the semester ends abruptly when i came out from lorch hall after taking my last exam. looking back the days of the winter term, it was as if the only thing i have ever done during this period is study, study and study...so pathetic. and even so, i can't imagine what my results will look like...
it was supposed to be fun considering all the academic pressures have been removed. yet, there are still a lot of things to come. to name a few, the impending chaos upon moving out, the still cloudy prospects of getting the jpa full allowance (crucial for my getting a car), a writing test and a road test to be taken, and the ultimate concern of my which dwarfs all the previous events...my SOA first exam...(which will be held on the 25th of May). so there goes my supposingly carefree and relaxing post-exam period. more tension and cruel realities are awaiting me in a not so distant future...
so, as for a poor freshman like me, (who has no car, and not of a gender which has assets to get assistance from the opposite), moving out to a new place is almost an ordeal. first of all, i have to pack all my stuff into boxes, and that itself had already given me enough headache. then, i have to get transportation to move my stuff from north to central campus. i am truly grateful that a senior of mine (wei heong is his name, a sohpmore) was kind enough to let us share some space and time of the truck he rent (with eric driving it).
we (renjie and i) started moving out our stuff at 1pm. i had a total of 16 boxes (not all of them in the same size, in fact most of them were quite small), 2 luggages, and a fridge. with the assistance of qunfeng, we managed to finish it in quite a short while. after moving our stuff, we proceeded to help ivy moving hers. we loaded all our belongings on the truck, and set out without any delay. we went to ivy's house first, then to mine and renjie's. oh yeah, i forgot to mention about my new place. it's on the third floor of a house, an attic like place. the ceilings are low, but it has 2 bedrooms. the apartment is quite cool as there's a window which you can crawl through it to the roof, which is connected to downstairs by a series and flights of stairs. (i will show it in pic later) upon moving all our stuff to the living room, we paid the owner (a sweet looking but typical american girl in her junior year) 210 dollars by check (my first check!! 200 for rent, 10 for utilities)
after settling all the things, we went back to baits 1 to stay for another night. we visited wei heong's room on our way back. got to know a lot about couzen hall. informative trip i would say...haha.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Saturday, April 23, 2005
snow in april??!?!?
it's april. end of april. spring equinox has long past. every single sign seemed to show that winter was officially dead. yet, today, the temperature took a sharp turn down, and it snows again...YES, IT SNOWS AGAIN, IN THIS END OF APRIL. man, this is insane. the accumalation reaches about half a foot i think. totally incomprehensible indeed.
so, again, we have to put on our inch-thick winter jacket on...and the funny thing is, some of my friends have already nicely packed their winter gears in their bags...hahaha. but despite having enough of this stupid weather, i took my camera out when i was goin out for lunch, hoping to freeze the last moments of winter in frames. actually, it was quite fun....we pull the low-reaching branches of trees so that the snow accumulated on them rain down on us...stupid but fun!! haha....
so, again, we have to put on our inch-thick winter jacket on...and the funny thing is, some of my friends have already nicely packed their winter gears in their bags...hahaha. but despite having enough of this stupid weather, i took my camera out when i was goin out for lunch, hoping to freeze the last moments of winter in frames. actually, it was quite fun....we pull the low-reaching branches of trees so that the snow accumulated on them rain down on us...stupid but fun!! haha....
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Geosci field trip day
after the seemingly endless months of snow.....finally spring comes!! today the weather is just fine. highs 20-24. it started to feel like malaysia already...but heck, who cares? now i like the warmth (actually hotness) so much. for the past 2 weeks i had already cycled twice to the central campus. (to me it's a feat because of the distance and the damnable slopes. now i know why there are such slopes around UM..tell you guys later in the post).
as for today, i went to class as usual. 9-12, 3 classes back to back. after that headed to east quad for lunch (they serve 5 types of desserts today :) ). 1.00pm got one appointment with the econs advisor. didn't help much. went to CCLittle building to meet for geosci discussion.
for today's discussion, we had a field trip around ann arbor to examine the glacier features left by a continental ice sheet that covered michigan around 15000 (hmm..if im not mistaken) years ago. finally knew that the central campus was built on the outwash plain, in between two morraines on the east and west side respectively. now you know about the slopes. (they are still so damnable, regardless of what). not much fun from the trip though.
after coming back from class, i played frisbee at the thieme field (fully utilizing the excellent weather) with 5 of my friends. (eric, renjie, voonseng, putt, chiachye) had a good time there.
now it's 11.34 pm. got a linear algebra hw due on friday, but seriously have no mood to study...what has happened to me??!?!?! maybe i should just sleep...hahaha. i need some motivation. (but wasn't my sucky 425 marks big enough a motivation for me??!?!)
good night world.
as for today, i went to class as usual. 9-12, 3 classes back to back. after that headed to east quad for lunch (they serve 5 types of desserts today :) ). 1.00pm got one appointment with the econs advisor. didn't help much. went to CCLittle building to meet for geosci discussion.
for today's discussion, we had a field trip around ann arbor to examine the glacier features left by a continental ice sheet that covered michigan around 15000 (hmm..if im not mistaken) years ago. finally knew that the central campus was built on the outwash plain, in between two morraines on the east and west side respectively. now you know about the slopes. (they are still so damnable, regardless of what). not much fun from the trip though.
after coming back from class, i played frisbee at the thieme field (fully utilizing the excellent weather) with 5 of my friends. (eric, renjie, voonseng, putt, chiachye) had a good time there.
now it's 11.34 pm. got a linear algebra hw due on friday, but seriously have no mood to study...what has happened to me??!?!?! maybe i should just sleep...hahaha. i need some motivation. (but wasn't my sucky 425 marks big enough a motivation for me??!?!)
good night world.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
DP (Detroit Project) Day!!!
a few weeks ago, i had signed up to do voluntary work on a day called the detroit project day. until a day before the day had i received the letter of assignment. all i knew was that i would be assigned to a site named v3, but little did i know what would i do....
so here comes the day. we were supposed to meet in angell hall at 8.45 am. i woke up at 8, and after much of delay, i found myself missing the damned bus (again!). as a result, me and renjie had to run down to pierpont commons, hoping that we would be able to catch the missed bus. we were disappointed, and had to wait for another bus...but when we reached central campus, we noticed there were swarms of people coming from all sides of direction, heading towards the building. apparently...michigan time still applied. after standing in a line for a while, we were notified that we did not need to wait...we could just grab our t-shirts and go our bus. i got a medium size blue t-shirt, put it on, and yup, ready to start the exciting day.
as i was in group v3, renjie and i seperated as we went to search for our bus. after much trouble, i finally found my bus. upon aboarding it, i had to sign a paper (must be like some live-dead contract..haha), and was given a named tag. as there was already quite a number of people in the bus, i had to sit quite far back. after some moment of silence, conversations were started in the bus, and me too was able to engage in a small chat with an arizona girl (shawn, graduate student).
the bus left ann arbor quite late (9.30am) and we reached detroit (actually the place we went is not the city, i think it's a suburb of detroit). as our bus had members not only from v3, we splited into groups. earlier in the bus, i had known that my work would be related to setting up a library for a middle school. so there we went to a building (owned by blight what what, a charity-voluntary-work group) and gathered in a soup kitchen hall. as an ice-breaker, we played the link, and after hanging out for a short while, we were told that the truck with our books had arrived.
unloading the books was nothing a task, and upon receiving the books, we had to first divide them into fiction, non-fiction, and inappropriate books. then we had to label them. that was when i thought, oh gosh, books again!!!! (fyi, im a librarian) we worked in groups of 3, and we chatted while working. (some other groups play some naming game, say name a city starting with alphabet a-z)
lunch sucked. i just had a turkey sandwich and some pop. people from other groups came join for lunch too. there was a big crowd in the hall...and after that, it was in such a mess that we had to clean it up. cynthia, one of my senior was there too. cool and remote as usual (i mean to the juniors).
we continued our work after the cleaning up. then when it was around 2, we stopped. hopping in the same bus, we headed to a park and there, all the volunteers gathered together to hear speeches from 3 speakers (ended up having more than that). one of them, a black, was rather cool as he rap through his speech. (seriously) there too they gave out free t-shirts by throwing them out to the crowd. i manage to grab one :D, as my arms were fast and long enough..muahaha. it was quite a cold day, and we were quite impatient waiting for the speakers to finish their speeches (one of them was late...the senator)
the event was wrapped up with the speech of the lady senator, and we walked our way back to the buses. nothing much in the journey back, except i accidentally stepped on a pile of shit (shit!!!)
so here comes the day. we were supposed to meet in angell hall at 8.45 am. i woke up at 8, and after much of delay, i found myself missing the damned bus (again!). as a result, me and renjie had to run down to pierpont commons, hoping that we would be able to catch the missed bus. we were disappointed, and had to wait for another bus...but when we reached central campus, we noticed there were swarms of people coming from all sides of direction, heading towards the building. apparently...michigan time still applied. after standing in a line for a while, we were notified that we did not need to wait...we could just grab our t-shirts and go our bus. i got a medium size blue t-shirt, put it on, and yup, ready to start the exciting day.
as i was in group v3, renjie and i seperated as we went to search for our bus. after much trouble, i finally found my bus. upon aboarding it, i had to sign a paper (must be like some live-dead contract..haha), and was given a named tag. as there was already quite a number of people in the bus, i had to sit quite far back. after some moment of silence, conversations were started in the bus, and me too was able to engage in a small chat with an arizona girl (shawn, graduate student).
the bus left ann arbor quite late (9.30am) and we reached detroit (actually the place we went is not the city, i think it's a suburb of detroit). as our bus had members not only from v3, we splited into groups. earlier in the bus, i had known that my work would be related to setting up a library for a middle school. so there we went to a building (owned by blight what what, a charity-voluntary-work group) and gathered in a soup kitchen hall. as an ice-breaker, we played the link, and after hanging out for a short while, we were told that the truck with our books had arrived.
unloading the books was nothing a task, and upon receiving the books, we had to first divide them into fiction, non-fiction, and inappropriate books. then we had to label them. that was when i thought, oh gosh, books again!!!! (fyi, im a librarian) we worked in groups of 3, and we chatted while working. (some other groups play some naming game, say name a city starting with alphabet a-z)
lunch sucked. i just had a turkey sandwich and some pop. people from other groups came join for lunch too. there was a big crowd in the hall...and after that, it was in such a mess that we had to clean it up. cynthia, one of my senior was there too. cool and remote as usual (i mean to the juniors).
we continued our work after the cleaning up. then when it was around 2, we stopped. hopping in the same bus, we headed to a park and there, all the volunteers gathered together to hear speeches from 3 speakers (ended up having more than that). one of them, a black, was rather cool as he rap through his speech. (seriously) there too they gave out free t-shirts by throwing them out to the crowd. i manage to grab one :D, as my arms were fast and long enough..muahaha. it was quite a cold day, and we were quite impatient waiting for the speakers to finish their speeches (one of them was late...the senator)
the event was wrapped up with the speech of the lady senator, and we walked our way back to the buses. nothing much in the journey back, except i accidentally stepped on a pile of shit (shit!!!)
Thursday, March 31, 2005
fantasie impromptu!!!
man, this blog is getting boring. have been browsing through other blogs, and it seems mine doesn't offer much...just a straightfoward, superficial-report-like description of the happenings in my life...
anyway, today is a cloudy/rainy day. though spring is already here. apparently, that is not the case...according to the weather forecast, it will snow the saturday...crazy huh?
just came back from the music school. fantaisie impromptu is getting on my nerves man...can't seem to master it although i try and try. and today i realized i totally cannot perform well if someone other than me is present. that's it!! there must be a change.
ok. let me set a plan, which hopefully will help me to master this not-so-difficult-but-dunno-why-i-can't-play-it-well piece.
every week, i will have two practise sessions at least.
each session will be at least one and a half hour long.
in the first 35 minutes, i MUST NOT PLAY ANY PIECES. it MUST BE STRICTLY allocated to fingering practice. Hanon, scales and appregios.....no negotiations.
- break (5 minutes). play nocturne in c# minor. (just to relax the hands)
for the next 5 minutes, i must limit myself to playing the cross rhythem section of FI. 5 MINUTES INTENSIVE PLAYING. MINIMAL REST.
- break (2 minutes). in that 2 minutes, practise the left hand part of FI. optional.
then PLAY the first 2 pages of FI for 10 minutes.
- break (2 minutes). do nothing.
- break (10 minutes). play rachmaninov's prelude in c#minor the second page.
play FI first two pages for another 10 minutes.
- for the last 10 minutes, try the ending part of FI.
end with something fun.
this must be strictly followed. hopefully, by doing this, i will be able to play the first two pags well enough in 2 months. MUAHAHAHAHAHA.......
good luck to me....nothing is impossible, impossible is nothing!!!!
anyway, today is a cloudy/rainy day. though spring is already here. apparently, that is not the case...according to the weather forecast, it will snow the saturday...crazy huh?
just came back from the music school. fantaisie impromptu is getting on my nerves man...can't seem to master it although i try and try. and today i realized i totally cannot perform well if someone other than me is present. that's it!! there must be a change.
ok. let me set a plan, which hopefully will help me to master this not-so-difficult-but-dunno-why-i-can't-play-it-well piece.
every week, i will have two practise sessions at least.
each session will be at least one and a half hour long.
in the first 35 minutes, i MUST NOT PLAY ANY PIECES. it MUST BE STRICTLY allocated to fingering practice. Hanon, scales and appregios.....no negotiations.
- break (5 minutes). play nocturne in c# minor. (just to relax the hands)
for the next 5 minutes, i must limit myself to playing the cross rhythem section of FI. 5 MINUTES INTENSIVE PLAYING. MINIMAL REST.
- break (2 minutes). in that 2 minutes, practise the left hand part of FI. optional.
then PLAY the first 2 pages of FI for 10 minutes.
- break (2 minutes). do nothing.
- break (10 minutes). play rachmaninov's prelude in c#minor the second page.
play FI first two pages for another 10 minutes.
- for the last 10 minutes, try the ending part of FI.
end with something fun.
this must be strictly followed. hopefully, by doing this, i will be able to play the first two pags well enough in 2 months. MUAHAHAHAHAHA.......
good luck to me....nothing is impossible, impossible is nothing!!!!
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Happy Birthday!!!
*sob sob* today is my birthday....i am 20 already....ahhhh!!
really appreciate all my friends for coming to my room at midnight and spent this memorable time with me. as my room was too small, we have to go to the ethan lounge to hang out. glad to see mayying, yeefay, hungwei and teng here too. they were having their spring break i guess. we ate some chips, drank some pop and played some games (air hockey, table soccer) there. too bad i had to work early at the morning, so couldn't stay in the lounge for too long...
and yes, i am not yet done with the wichita mini sales school event yet!! but too tired to write it down now. continue on that later...
happy birthday to me, and happy world water day to the world!!!!!
really appreciate all my friends for coming to my room at midnight and spent this memorable time with me. as my room was too small, we have to go to the ethan lounge to hang out. glad to see mayying, yeefay, hungwei and teng here too. they were having their spring break i guess. we ate some chips, drank some pop and played some games (air hockey, table soccer) there. too bad i had to work early at the morning, so couldn't stay in the lounge for too long...
and yes, i am not yet done with the wichita mini sales school event yet!! but too tired to write it down now. continue on that later...
happy birthday to me, and happy world water day to the world!!!!!
Sunday, March 20, 2005
still Wichita...
what a mess...jumbled up all the time of events. now it's in the right order, but still the time which the posts were posted is incorrect. nevermind though...
the third day was an eventful day (unfortunate ones mostly). like yesterday, we were fetched to the WSU. everyone seemed to be feeling nervous because of the impending competition. i myself was quite worried too, for i felt that i had not enough preperation. being unable to present out what i had memorized was my main concern.
when we reached the university, we were divided into 5 groups (8 ppl each). in my small group, i was lucky enough to be the 6th one to go out and perform. everyone before me seemed to be extremely nervous, and that somehow made me less anxious. when it reached my turn, i just went out and tried my best to act confident. surprisingly, everything went well. i didn't have much expectation though. i was asked to go out from the room for a one to one conference almost right after my turn. hadn't got a chance to know my result....
and by the time i was done with the conference, the room where the first round competition was hold earlier was already empty. i went to the big hall, and to my astonish, renjie congratulated me. i was picked to go into the finals! incredible, i thought. ah, since i was chosen, i wil try my best. out of the 10 constestant, i was the third to go up. when it was my turn, i did what i was supposed to do. no fear this time though. what a weird thing...but i don't think i perform well, and as predicted, i wasn't in the top five. yet, having the chance to go up and do something that i don't normally do was stasifying enough for me already.
after the competition, we were asked to listen to a few more presentation (becoming increasingly boring now) and a speech by an indian alleged (what a word!) to be the head of this program. he spoke so long that in hindsight, he was the one who caused us to miss our flight. (damnit!) yup, we missed our flight..again. and this time we were not so fortunate.
due to some wrong information, we were made to believe that we would be able to standby for another flight. we ended up in a motel in kansas city (MO) that night. qiming was so frustrated, because he needed to hand in an important assignment the day after. i had to work the next day too...but what to do? there we were, in a motel trying to sort out the mess...
the third day was an eventful day (unfortunate ones mostly). like yesterday, we were fetched to the WSU. everyone seemed to be feeling nervous because of the impending competition. i myself was quite worried too, for i felt that i had not enough preperation. being unable to present out what i had memorized was my main concern.
when we reached the university, we were divided into 5 groups (8 ppl each). in my small group, i was lucky enough to be the 6th one to go out and perform. everyone before me seemed to be extremely nervous, and that somehow made me less anxious. when it reached my turn, i just went out and tried my best to act confident. surprisingly, everything went well. i didn't have much expectation though. i was asked to go out from the room for a one to one conference almost right after my turn. hadn't got a chance to know my result....
and by the time i was done with the conference, the room where the first round competition was hold earlier was already empty. i went to the big hall, and to my astonish, renjie congratulated me. i was picked to go into the finals! incredible, i thought. ah, since i was chosen, i wil try my best. out of the 10 constestant, i was the third to go up. when it was my turn, i did what i was supposed to do. no fear this time though. what a weird thing...but i don't think i perform well, and as predicted, i wasn't in the top five. yet, having the chance to go up and do something that i don't normally do was stasifying enough for me already.
after the competition, we were asked to listen to a few more presentation (becoming increasingly boring now) and a speech by an indian alleged (what a word!) to be the head of this program. he spoke so long that in hindsight, he was the one who caused us to miss our flight. (damnit!) yup, we missed our flight..again. and this time we were not so fortunate.
due to some wrong information, we were made to believe that we would be able to standby for another flight. we ended up in a motel in kansas city (MO) that night. qiming was so frustrated, because he needed to hand in an important assignment the day after. i had to work the next day too...but what to do? there we were, in a motel trying to sort out the mess...
Saturday, March 19, 2005
wichita (wichita state university)
ok, now im supposed to continue on my description of the wichita trip. nothing much happened the second day. the mini sales school took place in the wichita state university. there, we were seated in a lecture hall and had to listen to speeches and had some sessions in knowing each other. lunch was provided by them, and we were brought to a vietnamese restaurant for dinner. i ordered a pork chop with rice. the pork chop sucked, but the "mata kerbau" (a kind of fried egg) was delicious. long time since i last ate such orientally treated egg. (as you know, westerners have a limited creativity in dealing with food) after dinner, we went back to our rooms and started preparing for the sales talk competition. slept at around 2 i think? zzzz...
Friday, March 18, 2005
Ann Arbor - Detriot - Kansas City - Wichita
phew~~~!!! what a week!
just had my midterms last week (3 of them altogether). have the ominous feeling that this time's result will be far worse than the first one. dunno what went wrong with me. i seemed to be busy all the time doing work (as in coursework) and yet, the results are not so desirable. was it because i had a poor time management? i don't think so. i think it's about my inability to concentrate in my studies...should i blame it to my lack of interest in the subject matter? hmm....i am still trying my best to convince that the brain is the most powerful tool...a tool can you can manipulate to believe whatever you want to believe in....
3/18/2005
on the friday, i left ann arbor for kansas city. it was kind of in a rush, and i was unable to tell my friend about my departure. qi ming and renjie went together with me too. after the finishing my linear algebra class, i came straight back to bursley and had my lunch, and straightaway (only have about 10 minutes to pack) left for the detriot airport. qi ming's friend (a black) fetched us there.
we had to go for the standby flight as we were late. we were supposed to board the plane at 8 sth in the morning, but it was impossible because i had a geosci midterm at 9. hence, we were where we were, trying our luck for the standby flight. it turned out that we were lucky enough to catch a plane to the kansas city, missouri.
when we reached kansas city, it was already about 6? (bad memory...sigh) hon boon, the guy who invited us to the minisales school met us in the airport, and it was then we realized that another chinese girl in the plane was also there because of this sales school. her name is called cecilia and she was from bowling green university in ohio. we met a bunch of girls from the northwood university in mich too. (ainee, may hui, aida, etc) from the airport, we went to mcdonalds to have our dinner.
after having our dinner, we were driven to witchita, kansas. it was a 3.5 hour journey. by the time we reached wichita, it was already about 12am. we checked in a fairly good hotel and then had some good rest there.
that day was quite a special relief from my boring schoolife, and such trip provided a much needed break in my hectic life. still, deep inside me i knew that i would be screwed eventually as i am having another important midterm in this week...i think i have to stop now as my mind is not working well right now. will continue some other day.
just had my midterms last week (3 of them altogether). have the ominous feeling that this time's result will be far worse than the first one. dunno what went wrong with me. i seemed to be busy all the time doing work (as in coursework) and yet, the results are not so desirable. was it because i had a poor time management? i don't think so. i think it's about my inability to concentrate in my studies...should i blame it to my lack of interest in the subject matter? hmm....i am still trying my best to convince that the brain is the most powerful tool...a tool can you can manipulate to believe whatever you want to believe in....
3/18/2005
on the friday, i left ann arbor for kansas city. it was kind of in a rush, and i was unable to tell my friend about my departure. qi ming and renjie went together with me too. after the finishing my linear algebra class, i came straight back to bursley and had my lunch, and straightaway (only have about 10 minutes to pack) left for the detriot airport. qi ming's friend (a black) fetched us there.
we had to go for the standby flight as we were late. we were supposed to board the plane at 8 sth in the morning, but it was impossible because i had a geosci midterm at 9. hence, we were where we were, trying our luck for the standby flight. it turned out that we were lucky enough to catch a plane to the kansas city, missouri.
when we reached kansas city, it was already about 6? (bad memory...sigh) hon boon, the guy who invited us to the minisales school met us in the airport, and it was then we realized that another chinese girl in the plane was also there because of this sales school. her name is called cecilia and she was from bowling green university in ohio. we met a bunch of girls from the northwood university in mich too. (ainee, may hui, aida, etc) from the airport, we went to mcdonalds to have our dinner.
after having our dinner, we were driven to witchita, kansas. it was a 3.5 hour journey. by the time we reached wichita, it was already about 12am. we checked in a fairly good hotel and then had some good rest there.
that day was quite a special relief from my boring schoolife, and such trip provided a much needed break in my hectic life. still, deep inside me i knew that i would be screwed eventually as i am having another important midterm in this week...i think i have to stop now as my mind is not working well right now. will continue some other day.
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