More thoughts in Boston

As of today, I've been in America for exactly 2 months. Exactly 2 months ago, I touched down at SFO (the airport in San Francisco), and walked out into the cold air, amazed and intrigued at how it could be so chilly outdoors. It's a totally different and new sensation... the closest I can describe it is standing in an airconditioned glasshouse in Singapore, with the sun shining in.

The first two weeks were probably the most eventful 2 weeks of my time here (possibly even of the year). You can check out my series of blogs by selecting the 'Adventures in USA' category, to see what I did. After that, I came to Boston, and school began. And well, school is school, even if I'm on exchange, it's going to be somewhat a grind.

I guess I will try to organize my thoughts more coherently with section headings.

Friends

Looking at how one of my friends is now, I wish I was a girl. It's a long story but basically if I was a girl I would be surrounded with a larger circle of Christian friends. Now, I recently stopped going for the 'cell group' which I had gone for several weeks, because I didn't like how it was run. It was far too basic and felt pointless, the questions were straightforward and merely primary school comprehension. The people seemed fake (they are probably genuine) and it made me cringe when they say some things.

One of the key friends I made was M. (Not even the first letter of his name. I'll reveal his identity when I leave la k abit paisei haha) He is just a nice, friendly guy who I had the luck of befriending and it led to an enjoyable birthday and further friends being made. Hope to hang out more with him and his friends. Have been doing that already.

My roommate is pretty cool too. Though his waking habits annoy the crap out of me (he's Muslim, so he wakes up at 5AM to pray and consequently wakes me up with his alarm) (he likes to snooze his alarms a lot in the morning when he wakes up after that 5AM prayer), he is a genuine nice and friendly guy overall. Apart from the waking part, he's pretty considerate and nice to talk to. Maybe talks abit too much for my hermit nature (HAHA oops) but it's more my fault than his - sometimes I just want to be alone and shut down you know. Turn off all stimuli. Just be alone. And do my thaaang.

A friend that I was close to at the start, C, is now off in her own world, with her newfound American friends. Good for her I guess, it's what she always wanted. She is rather unreliable (e.g. doesn't reply texts, cancels last minute, etc) so I guess it's good that I don't depend on her for my social support. She's let me down before. Once bitten, twice shy.

 

Weather

Looking back, I am really thankful for my caring and supportive aunty and mom back home. They pushed me to bring warm clothes, such as the thick sweater that I wear out now. I have NO IDEA what I would be doing if I only had my, as my gf calls it, 'Harry Potter' jacket.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="346"] This one[/caption]

This jacket is REALLY thin, and does close to nothing to keep me warm apart from being another layer. The thick one that I have keeps me reasonably warm. Oh, and the scarf, long johns, sweater vest, were all my mum/aunt's ideas too. THANK GOD I BROUGHT THEM.

Because, well, the weather is pretty crazy here. For perspective, in Singapore, the LOWEST temperature we typically have is like, 24-25 degrees Celsius. So for 23 years of my life, the lowest temperature that I'm accustomed to having is 25 degrees outdoors. Indoors, the air-conditioners typically stop at 18 degrees, so perhaps some random places are indeed colder.

In Boston, at least in the past weeks, the HIGHEST temperature we have is 18 degrees Celsius. That means in the day, it normally averages at about 10-15, depending on the day, and dips below 10 at night. Right now it's 8 degrees out.

And even when it rises 'high' during the day to about 15-18 degrees, it's usually pretty windy, perhaps due to it being Autumn/Fall. When I say pretty windy, I mean trees swaying kind of windy. I mean wind that makes you squint and maybe even look away because it's smashing your face kind of windy. I mean... ok you get the point. Not the light breezes that we get in Singapore.

I don't think I'll be used to the hot Singapore weather when I get back - I won't be used to not having a fan indoors and still feeling cold (My room windows are all closed and it's still pretty cold that I'm wearing a sweater (the HP one))

And I heard it's going to get colder.

Accomplishment Factor

I know many people have the mindset that 'I'm going to do XYZ in exchange! I'm going to have so much fun! Wheee!'

For me, I never really fantasized much before I came here, and just took it as another phase of life. I didn't have much concrete expectations, like 'oh I must see this and that' or 'oh I must make 189314 American friends'. I just came with the mindset 'ok, this is the SEP phase of my life. Let's see what happens'.

This is both good and bad I suppose. Good because I don't aim to do too many things that I can't complete. Bad because I have nothing much to do LOL.

I mean, I don't want to regret any part of my time spent here. I don't want to look back when I'm back in Singapore and think 'man, I should have done this, then'. I want to have no regrets. Accomplish all the things!

I guess that's why today, I spontaneously decided to go watch a movie. (Looper, was pretty good! Check it out if you haven't) Check THAT off my list. What else do I have on it?

1. Watch a Boston Celtics game  (NBA season hasn't begun)


2. Look at leaves changing color (not yet... though some have begun to change). Experience autumn!


3. See and touch snow (not within my control)


4. See the statue of liberty, go up the empire state building (after my semester)


5. Go to a party? (yes, shocker, I haven't been to one. Mainly because I don't exactly want to. But... we'll see if this gets done)


6. Watch a Red Sox game (may have missed my chance, season may be over. not sure)


7. I'm getting tired of thinking of items

Okayyy. I never know how to end my entries nowadays. Bazinga.

 

Birthday in the USA!

My 23rd birthday just passed, and... it went better than I expected! Well I had not expected much out of it in the first place, I'm not big on celebrations and parties and stuff so I just wanted a chillax card playing session. It was quite problematic actually, because it was the Columbus Day long weekend so many people were travelling and wasn't free on Friday, and because of some other stuff that's too complicated to explain.

I eventually managed to scrap together something, with like a 50% response rate lol. But it was SO much fun. To me, at least. Heh.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="446"] The plan was to play Texas Hold'Em! I bought this set of chips off Amazon[/caption]

BUT before this...

I have this friend Peter, a really nice friendly guy from Massachusetts who's Vietnamese/Thai, who I got to know over here in America. I had asked him to come for this poker thing, and he began to ask suspicious things:



I didn't want him to buy me cake la, like so paisei! I don't even know him thaaaat well, just bump into each other occasionally at the gym, play pingpong together.

That was a few days before my birthday. Then on the day itself:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="260"] That last line made me crack up seriously lol. 'It's for my homework' HAHAHA.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="352"] AND HE TURNS UP WITH A WHOLE CHEESECAKE FROM CHEESECAKE FACTORY[/caption]

LIKE OMG!?!

I would already have been pretty touched if he just got me some normal cheap fruit cake, given how he didn't really know anyone else there and we only just knew each other for over a month. But. He got a WHOLE cheesecake from the yummiest cheesecake place in the world!

Ok maybe not in the world but it was super delicious! Sorry for the lousy photo.

Ok, delicious yummy cheesecake aside. We devoured it quickly and ... on to the games!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="561"] Me explaining the game to them. I actually won quite a bit, then some people began to run out of money (chips) so I kept sponsoring them, then end up I wasn't the biggest winner lol.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="494"] We switched to Banana Scrabble after poker. It was really fun! It's something like speed Scrabble, you have to race to finish up your tiles.[/caption]

And after we finished playing, they're damn cute la they went to do this with the tiles:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="514"] awww[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="558"] Don't ask me why they wanted to carry me[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="545"] :D It was a fun night with awesome company. Thank God for how everything worked out after the initial hiccups :}[/caption]

The day ended off really well imo. I already had a decent day, spending the afternoon gymming + playing basketball and a bit of pingpong, and I returned to my dorm pretty tired physically, but still had to prepare for this gathering that I arranged. And it turned out splendid! It's like, everyone was nice and fun to talk to and have around. And I was winning. So. HA. ok the winning part is secondary.

I should sleep soon, it's like 2.30 AM here. Have a long day tomorrow, going to be meeting Singaporeans in Boston at some event, then I'm off to New York! Pray for my safety I'm genuinely scared I get robbed! Bye!

P.S. Oh we had a video too:



Just our random conversation as I was cutting the cake ... there's one funny part at 1:13 so you can skip to that.

[Dream] Neverending Stairs, Public Defaecation & Human Trafficking

My dreams are usually incoherent, jumpy, and disjointed (are these 3 actually synonyms? oops). However, the dream I had last night was surprisingly coherent and continuous. What made it more amazing was that I actually woke up halfway, went to the bathroom, went back to sleep and slipped right back into it.

 

It started out with a job interview I was going for. I had the address on hand but I had no idea how to get there, so I was using Maps to navigate, as I very often did so in the US. (I was in Singapore in the dream, as I realized at the end) I reached this school-like building (maybe it was a school, I can't remember) and started climbing up the stairs for some reason.

I reached the 7th floor (Yes, I remember distinctly it was the 7th, not the 6th or the 8th), and continued climbing the stairs. The weird thing was, after the 7th floor, the stairs started going downwards instead of up, so eventually I ended up back at the bottom. It was something like those neverending staircase illusions, just that it wasn't neverending - it brought me up and then back down.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="373"] Never-ending stairs[/caption]

 

 

 

I asked for directions several times, and the people I asked all said 'oh, just show your map to any truck driver, he'll know the place', because apparently the location of the job interview was quite obscure and normal people can't find it but truck drivers always go there so they know.

At this point, I believe I woke up to pee, but I really can't remember. It's like, when a dream becomes fused, you don't really remember where the beginning or the end was. It all becomes continuous.

---

I was making my way to the interview location, and I reached this small shop, and needed the toilet to shit. I told the storekeeper, who was an old man, and he said go ahead. I looked down and saw a toilet bowl right there in the open, and somehow for some weird reason, I didn't hesitate at all and I just pulled my pants down and sat on the toilet bowl right there in the open, and felt no shame whatsoever. WEIRD.



---

I arrived at the building of the interview finally, and some guards or something came down to escort me up the building. Then somehow I suddenly had a companion (I can't remember who, one of my friends) and she was with me too, going for the interview. We went all the way up to the HQ, and we were seated.

Then this person told us that he's passing us the newest model of the mobile phone, and we were to test it. He handed over this block of plastic to my friend, and when it became clearer I saw it was some old walkie talkie. At that point I started to realize it was all a sham.

My friend was told to press a button every time a light came on, otherwise she would be shocked by a little electric current. This is exactly like what I'm reading about in my Learning and Conditioning module!

After some time, we realized we were being held captive, and would be used as slaves for this experiment.

---

It is with great pity that I CAN'T REMEMBER what happened next, but I distinctly recall it was the most exciting - somehow, someway, I managed to escape from the place! It involved me outsmarting the guards or something but I really can't remember.

Then I went to meet Weiqin because we were supposed to go out I think. She said she needed to find her dad regarding something, and when I followed her back to the building I was at before, I realized her dad was the boss of that company!!

Me: "Weiqin, do you know what your dad does for work?"

Qin: "No I don't know I never asked, what?"

Me: "Nevermind, it's better not to know."

And she somehow didn't pester me and left it as that.

Now the thing is her dad still doesn't know that I had escaped yet, so when we walked up to him I saw a flash of recognition and surprise cross his eyes but he quickly suppressed and hid it as he spoke to Weiqin. We were asking for permission to go out of town or something, and he told us we had to rent a car so we could drive out.

The whole conversation was intense as I wasn't sure what he would do - on one hand he wanted to recapture me but I think he wanted to hide the nature of his job from weiqin so he didn't do so.

The dream ended with us walking off, and she was asking if I was sure I wanted to drive out of town, as it may be inconvenient for me to get back later. I then responded with something like 'Aiya, out of town is only like, to Hougang or something right? That's alright I can go home from there'

This made little sense but ok, dreams don't usually make sense. And yup that's all. I had a second vivid, long dream but I totally forgot that because I was exerting all my memory cells to remember this one.