in between worlds

my mind has been racing these past two weeks, from survival-mode to social-mode to settle-in-and-let's-get-down-to-work mode. freshers week is always a whirlwind of names, subjects, countries, colleges... it was fun, but i'm glad that Week 1 has begun so that i can start to develop some kind of routine. thankfully settling into Oxford hasn't been too hard; there is no culture shock this time around, and i'm lucky to have WS here.

i do wonder from time to time what College Hill must look like this autumn... i fantasize about the river Cam and pretty Pembroke, but before my mind wanders, drunken with nostalgia, i tug it back gently to what is here...

it has been hard concentrating on the now though. i'm not sure why my mind is so restless! it's as if it's trying to chase down every single doubt and analyse every single social encounter. and i keep finding myself in the same social situations where i am too shy to proactively reach out and say, hey, do you want to go for lunch together, or, even just, how are you? thankfully everyone around me seems more normal and quite friendly; i like how my cohort from the english 1900-present strand is already organising group outings to the theatre, pubs. tomorrow we have our first class... a little excited actually, to hear everyone's opinions on modernism.

but i'm most looking forward to my small Conrad seminars. the more i read of and by him, the more i worship this man who somehow wrote some of the greatest novels in the English language, which was his THIRD language - a language he first heard only at the age of 16. i love Henry James but Conrad is even more impressive in scope, both philosophical and imaginative. seriously if you liked Heart of Darkness, try to get a copy of Lord Jim, and then Nostromo.

oh and yesterday, i decided to reconnect with my roots by going to the HK postgraduate dinner. at Brown, i avoided the HK society because i felt that i wouldn't fit in with them. somehow i have the impression that Hong Kongers tend to be quite cosmopolitan, and i'm not sure if i get along with very worldly people. but the HK postgraduates here are very friendly and relatively down to earth. and thank you mom, for your uncompromising attitudes towards my linguistic education: "chinese must know how to speak chinese!" it's the one thing that makes me one of them... and i guess part of me desperately wants to belong somewhere. after countless "where are you from?" enquiries throughout this week, i do wish i could lay claim to one place, stake it out for my own. i usually just say HK given that i've spent the most time there (8 years) and was born there. but it is complicated... ... i was born in HK, hopped on a plane one month later and lived in Japan for 5 years, then HK for 8 years, then Singapore for 5 years, then the US for 2, england 1, US 1, back to england. i think most of my friends don't even know my background that clearly :P but there it is!