So how are you in Bristol?

  For my friends who genuinely want to ask me the question of “How are you in Bristol?”, please bear with me for this lengthy answer and going back to some pre-Bristol talk.

  To begin with, I very much wanted to write something for myself in the few weeks before leaving Hong Kong. Physically I wasn’t as busy as I would expect with preparations for my adventure. However, an outpour of thoughts and feelings kept my mind occupied. As some of you know, I allowed myself only ten days between my last day of employment and my flight. It was a very short time. There are many good friends with whom I didn’t manage to catch with before parting. Some didn’t even know I was going to study abroad, I’m afraid.

  Saying goodbye is an art. How should I meet with the maximum number of buddies in ten days while ensuring I spend substantial time with my family and have enough time for all the necessary preparations before flying? The answer is simply impossible. In the end I concluded that had I taken a longer break, I would still never be able to say goodbye to everyone I wanted but instead I would only end up telling of my not-yet-realised study plans to more people and repeating answers to the frequently-asked-questions for more times. So why don’t I go for a clear and cool departure? After all, I’m not “unfriending” you all. I’m just going to be physically away for one year and you guys can always find my online anyway.

  But I did write a goodbye note to my work contacts, because these are people I may or may not see again. There are quite a number of them to whom I truly wanted to thank and with whom I really enjoyed exchanging ideas. The relationship between a journalist and her sources can be intriguing. I know they want to spin me and they know I am there to challenge them and get stories from them. But as time goes by both sides would be able to tell whether the other is sincere and worth befriending with or not. I was surprised to receive some really warm phone calls and e-mails in response to my goodbye e-mail, some from people I hadn’t expected. Four days after officially quitting my job, I returned to the newsroom to give out farewell cakes and to pack things up - realizing that it could take several hours to clear my desk and drawers! (Clearing my place in the newsroom was another nostalgic experience but I’d better skip it here.) With the help of two colleagues and a warm gift from my editor, I literally left the HKEJ, with a big backpack and a full suitcase.

  So the departure day finally came. It was not at all an emotional but was just like any other day when I was off from work and stayed at home with my parents. Mom didn’t cook a particularly big meal. I went out to shop in the afternoon for some daily stuff like any usual Saturday. Everything was so usual that I started to doubt: Am I leaving for one year today or am I dreaming? The only unusual thing I did was giving each of my parents a big kiss as they sent me off at the airport. And that was all.

  Compared with that of other students studying abroad, my luggage is not that much. One suitcase, one laptop bag, one knapsack and one small bag for a few handy items like passport and wallet, all fully packed. Again, every one of my friends felt suspicious after hearing of my baggage load: “How can you go with so few things for one whole year?” I still remember pulling one suitcase and a giant bag at the same time when I went to the US for my exchange programme. They were loads and looking back I really don’t understand how I managed to move them by myself from the San Diego airport to the residential blocked where I would stay. Perhaps it’s because I am now more mature and have more travelling experience, for work in particular, I now know what I DON’T need to take with me.

  Having said that I now had more travelling experience, I still forgot one important thing at home – the adaptor for my beloved laptop! I almost wanted to cry when I found that they were absent as I was queuing up to board the plane. How could I be more careless than when I was an undergrad? I blamed myself and immediately called up my parents and asked them to mail it to my dorm as soon as possible, feeling home sweet home before the flight even took off… (Fortunately one of my new roommates used a laptop of the same brand and a similar model to mine and her adapter suited my computer so I managed to survive the first few days by occasionally borrowing her adapter when she didn’t need it.)

  Moving into my new home in Bristol involved much more efforts than I had expected. It was not until last week that I really learned to appreciate how much my Californian roommates had set up for me when I moved into their apartment nine years ago. I have known all along that they are very nice but now I feel even more grateful to them as I come to understand how fortunate I was to move into a flat with everything ready once I arrived in a foreign place.

My current dorm provided nearly nothing. There is a substantially big kitchen with three fridges for the five of us living here but we had to buy our own pots and pans, let alone other utensils. There are two lights in my bedroom but they are rather dim so I had to look for a lamp. There is a landline telephone on the desk in my bedroom but I had to register and pay before I could use it. (I ended up not using it anyway.) If one wanted to use WiFi in the dorm one had to register and pay, etc. On the surface it seemed early to arrive in the city 5 days before the induction week started and 12 days before formal classes began. But shopping for the necessities to set up my new residences kept me really occupied in the initial days. School registration procedures were efficient, on the other hand. In the first three days here I found myself like a full-time housewife, taking two full huge shopping bags back to my apartment every day… One note to add is that my shopping load had already been reduced with the help of an alumna who finished her studies here last month and left me with some of her utensils. Thinking of this I felt lucky and thankful again!

  Five of us live together in one flat, each having her own bedroom and everyone sharing a kitchen-cum-common room, a water closet and a bathroom. My roommates are all from mainland China but from different parts. One of the girls was travelling outside when I moved in so in the first few days there were only four of us. My roommates are very friendly and I was surprised by how long we talked on the first few evenings after I met them! We would sometimes visit each other’s rooms and I would say hello and introduce myself in the lift to someone who lived on the same floor as I did – the “hall etiquette” taught at HKU residences which I did not feel comfortable complying with as a little freshman back then. I now think as the community is smaller and when one is not compelled to socialize with anyone, socializing in this way just becomes natural.

  By the way, sorry for those who have read so much up to here here but still don’t know what I am studying in Bristol. I will be doing a taught masters degree in public policy. On my third day here I took a campus tour and was thrilled by the academic buildings converted from residential houses. It was so tranquil, so peaceful and so green along Woodland Road, which houses arts departments. There is also a pleasant lawn which would be a nice place for picnics, reading or simply procrastinating – when it is sunny. The School for Policy Studies (i.e. my school) buildings also pretty houses, too.

  After being three days of a full-time housewife I felt somewhat tired of what I had been doing and I asked myself: Did I come here to study? So on the first Saturday here I decided to go to the library to get myself familiarized with it and to do a little bit of reading, although not really into it. Sounds boring? Indeed I almost fell asleep as I tried to read my first textbook which was full of theories…

  Then came my first Sunday here. I joined a picnic on Brandon Hill organized for international students and made some new friends there. I was really happy to finally meet someone from my class! By the way, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival (I didn’t realize it until my mom reminded it of that when I called her up on the day before), a Chinese festival for family reunion. Despite my family not currently with me, I was really touched to see my two SCMP brothers coming from London. (Note: My colleagues in the Post political team would call each other brothers and sisters) Good to have them visiting although the date was just coincidental. Do you guys want to make me homesick before my university term starts?

  So much for now. These are my first five days in Bristol but I definitely have much more to share. Classes will start tomorrow so I’d better switch my mind to the academic mode this afternoon!