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November 22 终于看到塔桥升起来了……还有，新时代的女同胞们是怎么回事啊……今天从Stepney Green Math and Computer College（其实是中学）回来的时候，正好碰上有游船经过塔桥，终于看到它升起来了，虽然没带相机，也不喜欢拍照片，不过这是来伦敦的第一次啊，亏我还住在塔桥附近，所以心情还是很激动的……不过说实话，这里的效率底下从吊桥的运作也能看出来啦，船都开过好久了都不放行，让我很是郁闷。 这个Stepney Green是怎么回事呢，其实就是我参加了一个student tutoring scheme，每个星期去那里看看小朋友，给他们做个榜样，鼓励他们继续接受高等教育（其实学校老师才没有这种想法呢，都是scheme组织者的一厢情愿罢了）。这个Stepney Green是个男校，所以没有可爱的小女孩了，不过小男孩也很可爱啦（而且90%是孟加拉裔，再加上校服，校园里面黑压压的，哈哈）。学习气氛真的差的可以，老师也很凶……在这个方面真的看不出资本主义国家有什么先进的，也可能就是我去的这个学校比较差吧，毕竟好学校也用不着我去作榜样，嘿嘿。 下周再去的时候会有一个只会说中文不会说英语的小孩——终于能体现我的价值啦。 接下来一笔带过标题的另一部分：中午吃饭的时候碰到某女同胞，猛然感觉似乎是我更爱下厨啊；到底是“世界上最好的厨师都是男人呢”，还是现在的女同胞们都改变观念远离厨房了啊？ 哎…… p.s. 很久没更新了，因为要写的essay比较多，心思不在这里，所以，嗯，要努力 没跟大家联系是我的错 我还是像以前一样的爱大家的……（本人博爱，请不要多想） September 30 London Transportation: When I'm Right, I'm Wrong (to be contined)It's a sad but timely realization that I cannot keep a chronical style of writing, so I am trying to organize my essays in themes.
A little inconvenience for you is that I seem to have some personal problem with the camera--the camera simply has no place in my heart, and everywhere I go, I forget to take it with me. I will try to bring it along though, as I know pictures can talk. But for now, please be seated and enjoy plain texts :)
The Bikes
I talked to Evelyn about my plan to cycle to school. What a great plan it was! Beautiful Thames in view with all the ease of riding a bike--the best of two worlds ideally combined. And when I was dreaming about all the fun I was prepared to get, she told me straight away to forget about it.
Forget about it.
The first day I got here I was unable to find the bus stop, as the one I found was not intuitively situated, and looked in every way to be going in the wrong direction. That illusion was partially dispelled by my own walking down to the residence hall. Everyone on the road was coming at me, until I realized that I was taking the right side of the path. Sure enough, when I am on the right side, I am also inevitably on wrong one.
Later on I do see cyclists on the pathetic roads, all of whom freak me out to some extend. Except from the strange gear, which I guess is a legal necessity which can turn the tide in the court when you are accidentally run over, these cyclists are actually trying to outspeed the cars. Actually, the most amiable vehicles on the road are the cars, the most furious the motorcycles, and the most admirable the bikes. While there are little actual protection for them (excpet the occasionaly bike lane which are somehow in extreme neighbourhood to the car lanes), the cyclists almost invariably try to go as fast as possible; they are just the rich cousins of those street runners. And the bicycle is not a transportation vehicle, it is in most senses identical to the indoor exercise machines.
Not surprisingly, the prices for bikes are high. A typical second hand bike with all the necessary gears costs 60 pounds. And you can see such notices as "do not chain your bike here, as it will be removed by force". So even you are not worrying about theft, you should really worry about where to park your little dear thing and keep it legally there.
The killer for my bicycle dream is, however, still the right and wrong sides of the road. I simply cannot risk my life to test my limit of noticing the crazy road vehicles, not to say that I have had the habit of looking in the right direction for my whole life. And the fact that bikes go the same road side by side with motor vehicles makes every cyclist a driver, while you obviously do not have the muscle to compete with your steel-clad counterparts.
So, forget about the bikes. September 26 London: the first few days (still updating...)Dear friends, I'm finally in London now, sitting comfortably in front of my laptop and a beautiful view of European buildings. Also I'm nearly living on the bank of the River Thames, only a few minutes walk away from the picturesque torrent :P People say that my residence, the Butlers Wharf (11 Gainsford Street, London, SE1 2NE~yes, you can find it on Google map!) is the most cost-effective one among all the LSE residences. The down side is simple, that I have to walk more than 40 min to school, but this also translate into the up side, since walking is perhaps my only means to exercise, and also, I pay £64/week and share my room with a friendly Indian guy named Sarang, the best I can possibly get here :) Arriving at the Heathrow International Airport was no easy task. Air transportation has a lot to be anticipated yet. My plane was delayed and it took an extra hour to get out of the airport, leaving behind some funny memory of a few very silly airport procedures. And then I (actually Deng Jing and I) had to take the famed 'Tube' to get to our residences, when the time of day (9pm) seemed almost forbidding. The blue Piccadilly line going out of Heathrow was rather dirty, foreshadowing the less-than-impressive environment in London. But people here are generally nice, without whose help we would just forsake hope in moving all the luggage up and down the stairs. When I finally got of the tube at Tower Hill, I couldn't convince myself about the bus route I previously checked, since Londoners all went on the 'wrong' side of the road. So I took the 'short cut' and walked all the way around the Tower of London (in Deng's words, very lucky to be greeted by a famous prison) and then across the Tower Bridge. The Bridge actually lacked an feel of age, since it seemed to be newly painted; a view from afar would be better, as I later confirmed from looking at it on the London Bridge to the south. I really should allow for much more delays in my plan, cuz when I arrived at my residence, it was approaching 11pm. The residence is crazy about doors and paranoia about fire. There are endless 'fire doors, keep shut' in the way to my room, adding a lot of pain when I had to drag the luggage around. When I finally stood in front of the door I smiled--it was 'the George Soros room'. Good inspiration then came in, although the room must have been refurbished many times over that no trace of Soros would ever exist. ...I'd rest for a while. Write on later :) |
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