Pa ra pa pum pum no more...

While all you folk back home are anxiously waiting to check your results i've already gotten them - a couple of days ago in fact - yup guess there's far less red tape to get through before results are made public here than back home - but anyways for once, and since they don't count for anything except for a pretty transcript guess there's no problem with putting them here for once, just for the record...

Course Id	Course Description	Credit Hrs	Grade
HIST475 001	GR BRITAIN 20TH C	3.0	A-
HIST501 001	GENDER OF WELFARE	3.0	A-
HIST584 001	AM CITY 19TH/20TH C	3.0	B
LING202 001	LANGUAGE CHANGE	3.0	A
MUSC211 004	CORE ENSEMBLES	1.0	A
POLI100 006	INTRO TO GOVT IN US	3.0	B

Semester Statistics			Cumulative Statistics
Semester Hours-Earned	16.0		Career Transfer Earned-Hours
Semester Quality-Hours	16.0		Cumulative Earned-Hours	16.0
Semester GPA	3.513		Cumulative Quality-Hours	16.0
			Cumulative Quality-Points	56.20
			Cumulative G.P.A.	3.513

Yuppers, while admittedly i was again hoping for better grades than this, especially after hearing stories of how nus people have come here and gotten their best grades ever, i guess that taking all things into context (grad classes, relative lack of background knowledge, holiday mentality, scary workload etc) there's really a lot to be thankful for innit... Think that somewhere nearing the exams themselves God was telling me to stop worrying about grades per se but just work for the best, and yup by His grace that's what happened, so by the time the exams did approach i was relatively unstressed about them, and in the end things went ok...

What i find ironic about them is that my linguistics grade is the highest of them all, even better than all my hist classes; when the chief reason for taking it was to escape another low-scoring grade for linguistics back home that would pull everything down... The two Bs - well one was in a tough albeit interesting grad class while the other was for a subject where i was at a comparative disadvantage since i'm not American and it was a class on American government after all, so guess i'm fine with them...

What i'm more concerned about now is annoying cors bidding, something i'm a little out of touch with, not having done it for a year now - managed to get three classes pre-allocated, but i dunno if i want to do all of them though (and it felt quite surreal to access ivle after such a long time btw)... Of most concern to me are the annoying breadth classes that i've to take - can't think of anything i'd be remotely interested in, so i guess i'll have to look for the least boring classes yet still potentially at least one where an S/U won't be necessary since i've two S/U options left but three breadths to take - and to do all this while i'm thirteen hours behind and so not in the mood to do so... Ah but think i'm overstating the issue yet again and when this is all said and done all will be fine so...

Now for non-academic issues - for starters i've resolved never to as far as possible never take United Airlines again (save for when i fly home, of course). This is after another long flight delay has been added to my list of bones to pick with them, which already include two other (overnight) flight delays and two instances of lost baggage. This time it only was two hours, but still having to wake up at 5:30am for an 8:45 flight only to have take-off pushed to close to 11am is not pretty at all...

Am glad to be able to spend some time just relaxing here in my cousin's place here south of D.C. After all the busyness of travelling over the past ten days, this is a good change. Granted i could be up north now in Toronto enjoying cooler weather and the higher possiblity of snow, but think that this is a good time to prepare for Urbana ahead too (where again the forecast calls for no snow, but then again being spoken and ministered to by God ranks far more highly than seeing snow rite...) It was a little strange though yesterday when i was at a family Christmas party when my 16-year-old nephew was introducing me as his uncle...

And speaking of Christmas - i've realized that it's not only pesky CNY songs that irritate me to no end - spending hours in the car driving to and from Boston over the two days when the three of us (SJ, Clement n me) were exploring four states in New England and being subject to dozens of radio stations, all of which intersperse their regular programming with Christmas songs, if not dedicate their playlist to such songs and nothing else; has taught me two things - there's only so much of "Feliz Navidad" i can take, and i cannot bear to hear a note more of any of the nine hundred and forty-six or whatever number of versions of "Little Drummer Boy" there are in existence in this world...

Ah, but on that note, annoying Christmas songs aside - have a great Christ-centered Christmas y'all! (There's twelve days rite, so am not being late in wishing this to those back in S'pore...)

Delayed telecast

(The following is just some of what i've noted down over the past two weeks of limited internet access)

Am typing this at the moment on ms word, since where i am now in the Atlanta area does not have internet access. For memory’s (or lack thereof) sake,I’m typing this first, lest i forget everything at a later date. (And of course when this is finally posted, i’ll probably be in Boston already but nvm that.) But that’s a minor issue, overall the place is great, and Atlanta itself has definitely been worth visiting.

But since it’s been a while, i shall start off where i last left off – finishing my last paper – a take-home due just a couple of hours before i was due to leave the Hill for RDU to catch the plane. As usual i procrastinated to the extent that i was up all the way till around 4:30am trying to finish it (so my last night in Chapel Hill turned out to be the one with the least sleep ever), and then packing the contents of my room into my two bags, which was far worse than doing the paper actually. To cut a long story short there's a lot of reorganization and throwing away to do once i repack my stuff just before i leave, and knowing what a hoarder i am, that’s not gonna be easy at all…

So anyways, got to RDU thanks to a ride from Emily, and then the flight to Atlanta via Charlotte was quite uneventful. The only event took place just after landing, when halfway along the very, very long passageway between the arrival gate and the baggage claim; when i realized that i’d stupidly left my passport in the magazine pocket in front of my seat – fifteen frantic minutes later and that was settled thankfully…

Atlanta itself has been a great experience overall so far – lots of different things so far to do and see (one of the most memorable, though not necessarily the favorite, involved sampling methinks more than thirty varieties of Coca-Cola Company drinks from all over the world at the World of Coca-Cola – i’m not one to drink carbonated drinks usually but the lure was just too great). It has also been a great time spent with the others, and we’re staying in like the coolest place (OM HQ- the Doulos people), which i’m very glad and thankful for…

Tomorrow if all works out well i’ll attempt to cook eggs for the rest for breakfast, since i’m up the earliest anyway, and also since i don’t eat breakfast foods typically, technically i won’t have any chance of poisoning myself should anything go wrong. Heh – but methinks the cooking itself won’t be a problem (i mean, how wrong can one go in scrambling eggs?), the thing that i’m more worried about is cracking the eggs in the first place, since i’ve a bad track record of doing so that involves lots of extra calcium (i.e. shell bits) in the eggs as well as untimely splatterings of eggs on adjacent parties whom I did not know…

Updates – well now i’ve reached Boston, and it turns out that i’ve still limited internet access – the hotel that we’re staying in offers wireless, but it costs $9.95 for 24 hours. Good thing that there’s a cost-free alternative, which is to just go downstairs and use the computers at the hotel business center – less convenient and can’t use aim and skype, but better than nothing i guess.

Today after arriving at the hotel (and toot me nearly left my laptop in the cab this time), we took a walk across the river to Cambridge, where we went and explored Harvard and the surrounding area – it certainly felt quite different from UNC and Chapel Hill, that’s for sure, but it was a very interesting campus nevertheless… Never been this far north so far since arriving in the States, so the sunset’s earlier than it has ever been before (5pm)… The weather’s been quite nice here too – at least it’s quite a bit colder than things were in Atlanta (and as has turned out to be a recurring theme with me, the day we left Atlanta was the last day temperatures were near record highs). All that’s missing now is some snow…

Well after the first day, in the end we decided to rent a car and drive around the area. Admittedly, i was all for it mainly cos it meant that i would be able to add more states to my list; but in any case it was fun whatever way you look at it. The second day we headed down to Providence, Rhode Island, which is really no more than an hour’s drive south from Boston. It’s a nice place, with no really big touristy things, but it was worth the drive in any case.

On the way back we stopped by a giant outlet store. Now, i'm normally not a shopper, not in Singapore at least, but when i’m overseas somehow i become more inclined to purchase things. And this mall was giant – more than 100 shops, several of which i’d be inclined to purchase from – stuff like Nike, Banana Republic, Oakley etc. From browsing through the shops, i found heaps of stuff that i would like to buy. However, it also struck me how consumerist this whole thingy was, and i guess in that sense buying all i wanted would not only be playing up to this, but also not being the best steward of God’s resources. (Also, my already bursting-at-the-seams bags have no room for that much more stuff.) So I tried to limit myself to stuff that i would really need and would be worth it (i.e. forget about US$70 Oakley shades or Teva sandals) – think i still overshopped though, but not very excessively.

Yesterday we drove up north to New Hampshire and Maine, again not more than just over an hour’s drive from Boston. (So in other words, if you want to cover many states in a jiffy, start off from Boston…) The New Hampshire coast was just beautiful – we managed to cover it all since it’s only 18 miles long, and the coastline and the quaint houses and coastal towns was just such a refreshing change and something totally different from what i’ve experienced so far here. The only thing that freaked me a bit was the sheer number of crab claws littering the beach…

Just up north a bit in Maine, we ended up in Portland, the biggest city in the state. It’s another place well worth the visit, though probably not for more than a day, although I’m sure driving up further north all the way to Canada and stopping along the way to soak in the whole New England atmosphere would be a great idea, though one that would take way more time than we had. Again, in keeping with my maritime aversions, my only bone to pick with Portland was the overwhelming odor (at least to me) of the sea, not surprising since the fishing industry’s big there. But everything else more than made up for it…

Slipping off the Hill

Wow, i just had my first paper two days ago and today i'm already more or less done with them, save for the email-submission take-home paper that i'm still in the process of researching on. But knowing me, my desires to be done with this paper by say, tomorrow night, while very possible to be realized, will in all probability not come to pass, and i'll probably end up scrambling to finish the paper just before the deadline on Thursday, while at the same time frantically packing my bags before leaving for the airport.

Well anyways, i'd have to be honest and admit that i did not prepare for my papers as much as i'd ought to have. Thankfully things turned out for large part in my favor. For my Intro to American Government paper the prof had given us in advance four questions to prepare for of which he'd randomly choose two to field in the actual paper, and the two which did come out were those that i'd been better prepared for; while for my American Urbanization paper, one of the compulsory IDs that i had to do was one that the class had been discussing about just minutes before the start of the paper, so i was able to gather more about it than i otherwise might have had. And also enough IDs that i was more familiar with came out so this time i wasn't left grasping for straws like i was the last time... Yah actually come to think of it quite heng ah... Think God's telling me to be more on the ball next time...

Obviously Pilot G-2 ink doesn't sit well with exam writing paper...

And i know i've mentioned this before but i'll say it again, i've been inexplicably calm regarding the exam period. Yes of course the whole pass/fail + non-cumulative + low weightage power combo has in large part contributed to that, but still i can't believe how unworried i've been. Went to the High Point game on Saturday (just after my first paper) and judging from the poor attendance (like just more than half-full only!) it appears that the majority of UNC students do not share my calm demeanor... (Although, come to think of it, had we been playing a team like Ohio State instead on that date, rather than, pardon my saying this, a no-brainer game like High Point, think the Dean Dome would've been packed...) Well, at least i can tell the grandchildren that i was there for Roy William's 500th Division I win, and that the two whole seconds that i was distracted from the game just also happened to be the two whole seconds in which Tyler Hansbrough chose to score only his third three-pointer in his career - dang...

The final goodbyes have been coming in very rapidly as of late - just now had a dinner where i said goodbye to a whole host of people - sad lah - it's times like these that i wish that i'd open my inbox and receive an email from the relevant authorities approving me staying here for another sem (and pass/fail for yet another sem would be but an added bonus), but still at the end of the day i know the Lord has other plans for me back home, and his plans for me while i'm here are still ongoing too - and what's gone on so far has just been awesome. Ah, but guess it's hard to grasp the reality that in around 60 hours i'll leave the Hill almost for good (i mean, there's still the handful of days when i'm here in the new year, but doubt much can be done then...

As of late, i've come to the realization that (especially since i've been covering this in my linguistics course here) i've been un/subconsciously engaging in a great deal of code-switching while i've been here. When i talk to Americans it inevitably has a sort of American accent attached to it (a complete fake-o one, but an accent nevertheless), peppered with the usual Americanisms like "have a good one", "neat", "sweet" and "later". And of course things change once i speak to S'poreans again. I now do this automatically, such as how whenever i talk on the phone to an American, my accent automatically changes and anyone within earshot can guess i'm talking to an ang moh. In fact, rather alarmingly, when i've had to read something aloud, which has been the case several times during Bible study, i've tended to sound more American too - freaky - so my dear cg peeps, next sem if when i read a passage and sound somewhat suspect i give you the authority to offer me a stern rebuke haha... Ah and in any case, think my warped speech patterns when i return will make for an interesting linguistics research project - any takers =p?

And you know i'm one for remembering random dates - today's the five-year anniversary of my enlistment - eek.

Making ice while the sun doesn't shine

Well, for starters, we've been having quite a bit of freezing weather here recently - and i mean freezing as in 0 deg C/32 deg F and below kinda freezing, not as in the nus lecture theatre/central library 5th floor kinda freezing, which over here is equivalent to unseasonably warm. I've been really digging this weather, while it lasts (only regret is the constant 0% chance of precipitation that always seems to accompany these frigid temperatures so far).

And to that extent, the budding boliao scientist in me decided to conduct an experiment. I filled a plastic bottlecap with water and placed it on the a/c unit right outside my window last night and just let it sit there overnight.

There's my guinea pig sitting outside my window close to a Halloween leftover.

Then i woke up this morning, and the first thing i did was to head to the window and take a look at my bottlecap. This is what i found:

Erm so you can't really see the results from this shot,
apart from what looks like a ghost staring at the camera...

Ah now this shot is better - in short, i made ice outdoors =)

Yupyup yet another cheap thrill i know, but still quite cool eh (literally too)?

Hmm well in other news, it appears that the little malady that i had which has its roots in Thanksgiving never went away - it's been more than a week and i still regularly spew gross yellow stuff every morning, and occasionally snort out yellow and red stuff from my nose (who ever knew that sickness can be so colorful?), and also am alternating between wet cough in the morning and dry cough at night. Through my amateur diagnosis, i've concluded that it's some sort of upper respiratory tract infection, something that i get regularly back home too, which is part of the reason why i'm not really batting an eyebrow regarding this (and btw the illness is hardly as serious as the name suggests, at least in my case). And in any case the occasionally bloody nose (and btw my nose has never bled before in my life apart from the little bit during the time i lost control of my bike down the stairs long ago and bashed my head against the concrete floor) is most probably just due to the dry air. Yeah, so it's no big deal really. And since this is a viral infection, doctors and antibiotics won't do any good - so think i should just let this run its course. Of course, at the same time it still is a deal, no matter how small it is - the important thing for me now is to not let it interfere with my finals.

And speaking of finals, well just for the record:

12-9
LING 202 - Language Change (12pm)

12-11
POLI 100 - Intro to American Government (9am)
HIST 584 - The Promise of Urbanization: American Cities in the 19th and 20th Centuries (12pm)

12-14
HIST 475 - Great Britain in the 20th Century (take-home paper: due 10am)
US 1674/2623 - US Airways flight to Atlanta via Charlotte (2:15pm) *hee*

Can you believe that they've papers that start at 7am here? Thankfully i never kena one of those...

Countdown begins...

In exactly a month's time i'll already be back in sweaty S'pore preparing for the new school term - thirty days - that's just about as long as the MEET Thailand trip earlier this year - but somehow at the start of that one i was like "gosh a whole month - that's soooooo long", and now i'm like "ahhh only a month left till i go back - so short =(" Granted, of course that the activities involved in each month are totally different, but in any case think it's fascinating when you come to think of it...

Well, things are definitely beginning to wind down over here - today was the last day of lessons proper, and tomorrow is reading day (yes you heard it right - reading day - one day, that's it) and then finals start on Friday. I myself have four papers to do, one of them being a take home, and the other three being non cumulative (i.e. they only cover what's not been tested so far this sem, so i'm hardly skipping a beat over them (hence my typing of this post). Should get down to more prep soon though...

I originally had five papers in all, the other was for the really killer gender of welfare course that i'm taking, but somewhere down the line my prof also concluded that this was a really killer course, and to that end during our last class this past Monday she announced that, with our approval, she'd scrap having a final altogether - and you can imagine it didn't take much persuasion for us to approve that... Anyways, as much as i initially was dreading every moment of this class, i'm glad in the end that i took it (and not just because it turned out to be non-examinable) - really broadened my horizons a lot... To celebrate the end of the very gruelling course we all had dinner at Los Potrillos - a very nice but still quite affordable Mexican place here - good food - have already been there a couple of times in fact - had enchiladas done three ways, one of them in mole (moh-lay, not as in the animal) sauce, which in fact contains lots of chocolate - and it tasted really good in fact - first real taste of chocolate in an entree - too bad though, it's got no nuts =p

Some of my gender of welfare class with our prof at dinner
- and speaking of gender, apart from me only one guy and like five girls are missing...

Yesterday had another farewell event - this time dinner with IV international small group folks at Jim's (our staffworker). [I wanted to post a picture here but too leche (sp?) lah - so once again you'll have to look there =======> once i post it] We had really good food cooked by Jim's wife Beth, and good fellowship too - fun - looking back, i'm really thankful for how the Lord has provided a group such as this for us international folk =)

Just now it was yet another farewell-ish event - the bunch of us from nus met for dinner with the unc people who were at nus last sem and the unc people who'll be in nus next sem - probably the last time i'll get to see some of the middle group, but it also was good to meet up with the next batch - got me a biiit excited about next sem when they'll be in S'pore. We ate at this place called "35 Chinese" though, and if you know me, judging from the name of the place you'll know how much i enjoyed the meal...

Yup, the time for farewells and goodbyes has come - quite sad i must say - time here has really gone by so fast, have only just over a week left here on the Hill before i go travelling. Well, i'll be back here early in the new year, but don't think will get to see too many, if any people at all in those few days. Though i haven't met as many people here as some of the others have, i'm definitely very thankful for those whom i've met - they've all really been a great blessing to me during my time here - again it makes me realise how important it is to not ignore foreign students back home, which i sometimes tend to do - a little bit can definitely go a long way...

Oh and did i mention the weather these past few days has been wonderful? (Well at least to me, most others are complaining about the freezing cold). Great weather to just take a nice walk in and enjoy the cool, fresh air. No snow though - whenever the temperature is well below freezing the forecast always seems to be for 0% chance of precipitation of any kind *bleah*. And i know when i get back, i'll suffer all the more...

Hope none of my flights kena this sorta thing - talk about a story to tell the grandchildren eh ;p...

Sweet Sunday

A dark and gloomy Sunday afternoon now - forecast calls for perfectly dreary 40-degree showers anytime now. I've actually a term paper to more or less start and finish by this Friday, but already from a few days ago i've felt this peace in my heart (am quite sure it's just peace and not complacency) to just sit back and relax this Sunday, as per what i've always had the conviction to do but have never realized. The speaker at the last IV large group was talking about it somewhat, still working through whatever i remember of her talk through my head, but anyways that served as the final nail in the coffin of my repose today, and hopefully for Sundays to come, as far as possible; since i was thinking about making better use of the Sabbath for a very long time now, instead of losing it in mindless nothingness and work that could be done on other days...

So instead i've decided to use today to do various other thingies like type this, post pics, download music (we've legal song downloading here *whee*) and write farewell notes (hmm sounds a tad morbid). Was actually going to go for a swim today, that has proved to just be the latest of my aborted attempts to do so - i've already pencilled it in to at go at least once before i leave this place - but not sure if anything will come out of that. Maybe i'll go when it's freezing outside, the 85-degree heated pool would be a nice contrast to that...

Yesterday's game was a good experience overall, and an enjoyable one; even if the game itself was rather scrappy and not very electrifying, and i got stuck in the last row of the upper deck (i.e. the nosebleed seats), which afforded a microscopic view of the whole game. 75-63 to us, our lowest-scoring game by far this season. Apparently in the big game on Wednesday (v. the then #1 team, Ohio State - which has been the only home game so far i've not gotten tics to), the Tar Heels put on an electrifying performance to win 98-89, although they were without the #1 freshman in the nation due to a wrist injury (see what a week of bball immersion during Thanksgiving can do to me). And as a result of playing their hearts out in that one, the game i went to was far more subdued - our coach even stood up and tried to rouse the indifferent crowd, he said was only the second time in history he had to do that. Ah well, at least i've at least one more game to go to, and possibly another one just before i leave against my brother's school, so hopefully they'll be far more rested for that one. Add that to hopefully better-located seats (or alternatively, a telescope), and even though our opponent is quite unknown (ever heard of High Point?), maybe that game will be somewhat more thrilling than this one.

It's a looooong way down from here to the action...

This morning i went for another run, my first in around a month. Needless to say, the weather's gotten a lot colder since then - so today for the first time in my life had to wear sweats to run. Felt needed to run in order to clear my head from a lot of stuff as much as to get some exercise (now my mother also said that i've lost weight btw)... Well basically the month off has done its damage, i was struggling through the second lap, but at least managed to get through it - though after that my knees were aching really badly - guess that's a combination of poor technique, cold weather and getting old heh... Well in any case when i'm back in S'pore wringing out buckets from my shirt into the longkang i know i'll miss running in such pleasant, non-sweat-inducing weather...

I just realized [cos (my recently-downloaded) James Taylor's Carolina In My Mind is playing on my laptop now], almost two years after i chose it, that the color of this font is Carolina Blue - sweet =)

And the 1943 song cannot get out of my mind! Though admittedly that's in part cos i downloaded it too =p...

G is for Gone

Well, Jon my roommate's out for the weekend, it's his turn to go to Charleston, which means that i've the room to myself and my nonsense till Sunday. Was intending to spend a good portion of this time relaxing, since i don't have much work to do. A good portion of that relaxing would have been spent on the guitar - as you know a friend David from IV here loaned me his guitar till i leave the Hill - during my time-wasting yesterday i managed to learn how to play 關懷方式 [btw i just cut-n-pasted that from the page i learnt how to play it from - you think i actually know how to use special software to type that - some more it's in whatchacallit - fan(2) ti(3) zi(4) rite...] [and for those who like me would otherwise be unable to read that it's guan(1) huai(2) fang(1) shi(4), the Chen Hanwei/Cai Lilian getai show song] [and just as a disclaimer - i learnt how to play it, full stop. Not how to play it well...] [just to note that this is the first time that chinese characters have appeared here - go buy 4D!] [and this is just plain boliao, but i've never used so many square brackets in quick succession before either] - well, as i was saying, i was playing something just now - ironically think it was supposed to be a quiet worship song, the exact song i've forgotten - when the G string snapped *boing*. Hmm so well that was the end of that - feel bad about snapping it especially when it wasn't mine (and i don't know how to restring a guitar), but David said it wasn't a problem. Sigh...

Well, maybe that was God's way of telling me that i should be finishing my work and starting on revision for finals which begin in exactly eight days' time instead - so i'll try and garner enough motivation to do that really soon - and if i'm really hard up to play - can still do so without the wayward string... And in any case, it's great that God has provided me with the guit in the first place - yeah thankfulness in all circumstances...

I thought that birthday surprises had come to an end for me but yesterday night Clement, Jeremy, SJ and Weichang got a cake for me from Cold Stone - a whole bunch of us were there to say farewells to one another - yeah that was really nice of them, and the fact that my throat was then still somewhat not 100% yet did not deter me from finishing a big slice of Chocolate Mint Ice-Cream Cake...

And speaking of farewells, yuppers it's not long before i'll be gone from here and probably won't see many of the people i've encountered here again - but well, at least there's other ways to keep in touch rite... And that also provides a perfect excuse for a return visit sometime soon as well =p

Tomorrow i'm going for my first UNC basketball game - it's the Tar Heels v. UK (U of Kentucky, not United Kingdom) - should be a good game, which we should win =) - this year's the first year they're trying out a lottery system for bball tickets - people register online and then they either get tickets or they don't based on the tickets available and how many people register. Demand eternally outstrips supply, btw. And for once i've been rather successful in these sort of things - of the four games i've bidded for so far, i got tickets to three of them - while there are others who haven't gotten a single one... Normally i never win anything... But anyways, previously they had some kind of bracelet/first-come-first-served system where people would line up outside the Dean Dome (the bball arena here) from 6am in the morning - kinda like how S'poreans like it best methinks - but they've done away with that - and a lot of die hards have protested - reminds me a bit of what they did with ndp tickets a couple of years back - well i must say that at least for me the draw of UNC bball is greater for me than is the draw for ndp by far...

Btw pics from b'day/Thanksgiving/Charleston are all up over there =======>

Looks like i ought to get started on work then,,,