L’information Grande
July 2nd, 2008Well, with my evening Cantonese classes over, it looks like I have time to blog again. This is a double-edged sword; in one aspect, I regain precious nerd cred, but on the other hand, it takes time away from various “real-life adult responsibilities” such as choosing wallpaper, and we all know how riveting that is. I can’t believe - well, actually, I can believe, what with being more single than I am now and usually having my evenings free - that I used to do 3 blog entries a week on JET.
I suppose I should write about the recent, big news. Everyone knows that I’m officially engaged now, with a wedding scheduled around February 13th. J has been asking me about whether I want to do wedding photos. This is an interesting cultural facet, in that for me, a wedding photo should be a simple one like my parents have, with the happy couple smiling in their wedding clothes and ignoring the serious emotional baggage that threatens immediate divorce and/or homicide. This is antithetical to a Chinese person, as such a photograph looks like the ones you only put up on the wall after the subject’s death (called a 遺照 (wai-jiu, lit. “remnant image”) here), and thus would not bring prosperous good luck to the marriage like dressing in outlandish costumes in a photo studio, public park, or jewellery store facade would. Still, wedding photos are something to be done (and hopefully the studio has a Zhongshan in my size), but they are not exactly Big News.
No, the Big News is that we have officially bought a flat. Right now we’re in preliminary proceedings, appointing solicitors etc, but as of November we will be living in a 3-bedroom (by HK standards) high-rise flat on the 49th floor above Tsing Yi Station, with a view of the sea and the hill that the train tunnel goes through. 16 minutes to Hong Kong Station, 34 minutes to Tai Wai (plus transfer time … I’ll have to see which is better, taking the bus or taking the train). We even got it for less than it was worth according to the bank! It has some furniture in it so we’re going to have to get a contractor to pull everything out and leave us with blank space. Now I get to look forward to mortgage payments, which is still better than OSAP payments, I suppose. At least we don’t have a car.
Now that I think about it, I actually have another piece of Big News. Well, potential Big News, anyway. Thanks to Fumi who suggested possible courses of action regarding my professional development in Hong Kong, I decided to apply for a MEd offered by the University of Bristol and undertaken at the City University of Hong Kong. Actually, CityU is where I would have done my second exchange to, if I’d had the money in third year and I wanted to fuck up my graduation schedule even more (and if I had a time machine I would go back and say DO IT).
Last year, I was a carefree (technically) single elementary school ALT in Japan living a life of comfortable nothingness and alcohol consumption. Now, I (co-)own a house, am getting married, and am getting a Master’s (probably) and looking at a stable career.
Things should go swell until people here riot over rising oil and food prices. 
