On The Move…

I’ve just gotten out of my first final exam at this school.  I feel rather bruised.  I wish I could report otherwise, but I don’t think I’m going to be happy with the results.  Why does math always turn around and clobber me on the final exam?  Why??

And now I need to pull myself together for chem, which could (and likely will) be so much worse.

So it’s been colder than it’s ever been before, going down to minus forty degrees (did you know that negative forty is the point where the Farenheit and Celsius scales converge??  I sure didn’t want to know).

So now I have about four days till my first final.  My last two expos essays have been turned in (this is a good thing).  And on the first day of finals I attended the biggest social event I’ve gone to in months – chocolate fondue party at Wigg H-22!  We played balderdash, and I went to buy food from the Kong and Ben & Jerry’s (I hadn’t had dinner because I arrived back from Dartmouth).

What was I doing at Dartmouth during Reading Period?  I was at a debate tournament.  Smart, huh?

Pray for me 🙂

PS: I *do* have something to sort of look forward to though – I’m visiting Philadelphia and DC with Ryan, Emily, Xinwei and Shiming.  Our flight leaves under three hours after my last exam (sound familiar?).  We’re staying with Emily in Philly (and her aunt in DC), Ryan and Emily will drive us about, we’ll visit Dan in New Jersey, and various people at Georgetown.  It should be fun 🙂

Things I didn’t manage to do during winter recess:

1) See everybody (sorry Shawn!  Jeremy – thanks for the water bottle 🙂 Alex, I ddin’t even get to say hi… Then there’s Linqi, Farhan, Mr Wong, Chris.  I’m going to stop here before I feel compelled to make phone calls to apologise.)

2) Finish writing those half-finished scripts.  Argh.

3) Write my expos essay (oh no!!).

4) Study for finals (this is going to haunt me for a long time, I’m sure).

5) Collect my DELF certificate.  Perhaps tomorrow.

6) Read many many books collecting dust in my library.  *shakes head in irritation*

7) Write and send out Christmas cards.

8) See Matrix: Revolutions (I know, I know – I’m not missing much, apparently, but still.), Love, Actually, Under the Tuscan Sun etc. etc.

9) Get enough exercise.  Enough said.

10) Organise and burn my photos to CDs.  (I *will* get this done eventually!!)  On a related note, I didn’t manage to get my keyboard fixed either.  Maybe tomorrow…

Things I *did* manage to do:

1) Meet many, many people!  Special mention goes to Ailian, Shirley, Kevin, Jason, Daniel, Arun, Yining, Renhua, Cheryl, Clarence, Pixian, Gen, Cyndi, Peiyan, Desmond…  (the serendipitous or notable meetings)  And of course my favourite friends, classmates and relatives.

It was great to see my favorite friends again, satisfying to see them doing well, wonderful to hear their stories…  it’s particularly remarkable that I happened to chance upon Cyndi on icq the day she flew back, several months after I’d lost contact with her.  Hope you’re doing well in Australia 🙂

We’ve sure come quite a long way since high school.

From left: me, Cyndi, Wanyi, Flora & Terence

The gang at Starbucks (29 Dec 2004)

2) Go clubbing.  First time in over 4 months!  Good to see Centro and Zouk still going strong.  (PS: Gen, I promise I’ll make it up to you! :/)

3) Finish a couple of books.  (This is a near-miraculous test of will given how increasingly slowly I read.)

4) Eat lots of local food.  Sushi buffet! Hawker fare! Herbal soup!  Seafood tom yam!  Chilli kang kong!!

4) Watch Return of the King (I liked it!  A lot!) and Mona Lisa Smile (a tad underwhelming).

5) Bake chocolate chip cookies and kueh bankit.  (Thanks Xin Wei, and thank your mom for me too!)  Yes Neil – you’ll get some 🙂

6) Shop.  Like you wouldn’t believe.  Or perhaps you might, if you’ve been to either visited Bangkok or lived in Singapore 😉  I sure hope everythings fits in my suitcase.

7) Go to my family church.  I really do miss BBTC.  Thank goodness for Park Street, though.  The Christmas drama was really impressive!

8) Arrange for more people to come visit (I love visitors), and make plans for visiting my dear Londoners during intercession.  Never mind Hungary, this sounds like a plan.

9) Recharge (no pun intended) my draining/drained finances.  And replenish my supply of daily essentials which are so much cheaper in Singapore.  Yay.

10) Attend World Universities, even if that should have turned out quite differently.  Ah well.

11) I also got in a couple of sessions on my sister’s violin, which really makes me yearn for lessons again.  Back on campus I’ve played my instrument all of three or four sessions.

I’ll be on my way to campus in about 20 hours.  See you soon.