Some more good news:
The music take-home final was pretty ok, I'm expecting to do well. My overall music grade will come from both the lecture (i.e. the midterms and final) and section. I received back the music assignment today (my TA marks really fast! And he wrote a lot of comments all over too. Amaxing.) - got an A+ for it!! And my section grade was written on it too, also an A+!
Also, the IHUM final went better than expected. There were 4 sections; the first two sections were fill-in-the-blank questions and identification of places on a map, and each section only required us to answer 10 out of the 15 questions. So it turned out quite well 'cos I didn't have to do those that I wasn't very sure about, I'm expecting full marks or close to full marks for that. The next two sections were essays (3 short essays and one long one) which I didn't feel too badly about but we'll see how it goes. After the final my Teaching Fellow was outside and he returned my 2nd paper to me - I got an A-!! So far IHUM's going even better than last quarter's with an A- for both papers (last quarter I got an A- for my first paper and B/B- for my second).
And thirdly, Econ final yesterday went pretty well too. We were given 3 hours but it was way more than necessary. Some people started walking out after 1-1.5 hours. I stayed till 2.5 hours, took my time with the paper. Overall I found it relatively easy, except for one 20 mark section (the paper's graded out of 150 marks) which was entirely on readings that were assigned but were never discussed in class so I didn't realize that they'd be tested. I managed to answer two of those questions - one of them the Prof has mentioned before in lecture, the other I kinda guessed. Haha. So we'll see how that goes but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who didn't do well in that section.
So that's it! Good news so far. :) Had a really fun day yesterday; after lunch 5 of us rented a car (we got a free upgrade to a huge Ford Explorer cos they'd run out of small cars) and drove to Pacifica which is north of Stanford along the coast to hike through a 4-mile trail. It was pretty fun though it was tiring. Great views:
From the carpark (or parking lot, as the Americans say):
About 20 or so minutes into the hike (still very much at the bottom of the hill):
About 5-10 mins after the previous picture:
And the clincher: gorgeous view of the hills and the ocean off the west coast of the you-ess-off-eei from the (almost) top of the hill:
After the hike we went to the nearby beach to just hang around. The two girls went to wade in the water - they said it was really cold. The beach was amazing - fantastic waves crashing onto the beach and all. After that we went back to Stanford cos the other two guys wanted to go back, but the remaining three of us wanted to go check out Half-Moon Bay so we dropped the two guys at Stanford and drove to Half-Moon Bay.
Several things: Firstly, I was the only 21-year-old amongst the three of us so I did all the driving (no complaints there!). This SUV was definitely the largest vehicle I've ever driven. We didn't take any photos of the car but I managed to find a couple of pictures online:
It's hard to tell the exact size but the top of the front headlight is probably pretty close to my chest
The interior (it looked like this but without the screen in the middle):
Second: Half-Moon Bay is really fantastic. It's probably as nice as if not nicer than Pacifica. It's name probably comes from the fact that it's a C-shaped bay. Really nice soft sand, waves crashing over each other and onto the beach, and a LOT of seagulls gathered in huge patches waiting for fish to come in with the tide (apparently). 2 of us decided to run through the flocks and get them to fly up - it was quite a sight. Don't have pictures of it now, they're in a friend's camera. Will put them up when I get them from her. :)
Third: Half Moon Bay is a really quaint, cute, well-maintained little town. We drove along the coastal road and also through their downtown. It was quite nice.
Fourth: The drive was awesome. To get there we took the freeway (expressway in Singaporean terms) from Stanford and then got off onto a small highway, the kind that's just one lane in each direction. It was really nice, winding through forested area at a leisurely pace. On our way back we didn't feel hungry yet so we took our time to drive through highway 35 a.k.a. Skyline Boulevard, a really scenic, twisty highway that winds through the tops of the hills. It was really cool to be driving through forested area, having a really great view of the coast and of the entire west bay area at the same time. We passed by a lot of houses too. Wonder what it's like to live there. I'd like to go back sometime and drive those roads with a sportier car. *grinz*
So that was my day yesterday. At night De Wen, Adeline and I went over to Ai Lin's place to watch a DVD. We watched The Sum of All Fears - it's really confusing. haha. But it was an interesting watch. I got back at like 12:45am. Went to bed close to 2am. Had SUCH a good sleep. haha.
So that's it. Today (Thursday) has been pretty relaxing. Not sure what I'll do tomorrow. Saturday I'll probably join Adeline to go look at cars - she's thinking of buying a (new) Honda Civic. Then Sunday till next Saturday I'm off to Hawaii with the Mendicants. whee...
I'm just looking forward to relaxing these few days, and in Hawaii too. I quite enjoyed not doing much today - went out for a while to get my music assignment, check my P.O. Box and then bought a Mocha and just sat outside the Coffee House drinking it and watching the world go by. A friend happened to pass by so we chatted for a while. Now it's dinner time so I should probably go eat soon. :)
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