Approx 6:40am: I'm woken up by several really loud knocks on the door. My first thought is, "Oh NO I'm really late for the scavenger hunt!" In my sleepy state I clamber out of bed, open the door, and find approx 12 guys with white baseball jerseys with the word "Mendicants" on it standing in front of me, and they start singing. I've still got the song stuck in my head but I dunno the title... it's an oldie, prob from the 80s or smtg. Anyway they finish singing and, in a rather random order, inform me that I've been accepted into the Mendicants!!! Whoohoo!! Praise God!
And so they leave, and one guy, Matty, gives me a sheet of paper telling me to read it soon cos it's kinda time sensitive. Of course I'm still half asleep and so I put the paper on the table, promising myself to read it once I wake up, and go back to bed.
As an afterthought I wonder if any of those guys slept tonight at all. I mean, if they were going around to every single dorm room to sing for every single guy that got in, that must take a while man!
7:40-7:50am: Alarm rings. I haven't been able to get to sleep... think their singing really shocked me awake. Same goes for my roomate. And maybe everyone else in the hall. :P
8am: I finish nuahing on the bed and finally get up. As I read the piece of paper from Matty I get a sorta sinking feeling in my heart.
"There is one thing we need to tell you, and that is that you need to be at the Tressider bollards at 12 o'clock noon, today September 30th. If your dorm has a scavenger hunt, don't go, we have much more exciting plans for you..."
I'm like... oh man. I can't go for scavenger hunt. After a few minutes though, I get warmed up to the idea and start getting excited abt whatever's going to happen, while being a little wary at the same time. :P My guess is that it'll last till tmr cos they said bring a sleeping bag (which I don't have) and a couple of changes of clothes, among another things.
So... I'll blog again when I come back! If I have strength left in me that is. Haha. I'm sure it's gonna be real fun. If u wanna check the group's website out it's http://www.stanford.edu/group/mendicants/home.htm. Gonna pack up now and see if i can catch a couple more hrs of sleep.
Cheers!! =)
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
1st week of sch's over!!
I made thru the first week of classes! Hallelujah! haha...
Thinking I may drop the MS&E course. Don't wanna take on too many things. Had my first IHUM section yesterday, it's really quite a small discussion section (abt 15 ppl). And class participation is an important part of the grade, and I'm naturally not a very loud-spoken person (if there's even such a term).
Update on what we Singaporeans call 'CCAs' (*grinz*): I got into University Singers, and was asked back for callbacks for Chamber Chorale. I attended the first rehearsal of the University Singers, and the callback audition for Chamber Chorale where we learned a choral piece together and sang that piece in different groups within each section. Was really happy to be asked back for callbacks but I realised a lot of my choral technique is gone after having not sung in choirs for 2.5 years and in the first place a lot of the other ppl there have much better voices than me. Anyway I didn't get into Chamber Chorale, and I'm thinking University Singers may not be the place for me, simply because of the type of repertoire. I'd enjoy it, but more like a pastime than anything I'm really passionate abt.
So that leaves The Mendicants, the a cappella group I auditioned for. Went for the callbacks tonight. It was really quite fun, they're a really wacky fun bunch of guys and I think I'd really enjoy singing with them. So I'm praying I get in. It'd also be an amazing opportunity to sing with an established college acappella group with years of experience: the first batch of mendicants was established in like 1960 or smtg like that. And they go on tours and make CDs and stuff. So it'd be awesome experience, besides the performance experience which wld be priceless of course. Well, I've done my best so I'll leave it in God's hands. =)
Tmr is Scavenger Hunt at San Francisco. The whole bunch of freshies are going to San Fran for a day-long city-wide Scavenger Hunt. Whee! Gonna be exhausted tmr.
One last thing before I go: here's a picture of a bunch of ppl from my dorm and the neighbouring dorms:
We were hiding in my room (more ppl came later) cos it was the birthday of one of the guys in the next door room, Othman (or Ozzie for short). And apparently Stanford tradition is that if it's the guy's birthday, u throw him into the shower (thank God my bday's in summer hols!). So some guys got the shower going and Ozzie's roomate knocked on the door. When he opened we barged in, two ppl carried Ozzie into the bathroom and into the shower and we started singing 'happy birthday'. =) The guy with the long hair and the bandana is my roomate. Doesn't look like Orlando Bloom now. In the Stanford yearbook for Frosh which has pictures in it, He doesn't have glasses and his hair's longer and tied back so he looks more like orlando bloom there. :)
Thinking I may drop the MS&E course. Don't wanna take on too many things. Had my first IHUM section yesterday, it's really quite a small discussion section (abt 15 ppl). And class participation is an important part of the grade, and I'm naturally not a very loud-spoken person (if there's even such a term).
Update on what we Singaporeans call 'CCAs' (*grinz*): I got into University Singers, and was asked back for callbacks for Chamber Chorale. I attended the first rehearsal of the University Singers, and the callback audition for Chamber Chorale where we learned a choral piece together and sang that piece in different groups within each section. Was really happy to be asked back for callbacks but I realised a lot of my choral technique is gone after having not sung in choirs for 2.5 years and in the first place a lot of the other ppl there have much better voices than me. Anyway I didn't get into Chamber Chorale, and I'm thinking University Singers may not be the place for me, simply because of the type of repertoire. I'd enjoy it, but more like a pastime than anything I'm really passionate abt.
So that leaves The Mendicants, the a cappella group I auditioned for. Went for the callbacks tonight. It was really quite fun, they're a really wacky fun bunch of guys and I think I'd really enjoy singing with them. So I'm praying I get in. It'd also be an amazing opportunity to sing with an established college acappella group with years of experience: the first batch of mendicants was established in like 1960 or smtg like that. And they go on tours and make CDs and stuff. So it'd be awesome experience, besides the performance experience which wld be priceless of course. Well, I've done my best so I'll leave it in God's hands. =)
Tmr is Scavenger Hunt at San Francisco. The whole bunch of freshies are going to San Fran for a day-long city-wide Scavenger Hunt. Whee! Gonna be exhausted tmr.
One last thing before I go: here's a picture of a bunch of ppl from my dorm and the neighbouring dorms:
We were hiding in my room (more ppl came later) cos it was the birthday of one of the guys in the next door room, Othman (or Ozzie for short). And apparently Stanford tradition is that if it's the guy's birthday, u throw him into the shower (thank God my bday's in summer hols!). So some guys got the shower going and Ozzie's roomate knocked on the door. When he opened we barged in, two ppl carried Ozzie into the bathroom and into the shower and we started singing 'happy birthday'. =) The guy with the long hair and the bandana is my roomate. Doesn't look like Orlando Bloom now. In the Stanford yearbook for Frosh which has pictures in it, He doesn't have glasses and his hair's longer and tied back so he looks more like orlando bloom there. :)
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
On ur marks... get set... go!!!
Classes started yesterday! Got my first homework. Math problem sets (math questions in our lingo). They're all from the textbook, thank God my neighbour has the textbook so I managed to do quite a few of the questions. There're a LOT of questions to be done, it's due next thu. But wanna get it out of the way before other hw starts coming in as much as possible.
So u're probably wondering what classes i'm taking eh? :) Ok here's a breakdown and summary:
IHUM - Stands for Introduction to the HUManities. Consists of a range of humanities courses that tend to touch more on philosophy, sociology and literature. They all have interesting but rather vague names; mine's titled "Journeys" (which applies to practically every literary work ever written), then there's stuff like "Technological Utopia" or smtg like that, "Visions of Mortality" etc. It's compulsory to take an IHUM during yr 1, by the way, so every freshman's got an IHUM assignment. Worth 5 credits.
Math 51 - A more chim math course than the course that a majority (I think) of freshmen doing math start with. I think. But for some reason there seem to be more Math 51 classes than 41, which is the easier course. Our Teaching Assistant who's doing the discussion sessions is a slightly insecure-looking girl from China who's got quite a heavy accent and is prob doing her post-grad studies. I can understand her English but I wonder if it's harder for the Americans in the class. Also worth 5 credits.
Introsem: Physics in the 21st Century - Introsems = Introductory Seminars. They're seminars that are created and conducted by faculty members themselves, based on any topic of their choice. So often it's stuff that's not the normal academia but is interesting. And the class size is usually small so it's supposed to be quite interactive, and a gd way to get to know a member of the faculty Mine's a bit more academic, but not ur usual syllabus. It's gonna touch on elementary particle physics, i.e. the study of very small things, and also cosmology i.e. the study of the biggest stuff in existence (besides God). Worth 3 credits.
Jazz theory!! - Sounds fun eh? I'm expecting it to be. Quite self-explanatory. It's worth 3 credits, but I'm considering taking another 1-credit course called Jazz Skills that runs quite parallel to the Jazz Theory course. It's a course to teach u how to play jazz in a jazz combo group, quite catered to a varied range of musicians including beginners. But see if I have time first.
MS&E Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders' Seminar - A 1 credit lecture thing. MS&E stands for Management Science and Engineering, which is a course I'm considering majoring in, or maybe even doing a masters in. It covers foundational engineering but also delves into operations management, business, economics etc.; it's basically like a business course with special emphasis on industrial engineering and methods of management. i think. I'm just taking this course to see what MS&E is like since it seems like a potential major.
So that's it! 17 credits, 18 if I do the Jazz Skills class. And maybe 19 if I get into University Singers (a choir). I dunno yet. The permitted workload is 12-20 credits so I'm already on the high end of things. i really dun wanna overload myself which is y I'm a little apprehensive abt the jazz skills class. But I have until 22 Oct to drop classes so there's still time. =) for those of u who're Christian, if u're praying for me, pray I'll be led to the right choices in terms of planning my major(s) and/or minor or masters, cos there's many options that seem interesting to me now. =)
On an unrelated note, I was super blessed yesterday to meet a friend called Pearline. Met her thru Charmaine, one of the other Singaporean undergrads. Pearline's a postgrad student doing her PhD in Stanford and she's super entrepreneurial. She either finds used appliances arnd or ppl give old appliances to her when they move out, and she cleans them up and sells them. So I got a mini fridge from her and a microwave for only US$30. Thanks Pearline!! The microwave is super old, prob made of solid steel - it's heavier than the fridge! And the only button it has is a knob to turn for the timer. but it works, and I'm really thankful I have it to complement the fridge which was also a huge blessing. =)
Time to return to homework. Cheers!!
So u're probably wondering what classes i'm taking eh? :) Ok here's a breakdown and summary:
IHUM - Stands for Introduction to the HUManities. Consists of a range of humanities courses that tend to touch more on philosophy, sociology and literature. They all have interesting but rather vague names; mine's titled "Journeys" (which applies to practically every literary work ever written), then there's stuff like "Technological Utopia" or smtg like that, "Visions of Mortality" etc. It's compulsory to take an IHUM during yr 1, by the way, so every freshman's got an IHUM assignment. Worth 5 credits.
Math 51 - A more chim math course than the course that a majority (I think) of freshmen doing math start with. I think. But for some reason there seem to be more Math 51 classes than 41, which is the easier course. Our Teaching Assistant who's doing the discussion sessions is a slightly insecure-looking girl from China who's got quite a heavy accent and is prob doing her post-grad studies. I can understand her English but I wonder if it's harder for the Americans in the class. Also worth 5 credits.
Introsem: Physics in the 21st Century - Introsems = Introductory Seminars. They're seminars that are created and conducted by faculty members themselves, based on any topic of their choice. So often it's stuff that's not the normal academia but is interesting. And the class size is usually small so it's supposed to be quite interactive, and a gd way to get to know a member of the faculty Mine's a bit more academic, but not ur usual syllabus. It's gonna touch on elementary particle physics, i.e. the study of very small things, and also cosmology i.e. the study of the biggest stuff in existence (besides God). Worth 3 credits.
Jazz theory!! - Sounds fun eh? I'm expecting it to be. Quite self-explanatory. It's worth 3 credits, but I'm considering taking another 1-credit course called Jazz Skills that runs quite parallel to the Jazz Theory course. It's a course to teach u how to play jazz in a jazz combo group, quite catered to a varied range of musicians including beginners. But see if I have time first.
MS&E Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders' Seminar - A 1 credit lecture thing. MS&E stands for Management Science and Engineering, which is a course I'm considering majoring in, or maybe even doing a masters in. It covers foundational engineering but also delves into operations management, business, economics etc.; it's basically like a business course with special emphasis on industrial engineering and methods of management. i think. I'm just taking this course to see what MS&E is like since it seems like a potential major.
So that's it! 17 credits, 18 if I do the Jazz Skills class. And maybe 19 if I get into University Singers (a choir). I dunno yet. The permitted workload is 12-20 credits so I'm already on the high end of things. i really dun wanna overload myself which is y I'm a little apprehensive abt the jazz skills class. But I have until 22 Oct to drop classes so there's still time. =) for those of u who're Christian, if u're praying for me, pray I'll be led to the right choices in terms of planning my major(s) and/or minor or masters, cos there's many options that seem interesting to me now. =)
On an unrelated note, I was super blessed yesterday to meet a friend called Pearline. Met her thru Charmaine, one of the other Singaporean undergrads. Pearline's a postgrad student doing her PhD in Stanford and she's super entrepreneurial. She either finds used appliances arnd or ppl give old appliances to her when they move out, and she cleans them up and sells them. So I got a mini fridge from her and a microwave for only US$30. Thanks Pearline!! The microwave is super old, prob made of solid steel - it's heavier than the fridge! And the only button it has is a knob to turn for the timer. but it works, and I'm really thankful I have it to complement the fridge which was also a huge blessing. =)
Time to return to homework. Cheers!!
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Counting down to classes
Classes start tmr! Feeling a strange mix of eagerness, apprehension and numbness all at the same time. Haha. It's been an interesting past few days. Today I went to this church called Highway Community (www.highway.org), it's a pretty gd place. Wld prob be quite likely to join it if I didn't come from a charismatic church. But I really wanna check out CCC San Fran out first (www.c3sf.com). Bumped into a bunch of 4 Singaporeans at Highway, 1 of them is leading some bible study group in the church and the other 3 just arrived and were checking out the church too; they're all from Stanford grad sch doing their PhDs. Joined them for lunch, went with them to Cupertino where we had really nice chinese food (noodles!!) for lunch, then they went shopping at a chinese supermarket and I tagged along. The girl who leads the BS grp had a car which was really gd. Think I really wanna get a car when I can. Which may not be for a while yet. haha.
Yesterday I went to my first American Football game! Stanford Vs Washington State. FYI, Stanford's football isn't fantastic. Check out the score towards the end of the 2nd quarter:
Took another photo with a friend, his name's David, he's from Louisiana. His home town missed Hurricane Katrina by just a bit I think, he had to evacuate but the damage wasn't significant. Anyway here's the photo:
He was really nice in explaining the game to me. The game was really quite fun to watch even though we got trashed. Especially in the 2nd half when the Stanford team seemed to suddenly do TONS better than in the first half. :)
Starting classes tmr. Music theory, math, introduction to humanities course (IHUM) and an introductory seminar on physics. Cool stuff but all very spread out. Really need faith to believe I won't suffer at math cos I'm rusty... It'll take some harder work at the start I guess, but I'll get it all back soon! =) Till the next post, take care and God bless!
Yesterday I went to my first American Football game! Stanford Vs Washington State. FYI, Stanford's football isn't fantastic. Check out the score towards the end of the 2nd quarter:
Took another photo with a friend, his name's David, he's from Louisiana. His home town missed Hurricane Katrina by just a bit I think, he had to evacuate but the damage wasn't significant. Anyway here's the photo:
He was really nice in explaining the game to me. The game was really quite fun to watch even though we got trashed. Especially in the 2nd half when the Stanford team seemed to suddenly do TONS better than in the first half. :)
Starting classes tmr. Music theory, math, introduction to humanities course (IHUM) and an introductory seminar on physics. Cool stuff but all very spread out. Really need faith to believe I won't suffer at math cos I'm rusty... It'll take some harder work at the start I guess, but I'll get it all back soon! =) Till the next post, take care and God bless!
Friday, September 22, 2006
Fountain hopping part 2
Finally getting a feel of the academics here. Getting close to figuring out all the courses that I wanna take for the first quarter but i'm not sure yet. But it feels fantastic to be getting a feel of how things work.
Anyway I've got a photo of us taken during fountain hopping! Check it out:
Anyway I've got a photo of us taken during fountain hopping! Check it out:
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Fountain hopping!!!
I just went fountain hopping tonight with the dorm!! Basically fountain-hopping is a Stanford tradition where some as-yet-unexplained spark of inspiration causes someone to spread the message that everyone's going fountain hopping. So everyone changes into shorts and t-shirt or swim wear etc. and runs together around campus to jump into fountains. So we did! It was freezing cold but it was fun. Another terminology: Whirlpool. it's when everyone jumps into a fountain that's round and starts running as fast as possible in the same direction around it. Then someone synchronises a count and everyone plops their whole bodies into the water. And because the water's moving, you end up with the water pushing you around the fountain as you lie there and float. Cool huh. :)
Anyway I'm super exhausted now. Tmr there's still orientation stuff, I need to arrange an appointment (hopefully sometime tmr) to go to Palo Alto to set up my internet banking, gotta go to the health center early in the morning for TB skin test, gotta plan out which courses I'm going to take cos I'm mtg my academic advisor on Friday and I've gotta have, well, some sorta proposal for him to advise me on. =) Tonight I've also gotta check up on this thing called introductory seminars, or introsems, which are interesting and useful but applications close this Friday so I'd better start applying.
I've finally uploaded my photos from my journey here! Afraid I haven't taken many photos here since I came but I'll show u guys what I've got. Kudos to my dad for at least half of these photos, maybe more. :)
So this is me and my family at the airport with all the luggage that I and my dad brought. The largest suitcase I had actually weighed over the 32kg limit so I had to transfer some stuff to my dad's suitcase. :p
I was blessed enough to discover about 1-2 wks ago that another two Stanford freshmen from Singapore who were on the same flight, praise God! So I had company all the way. That's De Wen next to me; he's also in Chi Alpha (the Christian Fellowship), and Ching Hwa with the window seat. Ching Hwa was really nice, he went to call SIA and reserve seats for the 3 of us a couple of days before we flew.
Dad rented a car from San Fran airport. Picture taken as we were driving into Stanford. Yay! (Honestly, I was feeling kinda tired and apprehensive at that point. But it's a happy moment worth remembering nonetheless.)
That's me in my room. With a box of donuts and another box of bagels that was leftover from church. Made my dormmates very happy. *grinz* The room is really quite small. It's pretty cluttered right now and that's BEFORE classes start. Help!
That's my dorm from the outside. It's a cosy little two-storey place with cosy little rooms. And a very nice courtyard and environment. So the room's small, but it's cosy and nice so I'm not complaining. Food's not bad too. =) My room is the one just to the right of the door that u see there, the one that's sorta next to the lampost in the picture.
last photo! Went for dinner with my dad on Sunday night, I'd never met the other people in the photo before that night. The angmoh guy is a Physics professor at Stanford and a nobel laureate, very nice guy. He has a very kind smile, dunno if u can see. He's there with his wife, and the indian guy is my dad's friend who's been very involved in earthquake stuff at Stanford and is also helping him with smtg in NTU. Visited him and his wife the next evening at their home before going out for dinner together. Very very nice friendly people. :)
So that's it! Wish I had more pictures but I'm afraid I don't. I hope this doesn't make the page too hard to load. Classes start next monday and things are just gonna take off soon so really gotta keep praying and standing in faith. God bless!
Anyway I'm super exhausted now. Tmr there's still orientation stuff, I need to arrange an appointment (hopefully sometime tmr) to go to Palo Alto to set up my internet banking, gotta go to the health center early in the morning for TB skin test, gotta plan out which courses I'm going to take cos I'm mtg my academic advisor on Friday and I've gotta have, well, some sorta proposal for him to advise me on. =) Tonight I've also gotta check up on this thing called introductory seminars, or introsems, which are interesting and useful but applications close this Friday so I'd better start applying.
I've finally uploaded my photos from my journey here! Afraid I haven't taken many photos here since I came but I'll show u guys what I've got. Kudos to my dad for at least half of these photos, maybe more. :)
So this is me and my family at the airport with all the luggage that I and my dad brought. The largest suitcase I had actually weighed over the 32kg limit so I had to transfer some stuff to my dad's suitcase. :p
I was blessed enough to discover about 1-2 wks ago that another two Stanford freshmen from Singapore who were on the same flight, praise God! So I had company all the way. That's De Wen next to me; he's also in Chi Alpha (the Christian Fellowship), and Ching Hwa with the window seat. Ching Hwa was really nice, he went to call SIA and reserve seats for the 3 of us a couple of days before we flew.
Dad rented a car from San Fran airport. Picture taken as we were driving into Stanford. Yay! (Honestly, I was feeling kinda tired and apprehensive at that point. But it's a happy moment worth remembering nonetheless.)
That's me in my room. With a box of donuts and another box of bagels that was leftover from church. Made my dormmates very happy. *grinz* The room is really quite small. It's pretty cluttered right now and that's BEFORE classes start. Help!
That's my dorm from the outside. It's a cosy little two-storey place with cosy little rooms. And a very nice courtyard and environment. So the room's small, but it's cosy and nice so I'm not complaining. Food's not bad too. =) My room is the one just to the right of the door that u see there, the one that's sorta next to the lampost in the picture.
last photo! Went for dinner with my dad on Sunday night, I'd never met the other people in the photo before that night. The angmoh guy is a Physics professor at Stanford and a nobel laureate, very nice guy. He has a very kind smile, dunno if u can see. He's there with his wife, and the indian guy is my dad's friend who's been very involved in earthquake stuff at Stanford and is also helping him with smtg in NTU. Visited him and his wife the next evening at their home before going out for dinner together. Very very nice friendly people. :)So that's it! Wish I had more pictures but I'm afraid I don't. I hope this doesn't make the page too hard to load. Classes start next monday and things are just gonna take off soon so really gotta keep praying and standing in faith. God bless!
Monday, September 18, 2006
orientation starts tmr!
Still haven't got the photos downloaded yet. Again, I'm feeling super tired right now so don't wanna do too much. :p Sorry guys and gals, i'll get the pix up soon for u to see! =) Went to my dad's friend's house nearby in the evening to chat and have a drink with him and his wife, then went to a restaurant to have dinner. Restaurant serves Singaporean food that's modified to suit local tastebuds... I had Pad Thai which was pretty nice, but the serving was HUGE. Also had a lot of alcohol, drank a too-full glass of white wine at the friend's place, and another half glass of champagne at dinner. Could feel a slight effect on me so I didn't finish either one. Was surprised at how fast I could start to feel its effects.
Finally got my bike this afternoon! Praise God! Bought it yesterday but collected it today after they installed all the accessories. It's 24 speed, very smooth, road bike (not the bend-down kind, it's kinda like a mountain bike but with slimmer rounder wheels.) It's parked right outside my room, the bike stand is just outside my window. So I can keep an eye on it. *grinz*. ok not really. but hopefully bikes that are right in front of dorm windows are less likely to be stolen. =)
Tmr (tuesday) is the official start of New Student Orientation (NSO)! Campus is gonna be crowded. Thank God I've finished unpacking. Room is still a little messy but there's much more walking space now that I've stowed the 3 russian doll suitcases away. :) gonna meet my roomate tmr! Saw his picture in this Stanford freshmen facebook thing. He looks kinda like Orlando Bloom. Oh well... we'll see. ;)
It's actually been really nice to come early and get to know this small bunch of international freshmen students (abt 200 or so in total, I think). Wonder what it'll be like tmr when the campus gets about 8 times more busy.
Gonna go shopping with some of the international studets tmr morn! =) So I'd better go pray and sleep. Tmr things will start to get even more hectic so I'd better try to get some rest. Think XMMP's right. I really do find new changes quite exciting. :)
God bless all of u! Miss everybardee in Singapore. Be blessed in all that you do! Drop me comments or emails anytime u want yeah? I will try my darndest best to reply them. :)
Finally got my bike this afternoon! Praise God! Bought it yesterday but collected it today after they installed all the accessories. It's 24 speed, very smooth, road bike (not the bend-down kind, it's kinda like a mountain bike but with slimmer rounder wheels.) It's parked right outside my room, the bike stand is just outside my window. So I can keep an eye on it. *grinz*. ok not really. but hopefully bikes that are right in front of dorm windows are less likely to be stolen. =)
Tmr (tuesday) is the official start of New Student Orientation (NSO)! Campus is gonna be crowded. Thank God I've finished unpacking. Room is still a little messy but there's much more walking space now that I've stowed the 3 russian doll suitcases away. :) gonna meet my roomate tmr! Saw his picture in this Stanford freshmen facebook thing. He looks kinda like Orlando Bloom. Oh well... we'll see. ;)
It's actually been really nice to come early and get to know this small bunch of international freshmen students (abt 200 or so in total, I think). Wonder what it'll be like tmr when the campus gets about 8 times more busy.
Gonna go shopping with some of the international studets tmr morn! =) So I'd better go pray and sleep. Tmr things will start to get even more hectic so I'd better try to get some rest. Think XMMP's right. I really do find new changes quite exciting. :)
God bless all of u! Miss everybardee in Singapore. Be blessed in all that you do! Drop me comments or emails anytime u want yeah? I will try my darndest best to reply them. :)
First entry from Stanford!
Got to Stanford at about 3pm yesterday. Despite it only being 1.5 days here I feel like I've been super busy. Lots of small but impt details to settle like bank account, buying a bike, etc etc, and it doesn't help that my unfamiliarity with the place makes it harder to keep track of and anticipate these kinda issues. In fact up until 10 mins ago I totally forgot that I had a sponsorship letter from the scholarship board that I gotta pass to somebody in Stanford. I dunno who. Yet.
Real busy, so can't upload pictures or tell everyone a lot of details yet. Well ok, I'll give 2 details. 1) Just bought a bike today, it's really light and comfortable but quite expensive. Dad convinced me it was worth paying extra for smtg gd that i'll use everyday for the next 3-4 years. 2) My dorm room is SMALL!! I'm so glad my roomate isn't arnd yet so I have more room to unpack. But it also means the room's pretty cosy, and the dorm itself is really very pleasant. It's not too far from everything else, but it's quiet and quite solitary.
Hope to update more next time. But thanks for checking here! Means u care. So thanks. =) God bless!!
Real busy, so can't upload pictures or tell everyone a lot of details yet. Well ok, I'll give 2 details. 1) Just bought a bike today, it's really light and comfortable but quite expensive. Dad convinced me it was worth paying extra for smtg gd that i'll use everyday for the next 3-4 years. 2) My dorm room is SMALL!! I'm so glad my roomate isn't arnd yet so I have more room to unpack. But it also means the room's pretty cosy, and the dorm itself is really very pleasant. It's not too far from everything else, but it's quiet and quite solitary.
Hope to update more next time. But thanks for checking here! Means u care. So thanks. =) God bless!!
Friday, September 15, 2006
Getting ready to fly...
One more day left in sg! actually less. Amazing how time flies.
Will miss everyone here, cos it's really the people that make my life here in sg what it is. Prob will miss all of u more than I realise now.
No more internet at home so I'm typing this using the free wireless at suntec. Prob won't post again till i'm in the USA, or maybe i'll post smtg tmr at the airport if it's possible. =)
Will miss everyone here, cos it's really the people that make my life here in sg what it is. Prob will miss all of u more than I realise now.
No more internet at home so I'm typing this using the free wireless at suntec. Prob won't post again till i'm in the USA, or maybe i'll post smtg tmr at the airport if it's possible. =)
Monday, September 04, 2006
12 more days!!
Gosh, didn't even realise how short a time I have left until I wrote the title. I've been thinking "1 week and 5 days" which sounds marginally longer.
Occurred to me tonight that it's not just that I'm flying away. Ppl have been saying "you're going away soon" and to me I've been wondering what exactly that'll mean, cos to me I've always just thought of myself as flying away to a new place... but tonight I realised that to me, it's gonna be more than that. My family's gonna be going away, my friends will be away, my church and my home will be going away; everything familiar to me will be leaving me.
Wow. That's gonna take some serious adjustment. Well, home is where the heart is. Where your treasure lies, there ur heart will be also. Pray I'll keep treasuring home and all the people here. :) To everyone who comes to read this, I'll miss u all tremendously! Even more than I realise now, I'm sure.
12 days and counting!!
oh, and on a separate note, brought home a couple of HUGE suitcases yesterday. Really a pleasant surprise, was quite touched. Thanks Aunty Genin n' Rach! =)
Occurred to me tonight that it's not just that I'm flying away. Ppl have been saying "you're going away soon" and to me I've been wondering what exactly that'll mean, cos to me I've always just thought of myself as flying away to a new place... but tonight I realised that to me, it's gonna be more than that. My family's gonna be going away, my friends will be away, my church and my home will be going away; everything familiar to me will be leaving me.
Wow. That's gonna take some serious adjustment. Well, home is where the heart is. Where your treasure lies, there ur heart will be also. Pray I'll keep treasuring home and all the people here. :) To everyone who comes to read this, I'll miss u all tremendously! Even more than I realise now, I'm sure.
12 days and counting!!
oh, and on a separate note, brought home a couple of HUGE suitcases yesterday. Really a pleasant surprise, was quite touched. Thanks Aunty Genin n' Rach! =)
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