Wordpress 1.5.1.3 has been released to fix an important security issue.
I just upgraded from Wordpress 1.5.1.2 to Wordpress 1.5.1.3 . Although upgrades are necessary and should be done asap, I still don’t enjoy upgrading my Wordpress. I’m so scared that something might ‘break’ during the upgrade and my blog gets all messed up.
Still, this time the upgrade was easy. According to the Changelog, only 5 files need to be replaced.
We saw the Chinese students perform already and they were good. But us, international students are way better. 
hehe
Last Friday (24 th June 2005) ,during the 留学生结业典礼, it was the international students’ turn to show what they are capable of .
There’s a short article about it in the Tongji University website.
I couldn’t get a seat close to the stage and I managed to take only a few pics and recorded a few secs of some of the dances, songs,etc.
A few photos:
1. The Thai students’ dance was one of my faves.
There was a guy(the one facing the camera in this pic) among them and he dances really well, better than the girls. There are about 20 or more Thai students in Tongji University. Some of them are quite young (17 or 18) and they are very friendly. They always say a big “Ni hao” with a smile when they see you.
2. The 4 students who presented the show.
3. Students from B4 class sang 甜蜜蜜 (a song by Teresa Teng)
Go Richard (far right) !
4. Students from C2 class sang 对面的女孩看过来.
5. Learning chinese by some Japanese students.
Very funny. hehe. The guy on the left in this pic used his body to make ’shapes’.
Examples:
for the chinese character 大 , he jumped and made a ” 大 ” with his body,
for the chinese character 一，he ‘threw’ his whole body in the air and made a very horizontal line for a few secs before falling on the ground. He did it twice too.. 
Ouch. I think he can do karaté or something.
for 火，he used two lighters, one in each hand.
I was watching him and clapping along with the others and forgot to take pics. argh…
I got my HSK results on Friday 24th June. I didn’t know that the results were out already but my classmates excitedly told me that the results were out and urged me to go get my results slip (成绩单) and certificate (证书) .
Frankly, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to ruin my good mood.
I was expecting a 5 because of my poor preparation for the HSK exam. I’ve talked about it before. (link is here)
I thought about what to do throughout my morning classes and finally went to get my results in the office during the 30mins break.
I got Level 7 ( the highest for the intermediate level is 
with 334 points. I need 3 more points to get an 8 (something like 1 more point for 听力 and 2 more for 综合 ) . 
My Grammar teacher seemed pleased upon hearing that I got 97 points for the 语法 (Grammar) exam in HSK.
I was quite surprised myself. Like I’ve said before, many of the words I saw in my HSK exam papers were words that I’ve never seen before. I had to do some guessing work for some words. I guessed the meanings according to the context in which they were used, etc.
All undergraduate students studying Chinese language at Tongji university need to get HSK level 6 by the end of their 2nd year so I guess I should be satisfied since I’ve done it by the end of my first year.
Still, I plan to take the HSK exams again this December and maybe also next year in May. I’ve been told that the May exams are the most difficult. HSK exams can be taken 3 times a year.
I probably won’t be satisfied until I get around 350 points. yes, 加油 !I can do it. 
I’ll start to be more serious about my exams now. No more spending hours playing computer games when I should be studying for important exams :no: , no more surfing on the net till morning. :no: I do that so often.
I was going to say no more procrastination but really, it’s hard. I’ll just say “Less procrastination”.
My only other classmate who attempted the HSK exams with me also got a 7, with 328 points. Congrats to Jiachong. He prepared well for this exam and I’m happy for him. 
Too bad my other classmates didn’t want to attempt the HSK exam…
It’s a pity that we don’t have compulsory HSK preparatory classes this year. The 2003 class had it during their first year. My Grammar teacher suggested having HSK classes during the 1hr 40mins class we have with her on Tuesday afternoons but some of my classmates didn’t want to. They plan to take the HSK next year only so it would be a waste of their time. ah well..
We do have HSK revision classes but they are optional and I think there’s a fee of 50 kuai. Not sure. I didn’t have to pay since I’m a scholarship student and 50 kuai is not much anyway. I’ve been to some of those classes last December and stopped after some time because I got bored. So did my classmates. I didn’t like the teacher much and the classes were so slow. There were people of different levels in that class, even those who studied Mandarin for 3 months. They should have more classes and should divide the students according to their levels.
Some people asked me whether I’m happy about my results. Well, I’m not happy but not sad either.
I can even say that it’s the first time that I’ve done this badly for a Chinese exam. I wonder what my parents will say. They’ll probably be disappointed. I was ranked first in Chinese language when I took the C.P.E (in primary school), O level (in secondary school) and AO level (in high school) exams in Mauritius. They expect so much from me. If they know that I spent most of my time playing computer games instead of preparing for that HSK exam, they’d probably kill me. I’ll have to find something to say when they phone me next week.
I won’t waste my time thinking about the May 2005 HSK exams. I need to revise. My end of the semester exams start tomorrow and finish on Thursday. I’ll soon be on hols. :party:
Do you think that this looks good?
The famous 臭豆腐 (chou doufu), smelly beancurd, the deep-fried fermented beancurd… 
Some people have only two words to say about the smelly beancurd: “disgusting” & “smelly”.
I bought the smelly beancurd on the street. I had seen that street vendor a few times already but never dared to try the smelly beancurd before. I decided to be brave and try.. :laughing:
The wok was filled with oil and the street vendor dropped some of the beancurds in it to deep-fry them. I was looking at that oil and wondering if the vendor ever changes the oil..
Imagine using the same oil for days to fry the smelly beancurds…. 
Before being fried, the smelly beancurds look like normal beancurds with tiny black specks on them.
The smelly beancurds were done within minutes ( actually that felt like seconds.. ) and I put some sauce and chili on it.
I have to say that the smelly beancurd didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would and didn’t taste bad too. It had a faint bitter taste to it and Qz who was with me ate a piece and said that it was not good enough. Apparently, if it is really smelly , then it tastes nicer… er..
I think i need to eat smelly beancurds one more time before really saying my last word about it.
My current opinion is … not bad.
I did get a sore throat the next day and I think it’s because of the oil. My teacher told me that I should try to buy the smelly beancurd at restaurants instead.
Anyone who likes French cheese (some of which are really smelly) or Durian might like the smelly beancurd.
Why is it that recently people keep googling my name? I saw in my list of recent referrers that people searched for aline and visited my blog. They used google.it, google.es, google.ca, google.co.uk, google.sg, google.fr, google.de, google.com etc and also other search engines like seek.3721.com (which I’ve never seen before today), yahoo…
A quick post before I go off to class.
A friend told me that he cannot see the images in my blog.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Can you see the pics and the smilies??
Please let me know. Thanks.
Sha tagged me so I guess I’ll do this tag thing.
1. Total Number of Books I’ve Owned
Hmm.. difficult to answer. The last time I counted my books ( not counting school books) was back in 2001. I had around 200 books back then. ( I used to read a lot…. even during class. How? Well, by putting my book on my lap under the table I hope my middle & high school teachers aren’t reading this. )
2. The Last Book I Bought
Lord of The Rings ( the full set)
3. The Last Book I Read
Chicken Soup for The Soul
4. 5 books That Meant a lot to Me
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens -Sean Covey
Reading People
The Fifth Mountain – Paulo Coelho
Falling Leaves -Adeline Yen Mah
Chicken Soup for The Soul
5. Tag 5 People and Have Them Fill This Out on Their Blogs
no one.
I know that many people won’t like being tagged so I won’t tag anyone. This thing is kinda like those chain mails except that it’s on blogs.
btw, I’ve received these in my mail box recently:
I won the 3 cute hamsters in an auction on DMB. Thanks Flo.
I wasn’t sure how to call this thing but according to Qz who was with me on that day, it’s a taxi stand. I’ve seen this thing in a few places in Shanghai before but I’ve never bothered trying to see if it works.
Here the one at 国康路 near Tongji University:
I had taken out my camera to snap a few pics. Qz pressed the button to see if it works. Well, it doesn’t. I think the hands sign were supposed to light up but they didn’t . A taxi went by without stopping. See Qz’s blog entry for more pics of that day. He was trying some Taekwondo moves. :laughing:
This taxi stand reminds me of the button we are supposed to press at some of the pedestrian crossings.
When I first came to Shanghai, I always tried to see if those buttons worked. None did. What’s the point of even having those things then? I was so scared of crossing the road here. The Chinese people are crazy drivers. Where there are pedestrian crossings without those traffic lights, the Chinese drivers don’t bother slowing down or stopping for a few secs to allow people to cross the road. I’ve started to get used to it now but still, I can’t help feeling that I’m never safe on the streets. Not that I’ll get attacked or robbed… Just that I might get run over by one of those vehicles. In Mauritius, the drivers usually slow down to let people cross the street, esp if it’s a woman who wants to cross.
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