04S77!

Friday, September 29, 2006

hey guys!

im leading an extremely disturbing life in chicago now.

it's only the 4th day of lessons proper and i feel like dying already. whoever said that studying in US is like going on a honeymoon is a big fat liar. he/she must have never been made to study Korean 101 every single day for at least 5 hrs and still not make any head or tail out of the language, read Plato's "The last days of Socrates" and act like he/she is a smart lit geek just like the rest of my classmates who ALWAYS have sthg impt and smart sounding to say. their hands are really perpetually up in the air, so that they can gain those sickening class participation marks. it's really frustrating.

studies aside, chicago is really a very fun place to be in. just last weekend my friends and i went to downtown chicago to roam arnd and we had a lot of fun! we saw a street protest (sthg abt Bush being a liar. nothing new there) and we went shopping. to all girls, the US is THE SHOPPING MECCA. branded stuff here is really dirt cheap. like a decent Calvin Klein jacket can go for US30, and a Roxy sweater goes for below 20. my suitcase is exploding so much tt im buying a new bag to contain my new purchases. im just damn pleased with myself.

that day, while i was happily msn-ing in my dorm, there was a tornado warning. the Resident Head of my house came knocking at each and every door and everyone had to go and seek refuge at the basement of the dorm. i was kind of freaked out really. the first thought that came to my mind was i dont want to die in a tornado on my 4th day in chicago. then i started thinking abt safe and sunny singapore. crap. you just cant have your cake and eat it man.

oh. and the thing abt americans being sexually liberal? it's so damn true, cos i have seen it for myself! amd there are lots of stories abt what happens behind closed doors in the dorms.

anw, after 3 weeks in chicago, these are the things that i endeavour to do:

1) not die in a tornado or any other natural disaster
2) try to act like a smart lit geek, so that i can fit into my Humanities class
3) not get robbed
4) not suffer from any form of assault
5) remain sane while coping with the blardy 3.8 GPA requirement.

oh. and photos. i didnt take many, cos i was afaraid of breaking rule no. 3 as stated above. anw, these are some of the pathetic few tt i took:

the Rockerfellar Memorial Chapel in my school, where we had our convocation

one of those buidings in my school. it's really pretty inside, with vinatge furniture, paintings, and wall carvings

just one of the numerous quirrels in my school

the ceiling of the chapel

if i dont rmb wrongly, abt 60% of UChicago grads marry a fellow alumnus. this is just one of the many who did so. sweet.

the street protest downtown

the view of downtown chicago from the top of the john hancock tower

some of the singaporeans and me at the millenium park in downtown chicago

did i mention what a big thing street art is in chicago?

chinatown - the best place to get all your chinese supplies. there's a place called "Penanag" offering damn authentic singaporean and malaysian cuisine. we like to go there and just wipe out all the food on the table.

the theatre district in chicago. reminds me of moulin rouge.

04s77 fell asleep@4:40 AM

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

i'm starting school tmr finally! induction day. and gonna be busy i suppose.
for the past few days, i've been to some museums, musicals, bridges and the tower of london. it's so nice to have so many places of attraction to visit. :) i love history stuff.
and the weather's getting cold. hope the heatwave doesn't return. lol. it seems quite essential to check the weather forecast every morning... never ever had to do that in singapore.
--shenonn

04s77 fell asleep@3:31 PM

Sunday, September 24, 2006

hellooo!
ahh trying to settle down here in london. Been busy going around settling admin stuff, buying groceries etc... making my room as cosy as possible... haha. it smells weird. like hamsters. (lj, did yours escape recently?) :
still trying to adapt to the lousy weather. haha rain, sun, HEAT, cold. but the city's quite beautiful, their architecture and parks! but the tube system, it's really -__-. firstly, there're so many different lines and platforms. have to change a few lines even if it's just a few stops away. and at my station, i got cheated by the spiral stairs. they went down for dunno how many levels until i got so dizzy. haha i've decided to always use the elevator. besides that, they can just disrupt the whole line for engineering works/ gas leaks anytime. rah. i miss smrt. lol. yah too pampered and spoilt in spore! >-<

EXPENSIVE. Things don't look that ex at first glance, it seems normal. Until I convert it to SGD. : (times 3) the seniors told us not to bother converting, cos eventually you'll realise that you need to eat. haha.

i can't wait to start school next week! At least I won't be so sianed. haha. maybe go sightseeing tmr! the pigeons and crows are really fat. perhaps it's the cold weather, they fluff themselves up. oh and i saw a sheep at this barn-like place across my hall. and i saw horses on the road too! btw, my school's really near my hall! like 3 min walk away. lol. :D

okayy then, till next time! take care everyone! how's school/ life?
--shenonn

04s77 fell asleep@4:43 AM

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Hmm....I just realised I haven't posted any entries since my maiden one in june. But I shall try to do my part to stop the blog from heading towards a slow, if inevitable, decline...

I'm on block leave! 6 days off before I fly off to Taiwan for 3 weeks of training. Time passes so fast...already 27 weeks of OCS have gone by, with 77 days left to commissioning! IF I do reach there, that is...

I'm not looking forward to the training in Taiwan, especially with the finale exercise involving 7 back-to-back missions, spanning 4 days and 3 nights and without time for sleep at all =S but I'm very much more interested in the 4 days of R and R at the end of it all =) hopefully it's not disrupted by the current tensions in Taiwan though. And after that's another 5 days of block leave, so I'll only return to camp in one month's time =P

- Sheng Rong

04s77 fell asleep@9:13 PM

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

TOMORROW'S THE DAY. or rather, THE NIGHT.
good bye singapore, i'll miss ya!
:--shenonn

04s77 fell asleep@10:58 PM

Sunday, September 17, 2006

I wan to ORD.

04s77 fell asleep@5:54 PM

Friday, September 15, 2006

helllllooo gm!! :D
Ah i'm gonna watch out for the freshman 15 syndrome really closely too. -___- Heard the chocolates there are awesome, and CHEAP. Food there is expensive, but most of my meals are catered, except for weekday lunches. Cafeteria food better be edible. I'll probably buy lots of biscuits on my first day there so I can eat in the middle of the night while mugging too. (I've prepared enough air-tight boxes!)

Luckily the university union has exercising facilities, like a heavily-chlorinated indoors swimming pool. And racket sports are pretty popular among students there too. (I'm bringing my tennis racket!! :D) Though it takes great determination to actually bother going down to exercise. Haha.

I've checked the london weather forecast! The temperature's dropping below 20 degrees. Ahhh. Can't wait to throw on my coats and scarves. :D Lol.

Take care there! Don't catch the fresher's flu!
--shenonn

PS: packing sucks.

04s77 fell asleep@10:23 PM

oh and one more thing. this is addressed to shen onn:

freshmen 15 works both ways i think. the food in chicago is really of extremely gigantic portions.. i usually eat like half of the food provided only. they do have a lot of nice junk here like chocalate chip cookies though, so you got to watch out for that. and even chinese food is served in large portion. one dish can usually last you for 3 meals so you got to share with your friends.

for me personally, i dont really adore american food. so my appetite here isnt very good. not too sure how much you will like the food in london. if u do, it will be freshman fifteen for you. if u dont, i think u will wind up losing weight cause it's so cold your food gets metabolished damn quickly.

on top of my shopping list is a weighing machine. man im already freaking out abt my weight. though i think there are more pertinent issues to worry about, like how on esarth do i operate a washing machine.

these are times when i wish im in singapore. guess u can never have your cake and eat it. boo.

04s77 fell asleep@8:44 PM

hey guys!

it's now 7 am in chicago and im physically suffering cause of the damn weather over here. it's very cool and windy in chicago,and im so NOT adapting to it here. together with a heavy international students orientation schedule, I got a viral infection and have to go to the hospital later. wth.

Chicago is a pretty nice place, especially downtown chicago, which is one of the most active financial centres in the States after New York. Downtown Chicago has all the beautiful skyscrapers, but sometimes it can look a bit drab because of the very thick mist and fog. Lake Michigan, which separates Illinois, the state where the city of chicago is, and Michicagn, is really very beautiful as well. It's called a lake, but it reminds me of the sea in east coast park. That's how big the lake is!

my school is really very very beautiful. i dont know how to overemphasize that. it looks like the schools filmed in Harry Potter, meaning we have a lot of stone and brick buildings, and the interior of the buildings is very awesome too, with fireplaces, ornate wall carvings and paintings. It's almost like my school came from old world britain, which makes sense because my senior told me that part of the architecture was modelled after Oxford University's.

BUT...

chicago is mainly a black city. I didnt know this until i actually stepped foot here. i thought it wld be a regualr american city but i was proven wrong. i think the demographics is sthg like 60% blacks, and a very high proportion of latinos as well. Im not trying to be racist here but sometimes i can be quite intimidated when the majority of the people you encounter are well, blacks. Im not saying they are all dangerous and everything; in fact blacks are extremely freindly. But the male ones can be really scary sometimes. for the past 2 days that i have been here, i have been harrassed by blacks AT LEAST once a day. They stalk you, ask you for money, and if you dont give it to them, they block your way. that's how scary it is.

yesterday, i crazily decided to go to chinatown with just another female friend of mine to do my cell phone by train and bus. It totally freaked me out. in retrospect it's really dumb of us to wander out on our own when we dont really know the way and when chicago is well, so not very safe. we took a bus to an area called Garfield (haha i didnt know before this that garfield is actually a PLACE in chicago. thought it referred to some fat cat) which our seniors warned us NOT to go cause it's a place populated by blacks. then from grafield, we took a train down to chinatown to do our phones. the trains are very sad. they remind me of the KTM trains from malaysia, just that they are in much worse a state.

and there was someting else that i realised when i came over to chicago. that singaporeans like to put on a damn irritating ang moh accent when they speak to other international students and americans! it gives me goosebumps when singaporeans not ang moh act ang moh, cause there's a subtle difference btwn speaking proper english and speaking english with a western acent. havin a western accent doesnt automatically mean that you are spekaing proper english. it's like, sometimes, their grammar is wrong, but still they try to put up a phony western accent. it gets hard of the ears after some time. im still speaking singlish over here though, and my international Orientaion aide keeps making fun of that. when he speaks to me, he does a lot of "las" and "lors" as well. haha. im trying to figure out how i shld speak to my professors and regular americans. cos apprently they think i speak too quickly and i havent gotten rid of those las and lors.

im pretty good freinds with a korean girl now! im going to pick up korean in chicago, so she will be able to help me! unfortunately, amongst the international freshmen, i have yet to spot any korean hunks yet, which is really sad :p. hhaa but my friend said more will be coming for the actual orientation itself so i will go people watching soon!

im quite excited about school starting, cos i think the modules are truly quite fun to take. hope i dont change my tune when school really starts. cos seniors said that chicago is really an extremely academic oriented school, which is kind of atypical of american schools.

ok im going to end here, cause i have to go back to bed and pretend to sleep or else my mum will kill me to know that i got up and msn-ed instead of resting before we got to the hospital later. hope you guys are having fun in school as well; all the best!

cgm

04s77 fell asleep@8:06 PM

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

hmm.. haven't posted for qt some time already! haha.

anyway, to all those who're overseas already.. have fun! yep. and pls do post lots of photos! i bet the campus(es?) there are much much prettier than NUS/NTU/SMU.. =/

oh. shenonn's flying off on the 20th eh? that's next wednesday.. lets have a mini-class outing at changi airport to send her off? CH, plan?

-sandra

ps. met gm online just now! she's reached chicago safely! =) they're 13 hours behind singapore time!

04s77 fell asleep@9:52 PM

Thankk youu!!

The video is lovely. :) I'll bring it along to london and watch it there when i'm bored! Haha Hope I won't lose or break it. :P

Ahh I checked the weather forecast. It's gonna be like 20-24 degrees max for the next 10 days. :\ I wanna wear my pink trench coat there! yayy.

And I dropped by gm's place this morning to send her off... I'm feeling so excited for her! haha, more than i do for myself...

--shenonn

PS: yes bob, i do like your card! :D gm thinks the choice of cards are very interesting too.

7 days.

04s77 fell asleep@12:24 AM

Monday, September 11, 2006

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIWEN!!:)

04s77 fell asleep@10:01 PM

Sunday, September 10, 2006

hey, to those who went for class lunch today, thank you!! :) good job, ch! you can organise more stuff next time! haha.
amd sorry to keep you all waiting. hope you all weren't too pissed off by jy huan lj and me... we were so seriously engrossed in our kbox session, we risked being beaten up by all of you. :D
thanks for the gifts, and the card-- very, erm appropriate. -__- "things have been tough between us". yah. lol.
we must keep in touch! i don't wanna lose being part of the class just cos i won't be here physically... will miss ya lots!!! in fact, it's funny how i miss you all already. :)

--shenonn

04s77 fell asleep@10:15 PM

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.
And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

04s77 fell asleep@12:52 PM

Friday, September 08, 2006

hahah yoz yoz yoz ppl!! haha post uni stuff here?? nth abt sch.. sch sux.. it's juz a damn place tt u start feeling inferior and start seeing ppl tt u dun realli relate to... all u do.. ish juz be late fer sch, sit in de chair, stare at de big big screen, try to make sense of wad de adult in front ish talking and go toilet, eat, library, and take bus home.. haha ttz wad happenz EVERYDAY~!! not veri interesting huH? =)

04s77 fell asleep@10:25 PM

For all flesh is as grass,
and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.

04s77 fell asleep@9:16 PM

Thursday, September 07, 2006

yah someone else post something!! haha.

for the class contact list, I was bo liao enough to put it into Word. :) But i'll wait till I get those overseas addresses + contact nos before sending it off to you all again! Which means, that'll be like, in October. lol.

--shenonn

04s77 fell asleep@2:29 AM