| Saturday, December 24, 2005 |
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I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
It feels wonderful to be home. Wonderful to be able to walk around barefoot, to have my own bathroom, to leave my stuff hanging on every available surface in the house, to be able to freely use my phone, to hear friends' voices again (I'll see y'all soon, wanna spend time with bro before he leaves again), to leave the house without a jacket, to smell REAL food again and of course, have my beloved family with me.
All the way back, God's been really gracious to me.
At 2am, the morning before I was supposed to leave, I discovered that I had not gotten my I20 signed. Without this baby, I won't be able to get back into the US. The thing is, its entirely my fault because I let the reminder email get bumped all the way to the bottom of my mailbox. And the day before was the last day that the director was signing it. (Crisis 1)
Called her house early the next morning, explained to her husband how dumb I was. Good thing she was coming to campus for something anyway. And she was very nice about it. (Crisis 1 averted)
10 minutes before leaving, I discover that I'm supposed to fill out a form. Well, ok - so I knew it beforehand but I did the same thing- totally forgot about it. (Scare 1)
So I ask monica to go ahead and pick the rest up while I make a mad dash up some 6 flights of stairs to go sign them. Thank God the office was open and the form was easy. Run all the way back to the van like a madwoman. (Scare 1 over)
Getting to the Logan airport on time was difficult because of traffic, and because we started out late. Had very little time before flight (Scare 2)
Lines went ok, glad I checked in at the booths outside the airport as opposed to the ones inside because of the huge lines there. (Scare 2 over)
I had made it such that I'd have 45 mins between arriving at JFK and getting on the airporter. Waiting for the bag took exactly 45 mins (Scare 3 over)
Called airporter, was told that there would be a delay because of traffic conditions due to the strike. I'd be going on the 7pm one instead of the 6pm as planned.
6.45pm - realize that if traffic was bad, it would take extra long to get into Newark. Call again. She tells me that it'll take another 10 mins for it to get here.
7.05pm - Call again. Get told once again that its coming.
7.20pm - Call again. Its near the airport. Go to ask the ground transport people how long they think it'll take to get to Newark with these conditions. They tell me 2.5 hours. My flight is at 11pm (Crisis 2)
7.30pm - Stand outside waiting for a cab. Get told that its gonna take about $105 at least. Argh. Explain to the cab driver and almost beg him to do all the shortcuts he can. He was amazing. Not only was he very fast but safe, he took an outside route that got me there in about 1.5 hours.
9pm - stand at the check in under the impression that it is 10pm because I was looking at my phone (which I hadn't changed to daylight saving). Rush thru customs etc - and realize that I was actually good on time. (Crisis 2 averted)
Come to think of it- a lot of it was my own silliness. But oh well. Glad to be back. |
posted by wenster @ 7:51 AM  |
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| Saturday, December 17, 2005 |
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Two down and two more to go! Woohoo!
Its funny how free I feel right now... even though its in the middle of finals period, I have the time to walk down the hall and play santa to my firsties. Well, mini-you-get-one-piece-of-candy-cos-I'm-just-a-poor-college-kid Santa, but I think thats an ideal job~all you gotta do is hand out gifts. Except I don't know about the whole belly and beard part. Thats a little too much for me to handle I think.
Weather today was bizarre-its been warmer than usual, but a lot rainier. But apparently cold enough for ice to form on the pavement, so half the time you see me walking along going "whoa!" followed by some arm flailing.
Went to MIT last weekend for a malaysian dinner thingmajing - there are actually quite a few grad students there! Some at harvard too, which is cooool. It was nice getting off campus for a bit, and of course, I had good company there and back. I can't believe how quick the semester has gone by (have I said this already?) -one minute I'm back to school with all these plans and resolutions and the next thing I know I'm halfway through the year! At the beginning, I couldn't get used to calling myself a sophomore-I remember a bunch of us making our own "froshmore" word. Now its just so natural.. and its great being in an "older person" role. Lol. I think what people (like my own mom) say about me is true- I'm the mothering kind. I loove taking care of other people's affairs. Busybody I guess.
But truly, this sem has been great. I've actually managed to stick to my resolution of enjoying life more- hence the buffy watching during reading period and online book reading etc- and maybe I'll go to the MFA tomorrow! I hear that there is a great photo exhibit there.. and Ee wants to go too..so tempting. And God's been really gracious too- we've got a whole load of firsties to love in absk, and I've survived the first part of o chem, and I have had a bunch of visits from people I love!
Now I feel like having chocolate... |
| posted by wenster @ 3:59 AM |
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| Saturday, December 10, 2005 |
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For some reason, I feel as though I have had a noteworthy week.
I got to operate a snow plough today. How cool is that? While I was walking down the path to Munger, I saw Al in the the plough truck and waved to him. Next thing I know, I'm sitting next to him holding a remote that feels deceptively like a toy and controlling the plough while we drive into walls. I have a lot of respect for people who do this now. Imagine trying to fiddle with a remote while concentrating on ramming snow into a wall without actually crashing too far into it. Kind of like bumper cars without the safety factor. It was thrilling though, heading at a pretty quick speed towards a wall. Its so counter intuitive! Al offered to let me drive... but common sense got the better of my curiousity. I wouldn't want him to have to explain how this random girl managed to drive the college's truck off the hill and into the trees.
And I've finished reading Persuasion, which (by now I realize) is very true to jane austen's style. I am a sucker for the supposedly strong, silent male protagonist's sudden admittance of love in elegant language, and the stubborn/faithful/independent female's acceptance of it (especially since it seems that the lady always discovers her feelings first, and I have to read on in agony hoping that he'll admit/come to his senses soon). No mean feat reading an entire book online though... I'd much rather have the actual book in my hands. Staring at a screen is not as satisfying, and it does seem more tiring and tiresome. Or it could be that I'm too lazy to get to the webpage, access the book and try to find the page I was on and waiting for each page to load as opposed to seeing the page immediately.
And I managed to fall down in the snow (which is probably about a foot thick or more) twice today. Once not by my will and the other as a result of trying to use Achan as a demonstration of how I fell the first time. The weather people predicted a blizzard, but since I was observing only from indoors, I can only say that a whole lotta snow has fallen and its a whole lotta fun. (not counting the snow in my pants and boots part).
And I went to a chem "come as your favourite element" party yesterday. Seeing the profs dress up in their own interpretations of the elements was hilarious- one came as Mo - he wore a tag saying "I am single and 99.99% pure". Another came dressed in shorts and a Berkeley tee- us orgo kids had so much fun eating liquid nitrogen ice cream and making bad jokes. I can hardly believe that the semester is coming to an end! I remember beginning the sem dreading orgo because of all that I had heard about it- but because it is so demanding and because there is a sizable group of us who see each other almost every day for it, there is now that "special" (because that doesn't happen all the time) bond. Lol. I have officially embraced geekdom huh. It is interesting though, because I think this is somewhat sorority-like in the sense that there is the initiation period where you really have to work hard and learn to appreciate it, then there is the whole sisterhood and exclusitivity that comes from being the ones who survived. And the ones who will take orgo II next semester. I really do owe it all to God though- He's seen me through each struggle, and has heard each frantic prayer. |
| posted by wenster @ 4:45 AM |
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| Wednesday, December 07, 2005 |
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Why am I so distracted?
I'm supposed to be working hard for tomorrow's orgo midterm but here I am finding random chem haikus online, planning all these things that I want to do when I get back... yargh. Woke up late for the first time all semester yesterday. Quite an achievement when you take into account that both Yako and I are early birds- thankfully I had time to grab breakfast before PE. See how important food is to me?
When I get back, I want to:
- spend time with bro before he goes back to school
- go rock climbing.
- plan and cook a special meal for my family
- learn how to knit
- meet up with the BBC people in Singapore
- make a trip to KL to visit Mei Ai and Choo
- go to the beach with the 6 of us
- have the gang come over and swim or something
- get some loooong socks to act as leg warmers
But until then, I shall satisfy myself with:
- going sledding
- watching Buffy and Anne of Green Gables
- reading Persuasion online
- having wei visit
- going out to the post thanksgiving sales
- writing postcards
and dreaming. |
| posted by wenster @ 1:03 AM |
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