27 Jan 06

As i'll be having my managerial accounting midterm on monday 30 Jan (yes i just had my quiz on 24 Jan and now the midterm is on mon) , our TA (teaching assistant) held an optional review session today. guess it aint really helpful to some of the students so most left halfway. i stayed throughout the session, reason being that since its only an hour it wont took up much of my time anyway. after which i headed to Foster library to note down the tutorial questions for the quarter. my textbook is really giving me problem when i do tutorial as the questions are all jumbled up compared to the US edition. nevertheless i managed to resolve it and probably this is the price i need to pay when i go for the cheaper deal. still, i would say its worth it!

had a sumptuous dinner and this is the first time there isnt a vegatable war! as food is expensive over here, our dining group always have to 'fight' over vegetables. may the one with the fastest hand and biggest mouth win! =p

currently its chinese new year eve over in singapore. but over here in seattle its chinese new year eve eve. called home to wish my family a happy chinese new year as well as to send regards and updates. real happy to hear their voices and i bet they are as well. over here in seattle there isnt any chinese new year holiday =( kinda miss the songs as well since its festive season. think the people over here dont celebrate it at all as those supermarts never display any goodies. probably the chinatown will have some stuff going on but chinatown looks boring to me over here.

to my family: yup i saw snow in canada. its really beautiful and great to travel around. i always stock up a lot of food in my fridge as you can see from the photos that i have posted on my blog, so i wont go hungry. always sourcing around for cheap bargains and promotions, which is why i managed to get the long loaf of bread for USD0.59 only heehee. just that eating in school is really expensive (can cost USD8 for a full meal. and USD2 for a slice of pizza to eat for fun), so i usually go to the FIUTS free lunch on wednesday with my ntu people. school is tougher over here. a lot of projects and assignments, so the next time you online but never see me, please dont be alarmed. but i learn a lot of things in school as well, so its really great to keep myself busy too. and must keep the postcard okie? not cheap to post wor.

to my bro: please dont be lazy to go and do the internet thingie k? teach them how to read my blog for the primary reason i created this blog is specially for them! and how's my singtel plan thingie? and please dont distort the truth hor. i slept in class not because i had late chats in msn. its coz i read up for my lecture okie? you ah... *shake head*. most imptly, remember to collect an extra set of ang pows for me wahaha. eat more, you get to eat my share of goodies this year. haha.

happy chinese new year to one and all! may good health, peace and love be with us always. take care and i'll miss everyone of you!

its an assumed duty to do so, or rather a routine actually.
it gets tired, when it becomes too hard to breathe.
it becomes too fake, when everything seem too surreal.
it feels happy, or at least he think so, when people around him are immensed into the feeling.
its deceiving its owner, as well as the people around him.
it gets too confused, between truth and lies.
it has been around, yet isnt there.
it looks strong, yet fragile at the core.
its a protective sheild when things get tough,
yet soft in nature when one retreat to solitude.
its too complicated to be understand,
yet deep down its actually quite simple.
it can feel the pain inflicting upon oneself,
yet there isnt a choice but to carry on anyway.
it may seem too defensive,
yet it has no power at all.
for if it has the power in the first place,
there wouldnt be the existence of it...

25 Jan 06

forced myself to wakie for my morning class though it felt so nice to sleep through the morning. well, i only had 4h of sleep, which isnt really a good excuse to doze off in my entrepreneurship class with a special guest. felt so guilty but i really just cant help it. doze off without even realising it! n not to mention that i fall asleep in my marketing research class as well. oh gosh... my marketing teacher is really nice to treat us to cookies since CNY is approaching. probably we shall invite her over for CNY dinner. it will be real cool and fun! =D

the only lecture that i managed to keep myself awake is accounting. not that accounting is my fav module, but its coz previously i stayed up late just to read up 2 chapters of accounting so that i'll be able to understand the lecture. Guess it really helps, but at the expense of my other modules in class... sigh.

went for FIUTS free lunch again. probably coz CNY is just round the corner, there is slightly more variety this time round (the fortune cookie!). thought that will be a pretty good dessert but crumps were left by the time i went for it. nevertheless, had a fun time over there as i talked to a guy named Paul. i would say he's interesting, for he has travelled to so many countries and had his degree in New Zealand (if i didnt remember wrongly) and... basically i think he has at least 2 degrees, coz i cant really apprehend the process that he has gone through. think it would be pretty nice to have him over for CNY dinner as well. the more the merrier!

had dinner with Peiru, Hwee Chuan, Jiehua and Yuliang. they were really showing the art of V word, which stands for Variety! heehee. real nice meal i would say. the food, people and ambience are just right. not to mention that the ice cream and potato chips right after dinner.

just realised that i didnt print any of my class notes for lecture from the online blackboard. no wonder i was thinking where my coursemates get their set of notes haha. went over to feng's room to print and ended up chatting with him and his roomie, tiran. guess we started chatting from 11pm-4pm. 5h of heart to heart chat. wont review the contents of the chat though, but those phrases quoted by tiran really touched me. its really great to find people that share similar thought as you... the emotions that i went through during the chat is like a rollar coaster, from laughter to tears... from a female view of looking at certain issues to a guy view of looking at it, and may i include a metrosexual view as well haha. they are real great people and its just like an old friends gathering despite knowing them only for a month. good luck to everyone of us in finding our own pathway and happiness! =)

i ended up sleeping 4h again...

26 Jan 06

finding lots of reasons to force myself to get out of my bed again... quiz will be returned today... going to IMA building for a workout... the bottomline is i just cant afford to skip tutorial!

fared 22/25 for my first quiz in UW. kinda disappointed as its really really easy. guess they want to help us and then kill all of us in the midterms and exam hoho. anyway, the interesting part is in the afternoon! finally stepped into the IMA building for a workout. guess its been ages since i last visited the gym. the floor area is real big and they have so many different equipments that i'm not sure which to lay my hands on. went for the trendmill since its the easiest to start with. jog on it for 30minutes and felt pretty bored so i went to try other equipments. its real good to sweat it out since i cant posibly sweat while walking to school (its winter time). weighed myself on the scale and had a shock when the needle went to 100! it then drawn upon me that its not in kilograms haha.

the changing room adopts an open concept style, guess you'll know what i mean without the need of further elaboration over here. dont think i'll ever get used to such open concept style. sauna is real hot and you can become a wet turkey if u are roasted for just half hour. all in all, its real great to sweat it out. probably IMA will be the 3rd most visited place by me in UW, after Balmer and Mary Gates Hall.

tired from the lack of sleep and exercising... yet happy at the same time =)

24 Jan 06

oh yes forgot to mention one 'traumatising' incident that happened to me while on the way to school this morning. two guys were on the streets and they saw me walking towards their direction. one made eye contact to me and said: " hi how are are you? good weather huh? seattle hasnt had sun for a long time. may god bless you." upon hearing a stranger talking to me, my first reaction was to smile. i mean americans are known to be more open and friendly. but then i knew that something was wrong. so i just gave a weak smile, followed by a dao look and simply walked past them. to think of it i thought its a pretty funny incident. i mean, they can be dangerous but then, its just funny how they can try to hook people up in the daylight! probably coz i am heading to school alone thats why. but then, its 9am in the morning! i wouldnt have the courage to walk back home in the dark though.

after school, Hui Ling and i headed to Safeway (the name of a supermart but not at all safe though. what an irony) to do our daily grocery shopping. while walking, two youngsters try to be funny by obstructing our pathway through their wacky stunts. i thought its pretty funny too. i mean, who will ever dare to do that in spore? probably if somebody tries to do that it will have attracted a crowd and off they go and have tea with the security guard. well, all i can say is theres all sort of people over here, which explains why you wont caught me walking alone outside in the dark.


its bright and sunny in seattle today!


noodles, biscuits, vitamins...


freezer: dreyer's tub for USD 3.50. Real bargain!
tottino's pizza cost USD1.20 (promotion) or USD1.50 each.
Banquet USD 1 each. theres sweddish meatballs, bbq chicken meal...


fridge: choco, cappuchino drink, milk, cereal, skippy, orange juice, apple, bread

22 Jan 06

doing my entrepreneurship individual assignment on "The Body Shop" and studying for my managerial accounting quiz to be held on tuesday.

oh ya... happy 21st birthday to Poh Ling on 20 Jan. Cheers!

23 Jan 06

during my entrepreneurship class, a few of my classmates commented that they never realised the existence of The Body Shop in US before. boy was i caught in a shock! i mean, The Body Shop is so famous in spore, so i kind of naturally assume that its pretty famous over here as well. Moreover, i saw one outlet in Northgate mall (seattle) despite my short tour in seattle. anyway its pretty interesting to read the case since i do patronise body shop once in a blue moon.

not to forget, happy birthday to Bang Hui! =)

24 Jan 06

had my managerial accounting quiz today. duration was 20 minutes and its really easy. i mean they really test the basics and its even easier than some of the textbooks questions. however, i did one question wrongly. kinda disappointed as its really not tough at all. well well, its over so theres nothing that i can do. so one quiz down, and i have 4 more quizzes, 2 mid terms and 1 final exam just for my managerial accounting module. How packed can it get huh?

20 Jan 06

spent the whole day to update my vancouver trip. boy the uploading of photos were really time consuming. network is so slow that the sun has already went home to sleep le.

21 Jan 06

Went to the aviation centre and boeing tour. how cool is it?! woo hoo~ I mean how many times can you get to see the manufacturing of the plane and everything? its a pity that cameras are not allowed, so no photos to keep as memories =(

just look at the carpeted grass carpark and you'll have an idea of how many assets they have. what a way to spend your revenues?! think its the first time in seattle that i have a chance to step on the grass haha. well they do have their ways to pamper their vehicles *chuckles*

theres those dummy plane models out there where you can just sit in to get a feel. managed to get myself the pilot seat and fidget around all the different buttons. theres really a lot a lot of small buttons which i am clueless as to what each means. suddenly am quite inspired to be a pilot haha... in my dreams maybe.

due to security and safety reasons, we can only see the making of the boeing plane from another level. it seems so near, yet so far. the size of the boeing place is much larger than the disneyland. and it took them like just 7 months to complete building and testing a plane... and soon it will appear on the cost of goods sold T-account. haha.

wish i can remember all the details of the plane but i guess my brain doesnt have a plane storage memory. anyway theres a sourvenir shop which sells all the different boeing plane models. aint a fan of them so i cant spot the difference between a boeing 747 and 777 or some other 3 digit numbers. so i got myself something which i know how to choose. guess what? a boeing teddy bear! heehee. guess buying soft toy is still my specialty afterall. hohoho


boeing teddy: "i'm afraid of heights!"


boeing teddy has a height of 22 breads altogether

19 Jan 06

Had my first entrepreneurship project discussion with my group mates. Prior to this, one of my group mates, Chris said that all of us should come up with 10 business plan so as to kick start the discussion. I thought he was kidding so i just gave a 'ya right man' kind of look. little did i know that he really came up with 10 business plan! his ideas are gadgets related stuff so its too high tech for me to decipher it haha. i only came up with 2. in the end, all 3 of us pooled our brains together and managed to come up with something...

18 Jan 06

Its just 3 days of relaxing in Vancouver and students over here have studied in advance. Yes, not just on par with the lesson pace but in advance. oh gosh! Felt so lost suddenly. Its like we need to work extra hard again just to compensate for the 3 days of playing.

Went for the free lunch again organised by FIUTS. 2 breads with a slice of cheese, 3 veges, 2 cookies and 1 cuppa chocolate is my lunch. supposed to meet my accounting project mates for assignment discussion but couldnt find them in the Foster library. Little did i know that theres a level 2 in the lib. haha. this is the disadvantage of not having a mobile phone.

i really enjoyed the days over here without a cell phone (they call it cell phone over here). its like you are uncontactable and you dont have to keep looking at your hp to see whether you have missed any messages or calls. coz i personally feel that back in spore, we have over relied on our cell phone, to the extent that if we forgot to bring it to school, we'll feel that a part of us is missing! but i finally encountered the bad side of being uncontactable today.

despite the disadvantages that it may bring along to my group mates, i am thankful that email and msn is a pretty good substitute to stay in contact. the peak season of studying is here again. assignments are piling and quizzes are rushing to embrace me. projects are starting and i am pretty much looking forward to it, at least to try something new and theres a chance to interract more with both the locals and students from different nationalities. the only barrier is english! i'll try... yes i'll try even harder this time round.

16 Jan 06

Martin Luther King Day so its a holiday for all of us. Grins. its our last stay in vancouver, kinda sad coz it means that we need to return to Seattle and start mugging again. Happy times are short, and to make it worse it rained the last day.

Went to a park but its just plain boring to me. Its just the wrong weather to enjoy the nature trail. If it isnt raining, i would have enjoyed it much more and taken more pics. Saw lots of couple ducks, more trees, the colour green just surrounds me. Was terribly wet and it just dragged me down. To me it just seems like having my Cross country in the reservoir. cant imagine if i had to walk this trail alone...

Went to a dim sum restaurant to have lunch but food was disappointing. i only enjoyed the porridge and the rest is like... well i dont wana comment on it. time for some legs exercise so we went to do some window shopping as most of the stuff are still considered expensive. finally return back to hotel empty handed as we bid good bye to vancouver... and say embrace our thick books once again!



only the porridge is great


forgot the name of the bridge. we walk thru the trail just to see this bridge


birdies and duckies


just keep swimming...


Buchan Hotel

15 Jan 06

After we decended from Grouse Mountain, we headed to Capilano Suspension Bridge. its just a very long bridge where its kinda shaky (but safe!) and is more like a nature trail to me. As its pretty dark when we reached there, couldnt take any good photos and nothing interesting to see as well. After which we took a bus and managed to spot A&W! kinda miss it as it no longer operates in spore so we pop in to settle our dinner. kinda disappointed as they dont sell waffles over here. nevertheless the good old rootbeer floats still made my day, though it can never be a good substitute to the waffles! ended the day by returning to the observation deck to look at the night view, and to make our money's worth.



night view from the observation deck


long river


capilano suspension bridge


shaky bridge!


i like this pic but it isnt taken by me. just a display in the observation deck


A&W


the kiddy side of me

15 Jan 06

Continued from the previous entry, we headed to the Grouse mountain in noon. Never did i expect that it was snowing there, which explains why when i first stepped out of the bus, i mistook snow as rain! hahaha. well you cant blame a tropical gal for being ignorant of this geographical knowledge. guess the next time they want to teach about the different types of climate and all the coniferous trees etc, its good to experience it to really get the 'feel' and thus, easier to connect to it.

all of us are simply thrilled by the snow! weather was especially good as there isnt any strong wind. instead, there was sunshine which is like such a huge contrast between the cold snow and hot sun, the white snow and bright sun, its just so amazing how two different things can stirred up such strong emotion in us.

as ski equipment are all too expensive and time is limited, we managed to find our own entertainment, which is to slide down a gentle slope free of charge! haha. its real cool to slide down on snow, and definitely safe coz we chose the path that has been slided before. then we wandered around taking photos and sitting on a ride to tour round the area. My fingers are freezing cold despite wearing gloves but still, managed to give some help to yuan feng in completing the snowman! thought can make a huge snowman and put my hat on it but the quality of the snow doesnt permit us to do that. in fact doing that small snowman its kind of tough already. somebody please give me snowman module!

we had our fair share of snowball fight as well, and i tasted snow accidentally. it tasted salty, probably coz yuan feng took the snow on the ground and throw it at me. i will take revenge back if i do have the chance again haha.

i would say its a great experience for all of us. in fact we felt that holiday has just bejun on Grouse Mountain and ended while we descend from it. am already missing the place! oh yes i really want to keep the snow in a bottle although i know that it would have melted... but its a pity i dont have a bottle with me. all the photos that we have taken really cant represent our feelings at the point of time. you really got to experience it for yourself and you'll find it a beauty =) oh ya as for the snowman, we leave it under a tree. think by this time it should have been under massive snow. i'll miss you too mr snowman.



Michelle, Hui Ling and me


Cutie pie


Lonely snowman


Me and snowman


its minus 3 degree over there


me on the slope waiting to slide down. those below are the survivors!


waiting to be thrown at the photographer. heh heh


UW


Hooray!


Grouse Mountain


Beautiful snow


a beauty


united as one


sun set


tram ride


beaver tails


ski


its just so white!


in the cable car to Grouse Mountain

15 Jan 06

Wakie early despite not having enough rest. Had an extra pillow and it acted as a good substitute for my bolster. yeah i miss my bolster. its amazing how i could actually sleep without a bolster back in Seattle... hmm...

Headed to the observation deck but the view doesnt really excites me. Spent quite some time there just to make our money's worth. Heh. Next up on the list is to take a seabus over to northern vancouver. Had our lunch at McDonald's and we tried McGriddles, something that Spore do not have it. I say, promote and market McGriddles to spore! Its really delicious, more so than the usual filet o' fish burger. the sweet maple syrup together with the salty sausuage just makes me crave for more!


pls make way for the McGriddles!


at the observation deck trying to boo people?!


trying to take a shot with me and the view


view from the observation deck


just like sim city

14 Jan 06

Kiasu sporeans are in action again. Haha. A whole bunch of us was queueing outside the FIUTS office just so that we can be the first to sign up for the most popular event of the year -- Vancouver trip! USD85 was reserved for the transportation and accomodation and i would say its pretty inexpensive as it definitely will cost us more if we do the travelling alone.

Cost aside, its definitely a long journey there. 4h in the van! but well, i get to see the scenery and catch a bit of sleep here and there. After departing from the Burke Museum, chinese words start filling up the van. Felt kinda bad as we have friends from USA and Japan as well. If time could turn back, english converstion will be our choice.

Checked into Buchan hotel, where all of us pronounced it as 'Bull-chan'. Or if we are trying to be cheeky we'll change the pronounciation to 'Bu4 can3'. This direct translation of ours actually got ourselves into an embarrassment state! you see, on the last day where we are supposed to meet up in the hotel to leave together, Tiran, Ray and I was kinda lost in that neighbourhood. so we approached an old man and asked him where is 'bull chan' hotel located. He said that its pronounce it as 'but-chen'. oh my we had a great laugh of our direct translation then! figured that its a scottish restaurant so perhaps they have their own way of pronouncing it.

After leaving our 'barang barang' in the room, we headed downtown along Robson Street. I must say that Canada really leaves a good impression to me. The sunshine (contrast with the gloomy rainy weather in Seattle and you'll know what i mean), the safer streets (as compared to Seattle), the great air and scenery...everything just seems so perfect! felt that i could just retire over there, sip a cup of mocha at the starbucks, looking at people and their dogs, oh well i can continue dreaming it haha.

Next we made our way to the Waterfront to look at the shores of the northern vancouver. its indeed breath taking! and the only thing that ruin it is the noisy construction that's just few distance away from me. arrgh!

We are supposed to have our lunch at the famous old spaghetti factory but it seems that we are taking ages to reach there. reason being that the scenery cause us to stop our feets everynow and then despite hearing our stomach protesting for food. Dinner was great! Well worth the money and ambience. Ice cream is just the right way to end our meal and their unique way of containing the tea just thrills me haha.

Took some group photos at night and headed to chinatown. nothing much as most of the shops have closed by then. Headed back to hotel to gear up for tomorrow's exciting amazing race against the time.

As promised... presenting to you great photos taken from the vancouver trip!



group shot


chinatown with the eerie moon


group shot after dinner


we thought of taking this train without paying for the tix. but well, being good citizens we are all too honest to cheat!


5 star rating for seafood spaghetti


tea in a light bulb container. you havta pour this out to the white cup


steam clock


reminds me of the one in san francisco


on the pavement


sunset


different poses by everyone


ah.. i just love canada


shores of the northern vancouver


serenity if without the noisy construction


just look at the varieties of restaurant thats available


a car that caught everyone's attention


wheel is on the left!


yummylicious chocolates! drools..