It's the first day of school today. Things are moving pretty leisurely so far though. It was a public holiday here in the US yesterday (Labor Day), and it follows a summer weekend so everyone's kind of going about their business in slow-mo.
Had two lessons (3 hours per lesson) today, which were both interesting in their own ways. the morning lesson was on Mathematics Curriculum, while the afternoon one was on Educational Research. Lots of discussion going on in both sessions; it seems this is the modus operandi for classes (at least the postgraduate ones), everyone was "fighting" for an opportunity to speak and give their views, and the professor was fairly gracious, lapping it all up. This active interaction would rarely happen back home. A cultural difference, without a doubt.
Anyway, despite being shy by nature (haha), I managed to summon my gregarious self, and boldly participated in the discussion. It helped that I had done my readings, and could offer "alternative" viewpoints too, since I come from a different system from the US. Actually I think many of my American classmates were intrigued that I could speak fluent English. Haha. I would have thought that after 42 years of independence and establishing ourselves on the world stage, people round the globe would have some inkling of the cultural background we come from. Well, I was wrong. But in any case, it's really enriching to engage in lots of verbal sparring with people of diverse backgrounds and know that outside of our 648 square kilometres (has it expanded in area??) lies a whole treasure trove of views and muses.
开学的第一天，感觉还不错。 虽说有好几年没当学生了，但也都还留在校园环境，所以也没感觉什么特大的差别。可能不一样的是， 我现在是以学生身份出现在校园里。 今天上了两堂课，相当不错，这里的学习方式非常富有灵活性，采用的是讨论方式， 谁也别想在班上“无所事事，坐享其成“。还好我的脸皮还够厚，胆敢地在班上自动自发地发表自己的看法与理论，现在只希望自己能这样的持续下去。（说话是很累的运动，哈哈！）
Well, have got two more classes left for the rest of the week, not really sure what to expect, but I guess I should be alright. Have more or less done some simple preparation for the classes, will just go in and smoke out the whole place if necessary, hahaha!
Have finally gotten my TV, and with my cable service, I get something like 60 channels. Way cool! Of course, what do I watch? The news. NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox, and CNN. Been watching Anderson Cooper every night on CNN. Love his reports, he is really a journalist extraordinaire. Have always admired reporters who have been to the toughest war zones or disaster areas to make reports. I would have wanted to become BBC war correspondent.
Speaking of the BBC, of course, sadly a channel missing is BBC World. Haiz, thought I could get that, at least I could catch snippets of football action (or what the Americans call soccer --- football means a completely different thing here). No soccer, is frankly, a tragedy. On all the news channels here, there is absolutely NOTHING on soccer (not even Major League Soccer). All I can get now are reports and commentaries of the EPL via the internet.... Hmm, I must think of a way to solve this problem....