An Amalgamation of Unrelated Events

The last few weeks have been quite difficult: a constant stream of tests, essays, and any other possible assignment that teachers could throw at us.  That being said, there were plenty of other activities outside the classroom to distract me, and a tremendously long Easter break (aka a four day weekend).  If I have time in the upcoming weeks, I'll expand on the experiences, but for now, I'll abridge them into a few sentences and pictures.  Since my last post, LPC hosted another cultural evening (Latin American this time), I went to a few beaches, found an overpriced but delicious brunch place, celebrated Easter, binged on chocolate, and then binged on Game of Thrones.  Its a miracle that I even have time to write this post, but only since I'm waiting for my laundry to be done and thus I have exactly 32 minutes.

LACE (Latin American Cultural Evening) was nearly a month ago, and it was a fun night of comida, amigos, y bebidas (food, friends, and drinks).  Actually, sin las bebidas (minus the drinks), but I felt that Spanglishing was necessary considering my gringo costume I had to wear for the event.  All in all, the event went really well, and all the Latinos worked really hard to make the best show possible.

The next weekend, some friends and I took a junk boat around Sai Kung, the eastern region of Hong Kong, visiting beaches and waterfalls and relaxing in general.

Chillin on a boat the Hong Kong way

The weekend after, I decided to celebrate Palm Sunday with some of my friends at the Anglican church in Central.  It was really packed, and it was a really good first church service in Hong Kong for me.  Afterwards, we didn't know what to do with our extra palm fronds, so instead of wasting them, we just awkwardly walked around the city with giant leaves.  After wandering with our palm fronds for a little, we ended up at some back alley Western breakfast place, named the Flying Pan, with a 20 minute line to eat there.  It was definitely worth the wait, and I ended up with French toast, pancakes, waffles, bacon, egg, ham, and endless coffee on one beyond American sized plate.




After a good Palm Sunday and too much studying the week after, I made it to last Thursday with only minor sleep deprivation.  Needless to say, that sleep deprivation became much worse after a series of second year pranks.  At LPC, the second years get two weeks off to study for IB exams, thus that day was their last day ever of in-class work.  In reality, they do very little work, instead scheming on how to prank the first years for their equivalent of senior pranks.  Thus, that Maundy Thursday turned into a day of betrayal, with plenty of egg and flour thrown at the first years, combined with 5 am cold showers and forced animal reenactments.  While the first years were in general fine with these pranks, the administration became quite offended when they woke up to the cacophony.

Some would call it hazing... 

Finally, the long weekend arrived, and I was able to take a long deserved break.  Besides the hours of work for the three major assignments due right after break, that was mostly true.  I spent my first day hiking and enjoying the sun in a different region of Sai Kung.  However, my friend Arzu, a much more devoted blogger than I, has already fully outlined the day, so she told me I could just add the link to her blog to summarize the day.

http://arzucanaskin.com/2014/04/22/surf-n-turf/

One note: I didn't actually get stuck on sea cliffs.  I just had to carry everyone else's bags, shoes and the camera with all her wonderful pictures, meaning that I had to double back every few meters so nothing was left behind.  In the end I was frustrated and threw the shoes off the cliff,  but they ended up in a tidal pool, instead of the beach.

Anyways, the rest of the weekend went swimmingly, and I returned to the church in Central plus the Flying Pan for an Easter brunch.  It was somewhat different to spend my Easter so far away from home, but I received a package with a nice note and chocolate from my family to compensate.  Besides chocolate, I ate pretty well over the course of the weekend.  The cafeteria cheaped out for the break, only serving brunch and dinner, with less options due to the deserted campus, and so I went out for Egyptian food with my Iraqi roommate, Thai food with my Burmese, Dutch, and East Timorean friends, and pizza with the hiking group.  In addition, I decided to start watching Game of Thrones to make up for the lack of people on campus.  After 2 episodes a day, I finally finished the first season today.  I unfortunately had a reality check that I will not be able to start up the second season, because winter (I mean finals) is coming.

After my short, forced summary of this month's events, I have to return to learning Chinese and preparing a presentation that determines a large portion of my IB grade in English, not to mention my laundry which most likely has been thrown on the ground by someone due to my lack of punctuality.  Happy Easter, and I really can't believe how fast this school year continues to go!