Halloween in the USA!

This year has marked a lot of firsts for me - first time staying in hall, first time going to the US... I won't make a list as it'll go on forever. It is also the first time I've attended a Halloween party! It wasn't my first time celebrating Halloween though, that was last year:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="423"] Halloween 2011: Went to USS with the gf, bestie, and gwynnaho[/caption]

Anyway, back to the present. This party was organized by a Singaporean girl studying full-time in BU (well technically 2, they are housemates), and I kinda got the invite last minute but WHO CARES at least I got to go right haha.

So we went to the costume shop, and when I laid eyes on this, I knew I HAD to get this costume:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="272"] Ghostface from Scream![/caption]

Now the first reaction from some people will be like 'boring!', 'overused!' , 'childish!', and I say I DONT'T CARE. You must understand one thing - Scream was my favourite childhood movie. Like really absolute favourite, the kind where people ask you 'Favourite Movie?' and I will SCREAM! (pun) (I didn't really scream.) And it's really childhood movie lor, 1996 was the first Scream!
I even wrote a review of the lastest (and probably last) of the franchise, Scream 4, over here.

Thus, to go as Ghostface can be said as one of my childhood dreams even? Though that's probably overstating it because I didn't really have an childhood dream of dressing up as anything at all haha. I did try to look around the shop a bit for other costumes but... nothing came close to this.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="319"] Check out her knife 'wound' on her neck![/caption]

The party was about 10-15 minutes walk from my dorm, but I took the train there because I wasn't sure how to get there. And guess what - I wore my costume all the way there and back, mask and all! It was pretty fun, like on the train I saw this old lady trying to sneak a photo of me from afar, and I turned to her and sportingly raised my knife to pose and she laughed heartedly. At that moment, I felt the joy that all mascots/costumed characters probably feel when their 'audience' responds to their playacting in their roles (e.g. at Disneyland)

When I came out of my dorm and was heading out I also walked past a group of Chinese girls who were slightly freaked then as I walked past them I turned my head slowly towards them it freaked them out even more haha.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="229"] Something like this. And I never knew cats could rotate their heads 180degrees[/caption]

So amusing random passerbys aside, I think the whole fun for me was taking pictures with other people. I'm not a get drunk and go crazy kinda person so I don't know what else I can do at a party hahaha. Besides catch up with long lost friends... but I didn't know most of the people there so it was semi-awkward.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="312"] A downside of my costume is I have to remove my mask to be identified haha.[/caption]

My friends who sportingly posed afraid were my favourite pictures:



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="576"] BatGirl is afraid of Ghosface![/caption]

For more photos, you can head over to my Facebook album hereIt was a fun experience overall, but it further reinforces the fact that parties/clubbing isn't for me. I mean, I see most of what they were doing was just zi high (translation: force yourself to be high, and hope it perpetuates), which was kinda lame but I guess your judgement of lameness is impaired when you are intoxicated. Some examples are singing very loudly and doing outlandish actions to the songs. It can be fun I suppose... like singing along to a popular song. But I can only last that long before it gets old.

Sometimes I wish I was born with the gift of the gab instead of being smart and handsome (I'm kidding) (About the being smart and handsome part). I mean, someone who is a smooth talker can easily win over strangers even without being attractive (Of course, being attractive, you make people subconsciously like you more. Hey, proven in studies so all of you in denial, shhhh), can easily make more friends, etc.

Oh well. I should be glad I am born normal, with all my limbs intact, with normal intelligence, and can function normally. And I do already have some kickass friends. And blog readers.

Weird Psych Prof

I have a professor who is very... eccentric. She basically has a cynical world view and constantly ridicules certain research which she disagrees with. Her sense of humor is very dry... it's like.. I don't even know how to describe it. It's very in your face and you either love it or hate it. I just find her weird.

Here are some comments on her, taken from ratemyprofessor.com (something like our Modulereview.com)

She is very opinionated and at times "rude", but really she just has a dry sense of humor, which just makes class so much more enjoyable

She can has a strong personality that can seem rude, but it gives the class a neat perspective.

Incomprehensible lectures 1x/week and a movie on the other day of class which she more or less puts on to make a mockery of. Asks for opinions, and shoots them down immediately. Also instigates to get kids riled up and passionately speak their minds for inane reasons.

Hagen is one of the single most offensive teachers at BU - she makes claims she can't back up, she poisons her students with ideas that developmental theory and defense mechanisms don't exist

She ignores people with questions, often mutters unintelligibly, and goes off on endless tangents.

 

Yup, that's her. Ok the point of this blog post is to publish the email which she just sent us that epitomizes what I am talking about. The context is that today's lecture powerpoint slides were corrupted or something and no one could download them. We told her during class, and she said she'll look into it afterwards. So 5 minutes ago I received this email:

 

Well, Hagen, where is it?!? (yes she is talking to herself in third person)

Well, BU Faculty Link will not send you all an email with either version of the lecture. Blackboard will not
let me post the lecture either.

Perhaps, it is not meant to be.

Hmmm.

Maybe those Minnesota folks have super effective copyright protection. (she copied and pasted certain things from MMPI during lecture)

Will keep trying but will not email you with updates.

If it comes, it comes. If not, well, I've got jury duty, anyway.

 

"Will keep trying but will not email you with updates' lol wtf??!

Studying in USA is weird.

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.