Monday, February 21, 2005

i'm so tired and i'm feeling lazy and everything aches and i don't wanna do my work

you know how we're supposed to be on exchange and thus passing is the only issue, we don't really need to get As? yeah well. there's tons of readings to be done by the week and unlike in NUS i can't really postpone all my readings till reading week (duh so THAT's what it's for!) simply because they have quizzes and such every single week. sigh... so yeah us sophomores seem to be just barely surviving while the guy seniors are cruisin' their way through everything. nofe'air.

summary of the week

thursday: went to watch this reaction to the vagina monologues, guess the name (duh, of course the male counterpart) and it was tremendously funny... ange and i managed to score the second row seats despite griping about being so far behind in this snaking queue around the forum building ... and bitching about people who just try to melt into the crowd BEFORE us by entering through the side doors and jumping queue... well we got prime seats! HAH! (and this is for a free performance by the way). anyways when angie and i came back to beaver we realised that there was this big crowd gathered in the hallway. apparently racist and homophobic insults (really bad ones) were being yelled at people in the stairways... and so the police came and there was a big hullabaloo (bet you haven't seen this word for awhiles) and we all have to attend mandatory hall meetings with our RAs (resident assistants who're usually students) and the police and the residence management.. which we just went for today because they take attendance. whew.

friday: went to IFH for a party... it was hilarious the way jiwon tried to escape tawon's advances... the clingiest of the clingy superglue kind! we would form a halo around her while dancing (they had turntable equipment... so cool.... and poor floriaan was so sad that not many people liked his brand of eurotechno but seriously i was okay with it) and he'd manage to weasel his way in. amaaazing. so we ended up hiding in faizal's bedroom with absolut vanilla (and sharon's transported to vodka heaven) and firework rockets going off from the frat house next door... and jiwon going fearfully "whOZAAt!" everytime someone knocked at the door... so yeah. we left the place at around 245am to get canyon pizza and partake in the age-old penn state late night tradition.the weekend seems to have just dissolved into nothingness... it being THON weekend (the largest student-run charity program, a 48 hour dance marathon) and me going to photograph it twice for photojournalism class, friday night/saturday morning i met kathy at 415 am at rec hall... it was utter chaos i tell ya. i hope my photos come out okay and that it's someone i have the name of or my friends know... so i messaged mil bon voyage at 6am and turns out she was still awake.. so i stayed with her till 745am when she left for her greyhound nyc-bound bus and i just crashed into bed (sans contacts, i still had presence of mind for my eyes) in the same outfit i'd worn the entire day... oh. so tired!

saturday: i wake to jessica's phonecall at 130pm and reluctantly take a shower to get ready for the malaysians' chinese new year gathering at east beaver... someone has actually put on the traditional music tape you hear at oriental emporium (or whatever it is now) and chinatown shops... jianmiandiyijuhua jiushigongxigongxi and there's LOTR on cable tv.... the mix seems rather surreal. i gratefully chomp down jess's beehoon and they've got red bean drink, good stuff!i then do laundry and spanish homework

later on in the day i head with norman to alex's (a swiss girl he befriended through salsa and we went to IFH together) place at blue course st... it's a beautiful cosy homey apartment and there's people from her IECP (or just english) class... everyone's from a different country! i meet people from japan (sent here by honda corp. to study engineering here as visiting scholars and they're delighted to know dad's car's from honda), korea, brazil, turkey, germany and of course there's alex from switzerland and norman and i are from singapore... there's 3 older people... two are a couple from the states and one's a lady from taiwan... when they leave the younger people (meaning us) start gelling really well and the turkish people start jamming on the guitar.. i think i like turkish music! haha. the atmosphere's really great and i love alex's homemade swiss bread and the fairy lights strung out about the whole place makes for a relaxed setting. linda's job as an au pair here in the states makes me want to be an au pair too! (mental note to self: probable job after graduating from arts if i don't pursue an honors/masters degree)

sunday: i wake real early to go for this combined churches service at eisenhower auditorium... it's HUGE and it's my first time being inside. i go with kim and her friends again from christ community church and there's 4 other churches there... (too lazy to look for the bulletin from today) and i'm amazed to see that down the rows way up at the front on the left side there's a sign-language translator.... her hands moving a mile a minute keeping up with whatever's being said on stage. the service was unique, people very much into worshipping and even the preacher's the sort you see sweating it out at the pulpit... getting so into the message that his forehead glistens ...you get the idea.

i then go back and head to THON again with alice... saw digger outside doing a promo for a local rock radio station and he hands me a free lunch card at some local steakhouse (all riiiight!!) it's a wait to get inside and light snow's falling... we get in just in time to hear the last two families talk about how THON's helped their kids suffering from cancer.. people are getting emotional and i feel something welling up inside too.. how this community is just so close-knit that people don't mind working together for the cause to fight cancer.. it's all about family and everyone knows everyone else and the tradition's going strong.. how come we don't have that sort of thing in singapore? for one, i can see singaporeans sneering at how cheesy the dances would be.. but seriously if everyone doesn't laugh but dances with all their might, i don't see how it could be deemed cheesy at all. we really lack bonding in our society i guess. maybe because we're all caught up in our own lives and if we interact with others we start making judgements and everything, not being able to look past dress styles religion skin color mannerisms sexual preferences - you get my drift.

alice and i head outdoors and the snowfall has intensified... everything's carpeted with a light layer of white and i happily crunch around making footprints.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 11:14 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 9:41 AM

 
Monday, February 14, 2005

this is gonna be a quickie post right now because i'm in the beaver hall com lab and i'm waiting for my friend kim (yeah! made a friend with my dear cousin's name ;P) to come... we're going down to irving's .. one of the local cafes to do homework and read our books for my honors class, literature in journalism. i'm gonna be reading this book called "the right stuff" by tom wolfe.

yeah well it's been really fun so far... we had steamboat barbecue at norman's place on friday night to celebrate Chinese New Year and i'll be posting pictures on the same ofoto website soon as i get round to doing so...we had a great time and bought stuff from this place called the international market where i bought guo tie (dumplings) which were good but nothing like the real stuff from down at queensway and the hawker centres. sigh. i'm really busy right now with homework and such and my camera on loan from school keeps conking out on me it's so irritating! on thursday i went snowboarding and the ski slopes were melted and then refrozen into chunks of ice so yeah, my legs are again covered with multiple bruises. any day where the grass grows green on the ski slope is bad for the snowboarder.

went to a new church with kim this morning and made quite a few new friends while eating brunch (goooooood brunch, fresh strawberries, french toast, good ham, chocolate chip muffin... etc etc.) and the service was really interesting.. i think i'll continue going there. there's a van that picks students up from behind pollock halls so that's great for me and during service there were skits and movie clips and people dancing during worship whenever they felt like it... i really liked the relaxed atmosphere and it feels good to be back within a community that shares the same faith as i do. they use NIV Bibles and have no denomination, the worship team has 3-4 backup singers and the drummer's real good! so yep, things're looking up.

oh yeah, and they've deducted the money from my bank account for the insurance (524 bucks, i'll probably use the insurance if i ever get injured from snowboarding... my left ankle's been twisted so many times it's feeling rather weak) so i'm a poor person now... it's gonna be a great help when the transfer comes over on monday. thanks again ;)!

what i learnt today in sermon: 6 ingredients to sustaining a marriage communication, commitment, consideration, compromise, courtship, Christ and seeking Him first. got that mom and dad? happy valentines' day all! (though i'll be quite alone heh xoxoxo still from me!)

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:30 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 9:01 AM

 
Tuesday, February 01, 2005

it's 1130pm at night right now and i have tons of work but i feel like i should clear up some misconceptions

well basically i didn't know that my parents were having a bit of a major heart attack till daniel told me they read mil's blog (yes actually maybe i shouldn't link it but i can't post pictures and mil and norman's blogs are the places to go if you wanna see pictures so....) and then i went to check her blog out and oh yeah. i would be scared if i were my parents. well, firstly i'd say that it's all part of being in a new environment and partaking in a whole new culture. whatever you've read about and seen in the movies HAS to be true somewhere. now. for the comforting part, it DOESN'T take place in my dorm... all that excitement anyways. mil and sharon stay in mcelwain which is part of south halls which is about 3 minutes walk from my hall, beaver, which belongs to the pollock tribe. SO. completely different, and i have been having perfectly wonderful nights where i sleep straight through (and very nearly miss my alarms, so much like home, i've really settled down!). yes. every hall here is co-ed and sometimes even on the same floor, but BUT BUT there has been no instance of whatever mmhmmms going on my floor. okay? capisce? breathe easy now?

one more thing mom and dad, i don't need any more stuff, i am completely comfortable with whatever i have right now (though i keep wishing i had those waterproof downfilled coats with the big hoods but i will survive) and if i got anything else from overseas i would literally have to pay hundreds more to ship them back. i am doing my laundry on a regular basis, did my bedspread washing today and even gave the room a quick vacuum so yes, i'm ALSO doing my housework like a good girl should.

homework is piling up fast and examinations are on a weekly basis (well, almost. fortnightly?) and i went to the school library to study awhile yesterday (yeah on a SUNDAY) and i sat in a comfortable armchair facing floor-to-ceiling windows which overlooked the snow-strewn courtyard, a lone airplane streaking its way through the clear skies and the trees barebranched looking rust-red in the sunlight, as if the snow melted on metal. i went to the creamery today in school for the first time as well (yes the university has their own creamery) with my spanish classmate and tried this peanut butter swirl flavour... the people here are totally generous with their helpings of virtually everything. i see why the freshman-15 rule would come into effect although technically i'm a sophomore...

weekends are my only oasis in the onslaught of continuously waking up early so forgive me if i'm been lazy in trying to get up on time for church... i've been TRYING... okay this time i'll set 4 alarms, howzat. it's so much more difficult without parents hollering down my back to wake me for church and such, on weekends i wake at 1pm or later while on weekdays i always have to drag myself out of bed at 8-9am ish. sigh yes i know bad girl. enough, i berate myself adequately without others doing it for me.

lastly, i honestly don't know how to operate the online posting of photographs thingy (i HATE picasa i don't know WHY it doesn't work for me) and so everyone who knows me please email me for the password to www.ofoto.com and type in juice.susceptible@gmail.com for the email address. i have uploaded photographs to the first month in the states so far, yup it's been exactly a month and it doesn't feel that way, it's longer in certain aspects (like experience-wise because intense experiences make time more worthwhile) and shorter in some (like when i have 2 essays due at the end of the week and haven't started yet). i haven't really been missing people (this may make me sound coldhearted in contrast to mil's sentimentality) but i HAVE been surrounded by others, as apparent from photographs which you will see if you visit the site as instructed. it's not like i don't have a roommate that's never around or classmates that don't befriend me... in fact people from back home who're here with me are making me miss local food more than anything. ah well. that's it from me for now, straight up and honest.

takecaregottagobyes.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:28 PM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:59 AM

 
Saturday, January 15th, 2005

i have many things i need to get used tothe key to the lock on my door turns left to lock. the taps in the bathroom turn inward.the cars drive on the other side of the road, and i got in at the driver's seat accidentally on my first day.it can be fresh and spring-like one day and the next, my lips and nose feel like they're gonna drop right ORF.they still play ddr here, two mats at a time, just like we used to eons ago.the skies are clearer, i can see the entire horizon stretching out before me with its burnished yellows and purpled reds. any random blurry photograph turns out to be beautiful by chance.you call adults by their first names here. well, usually.they have game nights on fridays and saturdays, i just played penn stateology. yeah, the monopoly kinda game, only this time it WILL cost you to go to the school library.my time is entirely my own.starbucks bottled frappucino costs 40 cents at the nearest dining commons.i keep bumping into the people i know over and over again JUST when i need to go for lunch.my lecturer provided bagels and cream cheese for the honours class in lit journalism today.there's 4 different flavours of icecream for every meal.there's 7 different flavours of coffee for every meal.i eat fresh salad everyday.abercrombie and fitch is less than 10 walking minutes away.i can leave breadcrumbs and sweet stuff out in the open for hours and there's NO ANTS whatsoever. maybe they're hibernating in the mushy grass leftover from the FIRST snowfall of the year, which left big brown balls (erm.) of slush lying on pathways for days till they all melted.everyone wears makeup to class except me. i just wear lipgloss. haha!i am underage. i cannot go into a bar without flashing my passport, which i believe will make my parents quite happy. the biggest basketball stadium i've ever seen in real life so far is just less than 10 minutes away and i've been there TWICE.i am so filled with school spirit and i've only been here for a week. i now know why we are so far behind in everything inspiration-related.i am feeling slightly better about myself because everything is swaddled in layers, therefore invisible.my friends' are ALL walking distance' away.i take vitamins and water more often than i ever used to back home.the singaporean group is divided by gender with regards to a silly game of collecting state-specific quarters. so far the sneaky guys are winning.i pay for everything using one card, and it gives me 70% off everything. granted, i forked out a 1000 buck basic downpayment.i feel panic with regards to photography, because now i cannot enjoy everything without thinking if the thing i am enjoying would make a good feature photograph.i let people on my bed in full dirty attire without thinking twice. now, THAT is something completely different.i get zero on a quiz but people urge me to just hand it in because "he just wants to see your name on it"i have free talktime on my plan after 7pm to 7am my time and on weekends, call/sms me at 814-222-0814 (notice my birthday occurs twice) if you're willing to pay international charges and just miss me so bad.my homework assignment for lit comedy class is to find out as many words as possible to describe/substitute for "drunken". i plan to educate my lecturer (who looks like a cross of hagrid from harry potter and gimli from lotr) on the word "seh". any more contributions besides "wasted", "gone already", "cannot make it", "ke liao" and "stoned" would be much appreciated.my eBay package arrived today bearing my textbook for less than half my school bookstore price.the skies bear their beautiful constellations, planets and manmade satellites in the crisp frigid air with a velvet dignity i haven't felt since that starry night in northern thailand.the days are flying fastand forgetfulness sets ini don't miss any thingonly you, and you and you.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:29 PM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:57 AM

 
Monday, January 10th, 2005

the days are fraught with biting cold winds and not a sign of a snowflakei'm at the beaver hall computer lab... haven't gotten round to actually trying to connect my laptop to the lan extension in my room. it's been a really really busy few days so far... socializing with the other foreign students and settling in (FINALLY!) to my dormitory. it's rather cosy and my roommate just moved in this morning, she seems like a rather sweet person although she's super into rock music... nirvana, johnny cash and anti-bush posters adorn her walls while my side of the room remains blank. maybe i should buy some magazines and rip out interesting pages to stick everywhere... unlike my room back home which is full of my photographs and that sole poster of audrey hepburn which jovian gave me...if anyone wants to send me anything (except rotten food) send it to 402 Beaver Hall, University Park, PA 16802, U.S.A. i would totally love receiving anything in the mail...

well. so far i've attended one pennstate nittanylions versus michigan spartans basketball match at a huge stadium... i have never supported nus basketball before and there i was rooting for the penn state people... which sadly lost 50-something to 84. it was painful to watch and apparently the referee was super kayu... though i bet if we were to stand up and shout it into the arena people'd think we were totally mad. went broomballing the 3rd night at pennstate (it's like ice hockey without a puck, with a ball instead and broom-shaped sticks and normal shoes instead of skates) and fell smack on my knees... i've officially gotten the biggest bruise of my entire life. the right knee is all the colours of the rainbow and it's an interesting conversation opener.. good for making new, sympathetic friends. and last night, we went to this housewarming party thrown by two danish girls.. they're actually korean but don't speak a word of their native language as they were adopted since young. our music tastes unite in harmony though. music makes the world go round man.

the food selection at the nearby dining commons is completely crazy. now i know why i'm bound to gain weight before returning home. mil and i have pledged to do 50 situps a day but i sorely fear it will be a lost cause... imagine having a ponderosa selection times 3 for meals EVERYDAY. there's like 6 different kinds of dessert, soft icecream, hard scoop icecream, yogurt, 8 kinds of cereal, dunno how many kinds of fruit, icecream toppings, and all the main courses are absolutely LADEN with carbs but it all looks so damn good that i can't help but point to this and that... even the bagels are accompanied by 4 different spreads ... strawberry/blueberry/light/normal cream cheese.... ack. the coffee's fantastic as well, from seattle coffee company and the milk they provide in the containers ALSO comes in various flavours... i tried out hazelnut cream and irish creme today.

okay enough about food. school starts tomorrow and i fear being left behind... lost in my lack of experience and inspiration from singapore's lousy, monotonous scenery. the college here is a constant source of architectural fascination for me... i don't think i'll ever get tired of the mountains surrounded by low fog, the ski slopes in the distance and the mix of trees, some green-leaved and some totally bare. when the icestorms hit a few days back my friends and i acted like total suakus, touching the icicles that formed everywhere... on tree leaves, branches and on chain link fences. not a winterwonderland but an iced fairytaleworld. i'm still in a suspended state of disbelief.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:36 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:54 AM

 
Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

well i'm now sitting in a newyorkcity starbucks... yes, starbucking as a verb, something i always wanted to do in this chilly weather and my peppermint hot chocolate and sesame seed bagel with cream cheese constituting my lunch, using the unstable spilloff from someone elses' wireless account as the one starbucks provides makes you pay (poo!). am missing people like joshy and family but not much else... the weather here is perfect, not a drop of snow though.hard to believe that so much time has passed and our short stint in nyc is over (for now at least). i'm finally alone without feeling guilt from making someone else wait for me... the victoria's secret sale just started today and the queues are crazy and the clothes not really that great. went to visit fao schwarz as well, got shown an interesting display of handmade kaleidoscopes and puzzles by a nice salesgirl (who wouldn't want to work in fao?) and goggled at the real life kid-sized ferraris and mercedes (only 15,000 USD!) and that huge sort of keyboard where people can stomp on to make music... only 150,000 that one. hahaa... makes you wonder how many kids have that sort of toys in their apartments. *shudder*

we went to visit rockerfeller center, the lincoln center and the natural history museum and we went to times square for the highly overrated new year countdown (think bad music throughout the entire wait of standing 7 HOURS STRAIGHT (mom would've collapsed i bet), bad logistics and oft-not working machinery and lindsay lohan being the only live act in the entire show... dick clark not showing and some fat geezer trying to be a mediocre emcee (NOT WORKING!!!... the crowd would boooo whenever he appeared onscreen and TRUST me when i say we were in desperate need of some entertainment) yeah... the ball was teensy and i don't care what they say about it being some special event... i think sentosa would've been better, at least they'd play more contemporary music instead of lousy 50s-80s music which would totally not get the audience bopping at all. what a disappointment!

anyway. it's been a wonderful few days, without any schedule whatsoever and no stress or running about to and fro... i'm finally getting my deserved rest. hard to believe that in a few days time we'll all be plunged into studies again. it all seems rather surreal to me.. am getting paranoid thoughts that i'm gonna arrive at penn state and be chased away with a "what are you doing here? you're not meant to be here!" kinda thang i'm just over-worrying, huh. meanwhile, we've been following the news on the tsunami here in US.. i hope nobody i know has loved ones affected. well the weather outside here isn't that frightful, and we leave tonight at 230 am for pennsylvania. take care everyone and ciao till the next update... bonne annee!

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:57 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:52 AM

 
Friday, December 24th, 2004

christmas eve at ours: not for the faint-heartedthis year we've been too busy to put up the christmas tree, so the wine fridge is happy to stay in its place. and i've been holding off writing christmas cards, somehow there's a terrible inertia to doing so, i have a feeling i won't be able to pen significant stuff to anyone this year, so why bother? decision: am cutting down my 100+ christmas card list to about 20+. i will get down to writing them LATER.

first alarm: someone calls me from an obviously bustling office, i hear fax machines and photocopiers beeping all over the place. i'm going for lunch at anthony bourdain's les halles, the menu's just been emailed over to me. it's starting to feel surreal, like living someone else's life. i go back to dreaming, where a weird image takes over my mind... my family's bought a new place overseas, we've migrated and i'm being stalked by an eerie doorman. i've left my school academic records back in singapore and am forced to return to get them back.

second alarm: i awake to the sounds of my mom getting hysterical: the porridge is boiling over! i haven't finished wrapping my presents yet! take the clothes out of the washing machine, i don't want them to soak too long! mental reminder to self: photocopy academic results JUST in case. my mom's blasting, where's the christmas book of songs? see, way back in '98, i typed out around 20 christmas carols and gave them nice backgrounds and images and everything and collated it into a booklet and photocopied about 20-30 books so we'd have something to pass around during christmas carol singing. and now mom says she's lost it, she doesn't know where it is. she looks at me: is it okay if i park you over at aunty audrey's today, can you churn out a whole new book in 2 hours?cut to horrendous mental picture of me hunching over computer at kim's place furiously typing

nonononoononoo.

i hurry downstairs to meet dad's car with my lazybumsbro and pick up dad's office presents and a huge pot of curry for later. there's about 5 bottles of wine as well, which i help mom pack into the wine fridge (which, by the way, is ALSO stocked with daniel's stash of a&w rootbeer, funpacks of m&ms, and bottles of gnc vitamins - don't ask.) aunty audrey calls to say that we left the books over at her place from LAST YEAR - how quickly time has flown! see, 6-7 months won't be so bad, you won't even know i'm gone!mom tries to clean out the second fridge (i have THREE fridges, one for food to be cooked, one for junk food and medicine, one for wine) and digs out mooncakes (?!!) and a huge mrs. field's cookie (the kind that's as big as a cake).. she asks daniel and i to break up the cookie as it is taking up too much space. daniel and i refuse to and prance around the house singing renee olstead's breaking up is hard to do... no wonder we drive my mom crazy.

i open the suitcase we just bought, a mint-green antler biggie. i throw in random items: boxes of contact lens solution, a fleece blanket from ikea, my pencil case. there's plenty more space. don't know why i've left it till now to start packing... it's like a sort of disbelief that i'm leaving i guess. and sharon's already finished packing and last night told me that she was trying to close the suitcase.. !!!! i haven't done anything yet, oh wait. i've finally managed to get the nus doc's signature on my health form... if i run into complications over there in pennsylvania i'm positively going to scream.

meanwhile. it's christmas... somehow i don't feel quite christmassy this year, and i know why but that's something i ought to keep to myself. i'm not going to put any sort of christmas list out here about what i want... i can't think of anything i really need anymore (except money hahaa $$) so yeah. pretty content with knowing i'm gonna go somewhere else for a long while. so that's it.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:50 PM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:49 AM