Designer: Manikka
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it's this fast. 20 days already. and counting down to day 26 when i get on my dunno-how-many-hours flight at san francisco to singapore. homebound.

the last 3 days in toronto have been amzing. i officially declare toronto my favorite city in north america. relative to where i've visited that is. and of course, it helps that i've got one of my favorite friends here in this nice relaxed city, who's definitely made my stay here really enjoyable.

merci beaucoup monsieur joel!

zk and i met joel everyday during the 3 days that we were here. on top of that and all the yummy eateries he brought us to, we tried a coupla other places that he recommended. there was:
Tim Horton's ice cappucino
good Vegetarian place at Kensington market
absolutely delectable brownie waffles at Just Desserts
Korean spicy pork soup at Ka-chi in Korean Town
Japanese pancakes with scallops/shrimp on Charles St.
superb ice blended Reveria chocolate at Far Coast cafe in Yorkville
Jap cuisine along Yonge
light fluffy green tea cake at Cake House in Korean Town

it's crazy how i knew him through gwen in october 2004 while he was still in ns, and now it's been 3 years, he's been here in U of T for 2 years already....but i really do feel like i've known him for WAAAAAYYY longer than a mere 3 years.

thanks so much big guy for just being yourself, for ur thoughtfulness and humour and support and encouragement, for the numerous times u've put a smile on my crestfallen face, for showing me that in spite all the unhappiness around and how resigned thoughts and attitudes surface from time to time, i know u're always there to stick up for me and put the nasty ones to sleep with the fishes. u're the Godfather!

really felt sad reading the small square card this evening. the small square card which holds so much.
truly appreciate what he wrote.
i dont know when i'll see him again. when are u coming back to singapore joel?! if i do grad sch here i'll meet u again. but till then...:(

before arriving in toronto, i was already looking forward to meeting up with this long-time-no-see dude. i never doubted that i'd enjoy having his company during my days here. but now that it's time to say BYE again, i dont quite want to.

:(

Inas in specs. she looks cute with those honestly.
hannah and derek -- sweetest couple ever!

our toast before yingying left. at jupiter's. while waiting for ying ying haha.

Leanne -- great company and new found friend! miss u already babe, looking forward to meeting up in singapore!

jaime -- the ladies' man from peru/nyc...most charming and charismatic guy in ihouse!

Tanja -- the last time i'll see her. unless i see her in netherlands!
Arom -- before she left on her roadtrip with david:

guess who'll do this..only adrien my french neighbor:

with han-a, homi and unna:

peter--underage drinker:

this is us trying to help my roommate pack and zip up her bag so that she can get to the airport in time and not miss her flight--> this was 1 hour after she actually decided NOT to fly back to hk that night. haha

nick--whom i always see in the library when i'm in mugging mode, and who's finally gotten facebook and who's graduated from ucb!

it's been stagnant for so long here..time to put some life back!

school's out already, for more than a week. i really do miss school..the classes..the myriad of buildings in campus..the way-too-tiring slope up to I-House..the black bottom muffin from free speech cafe at moffitt library..the dark chocolate chunk muffin from bear's lair..the polish hot dogs from the van outside sproul..

the demonstrations by student groups (one zombie group protested against an increase in taxes), the preachings of religion (and against religion)/politics/whatever else u can possibly think of..by the various familiar homeless faces, the little old man who stands on buckets balanced on top of a barrel and wears a cardboard sigh and shouts "Happy Happy Happy! Happy Happy Happy!", the greek fraternity and sorority members, and SO MUCH MORE!!

and of course, there's International House, affectionately known as IHouse..the experience there was incredible. and to think that initially, i didn't want to stay there because it was so extremely costly! i still think it's awfully expensive but i have no regrets having spent 4.5 months there, along 2299 Piedmont Ave in Berkeley CA 94720.

when i first shifted into the 3rd floor, i wasn't so comfortable. firstly because it seemed that ying ying and the rest on the 4th floor and above didn't seem to stay so far from one another. secondly because the room really isn't so spacious. it's roughly ok for a single-bed, a desk, and a set of drawers to be arranged in the little cuboid of a space, but double all that furniture and the number of people and the pieces of luggage and clothes and whatnots, and it's really too squeezy. and i thought my roommate was the type to keep to herself and wow did that sound exciting already.

but of course, all that negative thoughts changed after just 1 week! i loved my room..i still do. the view of the front of ihouse, right down the slope of bancroft way facing campus is just awesome. and yea, i get to watch the sunset everyday if i want to. my roommate..i miss her already, we had fun together eating junk at weird times of the day and watching shows online :) the party gang of mainly international students who coincidentally stayed on the 3rd floor (alot of them at least) and their parties were appreciated greatly. never once did i not find the noise and clubbing music blasting from their rooms lively...and oh yea, mon francias voisin (my french neighbor) adrien.

and all the interesting funny students who stayed in ihouse...some of them became friends, some of them acquaintances, some of them still strangers in a sense. among those who became friends, there was ryan from california/nick from indonesia/peter from LA/arom, han-a, unna, elmo from korea/ david from here/ tanja from netherlands...and so many more. miss them!

as the last days of exam week drew nearer (which meant that the sem was ending..too quickly), everyday i saw ihouse residents packing up and leaving. inas left first. followed by pius and alice. then ying ying and her boyfriend, and hannah and derek the next morning, and lastly, everyone else who was left :( i never went up the Campanili Tower that is characteristic of Berkeley, i ate my favorito dark chocolate chunk muffin from bear's lair twice, i drank bubble tea before leaving, ate the yummylicious pahd see ew thai noodles, ate affordable and yummy fancy american style sushi from sushi house, had the last crepes for breakfast, the last burrito and taco chips with salsa dip, the last cheeseboard pizza, the first and last time we had pizza dinner at jupiter's...the last indonesian fare at jayakarta restaurant..so many LAST TIMES..too many rather. I never got to finish all those last times actually.

candies at dinner today! korean candy was strategically placed in the dining hall..for erm...convenient access. candy from the philippines was a little far off, but was clean cut and packaged nicely. australian candy was gone before we went down for dinner.

:) :)

on the downside, it's less than 1 month before leaving IHouse and of cos, the IHouse dining hall. this means...no more candy. or candies. boooo

:( :( :( :(

i hate it here.
i hate school.
i hate all these assignments and essays and exams.
i hate berkeley.
i hate the usa.

just so sick.
sick of school.
sick of life.
SICK. of EVERY. DAMN. THING.

4.45am..back from 4.5 hours of ktving! both leanne and my roommate decided not to go in the end, so it was a foursome with zk, ying, wilson and i. it was fun though..we tried my roommate's fav lung-pumping song 死了都要爱.but ying and i just couldn't get those notes...we couldn't yell our lungs out haha...

singing is expensive here!!! tonight's hole in the pocket was 31 bucks. PER PERSON! that's a whopping USD124 altogether for 4.5 hours! it's insane. but we still go to get sore throats and burn holes in the pocket. hahaha.

IHouse had a Superhero party tonight...loads of people really dressed up as those characters from marvel comics...from tomb raider...and many more interesting get ups. haha. wait till i get those pictures! the party may be over, but there's a post party just next door, where i can actually smell the booze from where i'm sitting in my room with my door closed. haha. 3rd floor is where there are alot of party animals... 3rd floor is where i stay. i'm not complaining..i'm not so anal, the parties kinda liven up the area :) oh..by the way, next door where the music is blasting now (yes at 4.50am) is where the uber cute billabong-poster-like-surfer-dude from downunder stays. hahaha.

slightly less than 4 weeks left to the end of the semester here...so upsetting!!! i dont feel like i've done alot seriously...the friends part is definitely fulfilling because i made some close friends..those whom i know i will cry when we have to say goodbye..some i'll see you back home, some it'll be a long while before we meet again, if we do..sob :(

but just at the less-than-4-weeks mark, suddenly, i'm so aware of more that's happening around...suddenly zk got so hyped up today after skydiving, he actually nearly bounced over to our table during dinner to ask if any of us are going out tonight. hahahaha. this is in total contrast to the super-serious-we-all-have-to-study-zhikuang when the sem first started hahaha! wait till he reads this :p

yup, and i'm already so dead with regards to next week's deadlines...oh, and don't even mention the rest of the deadlines till the semester ends bleah. there's french test on monday, animal cognition assignment due tuesday and my 10 pg occupational analysis paper for sociology of work due on thursday. the first 2 assignments are easy to tackle..the essay...boooooooo....i'm so bad at writing essays and i haven't even started anything for that....so dead!!! but above all, the worst thing is that i couldn't bear to turn down going ktv-ing tonight!!! haha. leanne, wilson, zhikuang and yingying are going too. haha. get your priorities right!!!

-_-

blogging from michigan!!!!! ann arbor more specifically, in daniel's room at baits house. it's 1am....and daniel is out doing project...still. and his roommate aint back yet, doing project outside also i presume. soyup, i've got the room to myself.

arrived here yesterday morning, was quite freaked out when i couldnt contact the airport shuttle after collecting my luggage (or hannah's luggage rather) at the detroit metro wayne county airport. i should think that's what the airport code DTW stands for...after half an hour (!!!) of calling the shuttle company, i finally got through, and the guy on the other line gave me vague instructions on getting out of the airport and crossing 3 streets to wait for the shuttle vehicle number 209. the way he said it, i was half expecting a minivan with "#209" printed on the front or something...which explained why, after waiting for another 20 mins in the michigan cold, i was freaking out again because the minivans that i saw all belonged to other shuttle companies! the shuttle company called finally, after 25 mins, and asked "where are u erin". he sounded irritated, turns out that his black sedan had been waiting for almost 10 mins already and he still saw no sign of me. -_- right. And, the "#209" was printed on this tiny piece of paper stuck to the car window. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?!

nevermind that i practically waited almost an hour to get into the car, he had to drop off 3 other passengers first, which was fine by me actually, save for the fact that hannah and yingying warned me not to fall asleep in the car since i was alone, and i was already dozing off...so the driver dropped me off outside daniel's dorm at umich after i signed. (i gave them my credit card details when i made the reservation by phone the previous day) and now to my horror, i realise that there's a $60.00 debit transaction pending in my account for the shuttle vehicle. WHAT?!?!?! that's ridiculous. i'm going to call them tmr to clear this up. they cant suck money out of a poor student like me.

there i was wearing 3 layers (including thermals) under my cal sweatshirt and shivering to the bone, and daniel came out to pick me and my bag in a tshirt and berms. hahaha. and he thought i was only wearing 1 tee under my sweatshirt..that's why i was shivering so badly. he nearly fainted when i told him there were 3 layers. hahahah. spent the afternoon in his room bathing and watching the devil wears prada on his comp while he went for his exam and class.

daniel and i had dinner at this taiwanese place near the central campus, called asian legend, with his friends matthew hanes vincent and wen yi. michigan's 'asian legend' sure beats berkeley's 'asian ghetto'. as in the name...asian ghetto aint just a restaurant in berkeley, it's a collection of different asian places la, hence the name. but "ghetto" just isnt so pleasant sounding.

we had dessert after that! at this place called Stoochi's! i think that's what it's called, cant really remember. but ice cream was goooooood! before returning to the dorm, dan brought me to find kaijian, who's also from vj from my neighbour class, and we ended up chatting quite abit. this is in view of the fact that i never spoke a word to kaijian in vj back then haha.

poor dan, i know it's not a good time for me to visit him here because it's right smack in the middle of his exams...and i really feel bad imposing like that. and sigh, i told him i'm ok with the sleeping bag and he can take his bed, but he refused. kept saying that he cant possibly do that. i see where he's coming from la, but still, i know i'm disturbing him. but last night, he really surprised me. standing outside his room door, he said "i'm really glad that u came here actually" haha awww...dan i told u i'd come look for u in my christmas card to u last year!!!! and u thought i was "just saying..." -_-

he treated me to taiwanese dinner last night, so i treated him to a japanese dinner today. in the midst of watching "perfume" on his laptop now. more laterrrrrrr