Portal: Prelude is being released on October 10. So i’m excited about that. I’m also excited about my not-so-mid-sem week off I get next week. But that’s a different story.

Till my brain returns…

At 14:28 today, China stopped in its tracks to remember and mourn its dead. This national 3-minute remembrance silence was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Akin to the Last Post played on Remembrance Day in Australia, a cacophony of sirens, whistles, car horns echoed across Beijing, as millions of people stood and reflected upon the national tragedy that has affected the lives and thoughts of billions around the world. Intermingled with this nation-wide remembrance, were the heart-wrenching sobs of those who have lost loved ones and the pervasive feeling of anguish. This is a nation grieving.

One week ago, at the exact same time, I thought a big truck was rumbling past, and thought nothing more of it. Some of the girls in my class asked if the rest of us had felt an earthquake, as they had felt the ground move. Unsure, we left class and found to our horror that a magnitude 7.9 earthquake had hit the China in the Sichuan Province. One week later, the official toll is over 32 000 dead, with thousands more still missing, hundreds of thousands injured, and millions affected by the earthquake, having lost friends, family, homes, livelihoods and their sense of security.

Being currently on exchange to Beijing, China, is an experience on its own, but being here while a natural disaster unfurls across the nation is something that cannot be expressed by mere words. The thoughts of a nation, and indeed of many across the world, are with those who have been affected by the earthquake, and with those who are bravely risking their lives and taking an active part to help rescue, assist and comfort those in sichuan.

Words cannot express the atmosphere that is here now. It is so full of emotion and feeling that …

As my friend Xueling said in her blog, and whose family was also affected by the earthquake:

“What can I say to relieve the pain of losing so many lives?”

I am living outside uni, my place is only four kilometres away. On the first day of school, I took a taxi to school. I set off at seven am, but I never expected the traffic jams to be so severe, I sat inside the taxi worriedly for ten minutes. For anyone reading this, this is my text book passage, and not a necessarily a representation of what I think. The taxi drivers are playful, often telling me not to worry, don’t stress because its not worth it.

I want to go to korean tomorrow, but alas that is not to be. It is really quite sad how there is a lack of good Korean restaurants around BNU. A lack of the cheap uni canteens near the east gate, with them all being over on the west side. Anyway, an anime review will be coming up next, so stay tuned or tune out, as the case may be.

The games are simply awesome. The games aren’t that long, but they definitely are a LOT of fun. I’ve already finished Portal and Episode 2, which are both single player games. Team Fortress 2 is multiplayer, and unfortunately my connection is just too poor for me to be able to play the game properly. It’ll have to wait till I get back to Aussieland.

I’ll do a more indepth review of the games later. For now, pop over to my new forum which I’ve been putting a lot of effort into: The Baka-Forums. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m aiming to make it even better =)

Enjoy~

We went to dinner with a group of lawyers (lawyers? yes it’s a long story), and were in the middle of eating shabu-shabu, lovely thinly sliced meat etc. Imagine our horror when we were told that St Bernard used to be on the menu. Of the dog farms in China that ‘used’ (so i hope) breed St Bernards for consumption, because they are large and have lots of, well, meat on them. Like….sooooo not cool. This has apparently been stopped after the Swiss government complained. Apparently they didn’t appreciate one of their national icons being on the menu.

Which makes you think about Australia. We have seriously got to be one of the ONLY nations that actively eats its national icons. Put up your hand if you’ve eaten Kangaroo or Emu. Now look at the Australian Emblem. Ahuh. Now I’m glad to say that I haven’t eaten skippy, but seriously, makes you wonder. Another funny thing that I heard is that apparently we picked the emu and kangaroo, not only because they are of similar height and provide balance on the emblem, but because they can only go in one direction. hahaha, means we’re a stubborn lot.

Fun times

Which reminds me. I’ll be going to the Beijing zoo for the FIRST time ever!! I’ll get to see the Pandas hopefully!! I’ve surprised myself, in that I haven’t been to the zoo with over 11 weeks clocked inside Beijing. I’ll definitely take my camera, so expect pictures. We’ll hopefully also be going for Korean tomorrow night, and i’m REALLY excited about that

Yay for holidays!!