Today's probably the coldest i've been since i got here though the temperature itself isn't by any means as cold as it has been before. Why was today cold? 3 words and a symbol - cold rain & wind.
To deal with the rain and cold, i'll still live. But when you add gale force wind into the mix (ahh maybe not that strong wind, but you get my drift), you start losing sensation in your fingers and ears! I came close to losing every shard of self dignity today while walking around campus to get to my classes. Was practically letting my umbrella guide my way instead of it being the other way round. And when i thought i had control of the darn thing, the wind gets a second wind (doesn't sound that right...) and threatens to flip my umbrella inside out!!! Think that happened at least 5 times. Without a doubt, i must have looked like a complete bufooon trying to control the umbrella...COMPLETE BUFOOOOONN!
Wouldn't be complaning right now if i just made trips out of my dorm just to get to my 2 classes today. But noooooo...genius me had to pick today, of all days, to cram 2 experiments at different time slots. And the psychology building (where the experiments were held) is definitely not near my dorm. Because of that, had to make more trips out of my dorm than i would have liked. Experiments went fine by the way.
Other than the above, my day was pretty mundane. Felt lethargic/drowsy/lazy the entire day. Maybe because i woke up early yesterday (7am), slept late (2?), woke up early today (850...okay maybe it isn't that early) and i'm still awake...so it's cumulative!!
I need of someone to sing me to sleep and fly through my dreams!!!
Nice videos from Yellowcard. Totally diggin' their acoustic one.
When I think about you, i never thought that you could break me apart. I keep a sinister smile in a hole in my heart. If you want to get inside now, then you need to get in line.
So due to unprecedented protests and outcry after i posted hot/cute pics of Hilarie Burton and an ugly/butt ugly shot of Chad Michael Murray, i'll do myself a favour and balance the scales of unglamness & attractiveness
Waiting for the United match to air. One of the guys in the dorm gave me a link to a site where i can watch live premier league games. SCHHHWEEETTT! Now, that's 30 more minutes to finding out whether this thing really does work or not.
Anyways, since i'm living off happy/upbeat music...this is one of the bands i'm listening to. Kinda punk-ish but not punk-til-ear-bleed kinda thing. Boys Like Girls. Good band name i must say. Boys dooo like girls, no?
It's funny how my mood's been better the last few days. Think it's got quite some bit to do with the music hammered into my head. Plus, i can really hammer them into my head since the roommate's computer is down and there's no reason for me not to crank my sound up. Livin' the life! All i need now is my books and my music.
Yannoe what's the thing that annoys me the most these days? The Norton Anti Virus Internet Security thing that pops up a red window asking you to renew the subscription.
!#$%$#^*&! HOW ANNOYING IS THAT!!! AND IT WON'T STOP TIL I RENEW IT!!!
I would be more than happy to renew the dang thing but when i click on it, it goes ahead and lays it on me that i'll have to pay 50 bucks to get the thing renewed. Prrft, though i think i can get it at a student price...i'll have to check up on that.
So this site that my little brother, VERN (he requested that his name be mentioned, in caps and if possible, animated flash-style) gave me some good laughs! Doshur
I guess that doesn't only happen to The Niq huh? Oh wait there's more....
The things people do with cameras nowadays. There's more from where that came from! And who have we got to thank for that? Vern.....
Here for some audio/video relief, posted some music video of Boys Like Girls. Nth fancy but aiyah, just like the sound. The one after that is kinda fancy. That's Youth Group! Always remembered for their track at the end of one of The OC episodes.
Okayyyyy moment of truth, the player that's supposed to show the live match is buffering....Issit gonna work?!?!?!?!?! YES IT IS!!! :) time to watch...bye!
Jack's Mannequin has skyrocketed itself back to the top of my playlist after a pretty long hiatus partly because it was knocked off the pedestal by all the sad/emo/mopey songs that flooded my iTunes. So..now i'm reverting to the happy, upbeat songs that i've come to know and lovee. Aww?
But vern ah...i still need some convincing if you wanna get Muse up on my playlist leh. Maybe one or 2 songs so far la..but dunno whether i can handle 9 gigs worth of Muse songs like you can. So...i was going through some random thinking processes to get my brain jumpstarted so i could do math and i thought of some pretty retarded stuff. I realized that i've never seen any bloodshed on StarWars. Then again, i guess that's because everything laser...light saber, laser pistols, laser cannons. So the wound gets fused the moment the laser cuts through or something. And was thinking bout the things i miss back home and for some reason, first thing i thought about was my dog! DROOPY!! I think he's getting older by the looks of it. But i bet he's still the spunky dog when he sees people. He can sleep the day away, but the moment he sees anyone, he'll get so excited and all that he'll start leaking piss. Tsktsktsk. But yeah, one of the things i'm looking forward to do when i get home is to wrestle with the dog! Once he's showered and clean. My mom was telling me that Droopy went up to my room one morning and just started howling. Freaky huh?
That's droopy...as you can see, he's missing a nose.
One of things i really wanna do while i'm in the states is to get to watch a live concert. Not talking those huge huge ones which fill up a stadium...i'm talking small gigs with bands that i listen to. Like say, Jack's Mannequin, Jimmy Eat World or +44. Something that really gets the crowd going la! And i just found out yesterday that +44 performed in Chicago the day before we arrived ($%^&#!~*). Wasted opportunity. So yeah...that's something i'd like to do. But too bad, haven't found another person here that could go for the gigs with me, someone who listens to the same music. Though i know who does back home.
Was checkin out the Jack's Mannequin website and they've got a winter tour, that'd be around February. Plus they'll be in Chicago mid-Feb. So that's an option!
Now's the time when i start to miss the people back home, because departure date is nearing..and everyone back home are either done with exams/finishing their exams! While i've got 3 weeks of school to go. Good thing is, my exams are spread out over a 3 week period! Papers as early as next week, as late as December 15. That leaves some breathing room unlike NUS, exams everyday for a week. PRRRRFFFT!!
Oh for those who watch One Tree Hill...who can give a good reason as to why Peyton Sawyer (Hilarie Burton) isn't hot/cute??!!??!
She's probably the best thing to grace One Tree Hill, though some may argue that Lucas' (Chad Michael Murray) the best thing. Big fat PRRRFFFTTT to that.. (if you didn't notice, i tried looking for the ugliest picture of him to post..but okay la, he looks kinda good anyways). Looks like OTH is kinda good, cos someone else in the dorm saw me and my roommate watching it, joined in..and got hooked. So much so that he got me to put all 3 seasons into my external harddisk so he could download them onto his computer. Prrffttt. Trashy it may be...but it's good to watch!
Argh just found out yesterday that i have a psych test tomorrow, so i'm off to start studying for it now. Trying not to do this, but i'm already counting the days til i get back!
18
I'm coming home from my hardest time, i'm making plans not to make plans while I'm here. And this life has not really been a holiday, a complicated situation. I'm fine with all my memories. Still, I could use vacation.
This song's been on my iTunes for the longgest time! Since back in j1 if i'm not wrong. Can't remember how i got it in the first place, but yeah, it's back on my playlist again! Can't remember if it ever hit the Singapore airwaves...hmm...
nice shot of some random buildings with good light
this blob of a statue in the middle of nowhere that looked like crushed paper written on with a marker
is that a skyscraper or what?!?
that's the iceskating rink from 'The Lakehouse', outside that fancy restaurant in the movie
the chicago bean..or somethin like that. cute stuff. more of the bean.....
me, the rink and the jacket that would make gay men go nuts -.-
do not ask me what we were doing. randomness.
that's the view from 94 storeys up. kinda hard to take a clear picture at night for some reason. nice lights huh?
So that was kinda it for Chicago actually. Then that night we drove down to Aurora Malls to do some shopping and found out that singaporeans aren't the only ones who go nuts when there's a sale. DIfference between the americans and singaporeans? Americans just grab whatever they can during sales, no matter what the price.
American Mentality = it's on sale, so whatever it is, it's still cheaper than it was. Singaporean Mentality = it's on sale, if i buy this, i will only save 5 dollars. With that 5 dollars, i cannot buy another one of the same item leh. Aiya, not buy one get one free. Not worth it. Lemme go look at the other shops wor.
With mentality like that, it's no surprise why the Great Singapore Sale has alot of people, and the whole event is a long drawn out thing..and people come out of it with probably a bag full of clothes if everything goes well. In America, they come out of the sale with enough apparel to fill up a pick-up truck.
The drive back was kinda uneventful. Except for that blip when we were bout 5 miles from Bloomington. And that's gonna remain our little secret. Nobody needs to know hor shuzhen? And pam? Lallalaa.
OH yes and i managed to drive around Bloomington on Saturday because the car was parked at David's place..and i was the housekeeper for his place over the weekend. Haven't driven in a long time, so that was kinda fun.
So school's started and i got back to my usual routine...oversleeping and missing my first class. It's not that i wanna skip, i wake at 7, but close my eyes and the next thing i know, its 830! But i don't miss all my class la, so..don't worry!!
So that's it for my Chicago trip, got alot of pictures but i can't possibly put all of them up! Because if i do, i'll probably get real mad and smash my computer. But i don't wanna break it! Unlike my poor, pathetic roommate. His computer's broke. Awww? So now he's just sittin his butt on his head, reading notes.
Life without the computer+internet...can't imagine that.
Check out this advert..the Sharapova one. Boyyyy is she hott...kinda.
Alright now i'm all rested and ready to work my fingers and post some pictures! Definitely not all, because that'll take me a long time and for those who know me...i'm not the most patient person around.
Day1
Left Bloomington at around 10 in the morning, collected our rented car and Shuzhen started her epic 5 hour drive to Chicago with Pamela and me as her passengers (Pam got lucky and sat at the back so she had the chance to sleep while i sat up front...and had the honour of navigating). Everything went kinda smooth til we reached Chicago itself. That's when we hit the wrong exit and couldn't find our way to our hotel. And guess where we ended up?
THE HOOD! Yeah man, the hood. As Pam would put it "Wah damn scary to wake up and see the car surrounded by blacks man". Yup, we ended up in the Harlem of Chicago, the south side. Pam didn't know we took a wrong exit so when she woke up and saw the amount of blacks, she got kinda freaked - and with good reason!! The place was filled with african americans. Didn't wanna take any pictures of them in case they got offended and carjack us. Another memorable quote from Shuzhen - "Lucky i didn't hit any of them down". That was said because they were crossing the road like they owned it (even though no one would probably challenge the fact that they owned it...)
We needed to get out of the place PRONTO and so we stopped over at some kinda depot and i asked a taxi driver (yupp..african american) for directions. Nice old guy.So we got the directions we sorely needed, buckled up and get our behinds out of that place!
Reached the hotel in no time and while the girls checked in, i lingered around the lobby and tried to hide my face from the center desk (that's cos they booked the room for 2...not for 3...I was freeloading! Kinda...but i still had to pay my part for the room). Rested up in the room, let Shuzhen rest her butt after all that drivingg. Toooo bad for her, we didn't rest for long...because we had to head up to Gurnee Mall before dark. Since it's winter, the sun sets at around 6. Decided to head up to Gurnee Mall because rumour has it that there's an Abercrombie & Fitch outlet up there. For those who don't know, outlet shops sell stuff cheaper..bout 20-30% cheaper? So we had it in our heads that the trip up would be worth the drive! Hmmm...... Oh and here are some pics of the view from our room.
So here began our trip up to Gurnee Mall. Traffic was NUTS! Bumper to bumper for at least an hour, even though the estimated time to reach the darn mall was put at 55minutes. So traffic put us quite abit behind schedule. Didn't take much pictures the first day because time was mostly spent driving and shopping. But shopping the first day was kinda tame for a few reasons. First, tired. Second, lousy things on sale. Third, lousy things on sale. Fourth, stuff at A&F sucked so baddd. Didn't wanna get any of the products even though it was on the cheap. Prrfft. Basically, the only thing that justified our trip up to Gurnee was Banana Republic. Soo...had dinner and scooted off for the hotel to get some sleep and prepare for a longgg day ahead. You'll see why.....
So that's it for Day 1!
Day 2...oh wait..before Day 2...here's our room.
That's Pams bed on the far side, Shuzhen's bed on the near side...and that's my bed, the right picture. Yup, right smack in the middle on the floor. Some way to treat The Niq huh?
Day2
Woke up at 11 plus. Kinda late...but with good reason! We weren't planning to sleep that night because there was a sale at one of the outlet malls on the other side of town. It's called Midnight Madness, where everything goes on a further discount at 12midnight. So that was gonna be the main attraction for the day!
Today, we decided to take a walk around downtown Chicago. Take in the sights, the sounds...and whatever else la. But since it was Thanksgiving Day, most of the buildings were closed. Though we didn't plan to do any shopping downtown, that didn't matter to us. What mattered to us was the fact that we couldn't find a single bathroom! ONE BIG CITY, NO BATHROOM!!!!! More on that later..
Sooo...our journey around Chicago..i'm just gonna let the pictures do the talking la. Kinda lazy. I was more or less photographer of the day, so i'm not gonna be in most of the pics :) besides, had a bad hair day...you'll see why.
That's Virgin Records, where i bought +44's album. Good band by the way
There's a sweeeet car parked along the side of the road right there!!
See what i mean by bad hair day? Owell, nevermind i still look kinda sharp with the sweet jacket.
Now that's what i call a gi-normous christmas tree. HUGE.
Anyhow, sorry folks, blogger's being a pain in my butt and the upload rate is slowing down. So i'll take a rain check on blogging bout Day 2. Trust me, you'll wanna see the pics from Day 2. AWESOME!
But amidst all the fun, i still wished to be in another part of the world. You'd never guess where that would be...
K advertising time....go get +44's album! Got my money's worth. They're more highly rated songs are the loud ones la, which i don't really like...but are decent. But their other tracks are smashing. They're essentially Blink182 minus the previous leadsinger. Which is a good thing, because i couldn't stand the previous guy's vocals.
