There must be a conspiracy going on. Suddenly the weather turned freaking cold. For the past 3 days, the daily highest temp is like 23 or 24 degrees only. On Monday, it rained and rained and rained. On Tuesday, it was sunny but windy and even colder than Monday. Weird. Today was a slightly warmer version of Tuesday, but when I left my room in the morning, it was a spectacular 7 degrees celsius.

Anyway, the "highlights" of the week so far... My prelim was so exasperating. When you study for 2 days straight and still can't do half the questions on the paper, it's really not your fault anymore. It's the paper's fault. On Tuesday, we set up a booth promoting the CALS exchange programme. In fact for the entire week, the exchange students from the different countries will take turns manning the booth and promoting their country. So on a very sunny and very very windy day, we were busy holding on to the poster that threatened to fly away with the strong wind. Well ok, it wasn't that bad, we had candy to give away so naturally some of it found their way into my stomach and bag hee. Anyone like peanut butter? There's this really delicious one that's peanut butter and chocolate. If it's not too expensive, I'll try and bring some back yar? :)

So today was just another long long Wednesday and tomorrow's probably gonna be a rainy Thursday according to the weather forecast. I'm not going for caving anymore. There's a Third Eye Blind concert on the same day. Anyway it's kind of cold nowadays and spending a night out in the wild is not the best way to spend Sunday night. (That sounds like an excuse doesn't it? Another thing to ponder about...) Yup guess there's really not much happening now, unless you wanna hear about how eating sashimi from frozen fish is better than that from fresh fish. Or Lagochilascaris can cause some 500 worms to crawl out of one's nose.

Nah, didn't think you were interested.

It seems that I was wrong. Autumn is here. The leaves have begun to turn yellow. Hmmm, I wonder why I didn't observed that earlier. It still doesn't seem to be as cold as I had expected it to be and there are three reasons to explain it. First, it really isn't that cold. Second, I've built up resistance towards cold. Third, I've accumulated adipose tissue aka fat. I shall ponder about this.

This weekend has been more laid-back and relaxing. I had a late night mahjong session on Fri night. Then grocery shopping on Saturday afternoon with the luxury of a car, which translates to not having to carry bags of heavy groceries and wait for the TCAT bus. By the way, it seems that TCAT will go on strike anytime so good luck to me. I've got lessons on the far end of the campus. I just came back from lunch, which was *drumroll* LAKSA! Chin Ning cooked laksa and invited us girls over to eat. It's the traditional kind; he woke up early to stir-fry all the spices. Then still got tau pok and shrimps. Yummy! So overall, it's been a rather happy weekend. Now to tackle my prelims tomorrow...

~~~

Happy Birthday El! Oh yesh, I bet you were just waiting for this right? Let's see, we've known each other for a decade or so, which equals to half our lives, which is wow, a pretty long time yar. Thanks for always letting us bum at your house (mahjong-bridge-movie-stayover) and now that you have your license, driving us around too. Yup so here's to 10 years of silliness and laughter (which always ensues when you and I are together haha) and I hope you'll have a wonderful birthday!

~~~

Wonder if this is good or bad news but anyway, here goes.

It's not cold.

As in the weather. As in I can still go out in t-shirt and jeans and my light jacket in my bag and still survive the day. At this rate, I won't get to make my snowman. I brought quite alot of winter clothing too and I wonder if I'll get to wear them. Shucks.

As for my life, well another week just flew by again. One week ago at this time, I was on the way to Toronto. One week later i.e. today, I've just battled with 2 prelims and one more coming up on Monday. Yipee. Well one of the prelims was easy, the other I honestly have no idea how I'll fare. The upcoming one might be quite a challenge bcos the lessons are at 9am every Mon, Wed and Fri and my brain's normally still asleep at that time even if I'm in class. Real neat. I'm in trouble.

Okay maybe not in trouble. Afterall I only need to pass cos my letter grades dun matter. But it's a matter of pride I guess, so must still strive to get good grades. Or at least above average ones. I've been down at the bottom and I do not like that feeling.

Joanne once said it's rare to find me in a reflective mood. Well I'm sure she was just joking, but there's some truth in it. Seems like I just do what I want, what I like most of the time. Or maybe it's cos I know what I want. Anyway the point is that I don't really look back on my actions and its effects. Which isn't a very good thing. Yep time to be more conscious of my surroundings. Be more sensitive (in the right way, if u get what I mean).

As a sidenote, I do find the Barbarian the easiest character to use when I was playing Diablo II. And yesh, it has something to do with my personality ("Cross my path and I'll chop you down, grr!"). Oh well.

Yup so that's the end of this nonsensical post. If I've entertained you, do leave a comment. If I didn't, do still leave me a comment. It seems like a one-sided kind of communication sometimes. :)

I'm back from Toronto. Oh my what an experience. Before I start, a big big thank you to Alvin, Yizhuan, Chin Ning, Luke, Wei Xiang and Howie (I hope I got the spellings correct...) for taking good care of us. Thank you very very much :)
Oh yes, Edmund kindly informed me about a grave mistake in my previous post. Mid-AUTUMN festival, not midsummer's. Hmm, I must have been thinking of Sec 2 literature *sheepish grin*. Thx Edmund!

16 Sep
We were supposed to set off at 5pm but Cherlyn and I were waiting at the wrong pick-up place (oops) so we only set off at around 5.30pm. There were 2 cars and 8 of us. Yizhuan, Denise and Cherlyn were in Alvin's car; Chin Ning, Jowyn and I were in Luke's car. It was a 4 to 5 hour drive to Toronto. There was still a couple of hours of daylight so I spent most of the earlier part of the drive looking at the scenery. It was sort of cloudy, so the view wasn't spectacular, couldn't compare to New Zealand. We stopped at Burger King for dinner at one of the service areas along the interstate highway. I had a humongous Angus Shroom Burger or something like that, which is acutally the equivalent of Singapore's Mushroom Swiss but 1.5 times larger. Then the rest of the girls ate smaller burgers so that made me look like pig la... Self-esteem went down several notches... Anyways, there was this really interesting machine there also. You insert a penny (1 cent) and then crank this lever which will compress the penny into this mould and out comes this oval shaped thingy with words and designs. Er think my descriptive skills ain't too good hor, paiseh. Yeah we had to insert 2 quarters along with the penny and I actually didn't have enough. Then cos I'm always so slow, so the guys had already gave away all their quarters to the other girls (boo hoo!). So I went up to a couple of other people in BK to ask for change for a dollar. Then this really really nice guy just fished out all his loose change from his pocket and dumped it in my hand and refused to take my money. Very touched *sniff*. Nice person number 1.
Anyways, we finally reached Toronto at 11.30pm or so and we went to check-in at our hostel. They messed up our reservations. We reserved 4 beds in an all-female room but when we got there, they only had 3 beds available in the all-female room and 1 bed in the mixed room. Needless to say, we were freaking pissed at them. We decided to take the 3 beds and forgo the 4th bed. So Jowyn and I shared a bed in one room while Cherlyn and Denise to the other 2 beds in a separate room. But it was ok, the bed was pretty spacious and the both of us are pretty small-sized so I had quite a sound sleep. We took the upper bunk next to the window. While we were settling in, one of the other girls sharing the room returned. She's from Germany and has lots of experience backpacking. She pointed out that we probably should draw the curtains cos there were people looking in. Jowyn and I totally did not notice it. Gosh. Yeah she also gave us a few tips here and there. Nice person number 2. The room was hideously untidy la, but i think the mess was from the other 2 girls who hadn't returned even when we went to bed at 1 am.

17 Sep
The guys picked us up from the hostel at approx 9.30am where we took a tour of University of Toronto. We then walked towards Chinatown where Yizhuan went to visit one of his friends. We then had dim sum for lunch. Oh yesh, it was heavenly. I think I'll dream of the siew mai tonight. I guess I should clarify, Wei Xiang and Howie are Chin Ning's friends at U of T so they basically showed us around. They left us for the afternoon to go rock-climbing so we wandered through Toronto city in the afternoon. We visited the harbour and CN tower. CN stands for Canadian National. It's a tourist attraction and typical of all tourists' attractions, it charges a nice exorbitant price too. We visited the gift shop though. Then we headed to the Princess of Wales Theatre to pick up the Les Miserable tickets for the night. By that time, it was about 5+pm, close to 6pm, so we've been walking one whole day and everyone just felt like their feet were going to give way. We found a place, sat down, took out the cards and started playing taitee. I can see you shaking your head already hee.
Wei Xiang and Howie met up with us at 7pm and brought us to this nice Jap restaurant for dinner. Problem was the show was at 8pm so we basically gobbled up our food within 20min and ran back to the theatre. Which was really quite a waste cos we didn't have a chance to savour the taste of the food. Shucks.
Les Mis was really good. I watched it before more than a decade ago so I understand much more of the plot and themes now. We were unfortunately sitting apart cos the tickets were sort of purchased last minute. But it was good. After that, we wanted to go to this building that had a bar at the top. The view is supposedly very good too, as good as CN tower and minus the entrance fee. When we reached there, you can't believe what happened. The bar was closed for a private function. Argh! We were all stunned. Gosh... what luck we have.
We (the girls) also had to make a few decisions. Cos we didn't want the night to go to waste and no one felt like sleeping i.e. more taitee perhaps. But the guys were all staying at the U of T pple's apartments, and we were at the hostel which wasn't that nearby. Then Jowyn and Denise also wanted to run the Terry Fox Run the next morning so if we were to stay in the hostel, the guys will have to wake up even earlier to pick them up. The only solution was to go stay over at the guys' place, which we did. There wasn't any refund, but I guess it's not the hostel's fault cos it was afterall a last minute decision.
The apartment is like a hotel room. We were glad to be there, even if we knew we would spend the night on the floor in the living room cos it's carpeted. Haha no la. We didn't even sleep that much. We were playing this really addictive Playstation 2 game called Taiko. Think it's the name for the Japanese drum. It's just like DDR but instead of moving ur feet to the beat, u hit the drum. There were also many other mini-games that were damn silly but a hell lot of fun. The walls were sound-proof so we didn't have to worry about waking up the neighbours. Yeah so we just kept playing that until 4 or 5am.

18 Sep
Chin Ning, Howie, Wei Xiang, Denise and Jowyn went to the Terry Fox Run. The rest of us slept in a little later. I eventually woke up at about 10.20am or so. We were playing taiko in no time haha. The rest came back from the run after 11am. Oh yeah, one more thing to clarify. Luke's girlfriend is in U of T for exchange programme too. She's from NUS. Yup so Luke drove up to visit her. He gave us a call and said he'll go buy the egg tarts and roast pork for us. I think the total order was like 96 egg tarts and more than 3 kg of roast pork. Then after an extended farewell to Howie and Wei Xiang (because Alvin left the road directions, and then his car keys in the apartment), we left for the Niagara Falls.
We reached the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls at 5pm. It's gorgeous. Breathtaking view. We took some pictures and I got my first Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt (yipee!). The view on the Canadian side is prettier but the boat rides on the American side is more fun so we drove across the border. However when we arrived, we discovered that the boat ride had closed for the day already. We actually missed the last boat by 15min. For the second time in 2 days, we were stunned. Really speechless about our luck. While we went to the ladies to freshen up and regain our composure (really! it was such a let-down cos the boat ride would bring us close to the Horseshoe Falls, which is the most majestic-looking one there), the guys went to check out the other attraction for us. Turns out that one was still in operation. The Cave of the Winds is this route that brings us down to near the bottom of one of the smaller waterfalls so you can get "baptised" by the Niagara Falls water. Well "drenched" is more appropriate actually. Anyway, we decided to go for that one since we already missed the boat ride. They issued us rain coats and sandals before we took the elevator down 75m to the base of the waterfall. The attraction has been in operation since the 1940s I think. It's a walkway constructed of wooden planks actually. Every October, they'll tear it down, and when spring comes, they'll construct it again, so it's really pretty safe. Yup so I literally had a close look at the waterfall, collected a bottle of Niagara water. There's this Hurricane Deck also, which is the closest you can get to the water fall, so basically when you walk to the closest edge, you are almost underneath the water already. Damn shiok!
After that, we left the cars parked at the USA side and walked back over to the Canadian side to the Rainforest Cafe to have dinner. It's a short walk, about 15min only, across this bridge. After dinner, we headed back for Ithaca so that sort of marked the end of our trip. Now for some pictures :)

University of Toronto

5566. From left: Yizhuan, Chin Ning, Wei Xiang, Howie and Alvin. Think they were waiting for us while we (the girls) were busy snapping pictures hee.

Chinatown

Siew Mai!! *drool*

The CN tower is the one in the middle.

The theatre where we watched Les Miserables.

The Niagara Falls.

I'm leaving for Toronto in less than 2 hours. Will be spending the weekend there, watching Les Miserables, eating bak chor mee and going to see the Niagara Falls (the Canadian side is prettier).

Today is Mooncake Festival Day I think. Or Midsummer Night's. Yeah the moon's suppose to be it's largest or roundest today so I hope I'll be able to see it from the car. Anyway, I'm not going for moonlight paddling anymore, neither am I backpacking. Hope to be able to make it for caving. I miss mooncakes.

We were supposed to have free accommodation in Toronto but there were some complications and we lost it. So last night, our room was like a mini-stock exchange. Cherlyn and I were furiously searching the net for good hotel/hostel deals, liasing with the others thru msn and calling up the hotels/hostels. Think it took us more than 2 hours before we finally got a bed and breakfast that has room for 4 for 2 nights. Phew. Running on pure adrenalin has its drawbacks, naturally. A large cup of tea was barely enough to keep me awake this morning. At least that's settled.

Ooh I went for Salsa yesterday. It's real fun and I was sweating after that, which made me feel good cos I have not exercised since forever. Adipose tissue expanding, jeans shrinking, not good at all. And surprise surprise, Yizhuan, who's this gigantic guy, turned out to be very good at it. I'm impressed for a guy of his size to be able move so nimbly.

Yar so that's sort of the highlights of this week I guess. Prelims start next week. Good luck to me.

Just some random stuff...

1. They sell Levi's for kids here. It's cheaper and I can fit into them. Whee!
2. I got my Nalgene bottle.
3. My Medical Parasitology instructor is officially the most quotable person I've ever met. "I like Giardia. They're photogenic." Giardia, for your information, is a protozoa.
4. I now know the difference between diarrheoa and dysentry, thanks to him too. A very enlightening lesson about faecal matter.
5. Did I mention the 9 bruises on my right knee and the 7 bruises on my left? That was PAINball too, cos I was crawling through the bushes.
6. My hair doesn't frizz here. It's really quite straight (by my standards). I love this climate.
7. Someone burnt popcorn and set off the fire alarm one night. One girl ran out of her shower wrapped in only a towel. No, that girl wasn't me.
8. I'm not going moonlight paddling and backpacking anymore. I'm going to Toronto. It was a tough decision.
9. And Giardia is not spread by beavers.
10. I wanna eat mooncake.

It's starting to get cold here. Oh well, I did choose to come in fall so that I can experience the colder seasons so I shouldn't complain. So yesterday, I went to Stewart Park for the annual SSA picnic. It's a nice place, beautiful view of the Cayuga lake and plenty of weeping willows lining the edge of the lake. We amused ourselves at the playground. There was even a carousel! And of course we had to pay to ride. The whole group of us Singaporeans just hopped onto the little "ponies" and reverted back to childhood hee. The guys tried to fly a kite, which sparked off the joke "How many engineers does it take to fly a kite?" But really, with all those mech. engineers, 1 civil engineer and i dunno how many other engineers, I dun think anyone managed to get the kite to fly above the trees, so that's pretty sad.
Last night, the four of us went to watch Cornell Chaos, which is a dance concert. 10 of the most popular dance groups on campus performed, I can't say that all of them were terrific, but my personal favourites were the tap dance, one of the hip-hop groups and Cornell Bhangra. (yeah surprise surprise... bhangra) Ooh so tempted to put on my dancing shoes again. Darn.
After the concert, we went to "chill out" at Collegetown. No lah, not like drinking booze or anything, we are good Asian girls okay... Went to have a really late dinner at Asian Noodle House. I had beef stewed noodle soup which was delicious. Must go back to eat again. Then we walked over to Collegetown Bagels where Denise got coffee and a bagel and we all sat down to play taitee. Oh man, I think I'm addicted. Well, as you should already know, things will happen when the four of us are together. This time, Jowyn knocked over Denise's coffee cup and spilt coffee all over the cards. Luckily, the weather here is dry, so we were playing again in 15 mins haha. Someone sign me up for rehabilitation.
Oh I heard news about next year's FOC (thank you Rosanne!). Can't believe I'm getting excited about it now... Sheesh, I thought I grew up somewhere between my 19th and 20th birthday. I'm keen to hear more about it, SBS ppl pls msn, email or post comments and keep me updated yar? Thanks!
Realised I haven't posted pics for a loooooonnnnnggggg time...

The view from the clock tower. If you looked closely near the bottom of the pic, in the middle there's this intersection. Well that's Ho Plaza. And if you look real closely some more, you'll notice some blue and yellow markings. That's a chalk advertisement. It's all over campus, clubs and associations draw, scrawl on the pavements to publicise their activities.

Another pic of the Harry Potter Library. I heard there's a brain collection too...

Paintball! (PAINball) That's Anna in the "Singapore is Sexy" T-shirt. Yesh dear platoonmates, Anna is very fine and well. (Me too, in case anyone is concerned...)

Alright, back to studying :)

It's the end of another sch wk. Always glad when Friday comes. Tonight was quite an interesting night. Some guys over at HILC decided to cook a grand feast of black pepper chicken, ma po tofu, chicken curry and stir-fried caixin. Of course I was there, that goes without saying hee. But jokes aside, I really didn't eat that much cos I had a late and heavy (and not to mention rather expensive) lunch.
Just got back from the observatory, went there to see stars. Really lucky tonight cos the sky is clear so the stars seem really bright. But it's still not dark enough. Oh and yes, Cornell has an observatory. Nothing too spectacular, it does look like a mini-Taj Mahal from far. They only open on Friday nights, so I got a chance to see some stars close-up (they're still teeny weeny bright spots actually...) and Mars (which is just this much bigger bright dot). Yeah I guess I'm not really a "star" person but I do like to gaze at them. So pretty! The nicest ones I've seen so far are still the ones I've seen 5 years ago, halfway up Mt Kinabalu. Ah, those were really really gorgeous. I miss those days.

Think it has been two days since I last posted. Well since school has really really started i.e. homework, readings, labs, quizzes etc, I dun want to bore you with my daily lessons. I bet yours is already tiring enough. Guess the system is really quite different here, cos i just got back my first lab quiz and I fared very badly even though I studied. So I'll have to rethink my method of studying and conceptualizing. Not to mention nurse my bruised ego.
What have I been up to recently? Well we've been trying to fill up our weekends with activities besides grocery shopping cos there aren't many summer weekends left and once the cold sets in, travelling will be quite uncomfortable. We've done this quite sucessfully after attending the Outdoor Club's meeting earlier tonight. Signed up for backpacking, moonlight paddling and caving, so that's 2 to 3 weekends occupied. We've also got a lobang for accomodation at Toronto so we're currently searching for transportation there. Really hope to find a coach there. Renting a car is also an alternative since Denise and I both have our license, however everything's on the opposite side over here i.e. driver's seat on the left, slow cars keep on the right etc. Hence, I'll need lots of encouragement (bribe me with chocolate!) and incentives (orange-flavoured lollipops also can...) before I try my hand at driving. Oh well.
There's a picnic this Saturday, followed by a dance concert so that is something to look forward to, especially when tomorrow's my longest day so I need all the happy thoughts I can get to sustain me :)
Jyang sorry I never drop by the campus store recently so couldn't check out the merchandise for you. El, yup sch's likedat sometimes, or maybe most of the time. Don't have any paintball pictures though, but if you're interested to know, I did have yellow paint on the right and lower part of my face. Paint does not taste nice. And no, I did not taste it intentionally.

And as an ending statement, I hereby declare that I miss karaoke, SBS bus, MRT and kangkong. So there.

Oops, seems like I've missed out one birthday dedication...

Priya, Happy Birthday! Best wishes to you, you're 21 now. Stay cute, stay happy, hope you have (or had) lots of fun and surprises on your birthday :)

I just crawled out of bed not too long ago. Why? You shall see...
Well anyway, this post is meant for yesterday's (Saturday's) events, sinced I was too tired to even sit up straight last night. In the morning, we went to check out the Commons again. Found this shop that sells second-hand clothing. Saw branded stuff in good condition, going for like $3 to $15. Now that's tempting. Will go back there again, when I have more time. Will go back there too, if I decide to sell some clothes away, so I have less to bring back.
Then we had Paintball. Important Equation: Paintball = PAINball. This was an SSA organised activity, we had ~37 Singaporeans playing, the largest turnout ever, so we had a MechEngineers vs EveryoneElse kind of grouping (which was 13 vs 24 or something likedat) Yesh the Mechies were severely outnumbered but they were all guys (save one) who underwent NS training so that really makes a difference. Paintball is, simply put, like a war game. Each person is equipped with a protective mask and a gun that has a compressed air cylinder attached. The "bullets" are not so small, spherical balls of paint. They WILL bruise when they hit you, I've got 5 lovely bruises to show off if anyone's interested. And they hurt, really hurt. So most of the time, you're out when you get hit once. No point putting you through additional pain. But the best thing to do is to declare really loudly that you're out, otherwise some enemies might continue shooting you because they think that they missed.
There are many ways to play the game. Each one typically lasts 15 mins. The first one we played was elimination. Teams start at opposite ends of the playing field (which is actually a piece of jungle) and try to eliminate the opposing team. I managed not to get hit, but neither did I fire a single shot so... The second was Castle Keep. The opposing team was defending this structure and we had to attack and try to grab or touch the flag. This time, I managed a few rounds, but I seriously don't think I hit anyone because I couldn't even see anyone. I just fired at the castle periodically to keep them on their toes and distract them while our other group went round to the back to take them out. The third one was a hunter-prey game. My team had 60 seconds to conceal ourselves before the other team came in to "hunt" us down. I lasted until 2 mins before the game ended when I saw an enemy. I fired first but missed (argh!) so he got me.
After that, the referees (also the people who run the place) introduced us to another form: Speedball. The playing field is much smaller, there aren't many obstacles, so it's really a lot of dashing and dodging and pure guts. There were 9 girls so we had a 4 vs 5 game. I'm glad to say that Anna and I were on the same team. I'd hate to shoot her. However, we were the 4 person team. Yup so we lost. But it was real fun. Speedball is 10 times more exciting. The Jungle warfare kind is just more suspense and really makes you sweat in anticipation of where your enemy will attack you. We went back in for another round of Castle Keep where I was the first to be taken out. Boo hoo. Then we had one final round of Speedball, this time mixed guys and girls, and I sustained 3 of my 5 bruises on my back because someone crept up behind me and shot me at very close range. I don't hate him or anything la, it's part of the game, but oh my it really really hurt. And that game being the last game of the day, you won't be out if you get shot at just once, you have to declare yourself dead. So some garang guys (or maybe just purely thick-skinned) keep getting shot at but carry on cheong-ing forward. I not so thick-skin, so I surrender. Tak boleh tahan.
We went for a late night anime screening. Ok I more or less dragged the other 3 with me. The jap anime club was showing Princess Mononoke, by the same artist who brought to us Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away. So when I finally came back at 12.30am this morning, I auto-pilot to my bed and went to dreamland.
So now for birthday dedications:
~~~
Dad! Happy Birthday! Dad's born on 3rd September, which makes me one day late in wishing him happy birthday. I sent a card from USA, hope he receives it soon.

Adila! Happy Birthday too! Adila is one cool chick, fabulous dancer, famous for her pet phrase "jangan tension" which means to stay cool anyway. Hope you read this blog, or hope someone will tell you to read this blog hee. Hope to see you soon!

~~~

I'm going off for more grocery shopping in a couple of minutes, then there's a soccer match in the evening which I'm going as a spectator. Then tonight must piah homework le... There goes the weekend.

Sep 2

The first of my two exciting days. After my lesson ended at 1pm, Cherlyn and I dashed out of the lecture hall feeling elated. Met up with Jowyn to go Campus Store, then Collegetown. We (the four of us) each have the same red Cornell T-shirt. One day we'll wear it altogether. Cool. Cherlyn and I then went to Pyramid Mall to get some groceries at Tops. Finally got the Tops Bonus Card which gives fabulous discounts so happy about that too :)

Next was perhaps the highlight of the day: Bhangra Dancing. Yes, don't rub your eyes, it really reads Bhangra Dancing. The hot, vigourous Indian style of dance. Hmm actually i'm not too sure about that too. Someone told me it's a Punjab dance. Maybe Priya can clarify? (If you're reading this that is, or someone help me ask her hee. Thanks!) They conducted a free class-cum-trials. It's really a good workout but I only learnt the dance. Didn't take the trials. No point la, only going to be here for 4 months. But it's really really fun. *grin*

We went to Hong Kong (it's the name of an eatery) to have dinner. Had lemon chicken rice yummy. Then we proceeded to Libe Slope to watch an open-air movie. Quite a cool experience, figuratively and literally again. The wind was strong tonight and my poor roomie didn't bring a sweater out. Other than that, the stars were very pretty, I couldn't see one-third of the screen and the show was lousy. We left about 45 min through the show cos we couldn't tahan the lewd jokes. When we reached Balch, we met the Singaporean freshies. They were going out clubbing. We gave it a miss, too tired already. And I guess you can sort of tell from my sentences, which actually aren't really proper sentences, kind of fragmented here and there, and now I'm rambling on in no sequence and logic whatsoever so maybe it's time for me to stop and go dream sweet dreams. Goodnight everybody :)

1 Sep

Ah the start of a new month. Well actually it doesn't really mean much to me. Anyway, on to today's activities.

I met a "long-time-no-see" friend today. Melissa from Dhyrron, that's my OG during my first 3 months in RJC. Met coincidentally outside Trillium. At first, Cherlyn, Jowyn and I met Shanon, who was waiting for Melissa to get something from her. Shanon's this SAF scholar who's a freshman this year but we were also in the same OG. In fact he was on the same flight to Ithaca as we were. Small world. Yar then he mentioned that he was actually waiting for Melissa and then went "hey, you should know her too! same OG!" Sure enough, I recognised her at first sight. In fact, that's not all. Melissa was from St. Nicholas and so was Jowyn so they were like "hey!! I know you too!!" haha so funny. Yup she has psychoed us to go for salsa dancing next thurs. Hope it's fun :)

I bought a bright red Cornell T-shirt for USD10.50. There's no sales tax charged on clothing items until Monday so now's a good time to buy Cornell clothes. I'll probably get just one more t-shirt. The sweatshirts (esp the hooded ones!), sweaters, jumpers and shorts are also really nice, but I shall resist temptation. Shall comfort myself by taking pictures of them. *pat on the back*

We had cookie night at Barb's House. Barb, short for Barbara, is the Faculty-In-Residence for Balch. (short-form is FIR haha. now I really miss karaoke =P) Later we had a floor meeting where Laura, my RA, alerted us about this really perverted wacko. She received a phonecall at 5am in the morning and the guy on the other side started saying really gross, sick, perverted stuff to her. She wasn't the only one. Apparently quite a few girls on our floor had had such unpleasant experiences. Anyway, all these has been reported to the Cornell Police so she just wanted to alert us about this and made sure we are more vigilant of our property and most importantly of ourselves.

I've got a pretty exciting Friday and Saturday planned already hee. Should be lots of fun. For now, I shall attempt to do some homework and catch up on readings. Take care y'all!

Aug 31

Today it rained. It rained after Microbio lab. It continued to rain the whole afternoon. The wind was strong so the umbrella was no use. My jeans got wet and my shoes were soaked. Should have worn my boots. I still had two more lessons to sit through. Needless to say, it was an uncomfortable experience. Traffic got held up when I was returning to my room (I took the shuttle bus cos it's quite a long way to walk, plus the wind and rain) so it took as long get back by bus as compared to walking back. Sheesh.

Hmm a bit more about microbio lab. We use ancient metal loops here, in contrast to the nice plastic disposable ones that NTU uses for their labs. However, each of us has a personal Gram staining kit, so that's really convenient. Oh and we don't use a lighter to light the bunsen burner. We use a flint. Which on retrospect is actually quite a good idea cos it won't run out of gas. All you need to do is to strike hard enough and the sparks will fly. Literally. Way cool.

The 4 of us met up at Denise's room after dinner to complete the newsletter article we owe the SSA. And play a few rounds of taitee. We got free ice cream too. Living in HILC has many privileges it seems. Yup so I've only just got back to my room, feeling pretty sleepy (I have the most lessons on Wednesdays you see...) so guess I'll just end here.

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Happy Teachers' Day to all teachers reading this. Yes tuition teachers qualify too so to my friends out there who tutor annoying brats they can't stand, bear with it. You need the money haha. Just kidding la. Esp Happy Teachers' Day to Mommy :)
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