Well, I have just come back from the orientation camp from NTU after one week of absence. It would seem that no one have missed me though. D: I have to say honestly that I did not miss home. I do miss sleeping till I wake up naturally and my bed, but I do not exactly miss my parents or my brother. So weird, don't you think? I have to say I do come from a very close-knitted family. It is just that they do not give me a lot of personal space that I need sometimes so I actually enjoy being out of the house for long periods of time. I love my family. But I am too much of a black sheep to blend in very well in my immediate family. Meaning with my parents and my brother. I am very outspoken for one. I tend to offend people without meaning to. This is something I really need to work on:( I am very headstrong and I believe very very strongly for my own values. I do not believe in total obedience. If you want me to do something, tell me why. If you are wrong, do not expect me to sit by and endure hearing wrong things said about me. If you tell me not to do something and I think it is unreasonable, chances are that I will still do it.
Okay, this is not about my family. I am supposed to talk about orientation! Okay. There were a lot of bonding games and I actually interacted with many different kinds of people. Unfortunately, I have not met ANYONE from Sociology from my batch at all. I did have a sociology senior in year 4 in my group. She was so very helpful^^ Technically speaking, I have not met my goal of finding a coursemate during camp.
I also met with a enormous problem. ALMOST EVERYONE IN MY GROUP SPOKE CHINESE! OMG. You would not know how difficult it was for me to adapt. It was different at work, where my colleagues were older than me. But these...they were about the same age as me!!!! D:D:D:D:D:
*traumatised*
A little background story. I was in a mission school for 13 years and have never spoken much Chinese to pretty much anyone except to my Chinese teacher, my grandparents and random aunties and uncles. I think I have no problem speaking Mandarin. But I have a BIG psychological barrier I have to get over before I can speak Mandarin on a regular basis.
You might think it is dumb. It is just a language. Mandarin is my freaking mother tongue. I am CHINESE. But I came a long way, so stop judging me now:(
I am from a traditional Chinese family. My grandparents spoke Hokkien and Mandarin and so did my dad before he met my mom. I suspect my mom also spoke in Mandarin before she had my brother and I. So can you imagine people speaking bad English teaching English to their children? Bad combination. I went in St. Margaret's because I wanted and girl's school and there were not many choices left. It must have been god's will. I meet so many people there in the primary school and secondary school and I am so grateful because almost everyone were so nice. I could go around saying hihihihihihihi to everyone. I worked hard to improve my English language and speak like the rest of my schoolmates in somewhat more or less good English with bad pronounication. Boo. I blame a physical defect. I tried my best to remove any grammatical errors I may make. It was not that easy because it came so naturally to everyone else. My Mandarin was not that bad either even if I did not use much of it. My Chinese tuition teacher said I had tai feng. Which is like "stage air"? Haha. I am naturally dramatic. My mom cannot stand me.
It will not be easy for me to make a switch because speaking English means much more than just a language to me. It also represented the acceptance I had in my previous schools and the struggle I went through to improve the language. My English teacher in primary school used to use my compositions to criticise the way I wrote. She read my badly written composition out to the class. It was so mortifying! I read many many books and luckily I enjoyed reading. Phew. It helped me develop an amazing over-active imagination that never ceases to amaze even me. Of course, I have many many friends who are much better than me, but I was happy. English teachers never picked on me any more. Phew.
Ya. So you see, I am afraid that if I start blending in, I will change and lose my myself unconsciously. It may be very abstract, but that is the way I feel. At the same time, I am terrified that I would not find a group of friend where I belong in uni and I am scared to take the first step. I feel quite insecure. I will see how it goes.
I know most people who click or stumble on my blog probably did not do so to hear me rant and I do have many crafty posts at the back of my mind so just give me some time and I will get back to action:)
That's all for today. Ciao.
Rebecca :]
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