Aug 30

Think it rained last night, cos the ground was wet this morning. Quite a change of atmosphere. I heard it hadn't really rained for a month or two. It rained too when we returned from dinner at Appel's. We didn't bring an umbrella out of course but we were wearing jackets so that kept us dry. Now I know to trust the weather forecast when it says 100% rain. Most of the days when it says 70% or 80% rain, it doesn't rain. But now I know that when it's 100%, probability equals to 1.0 and no one should ever doubt this absolute value.

Aug 29

I've been here for 2 weeks now. The days are getting shorter (i.e. the sun no longer sets at 8pm, it does so at a more normal time of 7.15 to 7.30pm), the nights aren't any cooler and classes officially go into full swing today. Monday is my second longest day. I start lessons at 9, have an hour's break at 10, resume lessons all the way until 3.30. There are 15 min breaks between each period to allow us to get to our classes if they're at different buildings. Most of today was spent at Morrison Hall, which is near the Cornell Dairy Bar.

~~~

If I haven't mentioned it before, I shall declare now that it sells very delicious ice cream and very big servings too. We made the mistake of ordering the single scoop instead of the kid's scoop. That resulted in us avoiding any forms of chocolate for more than a day. Pure torture.

~~~

Microbiology lab was pretty interesting in my opinion. Well Cherlyn and I were also rather lucky because there were 2 labs going on simultaneously and we managed to get into the smaller lab that had only 14 people if I'm not wrong. In addition, the course coordinator was also in-charge of our lab group so we got better personal attention. Everything was taught in a very organized fashion and instructions were given to us as though we were new to a biology lab, which is not such the case but I don't mind cos it helps to clarify some doubts I had regarding certain basic procedures. We did phase-contrast microscopy today using the normal Zeiss microscopes (they are also used for bright-field microscopy). I'm just a little curious to know if the normal microscopes used in NTU labs can also be used for phase-contrast cos I can't quite remember if we ever done it before. Someone drop me a comment pls? Thanks! We also set up a Winogradsky Column, which is just a more glorified name for a large tube-ful of mud. Really. I guess there's probably more to it but I haven't read ahead in my lab protocol so... *sheepish grin*

The last lesson for the day was Plagues and People, which is an Entomology course that I've been very interested in ever since the first time I applied for my subjects. Maybe cos it's been a long day, but I felt that the lecturer wasn't very engaging. I left the class feeling slightly disappointed actually, cos I've heard quite good reviews about the course from upperclassmen. Oh well, hope it gets better. We proceeded to Mann Library after the lesson. Mann Library caters mainly to CALS students. We managed to find older editions of the gen microbio textbook and the endocrine physio textbook. I was lucky again when I approached the loaning counter and asked about the med parisitology textbook. According to the library catalog, it had just been returned earlier today, however I couldn't find it on the shelf. Luckily for me again, they haven't shelved the book yet so it was still at the loaning counter. I might have purchased the book if I couldn't find it in the library cos the lesson's tmr and I haven't done any readings yet so I was just feeling a little anxious about it. Yup.

It's almost the end of August now. I've got another 120 days or so left in America. I'm starting to miss the food a little but I guess that's bcos the replacement chef was cooking again. I really hope the old couple come back tmr, otherwise I'm eating Western.

Aug 28

Went to Walmart today. But before reaching there, we found this wonderful shop called the Dollar Tree, where everything costs a dollar only. Yipee! Cherlyn and I are so definitely going back there next week. We didn't get any foodstuff cos we've limit ourselves to $20 per fortnight for grocery shopping and we've already reached that limit last wk. Yup just in case you guys are concerned about my welfare, dun worry, I'm on the 7 meals a week meal plan which is more than sufficient bcos I'm not a big eater. How do I settle the rest of my meals? Well usually breakfast is a cereal bar and I'll use my Big Red Bucks for lunch at one of the campus' cafes. Big Red Bucks is this $500 credit that we get, but of course it's inclusive in our meal plan. So after some calculation (well we didn't do it, the engineering seniors had it all calculated for us already), it's more than enough to feed us luch for the rest of the semester.

We didn't shop too long down south today cos we wanted to go check out the CCA fair in Barton Hall. It wasn't too bad, we got free frisbees. However, think we're just a bit too sleepy to really register what's going on around us so we left after about 45 mins. Came back, dump laundry into washer, sleep, wake up, dump laundry into dryer, sleep summore. And yup later went out for dinner at Appels. Roomie and I always eat dinners at Appels now bcos of the horrible crowd at Robert Purcell (RPCC). Once bitten, twice shy. And also because of the old couple that always cook delicious fried rice with egg. So Dad and Mom, dun worry, I eat plenty of rice everyday. Sometimes fried noodles too. But I think Sundays are their (the old couple) off-days cos today it was this young guy cooking. The replacement chef wasn't any good so... now I know :)

Then we proceeded to attend the Singapore Students' Association (SSA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) at RPCC. The SSA Exco recently received some criticism because they decided to start this "goodwill contribution". Think the main concern was that this organisation is non-profit so some people were a little disgruntled over the donations. I personally find that it's no big deal, cos they're only asking for $1 to $3 per person, and it's not even compulsory. Oh well. And ahahaha we exchange students also got special mention bcos of our escapade on Fri. Well not me strictly speaking, but the 3 of them (Jowyn, Denise and Cherlyn) bcos Yuan Jun, the SSA President, literally rescued them from the wilderness. So now the four of us are obliged to contribute an article to the SSA newsletter. Stranded 101 is the tentative title. I bet it's gonna be fun to write. *grin*

Aug 27
Went to Taughannock Falls today. (Thank you roomie for the correct spelling.) It's suppose to be the tallest waterfall in New York State. Unfortunately this summer has been a little too dry, so no water was falling. Seriously. It was completely dry. Shucks.
We had a fun time playing silly games with the rest of the Singaporeans. We made one guy sing a love song to one of the RAs, and another guy almost had to kiss another guy as forfeit. In the end we relented and made him gyrate (gosh the words those engineers use... *sweatdrop*) or more commonly known as "shake your butt!" while standing on the table. Great entertaintment value.
When we returned to sch, we slacked at Appel playing taitee again. Then we went up to the dining hall and stuffed our faces with lots and lots of food heh. We went down to the Arts Quad where there was a live band concert. My very first live concert. Gee, what a night to remember. Although I didn't know the name of the band and the songs they were singing, it was still really cool. Figuratively and literally. The wind tonight was really strong and there were these 4 large speakers hanging next to the stage that kept swaying with the wind. Pretty scary especially for the people standing underneath them.

We then walked over to Ho Plaza, where there were many stalls set up. Some were selling food, but many others were games stalls, where you can win raffle tickets by playing the games. It's those simple carnival kind, like knock down cans with a beanbag or throwing a ball into a hole, you know, stuff likedat. We also took a group picture and had it framed with this American Flag. It's really nice and the best thing is that it's all free! Hahaha Singaporeans just cannot resist all this free stuff. Yup so now I'm exhausted. Sorry for the short post, I'll try and make it up next time :)

Aug 26
Second day of school.
~~~
Before that, just past midnight last night, which translates to the wee hours of this morning, Anna called. She was at Louie's Lunch having supper with Jeremy. (yes I know it sounds weird but that's their opening hours so...) Louie's Lunch is this truck that's right outside Balch. So we finally met, at the Balch archway. Finally. Anna's my dear dear fren from secondary school. She's also the main reason I chose Cornell bcos I'll get to see her so I'm really really glad I finally got to meet her. :)
~~~
Attended 3 lectures today. Figured I may not need textbooks for 2 of them. The textbook for the last one's only $27.50 so I might just get it. Proceeded to Stimson's computer lab to print notes then went back to room to wait for Anna's phonecall. Cherlyn, Denise and Jowyn went to explore the Salvation Army store and chinese supermarket near Walmart.
I was happily tapping away at my keyboard when I realised that I left my thumbdrive at the comp lab. I was at the lab at 2pm and it was 3.20pm. I decided to stay put in my room for a little while more cos i know Anna's class ends at 3.20 and sure enough, she called less than 5 mins later. I arranged to meet her at Stimson and flew down there as fast as I could and luckily my thumbdrive was still there. Phew. Everyday is an adventure for me.
We went down to Collegetown so that Anna could grab a bite. Then she invited me to her apartment at Valentine's Place. Yup it's a nice spacious place and they've got this huge TV too haha. There we chatted away the time, mostly me talking (haha what's new right? Me and my big mouth), updating her with what's happening back in Singapore. Jeremy gave me a lift back to Balch at six.
About 6.30pm, roomie called back to say they were stranded at Salvation Army. Gosh. Well ok they weren't really stranded, they've just waited a really long time for the bus and were pretty worried. I checked the bus timing for them and luckily for them, they haven't missed the last bus so they'd be coming back to hall sometime tonight. Well it turned out to be a wasted effort on my part. They missed the bus. Don't know whether to laugh or cry. But luckily they had the SOS number: the SSA president's mobile number. That really nice guy, Yuan Jun, actually drove all the way down to pick them up and send them back to hall. Really have to depend on friends when you're studying abroad. *nods head fervently*

Oh yup guess I should just clarify what subjects I'm taking:

General Microbiology Lecture and Lab

Medical Parasitology

Fundamentals of Endocrinology

Biological Statistics

Plagues and People

Dun think I'll be adding or dropping anymore subjects so this should be pretty final.

Aug 25
First day of school. Shucks.
Biostats was pretty ok, but the lecturer follows the textbook closely, so bo pian must buy that one. Also, this course has no final exam. Rather, it has 3 exams that are worth 20% each, the last one being a take-home exam. The other 40% comprises assignments and class-participation. I went to crash the latin class, which turned out to be surprisingly small, like 8 ppl only. However, the pace is very fast and there's alot of homework. Plus the class meets every day at the same time so there's no way I can attend it on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Sigh, I wonder when I'll have a chance to pick up the language.
The medical parasitology course is not bad also, just the location is too ulu. I got lost of course , that goes without saying. The lecturer is pretty humourous but talks a bit too fast. He wore this bright green tie and told us that protozoa is anything that's been excluded from the other groups. I like that. The course is pretty much textbook and lecture-based. 3 exams also, each one being a 50 MCQ paper. Alright man! *victory sign*
Me and roomie are currently tearing our hair out over whether to buy textbooks or not, and where to get the cheapest textbooks.

~~~

Seems like I neglected to talk about the weather in greater detail. Well the sun rises at about 6am and sets only slightly before 8pm. So we've got long long days here. That's for now. Upperclassmen tell us that autumn is zero to five degrees celsius. Autumn. Gosh.

~~~

So I just came back from the Cornell Cinema, they were screening Kung Fu Hustle. Yeah I know it's really old but hey it was free-of-charge so why not? On the way back, we passed by two parties. Those with loud music. Yup those kind. It's pretty tame I guess, but one can never tell from the outside. At least there were Cornell policemen on standby, so things probably won't get out of hand.

Aug 23
We met at Balch again and later headed off to explore the clock tower. Turns out that we can only enter the tower when it chimes. It was a long climb up this very narrow staircase to reach the top of the clock tower. But the view was breathtaking. It was worth every step we took. The tower is about 9 storeys tall and there are several bells on the top, along with this organ-like contraption. The chimemaster told us that auditions will be held in spring if we are interested to chime the bells. Think they actually have to come up with original compositions to qualify.

We dropped by Teagles Hall where the Physical Education course sign-up was held at. We were keen on taking up swing dance but the classes were full. Skating was our next choice but it clashed with our lessons. Denise wanted to take up fencing but it clashed with her lessons too. I saw the booth for shooting and archery. The courses were all full except for the course on handgun. But it costs a whooping $200. *deflated balloon sound* I didn't sign up naturally... but the longing for the grip of a pistol... sorry I must sound mental *grin*. Yup so we left without signing up for anything. So sad.

We went back to our respective rooms, then met up again at Denise's room for a meeting to plan what we intend to do for the next 4 months i.e. the places we intend to travel to, shopping trips etc. But we basically lack necessary info to plan decisively so we are all now on recon mission heh. And also on a make-friends mission, especially people living in Boston or Philadelphia, to solve our accomodation problems. Damn despicable right? *devil's horns sticking out, waves pitchfork around*

Then we crashed the HILC games night downstairs and boy I hadn't had so much fun for a very long time. We played this game called Monster. 2 groups compete against each other to do what the gamemaster says. Like for example if the gamemaster calls out "5 feet, 2 hands", then each group can only have that number of body parts on the ground. So we were constantly trying to find ways to "elevate" ourselves, like piggy-back, or lying on top of one another. Ok piling on top of one another. We played with 7 in a team and it was so much fun. And we laugh until our stomachs ached because of all the funny positions everyone was in. Cherlyn and I left for Balch at midnight (damn cold! Brrrr...). On our way back, a drunk guy almost collided into her. We didn't think he was drunk at first when he was walking towards us at a distance, but when I noticed him walking very unsteadily and swinging from one side of the pavement to the other, I got suspicious. Anyway, with some careful manouvering, we managed to side-step him. Think he's actually quite good-looking, with washboard abs (cos his shirt and jacket were unbuttoned), but drunk? Nah, not for me. Drunk guys are such a put-off.

~~~

Aug 24

Alright, I've caught up with present time. Everyone give me a round of applause! Yay!

Today is the start of add/drop period so me and roomie woke up at 6.30am to add and drop subjects. Which was really hard to do (the waking up) after all that strenuous exercise and acrobatics last night. At first server was very slow, so after 15 mins, I gave up waiting and went back to sleep. I set my alarm for half an hour later. When I woke up, still no change in server condition so I gave up and went back to sleep until 8.30. I had better luck then, managed to get into the website. Then the error page popped up, telling me that I'm not allowed to add/drop and I should approach my faculty advisor. Aw man... wake up early for nothing lor...

~~~

Er no this isn't about my amazing ability. Sorry to those who derive much entertaintment at my expense. Well anyway this is about our attached bathroom. Yup my room has an attached bathroom which until yesterday had this really huge water stain which was quite icky to step on but bo pian must tread on it to get into the tub to shower. Then it started to dry up miraculously, just like the even huger stain outside at the corridor. Anyway, although we have this great convenience, we realised that facilities (that's what they call the cleaning department here) weren't going to clean it for us. So we were running really low on toilet paper. Luckily for us, when we left the room to meet Jowyn and Denise at about 9.30am, we saw the trolley that the cleaning people push around and there were toilet rolls on it. Think you can guess what we did next. *grin*

~~~

The 3 of them had to go for the follow-up after the Mantoux test. Poor Denise had to take the X-ray too but unfortunately for her, Mr Nurse didn't have a free slot for consultation until after September so she'll have to call them at a later date to make an appointment. We headed to Uris Library, which housed the "Harry Potter Library". Think I posted a picture of it in one of my earlier posts. Anyway, this time I got a good look at it and explored all 3 levels of it. It's really gorgeous. We made our way to the top most floor where we took a break. Break meaning taking out the cards to play taitee. Yes I'm incorrigible. We all are.

We went to Stimson Hall to look for our faculty advisor, Bonnie Comella. She wasn't in her office when we arrived, but just as luck have it, she returned when we were about to leave. She calls the four of us "the pack from Singapore" without any malice of course. She's a really great person, and she really understands the situation we are in as exchange students so we're really glad to have her as our advisor. She settled the problem with our add/drop, then we proceeded to the comp lab downstairs for a furious one hour of adding and dropping.

Ok it wasn't furious. It was just tedious, especially since I was trying to add Biostats. The lecture was constantly full. I think after about 1 hour of trying, I finally managed to squeeze myself into the class so yay to me again. Yup at least everything is settled. I didn't really post this, but all the nights I've taken to write these posts for my blog, half of the time I was also multi-tasking, trying to settle my timetable and subjects. Yup now I sort of know how the NUS people feel, but I think they still have it worse cos of the bidding. To my NTU frens in SBS, be glad. Be real glad.

Yup so now I've finished my post for tonight. Well more or less. I guess my posts in the future will not record so much of what I did during the day but maybe more of what I feel and think etc. Afterall my "vacation" has officially ended with the start of lessons. Oh well I guess it's high time I start hitting the books. I'm like one whole month behind my peers back at NTU so better start using my grey matter ha.

Yipee, I'm almost catching up with current time.
~~~
Aug 21
Sunday brunch at Appel's is heavenly. There was century egg porridge and siew mai and ha kao! Omigosh! I took one large large bowl of porridge and a plateful of siew mai and ha kao. Yummy :)
Cherlyn and I went over to Denise's room after brunch where we played taitee until 3. Her room got feng shui. Must sit on the couch or the chair to win. Guess where I was sitting hee. (The couch of course!)
We went back to our room to do the laundry. It actually doesn't take a long time. The washing is 35 mins and drying in the dryer takes 1 hour or less. But it's not cheap. Each use of the machine cost $1.25 so between the 2 of us, we've already spent $5 doing a week's worth of laundry. Maybe can consider doing laundry once a fortnight haha.
The four of us met up again to go for the meeting with our faculty advisors. It turned out to be pretty irrelevant for us because the briefing was tailored for the transfer students, those who enter Cornell after 1 or 2 years in another academic institute. We were utterly bored while the other students fired away questions about how many credits to fulfill, what order to take the subjects in, advance placement tests etc. I did however wake up when they talked about undergraduate research. Unfortunately, when we approached the prof later to clear our doubts, she said that it'll probably be quite hard for us because we are only going to be here for one semester. Quite unlikely that we can find a faculty member who is willing to take us up for such a short period of time. Sigh.
There was a welcome dinner by Singapore Students' Association (SSA) at the same time as our advisor meeting. Sad to say, by the time the meeting ended, so had the dinner, so I missed Anna again. Double sigh. We headed to Appel's for late night bubble tea session. Over here, they call the pearls "tapioca". Well they aren't wrong in saying that cos it is made of tapioca but when the cashier asked me if I wanted "tapioca in my tea", I had the mental image of a huge piece of tapioca in my drink, like porridge with sweet potato. Think Mom will understand :) Anyway, we spent the rest of the night there drinking our bubble tea and playing more taitee. Went back to room at 11.30pm.
~~~
Aug 22
Happy birthday Kor! Yup my big brother's birthday and he's celebrating it all the way in Perth, Australia. Glad to know that your friends are throwing you a birthday bash, that's just awesome! Kor is a happy-go-lucky guy with a sunny personality and a great sense of humour. Keep it that way kor! Miss you lots too!
We went to Gannett for our Mantoux test. *insert scary music* Okay I'm not that terrified of injections, it's just a minor discomfort to me. When it was my turn, the nurse told me that I didn't have to take the jab. Whoopee! Turns out that since I've already had a positive result for the Matoux test I took in Sec 4, I'll still have a positive result when tested again so it's quite pointless. She handed me this pamphlete about latent TB infection (LTBI) which I might have a 5 to 10% chance of having. What it basically means is that I MIGHT have the dormant bacteria inside my body but I'm healthy and will not pass the bacteria to anyone while it's still dormant. I'm pretty sure I'm fine but I had to take an X-ray (again one of their policies) and arrange for an appointment with Mr. Nurse who will tell me more about LTBI and whether I want to take medication for it. Right. Well at least I didn't get poked at. And Mr. Nurse MIGHT be cute. Hee. Well of course the rest of them were jealous cos I didn't get poked. *grin*

We wanted to explore the clock tower and the art museum but they were both closed. So we went back to Cherlyn's and my room at Balch where we played more taitee.

Aug 19

Registration day. Being kiasu Singaporeans, we decided to go early to collect our Cornell ID, which is the equivalent of matriculation card. This day was also a very messy and noisy day because all freshies move into hall today. And they have only today to move in. Besides receiving the card, each of us also received a checklist indicating the things that we have yet to do, like paying our bills or submitting health history forms etc. All 4 of us were lacking clearance from the Gannett Health Center so we made a trip down to see what was wrong.

When we got there, we joined the queue behind this long line of tall athletic girls. The last one at the line happened to turn around, took a look at us, and told us that we were probably in the wrong line cos they were signing up to be intervarsity players or athletes or something likedat. Sheesh. The difference in size couldn't have been any more obvious. Well anyway we found out that we had to undergo the BCG screening test: The Mantoux test. Which is really unfair cos we all did it in Sec 4 already and the BCG vaccine has already been proven to be ineffective, so why the h*** are we doing the test for it again? Yup I could go on ranting I guess, but it wouldn't stop the fact that it's Cornell policy for all international students so... Nevertheless, we were all disgruntled when we made appointments with the receptionist to take the test on Monday Aug 22. In case any of you forgot wat the test was, it's the icky one where they poke the needle underneath your skin near the inside of you elbow, then 2 days later they check to see how much it has swelled. My dear roomie seems to abhor injections of any sort, judging by how unhappy she is about it. That's not all, we have to pay $15 too! I thought it was included in our insurance...

When we returned to Balch, we officially checked in with the Balch admin and sadly had to surrender our temporary IDs. Those were really handy because they allowed us access into any building. Quite reluctant to give it up actually.

In the evening, we had a meeting with our Resident Advisor (RA) who's sort of in-charge of all the people in the same floor on our side (North Balch). Her name's Laura, very reliable and helpful person. There are a couple of Asians living on our floor as well, but besides the 3 of us Singaporeans (Cherlyn, Yingyi and I), the others seem to be American-born. It was basically an informative session. Laura went through certain important rules that we had to abide to. Think the most important one was the escort policy. Balch is an all-female residence and some people choose this hall for a reason, so we have to respect their choice, hence all guests, male or female, have to be escorted within the hall at all times. I'm actually really glad and lucky to be in Balch. When I was filling up the hostel application form back in Singapore, I never actually considered this issue but now that I'm here, I actually feel much more at ease knowing that I'm surrounded by girls.

The next meeting was with our orientation group. Basically it comprises of students studying in the same college but think they tried to incorporate one or two ppl from each floor. My OGL came to pick me up first from my room cos it's on the ground level (but 2nd floor. Weird right? Still haven't figure out how it works). So I happily followed her all the way up to the 6th floor, where one of the girls live in this 3 person room, which was huge la, somewhat like a really large attic I think. But of course very inconvenient too, what with it being right at the top corner. We played some icebreakers and I was the only Asian in the whole group of them white girls, (group leader is a Singh, but think she's American-born) so I decided to spare them the agony of pronouncing my name. I introduced myself as JY which they all remembered flawlessly. Good. Ooh then we played that true and false game again and yours truly again proved to be a master of deceit. Hee. Yes I am getting a great kick out of it so pardon me for being smug. Maybe it's revenge for all of them ignoring me haha.

But honestly, it's not a nice feeling when everyone around you just goes on chatting about which county of which district of which state they are from when I can't even pinpoint Ithaca accurately on the map. It's not discrimination of any sort, you just feel left out cos there's no common topic and there's the cultural barrier. Everyone will take the easy way out of course, I admit I'll probably do the same too. But it's ok, I was rather tired already at that time, so that just gave me an opportunity to zone out and stone.

~~~

Aug 20

Qihui's birthday. Congrats to you, finally 20 though you still look like you're 12 but that's good cos it means that you'll never need Botox or face-lifts. Many thanks to Kris cos if not for him, I don't think I'll be here. Everyone needs a friend with powderful English. Or a friend's friend. Or friend's friend's friend. Yesh I should just shut up. Best wishes!

Cherlyn and I woke up a little earlier for breakfast because we wanted to go for the dump and run sale at Helen Newman Gym. Woo hoo we made some great buys:

Cherlyn's wearing this fur-lined jacket that's probably never been worn before cos the tags still there. Mine's a thick silver jacket. And guess how much it cost? 3 dollars each!!! Alright man! Also got a green fleece blanket at 2 dollars. Hee retail therapy works for me.

We went to the Ithaca Commons in the afternoon. There's this shop that sells cheap Nalgene water bottles, only USD$7.99 for the large ones so anyone who is interested can let me know haha. I'm definitely getting one for myself cos the one I brought from home leaks. We also found this shop that sold everything for $1 or less. We took another bus to Wegman's, which is a large supermarket, and did grocery shopping. We probably won't go back there again cos it's not really that cheap and it's inconvenient too cos we have to change buses at Ithaca Commons. We were exhausted when we finally made our way back to hall with the groceries.

But that wasn't the end of the day. There was yet another OG meeting. Dang. I wanted to meet Anna but my plans were spoilt obvously cos the RA meeting after the OG one was mandatory. Still haven't met Anna after a week in Cornell, how pathetic can I get...

~~~

Well after all the meetings, I finally got back to my room to shower. Guess what happened this time. Nothing too bad actually, just that I was very painfully reminded about my petite-ness again. I was standing in the bathtub showering and I was trying to reach up for my loofah which was on a hook right outside the tub. I loss balance and bumped my knee into the side of the tub. Yup the left knee. So my earlier bruise doesn't get better, it gets worse.

~~~

Alright, enough of my amazing ability.

Aug 17
Breakfast at Appel's and later we had our College visits. We walked down to the Ag Quad (short-form for Agriculture Quad), where we finally got to meet Tamara Durham, the tireless exchange coordinator. Turns out that most, if not all the exchange students who went for PREPARE are enrolled in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). The funny thing was there wasn't any briefing for the normal freshies, who were only like 6 or 7, but the 15 of us on exchange had this 45 min session with Tamara. Think the upperclassman who was guiding was a little bewildered too. Well we were basically told to have fun here, take anything (any subject) we want, if we can't get what we want, flaunt our exchange student status. "Oh but I'm only going to be here for one semester so could you please please please let me into your class?" Quote from Tamara.

Met up with sibling group for lunch at Collegetown. Good thing we moved fast. We were able to get seats at Asian Noodle House. Some who came along later just had to keep on walking to find another restaurant. I had 2 spring rolls for lunch cos I still wasn't hungry (must have overate for breakfast) but the servings there are huge. Even the big China guy couldn't finish his plate of rice. Oh and the teriyaki chicken noodles in the menu actually referred to char siew. Well it looked like char siew. Wonder if it's possible to make char siew with chicken meat. Ivan was really really nice. He paid for our meals. Wow, now I really owe him one.

Next up was a series of boring talks: a health talk and a police talk. Upperclassmen advised us to go for the police one, so we ponteng the health talk, went for the police talk and fell asleep during the police talk. Oh it wasn't that bad, it was just that I've only slept 5 hours each night for the past 3 nights, so I'm always damn sleepy in the day. Probably still jet-lagged. I DID learn that there are these lamp posts with blue lights where you can call for an escort to bring you back to hall when it's late at night. There is a small phone booth at the lamp post, kinda like the CTE tunnel SOS phone, and 2 ppl, 1 guy and 1 girl, will come escort you. Not bad at all.

At night we had International Dinner at Williard Straight Hall. It was suppose to start at 630, but dear dear Jowyn overslept, leaving Cherlyn, Yingyi (our Singapore neighbour) and I waiting for them for a good half-an-hour. (Think Denise eventually went to knock on her door). Oh oops seems like I forgot to mention that Cherlyn and I are in Balch, but Denise and Jowyn are living in Holland International Living Centre (HILC), which is further up north on the map. So we trot down to Williard Straight, got food but no seats heh. Well we eventually got seats right in front hee. Some of the items were pretty interesting, like one guy sang a Josh Groban song, another group sang La Bamba with guitar accompaniement (pardon the spelling), and this double-jointed guy did amazing things with his arms, I can't describe. But perhaps the most entertaining item was this lip-synching act performed by a group of upperclassmen:

It isn't too clear, but from left: Kris, Andrew and Jeremy. I don't know who the 2 girls in the background are though... Oh we had chocolate fondue too:

That's the chocolate fountain. So sinful. Hee.

Aug 18

It's the last day of PREPARE. Had breakfast at yet another unearthly location but we were late in the end. This time, Jowyn didn't even turn up with Denise. She was that late.

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When you see the funny curly thingys, it's time for another installment of Jing Yin's amazing ability. This time, yours truly actually tripped while going UP the steps. Not down, mind you, but up. How can that ever happen you may ask. Well it sure does, cos anything's possible when Jing Yin's around. Yup this time, I had a nice big bruise on my left knee. Oh and if you're concerned about the bruise on my left foot, it's recovering nicely, so thank you. Back to the mains.

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There were a series of talks after that which we again didn't attend cos we aren't freshmen. So we went to settle yet some more admin stuff, but luckily that didn't take a long time. We explored the engineering building on our way back and look wat we found:

Look at that, way cool! I think the engineering students made it from scratch.

We departed for the Robert H. Treman State Park at 1130 for the closing BBQ. We were in the first bus (the second departed sch at 1230), so we went to explore the park first while waiting for the food to be delivered. Here's some nice scenery shots:

The pic on the right shows part of the pool that people swim in. I'm not too sure whether it's natural or man-made, but it looks nice anyway.

Now for a really funny shot:

The see-saw is actually quite high, so it's really scary to be on top. Luckily for me, I'm heavier than Jowyn haha.

We went back to the main gathering area and joined in a game of frisbee. I'm starting to think that I'm getting addicted to it ha. The BBQ lunch turned out to be catered. We were served grilled kebabs. I guess that's what they meant by BBQ lunch. Which is well good in a way cos the BBQ pits in the park are really small and not in a very sanitary condition. We then took a really large group photo, which I don't have unfortunately, and went back to school. This marked the end of PREPARE officially.

15 Aug

Me and roomie actually woke up at 5am or so because of a loud noise outside our window. We drew apart the curtains to find ourselves treated to a close-up view of this enormous truck. Garbage truck. Oh yeah, wat a way to start the day.

We met Jowyn and Denise at 8am at their hall. Denise is a fellow exchange student from NUS whereas the 3 of us are from NTU (if that wasn't obvious enough). Oh and I forgot to mention my hall is Balch. It's the only all-female residence hall and also the second largest on campus. It's also the closest North Campus Hall to the academic Central Campus. In other words, it's the first hall you see when you walk back from sch hee. We went to the Townhouse Community Centre to check-in with the International Students Office (ISSO) , got free red t-shirt, then proceeded several other places to settle some stuff. Below are some pics I took while exploring:

This is the view from the bridge linking the North and Central Campus.

This is somewhere near Collegetown, which is down south, out of campus, but within walkable distance.

This is my roomie Cherlyn. Yup just us taking candid shots with the Campus Store merchandise.

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Let's now take a short break to speculate about my amazing ability to bump into things. Last night (14 Aug), I had to jump over the bed for I dunno what reason and I kicked the bed post. One word sums up my feelings: Ouch. Anyway, I ended up with a 5cm bruise at the ball of my left foot.

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Yup so we had hot dog for lunch, then went back to sleep cos we were so obviously lacking in it. But before that, Cherlyn and I took a detour to Townhouse again to collect Cherlyn's keys from Andrew. (There was a mix-up; Cherlyn had keys to a room in this really far away hall. Good thing we are roomies hee.) On the way there, we were waylaid by this big group of Singaporean guys, all either juniors or seniors. So that commenced a rather extended hand-shaking session and continuous repetition of our names. By the way, for a 4 yr course, 1st-yr=freshman, 2nd-yr=sophomore, 3rd-yr=junior, 4th-yr=senior. For 3 yr courses, there simply aren't any sophomores. Anyway, we settled everything quickly, then took yet another detour to this ATM at Helen Newman Gym, where yours truly walked into this gigantic cobweb hanging above the ATM. There you have it, another splendid example of my amazing ability.

We went back to hall, slept, then woke up at 3pm again when Jowyn came knocking on my door. Denise suggested that we set up our bank accounts earlier instead of waiting for the planned one that would take place the next day (16 Aug) cos probably have alot of people, like the fellow PREPARE participants. Yup so dragged body out of bed and then back again. Almost didn't make it for dinner at Appel Commons cos both of us just couldn't wake up haha. But we got to know fellow Singaporeans at the dinner so it wasn't too bad. Most of them are scholars, so self-esteem also went down several notches after I realised they were talking about stuff beyond my intellectual level. Nah I'm just kidding =)

Then after dinner, there was supposed to be a ice-breaker session for all PREPARE participants but the 4 of us just couldn't stay awake any longer so we skipped that.

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16 Aug

Breakfast was at an unearthly location. Luckily we went passed that area yesterday (15 Aug) when we had to go settle stuff. We set off rather late but still arrived earlier then many of the other PREPARE participants cos they didn't know about the short cuts hee. The quiche was delicious but too oily. But there was plenty of free bottled water and juice so we decided to exhibit our exemplary Singapore behaviour i.e. kiasu syndrome, and take one of each haha.

Then it was time to meet our Older Sibling. Mine was Ivan from Malaysia, a engineering senior. Really hyper guy, always jumping around when it was time to play games. Fellow freshie siblings were Kim Song Hee from South Korea and Yao Qian (or was it Qian Yao?) from China. We combined with another sibling group to play ice-breakers. The first one we played was like true or false. Basically, each person will say 3 statements about himself or herself but one statement is false. So the rest must try and guess which was false. Those who guessed wrongly will get a chip (like casino chips. dun ask me how Ivan got his hand on those). I of course ended up with the second most number of chips la, given my long-running history of just being lousy at things in general, but I'm proud to say that I managed to get everyone to take a chip during my turn. Hee. To the buccaneers: Looks like all that Mafia-playing paid off *smirk*.

We proceeded to take short tour down south of campus. Went to Cascadilla Creek which has a nice little water fall.

Then we took a grp pic at the south entrance into Cornell:

Yup I'm sitting next to Song Hee, Ivan is the guy in black on the far right and Yao Qian (or Qian Yao) is the tall guy at the far left. He's only 17 but freaking tall... damn. Then we went to explore Uris Library, which is where the engineers normally go. Here's one of their prettier rooms:

We had Subway for lunch and later went down to Pyramid Mall to shop for some necessities. The major supermarket there is Target, but there are others at other locations like Walmart, Kmart, Wegman's and Tops. That took the whole afternoon. When we returned to sch, we had a pizza party at the Big Red Barn.

From left: Jowyn, Denise and Cherlyn. Then there was sports night at the Helen Newman Gym. We were very tempted to ponteng again, but decided not to this time. The gym is this deceptive looking building that looks small and shabby on the outside but in reality houses an indoor pool, a bowling alley, basketball courts and other facilities inside. But us being us, we ended up not using any of the things inside. We played frisbee instead out in the dark open with a couple of other guys. Andrew's frisbee is phenomenal. It lights up in the dark. I don't just mean glow-in-the-dark. It really lights up. There's a small battery pack in the middle of the frisbee that lights up tiny lights on the frisbee, so at night, it's like this red spinning disc of light coming towards you. Real cool. All of us want to get a frisbee now. We went to bed tired but glad.

Hi ppl Jing Yin here, thanks for waiting. I've finally found time to set up this blog. Yup I'm at Cornell University now, situated in the city of Ithaca in New York State, USA. I've been here since 14 Aug, that's a couple of days already and much has been happening so this is gonna be a long first post haha. Prepare yourselves =)

14 Aug
My flight was at 6am so for those who know where I live can probably guess the unearthly hour I had to leave home sweet home. When I reached Changi Airport, there was already a queue at the check-in counter. Turns out that everyone had to go through a one-to-one interview with security employed by Northwest Airlines. Rather stringent checks but hey, I'm no criminal so of course I got through. I checked in about 50kg worth of luggage. And yes, yours truly is strong enough to lift 27kg all by herself (yay to me!). Met up with Cherlyn, my roommate in Cornell, and Jowyn, yr 3 and of course got a pleasant shock at Jowyn's new hair style. Real cool man...

And dear dear El came to send me off. El! You're the best!!

And so I said bye bye to dear mommy and daddy and left on the flight to my first transit stop at Tokyo's Narita Airport. It wasn't a very comfortable 7 hour flight mainly because of the neck rests of the seats. Suffice to say, they were tailored to the average-sized person and I'm obviously a midget so... But Jowyn is amazing. She probably slept 5 hours out of the 7 hours we were on air, waking up only for the meals. Anyways, before landing, the pilot informed us that our connecting flight to Detroit has been changed to 3pm (Tokyo time) instead of the 4pm one we were originally scheduled for. Well the Tokyo flight only landed at 2.30pm and by the time the doors opened, it was already 2.40pm so we had a nice jog to the boarding gate. One thing about Japanese air stewardesses is that they are damn chio. Really. So envious. Too bad there wasn't any time to take pictures of them. So we boarded the plane and waited. And waited. And then the pilot told us that the flight has been delayed 50min due to some mumbo-jumbo. Great. We ultimately took off at about 4pm.

The flight to Detroit seemed forever. We weren't all sitting together either. Cherlyn and I got the left column seats but Jowyn got a right aisle seat at the center column so that spoilt our plans for 3-ppl taitee. Sigh. We did managed a 45 min chat about halfway through the entire flight.

So we arrived at Detroit's McNamara terminal (2.30pm Detroit time) and went through VERY Stringent US customs check. I had to take off my shoes. Shan't bore you with the details. (And if you're wondering, I actually gain one day while travelling to USA cos they're time is behind ours). We finally cleared customs at 4.15pm and then it was more waiting to board our final connecting flight to Ithaca. While waiting, the personnel at the gate announced that they were looking for 3 volunteers to give up their seats and board a later flight. In return, Northwest Airlines was going to offer them free return trip tickets valid for several locations. We were ready to take up the offer but unfortunately another lady volunteered first so there weren't enough seats for all 3 of us. Oh well. Yar so we boarded this really tiny plane, think it had only 30 passenger seats, plus 1 pilot and 1 stewardess.

We waited some more, then the pilot announced that the plane wasn't going to take off. Apparently there was a malfunction in wing flaps. Luckily we haven't took off or else it would have been really dangerous. As an afterthought, I only found out about the Cypriot plane crash much later. Got depressed actually. My sincere condolences to those who lost their loved ones on that ill-fated flight. Well, they rescheduled us on a flight that was on the opposite end of the terminal. In fact, we highly suspect that it was the cargo gate cos it was at the end of the opposite end of that really long terminal. And yes, we had a nice long hike to the gate but never mind.

So we got onto our final flight, immediately dozed off (well I did), woke up when they served us a drink, dozed off again, and before you know it, Welcome to Ithaca.

We arrived at 9pm (Ithaca time) and the logistics coordinator for the international students orientation (PREPARE) , Andrew, was there to pick us up for early check-in to our rooms. His good friend Jeremy provided the car. For platoonmates: I suspected that he might be THE Jeremy but he was the one who confirmed it with me later when he asked me if I knew Anna. Guess it really is a small world. Yup so we checked in and whoo hoo, my room is fabulous. It isn't too big for a double room but we have a attached bathroom! Now try and beat that man! *Victory sign* And first thing we tried to do was to get internet connection hahaha.

Yup so that sort of sums up the first day. Well it was a very long day cos we did gain 12 hours when we headed to USA. So that makes it a 36 hour day. Cool. Oh well I would love to post more stuff but seems like this post is too long already cos my laptop is lagging. Or maybe it's just my laptop. I'll ponder about that.