More about halls

Since many of you who got accepted already are wondering which hall to choose, and I remember last year for myself it was kind of confusing since there are 7 halls and mostly everyone I talked to then just applied to hall 7 so I did that as well.(and got rejected) Some of you are coming to see the halls so I think it's going to be fine for you in choosing, but for those who can't come, I hope this helps....


Since when it comes to hall, there are some criteria that you would choose them by. I can name of three criteria that can come into question for sure: Location, Cleanliness, Activities involved.

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Location, Location, Location...

<Click to enlarge, due to this photo being old, hall 6 and hall 7 are absent>

When it comes to location, Hall 1 triumphs all, since it's closest to the Academic Building. What does that mean? It usually means 10-minute-walk to class instead of 20 especially if you live in hall 3 or hall 4. Ranging from Closest to furthest halls it would be :


Hall 1 > Hall 5 > Hall 2 > Hall 6 > Hall 7 > Hall 3 & Hall 4


If 10 minute more sleep time for you isn't that big of a deal, then it should be fine. Since the other halls also have other locational advantage as well. For example, Hall 7 has the nicest view by far and you can look down to see the swimming pool and decide on the spot whether to go swimming or not. Hall 4 is closest to the tennis court if you feel like spontaneously going out to hit the court some time. Under hall 6, there is a up-till-late canteen for midnight sandwiches and congee, recommended during exam period.


Cleanliness

Hall 7 front view and a sample room of hall 7 and 6

Hall 3 and a sample room (Also similar to hall 1-4)

When it comes to cleanliness, Hall 6 and Hall 7 are better than all other halls due to the fact that they are new. Bathrooms in hall 1-6 are completely shared among your floor members while bathrooms in hall 7 are separate. There is one bathroom for every two rooms which means you will share it with 3 other people or 1 other person if you're in a single room. Hall 6's bathrooms, although shared, are relatively cleaner than the other halls that have shared bathrooms as well. The halls here are built according to numbers so hall 1 and 2 are the oldest so that affects its cleanliness as well. But all the halls have maids that clean the bathrooms for you, so it's usually cleaner in the day after 11AM or so.
so in term of cleanliness:


Hall 7 (depending on your roommates and neighbors) > Hall 6 > Hall 5 > Hall 1 & 2 > Hall 3 > Hall 4


If this turns out different than your experience, there's not much I can do about it.




Activities Involved


There are student societies in hall 1-5 so there are more activities in this hall. These are LOUD activities and all held in native language, Cantonese. If you are not a Cantonese speaker, most of the time, you won't have any clue of what is going on. Local people are of course nice people, but their cultures are different and not understanding their language can be quite troublesome. The good thing about this however is that none of these activities are mandatory, so you can easily avoid it. Some halls like hall 4 and hall 3 are infamous of their loudness though (especially hall 4)


Hall 6 and 7 also have some activities involved which are called Living Learning Communities (mainly hall 7), the activities here are all in English (with the exception of Rise & Shine) and most of them are mandatory otherwise you might get kicked out and sent to a different hall after one semester. Visit the LLC website for more details : http://llc.ust.hk/
In hall 6, only some floors have these LLC so many of the floors have almost no activities involved. Ranking from Quietness of each hall:

Hall 6 > Hall 7 > Hall 5 > Hall 1 & 2 > Hall 3 > Hall 4


For those who don't think, loudness and quietness should matter in picking a hall...you probably have never woken up in the middle of the night from the sound of Mah Jong tiles cracking in the room next door :P But I do think that if you want to see more of Hong Kong, don't just stay in your room and try to join the madness they call university-life here. Especially in hall 3 since I'm a current resident and the people are really really nice to me.


Tips for all halls:

• For all the halls, you are in charge of the cleanliness of your own room so as long as you take good care of your room, everything else won't be too much of a trouble.
• For when you get here, your room will be empty so you will need bed-sheet, pillow, blanket. Your international mentors will most likely take you out to buy these things, but in case you want to bring them from home instead here are some infos you might want to know. The bed-sheet for the beds here are 36"x75"x10", I got it at a grocery store here for 109HKD along with a pillow case. A sleeping pillow is cheapest 60HKD, I got mine for 100HKD and I think some expensive ones are up to 300HKD
• Hall 1 only has double rooms, Hall 2-4 have both double rooms and triple rooms(two bunk beds). From what I gather, hall 3 triple rooms are the most spacious. Hall 5 has the smallest rooms since some rooms used to be a single room but got a bunk-bed installed making it a double room. Hall 6 are also double and triple and Hall 7 rooms are double and single rooms. It's quite rare to get a single room so get used to living with a roommate. If you have a local roommate, get ready to experience some culture shock first-handedly :P but you're likely to get the room to yourself on the weekends. International and Mainland roommates...they're always there with you. ALWAYS there.
• Each hall official informations are here: 

1. UG Hall 1: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG1/ug1.html
2. UG Hall 2: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG2/ug2.html
3. UG Hall 3: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG3/ug3.html
4. UG Hall 4: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG4/ug4.html
5. UG Hall 5: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/PGII/pg2.html
6. UG Hall 6: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG6/ug6.html
7. UG Hall 7: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG7/ug7.html

• On each floor in every hall, there will be a common room which also have televisions, refrigerators and microwave ovens. Some even have a hotplate for you to do some light cooking but no more than that is allowed. You need to know that FOOD DO GET STOLEN, no matter where you are so be careful when you keep your food in the fridge.
• In hall 1-5, you will be given two keys, one for the door and another one for your drawer. Hall 6 and 7 have keycards instead, which makes it even easier to lock yourself outside.  If you lock yourself  outside your room, you will need to pay 10 HKD to the front office so they'll open your room for you. If you lose the keys, then it will be 80HKD for EACH key. For keycards, I'm not sure myself.

Fuck you too Planet Earth :)

<This is a continuation from one of the previous blogs, "What have you learned?">
I'm not bitter...not the slightest bit, ok that was a lie. I'm a tiny bit bitter, but hey I'm not perfect.

Isn't it funny when the longer you get to know a friend, the more impolite you become to that person? I remember checking back on Facebook in a group of International students coming to study at HKUST. I read some of the stuff we wrote to each other back then and what I found funniest was the stuff I said...WE WERE SO NICE!!!! to a point that when we look at it now, it's kinda....ok not kinda, more like SUPER LAME.

Right now I greet some of my friends with words that don't even make sense in any normal language and they would straight forward say, "Fuck you fatty," right back to my face. Has we all worsen as nice and warm-hearted human beings? or is it just natural to be more of our true selves among each other now? Of course I am not going to say that is true or false for everybody because I know that it is not the case for everyone to be mean in order to be nice among your friends, but for me, I know that it is.

This year, I have learned a lot and it is not even midyear yet. I was the down in the dump. I found anger and sadness that came along with the certainty of death Me, anger and sadness? That's new...but then I was angry for someone else without even knowing. The worst thing of all...I had no idea how to deal with it and I took it off on the worst possible choice.

There is this girl....which weirdly is how most of my stories start...who probably thinks I hate her, but all I want to say to her right now if she ever asked is that, "How can I hate you when I don't even know you?" She's a nice girl and all too...but kind of a bitch and probably just the thing I needed then.

I was on top of the world. I learned a little bit more about romance and I now know less and less about the opposite sex. A girl broke my heart and another picked up the pieces, but probably going to be stomping all over it again soon sadly, but I don't mind too much since she will be smiling while doing it. And the things I would do to see that smile are just...disturbing.

Oh I have issues yes!!! No doubt about that and it will take ages before I even start to have a chance to be normal. But Who wants to be normal when you can be me :) A friend made me smile today and I am very thankful for that even though all he was trying to do was rather be sarcastic about it.

So what have I learned?

• Age does matter. Maybe not to you, but if it matters to him/her then automatically it matters to the both of you. Don't date an older woman unless you know she's ok with it.
• Hong Kong girls...avoid them.
• Make your bed every morning....a wisdom passed down to me from the wise and. A well-made bed equals a good start for an organized day.
• The method to actually not fail in college....GO TO CLASS. No seriously, it's that simple. People have been trying to put that in kids' heads since they were young but it just doesn't stick well but if you at least GO TO CLASS, you won't be wasting your time and though you think you learn nothing, you won't be slacking and it won't affect your other classes.
• Hong Kong girls...seriously avoid them
• Smile to the little things even though the little things might not last. Make memories that will last a life time.
• Respect the women in your life, they will respect you back. For women...sorry, nothing you can do there.

Zeitgeist

"[tsahyt-gahyst]–noun German .

the spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time." 

A random that popped up on my phone today due to the "Word of the day" application. A lonely word at that since there I checked the Thesaurus and found no synonyms nor any antonyms. I can't think of any word that rhyme with this and I haven't seen it used in  a sentence ever. Its meaning is unique and it has a ring to how German it sounds, but to see such a random interesting word being left so alone...is it not weird?

Should we change this word, or erase it from the dictionary since nobody uses it anyways? or maybe we should change it a little bit to fit with the ever fast growing world. We can make it sound cooler and trendy or maybe...just maybe...we can leave it be just as it is because it's just perfectly "Zeitgeisty" the way it is.

I have come across many people, perhaps not as many as people who have lived tens of years longer than I have, but I have come across quite a few people. They all have different personalities, shapes, opinions, perspectives, and other characteristics, but a certain characteristic strike me as odd the most. I have met a kind of person who I would call a 'blank plate' which would change into anything just to fit with anyone surrounding them. It strikes me as strange that a person would go to such length to be accepted without knowing that it appears rather deceptive and hiding. The reason I find it odd and worth talking about is because maybe, I find my own self a little bit like a blank plate as well. A person who tries his/her best to hide  his/her personality away in order to get along with everyone...but I know that I'm no such character because even though I try to get along with everyone, I will not change myself for anyone to like me rather I'll make them smile with all I've gotten and the rest is up for them to decide just like the word 'Zeitgeist' which turns to be a really nice word which I'm liking a lot currently just the way it is.

Though I will grow up, I will still be me.

Experimentation

I have this class...a 1-credit class which I signed up for out of curiosity which I usually don't completely agree with what they're saying, but they do get me thinking a lot.

This class is called Gned151 which is a class about Career building and development, offered by HKUST, a university located in one of the most business-oriented cities in the world. It teaches you how to write a resume, how to ace an interview but most importantly how to keep a job.

One of the thing I remember most from that class is how our teacher likes to describe an interview.

"And an going to an interview is like the dating..." I'm not even gonna go into how she describes it further since if you're reading this, you might have an image already made up for it.


The motto for this story is...I'm never getting a job.

It's not a man-purse. It's a satchel!!!

So...Easter break was not so long ago, (Quite some time actually, I'm just hiding the fact that I haven't blogged for a while) And I sure had a good time.

It was the end of Midterms, at long last if I might add, and a celebration was called for and we celebrated right. If you come to Hong Kong as a university student, you must have heard the name, "Lan Kwai Fong" at time or others or people just call it by its acronym, "LKF." This was a certain district next to MTR Central station of Hong Kong line where all the clubs are and my friends and I decided to go dancing on the night of the beginning of Easter break. And hell was that a good idea. We had fun all night long dancing and just hanging out. The music was way too loud of course but I did not completely hate it that way. I sure had fun seeing my friend, whom I'm not naming here, getting shot down by 5-6 girls and got frustrated all night over it.

They said that alcohol helps you best in times like this and my friends would agree with you on that one though I have yet to find that to be the case since I did not drink a drop on that night or any other night and it did not stop me from having fun one bit. The morning after however, being the sober guy who takes cares of my drunk friends is a bit of work, but I think I have that built-in me anyways.

Over Easter break, my friends and I also decided to take a trip to Macau by taking a ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui directly to it. We all pulled a nighter over there and had fun in different ways and forms but it was a really nice experience for all of us. I find out more about gambling and got smothered by all the smoke in the oh-so-grand-and-luxurious Venetian, but that's just how you learn a lesson I guess. I do hope one of my friend who lost around 2000HKD had learned something too...highly unlikely though :P

It's not a man-purse, it's a satchel!!!

Got sick!!! Still sick when I'm writing this and will still be sick when I wake up. Got the flu somehow and trying my best not to pass it along. Went to visit the University clinic yesterday and got some medicine which seems to be helping so I'm thankful for that.

And it turns out I might be Homeless...but more on that when I'm not too pissed about it.

I would whine and whine more about other philosophical...ish stuff on this blog, but I don't think I'm quite there yet on this...particular...female person...so I'm just not going to talk about her