in retrospect...

wah.. time flies. so fast one week has past, and school's heading into the prelims week for most of the engineers le.. WAH. first prelims are jittery affairs cos no one knows how much to study for them and what kinda tests would come out.. and yet.. the weightage of it on yer GPA is so fricking high. it's scary..and tension is palpable..

met Jeff whilst walking back from HILC and he was saying he was gonna mug so hard he would beat all the Singaporeans and send the Com S 100J curve so high that our scores would kena badly.. -_-.. hehe.. seems like tension is leaking to the rest as well.

then again, my dormmates still pretty much go partying every single weekend and with people like Sheryl dropping more and more courses and having more and more free time.. hehe.. you really start wondering the fairness of things.. haha.. poor engineers.

am i'm pretty much quite tired but hopefully still coping well and not letting the stress get to me.. sometimes, HONESTLY, i stop in my tracks for awhile and really contemplate why the heck I came to USA to study, on scholarship, bonded, having to fulfill a disgustingly high GPA and having to complete eveything so fast that everything else seems to be a blur. I mean, I envisioned in my army days that Uni life was gonna be FUN, a blast, with me finally breaking outta my introverted, unadventurous shell and just join as many activities as possible with not much concern of studies.

and honestly, reality is hitting hard. life's not the partying and going out and so on. coming to Cornell with so much expectations placed on you and so much restrictions on what course you can take seriously drains out whatever free time you have and the choice of activities you can go for. often it really boils down to whether you wanna devote the time to study and catch up on work, or whether you wanna go out and have fun and THEN worry about work again. and with Prof Maas' consistent reminders that sleep should NOT be compromised.. you really really start running out of time.

and that's from a normal 5 subber taking pretty mild courses. I sometimes wonder how the insane 8 subbers and the Math 192,293,294 people are doing. oh well.

but there are fun times, i'd admit. for one, university fellowship is like a breath of fresh air amidst all the stress and pressures. it is one time i drop my study woes and just enjoy fellowship and yeah.. praise the Lord. and honestly, i must say, coming to US, my impression of the US churches have changed. I used to think that US churches were in a decline, where the people have lost their religion and everything is going haywire. well, in large parts it sorrta is. (americans ask me why i wake up so early on sundays when it is like a sleep-in day after a night of frivolity) but during fellowship and church, you really see the dynamism and vibrance, you see the vast array of opportunities for missions and yeah.. I feel a sense of excitement at being part of it. =)

so yeah.. lemme get through these 2 weeks of prelims before I start scampering for more fun. Fall Trip ahead!