Time to put the old horse down

This is not a good week.

Barely surviving ohmygoodness I need sleep.


(This moring we started my tutorial class 30 minutes later than usual, then we watched 30 minutes of Dane Cook's stand-up routine, and my professor was like, "Let's call it a day, shall we?" Because all of us looked terrible, half dead like that.
2-hour class turned into half-hour of watching stand-up comedy!)

I cannot wait for this week to be over lah.

Horrible week =(

What I saw last night

I saw penises last night (um, kind of).

One was a huge bulge in an underwear, because the guy was wearing nothing but the underwear (no I didn't actually SEE his thingie), and the other was a meter-long inflatable one another guy had strapped on to his loins.

Very what-the-heck right.

It was at this themed party that a bunch of us went to check out, but it was too hot and sweaty and the music was too loud so we left really soon.

Damn kao sketchy! (And 'sketchy' wasn't even a word I knew before I came here! The real, proper meaning of the word has got nothing to do with what people here mean when they use it, and boy do they use it to describe everything weird and suspicious!)

I went star-gazing again last night! And saw shooting stars!

It was especially nice because when we went before it was with a group of about 10 people, but last night they wanted to catch a movie that we weren't keen on watching so it was just two of us, and it was really dark and quiet and comfortable and you feel just so at peace with the world.

We went at 10.30 PM, and by the time we came back it was 2.30 AM. And we seriously would've stayed if it weren't so damn cold and there wasn't church the next day.

Initially I thought it was a Grinnell thing, to go star-gazing and all, because when we got here one of the sophomores kept telling us about it (and she was the one who brought us to that nice place on the golf course for star-gazing).

Then we found out that it wasn't a Grinnellian thing, it was just us. Which is nice, 'cause it means we have that place to ourselves. And it's a really nice place too, far away enough from the college and all the lights to see the stars, and there's a lake there too, but then we'd have to go, "Okay, so how far is the lake?" because it's so dark and no one wants to walk too far and fall into the water.

Star-gazing has become our little activity loh, especially if we need some quite time away from people.

I wish Malaysia had skies like the ones here!

Expanding waistline

Friday night, I was at a friend's dorm watching "Talladega Nights" that we rented from the school library. We were just passing time, waiting till it was time to go for this other event later that night.

So anyway. I went to use the toilet in her dorm, and right after peeing I obviously had to zip up my jeans, and my jeans buckle popped out. My jeans buckle popped! It just shot out like a tiny missile! Nothing is more indicative of me becoming fat than the popping out of my damn jeans buckle okay! (Except of course my friend's electronic scale explicitly showing my weight in bright red glowing numbers.)

A bit embarrassing okay!

It shot out, fell to the floor right beside the toilet bowl, and kid of rolled partially into this crack between the toilet bowl and the floor. I tried picking it up, but you know la, fingers also become fat and clumsy, instead of effectively picking it up I actually pushed the entire buckle into the crack.

I had to borrow my friend's ruler, and both of us were on all fours, trying to push the damn buckle out with the ruler. And it wasn't easy locating it, we actually pushed out a hairpin and a paper clip before the buckle came out. Lemme tell you, I have never put my face this close to a toilet floor / toilet bowl okay!

So now that the buckle is out and it isn't re-sewable or anything, I basically cannot wear that jeans anymore loh. Which is a pity 'cause it's my second favorite pair of jeans.

I know I have been eating too much because I feel extremely full after every meal, but it's mostly because I would almost always start a meal feeling like I have not fully digested the food I had from the meal before, but I'd still go ahead and stuff myself silly.

Potatoes, desserts, cheese, rice, desserts, bacon, desserts, desserts and desserts.

And all that talk of consistently going to the gym? All talk only lor. Like last night we were supposed to go at 9.00 PM, but I ended up making that phone call to say I won't be going because I had too much homework. (Bullshit loh actually, I just waited till the last minute to work on it. I ended up working on it till 3 AM!)

You know, when I'm not full I have a relatively normal stomach, but when I'm full I look like I'm pregnant. One time, I was out with my sister buying her prom dress, and when we got back home I put her dress on to see how it looked on me, but that time I was full so I had a belly so darn enormous, even my sister was amazed.

So anyway, I realized that for the past few weeks I seem to have had a permanently bloated belly. It feels horrible actually, makes me sluggish and all (plus the constant worry that I'm going to get fat).

So guess what I had today. Bagel and cream cheese for breakfast, turkey ham and cheese on wholemeal bread for lunch, and pasta + salad (without loading it with cheese for once!) for dinner. No dessert. (A lot of self-control involved okay!) Yeeeaaahhh that is considered very little compared to what I normally have =(

Amazingly, I have a normal, non-pregnant-looking stomach now! (So through this experiment-thingie we now know it only takes a day of practicing sefl-control to have my belly go back to its non-bloated state!)

You know my diet and weight is becoming a worrying issue when I dedicate two entire posts to them within a week.

This is the kiasu person's way of dealing with expensive meal plans. Eat as much as you can to swueeze all the value you can get out of it!

(I was snacking on an apple and a bag of baby carrots to cure my hunger by the way. Ohmygawd I feel like one of those crazy health freaks!)

Speaking of health freaks, it's so ridiculous that while the college offers such super unhealthy foods (there are healthy options also la, but those stations are tucked at the deserted corner at the back of the dining hall), they also offer things like Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi and Diet Dr Pepper.

Super ridiculous. I work at the Spencer Grill, which is a lot nicer to work in than at the main dining hall because it's more like a cafe and hence is more chill, cleaner, and less busy (same pay though yay!).

I have served so many people who come up to the cash register, ask for a diet soda (DIET soda!), and when I ask if they want a regular or a large, they go, "Large one, please."

Ridiculous. How much healthier is a large diet soda please!

Over here we have milk, right, and we have three options - chocolate milk, skim milk, and 2% milk.

The first time I wanted milk for my cereal, I was like, what the heck is 2% milk?! So what is the rest of the 98% made of? Water? Are they ripping me off by giving me watered down milk?

I didn't want chocolate milk, I didn't want skim milk, and 2% milk just sounded too ridiculous. All I wanted was regular, full cream milk.

I don't care if it's going to make me humongously overweight, I don't care if skim milk and 2% milk (!!) is super healthy and thus not make me humongously overweight, I just want my regular milk that actually tastes good.

So I went around to all the milk dispenser machines to see if any of them had regular milk, but nope, it was only skim and 2%.

I'm used to asking, "Skim or 2%?" when someone asks for milk at the Grill, and every time I ask it I feel very ridiculous. (I obsiously Googled "2% milk" to see what it really was, and found out that the "2%" refers to the fat contained in the milk. Full cream milk contains 3.5% fat. Not a lot less also?)

French quiz tomorrow morning, and I am about as prepared as a loaf of bread, a tub of butter, unsliced ham, whole tomatoes and lettuces on a table waiting to be made into a sandwhich.


Sorry for the analogy.

Bye bye!

Quickie

Family Weekend this week.

Very what la, like yesterday I was sitting with a few other international students for dinner, and this American at the next table saw a friend of hers, and was like, "This is my mother, this is my brother, my grandmother, and this is my father!"

We were all just looking at each other. Then we started talking about our own families.

Obviously none of our parents came, right, and we were just saying that our parents are not at all going to visit Grinnell until our commencement (4 years later!).

Quite funny also la, like make ourselves sound very ke lian like that.

I am so tired. SOOO TIRED.

I just finished working a 5-hour shift at the Grill (the usual shift is only 3 hours), because it was Family Weekend and they needed people because the usual people working the shifts probably have families over.

It was a pretty horrible shift! It's probably 'cause when people have parents over they buy more (and more expensive) food, because the parents paying for them what, so it was super busy.

Other than the 15-minute break, I'd been standing and rushing around throughout my entire shift, can you imagine how tiring that is.

Every since I've been at Grinnell I've been sleepy every waking minute. Not like I have that much homework also?

Livin' large. Like, literally.

I have gained 2.5 kg since I got here. Like, OhMyGoodness.

I gained 2.5 kg in a month!

I blame the expensive meal plan. The college makes it compulsory for all first-years to go for the 21-meal plan.

And let me tell you, that meal plan is so expensive it shocks everyone who finds out how much they really cost.

I mean, we all know how much we have to pay for meals each semester, it's printed there on the billing statement right, but no one really goes and calculates how much we are paying for a day of food.

Then they find out that they are being charged RM27.8 for breakfast, another RM27.8 for lunch, and RM38.20 for dinner, and everyone just goes into a state of shock.

Seriously la, what person consumes RM 94 worth of food each day!

It makes me feel pressured, like I have to eat something even if I don't feel like it, because damn it I'm not going to pay RM38.20 without getting its worth in food!

It's such a waste that some of my friends have the blandest, most boring food for lunch. Like one time, one of them just had a bowl of cereal and a glass of water for lunch because she didn't feel like eating. The most expensive bowl of cereal, I can tell you that much.

Then many a time I'd skip breakfast (for example, I've never, never been to breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays), so that's RM27.80 spent on absolutely nothing for each breakfast skipped.

I sound very kiamsiap, don't I, what with all the quoting of prices and repeating how much money I'm wasting. But goodness I'm not even done talking yet.

So to further affirm my kiamsiap-ness, let me tell you how I, being the true blue kiasu Malaysian, would make the most out of the situation.

Because I work in the dining hall, I get to have free meals whenever I work a shift, which means my meal plan for the day is being wasted, right?

Wrong. I actually can go to the Spencer Grill and get an Out-take, which is basically a take-away meal package for people who missed their meals at the dining hall.

So what I do is I eat my free lunch during my shift, then after I'm done working I go get an Out-take, and eat that. So basically I have two lunches/dinners/whatever.

Of course I'd gain weight, and I'm 100% sure I'd gain more.

You know, really fattening food like cheese and carbs like potatoes are so accessible here, I practically have cheese every single meal.

Today, I had cheese omelette with ham, bacon and mushrooms for breakfast (plus a doughnut and chocolate milk, but those aren't necessary mentions I guess), for lunch I had turkey ham and cheese sandwhich with cheddar chips, and dinner was cheese-baked potatoes, a slice of pizza, and a rather large mound of salad loaded with bacon and cheese.

Of course you can avoid cheese, of course you can go completely healthy and opt for non-cheese, non-carbs, non-red meat meals, but why would you want to do that (unless you are some super health-freak, which I am not unfortunately)?

And as if all that isn't enough, the dessert here is heavenly. No wait - the dessert here is Heavenly! (It needs the upper case H and the italicization!)

Like, they'd have the most dense chocolate cake you can imagine. And they'd have super amazing pies! One time they had carrot cake, and everybody was having it. I was surprised, I'd never seen any dessert make its way onto every single table what. Then this sophomore at our table was wolfing his down, and he was like, "This is the best thing you'd ever get to taste in Grinnell." So even though carrot cakes never appealed to me, even though I didn't think it looked that nice, I took a slice anyway - and ohmygoodness, it was SO GOOD.

The most worrying thing here is that my clothes are all of ngam-ngam-hou size, so that if I suddenly bloat up (and they say at the beginning you gain weight slowly -if you can call my 2kg increase slow- and then after that your weight will suddenly just soar), I'd have to get new clothes. Damn expensive here okay.

Aaaaanyway. Even though the desserts here are to die for (especially the ice-cream, I sometimes have 3 cones a day, and I didn't even use to like ice-cream back in Malaysia), everything else here is starting to get a bit less appealing, they get so repetitive.

They do have a stir-fry station though, where you pretty much get chinese food, but they are made-to-order (obviously loh, you choose your own ingredients what) and so the lines are so long I don't even bother. But one of my friends has this amazing patience, and she'd bring her meal from the stir-fry station to our table while I'm already halfway through eating, and they always looked so nice.

I miss Malaysian food.

I'm pretty much killing myself by visiting Malaysian food blogs (where right now the hot topic is the Ramadan bazaars, and they always have close-ups of these delicious -looking foods). Like, I'd have nothing to do (basically means trying to put off homework la), and I'd visit one of those food blogs, then get super hungry (even though I'm really not at all), and I'd have unhealthy snacks like chips or Oreos or something.

Those food blogs are like porn for homesick Malaysians like myself.

Speaking of Oreos, I bought so much of them to store in my room, one of my friends who came over was like, "Oh. My. God." (Why do people do that? Put a figurative full-stop at the end of each word like that.)

Anyway, my roommate asked if I had Oreos back in Malaysia.

Chhhhhehh, like, do we!?! (I practically lived on Oreos during exam periods okay!)

Ciao!

P/S. Alliteration in my title!

Oh, look what you've done.

Regarding the previous post, the post title was randomly chosen, holds no significance! (Actually my neighbor was listening to that song at that time.) I read my own post and realized how it sounded like I was super jealous of clever, intellectual people because I'm not clever and intellectual myself.

It's a lot more convenient to use lines from songs you happen to be listening to as your post titles.

Anyway.

I dropped history. Yay!

(Seriously, what would you expect from me? I seriously considered changing streams months after entering form 4, I changed subjects/courses twice during pre-u, and I have a brother who is 24 and still hasn't completed his degree because he changed his mind too often.)

When I went to my adviser to change my classes again, he actually went, "Is this going to be a recurring theme?"

Anyway. I thought history was going to be really interesting because it was called "Cultural Encounters in History" right, only it turned out to be deadly boring. The fact that it was an 8 AM class did NOT help at all.

So anyway, I dropped history and took up anthropology instead. I've got a lot of reading to catch up on obviously, having joined the class so late in the game, but I have to say this -

My anthropology professor is such an interesting character!

For one thing, he doesn't shave, so he looks extremely shaggy with his unshaven face.

He also wears this weird bright red checked long clown-shoes. Like yesterday he was wearing a blue shirt, with blue jeans, then the bright red shoes.

He's also a bit eccentric, and very often goes off on a tangent. We were talking about rituals of different communities, and this guy asked if brushing our teeth in the morning could be considered a ritual. The professor had only started answering the question when he began talking about something totally irrelevant, something his blind friend did. Dunno-how-many-minutes later he caught himself, realized there wasn't much time left, then very abruptly went back to his lecture. Like, very suddenly like that.

He's a bit like a mad scientist; brilliant, smart, but a little eccentric.

So anyway, I'm finally happy with my classes!

I have this tutorial, which is only required for our first semester of our freshman year, and the topic of my class is "Why are funny things funny".

It sucks that it is an 8 AM class, and it sucks that while my friends' professors let them start their classes at 8.30 AM while mine doesn't, but it's darn cool that we get to watch a lot of funny videos during class!

Like one day last week, we actually spent 45 minutes of our 110-minute-long class laughing at a combination of YouTube videos, certain parts of Blades of Glory, and a funny radio show.

Today, we were watching Knocked Up.

We pretty much just watch funny stuff, then talk about why some things are funny while others are not. Like dissecting humor. I don't know, maybe by the end of this semester I will never look at humor/comedies the same again. Wouldn't it suck if I were to watch a funny movie with friends later on and spend half the time being occupied by thoughts like, "Oh YEAH, this is funny because it contradicts our expectations, yet contains no malicious intent!" Or whatever la.

It's actually a bit ridiculous, how we dissect humor. Like, one time we established that things are funny because they are so inappropriate. But then if we make fun of physically or mentally challenged people, that is inappropriate, but it's not funny.

Then we said that all humor comes from situations whose outcomes violate what one would expect. But then we watched some Japanese game shows on YouTube in class (and believe me, some of them, like the Human Tetris game, is hilarious!), and it is still as funny when you watch it the second or third time. You already expect the outcome, so why is it still funny?

Now we are on to the idea that all funny things are ironic, however not all ironic things are funny.

I mean, all this seriousness with something as frivolous as humor?

I know one thing though - cultures definitely play a large role in what one finds funny. I mean like, The Onion is a large part of our tutorial, and while my American classmates laugh at a lot of the articles (American, right, not even the Ghanaian), I frankly find them not funny at all.

Like, not at all.

Half the time I don't understand the cultural references, the other half (the times when I DO get it), I find the jokes kind of lame.

Do any of you from Malaysia find that website funny?

Anyway. Our professor told us to come up with 3 Onion-esque headlines of our own, and he jotted down a list of the ones that got sufficient votes from the class, and one of mine was on it, so yay for that I guess.

* * * * *

I've been sending emails to my family, (I'd write a long detailed one and send it to everyone in my family, plus an aunt), and the days after that I'd get replies trickling in.

And as one would expect, my parents' replies are more advice-giving than anything. Like, they'd tell me to "hold true to my Asian values", or to not cave in to peer pressure, even if that makes me "square". (You KNOW your parents are from an loooong ago era when they still use "square" to describe lame things! We modern people just use the word "lame".)

So I'm gonna write to them to tell them that I am not super needy and teetering on the brink of peer pressure, one step away from doing drugs and getting completely pissed and sleeping with people and getting myself knocked up.

I am still conservative and traditional and Asian-like and tame and awkward and all that.

Bye!

Jealousy, turning saints into the sea.

Classes have started less than a week ago, and already I'm at the stage where I'm staying up at the library till 1 a.m.

So this is where I start to get really worried.

I've only been to 3 "Cultural Encounters in History" classes, and I'm already lost. Class participation makes up 30% of the grade, so people are compelled to speak up. The big problem for me is that when I do my reading I can only understand the surface of what's going on, whereas people in my class are somehow able to understand it on a completely different level or something, and they give these super intellectual and interesting views and all.

Like if the document said that the king was sad, then all I can tell you is the king is not happy. But they will probably tell you that the king probably only pretended to be sad to fool his subjects so that they will blah blah blah whatever.

Get what I mean?

I do know that they kind of briefly covered what we're now doing back in their high school (deeper coverage if they did AP), while the only sort of history lessons I know are ones involving trying to differentiate between the seemingly bazillion Sultan Mahmuds and Mansurs, and ones of UMNO and Henry Gurney and Bintang Tiga. (Not that those are not useful to know, they are just so different from the Spanish crown and the Dominican Order and all that non-MPAJA stuff.)

I am completely lost. I have even resorted to looking up stuff from my reading assignments in Wikipedia to have another (simpler) explanation at hand.

Kind of boring lor actually, but it'd be wrong to drop 'cause I didn't get into this class initially and had to email the professor to get in. =(

* * * * *

Okay, regarding libraries.

I've always kind of judged schools based on the kind of libraries they have. For example, CHS is a pretty okay school because they have a pretty decent library, at least for a public Chinese high school. Not amazingly good, but still decent. Practically lived in it back in high school during major exam periods.

Then I went to Taylor's, and was humongously disappointed. The library sucked. With all the money they charge us (double? triple? quadriple? the fees of other schools darn it!), you'd think that they'd at least spend a bit more on upgrading their library.

The library is drab, collection of books not at all impressive (tertiery institution!).

(Frankly, I'd always felt that Taylor's cared more about enticing -tricking in?- new students than keeping their current students happy. The people there are rude, and you can defintely get lecturers who are just as good -or better- some place cheaper.)

I was hardly ever at the library. I was probably only ever there to get books for my research paper.

And then there's Grinnell library.

O.M.G.

Super nice! It's not beautiful from the outside, it doesn't strike you as amazingly stunning once you enter either, but if you go in further you'd start falling in love with it.

They have these amazingly cozy spots to work in! There's a treehouse, or whatever it was they call it, where it's basically about 20 study desks stacked into this fort-like structure, so that you can climb to the top (from where you can see everything around you) or you can sort of slide yourself into this little opening, so that you're inside the fort where it's dark (unless you turn the lamps on) and very very cozy. Apparently it's a hot spot for make-out sessions, but who would expect different?

Then they have this extension on the second floor that kind of hangs above the first floor, and they have beanie bags there so it's a super nice place to read.

They have many interesting desk arrangements!

It's really nice to put your pajamas on after your shower (decent-looking PJs, of course), take your laptop and class materials with you, put on our iPod, then curl up in one of those cozy spots in the library and work till the library closes.

It's especially nice to go very late at night because there aren't as many people there, so it's really quiet and you can have some places to yourself (PLUS less people will be there to see you in your pajamas!). I can forsee many many more hours here!

I love libraries!

Not that I love reading so much, but it's just that good libraries are so cozy and quiet it feels like you're in your own world.

BUT. Being in the library for hours does not solve my problem of not being able to properly digest my history notes though. How can I make intelligent comments in class then. =(


So how?

* * * * *

I'd been expecting this lor actually. Being slower and feeling more stupid than everyone else.

During orientation I found out that close to 1300 international students applied, and only 120 were admitted. I was like, WHAT?! And I was admitted? Definitely a fluke. I didn't do anything amazing in high school also! (In the speeches they talked about the achievements and involvements of this year's entering class, and they seem pretty darn amazing.)

Then everyone here seems to be "top 10% of high school class", it's pretty scary. During my first tutorial class everyone some how did MORE than the professor asked for (except me of course, I did ngam ngam hou), and this girl went, "We're all overachievers here!"

Well, I'm not! LOL. I'm just your average, procrastinating, last-minute-cramming, forget-everything-after-exam average Jane!

During my first week I also heard of a lot of people (students + professors) saying that Grinnell's workload is intense, so much so that the typical hours of sleep is 3 per night. They say Grinnell's ranked #3 school with most heavy workload or something like that, a fact I obviously DID NOT KNOW of when I applied here!

Already you can see how the workload is building up lor. Some of my friends, for example, go to the library straight after dinner, stay until it closes, and then go off to the science center (where it's also nice to work) to continue studying. Then wake up early next morning for an 8 a.m. class. And still remain chirpy throughout the day. Super crazy right? (First week of classes only somemore please!)

* * * * *

Library tonight.

WILL wrap my head around these darned history reading assignments!