*If life's a filmroll...

See you there

2007-05-31T01:07:00.000+08:00

Blogger is refusing to display my posts unless I resort to changing the post date to anytime before June. -__- just the perfect excuse for me to move to wordpress: izzitjustme.wordpress.com

jyaa, mata ne :)

2007-05-16T23:40:00.000+08:00

I have broken my record time of coming home from sch yet again - 4am, for the final written report for AguaClara.

Not that I am complaining. Now it's just one take home final and one econ final (and lots of errands and packing!) between me and the end.

I have already finished 4 episodes of "Attention Please" since Ichikawa sensei burnt it onto a dvd and gave it to me on the day of my Japanese exam. You know what this means? I need MORE japanese dramas to last me through the days of summer break! =P

Japan had better live up to what it promises.

日本に行こうよ！

お邪魔します　:)

Stress management

2007-05-11T03:52:00.000+08:00

I am feeling really lethargic and sluggish now, having gone through 2 consecutive exams -pchem last night, accounting this morning- and i hardly have the stamina to work on my very last lab report as a chem major which is due tomorrow, let alone getting started on revision for Japanese exam which is on Sat. Knowing that I did not do very well for the previous lab report just a while ago hardly helped to motivate me, but worse, is deactivating me.

While I really do not have any time to take any break, I am so bored and distracted now in the computer lab in Baker that I began browsing online shops for clothes and shoes again!? Yes, I actually feel something's missing in my life now and that thing is to be able to excitedly track my packages online and looking forward to try on the stuff that I bought. And after browsing through Forever21's site, I feel the urge to spend again. (fyi, i just bought $80 worth of stuff from the same site 3 weeks ago)

So as I was launching into self-reproach, I made a very interesting revelation about myself:

I realize that ever since coming here, I surprise myself with behaviors remote of me in the past. In my first semester, it was to gorge myself with sweet (and fattening) desserts. Last semester, it was to stop doing work for incorrigibly long extended periods of time. Now, it is to keep spending money without any inhibition. In all 3 instances, they are self-damaging in their own ways. I conclude they are my newly-found methods of dealing with stress.

This being said, I still want those tops from Forever21. and shoes. and bags. and dresses.

[Edit: i gave up on those tops alr. They are never going to ship from California to my place before i fly home. See,I am still rational]

2007-04-30T04:03:00.000+08:00

another xiong week has gone by. gosh, i wonder how many more of this i can take.

and it looks like it's only going to get worse.

i keep saying, can't believe slope day is this coming friday! the semester is ending!! i think i am gg to miss Ichikawa sensei (and her Yuki-chan!), Tom, and Ankush, who I am alr used to seeing almost everyday since last semester!

this semester is crazily fast-paced. i didn't have time to slump into depression, unlike last semester.

i'm admitted into the Kyuushu U summer program, but no scholarship/grant to attend it. Tom, who kindly wrote the recommendation for me, seemed so genuinely happy for me when i told him. But my parents want me to stay at home as long as possible. sighz. guess i have to give it a miss.

remedy to study stress: shopping. remedy to study stress in Cornell: online shopping. oh yes, i did it again, spending another $100+ at VS :P well, not all's for me though keke ;)

buying any apparel online involves taking a risk. either they fit, or they don't, then you will lose on transaction costs (shipping charges, time wasted on going to post office). even if they fit, how do you know they fit best, compared to other sizes/colors/design? it's too much money and time to order different sizes and colors then return them (unless you buy on Zappos and have both way free shipping ahaha) So although i am so into online shopping now, i am aware tt each purchasing decision i make is not necessarily a perfectly-informed one.

wait a min, doesn't that sound like dating? LOL...

in any case, i just dragged a rather unwilling yx out for a brief walk cuz the weather is just too good. haha. cuz you see, the sun has been a slacker the past week, MIA-ing since its brief honorable return last weekend. walking ard the gorges/creek and random wild flowers under the sun is pretty nice heh heh. makes me wish that ithaca has only one season.

and junch picked a good day to hold a house bbq! looking forward to the good food in 1hr's time! yums!

So on almost every blog i read/came upon by chance, almost everyone in spore has/is going to watch phantom of the opera (which is extended only up till the day before i touched down on spore grrr). so has everyone in london. so has yx. I swear I will watch it at Broadway before i leave this place, even if I have to watch it alone or pay full-priced tix. grrr.

Can you smell it?

2007-04-22T23:01:00.000+08:00

Spring is here, AT LAST!

What a difference a few days could make - from Siberian winter to Cancun tropical weather! (c.f. previous post)

These 3 days were nothing short of beautiful. Not just the weather and blue sky, but also the lively campus. people all hanging outdoors playing frisbee, chilling at outdoor patios of cafes, playing beer pong and barbequeing outside their houses... It's hard not to smile each day i pass by Arts quad, Engine quad, collegetown and college ave on my way home, because the cheerful atmosphere is too infectious.

Too bad ellen missed this fantastic weather. She came on the day we started getting snow flurries, which was followed by snow storm, and left the day it became sunny and hot! what luck. and she missed our awesome bbq dinner right outside our house, with cheeseburgers by gj, otak by junch, and salad by christina and i!

i will miss ellen for her delicious food and desserts, random long chats on random stuff, and the life she injected into the house during this period when it is sorely lacking the most.

So, instead of going down to NYC for the inaugural Singapore Day yesterday, i decided to stay here to "catch up on my work", but by Sunday morning (now), the only worthy thing I have done is make some meaningful progress for AguaClara. And the rest of the day and night was wasted on online shopping, on the premise that 1) i need a dress for grad night; 2) i need dresses for everyday wear because i only have 2; 3) i need to buy clothes for myself because the last time i did that was in london!

but still, $130 in one day on clothes (which I have not even touched and tried on) is, well, indulging and spoiling myself to the max. Then i will justify myself with yx's words "What's the point of you coming to US to study if you don't buy clothes here?" LOL.

*** ***

Sometimes, i will imagine how different all this will be if that tragedy had happened on my college instead.

It is unlike a terrorist attack where sufficient intelligence could have pre-empted it; it is unlike say an airborne disaster where stringent maintenance and vigilance of the pilot/space shuttle crew could have prevented it; it is unlike a fire where sounding the shrieking alarm could have immediately warned people of it and immediately evacuated them. Even his teachers noticing that his writings were weird could not have served as intelligence; even sending his for counselling was not good enough a precautionary measure; even having a separate murder incident 2 hrs before in the dorm could not have served as a 'fire alarm', simply because, face it, random murders by guns are conducted every day in this country, who can ever accurately imagine and predict that the next target by the killer is not additional 1 or 2 random beings, but 30 members of the school right on the school campus? and besides, in all enormous college campuses (including mine) as far as i know, other than the fire alarm, and emails, there is NO WAY any message can be broadcast to the entire college immediately.

and it is this unpredictable nature of such tragedies which is absolutely disturbing. there is equal chance of it happening in any other US campus, and I can almost imagine it happening in mine, seriously. and i dare say, even after it had happened to VT, if there is just one guy who decides to do the same thing in my college one fine day, there is nothing that could be done that could have lessen the tragedy.

this is, sadly, a consequence of just one of the social illnesses in this country. Look, i am not trying to be biased against US, but say, in singapore, "Your drove me into a corner" will most likely translate into leaping off the 12th storey of a flat instead. Tthe only solution here, allow me to say something which is completely useless, is to completely change the crux on which this society is built on, and in particularly, correcting the method of venting one's disatisfaction towards anything.

Yesterday was so spectacular that I just have to take photos

2007-04-17T21:23:00.000+08:00

I know this year's april fool's day went past me without me even remembering to trick someone, but I swear that I am not kidding you when I tell you that I have taken ALL these photos yesterday, april 16 2007. If there is anyone playing a trick, it's the weather (or whoever up there controlling it); if there is anyone who's made a fool, it's us, the unwilling residents of upstate new york, the place where

P(snow storm given time of the year)= P(snow storm)

(ie, the occurence of snowstorm is independent of time of the year)

And so, under the impression that the probablity of encountering snow in mid april is almost 0, 3 weeks ago, I made an appointment for my driving test on this spectacular day, incidentally.

I hereby regret to inform you that the bad reputation of female drivers will continue to be tarnished by yet another bad sheep, as she joins the population of the (literally) cursed ones, legally.

Hi again

2007-04-13T06:22:00.000+08:00

I am so tired that when I can wake up in the morning, I lie on my bed, under my comforter, with my heavy head harboring thoughts of sleeping forever and stay isolated from the people, things, work, problems etc outside my bedroom door.

I am so unhappy with everyone and everything that I don't feel like talking to anyone or look at anyone, and my equilibrium face is a smileless face, because there's nothing for me to smile at, and it takes too much energy to smile.

I am so sick of doing anything that I really, literally just do nothing and stare into blank space for extended periods of time, even on the eve of my pchem prelim.

So, it is "hi" again to the devil who tortured me last semester and has tracked me down again.

I need a second spring break

2007-04-05T08:08:00.000+08:00

photo credits: chee and his lomo

I sorely miss the blue sky, hot sun, turquoise sea, exotic food, and happy people in cancun.

I feel like I have slogged for a long time since I came back from cancun, but nah, it has only been one and a half week?!

And worst of all,

it is going to snow TOMORROW!

WTF???!!!

Get me out of this place........

spring break beckons

2007-03-16T09:23:00.000+08:00

well, i am not extremely excited about the sunbathing (fyi, bikinis are absolutely out of the picture for me, thank you very much) or the partying part, but i am looking forward to having a laid-back break under the SUN and having nothing to do but read my HarryPotter 6 (finally...) by the beach, and possibly explore the Mayan ruins!

and most importantly, get out of ithaca which is snowing AGAIN today, as well as the academic mess i am in, just for a short while.

In the spirit of Lunar New Year...

2007-02-19T07:12:00.000+08:00

... I finally changed my blog skin - qu4 jiu4 ying2 xin1 :)

...I am eating lotsa good food here! last night's yummy yusheng at SSA's CNY reunion dinner, this morning's homemade kueh lapis and walnut cookies thanks to Christina and Junch, lunch's yam rice, ba1 bao3 cai4, stew duck, kong bak pao by the Great Chef Junch of course, and now i need to find space in my stomach for steamboat and Zee's highly anticipated dishes whee~ I love this substitute 'family' away from home! :)

...I am giving myself a holiday and i haven't done work the whole weekend. not good... but WTH, it's CNY!

GONG HEI FATT CHOI to all!

IT'S OFFICIAL

2007-02-15T03:54:00.000+08:00

CORNELL UNIVERSITY IS CLOSED

We are snowed in! ~WHEE

You think our school is so kind? fyi, it was only closed from 12pm onwards, ie we walked to, then back from school THROUGH 2 feet of snow!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow... HUR HUR

2007-02-13T20:32:00.000+08:00

Even the most beautiful thing on Earth has a threshold point whereby you just want to yell, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"

*all temps in farenheit unless otherwise stated (brrr....)

High and low

2007-02-09T11:35:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was a low, today is a new high!

Kickboxing class is awesome! I love the upbeat music, I feel like i am dancing as i do the routine hehe. just that it's a damn xiong dance la! my thighs are aching alr!

This sounds absolutely geeky, but chem lab is cool today! After studying NMR for so long, i finally saw what it exactly looks like and i learnt how to operate it hahaha. i also had to hold this propane/oxygen fire gun that shoots out a 3000K flame to literally melt the glass of the nmr tube at its end, then i twisted and yanked the tube out and let the melted glass seal up its end - auto-seal! hahaha. luckily nobody in the lab felt particularly murderous today hur hur =P

and my chem prof is thinking of bringing our class to rockclimb or go to the Hoffman challenge course (= mini-obs) when spring comes! :)

my water supply project is getting really exciting! i met up with my team mate today and had an absolutely productive discussion-cum-brainstorm session and so many ideas were thrown in and we already have our design of our testing device all planned out! the next step is to buy the parts and build it! whee~

I have stopped complaining about the permanently -15deg cel weather, because the permanent snow/ice/slush on the ground has given me a perfect excuse to buy yet another pair of new boots! They came within 2 days after i ordered them online - Zappos rocks!! Not very cheap or extremely gorgeous, but for a pair of waterproof boots that have good traction, i think they are considered pretty already!

welcome back...

2007-01-21T17:14:00.000+08:00

to snowy ithaca and my warm little house at 909!

(british accent) Lovely.

and so, upon alighting, i was greeted by:

-10 deg celcius temperature
powdery snowfall! whee!
and right in the heart of Collegetown [i (literally) gasped aloud, "WASSUP!!??"] a half-renovated STARBUCKS

it's 4am now but i am still wide awake... am i jetlagging??? WTH?!

Shop, Eat, Shop, Eat

2007-01-13T09:40:00.000+08:00

Nah I am not in Hong Kong now, but that's basically what i have doing for the past few days in London! Thanks to jiaying, i have been eating the best stuff she has eaten in london and chionging all the fabulous sales and buying items on my wish list, including trenchcoat! whee!

as you can see, i have gotten over the dollar-is-weaker-than-pound-hence-i-shall-not-spend syndrome and these days i just swipe my card like nobody's business. My bank balance is dwindling steadily, but the only consolation is the credit card exchange rate is more than reasonable so i can swipe with a peace of mind!

also not forgetting, flo and the rest of 6a are great hosts too, bringing me ard london and LSE! as if class dinner is not enough, we even have class outing to LSE finance lecture! hohoho! been seeing familiar rj faces ard LSE! and i met my ogl today! haven't seen him since the og outing in j2!

so wassup with the New Year? nothing much. seriously, i don't feel much about the start of a new year. the only difference is to write a "7" instead of of "6" right? i feel that my life is no longer 'segmented' by the turning points in the calendar but rather by milestones (events) - nominal vs real issue HAHA. thus i forsee i probably won't feel much about turning 21 in two months' time, hur hur. we shall see...

but anyway, Happy New Year to all! (not too late right? :P)

Photo Catch-up II

2007-01-02T09:54:00.000+08:00

Photos which explain why 909 East State Street is the most desirable house in Ithaca:

because we have a BIG GASTRONOMICAL FEAST every 2 weeks, thanks to Chief Chef Junch!

Housewarming dinner, Western style - steaks and scallops etc

Oriental dinner! siew mai, quasi shark fin's soup, braised ducklings, miso fish, KONG BA PAO etc

Dim sum brunch - LOR MAI KAI, curry puffs,CHAR SIEW SOU, chi jeong fan!

Now, will you still not believe me when i say i cannot lose weight at all?

Photos which show that it's fun to be domesticated:

Our first attempt at baking oreo cheesecake!

2nd attempt - brownie cheesecake for yx's birthday :)

Photos which show that I don't deserve any sympathy for being broke:

My snowboard! Spent $500 in all for all the board, bindings, boots and season pass

Cornell's Men's ice hockey season pass - $265

Photos which explain why my money is well-spent:

My first Ice Hockey game, our Lynah Rink! Never felt such stirring school spirit in a long time (since jc)! The American way of cheering/jeering is so arrogant that it's hilarious! and we THRASHED York haha.

But the SINGLE REASON that is sufficient to justify the $265-seasonpass is...
CORNELL

WON

HARVARD

(right before my own eyes!) YAY!!!!

Well, Harvard is supposedly the No.1 Rival of Cornell in Men's ice hockey and the feud dated very very long back. So everytime Harvard comes to Cornell for a game, the tradition is to greet them with FISH:

Yes, those are FISH on the rink - the Cornell Students REALLY threw fish at the harvard players when they stepped onto the rink! I was amazed and amused HAHA! And I know they really werent lying abt this tradition when I saw so many of the staff so well-prepared with those thrash bag and entered immediately to clean up the fish hahaha.

The Cornell-Harvard face-off

The atmosphere was electrifying! Cornell had an early lead 1-0 in the 2nd minute, then down 1-2 until 5 minutes left, then scored 2 more goals in the last 4 minutes!!! The entire crowd went CRAZY!!!

Victory huddle and victory cheer!

Photos which show it is COOL to live the American way in America:

cuz we get to carve pumpkins! (mine is the smiley face hehe)

dressing up for halloween frat party and laugh at the hilarious costumes donned by americans

but the party on the weekend before Thanksgiving turned out to be way more fabulous, partly due to the great company! yeah! side note: all of us in this picture made our way to the frat house in yingyi's SUV -- that's 14 persons in one car(before you start counting)

of course the best part of celebrating Thanksgiving is the big feast, inclusive of the Turkey! which also gives us one more occasion to taste Junchen's cuisine! 909 -hearts- master chef!

Photos which show why it is COOLER to live the Singaporean way in America:

MAKANMANIA - the single most important contribution of Singaporeans to Cornell (other than the number of honors engineering students we contribute)

Everyone in our house worked hard from morning, under the command of Chief Chef, to mass-produce Chicken rice, Satays and Laksa. our wage? those yummy food for lunch!

the hustle and bustle on the actual event! (which was a sell-out!)

Photo which shows that joining a nerdy fraternity is still cool:

Presenting to you, the new distinguished members of national engineer honors fraternity Tau Beta Pi -- "We mug hard, but we are proud of it" =P

Photos which show that violence is not necessarily an expression of hate:

At least i believe so, so i still love you! hahaha :P

Photos which show why I still love Cornell and Ithaca despite all the misery I suffer during semester:

Because cornell + sun + blue sky + red/orange/yellow leaves = gorgeous ithaca! but this is rare, that's why I snap like crazy as though i am a tourist whenever this occurs. blue sky and the sun are therapeutic, i swear!

And this sums up my Fall 06 semester, minus the travelling and burnt-out episodes! BYE BYE to the old sem!

2006-12-16T21:09:00.000+08:00

Getting out of ithaca, off to europe!

Merry Xmas to all, in advance!

an irrational economist

2006-12-13T11:27:00.000+08:00

After screwing up the freaking easy microecon finals, i really really wanted to come home and just wallow in self-pity -- "why is it only me who have 2 major exams on the same day?"/"Why on earth have i become stupider ever since i come here???!!!"-- BUT london/europe is just tooooooo close and my dear is just toooooo sweet that i could not remain in the depressed state. =P

Girls will never ever understand guys' obsession for DOTA (my house has become a DOTA den officially since the start of study break), just like guys will never understand girls' fetish for boots! I love boots! i love them so much i can browse through Zappos for ALL their boots (abt 99x 11pages) again and again and not get sick looking at them -- the utility i get from looking at boots is monotonic!

hot boots i look to ogle at but don't have what it takes to wear/try them:

among the many pairs that i have shortlisted to buy:

i swear i will buy one pair of high boots with shaft length of no less than 14 inches before i leave america or i will not forgive myself for the rest of my life!!! i am just trying to convince myself that i still have a shred of rationality left by making myself buy in spring instead of now when the snow would have melted and the temperature warrants a pair of boots but not the thick and warm kind hahaha. (well actually the snow in ithaca has melted AGAIN. WTH wadeva man...) i really wish i can own more than one pair but considering where i am living now and where i will be living after college, ahem, i should not be irrational.

oh today, i finally bought my Northface fleece jacket, something which i used to be too stingy to buy but i finally decided to buy one and i feel happy to know that i am gg to be warm while touring those Scandivanian countries! yay~

I confess

2006-12-09T11:48:00.000+08:00

that I actually feel delightful that it's finally snowing like shit outside and the temperature has finally dropped to the 'correct' temperature of -10 deg celcius in the day

Because it makes me feel like everything is back to normal

Stuck in a trench

2006-12-02T11:37:00.000+08:00

i can't see any light infiltrating from the opening at the top; neither can i see the bottom.

just clinging on with one bare hand, and sliding down steadily. neither am i using my other hand to stop me from sliding, nor am i releasing the hand holding on, completely.

have i given up or have i not? both my hands are reacting differently, and i have conceded control of them.

tell me what i should do, before i slid all the way to the bottom...

2006-11-20T13:34:00.000+08:00

問題は何かどうか全然わからないが。。。

もう、頑ばれなくなちゃった。

誰か助けてください！お願い。。。

Countdowns

2006-11-10T13:26:00.000+08:00

One day to Harvard ice hockey game! whee!

12 days to Thanksgiving break!

3 weeks to end of classes! 5 weeks to end of fall semester (ie winter break)!!

which means, half of my career in Cornell left............ gosh..... :S

damn happy now, cuz my pChem prof da4 fa1 ci2 bei1 this week so i could finish my pchem problem set in a record time of 6 hours! no sleep deprivation and suicide-driving stress on a thursday night for once! sugoii yo!! :D

can sleep early tonight, yay! demo, nihongo no shukudai o shite shimatta ato de kedo...

Because clearing overdue work has become my habit

2006-11-05T13:04:00.000+08:00

...therefore i am doing the same for photos-uploading haha!

Photos which show that rough times will always end in good times eventually

Experiences 06 - Success! yay~

Photos that show that work can only be fun if you have good company!

Preparing and rehearsing for the award presentation ceremony.

The actual award ceremony presentation!

Hving dinner, kayaking at MacRitchie, late-night kboxing whee!, helping out at JCs scholarship fairs! And also, our seafood feast (a qing4 gong1 yan4 for organizing a successful ceremony) at No Signboard, and zouk-ing together! Hanging out with my fellow scholars was a blast, because they are all fun-loving and nice people, and we click!

My colleagues at PUB - at 3PN, water testing lab, and at the corporate familiarization program!

Photos which show why we are happy and proud to be Singaporeans

Though it was just a Preview, it was still fun!!! Thanks to shiyun for the tix! :)

Photos which show the only way of immortalising the past
The past is defined to be non-existent in the present, but the past can still be immortalized by building it on timeless entities. Mine is built on long-lasting friendships and ties :)

407 class gathering!

It's far from being a complete class gathering, but it was soooo nice to see these girls again, some of whom i haven't met in ages!!

The same old physics department :)

My beloved 6A!! :D

My best friends!

Photos which prove that NDP is not the only time when I want to sing "Home"

My beloved family!

This summer break ain't that bad for me huh? :)

Sick at the wrong time

2006-10-26T08:38:00.000+08:00

just had the worst fever in my recent memory, on the night before my pchem prelim :(

then again, there's no "right" time to be sick at Cornell, cuz i can't afford any time to rest at home without screwing up my work.

fever sux, weather sux, school sux.

(only japanese dramas rock. ;) )

in short

2006-10-19T13:05:00.000+08:00

DISTRACTED

BANKRUPT-TO-BE

MASOCHISTIC

SCREWED UP

TIRED

Still alive

2006-10-14T13:03:00.000+08:00

thursday nights are my curse: i slept at 5.30am last night, no i mean this morning, in order to complete my pchem homework. then i woke up at 8.30am to finish my japanese homework before sch started.

But i am refraining from complaining because pchem and japanese are my favorite classes this sem cuz of my superb professor/teacher.

i have alr fallen to the flu virus that has been lingering in the house for at least a month and i know the last thing i should do is to sleep this little, but i really can't help it becuz every piece of homework counts and the median of each homework is always close to 100 marks and i have already screwed up the previous homework so i can't hand in another incomplete problem set again!

but i am still very much artificially awake right now at 1.05am because the effect of caffeine still hasn't worn off since morning time. and, because i am bloated with good food from the fortnightly house dinner!

SATAYS !!!, Carrot cake (both 'black' AND 'white'!), shui jiao, guo tie! and all taste like the authentic ones we eat in singapore! Welcome to the Singaporean House, where only high-quality Singaporean food is served, brought to u by the fabulous Chief Chef Hong.

Coupled with dessert mango pudding, and bonus dessert ice cream brownie cake --combined efforts with my best baking buddy Christina, just for birthday-boy-to-be Shanon Chin :)-- all of us were soooooo full that even yx felt pregnant hahaha.

oh if you think i am the only insane masochistic person, huangyu came home at 2 am plus, yonglin slept at 3am plus, christina slept at 4.30am and joel slept at 6am. Welcome again to the Singaporean House, where muggers reside (but don't really sleep) and 'spoil the curve' (translation: huai4 the wan1. no hints on whose translation this is haha)

My classmate is damn cute: she made me watch the Japanese drama version of Meteor Garden with her when we got damn sian doing the pchem hw yesterday at the comp lab, and now i am sorta hooked to it! and she also lent me takuya kimura's Pride vcds today. omg, wo wan le...

i feel so clean and happy now because after procrastinating for 2 months, i FINALLY washed my winter jackets and scarf and gloves and beanies, and my bedsheet and comforter, and vacuumed my floor today!

my winter clothings finally have to make a come-back after being shelved away and left untouched for almost 5/6 months, because temperatures have plummeted to ard 5 deg celcius in the day and -2 deg celcius at night. Say goodbye to my sandals...

Sheesh, i really can't resist describing the weather in my blog bcuz i really feel it helps to put my current state of living in the right perspective! Really, living in a place like Ithaca where weather is not a constant, it becomes an impt exogenous factor in determining my mood and well-being and plans.

In any case, Montreal and Quebec were great! French cuisine burns a big hole in my pocket but rocks! And fantastic weather and great travel companions complete the perfect travel package :)

I have gone into deficit this month (consumption>income). i don't dare to think about my wealth after my Europe trip..... :

Time is running out

2006-10-05T06:14:00.000+08:00

I dunno why but suddenly it just dawned on me that my days as a student are running out. So before my life evolves into a monotonous recurrent one typical of a working adult with pathetic number of annual leave, i have to make my winter and summer breaks as exciting as possible, and aim to jam all the following within 3 winter break and 2 summer breaks before i graduate:

1) go to as many US and Canadian cities and Central/South American while i am still here
2) summer internship
3) international volunteering
4) Beijing 2008 Olympic

eeeks no time no time!

I thought this sounds kinda silly...

2006-10-04T10:38:00.000+08:00

...but anyways, during my macroecon prelim today, while i was arguing why as a President of Africa, i want to use the 1 million dollars donation to buy shoes for children instead of investing in research to eradicate the feet-attacking worms, which both increases labor efficiency, i suddenly felt deeply how much a not-very-large amount of money can do for these people living in poverty, and sometimes for all those lofty policies with lofty claims of "bringing a better future to the poor", these seemingly-altruistic rich countries/people seem to forget the simple fact that all these people need is just a little love and empathy to what they really need.

well, i think i am reading way too much into ONE prelim question, and in any case i might have been arguing in the wrong direction bleaghz, but actually, i am kind of suspecting this is exactly the hidden agenda of my professor who, despite his punch-deserving i-think-i-am-way-superior-to-all-you-smug-americans-HAA arrogance, has been subtly weaving in the idea of helping the economically underdeveloped countries while teaching us his favorite Solow model. :P

oh did i mention i am very entertained by his suanings of the americans? hahaha. not tt i am anti-americans but it's just very amusing i thought haha.

today, my Japanese teacher explained to me her pet phrase "na ru ho do" (she doesnt even realised how often she's using it hahaha) means "yuan2 lai2 ru2 ci3" and my eyes bulged in surprise, "you can speak Chinese???" lol. her intonation was flawless - very impressed.

the days are getting colder, permanently. after tmr's hot day (20 deg C), it's gg to drop to close close to zero deg C at night. BRRRRR....

shucks, i need to stop thinking of getting ANOTHER new jacket.

Messed up

2006-09-30T22:35:00.000+08:00

Because my mood is exogenously AND endogenously determined, it becomes freaking convoluted and complicated like a wave function of an electron.

As if i havent seen enough sines and cosines in my P Chem class, my mood is going in sine/cosine manner too.

And it tended so close to zero 2 days back that i thought, "shit, i think i'm displaying the symptoms of depression".

then it hit a high yesterday because i totally heck-cared abt my up-coming macroecon prelim and the soon-due near eastern studies essays and went shopping at Woodbury premium outlet whee~ i'm very proud of what i bought for my parents as a 25th wedding anniversary gift yay! i just wished i have more time there and i don't have a budget constraint!

There's only one thing which displays a definite upward trend with no fluctuation - my weight. I've only come back here for barely 2 months and it's not even that cold yet but my face has undisputedly bloated. i swear this is not my imagination. and this is despite my effort in watching what and how much i eat!! feeling absolutely frustrated, demoralized and helpless :(

i have been wanting to post photos but blogger is damn slow in loading the fotos i always lose my patience. so here's just one:

The almost famous 14-man Singaporean House. still intact, inside and outside, after 2 months :D (photo courtesy of chee :) )

One day when i finally manage to upload all the photos of the cuisines i have eaten thanks to Chef Junch since we moved into this house, this blog is gg to become a food blog, seriously. hahaha.

Confirmed plans: Montreal, Quebec for fall break (4 days away!!); London, Europe and Boston for winter break!

Breaks and travel plans keep sarah going :D

I feel defeated...

2006-08-29T11:33:00.000+08:00

...and it's only the 3rd day.

One day, I forsee, this stubborn streak in me is going to cause my downfall.

My 7th course in Fall 06 semester

2006-08-26T10:58:00.000+08:00

COOKING 101

Course description:

S/U. No pre-requisites, for absolute beginners in cooking with no prior experience. Professors: Mummy (distance learning via phone) and Chef Jun Chen. Office hours: almost 24 hrs, as long as profs are at home and not sleeping. Prelims every friday evening, task is to cook dinner for 6. Graded by 5 TAs.

BLACKBOARD - My Grades
Prelim 1 - Braised chicken drumsticks, steamed egg with mushroom. Pass. (graded by TA chew yx)

HAHAHAHA.

ok, so classes have started. so far so good! love seeing all my friends again in class or just ard in school. i can't stop raving about my physical chem prof and macroecons prof! then again, i can forsee myself drowning in homework sets and readings (of bibles and koran!). so in case i don;t have time to blog in the near future, bye for now. haha

btw, today i have just swapped my 5-bulb standing lamp for my housemates' accidental-purchase of a hot pink standing lamp. now my room is rightfully and officially the "PINK suite" hahaha.

The days before school reopens

2006-08-24T10:31:00.000+08:00

These days have been spent like this:

Arranging my entire earrings collection (last count: 30 1/2 pairs) on my new earring rack whee~~

Assembling my new swivel chair and computer desk

Arranging my sandals and bright-colored flowers

Unpacking all my clothes and books into the closet, drawers and book shelf

Making my new room damn PINK and cozy! hahaha

Shopping for groceries, ie stuffing yingyi's SUV's boot with enough stuff to feed 6 cows
[NOTE: these groceries are NOT for the entire house of 14!! we are split into 2 groceries grps]

And walking around the whole Central campus, from building to building, trying to settle my lab course, and declaration of my 2 majors and 1 minor. By the way, I got a place in the lab course successfully, without having to go through the waiting list torment, for ONCE!! and no 8am lab for me, for ONCE!! yay!

Life before school reopens is rather good, except for my damaged nail polish and rebonded hair and dwindling bank account balance. But school is starting tomorrow. no more slack days... boooooooo...

maybe it's not a bad thing. i need to be reminded i am studying in an american school before i get too comfortably isolated in my nice new 100% singaporean house.

orientation

2006-08-18T20:46:00.000+08:00

yeah this non-freshman here embarrassingly still needs orientation. no, not orientation to cornell campus, but to my new estate and city of Ithaca.

well, my new estate is not that hard to get used to, but Ithaca is far bigger than i've imagined to orientate myself in a short period of time. my friends who have stayed in ithaca over summer know all the roads and places so damn well, while i am like a mountain tortoise who goes to Staples, Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Win Li (arguably the best Chinese groceries stores in ithaca!) for the first time, and oh boy what a consolation Wegmans for the second time... sighz, i badly need a car to explore this city! :(

i've more or less fixed the arrangment of my furniture and decided where and how to store all my big and small things. just need to wait for my new desk and high-back swivel chair to arrive, and to buy a few plastic storage boxes to store some misc food and medicinal stuff and i will be more or less all set! oh. i still need to wash/dry clean my winter jackets/coat. more money to be spent gah.

so maybe it's a good thing i am not able to go to NYC this weekend like most others. save money for winter trip!! hehehe :D

welcome back to sunny ithaca

2006-08-16T11:27:00.000+08:00

yeah, i am back in ithaca after a long and dreary 19hr flight followed by an seemingly-endless 5hr coach ride. i only realised i was back in ithaca when i saw the brightly lit Statler hotel school, followed by the engineering buildings and my first thought was "wah i am back alr!" that says a lot: it means i don't have a sense of belonging to america, but i do to cornell. haha..

it's nice to have my dear future housemates so kindly picking us and our huge luggages up at 1.30am. it's nice to have a warm and sunny day today so i could walk happily under the sun in tank top and shorts and not starting to miss singapore's weather hehe. and of course it's nice to see my dear again :)

i saw my new room and i thought it was pretty decent hee. we went to the mall today and i splurged $100 odd on the essentials for my new room! gosh, and i havent even spent 24 hr in ithaca yet!! don't even try converting tt amount to singapore dollars... i really can't resist spending on nice stuff for my room la. for once i want to own a nice room please!!

photos of the room and house later! after i decided how to arrange my furniture, after unpacking, and after clearing all the mess in the house!

tonight and whole of tmr will be moving, moving and moving! wait, disclaimer: not just my stuff lor. we are helping each other to move everyone's stuff to the new house. that's something i particularly appreciate about the singaporean friends i have here: everyone's not stingy abt helping each other :)

in any case, it will be good exercise for me! yay~ way to go!!! haha

i wish the weather will stay this way forever... *slaps myself out of daydream*

Pampered

2006-08-12T01:20:00.000+08:00

It has finally come to a time when my days in Singapore are numbered. (one and two..)

I feel pampered like a princess: My parents have been busy feeding me all my fave food these days: abalone, black pepper crabs, curry chicken, popiah, big prawn noodle, claypot rice... My best friends have been giving in to my inflexible schedule and giving me lotsa treats these days: sundae, manicure and sushi tei dinner (THANK YOU!!).

But saying goodbye to linda just now finally jolted me awake from my singapore dream: i am going to leave this place soon, very SOON.

no more excitement this time round. cuz i know all the shit that i am going to be in again: school work, prelims, exams, the cold, static!, laundry.........

is this how the NSFs feel when they have to book in at the end of weekends?

i think all my busyness with experiences and attachment has somewhat made me forget that it is being at home in Singapore, in the company of my family and old friends that makes me truly happy without actually realising it.

The next happiest thing tt happened this summer hols is that i have formed close bonds with a group of easy-going and like-minded colleagues-to-be and that i finally found the strong conviction to the 10-year-path that i have chosen to take.

And when singing those national day songs at the ndp preview, it suddenly struck me that I am singing out aloud exactly what i am feeling abt spore when i am away and about my future i see with PUB/Singapore, and consequently, that all these years i don't really understand what i am singing really.

the last few days in spore have been and will be packing, packing and packing. No improvement in the gross overestimate of real luggage space with respect to the amount of things i am planning to bring back, but definitely a significant change in my way of dealing this huge task. Perhaps packing luggage is one way of telling one's progress of maturity.

photos, later on. now, to the bed, cuz char kway teow awaits me tmr morning haha.

(yes, my resolution to lose weight is close to dead. will only be resuscitated in 3 yrs' time, most likely.)

on high!

2006-07-27T22:22:00.000+08:00

yay my spirits haven't been this high for a long time!

Experiences was a success, to put it modestly hehe :P so so relieved! met so many friends and my ex-students, kept my adrenaline high!

But the REAL life only begins after Experiences!

Have been hanging out a lot with fellow PUB scholars the past week haha! first was a teambuilding workshop, where we got to meet the new scholars for the first time. it was our scholarship selection activity round with the same coordinator but without the evaluators and pressure haha.

On tue we had induction program in the morning. 4 us are supposed to be on attachment now but requested to join this program which is meant for new staff haha. then afternoon was a slack rehearsal for the scholarship presentation ceremony at macritchie reservoir followed by dinner at j8 swensons!

Wed, was at macritchie since 11 for rehearsal again then the real thing! this lousy emcee here fumbled over a few words as usual :(, but no major mishaps phew, and our skit was pretty well-received i thought hehe. ya so we got the praises and thank-yous from the chairman and CE and directors, so yay a relief!

And the day did not just end there haha! as if we were not tired and sweaty enough, a group of us went to zouk for mambo night! haha i finally fulfiled my wish of witnessing mambo night which guojian has been raving about! no no, i didn't get drunk. in fact, i had been supporting zhang er who got a bit high and her steps were a little unsteady so cute haha. and i left by 1am lor! haha.

today, continued the induction program. ya la quite tired, so was zonking out at certain talks :p at the end of the day, we were brought to macritchie reservoir (yes, again!) to kayak! yay~ i have been longing to kayak at, where else, but my reservoir! whee! only kayaked about 45min before the rain clouds threatened, my arms quite lousy la. come on lor, i haven't kayaked since sec 3 obs lor!! damn fun, and it's gd to kayak with a guy cuz guys are strong so i can rest from time to time hahaha.

more stuff ahead this week: celebration dinner at No Signboard, kbox session, ndp preview, Cabaret!

owe a lot of ppl fotos oops...will upload everything at one shot err..soon? hehe =P

One more week to...

2006-07-18T12:14:00.000+08:00

and 2 more weeks to ultimate FREEDOM!

very very sianed. so sianed that i am making travel plans for all my subsequent big and small breaks for the next 3 yrs right now.

-dreaming-
Europe for winter break! Japan for summer break!

Is that soccer or theatre?

2006-07-10T10:31:00.000+08:00

Dada just 'nagged' at me to clear the spider webs and dust here... eh, i just announced my semi-retirement 2 posts ago, didn't i? (wah sounds like those old footballers hor?) but anw, shall obey my les lor.

just realised this is the 100th post. not bad huh.

at office now. 2nd wk at this new department. not a lot of work initially, but volunteered myself for this newly-launched project so won't be tt free anymore. but still, can afford to slack now. haha.

going to have to organise, with fellow scholars, the award ceremony for the new scholarship awardees. quite happy to finally have a chance to know them better. but it's extra work on top of internship and experiences lor - extra stress. haiz.

damn shagged from chalet and world cup finals man. feeling groggy and dehydrated now. 1hr of slp is clearly not enough. going to have sore throat soon, i can feel it creeping into my throat.

it was great to finally have a 6a chalet. this is the only class i have in all the years in my life which still has the class spirit burning on. just amazing la.

world cup has been occupying a significant portion of my time for the past month. watching soccer game is like watching a play. well, not just the great acting (read:faking) there by the professional footballers, or the classic dramatic expressions showcased by my favourite Klinsman. every game is like a drama unfolding. the players and coach draft each script with strategies and skills. watching this morning's final finally made me understand what we have been examining in my last sem's writing seminar on sports. the element of control is the single most impt factor behind human being's obessesion with sports. we love sports because we can gain some control which we lack in life; but we love sports also bcuz we can't gain complete control, just like in real life. that's why some can control the movement of the ball effortlessly but can't control the temper; that's why some can control which players and tactics to employ but can't control whether the ball goes into the post at the critical moment; that's why the better team may not always be able to win! :(

i suddenly didn't want the final game to end (though i was damn tired by then). in the four years btween this final and the last final, i could barely control much while the events in my life unfold by themselves. would i have imagined being who i am now 4 years ago? the uncertainty of the next 4 years was suddenly unsettling to me. what will i be when i watch the next world cup final? i will be 24 yrs old, should have graduated, and then what? i don't know and i can't really decide or control.

sigh i guess this is what life is all about. my heart can't help but goes out to zidane.

(bear my long boring paragraph on soccer and life. my 100th post should be a little more philosophical, shouldn't it? hahaha.)

another thing i can't control: the turn-out for Experiences! this publicity i/c here is freaking stressed and pressurized and scared and worried. (if only some of this stress can translate into loss of appetite).

i am so sick of emailing and calling up ppl. i want all this to end SOON. sometimes i feel an urge to be a jerk and call it quits. it's so much easier to be a jerk, no wonder we are never short of jerks.

i am ranting nonsense alr. so in need of sleep and shopping therapy!!!

eh les, no more update from now till 23 july liao la. seriously.

Things that cheer me up

2006-06-18T15:25:00.000+08:00

work is boring me, Experiences is sianing me, but friends, food and family keep me going! :)

ok so i have come back for 4 weeks already, and so far...
i've met up with hui-lin for breakfast at kiliney kopitiam just b4 she flew to france
met up with shiyun first before we had a LES reunion whee!
gary gave me a treat at sakura buffet, and asked me everything about US colleges throughout the whole lunch
went back to ghim moh with wai kit, who cannot hide his excitement over entering Bei Da next yr. We detoured to old rj campus, but too humjid to climb into the desolate compound haha
organised a last min 'class' lunch hahaha and zhixuan, james, eugene, dajie and dada gladly accompanied to adam road for nasi lemak yay
then after lunch my dear da jie and dada walked ard with me at orchard and we ended up at yakun for tea
met up with Officer (Joel) Han and Officer (Joseph) Ng (in uniform somemore!) for dinner at crystal jade after my first day of work
had dinner with adeline at manhatten's fish market (my first time there!) and seeing her and her photos of paris (in hundreds) shook off the fatigue from work
finally went to kbox (yay!) with the bunch of 407-cum-s06 girls - my 2 les, yenghong and siewling! and it's only in the company of these very girls when i can transform into a siao ja bo like those days in rj LTs HAHAHA! we got really HIGH HIGH HIGH singing damn a lot of old and new songs! wah damn shiok!!!
then zhi'en joined us for dinner at a restaurant at hotel rendezvous which is surprisingly cheap hehe! then came flo (yay!) who looks as radiant as ever! all of us chatted so happily in smu lounge that we gave up the idea of going to watch soccer match at Kopitiam. oh come on, shiyun's omg-my-nose-is-going-to-bleed DAMN hot professional photos taken for asoc have greater appeal than a world cup match lor! (one day, some one is going to hack into shiyun's tablet man.)

thai express banana fritters, ghim moh's carrot cake and beef hor fun -- miss them sooooo much!!, nydc mudpie, adam rd's nasi lemak which was dammn good, ice kachang, crystal jade's porridge, braised tofu and yang chow fried rice, manhattan's fish market fish and chips, lamp chop, and durian yay! These photos are self-explanatory why there is NO reduction in weight and fats yet, despite returning for 4 wks alr :( direct evidence is that still-chubby face in photos arghhh; indirect evidence is everyone else in the kbox room was freeeeezing but i felt nothing. :S

btw, i have only 2 items left on my to-eat list: popiah and tang yuan! hahaha.

My dad's company had family day at Sentosa's siloso beach on Sat. It was such a glorious day - the perfect weather at the beach! Apparently, Sentosa has (and still is) undergone a huge revamp. There's a brand new MRT station by Palawan beach, and they have a new sky ride thing (which reminds me of a ski lift instantly haha) and a luge ride which is similar to a go-kart. We took the sky ride/luge ride combo, it was damn fun zooming down the slope on the luge, and the vehicle was hell lot easier to manuveur than a real car lor haha! Well, the canyon-climbing utah trip has trained me such that i could climb the rocks on my heels easily to take photos, but it somehow hasnt prepared me for the BLAZING sun: i suddenly got giddy and nauseous and nearly fainted lol. but anw, i got tanned again within those few hrs.

I could tell my daddy really likes his father's day present; he kept admiring his present from all angles haha! and here's why:

i bought this really cool photoframe-cum-paperweight which is basically a glass cube fitted in an acrylic 'stand' that encompasses 3 sides of the cube. so u could slot 3 photos in between the cube and stand, and u will see the 3 different photos by viewing from 3 different sides of the cube! initially i bought the present becuz i think it's a really cool ornament which makes use of the principle of refraction haha, but i soon realised the ornament is based on just the perfect number 3 - my father has 3 children! heh heh. so i printed out 3 family photos and my brothers and i each wrote on one square area behind each photo, and then each message can be seen through each transparent side of the acrylic stand! hence, all 6 sides of the block have kan4 tou2 kae! my dad was visibly touched hehehe! man, i think i am such a genius HAHA :P

so,that's 3Fs on the list already, i need another F to make up F4 hahaha. mmmm... how about this: Fone call from my dear! HEH HEH :)

miss you...

bored.

2006-06-15T09:12:00.000+08:00

i want to tour europe

i want to watch a movie (in the cinema)

i want to watch all the world cup matches

i want to do useful work

i am not satisfied with the present; there's no point in wanting to return to the past cuz it's impossible; i don't exactly look forward to the future cuz i don't want to grow old and face the ugly real world. shit, i have nowhere to go then.

semi-retirement

2006-06-10T02:25:00.000+08:00

i forsee myself semi-retiring from this blog for the next one and a half month.

internship and experiences are sucking away all my time and energy :( the ridiculously long travelling time to and back from my workplace is slowly killing me too...

to be fair, there's not that much work to do for my internship, but it's still tiring... the people in the department are damn damn nice, and they are mostly my parents' age by the way heez.

i am officially hooked onto Angels and Demons. halfway into the book alr! not that i have the free time, i just have lots of time to kil on the mrt and bus.

wow, wasn't that world cup opening match EXCITING? everyone seemed to be on fire! oooh lala.. the goalkeepers could only flap and stare helplessly, poor things. haiz no espn means have to wait till semi-finals then CLASS CHALET! yay yay!

I -HEART- my LES!

2006-06-03T22:51:00.000+08:00

Finally a LES reunion after 9 months!!! spent a lovely wednesday afternoon with my dearest les-es, in the most, in dada's words, tai-tai fashion: chatting about almost everything over at paragon's starbucks for hours then having dinner at thai express!

Ultimate BANANA day! we had 3 different flavours of the new Banana frappucino, and then (my favourite!) banana fritters for desert at thai express! dada tried the banana fritters for the first time!

LES photos! so, as shiyun and her bf claimed, i still look like linda huh? hmm... "a fatter version of linda" is a more accurate description lor. hahaha.

dada posing with a Victoria Secret's body splash i bought for them hehe.

Pendant and powerpuff girls figurines (named L E S respectively haha) -- my birthday present from dada! :)

Deprived woman unleashed!

2006-05-29T23:22:00.000+08:00

Shopping mania BEGINS!

my nightmare has turned into reality: now everything that is selling seems cheap to me; even if it's not that cheap, i just have to convert its price to US dollars and it will seem cheap haha.

the (erroneous) notion that everything's on sale is not helping matters u know..

bought soooo many things within the past 2 days: a book, my 2 les' birthday presents, lip gloss, camera case, a pair of silver pumps, and FOUR PAIR of earrings!

As i was telling shiyun, any girl who has ear holes can never own enough pair of earrings.

And earrings in singapore are DAMN cheap! esp at Far East!! 3 for $10, 4 for $12, 2 for $5, 5 for $10..... whee! earrings are the only things i can buy and buy and don't feel a pinch ahaha! if christina is reading this, she will be missing singapore's earrings galore a lot!

Shopping with dear shiyun is still as enjoyable as before :) while browsing through clothes and looking at shoes and admiring jewelry pieces, we talked everything about fashion, our tastes, our wants, and catching up on eveything! it doesn't feel as though i haven't gone out with her like this for a long time! hee...

i can hardly catch up in blogging

2006-05-28T01:37:00.000+08:00

The past few days, in short, are just eating, meeting up with frens, going back to rj, cutting my hair, and more eating!

Dim sum at crystal jade at the airport was sooooo good! i have decided i wan to eat there for the brunch before my flight back to US! rojak and satay from bedok interchange hawker center are just yummilicious! i devoured every bit of the rojak's sauce that is mixed with peanut bits... yum....

sigh, it's time to start exercising some control over my intake of food. esp after meeting up with dear shiyun and huilin - arghzz why are singaporean girls all so slim!! so jealous! :( but somehow, i feel less guilt when consuming mr softee and cafe cartel's cakes (see below!) than when eating the soft-served cornell dairy bar ice cream and cakes in my dining hall... i wonder why? in any case, i gave myself one week of indulgence, and one week is up - back to strict diet regime!

Yummy cheesecake and tiramisu cake! ok fine, i think the cakes are an excuse for me to shoot my pretty les! (oh man, i can't believe i said tt!)

well, i went running with my dad at ECP on wed as part of my diet plan. i doubt a 20 min run is going to help reduce my weight significantly but it felt good just hearing my dad say "wah, you are GOOD!" breathlessly cuz apparently i paced him such tt he ran the 3km 30 sec faster than usual. considering that since pri sch days when i forced myself to go jogging with him to train for my 1.6km-run i could never catch up with him and complete 3km, i am rather proud of my improvement ;)

it was really nice to be back at rj! there are two separate parts to my memories of rj and being back at the bishan campus triggers the 2nd part of the memories haha. my students are interesting and cute like before - one class was asking me to rank snow, mountain, water, flower and fire ("What you look for in a partner"), the other class was bitching to me and begging me to help them in physics this june holidays (erpz). the tchers are hilarious too! the physics tchers were trying to get me to relief some classes in july AGAIN within 2 min i stepped into the staff room, and miss chia was genuinely concerned abt my skin condition ((worried stare at my face) "ni de pi fu bian cha le hor?" x3)

it's funny how i always tell myself "i must go and rebond my hair" whenever i wake up with un-straight hair but then on the day i go to the hair salon i back out of rebonding. this time, i ended up splurging 90 bucks on some hair treatment thing which i dun see any huge effect anyway... sighz that's the thing when u dun do 'extreme' things to your hair like rebonding or perming or dying ur hair -- u start to doubt whether it is worth spending those money u have spent...

i finally got my desired camera - canon ixus 65! whee! but the package doesnt come with any casing, and i can't find a good and cheap one yet so i don't dare to bring it around yet! erpz.. that sounds like buying a printer without a usb cable lol. so for now, i can only photo-whore at home HAHA.

ok before i go on a crazy shopping spree as the GSS begins today, let me gush abt the joy of window shopping! i can't believe i get enough satisfaction just walking around the shops at Junction 8 or tampinese mall or -gasp- bedok neighbourhood! i dun even have the luxury of walking into 3 bakeries which are located within 50m of each other and looking at yummy buns and cakes and comparing their prices back in Ithaca! In singapore, i have soooo many malls to walk ard; in ithaca, i can cover pyramid mall and Commons in 2 days, and then there's nowhere else to go to alr. (rmb, my orchard road is at nyc! ahaha.)

anyway, i have been seeing birkenstock spin-offs everywhere, i am now determined to get one pair of authentic birkenstock sandals! from a factory outlet in US, i mean.

to my horror, there's no Birkenstock store at Woodbury or Waterloo, the 2 factory outlets in New York state! :(

i am truly impressed by our govt. though all the features they mentioned about our new IR during the press conference sounded very impressive, this morning i couldn't help wondering how different this new hotel is from the other existing hotels in town other than its amazing capacity for guests and convention, and exactly how much impact will it have on the tourism board if it's just another pretty and glitzy hotel which doesn't exactly have a distinct theme like those in vegas......until i suddenly recalled it's the casino that is the distinguishing factor from all the other hotels in singapore! try looking for that word in the official press release. you've got to learn the art of emphasizing the main points from the masters yeah? ;)

Tadaima!

2006-05-22T23:37:00.000+08:00

haven't blogged for quite some time heez... it's already my 3rd day back in singapore.. have already overcome jetlag so it's time to update haha:

Moving out

packing and moving out of dorm was just INSANE. i had been dreading this day for a long time; i used to just glance around the room at all my belongings and think it was IMPOSSIBLE to move out of my room. i packed for hours and hours. it's only under such a circumstance when i am forced to realize: 1) how much stuff i am capable of buying within 9mth(i arrived with 2 luggages and a backpack but left with 2 luggages + backpack + 2 large cardboard boxes+ 1 plastic storage box + lots and lots of large plastic bags) 2) how much junk i have been keeping and nver got to dump them. but it's not just me who have lotsa stuff lor, everyone, girls and guys, has this much stuff! can u imagine moving everyone's stuff over to our seniors' place for storage, this is honestly the biggest 'project' of the year la! tks to the guys who help move all the stuff and tks to the seniors who generously allow us to convert their homes into 'war zones', else i would never have been able to move out!

moving out of dorm marks the end of freshmen year, and there were moments when i experienced sudden flood of emotions and memories. it really feels not long ago when i entered this empty room with 2 luggages and then i am leaving with the room looking as empty as before. No net change in the state of the room, but attitude, habits, state of maturity... etc have changed irreversibly. Christina and i agree that even though we are not graduating, we still feel as though we have concluded a significant stage in our lives. this is why i feel i have chosen the right time to return home and show my parents what i have 'achieved' in this stage of my life. haha. really, till now i still don't regret not going home in dec despite all the homesickness i have felt; if i had gone home then barely after 3 mth away from home, i probably would not have become that much tougher...

The journey home

The day i left was really cold for a summer day in ithaca. Took a domestic flight from ithaca aiport to new york city airport on a ridiculously small propeller jet that can only carry 30 ppl hahaha. the overhead storage compartments are too small to even store a normal-sized backpack! (fyi, this plane ticket costs US$270) It was a really bumpy flight, but it still beats a 5 hr coach ride to nyc still in my opinion haha.

Yingyi and i got a free lift from my senior and her bf from the airport to Soho, becuz yingyi helped deliver my senior's air tickets which she had left behind in ithaca haha. Thus instead of sianning for 9hr at Newark airport waiting for our flight back to spore, we spent our afternoon eating not-very-expensive italian pasta at a more-than-decent italian restaurant in Little Italy and shopping at Soho! whee satisfying afternoon for us girls! It suddenly occured to me, after touring ard NYC twice and bypassing NYC numerous times on my way out or back to ithaca, nyc has become not so big a deal to me anymore! i walked ard Soho as though i was walking ard the all-too-familiar orchard road, the billboards at Times Square no longer emote fascination and awe anymore. it amazes me that this big city which sooo many people are dying to visit, including me in the past, has become a place which i kind of taken for granted alr, within a span of 9mth!

in any case, the traffic at nyc at more insane than usual so we underestimated the time that we needed for our senior's bf to drive us from Soho to Port Authority, and the airport shuttle bus, which runs every 15 min, was 40min late! i nearly broke the world record of missing two flights within 2 months and topped my personal record of waiting at the aiport for 16hr (it would be 24hr if i missed this flight). thank goodness we made it in time.

Home

I was again very emotional when i saw the first glimpse of night lights emitting from singapore island after a 19hr flight and at the instant the plane just touched down on the ground. Ever since i had the intention of studying abroad, i was met with my mother's objections. She kept emphasizing the difficulties that come with studying abroad, i was well aware of them when i chose this path, but i never really understood what they mean and would amount to. i may not be conscious of it all the time but every day i am learning how to survive on my own and adjust to a new life in a new country. i had to learn every nitty-gritty detail from scratch, including operating the washer and dryer (i would always rmb yx's classic shocked-cum-aghast look when i saw him scrapping away the lint and asked him what the hell was he doing lol :P) living 9mth away from home is by no means a small feat for a pampered girl like me, and fine call me egoistical as u wish, i am proud of myself for surviving the past 9 mths! :)

but i must confess, once back home, i am treated like a pampered princess all over again! my mum again takes care of every little thing at home for me, my dad fetches me to wherever i want to eat or buy any stuff. oh well, let me indulge a bit just for these 3 mth la.... hopefully, "independence" is not a skill that would degrade if u don't practise it for 3 mth :P

Food!

The only that 'sells' in Singapore is its food, tt's the same conclusion most of us living abroad arrive.

Haha my parents really took the "to-eat list" that i made very seriously: they are close to memorizing all 30 items on my list and have been doing their best to treat me to as many of the items for every meal since i got back. after my third morning in spore, i have already eaten 10 items on the list - beach road prawn mee, katong laksa, chilli crabs, kway chap, sugar cane drink, yakun kaya toast, old chang kee curry puff, roti prata, tau huay and you tiao!!! and going for dim sum lunch soon! SHIOK ah! hehe my parents rock! :D in the past, the non-aircon and wet hawker centres weren't exactly my faves; now i can't wait to go to hawker centres to eat!

And for all the good food i have been eating, i don't feel that i am getting fatter! isn't that amazing? ok let's hope i am not misjudging my own figure... :P

Photo backlog

2006-05-18T12:02:00.000+08:00

This is the time in the semester when i finally have the time to clear a-semester-worth-of photo backlog and jam up your comp while u load this page :P let the photos sum up my spring semester in reverse chronological order:

HILC (my dorm) end-of-year banquet! posing with ellen after devouring all the good food! she just got her exchange at cornell extended by another semester, yay for her!

My beloved ILC gang: shanon, guojian and yuan xiang :)

My dearest RHD (residence hall director), Windi! The only RHD in the entire North Campus whom the student residents know by name AND who knows all residents by their names! ;) will miss her when i move off-campus....

Gathering with fellow Utah backpacking gang! So nice to see everyone again and hear how their lives have moved on since getting out of the desert! they are such an eclectic and interesting bunch of ppl; i really enjoy hearing them talk abt really interesting topics and sharing their insights on issues

Slope day! A couple of couples! :P

At Grad Night for the singaporean seniors! It was a cruise-dinner: cruising around Cayuga Lake in the evening!

The 4 freshies who attended grad night and the President (of SSA) who truly took care of us freshies in the past year. Tks yuan jun!

The Singapore booth at Cornell's World Fair! So proud of our booth! :D

A pretty and delicate 3-D map of Singapore made out of wire!

The board i helped make! Very very satisfied with it cuz it looks darn professional (kudos to Khairul on his Adobe Illustrator) and our text reflects the Singaporean culture so succinctly! Our text is so small but they actually caught the attention of several ppl that they were bending over to read! whee!

Got psycho-ed by yizhuan into performing for SOS (Singaporeans-On-Stage)... erpz...

Spring break at Utah's canyons! This was my maiden river-crossing attempt! Was kinda scared then after being briefed by my instructor on the possible accidents that can happen... At that pt in time, i NEVER expected i would be crossing the river for another 20 times!

A nice shot of the Escalante River...

My 20th birthday! :)

On the ski lift! Feels so long ago since i see snow and snowboarded.... haha

Celebrating yingyi's birthday! Nice shot yeah!

The freshies at SSA's Chinese New Year reunion dinner. The big plate of delicious yusheng on our table was long gone

The gingerbread house that i made in one of ILC's activities on one of the last few days of winter break! yummy yummy!

Freeeeeeeeeeee!

2006-05-18T02:34:00.000+08:00

YESH! the sweeeeetness of freedom! :D

after being one of the last among the freshies to be done with final exams last semester, i am the among the first to finish my exams this time round! sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! :P

the past 2 days have been sleeping, slacking, shopping and packing. yes i started packing! i even helped shanon pack yesterday, cuz he had to check out of his room last night in order to fly back this morning at 6am. i dare say my packing skills have improved after that backpacking trip haha.

sometimes i am amazed by the fact that i have survived 9 months here in a foreign country, away from home... can't exactly explain that feeling, it feels kinda surreal i am going home soon.. finally :)

As you can see from the frequency of posts...

2006-05-14T09:37:00.000+08:00

sarah is really distracted. and restless.

just one more paper -- so close to the end!! but just can't focus.. :(

still thinking abt my math paper.. without taking into consideration the grade i am going to get (oh gawd, i dun dare to think, really!!), i am upset over the attitude i have toward this course. i have been basically doing homework blindly and using formula routinely without appreciating the math behind it. hence when faced with indirect qns and time pressure in the exam, i lack the command to apply what i have learnt (or rather, should have learnt). i think my command of math was better in jc.. no more chance to repent anyway, this is going to be the last math course i am ever going to take. haiz.

japanese paper was alright, i guess. listening comprehension and the grammer qns are not very straightforward, as usual. i guess i am already used to it already since i have gone through 7 lesson quizzes in the entire semester, which are really just condensed versions of this final written exam. honestly, the frequency of quizzes (7 lesson quizzes+8 vocabulary quizzes+8 kanji quizzes+ 8x5 short grammer quizzes) has kind of numbed me toward any long or short japanese quiz/exam anyway. which is not a bad thing haha.

I just asked my japanese class friend to send me the photo we took on the last day of class:

The girl sitting beside me is the one who sent me the foto, Chen-san. a really nice Chinese girl who would be doing co-op in NYC next sem! the lady behind me is Song-san, a Korean language teacher in cornell! heh. the couple standing beside her is really a couple, Sommer-san and Zolinswki-san, even our teachers know they are a couple! haha.. the most eye-catching person in the foto is Martina-san. haha, i would say he's the 'baby' of the class, cuz he's (probably) the youngest, and he makes the most innocent, direct, and honest remarks that never fail to amuse all of us including the teachers. he makes the lesson really entertaining! lol

do u realise we call each other by last name (surename)? japanese culture to be polite :P

my classmate Saper-san is organising a dinner tmr night at this japanese restaurant in Collegetown, and he even invited the teachers. heard we may be doing Sake bombing! (sth which i have heard but havent witnessed b4!) i really want to go but i am nowhere near done with my organic chemistry........................... how?

bad bad bad...

2006-05-13T05:47:00.000+08:00

Math was soooo bad... severely underestimated the paper because the past yr exams given to us are not hard. (Fall 2001 and spring 2002 -- it's a conspiracy!!) i could not finish the paper, and for the last half of the paper i was just frantically and blindly hump-tum-ing formulas... i dun understand what i was writing la... =(

I cannot control my appetite anymore, for some weird reason!!!! :( i look at the mirror every day and i can see for myself i have gained sooooo much weight but that doesn't translate into inhibitance on the intake of food. GRRRRRR

It's friday evening and usually i have no motivation to study at all, but tonight's different cuz there's japanese written exam tmr morning! exams on saturday!! thanks......

why am i so fat and stupid? i hate myself.

SCREEEEEAAMMM

2006-05-12T08:20:00.000+08:00

And so i joined in the Cornell tradition of mass-screaming at north campus at 12 midnight of the first day of final exams haha.

last sem i was just too lazy to dress up (it was freaking cold in dec duh) and get out of room to scream, so this sem i am determined to do it else i wouldnt have a chance to do so after moving out of dorm. it was soooo pointless, but really amusing :P

soooooooo damn distracted from studying math! i was either comparing the market price of canon ixus cameras in spore and in US OR jio-ing ppl for my impending winter trip to europe OR checking out the price of ipod.

oh do u know ipod is sooooo much cheaper in US? i can get a 30GB video ipod in cornell store for approx S$420 only!

Slope day!

2006-05-07T02:23:00.000+08:00

In Cornell, "slope day" is synonymous to:

last day of class in spring semester
HUGE carnival-cum-cum-outdoor concert on Libe slope (yes we do have this large slope!)
fantastic sunny weather! (damn hot!!)
99% of cornell population under the sun going 'high'
alcohol :P

This is slope day!

Wth 45 min of sleep on the night (or rather morning) before the last day of class, attended all 4 lessons without ponning ;) , handed in my portfolio for my second and LAST writing seminar in college (WOOHOO!), i proudly concluded my second semester in cornell! :D

and now for the exams. sianzzz...

You know spring is here when...

2006-04-21T05:52:00.000+08:00

...colors and life are all around you.

Would anyone know how to appreciate life if there was no death?

I just don't get my priorities right

2006-04-15T13:48:00.000+08:00

Spent my whole friday afternoon and night:

1) arranging all my photos in my harddisk. painstakingly arranged and renamed all my utah and last semester's photos, compiled from various people's cams, in chronological sequence (i'm really particular abt the sequence!) don't let my effort go to waste: http://meteorflower.shutterfly.com :P btw, looking at my past fotos made me more determined to LOSE WEIGHT.

2) researching on digicams! :P
i just can't wait to lay my hands on a prettier, slimmer and better camera! the more i see these pretty cameras, the more i am disatisfied with my pok camera! *oogle oogle*

Apparently, there is a theory that every year during Cornell days (when accepted high sch students come and tour cornell), ithaca's weather will cunningly act fine to delude the prospective cornellians and their parents. indeed we had sunny and fine weather the last 2 days.. but the collusion broke down today - raining almost the whole day. boooo...

Luxury is...

2006-04-14T07:13:00.000+08:00

...going out of your room without having to go through the hassle of donning layer after layer of thick warm jackets/sweaters and wearing socks and boots/shoes. boy i am glad those days are over (for now) :)

last night, before i conked out on bed, i was actually planning where and what to eat for my first breakfast in spore after being away for 8 months (that is assuming my parents can come and fetch me from the airport at 7am!) tough choice between bedok market, kiliney kaya toast outside my house, or katong's prawn noodle. i decided on big fresh prawns and prawn noodles becuz they are sth i really havent eaten AT ALL since i came here! but first, i got to check if my daddy is willing to take leave on tt day or not :P

last last night, while studying for org chem prelim, i suddenly thought of linda and the big hug she promised me :) i hope i don't break into tears when tt time comes... :P

why do i always come out of every org chem prelim feeling demoralized and doubting my decision of majoring in chemistry? :(

Sporadic thoughts...

2006-04-09T03:09:00.000+08:00

My new love...

Running! With my earphones plugged in, i feel i am in my own world and running past the real world; with all my attention focussed on my thoughts and mind, i hardly realise i am pushing my physical body that far. Instead of stoning and daydreaming and thinking all sorts of things in my small little room and then later feeling guilty of wasting my time, running is undoubtedly a more productive alternative: be rewarded with the solitude and comfort of being in touch with your inner self AS WELL AS the eradication of fats and calories and the boost to my low metabolism rate all at the same time! :D

My all-time love...

Planning! for the future Planning for next semester's and future semesterS' courses! Planning for breaks! Planning for trips! My number one distraction from my mundane sch life. Life always looks more beautiful at a distance.

Some things never change...

1) I still can't write essays for nuts. Producing an essay at the eleventh hour has been my inherent working style since sec sch, but for 2 consecutive essays, i was unable to turn them in on time. gosh. :( 2) mishaps are still prevalent during my lab work. i thought i slightly improved already, until my thermometer exploded during distillation. thankfully my TA was very sympathetic and nice abt it, she even replaced my thermometer for me (if not i would have to pay another 100 bucks for tt thing probably). 3) I am slow at learning everything, and that includes learning how to drive a car. can kind of drive now la, but not 100% confidence yet...

A new hope...

The best news i had yesterday: my math prelim score! a surprise to me cuz i thought i could not do the question which i thought was the simplest topic of all. even my math lecturer was surprised: he gave out the scripts one by one, and while he passed it to me he peered at my score and then took another look and said something like "wow". restored a bit of my morale in math since my below-class-median score (yucks yucks yucks) in prelim 1...

Bizarre grades...

I seriously thought i made a lot more mistakes in my second jap oral prelim than in my first oral prelim, but my grade was better this time?! wakarimasen! on the other hand, my daily grade is getting worse... gosh... what is wrong?!

Still missing it...

Girl power! HEEz! :P Enjoying the panoramic view at the top of Neon canyon!

My awesome team members during our final hike! Taking a break after scaling the canyons with our backpacks and knowing we are on the right way!

It's just amazing how 12 people with such varied personalities could actually work so well together as a team. The things that we share - common experience, lingo, jokes - would not be easily forgotten even as we go on separate ways once we are back to civilization. These great people made it possible for me to survive the trip, and made my days in the wilderness thoroughly enjoyable and unforgettable!

Joy of cooking...

Ok, i didn't actually take part in the cooking process, two of my future housemates cooked LAKSA and guo tie and fried tofu and invited us to eat. The food was good, but i thought the cooking and washing-up processes were even more fun when the whole lot of us were confined in the small kitchen and lots of hilarious things happened haha. Can't wait for the 14 of us to move into our house in aug! hehe!

List of things to look forward to when i get back (still growing):

1)

6A CLASS CHALET!!! my beloved class, miss all u guys! yay, relive the good days of watching late-night soccer game and seeing the black horse stage an upset! MUAHAHA!

2) Possibly a trip with les to taiwan!

3) Possibly a trip with yun, lin, di and si to thailand!

4) Promised treats from gary and wai kit! I'm gonna hunt down the best restaurants in spore after my exams! (of course, let's hope tt gary will be accepted by williams or amherst then i will automatically get a treat in Ritz as promised!)

5) A new camera from daddy!

6) most importantly, home sweet home! :)

Ridiculous weather

2006-04-06T03:09:00.000+08:00

Err... it's april already, but it's snowing right now?!

Ridiculous leh! ithaca's weather is insane.

My morning was good, cuz i understood what's going on during org chem lecture for the FIRST time in ages.

Screwed up my math prelim and jap oral prelim AGAIN. Oh man, am i just stupid or all my courses this semester just so coincidentally are that difficult? :(

Quite excited now cuz my schedule for next sem is more or less in place alr yay (after painstakingly choosing, planning and arranging the courses for ages), and my work attachment details are out! interesting stuff! (at least it looks interesting for now...)

i am convinced i lost weight within the span of my backpacking trip, judging from the fotos taken during the trip. but in any case, i have gained everything pound of mass back by now, judging from my current mirror image.

I told myself i must record down my daily experiences/reflections for the backpacking trip once i come back but till now i haven't done it yet. gah.

i just have to say this for the (n+1)th time: i can't wait to go home! :D

The SPRING motivation!

2006-04-01T06:15:00.000+08:00

No "6A motivation" for now, here comes the next best alternative!

it's SPRING, baby!!

SHeesh i wish i had my cam with me but here's the picture: The sun is out, so is everyone! and everyone is in short sleeve shirts and shorts/mini-skirts! people are dining outdoors! people are playing frisbee on the lawns! people are sprawled on the grass, reading or napping! and some girls are sunbathing in bikinis, can u believe it! the temp reached 23 degree celcius today! OMG, is this ithaca???

OF COURSE! this is SPRING at ithaca! after living in a all-yr-round-constant-temp country for 19 years, i finally understand the meaning of spring! u can just feel it in the air, and it's so amazingly uplifting! i just can't help but feel cheerful all day (despite not understanding A WORD in org chem lect today, i am not lying!)

and you won't believe what the power of this "spring motivation" did to me, guys!!! i did the most incredible thing today!!

i went jogging for 55 min just now!!!

i am so amazed by myself k! i used to think jogging/running was the most sian exercise ever, thanks to years of madatory jogging on rgs field/rj track for stupid 2.4. i thought my j2 2.4 run was the last time i would ever run this far in my life. ok, so i jogged with christine on the brandnew rj track a few times last yr to try and lose weight haha (OMG that is one yr ago!!) but well, i thought i would never jog alone for the rest of my life at least.

and i ran today! feels so great!!!

ran a long looping route around my campus: starting from my dorm, passed Beebe lake (i forgot Beebe lake can be filled with liquid rather than solid H20!), ag quad, the sport stadium, engine quad, tip of college town, down to west campus, up the libe slope, through arts quad, back to north campus! as i ran, i just can't help my admire my lovely campus and recall what happened exactly a year ago: it was 31march, the day before the official day of admission decision and i was eagerly waiting for that letter from Cornell. my mum called me while i was window-shopping at novena square after lessons and i asked "da4 de hai2 shi4 xiao3 de???" "DA4 de!!!" and i "YESH" in the fitting room! LOL.

a yr ago, at that point in time, cornell was the only place i wanted to study; a yr later, i am glad i followed my heart admist all the obstacles, and i don't regret my decision :)

The 6A motivation

2006-03-30T11:02:00.000+08:00

That's the thing i need most now.

I would have liked to blog my reflections of my fabulous backpacking trip but i am seriously screwed in all my courses so i really dun have the time.

Sleepy all day, shitty marks in prelims/tests, not understanding anything that is taught. and worst of all, coming out of the desert somehow made me view everything that i am doing now as meaningless. i am not stressed, just very sianed about life.

Birthday wish list

2006-03-11T11:17:00.000+08:00

For my 20th birthday, i wish for:

1) A more critical and analytical mind
2) Self-discipline
3) A knack for learning all sorts of things (academic subj, lang, sports...)
4) A niche
5) Strong mental strength

Well, these are the things which i still lack after living for 20 years in this world. Sometimes, things that do not have a price tag are harder to own yeah? Especially if the only person who can give me all these 'gifts' is myself.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just wasted hours planning my timetable for next semester cuz the course schedules are out! and it's not just me lor, my fellow College of Arts and Sciences comrade Christina has also fallen to the evils of schedulizer.com hehe. But we are loving the freedom of satisfying our academic interests at a liberal arts college and creating our very own academic plan which no one else will ever have an identical one - aaah, the joy the Engineers will never taste! MUAHAHA

The joy of giving and receiving

2006-03-10T12:38:00.000+08:00

The joy of hearing my friends receiving the stuff i sent across the land or ocean is as uplifting as seeing stuff in my mailbox from my friends and family :)

My "half-twin" flo received it on the same day as i received it! hehe :D THANKS BABE!! waiting for u n jiaying to come to NY! and hopefully ithaca too! :) how about watching a broadway together too? hehe.

and somehow, i was near tears as i opened the package from my parents. so sweeeeet of them :)

i did 6 hr of lab today!! went for my usual 8am lab plus another makeup lab in the afternoon, cuz i got 0% yield in my prev exp. >_< 6hr sounds daunting, but i didn't feel that shagged or sianed during the labs, surprisingly. maybe lab work is gradually becoming a part of me, the prospective chem major? :P

btw, i chipped my condenser slightly and had to replace it, and it freaking costs 23 bucks!! daylight robbery!

after lab, received a call from one of my closer friends i made in class last sem, asking me to go n paint spore's flag at this flags-painting event (kickstarting Cornell's World Culture Day). Couldn't bear the thought tt no one is going to paint the spore flag, so i turned ard n walked back to campus, and this friend whom i bumped into on my way there, who's oso a sporean exchange girl, gamely accompanied me there. was quite fun painting the flag lor! felt good 'contributing' my little part to my country haha. and we got to befriend this Taiwanese grad student who's really nice and easy to talk to (we were conversing in mandarin!) and who is going for a job interview with NUS for a professor post soon!! we were both psycho-ing him to come to spore to work hehe.

but because of this flag-painting event, couldn't make it in time for my ballroom dance technique class... quite wasted. so i decided to go along with shanon and joshua to play badminton! short play, but fun!

i really miss screaming with 6a girls during pe games lor. and laughing like mad women in LTs. lol. haiz the good old jc days, when we still 10-ish years old. haha.

oh i decided to give myself a birthday treat by extending my weekend hoho. (fyi, my weekend is, strictly speaking, fri afternoon to sat night) so Sat i will go for my last snowboarding class, as usual. then Sun, i will go on the 'ski trip' organised by my dorm, to learn how to ski!! :D the catch is, weather forecast for sat and sun is 10 deg celcius. rmb the m.p. of H2O? :/

hehe, seems like i have learnt to relax more and embrace the joy of mugging less and playing more ONCE again! eh, this was what i was like during the 1st half of my 1st sem lor. what happened to me this sem? is it just me or just my current courses?

in any case, it's 3am now, ought to be revising my essay tonight, but my prof extended the deadline upon some requests, so i lost my motivation to revise it tonight. some (BAD) habits just don't change huh... sighz -__-

Living in a town with only one decently big and accessible-by-bus shopping mall has drove me to lean toward online shopping! unlike in spore, the lack of variety, the infrequent visits to the mall, and the lack of means of comparing prices result in imperfect knowledge, hence i tend to overbuy expensive goods or underbuy goods that i really need or like, thus not consuming at the optimal level. but shoppping online is different! i can compare prices within a few clicks and only go for the best deals, and almost everything is sold online. i bought 5 items online within the past 2 weeks la, in the name of my Utah backpacking trip, but ya "name" only la... :P

of course the downside is u can't try the products on personally. so everything is dependent on my own agar-ation. and so i usually just play safe and go for conservative colors and/or designs. haha.

christina just reminded me there are only 7 more weeks of lessons for this sem! it somehow sounds a lot shorter when it is put this way, really.

oh i got an extra present from guess who? the ski resort where i am taking my snowboarding pe classes! freaking lucky to win an ipod in a lucky draw! dun ask me the details of my prize, haven't gone and collected it yet, only gotten an email. ahaha. my friend commented it is ard the cost of my pe course so i "zhuan4 hui2 lai2" liao.. but wait. i didn't pay for my pe course in the first place! (joel, don't jump at me pls. :P)

Saturday=sports day!

2006-03-05T14:30:00.000+08:00

First it was snowboarding! today's weather was just nice and the snow was so fine and plentiful! well, i'm still falling pretty often (enough to give me injuries on my tail bone, thighs and knees) and still rather humjid to gain too much speed, but my turns are slowly getting more effective and controlled and i am gaining a little bit more confidence down the next harder Castor slope beyond the absolute beginner slope Alpha! i'm just happy as long as i feel i have improved, no matter how slightly hehe. BUT STILL, MY WHOLE BODY IS ACHING!!! ITAI...

Then, we went ice skating! my absolute first time skating! never even done any rollerblading in my entire life lor. was quite hum in the beginning cuz my knees were already aching like shit i really really cannot afford to fall anymore and there were no knee guards btw. so i treaded very very carefully very near the wall hahaha. maybe snowboarding has improved my balance? i slowly moved away from the wall, and i only fell 2 times in the end, and they were low-impact falls hehe. at the end of one and a half hr, i at least managed to attain a rough hybrid of sliding motion and duck-walking at a distance away from the wall. not a shabby 1st attempt i thought :)

And then we went for bowling! free event organised for my batch. Was fun bcuz i haven't bowled since our orientation's free bowling event haha, but not that fun cuz i had not much strength left and kept throwing "long kang" balls and they suddenly chased us out bcuz it was supposedly the end of the "hourly shift". wadeva man.

Going home soon!

2006-03-04T10:45:00.000+08:00

on may 20! HAHA you and i have different definitions of "soon" huh? :P just got my dad to help me change my flight date to 20th, and i just saw new e-ticket that he forwarded to me and now i can hardly contain my excitement! two and a half more months only! looking forward to all the promises made to me: daddy promised me a new digi cam, gary promised me a treat (i'll make sure it's a GOOD meal)! i welcome more promises *hint hint* lol...

yesterday it snowed like crazy! as in CRAZY! picture the normal rain u see in spore, imagine it raining from 8am-4pm; now replace the raindrops with snow flakes - this is the amount of snow we had yesterday! i trekked/trudged through at least 3-4 inches of snow! and without the maintanence staff in cornell it would have been worse! :S yeah.. this is spring for ithaca...

the snow had better stay for tmr's snowboarding; the wind can go away, thank you very much.

survived another busy busy week. didn't do fantastically well for chem lab prelim and jap oral prelim and writing seminar essay (which all fall/due on the same day btw) but still pretty satisfied cuz i could have died even more badly if i had not done my math assignment in advance! oh, and i managed to find time to go for ballroom dancing class after a long hiatus! yay! my time management has slightly improved :)

i had 7hr of slp last night but still feel tired today.. effect of aging??!!

feeling much much more cheerful and healthier this week already... :) this episode of near-depression made me realise i am actually so fortunate to have a friend who reminds me to be happy every day, a friend who calls me readily whenever i am down, a friend who kindly reminds to rethink how fortunate i am to be where i am now even if it's shitty, a friend who replies my email under his sir's nose in office upon sensing my impending crisis, and friendS who drop a msg or two on tagboard or msn to cheer me on. With friends like this, what's the big deal of being below average in math! :) love all you ppl!

have been spending damn a lot of money buying stuff for my utah backpacking trip. my new pair waterproof hiking boots is my 8th pair of footwear i own in ithaca. :S

Counselling needed?

2006-02-27T12:34:00.000+08:00

Thanks to snowboarding, my knees are entirely covered with blue-blacks, and my whole body is aching like hell. A 2-wk hiatus from SNB pretty slowed down my already-very-slow progress in SNB, but heck, any small progress i make is still worth celebrating.

Ironically, my multiple SPECTACULAR falls on my tailbone and/or head actually constituted the best day of my past week.

This must be the worst week i have ever had since i came here. all the stuff about adapting to life in foreign country, homesickness, not coping well with the academic pressures of college blah blah - i am suddenly going through that crisis now, err after spending one semester here?! weird isn't it?

In the past week, my health condition worsened, my stress level peaked, my self-esteem took a dip, no, DIVE. (scored below the median mark for math prelim - Gary, i know you would laugh your head off upon reading this) i cried at least once every day, over the tiniest possible catalyst. I swear this is one of the first symptoms of depression. the good news? i don't have suicidal thoughts, yet.

the weekend and snowboarding had an uplifting effect on my mood though. i guess sport is a good distracter. it's kinda weird: i am so lousy at snowboarding that i keep falling and falling but i still look forward to more snb - sometimes i suspect i am a masochist. hee

anyway, i see the effect of a 5-day-a-week japanese course setting in - these days, when i am forming my thoughts, random words are being substituted by japanese words, for eg when i think "being good at" then "joozu" will pop into my mind instead. nah, i am still pok in conversing in jap lor, haiz.

I'm sick :(

2006-02-19T03:27:00.000+08:00

After resisting lindy's virus for 3 weeks and yuan xiang's virus for 4 weeks, my immune system finally surrendered. had fever last night, and coughing really badly now... haiz. so had to give snowboarding a miss today - it's honestly physically impossible to tahan 5 hr of -22 deg temp without being confined to bed for the next 3 days. got math prelim leh! :S

the whole world found the org chem prelim easy except me - i couldn't even answer every question! :(

it never fails to amaze me when my TAs (excluding lab courses TAs) actually know my name. My econs TA knows me even though i ponned half of all the sections last sem, and now even my org chem TA knows me even though there is NO section for the course and i only went for one office hour so far. I'm just impressed by their motivation to learn their students' names even when it's not necessary, really.

i befriended a 2nd freshman in my org chem class! (note: the org chem class is primarily a sophomore course) he's also in my math class, always sits adjacent to me in math lect. he's going to skip all the math sections this sem because they clash head-on with his chem labs so he asked me to help him collect his hw haha. i wonder how the conflict in his schedule can escape the registrar's notice?

i started learning driving yesterday! my senior luke kindly risked his car and taught me how to drive! thought it was a pretty good start! :) then he risked his car and our lives and let yx drove us back from the mall. haha :P i must say, maneuvering a car feels great!

It's a FREAKING hot and sunny day!

2006-02-16T04:29:00.000+08:00

12 deg celcius! O_O such a wonderful day! perfect day to play frisbee!

if only i don't have chem prelim tonight.

And of course, it was a wonderful night last night :) thanks for the nice surprises..

if only i don't have chem prelim tonight.

AHHHH....

2006-02-14T12:58:00.000+08:00

i am completely drowned in my workload!!! have to mug and piah hw non-stop until fri before i get a short, momentous break. help!!!! :(

slammed my head not once but twice on the ground during snowboarding. i bet my gpa has dropped by 0.5 from that concussion. knees covered with lotsa blue-black, and right side of neck still aching like shit. but hey, i finally moved on from bunny slope to alpha slope, took off successfully from the ski lift on 2nd try, and my success rate of braking without falling has shot up from 10% to at least 80%! :) snowboarding rocks!

i am soooo happy the parcel finally reached les's house! :D

I just have to rave about this

2006-02-03T03:27:00.000+08:00

The weather today is AWESOME! blue sky, warm and sunny - feels like i am back in california! It's so warm (9 deg only!) that i walked back to dorm in only t-shirt and sweatshirt!

My favorite lunch-break haunt is now Sage Hall! It has this bright spacious square area right under a tall glass ceiling with sunlight filtering in and lighting up the whole place - think Parco bugis junction but with tables instead of those makeshift stalls! - and it's simply a fantastic place to chill out! Though i wasn't chilling out la.. Was doing my jap homework while savouring my bagels topped with liberal amounts of sinful cream cheese, peanut butter and strawberry jam and sipping snapple iced tea, but i still felt so good cuz i would see the blue sky whenever i lifted my head :)

Lab was pretty good today! I am still one of the slowest but at least it was smooth today. I really like this lab course despite all the pre-lab and actual lab and post-lab work i have to do. Till now, i have done distillation and extraction and crystallisation - they sound juvenile cuz these are the things which we have read in sec 1 science textbook, but do you realise, we have never actually done them before! I rmb seeing the gigantic Liebig condensor on the teacher's bench in sec 1 ("SEE-NO-TOUCH"), but now i get to set up my own distillation apparatus myself! Every tiny step involved, precautions to be taken, the science behind every step - reading them on textbooks and utilising them feel so different! I like how this lab course makes us go back to the basics, and appreciate and master these basic lab techniques which we would otherwise have taken for granted. Besides, my TA is a very nice person, so i'm really thankful!

Japanese class was good too! Had a spring test on vocab but survived it; after all nothing can be worse than my oral. It was nice talking to a few classmates after class. For some complicated reasons which i'll refrain from narrating, i am now attending a certain section on mon/wed/fri and a different section on tue/thu, so i actually get to know one extra group of friends hehe :)

Feel so energetic now despite only 5hr of slp last night - doing pre-lab lor, what else? My 2hr nap yest afternoon helped :P i have to mug for some basic theory test later cuz we're going to apply for Driver learner's permit tmr!

what's with me and waiting lists??!!

2006-02-02T09:08:00.000+08:00

i had a horrible monday cuz cornell's outdoor education department screwed up my course registration email and i only learnt on monday i didn't get into the utah backpacking course and was put on the waiting list! and things were made more complicated by the fact that yx has a place in the class but the last day to withdraw from the course without penalty was the next day and it had to take a miracle for one person to drop the course within the next 24 hr so that i get a place! i was pissed and upset and disappointed the whole afternoon, but the miracle actually happened miraculously! i got out of the chem lab course and japanese course waiting lists too, that makes it 3 waiting lists in one week. now that i am safely enrolled in my desired courses it doesn't seem a big deal but i somehow just don't like the feeling of uncertainty while put on waiting lists.

in any case, i really shouldn't be blogging now cuz i have tonnes of homework to do. which also explains the lack of updates for the past one and a half week. grrr... i know lessons have barely started at cornell but i swear my schedule and workload are crazy. On mon i have 6 classes from 9am to 3.20pm w/o lunch break, wed and fri 9-2.15pm w/o break as well, tue and thur slightly better - end by 1.10pm but i have 2 3hr-labs starting at 8am! i have jap homework every day, and i have to do readings and pre-labs before every lab which means every mon and wed night i will be sleep deprived.

enough of my rantings. i can go on and on but what's the point?

but truth to be told, i love my courses this semester. the professors i get this sem are really superior to those i got last sem. both my chem professors are great lecturers, though they are polar opposites in their style. my math prof seemed old and frail and boring initially (which kinda explained why the classroom was packed on the first lesson then enrollment seemed to drop thereafter), but he actually teaches well too! jap lessons are fun, and the best part is i really get to know my classmates, proving the theory lindy and i came up with correct! ;) my writing seminar prof is kind of boring, but anthropology seems cool cuz it's a new subject to me so it's bearable for now.

on a lighter note, i went for my snowboarding lesson last sat! it was such fine weather on that day, sunny and warm, yet the snow at Greek Peak didn't melt! no idea why. but anw, snowboarding is so cool and fun, but i once again prove that i have zero ti3 yu4 xi4 bao1. i took some time to find my balance while sliding down, but i still could master the skill of stopping in time without falling! :P suffered from blisters on my feet due to dragging my feet (that was locked to the huge board) up the slope after every descend (which is the most tiring part of the sport, i think!), and also numerous blue-blacks on both legs! but such falls aren't a big deal to me anymore, after my spectacular fall from a horse's back! lol.. so yeah, i am game for more snowboarding!

i also went for ballroom dancing lessons on mon night, and it was damn fun too! felt good putting on my pretty dancing shoes - felt like a pro but of course i am far from that! there were some dancesports team members sorta helping out in the class, and it was great dancing with these pros!

anyway, an accident happened in my neighbouring lab yesterday. the fire alarm was set off, and while we were evacuating, we saw this guy on our corridor, holding paper towel to his face and blood was dripping from his face onto the ground. :S apparently he was just distilling alcohol and it blew up, when it really should not have. such accidents can happen anytime and on any one of us, and this thought makes me shudder.

my chinese new year was sad. zero festive mood in ithaca la. only went for a 'reunion dinner' with fellow singaporean freshmen at this chinese restaurant (not exactly restaurant either) in Collegetown on chu xi, and that's all. celebrations organised by residence hall and spore students association will only come later this weekend.

i used to think of cny as just a public holiday when i get to eat nice stuff and take a break from lessons, but i never was excited about it in recent years cuz i thought the whole reunion dinner and bai nian thing was just a mandatory routine repeated every yr until i was bored of it. it's only when i am deprived of this 'routine' that i realised this routine has already become part of my life even if i didn't realise its significance of it before. perhaps the desire to stick to this routine as best as i could made me want to wash my bedsheet on new year's eve (like how my mum always changes new bedsheet every new yr) and to eat an orange after every dinner at the dining hall (like how i used to peel and eat one whole mandarin orange after every meal during CNY period).

i want my abalone! and bak kwa! and egg rolls!

oh cornell was warm the past week. global climate is screwing up man.

Soooo relieved!

2006-01-21T14:47:00.000+08:00

I passed my jap placement test! So now i can join their 2nd module of the elementary jap sequence! whee! it means a lot to me cuz if i still can't pass this time round, the time and money spent on taking jap classes for seven mth before i came amount to nothing. i mugged pretty hard these few days; it didn't help my oral though (was badly flustered and tongue-tied grr!), but at least my mini-compo and knowledge of kanji were good enough to salvage me. hehe... very excited now, i think i will love this course! :)

Also, i've finally bought my air tickets!! (A big) PHEWW!!! How much i've gone through before i finally got these tickets! To cut the story short: I've suffered the pulling-hair-out-frustration of seeing the price of the tickets that have suitable flight times rise every day and every hour and the irritation of getting the error msg 3 times tt the transaction could not be completed at the final stage and the panic upon knowing from the bank that i had 3 'charges' in my bank account which come from the air tickets which i supposedly bought (??!!) so therefore i reached the limit of the day and i can't purchase any other tickets and the boiling anger when the first Cheaptickets agent i called hung up on me after she forced me to sign up for their GOld membership before she could cancel those 3 charges for me but of course i refused @#%$%^&........... But anyway, the whole saga finally ended today with me getting the tickets at a decent price SMOOTHLY without any glitches. bad experience. grr...

So after the frustration over the whole air ticket issue, my excitement for spring break is BACK! 7-day backpacking trip to the canyons and deserts at Southern Utah, organised by Cornell's outdoor education department! cool right! and since we are told to assemble at Las Vegas airport anyway, we decided to extend our spring break by one day (on our own accord :P) so as to visit Vegas for a night before the backpacking trip itself! whee! looking forward to it alot, i'm sure it will be a damn exciting spring break! :D

The weather is so good today! It's insanely HOT by cornell's winter definition, averages 10 deg celcius!! my god!! I think the global climate has gone or is going berserk, seriously... but anyhow, the campus looks like san francisco without a bright sun, with no snow or ice, so there were sooooo many peole jogging ard in sweat shirts! and some were even playing frisbee on the green arts quad, sth i've never seen in probably 3 weeks! it's such a wonderful day!

The past week has been great on the whole! I volunteered at this orientation program for Jan intake international students. They are mostly graduate students, and it was not an elaborate affair either, but it was nice talking to some of them over lunch and sharing session, because they all have very different backgrounds. I talked to an Iranian lady who's studying horticulture and seems skeptical of being able to assimilate into a US uni, an australian lady who's an undergraduate but she actually has a 13-year-old daughter, australian-chinese law student, a 'resident scholar' who works for the Chineses govt and under training here in cornell.... Pretty interesting!

Then that night, i got a surprise call from a friend i know through chem lab, so we had dinner together at the dining hall. She's a sophomore but she's a Resident advisor (RA) so she's one of the rare upperclassmen who stays in dorm. I even visited her dorm after dinner, cuz i just dun have any other close-enough friends staying in that residence hall so that is one of the rare halls i have never stepped into hahaha...

My dorm has been bustling with quite a few activities! went to a Mocktail party haha.. why mocktail? legal drinking age here is 21, so we can only make do with beverages like juices and ciders etc but the drinks we concocted are still nice! And the cream puffs and chocalate eclairs are just delicious! (yeah.. i broke my resolute to stop snacking... gah...) sat they are having a gingerbread house-making program which sounds fun too! well, it's only after being under the temporary Winter break RA who was basically hibernating and never bothered to organise any acitivities that i start to appreciate the hard work put in by my RAs now! :)

Went to a few fitness classes within a week! my fitness membership has been severely underused for the past semester lor! tried out aerobics, Step, Pilates, and Jazzercise! Jazzercise is upbeat and fun, Pilates is good stretching excercise but not very interesting i thought, Step just gives u great workout: don't underestimate that lightly-raised platform - it does wonder somehow! wish i could go for these fitness classes on a regular basis, but it will be hard once classes start...

and classes will start on Monday! (finally, right? ) but i am pretty excited abt starting school really! Looking forward to a new beginning: new courses, new professors, new classmates, and new studying habits and motivation on my part! Hopefully new is better! :)

To justify my increasing rounder face as evident from my photos, i feel the need to do a "food special" :P

Presenting to you, the delicacies i layed my hands on over my winter trip! wonderful food = wonderful trip!

Hainanese chicken rice/ Thai red curry beef/Hong kong Po Luo Bao/ NYC's chinatown Tau Huay/ Lindy's sister's yummy chocolate fondan (dunno how to spell:P) within it FILLED with melted chocalate/stewed duck rice again cooked by lindy's sis who is truly a great chef!!/New York Cheesecake from the famous Junior's/ famous-in-san fran Ghirardelli chocalate fudge ice cream, tenzura soba (handmade soba) in Japantown and it's my most exp meal in the whole trip (US$19!!!) /Tau Huay again at this Oakland's fabulous dim sum restaurant/ roast duck rice in san fran's chinatown simply DELICIOUS i love it sooooo much i savoured every bit of meat and rice and sauce YUM!

do you realise that a lot of the delicacies i meant are really just chinese food or just homecooked food? i've never desired and loved chinese/homecooked food so much until i come to US. One of the best things about being overseas is that it takes away some ordinary things that one has always taken for granted, and this temporary loss makes one realise how fortunate he/she used to be.

i miss home! i miss singapore! and i miss 6A!

I am back

2006-01-16T06:54:00.000+08:00

I haven't seen snow for almost 3 weeks already. The cold temperature makes me feel sluggish all over again. i've been telling myself to do laundy before everything else but no, they are still lying in my laundry basket. heez. okay, right after this post, really.

the nicest thing about coming back is i feel that i am coming back home. :) it feels good to be back at a familiar place again, although nothing would be more familiar than home in singapore la.

i took 300 over photos, i wonder how long it will be before i finish uploading and captioning all the fotos onto shutterfly! hmm... For now, i'll just post a few due to popular demand hahaha. Not very easy to pick and choose which few to show, but Picasa's collage function saves the day!

Lindy and I on NYC subway, NYC's chinatown, NY stock exchange at wall street, (pathetic view of) Statue of Liberty

Me at Times Square at night, Christmas tree outside Rockefeller Centre, Ground Zero, just finished watching a broadway musical The Producers at theatre district (with my new bag :) )

Skyline of NYC at the top of Empire State Building, greek exhibits inside Museum of Metropolitan Art, a street outside the museum, Columbia University

New year's countdown at Times Square (look at the crowd!), 2 crazy girls standing in the cold for 5 hours, we were only at 50th street (8 streets away,SADLY), a beach at Long Islands (the first beach i see in 5 mth)

Inside Grand Central Terminal, outside Grand Central Terminal, NY public library, the library and Bryant Park

Partial skyline of San Francisco, Alcatraz Island (used to be a jail), Seals at Pier 39, Singapore's Coffee Bean in California (rare sight!)

City hall, Japantown, nice street with nice houses, San francisco's chinatown

Stanford looks like a chalet, Juline Lindy and I love stanford campus (see, i don't need my jacket!), lake at stanford with mountains in the background, aerial view of UC Berkeley campus

Golden gate bridge, Union Square, biking across golden gate bridge, Sausalito

I've spent thousand over US dollars in all, but i must say it was a good trip. Well i could have saved all this money and stayed in ithaca all alone throughout the entire winter break and rot away and could still view other people's photos of these same places meanwhile, but nothing beats seeing the world for yourself and hanging out with friends. Although i am living in the US and new york city and San francisco are also in US, every city is unique in their own ways, not just the sights but also the people, the 'culture', and how things work. There are many subtle things that are learnt through travelling, i can't even pinpoint exactly what i have learnt and how i have changed but i know deep down i have certainly grown up a fair bit in some way or other, very subtly of course. And i would have missed this process if i had chosen to go home straight during winter break. So yep, 2 weeks of loneliness in ithaca, deprivation of comforts of home in spore, and US$1100 are all worthwhile for this wonderful amazing travel experience!

Of course, not forgetting, my wonderful travel buddy during this trip:

LINDY, who gets things right (like cooking) and also gets things wrong (like mixing up airport terminals). For all the fun and adventure and drama, for welcoming me into your 'family' during those FANTASTIC (with british accent) few days at Long Islands, thanks for everything! 30 years down the road, i bet we will still remember fleeing the flasher at central park together! :)

And the house of wonderful people who generously housed us and made our stay at california much much more enjoyable:

The Elmo family! I can never thank them enough.

At the west coast now!

2006-01-09T16:06:00.000+08:00

Using lindy's powerbook now and decided to blog sth tonight haha.. it's (only) 11.20 pm but lindy and juline are fast asleep alr hehe..

have been catching up on all my friends' blogs the past hour! it's barely 2 weeks since i was away from my laptop and all my friends have such happpening affairs to share on the blog! so cool to read them all! especially flo's spectacular amazing race around Europe!!!

san fran is really sunny and nice! i thought it looks abit like singapore add the blue cloudless sky minus the humidity multiplied many times in area and divided by many hills. hehe... oh well i guess i am missing spore a little too much such tt everything reminds me of spore in some way? now even stanford's palm avenue reminds me of east coast park without the crowd! btw, stanford's campus is BEAUTIFUL! i am more sure of getting my masters at stanford now! ahaha...

my only complain abt SF is everything's darn expensive here! i haven't calculated my total expenses yet, but i feel i have spent more in SF than in NYC! especially transportation! i spend at least $7 on their subway every day! (oh btw they remind me of MRT too! haha!) grrr... i am going bankrupt. i should spend less on food, cuz i am getting FAT and ROUND! yes round!! it's showing in my fotos! OMG! YUCKS!

my camera's memory card is running out of space! i never expected i will ever run into such a crisis, cuz it's the first time i've ever taken sooooo many fotos in the same period of time! alr have 280 fotos since i arrived at nyc! dun have my laptop's card reader or cam's usb cable with me, so i only have 2 solutions: 1) delete older fotos, which i usually dun bear to, but dun have a choice now; 2) take less fotos, at least fotos with myself in it, cuz i look disgusting now that my face is round and fat!

Everytime i am reminded that it's the start of the year and that my students are already j2s, i can't help but feel 2005 has been a really "long" year.. i mean, now that i recall my first few days dressing up as a teacher (as best as i can) and walking into those 3 classes and hearing these j1 students call me miss hiong just feels like a lifetime away, cuz so many things have happened since then. gosh.. feel like doing some real reflection on the past year but there's really no time currently since being a tourist essentially means chiog-ing ard as much as possible... oh well...

I guess this trip made me realise that there are people who can't be trusted, but that shouldn't stop us from trusting everyone else other than yourself. i have been meeting such wonderful and nice people throughout my trip - lindy's sister and her boyfriend and his brother, lindy's senior and his housemates at berekeley whom hv kindly let us stay at their house, and juline's friend at stanford who showed us ard stanford the whole afternoon.

got to sleep now! i promise photoS when i return to ithaca! be patient! hehe...

A new year!

2006-01-01T17:59:00.000+08:00

The new year starts at Times Square, New York City, for me!

Looking back at the past year, i must say 2005 has been the most dramatic and eventful year i've ever had in my life. So many significant things have happened, so many new experiences.

Hopefully 2006 will be an equally exciting year too :)

Anyway, my short trip at New york city can be summed up with one word - INSANE! i mean, everything here is insane! and lindy agrees with me totally!! haha.. elaborate more when i get back to ithaca. heez. but in short, i don't like NYC; i don't like city life. arghz.

Happy new year, everyone!

White Christmas

2005-12-26T03:52:00.000+08:00

Oh well, the first white christmas in my life is the first christmas i spend alone. But it's not that miserable, cuz i am just alone physically but not emotionally :)

Ironically, it is a rainy instead of snowy christmas here in ithaca, and the snow is melting! These days have been weirdly warm - the temperature has been positive degree celcius these days, something i haven't seen for a month...

I made my first scramble egg today! No screw-ups, no injuries! Hohoho... Some worthy progress in my cooking skill yeah? ;) and indulged myself in 2 slices of cheesecake i bought from the only convenience store that is open in the entire collegetown - oh well, heck, it's christmas! diet plan can resume after that heh... :P

I am soooo excited that linda and zhi'en are planning to do exchange in cornell! i really hope they will get it!! :D if flo decides to come to cornell to attend summer school with me next next summer then it will be wonderful! hmm, now i hope shiyun can come to cornell for some exchange also! heeZ! oh man, i miss 6A! good that i am seeing lindy soon!

oh yay, two and a half more days here!! i survived by myself for a little more than a week! :) gosh, really really need to start packing tmr, no more procrastination!! man, i dun like packing.

Bleach and Desperate Houswives are my best friends these days. hahaha... the time spent watching these shows ought to be spent on studying for my impending jap placement test, really... or at least, spent on reading sophie's world, probably... btw, i gave up on catcher in the rye, thought it's rather crappy leh...

Counting the days

2005-12-23T07:00:00.000+08:00

For fear of morphing into a hibernating animal who only sleeps and whose metabolism rate is zero, and being utterly disgusted with my oversized mirror image, I have successfully motivated myself to get out of my room and walk around the deserted campus, even if it's just doing silly stuff like reading my own book in the library and snapping photos of the white campus like a spastic tourist...

This is the same waterfall as the one i took when i first arrived at cornell.. (find the photo in my earlier post!)

The famous (ok, famous in cornell la) Collegetown Bagels a.k.a. CTB!

My lunch, err no, brunch for today: Apple butter on toasted blueberry bagels. Yummy!

Anabel taylor chapel...

Baker Lab! I rmb when i finally decided to choose PUB/Cornell then, i wrote in my blog entry i'll take a photo of my Baker lab myself when i get here... :)

My favourite spot in campus now: the frozen Beebe lake! simply breathtaking!

No major mishaps for my first few attempts at (basic) cooking - aren't you proud of me? ( Oh, btw, cooking, by my definition, is anything that requires me to use pot and stove) Actually, i must admit, it's rather fun to plan what to eat, shop for groceries and make your own meals, even if it includes washing up after every meal. Well i can say this because i have all the time in the world now; cooking would be nothing but a chore if i have lots of homework/essays/lab reports/prelims piling on me right now.

i accidentally saw my final grades online -- 'accidentally' because they are supposed to be out only on 27th dec. haha...

Christina, guojian and huangyu agree that it is damn HOT in singapore. lol... actually, i already don't feel cold in the current -5 deg celcius weather. isn't it amazing that when subjected to decreases in temperature in progressive stages, your body will automatically be able to adapt? I think i can wear just t-shirt and short skirt in san francisco ahaha...

New york city public transportation is in chaos right now. why am i the only one who is unconcerned about the strike?? hmm...

Love is the only rational act -- Tuedays with Morrie

On my own...

2005-12-19T15:27:00.000+08:00

My blog title has never been so apt...

All my friends have left ithaca at 4am on sat morning... all residence halls (except mine) have closed, so have all dining halls. cornell is almost like a ghost town now. i will hardly have any company from now until 28th when i leave this place for NYC... and i have to settle all my meals myself, somehow.

so yes, i am really on my own right now. pls dun even ask me how i am going to spend christmas. :( i guess the fact that i dun usually have 'elaborate' christmas celebrations every year is rather consoling.

sighz... whatever the case.... i will survive. 2 days have passed, only 9 more to go...

4 months here

2005-12-16T11:42:00.000+08:00

On 15 Aug 2005, i arrived at ithaca in the dark.

On 15 Dec 2005, i took my LAST final exam.

After 10 prelims, 6 essays, 5 essay rewrites, 5 lab reports, and 5 final exams, AND, a (bonus) accident, i proudly proclaim,

"I SURVIVED 4 MONTHS AT CORNELL!"

(and it will only get tougher...)

watching narnia tmr... :)

i know i should be studying now but i have to vent my frustrations:

2005-12-14T12:19:00.000+08:00

1) I have totally screwed up organic chemistry finals!!! (read: the chem major has screwed up the only worth she has to deserve to be a chem major) GIVE ME MR YEO!!!

2) I am going to screw up the chem lab written exam which is less than 10 hr away and i have barely started studying becuz i was bloody hell working on organic chem final for the past 3 days!

3) I have just walked back from my finals at a temperature of NEGATIVE ONE FARENHEIT which is MINUS EIGHTEEN DEGREE CELCIUS !!!??? WTH!!!

4) At least half of cornell's student population have finished their last finals by tonight and will be going home tmr. i still have 2 more papers! :(

I will survive

2005-12-10T09:50:00.000+08:00

Done with the last bloody lab report at 4.30am on wed morning!

Conquered 2 prelims on thursday alone! oh wait, correction: conquered one (first A+ coming from psych! whee!) but was conquered by the other one (screwed up math...MATH?! gah..). i honestly hate 2 papers falling on the same day - i will always rmb that fateful alevel phyS+chemS day when my brain died.

Finished 2 essays in one fri morning! That's ALL for my writing seminar for this sem! yay!

3 more papers, 6 more days to go! but weekend never fails to be a source of great inertia to study... i'm too used to slacking hard on friday nights liao! but i will still jia you la... (tks da jie! :) )

temperatures are permanently negative now. i saw minus 13 deg on the weather page on one night... brrr... i seriously think this kind of weather is unfit for human beings to live in - remember thermal equilibrium with the surroundings? that's the state we are approaching if we stay outdoors (in the howling wind) long enough?! shudder....

i've been eating instant noodles/soup/pasta for lunch since the start of study break cuz it's so cold to walk outside and i am too lazy to change into PROPER ATTIRE to get out - time taken for me to change and pad up is longer than time taken to walk to nearest food place! wth!

it will be a cold and LONELY winter break until i meet lindy in NYC...... :(

It's so nice to do little things for friends from time to time, even if doing these 'little' things screws up your priorities. cuz it's just so comforting to know my actions bring a smile to them, and consequently, that fact brings a smile on my face too :) but i am still going to pester gary for a decent treat when i get back to spore! gary owes me one for that god-like peer evaluation! lol..

i know it has been a well-known and highly publicized fact since j1, but i now seriously suspect i am bisexual! i really think shiyun is soooooooo pretty i have a crush on her liao la! Les, I LOVE YA ALWAYS!!!

(no matter what decision you make, i will always be on your side...)

Shoutout to my other les: I LOVE YA TOO!!!

9 dec 2005. someone told me i have to remember this date, so i am blogging this down. ;)

psych 101 lesson #1: Multiple personality and schizophrenia are NOT referring to the same mental illness. (sidenote: P should be suffering from the former, cuz she has no memory of what this other personality has said :P)

I <3 my new dancing shoes!

2005-12-06T00:20:00.000+08:00

Silver is just awesome!! i wore it to the salsa party and they are fantabulous! the shoes are rather ex, but i think it's a good long term investment! after attending the salsa party, i realise 1) i am seriously not good enough in salsa, 2) i watched the cornell ballroom dancesport team danced and i am convinced i want to learn ballroom dance from them!! so yes, my shoes shall serve double-purpose next semester! :)

friday was the last day of all the lessons. can't explain why but just felt kinda down... i guess i dun like the feeling of 'parting', even if it's just parting with classmates whom i dun even know the name but have gotten used to seeing them every lesson... though i was damn happy (and relieved!) my horse riding course finally came to an end and i have survived ultimately, i was rather sad to bid farewell to my instructor and her assistant who have been so sweet and helpful and understanding and encouraging ever since i had the accident. i wouldn't even have dared to ride the horse again (though i must admit i am still very uptight on top of the horse) without these 2 nice ladies.

revision progress is SLOW. omg, i am going to have a major screw up for the first time in my life, i can feel it coming... what is wrong with me?!

On the morning of Thanksgiving...

2005-12-02T04:45:00.000+08:00

...we woke up and saw a snowy cornell :)

Beautiful? well... imagine seeing this for the next 5 months....? hmmmz...

But of course, the excitement of seeing the first REAL snow is inevitable!

Word of the day
Traying: To smuggle food trays illegally out of dining hall, and then slide down a slope on the tray ~ FUN!!

On the night of Thanksgiving, we drove in frozen cars on icy roads in falling snow to Woodbury, and an eventful night/day began:
First, my car witnessed the other car swerved to the right, then left, then right, then spinned 180 deg to the left of the highway! :S
Then, starting from midnight, kickstarted the midnight sale by joining in the insanely long queue in sub-zero deg weather outside armani exchange.
Suffered from crazy shoving and pushing and more long queues at the cashiers at almost every shop we visited. I now appreciate the subdued form of kiasu-ism displayed by singaporeans compared to the americans and asians here.
Succumbed to the temptation of frappacino as usual everytime i see a starbucks outlet, but earned a weird stare from the guy who took our order as christina and i were the only crazy people drinking non-hot beverage in the entire shop!
Joined an even longer queue outside over-rated north face. We were counting the number of people who walked past us wearing north face jackets and bitching about the people who were already wearing north face jackets and still queued up (grrr...) in order to distract us from the cold. Honestly, i almost fainted when i finally got into the shop; yet the sale was pathetic! felt so CHEATED!! :(
After north face, everyone agreed enough was enough. no one was alert anymore after 9 hours of shopping through the night, hence both cars encountered more swervings on our way back.

conclusion? certainly a ONCE in a lifetime experience. no more thanksgiving woodbury sale and exhorbitant car rental for me thank you very much.

the long thanksgiving break has long ended, but no work had been done during the entire break, and my studying mood and motivation still have yet to return.

damn screwed damn screwed damn screwed damn screwed

i hate myself.

My Break is finally here!

2005-11-23T14:08:00.000+08:00

Either maas (my psych prof) is wrong, or there's sth wrong with my biological system: i was so alert during my LAST lab (for the course) today despite sleeping only 3hr last night! everything was smooth, no careless mistakes! fine, i was the last to finish as usual but hey, i managed to finish taking readings from last wk's experiment, redo last last wk's experiment, as well as complete today's lab in time! :) i consider this a vast improvement and i am glad my lab course ended this way ;)

the wind is howling outside, snowflakes are flying around, the ground looks like it is covered by a thin layer of white sand. it was so damn cold walking outside just now, only realised it was -5 deg celcius after i was back in my dorm checking the weather page!! gloves, beanie, and scarf are a must from now on..

thanksgiving break officially starts tmr at 1.10pm, but 2 other classes were cancelled by the profs themselves, so only left with one math lecture at noon which my sun3 you4 men2 have convinced me tt i should not bother to go! hohoho... :P yes, so i am alr in holiday mood now heez :D

plans for thanksgiving:
shopping trip to Woodbury, a premium factory outlet! (omg. this is road of no return)
writing gary's US college peer evaluation!!
mugging for finals - duh, we are singaporean nerds
pending secret operation... ;)

i have been darn worried about my hospital emergency room bill the past few weeks... was so afraid i wouldn't be entirely covered and might have to pay hundreds of dollars... today i received this envelope from the insurance company. i ripped it open anxiously, and the first line that caught my eye was:

emergency services 2,440.75

my blood froze. then my eye zoomed to another line:

cayuga medical center may bill you: $0.00

PHEW......................

but WTH, US$2400 for ambulance and 3 hr of waiting and and x-rays and less than substantial treatment?! pls dun complain abt medical bills in spore again.

there are some things which supposedly have happened some time ago just that you didn't realise it happening so by the time you realise it you feel that it happened so suddenly that you can't believe it's actually happening... i do not know how to react.

HARRY POTTER!

2005-11-20T02:10:00.000+08:00

these days, at the end of every horseriding lesson on fri, i will think to myself, I am so glad to be alive!

and thank god i survived yesterday's lesson to enjoy another happening friday! lalala!

first up, harry potter dinner at risley dining hall! the dining hall was decorated, some students volunteered to dress up as harry potter characters to mingle with the crowd. a few of us won stuff in the raffle: i won a box of Every flavor Bertie Bott's Beans haha. Too bad, there was a long queue at the door and at the food counter cuz the dining hall was so small and there was no magic to make the food appear on the dishes automatically, and the fish and chips was so disappointing. (gimme fish n co!!)

following the dinner was our highly anticipated Harry Potter movie outing! my first late-night movie experience, and my first time stepping into cinema since i set foot on US! US cinemas are all free-seating la! we freaking got the second row seats!!! ahhh!! (i vividly rmb 6a's first-row experience at matrix reloaded lol!)

we all love the movie! despite the movie going too fast and many details were left out and Cho Chang was disappointing (we actually agreed the gal who dressed up as Cho at our dining hall was chio-er in comparison can u believe it!), but at least:
1) cedric was so shuai! (even guys all agree on tt ;) )
2) the scene when harry brought cedric's body back was unanimously agreed to be superb. (i confess i cried hehe)
3) The girls from the french girls' school were mostly damn chio ahaha!
4) emma watson is so pretty full stop
5) cuz it's a harry potter movie, even if it's bad we won't hate it anyway!

After the movie, we had a ben and jerry's ice cream feast back at campus. it has become a habit for me to indulge in B&J's ice cream every friday night. it's a cycle lor: friday i will sin and get fat then i will be resolute to eat less every day to lose the weight gained until fri night comes i will eat B&J ice cream and gain back all the weight again. grrr...

then, the ILC gang, yuan xiang guo jian shanon and me, played bridge and chatted from 3 plus until 7 plus before we went to slp! ahaha! we always do such 'crazy' stuff! it's not uncommon for the 3 of them to storm into my room with a pack of cards suddenly at night and start playing bridge. and it's fun to talk with them, we talked abt almost everything ranging from trivial things like yuan xiang and guojian's debate on whether king size or single size bed is more preferable in preparation for their -ahem- future, shanon and his gf, our empty love life and failed past attempts (only applicable to the remaining 3 of us), to serious issues like careers, being scholars, and goals in life. it's good that i am not the girlie sort who can't mix with guys in the 'brotherly' way ahaha...

photos taken in the past weeks:

first snow = ice kachang

us after first snow fight! (i look horribly fat.....)

me, yuan xiang and guo jian studying under a tree under the lovely sun on the field after a frisbee game!

my roommate danyun's birthday party!

our Singapore Student Association's Makanmania! too bad i was stuck behind the drinks counter the whole night i didn't even get to move ard to take fotos and feast on all the good singaporean food and i only have this pathetic foto as consolation...

group foto taken at town of Cambridge! (koped from chee wei's blog heez) nice foto right? cuz i took it! :P i want chee wei's and yx's canon ixus camera la!!! it's way superior than my pok cam!!

2pm alr! better get back to work!

a new motivation

2005-11-18T09:40:00.000+08:00

barely an hr after i typed the previous suicidal blog entry, i miraculously found a new motivation in life, by chance.

let's see how long the it will last :) oh well, even if i dun achieve it in the end, it's still a good motivation!

i'm feeling much better alr.. even attended salsa class just now!

i emailed 2 of the girls in my lab to appeal for help cuz i've gotten crappy/shitty lab results and both of them are so helpful! i'm really touched... it's too bad i don't have the chance to get to know them better cuz i don't talk much during labs (where got time?!) and this lab course is ending soon alr..

sense of guilt

2005-11-18T04:14:00.000+08:00

temperatures have officially plummeted to average of sub-zero deg and are going to stay there permanently; so has my mood.

in case u are wondering how did the previous entry suddenly appear..well, i drafted it over the weekend, but did not post it up cuz i didn't exactly finish typing it...

see, i am procrastinating over everything, including typing blog entries?! wth?!

i know i brought it upon myself: i can't blame anyone for my HUGE current homework debt.

it's getting from bad to worse... first, it was skipping class so as to finish homework on time; now, it's skipping class so as to finish overdue hw!

i never ever skipped any class in the past before! and i never had any overdue hw! (ok, i dun mean spaper hw..) wad has gone wrong with me???!!!

i dun even believe it myself. i took a damn slow walk back to dorm just now and i kept reflecting on the past few days, past few weeks... and i still dun understand what went wrong.

maybe it's because i can never balance work and play. i had a terrific weekend. watched cornell's most famous acapella grp Cayuga Waiters concert, feasted on ben & jerry's ice cream, watched desperate housewives with a bunch of frens at christina's room until we all fell asleep and i only aroused at 4am, played frisbee on a beautiful sat afternoon cuz the weather was too fantastic, studied (ok, attempted to study) on the slope at the field like the americans always do haha, sprang a surprise bday party for my room mate... and then, my week will get shitty cuz all my work piled up: lab report, org chem prelim, essay, math homework.......

i feel so tired and down... i can't find any motivation to work... i dun even feel like going for salsa class today... when i am unhappy, i show it on my face... ppl ard me have been asking why am i so sad/sian/dead? i can't cheer up... i feel like sleeping and isolate myself from ppl and work...

among my consolations:

1) finally decided to order a pair of silver dancing shoes that's on discount, after worrying abt my expenses
2) didn't screw up psych and econs prelims.
3) last prelim is over. yeshh.
3) HARRY POTTER tmr! (it'll be the first time i step into a cinema since i came to US aha) just hope i dun fall asleep
4) last (dreadful) lab session next tue!
5) one and a half more weeks of lessons only!
6) vacuuming my room just now: a cleaner room somehow makes me feel better...(??)
7) chatting with dada online cheered me up!
8) one of my classes changed their class blog's skin, and the girl who designed the skin used a class foto i took with them! oh well, they probably didn't have any other class fotos la, but it was nice to see the foto again :)
9) thanksgiving break is next week!

yes thank god thanksgiving break is here. i need a break. badly.

IT SNOWED, BABY!

2005-11-11T04:58:00.000+08:00

well, for just one day... :P

was walking to chem lab lect in the morning (i was 15min late cuz i insisted on finishing a practice exam for my econ prelim which was on that afternoon). suddenly there was a strong gust of wind that actually blowed me sideway (erm, i'm not implying i am light cuz i am not alr) then, i thot i saw this white speckle flew past my eye. i wasn't wearing specs so i thot i was seeing things. then another white bit flew past. and another. i stared in disbelief.

then it occured to me that i was walking through falling snow! for the first time in my entire life! omg. i couldn't believe i was seeing snow! it just felt so...surreal!

anw, the snow stopped falling by the end of my class... but then, at ard 12.30 am that night, while i was still doing my math hw which was due the next day, guo jian suddenly knocked on my door and told me excitedly, "there is snow outside! let's go out!" and then soon, about 10 of us are called out for snowfighting at the car park behind my dorm! ahaha!

the snow was, honestly, kinda pathetic... just a thin layer covering the grass lor... but we played with 'cleaner' snow by collecting them from the car roofs! ahaha... i was more of a spectator in the snow fight, gasping at the loud thuds of snow slamming into their backs and faces, cuz i wasn't wearing gloves and my hands alr were 'burnt' from touching snow for 10 sec! but it was still damn fun, making a din with a whole bunch of mountain turtles who haven't seen snow before at 1am at night!

i can't wait for a second snow-fight when real snow has accumulated! (the 'snow' we saw tt night looked a lot like ICE KACHANG ice to me!!) i will be properly geared up with my ski gloves and scarf and beanie and my thickest jacket to join in the fight! yeah!

Summing up my two and a half months here...

2005-11-05T04:25:00.000+08:00

First, it was just exploring Cornell campus itself...

Then we went a little beyond Cornell to the pretty Cayuga Lake (at ithaca)...

in fact, i have been to the same lake on 3 different occasions at 3 different parks alr...

It's a must to see new things and places since we are all the way here... so far, i've seen the Tanaganough Falls, the tallest waterfall in North-Eastern US (which had sadly dried up so we could walk on the river bed la haha!)...

... and watched American football at our own Schoellkopf field... (i promise to learn how to pronounce the name of this field before i graduate)

Also went up north to visit Niagara Falls...

and saw a bit of Toronto...

Then we visited the UN headquarters at NYC on a day trip...

and of course took the opportunity to soak in the colorful city life at NYC...

Then we drove all the way to Boston during Fall break... The first day, we contributed to the US economy (US dollar rose after tt day apparently!) by going on a CRAZY shopping spree at the factory outlet at Wrentham...

We visited MIT campus and all of us congratulated ourselves for not going to MIT because... (see pic of campus yourself)

Wish we could say the same thing for Harvard...

But the town Harvard is located in, Cambridge, is too lovely to resist!!

Besides, in the town of Cambridge, there is this restaurant Penang which serves the best chinese food we have eaten since we left home!!!!!!!! char kway teow! nasi lemak!

kang kong! chicken rice! walau! WE MISS SINGAPOREAN FOOD!! :(

Then we 'horland' all the way to Salem to see witches....

But the witch museum is well erm... disappointing...

We appreciate food better! Fresh lobster and oysters at Legal'sat Boston!! Whee! Extravagant meal (guess the price)... :P

As if we didn't horland enuff on the road, we paid to get totally lost in the corn maize at Vermont! After walking among corns for FOUR HOURS my team finally reached the bell tower, the check point, and were estatic!! What beats the beautiful scenery of Vermont that welcomed us at the end of the maze? Perseverance pays!

We also visited the famous Ben & Jerry's factory at Vermont and saw and ate lots of yummy ice cream (you've got to try Ben &Jerry's ice cream yourself one day!!)...

The Vermont teddy bear factory was our last stop before we returned to Cornell... I bought a white teddy bear that was stuffed and sewn up on the spot!

Among the thrilling things i have tried: Hoffman Challenge Course - Cornell's mini OBS! The pic here shows a path that has 2 ziplines hanging above for flying fox! The fake clock tower is where i did King's Swing (=BIG swing) as well!

ALso went to Six Flags at Darien Lake, Buffalo! Tried all the roller coasters that operated on that rainy day whee!

Within our (huge singaporean) clique, we did crazy stuff like holding WILD 21st birthday celebration...

and also nice stuff like milder 21st birthday celebration... haha...

We are indeed a quite a closely-knit bunch... in fact, 14 of us (mostly in this pic) are going to stay together in one house next year!

but err well... sometimes the guys get a bit too close though... (must be the severe shortage of girls within our clique la ahaha)

ok sorry, that was graphic-intensive... i hope i didn't paralyse your computer system... hehe... dada should be satisfied ("more pics, less words") now huh? :)

Aftermath of two and half months here:
1) Severely broke (spent 3 mths allowance in 2 mths)! :S
2) Gained a lot of weight!! (i weighed myself, it's for real!)
3) Lagging in all 6 courses.... grrr....
4) Having a lot of static from wearing fleece! I get shocks whenever i touch metal objects!
5) A freak accident to add to my overseas experience. well done...

Autumn comes earlier for some...

2005-10-06T20:39:00.000+08:00

At last, i am not embarrassed to show you my Arts quad, cuz this pretty arts quad was disappointingly yellow like hay when i first arrived, thanks to the dry summer...

If greenery is what we have, this is what we do NOT have:

Sighz. no city life, i can only content myself with seeing cute squirrels everyday (almost like seeing stray cats in spore)...

...AND, perfecting my 'zi4 pai1' technique, hahaha!

Next up: Fall break!! BOSTON!!! shopping!!

but before that, econs prelim... :( and packing... :( and laundry... :(

(severely) deprived

2005-10-04T11:21:00.000+08:00

No "the producers"/statue of liberty/central park....

YET, no A for psych prelim either!!!

:(

i mugged the whole weekend for WHAT???!!! grrrrrr............

and my only consolation?

starbucks frappucino!!! awww i miss you!

yes, that's how deprived i am.

High and cold!

2005-09-30T12:56:00.000+08:00

oh wad crap title. lol.

High as in i am damn high now! ponning sch tmr to go on a NYC-UN day trip! ahaha. ya la. pon sch.. mum is shocked, dad is shocked, yun oso shocked! come to think of it, i can't believe wad made me do it too! maybe cuz everyone else is doing it, den i oso 'li3 suo3 dang1 ran1' sign up together. den i realised those 'everyone else' ppl are accustomed to ponning lects in jc alr, while i am tt kind who dun pon a single lesson even on tcher's day celebration ahaha... oh well... IT'S NYC FOR A DAY FOR TWENTY BUCKS, COME ON! ahaha...

and by the way, the engineers are going to come back on fri night, go for pe on sat morning, den take a coach BACK to NYC to watch 'The Producers'! i am forgoing broadway for my psych prelims on mon kae.. :(( i am still guai and sensible kae. A+ for psych 101! go, raffles!

ok. forgive me. i told u i am high.

oh yes prelims. the engineers are celebrating 'end of prelims'. mine have started a wk before the engineers, but sorry, i will not have the honour to tell ppl "my prelims have ended!" or "sighz... prelims again!" cuz my 10 prelims have 'nicely' spread out over 10 weeks until mid nov (which is 2 weeks b4 the finals). hey it's more like class tests for me?

prelims at cornell are interesting. u see the same human traffic frequency in campus in the evening as u would see in the day. and the grading system here is that sometimes they mark on the bell shape curve, sometimes they don't. so we pray hard they don't when we get damn easy math paper, and vice versa when u get crazily hard physical chem papers haha. and the speed they mark prelim papers here amazes me! it's as though every department here have TAs who are possessed by RJ CHEM DEPARTMENT!!! some kind of unwritten rule or wad, u get back ur prelims within 4 days -- money back guarantee.

feeling damn satisfied now, cuz finished pia-ing all my work for this week (ahead of fri somemore tsk tsk) AND best of all, i have engaged in extracurricular stuff! in addition to my weekly salsa class, i went for dancesports team tryouts last night (ballroom dancing! cool!) and i was allowed to join in salsa's dance troupe's rueda casino training! dancing is so fun! n i signed up for our cornell's art musuem tour-cum- self portrait workshop this sat, cuz i decided tt even with 2 prelims next wk, i cannot afford to go back to spore without knowing wad our very own art musuem looks like inside!! but i had to forgo this free ropes course (think: ziplines n flying fox!!!) becuz the challenge course is at some ulu place i can't get to without a car. gah.

it's getting cold here................... my sophomore friends in class were like "you think it's cold now? -silent grin-" yes yes... it's only fall now. and winter at cornell has a whole new definition,i heard, i know... it's only when u get to this place when u appreciate the sun and hate the wind. i used to go for the shade in spore and i can't wait for cooling breezes; now once i am out of any building i scram for non-shady spots to bask in the sun! sun-less is bad. wind is horrible. wind minus sun is lethal. and now i have to stock up on jeans and track pants cuz i will have to stop wearing my skirts by next wk. tragic.

(expect me to whine about the cold everytime i blog from now till march... )

and i am FAT. really. honestly. seriously. positive.

setting of for NYC in 3 hours time! yay! :D

Lost

2005-09-26T00:00:00.000+08:00

I feel i have lost my direction. I don't know what i am doing now. Everything that i planned for didn't work out. I don't know what i want; or rather, i know what i want, but that's too much to pursue, so i am stuck in-between, facing a risk of reaching nowhere in the end.

I know i have to give up on either one. But i can't decide. i can't i can't i can't. the longer i can't decide, the longer i am going to feel empty.

Why can't i just have the best of two worlds? Am i that incompetent? :(

Photos from Toronto!

2005-09-12T04:13:00.000+08:00

Went to toronto last weekend with a few friends thanks to a lift from a singaporean senior (who's visiting his gf on exhange at Uni of Toronto)! A really really short trip (one day half only) which only allows taking fotos and eating good food and taking more fotos and eating more good food, but it's really good enough! The car ride itself is four hour and a half times 2, but i had good company so it wasn't tt bad! hehe... Shopping was not bad (they had a REAL multi-storey shopping MALL, ithaca doesn't have :( ), just tt not enough time la... they are selling summer clothes rather cheaply now, cuz fall is here! haha...

Niagara Falls! Yay! This is the canadian side! ahaha...

A huge yummy irresistable Hershey's outlet at niagara falls!

Toronto city at night! Haven't seen a city for weeks! lol

Us beneath CN tower! :) (it used to be tallest building in the world or sth haha)

Toronto's Harbourfront (this is just a part of the huge harbour front)

University of Toronto! (just a shot of it, i didn't actually visit it la...)

But the weekend getaway proves DEADLY to my academic progress! absolutely no homework done during the whole weekend! and somehow got damn shagged too, kept falling asleep during classes and lectures in the past week... (christine n i once made a pact we are never going to fall asleep during lects cuz we learnt to empathise with teachers and lecturers, but now i broke the pact... :( ) but anyway, now i am too scared to visit toronto again with some seniors over next weekend to watch les mis liao la, cuz i dun wan to fail all my courses man!!! sighz!!! Les Miserables leh!! :(

honestly, i still haven't caught up with my work. the readings and homework and essays are never ending! i shouldn't be blogging now man... haha...

it's getting colder and colder here... sighz... and we are FAR from winter! can u imagine winter!!! -faint-

it's quite funny, we only came here for 3 weeks, and yesterday we were visiting our seniors' houses as though we were visiting showflats liddat so as to decide where to stay next year! the seniors couldn't really believe it haha...

i went for my first horse-riding class on friday! heh heh! the horses are HUGE man!!! got quite a shock when i first reached there! haha... they all have LONG tails which immediately remind me of highlighted rebonded hair tied in a ponytail!!! LOLZ! they are identical, i'm serious!!! :P anyway, i had a short ride on a horse tt day. quite cool to be on a horse! but i am a clumsy pig who can't mount and dismount a horse gracefully and smoothly! gah. lousy... haha...

the links to the photos on my right column dun work anymore, weirdly. I have shifted all the albums to http://meteorflower.shutterfly.com try accessing it to see if they work, while i shall find time to upload more toronto photos on that site! :)

Lazy...

2005-09-01T09:56:00.000+08:00

i know i have been pretty lazy, not blogging much these days... paiseh la...

the past one and a half week had been quite dramatic! my courses were in a MESS! (some of u might have seen my msn nick ha) this course clashes with that course, dunno which course to drop, another course so full tt i have to be put on waiting list, PE clashes with writing seminar blah blah blah... the problems/conflicts never seem to end. :(

but thankfully, now it's mostly finalised already. Taking a writing seminar on linguistics -- writing systems and cryptography! Forced to change my water skiing pe cuz all the other time slots are filled up :( so i changed to my next best alternative, horseriding! (HEE-HAW!) i officially have a place in my chem lab course alr! heng ah! turned out my chem lab section only got 8 students haha, the smallest class i have! but when i went to officially add my course at the registrar today, i was forbidden cuz i am not allowed to take 6 courses for my first semester. i have to make an appointment with my dean to "petition". gah.

yeah... i decided to take all 6 courses for now... i mean, i have 7 or 9 weeks for me to decide to drop any course wad... see first lor... it's quite hard for all 6 courses to fit nicely into my schedule without conflicts anyway! besides... the semester's organic chem seems like it's gonna be easy lor! today we did nomenclature lor! u get the idea :P

(you would expect tt given my workload, i should be mugging now and not blogging right? u are right, i am sacrificing my hw time now. hey you all should feel honoured lor! haha!)

anyway, i went to take the Chinese AP test yesterday. my fac advisor asked me to take the test anyway (it's for a foreign lang requirement in my college) although i told him i plan to take jap courses next semester/year. i am usually confident of my chinese standard, but after seeing all my fellow singaporeans except one (yuan xiang! wah lau!) failing the Chi AP test last week, i also began to worry if the chinese teachers are stricter this year in certifying that we are "proficient in our native language". :S failing the Chinese AP test doesn't hurt, but losing to yuan xiang in chinese is so terribly INSULTING! (fyi, that guy was using my laptop the night b4 his Chi AP test to read zaobao online, with me prompting the pronounciation of many of the chi words la!!) so i cannot cannot fail the test, and THANKFULLY i didn't screw up my zuo wen and i am granted the waiver for foreign lang req and i didn't lose face! phew! :P ahaha

due to the guilt of eating too much and the realization of the effect of eat-all-you-can meal plans setting in ard my waist, i was determined to go for one of the fitness classes, knockout workout, with christina today! (after all, cannot waste my fitness classes membership fee right?) shiyun, kickboxing is really cool! i was panting like mad! tmr my thighs are definitely going to ache but that's great! means it was a good workout man! lolZ

i realise making friends is all about "fate". It's not a matter of choosing to mix with the caucasians cuz "they are warm", or deliberately choose to befriend the international students cuz "they are friendlier", because anyone can be friendly, and anyone can be dao. I have talked to and befriended quite a few ppl in some classes easily, but for other classes, it seems so hard to befriend them... esp for the course where basically all are sophomores and they all know each other since last yr already. oh well... u know i have this very nice japanese friend who is a Masters student, graduated from Waseda, and who's in the exact same math and econs course as me! how cool is tt! haha...

one of my students wished me happy teacher's day!! aww... so sweeeet! :)

my residence hall is having ice cream night tonight! ice cream or homework...? hmm....

Long-overdue photos! :P

2005-08-30T05:09:00.000+08:00

Bye Singapore! -sobz-

Glimpse of my room... This is how it looks the first day i moved in...

One of the Arts and Sciences buildings! Cornell has plenty of such gothic buildings!!

View of West Campus (seniors' on campus housing) atop Libe SLope

McGraw Clock Tower! My favourite!

The gorgeous Andrew White Library! Transported us to the world of Harry Potter! Whee!

One of the residence halls, Balch! This is the prettiest among all for the freshmen! (i mean the interior haha)

A photo of most of my singaporean buddies! except for the gal right of me -- she's my room mate!

Road advertisements! Lots of them here! Posters are less common here! hahaa

A pretty little waterfall we see everyday when we walk to central campus for lessons!

My chemistry building Baker Lab!

Out of point here, but this is for my les who requested for it! :)

okay, i will post many more fotos on shutterfly soon! be patient darlings/folks! i gotta rush for some stupid talk now!!

I PASSED MY SWIM TEST!

2005-08-20T04:42:00.000+08:00

YAY!!!! so happy!!! my pre-departure swimming crash course efforts paid off!! :D i can now happily choose my pe course out of the hundred over pe courses available instead of sadly going for swimming lessons as pe! whee!

scuba or water skiing? hmmm...

today is a great day! got my student id card (the matriculation card equivalent geez), so i am now an official cornell student!! this card oso means that i have now access to fitness classes (salsa workout, yoga etc!), i can do my laundry finally (:P doing later for the 1st time), and go for eat-all-you-can meal plans at the dining halls, and oso a free pass for me to take buses!

i oso got a cell phone! LG clam shell phone, polyphonic tones with coloured screen! it's free when we sign up for our lines! and it's quite cool, 5 of us the singaporeans signed up for the "family plan" together, so we are sharing the talktime! and so our phone numbers are the same except for the last 2 digits lolZ!

and today, the americans and all the rest of the international students are moving in!! the peaceful campus is now bustling! cars everywhere, ppl everywhere! hey hey! now i feel like i am in a HUGE university! hahaha

gotta bathe now... and then, figure how to use the washing machine! :S lolz

I am here...

2005-08-18T01:03:00.000+08:00

When i just reached here, i was in disbelief... Couldn't believe i finally made it here, after struggling through the whole process of application and scholarship application and then the actual loooooooong journey across half the globe!

Even after being here for 3 days, the fact "i've reached cornell, a university in USA" hasn't exactly sinked in yet still..

Everything is moving slowly right now... well, this pre-orientation is really meant for us to settle down and overcome jet lag so the programme lineup is not very hiong yet... back in the dorm, i have been doing everything leisurely... picking clothes, sorting clothes into "to be washed" and "to be worn again", bathing, packing (or rather unpacking as well), laundry (err... up to now still postponing it though :P).... well, all the misc stuff... i dunno if it's just tt i dun have motivation to do it faster, or it's really my max speed. if it's the latter, i'm gonna get so screwed when the term actually starts! :S

and because school hasn't really started, i still dun have the feeling tt i have entered a university already! i have been walking ard the campus these few days, admiring and gasping at all the pretty gothic buildings and busy snapping pictures of them! i mean, i feel more like a tourist than a student of this uni lor! hahaha... which is just not right, yeah? :P

Also because this is an orientation program for international students, i have been mixing/seeing koreans, hongkongers, thais etc instead of americans, and i am getting used to it already... Just happened to see a huge group of americans whom i gather are freshmen on another concurrent pre-orientation program today while i was walking... Looking at the sheer number of caucasians who passed by me, i suddenly realised i am in america! i am in an american university! at tt instant, i pictured the prospect of mixing with so many of these caucasians and i worried of the difficulty. oh well, that will come later...

right now, even among this group of 150 international students who participated in the same pre-orientation as me, i could feel i am still reserved about breaking out of my comfort zone. let's just say that motivation and ability is dependent on my remaining energy level. so in the day, i feel i am more proactive in saying hi to new faces; once it gets to the afternoon, fatigue and sianness sets in and i feel lazy and tired to talk to new ppl already. sometimes i think i am so lousy: i came all the way here and yet i am not trying to leave my comfort zone. i have to make a conscious effort to remind myself to be more thick-skinned to go up to new ppl to intro myself. well, it still works... but yet, it is still not a "natural" process for me yet... sighz...

but really, it's so easy to stick with singaporeans... most of us basically just click! bearing in mind tt most of them are guys, i can talk to most of these singaporeans comfortably, hang out with them, joke around with them, and even talking about renting houses next yr like hello on our 3rd day in ithaca! unlike with new friends of other nationalities, where conversations basically end after name, country, college, major are exchanged, and then, names will be forgotten. :P oh well... similar backgrounds and cultures make a big difference, really. who else can understand when i say "sian ah!" or "kena sabo"? i guess, familiarity is the order of the day, huh? it's such a natural instinct in human beings to go with familiarity, after all, "zuo sheng bu ru zuo shu". :)

Pre-departure depression

2005-08-13T19:39:00.000+08:00

I'm not happy. I'm not excited.

I realise my mood is affected not by how near i am from something, but how far i am from that thing... The further that thing is away from me, the more i am affected by it.

That's why i was devastated when i thought cornell was out of reach during my scholarship saga. That's why i was so excited when i started preparing for life at cornell. And that's why i am now miserable knowing i will be so far away from home 30 hours later.

I'm leaving everything i have behind other than those squeezed into my 2 luggages and 1 haversack. That's how little i have left.

I dreamt of this day for so long... but now... i don't feel like leaving!

But i made the choice myself, who am i to blame other than myself?

WHAT?!

2005-08-12T01:27:00.000+08:00

i have 1 day and 22 hours left?????!!!!!!!! -FAINT-

i cannot cannot imagine.......... the last time i had my passport stamped was in sec 3, and i only left singapore and my family for just 14days! i can't even rmb how it felt like to check-in at the airport, bid farewell to your loved ones, stepping onto the plane, having your ears pop as the plane takes off.........

as i am typing this, this particular scene in my absolute-fave GTO kept popping into my mind: the episode when Onizuka spites (oh no i can't rmb her name DAMN...) this potential movie star in his class to quit sch and leave tt town for her career, then the whole class arrived at the airport to send her off..... This was the scene i cried the most in the entire show cuz i can't stand such parting scenes.

(AH! her name just popped into my mind! Tomoko! peng zi! yay! :D)

I dunno why i am mentioning this but i guess it's to keep you all prepared....? err.... hahaha... :P

(pardon my incoherence... my thoughts have become confused these days...)

Once bitten, never shy

2005-08-08T01:47:00.000+08:00

Well at least, that is for me.

I really NEVER learn.

That's why i am forever tortured by panic and pressure from last-min work, a result of who else but my own procrastination.

That's why the one-hour-half crash course with my dad did not help me acquire backstroke and improve my stamina to swim continuously 3 laps instantly. (I even changed my mind about water skiing to scuba diving the day before... fat chance now :( ) That's why my "Things fall apart" is still unread till now except for the first 2 pages, and a one-page written assignment still awaits me. That's why my knowledge of chemistry has drained away, despite me keep reminding myself to start revising since eons ago!

Look at the countdown counter on the right. Less than 6 days left.

Cheer, ppl! Because (may i borrow this chinese saying) I FINALLY see my one foot inside my own coffin, so yes, i FINALLY am sensing the urgency to do my final preparations! Yay! -__-

PE

2005-08-01T19:47:00.000+08:00

Initially, i was a bit apprehensive... But i recalled what i am going there for... so...

I think i shall take water-skiing as my PE course! :D shhh... dun let my mum know! :P

Photo recap! [warning:graphic intensive]

2005-07-29T20:59:00.000+08:00

This is your only chance... LAUGH, people! LAUGH!

My dear old buspass/studentpass/ezlink card which has been in my possession since sec3! The horrendous photo was taken with a lousy webcam -__-'" (at the AVA room i still rmb!), and taken when i was the fattest ever and with that horrible hairstyle! urghz. in the end, all the rg girls became victims of BAD photography, and this side of my card never saw the daylight since! i always violently declined to show anyone my buspass, especially guys, becuz i honestly look like shit. so you should feel honoured that you actually have the chance to have a glimpse of this picture. in fact, the only person i have obediently shown this card to is... the rj libarian! ahaha! i rmb the first time i borrowed a book, she looked at my card, then looked at me, then looked at the card again before she scanned the card while stifling a giggle! lol! Many girls seem to have a common consensus that this card has sentimental values which make it worth keeping, but i have $30 inside!! sighz. and so, the best i could do to take a shot of my student pass the night before i surrendered it........

Daddy's birthday! My brother said we should celebrate daddy's birthday cuz i won't be in singapore to do such stuff next time... but my mum realised i would be ard in spore this time next yr, but only after she bought the cake, so... hoho... i got to eat another cake before i leave! =P

Dave unexpectedly shove one whole stack of "Project Superstar" live recording tix into my face while i was at my desk and i just exlaimed "wo yao!!!" ahaha... so in the end, i went with linda and shiyun excitedly to mediacorp lalala... and... linda took foto with derrick!!!!!

and so did i!!!

wahaha! GOTCHA! it's just derrick's board... duh, he's not in the 4th quarter finals la... sad... (but hey, i took great pains to edit the derrick and dada foto k! ask les! ;) my exp graphic-editing program finally put to use!)

But then, with another (HUGE) stroke of luck, i met my 2nd benefactor, yixin, who gave me tix to the Male revival round the following week!!! unbelivable! so we could finally see the real derrick after all! throughout the 2 shows (oh we sneaked into the female show, again! we were so pro at it liao! ;) ) i was busy snapping fotos! but more than half were blur haha... i found this show much more enjoyable than the previous wk's, probably cuz the performances were generally better and the hosts and judges were crazier during the off-air breaks lol!

Will upload the bigger fotos soon and post the link on the right column of my blog!

The day we went down to for the revival show, we shun4 bian4 had our les outing too! =D

Yes, neoprint WAS the fad; yes, you think taking neoprint is girlish or childish or bimbotic. But i'm not afraid to say, i had so much FUN!!! haha... well, i think it's doing these little "silly" stuff from time to time with who else but your dearest friends that really spices up your life! :) this was the most successful and enjoyable attempt at neoprint for me, cuz we had disgustingly so much time to add little pics and write words on the screen! the countdown timer just kept adding bonus seconds by itself! lol! i personally detest time limits: the pressure from time limits never fails to unsettle me so much i freak out and screw up! urghz. that's why i love this neoprint machine we went to and the final products we had! while we were editing halfway, i suddenly exclaimed "OH MAN! i won't be able to do this in US!" and dada and i burst out laughing. such sudden "revelation" has become more n more frequent for me that it's starting to hit me that i'm not just going to cornell soon, i am also leaving spore soon too... (psst... do we have S.H.E de gan3 jue2??? ahaha...:P)

Experiences 2005! Even though i am nothing but a lowly extra volunteer to the organising committee, it's still an honour to be "part" of this pro committee! The magnitude of the event, the set-up of the event venue, the sponsors that were involved, the publicity received, the programme sheets and down to our pro lanyards! -- everything is so impressive! This comm is so professional i'm inspired to organise such huge events in the future too! :) Christina and i were the youngest in the comm haha... well, i became quite accustomed to wide-eyed "Really?" when i introduced myself "i'm entering cornell this year" haha, cuz by right, only current singaporean students studying in US would have heard of, and consequently, help out at E2K5. oh well... within the comm, interacted with many rising sophomores/juniors from various unis... mmm... nice and interesting ppl... as in really nice lor, like seniors offering rides home after meetings... so many of them drive!!! crazily rich ah! budden, i'd probably lose contact with them other than my nice cornell seniors hee...

Hee, danxu was visibly pleased to have us sending her off at the airport... just when i thought my last-min effort in gathering ppl down at airport was going to fail miserably, surprisingly 5 of us actually made it in the end, despite 2 barely recovering from their illness, 1 busy helping out at a fair for 10hr non-stop and was dragging her half-dangling sandal there, 1 close to burnt-out from job attachment, and 1 going to see danxu again very soon at the same uni. "True friends"? lol, we had a rather funny chat on that! The simple yet really nice all-girl chat-cum-gathering was pretty satisfying...

wk messing with my cam! well, i realise that IF i ever become a superstar in the future, i would more than welcome the paparazzi chasing after me to snap fotos because: 1) i have a nice hand and nice fingers for them to shoot 2) i know how to block my face yet not block it entirely such that i am still recognizable in the photo 3) i look better in photos with my face blocked leh (erpz!). ahaha... anw, tks for the long-overdue ice cream treat! hehe.. :) to think it started out with a 50cent Mac ice cream cone -- hyperinflation eh? lol..

My long-awaited HUGE Orientation package! yay! i am always extremely excited to receive any mail from cornell, because each mail/package has amazingly flown over half the globe avoiding mishaps to arrive in my hands wow, and because each mail/package i receive means one step closer to cornell! =D Now when i think of the required reading book's title "Things fall apart" i'll be reminded of this fellow freshman's hilarious allusion to his orientation package being manhandled by the postmen such that it's "erm... falling apart" lol! well despite receiving the package for 1week already, i haven't started reading the book! :P inertia la... haha..

PUB gave each of us 2 Creative webcams as a present on our scholarship presentation ceremony today! hehe... Although we have enough webcams at home already, this webcam is superior man! well, the first test shot of the webcam has to be tested on -ahem- my face right... hahaha... (this is what flo calls "zi lian-ing" aha) anw, the ceremony was really quite formal! well i was told it would be more than a simple lunch with CE ceremony, but i still underestimated the magnitude... It's not too bad to be under a scholarship board with not that many scholars huh? =P