Thursday, January 31, 2008
In rochester noww. Rochester as a city is nice. Outskirts is quiet, or rather the part i've been to is quiet. The laboratory of laser energectics has a relaly nice environment, kinda like an English countryside...abit lah. The city realli looks like a city, nowhere near new york or chicago, but at least sky scrapers, and abit of noise.
I consider myself really really really lucky to land this research project. The people are really nice and shuibian, and this trip I feel like I'm on business. The sky's the limit cos the lab is paying, no budget. Stay in hotel, 2 per room, lobster dinner yesterday, 2 dozens of bagels and 2 dozens of donuts today, pizza for lunch (they have small, medium, lrge, and SHEET. u have to look at the size of a SHEEET pizza. Who order pizzas by the SHEETS?), ribs for dinner, and phillips for dessert. Phillips is this place where they have super rich cakes for like 7 bucks a slice? And I can't tell how good it feels not to have to thin kabout cost. Like when I look at a menu I can order drinks cos I can spend as much as I want. It;s relaly like on your own holiday with no budget.
Lab was ok. Spent most of the day in the control room. The other UROP students managed to go fill targets with gas, which I managed to look for awhile, it looks v fun...Went to see viewing gallery and all...the laser facility was really impressive!
But then what made this trip really really rare, was the oppotunity to meet with so many cool ppl. The ppl I was travelling with are witty, deep, super nice. The ppl at the U of R lab are COOL. They're goodlooking and witty, but that aside, they're opinioted, intelligent, e.t.c.e.t.c. They can talk about anything under the sun, politics, music, comedy, and can even make pop culture sound learned. When they talk they speak with such conviction, and they can hold engaging and intelligent conversations. I can't imagine anyone from singapore being able to speak like tht (except for a few) and i suppose tis is where education failed me. Anyhow I aim to develop myself to be able to speak like tht and etwork with such interesting ppl.
tis xmas, plz stay wit me..
xx
12:43 PM
# # # Monday, January 07, 2008
back in ann arbor
hello againweather's erratic
no comments. as always.beautyworld soundtrack!
thnx bec!no incentive to post photos on facebook whatsoever
maybe i'm less narcissitic then i thoughtplethora of movies i would like to watch
is there time?school
is starting has started
scareeddddd.
tis xmas, plz stay wit me..
xx
3:40 AM
# # # Wednesday, January 02, 2008
2008 has arrived. Happy New Year to all, and may everyone have a great year ahead =)
Newyear at Times Sq was an experience to e experineced. I.e. do it once, and don't do it again. Went at 4.30 to get a spot on the 47th street. People start filling up on sections on the 43rd street to about 55th street, I reckon 47th street ain;t too bad. I thought our spot wasn't too bad. Managed to move and squeeze further and further towards the front of the street as time went by. Took us some time to realise that we were there, stuck in the crowd, snadwched btween rowdy people for 7 hours till 12 am for that miserable 10 secs of countdown. No eating; we didn't bring food and we can't get out, or we'll have to requeue and enter from the backk oft he crowd. No toilet either, as mentioned, we can't move off from our spot. We did manage to squeeze enough space o sit on the ground. After about an hour, the novelty of being in Times Square bg\egun to wear off and we had enough of photowhoring. The realisation that we're stuck in tht crammy spot for another 6 hours begin to set in and we started getting sian. 2 ladies in front were trying to zi pai (but failed repetivively), so guo lu and I cheekily put 2 fingers each above their heads while they were taking a photo. Haha, when they saw it they were damn amused. they turned around to face us and said, we'll turn around and take photos, where ur fingers can't reach us. Haha, so I offerd to take a pictue fot eh msince they were having so much problem zi pai-ing. After which they kept referring to the photo which they took with our fingers in it and were laughing non stop.
And so there we waited...as time went by we had enough of playing I Never, we were freezing cold, jianxin was entertaining us and ws the only one truly entertained and enthusiastic. Rongsiu was dying from a bursting bladder...and FIANLLY countdown. Fireworkds ain't too spectaculer. confetti and balloons from the sky were...ok. Rongsiu rushed off to find a toilet, while jianxin guolu and i went randomly walking around. Guolu and I found some policemen and took a picture with them, the policeman put his hat on my head!!! (and his cute!) And then we went to a hotel tryin to get a toilet. NYC is damn unfreindly, the restaurants are closed, macs refused to open its toilets at all (even as, guolu and rongisu told me later, this drunk girl asked her boyfrined to pay the macs people 20 bucks to open the toilet). Went to a hotel which also had the sign: TOILET ONLY FOR HOTEL GUESTS. Nice jianxin went to ask a hotel guests to help us get the key to the toilet and he offered us his room toilet. Then a janitor saw and offered to open the toilet door for us NICEEE.
Jianxin went back and left guolu rongsiu and i. And then I went back and realised, I didn't have the key to one of the locks. Not wanting to wake everyone up I went back to find them at times sq macdonalds where they were just being chased out. Scary. Subway at night is scary, everyone is drunk and stumbling and there's not many people around. NYC is unfreindly to the homeless. Macs only offered seats to paying customers, chasing out alot of people who already finished or didn;t have food. Turns out alot of people had the sme idea, to not ook acomodation for new years eve for its very expensive. Wnt to another macdonalds where we were a little smarter. Rongsiu and guolu bought donus and we leftit on the table, not eating it. BUt even then they won't allow ppl to sleep. Was dozing off but kept gettting woken up by security guards or the manager damn. Until Macs finally announced they were closing at 4.30 we moved to duane reed and spent the next 2 hours. They don' even let us sit on the floor. Finally left to Burgar King and I went back at around 8am.
All that went through my head that night was how I mis my fmaily and family warmth. It occured that I;ve never really been on a budget and how sheltered life has been. In just a couple of days, I feel like living conditions changed 180 degrees and its not even that bad. I'm living comfortably but IT JUST FEELS DIFFERNT.
I don't ever want to be homeless and destitute. I can't live like that.
Went to Chinatown today and its SCARY at night. There's grafitti on the shops and the blacks are abound and so are the homeless. Its a scary world out there and I'm so not prepared for it on my own as I thought I was. Every holiday I dread the end of the holiday but I know that it'll come. For so long I always thought of the day my parents or grandparents won't be around anymore but comforted myself by telling myself tht day won't be here for a long time. But I realised that this is just like the end-of-holiday sitaution. It will come one day, and there's nothing I can do to prevent it (short of going before them) and that makes me helpless cos I find myself realising more and more that I cannot live without them. The future seems scary, unpredictable, and dark. And thatis my realisation this New Year.
New Year resolutions!
Read more - newspapers and others
Train up in Piano. PLay Hanon!
Exercise
Commit more to my commitments
Be friendlier
Take care of my skin better.
Yuppp.
tis xmas, plz stay wit me..
xx
11:21 AM
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