I'm back from my Thanksgiving break, lot's of things to blog about. I do implore you to be patient because I'd like blog about it in just one post so it's taking some time to write. Meanwhile, here's a little entertainment, courtesy of dear Qihui. How come I'm the first on your list? *pout*

Seven things that scare me:
1. Losing my family.
2. Losing myself.
3. Losing my friends.
4. Any of the above getting hurt, ill or general malaise.
5. Scary movies. Yes, I'm a chicken. Cherlyn is a testament to that.
6.
7.
And there you have it. I'm a brave person. I dun have 7 things i'm scared of. I only have 5. So there.

Seven things I like the most:

I'm assuming people are not 'things'. 'Thinghood' can be degrading and I don't wanna offend anybody here so...
1. Sleeping.
2. Manga.
3. Reading. Er not just manga. I read other stuff too yar.
4. Music.
5. Singing.
6. Eating.
7. Hanging out with my friends.
And I bet you thought that tormenting people would be in the list too. Well guess again. I'm nice ok.

Seven most important things in my room:

Don't expect too much here. I'm a minimalist. My room is quite bare.
1. Bed.
2. Blanket.
3. Bathroom.
4. Bolster.
5. Curtains.
6. Fan. I figure this will be switched on 24-7 when I return.
7. Air-con. I'll try not to switch this on 24-7.

Seven random facts about me:
1. Once I killed a chicken. It took me about 2 to 3 mins though. I sincerely repent for putting the chicken through all that agony. I'll try to do it faster the next time.
2. Rebonded hair 3 times already.
3. Scaled Mt. Kinabalu.

4. Likes trees more than flowers. But generally like them both.

5. My neighbours think that I'm the older sibling. Do I really look that old? (I think I can answer that question. I've been called a housewife twice.)

6. Was History rep in Sec 3 and 4. Was also the only person (out of the 3 classes my teacher taught) to fail History prelim in Sec 4.

7. Once I walked down a field screaming my head off like a madwoman.

Seven things I plan to do before I die:
1. Bungee jump.
2. Fall in love.
3. Get married.
4. Have kids.
5. Make sure my parents have a happy, comfortable life.

6. Tour Europe.

7. Find a permanent solution to my curly hair. Shaving my head bald and rebonding are considered temporary solutions.

Seven things I can do:

Some of these things may gross you out. Be warned.
1. Blow bubbles with my saliva.
2. Raise my right eyebrow.
3. Cook Hainan Chicken Rice.
4. Pointe work with the proper shoes.
5. Annoy the hell out of anyone.
6. Lend out manga. Well it's my brother's but I'm sure he'll understand.
7. Whistle.

Seven things I can't do:

1. Slam dunk a basketball into the hoop.

2. Touch my toes without bending my knees. I'm really very inflexible, no matter how little people believe it.

3. Wear a bikini. It will fall off, I swear.

4. Speak French. Or German. Or Hindi. Or most languages for that matter.

5. Draw.

6. Repair computers.

7. Touch my nose with my tongue.

Seven words I say the most:

1. Crap.

2. Oh crap.

3. Wah lau eh.

4. Ma.

5. Lao ba (Dad in chinese).

6. Kor.

7. I'm sleepy.

Seven celeb crushes:

I dun have crushes. I just have a generally good impression of these people.
1. Brad Pitt.
2. Takeshi Kaneshiro.
3. Richard Gere.
4. Julia Roberts.
5. Celine Dion
6. David Tao.
7. Johnny Depp.

Seven people I'd love to see do this:

I was the first on Qihui's list. She holds me in great esteem I'm sure. Problem is, I dun really know 7 people who actively blog so I'm going to give this section a miss I guess.

Yup so that's it. Stay tuned for my Thanksgiving post. I'll try to get it up asap :)

I'm back from NYC and boy am I tired. Well as you know, I napped in the afternoon on Fri and stayed away through the wee hours of Sat to catch the 4am bus to NYC. It was -5 degrees celsius when we were waiting at the bus stop and that's really really damn freaking cold. It's gonna get worse, but I'll talk about that later. So the bus picked us up from our campus to fetch us to the bus station so that we could purchase our tickets. Then we hopped back onto the bus, where I promptly colonised (like bacteria do haha) the last 3 seats at the rear end of the bus. I think I mangaged about 2 plus hours of uninterrupted sleep before the bus got too crowded to allow me to take up so many seats. Btw, it's a 5.5 hour bus ride to NYC. No kidding. USA is large. Ithaca is in New York State, but it's very far north. NYC, however, is down south.
We reached Port Authority Bus Terminal and my first impression of the bus berth is that it resembles an airport. There are boarding gates for the buses and they are sort of dark and underground. Yup NYC is not a very clean-looking place. Our first stop upon arrival was the visitor's centre to pick up maps. We didn't get too lost haha.

Just a brief about NYC: The city is divided into 5 "neighbourhoods". Manhattan is the one where everything is (Times Square, Chinatown, Ground Zero, Wall Street etc...). The streets run east to west and run in numerical order from south to north, so 52nd St is 10 streets north from 42nd etc. The avenues run north to south and 1st Avenue starts on the east. 6th Av is somewhere in the middle. Yup so it's actually quite like grid lines and once you get the hang of it, it ain't too hard to navigate.

So after the visitor centre, we headed to our hostel at 106th St, which is way up north at the edge of Central Park, to check-in and dump our bags. We bought the one day subway pass which allows us unlimited rides for the day. We made good use of the pass of course, zipping in and out of subways. The subway lines aren't as straightforward as Singapore's. There are so many lines (1, 2, 3 etc... A, B, C etc...) and some miss certain stops at night, some replace another one on weekends etc. Yeah I'm using "etc" alot cos I haven't figured out the subway line. And I don't think I will so...

Our first stop was to Ground Zero. The rubble is gone. It's now replaced with the construction site of the building that's gonna replace the World Trade Centre Towers. So it looks like, well, a typical construction site I guess. Next, we went to take the free Staten Island Ferry to look at the Statue of Liberty. This ferry is actually a shuttle service to Staten Island (another of the 5 "neighbourhoods") which goes past the Statue at a distance. We still got a decent view of it so that's fine by my standards. We headed to Chinatown next. Nothing much there, unless you're interested in fake LV or Prada, Gucci and that sort. Picked up souveniers there. We proceeded to the Rockefeller Centre next to see the gigantic Xmas tree there. It's not lighted up yet, it will be on Thanksgiving. We headed for Hard Rock Cafe next, only to reach the address and find out that they've actually relocated. Argh. That was pretty frustrating. We met a really kind lady at a shop that we popped in to ask for directions. She was indeed very helpful, calling up the Yellow Pages to find out the location of Hard Rock Cafe for us. It turns out that they've moved to Times Square. *slaps forehead* Right, where else could it have been? So we happily trudged down to Times Square. It was really crowded. Think Chinatown on Chinese New Year's Eve. Yep. That crowded. Took pictures of Times Square, bought some Hard Rock merchandise, then we grabbed a hotdog from a nearby stand and proceeded to the theatre for broadway. "Rent" is really quite nice, nice catchy music, lyrics were hilarious at times. One of the male leads is so so cute. Oh my. My favourite character wasn't him though. And that was the end of one very hectic, tiring but fulfilling day.

The next day, we took a short stroll at Central Park in the morning. Unfortunately, that area was devoid of anything interesting. Just trees and leaves and people walking their dogs. So we headed back to the hostel to grab our bags, eat breakfast and check-out. We made our way down to Port Authority to catch the bus to Woodbury Premium Outlets. Then we spent the rest of the day there, but not really shopping actually. Guess we were just too tired from the previous day, what with all the walking and lack of sleep. Denise had it really bad, she hardly slept that night. Cherlyn and I just had really sore feet. Well Denise too I guess. We all had really sore feet. The bus Ithaca brought us back to Cornell at 11.25pm.

I'm off to Philadelphia, Washington DC and New Jersey tomorrow. Will be back on Sunday. Gosh, I can already feel how tiring it's gonna be if NYC was already so draining. Guess that's the difference when travelling by car (provided that you're not the driver) and taking public transport. I miss road trips.

So the sun sets at 4.45pm nowadays. I keep thinking that it's dinner time everytime the sky turns dark. Maybe I should start thinking about my expanding waistline instead. Anyway, it's cold here. It really is. Temperatures are starting to dip below ice point. The refrigerator is probably warmer. I wore my thickest jacket to school today and I'm glad it works. It'll probably keep me nice and toasty for even lower temperatures so I should be all geared up for winter in Ithaca.
Right, I think it's still autumn here.
Yeah so anyway, I'm taking (yet another) break from cheonging homework to blog. I'm actually trying to finish homework that's due in 2 weeks because I'll be away the whole of next week for Thanksgiving break. In fact, I'm waiting for one of the assignments to be posted online so I can complete it while the library is still open. It's the biostats assignment and I need to use the software in the library to complete it. Unfortunately for me, it's still not posted. Gah. The library closes early on Fri and if he still doesn't post the assignment, I'll be in for one helluva rush to complete it when I get back from my break. Sigh. I'm not hopeful. In fact I'm hungry.
There you go. I'm constantly hungry nowadays. People, when you see me again, just wanna let you know that I know I gained weight. Yup so the constant reminders ain't very necessary, if you get what I mean.
The cold weather makes me wish I was back home in Singapore. And then I think about how warm it'll be, I get second thoughts again. Think about it: I'm used to an air-con-like atmosphere here. The heat is probably going to be nearly unbearable when I return. A whole 30 degrees change in temperature. Whoa. Not to mention the household's electricity bill will shoot up due to my excessive use of air-con. Not good, not good.

~~~

Yeah well now it's night time now. That earlier portion was by me at ard 3 or 4 in the afternoon. It's now 11, I've gotta stay awake till 3am to catch the 4am bus to NYC. Going there for the weekend. Was supposed to go last wkend but there was the football game so we pushed our plans back one week. And yes, I discovered another assignment that is due after the hols (it's a lab report this time) so I really ought to be finishing it up I guess. Here I am talking about homework and I bet some of you back in Singapore have already finished your exams. Or going to. Well good luck to those who still have papers remaining. To the rest, enjoy your hols. I'm missing Singapore. The sunny weather, food, food that will stay warm for more than 5 mins in particular, daddy, mommy, kor, friends, karaoke, manga and much more hee. Yeah if you guys are planning anything, keep me updated ok? :)

10 Random things

1. I found 18 degrees celsius to be warm.

2. I had a guest lecturer on Monday for my Plagues and People class. Topic: SARS in Singapore. A very enlightening and refreshing lesson. Gained much insight into what people thought of Singapore.

3. Over the course of a week, I've watched Saw, The Grudge, How to Lose a Guy in 10 days, Pirates of Carribean, Panic Room, Two Week's Notice and Supersize Me.

4. 1 bagel = 5 slices of bread.

5. I like bagels.

6. Current favourite song is "We didn't go to Harvard" by the Cayuga Waiters, an a capella group in school.

7. Cornell's long-time rival is (of course) Harvard.

8. When it gets too cold, my ears ache. And that is really uncomfortable.

9. I no longer want to work in WHO.

10. I need rebonding.

Went to watch an American Football match yesterday (Saturday). Cornell vs Columbia. We were victorious. I would like to thank my brother for introducing me to Eyeshield 21, a Japanese manga that's about American Football in Jap high schools. I was able to make sense out of the game. Otherwise, it just looks like people piling on top of one another. Basketball is another sport that I dun watch but read about. Think most people of my generation should have at least heard of Slam Dunk right? Yeah, that is one really good manga series. I digress.
Anyway the director of the International Students Office was very kind to organise a lunch (pizza) cum info session about American Football. Then later, we all trooped down to the stadium to watch the game. It's the last game played on home ground for the season, so the turnout was pretty large. We were told that this game was particularly significant for the seniors (graduating/final year students) cos it's their last game in Cornell. It was nice and sunny too, a pleasant change from the cold of Thursday and Friday. It was actually quite an easy win for Cornell. In fact, we always had the upper hand. After the game, we went down to the field to take pictures with the football players. Finally I know where all the cute American boys are hiding. My roomie is quite gaga over them now, but it's just a phase so hopefully it'll pass haha. What about me? Haha well that's something for me to know and u to never find out *smirk*
Besides that, there's basically nothing much happening now. The week that just passed was a rather boring one. We had little homework, one or two quizzes and no major tests. Not that I'm complaining but that did help to occupy my time now that Penelope is far far away in Neverland. Cherlyn and I watched about 6 movies I think over the course of the week. Movie rental in my hall. Did I tell you I love Balch? hee.
I'm looking forward to next weekend though. We're taking a trip down to New York City for broadway and to check out THE PREMIUM OUTLET (translates to more SHOPPING) *grin* Thanksgiving Break comes right after that weekend and I'll be going to Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and New Jersey. After that, the exams are round the corner. Hopefully there'll be enough snow by then for us to take a day off to go skiing during the study break. Then after exams, I'll probably go to Florida and head back to New York City to spend Christmas. And then, I balik kampung.

Whoopee! It snowed! Actually, I first experienced snow here in Cornell a few weeks ago. One of those blistery cold nights when Cherlyn and I went over to HILC for some activities, we saw those little specks of things floating around. Today it snowed when there was still light. This time, the specks were a little bigger. It didn't last long and it wasn't heavy enough to leave a layer on the ground but the fact that it did happened is really quite exciting to a mountain turtle so do forgive me for making such a big fuss hee.
And I formally bid farewell to the nice warm weather of 15 degrees celsius and above. I don't think it will come back while I'm still here. Lately, the wind has been very strong. In fact, on Makanmania afternoon, there was a mini-whirlwind right outside my window. I was trying to nap at about 4pm that afternoon when I heard this whirring sound. When Cherlyn and I drew the curtains to take a look at what's outside, we were quite surprised to see that the sky was dark already, much like the 7.30pm sky in Singapore. The really shocking thing was to see the trees swaying in the wind and the fallen leaves on the ground being blown up really really high, higher than our window at the second floor. And of course the howling of the wind and lightning that streaked across the sky added to the general mood of cold, windy and colder. So that's the marvellous Ithaca weather for you. At least it snowed. Now let there be enough snow for a snowball fight. That would be heavenly.

"Singaporeans Host Cookoff: Diverse foods draw in crowds"--By Xiaowei Cathy Tang, The Cornell Daily Sun.

Approximately 200 people converged yesterday evening in The Straight’s Memorial Room for Makanmania, an annual food and culture dinner hosted by the Singaporean Student Association (SSA).
The night of “food-mania,” as Makanmania translates, featured 23 different entrees as well as Singaporean games and singing by SSA members.

Don't be silly, of course I didn't sing. That's besides the point.

Makanmania 2005 was plenty of fun. The 4 of us exchange students contributed almond jelly, which was also mentioned in the article.

Another popular food was almond longan, a typical dessert made with almond essence and the fruit longan. Because the weather in Singaporean is very hot, people eat this dessert to cool down, explained Denise Wong, an exchange student from Singapore, as she served bowls of the dessert to guests.

Hee. It was popular. Click here for the full article.

If you're curious to know, our almond jelly was from an ancient and secret recipe. To unearth this mysterious and elusive recipe, we had to venture into a hardly-frequented supermarket at the edge of Ithaca. The treasure was in fact hidden on the left-most aisle, 3 shelves from the bottom. Lo and Behold!

Right, that's cryptic enough yar? Whoever can guess correctly what I'm talking about, extra chocolates for you! Leave a comment if you think you know what it is :)

So when I left my last post, Cherlyn and I were actually busy reading up on research papers for our project-cum-presentation due today. It involved reading and digesting 4 articles and transforming it into a humongous poster (56 inches x 40 inches). I bet half of my classmates only understood half of what I said and the other half probably didn't know what I was saying half of the time. It's probably because of the slang. Besides that, we also spent the weekend shopping for Makanmania ingredients and going through many of the problems we might face serving almond jelly on a large-scale. But it was all resolved in the end so I'm glad. We all are.

It's my last 6 weeks at Cornell! Yikes!

If you see me popping up online on msn, there are 4 likely reasons:
1. Penelope came alive. Mind you, this is very brief, possibly only for a day or even less.
2. I'm in the computer lab which has windows messenger.
3. I'm at the laptop rental centre in my hall.
4. My roomie is sleeping so I'm using her laptop.
From observing everyone's msn nicks, I figure that the exams are drawing near for the NTU and NUS people yar? Good luck everybody, don't give up! Oh yar and SMU person (I think tt's only you, shu) too :)

So Monday was Halloween's. There were at least 10 parties taking place around the campus on Saturday but Cherlyn and I couldn't go for any cos of our prelim on Monday. Although I only need to obtain a passing grade for all my courses here due to my status as an exchange student, Fundamentals of Endocrinology is truly one course I have to mug to pass. P-A-S-S. I'm not kidding. I was this close away from failing the first prelim. *shudder* Yup so happily mugged away the time on Sunday too. Oh yeah it was daylight savings day so I had one extra hour to mug. Ugh.

I digress. So Monday was Halloween's. My prelim was the first lesson that day and we missed the bus. Well it went right by us cos it was full. Great. Brisk walking to the other end of the campus ensued. The rest of the day went by better. We rented 2 DVDs at night to watch cos... IT'S HALLOWEEN'S! hahaha :) Tuesday was uneventful, it's Wednesday now, soon to be Thursday. Oh yes, you know that already. Next comes Friday, for your information.

Oh ignore me. I'm irrational.