Ni Keyi Ma

(This account of events will not make you successfully get through an exchange program and it surely won’t help you NOT miss your home when you are abroad. It’s a part of my life and a part of the PERSONAL life of my co-exchange students. I hope wala akong maioopen up na hindi dapat. Debale hindi po ako magaling magsinungaling,puro truths ang mga sumusunod.)

(listening to Vanness Wu while typing^^)

It’s been two years since I had the experience but ugh, maybe that’s how life changing moments are. It stays fresh.

I don’t even know how I became one of the exchange students. I’m not that good (magtanong ka sa mga kaklase ko, takot nga akong mag recite eh). I just remembered sincerely praying to God to kindly give me the complete copy of Inu-yasha and He answered it by bringing me to China. Haha. Ang swerte kong bata.

I and Nikita were supposed to be part of the first batch to fly together with Neri and Carla but we didn’t have our passports yet kaya  huhu. Nikita-bibi knows how terrible my facial expression was. (haha. What do you expect? Umasa eh. Di ba alam naman natin ang sakit na dulot ng umaasa lamang?)

But then, it was still a good change.

It means I will be spending my birthday at home

                + more time with mifamilia

                + more time with friends

                + more time to get ready

                + more time para masilayan si crush & use more the codenames (102,201, 202,302)

`               +Others

                =Booom!

Yeah right, It was maktub.

Second Batch = April Anne Torres Aprecio a.k.a Appy  +Jhariza Monte Contada + Joie Cristine Sahagun Gutierrez  a.k.a Joie + Aurora Marie Garcia Icalabis a.k.a  Auie + Nikita Guzman Lingbawan a.k.a Nikits + Cristine Joy Bornilla Tan a.k.a. CJ

(that’s how long our names are so imagine how hard up our Instructors pronounce it and how much space it takes in the class record. Aysus starring nagan mi ya.)

Btw, Appy asked me while she was applying  how will she know if she does have a chance and I told her: “kung hindi ka nahihirapang makuha mga requirements mo or somewhat binibigay sa ‘yo mga kailangan mo, alam na!”

OK the rest will be more on pics. ^_____^

(February 25, 2011 @ NAIA > Auie, Nikits, CJ, Appy,Joie)

(so what’s the food? Kinda starving because I was excited syempre first time kong lumipad. Isang magandang pagtripan sana eh paulit ulit mag refill nung drinks total pwede naman sabi Kuya Ricky of Esgala Travel & Tours.. :-p )

(new faces. Harue Miyoshi, exchange student from Japan and yeah, that’s me.lol. They have a University bus ready to fetch us so we were the only passengers.)

 GZ and MNL is two hours apart through plane. So near yet so far!

Scenes from our arrival at Guangdong airport (or is it called Baiyun? Sorry I don’t remember the specifics)

Scene 1

Somewhere in the process, Joie got to another lane different from the rest of us. Second time around of special treatment, they like her eh. Lol. The first one was when we were processing our visa. She was the one thoroughly interviewed while the rest of us > no sweat. J

Scene 2

Foreigner 1: (oops. That’s us. Syempre banyaga na kami doon. haha) “ Ano ngay sasabihin natin?”

Foreigners: mag magandang gabi tayo

Foreigner 1 to the teacher: Good evening , Sir!

Teacher: O_O <<< this means hindi po sila nagkaintindihan

Foreigner 1: Good evening, Sir!

Teacher: O_O

Foreigners: J syempre ngitian nalang silang dalawa para parang nag kaintindihan.

(Dorm 17 ang sosy po ng dorm namin. Two in a room and for non-mainland China nagstay dito. Do you see those bulky black garbage bags? Those are our blankets. We deposited 200 yuan to obtain it. Debale,babalik nila. The new guy in the picture is Mr. Xu Fei. He’s kinda our father in China coz he’s responsible for us. He gives our allowance and we can always go to his office and ask for anything. J)

This is the arrangement

                305 – Appy & Joie

    306 – CJ & Jha (supposed to be. Sorry for leaving you CJ, I transferred to 307 and Cj  

    transferred in 412, I think.)

                1005 – Nikits & Auie

We got lost in our own university!!! Rather than worrying, smize ^_^

Don’t laugh at us, lol we thought we knew our way back so we let Barbara, Polish exchange student from London, leave us.  This is the map. That’s how big Jinan University is.

This is Dorm 17. The dorm next to it is obviously dorm 18, men live there. Our veranda face their doors. Imagine what we see and imagine what they see. At dyan po nagsisimula ang kung ano ano mang tsismis and dyan ko din po nakita yung crush ko. Boom!!!!! haha

This is my room. Amanda, my room mate is from Taiwan. We don’t communicate that much because we both are not good at each other’s language. She’s a party girl and that’s the good thing coz she’s usually not around. I got the room for myself plus the fridge and the washing machine which she actually owns. Lol. She even gave me foods from Taiwan. She let me borrow her hair dryer one time and I got my hair stuck in it (such ignorance!!!). She was laughing so was I, I don’t blame her. Lol. She helped me by cutting the hair that got stuck in the fan using nail cutter.  The bad thing is that she smokes. I asked her not to smoke in the comfort room but she still did. Ugh, my poor lungs. 

Weishengjian. Dining hall. Three floors.As per Barbara’s Info the other night, starting from the first floor the food tastes better and costlier as you go up. We use our ID’s to pay for our food. And we bring our lunch boxes for take out then we go back to eat at our dorm. By the way, we usually sleep after midnight so we wake up just in time for lunch.

We usually spend 2 yuan for meat and 0.5 yuan for rice. 6-7 for breakfast, 10-12 lunch, 3-5 dinner.  At the left side, they serve muslim foods. Tried it and yeah it tastes good. Just imagine foods you see in Bollywood movies.

Theater. Theater within the campus eh? Cool!!! We attended an event here for the International Evening where we met Filipino Students. Galing nila!

They have more buildings. Big ones. 

Main teaching building (of course you can read it). This is where we had most of our classes. Students can operate the elevator on their own…hehe…unlike here in school that we need someone do it for us. ^^

How are the classrooms?

-with computer,microphone, projector, CCTV (I did not know this at first so I was even dancing)

The computer’s with internet connection basically because we had our assignments and requirements online. We do not usually take notes because we can always get hold of the soft copy. Thanks to the class monitors. How they do it? We have a class email and that’s where we get everything and since we attend different classes from different year levels and different majors we have to befriend more class monitors. Yeah right salamat sa gwapong class monitor pala who then became the president of IS ( crush namin yan ni Appy. Lol. come on, impossibleng wala kaming crush :-P) and to the other monitor whom I asked “who’s the class monitor?” tas siya pala ‘yon.

How’s our classes?

The six of us do not attend same classes except for elementary chinese every Thursdays. Our courses(weird right? Course in the Philippinese means Bachelor of Science in Accountancy  while course in China means Accounting subject. Hope you understood what I mean. J) Each course is either for 3 or 2 hours in a week kaya every mondays ganun ganun yung mga course namin.

They do have a free refilling station for hot water. Restrooms? Ugh ladies, we gotta squat. Even there airports have that type of bowl.

Laptops allowed? Yep, you can bring it in class and use it as your notebook. You can open it and start takig down notes, the teacher wont mind you.

Library? Coolest ever. We use our student ID to borrow books and when we return it we just deposit it in the machine (ATM like). Since we are exchange students, we have to pay 1,000 yuan. Of course we don’t have that much so that’s where our charms are used.lol. We ask regular students to borrow in our behalf. If my memory serves me right, I borrowed the micro economics book for about a month and then have it renewed again. Thankls Nora!!

Exams? Just one at the end of the semester. There’s a review week before it to study the special notes the instructors pointed out. The exams were held in a designated place different from where we had our classes and it is one seat a part. Disappointing though, even if there were 3 teachers to oversee the examinees there is rampant cheating.

Class standings? Usually no quizes or projects.

Attendance? They don’t check it. Kaya exam mashoshock ka nalang na andami ninyo pala.

( ngayon ngayon lang may nagpakamatay sa building na to. kawawa mga ading na andun andaming mga scary things goin on.)

My supposed to be schedule. The rule there is you can have this much of classes. Attend the classes for the first week and in case you don’t like it you can just go back then let the one in charge fix it for you. You can just opt to have about 5 courses.

Shelly helped us with our schedule. She was an exchange student to SLU University in 2010 together with Jian Bu. Good thing we had her. She helped as with our class schedules, school ID’s and internet connection. ( love the net.90 yuan for a semester and it's fast. So fast but no you tube and the other social networking sites like FB and Twitter. Social sites there are Weibo and QQ)

Shamian Island. This was the first time we went out of the campus. We were with Jian Bu and his girlfriend ( who are now a family with their baby girl). I spotted the couples or should I say models having their photoshoot. I gathered up all my guts and asked if we could take a picture with them. Success! Ewan pero ang kapal nang mukha ko talaga sa China. Haha.

Jian Bu and his girlfriend. Sorry I forgot her mingzi. I think we were supposed to attend the mass here since they have English service but we are not on time. (napansin ko ang smile smile ni Nikits)

( the rest of the photos are on my facebook account. Lol. Or should I make another blog especially for each of our trips in China? Soon, when I have the luxury of time)

We went looking for the GZ Zoo and took a tour. We are imitating the statue. Imagine the expressions of the passersby.

Haha.  Nikita brought us also to T mall. She does a lot of dora thingy alone. Once she discovers the place she brings us there.

Shishi Catholic Church. Easter SundayThe best place to find a Filipino abroad is at a Catholic Church. Most of the church goers were Blacks. There’s a Bible piman. Just ask the ushers. Beautiful songs.

Birthdays spent in China. yahoo. !

After a long time of the cold weather, we had Spring! Woot woot. I imagined myself getting to a place like this based on Koreanovelas and now I got one. ^_____^

 

International evening

@ MIDEA and Wallstreet

Windows of the World @ Shenzhen

@ Sichuan for the foreign teachers and student’s field trip. I asked my sister to finance for this trip. Thank you very much manang!! It was a 4 day trip to Chengdu. I saw a Panda! Yahoo!! Sorry ka na lang hindi niya kaboses si Jack Black. Hehe.

Days just before our trip goin back home. Ang mahal mga pinag babayaran namin nung paalis na kami ng dorm grabe as in pati yung nasirang door knob na ganun naman nung dumating na kami eh pinabayad kina Nikits and Auie. Nung as in di na kami magkaintindihan sa explanation ginamit namin google translate pero hindi pa din kami perfectly nagkaintindihan. haha. Salmat kay Danni na nakilala namin nung paalis kami. Ang bait nyang Pinay. Sayang nga lang bakit ganun namin siya late nakilala. too bad. Maganda pa sana sigurung kasama para mag turo ng mga ibat ibang stuffs around. 

By the time you reach this part (assuming you read and thoroughly checked each part of this post) you might think that all we did in China were just fun and games. Haha. You are so wrong,mate. Well no one got hurt,no one was kidnapped and no one got lost while exploring but as we all know the thing that hurts is not with the physical but in the inside. Assume whatever you want to assume, its a free country mate.

Anyways, andami din naming napagdaanan dun, and I accept I did bad things. Ako po ay humihingi ng paumanhin sa lahat lahat ng aking nagawa especially kay Lord who brought me there tas nakalimutan ko din siya. Sorry po. Sa huli, we learned a lot. Hindi lang tungkol sa China, sa Pilipinas pero ang da best na natutunan ko ay tungkol na din sa sarili ko. Alam mo yong tipo kasing kong magtanong tao doon parang magtatrabaho na kami pagkabalik naming Pinas. They’ll ask, what’s your plan? Where will you take your masters? Where do you plan to settle? Stuffs I have not thought off since I was still young and I thought I will cross the bridge just when I got there. Well, planning works.

Where are we now?

Auie and Cj are working. Nikits and Joie are reviewing. Jha and Appy are studying.

When we got back I ate and ate coz surely there’s one thing you’ll miss when you go abroad, amum mun a! food!

Can you imagine how words could make a short story long. Wahu.