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The Ravagingly Rageful Ranting Rui

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RuiAce:
21 Nov 17

Been fairly relaxed, but still being really lazy with piano. I need to snap out of it, because my exam for that is on Friday.

I don't even know if I'm improving these days. Welp.

Trying to learn how to react to messages like a pro like the one and only Jess. It's pretty hard for me but I'm getting somewhere.

RuiAce:
1 Dec 17

Hello all :)

So, right now I'm back in my hometown at Wuhan. I left and arrived on the 27th, so this is basically my fifth night here now. I've been REALLY relaxed here, which is annoying in that the next 4U AN lecture might be a bit disappointing. But it's probably for the better, because forget about suffering; everyone would yell at me if I didn't enjoy these days off.

Let's see, why did I want to post an update again? Oh right, to talk about some interesting things here.

Trying to live in China (especially when you're not living in one of the highlight cities) is pretty weird. It's my home and I cherish it greatly, but it's still quite a worn down place that I live in :P. It was really nice how many of the things I remember from when I was 0-3, 9, 10 and 13 still have not changed (I'm now 19 y/o) and it brings back lots of memories. Despite how much harder it is living here, I do kinda feel sad that I wouldn't always be able to stay here.

Now, having been raised here at the start (and came back enough) I'm well used to the roads here. It's ridiculous and you should definitely not consider driving in it. People walk on the side of roads without a care and cars just run right through alleged pedestrian crossings. Travelling through red lights is, situationally, normal. And to top it off, some roads don't have lane markings!

Sounds quite terrible, really. For someone like me though, especially given this is my hometown, it's fucking hilarious.

Something I've found.
- You call it juice? I call it water
- You call it soy milk? I call it water
- You call it coke? I call it water
- You call it ANYTHING at all that is drinkable? I call it water
(Of course, if it's actually water then I call it water too. The point is I'm always gonna call it water in China anyway. They all mean the same shit.)

I've figured out why I've been progressively sleeping more over the past four nights. Yes, I'm catching up on my sleep and that contributes, but it really is just the nature of winter here. The sun's out for only 9-11 hours of the day, and I just like sleeping through the dark wherever possible. So I sleep at around 9:15PM (equivalent of 12:15AM there) and then wake up at around, idk, somewhere between 7-8AM?

Probably why I feel so much more refreshed tbh!

Now, when travelling in China (under the assumption you don't use a car), if you're not walking then most likely you're on a bus. 1 dollar (or occasionally 2 dollars) per ride, go wherever you want. In other words, just walk it for short journeys, and then catch a bus ASAP for anything that you'd call "too long".

Which reminds me, money. I carry about 1000 dollars in my waist bag to spend on stuff. Which sounds like a lot, but then you realise it's all CNY. Convert that back to AUD, and it's only about $160. Which, is most certainly a lot, but FAR less intimidating than $1000 AUD.
Every time I hold a 100 CNY note I always think wow, but then laugh the instant I remember it's all CNY.

Buses are quite worn down as well, but some other newer forms of transport are brilliant. The train system in Wuhan is a lot superior to the stuff I see in Sydney...

Backtrack a bit.

Plane ride was about 10 and a half hours. Last year was the first year they implemented a direct flight between SYD and WUH (in the past, you'd have to transfer at either Beijing, Shanghai or Canton). Convenient af. Very appreci8.

Watched Wonder Woman on the plane - excellent. Towards the end I decided to watch Cinderella (because I cbf watching something new), but didn't finish - oops lol. Mostly played some Chinese games (mahjong is bae). Closed my eyes a couple of times but never fell asleep.

Q: WHEN DID WUHAN AIRPORT GET SO HUGE??? (probably a rhetoric question)

Weather was hilarious. When I took out my iPhone app to check the weather, it said "Unhealthy Air Quality for Sensitive Groups". Savage.

It is cold af.

Oh yeah. Back to the money thing; everything is cheap in China. Food and shopping = prioritiez.

Soz for the out-of-order mind dump; I'm too lazy to fix that up.

My grandma has Alzheimer's. We think it started developing as early as when I was 8, but it was only diagnosed when I was about 10-11. It was already quite severe when we came back when I was 13, but omg. It is now so bad... quite heartbreaking really... one of the three people that basically put everything into looking after me when I was little, now in such a state. She basically has to be fed and everything done for her. Can't imagine how tired my grandpa is looking after her DESPITE the fact they're both right in front of me.

Far out, the memories. I best end here before it gets too mushy.

RuiAce:
27 Dec 17

For 2018, I want to maintain my posts-per-day count of 9.

It used to be 13 but I lost it somewhere, sadness.[/i]

RuiAce:
31 Dec 17

Hmm. 2017 is approaching a close. What do I wanna get out?

Let's see...

So first off I guess I should say I returned to Sydney on the 22nd. Felt blessed by the fact that I returned on a relatively cool day, even though it was still humid. I had a very good and relaxed break; almost too relaxed to the point that even now I'm still relaxing and not doing important stuff (cough next lecture cough).

I mean like, whatever. But I probably should get a move on already aha.

The purpose of my time back there was more or less to sort out some important personal tasks, and to visit my grandparents. Following the abrupt end in the second entry above - the extent of my grandma's Alzheimer's is frightening now. Within a matter of 3.5 weeks (maybe even just 2), she suddenly forgot how to brush her teeth. Like wow. It's pretty darn fast.

She's 74 now, and my grandpa's been 75. Backtracking, I reckon the Alzheimer's has been affecting her for roughly eight years. So like, I can see why she's probably at the advanced stage of the illness now. Now I'm really just seeing how much longer she can cling on to; she's also gotten obese because she needs to stay home (else, she'll get lost). Oh yeah, she doesn't know where she walks. She has to be pushed around by my grandpa a lot.

I mean, I feel sorry for her, but I also feel sorry for my grandpa who must be tired as hell every day trying to look after her. Mum and I (and some others in our extended family) are all looking into alternatives. Best right now is probably one of those aged-care centres. Grandpa also has deteriorated hearing; quite unfortunate because sometimes you gotta repeat stuff to him before he realises what's going on. (Although his skeletal system still pretty strong!!)

I also feel like my return this time left more of an impact. Back when I was younger and I went back to my hometown, I really just thought why not and more or less waited to come back to Australia (because, duh, living standards here are better). This time, ehh.

Well, firstly, technology there has spiralled up heaps. Since when did Wuhan have fancy af underground railways? (The correct answer is around a year ago though, so I think my surprise was quite well justified.) QR scans get used everywhere. Alipay is such a dominant force; almost nobody carries cash or a card anymore. They just take out their phones and scan the QR code and boom, payment done. Yeah. Even TINY shops have that. It's crazy. Even the bicycles left out on the road for people to rent...they now have QR codes on them. You scan it, and pay a certain amount, and then the bike will automatically become usable for a certain amount of time. Once that time is over? It just stops. (Safely, I'd imagine. But it will stop.)

When I'm in China I usually like shooting hoops.

I was so close to the high score. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

It's really nice that products there are decently cheap. Whilst I don't shop much at all, I still got some decently comfortable clothing. (Exchange rate is around 1 AUD = 5 CNY)

One thing my grandpa is extremely good at is hiding stuff. I was basically "hidden" for the most of my vacation. It was only because of some little questions my cousin wanted to ask how my uncles and aunts even found out I was actually in China at the time! By then, my vacation was almost coming to an end. But there was still enough time to have a dinner with some of my aunts. Whereas my grandpa is a bit too scared to deal with technology (well, that's fair enough), they're quite well informed on it.

One of my uncles also sent me a WeChat. He has connections 8) so if all goes well, that might be some internships for me in the future :D :D
Fuck. I really need some of those.

My grandparents (especially my grandpa) loved to record me when I was <5 y/o (and even up until I was around 8-ish). But of course, VCR players are now gone. So we had to pay someone to burn them to discs (and conveniently also to a USB).
Lol. It's cringy watching me as a child, but it really shows my family's affection you know? All of their hard work to raise me up to where I am today. Can't have been easy if you ask me. (And like, it also gives me a chance to see my grandma actually still having her brain. Ahh, she was an energetic woman I'd say)

Looking back on it, this is the first time I've really been back there and wanted to go back there again. More positive things have gone out of it. Food was brilliant (no shit, it's the authentic taste), opportunities have opened up, I've had an actual break as well, and hey I've developing more resistance to spicy foods! :P

I know for a fact that I'll get to see my grandpa again because he'll come back to Sydney one day. Let's just hope I get to see grandma again.

Oh yeah P.S. the Hubei province dialect is always nice to hear even though I can't speak it aha

Alright. So that and the earlier post about sums up the important bits of my vacation! Here in Australia I'd always find a more comfortable lifestyle (showers every day as opposed to once per 5 days, unpolluted air quality and hence less sickness etc.) but tbh, there's a LOT that can be done back there now. Eternally thankful for being bilingual!

Hmm. I guess next I should talk about 2017?

So, as everyone knows I went over to computer science this year. Still disappointed by my marks - I can't properly get over them unless I do really well this upcoming semester. Just not disappointed to the same extent I wake up and instantly feel sick and down about it.

Computer science is great content wise though. I found that I like things to be logical, and like the existence of one correct answer (even though there might be several ways of getting there). I like breaking things down and finding the best path to get there. Not gonna lie, some syntax is really bizarre and whilst I hate the style guide for loss of marks, I'm thankful that it simplified things down to some extent. But whatevs, still fun.

Aaron made a joke just a few days ago about relating my typing speed to my degree. That was fucking hilarious. I like to think of typing as the only thing that I could potentially get better at than mathematics XD.

Of course, I also officially started working for AN this year. That was a cool new experience; I used to just panic at giving speeches and boom suddenly I'm doing a lecture. Woah, that happened. But then again, I got more opportunity to do whatever I wanted to do. That certainly made speaking easier :P
I probably just hate public speaking when there's actually something I'm expected to follow. Teaching math is just trivial, but if I had some random marking guideline on top of it then welp that wouldn't have been fun.

Gonna forever be thankful to AN for giving me stuff to put on my resume 8) when I first came on this forum it was virtually blank.

"I like learning, but I hate exams."
That's me with uni. Towards the end of the year I've found this is also me with piano.

During 8th grade I was pretty frustrated by the piano. But it was probably because an exam was chasing my back. Learning pieces for CMus reminded me that learning the actual piece is pretty fun.

I'll probably get CMus over and done with and then call quits. No way in hell am I good enough nor have enough time to build up to the AMus lol who was I kidding.

I thought I wasn't gonna get a chance to teach uni math ever again. I might be disproven by being given one opportunity to do a revision lecture for MATH2901. Fuck I hate linear models, but theory of stats was (on the contrary) brilliant. Would be more happy to do so, especially since it's SECOND year math and not first.

Which reminds me. Basically I helped found the UNSW Statistics Society this year. I'm currently its Arc Delegate (which is a very important role) but I'm not really required to do much for the specific role yet. I'm more or less filling in for other stuff. That revision lecture is just one of them :)

When I first came back and logged on Facebook, 28 notifications came to greet me. Not too bad, considering some people have 500+. Was quite amusing though.
And some unread group chats as well. A certain DF group chat had 460+ unread messages for me to go through. (Yeah, I wasn't bothered lol. I just skimmed it and was like nice :P.)

Thinking about it, no Facebook is actually a DECENT EXPERIENCE. I was pretty happy living without it.

No YouTube isn't a massive (although still slightly annoying) problem. It's offset by the fact China have YOUKU. Got me back into a racing game which I basically started playing again once I came back to Sydney. (It's called PopKart.)

If you read up to here, colour me impressed. I'm really thankful you listened to me rambling the whole time. Not too sure what else is on my mind to say! Have some daffodils as thanks :P


So I guess I'll leave it at that for now. Here's to 2017 8)

See you all next year! Rui signing off

emi87:
loving the long posts, always a nice read

you should consider writing an autobiography, i would read it for sure  ;D

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