See-sawing

Got back from Charleston this evening - it was a very good and enjoyable trip, and convenient break for me too. I actually had intended to update this while i was there since the place we were staying at had free wireless (yes, i had to bring my laptop along, ostensibly to do more work again) but there was basically no time for that, so will be extremely choppy about how the whole trip was like (especially since i've more work to do and probably around seven hours of sleep over the past two nights) and end it here. Maybe i'll talk more about it another time, perhaps once i get the pics up over there =======>

Between now and one pm on Tuesday afternoon (i.e. less than 40 hours) when i go with Greg off to Charlotte for Thanksgiving (which i'm really looking forward to) i've quite a bit of work to do, including a whole book to read that i can't take out of the library to write a review on, which means that i've to try and finish reading it before i leave so that i can get cracking with the writing cos its due once school starts again on next Monday... So once again this leaves me with the surreal feeling of being so near to a fun time, yet so far cos plenty of yucky work stands in its way...

Many people reading this may remember my Great Depression (a historical euphemism for another term, biological in nature that i guess everyone knows so it shall remain unwritten) episode of last sem's exam period. Well i've to report that while i've never been close to as severely moody as that since then, i've been rather off on and off quite a bit here, more so in the past month or so. And as usual, i can't seem to pinpoint what's the cause of it - can be perfectly fine one moment and then *snaps fingers* a perfect grouch the next. And of course since i'm typing this you can probably guess that i'm in one of those moods again now.

Well maybe it's because i just came from Compline at the Episcopal church next door, as i do every Sunday night, and as i was just there reflecting upon the week past and talking to God was just reminded of a lot of trash that i'm still dealing with in my life, recently confounded by certain other new developments which are best left unspecified here. Yuppers. As usual though, it's nothing to be alarmed about (have mentioned many times how i always make things with me sound worse than they actually are...), but i guess it's really more annoying than anything else - which has a lot to do with the fact that i feel that so much of this is a result of a "poor me" syndrome that i tend to both consciously and unconsciously harbor very often... But anyways, one consequence of this is that i've no mood whatsoever to celebrate a certain otherwise important event happening this Tuesday, which is just as well that i'll be out of the Hill by one-ish...

But i'm guessing that Thanksgiving will put me on a mood upswing... Let's hope so *crosses fingers and prays*

It's a small world after all

Just a little inconsequential but neat observation:

President Bush just spoke at NUS, and since S'pore is so small, he was probably closer to y'all than i ever was or will be. On the flipside, thinking back on my D.C. trip, when i was there who else but the MM of all people also happened to be there... And i'm also reminded of how when the chemical blast happened near here a couple of weeks ago, i first heard of it from my friend in Philly, and then shortly after i read about it online, later on my mother also asked if i was affected... So along that vein, dunno if y'all heard about the tornado that struck somewhere in NC which klled eight people but anyways just in case y'all did that's three hours away from here, near Wilmington so no sign of anything here...

Off to Charleston, SC tomorrow and am trying somehow to get as much work for the weekend done as possible - to that extent today i read the second halves of two books that i've to read for two different classes. Come to think of it, i think i've read more books for classes here than i even read for English Lit back during A levels - and that was within one-and-a-half years - here it's only four months... But anyways am also trying to squeeze in work for post-Thanksgiving (i.e. one-and-a-half weeks away) now, so have been relatively busy - in any case i'm still amazed that i'm actually doing work so far ahead - see what exchange can do for you hehe...

Proffywoodland

You know the feeling of how when that singer/actor that you've admired for as long as you can remember one day whizzes into town, and wow - somehow you get an invite to an intimate meet-the-fans session - imagine the excitement that you must feel...

Well, i've no idea what that must feel like, but over the weekend i had the next best thing (like real) - attending a day-and-a-half-long academic workshop on Family, Work and Welfare (riveting stuff, that) and coming face-to-face with a lot of the people whose academic writings i've been trudging through over the course of this semester for my most terok of classes - it was kinda like a geek's version of a pre-Oscar party perhaps...

Was thinking back to the other occasions when similar occasions have happened - vaguely remember from acjc when the apparently much-esteemed John Sloman of economics textbook fame (btw i never bought, nor in fact even ever laid hands on his book, as far as i can remember, and i still managed to struggle to a B...) came and gave a talk - not that i went though - at that point in time i was already up to my ears in guns and butter and had no appetite for more... Then last year at nus i even shook hands (ah somebody pinch me!) with the author of one of my primary A level history texts...

But this time was certainly the longest such experience ever. Not that i was interested to get these peoples' autographs or anything like that - i can imagine such a moment now: "hi Dr so-and-so, i've been reading many of your articles, but i cannot make any sense of any of them - they do a good job of overriding the effects of caffeine though!" Yes that would win me much approval wouldn't it...

So somehow i made it through the whole workshop - now, it was still a good experience, cos at least now i'm more familiar with the subject matter (although a great portion of what was discussed flew well over the top of my head - bear in mind that i was one of a handful of undergrads in a sea of grad students and academics), and got some idea as to what exactly these people do. There definitely were some characters around - lots of bohemian, earth mother types with flowing robes and heavy chains. Also, one presenter who talks so fast she almost makes Adrian seem to talk like Snuffleupagus in comparison...

Heh well in other news, i took a quick look at the courses available for next sem and their corresponding timetables and almost wanted to cry - Tues 6-8pm and Fri 4-6pm for example are not exactly my choice times for classes (and they shouldn't be anyone's for that matter), and the courses that do feature far better hours also tend to be courses that i've already done - how neat is that... I know i'll really come to miss the spread out but still very reasonable organization of classes here...

Hey so Bushie 43's going to S'pore again eh? After being put through indescribable (not because it's hard to describe, but cos might get into trouble with the higher-ups if i do) hassle the last time he came cos was still in ns then boy am i glad to be here while he's there...

Thankfully my friend David from IV was kind enough to loan me his beloved guit on a semi-permanent basis so i can now get back to growing those left fingertip calluses again - fun.

I did have something more serious to put here but by the time i had time to write this i forgot what it is - so next time maybe...

Later!

Hasta la vista, Donny =)

Am pretty pleased with myself for being able to finish reading a book (albeit only a brief, 200-pager) in one sitting at the library just now, for recitation on Friday. (Of course according to the schedule i was supposed to finish reading this like three weeks ago hehe...) Trying to get as much work done for the weeks ahead done, because i've a history conference/workshop thingy to attend (it's compulsory, for if not i sure wouldn't go for something that burns practically all my daylight hours on Saturday) this upcoming weekend and will be in Charleston, SC for the following weekend (more on that another time) and then in Charlotte almost immediately after that for Thanksgiving, so in the spirit of xian(1) ku(3) hou(4) tian(2) i'm attempting to be more diligent than i usually am (which is pretty easy to do =p)...

There's been a lot of talk over here regarding the midterm congressional elections which have more or less just wrapped up. I find it highly interesting that here they put in so much effort in mobilizing people to vote (and boy are there a lot of things to vote for - apart from the usual stuff like US House & State Senate/House, there's also County Commissioners, a Sheriff, various court judges etc...) and yet the turnout is at less than 50%, while in S'pore voting is compulsory, but for many people there's nothing to vote for...

Anyways, perhaps in part due to the aforementioned fact, that there's far more action here than there'll ever be back home, i've been watching the races pretty closely. It was such that one guy forgot i was not from here and asked me if i voted (which reminds me, Dan, did YOU vote? haha =p)... But anyways, i shall leave my political views out of this, though the post title might give a clue as to what they are...

It's beginning to hit me as to how my time here is really winding down, in just over five weeks from now the semester here will end, and soon after that i'll be off, back to S'pore again - there's still so much to do here, and so much that i'll miss too... But also much to look forward to back in S'pore i guess...

The circle game

Hmm this is becoming like an eerily-recurring pattern - me posting an entry after close to a week of not being able to do so because of work commitments that seemingly take forever.

Well, the cycle continues, and does the fact that by this stage, yours truly has once again forgotten a lot of what he wanted to say, which means, back to good old random posting again...

The weather's really wonky, i must say, the temperature can jump from below freezing to in the late 70s (think that's early 20-ish celcius wise) within the span of a day - never before have i realized the power that the online hour-by-hour weather forecast could hold over me, and in particular how i dress - berms/jeans? one shirt/two? hoodie/none? - all decisions made on a daily basis with great help from the folks at weather.com =) The thing that's definitely most annoying is stepping in and out of heated buildings when it's really freezing outside - i find it so troublesome to have to keep on putting on and taking off insulative layers of clothing - especially since doing so really messes up my already long and messy hair (when combed down, i kinda look like a Beatle now) - it makes me look as though i'm using - so nowsaday if it's not too cold i'll just eschew the hoodie/sweater altogether to cause less hassle for me...

The other day because of my choir concert in Fayetteville (about two hours due southish from the hill), i had to figure out how to wear the $100 tux that i bought about a week or two ago, including all the attachments like those tiny button thingies that you use instead of normal shirt buttons (i forget the name), and the matching cufflinks, which i was really absolutely clueless as to how to fix on (and in fact still have only a token clue as to how to fix on even now)... Well, tomorrow (or technically, today) marks the second and last performance that i have - that means probably the last time i'll be wearing the tux for a long time to come probably - so i suppose i'd better learn how to put all the stuff properly, to get my full money's worth from the tux... (and for all that effort and expense, i end up looking like a waiter at the Ritz-Carlton...)

I just ate another Sutton's burger today and have come to the conclusion that it's probably the best burger i've ever eaten so far in my life - Sida, your recommendation is much appreciated =)

I've also recently become a fan of eating dogs. No, of course not real dogs, nor hotdogs. I'm talking about these babies *yum* =p

Yeah, judging from the amout of greasy, cholesterol, trans-fat-laden, but oh-so-delicious food that i'm eating here, which can't be obtained back home, i'll definitely be losing weight once i get back to good old S'pore...

Have more or less finalized end-of-year travel plans -that's definitely very exciting - though perhaps my excitement and enthusiasm will dim somewhat once i take a look at my credit card bills...

frustrated on facebook

Ok, this is to clear up the thingy about pictures - apparently the latest development in facebook's policy is to only allow registered users to view pictures - which means that the link there =======> will no longer take you to my pics unless you register first. I expect several facebook users all over America to start a protest group against this soon, but maybe not, since practically everyone here is on facebook anyways...

So yup as i said in the tag, the only solution that i can offer anyone who's really ons about viewing my pictures is to get a facebook account - which is no big deal really - you can use your nus email (assuming you have one) or any other email address - the bonus of doing that, if you can call it that, is that you can also leave your comments on the pictures, and (boy do i sound shallow here) we can be facebook friends too *woo*...

Yup i've also no intention to import all my hundreds and hundreds of pics to another site cos the sheer effort of doing that far outstrips the mere minutes it takes to get a facebook account...

Or if you're dead-set against registering, the last-ditch solution i can offer you is to find someone who has an existing facebook account and tompang on his/her account to view the pics - maybe everyone can gather together and view the pics at one shot, i dunno... However, there's only one person i know whom most of you people reading this know who has a facebook account and who's in S'pore, and think that it would be really inconvenient and inconveniencing too...

Yeah and i'm also too lazy to upload pics here, anyway, it's limited and takes much more time...

Know that it's just horrible that we've to be so beholdent to technology, yup but that's the best i can do - paiseh...

Harrowing Halloween

Well, not wanting to be totally ignorant of what i have been critiquing i decided to join a few of the others and take a look at the revelry down on Franklin Street. Anyways we had just finished having Bible Study at my hall lounge which is right on Franklin so it was no problem to go down there...

Already, during the Bible study itself, Jim, one of the IV staff was talking about some of his own reservations about the holiday which made a lot of sense to me and helped to put things in a better perspective from a Christian point of view. Then, when i saw for myself how things were like on Franklin a lot of my existing preconceived negative notions of what the holiday is all about were basically confirmed when i saw them upfront. Maybe people might attribute it to an Asian and/or Christian point of view, but whatever it is i was disturbed to say the least - a certain disquiet that is still with me even now - a couple of hours later. Hard to put this in words, but basically i just felt that there was just nothing of real purpose going on at all - i guess that for me as a Christian why i'd not want to get involved, apart from all that i've mentioned so far, is that there's no way in which God is glorified in the whole process by anyone participating in it - yeah it may be pure harmless fun to some if one is discerning enough in the activities that one chooses to engage oneself in (and after all, what's the harm in a little participation in a bona fide American institution?), and i totally respect that view, but yeah (and this is strictly my personal opinion here) this time could otherwise be spent in a way that does bring glory to God, for example like the "trick or feed" canned food drive that the IV social justice team helped to organize and that i now wish i'd gone for, or other stuff like that...

Yeah anyways, i suppose that one gets a somewhat prudish impression of me from reading this, but definitely better appearing to be a total prude than doing stuff that i'm not comfortable with in terms of my own walk with God... One thing that i hope that people don't perceive is a self-righteous air about me cos i guess that i may have rubbed some people the wrong way in my unease and discomfort - what i've been struggling with is how to let my own views regarding the holiday known to people if they're interested in it in a way that does not offend or attack...

Yeah well anyways, in other news while i was clearing some risers off the stage after choir rehearsal today one of them that was leaning against the wall came crashing down on me - landing with a bang on my left shoulder - it wasn't really painful or anything, though it took like another half-minute before someone came to my rescue and got that burden off my shoulder - but well it could've been worse - had i been a foot or so more to the left the riser would've crashed right on my head... Anyways, now the area's pretty red though also relatively painless, and the constant compulsive pressing down of my fingers onto the area has led me to conclude that there's not a fracture anywhere, but i guess that the litmus test will be how painful the thingy is tomorrow...

A Tricky Treat

It's definitely an understatement for me to say that i'm feeling rather uneasy right now.

A good kind of unease though - unease at seemingly having little, if any schoolwork to get done at this point in time.

Usually monday evenings at this time are marked by my frantic scrambling (ok i paint a way to hardworking picture of myself there but you get my drift) to get work done in the library, where i usually stay till at least past midnight.

But today, i'm happily seated here in my room typing this at my own leisure, and am probably gonna have an early night as well...

Well, the past few days have been a good time of self-reflection for me, in large part i guess thanks to the lesser-than-average amount of work that i had to do over the weekend - was able to spend time meeting with and talking to people, talking to God, being still, that sorta thing - so the past weekend was definitely one of the most refreshing for me so far - and at least in terms of spiritual refreshment far better than the two previous and otherwise refreshing weekends that i spent out of town. Next week promises to be good too methinks, since many others will either be out of town camping near Boone or going for IV Chapter retreat, while i'll not be able to go for either cos i've a choir concert on Friday night at Fayetteville and so i won't be around the hill on Friday afternoon, which is when both trips leave... While i'd really love to go for either trip (definitely more so than having to perform), at least things will be quieter around here over the rest of the weekend while so many people are gone - which i'm sure could go a long way...

Also managed to get a good long run on Sunday morning - the first in many weeks - and the weather was nice and cool too - that was nice - when i get back to S'pore the first run i go for will definitely be a very painful and dehydrating affair when compared to this - here i feel like i could carry on running for hours on end...

One thing that's been on my mind quite a bit is Halloween. It's a really big thingy here (Franklin Street, where my hall is on, closes every Halloween night for festivities - apparently between 50000 to 70000 people from all over the state will descend upon the hill, and Franklin Street in particular, and party the night away) but i'm far from big about it - apart from the more typically matt reason that i'm too lazy to bother to dress up as anything apart from a study abroad student at UNC from S'pore (i.e. as myself), there's also my own reservations that i have regarding the dubious origins and the poor basis (in my opinion) for celebrating such a holiday in the first place - especially with the roots in paganism and all that (this probably an inheritance from my father). Yeah as much as the holiday can be rationalized in such a way that there really is no issue with Christians celebrating it (and don't get me wrong - personally i see no problem in this rationalization), but on a personal level it just doesn't sit well with me... Yeah really appreciate the advice that some of y'all have given me regarding this - one the one hand i feel like i'm making a mountain out of a molehill but on the other, don't think that i can just brush aside the whole issue like that...

Well, whatever it is, one thing is clear to me - whatever candy comes my way this Halloween will definitely be welcome with open mouth...

Groundhog Hour

I was sorta bummed about the fact that i've yet to finish my work yet (though i'm getting close!) and then i got an IM from Brooke, my ride to church tomorrow reminding me that daylight saving time expires about two hours from now, which basically means that i've an extra hour of sleep tonight and less worries about waking up early enough tomorrow to avoid a rush of activity...

Now to wait for the cheap thrill of setting my watch back an hour and auto-repeat one hour of my life...

One tiny thing though is that i'm no longer exactly twelve hours behind S'pore which means that calculating timing is now gonna be a little tricky, with my bad math and all...

So for the tentatively scheduled skype teleconference that i have with you guys who know who you are, do remind me again when exactly we're supposed to be online (and preferably subtract thirteen hours from your time and let me know when's that) cos chances are left to my own devices i may screw something up...

It's not for a few days yet, but i saw some pretty interesting Halloween costumes on Franklin Street today - one really smart one that i saw was two ladies dressed entirely in white with a big yellow circle on each of their tops, and carrying red pitchforks, and also adorned with pointed ears and a long pointy tail - both red as well. They were Deviled Eggs - that really cracked me up - pun fully intended =p...

Surprise surprise, we lost football again... Sigh...

rumble rumble rumble...

Yeah well this week has gone by just like that *insert sound of snapping fingers here* - it's hard to believe that just a week ago i was on fall break hundreds of miles away and now the first Saturday i've spent on the Hill in like three weeks has nearly arrived...

I've definitely to give thanks for midterms - as in the process of doing them and the results, not the midterms per se - had two over the past week, they were not like done super well, and in fact i don't think that i'll do too well for either of them, but i guess considering my haphazard way of preparing for them i think that they turned out ok... Also have gotten back the results of the two other midterms that i was stressing over in the few days of school left before leaving for Chicago - definitely a very humbling result for one of them - though i didn't read as much of the required readings as i was supposed to, and to an extent methinks was really just winging it, managed to get a good grade; and for the other one, well it was divided into three parts and i got a C- for one of them (my first grade that low in my living memory - well - if you don't count Chinese haha), but got a B and an A for the other two parts so thankfully it was averaged out to a B, which is enough for me... The whole pass/fail thingy also has made me decide to not do the optional paper for the course which would give me extra credit - cos that seriously would take up way too much more time than i'm willing to give...

For choir things are getting somewhat better too - some might know that i've not had the ball of a time that i thought i'd have in choir here so far, but well, to cut a long story short, i'm definitely enjoying it much more now, with the songs continually running through my head, so that's good i suppose. Two grouses that i have though: one of the concerts that we have is on the night of the midterm congressional elections here, and especially as i'm doing a course on intro to American government here - i've gotten quite excited about it and wanted to be in front of the telly to get the latest results live - much like what i did for the eventual anti-climax that was the S'pore general elections this May. The other is that i had to fork out nearly US$100 on a full tux for concert gear, though i suppose should i ever get to attend some swanky function in the future that might come in quite handy...

And this weekend's really good - think that this is the first possible week so far when i may be able to complete all my work before Sunday - so am definitely looking forward to that - with the amount of junk i've been eating here recently, i think i'll try to run and/or swim then - still want to experience the novelty/cheap thrill (depending on how you look at it) of swimming in an indoor heated pool...

Aw shucks am feeling hungry again...

Brain freeze on the floor

My incredibly toot self was in its full element today - i thought that missing getting on the train to Wisconsin even though it practically pulled up at my feet was bad enough, but then this morning when i got to the library i realized that i had left my stationery in my room. I was highly annoyed with myself, so i decided to venture back out into the 40-degree weather (for conversion to celcius just subtract 32 and divide by 9 and multiply by 5) back to the room (albeit only less than five minutes away) to get the stuff. I got back to the room and even saw my pencil case on the desk. But somehow, i left the room again without taking my pencil case, again only realizing it upon reaching school again. Decided to just buy a pen from the student store instead - good thing they carry Pilot G-2s since that's the only type i use...

Yuppers, well after the fall break, it's officially back to school again - of course i still contend that the break was too short, but well, i shouldn't complain... At least i'm less occupied than i was last week at this time - only have TWO midterms for this week, as opposed to three heh...

I'm really digging the cold weather - which apparently is unseasonably cold for this time of year - though my contention that snow seems to be averse to falling wherever i am has only grown stronger since coming back from Chicago. Already, the only time i've experienced snowfall (as i think many of you can attest to me lamenting over) was in 1999 in Niagara Falls, NY; though it was only flurries, and for so brief a duration that it merely looked that a slurpee machine had gone bezerk and covered the sidewalk with a thin white coating of slush. This time, there was some snowfall in Chicago in the week before i got there, and it was forecasted again for Sunday, which is when i flew off. But of course, it was forecasted for Sunday afternoon/evening, while i flew off around noon time... Then again, if there was a snowstorm i'd probably be complaining about the freezing temperature - guess i'm not one to be easily satisfied. In any case, i'm sure some snow is bound to fall somewhere where i am before i fly back...

Will get down to posting rest of pics from D.C. and those from Chicago very shortly, so just watch that space =======>

FYI, have also finally gotten down to replacing the wonky tagboard with a new one...

"Hello Wisconsin!"? Nah...

Ok i know that this is like totally random but this had totally slipped my mind earlier and methinks that it bears mentioning: last Monday during my American govt lecture was the first time ever in my living memory that i fell asleep during class - i had little sleep and little rest over the long weekend that i had in D.C., and had tons of work to do overnight between the Sunday when i got back on the hill and the Monday when i had a midterm to do and other stuffies as well - so by the time that i had to go for my 10am lecture, i was contemplating whether to grab a cuppa - but i eventually decided against it - bad choice since i was nodding off towards the end - i must have been really overworked i guess (though i wouldn't count out that the prof was explaining something by means of using one of those math function thingies that i vaguely remember learning about in maths C in J1 before i came to my senses and finally dropped the @#$% subject for good...)

The next day managed to get some relaxation by going for an NBA pre-season game, held coveniently at the Dean Dome right on campus - think it was billed as a homecoming of sorts since some players on both sides (Bobcats v. Wizards) were on the UNC team at one point in time or other... Anyhoos, it was really fun to watch, more fun methinks than football, probably cos at least i can better understand what goes on during a basketball game... For the record the Bobcats lost 84 to 100.

In the end i didn't go to Wisconsin cos the train scheduling was extremely unfavorable - and there was (and is) still much to do in Chicago itself... Did go south to Gary, Indiana though - again just for the fun of it - another very eye-opener of a place i must say... Anyways after the end of my three full days here i'm already compiling a list of what i want to see, which i missed out the last time; on my next visit here, whenever that may be, if ever...

By the way, it's a little worrying that my laptop is beginning to mimic the sound of a small propeller plane taking off from the runway from time to time...

Blow wind blow...

Realized that i haven't really reflected much upon the Washington D.C. trip and now there's another trip to talk about, but anyhoos...

Well, Chicago so far has not disappointed - there's really so much to see here, the three full days i have here hardly begin to do the city justice - today i had to navigate my way around the city by myself using the train and i didn't get lost and managed to find my way around pretty good.

Of course there were the little blurness-caused hiccups here and there. Dan, originally i was gonna take another train up north to visit your home state (have been catching lots of That 70's Show reruns here so there's been a lot of Wisconsin talk), but when i got on the platform and the corrrect train came, i dunno why but suddenly i the thought occured to me that it was the wrong train, and that the right one would arrive in three minutes, so i didn't get on it, and it was gone in twenty seconds. Of course, the next train to Wisconsin left in three hours, so i changed my plans and decided to go downtown instead.

Was practically walking all the way once i arrived downtown - i must have walked at least ten miles methinks (and now my feet are complaining badly) but at least i saw most of what was on my agenda, and i didn't stumble into some bad neighborhood and get mugged. Chicago is a really nice city (at least the parts i went to are - there are several neighborhoods that i'd never want to step foot in) to visit - and it looks as though tomorrow i'll be wearing my feet out again...

So far of the many pieces of work that i've to do i've only managed to read five pages of one book - go figure...

Pictures to be uploaded there =======> really soon...

Come on babe, we're gonna paint the town...

After two and a half days of intense school stuff once i came back from D.C. i'm off again, this time to the Windy City for fall break...

And once again, accompanying me on my journey is more school stuff, which i can never seem to shale off, for next week...

That being said, i'm really glad for the break whatever the case - even though i'm not quite free from the shackles of school...

One freaky thing is that on the flight back from D.C. on Sunday, i realized that i get a cheap thrill from studying on a plane (hey that's S.O.A.P. - just like Snakes on a Plane!), so i'll probably be doing a bit of that on this trip too...

Yuppers, so that's all from me for now - promise to post the rest of my D.C. pics at the next opportune moment, and to update regarding fall break too, provided i can get online while i'm there...

(And by the way, i've not gotten all looney on ya - the above is the first line of "All That Jazz" from the eponymous musical...)

One, Two, Three

Firstly, i dunno whassup with the tagboard - and i dunno if you're wondering whassup with the tagboard too or you're wondering whassup with me whassup-ing about the tagboard since your view of the tagboard sees no reason to be whassup-ing about it or you just heck care whassup with the tagboard in the first place; but anyways it's a super-peripheral issue at best so i shall leave my whassup-ing at that...

Secondly, the past few days have been very relaxing and enjoyable for me - to spend time with relatives and to see places and just to chill out - i've not actually entered D.C. proper yet up till this time (save for a short and uneventful stint on the metro on the way home from the airport, but that was all underground so i didn't really see anything), but anyways sightseeing wasn't my primary motive in coming here, especially since i've been here before. I have been to the mall (a shopping mall, not the National Mall) however, as well as to Baltimore today to go to the Baltimore National Aquarium (kinky url btw), which was an added bonus; and tomorrow before i fly back to the terrors of school i'll be checking out a Smithsonian or two as well as briefly meeting another cousin of mine who's visiting as well but is only due in tomorrow (Sunday) noontime, mere hours before i leave; so i'm very satisfied as it is...

Thirdly i'm totally bummed about the work and midterms that await me upon my return - i've barely done anything for my twin midterms for the same course on Monday and Wednesday, and my take-home midterm due on Tuesday is still in the stage of initial conceptualization. On top of that, i only remembered once i got here that a written response to two chapters + epilogue of that gripping page-turner of a book on American tax reform is due on Monday morning - and i'm helpless to do any of it cos i don't have the book with me now so i can only start reading the required chapters when i get back to Chapel Hill tomorrow night; and i also stupidly forgot to bring some of the other books/notes that i would need to refer to for the take-home midterm so there's no way i can complete it before i fly back (though realistically speaking, knowing my work ethic there would have been no way i'd complete it even if i had everything with me) Meanwhile though, the joyful refrain of pass/fail is continually ringing on my head, though that's juxtaposed against the melancholy dirge of a consciousness to put in effort no matter what...

So it's really interesting to see how like the next week features its first half being as terok as they come for me, and then the second half (thanks to fall break) will see me probably as relaxed as i'll ever be at least till maybe Tgives comes along... Needless to say i can't wait for that half to come...

No, not the salad place...

Finally am here in Waldorf, MD; in the metropolitan D.C. area. Am staying with one of my Filipino cousins and the family - including their two children, whom technically i am the uncle of, even though they're like 16 and 14 years old... Freaky...

Anyhoos, today was a very fulfilling day, in the sense that two things on my to-do list have finally been struck of, one being (on Sida's behest) to eat a Sutton's burger (which i did for lunch and had no regrets whatsoever about doing - in fact i'll definitely try to find more opportunities to eat there, in spite of the inconvenient hours...), and the other being to take a plane ride by myself (which i did between RDU and here, even though i suppose to get a fuller experience i should also make my own way to and from the airport; which i have no clue as to how to do so).

Additionally, a little bonus came my way in my having an A&W Rootbeer Float - my first this millennium i reckon - while waiting to board the plane at RDU - and since the only A&W that i know of here is in RDU, that provides the perfect value-adding device to any trip taken in and out of there - i shal bear that in mind for next week...

At RDU i stopped at one of the shops to buy some food as gifts, and it so happened that the lady at the cashier was a Filipino - somehow i can often tell who are my kababayan (fellow countrypeople) - and apparently so can she, since she asked me if i was Filipino when i was paying for the stuff. I tried to reply in Tagalog that my mother is Filipino but instead it came out as "nanay mo..." which means "your mother" instead - so i just gave up and conceded that i can't speak the language... Ah well...

It's nice to see my relatives after so long - the last time was 1997 in the Phil - my niece and nephew (gosh is that creepy or what?) look totally different from when i last saw them... Think this weekend will be a very enjoyable one...

The only dampener on the mood (and what experience would be complete without one of those?) is of course the four books and many other notes that i've to consult while i'm here in preperation for my three midterms on three successive days next week. One is a take-home paper with the question only just released - looks like i'll be attempting it while i'm here - while the other two require the reading and reviewing of four books plus lots of notes so naturally i'm choosing to put them out of my mind for as long as possible, though i don't envision this escapist solution as being very beneficial in the long run...

Wish i could be here for another 525600 minutes...

...cos then i'd still be around to watch this:


it's showing here (yes, on campus - the venue, Memorial Hall, is all of three minutes' walk from my room) for two days, and only 25 days (which is in fact only 36000 minutes) after i fly off. Student tickets (which already have been sold out, by the way) cost all of 10 USD, which, if i remember correctly, is probably about less than 20% of what i paid for my ticket when i watched it at the Kallang Theatre (and the venue here on campus is far better, imho)

I'm not gonna pay,
I'm not gonna pay,
I'm not gonna pay,
for next year's Rent...

It suddenly hit me today that relaxation will have to wait when i'm in the D.C. area to visit relatives over this weekend since i've three midterms on three successive days once i get back - kinda like a final fling before fall break... So looks like the books will have to accompany me after all... *bleah*

Breaking the fourth...

Gosh these i-haven't-blogged-for-so-long-so-don't-mind-me-while-i-recall-all-that's-gone-on-since-goodness-knows-when entries seem to be becoming the norm with me...

Well the reason behind this is of course work. This past weekend has been just absolutely packed with readings and written responses to them. And furthermore, unlike how things tend to go back home (where i wholly deserve my plight of desperately seeking to complete my work on Sunday night because i would ignore it all the way up till that point), i actually was, by God's grace, granted the discipline to spread out my workload such that i was already started on today's work last Tuesday, which gave me almost a week's headstart. The sheer volume of the work meant however that i still ended up slaving away till the wee hours of Monday morning (i.e. this morning) finishing up my work. In fact, let me take that back, i even was slaving away on a piece of written work mere minutes before the class where i was supposed to hand it in started - such was the extent of the work that i had... I've never had the whites of my eyes continually bloodshot for so many days in succession before - kinda looked as if i was using... Yup so in case anyone was wondering why i've been relatively quiet as of late - it's cos of work... So if you've not received an email reply or anything like that, rest assured you'll hear from me shortly...

It's gotten a little frustrating cos i've really been trying to observe the Sabbath as much as possible while i'm here, but inevitably although i try hard to get everything done by Saturday the workload is always too great. This past Sunday because i'd woken up extra early (3am) to do work, i was really drained during service, and when i got back, i was confronted with even more work to do...

Anyways, this week's work is by and large behind me, as the whole chunk of it was due today. As a result, i'm already in a bit of a relaxed mood, cos this weekend i'm flying off on a pretty much last-minute trip to the D.C. area to visit my relatives and do whatever sightseeing that i can get done. At least i've been there before so i won't be like in a rush to see everything... And in the process i'll be - *gasp* - skipping classes for the first time ever since i've entered university. But anyways, we're all allowed a quota of 2-3 unused absences (isn't that just like the most wonderful thing? =p), and i've not made use of a single one of them as of yet so i'm not about to feel guilty about it...

And there really is so much stuff to do here, and not enough time to do it. For example this upcoming weekend since i'll be in D.C. i'll have to give the North Carolina State Fair a miss - and with it a chance to see Chris Tomlin live in concert for free, and be reminded of Ade Fam when he sings How Great is our God... And my places-to-visit-while-i'm-still-here list is getting bigger and bigger, rather than having me check off some places week by week...

Heard that the haze has gotten really bad over there... Well, over here, we had some hazardous chemicals plant explode around twenty miles or so due east from here in Apex, which released chlorine gas into the atmosphere and caused almost the entire town of 20000 or so people to be evacuated. It had no effect on us over here though...

A funny thing happened in class today - i was doing a class presentation for some readings when i struggled to find a word to describe a certain lack of organization. To my horror, the only word i could come up with was "luan(4)". So i think i gave the impression that English actually is my second language cos i was like, "hmm i don't know how to say the word in English... oh nevermind..." But then i said "luan(4)" just for good measure and apparently that was funny enough to warrant some laughter from the rest of the class - don't tell me that my Chinese pronunciation sounds funny even to them...

Ade, unfortunately this is the closest you'll get to having a pie sent back from here...

Give and take...

Ok once again i've a backlog of things that i want to talk about over here, thanks to the need to clear work first, so humor (American spelling cos am in America) me here while i go about the process of trying to recall all the stuff...

Well, this was like from two weeks ago, but anyways i saw my first wild deer since coming here - It was when i went running in the nearby woods (believe me it's much less dangerous than it sounds) two Sunday mornings ago and went off the main trail onto some rougher trail up a slope when i heard a lot of rustling, then i turned to my left and said "Oh, deer!" (ok so i didn't say that =p) as i saw the rapidly bobbing away backside of a white tail, either a female or a juvenile methinks (If it was a female then i wonder if when she saw me she went "Doh!" (geddit? =p)... Well, anyways i was thinking that the deer was a little kancheong, cos i would not even have noticed it had it not decided to flee in fear of its life. If i were a hunter, it would so be dead meat now (or more specifically, venison)

Speaking of running, i've sort of decided to do so every Sunday morning somewhere around UNC cos the church service that i regularly go to (i.e. i've been there twice so far) is at 11am, and my ride only leaves campus at earliest 10:30am; so there's more than ample time to exercise in the morning before service. The weather is also way more condusive for running, at least 10 degrees celcius cooler and way less humid too - which means that i don't end up with a shirt that carries a wading pool's worth of liquid in it. And talking about pools, maybe one Sunday i'll try out the indoor pool here instead, if not just for the been there, done that experience of swimming in an indoor pool...

And from the way i've been eating here recently, i think i'll need all the exercise that i can get. It's especially so whenever i end up eating at one of the two dining halls, which basically offer buffet-style stuff all the time. Thankfully i didn't get a meal plan, or i'd be eating from these places far more often... The problem is that, true to the url of this blog, not only my language (dis)abilities, but even my food preferences also are very angmoh-oriented (including potatoes), so i have no problem with wolfing down burger after burger, pizza slice after pizza slice, wrap after wrap and then some - you get the picture... Even when i hit the salad bar the veggies are inevitably smothered in ranch dressing - heck - i even smother my pizza in ranch dressing... Yes, i know for many of the readers of this blog it's basically the same old same old, but ah well i guess this will be a constant lament of mine...

I just had my first two midterms on Friday and this afternoon - they were not the best of papers, but they're definitely passable - though honestly i am still aiming for something higher than that - but will make do - i don't want to be obsessed over grades again - it would be really toot of me to do so when it's pass/fail after all... In other academic news it was quite a surreal experience just now when i went for my Monday 5-8pm class only to find a note pinned on the doorpost saying that lesson was cancelled for the week - this is the class that i'd been having loads of problems with before, and that i've to do a book report and a presentation of the report + of the other readings for the week of too - and did i mention Monday 5-8pm? Of course once it hit me, i was pretty happy - and i celebrated by eating a giant steak burrito (about a foot long) for dinner at Cosmic Cantina (oh gosh that makes me sound like a real glutton doesn't it... well in my defense, i had a voucher...)

Oh ya, frisbee - did you know that they (i.e. IV) play ultimate every friday here? And the attendance when i went was really big - like more than 40 people over four teams - and each game definitely had an abundance of people as a result. We should do that back home - though i have the feeling that the attendance would be pretty bad if not solely cos of work - which is quite tragic given that on average there definitely is more work to do over here than back home - yet over here the people still come down for an hour or two or de-stressing... It was great fun [even though i re-aggrevated my left pinky injury (kinda like Joce's from Mongolia only far less gross-looking) that i obtained two days earlier while i was playing ultimate with some of the guys on my floor; and had also just recovered from another finger injury obtained a few days earlier when i was, you guessed it, playing frisbee at the beach during the IV new student retreat - thankfully all the affected digits were on my left hand so i could write properly...].

Ok think i should do something about my food issues - right now all i can think of is the bag of day-old bagels that i'm planning to buy tomorrow from Alpine at only $1.70...

DRYER 1, MATT 0

Today i did the laundry myself for the third time ever - i dunno why after using it twice i suddenly seemed to forget how to use the dryer - after loading it i swiped my card and pressed the appropriate button but then nothing seemed to happen - so i repeated the process a couple of times, but to no avail. There were no other free dryers available (one of them had a pair of track shoes and nothing else in them and was not switched on but didn't want to take them out just in case the owner would get angry) so i waited patiently for someone to clear her own clothes from another dryer before transferring my laundry to that dryer.

It was then when i realised that i didn't know where i had put the softener sheet that i'm supposed to chuck into the dryer together with the clothes - i had taken it out a minute before but within that minute i had lost it... I searched among the laundry and in both dryers but could not find it. And rather than potentially wasting another sheet, i just happily assumed that it was somewhere in the dryer with the clothes.

It was when the same problem occured with this new dryer that i finally realized that the first dryer wasn't spoiled, it was just that i was not following the proper procedure. Then later on, after i had unloaded the dryer, i took a casual look in the original one and lo and behold, suddenly the softener sheet decided to appear visible to me again, when just half an hour prior to that i could not find it in the same dryer...

So that's basically a long-winded and boring way of saying that i've been pretty blur today - on top of this whole dryer fiasco there also was my leaving the room key dangling from the key hole facing the corridor and earlier on my failure to look carefully at the laptop screen which, to cut a long story short, resulted in my having to pay at least US$30 more than i should have for my Chicago tickets... It's highly annoying...

Well, in other noteworthy news, today also marked my first day in living memory whereby i had a purely vegetarian diet. Glazed Blueberry Doughnut from Krispy Kreme (though i'd think that it must be one of the most unhealthy vegetarian thingies around - and i dunno - maybe they use animal shortening too), Berry Lime Sublime smoothie from Jamba Juice , a free (it's some charity thingy with the Make-A-Wish Foundation) scoop of Cole's Creation at Cold Stone Creamery, a huge slice of artichoke and sun-dried tomato pizza with some fancy name that i can't remember from Pepper's Pizza, and then a Twix bar just now. The food wasn't bad, but this is honestly something that i could never keep up doing - i need my meat...

That ain't me...

Well just now when i was walking back to the room from the library along the road - it was past midnight mind you - this guy in a white pickup suddenly pulled up beside me and loudly cursed "f*** you, n*****!". Then he immediately sped off and that was the end of it - never even got a real look at the guy.

Of course initially i was a little shocked - then i prayed a blessing upon him (seriously) and laughed to myself, wondering if a) it was so dark that the guy didn't manage to take a good look at me before choosing his cuss words, b) the second cuss word has a broader meaning than what i had always thought it meant, c) the North Carolina sun has burnt me so much that i appear dark enough to have other people perceive that i'm of some other ethnicity...

Ah but more seriously - i wasn't like offended or anything (especially since the words don't appear to apply to me) - but still this has been my first overt encounter of anything of this sort since i've arrived here - i've experienced it before, yes, but never (albeit misdirected) verbal abuse - something to ponder over i guess...

Earlier today i had my xiong gender welfare class - which btw i almost never open my mouth at, mainly because my thought processes are so delayed that whatever i want to say gets mentioned before i can say it. Amusingly enough, my prof, this nice German lady asked why i wasn't talking more, especially when (and you have no idea how happy i was when i heard this) my written work was well-written. Then she remarked something to the effect of "but i suppose zat it is more difficult for you because of ze language barrier ya?" (ok she didn't say ya - i just added it in because it's like ten percent of the German that i know...) I immediately responded that no, English is my first language - though now methinks that maybe i should just have kept my mouth shut in order to use that as an excuse to keep quiet...

Shall be booking my tickets to Chicago shortly =)

Retreat

Just got back from the IV student retreat at Emerald Isle - first i'll make the usual announcement that for pics, since i'm too lazy to upload them over here and also because if i did so i'd be posting them in two seperate sites which is pretty redunxant methinks, do take a look over there =======>

Well, the retreat took up almost the entire weekend, which meant that i had to cram as much work as possible before i left - which is also good in the sense of having the bitter before the sweet (xian1 ku3 hou4 tian2 - i like bitter stuff though, particularly bittergourd so maybe that isn't the best figure of speech to use...). Thankfully the more pertinent stuff (the weekly response for the tough gender welfare course i'm taking) was cleared by the time i left on Friday afternoon - and i even had time to clear my emails and waste some time in mindless chilling here and there in between... There's still two tests this wednesday to keep in mind though, especially since i have not really done much reading for either of them, and i looked at the past papers for one of them and i really didn't know how to go about answering the questions asked. I'll see if i can leave them as much for the week itself though - am trying as far as possible to keep my Sundays work-free (it helps to be lazy in this sense i guess =p)

The retreat itself was a great experience - the venue itself was really cool - it's in the southern Outer Banks - basically a chain of barrier islands along the northern NC coastline - which basically means that the island is very thin and long, and you can see the coast on both sides when you stand in the middle of the island - i reckon that as some points, it's no more than 200 metres wide. The water on one side is a sound - an inlet of sea water seperated from the open ocean by the island itself, and needless to say the water on the other side is the open ocean itself...

I don't want to always draw comparisons between how things go about in IV and the same back in VCF, but anyways, basically it's different... But i still had a good time at the retreat - time to spend some good (and some not so good) time alone with God, to meet new people, to have some fun, to have old and new things alike (re-)impressed upon my heart; that sort of thing...

The weather was just at it's minimally-acceptable temperature to be doing stuff at the beach - so i got acquainted (or at least tried to) with American Football - till the end i still was pretty clueless as to stuff like which direction am i supposed to run if i do catch the ball (and i managed to do so once - hooray for that) and that sort of thing... Frisbee wasn't very successful either - cos the strong winds blowing in from the sea muddled the course of practically every frisbee throw. Riding the surf didn't work out too well either - the waves were much stronger than the other time, so often the waves just picked me up and deposited me in shallower waters - but not before giving me nasty scratches on my chest, elbow and knee from rough contact with the sand (looked like i kena mauled by a domestic cat) - there was one wave which even caused me to do an underwater half-cartwheel before landing hard on the sand left shoulder first - not exactly a painless experience - and of course i probably exceeded my day's required sodium intake in all of an hour in the water... But even with all that, it was fun you know...

Yeah and on top of that there was other stuff like singing bizarre action songs (Baby Shark!), stories told that one will never forget, an ice-cream eating contest out of the gutter (that was an experience for sure)... Yup but too bad i have no pictures of those, and it's no fun to just verbally describe all this stuff without y'all actually seeing it, so i'll just leave it at that...

We had good lodgings while we were there - they rented some nice beach houses - far better than what we have in sentosa that's for sure - only problem's that they had to spread everyone out - less than 10 per house, and there were 130 people in total, so it was harder to get to know more people (oops i'm comparing again...)... I enjoyed how i was able to wake up early in the morning and sit on the porch and read the Bible - such a refreshing environment...

This morning i actually wanted to go for a run - reminds me of running at ECP, only far cooler and far more scenic - but i decided to pass because of a lack of time. I was semi-regretting not running afterward cos i helped myself to some Hostess frosted chocolate donettes - then i took a look after that at the nutritional information at the back of the box, only to realise that just three of the little donettes (only two inches in diameter) - incidentally the number of donettes i ate was three - would already account for 45% of one's daily recommended saturated fat intake or something or other - troubling... (though of course those thingies were so addictive that i ate one more anyways...)

Alright, back to school tomorrow then, hope can find time to finalize fall break plans...

ta!

'sup

Random guy on my floor: "Yo man, whassup?"

Moi: *soft mumbles of acknowledgement*

The preceeding is basically an exchange that occurs repeatedly, day after day on my floor whenever i bump into one of the guys. Up till now, i have no idea what i'm supposed to say, or even if i'm supposed to say anything at all anytime one of the guys say hi. Is it a rhetorical question, a matter of mere courtesy when they ask me what's up, or do they really want me to respond by saying what's really up with me? Well, until i find out the answer to that question, they're just gonna have to settle with more soft mumbles of acknowledgement (with a smile on my face, of course) from me...

Gosh, there have been several things happening over the past few days, and as usual i shall try and recap the more noteworthy ones.

Just now at one of my recitations (a poli sci class) they were talking in passing about the coup in Thailand, then my neighbor (who in his defence added the disclaimer that he didn't mean to be ignorant) turned and asked me "hey, that's not where you're from, is it?" Well i guess better one speculating whether Singapore's in Thailand than one placing us as the capital of Malaysia, or that all-time favourite, somewhere in China

When i called home a few days back, one of the pieces of news that i received was that my father has in the end decided to abandon his initial plan of extending the COE of his twenty-year-old 1 litre Suzuki Supercarry by another ten years and instead get around to new car shopping, something that he hasn't really done in, well, twenty years... And i can't for the life of me figure out why, but apparently my occasional semi-joking comments that i'd not get a driving license if he did not decide to buy a new car instead played a part in the decision to get a new car after all. This is by far the closest my parents have come to pushing me to get a license, which in part explains why i have not bothered to get one up till now, which does irk me so, especially when i am in a land where i'd be hard-pressed to find any college student, even those half a decade younger than me, who does not drive. So anyways, yes i promise to finally get down to at least taking basic theory once i get back home.

My left fingertips are very sore now after being roped in to play for some IV thingy just now - just a small thingy, nothing big. I think i in part agreed cos i wanted to have an excuse to borrow a guitar and practice something before i forget everything, but the overall experience was a good one for me - am starting to get a better feel of how IV works - it's definitely very different from VCF, that's for sure. It was an acoustic guitar, hence my fingertips, which even now complain as i type this...

And while we're on the topic of IV, i'm most probably going for Urbana now - starting to get quite excited about the whole thing actually - but i guess i've to keep praying about it cos right now think i'm only set on going cos it's Urbana after all, and everyone's telling me that i should go, and it's in a part of the US i've never been to before.

Which brings me to travelling - am getting a bit of a headache planning when to go where and whether to go where else, cos the time's really tight and i do want to go to as many places as possible. Have to take into account so-and-so and this-and-that, it gets rather troublesome, and furthermore i shouldn't be thinking about travelling so much, at least not at the expense of work, after all i'm primarily here for school, and not to gallavant around the country.

Have more or less settled on a church i want to regularly attend for the rest of the time i'm here. As of and including this upcoming Sunday, i would have spent every Sunday in the US so far (and for the record, the magic number is eight) in a different church. Of course, half of those were because i was in different cities, but the rest consisted of all the churches in the Chapel Hill/Durham area that i was considering going to, as well as to which i could hitch a ride to as well. I won't name names of churches cos don't think that would be very nice, but suffice to say over the past two months or so i've seen a broad range of service styles including worship and messages. Some had worship that i greatly enjoyed and was blessed by, but then would have a message that to me was basically a string of anecdotes with a Bible verse thrown in here or there for good measure, while others had a solid, Biblically-centred message, but had worship that resembled a rock concert of some sort more than a time of focus upon God. At the last church i went to however, there was a balance that to me was good - so what's left now i guess is to find a permanent ride there week by week.

But this weekend i'll be out of town, cos am going for another IV event - the new student retreat at this place in the Outer Banks (part of the North Carolina coastline) called Emerald Isle (and it's not Ireland just in case you were wondering that). Should be a good time methinks - well it is on the beach yet again, though with some of the weather that we've been having here recently (today it hit a low of 47 degrees - that's around 8 degrees celcius) i wonder how enjoyable the beach might be, though i'm sure it'll be warmer there than here...

And talking about weekends, and coming back to the idea of travelling, i must say that i've never been more tempted in my university career so far to skip classes than i've been while i'm here (for the record, i've not skipped a single class in NUS so far), not because the classes are boring (which they definitely aren't) but because i want to travel over the weekend, which only begins to make sense in a country of this size if you take a long weekend or else by the time you reach your destination, you may have all of a day to spend there before you have to make the long and arduous journey back to Chapel Hill. This here isn't exactly the best of transportation hubs so getting to and from places is far more confusing and troublesome than it would be in S'pore - it takes like millions of hours (ok, more like six) to go to Charleston, SC; and even further to get to Atlanta, two places that i'd really like to go to especially in the light of my class on American urbanization (think my latest craze is American architecture, so i want to see all the nice old buildings - particularly in Charleston).

So anyway, basically there's a lot going on here now, and i can't keep up with it all... What's rest assured is that i'm having a great time, in spite of all the work and the hiccups that come my way here and there - i wouldn't go as far as to say i've got a beautiful feeling, everything's going my way, oh what a beautiful day (Oklahoma), that wouldn't be the case by a mile, but i'll take what i've been given ya...

snap

Well, i didn't go to the library after all, cos the 24-hour one isn't open for 24 hours on Fridays, and i was too lazy to go to the other one which opens till 10pm.

And instead i basically did more random and unimportant stuff, culminating in deciding to take a nap cos i had only five hours of sleep last night in between finishing a book for class today.

I just got up, and was in the process of regressing into more time-wasting activities when i chanced upon some news - about someone whom i barely even know - have met this person all of once in my life for ten minutes at max. I shan't elaborate cos it isn't very nice to do so considering the circumstances but well basically it's got me thinking about how wasting time away here in such pointless activities is really not the way to go given how blessed i am to be here in the first place and to have the opportunity to do so much when others have stuff which prevents them from doing so, especially so since i tend to identify a lot with this person in general. I ought to be heaps more thankful than what i've really been so far since i'm here...

So have decided to finally get down to starting a prayer initiative of sorts -something that's been floating in my mind for the longest time and which i think i've shared to some extent with various limited degrees of clarity with some people but has not seen much move towards fruition since. Hmm know that it all sounds very vague and all, but oh well - it's rather vague to me too at this point, basically, i type this here for accountability purposes for anyone who feels like it to check on me and ask how's this going on... I think it's very much an "as the Spirit leads" (and i know, that's like the byword for everything nowadays...) kinda thing so I also dunno what it might develop into, if it develops at all. Hmm looking back, there is only a very spurious link between the aforementioned push factor and this whole prayer thingy isn't there? And furthermore it's been all of fifteen to twenty minutes since i first became aware of the aforementioned push factor too. But it's a link nevertheless, and guess i'm very much just moving in faith... So we'll see how this goes =)

The Strange Case of Dr Chao Mugger & Mr Slacker

I've come to the sad conclusion that i can really only get work done when i am in a proper school environment.

Take right now, for example - I'm now in my room alone listening to online Christian radio awaiting for my laundry to be done in the dryer. I could be sitting at my desk doing some of the numerous readings and subsequent reading responses that are due through next week. But instead i'm at my laptop lamenting away...

Now, if not for the laundry having to be done in the first place, i probably wouldn't even be in my room at this time - since it's pretty obvious to me where the resulting time spent waiting for the clothes to get washed and dried will go - which is down the drain, together with all the dirty laundry water.

And one thing (either good or bad depending on what kind of a student you are) about the UNC undergrad library is that it's open 24 hours a day Sunday through Thursday, something which when i first heard the news of, triggered an eerie glee within the chao mugger side of me which totally spooked my slacker half to no end. Yup - you'd think that the ultimate would be spending enough late nights in the NUS central library until i can memorise the annoying piped-in music that they play to signal closing time, but no, UNC has gone one up (have i mentioned that the studiousness of a lot of the students here really is freaky? I suppose that's why this school is so difficult to get in to). And for the former half of me, the news of this 7-11 quality to the library is one attractive prospect. Now, i'm positive that i would never be able to pull a full all-nighter, but at the least i could get a few hours of productive studying under my belt in the night and get back to the room and then regress into the slacker half - wasting much of the rest of my waking hours doing mindless things such as this...

Well, one other reason why i'm avoiding doing the work for the upcoming week is that the stuff to do is really cringe-inducing. There's actually not that much, but it's a chore to do nevertheless. A big part of it is the readings for that same headache-inducing course that i have on monday nights on welfare. But there also is the reading for another course which is really troublesome. Allow me to elaborate...

I've three chapters of a book on the 1986 Tax Reform Act in the US (scintillating stuff, isn't it?) to read and do a short write-up on. Now normally that would pose little problem to me, but in this case, things are somewhat different.

You see, i decided to order some of my books online via half.com. But owing to some card problems, i was delayed in confirming the order. The result is that my order of the book in question for this particular assignment will only come in after i'm supposed to hand in the write-up.

To make matters worse, all copies of the book have been snapped up in the library. So initially, i was tempted to be a total cheapskate and just hang out in the bookshop and somehow get away with reading 64 pages of the book without looking suspicious. But instead i settled on another less-obvious but far more troublesome way to read the stuff - through looking at the excerpts on Amazon.com - it's been a very troublesome process which is too long-drawn for me to attempt repeating here, but suffice to say it's very draining.

So i haven't been able to read all the pages yet because of the copyright limit, but thankfully i think that after four or five hours spent staring at the computer screen i've enough info to do the write-up with...

And now all that's really left is for me to actually do all the work that has to be done asap so that i'll have some semblance of a weekend left for me to enjoy. I do wonder how i'll be able to handle all the over-the-weekend work whenever i'm out of Chapel Hill for the weekend (which hopefully will be fairly often enough if i ever want to cover a fair number of places on my to-visit list) And that brings me back to why am i still sitting here doing nothing productive? Laundry's done and hung. No chance i'll be motivated enough to get started on anything here. So off to the library i go then...

ta!

Oi! Oi! Oi!

Well i had my class for that killer course that i was mumbling and grumbling about over the whole weekend yesterday, and i guess i emerged somewhat ambivalent from the whole thing. I was slightly heartened by the responses from the rest of the class, of which the general concensus was that those two readings were really hard to understand, even for the prof. But on the other hand that won't make things any easier for me, just that i hope as the weeks go by and there are more readings that are in my comfort zone (i.e. history readings) i'll be less uptight about the whole thing. Oh, and of course the worse part is that this class runs for three hours, starting at 5pm - even though the syllabus stated that it would end by 7:30pm. And the thing is that not one student complained or showed signs of restlessness (erm, well... except for me, that is...) once the time passed 7:30pm, and they even were candid about asking for the class to start ten minutes later so that parking would be easier for them as it would be free after five. I know for a fact that if this was NUS, practically the whole class would switch off once the promised end time is reached, and think that people would rather pay more for parking than have their knock-off time extended by even ten minutes.

I attended IV international students' Bible study just now, it was a nice time of relaxation after the past two hectic days. We hold it at my hall lounge, which is all of five seconds from my room, which is nice. Today i had a bit of a scare cos i thought i had lost my cellphone - it was with me during the study, but somehow it slipped through the gaps between the couch cushions all the way into the deep, dark and dirty recesses of the chair - only found it after ten or so minutes of frantic searching of both my room and the lounge. Well, am thankful i managed to find it - after the loss of my dear nalgene bottle at last week's football game, i wasn't about ready to lose something else of value so soon.

I was just doing my routine surfing through some quality online news reports (read: no channelnewsasia) when i chanced upon this article - well all i can say is that my already bad impression of a small minority of entirely ignorant and myopic Antipodeans has only gotten worse after reading this.

They evade me so...

I type this in another of my anything-but-schoolwork moods, since i am almost about to finish two killer readings on mainstream models of welfare states, after which i then have to proceed to do a two-page response to them to submit electronically by tomorrow. This is the only real killer course that i am taking - and i can honestly admit that at this point in time, i am only not dropping it because it is very favourably mapped. It is interesting, i won't deny that, but the level is just rather beyond me (like half of my class are grad students). For these two readings in question, my general response to them so far is "huh?". And this is only the first set of readings - i'm supposed to do this for every week's set of readings. And i ask myself, how am i gonna write a response to them if i really catch no ball?

And while we're on the subject of catching no ball, that was precisely what the tar heels did just now during the VA Tech game - a crushing loss (35-10) with annoying and very avoidable interceptions (not that i would be able to avoid them though...) - when i saw that the situation for us was helpless by the opening of the third quarter, i just decided to leave the stadium together with other jaded Singaporeans and go back to my room to continue with reading this incomprehensible stuff.

But basically, what i've been meaning to say is that it's extra frustrating because i think i'm really rather diligent a student here - this is like the most productive saturday i've had workwise in this entire calendar year methinks (for me to be able to start work anytime before noontime on a saturday is really an event worth popping open a bottle of champagne to) - and i started at nine... And yet in spite of my newfound chao mugger personality i'm still way behind work wise - i've barely given time to my usual time-wasting pursuits like typing emails at an over-leisurely pace, checking up on US Open scores online or taking forever to tag my facebook pictures...

Ah but it's hardly the end of the world like i probably make this seem like - this work will be completed in time and i will get through this whole atas welfare class which ironically has deprived me of much of its own subject matter...

You see things are already starting to get better for me - in an hour's time, i'm off for dinner at Arby's =)

Football's fine, soccer stinks

Finally since i've come back from the weekend i'm able to relax somewhat - with the two assignments (which turned out to be much less of a hassle than i had imagined it to be at the beginning of the weekend) all done and submitted, and only one small thingy left to do for friday - after which that's it for the week =) Of course, the work never ends and i've lots of stuff to prepare for my toughest class, which is a weekly three-hour-straight seminar on gender and welfare every monday, but still the immediate horizon is clear and that's all i care about for now, though thankfully the procrastinator mode that perennially plagues me in S'pore seems to have taken a vacation of its own, so thing will be able to get myself to get started on the monday work (fairly) early...

Speaking of my weekend assignments, one of them was to read (or more accurately in my case, re-read the first half and finally get down to reading the second half) Orwell's 1984 and then write a character-based response to it. I guess i'll soon enjoy the fact that here a lot of the readings are unconventional by the standards that i've been used to, in that there's a lot of fiction to read too, rather than just sleep-inducing academic stuff. For now, though, i'm still far more used to reading sleep-inducing academic stuff than fiction (i almost never read fiction), but i'm sure i'll enjoy the fiction stuff too eventually...

Oh, but i digress. My point was that right after completing the book [just in time to meet the deadline to return the book to the used book store on Franklin for a full refund (i already have one at home - remember, this is a poor international student typing this here)] and typing out the assignment, i logged on to facebook to find out that they've installed this new feature which is really freaky and weird, in that basically all your contacts' actions on facebook are now neatly listed in front of you when you log in, even all the stuff that does not concern you in the slightest, like "so-and-so is now friends with so-and-so-whom-you-do-not-know" or "so-and-so no longer likes to listen to Michael Jackson (who can blame him)" or other trivial stuff like that. Well, i have not encountered a single person who's for this new invasion-of-privacy program, which to me is really freakily Orwellian in nature, especially after just having read the book. It's such a big issue here (since practically every college student here uses it) that it's made the news, both on the paper as well as online, and is also a hot topic of pre-class discussion now.

So anyway, saturday saw me going for my first-ever football game. It was a very interesting experience - not just the game itself, but the whole atmosphere of the game was just great. Where the game was concerned, i underwent a crash course in how the game works, so that by the end of the game i became really bummed when Rutgers intercepted the ball for the second time - thus ending any chance of a UNC victory. At least when i go for my next game (more on that later) i won't be like clueless anymore, so that's a start i guess...

But it was not just the game per se - the whole atmosphere was just great. One thing i really dig about UNC is the degree of school spirit that they have - it kind of reminds me of AC days - particularly the annual rugby final which used to always be AC vs RJ (kinda like UNC vs Duke) - the enthusiastic spectators with their often too-colourful language, the cheering, the colour-coordination and the like. I genuinely felt involved in the whole thingy, though i've only been here for like less than three weeks - now this would NEVER EVER happen in nus (i wouldn't even go and buy an nus shirt), that i'm absolutely sure of...

The only sad part of the match was that i left my nalgene in the stadium after the match, and when i remembered it and went back in to get it all of five minutes later, someone else had already taken it. So sad... Ah well, the silver lining is that this provides me with the perfect excuse to buy a new nalgene with the UNC logo emblazoned on it...

After the match, had a quick dinner before heading off to Charlotte for the rest of the weekend. Went with Jon and Alex, and Greg drove us there and lodged us at his house. Now, the first time i ever heard of Charlotte was a looong time ago when i watched wrestling and they would introduce Ric Flair as hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina. Then after that i heard about the Hornets, and then the Bobcats. Yup that's basically all i knew about this city.

Although it is hardly the most interesting of places, we all still had a really great time there, to just relax, explore uptown Charlotte, visit the Discovery Place, and take in the sights and sounds of Matthews Alive, an annual Labor Day fair held at Matthews, a town right outside Charlotte near where Greg lives. Of course with your truly being a namesake of the town, it was inevitable that i'd have a field day taking snapshots of myself at strategic places with my name proudly etched on them. Talk about a cheap thrill heh... But anyway it definitely was a weekend well spent - and i'm very thankful for the hospitality of Greg and his family =)

Came back to school again - which is pretty uneventful as usual, maybe the only noteworthy thing that happened was that i went for my first-ever soccer match just now (as you'll probably know, i hate the sport) between UNC and NC State. I was willing to give soccer a chance since it was a UNC game after all... Admittedly however, i just could not tahan watching the full match and left at half time. It's just not my thing - though how i could last through three hours worth of football but can't even last through 45 minutes of soccer is beyond me.

Oh, and this morning woke up really early to head down to the Dean Dome (where the basketball team plays) to get into the line for the remainder of the UNC-Virginia Tech football game tickets. Went together with Clement, Jon and Sarah-Jane - we got to the place just before 7am (tickets were released only at eight) - needless to say we got the tickets, so i'll be off to football again this upcoming saturday... Should be great fun again, though from what i hear, i don't fancy our prospects...

I'm feeling too lazy to post the pictures here as well, but you can easily see them on the pics link there =======> Captions and descriptions coming soon...

My Labor Day labour

Well, the Labor Day weekend's almost over and i've just gotten back from Charlotte - yup there's lots i want to talk about the whole weekend, starting from my first-ever football game [which was a total bummer of a loss to Rutgers =( ] all the way to the trip to the Queen City, but unfortunately a huge barrier to me doing that exists in the form of two assignments that were given over the weekend that i have to submit on wednesday of which i've just finished reading the book for one, nothing for the other, and have written a response to neither, and being the super-motivated and guai(1) student that i am (yeah right), i shall try to complete at least a sizeable portion of them first before i transfer my attention to more fun but far less pressing matters...

So you'll be hearing from me soon enough ya...

ta!

Coolness

I've always taken a liking to cold weather - which is actually one of the (secondary) reasons why i wanted to go on exchange in the first place - to spend a prolonged period of time away from the oppressive heat and humidity of S'pore.

So therefore when i first got out of RDU airport, i was kind of bummed to realise that the weather was almost identical to what you'd get back home, with the blazing sun in fact being even more intense than it ever gets in S'pore, with the saving grace probably being the slightly lower humidity over here, though still in general, it was hot. And it has pretty much stayed this way ever since - until today.

I suppose it's due to Tropical Storm Ernesto supposedly passing over the eastern half of North Carolina, but anyway today's weather was just great - unlike the past few days it was not raining heavily, and the weather stayed in the high fifties to sixties (to convert to Celcius, just subtract 32, divide by nine and multiply by five - or you can take my word for it that it never got above 20 degrees C). In fact i was one of the few jokers walking around wearing a t-shirt and berms without a jacket of any kind and without an umbrella either - not the wisest thing to do if i want to stay sickness-free, i'd admit, but it felt shiok i tell you...

So tomorrow i'm going for my first football game - UNC vs. Rutgers - and i'll have to say that i've never been this on about attending a sporting event before, particularly one where i know next to nothing about the sport in question itself. But the whole school culture here is one that is really in to sport, and i guess i kind of got caught along in the wave. Can you imagine it, i even wouldn't mind watching the soccer team play if the opportunity arose (which i think it should) - something that i wouldn't even give a fleeting thought to doing if i were back home. Anyway, think that the atmosphere tomorrow will be great...

After that it's off to Charlotte, NC for the rest of the Labor Day long weekend - and it should be good - guess you'll next hear from me from there then - ta!