what i would do.....

molten chocolaty goodness

This dessert is just amazing! There's a layer of crust on top, but once you plunge your spoon in, it's pure liquid sinful chocolate all the way. Flavour explodes in your mouth in all its chocolaty glory and a tear of joy slowly rolls down your cheek and everything is right with the world.

imrpov stewed chicken

I have no idea what this is

It actually tasted pretty good!

turandot

Nessun Dorma

Nessun dorma, Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore e di speranza.
Ma il mio mistero e chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun sapra!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo diro'
quando la luce splendera'!
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
che ti fa mia!
(Il nome suo nessun saprà!
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)
Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!
All'alba vincero'!

No one sleeps! No one sleeps!
You too, O Princess
in your cold room
are watching the stars
which tremble with love and hope!
But my secret lies hidden within me,
no one shall know my name!
No no, on your lips I will tell you,
when daylight will come
and my kiss shall break
the silence which makes you mine
no one shall discover your name!
And we will be able to die!
Depart, oh night! Fade away, you stars!
At dawn I shall win!

it pays to be a winner

This really brings back the memories.

Gosh, I can almost feel my face on the floor again! I never knew that the training back in NDU was based so much on this, the terms they use, how they trash up the rooms and even the words of discouragement.

not so old friends and turkey

lots of affection

Before

After

I should be doing my homework but I'm doing this anyway. I realized that I've been saying 'I should be......but I'm.......' a lot which isn't necessarily a good thing.

I met up with some JC friends in NYC. It's quite strange how the last time I saw them was in Singapore and now I'm meeting them a few thousand kilometers away.

And I had my first thanksgiving dinner with friends and alumni from Wesleyan. Dan, the guy holding the knife, cooked the whole dinner himself which included a whole turkey, stuffing, dirty rice and a sweet potato dish - now that's pretty amazing! After dinner we sang karaoke in a drunken stupor for 4 hrs, then we slept for 2 hrs and woke up for the Black Friday sales.

Ok, it's back to real life for now.....sigh

old friends

i spoke with alex kiu today on msn, whom i haven't spoken too in years, and we remembered the days of malay food and the tahu goreng with peanut sauce. ok so he's not in the picture, but this is all i've got. can't wait to meet the whole bunch of guys from the cesspool in london!

it was a beautiful day

demuestre y diga

Antes me matriculé en la Universidad Wesleyan, yo fue un buzo en la marina de Singapur. Recibí este sombrero en la marina. Este sombrero estaba muy útil cuando yo caminaba en la selva o navegaba en el mar. Siempre lo llevaba para proteger contra las quemaduras de sol. Este sombrero es verde, negro y marrón. Mi nombre chino está escrito aquí. Este triángulo pequeño brilla en la oscuridad para que la persona detrás de mí pueda ver yo. Para mí, este sombrero tiene mucho valor sentimental.

(this was written with a lot of external help)

more pictures ruthlessly stolen from unnamed person

a very elaborate pose

ok this is pretty gay.

look ma, no hands!

6 flags beckons!

naruto is distracting

The only thing that is of major distraction other than Facebook, checking my email every 5 mins, youtube, MSN messenger is Naruto. Those damn anime people sure are cunning, putting the really exciting bits at the end and making you double click on the next episode since you can't wait to find out what happens next and since you have the luxury of having all 50 episodes at your finger-tips.

I shall stop watching Naruto till my 2nd mid-terms are over....promise!

fall break is too short

tall buildings....such a rare sight
subways are such great things!

food tastes good even on newspaper

does it get better than this?

yes it does!

and there's more!

The best thing about Boston is that it isn’t Middletown. From taking the subway to walking down bustling streets to having more than one street of shops are things which we are bereft of in this ‘middle of no where’. The second best thing about Boston is the food, more specifically, Asian food which actually tastes like Asian food - dim sum, durian shakes, sambal kangkong, wonton mee and nasi lemak amongst other things. But I suppose if I lived in Boston I’d be a lot poorer and a lot more distracted, so I guess that’s the only kudos to Middletown.

jogjakarta

I was looking around for this song after hearing it being sung by my indonesian friend and found it on youtube. It sure brings back memories of the children jumping about on the dirt floor, laughing and singing in Jogjakarta. The little P.A device we brought along created such a great hurrah as the voices filled the air with lyrics completely alien to my ears but which now take me back to the tropical heat, the rubble and the little smiling faces.

everyone's a little racist sometimes

Apparently that's me.

Kid:

"Are you chinese? Yeah, you sound chinese . At least you wear shoes."

Dear American parents, what the hell are you feeding your children?

dinner with uncle freeman

The food wasn't spectacular but it was fun. It seems the whole point of the dinner is really the performance/presentation by the freshman and senior class which was quite a pain to prepare for, with all the squabbling and tai chi going on but I guess it turned out fine, thankfully. Right, so now I can be a spectator for the next 2 years before the next performance.

We are Singapore, Singaporeans

Imported fatigues work like a charm with the girls.

(Note: all of these pictures are being used without permission, if you're the owner and you're reading this: pai seh, sorry ah, never ask you)

a different kind of party

On weekends, we come together to cook, eat and laugh, our own little family away from home. The kitchen is abuzz with the sounds we grew up with, the 'la's and 'loh's and the 'wah liao eh's. Here, we have created a space of warmth where we can be ourselves without straining to speak or to be understood without being conscious about the attitudes and mindsets we carry with us. Perhaps the unfamiliarity only serves to push us closer together for each of us carries something within which everyone else seeks, that sense of acceptance and belonging.

Maybe we're luckier than the other students who come to make friends, drink and party, for we enter into a community which receives us almost immediately with open arms, with people who genuinely want to help and care, and that makes a big difference.

So as people streamed to the late night snacks at the dining hall after getting suitably intoxicated at some random party, there we were in a kitchen making Japanese pancakes and having a laugh.

this came in this

reuse, reduce, recycle

where's wally?

I'm too kiam siap to buy the US$25 photo since I probably wouldn't know half the people in the picture. It's just like the only time I'll buy a US$15 Wesleyan T-shirt is when I graduate and want a souvenir. (click on the picture for better resolution)

i love singapore!

classes and cross dressing

Classes have finally started and things are going pretty fine. Walked into the first Spanish class and was hit by a torrent of unintelligible language, forcing me to strain my ears to try to pick up that one or two words that also occur in the English language. It was, admittedly a rather distressing affair especially when the other students seem to be nodding away and I'm thinking: 'What in the world is she talking about?'. Things have gotten slightly better after a few lessons, maybe I've gotten used to it, as in used to not understanding what's going on.

Econ Theory got and still gets me a bit worried as I've never seen economics in the form of a math problem. Will have a go at the first worksheet and reconsider my options if I can't even do the first question.

Foss Cross happened about a week ago. It's essentially an event where we cross dressed and went to a party. There wasn't any alcohol since it was in school after all so it was rather strange being in a fully conscious state and trying to dance about with other guys who looked like girls and girls who looked like guys. I didn't bring my camera as I figured I wouldn't want to keep any pictures of myself in that very unglamorous state. The photos, however, do exist most unfortunately floating about somewhere in the information super highway. So it seems I already have incriminating photos which they can dig up when I become president.

'I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers.
I put on women's clothing, And hang around in bars.'

This was a bit too much to go for.

this should win a prize

culture trauma

After getting your food, you stand in the dining hall looking at the alien sea of white faces, desperately trying to find the familiar asiatic features. And for a moment you stand there in a vague sense of panic, wondering where you're going to go, your eyes surveying the room, your head moving from side to side like a security camera. More small talk with complete strangers: 'Hi, I'm Andrew, nice to meet you, where're you from, where's your dorm, you like it, what're you thinking of majoring in, ah nice, what'd you do last night?'

I went to a frat party last night to see what it was all about, aside from the free drinks it was downright bizzare and uncomfortable. For one, I didn't go with any friends, or rather, all the 'friends' I went with were of the caucasian persuasion and were quick to abandon me once we got there. Secondly, I'm male and no one really wants to talk to a guy who's a complete stranger in the dark. Thirdly, I hate making small talk especially in the dark and when the music is too loud to hear anything. So I had two drinks and left for a square dance.

The square dance was surreal especially after the two drinks. A man in a cowboy outfit yelling out instructions while we danced and skipped about to some mad old record. But at least my friends from ISO were there, and that made all the difference.

Later, we went over to a senior's house for a birthday celebration which was really an excuse to party. It was almost all international students, almost all asian in other words. The experience was completely different from the one earlier in the night, a real stark contrast - it was a blast! Sure, I'm suppose to be stepping out of my comfort zone and all, but gosh, sometimes I just don't have the stomach for it! And yes, it really is quite a strange feeling not being part of the majority after being so all your life, it gives a new perspective to things, looking out into the world from the eyes of a minority.

he, she, ze

'Something is wrong with this picture,' that's what I thought to myself when I first got to the hall. It's just 'RESTROOM' and that's all. Shouldn't there be something else above it?

Urinals - check


Showers - check

Ok, must be a guy's toilet, I thought to myself. I was wrong. It's a coed bathroom, first one I've ever seen in my life! The official explanation is that it's suppose to encourage a liberal atmosphere where people who do not want a defined sexuality do not have to face any form of dilemma each time they want to take a bath. I think they're just trying to save money.

do you feel lucky?

"Wow this place sucks man! What kind of Chinese restaurant doesn't serve fortune cookies?"

INSERT COIN TO START

So I arrived at Wesleyan two days ago after a 20 hours plane ride from Singapore where I stopped in Hong Kong for some pretty damn good char siew fan. International Student Orientation is in the process of day 2 and it's been good so far aside from the jet lag and other things I'd shan't mention here, but overall it's great meeting new people coming from all these different cultures with all the history and experiences they bring here - truly a melting pot! (I made a guy from Kenya who said he went walking around his country for 3 months just for fun.)

We went down to Lyman Orchards today to pick fruit and as silly as it sounds it is quite an exhilarating experience plucking a peach from a tree and eating it straight without any form of sterilization. Oh what modernization has done to us! And taking a bite out of a peach still hanging on the tree and leaving it hanging there with a hole; or taking a few bites from a picked peach and deciding it doesn't taste nice, tossing it and picking another one for another go....there's a strange liberation about eating peaches as you run about a peach orchard.


There's a hell lot of food here in the land of the plenty. I have to fight off the temptation of overeating at all the meals I've had here so far, but I guess after a few more weeks of ang moh food, I'd be sick all the way to the darkest corners of my stomach from another piece of bread or salad leaf and will be having hokkien mee dreams.

Today, there was a skit done by the Orientation Assistants which I felt kind of summed up the whole liberal attitudes quite alien to a Singaporean:

'I love nature, I love to go about barefoot, oooooh what's this in my hair....mmmmmm tastes nice. I am Wesleyan'

'Hey, welcome, help yourselves to the drinks. Ok, you've got to take off your clothes this is a naked party. We are Wesleyan'

'I am taking 8 classes. I am not Wesleyan.'