Assimilation

Last night, I went to bed at 7pm as I felt so sleepy. As I was about to drift off into a deep sleep, I felt someone shaking my shoulders. It was Grace, waking me up because some seniors were here to take us to Wal-Mart. I dressed in a mad rush and we all bundled up into the car with 4 of us seated in the back. It was a very nice second-hand Mitsubishi. Price tag? $5,000 only which is dirt cheap if you are working in the States.

We first stopped by Burlington’s Coat Factory. Jeans and zipper sweaters from Calvin Klein were only $30 and $15 respectively. They had other branded stuff as well. I saw a pair of Nine West heels going for a mere $14.99. However, I didn’t get anything in the end except for a hat and a pack of tissue wrap. The hat was only $2.99 so I couldn’t resist. Art stuff is available aplenty here and the pack of 20pcs of tissue wrap was going for $0.79. When I checked out at the counter, I realized that they had a sale on the tissue wrap….50% off, making it $0.40. Dirt cheap even after conversion!

Wal-Mart is huge. I bought pillows and a quilt for my room at the dorm. Paper products aren’t very cheap over here. But since I had to get some notebooks, files and papers, I bought some. A spiral bound notebook with 70 sheets of paper would cost you about $1. I got some for 84 cents. A pack of 10 hangers cost $0.97. Some things are cheap but some aren’t. It’ll be in your best interest if you do not convert currencies. But sometimes, you just can’t help yourself. I spent just a little over $50 dollars at Wal-Mart.

By the time we reached home, I went straight to bed. I slept at about 11pm and zonked out completely. I woke up this morning feeling rather cold at about 5am. I got up and went to the bathroom. In our hotel room, we’ve never turned on the radiator unless it happened to be a rather cold day. Even so, we only leave it on for a couple of hours as it’ll dry your skin out if you leave it on for too long. I went back to bed without thinking much about the cold but put the bedspread over my blankets for extra warmth. I slept until morning in my cosy cocoon.

I was the first one to wake up. It was 8.45am. I got up and looked outside. Holy crap! It snowed last night!! No wonder it was so cold. I spent some time peering out of the window as it was my first sight of snowfall. It wasn’t much but a sprinkling of snow on the ground. We met some Malaysian students at breakfast that just arrived last night. So we promised them that we’d take them to the campus and show them around and help them get stuff done. I bundled up before going out because I know it was going to be cold. It was snowing lightly when we went out.

Little did I know how cold that would be. I’ve never felt so cold in my entire life! I think it was about -8 degrees out and the wind was so cold that it was hard to breathe properly for some time. I had to cover my nose with my scarf and after a while, my ears began to hurt. It was that cold! We practically ran all the way to Aliber Hall just to get out of the cold. My ears and fingers (I had gloves on) were so numb that it took me a good 10 mins to warm them up again. After dropping the newbies at Aliber, we decided to go to Walgreens. I had to get a hairdryer and other things like that. I spent another $40 or so there, making the overall amount around $100. I think I’m going to get a fridge to put in my dorm room and either a hotpot or a rice cooker. A mini bar fridge is about $60-$70 but I hope I’ll be able to get one second-hand from a senior. The guy who took us to Wal-Mart got his for $15.

I’ll have to get my textbooks as well, hopefully second-hand also as they are horribly expensive. It is much cheaper to buy brand new books online rather than from the University bookstore. Also, it is much cheaper to eat instant noodles for meals rather than to eat out. A bowl would cost you about $1. I just had those for lunch…not too bad. I’ve made up my mind to buy 2 dozen or so and keep them in my room.

There is a snowstorm forecasted for this weekend. I don’t know how much snow that will be. I hope I’ll be okay and not freeze my butt off!