thought. It looks a little dirty outside, but the architecture is awesome. Taronga Zoo was highly recommended by friends. We took the ferries. (Yes, we do love the cruise on the river.) Koalas, Kangeroos, Champanzee, Wallabies...nothing special, but the animals are cute because they are always lazy in the sun. The champanzees are really HUGE, which is a little scary as well. A friend in Mck happened to have training in Sydney and I tried to meet him in his hotel, but failed. I didn't go to the Aquarium with the other two, because I've seen similar aquarium in Melbourne already. With a map in hand, I walked through the big and small street through Sydney center, which gives the exact feeling of a backpacker. More importantly, I got a International Student card which can give me more than 50% off for the training ticket as well as 20% in Hungry Jack's. No one ever believes that I can get the card in several hours and in a strage city, but I did it with much proud.

The China Town in Sydney covers a large area. They've got night market and most of the food are open by people from Guang Zhou or Hong Kong. We had a little talk with an American guy from CA who lived in Sydney and asked the way to China Town. Playing cards is the past-time on the train back.

One day trip in Sydney is kind of short, but also enough.

"Winnie the Pooh: Grand Adventure to find Christopher Robin" was on TV yesterday. Oh...I truly miss my Winne at home. It is just too big for me to bring it here. I only have a little "piglet" toy. The Orientation Week in International House ended with the Toga Party last night. To give it a complete ending, I dressed up and danced for a while. All the seniors have come back, but most of them are younger than me, which reminds me of the words said by an American exchange student here. "You little kids don't know anything...I am older than you, ALL of you." Yeah..we're somehow a little old for the o-week stuff, but we do have a lot of fun.

I forgot to write about the adventure on the tram the other night. We just jumped on without buying the tickets, with the notion that we're lucky enough not to be caught by the ticket inspector. However, several people with policeman clothes got on. The girl sat next to me said to me, "Do you have a ticket?" "No. You?" "Nope." "What shall we do?" "I don't know..." Dead silience in the compartment and people start to buy tickets. We were all nervous, but just sat there to observe the situation. Finally, they took a man off the tram and we started to make sure that they are actually not ticket inspectors. The tram ticket did cost much,however, I'd love to buy one, but the group of people that I went with didn't do it...Quite an experience!

Today is a frustrating day. Before I move on to talk about classroom experience, please allow me to complain about the enrolment system here. I intended to take a Computer Science class about Software Engineering. When I went to talk to the course advisor, he didn't allow me to, because I only have taken five computer science subjects in my home institution and suggested me to take a lower level class, which is the last thing on earth I would like to do. CS is very strict here and as I've been told, it is unique. The Faculty of Engineering administers student with a lot of paper work involved. Everytime I want to change my course, I cannot do it online, but to fill in a form, hand in, see the course advisor from the relevant department to get the written approval. How they can manage thousands of students like this. On the other side, they do provide very good (1 on 1) service to us and be esp. responsible for exchange students.

There is not much difference in the classroom, but I do find a lot of Asian (esp. Chinese) students in the classes offered by EE here. The lecturer has an MBA and works for Melbourne Royal Woman Hospital. He is good at talking off the track. It's nice that this course doesn't use any book. (Books here are dear! An engineering text book can cost up to 0.) I also went the French class and it was fully packed. The female lecturers were very active. I was told that I've got to take at least two engineering courses, but it is nailed down in the end. I am still deciding which course to take in other faculty. All the optical stuff here are offered as a postgraduate course, which I am not allowed to take. I'll do the walk-in anyways. The laid-back life here is killing me. Even if the semester has started, the students seem to be lazy. Perhaps it is because of the nice summer. There are people sleeping on the lawn or just relax outside the bench of the classroom. To be adapted to this life style, I borrowed another DVD from the library to kill the time this evening.

"You really look like a friend of mine back home." said a girl from Japan.
"You know, you really look like one of my friends." said another girl from Malaysia.
It seems that I look like a lot of people, too bad.

We went to the zoo last night, because there was a jazz concert there, and so-called "Zoo Twilight". However, it is very boring, because all the animals are sleeping and we could not see anything in the dark. We did see koala bear, lion, giraffe and some strange birds. Anyway, it is just not bad to hang out with friends, talk and laugh.

I finally worked out my complicated schedule yesterday evening, but I am afraid that I'll change that for many times again. It takes time...I am excited to attend the classes, although engineering courses are not easy at all.

The returning students are back in the International House and they are surprised to see so many freshers. A lot people can play the piano very well here (envious) and I hope to find a proper person to teach me.

I went to the Career & Employment center yesterday and again, their services and resources surprise me. A guy walked in and said, "I want to find a job in consulting, is there anyone here that can help me?" After 5 minutes, he was speaking to a advisor. There are a great deal of free booklets, magazines, DVDs to fetch there. You can either search for the information online there or watch some DVDs made my companies there. The job hunting here is just about to commence. I've got much information and I'll be curious about how I can get something out of this.

Today is a lazy day. I can finally stay in my room, do some reading and watch some movie. Of course, I need to prepare for my classes.

I had a lazy day yesterday, slept a lot in order to "recharge". The academic semester is going to start next week. I really look forward to that, but the complicated schedule and class venue is driving me crazy. Anyway, I will sort it out in the end.

I watched TV for a while last night. There are some American Series that were great. "Law and Order" and "Medical Investigation". The TV commercials are actually also very interesting and attractive.

I finally went to the library on campus in which you can borrow DVDs, magazines and fictions. I see a lot of big sign "PLEASE DO NOT STUDY!" there. They do have a huge DVD collection, however, most of them are checked out.

I can hear Chinese almost everywhere on campus...weird feeling.

It was the Festival of Lantern yesterday. We did have a tiny little party to celebrate it and all of us call our parents.

One guy told me a few days ago that he has got some problem with his room telephone. It rings once, stops and then rings again several minutes later. I didn't put in mind until my phone showed the same syptom this morning and I was still in bed. Huh? What's wrong? With the a little sense of being an engineer, I don't believe two phones could have had the same problem and there must be some trick behind it. I dialed 567 and found an unlistened voice message. Aha! I got it. It is a little stupid, because most of the phones uses an LED to indicate the existence of new voice message; However, it works here that it just keeps beeping to catch your attention. Quite interesting...

A 4th year student studying Physics told a joke on the breakfast table, but no one understood it...I quite look forward to the new experience today.

The resources here are awesome. Besides the high-quality services I enjoyed in the past, now I start to appreciate the automation.

I did the laundry today. The washing machine and dryer here accepts coins. As a matter of fact, everything here needs coin to activiate. The machine for tram tickets, the printers and photocoping machines etc. All you need to have is card or coins to use the facilities.

There are music rooms in the International House with four YAMAHA pianos. That's fantastic! I just went to the Music Library and came back with a lot of piano music scores for practice. Yeah...the library...later on I studied for a while in the Engineering Library. (Here, every faculty might have a single library. There are about ten libraries on campus and all the them are wireless covered.) The self-checkout machine by 3M caught my eye. Although I can use the human service at the loan desk, I love the idea of self-help. You just need to put your student card, your name will be displayed on the screen along with the instructions for checking out the books. You wipe your books along the tray, remove your student card, get the print-out receipts with due dates and you are done. It's fast and easy.

My father starts to question me about my personal plan and goal in Melbourne...I'm working on it. However, I don't have a systematic solution yet.