Blargh!

Sigh.

I've been so busy with school and other stuff like getting to know new people etc etc that I have neglected my blog! Boohoo!

Fall is here and there are so many things that I wish I could write but I feel so tired every time and when I get inspired, I end up doing homework instead. School definitely kills creativity.

Anyhow, I will still be posting stuff but on a different blogsite instead. This is for my Enviromental Justice class and I'll be posting at least twice a week but it will be stuff about what I learnt in class so it may be boring if you're not interested. You're still welcome to read it tho. Here's the link:

Pensees sur le vert

I'll have to say goodbye for now. Finished one assignment, several more to go but hopefully I will be done soon. Imagine, I'm only taking 4 classes but it feels like a whole lot more. My stomach is growling and I have to feed it soon.

Cowles Camp-out

I seem to be spending the last few days of my week at school camping out at the library. Even the library is open 24 hours starting today and a whole bunch of us are camped out here, into the wee hours of the morning...studying our butts off. Wouldn't you like to be in my shoes, cramming for my 4 exams tomorrow and I started studying last week.

To make matters more interesting, I'm going on a mandatory camping trip this Friday and Saturday meaning that my study times are cut short. I have 3 final exams to sit for; one of which is cumulative and one 20 page paper to write which I have not started yet. This breaks down into 2 exams on Monday - non-cumulative and the paper and cumulative exam on Tuesday. Sounds horrible? Yeap...you know it. I think I'll be close to zombified by then.

The good news is that I'll be done on Tuesday which is 3 whole days earlier than the rest of my friends. I'll use them to pack up my stuff in preparation for moving out. College life is crazy...even more so if you're a senior...which I am. But anyhow, in spite of all this craziness...I would miss school when I graduate, I really would.

Meetings

I think I'm already starting to feel like a lawyer, but a lazy one. I think of the biggest challenges that I'm going to face this semester academically would be my senior capstone class policy analysis of the Farm Bill. Since it's an independent study class, we have to do a lot of research and reading on our own. At times, I give up because the amount of research information that we have to shift through is insane, just to fish out bits of information.

Today, we had our first official meeting with people who were potential sources of information and these people happened to be Agricultural Lawyers from the Drake Law School. It was kind of intimidating at first because...heck, these people were actually real life lawyers who knew a lot more than we did. :S Then later today, I have another meeting with a representative from the Iowa NRCS.

Maybe I should pursue a career in Environmental Law...hmm...no, I don't think so. Too much information for my little brain to process. I think I'll leave the politics and legal stuff to people who actually enjoy doing it.

Do You Bleed Blue?

The only 2 sports that I have ever taken a smidgen of interest in while growing up would be hockey and badminton. Both of which are very Asian sports that I used to play in high school for a little while. I guess I'm not a very big fan of sports unless it's football and Thierry Henry is playing. Haha! Other than that, I don't watch much.

When you come to America, it is impossible to get away from sports. The Superbowl, NBA, Baseball League etc. It's everywhere, staring at you in your face. Sports are part of American culture and so far, since I got here, I've only been to one basketball game on campus and even then, I couldn't wait for it to be over because they kept calling time outs every 2 minutes which was really frustrating.

I don't know how much you guys know about Drake but it's a pretty small college. With a student population of about 5000, and being situated in the Midwest and all...it's not unusual that most students would prefer to study elsewhere. Despite our status (we are a private college) and size, we are pretty well known in the Midwest for quality education and our graduate program.

However, recently...we or should I say I, have another reason to be proud to come from Drake rather than some huge state-funded college in the Westcoast. America is a vast country, and is known for the large number and variety of educational institutions here. The Drake Men's basketball team has been on a 20 game winning streak, putting them at #15 in the rankings for the NCAA and a fellow sophomore, Josh Young has been named best player for the past 4 weeks.

For a private, small-ish midwestern college, we're doing pretty good I must say. I can only hope that they'll do better in the coming games. It would be awesome if we got to the Top 10. Now that's something people won't forget for a while. Yeap, you heard it...I'm from Drake and I bleed blue. Go Bulldogs!

Spring Cleaning!

I spent part of my weekend finally cleaning up my space and the room itself. It's so easy to sit back and let things pile up. My mail was piling up and my drawer was full of junk that needed to be thrown out. Books and notes from the previous semester needed to be organized and sorted through. My folders were in a mess and the room was essentially a giant dust bunny and a breeding ground for hairballs.

Haha, don't look so horrified! It's not as bad as it sounds but we hadn't vacuumed our room in a while. So far no one complained except for Grace...haha. I miss my fish and my Wandering Jew. I should get them from my friend's place soon. The room is ready to accept its former inhabitants once again.

So it felt good to clean everything up just as the semester starts. Not just the dirt and dust. :)

The Magic of A Couch

This piece of furniture took us a long time to aquire because we didn't have a truck to help transport this from our friend's garage. When we finally had the truck, it was raining and we couldn't get the top off the truck. After much struggling and hauling, we managed to get this into our room about 2 weeks ago.

The funny thing is that before we had it, we didn't have many visitors or they didn't stay for long. Now, after getting this, we seem to have people over all the time. Mostly for movies and the good thing about this couch is that it sits up to 4 at once which is much better than sitting on the floor.

Ecology 101

Who would've thunk(!), least of all persons, me...that I would be tramping through grass as tall as I am. I have no regrets whatsoever for taking Ecology Lab this semester. The best part of the lab classes are that they're held outdoors. Today, my class along with my professor and two student assistants went to the Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt about a 30 minute drive away from Des Moines.

We were taught various techniques used in studies to collect specimens for sampling such as "I forgot the name" fencing, telemetry which is basically radio tracking and utilizing snake boards. Throughout the lab session, we managed to track down a Painted Box Turtle, several garter snakes and tons of frogs. It was fun to handle the turtle and snake, though garter snakes tend to secrete musk as a defense mechanism. I got some all over my hand but I washed it off on the way back at the gas station.

It's funny to see how some guys, though macho looking were afraid to handle the really small and non-venomous snakes. Haha! I beat them to it. However, all the tramping in the prairie did seem like fun in the first 45 minutes but after that, it got to be really tiring and hot. The temperature outdoors was about 92F which is about 32C I think. Imagine standing out in the open for about 2.5 hours. By the end of the lab session, I was about to collapse from the heat and from exhaustion. I'm still sooo...tired from the trip, I think everyone was.

On the way back, we had to stop for gas and our Professor felt a little bad for keeping us for over an hour after our lab period had supposedly ended that he decided to buy all of us drinks at the gas station. That was really not neccessary but it was a very nice thing for him to do. It's no wonder I love all my Biology and Environmental Science professors. Next week we'll be heading down to a stream/river to collect fish specimens to study. I think I want to get into waders already!

My Home For The Year

This is how the room looks like when you walk in the door. Being a typical girls room, expect to see clothes everywhere.


This is my side of the room. We're supposed to get a couch that would fit in front of my desk, facing the TV. Currently figuring out how to get the couch from someone's garage to our place. The TV belongs to my roommate, she's pretty addicted to it.

Storage solutions underneath the bunked beds. Guess which one is mine? I'm the neater person by the way.

My "Wandering Jew" that did not get smashed. I brought it back from the apartment and now it sits on my window sill. I like having plants in the room. Might spring for another one.

My latest acquisition. The whole system (tank, decor, plants, fish, water treatment) cost me about $75. I think all this while, living away from home kinda made me miss my pets and the plants back in our house. Having these around is in some way, kinda soothing and enjoyable at the same time.

The little blue streaked stars of my aquarium. I currently am the proud owner of 7 neon tetras. I might get more fish later on because the tank is rather big for 7 little fish. And to all skeptics out there, no they will not die!

First Day of Fall

Today was my first day of class...my earliest one being Geology at 8.30am on Mondays and Wednesdays. I went for class today only to discover that about half of my classmates were non-science majors. Being an arse, I thought the class would be easy so far from what I saw. Then I went for lab. I was so wrong! The lab I did today was really difficult in a sense that it involved reading and deciphering maps and their codes and symbols. =.=" I almost fell asleep during the beginning of that lab period because it was so boring and tedious. It's been a while since I last fell asleep in class. :P Thank goodness next Monday is a public holiday...no lab session!!

My Ecology class is packed. I think it's the biggest class that I've had so far at Drake. There are over 35 students in a kinda small classroom. But the best part is having Summerville as my professor. I've not officially had any classes with him but he already knows my name etc etc. It might be a bit tough but I think I'll enjoy it. I'll definitely enjoy the lab because 90% of the time, the lab session will be conducted outdoors which is infinitely better than being stuck indoors especially a few weeks from now on when Fall really kicks in. One of the sessions would be involving the collection of fish specimens from the river. I can't wait to get into waders and jump in!

The other two classes would be GIS and Statistics. I have a feeling that my statistics class will be a challenge but we'll see how everything turns out tomorrow. So far, I've seen many of my old classmates who share the same classes with me this Fall so that is kinda nice. Things are settling down and I hope even more so in the weeks to come. :)

Busy Week

I haven't blogged in a week because I was so busy settling down in my room and working and helping out with the new Malaysian students. I'm pretty sure that this year, I'm going to be so busy with Intervarsity, classes and work but then again, I'm really looking forward to it. It's nice to see familiar faces once more and I'm really excited about starting my new classes. Will post more updates soon. Right now, I'm going to go and rest a little while...my room mate kept me up until 2am last night. >_<

Packed

So I finally finished my last day at work. I trudged back to my apartment and packed up the remaining items that were left lying around, reminding me of the good times I had over the summer. It is officially over. I'll miss living at Ross, working front desk and the friendships forged over the summer. I'll be out tomorrow. Feeling sentimental at 2.37am in the morning is not what I come across very often.

Done and Moving Out!

I am finally done with finals. Gag! It was painful somewhat, but since it's over, I don't want to think about it. Yay summer here I come! Plans for the summer are slowly cranking out and they look so good. For one thing, I'm going to LA in the summer...confirmed because I have booked the tickets and hotel etc etc. Then, next Monday I'll be heading down to the Lake of The Ozarks in Missouri from Monday to Friday for the purpose of attending a conference but then again, it will seem like a vacation to me anyways. Tentative plans to head down to Chicago sometime in the summer but we'll see how that'll work out.

I'm looking forward to lazy summer days; lying down in the grass under the shade of the tree with a good book in hand. I haven't read in a long time. Miss that.

But now, it's time to pack my stuff!

Finals Week

Well, I finished my Iowa Environment class presentation and I think I screwed it up a lil. My words seem to tumble out in a mad rush out of my mouth so that I end up tripping on them and my "Asian" accent is more pronounced than ever. I really couldn't wake up this morning and thought of skipping my Politics class but I decided to be a good girl and attend.

I've been getting on average 7 hours of sleep a night or less which is really bad for me because I need about 8-9 hours. So, I've been feeling horribly tired the past few days. I certainly hope things will get better by Wednesday or so despite the fact that I have to study. I only have 2 official finals to study for - Chemistry and Iowa Environment. I have a paper to write for Politics, a take home for Environmental Decisionmaking and one in class test for IS 044 on Wed.

I'm glad I managed to finish my IS 044 Project just only. I don't know how good the rest of my classmates projects are but I think I did mine okay. I think. Off to class now.

Relays Week

After that horrible Chem Test incident, the weekend got considerably better but went on a dip again. I had tons of work to do despite Relays Weekend which is when things are happening all around. I went for the relays on Friday evening and didn't get down to doing much work until today.

I managed to finish my Iowa Environment PPT mostly by myself with very little help from my partner. Americans.... Also, I had a IS Final Project to complete. I think I muddled my way through that one. Yet to finish it completely but I'm working on it. I have until 3.30pm Monday April 30th to finish it. Will be busy until finals are over I suppose. I can't wait for the summer!

On Friday and Saturday night, there were loads of parties going on. My roomie came back on both nights totally wasted. I think it's a stupid thing to drink until you're barely conscious. A guy had to bring her back and put her into bed etc. I felt that the guy did try and take a little advantage of her but since I was in the room, he didn't try anything stupid. But still....no self-respect when one is drunk. Sad to say that I have even less respect for her now.

It's almost 2am and I should be finishing up my IS Project before I fall asleep in front of the computer. I am tired.

Relays Week

Despite the fact that I've been on a killer schedule for the past week and will be until Tuesday, I ended up having fun! I love studying abroad! XD Yesterday, we had a street painting event on campus to paint the street in front of my dorm, Jewett with murals. It was scary at first to see people going slighty crazy and slap paint on one another instead of onto the street. I didn't really have anything old to wear but in the end, I threw on my most tattered pair of Levi's and an shirt I got from Goodwill and dove in. Being so clean, I was targeted by my various friends from InterVarsity the very moment I got into the area. I got painted on my face, arms, shirt and jeans. Everywhere except for my hair. Grace and I ambushed each other. LOL! That was fun! I managed to keep my hair clean until this Malaysian dude wiped his paint filled hands on my hair. I wanted to kill him for a split second. It took me a good 30 mins under the shower just trying to get the paint off my hair. I had to shampoo my hair 3 times!!! It was fun to be able to go a little crazy for a while in the afternoon because after I got clean, I hit the books.

There's supposed to be a Relays Parade today but it got cancelled because of the rain. Yes...it is raining now outside which sucks. Anyways, there are tons of events coming up this week including a Carnival on Wednesday and a foam party on Thursday night. The foam party is a must attend! Basically, they pump a whole lot of foam onto an area and you just dance around in the foam. Haha! I haven't been to one yet but I'm sure its going to be fun. We should have events like these on campus every so often. It takes the boredom of living on campus away.

Slacker

I know I've been slacking a lot with my posts. Yes yes yes, I admit it. Confessions are good for one's soul. I guess that since the semester is coming to a close, I've been bogged down with stuff one way or the other that in my free time, I use it to de-stress rather than to blog. Sorry to all my readers...Also, I've been feeling rather de-sensitized about things. My grades are not where I want them to be but I don't seem to care that much anymore. Maybe I need a break. Seriously.

Oh, I don't think I wrote this but I actually got a job on-campus as Residence Conference Assistant. I get a place to stay and get paid as well. It's better than not finding anything I suppose. I was pretty surprised I got the job because the Office of Resident life apparently received a lot of applications. Plus, I had to go for an interview.

I can't wait till summer and fall. Despite the fact that I said I needed a break, I'm actually looking forward to my Fall classes. Am taking some classes that I think would be interesting so yeah! And...if my schedule doesn't change, it also means that I don't have anything on Friday. Sweet! Blogging past midnight at the library probably means that I'm tired and refuse to continue studying. I think that is the case. My work never ends!

Internet and Americans

Finally!! I finally managed to log onto the Internet, but using wireless. I can't log onto the Net at my dorm using LAN. It sucked not having been able to use my computer for the past few days. I wan't able to get onto MSN nor onto Skype and my blog. So many things happened so yeah, my post will contain everything.

When I first came here, it was pretty warm, not that cold. It only became really cold in the past few days and at first I couldn't take it. However, I'm glad to say that now, I'm getting used to it. Walking around in 3-4 inches worth of snow is no biggie. Ice is a different matter, I slipped on ice outside my dorm on the first day and fell on my butt. Needless to say, lesson learnt. Never ever walk on ice, walk on snow and watch where you step!

I finally can say that I've completely unpacked my bags after 2 shopping trips to Walmart. My side of the room is still pretty bare but I'll get there eventually. The best part about having an American room mate is that they think of everything. Mine has a microwave, fridge, TV, couch and DVD Player. I get to use all of those. So yeah, no need to get any more appliances.

Guys, if you want to get to know cute, blonde cheerleaders, just drop me a note and I'll see what I can do for you. No guarantees though. Lol. My room mate Candi is a cheerleader and so are several other American girls I've met here so far. People over here are generally friendly so no worries I guess. Oh yeah, did I mention that the guys are hotter too? I go weak at the knees for tall, dark haired guys with disarming smiles. Haha!

I'm kinda stuck in my room at the moment as I have no idea where my Malaysian friends are. If I can't find them, I'll just hang out in my room. Will put some pics of my room, etc. later. Feeling very lazy at the moment. Think I'll fix my phone and then go out for lunch.

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!

Orientation

I went for orientation today and boy, was it boring. They just talked and talked but in the end, we did get some interesting information out of it. There were only 20 or so International students this intake and more than half of them were Malaysian students doing Actuarial Science. Over lunch, Grace and I met a couple of interesting characters. An almost middle aged man from Chile who moved here with his family so that he could take English classes at the university. Another boy from the Netherlands who is a professional junior tennis player and is at Drake on a tennis scholarship. I emphasise the fact that he is a boy, entering freshman year...unlike me, already a Junior. There was another girl, Aia and she is from the West Bank. The best thing about University in the States is that you get to meet so many different people from places that you only hear about or see on TV.

I'm doing my best to fight off the jet lag and I hope it'll wear off before my classes start. We have nothing planned so far tomorrow but I think we'll be taking a trip to either Walmart or the mall to get some supplies before we move into our residence halls this Saturday. Eating out is really expensive here for us especially if you decide to convert currencies. A meal outside would cost you between $6-$10 inclusive of tip. Imagine...spending RM36 for a sandwich...

Touchdown!

Yay, my first post in America! I actually arrived only about 2 hours ago after spending more than 24 hours on the plane and in transit. I've arrived safely, in one piece and my luggage is okay. Thank God! To those who prayed for me, thank you for your prayers, care and concern. It's 2:05am at Des Moines at the moment so I think I'll have to get to bed now to try and adjust my body clock to the time changes as soon as possible. There were a lot of things that happened which I will blog about in my next post. Right now, it's off to bed!