swamped again

I haven’t been blogging lately but that doesn’t mean my life became uneventful. On the contrary, I think it goes to show a little bit about how busy I am with non-internet stuff that I can’t find a few minutes to update my blogs. All my other sites, the sites I usually read, and this site have been unvisited by me since I started my German course at the university.

I’ve completed the intensive course I did last September but I enrolled to a new one which is supposed to deepen my knowledge of the German grammar. The course is only two hours per week but the amount of homework I get from it is just incredible. I have the feeling that we, the students, are expected to work on our own.

There’s also my job which is still taking so much of my time. I gave up some of my classes but I think I could still give up a couple of them.

Social life is also growing. I still have my own ladies group consisting of some of my pupil’s parents. I meet up with them almost every after lesson for a cup of coffee. We also often go out for dinners with my husband’s colleagues. And then, there are my fellow students at the university who I often meet for lunch.

I make it a point to visit my FB account every day though. It’s the only site where I can get some quick news about my family and friends who are living on the other side of the world.

the way we are with food

My husband and I love seeing new places, meeting new faces, and trying out different things. When I say “different things” that means food is include. Ok, maybe I am more open to unknown dishes compared to my husband because there are just some foods he can’t even imagine eating. Some special Asian foods he doesn’t even like to talk about like “Balut” (boiled egg with the baby chick still inside it) are eatable for me. I have no problem whatsoever to eat it.

But compared to other westerners, I think my husband is pretty game when it comes to eating foreign dishes. I can say that because when we were living in China, we tried a lot of restaurants there—old, new, big, small, expensive, cheap—anywhere where we can try out new dishes. And when we do find a restaurant which serve good food, we always ask for some restaurant business cards so we can keep one and give some to our friends to whom we can recommend the restaurant to. Most of the restaurants in China have names in Chinese and since we cannot read Chinese characters, we always have the business cards with us so when we like to go somewhere; we just show the business card of that place to the taxi driver so that he knows where we want to go. It must easier that way because we cannot speak Chinese and most of the Chinese taxi drivers cannot speak English.

how’s my driving?

I’ve been driving for eight months now and although I am getting better with driving, I still can’t help myself feeling nervous when I’m behind the steering wheel. Normally most people are irked by heavy traffic but for me that means a slow but safe way to get to my destination.

I hate driving fast and I specially hate it when there’s a car behind me because that means, I must drive to the prescribe speed. This is the very reason why I avoid country roads and express ways. 50km/hr and 30km/hr zones are my best friends but ever since we moved to the suburbs, I have to drive on a stretch of a busy country road to get to my workplace in the city. Every day, before I start my car’s engine, I have to utter a small prayer that goes like…God, please guide me with my driving and please protect other drivers and pedestrians from me.

It would annoy me if I damage my car and I would be sorry if I hurt myself but it would be a terrible terrible feeling if I hurt another person because of my driving. I am not a pessimist and I really do hope that I will never encounter an accident but IF I would get into an accident, I would like that I or the people all around me know who to call and what number to call. I have memorized the police, fire station, and the emergency hotline. Then I also have some of my IDs and also some of my husband’s business cards both in my car and in my wallet.

Driving sucks big time!

I got my last driving lesson today and my instructor said I will definitely need more. Urg!

This is the driving lesson set (6 hours driving) I paid extra right after I failed my first practical exam. I had like 25 hours driving before that… so all in all, I have like 31 hours. To cheer me up a little bit the instructor told me that not a lot of people make it right after the minimum hours (13 hours). But I did 31 hours already! And how many lessons did I pay extra? 3 sets (18 hours extra) and that cost me 756Euro plus the basic course price 968 (13hours driving lessons + theory lessons + exam fee + entrance fee) and yet another plus 205 for doctor’s fee (eye and general doctor) and the book. And because I failed the first practical exam, I have to pay yet another 139 for it (second exam sometime next week).

If my computation is right, I’ve spent exactly 2,067 Euro for this. Hey, that’s about the price of a secondhand Ford KA already (not my dream car but ok). I could have my car for that money!

Driving sucks! And it is sucking me off my money!

It doesn’t help that I got 100% in my theory exam. I still don’t get a license!

I can drive. I know I can drive but the city traffic here in Graz is just too complicated for me. There’s just so many one-way-streets, tramways, bicycle lanes, and pedestrian crossings, etc, etc… sigh*

Maybe I should just accept the fact that when it comes to driving… I am a total moron.

It sucks!

And to cheer myself up, I just think about Einstein and how was also NOT able to drive a car PROPERLY even if he was a genius.

Got Enough Holidays

I am back and I have lots to tell.

For now, I can only give you the summary of what I’ve been up to the last couple of months because I don’t want to write a novel (hehe).

And so…I think I have mentioned that on the second week of December, I had my exam and I passed it. After that I took a break (from stress). I celebrated my 27th birthday then prepared for our Christmas Holiday in Austria. The holiday in Austria was great and that deserve a separate entry so I won’t elaborate now.

We flew back to Shanghai on the second week of January and stayed here a few days before we went for another holiday in the Philippines.

After two sweet weeks of tropical sunshine, we are again back in Shanghai and that means I should get back to work.

So here I am…blogging.

Sleeping in the Subway

sleeping-in-the-subwayFor Westerners like my husband, it always amazes them to see people dozing off in the most uncomfortable and noisiest places.

This is not a big surprise for me because in my country, most people also have no trouble sleeping… anywhere. In PUJs, bus terminals, airports, waiting sheds, etc. You name it. Although this might come off as very unbecoming to some, for me it’s just to show that the person (sleeping) is comfortable with his surroundings (other than he is just plain drunk) and I honestly don’t have a problem with that just as long as the person (sleeping) is not leaning on me.

Growing Friendship

viennas-friends.JPGIn four week’s time, my German lesson will be over and there will be a long break before the next course will start. I am please that not only my German is improving; my social life seems to be getting better as well. Earlier in my study of German, I was somewhat distant to my classmates because they are all Chinese and they just speak in Chinese so I always sort of felt left-out. Now, it looks like everybody is so eager to use what they’ve learned in the course so the conversations are mostly in German. I can now join the conversation and this paved the way for them to know me better—which is cool because some of them find me interesting.

I am glad that I am going out more often now and that I am developing friendship with people other than the colleagues and friends of my husband. In short, I now have my own circle. I don’t have anything against the colleagues and friends of my husband because most of them are really nice persons too and I am glad that we could spend time with them sometimes but having my own circle of girlfriends with pretty much the same interest as mine is different. I really miss my girlfriends back in Changchun and in the Philippines but I am glad that after 5 months of staying in Shanghai, I am starting to really feel at home here.

Evening Sight-Seeing

The Shanghai Financial Trade Center, world’s current second tallest building, officially opened its doors to the public sometime in August. This building is next to Jin Mao Tower, another skyscraper. According to rumors, the opening on top of the Shanghai Financial Trade Center building was originally planned to be a circle but because it would then resembles the rising sun on the Japanese flag, they changed it to a trapezoid shape.

swfc-2.jpgswfc-3.jpgswfc-1.jpg

So anyway, after having a dinner at the nearby Jin Mao Tower last Monday evening, we impulsively decided to go and see the new skyscraper. It’s just too bad that none of us brought a camera. I suggested that we do it on another time but Marcus and two of his colleagues insisted to see it because the weather was clear and there was no queue anymore (at 9:00pm). The view from the building’s view decks is really spectacular. If you look up at the SFTC building and the nearby Jin Mao Tower  from the street, they look like they have the same height but when you’re on top, you’ll see that there is a huge difference between the two buildings’ heights. It’s really too bad that we didn’t have real cameras so I didn’t have a choice but to use my phone’s not so good camera.