Monday-Orientation Day!

We had this orientation today. It was the first time that I got to see all of the exchange students in one place. THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE! Its unreal. People from all over the world. Every continent (minus Antarctica). It was fantastic. I didn't realize that it was such a large program.

Overall, the orientation was very long but one interesting fact. The University showed us a profile of the Undergrad students and told us that 30% of the UG students don't own their own desk. I don't know why this seems so surprising, because having been to India and seen a little bit of student and family culture there, I should have realized that it would be like that.

They also showed us this video about the MTR and how awesome it is because it has its own song.. Some of you, who may have been to HK recently may appreciate this a little more but its pretty funny..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stcomlsP8C0

We got our schedules for our classes and it looks like I am going to need to adjust it a bunch but hopefully it will work out. I am trying not to get too stressed or worried about getting the right classes and making sure that I graduate on time. We'll see. It should all work out.

After orientation, I went to finish all of the errands that got left until today like getting my HKUST student ID card and then paying for my housing and stuff like that. My room is pretty nice. I have an entry door into a common area..and then there are four doors. Going clockwise from the door goes the shower, my room, my suitemates' room and then the toilet. And when you entire my room we have a sink, two mirrors (one over the sink and one full length next to the sink). Two wardrobe type things, two beds (which have REALLY hard mattresses) and two desks. For a small room like this, I have A LOT of storage space. Maybe I wouldn't feel like that if I had all of my stuff though. Who knows.

Anyway, I went to dinner with Carmen (University of New South Wales, Australia), Sumana (Northeastern, Boston), Lillian (OSU student!!!), Ray (Penn, Philly) , Chris (Full time HKUST), and two exhangers that I met in the common room, Ben and Vinny (both from Minnesota). We had a pretty good time comparing our taste in movies and we found that some of the "classics" that people in the US love like Pirates of the Caribbean and Oceans 11 were not liked by Chris and Carmen. There were a bunch of other movies like that but I can't remember off the top of my head. Pretty interesting.

Chris told us, at dinner, that it is possible to rent out a boat of some sort for a day and go out on the water. I think it would be absolutely amazing to see HKUST or the city from the water. AMAZING

If there is a question you want specifically answered you should let me know! Comment or something! About anything... Different words that Aussies say that are different from the US or.. fun things to do around HK (not that I am an expert just yet...)?

Anyway, tomorrow is the first day of classes so I think I am going to get going. Hope everyone is doing well.

Miss you!