I think that's a yes

Just some feedback about my application:

Thanks for your post. Generally, we enjoyed your post and thought it gave some great insights into the experience of studying at the School.

We did, however, feel that you might want to revisit the tone of the piece in places, especially towards the end. I think you make some valid points, but perhaps you could rephrase it a little. Particularly the reference to polygamy might upset some more sensitive people.

We’re having to work to expectations set out for us by wider College and the senior management team of the School to build the School’s brand. Generally we’re happy for our bloggers to write from their experience with a realistic view of their programmes. However, in the context of these expectations, I think you will need to watch out that you that your tone doesn’t unintentionally offend people and just be aware that your posts will be highly visible on the new Business School website and that not only prospective students will be reading them, but faculty and even potential employers visiting the School website will be able to come across them. It’s a great opportunity to increase your visibility to prospective employers and other contacts, but I’d just be careful that the humour of your posts doesn’t overstep a line and work against you.

With the above in mind, we’d be happy to have you as a blogger if you feel that your blogs could fit within these suggestions? As I said above, we enjoyed your post and think you have a lot to offer as a blogger.

Best wishes,


I guess I'll have to have two versions

London

23 hours of flight time, four inflight movies, two Bloody Marys, and five questionably edible economy class meals is what it takes to get from Middle Earth to the Old Smoke.  Me being excited about getting off the plane as we land on the Heathrow runway is probably an understatement. Not only was my back sore, but I was beginning to think that my seat had permanently contorted the shape of my backside.  

I quickly make my way through customs and out of the airport. As I walked around like a headless chicken looking for anything that marginally resembled a shuttle or taxi, I had my first opportunity to soak in the atmosphere.  It was a particularly overcast day, and it gave me the same grim feeling as I would get watching an episode of EastEnders.

Depending on your destination, expect to pay over sixty quid for a ride from Heathrow airport in a black cab/taxi. The more economical choice is paying around twenty five pounds for a shuttle with other passengers. Of course, for all you introverts and haters of people in general, this might not be an attractive option.

I make my way to the hotel in Paddington.  I was planning on staying here for two days before moving into my studio room at GradPad Wood Lane Studios. Paddington being quite close to South Kensington would allow me to orient myself with the surrounding area and the Imperial campus itself. On arrival, they tell me that I have been upgraded to a ‘nicer’ room, free of charge. At this point, I was feeling quite special about myself, so I didn’t question it at all.  What they didn’t mention though, was that this ‘nicer’ room was in Barbican, on the other side of the city.

With these initial hiccups aside though, my first impressions of Imperial College were great. Being an international student and arriving in London for the first time, I was practically a living manifestation of the ‘Forever Alone’ meme. Fortunately, Imperial provided a great international student orientation week, allowing students (many attending university for the first time) to assimilate themselves into student life, and to meet other wide-eyed freshers.
From these initial orientation lectures though, I can provide a word of warning for all you aspiring Casanovas out there.

Don’t go to Engineering school.

The stereotype of there being more males than females actually holds true. Ratio of three to one. I might even be being generous with that figure. However, us lucky men in MSc International Health Management don’t have this problem. In fact, in comparison to our deprived brethren in the neighbouring building, it could be mistaken that we are running an illegal polygamist sect.

Everything I wrote above was a trial for one of the Imperial College blogs, and depending on how things go, I may be writing a lot more of these, whether you like it or not. Regardless, it’s already been a few weeks since I arrived in this brilliant place called London and the experiences so far has been nothing short of amazing, so I may continue to keep writing anyway.

Darren, or whatever my previous alias was.

I'm back

Will post something sometime soon. Got a bit to say, but I need to find the time *laughing to self which gradually subsides to a sigh*...

Nov/Dec 2011

                                       Not quite the same spectacular skyline as back home

Skiing at a ski field on the outskirts of Beijing was everything I expected it to be: man-made snow, long lines and waiting in the freezing cold. Yet I was still naïve enough to expect a little more from it. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time but it was the culmination of “the little things” which made the whole experience frustrating. This was probably due to the fact that that I’ve only ever been skiing in NZ. The day started with an early bus trip to the ski field – now when I say ski field, I’m using this term very liberally in this particular case – As we approached the field I couldn’t stop giggling at the sight of it! The “mountain of snow” was actually a rather large hill with a few snow machines covering it white. The payment process was also absurd. You had to put down a deposit to get a recharge card. This card was then used to pay for ski/clothing hire, locker, food etc. However there were no signs to indicate how much everything cost. Countless times we found ourselves denied of ski gear because we didn’t have enough money on our cards. This resulted in one of us having to join the back of the line to put more money on the cards. So we didn’t get out onto the mountain until after lunch! I’ve probably scared you enough to deter you from skiing here but I just want you to have little expectations of the place so you can be pleasantly surprised when you do comeJ. In all honesty, we went when the snow was only covering half the mountain so I can’t give an accurate description about the quality of the skiing. A friendly local who I chatted with on the chairlift informed me that the best time around Christmas/after New Years. No matter where you ski, if you’re with good friends then it’s going to be a blast no matter how short the slopes are. There are a lot of opportunities to get big air. Our mate tried the half pipe which wasn’t fully covered in snow. Because of this fact, as he tried to go up the half pipe he slammed into the side like a brick wall. I actually fell over because I was laughing so hard. Most people go for a day – there are busses to take you there and back so it’s pretty convenient. We pretty much went through every route in three runs so it wasn’t worth staying for an extra day. We really wanted to spend the night there but we forgot our passports so we couldn’t get any hotel accommodation. If like skiing/snowboarding and find a few mates who are keen then definitely check it out!

 

This poor chappie in the centre of the pic is so exhausted he's leaning on the padding curled up in a ball sleeping.

Not your usual post

My last post contained some dreadful words that I regret writing. I have since removed them.

For the past month, I've only thought of her as the girl who broke up with me.

I forgot about the amazing, beautiful person that she is, and all the things we experienced together.

"...no matter what happens..." These words still hold true.

I truly wish her all the happiness in the world, whether it be fulfilling her aspirations, or through the other joys of life.

im still here

Hey Peeps.


Still alive. Just been busy. Busy being living it up in Beijing.


Well, not exactly. I have a lot of crap to say, more than a single blogpost should have, so I'll probably be doing a number of posts in the next few days rather than bore everyone with endless drivel. What was supposed to be a whole semester of trouble free play learning got a little complicated. Reason number one after the jump.  

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Hey guys, sorry for the infrequent posts of late. We have been exceptionally busy and I’ve been putting off writing because I didn’t have any blog worthy pictures for you all. But that’s not the case anymore, so lets get straight into it!

Beijing is without a doubt an amazing place. From the awe inspiring Forbidden City to the crumbled ruins of the Great Wall, you can really lose yourself in the atmosphere of these impressive sites (unless you get too bogged down by the sheer number of other tourists that are ruining your experience!). While it may take you three hours to get to the Great Wall, you don’t have to look far to spot some of China’s cruel ways of life.

Poor turtles in the middle :(

Pets in Beijing are a mystery. Apart from the caged variety (birds, fish, etc) I don’t see the how you can raise a dog with such little public areas available. It’s a rare sight when you see someone walking their tiny dog though the massive hoards of people. There are various pet carts around our area which house various cute animals for sale. Despite their inherent cuteness nothing can hide the fact that the are housed in incredibly tiny cages. Our friend nearly bought a little white rabbit with hopes of saving it but was convinced at the last minute that there was nothing much she could do to rescue it. You also see homeless people with really cute little puppies. I don’t know how they manage to feed them but I can only assume their lives are short lived. Although the homeless people that live at the entrance to our subway station have managed to raise their dogs for as long as I’ve been here.

Pet stores are not at all cute

We went to a Hallowen party last week. For a first timer (we don’t celebrate Halloween from where we’re from) I was pretty impressed at what I saw. The party was located in 798, the art district of Beijing, in a converted warehouse. The theme was “fetish” so it was pretty much open to anything. Some of the costumes were insanely good. Some excellent male zombie brides – can’t believe they pulled this off, the makeup was amazing; the Invisible Man, Harry Potter, Tron and this awesome pack of stealthy ninjas. Oh yea, and we were the ninjas. It was a lot of fun and I think my friend put it best: “I now understand why ninjas are so stealthy. If anyone sees one they immediately want to take their photo.” Every time we got drinks at the other end of the warehouse we would be constantly interrupted for photos.

But it wasn’t all easy going. The actual lead up to the party was a nightmare. We didn’t settle on a costume until the second to last day and that was after some much needed prodding from DJ. I think he had been doing some investigating and found out how hard out this party actually was. So once we finally settled on ninjas there was the lengthy process of finding the costumes. For a city that sells pretty much anything, costumes stores are non-existent! We tried numerous shopping malls and asked countless people but we always received the same response: a look of bewilderment when DJ showed them the ninja picture on his phone, smiling and laughing, and then a something along the lines of “I don’t know.” Luckily DJ had done some serious homework and located the Hong Qiao markets. A place where they sell fake watches, bags, scarves, electronics, toys, material, etc. We ended up with what we wanted but boy did we have to work for a decent price. Some of these ladies are incredibly sneaky. When we tried to bargain for these plastic swords we ended up paying a price that we would pay get back home. Total ripoff (relatively). DJ described her bargaining approach as using “cute tactics”. I was just annoyed by the fact that she swindled us when we had the perfect game plan. It was nearing closing time, we tell her we have to go soon, don’t have much money and since we are buying 5 give us what we want. That should count for something, right? Instead she used the closing time tactic on us and before you know it we are walking away feeling like we just got played like a couple of fools. I blame DJ for falling for the cute tactics…... We all did a good job putting the pieces together and a special shout out to DJ for cutting most of the fabric and assembling the various components when the rest of us had other commitments.

So I heard winter in Beijing can get pretty cold…..well, I heard correctly! Within the span of 2 weeks the number of layers I am wearing has tripled. At the start of the month I was wearing just a t-shirt and I would still sweat profusely. Now it’s nearing November and I’m busting out the puffer jacket (down jacket) and hat. The scary part is that it hasn’t even snowed yet and the weather forecasters are predicting 2-4 heavy periods of snow this winter. A classmate who has lived in Beijing for a couple of years warned me of the wind. Apparently it gets so icy, you can actually snap you own hair in two (This sounds kind of cool but really bad if it’s true – I’ll update you guys if it is so). So please spare a thought for us if you are enjoying warm sunshine as you read this :(

So apart from class, studying, meeting up with language partners and tutoring English me and DJ are hanging with our friends. One thing that we have all been enjoying together is rekindling our childish love of video game arcades. One game in particular always keeps us coming back for more – Taiko no Tatsujin. It’s the Japanese drumming game that lets you take out all your frustrations to the beat of your favourite J-Pop songs. It’s especially rewarding if you are an anime fan like me and find music from Cowboy Bebop, Naruto, Bleach etc. I also enjoy the fighting games over here. In Beijing they have Tekken 6, Super Street Fighter IV, King of Fighters all lined up in a row. Each player has their own screen and fighting pad and they play opposite their opponents who have the exact same set up. I didn’t get a photo of this but I’ll try my best to describe this funny memory with the help of my wonderful illustration below.

I mistakenly challenged DJ to Tekken 6 (should have done SSFIV because I’m much better at that) because he destroyed me multiple times and took all my coins. Afterwards this 50 year old man motioned to me to get out of the chair so that he could challenge DJ. He picked Law (the Bruce Lee char) and started to tear DJ a new a-hole. I’m exaggerating a little, DJ did manage to win a few rounds, but he lost all the games. Back home arcades are hangouts for little kids (tweeners) and emo kids. But over here it’s full of all sorts. You could walk in at 3pm at find 50 year olds going at it at SSFIV – and they’re really good too.

Ok, that seems to be all I can think of for now. We’ll try to update this sooner than last time so come back soon!

willynilly aka Twiggy Ninja DJ checking fb before he gets his groove on