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Floss 10.12.11

2011-12-10T14:36:00.004+08:00

Couch-sharing time with Floss, October 2011

Floss- Sayang dog - Manja dog - Naughty!! - Crazy dog - Silly dog - Greedy dog - keh po chee (busy body) !! - Spoilt dog, so spoilt! - Monkey! - yummy!!! - vitamin!! - DOG!!!! -

Nicknames and endearments to accompany snuggle-sessions, play, annoy-the-owner, feed-me piteous looks, Oii-gimme-food!-shoves, curl-up-on-rugs-and-sofas and of course, welcome-home-excitement. Missing the welcome home sessions will hit the hardest. How much more awesome can it be to walk up to your front door after a long day and a long drive and see one little dog expectantly waiting, ears perked up and tail wagging at 3 million-wags-per-hour?

"It doesn't matter if you've had a bad day or are in a terrible mood - I'm so happy to see you! Hold on a sec, gotta inspect the car tyres for delicious smells. Ok done, we can go in, open the door for me please! Oh hurry up! Good good, kitchen is in order. Now scratch my back for me please. Yeap I am your sayang dog! Omigosh-here-is-Hillary-sitting-herself-at-the-dining-table-with-food!!!! *abandons xtine, new target, hillary* GIMMEEEEEEEEEE...pleeeaaaaaaase!"

That's Floss the Min Pin, a dog whose bark is 10x her size....but doesn't realize it. So cute!

There are so many things I adore about my doggie

1. the way she sleeps on my tummy.
Saturday afternoons on the couch together is OUR bonding time. It reached the point where xtine's lap/tummy almost equalled couch, and that was fine by me. I suspect it is because I am the closest proxy for a hot water bottle on a day when Floss' ears are cold. Either that or I was utterly deluded and what actually transpired was my "victory" for couch space.

2. how her ears lie FLAT when she is happy

3. slow tail-wag as she snuggles and gets her back scratched

4. how she curls up on the piano cover next to me when I play the piano

5. inspections inspections inspections - as if the car and house are not in order until she checks them

6. her cute way of trotting briskly (such beautiful action)

7. spinning around (a la chasing her own tail) when I open the door

8. how she falls asleep when I scratch her head and ears

9. play biting and chasing around the house (ears flat of course)

10. the resigned look "fineeeee but don't take too long" during bath time

11. how she stole the durian from Hillary's hand

12. how I have to feed her a few pieces of dog food FROM MY HAND before she starts eating proper

13. the snuff of disapproval when she smells other dogs' scents on me or my clothes

14. how she jumps onto the couch every chance she gets and curls up into a ball

15. how she behaves on car rides

16. how she licks me affectionately during massage-and-scratch sessions

17. the way she crosses her legs in a lady like manner when sitting down

18. Floss and Hillary playing kissing and stick-my-tongue-out-repeatedly-and-rapidly

19. how she adores xin hua

20. delegation of affection between Hillary and Xtine

21. how she pointedly ignored me when annoyed with me (such as after bath time)

22. the silkiness of her fur post-bath time

23. politely taking the biscuit in my hand and trotting off to nibble it somewhere

24. un-yappiness and un-lickiness of her character (lady like and proper)

and on and on and on

Floss,

I will never forget our last night sharing the couch. Hopefully I kept you warmer and the water and glucose helped to ease your suffering a little. I was touched when you came to sit nearby when I played the piano for a short while (before I realized you felt simply terrible) I wish I could have spent the last day with you too. A little glucose at 7am in the morning and settling you on the couch is all I could do. I'm sure you did your best post-op like the determined thing that you are. No worries about us, we love you so much and did all we could (I'm sure you know). Please move on without any regret or attachments, we will miss you but we will be fine.

After all, we've had Glorious times my darling doggie. I know sometimes we smacked you (for running out, you're so tiny anything wouldn't see you!) and scolded you and didn't entertain your begging (but otherwise the vet wouldn't have said you looked fabulous for your age, or that you were a very healthy dog!) and sometimes did things you hated (like the soaking out of fleas and flea picking from your paws), but I think we've had so much fun together. Thanks for all the love from your doggie heart, which is way bigger than your bark.

xoxo

Just buried Floss right outside the house. 10 years, and we have had her for 6.5 of them. Thank you everyone for all the love and puppy prayers and support.

2010-04-04T23:47:00.001+08:00

"And why not death rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
*What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
*What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon;
She is my essence, and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive.
I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:
Tarry I here, I but attend on death:
But, fly I hence, I fly away from life."

Shakespeare's "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (III.i.170-187)

Music is in the ear of the composer

2009-07-17T13:53:00.002+08:00

Today has been a good day ^^

Presentation for summer internship went well today! Yay to us XD

But what made me happier is my piano lesson went well ^^
Despite me giving up Estampe for the meantime (I definitely will play Pagodes one day!!!)

In fact both Melissa and me had great lessons today (Happy 21st Melissa ^^)

Today's lesson, paycheck arrival and next sem's fees arrival prompted me to consider why I don't just save the money I'm paying for lessons this summer. (Especially since I complain about the lack of it so much, haha)

After all I know quite a few people who have given up lessons altogether and play just for their own sakes

(Sadly I'm not so good that I can play pieces well without the advice of a teacher)

The thoughts came to me as I was listening to David talk to me about the pieces I played today, Barber's Pas de deux, a Scarlatti sonata and Debussy's Arabesque I. I've performed the Pas de deux in the end of term recital last semester, and the Scarlatti and Debussy are pieces I've played for quite a while.

For the Barber, I thought I had it down pretty well, but wanted to polish it a little more for possibly adding it to my senior recital (hopefully nothing happens to prevent that). When I played it in my first lesson with David, he said it was good etc etc and told me how to improve it. Today was our 4th lesson, and I played it for him for the first time since we went over it last, and well..... I got quite an unexpected reaction. Apparently it was much much much better. hahaha (yay!) And according to David I show an understanding of the structure of the piece that did not come across the first time I played it for him. (more yays) and that's the part when you KNOW it is worth taking lessons, when something that you take pride in knowing you play well becomes even better... (And with just one lesson's work on it) Not only for me, but for Melissa!

Besides, there are concepts outside the piano keys and away from your fingers that if you're prodded towards understanding, contribute sooo much to your performance, perception and skills. Jill did a lot of this with me, and David is adding to what she's already taught me.

Then of course, there is the opportunity of learning from a very good performance pianist who is also very good at teaching. (not to mention the summer when your fingers are not cold and you have more time for practicing)

the happiness and pleasure that I get from these lessons, plus my improvement is totally worth all I'm investing in it now. After all, what use is there in just playing the piece through? It may sound pretty but pretty without the understanding is just a facade, like calling something beautiful without grasping the notion of 'beauty'.

I also think the last sentence would have failed in a GP essay. hahaha. look out for more essays from now on, Xtine needs to practice for GMAT.

Now I remember why I blogged so much in the past...

2009-07-14T10:40:00.002+08:00

After spewing half my guts out on a comment about the Government's decision to revert the teaching of Maths and Science back to BM I suddenly remembered why I used to blog a lot more when I was younger...

Well, besides the fact that I WAS younger and under the impression that the whole world wanted to know about my life (not to mention WILLING to let the whole world know as well)

After all, with such an amazing outflow of amazing policies from such an amazing government why on EARTH would I not need a blog to vent all my horror, anger, disappointment *insert all other negative adjectives necessary* ...

Sigh. Sometimes I wonder if it is a waste of time to bother concerning myself over this issues. I just spent an hour on that commentary. I could be doing GMAT questions and puzzling over my own future....

And while I would love to come back and contribute to my country etc etc it's a bit of a bother when the politicians ruling do everything possible to er, prevent your contributions from making much of a difference. Especially if your contributions end with your demise since the generations after you aren't er, well equipped shall we say...

C'mon, at least appeal to the selfish side of my human nature to induce me to come back. I miss the food and my friends and family you know.

Dear readers thanks for reading my blog still ^^

Does anyone know any good MSc Finance programs to recommend to me? Oh affordable please. I don't have much moolah to channel into grad school. Either that or a job please :D

Can't have just a progressive government and a backwards people, and can't have it vice versa either. No wonder it's so hard for countries to progress...

after about 3 months....

2009-06-30T01:13:00.002+08:00

Yes I finally blog again. hahaha. if you want to blame anything for my disappearance from the blogging world please blame my heavy course load last sem XD

Summer is here and my sis is back home (and not blogging) As for me I am still stuck in the USA, working for my econ professor at min wage but a better min wage than back home I realize *cough cough*

After a hectic semester its nice to be able to get enough sleep, but thanks to my job I've had to walk around the city a lot in the past month and hence (to my horror) have gotten a LITTLE tan. Hopefully no freckles, I don't want freckles as much as my mum doesn't want me to have freckles, hahaha. Unfortunately my angmor colleagues did get sunburnt though! *oh yea its good to be asian?*

Summer is pretty nice and quiet here, but as usual Xtine is pretty busy (though she might not prefer to be so busy) Besides work I'm working on my music, prepping for senior recital! Also preparing for GMAT and reading up about French pianism (for interests' sake) I should be practicing learning the violin but usually very tired by the end of the day.

Other than that also have to cook! sigh cook. SIGH. Cooking is very mah fan when you have a short lunch break and when you're tired in the evening.

but yes, life is uneventful here and I miss you guys where ever you are!

lol sz i hope this satisfies you. other people, thank you for commenting!!! i still keep up with your blogs, just lazy to keep up with mine. sorry sorry XDXD

Xtine~

2009-03-18T10:21:00.002+08:00

太陽終於出來了。。。

今天天氣好暖，我真開心！　但是今天是　Ｓｔ.　Ｐａｔｒｉｃｋ'ｓ　Ｄａｙ,　所以你知道美國的上大學的人都會。。。

喝啤酒

天呀。

Thanks to the gorgeous weather I think everyone is in a really good mood though! I went to the post office on a sunny but cold Wednesday last week and realized that Beloit people are actually really nice! Firstly I walked with Melissa (my room mate) to Walgreens to get passport pictures taken. After I took it for the first time, the lady came to find me and told me she needed to retake it. Okay, so I retook it, and then... something happened and in the picture I look like.....an Ayumi Hamasaki wannabe. =x
Z-O-M-G
Then I headed to get my hair trimmed (ends were getting kind of ugly) because I had a free haircut. XDXD. And the lady was SO nice, and made some time for me and pointed me to the post office etc. Eep. Wow people are so nice. After that in the post office I met another bunch of really nice people! Wah. I do appreciate them.

But today the weather is gorgeous!
Enjoy People, it (SAdly) won't last.

I have too much homework for just after Spring break TAT

Appreciation

2009-03-04T14:19:00.002+08:00

Just a few days ago I was thinking how I should appreciate people in my life more. For example I have a very nice roommate, (yes I have finally moved on from the angst of the past I hope) and a very nice 'laopo' (even though she loves my bed a bit too much).

This sentence must be so scary! HAHAHA. No dear reader I am not bi or lesbian in anyway. 'Laopo' is just an affectionate term. She's a Hakka girl who speaks Cantonese and understands my need for guangdong-tang. Plus she thinks my cooking is super awesome, and better than her mom's. HAHAHA.

But basically people in my life are actually really nice to me. This includes you dear reader =) So I apologise for not keeping better contact! Lots of work lah. I also have a Quant exam tomorrow and kind-of-feel-I-know-what-I-need-to-know-for-it but I think I will panic in a little while when I look at regression analysis. But its really just piah how to do it I think. Will do a few more past exams and see. sigh.

And thanks babe for your amazing announcement >.> OF course you are the last to know, see what happened when you found out?! get back to me about the cbox faster so that I can leave indignant comments on your website.

Xtine~

Aku memang tak faham org di sini

2009-02-25T10:56:00.003+08:00

Rupa-rupanya hari ini adalah hari Mardi Gras, atau hari Selasa Gemuk! Dan kita boleh lihat pelajar pelajar Amerika Syarikat yang hebat dan tidak boleh difahami telah membawa minuman R-OH ke dalam kelas. Dan rice krispies. Dan dua orang baru bawa dua kotak pizza ke dalam kelas.

SAYA MEMANG TAK FAHAM ORANG DI SINI!!!!! lagipun orang orang ini juga MEMBAZIR MASA (saya dah tak tahan sejak kelas kedua) dan asyik cakcap pasal makanan la, apa yang dia suka la, apa yang dia tak suka la, MENYAMPUK BETUL

perempuan perempuan dari sororoti yang betul betul miang dan bising dan suka ackap pasal wayang yang dia suka tak suka bleeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh sepak karang baru tahu. oh tambahan pula suara diaorang memang..........tak merdu didengar.

akhirnya juga sampai masa rehat. TAK TAHAN ORANG ORANG INI!!!!

sebentar kemudian...

saya memang menghormati televisyen sekarang, kerana pasang sahaja kotak hitam ini dan mulut mulut murai ini terus DIAM. televisyen kau lah penyelamat aku!

sekararang saya rasa kelas ini memang membazir masa sahaja. bukan kerana gurunya tetapi kerana org yang ambil kelas ini memang.......tidak menghormati kelas ini sebagai kelas tetapi masa untuk membuli guru.

我真不明白美国学生！！！　今天我的ｎｉｇｈｔ　ｃｌａｓｓ的美国同学带了啤酒上课。我囧！！！！
还有买了ｐｉｚｚａ在课里吃。。。

生活真的是个虐文。

小官　

POST NO. 500

2009-02-18T07:05:00.002+08:00

Haha, the moment is not that momentous.

I'm fully immersed in classes now, lots and lots and LOTS of homework. So to scare the world, I'm taking:

Quantitative Methods for Economics
Macroeconomics
Statistics II
Classical and Romantic music
Music Theory 1
Introduction to Performing Arts
Piano Ensemble (1/4)
Piano (1/4)
Violin (1/4)

YES! I am FINALLY learning the violin, dream since so-long-ago-I-can't-remember-when. I really like it so far, but its tiring the arm muscles. Hahaha, one step closer to the dream, I'm glad I can take the opportunity.

Piano: Thanks to hanren, I discovered Samuel Barber. Love my teacher and love playing the piano!

For the Piano Ensemble, we started learning Carmen (Variations) for 2 piano 4 hands, and it is scary. Hope something good will happen, it is gorgeous but when you play only your part all you want to do is go: WHAT WEIRD CHORDS WHAT AM I PLAYING??

All this is when I'm not sick. I fell sick last week so I totally have been hiding in my room, sleeping and trying to function to do certain stuff i HAVE to do or my life is screwed. I'm trying to get better ASAP! Mateo it is ALL your fault!! you infected ALL of us!!

Music classes are good, I discovered that I have perfect pitch!!! (woots) but this is a problem when learning intervals.

Core classes for my future career are okay, yesterday I got my first A+ for the Quant memo (this is eventful because he rarely gives out A+) and I was soooo happy!! Next time I'm going to chiong Quant memo like nuts, I want a STRING of A+s.

And I adore/worship my Macroeconomics professor. 'Nuff said.

Last Friday was Econ Day, hosted by the Econ dept. We went to Chicago and did a lot of networking and traveling around. I also heard an amazing lecture by Robert deYoung of Uni of Kansas, a Beloit alum! Perhaps IF I have time I shall summarize it here soon.

Oh and belated V-day wishes to everyone!

I think this semester is going well for me so far. I just need summer plans. Internship!! Anyone have anywhere to recommend? I wouldn't mind flying back for a decent internship! DECENT = at least able to cover cost of air ticket. Cause I'm totally broke this year.

To those who are studying, study hard. To those who are working, work hard. To those who are unemployed, I hope you're enjoying it. Take advantage of everything life hands to you.

Xtine~
Xtine

first day of classes Spring 08

2009-01-21T03:14:00.003+08:00

Yea, and my first class starts at 2pm.....about 45 mins to go!

i was reading the Star online and the mStar, and good golly *insert other expressions of horror*!!!

First there is of course the touch of nostalgia for home, which is why I like to read the Star online occasionally. however, after reading the malay article 'PAS bantah konsert Rhianna 13 Februari' (http://www1.mstar.com.my/cerita.asp?file=/2009/1/21/mstar_berita/20090120192637&sec=mstar_berita) i must say that those feelings turned into disgust. ridiculous ridiculous!!!

First of all the most ridiculous is to drag in the Israel-Palestine issue into this!! Not respecting 'rakyat Palestin'?? not only should you give up american products, why don't you just throw away all your medications, your gadgets, your computers and your software? I'm sure if you dig hard enough you can find SOME trace or link of the USA to it. Why don't you demand the return of all the overseas malaysian scholars in the states (mostly muslim i might add) since by sending them here YOU are contributing to the US economy? Speaking of the US economy oh, so holding this concert is an indirect cash flow of $$$ to the USA-lah. I see how it is. how about the cash flow that we the Malaysians get? do you really think that Islamic-themed concerts will have an equally wide reach to that of this concert? Bodoh!

and even though I don't fully agree with the attacks of Israel on Palestine, it is sad that Malaysians see only one side of the story. The muslim side of course. I think it would be too difficult to request that a donkey wearing blinkers take note of anything else other than the path ahead of him. better save my breath to warm my face (it is horrendously cold here)

Then after that mild irritation I clicked on citizen blog: criminal from another country (http://blog.thestar.com.my/permalink.asp?id=20736) after skimming through it i just wanted to die of embarrassment. I'm glad to know that malaysians are able to raise their issues, but the grammar of the article is astoundingly terrible!! Which makes me wonder WHY DOES THE STAR ONLINE DO SOME EDITING ON THIS. I suppose editing will take away some of the originality of content and meaning in the message, but seriously, if i were an American browsing through, I'd have such a bad impression of Malaysians! (not that many Americans even know where malaysia is but still...) it just tears at the heartstrings, and words cannot express all the indignant, irritated and regret (and more) that bubbles to the surface when I contemplate it.

yes my writing is not that amazing and i have a new penchance for ignoring apostrophe marks, but it is an online newspaper ><.... ouch where is the world of print and e-print to go to....

Xtine~

2009-01-18T15:20:00.001+08:00

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

nyaaa

2009-01-16T06:01:00.002+08:00

Nyaaaa

first of all dear readers, it is -26C outside. *cries*
its ok I will survive.

secondly, piano competition i intended to enter is cancelled. sigh. it's okay!! more time to learn new songs then XD debussy debussy~~~

thirdly, I'm still on holiday. school starts next week, can't wait to see some people again. of course i'm going to miss the good eating that we've been having this hols.

Speaking of good eating i made vietnamese beef noodles!! from scratch practically, even made the spice pouch myself!! XDXD yea it was a proud moment.... i<3 vietnamese beef noodles!!

have been working in the lib and its about time to close soon.

signing off~

Xtine

kena tag....

2009-01-04T10:52:00.002+08:00

Nana: I TAG YOU!
Xtine: You think what, Pokemon-ah "I CHOOSE YOU!!!"

Whoever who gets tagged has to write 10 things about the person who tagged him/her:

1. She's my younger sister

2. she loves red, green, and black

3. She has a thing for stars, especially on anklets and bracelets and god-knows what else

4. she likes very peppery bak-kee

5. she likes to eat.... a lot...

6. her theme song amongst family members is 'katak pisang'

7. she is in love with married men. such as david beckham

8. She always has no money (like me)

9. people sometimes confused her with Hillary, especially when they were small

10. She may not need to gan fei anymore. (lol)

The person who got tagged has to write 10 things about himself/herself

1. I'm Xtine

2. My beloved lifestyle this holidays is eat, sleep, do nothing. (and cook and read and play piano)

3. I'm situated in Wisconsin, and it is bloody cold here. Why did I come here again??

4. I still don't have a driver's license.

5. I really really really want a car.

6. I have silver hairs, and angmors think that is awesome

7. I'm a member of 14o5 AJC... lolx and I miss you ppl!!!!! <3

8. I came to USA and started to learn Chinese here.

9. I don't really blog often

10. My new year's resolution is to sleep everyday before midnight and wake up every morning by 645am.

Choose 10 people to be tagged and list their names: (unlike Elena I DO know more than 10 people...wakaka)

1. Babe
2. Drew
3. Eebong
4. Jian Wei
5. Yaya
6. Rara
7. Howard
8. hanren1
9. hanren2
10. jap/sumo

but I dont know whether anyone will respond. rofl

~Xtine

Happy 2009!

2008-12-31T15:08:00.002+08:00

Happy 2009 World!! ^^

May it be a peaceful, good year with increasing stability for all of us. And good grades of course ^^

Vril and I made dinner yesterday! We had a LOT of food! I made chicken and mushroom and chicken and cauliflower, and lotus root soup! And Avril made rendang and ma bo tofu. It was so good <3 and we had the hainanese chicken rice kind of rice so life was REALLY good for the both of us yesterday.

Today we had burmese curry!! yum. rice and curry eaten with hands = heaven.

And on Sunday we went to Mitsuwa!!! Hearts Jap food and Jap grocery store!!!!

Hehe, happy new year everyone again! May your lives be filled with happiness and contentment in the year to come

Metta,
Xtine

note: I am reading a really good book now, called the Jew in the Lotus =) recommended!

holiday so far...

2008-12-24T22:45:00.003+08:00

Well, there is a LOT of snow. lolx. At least one foot and we're getting a few more inches today (how exciting) the nice thing when it snows though, is that is usually isn't so cold and there aren't such fierce winds that try to rip your nose and cheeks off.

I'm currently working in the library, and the flakes are really big and fluffy and white - the prettiest kind of snow. I bet if we wanted we could make a snow man too.

So what have I been up to? 19 and 18Dec- seeing off people, packing up, preparing for vril's visit. 20th: Avril arrives~!! (Avril is my classmate from singapore) and about an hour after she arrived (revelations in between) we walked to cub foods (in some horrendous cold) to get groceries! Cooked tom yam soup with beehoon for dinner, which we ate with what I guess I'll call the 'dinner gang' made up of Daiichiro, Isamu, Min, Lin, Phyo, Lawrence when he is around and me and Vril.

Oooh looks like i might have to shelve soon.

21st Dec: really cold. wind chills of -25F, Avril and I decide not to go out for the next 48 hours....but some crazy nut called Lawrence walked to Cub Foods to get groceries for his turn to cook dinner, shanghai style 'spring rolls'....wah! Oh and Vril and I had Kimchee noodles with egg and spinach for lunch, but Xtine overcooked the noodles (embarassed)

22nd Dec: Still really cold. We kind of lay around inside and did nothing. HAHAHAHAHA. eat, sleep, do nothing is a GREAT lifestyle!! Too lazy to cook meat, so made beans-and-egg omelet, stir fry spinach, yesterdays left overs and rice. Had some conversation with Isamu in the midst of eating.

23rd Dec: One of the warmer days of the week. So lets walk to downtown!!! Wah it was snowing when we walked down and back, so Xtine and Vril kept getting attacked by snowflakes!! Which made Vril walk into a tree....or bush rather. Disconcerting for everyone, including the snowflakes. This time we had French toast for lunch with oranges and milk! Ahhhh first time Xtine makes French toast in USA, I'm pretty pleased with myself! For dinner we went to Mexican restaurant with everyone but Isamu who was entertaining some bonny lasses by cooking for them, had FISH that was decently prepared (for once) and etc. lol only Lin SUCCESSFULLY finished almost everything he had, servings were so huge!! After that came back and webcam with Mateo and watched 200 pound beauty, promptly got one of the songs irreversibly stuck in my brain. more webcam with Mateo and then off to sleep....830am shift in the morning....

today: working in lib, making soup, love my supervisors!! (one of them just gave me a thumbprint cookie!!! <3 Deb!!!)

That's it for update people, if you want pics check facebook, Avril has uploaded some there, I'm still refraining from uploading pics here =)

~Happy Xmas!
<3 Xtine

2008-12-19T22:11:00.001+08:00

ZomgwthlasergunbbqpiupiupiuPIUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

its still snowing...

heavily...
and it started about 10 hours ago....

My magnum opus 2008

2008-12-19T12:49:00.003+08:00

in retrospect....the rant below is really a one sided view. tapi ia adalah perasaan aku yang telah deselamkan di air yang dalam...

joan yes my BM dieded liaoz loooong ago XD

here is my baby!!

I call it: of Mice and woMen

Characters will be introduced in a character page that i have yet to draw. sorry!! any questions regarding characters just ask me XD. please say you'll be able to pick me out at least though. hehe.

Xtine

hols + rant

2008-12-18T13:07:00.002+08:00

Hello everybody!
Its finally the winter holidays!!

exams are over, yay!
oh reply to zeehao: er, cause that means I will have 8am class everyday I don't want to deal with that. lol.

and there is going to be a winter storm tomorrow. up to one foot of snow!! T_T I R depressed

other than that I also have to move to another dorm where all the other ppl will be staying. i think that will be fun at least.

sekarang masa untuk saya rant....

terpaksa juga guna bahasa melayu kerana takut org lain di sini terbaca....
tetapi perihatin! Ini adalah sebahagian diri saya yang agak buruk, kalau anda masih ingin kekalkan memori Xtine yang lebih indah lebih baik jangan baca...

Sebenarnya sepanjang semester ini toleransi aku terhadap rakan sebilik aku semakin kecil. saya ingat dia adalah seorang orang cina, dan oleh itu kita akan mempunyai cara memikir yang sama. rupanya tidak, dan pada pendapat aku dan orang cina lain, rakan sebilik aku ini memang kurang abiliti dan disiplin. MALANGNYA SAYA MEMANG TAK TAHAN ORANG MACAM INI!!!

bukannya dia tidak mementingkan masa seperti aku, tapi aku rasa dia terlalu bergantung pada org lain!! CIK ADIK BOLEH TAK JANGAN HARAPKAN SAYA AKAN SELALU MEMBANTU KAMU, PANGGIL AWAK BANGUN TIDUR DAN SETERUSNYA? jadi TA untuk mencari gaji pun nak cari orang lain untuk membantu anda membuat kerjanya...

sebagai seorg yg lebih kurang agak mementingkan disiplin diri dan tanggungjawab, saya berasa dia agak tidak bertanggungjawab, terutamanya terhadap dirinya sendiri. oleh sebab dia selalu membikin saya naik angin di dalam hati, saya mengurangkan masa saya berada di bilik. lagipun dia sangat suka memeluk la, memegang tangan la, SAYA TAK SUKA AAAAA. aku rasa pelik betul, juga rasa saya lebih baik tingagal dalam sebilik sahaja, tak mahu rakan sebilik lagi.

lain kali tak boleh mempunyai harapan yang terlalu tinggi. hanya rakan rakan di 'kampungku' yang memahami dan mempunyai cara memikir yang sama.

rindu kamu semua!

Xtine

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2008-12-05T12:38:00.000+08:00

WHY DID I NOT GET INTO MONEY AND BANKING?!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!?????????

T_T

worship

2008-12-03T05:09:00.001+08:00

Yes, I think i can *worship* my 20th century music professor. He's so nice!!!!

My math presentation is over!! wheeeee!! No more math brains. Time to correct music paper and study for econ and accounting.

Other than that, there is lots of snow out.

Ladida.

Life is slowly improving.

Xtine

Short Reflection on Music

2008-11-30T05:57:00.002+08:00

I've been listening to lots of classical music lately (yes hearts) and just about 30 minutes ago was listening to a recording of Fur Elise by an unknown pianist. Just last week I had complained about how I dislike this piece, it is overplayed horrendously as we know and many many people know it (and play it).

But after listening to the recording, I was struck by the difference in what I myself had played and what others had played compared to what this unknown pianist had played. I'm playing a Beethoven sonata at the moment myself and just realised how in Fur Elise, the pianist brought out so many delicate intricacies of Beethoven! You can really hear the character of Beethoven's music!

Wow.

I even feel like playing Fur Elise again just to try to see how I could bring out the intricacies myself, instead of just going bang bang bang rush rush rush THERE YOU HAVE IT!

Been going thought a lot of new thought processes for music thanks to my several music classes lately. I do so love music.

And some quick updates on life:

Studies wise is okay. Lots of papers due soon so lots of work to do. So sad!

Thanksgiving activity has been drool over cute Moldovan singers with Lisa and Mateo. Super fun past time. Also here I want to recommend a song, Despre Tine Cant (Partea 2), which I have been nuts over for the past few days! Sung by Dan Balan for his album Crazy Loop, it is a romanian ballad and I HEARTS IT. haha!! Also watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with Kochakian, Lisa, Mateo, Megan and Yitian for 2 nights. wah. Yitian and Kochakian didn't watch the second DVD with us but we all found it superbly entertaining. Other than that I have been working 5 hours in the library for today and yesterday... money~~$$$ come to meeee~~~~ Oh and I played croquet this morning!! Haha after I noted the GORGEOUS weather (think about it, sunny and not too cold) I really wanted to pkay croquet but only Mateo would play with me (Sorry Kochakian, we really thought you would prefer to sleep!). Nonetheless my skills have improved greatly compared to the first time when we played til night. haha! And it was morning exercise too! haha!

Oh lots of lovely classical music this weekend too. muwahahaha.

Food wise is NOT OKAY. More than enough said

And back to paper!! T_T

Xtine

On elections and classes

2008-11-06T13:35:00.002+08:00

Yay elections are over.

But my commentary on the days beforehand. Where numerous students kept knocking annoyingly on people's doors trying to persuade them to vote for Obama. Er, hello, some people are international and cannot vote okay? Stop disturbing them. Please have some sense. Secondly I don't want your freaking posters or stickers or anything else that I simply see is a symbol of utter waste and degradation of the environment. Yes, campaigning is good but not so good if you have to oversell our product and make people like me, disgusted. Also if it just ends up in the trash can, IT IS A BIG WASTE.

Secondly US election process must be one of the most annoying in the world. Inefficient. I don't see why the world's most advanced nation (or one of) cannot do a simple thing like organize electronic voting. Isn't it that humans are more prone to error than computers?! Case in point, my vote (I went for early voting) slip was labeled wrongly and the poor volunteer there had to call me up to ask me for the correct information. Needless to say, the election is run by volunteers. Most of whom I saw were senior citizens. Now let's think, what are the chances of error?

Gah. Consider that I spent 2 hours standing in 2 different lines to cast a vote that probably did not matter because WISCONSIN IS NOT A SWING STATE and is largely democratic. For the record, I voted for whoever history shows as the better man.

As for classes. I will take 6 classes next year. Whee.

-Xtine

Fall in Full Blast

2008-10-24T02:58:00.003+08:00

Ah Fall

Walking around as the wind tosses the red, brown, yellow and purple leaves into a swirling dance and gently caresses my cheek before whirling away......

MY FOOT. HOW ABOUT

Walking around as the wind whistles around, stealing the warmth of your face and hands and sucking the moisture from your eyes, numbing your nose and tumbling your hair into a haystack

THAT'S the fall I'm experiencing now.

WHERE IS THE SUN?

On another hand my life has been filled with music music and more music and it is so beautiful I don't want to let it go.

I want to take up a second instrument!

I want to devote 3 hours a day to perfecting my pieces!

But...

I have to study and work and do homework and maintain my grades.

Alas!! I have no money to pick up a second instrument anyway. Time can always be made but not money.

Time to dig out the good old down jacket.

Xtine

over!

2008-10-22T10:04:00.002+08:00

Fall break is over....

and it was smashing (for me)

Midterm exams are over
And I did surprisingly ok. Actually got an A for Stats, so happy! Only irksome thing, missed an A for Microecon by 1% *Scream* but still higher than the mean grade.

Piano quartet performance is over
Just happened 30 mins ago. hahahaha. and my video is not very good and my hads were sweaty and I slipped on the keys but at least my hands weren't cold.

the only thing, according to my 20th Century music prof, that we need to improve is our bowing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Study hard~

Xtine

piano~

2008-09-24T10:41:00.002+08:00

Last week was heaven in terms of receiving piano scores from interlibrary loan....

I FINALLY HAVE RYUICHI SAKAMOTO SCORES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HEARTS!!!!!!

YAY!!!!!

HEARTS!!!!!!

Yes, I love it~ but also equally happy-ing is I GOT DEBUSSY PRELUDE TO AFTERNOON OF THE FAUNE SCORES FOR PIANO SOLO AND DUET.

YAAAAYYYYYYY!!!

YAAAAAYYYYYY!!!

other than that, I have a lot of work and I am tired T_T

Why can't I do a music major and just do music all day long?

Oh on Friday I got back my last 2 response papers for 20th Century music class and...
BOTH A's!And on my paper on a Bartok article my prof even gave me "Great Job"

FLOAT!! FLOAT!!! FLOAT!!!

That made me very happy happy happy ^^

On sat went to Chinatown with 4 other girls. Bought lots of goodies including (FINALLY) AN ELECTRIC WATER BOILER THAT KEEPS IT WARM JUST LIKE MINE BACK HOME.

WHEEEEEEEEE

sadly skype is not working, I just want to tell my mummy of my beautiful new possession that I will be keeping for a LOOOONG time! muahahha its so useful in the mornings now!!!

time to work!

lalala~

Xtine

hoework torture

2008-09-12T14:17:00.002+08:00

To be precise, I go through this every Friday

When I write my response paper (apologies to my professor)

IT IS A VERY PAINFUL PROCESS

but for my first 2 attempts so far I have A's to show the fruits of my effort~ I think it's really worth it, especially the understanding that I get? But every week I just torture myself and think I have done my worst..... ;_; too bad that the end result is so good.

And somehow the thinking and mulling and walking around and finally resorting to blogging process may hopefully work.

bartok bartok bartok bartok

I'm sorry but I do love Debussy more

my head is swimming with nationalistic ideas and the history of Hungary now.

@_@ kchan

another update (finally)

2008-08-22T08:28:00.002+08:00

Okay, finally an update?

Hahaha, Sorry people, not really in a mood to blog nowadays.

So another summer (with 3 credits yay!) has passed (3 credits = one easy term btw) and I am still in Beloit. After working all summer, I officially say that I HATE TAXES. really, screw up all my calculations on how much lovely cash I could have *tears*

My sister also visited me for a week, it was nice, we had yummy things to eat and a trip to chicago and madison respectively.

Other than that, since the end of CLS, I have successfully moved into my room (thanks to my sister it was a less painful process), developed some arm and leg muscles frommy job shifting books in the library and had a very relaxing time with my new room mate, melissa! She's a girl from China and is really fun and really cute.

Oh and I also helped to pick up new international students from the airport. It was an interesting experience, too bad i had no one to pick ME up. hahahaha.

otherwise, nothing much in my life, except I HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF. i really have to get rid of some of it if possible. laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

don't really want summer to end, I don't want winter to come....

so school starts next tuesday and I will be back to busy busy busy. TA-ing a class and probably tutoring as a volunteer activity and lots of lovely music lessons and work *sigh* hopefully my brain has recovered from its 2 month marathon of CLS after 2 lovely weeks of rest!

okay that's all for now.

oh yes, the person who keeps bugging me to blog, my kaidi is in USA!

congratulations you FINALLY made it here.

hahahahahahah

love,
kchan

2008-07-31T07:36:00.000+08:00

Ya man I'm so proud of myself!!

translation by me:

作詞：王力宏/崔惟楷作曲：王力宏編曲：王力宏 Lyrics: Wang Lee Hom/ Cui Wei-kai composer: Wang Lee Hom arranger: Wang Lee Hom

＃Baby 我愛你快樂永遠來得及
Baby I love you let’s achieve happiness forever
So come on now　And　放開你的心
So come on now and release your heart
Baby 我愛你快樂永遠來得及
Baby I love you let’s achieve happiness forever
So come on now　Just 放開你的心 #
So come on now, Just release your heart

為什麼抱著懷疑
Why hold suspicion so tightly
愛並不是都自私自利
love is not selfish
雖然難免一些壞記憶
although some unavoidable bad memories
讓愛情失去吸引力
cause love to lose its’ attraction
不再有趣
and become uninteresting
日子還是要過下去
life still goes on
不管是笑或哭泣
it doesn’t matter whether you laugh or cry
所以
so
別停止好奇
don’t stop your curiosity
其實生活充滿驚喜
actually, life is full of pleasant surprises

＊Yeah yeah 跟規則道別
Yeah yeah say goodbye to the rules
Yeah yeah 憑我的感覺
Yeah yeah just follow my feelings
Yeah yeah 跟過去道別
Yeah yeah as for setbacks in the past
跟挫折道別
just bid farewell to them
跟著我的感覺
and follow my feelings

Repeat ＃ Repeat #

Oh Oh 笑或哭別在乎
Don’t care about laughing or crying
Oh Oh 贏或輸別在乎
Don’t care about winning or losing

偶爾要解開自己
Sometimes one needs to unravel oneself
領帶太緊太難以呼吸
A tie tied too tightly makes it hard to breathe
重複每一天整齊劃一
Repetitiously, every day is so uniform
到底你是獨立個體
After all, you’re an independent individual
還是機器
or are you a machine?
別忘記誰都有權力
Don’t forget each person has the authority
選擇心情高或低
To choose if his mood is high or low
所以快跳出井底
so quickly jump out of the bottom of the well
明天的精采可以預期
and anticipate the brilliance of tomorrow

repeats

Oh yeah 我真的愛你 I really love you

crazy 4th of July

2008-07-07T08:42:00.003+08:00

4th of July weekend!!

Sadly I had to work in a dead empty lib on Thurs but (hey at least I got paid) no one was on campus anyway, most of the people I hang out with went somewhere.

On Friday I did absolutely nothing. it was marvellous. the only thing I did was cook soup. ABC soup with macaroni! yummy. then Lisa (Who is half thai) made RICE SOAKED IN COCONUT MILK WITH MANGO. OMG yummmmmmy.... it is so fun to meet someone who knows exactly where you come from and what you eat and all the unavailable things in the USA.....

Saturday was a crazy Chicago day. when we got out of the train station, i noticed the line out of the MEN'S room came out all the way to the hall!! (needless to say for the ladies, it was worse) so there were lots of people EVERYWHERE, even Chinatown!! sian. but i got to eat malaysian food so happy la. managed to buy various groceries too.

Sunday (today) I made LOTUS ROOT SOUP. I AM GREAT. MUAHAHAHAH other than that I had to work. thats all for my update, back to work!!

2008-07-02T04:14:00.002+08:00

to my kaidi:

YES my blog is dead. this is because on weekdays I have class from 830am to 430pm and I then work from 5pm to 10pm. As for Sunday I work 1pm to 5pm too. the rest of the time is for homework study and cooking.

of course my blog is dead.

X_X <-- dead

2008-06-12T18:38:00.001+08:00

last 20 hours at home

maybe I should not sleep? hahahaha. stupid cheap airlines and their minimal baggage policies!!! ARGH

last gathering in malaysia

2008-06-11T23:07:00.001+08:00

wah. today last time visit ah ma, saw bhante and sister, last mamak gathering...

lets hope this can tahan me for 2 years!!

Fun reunion

2008-06-10T00:51:00.001+08:00

Managed to meet Ai-chan and Meiyan today! It was a fun meeting filled with happy catching up, some gossip, and lots of overseas comparisons and laughter. XD so ngam, when Aichan and I were waiting, we just mentioned Meiyan and she appeared!! like magic. i really enjoyed myself. thanks you guys.

Meiyan you better visit me to see snow. lol. aichan we will work something out!! NY-london!!1

~kchan

last weekend...

2008-06-07T15:31:00.002+08:00

last weekend liao lor (hey I am FULLY entitled to use as much manglish as I want at home ok?)

just came back from dinner with eldest pepe. yummy, finally got to eat (and learn how to prepare) YONG TAU FOO *hearts*

TO BE CONTINUED AFTER MOM'S COMPUTER LESSON

a few firsts...

2008-06-05T16:10:00.002+08:00

Yesterday was my first day walking around (since I got specs when I was 7) WITHOUT specs!!! whoooo contact lenses!!! quite interesting, no more weight on the nose bridge (which I ind out I have gotten very used to!)

Yesterday was also the first time I saw the mad mad rush to fill up petrol at the ptrol stations, as you know, (or may not know) fuel subsidies have been slashed!! Makes me wonder how its going to affect uni students who hve to drive everyday to school like some of my friends here.

as for today, it was the first time I successfully bao a bak zhang!! (wrap up a triangle shaped meat dumpling) I feel so accomplished right now, even though I didn't tie any I can make it into the right shape! Its not easy ok!!! I took 1.5 hours to learn!!

Okla gtg help my sis.

~so many firsts XD
kchan

more more more (as demanded by nana)

2008-05-27T21:41:00.005+08:00

okay, after shopping on saturday...

Sunday morning

Woke up, shower, watch cousins get up and watch dad wonder why they didn't eat all the chee cheong fun he bought for them (hahah I got to eat wan tan mee!!) for breakfast, then rallied everyone to go over to eldest uncle's house for lunch. WAHHH ELDEST AUNT COOKED BAK KUT TEH. yummyyyyyy. then we brought over the chee cheong fun and ate that then too for lunch. After that spent some time lounging around and talking, saw a few of my elder cousins, including the bridegroom, then went back around 4pm to shower and change for the upcoming 'bachelors party' at 7pm. WAH. when we got there, there weren't many people, so just looked after youngest cousin Zhan for a while. Soon, the ROAST PIG arrived!! rush of uncles and aunts to go and sample, followed by rush of cousins when the report of its taste came in: ZHENG!! (in cantonese) omg the roast port had fat that melted in the mouth!! UTTERLY DELICIOUS. being the malaysians that we are, as the aunty chopped up the whole roast pig for the guests, we just picked up pieces and feasted and then threw the bones into the convenient drain/grass side. after that we moved on to the other foods =) fried rice, some other rice, vegs, meat, and lots of tart-y desserts! and sweet lemonade to drink! zhan was obsessed with the lemonade and kept asking for some!! There was also the thomas cup final going on, so a small crowd of enthusiasts sat there watching (and two people asked me to get them satay >.>) at the end of the night, we went back first while my mom stayed back to help my aunt.

Monday morning (and coincidentally, wesak day)

morning there is arrival of the bride and tea ceremony!! so we reached the house, all the way telling zhan he had to open the door (with the promise of an angpau if he did so to enure he would open it) and teasing him if he knew how to open the door or not! haha so cute. I wonder where this custom originated from? when the bride and groom arrived in their car (horns blearing all the way in) zhan succesfully opened the door! (so cute) and got his angpau, which he later told me seriously, I throw away! in the dustbin! (even cuter!!!)
so there was the tea ceremony and lots of people all the way till the afternoon.

oops gotta go help mom look at pics in facebook. til next time! (to be cont here)

cont on sunday june 1,

after a long tea ceremony and lunch, mi, 2 aunts and cousins and sis all went to sunway pyramid (omg again?) to buy baju shoes and do hair (for big dinner mar) and imagine, we bought 3 pairs of shoes, dresses, skirt, and did hair all in 2 hours! superb skills! then when we were washing hair, (me mom and aunts) the rest went to toilet then subway >.> during the styling process, aunty bl tried a steam perm (i think) which looked really nice, mi and pemu3 got their hair teased up and arranged and I got my hair mussed up and oversprayed with hair spray until I had allergic reaction....ahhh CHOO! not that nice, but the aunty who talked to me as she did my hair was VERY nice, she asked if i was still in secondary school! WAH. HENG I LOOK YOUNG. hahahaha. in the end my usual hairdresser, uncle Frankie did a better job styling it after he cut it for me.

dinner! all dressed up, all the young kon ladies (And one liew) got stationed EARLY as receptionist and ask people to sign the wedding guest book. very hectic, collecting stuff, asking people who they were, directing! makes me understand how hectic it is to be a person getting married or sibling of a bride/groom. then finally (as we were very hungry) the dinner started!! food was pretty delicious! everyone was very happy and satisfied! in the end, groom and cousin in law got drunk, quite hilarious. hahaha.

On the day after the wedding, the two newly-related families had lunch in overseas in PJ. yummy!

once again, to be continued...

kena tag also

2008-05-26T21:48:00.002+08:00

Drew just tagged me and because drew's answers made me happy I will do it now even though like drew I think it is a waste of time....

1] What's your favorite anime at the present time?
Bleach, Inuyasha, Midori no hibi, and PIANO NO MORI

2] Given the chance, what special ability/power would you like to have?
infinte money that is not affected by inflation or time value of money HAHAHAHA (i wish)

3] How do you think about yourself?
just me. who loves to XDXD

4] Where is the place that you want to go the most?
er...... the question needs to be more specific...

5] If you can have 1 dream to come true, what would it be?
less pollution, more love in the world and fewer (and possible zero) corrupt leaders

6] Do you have a crush now?
*cough* *clears throat* LAAALAAALAAALAAALAAA (XDXD)

7] What are you afraid to lose the most now?
superficially....my laptop...memories...friends and family...life itsef...the cosmos..

8] If you win $1 million, what would you do?
grumble at how much got deducted for taxes and then go for a perpetuity or annuity

9] If you meet someone that you love, would you confess to him/her?
i dunno

10] List out 3 good points of the person who tagged you.
has the ability to make me laugh all the time.
super cute smile (even my mom agrees with this)
HYPER CAPSLOCK HIGH!

11] Which type of person do you hate the most?
arrogant when actually useless and those who love to wallow in their ignorance

12] What is your ambition?
be happy

13] If you have fault, would you rather the people around you point out to you or would you rather they keep quiet?
point it out, but not loudly in public or i may kill you

14] What do you think is the most important in your life?
contentment

15] Are you a shopaholic or not?
depends on my $$$ situation

16] What is the thing that you really want now?
lol. i'm home ald. ^^

17] Why does it hurt when you punch someone?
cause I dunno how to punch mar!!! get drew to punch for me la XD

18] Is there anything that you have done which you regret?
er if i regret it do you think I will put it up here?

19] Are you hungry right now?
*tummy, how is the sukiyaki and japanese rolls in there?*

20] Do you think that this survey is totally useless?
very much so

tag people ar...
Joan, sui jing, jian wei and.....eebong lah! ^^

cont'd update

2008-05-24T20:52:00.002+08:00

So I caught the MAS plane on Thursday night at 8pm and didn't sleep on the 8 hour flight to Sweden. The airport there is gorgeous though! gorgeous as in interior decor, of the little waiting gate area we were in. about an hour later back on the plane, and I let myself sleep after the evening meal. somehow time passed....til

Saturday!
run to a connecting flight to Singapore and reach Changi at about 930am. Met alson there for about an hour then met up with fel, nian ya, yingying and jiesin! HHAHAHAHA in what jisin describes as Yaya catching bimboness, she managed to tell them my FLIGHT CRAFT MODEL instead of the number >.> so the poor gang had to walk up and down the terminal looking for me as miss yaya was late...ROFL had a super good time hanging out with them!! very happy ^^ took lots of weird pics using photobooth but it was uber cool and uber fun XD thanks for meeting me guys!! and treating me too XD

finally got my flight home and reunited with mi and babe. stupid flight was delayed and KLIA airport felt very hot and humid. wah. starting to die in malaysian climate ald? nooooooooo! got home, saw D and Floss, my dog who was very excited to see me! immediately manja, that manja dog! then I had to shower and change and go to grandma's house for mother's day dinner; STEAMBOAT.

wah, got to see my cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews, and ah ma, super happy!! then got to eat tomyam steamboat, HAPPY!! basically, super happy. then came home, met my dad's side aunts and uncles from singapore who came down to attend wedding dinner! sadly i didn't go for wedding dinner, dad said i looked too tired. on sunday morning dad took me and my sis to eat CHAR KUEY TEOW. WAH HAPPY!! i love this char kuey teow!! <3<3 at night i wanted to eat porridge, BUT IT WAS NOT OPEN (see this is called unlucky) so we ate at this fish place instead. the porridge there also FINISHED!!! SIGH. but the noodles also quite nice lah ^^ got to eat bitter gourd stuffed with fishpaste also, yummy.

Monday - haha somehow suddenly can't remember
Tuesday
went to pick up my kaidi and took him to smks9 where I worked last year, for me to cari my gaji and take him to see his old headmistress! my gaji now is very luan, don't want to think about it! but i had fun eating lunch with my mom and jian wei. ate in klang, also super good ^^ then we sent him back and my mom wanted to buy a long sleeve shirt for my now prefect baby sis, so we went to find in the new 100 bumiputera mydin in shah alam. ceh!!! irritating, when I wanted to go in the guard said i couldn't bring in my handbag, too big!! WALAO. so in the end we tied it in a plastic bag, my mom was pretty irritated. couldn't find the shirt so my mom said we are never going there again. hahaha. at night my sis had tuition, so went to eat ASAM LAKSA. whoa super happy.

Weds - I went for a haircut ^^

Thursday - sis had tuition morning and night, so morning I stayed at home and did laundry, at night, just followed out.

Friday - I went to sunway pyramid with my friends! Sook May, Joan, and me got picked up by Mak then we went to KL to pick up his gf, who is really nice and a really cute girl! It was fun to hang out with her, but I think mak is a bit abusive! So KL of course traffic jam, so we had heaps of fun chatting and updating in the car. in sunway, we were all hungry, so we went to kim gary and ate, and ask kok n lim where they were. lim turned up just as we were taking food pics and kok apparently had a punctured tyre, so cwe didn't go for karaoke as originally planned. instead we went to look for dinner dresses for sook may and me! that was fun, we tried on MANY dresses,and sook may managed to find a nice one ^^ in the process we got separated from mak, so we decided to meet them near jco doughnuts. suddenly kok appeared! then we decided on dinner plans and kok went to pick up his gf. we met sui jing at asia cafe and also got introduced to kok's gf. also another cute girl~ Apparently she was in singapre for 3 months, so we had lots to talk about. then sook may and suijing belang=ja me tomyam noodles (YUM) and stingray bakay (HEARTS) so i was very happy <3
after that sui jing sent us all back as mak had to drive to KL and it was getting late. all in all very satisfied.

saturday
cousins came back from singapore! but in the afternoon i went shopping with my other cousin, xin-yi and my mom and my sis for dress and shoes for wedding dinner. after 4 hours, mission accomplished!! i bought 2 of the cutest heels i have ever owned in my life for about 10USD per pair so you can imagine that I was extremely happy. In fact, we just raided the display of the 3 colours and xinyi in the end, bought a pair too, and my mom wanted to buy a pair but decided she didnt really really want to.

oo! time is up. mom and aunt were watching the chinese singing competition, yuan lai wo ai chang ge.... and it somehow just ended? I better run. more later!

kchan

hello

2008-05-22T18:49:00.003+08:00

yo people

1.5 weeks has passed. and I have been having a considerable amount of fun at home. eat eat eat and get round XD VERY FUN.

most of my pics are on facebook, since I don't post pictures on my blog anymore.

Little recap

May 5, Sunday

(to be cont after i eat sar hor fun)

6 hours later

OMG SAR HOR FUN NOT OPEN!!

rawr. so D said go for special mee sua.... ALSO NOT OPEN

SERIOUSLY I NO LUCK (you will see why later)

so went to eat beef noodles. quite nice la. hehe

okay so what happened from last sunday. on sunday night, melissa (who will be my room mate next year!) and I decided to pull an all nighter because I had 2 papers to complete and she had an exam. so we pent till 2am in the library (happily i was not working) and after that decided to go to the lounge in pearsons. it was good! we studied for another 2.5 hours, then obsessed over some chinese songs (highly recommended!! bu yao shuo hua by eason chan!!) after that we discovered the fun of playing with photo booth. hahahha took MANY pictures that look super weird!

Monday: passed up paper, super happy. worked for 2 hours, suddenly extra, lots of shelving. really hyper-but-tired. then started packing frenzy. frenzy like siao. i really hate packing. but reall fast tired, then ended up sleeping and sleeping the rest of the day.

Tuesday: discovered despite all my donation attempts, I still have 22 meal swipes left. dang. donate more food to other people ba. then packing siaoness till i got most of my stuff down to storage. and waiting outside cause i was 10 mins late to storage. luckily the next day it opened hours before i left, so still can still can.

weds: ordered pizza with ari, finished packing and check all stuff, checked room out, ready to go! left for airport, excited to go home but missing some of the crazy friends i have back there already. ari was nice to drop me off at the bus stop. she said she'll miss me as a room mate. I will too!! at night, flew to NY and arrived at midnight.

Thursday: chatted with an interesting person in the wee hours of the morning while waiting for the mas flight. had a few short naps in the early morning, and paid 8 dollars for internet cause I was slightly desperate on what to do in the airport. Had very lousy mac breakfast and lousy noodle lunch. i was so fed up i was tempted not to eat again till i got to malaysia. of course that did not happen. haha. thanks to all the people who teman-ed me while i was in the airport! as in online la. ^^

ok. sleepy. more to come in the future.

~kchan

boredom and count down

2008-05-09T02:04:00.003+08:00

I'm sitting in Newark International Airport, not wanting to leave the god of power outlet that I just found here. Lunch rush is present and I am waiting for it to subside so that I can go get something to eat and still retain my coveted spot.

Not to mention that I have probably gotten 2 short naps in the past 30 hours. ugh.

I am going to look like a zombie panda when I touchdown.

You have been warned!!

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to seeing all of you.

Wish me luck, I have 5 more hours til I can tentatively check in my big bag, run through security and settle outside my gate and pray for a nice flight with no one sitting beside me.

ooo i can actually probably check that now!

sigh.

oh and if you want to know why i can blog, it was realisation of 22 hours of no activity that prompted me to pay 8 dollars for a 24 hour internet access in the airport.

lol. okay take care. i'll see you soon

2008-05-08T03:07:00.002+08:00

Dear all,

I'm leaving in an hour. I'm finally packed and done.

I'll be back here in a month.

But for now, I am GOING HOME. whee. yay.

yay!!!!!!

So byebye til May 10 when I touch down in SWEET HOME MALAYSIA.

float

2008-04-28T14:12:00.002+08:00

Float. that's what happened to me last friday once classes were done.

Why?

Because, i got to play the grand piano.
Then, one of the music professors, Renato, took Melissa, my amazing piano teacher Jill, and me to Kenny's senior recital (Kenny is an AMAZING pianist who will be graduating) and here are some links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-kvEmeXYXw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNi1DooiCoE&feature=related

Before that we caught a, quote, cute little cafe called the Metropolitan in Janesville where Renato and Jill had a glass of wine each, then we went to the concert which was FLOAT FLOAT FLOAT FLOAT amazing.

After that!! Renato treated us to DINNER at that cute restaurant!! And we had some amazing conversation!! Melissa and I throughly enjoyed it, it was so fun!

So it was an amazing evening. Thank you Renato!!!

ps: He graduated from Juillard. And he is the person who gave me some alternate chopin score for the Waltx in B Minor. <3 <3 <3!!!!!

float.

News: I will be arriving in Singapore on MAY 10. Back to USA June 14. mail me or chat with me if you have time to meet up! =)

~Xtine

2008-04-16T03:15:00.003+08:00

Finally some news...

I didn't get the scholarship! looks like I will be here for summer.

oh well look on the bright side! As Tan Jo said, can always apply for others =)

Now to settle what I'll be doing till june 14. I think I'll need a car....

hope for the best!

~kchan

i am le tired...

2008-04-15T22:08:00.003+08:00

Tired.... T_T

last week I have no idea why I was so gung-ho, told my supervisor I can come in at 830am to work, TODAY I REALISED THAT THAT 1/2 HOUR OF SLEEP IS VERY PRECIOUS....

but i finished my maths paper on self-insurance! yay!

still no results of scholarship yet =( and i found cheap air tickets to fly home too... mahu balik...

makan banyak banyak...hahaha.

on a happier note the weather here is nice today and will be nice tomorrow!

then it will snow on saturday >.>

and i just dropped a heavy book on my finger.

time to study maths!

life is uneventful and I'm tired and need sleep. lots of it.

~kchan

Too amazing to keep to myself...

2008-04-10T23:24:00.001+08:00

I didn't mean to blog today but...

I'm working in the library and we have no classes today and I am bored and reading blogs when I saw this post by Drew that just made my day. Reproducing it here, it is a list of questions by karen answered by drew XDXD

~kchan

50 silly things Karen didnt understand and seek the Wisdom of Drew

#1 why guys wear skinny jeans. especially not tall guys
cuz they have no balls

#2 why i wear skinny jeans
because u are so small normal jeans will just looks baggy for u

#3 why singaporeans dress so similarly
Sings: *one people, one nation, ooooneee singapore*

#4: why singaporeans still wear leggings
not that i can relate.

#5 why they dont choose tights
apparently the skinny guys in #1 should just donate theirs to these ppl. tsk then the world has onle less stupid qn from karen.

#6 lacy/ribbon leggings
It flutters gracefully along with their thigh fats after every step they take.

#7 why they stare at me when i wear my maroon/blue tights
Maybe its just you being short and everybody is kinda amused by it while trying to stifle a laughter so ended up looking like O.O

#8 why is it that there is always no my size when its the shoes i like.
check out the kids departmental store

#9 women who likes to show off her belly fat by wearing short tee
eww... *imagines*

#10 prints t-shirt that guys wear and make them look like ah bengs
if not how ahbengs identify themselves? wear carebear t shirt?

#11 salted popcorn
diabetics cant eat the caramel ones

#12 lousy movies that people still watch
maybe we should put a [Lousy] label along with such movies so they wun watch it

#13 people who laugh at me coz i'm short
i dun really understand why u dun understand this. hahahha...

#14 why i laugh at myself that i'm short
ok... this one is spastic.

#15 thongs for old(and fat) women
so the old (and fat) men have something along their standard

#16 lousy chinese pop
so that the nice ones can REALLY stand out.

#17 taiwan idol drama
give old aunties (fel?) some source of entertainment

#18 garlic
keep vampires away :D

#19 stupid people who keep adding me in facebook
they need someone they can relate to hahahaha...

#20 guys wearing jeans so low, showing off their ass cracks
if girls can show their cleavage, so can we. (not tt i do it)

#21 Atkins diet
wads this???

#22 clubbing
shake ur bon bons

#23 body piercing
make ppl like me to always have the urge to yank it out. grrr

#24 why cant we download free music when we cant afford the cds
caaaan! just dun get caught

#25 hollywood horror films
damn scary *shivers*

#26 why some people dont eat chocolate
not everyone as rich as u can

#27 why i'm so fair
come here la den i show u THE SUN. come back confirm not-so-fair

#28 why people smoke
act cool

#29 why people go candy empire when its over-priced
the same reason why u always love to go candy empire

#30 why i go candy empire
okay ... how am i supposed to know this one

#31 why asians dye their hair blond looking like a poor nourished person
angmoh wannabes. *sigh*

#32 photoshop
this is damn useful la, can. wanna see the things i can do to ur pics? haha

#33 china people who talk so damn annonying loudly in public
wo men shee hwan khe phu khe yeee yaaa?

#34 purple contact lens
my FAV colour.... *loves*

#35 three-quarters jeans / leggings
u seem to have alot of qns abt leggings.

#36 emo people
testosteronal overload

#37 the emo haircut
something to match their b1tChieness

#38 crocs
apparently they are comfortable

#39 crocs with socks
okay this one IS weird

#40 starbucks
this is GOOD! i love it. start to love it too la

#41 Pink
its part of the universal colour spectrum. u get it when u mix red and white.

#42 how cindy tey get into malaysian dreamgirl
act cute her way thru

#43 how ppl eat potato chips that are not Kettle/Red Rock/ Mark & Spencers
put chips in mouth, cruch, SWALLOW. repeat cycle

#44 Mayonnaise
this is a yellow condiment that u can use on ur hot dogs. awesome little thing

#45 peple who dont listen to Eason and Joey 'cause they are freaking good.
Britney spears better!

#46 People who think earrings cant be changed
got such ppl mehz

#47 coconut chocolate
eeee wads this

#48 Indian music

#49 Why am i doing this when i'm supposed to study
=.=

#50 Why am i still doing this
how the heck am i supposed to know... so that ppl like me HAVE to answer them rawr!

No pianoo....

2008-04-10T01:15:00.002+08:00

Today the plan was to just camp in Pearsons Hall until room lottery...

and practice on the piano there...

but when I got up to the lounge with the piano.... THERE IS A TALK GOING ON!!!! So now I am waiting for the piano and just sitting and waiting... and blogging finally...

Life is very sad nowadays..

I can't do my math problems and have a math paper to write on self-insurance that is driving me crazy

Weather is still cold and windy and apparently it may snow this weekend

I STILL HAVE NO NEWS ABOUT THE SCHOLARSHIP RESULTS (not to mention I found air tix back from NY for like, 900 USD. SO CHEAP RELATIVELY YOU KNOW. 我想回家去！)

other than that, let me say a bit about my future, as I realised I didn't mention my ACTUAL MAJOR when I announced that I had chosen it.

SO, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN (DRUMROLL) THE WINNER IS...

economics and management.

Possibly with a math minor, this will equip me to pursue finance in grad school. Have yet to decide what finance though. I also want a music minor! And hopefully by my 2nd or 3rd year they will have a Chinese minor!!

Yea, if it sounds like I am trying to achieve too much, I don't think I am really. Since is is useful to take the math classes, I will just take them, and since I like music I will pursue it (Chopin!! Debussy!! more on this later) and since I want to learn more Chinese, I will also pursue it!! I'm achieving a couple of life goals, how satisfying!

Now for Chopin and Debussy. I'm currently playing Waltz in B minor by Chopin and the Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Debussy. I LOVE BOTH. And my future room mate, a Chinese girl named Melissa is playing waltz in C sharp minor by Chopin and these songs are SIMPLY beautiful beautiful beautiful!! I'm going to play the Chopin for the student recital at the end of term, and IF i can I will get it recorded and put it online. Hee, I love it!!!

There is an amazing music professor on campus, and he teaches the piano ensemble class. APPARENTLY HE TOOK HIS DEGREE AND MASTERS IN MUSIC IN JUILLARD. *this is occasion to faint for joy and kudo kudo kudo* I was practicing the piano some weeks ago when he came in and began a discussion about all the variations that can be found in Chopin's Waltz in B minor, apparently he wrote 4 to 5 versions and THEN HE DEMONSTRATED THEM CAUSING THIS PERSON TO FLOAT TO THE SKY AND BEYOND and then he said he would photocopy some of the different versions for me and I think I reached the moon. HAHAHAHAHA. I got them a week later and THEY ARE AMAZING. So now I'm playing my 'own' version of the waltz, with my own variations.

OK i think that is enough big hearts talk for the day.One more month then this semester is over!! I should start on my HW now as I wait.

Chopin~hearts~debussy~hearts
kchan

rawr

2008-03-30T10:41:00.002+08:00

I am so irritated (and angry and pissed off) at the person who works the Saturday night shift with me in the library!

FOR THE WHOLE SEMESTER SHE HAS BEEN ARRIVING QUITE LATE, AND IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS I HAVE HAD TO CALL HER (cause she is more than 15 mins late)

AND TODAY

...

well. thanks to her I have to close the lib on my own

gtg! bye!!

Congratulate me!

2008-03-27T10:45:00.002+08:00

Congratulate me minnasan!!

I just declared my major today! And got a pen. Saying: I declared my major at Beloit College!

heheheh yaaaaayyy.....

and I am sorry but I have an econ exam on Friday so I can't blog now, but we should mark this momentous occasion! ^^

~xtine

ps: I want to do a music minor. what do you think?

2008-03-26T22:58:00.002+08:00

Okay, I know I did promise more 15 days ago...

but as usual life catches up with you and DUMPS AN IMMENSE WORKLOAD ON YOU sticks a shovel on top then runs away gloating as you wonder how you are supposed to dig yourself out.

And I'm blogging now just before econ class.

thought of the day: I was brushing my teeth this morning when I was struck by a sudden memory:

remember squatting by the longkang? As a big nurse went up and down your line distributing toothpaste, then taking out this huge fake model of teeth and a giant toothbrush and instructing you on how to brush your teeth? Flick flick swirl swirl...

okay and i THINK i can get a nice preview of my time in philly here now:

econ starts! ~xtine

busy life, busy days after spring break

2008-03-11T14:54:00.002+08:00

Yeah hey at least it hasn't been a month since my last post okay?

Spring break just ended and I'm buried deep under Mt. HW.

However I had an excellently superbly fantastic spring break and will be blogging about it after I am excavated and dusted off.

In the meantime congrats to all the people who did well for A levels!

And Belated birthday wishes to nana.

and I'm sorry this is such a short post but its late, I need to regain my sleeping cycle which has been kicked off and

I really miss all of you guys!

more to come after excavation: kchan

Here's a pic or two of my spring break as a preview

oh no wait I haven't uploaded them. Too bad!

hahah.

kchan

Sorry sorry

2008-02-17T00:34:00.002+08:00

Yeah I have been to busy to blog (just live with it! - haha)

But a Belated Happy CNY to all!

I am currently working the early morning shift in the library for Presidential Weekend... and had a conversation with a visitor while waiting for security to come and open the library (VISITOR THOUGHT I AM JAPANESE...muahahhahaha...I don't know why muahahhaa but muahahahaha anyway)

So what has been going on in my life? A lot of things basically. Lots of snow and wind and an occasional snow storm (one more foot forecast for this weekend) but there is more exciting news!

I guess it is old news to many of my readers but I am putting it here anyway. I was shortlisted for a scholarship!!! And I have been chosen in the narrowed down top 3 candidates for the final round of interview!! HAPPY!

So hold your thumbs for me everyone!

Other than that, I have a load of homework. Did I mention I have a load of homework? But so far so good!

Music lessons are coming along splendidly, my teacher keeps telling me how my technique has improved and my fingers are getting stronger! Currently working on Solfigetto for technical work, Chopin's Waltz in B minor (Which I chose to learn and really really really really like), a Sonatina and The Girl with the Flaxen Hair (which is also amazing)

I have a mock interview on Monday at 830am and I have to dreess professionally for it =( So I have been walking around in high heels to break them in and to hopefully be able to walk about 30 steps nicely into the interview room (PRAY for me hard on this lol). My ankles are suffering just a little, surprisingly, despite the cold weather. Hah I am getting immune!!!!!!

I guess nothing much to add, save for I am enjoying my classes and my Chinese is coming along well. It was a good decision to do an individual project after all!

Till the next time I have time to blog,

Xtine

Happy moments in my long last day of Jan 08

2008-02-01T12:51:00.000+08:00

I think this is a crowning glory of January 2008.

happened to me this afternoon after Calendars and Almanacs in East Asia class.

Background: My professor for Calendars and Almanacs in East Asia is a guai lo who speaks Mandarin, Japanese, and some Taiwanese and goes regularly to China, HK and Taiwan on his sabbaticals (he has been climbing Mount Tai several times for his research so far).

Today after class I went to talk to him about how we say dates of the lunar calendar in Cantonese and relate it to what we had just learnt about the dating system in the Chinese calendar, and after we talked about it he said something along the lines of:

Wow, I never thought of that. So you speak Cantonese? I mean obviously you do, would you like to earn some extra money? If you could come to my office about 2 hours each week and practice speaking Cantonese with me and relate it to Mandarin that would be great!

Me: Er, my cantonese is very bad.

My professor: Oh don't worry mine is practically zero. And you speak Mandarin right? What I'd like to do is learn Cantonese and associate it to Mandarin....

Me: Er, okay!!

So, what do you think? hehehehehhehe I was very amused (and happy) to think that my professor wants to let me earn money by speaking cantonese to him (and as you all know my cantonese is atrocious)

~happy xtine

i am dying....

2008-01-17T11:56:00.000+08:00

OMG....my maths is KILLING ME!! I can't even find a certain button on my calculator!!!!!!!!!!

financial calculator some more, not very used to it.

Seriously all the A's and a's and a(t)'s and etc are KILLING me. not to mention the i's.

OMG WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO????

(maths aside it seems very useful IF you can apply the freaking math!!!)

*dies*

fire....toasty toes....

2008-01-11T10:58:00.000+08:00

Yes I think too many posts in too short a time but...

I am sitting in front of a delicious fire... just toasting my toes!

Life is very good and warm atm...

little bit of humour from Beloit fall 07

2008-01-10T06:59:00.000+08:00

One day this sign appeared all over campus

GO VEGETARIAN!!!!! (VEGETARIAN ALREADY? TRY VEGAN!!!)

(pic of dog and calf)

"We all love animals. Why do we call some pets and others dinner?" ~k.d. lang

For your health:
- Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat eaters.
- Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and the have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat eaters. Plus, meat eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are.

For the environment:
- Nearly half of the water and 80 percent of the agricultural land in the United States are used to raise animals for food.
Animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire US population, roughly 89,000 pounds per second, all without the benefit of waste treatment systems.

For the animals and people too:
- In nature, pigs live for 15 years, but pigs on factory farms are sent to slaughter after just six months of life.
- In the U.S., more than 41 million cows suffer and die for the meat and dairy industries every year
- Chickens are arguably the most abused animal on the planet. Each year in the United States, 9 billion chickens are killed for their flesh and 245 million hens are raised for their eggs
- The meat industry preys upon a workforce made up of impoverished immigrants who can never complain about poor working conditions or cruelty to animals for fear of being reported
- According to a recent report by Compassion in World Farming (SIC) "crops that could be used to feed the hungry are instead being used to fatten animals raised for food/" It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible animal flesh

A few days later, this sign came up:

CANNIBALISM
Vegetarians and Vegans getting you down? Confused about your options? Here are some things you need to know:

FACT: By eating people we are keeping th world population low.

FACT: People, unlike cows, are not cute.
FACT: We are eliminating the need for agriculture, an industry known to be run by Satan.

FACT: Animals will live longer lives and possibly get the vote.

FACT: We only eat free range vegans.

FACT: We are lowering the waste of humans by eating them.

FACT: More jobs and homes will open up.

FACT: According to Cannibalism Weekly fourteen out of ten people are cannibals today. We hold prominent positions in the spheres of business, education and the government.

FACT: Cannibalism helps you maintain a healthy diet of protein.

FACT: Cannibals make no waste. We use the entire human body. Livers make great soccer balls.

FACT: We live on this campus tpp and deserve your respect and limbs. Delish.

BTYB: Your friendly Campus Cannibals

Hope you enjoyed that. Kchan

2008-01-10T06:35:00.000+08:00

cont'd

30 December

Last day of skiing! Was super windy at SkiCooper, so Na, Anya and I braved the slopes very few times. Folks were coming from Copper to pick us up but came super late because of the wind blowing all the powdery snow, made it very hazardous driving. Na Anya and I were all pressed against the window waiting. And when we were sitting down and waiting, this little boy came up to us and knocked us on the head one by one! We were like, too stunned to react. hahaha just willingly let ourselves get bopped on the head. Then his brother came and carried him away. I think he was embarassed. We hungry girls got first dibs at our leftover pizza in the car, we returned the ski gear, got our stuff and headed to drop Max off at Frisco. Turns out the highway after Frisco was closed due the sucky weather so we all ended up crashing at Max's rented room there. Talk about fortunate!

31 December

Took the long route back to Denver the next day, meaning we crossed over the mountains again. Lots of pretty scenery.

After that we stoppsed for lunch at this place called the Blue Cow I think. Had a nice meal, onion rings were amazing. Then on for Denver! Passed by an interesting natural stadium on the way, they said it was used by the Indian chiefs for meetings. Cool! Got to Denver, got to the airport and went seperate ways for our flights. I managed to get on an earlier flight to Chicago but the stupid flight got delayed anyways due to bad weather in Chicago. I was nervous all the way that I would miss my connecting flight. Turns out thanks again to bad weather, my connecting flight was delayed!! WALAO.

Delay delay FINALLY got on the plane and inthe plane we declared New Years on Eastern time (Was 11pm there) then taxied out to the runway then...... APPARENTLY THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE LEFT SOMETHING OF THE PLANE SO WE TURNED BACK. OMG! So in the end we all got connecting flights the next day and complimentary hotel for the night as well as meal vouchers. Several chinese people were caught in the same predicament as me and much to my amazement I was able to function as a semi translator for a nice Chinese couple from Shanghai. Scenario: Waiting for shuttle to hotel

Chinese lady: calls me, says are we going to the same hotel? I say let me see your ticket and say yes and say I will call the hotel cz the bus was taking forever. So called then suddenly they waved to me *WAVEEE* and I saw a bus so quickly dropped the call and ran out to discover....it was the wrong bus. Then the husband laughed at his wife and I went to call again. After that we chatted, things like "Wah your chinese so good! Where are you from? Oh MALAYSIA waahh Malaysians so good la, can speak Mandarin, English also can (mind you I am roughly translating it was all in Mandarin) and also wahh you well prepared for this weather ahh (I had my winter coat) and I was like oh i am used to this weather I go to school nearby then must explain all that then FINALLY the bus came. Another young chinese chap thought he was on the same bus as us but apparently not and I had to exclaim "Wrong bus!!" cause he didnt seem to understand the driver? Aiyoh so difficult, finally get to the hotel, jump off and went to check in, then in the process of checking in have to explain credit cards to them and then they dont have credit card so have to ask the personnel there then have to explain to them about the $20 deposit that they would get back (woman: wah thank goodness we have you here! She's very young like early 20s I think) Then I cabut and went to sleep. Called home of course and called nana to say I was in hotel.

1 Jan 2008
Woke up, showered, packed up and went to catch a bus to the airport. Nice bus driver, wished me Happy New Year and was nice to me the whole trip. Well his tone of speaking to me was very nice, made me feel comforted a BIT. (Cause I was missing all of you guys of course!) Then in the airport who should I meet? The same couple again!! HAHAHA talk about fate! Turns out I think their light got cancelled, poor things. Ate a delicious free breakfast of yougurt with berries and granola (It really is amazing) ad bought a magazine where i found the CUTEST BABY PICTURE EVER. Well one of the cutest la. On the flight I was between 2 nice pretty young women, one from SOUTH BELOIT where she teaches and the other from South Carolina who taught strings. Cool! Nice coincidence. FINALLY reached Charlotte, as picked up and happily shipped back to Mooresville.

So ends my adventure in the Colorado rockies and another interesting way to spend the new year. Going back to college this Saturday.

2008-01-02T09:02:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year 2008!!

Yes yes I know I have not blogged for about 2 weeks... sorry!

What happened in 2 weeks? Took my exams, did not nearly die as expected, then packed my bags and flew to North Carolina on the 19th of December.

Had Xmas dinner with the Rosentreters on the 20th and received lots of goodies! Thank you for the presents! Since Max hadn't eaten a turkey dinner for a very long time, we had turkey, gravy (made by Eric), cranberry jelly, sweet potatoes, stuffed apples, stir fried spinach and chocolate mousse cake with ice cream for dessert. IT WAS AMAZING.

Didn't do much for the next few days.

on the 25th morning, we set out for Colorado, Denver! Reached the airport at about 8pm, then went to get a car. boy was it cold! We arrived in the town of Leadville (elevation 10,200 ft) at around midnight and WE WERE TIRED and hungry. So the nice guy at the counter supplied us with some leftover Christmas sweets. yum.

26 December

Got up went to breakfast and then over to the ski rental shop! OMG our skis were HEAVY! the boots are huge and heavy too. so we got those and ski poles and headed to Cooper Mountain. Nana and I had a lesson with an old guy named Jim, and he was very nice! Learnt some stuff for 2 hours, then a cup of VERY VERY sweet hot chocolate! It was a nice sunny day and no one was feeling cold at all. We had dinner at an American place just opposite our hotel (the Delaware hotel).

27 December
Another day! Much colder and no sun. Tried going down an actual slope, the Molly Mayfield and took us 2 hours to get down. Fell down spectacularly many times. Hit my head once, even. And the snow was COLD!!! (of course) but thank you to all the kind people who asked me if I was ok every time I fell down! We had dinner at a Mexican place called The Grill. It was a "block and a half" from the hotel (sure felt like a lot more) and it was COLD!!!

28 December
Apparently I twisted my ankle during one of my falls because it was sore and would not support my weight. So I didn't ski, and we went to Copper Mountain, another ski place that is HUGE. I just sat in a building and tried to stay warm. Went back to the American place, they brew their own root beer there and it is amazing!

29 December
Got diarrhea last night that continued to the morning. So I stayed in the hotel and ate medicine and slept.My stomach was empty and growling by the time everyone got back. We ordered pizza and I ate ONE slice and it was good!! But didn't dare to eat anymore, but luckily, nothing else came out.

30 December
Last day of skiing! will continue next time!

kchan

2007-12-14T04:19:00.000+08:00

'twas the last day of classes yesterday!

And on my last day of tutoring my tutee did not show up!

and I am now working in the library and it seemed like in the first hour (1pm to 2pm) was THE hour to return all books to be dumped on Xtine to be shelved on carts.

Other than that I have a 3 hour exam with a lot of writing tomorrow night from 7pm to 10pm.

hahahaha.

I am going to dieeee~

kchan

ps: send me lots of love and good food please!!

ARGH I DROPPED MY CHICKEN AGAINN

2007-12-05T02:21:00.000+08:00

yes as I sit once again in the java joint scarfing down half a chicken ceaser wrap which at this point I am picking out the cheese shreds because the wrap as a whole is over salted even though it is pretty good and I am not reasonably full.

Joy. It's all white outside, having a snow storm on saturday and it is supposed to snow today so hopefully all the muddy whiteness will be covered with a nice blanket of clean fresh snow!1

Otherwise finals week is coming soon and I have a presentation on CHINA due this Friday where I have nothing to talk about because there are too many things to talk about!

It is also bloody cold bloody cold bloody cold but I am happy to say that thanks to antibiotics I am perfectly happy now, so HEARTS to antibiotics.

On sunDAY i SUCCESSFULLY made porridge, so good so good and stri fried CELERY so good so good!!

(omg some girl is going to france, so envious)

well also spent the week chasing professors for signatures to add 2 classes cause I only got signed up for 3 that I wanted. rawr.

but I have my signatures so I need to go drop off my add drop card now and

NAP.

Last day of tutoring today!!

kchan

sorry for not blogging...

2007-11-30T11:49:00.000+08:00

BUT I HAVE BEEN SICK. SO IT IS A GOOD EXCUSE OK.

in fact I am still kind of sick. But after getting antibiotics the size of my smallest toe, I think I am finally getting better. For example, I can breathe again!

okay, I shall blog briefly here and hopefully add details when I am less tired.
Basically I got a high fever 2 weeks ago and have been sick ever since. 2 weeks ago being nov 7 btw... sick for 2 weeks!! so kelian!!

Last weekend was Thanksgiving! For the occasion Siang Ee flew all the way from Philadelphia to visit Adrian and me! They arrived at midnight on Thursday (Thanksgiving day) (thanks to Ed and Ari for picking them up!) and ON THAT NIGHT IT WAS SNOWING!!!! I cooked them Thanksgiving dinner, with some help on dishes. Basically I made chicken and mushroom in ginger and soup, Ed made shrimp and pork in lobster sauce and beef steak with dipping sauce. IT WAS AWESOME (if you don't believe ask Adrian and Siang Ee) and Ariella, who contributed gas, was there to eat. hahahahahahaha

Ok so the next morning (Thanksgiving morning) we went to Madison. Missed a bus so ended up waiting 2.5 hours for bus and falling asleep in MacDonalds. Reach Madison and Voila! THE STREETS ARE EMPTY.Suffice to say, we walked up to the state building, took pics, had lunch at a nice Mexican place (The only other open place was a chinese place, thank you for being open!!) and left Madison at 2pm. So in conclusion we spent more time waiting for bus and travelling than in Madison itself. THEN SO WE GOT BACK AND COOKED BAK KUT TEHHH. OMGGG SOOOOO GOOOOOOOODDDD. enough said. I also cut Adrian's hair. It was a very traumatic experience. We laughed a LOT, but only Adrian knows why. In the end, it was a good haircut (According to Adrian)

Friday we took a quick walk around campus, then went to eat lunch at the chinese place here, then went to chicago!!!

now I am tired so sambung more next time!

love, kchan

Weather report and not good soup

2007-11-07T02:24:00.000+08:00

Again, in the Java Joint drinking not good Moroccan soup that has no taste and sipping apple cider

and checking the weather of course!!

So today the highest temperature is 6C and the lowest is -5C

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

American: It's chilly today!

Xtine: ITS COLD!!

also there is this lovely wind blowing at 46km/h

So its REALLY cold!

~blue kchan

Post #444

2007-11-04T03:58:00.000+08:00

Yay!! So far 444 posts ald!!!

Muahahaha hey hey guess what??

THERE WAS FROST THIS MORNING!!

but I didn't see it, hahaha. Someone sms me in the morning (when I was snoooozing) to tell me. But since I woke up late I didn't get to see it =( Nvm try tomorrow morning!

Ok I am going to blog obsessively about the cold for a few lines/paras. MY SUPERVISOR TOLD ME ON THURSDAY: I hear we can expect some SNOW flurries next week!

kchan's brain: Snow? SNOW? snow = winter. Now is not winter. WHY WILL THERE BE SNOW ZOMG!!!!!!!! WTF!!!!! ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SNOW = WINTER = DECEMBER NOT NOVEMBER~! pengsaaaaaaaaan!!!!!(fainted)

kchan's mouth: Oh really?? hahaha, that's nice!! (NOT~)

Oooo Qwen!! 8 degrees is quite bad for me also. Its sooo cold here at night!! Like below 5 degrees. then pakai 2 layers of pants and skirt over that also still cold. Hands become like ice. Nose is cold. Ears are cold. Face is cold!!!

cooooooooooooooooold

My sis has been smsing me like every morning at 615 am to complain that she is cold.

ok cold aside now! (my hands are cold)

It's so strange to me. Some of the trees are bare already, no more leaves! Some are orange and yellow and brown. And some others are green. @_o And it's not like they are those evergreen trees either. Plus the grass is still alive. LOL. I thought it would die by now but who am I to know?

Other than that I was sitting in a friend's room talking yesterday and happened to look up to the ceiling and scream OMG!!!! there are BUGS CRAWLING ON THE CEILING!!!!! turns out they were only lady bugs. is it hibernation time ladies??

oh oh and for my music I am learning Chopin's Waltz in B minor!! It is VERY VERY nice!! Also am learning Deux Arabesque I which is killing me but will sound SOOO NICE when I actually put 2 hands together and play it NICELY. Then I am learning this song that is supposed to be played very very very fast called Solfeggietto. Ooo I like it!!!

Ehh, other than that, nothing much I thinks..........
food is terrible as usual.....
what to do..... =(

oH YES, i was trying to climb up to my elevated bed, where my mattress is chest high (I store things like my luggage underneath). So I dragged the chair next to the bed, then I climbed on the chair. Not high enough, so I climb on the arm rest and SCREAAAM lose my balance SCREAMMMMM fall on to the arm rest BOOMPH then fall on my laundry basket then fall on the floor. Then sit there and OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW so paaaain!! Now I have a beautiful big bruise just at the back of my thigh. Until cannot sit down on it for half a day. When I looked at it in the mirror..........warhgh.

Lastly, Happy Birthday on Monday to Darell!! ^^

love, kchan

2007-10-31T02:12:00.000+08:00

Right now I'm sitting staring at the computer screen, chomping at a peanut butter and banana sandwich that is laced with the disgusting taste of oily ham because it was toasted in the toaster that works like a presser that is more frequently used to toast ham and cheese sandwiches.

Also if you got through that sentence I am sitting with a cup of soup that is think and unlike the soups I am used too.

I miss home cooked lunches ><

Even AJ lunches ><
At least I could eat NOODLES and HEALTHIER stuff.

T_T

*sips soup bites sandwich, recoil at oily greasy ham smell*

no I don't think I can finish that sandwich...

tai er xing le!!!!!!
RAWR

ps: am in the Java Joint, the school "coffee place"
not like coffee shop! (where better food is available at a better price)

finish soup, time to go

kchan

2007-10-28T08:52:00.001+08:00

ARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

WEATHER FORECAST PREDICTS A LOW OF -2C TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-10-28T01:27:00.000+08:00

argh I think I just sneezed 10 times in a row.

okay. Yesterday I watched ROCKY HORROR.

(apparently as explained to me, its a huge transvestite film. That wasn't what scared me though. It was what people WORE to the film and SAID during the film and ACTED OUT on stage during the film that traumatized me)

I was very Horrified.

'nuff said.

other than that....

Yay it's the weekend! The nights are REALLY COLD nowadays. SO on Thursday I needed to do a bit of shopping at Walmart. So went with Yaxuan, Melissa, Suzy and Ed to wait for the bus. Waited and froze our butts off AND THE BUS DID NOT COME!!!!!! KYAAAAAAAAAAA. So happily Ed got Dave to drive us there!! Dave is really nice!! hahahaa and his car a/c produces HEAT!!

hm. I R hungry. blog more later!

2007-10-24T05:13:00.000+08:00

fall break is over....
school has started...
AND ITS BLARDY COLD!!!!!

my hands are cold
my toes are cold
IF I HAD A TAIL IT WOULD BE COLD TOO

oh and I changed my phone no here.
thanks to my sister

ugh runny nose
very tired today
dunno why
maybe not used to sudden instant lack of sleep
so I slept for the WHOLE afternoon....
and in 12 mins time I have to go tutor....
eat vitamin C...

I rearranged my room!
and set up my heating matress cover
and down comforter!
so now when my feet are cold I snuggle into bedbedbed
but it makes me fall asleep
so cannot do that...
at least now my table is far away from the window
my room mate thinks I am crazy to sleep under the down
she said the night I was cold she was HOT

>.> aiya.
okla i better go!
I think this post is very eebong-like!
eebong!! *scream*
I miss you!!

^^ love, kchan

2007-10-17T10:48:00.000+08:00

Busy busy busy...

Yes I have been super busy......
sleeping....eating bad food...eating food I cooked (that was obviously good).....sleeping more...TIDYING MY ROOM.... since fall break started that is

So from my birthday:

Thank you everyone who wished me, in person, on my blog, on facebook, on phone, early late, Thank you!! I had a good birthday! Got some cute card from Sarah and Melissa, who wrote in her chinese hand writing so me goes Squint Squint...can't read chinese cursive yet...not that pro...*sigh~ Then got lots of cards!! hehe and AN UBERLY ADORABLE HEATABLE MUG ON YOUR COMPUTER FROM XIN-YI!! *Hearts hearts!!!* Everyone who sees it goes: Cool! but I like to think its cute (cause it really is!!)

Then of course there were the sweet girls in my dorm who came and gave me a DOGGY CAKE!!! ZOMG it was just too cute to eat!! And Heather stopped by with homemade chocolate chip cookies *more hearts...soooo good!!!* (right now just picture hearts bouncing around my brains)

Not to mention that it was announced by Sarah in my Chinese class that it was my birthday so You laoshi used me as an example for conversation >.> sigh~ Then the other Professor in the room, Paul Stanley, who is learning Chinese, writes on this white paper "her birthday" (in chinese) and holds it over my head......

Hahaha...but so much for my birthday. Once again, thank you everyone!!! Also to Qiao Wen who called me the night before just to wish me!!! hahaha!!! And also to mi for calling!! hehe and to babe for not wishing me and acting blur on the phone!!!

After that it was just back to...............busyness. Yeah, let's see how much I can recollect from those days.... (proof that I ish getting old)

Had work in the library as usual, and learnt some ZOMG facts on Friday when I was working. Also spent some time studying for Chinese and preparing for Comparative politics exams that was last Friday.

Ugh those exams just DRAIIINED AND SUCCCKED AWAYYYYYY ALLLLLL my energy!!! But Yay!! It is Fall Break now!! Campus is sooo quiet! My room mate has gone to Arizona and lots of people have gone home. So I've been hanging out with the people who are left here, and AHA TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY ZOMG COOKING SKILLS!!

So on Saturday Cait, Kelly and I went to watch the men's soccer team (on that note I watched women's volleyball on Friday and it was AWESOME...oo and football experience after this) and we sat there and cheered and "baw-ed" because Cait was having "baw" moments (the soccer team has some really hot guys apparently, which I don't understand how she made out when she claimed her contacts weren't on) and the game ended in a draw. bawwww~ So we went back, and Xtine cooked *DRUMROLL* ABC SOUP!!! using a soup bones, carrots, tomatos, and LOTS of onions!! Ed stopped by and used up his pork then dumped it the soup and *hearts* it was soooooooooooo good!! So it was me, Kelly, Cait, Anika, and Ed guzzling away and sipping Cait's hot chocolate. yum. hahahahah I am so proud of myself!!! I want to cook it again it was humongously satisfying and sooo good (and no one got food poisoning) muahahha

So, American football experience. 2 weekends ago was homecoming, so Ed had explained to me that homecoming is usually against a team you can trash or something....so on the day of the football game Dave drove us down to the stadium 6 blocks away and we....watched the game, with Dave and Ed explaining to Xtine about football. er.....hometeam eventually lost 9 to 56 or something so I was utterly ........disappointed, and the LAST touchdown was scored by us (so it was going 6 to 50 something all the while) and AND AND THEY MISSED THE "FREE ONE POINT" that someone told me is almost a FREE GIVE AWAY
I later talked to some of the Chinese girls and we agreed that it was NOT a good football experience. On the other hand, the women's volleyball team is EXCELLENT!! Watched them last friday and it was superb. Huang (a girl) and I were giving each other massages and commenting on good players and adorable kids.

ooo I also watched Pride and Prejudice again, courtesy of Cait *hearts! Mr Darcy!!!* and plan to go watch something else or something now. I've done my accounts, my room is almost done, and I should do laundry sometime soon before eveyone comes back. Ooo....and will of course, be doing some letter writing!! Sent home pictures and they were received so I am happy!

kchan is happy with slacking but has to start working hard soon!!

2007-10-03T10:50:00.000+08:00

So I WAS planning on a nice reflective post on my last hours of being 18....(yes and correctly as on US time, to a certain degree at least) but WORK and HOMEWORK came to play and even IF I just have 2 more hours until 18 years of age is a thing of the past for me, homework and work take precedence.

But it has been really nice, I went to tutor today and when I was leaving the people in the CCOC were like: Early Happy Birthday!! Xtine: zomg touched!!!

And of course all the people who have wished me already ^^

err I have to go....so reflections will continue later!!!

2007-10-03T10:06:00.000+08:00

Wow...

I'm working in the library now and was trying to unseal the open bottle of glue by poking it with a paper clip (it has a very narrow opening)....

then someone came to ask for headphones....

and when I was getting them for him he unsealed it for me!!! wahh so nice!!

2007-09-29T10:35:00.001+08:00

Wah....I just finished typing a letter to my dad and was closing a preview window when ALL OF A SUDDEN THIS HUGE FROG EYE STAAARES AT ME....

confound moving advertisements!

I also just spelled advertisements wrongly....thanks you spell check!

Hm what has been going on here recently?

OH YES!! Yesterday night I found out Mak has a new gf (congratulations!) I also bullied him into helping me send Kok a Bdae message...hahahaha...I'm so evil, but thank you Mak!

Other than that, I am considering study abroad in Hong Kong, especially if I become and econs major. other than that my mom tells me not to study abroad, it will take a lot of money and effort to settle in another country again, what do you think? After all, point taken that I technically already am abroad! Or maybe should do a semester in Washington?? Still undecided...

It's kinda nice to have so many opportunities...

Hm I'm working in the library now. Very quiet Friday night as usual. Oh and today is Parents' Weekend! So we have scores of parents on campus. And yesterday at dinner time was APPLE DAY!! Melissa (a girl from China) and I had such fun...eating! hahaha then we sat outside her dorm (840) and basically, to quote her, stuck our stomachs in the air, talked and got fat. I really like that phrase, "We just put our stomachs up" and leaned back in the nice swing.

Autumn is getting a tad cold now, I guess out hot spell is over...

OH AND THANK YOU JOAN I RECEIVED YOUR LETTER TODAY, IT MADE ME REALLY HAPPY!!

I am also shocked that Maurice got married? I mean, really? REALLY?? And don't worry Joan, you me and May can be happy single and available?? LOL. that sounds a little wrong.

Okay, it's time for my CG session, oh no the library closes in 15 minutes!! maybe I can get in a few strokes. Hope you enjoyed this post, just a brief update of nothing much ^^

Oh and my Chinese prof is in NY, so we had our TA come in today. I was letting him listen to my iPod yesterday and nearly died laughing when he started singing the girl part of BuDeBuAi (he is an angmor btw) ...

And Sujaya (A Nepalese girl) just walked by!!! She is a super awesome adorable sweet girl and she somehow walked out without a jacket!! ITS SUPER COLD OUTSIDE, poor girl!! I just lent her my big scarf, it's not good to be cold. Note to self: get it back tomorrow

Okay time to close up!!! No CG i guess??

love, ~kchan

2007-09-27T09:15:00.000+08:00

So I am supposed to be doing homework...

But since my D says that I always ask Nana to blog but I myself don't blog (shows how often you look at my blog D!) I shall hence make it a point to blog TODAY.

Ok~~~ I have a lot of nice news...

Firstly, tomorrow my Comparative Politics professor says he will cancel class if we all go to the international education fair! yay!! hahaha!!

Secondly, (I have been talking to my mom for an hour now...so have not been blogging)

Okay! So now I am talking to Hanren..but I shall try to blog...

Hahaha. I got 95% on my Organic chem exam. YAY!!!!!

and today in lab we did Thin layer chromatography for photosynthetic pigments in leaves....uber cool....

other than that.... uhhh...i can't think while I talk....

oh yes, its getting cold again...

and fall is here!! I was walking to class one day and the wind blew...and I glanced up and OMG the leaves of the tree were yellow, and they were falling...so gorgeous....and the pavements are lined with yellow!! wow!!!

I picked some red maple leaves the other day...they are really pretty!

other than that...music lessons are going great for me,although my teacher has a really different teaching style from my teacher back home...

Oh! Yesterday was mid-autumn festival! And we chinese people on campus ATE MOONCAKES!! totally awesome!! Thanks to Enya (who is a guy) who went to get the several boxes of mooncakes!! There were some very interesting flavours, like abalone, shark's fin, fish......so we were all like: ooooooooo then after eating mooncakes some of us did some piano indulging....so fun!! chinese girls can really play the piano, that's what I will say...

hmm, i don't have much else to say... that's sad, i guess all the interesting things happen to Elena...

the highlight of my lab today was my teacher praising my decanting skills...she was like: nice technique....Xtine's ego then swelled....like a hot air balloon! whee!

oh yes and I started tutoring a high school kid in math. And I can't reveal any details. ^^ but its pretty interesting an experience.

other than that~~~ I HAVE ONLY A FEW DAYS OF EIGHTEEN-HOOD LEFT!!!!!!!

and I just realised that!!

To Joan and Kok, Happy Birthdays!!!!

to Ooi Xin-yi....WHAT DO YOU WANT?? It will definitely not get to you on time!! but I want to send you something!! I need you address!!

And.....er...............well I'll announce other stuff as time comes along....

sorry for all the randomness, my brain doesn't function after 3 hours of class, 3 hours of lab and 1 hour of music and 2 hours of chatting to people...

~kchan

2007-09-23T00:00:00.000+08:00

Gosh...I have this sudden DESIRE to play hard core RO and whack cute little Porings to DEATH!!

someone please write RO for mac....

or someone please lend me your PC...
for a long time....
until i get rid of this *ZOMG I WANT TO ROOOOO* urge....

~RO-deprived-kchan~

so the plus point of my mac is I am not addicted to online gaming.... T_T

2007-09-22T04:22:00.000+08:00

Tiredddd.....Hotttt......

I love warm weather!! hahahaha. it's been warm all week!! ^^ which totally makes me happy

(i just made pew pew pew sounds and someone just laughed at me saying I looked like I was playing shooting games....)

ooo its been a super tiring week for me!! and I don't know why >< lots of homework of course, lots of running up ad down, working... busy busy busy....

so mainly I've been tired. also got a hillarious letter from my sister, Nana (check out her link and read about the two tailed piggy wiggies) and nearly died laughing reading it. then......

HM i got my GORGEOUS boots!!! wahaha at 20 dollars cheaper than they are up for sale now so that makes me SUPER happy!

Oooh and last weekend I went with some Chinese girls and guys to a shopping mall...and the guys who were "escorting" us had terrible direction...LOLX. so basically we got lost... ok i will type this out cz it amuses me so I'll nap first THEN type it out

ooh and I got perfect score on my first chem lab!! MRS CHAI I LURVE YOU!!! well and Ajc chem dept as well i guess. lol. anyone want to scan nmr spectrums for me to practice on? a level stuff will do. So i can feed it to my friends here who are dying with spectra as we used to die over.

love, kchan

2007-09-16T14:00:00.000+08:00

GOD ITS SO COLD OUTSIDE!!

I just walked out to find the piano and NEARLY FROZE TO DEATH IN THE PROCESS. IT WAS SO COLD!!!

xtine is cold xtine is cold xtine is cold xtine is cold!!! ><

i want a heat supply!!! ><

2007-09-11T06:59:00.000+08:00

Ahhhhh the sweet sounds of ryuichi sakamoto *heartS*

It's COLD today!! And the weather forecast is so exciting!! Here is what Yahoo says about the weather in Beloit for the week:

temp now : 12 C
temp tmrw: 21 C
Weds : 17 C (and sunny)
Thursday : 22 C (cloudy >.>)
Friday : high of 16

YAY!!!

Oooh today in Organic Chem we started learning about Infrared Spectroscopy

Totally exciting after a 2 weeks of learning not really mentally challenging stuff...

Ooooh and I finally met THE SINGAPOREAN on campus. I'm not sure but I am willing to bet hs is a dual citizen now. His family is from the Bedok area apparently. Here's how he was "discovered"

He was sitting in our Chinese class (cause he took it last year and had nothing better to do so just do some revision?) and after class he asked me: Where are you from???

Xtine: Malaysia

Singaporean: AH I SEE. Case I thought your accent sounded VERY Singaporean!!

Xtine: ZOMG!!!

Then it turns out...HE SPEAKS MALAY TOO!!!! He explained that it was because his mom is Indonesian but Xtine was totally gapes already anyway. OMG. and my hearing for Malay has deteriorated! Plus he had a more Indonesian accent too.

Okay so that was my discovery. What else? Oh yes I am working in the college library. It's a tiny bit tiring but then I think its a good job. Especially on weekend nights 'cause there is almost no one there! Week nights are busy though.

Okay I need to go do homework which consists of A LOT OF READING. which brings to mind that Intro to Comparative Politics is REALLY interesting. REALLY REALLY interesting. haha

And Jap is in USA!! Jap being Adrian Lim! lolx.

Take care all! hope you're not freezing like moi.

~kchan

2007-09-09T13:06:00.000+08:00

Ok Drew-Sama!! Here are the pictures I have drawn recently!!! As promised!!

2007-09-07T07:07:00.000+08:00

my sis is so irritating, keeps asking me to blog. Think I so free ah??

lol. I'm waiting for my room mate to go and eat dinner now. I am SUPER hungry but she is doing her hw......
So what's up with me? Nothing much. Classes as usual, my politics class is getting highly interesting!! Construction outside is noisy noisy noisy as usual and it's been SUPER HOT lately.

Wow. Ari just THREW her chem textbooks on the floor, BOOM BOOM!! And she neezed 2x. Bless you!

*xtine: are you ready to go eat, i'm hungry (in pathetic voice)*

okay i am going to get her to go and eat. BEFORE DINNER CLOSES!!!

byeee

hah nana i BLOGGED ALREADY OK??

2007-09-04T05:29:00.000+08:00

i wasn't planning to blog, but I just checked my reading and jot down 5 issues for my FYI class....and the reading is page 7-70 of The Double Helix...that's 63 pages.......ZOMG!!!!! *PENGSAN*

~kchan sudahpun pengsan (kchan has already fainted)

2007-09-02T05:33:00.000+08:00

okay I am super super super hot. HOT!!!! just walked back from cubs, the nearest grocery store OH NO I FORGOT SALT AND PEPPER!!!!! cause people i HAVE A FRIDGE!!!! YAYYY!! Ari and I are sharing for it and so we paid 30 bucks each and will determine who shall keep it end of the year. hahaha. Yaaaaaayyyy!!!

So I have fish which I am steaming TODAY or TOMORROW depending on how hot I am and how tired I am.

Whats been going on? School has been going on. I sent out a mass email to whoever is on my mailing list so if you want to be on it, email me! Or tag me!! make sure you give me your email!! Cz I am so not repeating myself.

Watched a football/soccer game today, was soooo hot. yeah school spirit, must support the school team. lolx. was nice to watch it again, but the stadium is soooo far awaaaaaaay.......

it was a nice walk though!! nice houses, nice trees, so my picture of America! but now i still am hot.

My first week of school was eventful. I am taking Organic chem, Intro to Comparative politics, Chinese and my FYI (Orientation class that helps you with critical thinking and gives you credit.....and lets your academic advisor get to know you)

and I started working in the library. it was fun, the people there are nice!! I like my supervisor, and I like getting to see almost everyone in college. I also like how I just arrived for training and with nothing in my brain people already ask me if i can check out books/add money to their copy cards/get stuff on reserve for them. HAHAHAHA. Sorry people i am CLUELESS!!! but i learnt in like 2 mins stretches (one after the other) and so now i'm OKAY i can survive the front desk....kind of

OKAY. i'm off to deliver something and firn an air conditioned room. later!!!

2007-08-24T08:53:00.000+08:00

aha! finally can post again. okay. i can post now~~ but i am TIRED. AND NO MOOD TO POST. and people next door are saying that stuff i drew on their white board is adorable. and I can hear it. lol. okay. gonna call home and chat to darell.

later ~xtine

2007-08-20T07:50:00.000+08:00

okay okay me is blogging. very fast cz i am very busy
and very tire. Arrived safely in Beloit after a great
kid-filled week in Muskego, a Milwaukee suburb on
saturday. moved in, bla bla bla, ran around, got my
stuff up, Ed and Dave were the nice people who helped
my transport all my heavy stuff....haha guys are so
fun to have around...they carry heavy stuff for you...

met my room mate, ariella and her dad, and she is
super nice!! imagine, she is giving ICE SKATING
lessons as her part time job. zomg. also she likes
monkeys. OH and while i am at it

MY BOX NUMBER IS NOW 1074

so my address is

Christine Kon
Beloit College Box 1074
700 College Street
Beloit, WI 53511
USA

mail me!! Saturday i saw Sean and was just so happy to
see a familiar face i was like SEAAAAN!!!! then saw
Mike and Dan and Jenn, totally felt like China camp
reunion. hehe.

ok i am TIRED. my FYI (First year initiative group) is
about DNA and that group is to kinda orientate us to
Beloit and will be a course we take to help us develop
various skills. My advisor is Kathleen Mendell and she
is nice!! our OL (orientation leader) is Dan Murphy
who is aslo really nice (and has studied in Denmark,
zomg)

haha so there are ASIAN people on campus!! that makes
me happy!! and my room mate has a car. double bonus. I
want a car though. My room is really messy, so no
pictures of it at the moment.

will post more soon. after i choose my classes. I'm
excited, cause i can do stuff that i WANT to do!!!!
AND i talked to the math prof and he says I don't have
to take calculus 1 or 2~~~ A LEVELS, MR TAN AND MISS
ONG, CHEERS FOR YOU!!!

hehe ok me go bed. late now.

~kchan

2007-07-30T05:02:00.000+08:00

whoo hoo....new template!! YES AND I AM STIL IN THE BLACK BLOG GANG!!!! hahah XD

changed to this template cause I've had a change of heart, well it changed looong ago but I've never had time to change my template till now. As you all know, I like really readable blogs and I like black backgrounds (for no apparent reasons) so TADAAA it took me long enough but here's an ALMOST perfect page. A perfect one would be one that I designed myself but kchan still has no timeeeee!!!

What has been up lately? Went to Chicago last weekend, and it was fun I BOUGHT CHAR SIEW PAU BACK!! So you can guess I have been having decent breakfasts the past whole week!! besides that i bought MEE SUA!!! woots 99cents a box so so so happy!! then also MILO!!!! hahahha i was SO happy. Chicago Chinatown makes me happy. XD

On Friday I GOT MY CAMERA!!! just that I have no memory card so I have very few pictures, will put them up sometime soon so you can take a look!! Er the guys were extra "geng" this Friday, and decided to have a more interesting styled drinking night (they drink every weekend, did I mention, and I go and watch cause the company is enjoyable...) So they went out and bought relatively expensive alcohol and then came back and transformed the normal drinking area in to THE RED DRAGON "bar" it was hillarious, they put up red crepe paper on the lights and all of us who attended had to dress up.... then the guys went to The Salvation army to get get ups and GOSH. They all end up with THE SLEEZY LOOK. It was hillarious, I especially LOVED Sean's and Keagan's outfits. Sean was in a pink striped shirt and CHECKERED pants which he claims are uber comfy plans to wear on a regular basis. He also found this VIRGO medallion for 75 cents and for the whole night insisted we refer to him as "Virgo". hahahaha. As for Keagan, he had this BRILLIANT cap (the only thing of his outfit he plans to keep) that totaly set off his bright yellow shirt under a coat and pants which he plans to never wear again. hahaha. It was pretty fun, and the professors came up to hang out with us for a while!

Yesterday I played mahjong!!!wahahaha. Played with the 2nd year professor, the 1st year professor's husband (who is Malaysian!! and from Penang!!!) and Ed! Was erally fun, we played REALLY REALLY fast, and Xtine won 3 times in a row as dealer!!! hahahaha so evil. XD

errr other than that nothing much to mention, I'm trying to think of things I want from Malaysia so that Mom can send them to me, plan to send her the list tonight.

ok people will post more when I have more to tell!!

Xtine

2007-07-20T04:10:00.000+08:00

: WOWWWWWW, seems like your having a blast! and how polite are the guys over there! LOL. must have been shocked to see them give you their coat. :o XD
: SO NICE
: eh u have such sweet frends la. wat a gentleman! GOSH, ask him to teach this to sporean guys! HAHAHA.
: omgg u have such sweet frends.. eh, ask him to teach this to guys in spore! HAHA
: lol, how sweet. but i'd probably offer my bodt warmth instead!! wahaha.
: Waa... In Malaysia, those gentlemanly people are virtually non-existent...
: having so much fun there huh xtine... and ur fren sean's real sweet. =D
: lucky singapore warm so no point giving coats huahahahaha *evil laugh*
: and yeah singapore most doors are elextronic too, can open itself HUAHAHAHAHA!!!
: but dun misunderstand, i am the type that give coats and open doors too haha...
: LOL woots drew I love your 3 comments!! XDXD i should post all these tags up XD
: haha maube thats becoz u tell stories of guys share coats n open doors, so i am inspired. naturally!

Hahaha see all the comments? Well a TINY bit more, yesterday Sean was showing me videos of anime and i am TOTALLY INSPIRED I AM SO FREAKING GOING TO GET THOSE ANIME FROM HIM to watch. Ok obsession over anime over, er..... I have been drawing!! hahahaa yes drew you shall see them as soon as I colour them. Most of them are inspired by people here so I do hope you will get the context.

Weekly test tomorrow! Oh yes I got my grades for my first semester yesterday, I got an A! yay!! My first A for college!! heehee.

Okaaay so what has been going on here? Well lots of people in the first session have left, so my class is really small now! Only 8 people!! 3 guys and 5 girls! Yeah I like my class but I am a bit pissed with the attitude some people have. Omg but then I am always irritated by other people's attitudes and should consider that I do irritate other people too. Hahaha. Some person here can't stand my singing out to myself =( Xtine is sad, she needs to sing!!! I NEED TO SING WITH VRIL AND JIEZ!!!!

what else? oooo we're going to chicago this saturday!! and we are going to eat DIM SUM!!! AND watch dragon boat festival!! (pray for cute guys) rofl. but this also means that back home people are making BAK ZHANG!!!! (Dumplings) I WANT HOME MADE BAK ZHANG!!!! rawr!!! as for my last trip to Chicago several weeks ago (paiseh) well, I had TOM YAM SOUP OMG AND TEH TARIK (drools in remembrance) hahaha. yeah. good food makes me happy. I also saw lots of stuff I wanna get for myself in the school year!! Like, WOK! hahaha. saw slow cookers as well. and OMG IKAN BILIS. yeah china town is amazing. plus a chinese run hair stylist place!! OH. AND OMG. guess what? cool situation.

Me, Soirsce, Ed and Dan were walking around Chinatown, passed the fire department and this fireman came out asking,

Excuse me, do any of you speak Chinese and English? And everyone looks at me....
Xtine: er I speak a bit.....
FIreman: ok, can you help us please, there is this old man here and we don't understand him at all....
so Xtine walks into the fire department followed by everyone...
and so I talked to the old man. Turns out he spoke Cantonese, not Mandarin, and the poor soul had been beat up and mugged a few weeks ago. he was holding some newspaper article with stuff written on it and telling me how he had been beaten up (showed me bandaged leg) then his wallet taken (pats his back pocket) and how the police eventually caught the culprit and he had to go identify the guy bla bla bla. So good, why are you at the fire department??? Then he told me that he had been asked to appear at court or something but he didn't know where and when and how to get there so he wanted help. So I had to explain to him (several tiems in fact) that he was in the wrong place and that he should go to the police station (my cantonese vocab doesn't include police station and fire station for your info) so in the end I got the fireman to give him the address of the police station and how to get there (nightmare) and he left very happy. LOL. And my friends were like: OMG THAT WAS SO COOL and I was like: OMG I JUST TRANSLATED!!! and the fireman was like: OMG HE'S FINALLY GONE (lol just joking). Yeah and they could tell it wasn't mandarin cause they couldn't understand a word I was saying. ahahahahah.

so that was exciting incident in Chicago. After that we just walked around and bought miscellaneous stuff. like... PAO!!! OMG Ed got 2 char siwe paos that were SOOOOOO freaking good... hahahaha. And I saw YAU ZHAR GUAI. ZHANG! bla bla bla!! SO HAPPY!!!!! but I didn't buy anything cz I was already carrying around my left over tom yam soup. HAHAHAHAHAHA. so ironic. They were all like: omg i can't believe you lugged around that soup for the whole day... it was so worth it when I reheated it for my dinner though. wakakaka.

ooo and taking the train from the airport (where the bus stops) to Chinatown was interesting too!! First time on USA public transport!! realy cool. The guys were very amused cz they said that there was this kid on the train who was checking us girls out and we girls were just like...whatever.... hahaha. yeah XD

other than that I realy have been just eating studying sleeping and once in a while going nuts with some cool people here. oh and drawing of course!! yaaah nothing else to write, I should go study!!

more to come once more is experienced!!
ps: I want songs!! my thumbdrive with all my songs DIED SO I AM SO SAD!!!!!!!! T_T

ps: to drew!! LOL OMG HOW ARE YOU INSPIRED???

2007-07-11T22:10:00.000+08:00

uwaaa....10 days after my ast post, I really do feel obliged to blog now.

Okay!! latest news first!! MY IMMUNE SYSTEM ISN'T AS GOOD AS I THOUGHT IT WAS BECAUSE YAY! I CAUGHT THAT DISGUSTING THROAT INFECTION GOING AROUND SO NOW I AM SICK. my poor floss is sick too!!! *Sayang!* (must be that chocoloate you ate you greedy dog)

it's like, 930am in the morning and I just missed breakfast because I thought today is a weekend. How? Because today I have no class. Why? because the first half of this language program has just ended and THUS people have left, people are leaving and people are coming! It's amazing how many people who were supposed to stay for 9 weeks have left already. Oh well, I'm happy! Now the class has shrunk from 18 people in first half to 8 to 9 people in 2nd half. more personal attention for us!!

anyway, random comment I want to make!! American men and manners. SO FAR, I have noticed that MOST american men I have met will TOTALLY hold open the door for me (take note Howard!!) BUT yesterday Sean (a guy in my class who will be my Senior next year) was explaning to me that not ALL guys will be so gentlemanly (finally got the word). Ok, this is how it works. In the nothern part of the USA, it is more likely in BIG cities that guys will hold open the door for you. In the SOUTH however, it is more likely that guys from the country will open the door for you. Interesting no?? BUT then, read on dear reader! We were walking back to campus and it was at night (it was a big group of people) and people were like, oh it is so "liang kuai" (pleasantly cool, one of our vocab we learnt when learning about the weather LOL) but Xtine is like : OMG COLD!! Cause ALTHOUGH i was wearing a long sleeved shirt I was silly enough to be wearing a skirt that day (so sue me, the days here are hot and humid) PLUS it was probably like 18 to 19 degrees and WINDY!! So we're on the other side of the road waiting for a few stragglers and I'm like, hopping saying " quick quick Xtine is cold!!!!!!! (hopping to try to get warm) and Sean just looks at me, removes his outer shirt (think like collar long sleeve shirt) and hands it to me!!! he WAS wearing a sleeveless shirt on the inside but Xtine was just like OMG YOU JUST PROVED YOUR EXAMPLE!!!!! *HEARTS!!!*

yeah, that was like, xtine's OMG moment for the night I THINK.

also yesterday I had mid term exam!! Did well! I am happy!!

trip to chicago! no time to blog about that!!!! sorry!!! i gotta go cz i wanna make stuff to scald my throat with!!!!

miss you people as always

kchan

2007-07-01T21:05:00.000+08:00

here's another quick post!!

I LOVE CHICAGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

went there yesterday with Soirsce, Ed and Dan. Thanks Emily for giving us a ride to the bus station and back!!!!

I love Chinatown!! lalalalala!! ate TOM YAM seafood noodles (nearly dies with happiness) and OMG I HAD TEH TARIK. WHICH WAS SO DECENT. ADRIAN LIM WHEN YOU GET TO CHICAGO YOU'RE GOING TO BE SEEING ME ON A REGULAR BASIS FOR FOOD THERAPY!!!

Yeah I have skipped Friday's dinner and Saturday's brunch and dinner at Commons (The cafeteria)

THIS IS BECAUSE ED SOIRSCE AND I COOKED ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON. Well technically Ed did all the cooking. rofl. BUT OMG STIRFRY IN GARLIC AND OYSTER SAUCE. Not to mention decently cooked beef and pork and VEGETABLES!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah man no wonder I have been so high this weekend!! XDXD

ooh i also got my comic strip back, so take a look!

uwa I am so sorry they are upside down!!! >< still not able to get them properly up.....gomen gomen!!!

I have to go do hw now, after a whole Friday afternoon of sleeping on the grass (and eating) and a whole Saturday of indulgence.

jaa ne!~

2007-06-28T12:21:00.000+08:00

YET another rushed post.

ITS SO SAD. I want to post properly real bad but I have no time!!! HOMEWORK.

Ok, er what I wanna say. I'm hanging out with fun people nowaways. I WISH I HAD PICTURES. Ok i'm so sorry but I will just list stuff and hopefully blog about it when I have time ><

1) beijing opera - very cute guy
2) people I hang out with
3) visited gym, swimming pool and went into sauna today
4) Visit to Mitsuwah - Jp studd
5) i MISS FOOD!!!!
6) Crazy things here
7) things I have recently acquired

er other than that I just want chinese songs and i want to scan something I just drew. Its so cute. Its just with someone upstairs now. ahhh.......... super tired, not enough sleep!! Not entirely used to American culture. also have facebook so look me up if you have it. Arrr what else?

I miss you all!!!!!!!

AND thank you to all readers, I really have no idea who read my blog unless you tell me or refer to my posts or I tell you to do so or if you tag.

So to all my readers, THANK YOU FOR READING. i'm going to change my laayout to something more read-friendly soon, I promise.

Oh and people here think I'm cute when I say "aiya" or make funny sounds....

kchan

2007-06-19T14:18:00.000+08:00

UWAAAAA its don;t know what time in the morning....
FINALLY finished my homework, hands hurt like crazy from all that writing....

ad this is my discovery of the day after watching several MTVS for chinese songs on the MAC BOOK PRO THAT I OBTAINED TODAY YAAAAAAYYYY

OMG I CAN READ SOME OF THE WORDS!!! EVEN IN FAN TI ZI (THE VERY HARD CHINESE) OMGOMGOMGOMG plus they are words I didn't read before.

VRIL AND JIEZ then next time we karaoke i will be LITERATE!!!!

kchan (i am hungry and tired)
PS: Drew i've been inspired. You're gonna LOVE my next mini comic strip

2007-06-18T04:23:00.000+08:00

Just studied 31 Chinese phrases. Came down to Lib basement to check my email

LOLX. THANKS FOR THE COMMENT KENNY. *Hands a bottle of brain juice*

okay, I'm starting to enjoy myself. Went to Madison yesterday with Lauren, Beth (both 1st year chiense students) and Saddam (a Arabic TA) (I do wonder what reaction I will get)

Madison is a nice city, pretty architecture and lakes! However the campus of the U of Wisconsin Madison is spread all around so I didn't get to see one entire campus. However it looks like a great city to bike in and walk!!! Sadly we didn't stay very long, as Beth drove and she wanted to get back for dinner. We split on the gas cost of course, and Saddam treated us to Ben N Jerry's (Thank you!!!)

Other than that I didn't do much, just lepak around and watched past episodes of Whose line is It anyway with a 2nd year chinese girl named Hao JiaRan. Thanks to being in her class for 3 days I only know her Chinese name. lolx. And she is super nice, I'm only sad she will be staying for only 4.5 weeks.

Today studied with other chinese 1 students, and they are very funny and fun to be with! Hahaha wait till I get a camera, got a few lengluis in the bunch. As for lengchais er.....you see for yourself lah. hahahahahaha

Er............other than this nothing to say, Happy Father's Day and er.........

be good? hahahaha. oo ya pity me I am missing FOOD. But Sean, a fellow first year who is a Japanese majoy here told us there is this Asian market so we are SO going there one of these days, and splitting the gas cost. YES. CHINESE AND JAPANESE FOOD. WOOTS

take care!!!!! blog again hopefullly soon!!!

Xtine

2007-06-15T03:45:00.000+08:00

FINALLY. A COMPUTER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually...FINALLY!!! TIME TO FIND AND USE A COMPUTER!!!!!

ok peopls xtine is in Beloit college. VERY SMALL college and very green and not too hot and cold at night.Reception here for my telephone sucks inside buildings too.

Dear Kenny, don't be jealous, it STILL is very very expensive.

Dear everyone else: I MISS YOU. SEND ME FOOD (Now I'm making a cry too...lol)
Yesh I miss Asian food!!!!! And I'm not even here for long!! But I can't see how I'm NOT going to gain weight on the kind of diet I am practicing now!!! Maybe I should become a fruitarian!!!! Eat only Fruits!!!!!

As for Chinese classes, a teacher suggested to me that I move to Level 2 Chinese and so I did on Monday and Tuesday. I like that class immensely, lots of brain juice working, just I suffered from terrible character overload and with no reading and writing foundation, the director of the program suggested I switch back to Level 1. I did that today and found the class not brain juice stimulating at all.

But happily the teacher is going to let me do extra work so that I won't waste so much time here. The issue is that I can understand and speak Mandarin relatively okay-ly, so I am quite ahead of the 1st year students. In fact, if it were based on verbal ability alone I would be in the 2nd or 3rd year class. Curse this inability of mine to read Chinese!!!

I had a lovely room mate for 3 days, Mary, and she was so sweet and totally the most perfect room mate I could have asked for. We agreed on SO many things!!! but she is not happy with the program, so since she is not on scholarship, she is saving the money and has dropped out. This means I ish all alone in my room!!! SCARED T_T

Er, oh, and on my way here, my flight was at 830am, so I got up at 5 something and we left at early 6 and reacher the airport about an hout and a half before my flight took off. Guess what?? SUPER LONG LINE IN CHARLOTTE AIRPORT. WTF??? Eventually due to some ticket problems I missed my flight. BUT. I got to another flight which went directly to Chicago instead of stopping somewhere, which is what my inital flight schedule was like. So Yay!!! Reach Beloit, check in and spent about 2 hours moving around furniture until VOILA. Work of art. Will take pics with webcam to show you. Its a one person room that they sqeezed 2 people into and my room mate was very happy with my arrangement of the stuff. But she is gone now (I miss her!!) so I guess I have to room to myself.

Er what else? I actually have to go now. Ladies and gentlemen Xtine misses you all VERY VERY MUCH. VRIL WHEN YOU COME HERE YOU ARE SO GETTING A PHONE AND WE WILL TALK FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR EACH WEEK TO CRAP AND GET HIGH TOGETHER. Yeah, calls at certain times fo the night and on weekends are free on my service provider.

Ok gotta run, hope you are glad to read this!!!!

Love, Xtine

2007-06-09T11:01:00.000+08:00

Hello everybody!!!

It's scary.....skin is peeling off my shoulder like......onion skins off an onion.
No tears involved happily.
I'm back from the beach!! Beach here has big waves and clean water but not as beautiful as back home. The ocean is so.......vast and empty.

Almost all packed for tomorrow. I head to WISCONSIN - BELOIT COLLEGE - TO STUDY CHINESE.

As my dear cousin says, what an irony.

So, my mailing address is, until further notice....

Christine Kon
Center for Language Studies (CLS)
Beloit College Box 1967
700 College Street
Beloit, WI 53511
USA

Almost forgot the USA. hee hee.

Right got other stuff to do, flight leaves at 755am so i gotta wake up at 5 something!!!!! Oo sis is blogging too. so weird.

kchan: i ish so suntanned. my legs are so freaking brown.
i ish also getting the latest MAC BOOK PRO *whee*

LaLaLa kchan is not angry anymore..so don't worry Drew!!!

2007-05-31T04:25:00.000+08:00

Yes I love my title XDXD.

Yeah I am less pissed now but I still think that Vista sucks AT THE MOMENT. So I hope it gets fixed soon.

Let's see, went on the lake again yesterday and this time I TRIED to wakeboard. Needless to say I didn't succeed and nearly pulled my arm muscles out trying. But it still looks uber fun so I am HOPING that I will succeed before I leave!!!!

And the day before yesterday went to a friend of Max's house after dinner...they have a super huge place with a large pond, a pool and a hot pool. Wow! Plus 3 dogs, two HUGE show dogs and one tiny cute something that is JUST CUTE!!!! It looks a BIT like a sausage dog and it's legs are soooo short! So when it goes down the stairs, it's legs are just too short that it has to HOP down! omg it was just so funny/cute/antisocial. Tok me forever to convince it to let me pet it. And the 2 big show dogs were like...80 pounds each, that's like 40 something kg so WHOAAAAA. But they were nice and friendly and CLEAN. hahahaha yes, one licked me on my face and there was no dog breath smell at all.

Okaay er what else? Oh we played beer pool and I let the other teens taste freeze dried durian and you can bet that that got a reaction!!!

hahahaha. Okay I am starting to get culture shock here! Wondering if I won't fit into typical american tenn society. Was reading a book about a girl who started drinking when she was in 8th grade, that is about 14 years old. Scary! And she was describing the following about US colleges, I think I shall run down and grab the book to quote: (The title is "Smashed" by Koren Zailckas)

"Roughly half of college athletes, both mals and female, are binge drinkers, and a 2001 study by the NCAA found that 80% of college athletes drink." pg 128

"The US government still spens twenty-five times as much on campaigns tofight drugs as it does on campaigns to prevent underage drinking." pg 207

"It is the year of the faternity asshole: At Dartmouth Coleege, Zeta Psi is publishing the Zetemouth, a fraternity newsletter that chronicles the brothers' sex lives. It prints sexy photos of women the brothers claim they slept with, and categorizes them as "loose", "dirty", "guaranteed hookups" and "sure things". They are releasing the "Manwhore Edition," in which one reporter writes that so-and-so "strikes again", and "she's dirtier than ever...if she hooks up with one more Zete I'm going to need a flowchart just to keep up." Another article promises to deliver "patented date-rape techniques" in a future edition." pg 227

Makes college sound scary doesn't it? But of course that won't be the whole crowd, though I am now pretty sure I won't be joining any Greek houses.....

And to round off this post, I watched a fantastic program on the media yesterday night! Even better, it's available online. It highlights so many interesting issues we discussed in GP so I am totally mailing it to Mr Cheng. Haha, er Aj students if you are "forced" to watch this....well.....*evil laughter* Somehow I recall to mind Felicia saying that she will never eat again. XDXD (To be understood only by 1405 XD)

I watched only the first hour of the 4 part series but I already have several comments, aired below.

Newspapers bought over by corprate companies that are merely driven by profit for investors just do not work. The example given is the Los Angeles Times, once reputed to offer some of the best reporting in the US. After it was sold off to the Tribune (based in Chicago) the editors had to face cuts after cuts in budget, pages and eventuall staff. And this was at a time when the newspaper was making 20% in profits. TWENTY PERCENT that amounted to about 200 MILLION (If I remember correctly) And they still continued to demand cuts, resulting in the resignation of one editor (who is now lecturing in Harvard) and then they fired his successor who made public his refusal and anger at being asked to cut even more. At the same time, the Tribune put itself up for sale due to falling stocks and OMG other people have offered to buy it but so far there is no news. More ironically, the LA times has received a total of 13 Pulitzers (wow) and the final shot showed the current editor (who I unfortunately cannot stand due to his.... attitude which totally toes that of the company) posing with this happy face over this STAR that the paper received (you know...those stars like those in hollywood that are given to actors/actresses) for the camera in honor of the 125th (i think) year of publication of the paper!!! It is so ironic that what I perceived as the symbol of the downfall of the quality of the paper would receive an award on the paper's behalf.

Secondly, the opinion that most newspapers should be centered on local news, and leave the serious reporting of world events to other papers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. (The only other paper besides these 2 to have a full time staff positioned in Iraq would be the LA Times, if i remember correctly). This view is totally the opposite of globalisation, and is known as hyper-journalsim. Feature all the local events more than the world wide events. So yay! Let's all become wrapped up in our perfect little lives here and not care for the world! It's not that hyper journalism is bad, yes I am sure people want to see their athletic kids and so on be portrayed in dazzling array in the local paper but what about international issues that matter? I for one am dying due to lack of international coverage of news in the paper I am reading here..thank heaven for online newspapers!

Which brings me to the next issue, the internet. Did you know that new and information you get from Google comes from other resources (namely newspapers)? Google or Yahoo is not going to invest resources into journalism, it's just not profitable (As seen in my first para of comments) But nonetheless, even if it is not feasible for newspapers to compete with online news, newspapers are the SOURCE used to report most of onilne news. Like mentioned by someone interviewed on the show, it's a whole chicken and egg scenario.

By this point I was feeling the urge to make a few hundred billion and save the newspaper from the vagrancies of profit minded people and try to restore some proper journalism so that I have someting decent to read. Reviews and commentaries and investigative journalism take up resources but there are some of the things that encourage your people to think and to analyse and to question if that government really is representing what you believe in and if that government you voted for is doing its job and not falling into, well, corruption and making money at the taxpayers' expense? Of course, happily, there was this sweet old guy who is super rich and is involved in the art scene in LA who is willing to buy over the LA times and settle for between 8 to 9% profit. (Hallejulah) Of course, he is super rich already so he doesn't have to care about stockholders etc.

Bottomline? Do watch it. It is SUPERB. Is journalism to become a profit based industry that serves readers only WHAT they WANT to read (gossip concerning various celerities etc) or instead, provides what they SHOULD read (why Bush is an #^&& ...i'm joking!) such as global issues that may affect their lives in a much bigger way instead of Miss So and So flirted with Mr Who and Who and OMG they are having a baby and buying a huge mansion in LA!!! Yes, immigrant issues, power issues, WATER issues, because ultimately WE will be affected by these because, heck, we're just the middle class society with less than a couple of grand to our names so we can't really plonk down a few hundred grand to have water transported from the already diminishing swiss alps whenever there is a drought. Yeah, we have to just LIVE with the water cuts and blah!!!

Hm, so much for my long winded rhetoric. Link to the site below!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/

~kchan: let's do some serious thinking. i'm sunburnt too.

2007-05-28T10:01:00.000+08:00

Changing my template is soooo irritating......

DAMN THIS STUPID..........................whatever is going wrong.

I also hate vista. well "hate"

why aren't you reading my IPOD??????

GRRRR.

this totally removes my mood to blog about nice things.

OH. and CRY~ why are almost all the phones here FLIP PHONES???????????????????????????????????????????????

ps: for some weird reason i am feeling angry and resentful. grr. i wonder why. maybe it has to do with lack of aprreciation???? despite my enjoying it here sometimes I wonder if it were better that I was far far away.

i'm also dying for something to do. AND BLOGGER WONT LET ME DO IT.

so just freaking screw it all

kchan is mighty pissed and feels that she should overstep her borders to be extraordinarily pissed.

whee!

2007-05-24T10:47:00.000+08:00

IN HONOUR OF DREW2 I AM TYPING THIS WHOLE POST IN CAPS.

CAUSE WE ARE CHATTING NOW AND WE ARE HIGH!!

ANYWAY i DIDN'T GO WAKE BOARDING TODAY =( IT WAS TOO COLD (aFTER 2 HOT DAYS HOW IRONY) AND TOO WINDY ON THE LAKE! BUT I DID DRIVE THE BOAT!!! WOW I DROVE THE BOAT!!!
SO THANKS TO MAX FOR TEACHING ME!!!!

oh we have reverted to normal. we're both out of voice. heehee.

AND HIGH AGAIN.

OKAY ER. PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO ADVERTISED IN THE POST AFTER THIS! IT IS SO FUNNY!!

What else? OH YES. I CUT MY SISTER'S HAIR TODAY!! SHE HAS BANGS AND I AM SO PROUD OF MYSELF!! CAUSE I DID A REALLY GOOD JOB!!! SO HOW IS NEXT TO BE AT MY MERCY??? ROFL. BUT IT DOES LOOK GOOD.

ALSO I SHOT USING A........ ER..... NOT REAL GUN YESTERDAY. I SHOT 2X WITH PELLETS FOR AMMO SO THERE WAS NO DANGER, AND I HIT BOTH THINGS THAT I AIMED AT!! OF COURSE I DID REST THE BARREL ON THE RAIL AND SIT ON THE ARM OF THE CHAIR. BUT IT HIT!! AGAIN THAKNS TO MAX FOR TEACHING ME!!!

OOO AND WE ALSO SAW THE SPUD GUN!! WHICH 'SPLAINS MY NICKNAME!

Home made spud gun, which uses potatoes for ammo, hair spray for....fuel and a something that makes sparks to FIRE!!! it is awesome, it can fire the tater up to ... about 2 stories high from ground level. or higher. we didn't time so we couldnt calculate. hahahaha.

okay tomorrow I am travelling to Virginia to see a cabin our hosts own. No holiday, we are gonna clean it up!! haha okay so maybe more intersting experiences tomorrow o after!!

the Quess of XDXD

2007-05-23T10:12:00.001+08:00

To all Fans of the Force,

Please watch this!!

http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html

thanks to ai-chan for recommending!!! XDXD

Weekend

2007-05-21T11:42:00.000+08:00

Weekend is 18 minutes to being over. And I've had a great time, as usual.

heehee. okay, so Friday night we went to the high school spring concert, Anya was playing in the Symphonic band. I guess they were ok, but not that superb. However, the Woodwind band was pretty excellent, i LOVED their rendition of Godzilla Eats Las Vegas as they had some HILLARIOUS slides to go with it, I especially appreciated their army of Elvises (Elvi) that became troops that stormed to save the city. Also (of course) there was a picture of Bush!! (laugh) Other notable performance was 4' 33", do look it up, it's a classic!!!

oh and before I forget on thursday I DROVE ON THE ROAD. AND I HAD TO DRIVE ON THE RIGHT ALL THE WAY. But I think my sister had a worse time of it, she had to become a human cone for my parking (which I think I failed) and my figure 8s. Point to all i LOVE auto cars and POWER STERING.

Okay so on Saturday we went sailing from 9am to 3.45pm. It was great!!! I sailed with my host Eric, in his boat, and a senior from high school, Kenny. He was really nice, pointed stuff out to me, they both explained stuff to me and all. (Eric is my Dad's friend from college) After sailing, in which we encountered really weird winds and I kinda disappeared into the cabin once when pulling the sphinnicer in (its the biggest sail on the sail boat) we were exhausted and hungry so Leena (Eric's wife) was super kind to pick us up and take us back where we ate and snoozed for 3 hours. hahaha. that night we went for a movie I WATCHED SHREK 3. it is FUNNY. not as good as shrek 1 and 2 but if you are a fan do watch it. I LOVED the princesses part, think that Artie was cute for an animation and the shrek juniors are pretty funny.

Okay!! then today!!!! lazy day. read a MAGNIFICENT BOOK called The Alchemyst. I'm not sure if it is out yet but when it is READ IT READ IT READ IT. Excellent beautiful read, coupled with that I did see some of the sights of it's setting (And I'm not telling, you can keep guessing!!!) it was gorgeous.

Of course it was cool inside the house so I did a lot of sun basking today and took a short walk in the woods and for dinner I helped make the fruit salad. Then we (the whole family plus my sis and me) sat around and laughed at the cat, Buttercup who is a male and is a wuss. That means he is a 'fraidy cat. He won't even come into the house!! and I think he is scared of me!!! So they were tellin cat stories and we were laughing like crazy.

After that I was shaking the table cloh, as we had eaten outside, and my sister came one and she LOCKED US OUT. walao!!!! so we tried to get Leena's attention, as she was washing some stuff in the sink and the window over ths sink looked directly out onto the table, but she DID NOT notice us!!!! Elena was in fits of laughter as she was making funny faces to try to get attention but to no avail. I was laughing hard too. Gosh so much laughter in a day!

Okay its super late. I just watched The Freedom Writers on DVD and it is SUPERB. gives you something to think about. So try and watch it, it is an excellent movie. Highly recommended for GP class Mr Cheng!!!

the Queen of XDXD....signing off!

2007-05-17T10:55:00.000+08:00

Hi everyone!! This is what was bothering me last night!!!

I was offered a full tuition scholarship for a SUMMER COURSE. 9 WEEKS OF LEARNING CHINESE.

wow wow wow and I was like. Sh*t, is it gonna be learn chinese and work towards that degree OR summer fun??? throw in the scholarship factor and
GAH.

Well I HAVE decided, and I am going for summer course. So i have 3 more weeks to hang out with all these nice fun guys and then bye bye till maybe next summer?

The horror?

ROFL. I sound quite nutty don't I? But ah well I am not here to have THAT much fun. SO I am sacrificing my June and July and half of august *clutches heart*

My scholarship is worth almost 6k USD and is hopefully gonna save me 20k RM so I will not complain!!!

also CONGRATS TO MY SUPER LUCKY PRIMARY SCHOO FRIEND DARELL WHO GOT INTO YALE!!!

The caps say it all. hahaha.

so I am SO going to Yale for a visit and girl, you are SO inviting me!!

I'm also going skiing this winter for xmas!!

I have spent SO much money. I need to make some!

So I have till June 9th minna-san, then I will probably be unavailable unless I get my laptop by then!!!

Thanks y'all who talked to me last night when the battle of shirtless guys vs schoalarship was raging :D

heehee.

The Queen of XDXD

fun filled hours....

2007-05-16T10:46:00.000+08:00

Yes, I have been having HEAPS of fun. At least I remember having fun.... or was it after I got drunk?? Gee, I don't remember....how many beers did I drink again???

Hahaha, just kidding. I couldn't even finish my beer =x

okay, recap of what I've been doing. THEN big announcement and DILEMAAA!!! Drew I so need your advice here. in fact i need all the advice I can get.... cause I like having opinions...

So ... story starts when it was a cold day. brrrrr...my toes in their socks were COLD! Then after dinner, Max invited me to hang out with his friends as they were going to the lake to build a bonfire and drink some brews. Magic word is bonfire!!! so I very happily went to the lake.

We drove around, got the brews, met some people, watched a guy fruitlessly fish in his engine for a broken thingy....got ice then headed to the boat! T'was me, Max, Zach and Kurt in the boat with a cooler and not a SOUL anywhere to be seen or heard. Max goes: Keep it down guys.... and starts the motorboat and volia, we have noise!!! hahaha.

Got to the island in the lake, (guys contribute a line or two of LOST) and we push the boat on, secure it and Kurt starts making the fire site while the rest of us hunt for firewood. Found soume really excellent drift wood and dead trees though I slippeand fell on my ankle in the process. I think it needs resting now cause it still hurts when I exert it in weird positions.

When we got our fire going, as they say, it was SWEET. all the guys agreed it was a good fire and as they sipped thier frosty brews (note the difference in my vocab now) they started wishing for red meat. ROFL. that is so .... male like. But i am NOT complaning I had good fun. I let them try durian dodol and Zach LIKED it. WOW. amazing. they didn't have a fainting fit and go: UGh! this smells TERRIBLE/LIKE SHIT!!! Then after a while some fish in the lake jumped and made a BIG splash!! Fish jumped occasionally after that and we'd all be like: ooo big fish! we should catch it and cook it over the fire!!! salmon!!! there's no salmon you idiot! rainbow trout!! It WAS a salmon I saw it!!! I know my fish okay!!

stuff like that. It was fun! Nonsense banter and such. Then we went to pick up more people and it was me and.... 1,2,3,4,5,6 guys around this tiny fire roasting the hot dogs and BACON that the people who came later brought. gosh I have NEVER seen people roast BACON over the fire but OMG IT CAN WORK. as I obviously saw it. I also saw typical guy stuff, like toss the can in the fire and see it melt and snatch someone else's bacon and hoot around and grab the entire package of meat and "hog" it till it is stolen again.

I don't know what time we left but it was LATE. It was so fun, hopefully we iwill do it again soon. They wished for marshmallows too, to make smores. what are smores anyway??? but anyway we left and...........

got up at 7 this morning cause we went to visit storage auctions. that was interesting. americans can store a LOT of junk!! I saw this garage sized lot full packed with almost worthless stuff!! that sold for 5 dollars. that is like, 2 parking lots size in malaysia. 5 dollars!! Kurt and Swede got a bin for 150 dollars and discovered 3 tv sets there, one washer and one complete bed room set. the concept is (i should have said this earlier) that the storage space is rented to you, and as long as you pay rent your stuff is safe. when you DON'T pay rent, the storage space company can auction your stuff off. and there were about 20 to 30 people there waiting for auctions....so....wow. junk...its just not asian thinking i guess?

we got back to our area at around 5, and Max was driving all day and we all slept late last night (Save for Swede) so we were pretty tired. Just helped to take the boat out of the water, come back, eat dinner, watch american idol (live!!) and House (the episode was cool) and come up to blog and ask for advice!!!!!!!!!!!

i am too lazy to type what advice i need now. I will do it tomorrow after I think about it some more. gah.

to xin hua: yeaa.....i should have tried that. oh well what to do =/

to mav: study hard!!

to drew: Drew!!!!!! i am un-invisible-ated!!! talk to me!!!! (you are not online now)

to KY: You take care too!!!!

thanks for reading
title of XDXD, bestowed by 1405.

btw yesterday was 14 of may. Happy 1405!! XDXD

2007-05-14T10:23:00.000+08:00

again i couldnt resist

Christine Kon --

[noun]:

A person who has the ability to be invisible

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

wow. did you see me? I'm hidden in the darkness with my inborn invisibility cloak ability.

2007-05-14T09:53:00.000+08:00

Of sailing, my sister and...Mexican food

All on Mother's Day.
Woke up this morning and realised it was Mother's Day here. It's Monday in Malaysia now. Didn't do much today, just went sailing.

That makes it sound so uneventful.

Sailing, or sitting around and letting someone else do the sailing for you, is rather fun and relaxing. Wind was strong all day today, until if you sat outside, places in the sun are just nicely warm but put a toe in the shade and you can totally feel the temperature difference. Which is probably why I ended up taking a nap under the shelter of COVERS.

Was rudely awoken by my sister who is reading over my shoulder and just went to hide under the covers (its 21 degrees C here now) and told to get up we are going sailing. So we cruised around the late, got our butts wet as sailing, as we discovered, is a wet sport indeed. We were on a small sailbaot that is light and has big sails so we went pretty fast in the strong wind. Add the sun on your face and a few other people on the lake, sailing for on motorboats or what have you, or jet skiing or tube-ing or swimming and you have a good afternoon indeed.

When we got back, just sat around, saw a cute german shepard puppy and went for MEXICAN FOOD for dinner. I shared a plate with my sister to make just nice servings for both of us. What did we wat? Enchillia-somethings and guacmole salad. YUM. also tortilla chips and salsa of course. All the servings here are so big!!! I had a glass of soda that was taller or as tall as an average mineral water bottle and gosh!!! IT WAS SO HUGE. I must remember how huge sodas here are. Lots of ice but still sweet to me. I think its not so hot here so the ice doesn't melt so fast. Then on the way back I spotted 2 deer and 1 bunny IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. ok granted there are woods in the neighbourhood but WOW deer on the road. *shoo deer!!!*

haha. its so cold and I don't really want to type anymore. Oh and yesterday we went for a "cook out" at the yacht club and had american style chilli, which i didn't find spicy/hot and hot dogs and ICE CREAM. Seems like people here eat ice cream almost everyday. i can't do that, so I don't of course. hehe. Xtine has sworn NOT to come back fat ok!!! i couldn't live with it. bwahaha?

Oh and we let our hosts try some durian stuff there. I guess they didn't like it too much. Oh well. maybe I can ambush all future teen visitors. *evil cackle*

okay my fingers are still cold!!! byeeeeeeeeeee~

kchan

just a bit o' fun

2007-05-12T22:34:00.000+08:00

Saw this on a few blogs and I can't resist

C: weird
H: Easy to fall in love with
R: Good Gf/Bf
I: LOVES TO LAUGH
S: the best person anyone could have
T: great kisser
I: LOVES TO LAUGH
N: One of the best damn bf/gf anyonecould ask for
E: Freaking beautiful

Wow. so does double I make me SUPER DOUBLE loves to laugh?? hee hee. just for fun

A: Loves to flirt but in a way of joking
B: Popular with all types of people.
C: weird
D: Has one of the best personalities ever
E: Freaking beautiful
F: People wild and crazy adore you.
G: Never let people tell you what to do.
H: Easy to fall in love with
I: LOVES TO LAUGH
J: Freaking Rowdy
K: Really silly.
L: best smile
M: Makes dating fun
N: One of the best damn bf/gf anyonecould ask for
O: Loved by everyone
P: Popular with all types of people.
Q: A hypocrite.
R: Good Gf/Bf
S: the best person anyone could have
T: great kisser
U: Gets hugs
V: Not judgmental
W: Very broad minded
X: Never let people tell you what to do.
Y: Is a freak when it comes to parties
Z: Lives life for fun