International SEP

First some random pics which I didn't have time to put up in the past few days.

Drink Koff Beer. It's good for health.
Acknowledgements: Coat from Zara, shoes from Zara, beer can from a backpacker who couldn't pack anymore stuff into his bag. (Oh yeah, the model looks a little like me. Just a little. Well, maybe a little cooler than I actually am.)

I was sitting down to pose for my picture when Wei Ling and Zhengmin rushed and sat beside me. They're the lightbulbs. =P



Poor Wei Ling getting traumatized by 2 'teachers'. Terrors of the world.

Me looking at some exhibit in the museum. Or at least pretending.

Cool one huh? The bullet hole in the museum door was from so long back. Go enlarge the picture and read the sign. The picture's taken by ZM. OK I acknowledged his work so it's not plagiarism.

The men posing at the lake.
At the entrance of the Stadion Hostel in Helsinki.

This SEP may just give me the broadest of world views. We have people from Belgium, Iran, Italy, Portugal, USA, Mexico, Holland, Germany, New Zealand, China, Korea, Czech Republic and probably some people who haven't even introduced themselves to me yet.

Wei Ling went off to Espoo to look for Zhengmin and friends, and though part of me feels a little guilty for not being with them (after all, they're who I can really communicate with), I think it was a better decision to stay in Oulu this weekend. One, I'd save some money. Two, I'd get to interact more with the other SEP students and speak with a slaaaaannnggg. Three, I'd get to try out skiing, sauna and BBQ for 4 euros on the ESN (Erasmus Student Network) organized trip.

And yeah, there was a party 2 floors above my apartment just now. There were so many people talking that I could hear them from the door of my room. Lively chat, free flow of booze (well almost, though I didn't touch much), and jazz music playing in the background. Now that's a real party. I'm tired and I decided to retire to the quiet of my room. Those people can really talk and talk and talk. I'm Chinese and hey I can't speak for nuts. HAHA! They're still talking now, and there's like 20 people in one apartment.

Tomorrow's a public holiday in Finland (Epiphany, a church holiday, I finally found out) and all the shops will be closed again. The exchange students are planning an outing to a pub, though I don't know which. They're really spontaneous people, just let them know PARTY and they'll go come to the room with beer bottles and vodka and Martini. Woah a real eye opener. Welcome to the world of who-cares-about-As.

It's such a refreshing change from Singapore and NUS and stuff like that. The University of Oulu stresses a lot about academic freedom, that is, you can study anything you want, except maybe for medicine modules. And there's no registration for modules, just for exams. And if you registered for an exam and don't turn up, no one cares. You can take the next re-test or something like that. I can't imagine NUS having such a system.

I need a break from last semester. After this sem, I know I'll have to be more hardworking again, but meanwhile, it's some time off for me. Sorry no pics now, probably tomorrow and Saturday will churn out some good nice photos of me skiing and stuff like that.

STAY TUNED!