JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

Winter is fastening its approach when winds as fast as 50km/h invaded Hualien yesterday. The temperature range is huge comparing that of daytime and at night. When the sun failed to shine in the mornings, that’s when you hope you’re still at nice o’l Penang basking in the eternal warming sunlight and (though at times a little too hot) feel the 10am-heat in Botanical Gardens.

2 months into a foreign country and what I missed most is, aside the glorious Penang food, the according-to-me mild and predictable weather of Malaysia. Here a storm can come just as abruptedly as Dr. M went into IJN. Back home there will be gusts of colder-than-usual winds blowing up crisp dry leaves along the streets followed by dark, gloomy clouds blocking your view of a MASKargo 747 before rain starts pouring in. And you’re glad for the downpour, unlike here.

At times of temperory sunshine in the mornings, seeing the golden rays striking into my room (pity my roommates decided to lower the blinds now, so no more sunlight for winter), I think of the temperate sunlight in Gurney Drive. The spectrum of comfortable colours you observe as you’re walking around avenues of pine trees and you see the huge GSC logo and you feel like you can do everything you wanted to this very day. Our sea is a genuine blue with mild waves and winds caressing your face (with no intentions of blowing you off from the wall). Here the sea is a gloomy gray (in winter especially), and winds, as mentioned, is horribly high-speed.

Think of old trees striking into the skies, wide green lawns (as in St. George’s) and yellow flower petals at your feet. And of colourful buildings (grey is nice for Tzu Chi buildings, but you’ll get bored after some while).

Now the food, think of how you can simply bump into any coffeeshop around the corner and surprise yourself with wonderful food (with no artificial flavourings). Think of how you get to sit in a pre-historic building waiting for the energetic char koay teow grocer to toss his gourment skilfully, instead of having to wait in empty, bare rooms with comic books laid everywhere and a tv which blasts buttered news 24/7.

Think of how good o’l teachers still uses the conventional chalk (now marker pen) to teach and you find fun in poking his grammar or pronounciation now and then, instead of the 100%-LCD projector, one-slide-per-30-seconds method, and bookish looking classmates bombarding the teacher with tonnes of intelligent questions after each lesson.

When you can SMS for free (for DiGi) instead of worrying whether this message will cost NT$3 (30 cent) or NT$15 (15 cents) because it’s sent after 5pm or not, and when you can easily nap through the afternoon without having to tolerate your roommates moving about trying to pack for a migration, it’s a blessing.

Saying I’m homesick might be a little biased. I’m just yearning the Penang life, but I can’t part with my classmates either.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 12:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.