I must say: Home is still the best and there is no place like home.Being away from home for almost a year and now that I'm actually back home for my Summer Vacation, I have to admit that I'm feeling very reluctant to leave again.
I know I'm being contradicting. I wanted freedom, I wanted to be independent, I wanted to gain experience, I wanted to know about myself and to search for who I really am. And so, I got what I wanted, scholarship for my BA Degree in Wuhan.
For my whole 21 years on Earth, I've never been so independent before. Applied for Overseas University despite Mom's initial disapproval. Bumping around like a headless bee just to get all those paper works done before I leave the country. It was really tiring and hard for me to work and at the same time, having to travel the whole of Singapore to get all the document done. But I always knew that no matter how hard my day was and despite all the difficulties I faced during the day, at least at the end of the day, I would be able to be in my humble crib enjoying the love and care showered by my family and friends.
Things could get really tough in Wuhan. Afterall, I'm all alone, I don't even have a Countrymate with me to see me through everything. Life over there wasn't as enjoyable as what I've been through with my fellow Wuhanners back in 2008. Instead, I had to put up with the school's fucked-up system. They gave me the wrong course, they didn't provide me with accomodation, they charged me for every tiny damage at a high price and I had no one to stand up for me.
I did meet some really nice people there. They really helped me alot by being there for me to whine about how tough it is to survive in that shithole. Perhaps I was the only one among them without any Countrymate, or maybe because being breed in Singapore and I did not believe in violence could resolve anything, all my friends there took great care of me like their own sister.
Living in the International Students Dormitory also means that I had to immerse into all the different cultures, which I did. Most of us did. And of course, there would be some jackasses, A*r*c*ns especially, who would come banging on girls doors whenever they are drunk. Some son of a bitch could even ask the guard to open up a girl's room for them, claiming that it was their own room. It was really hard and frightening to live in such a place like this, alone. It was not like things in 2008, when I could just wake Xiaowei up when I'm having insomnia, there's no other safest place other than Lynnette's and HongYee's to crash in whenever I'm drunk, and needless to say, there's no Huiting the mighty class rep for me to inquire everything about school that I wasn't clear about.
There's nothing much for us to do for entertainment other than casual drinking and weekends clubbing. Needless to say, I only drink with people whom I really put my trust on, and would only hit the club when there's guys whom I know I can trust. It's sad, but I have to say that that's the only way for me to get rid of the feeling of homesick and loneliness. That is the most effective way to have the companion of everybody without having to tell them that: hey, I'm a faggot, I'm a chicken. I get all homesick and depressed whenever I'm alone.
School wise, it's kind of annoying. Because they assume too much. They assumed that I can't understand Chinese because Singapore's official language is English. The dorms manager made me pay for a piece of 1m x 1m glass at freaking 800rmb and my classmate always remind me to go for my Chinese Calligraphy class so that she could use my paintbrush and papers in class, they did all these because they assumed that it's alright to let me pay because a Singaporean can't be too poor.
The teachers there can't even decide on whether to give us an essay to write or to give us an examination for our End of Year grades. They gave us last minute decision at the most one week in advanced. Some teachers are better, first class of the semester, they would tell us: hey, we don't have to sit for any exams, just write me an essay of 3000 words about blahblahblah. Having been through the CHS days, I know how sucky it was to slog for essays 3 days prior the deadline. I went to the school library to do research and started working on the essays, I put my heart and soul in it, and when the End of Year come, the teacher told us: I've decided not to let you guys write an essay because I'm lazy to mark. Let's have exam instead. And so, all the effort I've put in for the essays went down into the drain.
And the thing that got me fucking pissed off was, when one of the teachers say my essay, she went: Zhang Liwen, did you really write the whole essay by yourself?
I tried all sorts of way to feel better. I laughed it off, I broke down, I slept it off, I drank it off. But things just kept repeating and they really suck at handling International Students.
Nevertheless, all those greetings from sunny Singapore helped alot. Each time I received a Skype call from Mom, I could only speak to her for 5minutes and pretended to be busy and hung up. Because everytime I hear her voice and see her face through the webcam made me miss home so much. All the letters and greeting cards that were sent to me meant so much too, I don't know how you guys managed to find out and remember my address, but I really appreciate it so much that sometimes I actually slept with the letters and cards. And the frequent long distance phone calls from Minnie Onni and Doraemon Onni helped me to pull it through too, I'm so glad that they never forget about me and would call and check on me to ensure that I'm doing fine. The ZOO people, girlfriends whom I've known for the longest time, although I received no phone calls, no emails, no letters from you all, I think you girls were the ones who made me look forward to coming home even more.
Starting this September, it will be my last year in Wuhan HuaShi, and I'll be graduating in June 2011. I just want time to pass faster and let me graduate smoothly so that I can come back and earn big bucks!
Ok, this is a long post I know. I just want to grumble can or not.
