Us local students at HKUST usually only get 1 semester for living in the dorms because space is limited (only 1/3 of the undergrad student body lives on campus) and we obviously don’t need it as much as the international and mainland students. Skipping right to the point, I’ll be living at home next semester, sitting behind this very desk:

I’ve debated with a number of friends why living at home while going to college could possibly be better than living in the dorms. I’ve come to the conclusion that I won’t really know until a few weeks into semester. But I do know that I will be on public transport for about 3 hours of the day, will get better food at home, won’t have to worry about laundry, but won’t be around my friends for anywhere near as long.

But then again, that could be considered a good thing considering how I really need to pull up my grades. Contrary to my friends’ beliefs there really are less distractions for me here at home then on campus.

Oh and yes, I get to sleep and wake up at a decent hour, go to the sauna/gym/swimming pool/bunch of other amenities in the complex club whenever I want and be with the family cat.

Win? I’m sure many will disagree. Living in the dorms this fall semester was a lot of fun, but let’s see what it’s like at home before jumping to any conclusions…

For the past 3 months I’ve been going to college. For the last 2 I’ve had very little time to do stuff I want. And it’s not like I’m a nerd or something and get high grades. My grades are shit. But I do study, more than I ever did in high school. And yet my grades disgust me. For some of my classes, As and Bs are out of the question. I mean I knew college would be hard, but this is just crazy. Some tell me it’s because it’s my first year, but I don’t think so. I do notice that I’ve started working harder and I hope my work ethic keeps improving but in the meantime my grades are still bad. In a way that motivates me to try harder but at the same time it’s frustrating and depressing. I want good grades, I try to do well. It’s time to really bust my ass and although my grades this fall semester are already awful, I hope this new-found strive to work harder that I’ve noticed in the past few weeks will stay within me for the next semester and the rest of my life. Here’s hoping…

Today I also realized another way in which college is different from high school. The people in college are there because they want to be and they were screened before being accepted. Obviously, they are smarter, more hard working and have similar goals to mine. I’m still adjusting to this mentality.

But enough ranting about school. The overload of work is impacting other parts of my life. I play a lot less sports, I almost never play video games or watch TV (besides the weekly Prison Break episode), I sleep a lot less, I don’t have time to practice playing the guitar, I never visit Digg anymore (I used to go there daily, sometimes a few times a day), no time to take photos (my flickr account is stagnating), and obviously no time to blog.

Anyway, back to studying. There’s always the 1.5 month winter break coming up, but I am so dejected by my grades that I’m not even looking forward to all the fun in store for me in a month.

I am a student in HKUST, referred to by the locals as the “University of Stress and Tension”. At least I’m not alone.