when it's not a bed of rose

so wat happened to me these few days since i last updated my blog... hmm yeah as the title says life is not a bed of roses. things happened. i fell sick. flu and an injured knee. oh gosh sucks. and the feeling of failing God and not being able to fully express myself together with my physical conditions made me decided that i needed a retail therapy on friday.

yeah so i grabbed my new korean friend so yeon and my japanese friend mariko and sam and we all headed down to fashion valley for retail therapy. I set off wanting to buy heels and bags. But yeah as sam puts it bluntly i am a cockster. i ended up buying a pair of pyjamas, sunglasses and 2 tops. fortunately the 2 tops from charlotte saved the day. it would hv been really sucky to have just bought pyjamas pants at fashion valley. then it was chilling out at so yeon's place and eating her yummy handmade brownie

so life is made better again. thank you Daddy!

and then today with my flu still there (my voice fading) and my knee hurting, i had to go for my first ever surfing class! N yeah goodness i LOVE it. I thought I would freeze to death in the winter sea water but hell no. Surfing is such hardwork!! my entire body aches now and i just feel sooo exhausted. But yeah never knew falling off the board can be so fun. Being washed under by a wave can be sooo exciting too. So i guess I am looking forward to the next class! I managed to stand up n surfed for 3 seconds today. I promise I will SURF next lesson.

And then tonight was the Triton Spirit. An annual basketball event with other colleges. Bball college finals i guess. Pretty big event with free food and tee shirt and the crowd just went crazy. sadly i didnt bring my camera. bleahx. N it was dinner n supper chilling w new faces and old faces. n now yeah time for me to mug for my midterm and oral presentation.

ルムーメットと一緒に住んでいることはとても大変だ。

あまり好きじゃない人好きなりたいのこと難しい。

allergy

Displeasure pours out

Pure angst Pure irritation

A blinding distaste

An allergy

I'm ashamed. May I learn to love

what's first?

Chuck the paper i had to write and went out with my 2 korean girl friends. madness.

And there's oral presentation to prepare and law cases to read for school tmr. arghh result of playing too much. but really weekends are too beautiful n precious for studying now. Lol

so play first, mug later. and so i am dead beat from lil sleep.

happy weekend

Yes yes it's yet another blessed happy weekend! And it's right at our doorstep in San Diego. No road trips but it's just as blissful and eventful!

No time to do an elaborate entry so I'll just do a quick one before i rush back to my readings and paper assignment. I am soooo dead for this paper and my oral presentation due tue and wed. Seriously played too much.

Sat

ET's friend came down from UC Riverside to visit us. We spent a lazy afternoon on campus and then in coronado. Wanted to catch the sunset which we sooo freaking missed it because we're too caught up eating KFC. What bullshit we are seriously.

After that, we caught up w ET's friends to have dinner at downtown SD and then desert at this fabulously mouthwatering place called Extraordinary Desert. Verdict? the restaurant lived up to its name.

sadly no pictures cos i forgot to bring my camera. And great nice people met :)

Sun

MY FIRST SUNDAY MORNING IN CHURCH!! finally!!! I am just sooooo happy to be able to step into City Christian Church!! Transport is just sooo bad here that getting the hitch ride from friends in church whom we met at the connect group on campus is just such a blessing!!

And the church is really cool. It's in the compound of a local high school up in the higher land. Really scenic views. And I LOVE the worship band and the priest! Great message and i feel so recharged and uplifted. And people are all so welcoming and nice!

And in the evening was the korean bbq at our korean friends' place! It rocks sooo much more than I had imagined. So it was great food and a lot of new friends found!! :D

Storm Season

Rainy days is an understatement. Imagine walking to class in the rain. And worse, without an umbrella. Not that umbrella make any difference cos the wind was just insane. So it was a chaotic scene of umbrellas flipping and inverting, big trees uprooting and collapsing.

Welcome to the storm season of San Diego, where flooding campus and hercules strong gust of wind awaits you.

Mid term starts tmr!! but i am soooo not in the mood for studying. gosh.

American Traffic Police

our kinda pleasant encounter with US police and law education...

sam: aye slow down... there's a police car behind us

et (driver): huh! what?!

sam: oh no! they are coming after us... they are signalling us to stop. STOP STOP. hands on your wheels and stop.

(everyone in the car, wide awake and nervously waiting...)

after a long wait, sam got off the car with his arms raised before being shoo-ed right back into the car, and finally the police man came with his torchlight shining into the car to see us all.

police: are you guys lost?

(totally not the kind of 1st line i was expecting )

et: yeah... and our car is fast running out of petrol so we're rushing...

police: i see... that explains alot. did u see there was a stop sign at the road just now?

et: no sir, we're international drivers... we're not familiar... sorry

police: alright (checks et's license), please make sure u stop at the stop signs next time. And yeah your petrol station is just this way down (points and directs)

oh my gosh... soooo nice~~

1st Roadtrip in US

yay so we finally got passed the phase of hesitation and just heck it. seized the opportunity of a long weekend (monday being public holiday; martin luther king day) and off we go!!

drove up from San Diego to Yosemite through the night. It was the usual gang of us (a pity my roomie gave it a miss) plus a new friend, Mariko from Japan. And that girl is really sooo sporting and spontaneous. She just decided in the morning to join us and tada that very night we're off.

It was a real crazy adventure. Super impromptu and last minute. Very very minimal planning was done if you can even call it planning in the first place. So we caught the breathtaking view of Yosemite and braved the freezing weather. I really think I grew crazier in US. it's freakin 2 degrees celsius but I am so not in the full geared winter wear. Just the same stuff I wear in san diego on campus. HAHA. Yosemite:

After Yosemite, the roadtrip continues down to Lake Tahoe where we spent our one and only sleeping night in this entire 3 days and 3 nights roadtrip. Stopped over at this really good ambience cafe for lunch/tea. heart the deco and ambience!

Explored the lake in the morning and left for Napa Valley for wine tasting. It's a real pity that it was all cloudy after a snowing night so the lake was not as picture perfect as it would had been. but none the less the sight of snow pretty much made up for it.

Napa valley was a real misery. Due to poor planning or rather no prior planning, we missed both the hot air balloon ride and the wine tasting. arghhh. so we just settled for a dinner and some good wine. Sad and unsatisfied, we pressed on and drove down to Santa Cruz at night only to see a dead town. Played laser tag at an arcade and we had our "hobo" style dinner by the wharf. Eating out in the chilly night air was pretty cool it turned out.

Lunner before our "hobo" style dinner:

Hobo dinner:

And then we went insane again by deciding last minute not to stay over at santa cruz but hit the road again. So it went. Another overnight drive!! All the way down to LA. Fortunately the time spent in LA was well spent! Did some shopping at the area near Farmer's Market and had a super yummilicious lunch at this restaurant called Cheesecake factory! As the name already implied, the cheesecakes were mind-blowing. Next we visited Ronald Reagan public library where we caught this huge american air force one plane. Pretty cool.

And I have to say, it was real adventurous not just in the spontaneous sense but also in the sens of "living on the edge"! Let's see, we kinda skidded up a curb while driving on the freeway, risking an overturned car... we kinda smashed our side mirror along the way in Yosemite and i was just seated on the right side of the driver where the smashed mirror was with my window half unwind... if i had wound down more i can just say good bye to my face... and we kinda got stopped by a police car for not stopping at the stop sign on the road...and we kinda kissed the bumper on the front of another car while we're reversing into the parking lot. Awesome!

Other scenic shots:

Check out the cross on the peak of the hill. The clouds kinda covered it the next instance that i saw it. really reminded me of God's words. Seek and you shall find. If u seek hard enough. God requires u to seek Him first for He has already done His part of loving you unconditionally.

another view off the hill where the Reagan Public Library was

College Life in America

seriously for all things strange we have adopted this really apt expression of "welcome to america".

Where...

lecturers still uses the blackboard and chalk,

visual aids are kept to a bare minimum (amidst having to overcome the tendency for some prof to utter to emselves),

slides are NEVER gonna be uploaded ,

readings rain down on you as frequently as the frequency of lectures in a week for e freakin same subject,

your american classmates simply doesn't sleep even in the most boring class,

everyone is just too eager to post their questions and comments,

people all skateboard or cycle to classes

and so much more...

BUT i simply just love experiencing a different culture i guess. so the above simply isn't too much of a complaint but rather my amazement at how different things are.

Getting to know more and more people now. Impromptu movie session the other night was great fun. And I have signed up for hip hop class and will be enrolling w my new japanese friend in surfing as well. pretty cool

Getting ready for a road trip over this weekend. The gruelling planning sessions and the ultimate reversal of situation. exasperation which is kept under suppression demanding its release. crap. f***

When God Ran

Can't stop the tears

weekend in san diego

Hit the beach yesterday. Pacific beach was indeed a beauty in the day. Followed by an awesome supersized meal Italian dinner. Goodness. the food was good fortunately cos the queue was uber killer long. But the portion was crazy mega-sized!! the meatball was the size of a tennis ball!

campus life

School is gettin better. Getting to know more people and feeling like i am finally slowly settling down and adapting. Happy days.

Overseas campus life is really pretty cool. Love the chilly weather. Love how i can hit the gym after class with the peeps and how it's just so cooling after the work out. Love walking in my tees and shorts after the workout out in the cold air. Love meeting new people. Love the meals and meal talks. Love making new friends both asian americans and ang mohs and international students. Love the freedom of living overseas alone.

N heart the impromptu frisbee game we had just out :) We were just chatting and the topic of frisbee came up, and one of the guys just went up the floors to ask around for a frisbee. And tada! God is sweet. It was exactly the one we wanted. A glow in the dark frisbee. And a terrific game after. :)

so spontaneous just like in NZ!

And i might really be going for hip hop class! woohoo! And surfing class! And the campus connect group is starting soon too! Make more friends!! :)

school and food

3rd day in school and readings and assignment are pouring in already. I'm here for exchange hello~~~

and I'm sick of burgers and sanwiches :S

but panda express sucks... should i cook?

school

3rd day in school and readings and assignment are pouring in already. I'm here for exchange hello~~~

First day

First day ended with just 2 short classes of 50mins each.

It's pretty refreshing amidst the daunting feel. And really americans are just so much more vocals in classes. But anyway let's hope things pick up and i can make more friends. Turn on my friendly genes perhaps. But cant be help, I just love to act aloof and nonchalant in class.

Anyway, we've all met up with the rest of the nus students who are staying in Revelle as well. pretty cool and nice people. lets hope i make more non-singaporeans from now on. :)

Hello San Diego

Finally moved in to San Diego yesterday. bunked in at a fellow exchange friend's brother's apartment. And i was tortured at night by this naughty lil hum sup cat which refused to go away. He kept crawling back onto me scaring me awake each time despite my shoo-ing. In the end, I simply gave up shoo-ing and let him have his way. So he slept really nice n comfortably by my legs on my sleeping bag with my warm as his heater in the cold winter. oh gosh.

so this is him:

And finally, the move into "home sweet home"!! :) This is hell exciting. The start of a new kind of life for a few months! God please make it an awesome time for me! Truckloads of anxiety and jitters coupled with excitement. So anyway here's how the room is after the madness unpacking!! feels so good to empty that luggage.

the empty room before:

After:

Felt like I am no longer a nomad and really settling down to live in America. And San Diego is real awesome! Lovely beaches and really just alot more "breathing" space than the overly urbanised and cluttered LA.

Scenic shot from the picnic dinner by the beach:

New Year Eve in LA

New Year Eve in LA was simple and unique. Nope we didn't go for the countdown parties (too cowardly to brave the crowd) but instead we went horse riding in the day and had dinner at korean town!! :)) Just as happening in a different way! Happy day~~

K I'm starting to miss my friends back home quite abit over this festive season. Spending the new year abroad instead of counting down back home with friends while not too bad, also leaves this tingling feeling of the absence of something pretty important. oh gosh, i miss u guys!

anyways but i had fun horse riding today! i am seriously in love with this sport! and the horse i had this time is again a young stallion called Galaxy. Galaxy was pretty similar to Red (the one i rode in NZ), young strong and the alpha. So I had a really awesome time riding up in front leading the pack with Galaxy as the other 2 horses lag behind due to exhaustion. We rode for 2 hours this time and it feels really good. Very happy to have more time bonding with the horse, it feels like your own just for a while. And the guide this time was less stringent and allowed us to pick up speed with our horses if possible. We went up to the peak of the hill and the entire LA was within view. It feels pretty different from NZ. Not much awesome nature view but its also a total dif feel. Urban view with nature. Not too bad i guess.

Really yearn to have my own horse and pick up horse riding. And i discovered last night that it's not all that impossible a dream. There are horses up for adoption at the stables. Maybe in the future... maybe...

Anyway dinner was real yummy! korean food at K town!! FINALLY i visited K town! :D And the korean food is sooooo much better than back home! n yes my lil bit of korean was put to good use as well.

N now it's count down with my 2 friends in the motel haha. Watching the count down on TV, n munching chips, n waiting to pop our rose.

side note: security issue in LA is really no joke. one can meet at least 5 insane people in a day. there's always plenty of homeless on the street (tragic). And tonight was totally crazy. SO MANY pissed drunk rowdy characters off the street threatening our safety. It was the fastest we ever walked from the station to the motel after encountering all the oddballs along the way. People getting arrested. Weirdos flicking some weird gadget while stealing glances at us. Drunkard flexing muscles and working out on the train itself. :S