Ok this morning as i woke up i remembered what it was that i wanted to type last night but totally forgot about just as i was about to type it. How did i immediately remember this? Cos as i was descending the top floor of the lofted bed, i suddenly felt sharp pains in my calf muscles - and then it struck me - i forgot to cool down after yesterday's run...
So yesterday, after having a bit more of a spring in my step owing to the TB free thingy (which in any case, really is a much smaller deal than i made it out to be), i went back to the room and decided that i should finally push myself to run - since that has been what i've been telling myself to do without any success ever since i stepped foot in this country - especially after having a taste of the kind of food that i'd by and large be eating everyday...
And i ran - pretty quickly might i add - from Spencer all the way down E. Franklin Street past the intersection with Roosevelt (read: Franklin and Roosevelt - cool huh...) Applebees to the next junction (i know to almost everyone reading this the preceeding had no significance whatsoever, but trust me, it was far) before i decided to turn back because i had already reached 17 minutes and my goal was to run a total of more than 30 minutes so that the workout would be effective.
Oh, but did i mention, that the 17 minutes spent sprinting down E. Franklin was all downhill? So that meant that when i turned back, the journey back to Spencer would be a long and arduous trek uphill. However, as the saying goes, from that point on, it was all downhill from there (though maybe not all downhill since the gradient of the route was uphill but you get the picture right...) - after only around nine or so minutes hobbling up the slope at a snail's pace i decided to just admit that i cannot make it and just walk the rest of the way. Just as well, since i was getting light-headed from the slow ascent - and it definitely had nothing to do with rarefied air as my altitude increased. Nope, it was just due to the fact that i was spent. So light-headed n fact that i was afraid that i would accidentally run myself onto the road and into the path of speeding cars - i might have made the front page of the Daily Tar Heel yet had i not given up and started to walk haha...
Well, after i got back i was dead tired and wanted to just shower and then rest and maybe go and eat a little later. But lo and behold it was tuesday (i.e. get-everyone-together-to-finish-off-people's-meal-plans-before-they-expire-the-next-day day) so i had to quickly hit the showers and then be off to the dining hall [btw, i didn't get a meal plan because i simply cannot imagine myself eating an all-you-can-eat spread the size (the kind of size of spread that in S'pore i'd typically starve a whole day for) of what's offered at the dining hall at least once a day every week, and at the prices offered it just was not worth it for me - and just so you'd know, the 'special' for yesterday's dinner was Kiwi Watermelon Soup - 'nuff said]. This meant that i forgot to cool down and to cut a long story short, accounts for my aching calf muscles this morning...
So anyway, i'm thankful that i'm starting to settle down better here now - i wouldn't exactly say that things are going smoothly, but overall things are working out fine - just the expected issues of coping with a different style of class (and feeling obliged to provide my international student's perspective into the class discussions - my TA dropped his jaw today when i told the class roughly how much certain office bearers back home make annually - and i would too - for goodness' sake his own president makes less than that...)
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
TB free
Hmm haven't been updating this for quite some time (at least by my standards, that is), the reason behind this being that it's been a hectic couple of days here - and it promises to continue to be at the least cos this semester's workload is seriously one times big time. At the same time however the courses are (generally) full of interesting stuff, and i have the safety net of pass/fail (which i don't want to count too much on though) so i shan't complain any further...
Well the big news is that i'm not gonna be deported/medivac-ed back home since nothing further came out of the follow-up medical appointment here. As i've been telling a few people, my issue would have been more with the having to suddenly leave this place without close to scratching the surface of experiencing it than with actually being struck with the disease - for as y'all know - i subscribe to the "If i perish, i perish" (shall i hereby christen it "Estherian/Hadassan"?) school of thought. And added to that the probability of either having to somehow quickly insert myself back into student life at nus or having to miss this sem altogether, which though in some ways perfect for me, wouldn't be good in the long run methinks... Well at the end of the day i'm thankful to God for keeping me calm and not worrying (too much) unnecessarily about these things...
And you know, i can't for the life of me figure out what else i wanted to say here, when just a couple of minutes ago i had it all planned - blame it on the massive grey cell overload - so i guess it's tata for now...
Well the big news is that i'm not gonna be deported/medivac-ed back home since nothing further came out of the follow-up medical appointment here. As i've been telling a few people, my issue would have been more with the having to suddenly leave this place without close to scratching the surface of experiencing it than with actually being struck with the disease - for as y'all know - i subscribe to the "If i perish, i perish" (shall i hereby christen it "Estherian/Hadassan"?) school of thought. And added to that the probability of either having to somehow quickly insert myself back into student life at nus or having to miss this sem altogether, which though in some ways perfect for me, wouldn't be good in the long run methinks... Well at the end of the day i'm thankful to God for keeping me calm and not worrying (too much) unnecessarily about these things...
And you know, i can't for the life of me figure out what else i wanted to say here, when just a couple of minutes ago i had it all planned - blame it on the massive grey cell overload - so i guess it's tata for now...
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Bojangles breakfast and beach bumming
Well, i've certainly been settling in fairly nicely so far, contagious diseases aside =p. The first three days have gone by fairly uneventfully, with the most significant stuff being that by God's grace i was able to get all my courses in the end. Of course that also means that i have quite a demanding semester ahead studies wise, cos my core courses especially (but the other two also) require quite a bit of reading and other stuff that is rather leceh by my standards (though for me practically any work is very leceh to begin with - it is really only by the grace of God that i get through each sem ( with this one definitely not being any exception).
To make matters more complicated, there also is involvement outside academic matters per se to bear in mind - involvement in IV or other Christian stuff, non-academic school-related stuff [on a whim (and a prayer) i auditioned for and ended up in a choir here - which i am quite excited about, though not about the added hours though], just plain slacking =p, and travel, which i really want to do a lot of, though with the limited time at hand i dunno what's possible (methinks i shall have to be more buay pai seh with respect to tompang other people's cars to wherever they may want to go...).
But anyhoos, yesterday and today involved getting involved in various activities organized by various Christian groups catering to new/international students. The whole way that things are done here is definitely something that i can take away lots from, with regards to the organization and the heart behind it. Of course there's still a long way to go (contagious diseases aside) so basically think that even apart from academics there's still a lot to learn...
Yesterday's activities consisted of an international students' welcome dinner by IV international, followed by bowling at the student union (yes, there's a fairly large bowling alley in school - which is really cool save for the fact that this is the first alley i've been to where you still have to write down the score on a piece of paper yourself) and dessert at Cold Stone Creamery (more ice cream, more good stuff). Now that's a lot of stuff for one evening alone - and i'll say it again, to have the tables turned, so to speak, where i'm now in the position of a blur new student who is quite unaware of what's really going on, and threfore in need of lots of guidance in part provided by helpful folk such as these, is a very humbling learning experience.
Today was really exciting - through the first (of many) ice cream social that i went for we (most of the NUS folk) signed up for a day trip to the beach - specifically Wrightsville Beach, just outside of Wilmington, NC (where they film Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill - not that this matters anything at all to me - just a random fact) - a good three hours' drive away from Chapel Hill. Although it basically took up our whole saturday, it was definitely worth it.
After never having ever eaten it, and on the positive recommendations of several of the local UNC people here, i ate food from Bojangles twice today, as there's one at practically every I-40 pit stop between Chapel Hill and Wilmington, and therefore it's a logical choice for food - be it for breakfast on the way to the beach, or for dinner coming back from the beach. It definitely lived up to the positive reviews that i've heard, and i guess i'm glad that there isn't one too nearby where i stay, or i may be too frequent a customer there to the extent that i may put on too many pounds (cos whatever the food is, one thing that it certainly ain't is healthy).
To make matters more complicated, there also is involvement outside academic matters per se to bear in mind - involvement in IV or other Christian stuff, non-academic school-related stuff [on a whim (and a prayer) i auditioned for and ended up in a choir here - which i am quite excited about, though not about the added hours though], just plain slacking =p, and travel, which i really want to do a lot of, though with the limited time at hand i dunno what's possible (methinks i shall have to be more buay pai seh with respect to tompang other people's cars to wherever they may want to go...).
But anyhoos, yesterday and today involved getting involved in various activities organized by various Christian groups catering to new/international students. The whole way that things are done here is definitely something that i can take away lots from, with regards to the organization and the heart behind it. Of course there's still a long way to go (contagious diseases aside) so basically think that even apart from academics there's still a lot to learn...
Yesterday's activities consisted of an international students' welcome dinner by IV international, followed by bowling at the student union (yes, there's a fairly large bowling alley in school - which is really cool save for the fact that this is the first alley i've been to where you still have to write down the score on a piece of paper yourself) and dessert at Cold Stone Creamery (more ice cream, more good stuff). Now that's a lot of stuff for one evening alone - and i'll say it again, to have the tables turned, so to speak, where i'm now in the position of a blur new student who is quite unaware of what's really going on, and threfore in need of lots of guidance in part provided by helpful folk such as these, is a very humbling learning experience.
Today was really exciting - through the first (of many) ice cream social that i went for we (most of the NUS folk) signed up for a day trip to the beach - specifically Wrightsville Beach, just outside of Wilmington, NC (where they film Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill - not that this matters anything at all to me - just a random fact) - a good three hours' drive away from Chapel Hill. Although it basically took up our whole saturday, it was definitely worth it.
After never having ever eaten it, and on the positive recommendations of several of the local UNC people here, i ate food from Bojangles twice today, as there's one at practically every I-40 pit stop between Chapel Hill and Wilmington, and therefore it's a logical choice for food - be it for breakfast on the way to the beach, or for dinner coming back from the beach. It definitely lived up to the positive reviews that i've heard, and i guess i'm glad that there isn't one too nearby where i stay, or i may be too frequent a customer there to the extent that i may put on too many pounds (cos whatever the food is, one thing that it certainly ain't is healthy).
And what blog post of mine would be complete without a matt-and-his-hopeless-mandarin story? This time what happened was that i was seated shotgun in the not-so-mini-van thingy that we sat to the beach and back, and one of the organizers, who also happened to be the driver; Chad, happened to be able to speak Mandarin (and he's a white American). So he was asking me some questions about Singapore in Mandarin, and i didn't know how to reply in the same language so i had to drop out and answer him in English instead - soooo paiseh i tell you...
Just experiencing the beach - which by far is the best beach i've ever been to (though i can only ever recall going to beaches in Singapore and a random few in Malaysia so that isn't much really - oh maybe Waikiki was better, but much more crowded and commercialized) was great in itself. God blessed us with perfect weather for a day out on the beach - sunny but not oppressive. There was more than enough space to just spread out a groundsheet and lie down and bake in the sun. The water was really salty, but was blue in colour (unlike much of the coastal water we get in S'pore - and as a former boat spec, think you cantake my word for it) and just the right temperature. Also, unlike the dirty sea water in S'pore, the water here did not dry leaving a sticky feeling all over, which makes me wonder (but not want to know) what extra additives (or more specifically, pollutants) are located inside S'porean sea water hmm... The waves were strong enough for us to ride them for quite a distance, yet not overpowering to the extent that we were dragged out. And of course, the people met and conversations had throughout the course of today (as well as whatever other events that i've attended) are just sweet. Aiyah, so basically it was great lah - i just hope that i'm not too burnt after today.
For beach and other pics, as usual click on "US PICS" over there =======>
Friday, August 25, 2006
TB or no TB, that is the question
Two days ago i went for the compulsory TB skin test - the usual shallow injection of some protein derivative into the left forearm. The reading was today, and it came out like this:
Hmm as much as the above looks like a shot of a solar eclipse or some sort of astronomical event or other, it is merely a picture of my left forearm with the flash on - and i suppose this serves no purpose at all since you can't see anything...
So this is how my arm looked after 48 hours (looks quite gross i know) - the result being that i need to go back for a further evaluation just in case i indeed have TB (though i went to check up on this test on the internet and found that there are many other possibilities with regards to why the skin test looks like that - so don't be rejoicing that i'm not in S'pore now coughing infected droplets repeatedly onto you just yet).
Well apart from this possible health scare which may see me back in S'pore far sooner than you'd expect it, things have been going quite nicely here. Attended another ice cream social today followed by an IV welcome event, and met many nice people at both events too. It was interesting to see the latter and how things may be the same or different from how we do it in CF back in S'pore. Well i'll say this - some of the people there were very friendly and approachable, while others, well, were not. But then again, who am i to frown upon such things here when they happen back home too, and sometimes even with me playing the role of an unapproachable person...
Am in the midst of doing my first piece of homework - nothing much really - but in any case, looks like my lack of focus in doing schoolwork has manifested itself again...
Hmm as much as the above looks like a shot of a solar eclipse or some sort of astronomical event or other, it is merely a picture of my left forearm with the flash on - and i suppose this serves no purpose at all since you can't see anything...
So this is how my arm looked after 48 hours (looks quite gross i know) - the result being that i need to go back for a further evaluation just in case i indeed have TB (though i went to check up on this test on the internet and found that there are many other possibilities with regards to why the skin test looks like that - so don't be rejoicing that i'm not in S'pore now coughing infected droplets repeatedly onto you just yet).
Well apart from this possible health scare which may see me back in S'pore far sooner than you'd expect it, things have been going quite nicely here. Attended another ice cream social today followed by an IV welcome event, and met many nice people at both events too. It was interesting to see the latter and how things may be the same or different from how we do it in CF back in S'pore. Well i'll say this - some of the people there were very friendly and approachable, while others, well, were not. But then again, who am i to frown upon such things here when they happen back home too, and sometimes even with me playing the role of an unapproachable person...
Am in the midst of doing my first piece of homework - nothing much really - but in any case, looks like my lack of focus in doing schoolwork has manifested itself again...
Thursday, August 24, 2006
My dealings on the first day
The above is just a little indication of how chaotic things were today on the first day of school (btw i felt like soooo touristy standing at the edge of the pit taking this picture - if i were to see someone taking random people pics at say the forum in NUS i'd give a puzzled look, wondering why in the world this person may be wanting to do something like that...). Well today's classes went quite well, at least am more in tune with the system here now, and potentially what's in store for the next couple of months.
Am kind of dreading how at least for the history courses there's so much writing involved - like in handing in weekly written assignments on top of all the readings and all that - think i may be getting in way over my head here, especially since of the courses i have at hand (or at least hope to get), three are higher-level history courses which will definitely require a lot of writing and reading, while my intro to American government class is full of, well, Americans, who obviously would know more about their government than i do so that means i'll have to do a lot of reading up. The saving grace of my courses is the linguistics class mandated by the people upstairs in the national potters' ministry (geddit?) cos it appears that though i mapped it to a course that i've never done in nus, the content overlaps somewhat with another course i did last sem, so it shouldn't be too bad methinks (the prof brought his young daughter into the class to play btw - a perfect indication of the more relaxed teaching atmosphere that is prevalent here...) And of course i am really interested in what's to be covered in all of the classes so far, so i guess that's a step in the right direction =)
And of course there's also the issue of buying of the necessary books - which in case you haven't heard are beepingly expensive - did a rough estimation and in the student store (which does have higher prices) the total cost of the books that are part of the reading lists of all my courses adds up to almost US$200 (though think that it's actually more, owing to my bad math) - i'll have to start scouting Amazon and the off-campus stores really soon...
Anyway, today was a good day overall - after classes ended i went to meet up with Greg and his friend for dinner - haven't seen him since he left S'pore - went to eat at another great Mexican place on Franklin [btw think i've eaten more avocado since arriving in the US (by means of guacamole) than in the rest of my life combined] and once again stuffed myself silly. After i said goodbye, i was walking along Franklin on the way home when i bumped into Jon and Clement and SJ and Stephanie and Carol and ended up following them to - yup you guessed it - dinner - though i was way to stuffed to eat anything else. Met up with SJ's roomie, her brother and her friend - was great to meet them too. For dessert i had what basically is the frozen yogurt equivalent of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - no complaints there =)
Well, tomorrow i have to approach the prof of the final class that i really want to add - hopefully there'll be no problem with doing that - or i may have to do a last-minute search for another available class, and then after securing it, take on the daunting task of attempting to map it with an nus module solely through online communication with the other side, and then forwarding all this to the national potter's ministry for their reference...
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
School's in
Gosh things have been moving so fast over the past week, and suddenly classes are finally starting - so this is it - pass or fail time hehe =p
But seriously, i'm pretty much still motivated to put in at least a respectable amount of effort into this sem, especially since i'm doing rather high-level stuff for my history courses (apparently "module" is not a word very familiar to people over here, along with "toilet", "queue" and "lift" - the American translations are "washroom", "line" and "elevator" respectively) and if i don't put in effort i may seriously catch no ball (translation: "have no clue whatsoever") with regards to the course.
I initially had problems with my courses cos due to some miscommunication our modules (oops!) were registered wrongly and so we've been in the process of trying to fix things... Thankfully, i'm left with only one more course to add. My current schedule without that course added is free on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though that means a really busy Monday and Wednesday especially (thankfully Friday's still relatively ok - free after two pm - if there's a chance to sneak off to travel over the weekend that would be great...)
I'd like to think that i've gradually become more accustomed to life over here - i now automatically look left first, rather than right, before crossing the road and therefore run less of a risk of being the front page news on the following day's Daily Tar Heel; and i no longer point excitedly and go "Hey look - squirrel!" like the typical urban Singaporean (whatever the opposite of suaku is, that's the word to use) would do whenever i see one, since i see about three a day now...
Hooray for God's provision: i was wondering what to do for dinner cos i didn't buy the meal plan here cos it is excrutiatingly expensive - then at just the right moment two Campus Crusade guys knocked on my door and offered me some pizza - that was pretty neat...
Yup this post is uncharacteristically short for me - but oh well, must sleep early for school =)
nitey.
But seriously, i'm pretty much still motivated to put in at least a respectable amount of effort into this sem, especially since i'm doing rather high-level stuff for my history courses (apparently "module" is not a word very familiar to people over here, along with "toilet", "queue" and "lift" - the American translations are "washroom", "line" and "elevator" respectively) and if i don't put in effort i may seriously catch no ball (translation: "have no clue whatsoever") with regards to the course.
I initially had problems with my courses cos due to some miscommunication our modules (oops!) were registered wrongly and so we've been in the process of trying to fix things... Thankfully, i'm left with only one more course to add. My current schedule without that course added is free on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though that means a really busy Monday and Wednesday especially (thankfully Friday's still relatively ok - free after two pm - if there's a chance to sneak off to travel over the weekend that would be great...)
I'd like to think that i've gradually become more accustomed to life over here - i now automatically look left first, rather than right, before crossing the road and therefore run less of a risk of being the front page news on the following day's Daily Tar Heel; and i no longer point excitedly and go "Hey look - squirrel!" like the typical urban Singaporean (whatever the opposite of suaku is, that's the word to use) would do whenever i see one, since i see about three a day now...
Hooray for God's provision: i was wondering what to do for dinner cos i didn't buy the meal plan here cos it is excrutiatingly expensive - then at just the right moment two Campus Crusade guys knocked on my door and offered me some pizza - that was pretty neat...
Yup this post is uncharacteristically short for me - but oh well, must sleep early for school =)
nitey.
Monday, August 21, 2006
empty tank
Well frankly it's been a rather tiring couple of days, and once again i can't really recall a lot of what has happened, but allow me to try and recap some things that methinks are worth mentioning.
Am pretty tired now cos it was a long day - beginning more than eighteen hours ago when i woke up to be fetched to the airport to send my mother off back to S'pore and then head off to church with Brian and Lani, after which i'd head back to the room before heading off for another international student event, this time an ice cream social organized by a campus Christian ministry group (one of at least a dozen) here, then back to the room for a while to relax for a bit before a short meeting for all the guys on my floor, followed by more time in the room before heading out for Fall Fest '06. Yup so many things - and before classes proper have even started i'm like sapped of energy...
So after two-and-a-half weeks, my mother flew back this morning. I've been reflecting a lot upon how i've been really blessed to have my parents around here for a while, in spite of my whinings about wanting to travel alone. Yup, they've indeed been an invaluable help to me in helping me to settle in. Additionally, the Lord has placed so many connections in my path to help make things easier for me during my time here - such as family friends staying in convenient locations that facilitate easier travel and shopping while on the West Coast, and Brian, Lani and the Tans here in Chapel Hill too - i guess that my tendency is always to take all of these, in particular my parents for granted, but think that the realization that i won't be having them around for more than four times longer than the next longest period of time that i have not had them around really struck me - yup the love shown to me that ultimately comes from God is just so wonderful and humbling at the same time. Meanwhile, i'm crossing my fingers that United won't make it a hat trick and make another blunder with her baggage while they're being moved from plane to plane.
My third church service in the US in three weeks took place at New Hope Church, which is Brian and Lani's church. It was in its own way both similar yet different from the other two churches - for example, the songs were all familiar to me, but one of them happened to be familiar to me as a pop song - Drift Away - which was reworded into a Christian song, while another one was a pop song - Born to be Wild - so that was interesting to say the least... The message itself was good. I'd definitely say that all the three churches i've visited so far won't have anything too similar back in S'pore. Hope that in the very near future, as i prayerfully see how at least one or two other churches are like i'll be able to settle on a church to attend regularly for the next few months - i want to see what a few more are like first before coming to a decision...
The ice cream social was interesting too - reminded me a bit of IFG activities in its purpose - yup was a refreshing experience to be involved in a role reversal of sorts from last time during prc stuff. And what many people say is true - though it's still way in the beginning of my time here i understand a bit more where the general international student is coming from in terms of a certain blurness with what is going on and how any help offered to them is greatly appreciated =) (yes yes i know that the last statement will bring a smile to the faces of IFG members...)
Fall Fest basically serves the same purpose that matric fair does in nus, but the similarity ends there. Honestly, having been involved in matric fair planning before, nus could learn heaps and heaps and heaps from how they do things here. They closed down a whole street on campus for the fest, served up loads of yummy free food (now i regret not eating more...), had funky official hours of 9pm to 2am and had many interesting entertainment options like a marching band and a live band. The whole atmosphere was great - matric fair bites the dust in comparison - though because of my claustrocrowdophobia i didn't last too long there cos there seriously were too many people there for me so i headed back to my room after just more than an hour. But managed to get a better impression of what's going on here, particularly with the two areas of interest for me - singing groups (though i think that after six years my sight-singing seriously cannot make it, nor can time that i can commit) and of course campus ministries (of which as i mentioned there were just soooo many - including, to my surprise, a Christian fraternity and sorority - hmm).
I took quite a few not-so-good pictures, but as i seriously am tired here - do just look at them once i upload them there =======> at the "US PICS" link. Thanks.
Random thingy of the day: today i met two French speakers during my interactions with people - unfortunately i could not get up my confidence level in the language to say more than "je parle un petit peu le Français" - i only speak a bit of French.
Random thingy of the day #2: it was pretty funny just now during the ice cream social to see how one of the volunteers from the campus ministry (an English major, no less) was so intrigued by our (some of the Singaporeans) impromptu conversation in Singlish at her request - she could not understand what we were saying at all - haha...
Am pretty tired now cos it was a long day - beginning more than eighteen hours ago when i woke up to be fetched to the airport to send my mother off back to S'pore and then head off to church with Brian and Lani, after which i'd head back to the room before heading off for another international student event, this time an ice cream social organized by a campus Christian ministry group (one of at least a dozen) here, then back to the room for a while to relax for a bit before a short meeting for all the guys on my floor, followed by more time in the room before heading out for Fall Fest '06. Yup so many things - and before classes proper have even started i'm like sapped of energy...
So after two-and-a-half weeks, my mother flew back this morning. I've been reflecting a lot upon how i've been really blessed to have my parents around here for a while, in spite of my whinings about wanting to travel alone. Yup, they've indeed been an invaluable help to me in helping me to settle in. Additionally, the Lord has placed so many connections in my path to help make things easier for me during my time here - such as family friends staying in convenient locations that facilitate easier travel and shopping while on the West Coast, and Brian, Lani and the Tans here in Chapel Hill too - i guess that my tendency is always to take all of these, in particular my parents for granted, but think that the realization that i won't be having them around for more than four times longer than the next longest period of time that i have not had them around really struck me - yup the love shown to me that ultimately comes from God is just so wonderful and humbling at the same time. Meanwhile, i'm crossing my fingers that United won't make it a hat trick and make another blunder with her baggage while they're being moved from plane to plane.
My third church service in the US in three weeks took place at New Hope Church, which is Brian and Lani's church. It was in its own way both similar yet different from the other two churches - for example, the songs were all familiar to me, but one of them happened to be familiar to me as a pop song - Drift Away - which was reworded into a Christian song, while another one was a pop song - Born to be Wild - so that was interesting to say the least... The message itself was good. I'd definitely say that all the three churches i've visited so far won't have anything too similar back in S'pore. Hope that in the very near future, as i prayerfully see how at least one or two other churches are like i'll be able to settle on a church to attend regularly for the next few months - i want to see what a few more are like first before coming to a decision...
The ice cream social was interesting too - reminded me a bit of IFG activities in its purpose - yup was a refreshing experience to be involved in a role reversal of sorts from last time during prc stuff. And what many people say is true - though it's still way in the beginning of my time here i understand a bit more where the general international student is coming from in terms of a certain blurness with what is going on and how any help offered to them is greatly appreciated =) (yes yes i know that the last statement will bring a smile to the faces of IFG members...)
Fall Fest basically serves the same purpose that matric fair does in nus, but the similarity ends there. Honestly, having been involved in matric fair planning before, nus could learn heaps and heaps and heaps from how they do things here. They closed down a whole street on campus for the fest, served up loads of yummy free food (now i regret not eating more...), had funky official hours of 9pm to 2am and had many interesting entertainment options like a marching band and a live band. The whole atmosphere was great - matric fair bites the dust in comparison - though because of my claustrocrowdophobia i didn't last too long there cos there seriously were too many people there for me so i headed back to my room after just more than an hour. But managed to get a better impression of what's going on here, particularly with the two areas of interest for me - singing groups (though i think that after six years my sight-singing seriously cannot make it, nor can time that i can commit) and of course campus ministries (of which as i mentioned there were just soooo many - including, to my surprise, a Christian fraternity and sorority - hmm).
I took quite a few not-so-good pictures, but as i seriously am tired here - do just look at them once i upload them there =======> at the "US PICS" link. Thanks.
Random thingy of the day: today i met two French speakers during my interactions with people - unfortunately i could not get up my confidence level in the language to say more than "je parle un petit peu le Français" - i only speak a bit of French.
Random thingy of the day #2: it was pretty funny just now during the ice cream social to see how one of the volunteers from the campus ministry (an English major, no less) was so intrigued by our (some of the Singaporeans) impromptu conversation in Singlish at her request - she could not understand what we were saying at all - haha...
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Go and sleep ah!
[i realise that in recent posts that i have been, well, posting, i've tended to for the large part just do a log of what noteworthy stuff (i.e. no "i brushed my teeth" or "i opened the door" and that sort of thing) has happened to me - apologies if you're bored stiff]
Went for the first time to Southpoint Mall today, only a ten minute bus ride away from campus - the bus ride however costing the princely sum of $2 - so will have to think carefully before going there each time... It's a really sprawling place though - lots of neat shops that i in time will want to visit like Banana Republic (though they're opening in S'pore soon am i right?) and Cheesecake Factory and what not... It's always only when i'm abroad that i really feel like shopping - and think that the next time i go there i'll seriously feel like shopping =p
Then for dinner my mother and i (or more accurately, my mother), treated Brian and Lani, the very hospitable couple who've been putting my mother up here since we've arrived (and me on the first night too) to dinner. We went to Penang, which rather self-explanatorily (is there such a word?) serves up Malaysian food. Apparently, Malaysian food is rather trendy in the US as of late - i remember going to another branch (they seem to have several scattered throughout the US, or at least on the east coast...) in Philly years ago, and most of the clientele were the of the young urban professional variety, and even the staff were all very classily dressed, they definitely were not wearing sarongs that's for sure... Surprised though to see a branch in Chapel Hill of all places... Anyways the food was not bad - and definitely was catered to ang moh tastes (the beef satay was sour!), though i can honestly say that i did not miss the stuff that i ate - and probably won't - at least for a month or two...
The four of us at Penang
(that's popiah and tauhu goreng in a severely adultarated form btw)
Went for the first time to Southpoint Mall today, only a ten minute bus ride away from campus - the bus ride however costing the princely sum of $2 - so will have to think carefully before going there each time... It's a really sprawling place though - lots of neat shops that i in time will want to visit like Banana Republic (though they're opening in S'pore soon am i right?) and Cheesecake Factory and what not... It's always only when i'm abroad that i really feel like shopping - and think that the next time i go there i'll seriously feel like shopping =p
Then for dinner my mother and i (or more accurately, my mother), treated Brian and Lani, the very hospitable couple who've been putting my mother up here since we've arrived (and me on the first night too) to dinner. We went to Penang, which rather self-explanatorily (is there such a word?) serves up Malaysian food. Apparently, Malaysian food is rather trendy in the US as of late - i remember going to another branch (they seem to have several scattered throughout the US, or at least on the east coast...) in Philly years ago, and most of the clientele were the of the young urban professional variety, and even the staff were all very classily dressed, they definitely were not wearing sarongs that's for sure... Surprised though to see a branch in Chapel Hill of all places... Anyways the food was not bad - and definitely was catered to ang moh tastes (the beef satay was sour!), though i can honestly say that i did not miss the stuff that i ate - and probably won't - at least for a month or two...
The four of us at Penang(that's popiah and tauhu goreng in a severely adultarated form btw)
Incidentally, Lani also happens to be the daughter of one of the main speakers at Urbana '06, who also happens to be my mother's former colleague in IVCF Philippines decades ago - quite a cool connection - and one that has me thinking even more about going for it. Yup but need to pray more and talk with the IV people first though...
Yup i'd love to say more but it's now 2:13 am and hwy just told me to go to sleep - nitey!
Friday, August 18, 2006
Before and After
Before internet access:
I type this once again on ms word, because i’ve just moved in to my room and neither wireless nor LAN connection has been enabled yet…
So far i’ve gotten quite a good impression of the whole place – in the morning my host drove me to the dorm to move my stuff in – i’m sharing a double room with my roommate who also happens to be from NUS, though we didn’t plan for this arrangement one bit… Thankfully by the end of the day we were able to figure out how to configure the placement of the beds to best suit the layout of the room – though i must admit that it looks rather unconventional – it’ll do for now…
After checking in went about the usual settling-in stuff like walking around the place and setting up a bank account – so far things have been pretty hassle free by God’s grace – having my mother around definitely does help because she checks stuff that i always forget…
In the evening some of the UNC people who’ve been to S'pore brought us to Walmart to do some shopping , and then to Applebee’s for dinner (was reminded of Talladega Nights because Applebee’s is pretty prominently mentioned there) –quite good stuff actually- and the portions were quite satisfactory too…
After internet access:
Well thankfully today the internet connection for my laptop, both for LAN as well as wireless came after i brought it to the computer centre for configuration - which took all of five minutes - and methinks that's a big step towards settling down here so yay =)
One thing that's bugging me now is course registration - basically i got all the courses that i had wanted, but unfortunately these are the courses that i put down as my choices for the dummy round ( i.e. not the final list of modules that i mapped with the people at nus). While my 2 UE choices remain the same and hence i don't need to do anything about them - the three slots for my hist modules are allocated to things that i don't really want - of course all's not lost lah- thre's still time and sufficient chance to rectify the situation - and i don't want to agonize over it as well...
One thing that i'm rather pleased with is the campus itself - and on a more specific level, my hall as well... The campus itself is a very nice place - i can't describe how welcome a change it is from the unfriendly dull rectangular-tiled façades of nus - and the weather, while at this time of year still occasionally as hot as in S'pore, with as fierce a sun, is less humid, and hence more condusive to walking from place to place - which is basically what i've been doing so far.
A good alternative would be to obtain a bike by some means or other, as the facilities here for biking - including bike lanes on roads, trails and places to chain them - are tons better than what i am subject to back in S'pore, but the cost of it as well as the security issue (a policeman at a briefing today said that he gets five reports of stolen bikes a day) sort of discourage me from doing so.
What i am very encouraged to do, however, is to go running - brought the necessary stuff, and furthermore there are far more people here who go running as compared to back in nus - and many of these look to be people of my (lack of) calibre, since it's much more of a lifestyle than a fitness thing per se here - which means that even cannot-make-it people go running - which at the end of the day means that i won't feel so self-conscious about running during the day and being seen by anyone and everyone (cos for me at least for now my habit of running at night won't be continued here).
My hall itself - Spencer - is very conveniently located. It's along Franklin Street, which in means understandable to nus peeps, is like fong seng times ten =) In other words, the most happening stuff here, especially at night (i dunno if you want to include the funeral home located along the road in that category =p), is right at my doorstep. It's also next to Coker Arboretum (which is really just a very fancy word for what basically is a park with lots of different kind of plants in it - not to mention Squirrels and many birds like Robins and Cardinals too), as well as the Morehead Planetarium, which i also hear is pretty good... And of course, it's only a short walk to stuff like the dining hall (where you basically get an all-you-can-eat buffet at every sitting - which partially explains my enthusiasm for running), the main libraries, the student store and other stuff =)
One thing though is that many people have not moved in yet, so things will get much more noisy and crowded as each day goes by, both around campus as well as in the hall itself - but generally the people here are really nice so am not too bothered about that...
I must admit that socially speaking it'll take some more time to adjust to life here. Never thought that i'd be missing the company back in S'pore this much (though i'm sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that i've not met too many people here yet - though i definitely don't want to think of it in terms of a friendship vacuum) and at the same time think that it can't be good at all if in the long run while i'm here i am in more contact with the people back in S'pore than with the peoeple here. And this morning as i was doing my qt the Lord was reminding me that for all my feelings of loneliness, what i haven't been doing is taking time to bring this before Him in a time of extended prayer, rather than the usual chop chop affairs that still predominate my prayer life now - and find it hard to change to a more consistent and substantial time of just really seeking Him.
A semi-side note: back at home i was really pampered by having a guitar with me in my room - it made spending time to meditate upon God's word and in prayer that much easier to transition into from everyday affairs - and of course it's also a great way to alleviate boredom - but at least for the former i realise that i can't rely on externalities to absolutely determine the quality of my time spent with God and for the latter - well, there's so much to do here - why should i spend so much time cooped up in my room anyway? Though in any case hope that i can get my hands on one eventually at least from time to time (heard some of my floormates playing one...) to practice or else might forget it all...
Oh, and if any of you want my address and/or local phone number, just in case any of you are headed here before i leave on Jan 4, just drop me a mail and i'll pass it to you - thanks =)
I type this once again on ms word, because i’ve just moved in to my room and neither wireless nor LAN connection has been enabled yet…
So far i’ve gotten quite a good impression of the whole place – in the morning my host drove me to the dorm to move my stuff in – i’m sharing a double room with my roommate who also happens to be from NUS, though we didn’t plan for this arrangement one bit… Thankfully by the end of the day we were able to figure out how to configure the placement of the beds to best suit the layout of the room – though i must admit that it looks rather unconventional – it’ll do for now…
After checking in went about the usual settling-in stuff like walking around the place and setting up a bank account – so far things have been pretty hassle free by God’s grace – having my mother around definitely does help because she checks stuff that i always forget…
In the evening some of the UNC people who’ve been to S'pore brought us to Walmart to do some shopping , and then to Applebee’s for dinner (was reminded of Talladega Nights because Applebee’s is pretty prominently mentioned there) –quite good stuff actually- and the portions were quite satisfactory too…
After internet access:
Well thankfully today the internet connection for my laptop, both for LAN as well as wireless came after i brought it to the computer centre for configuration - which took all of five minutes - and methinks that's a big step towards settling down here so yay =)
One thing that's bugging me now is course registration - basically i got all the courses that i had wanted, but unfortunately these are the courses that i put down as my choices for the dummy round ( i.e. not the final list of modules that i mapped with the people at nus). While my 2 UE choices remain the same and hence i don't need to do anything about them - the three slots for my hist modules are allocated to things that i don't really want - of course all's not lost lah- thre's still time and sufficient chance to rectify the situation - and i don't want to agonize over it as well...
One thing that i'm rather pleased with is the campus itself - and on a more specific level, my hall as well... The campus itself is a very nice place - i can't describe how welcome a change it is from the unfriendly dull rectangular-tiled façades of nus - and the weather, while at this time of year still occasionally as hot as in S'pore, with as fierce a sun, is less humid, and hence more condusive to walking from place to place - which is basically what i've been doing so far.
A good alternative would be to obtain a bike by some means or other, as the facilities here for biking - including bike lanes on roads, trails and places to chain them - are tons better than what i am subject to back in S'pore, but the cost of it as well as the security issue (a policeman at a briefing today said that he gets five reports of stolen bikes a day) sort of discourage me from doing so.
What i am very encouraged to do, however, is to go running - brought the necessary stuff, and furthermore there are far more people here who go running as compared to back in nus - and many of these look to be people of my (lack of) calibre, since it's much more of a lifestyle than a fitness thing per se here - which means that even cannot-make-it people go running - which at the end of the day means that i won't feel so self-conscious about running during the day and being seen by anyone and everyone (cos for me at least for now my habit of running at night won't be continued here).
My hall itself - Spencer - is very conveniently located. It's along Franklin Street, which in means understandable to nus peeps, is like fong seng times ten =) In other words, the most happening stuff here, especially at night (i dunno if you want to include the funeral home located along the road in that category =p), is right at my doorstep. It's also next to Coker Arboretum (which is really just a very fancy word for what basically is a park with lots of different kind of plants in it - not to mention Squirrels and many birds like Robins and Cardinals too), as well as the Morehead Planetarium, which i also hear is pretty good... And of course, it's only a short walk to stuff like the dining hall (where you basically get an all-you-can-eat buffet at every sitting - which partially explains my enthusiasm for running), the main libraries, the student store and other stuff =)
One thing though is that many people have not moved in yet, so things will get much more noisy and crowded as each day goes by, both around campus as well as in the hall itself - but generally the people here are really nice so am not too bothered about that...
I must admit that socially speaking it'll take some more time to adjust to life here. Never thought that i'd be missing the company back in S'pore this much (though i'm sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that i've not met too many people here yet - though i definitely don't want to think of it in terms of a friendship vacuum) and at the same time think that it can't be good at all if in the long run while i'm here i am in more contact with the people back in S'pore than with the peoeple here. And this morning as i was doing my qt the Lord was reminding me that for all my feelings of loneliness, what i haven't been doing is taking time to bring this before Him in a time of extended prayer, rather than the usual chop chop affairs that still predominate my prayer life now - and find it hard to change to a more consistent and substantial time of just really seeking Him.
A semi-side note: back at home i was really pampered by having a guitar with me in my room - it made spending time to meditate upon God's word and in prayer that much easier to transition into from everyday affairs - and of course it's also a great way to alleviate boredom - but at least for the former i realise that i can't rely on externalities to absolutely determine the quality of my time spent with God and for the latter - well, there's so much to do here - why should i spend so much time cooped up in my room anyway? Though in any case hope that i can get my hands on one eventually at least from time to time (heard some of my floormates playing one...) to practice or else might forget it all...
Oh, and if any of you want my address and/or local phone number, just in case any of you are headed here before i leave on Jan 4, just drop me a mail and i'll pass it to you - thanks =)
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Back to front
Well thankfully after less than four hours (as compared to the four days it took for my baggage to return to me when i was in Portland) we managed to get all four pieces of baggage back safely and without anything missing (i suspect that a twelve-pack of alkaline batteries for my camera that i had stored in my lost baggage was taken by someone - unless i am a total toot and the batteries are sitting pretty somewhere in my room at home now - and that is a very distinct possibility). But in order to get the bags we had to drive back to RDU (Raleigh-Durham Airport) from the house we are staying in mere hours after arriving there from the airport in the first place - but the alternative would have been to wait for four more hours (after one am even) to get the bags delivered to our doorstep. Whatever it is, i'm thankful that the bags are back, and that our hosts here are so hospitable and accomodating to bring us here and there.
So tomorrow's when i'm supposed to move into my dorm - quite blur as to how the whole process will turn out - and since the past two days have been so topsy-turvy and there are so many things to recount, i shall attempt to do so from the most recent events back - memento style, for the sake of better recollection.
She's the one on the left, btw
Security wasn't that big of a deal as i thought that it would be - yes they were repeating ad nauseaum about the no liquids and gels thingy, but the screening process itself was pretty much the same as it was before - the security guy was a friendly chap who said that he stayed in S'pore for a few years and is doing the security job as a summer break from his day job as a lecturer at UC Berkeley - cool stuff...
We got to the airport at around 2am - and the flight was only at 7:54 - so there was basically a lot of waiting around - really dull stuff - the highlight perhaps was the midnite to four am two footlong subs at $9.99 offer - but the subs weren't that good - think that the sandwich artist was as sleepy as i was...
Took a bus from the greyhound station to the airport - thankfully we met this kind lady who was very helpful in giving us directions. My mother also asked the many Filipinos around for help - it's marvellous what using the right language can do for you - much more than what milo could ever do...
The greyhound ride was better than the previous one i took - still lots of opportunity to observe the people around and reflect upon how blessed i've been (and therefore how much is expected from me), but it was four, as opposed to eighteen hours long, so more tahan-able i guess... One funny thing that happened was that two Mandarin-speakers were asking the people across the aisle from them whether they had reached their stop yet - but since they could not speak English and the other people obviously could not speak Mandarin, there was no success there. In stepped me with six words that would go a long way to make things easier for us all - "hai2 mei2 dao4, xia4 yi4 zhan4" - the Chinese man responded with grateful thanks, and i wished that my p5 Chinese teacher who kept on scolding me wang2 ba1 dan4 last time was there for me to gloat at him =p
The whole time in Fresno was a good time of relaxation for me, since most of the time we stayed in. Although i normally am not one for going to the same place only a year after visiting it previously, thought that it was a time well-spent nevertheless.
So tomorrow's when i'm supposed to move into my dorm - quite blur as to how the whole process will turn out - and since the past two days have been so topsy-turvy and there are so many things to recount, i shall attempt to do so from the most recent events back - memento style, for the sake of better recollection.
Well, firstly, now that i'm here, just to let you all note that the time difference now is a very convenient twelve hours- which means whatever time it's here in pm, it's there in am and vice versa - a very simple formula, at least until daylight saving time comes into effect...
The baggage incident was quite annoying, both because ALL of our baggage did not turn up at the baggage claim (unlike the first time when only my most unimportant baggage went missing), and there were many other passengers on the flight who were in the same boat as us (and considering that the plane in total sat less than a hundred people, the baggage handlers at Dulles missed out a sizeable portion of the baggage... Well at least it's found =l
The whole plane journey from San Francisco to RDU via Washington Dulles was rather uneventful (until the end when the missing baggage more than made up for the uneventful journey) The ride from Dulles to RDU was especially strange since we spent more time waiting in the stationary plane and taxiing around the runway than we did in the air itself - you would have thought that with so much extra time to kill they could have double-checked the baggage to make sure that all the passengers' bags were on board...
The time in the transit area was pretty uneventful - have been to the San Francisco United domestic transit terminal so many times that there's nothing new to see - i paid another visit to the familiar face from See's Candies - yup she still was there - it seems that no matter what time i go past the store over the past three years she's there
She's the one on the left, btwWe got to the airport at around 2am - and the flight was only at 7:54 - so there was basically a lot of waiting around - really dull stuff - the highlight perhaps was the midnite to four am two footlong subs at $9.99 offer - but the subs weren't that good - think that the sandwich artist was as sleepy as i was...
Took a bus from the greyhound station to the airport - thankfully we met this kind lady who was very helpful in giving us directions. My mother also asked the many Filipinos around for help - it's marvellous what using the right language can do for you - much more than what milo could ever do...
The greyhound ride was better than the previous one i took - still lots of opportunity to observe the people around and reflect upon how blessed i've been (and therefore how much is expected from me), but it was four, as opposed to eighteen hours long, so more tahan-able i guess... One funny thing that happened was that two Mandarin-speakers were asking the people across the aisle from them whether they had reached their stop yet - but since they could not speak English and the other people obviously could not speak Mandarin, there was no success there. In stepped me with six words that would go a long way to make things easier for us all - "hai2 mei2 dao4, xia4 yi4 zhan4" - the Chinese man responded with grateful thanks, and i wished that my p5 Chinese teacher who kept on scolding me wang2 ba1 dan4 last time was there for me to gloat at him =p
The whole time in Fresno was a good time of relaxation for me, since most of the time we stayed in. Although i normally am not one for going to the same place only a year after visiting it previously, thought that it was a time well-spent nevertheless.
Of all the shows to chance upon while channel surfing in Fresno...
Where are they?
Hmm - just a quick hello - have finally arrived in school - am staying with some other family friends for the night - a note for prayer - my mother's and my four baggages have been misplaced by United Airlines again, and are, according to the airline, sitting pretty in Washington Dulles Airport - and i'm supposed to check in to the dorm tomorrow, so hmm - needless to say i'm not in the mood to say much more... Do pray if you read this - and i'll update soon =) Thanks...
(instant update - supposedly the bags are in Raleigh/Durham Airport now - hope they get in soon...)
(instant update - supposedly the bags are in Raleigh/Durham Airport now - hope they get in soon...)
Monday, August 14, 2006
Nope, can't think of a title again...
Today saw a little less slacking on my part, since it was Sunday, so we went to church - the church some of the extended family (who stay almost next door, in typical Asian fashion) of our host go to. It's called People's Church, and though the name of the church may sound a little left-leaning, rest assured there were no tyrannical goofy-looking Pastors that hold absolute control over the church nor a congregation that were goose-stepping while waving flags and pictures of their dear leader around. In fact, there was a very convivial atmosphere there, and i would have felt right at home, if not for the fact that i didn't really think about a dress code save for wearing long pants, only to arrive there and find almost every single member of the male gender there (except for a token child or adolescent, oh and me too) wearing a collared shirt of some kind, even if they were wearing berms. So i spent a good portion of the service scanning around the sanctuary looking for other dress code offenders - hmmm...
The service itself was contemporary but definitely not even bordering the more charismatic jumpy style. The worship itself was done on a very big scale - the team consisted of ten to fifteen people standing in a row across the whole stage à la the "Seasons of Love" scene in Rent, supported by a full choir, all the usual musicians, plus a full orchestra, all except the ten to fifteen people being visible somewhat in the picture below (the ten to fifteen people are not there cos i took this photo after worship - in fact this photo is so badly taken cos i quickly sneaked my camera out, took a snap, and immediately stuffed my camera back in my bag again - the last thing i wanted to do was to draw further attention to the collarless shirt guy...)
The service itself was contemporary but definitely not even bordering the more charismatic jumpy style. The worship itself was done on a very big scale - the team consisted of ten to fifteen people standing in a row across the whole stage à la the "Seasons of Love" scene in Rent, supported by a full choir, all the usual musicians, plus a full orchestra, all except the ten to fifteen people being visible somewhat in the picture below (the ten to fifteen people are not there cos i took this photo after worship - in fact this photo is so badly taken cos i quickly sneaked my camera out, took a snap, and immediately stuffed my camera back in my bag again - the last thing i wanted to do was to draw further attention to the collarless shirt guy...)
In any case, i had a blessed time at the service - though the duration (which like last week's church, was all of one hour and ten minutes) was something that i'm still not used to. The worship and the message were both very evangelical - none of that superficial fluff which sadly does come up now and then in other places... Yup more pictures and details of the church can be found there =======> cos they take forever to upload here, and i also don't want to say the same things twice...
After the service, we went to the mall for the afternoon - i spent much of my time there walking up and down, browsing through the various stores, wondering whether to buy this or that but in the end only buying a couple of small items. Walking along the boys' department at the various department stores, i observed that by implication my size in the US is still that of a boy - since a good portion of the clothes there can fit me (and in fact i have bought such clothes recently, but i refrained this time)
Walking through the mall has all but confirmed in me the fact that i'm starting to sound more and more American. For example when i hold the door for someone and they say "thank you" i no longer respond with "you're welcome" but now with "yerrr wellcum" or something to that effect. And when i accidentally brush against someone it's no longer "sorry" that i utter but rather "sahrry"... And i no longer "queue up" or take the "lift" - now i "join the line" and take the "elevator". Basically, i consciously can take note of whenever i subconsciously speak American. I suppose that it's inevitable in a sense because if i do not converge with the predominant accent, i may not be understood - you can talk about asserting your S'porean identity all you want, but if the folks around you don't understand you, how will you get by? So i have a feeling that by the end of these few months i may sound more and more American and hence become one of those fake-os whom i always frowned upon last time because of their atrociously affected accents...
I had forgotten to mention that the day before yesterday, we got lost driving around downtown Fresno trying to locate the Greyhound station to buy tickets to San Francisco. And it was at night too. I tell you during the more than half an hour driving around, i saw so many 'colourful' sights it disturbed me. (FYI, according to the ever-dependable wikipedia Fresno is the city with the most concentrated level of poverty in the US - so you get the idea of what i saw) That has further got me thinking on these issues and how to react to them as a Christian, specifically in the near future while i am still here (and i hear that some of the neighbourhoods relatively near UNC are of the same pattern as what we have in Fresno)
My host's daughter, who's also my friend from my previous church, is now in Mexico for exchange too - and guess what - her baggage got lost by United Airlines as well - and it hasn't been recovered yet - so that's in total the fourth story i've heard of UA doing so already... Hmm so in the future, should i still fly the friendly skies?
Since much of my time here has been spent slacking and eating, i've been putting on weight - and i haven't even started school yet! This i suppose is part of the reason behind weird thing about me #6... But anyways, looks like i'll really have to find some form of exercise once i get to school...
Tomorrow i take the Greyhound again - this time a much more manageable close-to-five-hour ride to San Francisco, where the flight to school *typing of post interrupted by farny skype call from Daniel n Mei Si plagued by background noise and a poor connection* will be from. Now with those new anti-terror guidelines i can't bring any liquids on board the passenger cabin, which is of little significance to me except that i'll be pestering the flight attendant for water very often. I wonder if people will now look back at that old Clairol Herbal Essences ad with the lady making "Yes, yes!" noises while shampooing her hair in the plane lavatory with nostalgia...
Heard the Matt Redman song again on the radio today - think it's on it's way to becoming one of my favourites - hooray for biblical lyrics =)
Sunday, August 13, 2006
You never let go
Hmm first things first i'll be posting all of my photos on the site labelled "US PICS" in the links column over there =======> so do take a look if you want to see more pictorial representations of some of the nonsense i mention here...
I came to the realization today that using facebook was the best way to put my pics online in a way that all can see, since i had already been using it as prompted by some of the UNC peeps. I know that you know that my usual rule is none of this online friendship stuff (which is why i neither have msn nor have friendster), but figured no harm in at least getting an account, though i probably won't be doing anything much with it. And further more it's a really convenient way for me to upload my photos for people to see since you don't need to be a facebook user to view the albums, and there's unlimited space for the pics too...
I was able to come to this realization because today basically i did nothing more than slack at home - nope i didn't even leave te house, which is just as well since here it can get pretty hot (over 100 degrees F), though thankfully without the energy-sapping humidity back in S'pore. This meant more than ample time to just laze around at home (since the lack of a car and driver made going out not a possibility). I even had time in the evening to catch some tennis on espn - the last point of Roger Federer's semifinal victory over Fernando Gonzalez in the Toronto Masters and the whole semifinal match between Jelena Jankovic and Serena Williams in the LA JPMorgan Chase Open which the former won (both outcomes being to my delight). As much as i follow tennis, my lack of cable back home means that this match was probably only the third or fourth full tennis match that i've ever watched in my life - and it was quite fun to do so...
Hmm yup Fresno so far has been pretty boring (btw there's a suburb of Portland called Boring, and it's right next to another suburb called Happy Valley - go figure...) but i guess i expected that lah- i was here just last year anyway so i've seen pretty much most of the little that there is to see... Anyway, it's good to slack a little now and then...
Here we're staying with some former church friends, who happen to also be Filipinos - and needless to say from being plunged into the deep end with Cantonese now Tagalog is the language that i have to tackle - i can roughly understand what is going on in a conversation, and be able to respond to questions asked me in Tagalog, but every single reply i give is in English, and more often than not i'm still left fairly clueless... I tell you, there's not a day that does not go by here when i do not wish that my parents had just heck care about Mandarin and gone ahead and taught me Tagalog last time - either way i'd still do badly for my so-called 'mother tongue' anyway...
Well, i'll finally be flying to school on Tuesday, after almost two weeks of pure slacking - am both excited yet apprehensive at the same time over what to expect. I'm thankful for these two weeks as a good means of transition so to speak between the busyness of the supposed holiday period in S'pore and the different pace of studying life at UNC. The words of this song (which i've probably at some point in time heard in S'pore but have since heard twice, and remembered over here) speak to me and are very apt at this point in time. To read them however you'll have to go here since the site itself says that the lyrics are not to be reproduced without permission, and you know what a guai kia i am =p Well, enjoy and reflect...
I came to the realization today that using facebook was the best way to put my pics online in a way that all can see, since i had already been using it as prompted by some of the UNC peeps. I know that you know that my usual rule is none of this online friendship stuff (which is why i neither have msn nor have friendster), but figured no harm in at least getting an account, though i probably won't be doing anything much with it. And further more it's a really convenient way for me to upload my photos for people to see since you don't need to be a facebook user to view the albums, and there's unlimited space for the pics too...
I was able to come to this realization because today basically i did nothing more than slack at home - nope i didn't even leave te house, which is just as well since here it can get pretty hot (over 100 degrees F), though thankfully without the energy-sapping humidity back in S'pore. This meant more than ample time to just laze around at home (since the lack of a car and driver made going out not a possibility). I even had time in the evening to catch some tennis on espn - the last point of Roger Federer's semifinal victory over Fernando Gonzalez in the Toronto Masters and the whole semifinal match between Jelena Jankovic and Serena Williams in the LA JPMorgan Chase Open which the former won (both outcomes being to my delight). As much as i follow tennis, my lack of cable back home means that this match was probably only the third or fourth full tennis match that i've ever watched in my life - and it was quite fun to do so...
Hmm yup Fresno so far has been pretty boring (btw there's a suburb of Portland called Boring, and it's right next to another suburb called Happy Valley - go figure...) but i guess i expected that lah- i was here just last year anyway so i've seen pretty much most of the little that there is to see... Anyway, it's good to slack a little now and then...
Here we're staying with some former church friends, who happen to also be Filipinos - and needless to say from being plunged into the deep end with Cantonese now Tagalog is the language that i have to tackle - i can roughly understand what is going on in a conversation, and be able to respond to questions asked me in Tagalog, but every single reply i give is in English, and more often than not i'm still left fairly clueless... I tell you, there's not a day that does not go by here when i do not wish that my parents had just heck care about Mandarin and gone ahead and taught me Tagalog last time - either way i'd still do badly for my so-called 'mother tongue' anyway...
Well, i'll finally be flying to school on Tuesday, after almost two weeks of pure slacking - am both excited yet apprehensive at the same time over what to expect. I'm thankful for these two weeks as a good means of transition so to speak between the busyness of the supposed holiday period in S'pore and the different pace of studying life at UNC. The words of this song (which i've probably at some point in time heard in S'pore but have since heard twice, and remembered over here) speak to me and are very apt at this point in time. To read them however you'll have to go here since the site itself says that the lyrics are not to be reproduced without permission, and you know what a guai kia i am =p Well, enjoy and reflect...
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Hounded...
After eighteen hours overnight on a cramped bus, i’ve finally reached Fresno. Now after having in total spent at least two whole days on Greyhound buses in total over the course of three different trips and three different routes (and most probably with more trips to come as well, both here and once i get to school), i think myself qualified enough to offer these words of advice to anyone who’s thinking of taking it – be prepared.
Now, i’m not shooting down the company or something like that (though i must admit there have been times, particularly last year when i felt very much like doing that), it’s just that especially for me identifying myself as a Singaporean coming to America and counting myself as one more familiar than the average S’porean Joe (or in the name of contextualization, Ah Seng) as to what this country is all about, every time i take a Greyhound trip i come into contact with a whole different image of America, perhaps a more realistic one if you’d allow me to say so.
Greyhound is generally not the mode of transportation that out-of-the-country tourists would take to get from city to city in America – not when there are options more in line with their higher price range, like tourist coaches or domestic flights. This same price range probably also applies to the average middle class American too (and boy is the middle class in America a big one...). Rather, it’s the mode of choice for hmm, how do i put it, some of the more colourful characters in American society. Although i took the Greyhound several years before, last year’s trip was a real eye opener for me – to see firsthand an aspect of society here which you by and large don’t get to see in Singapore, no matter how much you may attempt to familiarize yourself with it.
I don’t mean to criticize or judge (though admittedly there are points in time when that does happen) but rather, especially from the point of view of a Christian in another country, how do i react to the whole situation? This is especially so since i perhaps have a pre-conceived notion of America as a so-called rich and developed country – which makes it all the more hard to reconcile this notion with the stark reality that presents itself to me every time i take the bus. I have to admit that the general behaviour of many of the people that i encounter shocks me – i shan’t elaborate, but it’s troubling on many levels, one of them being that i simply can’t relate to such people and therefore to show love to them as Christ would is just whoa… It’s reached the stage whereby i am very reticent to take the bus unless absolutely necessary – particularly if it involves long hours and overnight travel. Of course, that’s where we need grace, but surely we have to ponder upon the issue more than just to that level right?
This comes in the light of having heard much and also seeing for myself during my limited time here about homelessness and poverty here – and how at least in the IVCF in the northwest Oregon area i’ve been told that a main motivating factor for students to join is that of social action – which therefore forms a much more substantial part of their ministry than it does back home (yes i am aware of the ad-hoc comm…). Then here am i, not even being very aware of the situation back in Singapore, let alone in other places like here. Well, i know for certain that in my time ahead here i’ll come into contact with much more of this less-publicized facet of American society – perhaps this is God’s way of culture-shocking me into changing the way i look at others…
Now, i’m not shooting down the company or something like that (though i must admit there have been times, particularly last year when i felt very much like doing that), it’s just that especially for me identifying myself as a Singaporean coming to America and counting myself as one more familiar than the average S’porean Joe (or in the name of contextualization, Ah Seng) as to what this country is all about, every time i take a Greyhound trip i come into contact with a whole different image of America, perhaps a more realistic one if you’d allow me to say so.
Greyhound is generally not the mode of transportation that out-of-the-country tourists would take to get from city to city in America – not when there are options more in line with their higher price range, like tourist coaches or domestic flights. This same price range probably also applies to the average middle class American too (and boy is the middle class in America a big one...). Rather, it’s the mode of choice for hmm, how do i put it, some of the more colourful characters in American society. Although i took the Greyhound several years before, last year’s trip was a real eye opener for me – to see firsthand an aspect of society here which you by and large don’t get to see in Singapore, no matter how much you may attempt to familiarize yourself with it.
I don’t mean to criticize or judge (though admittedly there are points in time when that does happen) but rather, especially from the point of view of a Christian in another country, how do i react to the whole situation? This is especially so since i perhaps have a pre-conceived notion of America as a so-called rich and developed country – which makes it all the more hard to reconcile this notion with the stark reality that presents itself to me every time i take the bus. I have to admit that the general behaviour of many of the people that i encounter shocks me – i shan’t elaborate, but it’s troubling on many levels, one of them being that i simply can’t relate to such people and therefore to show love to them as Christ would is just whoa… It’s reached the stage whereby i am very reticent to take the bus unless absolutely necessary – particularly if it involves long hours and overnight travel. Of course, that’s where we need grace, but surely we have to ponder upon the issue more than just to that level right?
This comes in the light of having heard much and also seeing for myself during my limited time here about homelessness and poverty here – and how at least in the IVCF in the northwest Oregon area i’ve been told that a main motivating factor for students to join is that of social action – which therefore forms a much more substantial part of their ministry than it does back home (yes i am aware of the ad-hoc comm…). Then here am i, not even being very aware of the situation back in Singapore, let alone in other places like here. Well, i know for certain that in my time ahead here i’ll come into contact with much more of this less-publicized facet of American society – perhaps this is God’s way of culture-shocking me into changing the way i look at others…
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Gresham goodbyes...
If you’ve been wondering why i’ve been so efficient in posting here, it’s simply because i’ve a lot of time on my hands as of late – since everything begins to wind down in the late afternoons till evenings – since while there’s a lot of time, there conversely is not enough time to explore far beyond metropolitan Portland itself, save for the day trip up to Seattle (which was quite a bummer), especially since Uncle Rico (my mother’s friend and the owner of the house we’re living in) has not more leave and has to go to work – making going to far away places that much harder.
It’s times like these when i feel like kicking myself for being too lazy to get a driving licence up to now – (not that there would be much chance that i’d be able to loan any of the cars from Uncle Rico but let’s just magically assume that i would be able to) cos that would make exploring that much easier – then there’d be tons of places that i would want to go to around here. The half-day with Mark driving opened my eyes to some of the possibilities that could otherwise have been open to. I could of course ask my parents to drive, but they are of the too-scared-to-drive-on-the-other-side-of-the-road variety… Oh well, hopefully by the next time i come here (which ought to be soon) i can drive already...
Hmm so hence especially since Uncle Rico’s leave ended, going out has meant either going to eat out or to visit what appears to be every single outlet store in the suburban Portland area – today alone we went to seven different stores –Costco; Walgreen’s; Grocery Outlet; Old Navy; Bed, Bath and Beyond; Borders and Target. And let’s not forget WalMart, Kmart, Safeway, Craft Warehouse, Payless Shoe Source, JoAnn’s and many more where that came from. That’s one thing that amazes me about here – how despite the relatively low housing density here (at least compared to S’pore), there still appear to be so many of these stores of Mammoth proportions that don’t go bust… Sigh did i mention that Ben & Jerry’s retails here at under $3 a tub? And that Post Cereals sell for like $2, and Ritter Sport goes for 5 bars for $5 (all USD)?
Hmm well at least there's something that Singapore's cooler in...Well one thing that i appreciate about the time that i have on my hands is the opportunity to spend time of better quantity and quality in prayer – that’s something that i feel the Lord is challenging me to pay much more attention to nowadays. And prayers not solely for myself (cos in the current state that i’m in, i need lots of that) but definitely also for others – that’s probably why many of my correspondences to friends now end with a “So how can i pray for you?” bit – i suppose that’s partly because now that i am separated from the community of believers that i am most familiar with in S’pore, i realise the importance of remaining connected in a sense through a better identification with what others are going through especially since you don’t see them… And prayer is definitely a great way that God has given us to do that (among the many other great things about prayer – such that i’ve begun to feel a new freshness in my walk with God – though there’s still a long lonely road ahead). Yup – so to whoever is reading this – do feel free to let me know ya – think that it would be a blessing and privilege to pray for you, especially in the absence of the opportunity now to be able to physically pray WITH you...
Tomorrow i leave Oregon for good to drier and warmer pastures in Fresno, California. It’s an 18-hour overnight bus ride (methinks akin to S’pore to some restive southern province in Thailand) which ought to be interesting and tiring. Perhaps one highlight is passing through Sacramento – California’s state capital – maybe i can say hi to governor Arnie hehe… As a result, i’ve had to try and reorganize my baggage in the light of added winter clothing from Mark – decided to Ziploc them since firstly they take up a lot of space, and secondly i won’t be needing them in the foreseeable future, so there’s no problem with stashing them away somewhere for now… The entire process of sealing them (the result of which can be seen below) taught me to never attempt to Ziploc stuff without first cutting your nails – i ripped through one bag and have almost punctured another one while not heeding this piece of advice just now… Additionally- i’ve realised that i’ve seriously overpacked- so once i get to school i’ll have to go through my bags again and take out what is really not necessary and hand it over to my mother (thankfully she’s around =) to bring home.
Hmm and speaking of nails that need to be cut - there's a guitar in the room that i've been staying in for the past week - it's an acoustic and it sounds great - the only problem being that it's tuned down by more than one semitone and since it's not mine i don't want to change the tuning... Anyways, think it sounds so good because in the exact opposite of what happened during MEET trip, now that i've been using solely the classical at home for more than a month, any acoustic that i pick up sounds tons better. Well, hope that there'll be a guitar somewhere around when i'm at school - and think when i get home i'll eventually go guitar shopping =)...
Here’s one thought that has been swimming in my mind as of late – since i’ll be in the States all the way till early January, i am theoretically able to attend Urbana, something that i had always thought about but also always put on the backburner. But after having a taste of what IVCF is like over here through Mark’s contacts, i’ve moved it over to the frontburner (if there’s such a thing). Have visited the website and things have looked promising so far. That’s something that i suppose i’ll be praying a lot about and asking around about once i get to school proper – especially since i don’t want to end up there solely for the sake of being there…
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
ho sek ah...
Think that it’s quite ironic that it’s in here of all places that i pick up more Cantonese and eat more Chinese food rather than in Singapore – since the family we stay with is a Chilipino one, with the mother’s side being Cantonese-speaking, I’ve been hearing a lot of Cantonese here, there and everywhere. And drawing on my limited skills at picking up similarities between Cantonese and Mandarin, i’ve managed to understand maybe 30% of what is going on, particularly if the conversation revolves around food.
Talking about food, basically every lunch and dinner that i’ve eaten so far since i’ve come here has consisted of Asian food of some form or other – quite not what I expected, but ah well, when you stay with an Asian family in a Western place I guess that this is but expected… Particularly, a lot of these meals have consisted of Chinese food – thankfully not that of the corrupted American Chinese variety with stuff like Moo Goo Gai Pan and Chop Suey, but of the somewhat more authentic variety, though you do get a Singapore Fried Noodle or a pink-sauced Sweet and Sour Chicken here and there… I stick to my belief that when in a foreign country (at least for a short term), the last thing that I’d want to eat is food that I can find at hom (and heck even at home I prefer ang moh food), but I suppose since i’m gonna be here for a long time, and once I reach UNC there ain’t exactly gonna be much Asian stuff, no harm in eating some now…
Today for brunch we went to some dim sum place, which proudly proclaimed itself as having won the “Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in America” award. I was initially skeptical about eating there since i normally hate dim sum because of the amount of seafood that goes into many of the varieties, but thankfully by now my host family has familiarized themselves with my eating preferences, and asked for stuff that mo har (or something that sounds like that – no shrimp) so I was quite content with what I ended up eating. And nethinks that by and large the restaurant lived up to its billing…
It was only yesterday that I put two and two together and realized that guo tie actually means pot stickers. i always had thought that pot stickers were some tacky American Chinese concoction until when i had it at lunch yesterday and was informed that it’s the same thing as guo tie… You learn something new everyday – and once again, how ironic that i learn about Chinese food in America…
As I’ve mentioned before though, the thing that I am a little worried about food wise is the lack of chilli. The main chilli sauce available here is either of the akin-to-sinsin-garlic-chilli-sauce variety or the crushed-dried-chillies-with-tau-cheo-and-swimming-in-oil variety. Neither really meets my preference, but I’m not complaining – at least there’s something. Now what I really liked was when we bought some green Serrano chillies from the supermarket and pickled them, those were nice and hot – but too raw – but it will make do… On the other hand, however, I have no intention of bringing over a giant bottle of chilli and smothering whatever I eat with it – I clearly remember when my family was touring Europe when I was in p2, and the only other Singaporean family in the multi-national tour group (who *slaps forehead* also happened to be the Tay family) brought along this bottle of sambal belachan, which they proceeded to eat along with whatever European food we were eating – now that was embarrassing…
Hmm i can’t believe i was as hedonistic as to make this entire post about food =p
Just for the sake of making this post not entirely on food, i am starting to get worried that I will not have enough luggage space when I get back – cos I’ve realised that i’ve seriously packed too much stuff as it is, and though there’s still room in my bags, by the time I’ve accumulated a semester’s worth of purchases and what nots things may never be the same again… At least Mark could tompang things with my parents but i don’t share the same luxury (though i’ll ask my mother to bring back unneeded stuff that I packed) – so here’s a shout out to any Singaporean who’s reading this to feel free to visit me in the US come December/January, and while you’re at it help me carry stuff back, I’ll look forward to both parts equally =p
Oh and happy National Day! Honestly, I’m very happy to miss all the rahrah stuff but that’s another story…
Talking about food, basically every lunch and dinner that i’ve eaten so far since i’ve come here has consisted of Asian food of some form or other – quite not what I expected, but ah well, when you stay with an Asian family in a Western place I guess that this is but expected… Particularly, a lot of these meals have consisted of Chinese food – thankfully not that of the corrupted American Chinese variety with stuff like Moo Goo Gai Pan and Chop Suey, but of the somewhat more authentic variety, though you do get a Singapore Fried Noodle or a pink-sauced Sweet and Sour Chicken here and there… I stick to my belief that when in a foreign country (at least for a short term), the last thing that I’d want to eat is food that I can find at hom (and heck even at home I prefer ang moh food), but I suppose since i’m gonna be here for a long time, and once I reach UNC there ain’t exactly gonna be much Asian stuff, no harm in eating some now…
Today for brunch we went to some dim sum place, which proudly proclaimed itself as having won the “Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in America” award. I was initially skeptical about eating there since i normally hate dim sum because of the amount of seafood that goes into many of the varieties, but thankfully by now my host family has familiarized themselves with my eating preferences, and asked for stuff that mo har (or something that sounds like that – no shrimp) so I was quite content with what I ended up eating. And nethinks that by and large the restaurant lived up to its billing…
It was only yesterday that I put two and two together and realized that guo tie actually means pot stickers. i always had thought that pot stickers were some tacky American Chinese concoction until when i had it at lunch yesterday and was informed that it’s the same thing as guo tie… You learn something new everyday – and once again, how ironic that i learn about Chinese food in America…
As I’ve mentioned before though, the thing that I am a little worried about food wise is the lack of chilli. The main chilli sauce available here is either of the akin-to-sinsin-garlic-chilli-sauce variety or the crushed-dried-chillies-with-tau-cheo-and-swimming-in-oil variety. Neither really meets my preference, but I’m not complaining – at least there’s something. Now what I really liked was when we bought some green Serrano chillies from the supermarket and pickled them, those were nice and hot – but too raw – but it will make do… On the other hand, however, I have no intention of bringing over a giant bottle of chilli and smothering whatever I eat with it – I clearly remember when my family was touring Europe when I was in p2, and the only other Singaporean family in the multi-national tour group (who *slaps forehead* also happened to be the Tay family) brought along this bottle of sambal belachan, which they proceeded to eat along with whatever European food we were eating – now that was embarrassing…
Hmm i can’t believe i was as hedonistic as to make this entire post about food =p
Just for the sake of making this post not entirely on food, i am starting to get worried that I will not have enough luggage space when I get back – cos I’ve realised that i’ve seriously packed too much stuff as it is, and though there’s still room in my bags, by the time I’ve accumulated a semester’s worth of purchases and what nots things may never be the same again… At least Mark could tompang things with my parents but i don’t share the same luxury (though i’ll ask my mother to bring back unneeded stuff that I packed) – so here’s a shout out to any Singaporean who’s reading this to feel free to visit me in the US come December/January, and while you’re at it help me carry stuff back, I’ll look forward to both parts equally =p
Oh and happy National Day! Honestly, I’m very happy to miss all the rahrah stuff but that’s another story…
Monday, August 07, 2006
I ramble on...
It’s a sleepy Sunday afternoon here now, and after two and a half days I finally have the opportunity to recollect what has been happening – cos things have practically been zooming by so fast…
Friday morning we went blueberry picking – there’s this place just five minutes’ drive from where I’m staying where you can pick your own blueberries for around US$0.95 a pound. So I suppose you could therefore say that we had a blueberry morning of sorts haha – except that this time these were fresh-off-the-bush blueberries rather than the dehydrated and shrunk variety found in the box of post cereal. It was great fun – and at least it felt more legal than the previous day when we just happily picked raspberries growing off an abandoned lot. And have I mentioned that these wild berries literally are everywhere? Almost any abandoned fence or roadside that you chance upon will have a cluster of berry bushes growing there. Apple trees are another common sight – and there are so many of them, and so much fruit on them, that you can see trees full of fruit with the ground below them similarly carpeted with fallen and unwanted apples…
Oh but as usual I digress, basically it appears that Oregon in general is a very fruitful state – over at the farm there was such an abundance of berries – with clumsy picking meaning that hundreds of them littered the ground below as well. The whole experience was definitely something off the beaten track methinks – and at the end of the day something tells me that by the time I leave Oregon I won’t want to eat another blueberry for a very long time coming… My blueberry morning will become blueberry mourning =p
Friday morning we went blueberry picking – there’s this place just five minutes’ drive from where I’m staying where you can pick your own blueberries for around US$0.95 a pound. So I suppose you could therefore say that we had a blueberry morning of sorts haha – except that this time these were fresh-off-the-bush blueberries rather than the dehydrated and shrunk variety found in the box of post cereal. It was great fun – and at least it felt more legal than the previous day when we just happily picked raspberries growing off an abandoned lot. And have I mentioned that these wild berries literally are everywhere? Almost any abandoned fence or roadside that you chance upon will have a cluster of berry bushes growing there. Apple trees are another common sight – and there are so many of them, and so much fruit on them, that you can see trees full of fruit with the ground below them similarly carpeted with fallen and unwanted apples…
Oh but as usual I digress, basically it appears that Oregon in general is a very fruitful state – over at the farm there was such an abundance of berries – with clumsy picking meaning that hundreds of them littered the ground below as well. The whole experience was definitely something off the beaten track methinks – and at the end of the day something tells me that by the time I leave Oregon I won’t want to eat another blueberry for a very long time coming… My blueberry morning will become blueberry mourning =p
And there's tons more where that came from...
In the afternoon Mark (who looks vastly different from the last time we all saw him) drove down to the house from Eugene – was great to see him after so long – and I always think that it’s so cool when two people from place A somehow cross paths in place B halfway across the world. He’s now officially my biggest single supplier of winter clothing, which makes things that much less ma fan for me =) Hmm I really dunno how I’ll take to the cold when it comes though – I love cold weather but for a prolonged period of time I’m not sure – but at least I know now that I won’t be suffering from hypothermia…
But I digress again – anyway, he took me around Portland crashing a birthday party of a friend’s friend (or in my case a friend’s friend’s friend), driving around Reed College and visiting some church/cell thingy – it was great to catch up and get a better idea from him of what my time in UNC may be like ministry wise at least. After that we watched Talladega Nights in town with some of his friends and some of their friends – but not before some car trouble which I shall get back to later – anyway it’s a Will Ferrell movie about Nascar – with some laughs but generally too crude for my tastes – the scene where he said grace was a big turn-off for me – and I am saying so much about it because I figure it won’t be shown in Singapore due to the heavy American references (how many people in Singapore know about Nascar anyway?) so I guess I can spoil it somewhat for you…
The car trouble was quite freaky – but anyway to cut a long story short I ended up having to spend the night in his friend’s house (I only first met her that very afternoon – but she was very hospitable thankfully) and in the morning we went to rectify the problem which turned out to be spark plug trouble – and suddenly all my memories of boat maintenance came flooding back too me about twelve hours too late… God was very gracious in seeing us through the whole thing =)
Matthew, Mark and our friend (neither Luke nor John)(i am not sure how to spell her name so i shall refrain from doing so)
Somewhat abruptly, I was soon whisked off to Seattle, WA with the folks and the people we’re staying with. Was quite looking forward to going there initially (have been there before, but it was only a short transit at the airport) – I had visions of sipping a coffee under the cool shade of the Space Needle while using the café computer with a Microsoft operating system, watching Boeing planes zip across the sky, and imagining a scene of Frasier happening right in front of me. Instead I was stuck with close to 90°F (32°C) weather under an intense sun shying away from the numerous fresh seafood stalls in the Pike Place Market (i was especially grossed out by a stack of giant dismembered crab legs as long as some people are tall). Was basically like San Francisco only hotter and sunnier… Oh well, at least I can say been there, done that =)
The best shot i could get of the Space Needle
- there's one with me in it but my face is all black
- there's one with me in it but my face is all black
This morning I went to the church with our host family – my first church experience in the States for a long time now – took some getting used to (my father had a lot of comments =p) but all in all a very interesting experience for me – at least after meeting some IV people with Mark and church today I have a better idea of what things may be like for the next few months…
Just now we stopped by an Asian supermarket – was confronted by strange things like pigs’ organs laid out in the meat display looking like a Jack the Ripper murder scene and frozen whole durians and rambutans – the latter looked particularly gross – they were a uniform dirty brown colour and all suffered a very bad hair day…
So that’s in a nutshell how things have been going so far – overall I’m glad for the whole experience – so many new things, and meeting up with Mark was great too – at the same time issues to work through have already developed exponentially since I’ve arrived – that’s like only four days - and think that I’ll have quite a bit to deal with throughout the rest of my time in the States – to elaborate would take too long – but suffice to say it’s gonna be a bumpy yet positively eventful road ahead – maybe like a funky rollercoaster ride…
Oh and btw, now that my baggage and hence my mic is back - i should be able to use all of skype's functions now - so no more of that shouting into the plug socket business =p
"Seven" lists of highly boliao people
7 RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME
1. I topped my p5 class in maths (and look where that’s gotten me =p)
2. I can touch my left wrist with my left thumb.
3. My stomach suffers from jet lag (as evidenced by my eating loads of breakfast for the first two days after I got here).
4. I’m a Chilipino.
5. Even merely seeing seafood makes me feel sick (as evidenced when I watched Pirates 2)…
6. I can cycle both in a straight line and around bends without holding the handlebar.
7. I can drive an outboard motor-mounted boat.
7 THINGS THAT SCARE ME
1. Having one or both of my eyes gouged out.
2. Persecution especially of the painful variety (including the eyes thingy…)
3. Being in crowded elevators (crowdoclaustroliftophobia)
4. Swimming in the open sea (cos I’ve nearly drowned before doing that)
5. Being called up for reservist
6. Being forced to eat prawns/squid/crabs etc...
7. Teaching (depending on who are the students)
7 RANDOM THOUGHTS AT THE MOMENT
1. United Airlines had better deliver my bag soon… (update - they just did =)
2. The weather here is cool (in all senses of the word)
3. Hmm how to survive without chilli for five months ah?
4. All my thoughts so far have to do with my travels
5. I’d better randomly think of some non-travel-related thoughts…
6. Why can’t I think of any weird things about me?
7. Seven’s my favourite number you know…
7 THINGS I SAY THE MOST
1. The ‘pok’ sound with the lips (a.k.a. central library mating call)
2. Donch know
3. What (the purpose of which should be clear to many of you)
4. Jialat (ditto – hmm but now that I’m here I suppose I won’t be saying these two much until I get back)
5. Even (apparently that’s a very common word I use during prayer)
6. Must exercise/can’t eat so much, am getting fat.
7. (Following protests from self-conscious girls) Ok, ok, fat-TER, fat-TER…
7 PEOPLE TO DO THIS
Hmmm… Donch know leh…
7 WEIRD THINGS ABOUT ME
1. I almost always eat the veggies first and leave the meat for last, the theory behind it being to save the best for last…
2. I can be very sociable for a while, but then the slightest provocation can turn me into a total recluse.
3. When I’m in the car when people reverse/parallel park, I’ll turn the steering wheel in my head and get it right most of the time (hopefully that bodes well for the future)
4. I do a cheesy grin at the ATM security camera every time I withdraw money.
5. I can sing dozens of Chinese songs almost word-for-word without having the slightest clue as to what they mean.
6. Bathrooms with big expansive mirrors make me uncomfortable (especially if I’m bathing in them)
7. I used to think that cockroaches were the cutest things…
1. I topped my p5 class in maths (and look where that’s gotten me =p)
2. I can touch my left wrist with my left thumb.
3. My stomach suffers from jet lag (as evidenced by my eating loads of breakfast for the first two days after I got here).
4. I’m a Chilipino.
5. Even merely seeing seafood makes me feel sick (as evidenced when I watched Pirates 2)…
6. I can cycle both in a straight line and around bends without holding the handlebar.
7. I can drive an outboard motor-mounted boat.
7 THINGS THAT SCARE ME
1. Having one or both of my eyes gouged out.
2. Persecution especially of the painful variety (including the eyes thingy…)
3. Being in crowded elevators (crowdoclaustroliftophobia)
4. Swimming in the open sea (cos I’ve nearly drowned before doing that)
5. Being called up for reservist
6. Being forced to eat prawns/squid/crabs etc...
7. Teaching (depending on who are the students)
7 RANDOM THOUGHTS AT THE MOMENT
1. United Airlines had better deliver my bag soon… (update - they just did =)
2. The weather here is cool (in all senses of the word)
3. Hmm how to survive without chilli for five months ah?
4. All my thoughts so far have to do with my travels
5. I’d better randomly think of some non-travel-related thoughts…
6. Why can’t I think of any weird things about me?
7. Seven’s my favourite number you know…
7 THINGS I SAY THE MOST
1. The ‘pok’ sound with the lips (a.k.a. central library mating call)
2. Donch know
3. What (the purpose of which should be clear to many of you)
4. Jialat (ditto – hmm but now that I’m here I suppose I won’t be saying these two much until I get back)
5. Even (apparently that’s a very common word I use during prayer)
6. Must exercise/can’t eat so much, am getting fat.
7. (Following protests from self-conscious girls) Ok, ok, fat-TER, fat-TER…
7 PEOPLE TO DO THIS
Hmmm… Donch know leh…
7 WEIRD THINGS ABOUT ME
1. I almost always eat the veggies first and leave the meat for last, the theory behind it being to save the best for last…
2. I can be very sociable for a while, but then the slightest provocation can turn me into a total recluse.
3. When I’m in the car when people reverse/parallel park, I’ll turn the steering wheel in my head and get it right most of the time (hopefully that bodes well for the future)
4. I do a cheesy grin at the ATM security camera every time I withdraw money.
5. I can sing dozens of Chinese songs almost word-for-word without having the slightest clue as to what they mean.
6. Bathrooms with big expansive mirrors make me uncomfortable (especially if I’m bathing in them)
7. I used to think that cockroaches were the cutest things…
Friday, August 04, 2006
(Before you get a heart attack, just to let you know that) i have msn
Okay now that i have a little more time on my hands, here's more on what's happened since i've arrived here...
I've been meaning to upload more photos here just to let you all get a better picture of what's been going on with me, but unfortunately my temporary internet connection (to be elaborated upon shortly) is of too low a quality to make the uploading of any more than one photo (the group shot at the airport) possible - maybe once i move to Fresno then...
And why do i have this lousy connection and how did i get it? Well basically the house that i'm staying in now in Gresham, OR (that of some old family friends) does not have internet access by means of either wireless or lan, the only two means i was familiar with up till yesterday to connect my laptop to the internet. So after some testing of the system here and there, i managed to, using the phone line, get a connection through msn, the downside being that i had to give them my card number, although theoratically i am supposed to be on a free three-month trial period, one that i hope to end in a week's time when i move to Fresno. I am still supposed to foot the bill of dial-up charges, which hopefully do not amount too much, or else when my father opens my bill next month he'll get a big shock indeed...
The other downside is that, perhaps to the cheers of many of you who are reading this now, i technically have msn now, and even as i type this annoying little windows keep on popping up on my bottom right-hand corner informing me that so and so has just come online. The strange thing is that almost all of these people are totally unknown to me (a good indicator of that is when their names appear solely in chinese script) - in fact, looking through my contacts list, i can only recognise a handful of people from VCF, probably people who assumed that i had msn and just added my email address to their contacts. Of course, however, i intend to rid myself once and for all from this once u change to a better internet connection next week, and i changed my status to permanently offline till that moment... Sorry folks, if you want to contact me it'll have to be through email, this blog, snail mail or skype (which already is a big step for yours truly)
And speaking of skype, i just got my first call a short while ago from Mark. Unfortunately, i now happen to be without the services of the mic that i rescued from earlier oblivion, as the dear folks at United Airlines happily went and left one of my baggages behind in San Francisco while my famiy, my other bags and myself arrived safely in Portland yesterday, this baggage being the one containing my mic. So the call just now consisted of me hearing his voice and me trying desperately and in vain (and come to think of it, rather stupidly) attempting to shout replies into the socket of my laptop where my mic is supposed to be plugged into. By God's grace, the stray piece of baggage only contains the rest of my collection of footwear, along with some tech gadgets like the mic, as well as an extra bag, so i haven't had to go around wearing the same set of clothes as yesterday or any of that nonsense. The airline promised the bag would get to me this morning, a promise that it obviously did not keep - well actually i have no problem with the delay, since i am informed that not only will the airline give me compensation $, but so will my travel insurance harhar...
One note of interest regarding today: After dinner we spotted a hedge of raspberry bushes along a fence next to an abandoned lot - so we went to pick the fruit - lots of them - enough to prompt the spontaneous decision to make a raspberry cheesecake just now (of course, my contribution did not go beyond plucking a handful of fruit - wouldn't want to poison anyone...)
Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day - a reunion of sorts =)
I've been meaning to upload more photos here just to let you all get a better picture of what's been going on with me, but unfortunately my temporary internet connection (to be elaborated upon shortly) is of too low a quality to make the uploading of any more than one photo (the group shot at the airport) possible - maybe once i move to Fresno then...
And why do i have this lousy connection and how did i get it? Well basically the house that i'm staying in now in Gresham, OR (that of some old family friends) does not have internet access by means of either wireless or lan, the only two means i was familiar with up till yesterday to connect my laptop to the internet. So after some testing of the system here and there, i managed to, using the phone line, get a connection through msn, the downside being that i had to give them my card number, although theoratically i am supposed to be on a free three-month trial period, one that i hope to end in a week's time when i move to Fresno. I am still supposed to foot the bill of dial-up charges, which hopefully do not amount too much, or else when my father opens my bill next month he'll get a big shock indeed...
The other downside is that, perhaps to the cheers of many of you who are reading this now, i technically have msn now, and even as i type this annoying little windows keep on popping up on my bottom right-hand corner informing me that so and so has just come online. The strange thing is that almost all of these people are totally unknown to me (a good indicator of that is when their names appear solely in chinese script) - in fact, looking through my contacts list, i can only recognise a handful of people from VCF, probably people who assumed that i had msn and just added my email address to their contacts. Of course, however, i intend to rid myself once and for all from this once u change to a better internet connection next week, and i changed my status to permanently offline till that moment... Sorry folks, if you want to contact me it'll have to be through email, this blog, snail mail or skype (which already is a big step for yours truly)
And speaking of skype, i just got my first call a short while ago from Mark. Unfortunately, i now happen to be without the services of the mic that i rescued from earlier oblivion, as the dear folks at United Airlines happily went and left one of my baggages behind in San Francisco while my famiy, my other bags and myself arrived safely in Portland yesterday, this baggage being the one containing my mic. So the call just now consisted of me hearing his voice and me trying desperately and in vain (and come to think of it, rather stupidly) attempting to shout replies into the socket of my laptop where my mic is supposed to be plugged into. By God's grace, the stray piece of baggage only contains the rest of my collection of footwear, along with some tech gadgets like the mic, as well as an extra bag, so i haven't had to go around wearing the same set of clothes as yesterday or any of that nonsense. The airline promised the bag would get to me this morning, a promise that it obviously did not keep - well actually i have no problem with the delay, since i am informed that not only will the airline give me compensation $, but so will my travel insurance harhar...
One note of interest regarding today: After dinner we spotted a hedge of raspberry bushes along a fence next to an abandoned lot - so we went to pick the fruit - lots of them - enough to prompt the spontaneous decision to make a raspberry cheesecake just now (of course, my contribution did not go beyond plucking a handful of fruit - wouldn't want to poison anyone...)
Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day - a reunion of sorts =)
Thursday, August 03, 2006
In the beautiful country...
Some interesting things to take note of in reflection of the past thirty hours or so...:
My ancestry played a role in my packing behaviour – what do I mean? Well I ended up packing five pairs of footwear altogether – track shoes, formal shoes, everyday shoes, sandals, and – beat this – gore-tex boots, which were bought using my excess credits before I ORD-ed. In fact, one of my two suitcases is practically devoted to them – makes me feel a bit Imelda Marcosesque – and hence in touch with my Filipino side. Then of course, the amount of overpacking i have done with me being equipped with well more than the sufficient quantities of several items, according to several reliable sources attests well to the Peranakan habit of hoarding as observed in several of them...
As usual, after the fond farewells with my sending-off party [by the way, thanks you all - i really appreciate your sacrifice of a good sleep to see me off - i realised that i must be quite an important fella since almost half of the exco came to send me off haha (kidding!)], and as a result, my parents and i ended up as one of the last few people to board the plane – they were paging for passengers Tay again =p
The sending-off party - thanks you folks =)...At Narita everything is sooo expensive – for internet access it’s either 100 Yen for 10 minutes on one of the computers provided or 500 Yen for those who want to access the wireless – needless to say what i am typing now at Narita in fact is cut and pasted from the document that i was actually typing there - which was on MS word… Before we boarded the plane my mother decided to buy some sushi - ‘Narita Roll’ they call it (¥1365) – not bad actually, save for the fact that there was ebi in it – but I was hungry enough to eat the half of the sushi that did not include the ebi – bad decision – ended up feeling quite sick in the stomach after that, all the way till after takeoff, and even had white thingies clouding my vision for a while… yuck so much for that...
The poisonous narita roll
My first meal in the US - first of dozens to come i predictand tons better than the narita roll
I love the weather here =)
I am pretty pleased with myself for being able to create an internet connection for my laptop at the family friend's house whom i am currently staying in - the house is otherwise devoid of a connection (but i have to find a way to make sure that my card isn't charged for it once the so-called free trial period ends at the end of three months hmmm...)
My host's granny, who also stays in the same house, somehow came to the impression that i understand Cantonese since i sort of followed her request when she asked for siu siu fan when i was dishing out the rice during dinner just now - of course now i'm too paiseh to inform her otherwise during the overwhelming majority of times when i actually more or less catch no ball when she says something in Cantonese, forcing me to do a token nod and smile in agreement whenever such a moment arises instead...
Well anyway, to you (i.e. whoever is reading this), if i had the time, i'd email you individually and say stuff, but unfortunately such time is not at present available to me, so apologies for that - do email me to keep in touch though, and i'll probably feel obliged to respond at some length to you personally (hehe macam like i sooo important harhar) - yupyup but whatever it is, i'll try my best to keep in touch =)
This btw is the plane i took to Portland from San Fran
which came without one of my luggages
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