I shall put a couple of photos. And then after that am gonna go off to golden gate park and the art museums!







WE WALKED THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE BRIDGE! Triumphant feeling, yo.

Am now staying with Eunice's brother, Eugene, and his wife Amy, at Jones and Green, San Francisco. It has been super-nice. They have the biggest plasma tv ever! (Okay, not ever. But BIG!) And they bought halal meat and all to accomodate me. So that I don't worry about food at all. And TiVo rocks. And I love the cats! There's Fergus and Charlie. And Charlie loves to sit in the guest room to look out the window. He'd make scratchy noises on our door in the morning, trying to force his way in. And when he manages to squeeze through, he sits contentedly by the window.



And yesterday, we went to alcatraz. It was nice and windy and the prison was cool. But it was a shorter visit than I anticipated and I was expecting the cellhouse to be grander. It was rather small. But it had the whole 'gen pop' and 'ad seg' areas and the yard. Cool. And the wind was so strong! On the way back, we wanted to stop by the original swensens, but it was closed on mondays. -_- I was already imagining banana splits. We shall go today! I hope. hehe. Photos of alcatraz are mostly in eunice's camera so I can't put up any now.

Exploratorium today and walking the golden gate bridge.

SUPERNATURAL SPOILERS. BACK AWAY if you will.

just watched supes season 2 finale on the CW channel! goodness, it rocked! It really rocked. There was barely anything wrong in the episode. Except that I felt Jo was being obviously and carefully excluded. For some reason or other. There wasn't even a mention of her despite the fact that the entire freaking bar, her home, burned right to the ground. Most annoying. And I don't understand why Ash had to be killed of course. I like Ash!!! He was the psycho smart dude from MIT. But overall, the episode was DA BOMB, to go a bit cuckoo here. Hehe. I think people who do not watch supes are missing out, man! So people, do yourself a favour if you're still not clued in.

and oh, I know I haven't done the '10 random things about you' game that Lin has passed on to me. It's a chain thingy, apparently, that has been going around blogs: you post ten random things about yourself, and at the end of it, request five other people to do the same at their own blogs. I somehow haven't got the luxury to sit back and type it all out. So I still haven't done it. And I can't help but take such frivolous things seriously. I need to allocate time for such things. Heh. So. Later then.

My poor brain is in a twist over this incredibly unreasonable research, (imo), we're supposed to do for this US trip. I feel like my brain cells are going around in circles, coming to no conclusion, and all the mental exercise is simply aggravating my confusion. >_<>

Why is it that Singaporeans fear failure so very much? What's with our extreme kiasi-ism? Why do we stick so much with our social norms? We have a very low entrepreneurship rate among the developed countries, our students don't speak up enough in class but simply shut up and listen, and every john, raju and ali in singapore finds security following the "laid-out" professions like doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher, accountant. Not that any of these professions are bad per se! It's just that we are generally a people that avoid risks. It's hard to find someone who wants to try doing astronomy, say, or start a new business company. Why why why! It is so different here in the US. People are more receptive to making mistakes and doing weird things. In Singapore, people still remember their freaking truly-inconsequential PSLE aggregate to tell themselves they can't get their honours in NUS. Gahness, I tell you. There is no word for our appalling negative attitude of ourselves.

Okay. I'm done with the failure rant. If you have some personal theory to explain Singapore's kiasu/kiasi culture, please post extensively in my guestbook. I would very much appreciate it! And now: random photos of berkeley, san fran and palo alto. Enjoy!

I am so proud of this seagull photo I took while on a cruise at san fran! I think it rocks. (:

Sis and me. Miss her, I do!



Rodin's The Thinker!


We came across a break-dancing group! Awesome, I tell you. :))))

US is so bloody interesting.

Finally! I've decided to sit down and blog. I only have a couple of photos to post but I have a bit more stuff to say.

Currently, am residing at YMCA Berkeley and rooming with Teresa. She's still snuggled under the covers cause it's not 7.30 yet. But I was up for subuh at 5.30 and then couldn't go back to sleep, so decided to heck it and stay up.

So okay. I don't know where to start. :p

Oh excuse the terrible typos from the previous post from Japan! The keyboard was freakily different. There were japanese characters interspersed with the english alphabet and it aggravated my blurness, I suppose.

I guess I'll just jump in with this.

That's the entire group of us at berkeley's clock tower. I think berkeley's much more exciting than stanford. Stanford has a much more academic environment but berkeley's more... I don't know, rugged? It feels real. But the streets do get a tad bit scary at night. Groups of loafers just stand on street corners and stare at passers-by and homeless dudes sitting along alleys. Did I mention I feel like I've shrunk being in the US? Everyone's like twice my size or something. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but damn, they're too tall. humph.

We went to People's Park in berkeley and it's the place where people generally exercise their freedom of speech and behaviour. People were sitting around on the grass and just doing whatever weird thing. And we went to this place near the campus called Oaks Grove (or something like that) where people live in the trees! Seriously. They're all about the living-with-nature thing and very hippie-like, peace-loving and crazily deluded in my opinion. There was this girl who shaved her head monk-style and dressed monkishly as well, who came to talk to us and went in an extremely... floaty manner, asking, "How are you?", and blinking away with innocent and glazed eyes. And Shafiqah was asking if it got cold sleeping outside with the trees at all, and she said, "Oh no, we bring blankets and you know, everyone's warmth staying together makes it all right..." And I think all of us were thinking, "UH......" I'm sorry, miss, I think you dropped your screws into the bushes. And she kept going, "It's all about the love, it's all about the love inside." I was trying not to go too much like this @_@. Wow, I tell you. There are such less-sane people in the world.

Later on we met her again and she offered to spray water from the Ganges River (did I spell that right :s?) on our heads to rid of bad karma. She also had this friend with her who was painting some cardboard and he warned us, "America is evil! It is destroying everything good. George Bush has no soul. Dick Cheney is worse." Wah. I was laughing my ass off ah. Right on, dude! But the monk girl was all, "No... The people inside are good. George Bush has goodness deep inside. We just need to bring it out." (the guy's like, "No. He is evil. Remember guys, America is evil.") Monk girl keeps telling us, "It's all about the love, it's all about the love."

Peace-loving dudes aside, we met very very very very nice people at the international house. There was this guy (extremely tall again -__-) who came up to me at the lunch buffet and asked, "Is there enough variety of food for you? Do you need anything?" I tell you, I was so pleasantly taken aback, I couldn't even give a proper response for a while. Nobody had ever bothered to ask me that before while I've been eating here in this country! And the guy was gorgeous to boot, I tell you. Like a ricky martin lookalike but ten times better and twice as tall, with light aqua blue eyes and a pretty pretty tan.

Later he gave us a tour of the international house and brought us to the hill behind berkeley campus and we hiked up. Waaaaah. When I say hike UP, I mean UUUUUPPPP. I was panting and huffing and grabbing at tree roots and sliding on slopes and stumbling over footholds and grabbing at thorny thistles. But it was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous at the top and I shall remember that hike for the rest of my life. (:

So here's a photo of us and Jaime at Oaks Grove. And I shall end here.

I have a lot of time on my hands right now; am stuck at Narita Airport and have been wandering around the rather boring airport for HOURS. Finally decided to post a little at the interenet cafe. Us four girls that decided to stay behind; some of them went out to Tokyo despite horrible Ｃｏｎｔｉｎｕｏｕｓ rain and expensive train fare (2000 yen!)

Did I say the keyboard is weird? It has Japanese letters and the underscore and `@` signs are all in different places. So excuse any random typos you might see. But Japan overall seems cool. Despite aforementioned boring airport. I absolutely LOVE the way they talk okay!

Ohio! heheh. So polite!

Okay, I shall stop for now. I ｈａｖｅｎ‘ｔ　ｈａｄ　ａｎｙ　ｓｌｅｅｐ since the last twenty four hours. And my head is swimming. Am finally feeling the effects of sleep deprivation.

Oh, shall briefly mention I found a supernatural fan on this trip! What are the odds. fan on this trip! What are the odds. Are her nuttiness over Jensen is appalling. But it`s fun nonetheless. We have vowed to bunk together and watch the season finale on CW. woohoo.

Also a bit worried about the paper eventually due. :s

I don't know where to begin. The exams are all finally done with and now all the things I wanted to do are rushing at me full speed and I am struck motionless. I don't know what to do first. Need to pack. Need to buy supplies. Need to calculate budget. Want to change blogskin. Want to read book. Want to watch tv. Want to learn arabic. Need to get DV cassettes.

It's giving me a real headache.

But today, I had a good time. I watched spidey 3 and sat at starbucks with eunice and mumu and we chatted for a long, long time, on an endless array of topics. Time just flew. And after it all, I felt happy. Because I've been feeling out of place for quite some time now, and now I think it's because I haven't been with my friends for so long. So I haven't really been very happy. I don't quite know how to describe it. It's like you feel weird around a lot of people but then you realise you have friends who are weird with you and then it doesn't matter anymore. :p heh. or at least I have friends who get me and don't mind me.

That aside, I shall warn people who might be looking for me starting next week, for whatever urgent business or otherwise. I will be in the US from 7th to 27th May. You can sms me but I can't guarantee replies. I've taken part in this programme called Multiculturalism: Singapore and American Perspectives. Basically, what I'll be doing is attend lectures at Stanford and visit certain areas of Palo Alto and talk to some professors and students there. And learn about culture (duh) etc etc. And at the end of it all, produce a paper for USP. Also, I'll be extending the stay there to spend a week with eunice at her brother's place in San Francisco. So whoohoo to that! (I seriously can't wait for that part, more than anything else.)

So I'll be back on the 28th before I go off to India. But that's another story which I'll tell another time. And I have yet to review spidey! Later then.