beautiful NY!

pictures galore! (well sort of)..

went with gq to NYC for thanksgiving (and sorta with ck.. though of course he pang-sehed us to go live with his fren and came and left NY at different times from us) it was damn damn fun! a lil' ex in terms of food, but guess that was offset by staying at justin's place in columbia.. columbia's pretty nice too, just err.. teensy-weensy small, as though u take a template of a university and shrink it by size but increase the height. (yeah.. justin's dorm was on the 10th flr.. as we ithaca-country bumpkins went.. waaah.. so high)



pretty cool and quaint..

justin said this was some library or smth.. hmmz.. dunno

so yeah.. talking abt the city/country difference thingy, gq and i quickly realised how ulu-ated we had become after staying in ithaca for 3mnths++.. like we were complaining of bein asphyxiated in the endless subway tunnels and not seeing daylight etc.. lol

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thanksgiving day itself was pretty much a bummer cos the weather was real terrible. honestly like shit cos it rained the whole fricking day and my hood got wet and it was pretty miserably cold. the only one to summon any enthusiasm to take photos and prance around was Mr. PhotoWhore CK, who insisted on taking pictures with some non-descript bull statue along the street and insisted on going to NYSE to take photos. -_-

we actually met up with a whole plethora of rj/army pple like harry, nigel, andrew, matthew, andy and so on,, and it was great fun traipsing down the wet streets with matt, andy, ck and gq despite the really shitty weather.



rockefeller rink!! wah really dreamining of seeing it since serendipity.. but too blardy cold to skate.. aand no one else enthu.. -_- (but it was an exorbitant $12 sia.. -_-)


statues galore.. atlas @ rockefeller and liberty @ ellis island


5th avenue revisited... thou shops all closed.. SIANZ


times square amidst the crowd..


actually i went on this trip mainly for shopping. ie. BLACK FRIDAY shopping. but the most irritating and disappointing thing obviously, after placing so much hopes, was that the sales pretty much SUCKED. went to the apple shop @ 5th at 12 midnite in hopes of catching a deal for the ipod nano.. but.. wah.. go all the way there and the price is only down by $10+? and the queue was circling the shop like 3 times? sianz..

went to jersey gardens the next day in hopes of better bargains.. but.. -_-.. the combined effect of lousy deals and insane queues left us buying stuff that probably could have been bought at Pmall.. -_-



nah.. no deal here..


two piles of shopping.. two different pple.. lol.. guess who bought which? hehe


so sadly, we embarked on our way back to ithaca.. (gq said he missed 'home' liao -_-)
but not before stopping by mrs fields and getting an absolutely delicious cookies and cream shake!!


yummy! and gq swooning over the drink in estascy.. lol

so yeah.. now back in ithaca with shitty food and cold weather.. but ah.. used to such life liao.. and love my bed and my packed up room as well! time for mugging le...

oh.. and my to-do list for next NY visit
- watch Wicked, Mary Poppins
- skate at Rockefeller and Bryant Park
- drink sake again!! lol.. Maru was a nice place

ciao!

it's snowing!

guess my childhoos dreams came true today when I awoke to a scene of snow covered tree branches and rooftops and just a general landscape slowly turning into a narnia-esque snowland.. slowly.. but surely. =)

snowed pretty much alot today.. till i got pretty irritated with the snow swirling and irritating my eyes.. but yeah.. its real cool and fun i think. =)

more snow please! i wanna snowball fight! lol

sleepy

gq and i theorized that we did badly for com s cos we didn't sleep enough. so yeah. k.. to repay the sleep debt i incurred yesterday thanks to the senior's ridiculous suggestion of playing dota at 2, i'm gonna sleep now.. cos the weather's SO NICE to sleep. (yeah, as what dan says, wintry mix.. lol)

well church today talked abt being thankful and yeah.. guess it ain't good to complain so much, cos it's being downright ungrateful about stuff.. should stop being confused about classes and the likes and just.. yeah be happy! =)

went to some host family's house for some dinner yesterday with joshie.. and wah.. i was really stunned when the host like said, here's the start of our property, then slowly drove for 2 minutes before reaching the house. 0_0.. talk about rural country life and having large pastures.. man.. first time experiencing like the countryside life. =)

yawnz.. so well.. my sleep debt is calling me.. ciao!

i wonder...

disclaimer: yet another rant

sometimes i really wonder about this whole psych schamltz. i hate this whole collectivist thinking because it kills, it destroys individuality and it unconsciously shapes your own decisions and you become convinced it is your own interests.

then when there are occasions when you honestly cannot reconcile with the group-event at hand, you feel discomfort and well.. the collectivist ideal forces you to be nice and not be like a fricking child and stalk off. is that maturity? i doubt it. sometimes i envy those who can just stalk off and indulge in their own worlds or whatever, but i can't, because I've become so enmeshed and in need of societal support that it sucks.

i want my individuality back. yet. i dare not. yet this was the precise thing I was determined to establish when i envisioned my varsity life. what happened?

sigh. it's always a case of disappointed and unfulfilment of dreams.

-confused-

computer rants

thanksgiving is coming soon! gonna go NYC and chiong stores on Black Friday. oh.. till then i better finish my homework, study for the deficit since I screwed up my com s prelim.

which i honestly think is an absolute turd.

who the heck gives 12 marks for 3 lines of writing and then 3 marks for nearly 5 lines of writing? sigh. its like an all-or-nothing scenario.

oh well. i hope i'm past this besides the occasional moans. got more to life lah =)

heck.. got nothing to blog liao.. damn tired since I stayed up till 3 trying to finish watching Full Metal Alchemist.. got 3 more episodes thou. so interesting!! hehe..

perspective

somehow, the world seems slightly gloomier than two days ago. haiz. pressure is getting to me i guess.

sometimes, i wonder what scholarship boards saw in each of us. and wanted each of us to accomplish. sometimes, i wonder whether it was actually a good thing to have gotten a scholarship. a scholarship ain't just meaning money to go overseas, though that's a large part i guess. a scholarship wasn't the 'easy' means i envisioned when I set my mind that I wanted to come over.

a scholarship carries much more baggage than that - expectations, pressure, loss of choice and more.

sometimes, i wonder if it is worth it. when you suddenly realise you only get to live uni life once, you only get one chance to live your 20th year in your life once. then, maybe your perspective will change. i think it's a tremendous struggle.

all in all, life is largely what you choose to make of it. and you only get today once. yet people, especially yours truly, can't seem to grasp this fact or internalize this fully to appreciate and direct life in the correct direction. God.. what is my path ultimately?

*postscript: i am not depressed, nor suicidal or what. just musing. =)

pumpkin carving!

omg! it's been so long since i last updated.. hmmz.. poor blog sliding towards ruin liao. but aniwez i take the time now that i'm like trying to recover from a horrid flu and skipping my horseriding to recap some stuff..

last sat was pumpkin carving, went to bethel grove and had some real gross and artistic time as we dug out the pumpkin's innards (err.. i compared it to digging into.. heck) and then spending a damn long time carving the pumpkin. well damn long for me. my conclusion? it takes a helluva effort to kill someone with a carving knife. hehe =)


that's us digging the innards out. tough work man! hehe


that's my first pumpkin. i was inspired by the root beer bottle's bulldog.. hmmz


hall of fame.. our finished, lighted pumpkins! cool rite!


this was my second piece.. painstakingly carved.. can see what it is?