After exams.
So the biochem paper is over! It wasn't as bad as I thought... But still, a lot of the questions are like, even though Yiran and me kept discussing and trying to find sources to support our answers, we couldn't get a definite conclusion whether our answers are right. So, hoping for the best again...
The reason why I am blogging now is because I came across this.
81. In Dunman High School, students carry out class projects in mixed groups comprising both GEP and non-GEP students. The students come together, help each other out, and complement each other in their strengths and weaknesses. During group work for oral presentation or script writing for Chinese Language, I am told the non-GEP students will help check and vet the work of the GEP students, as the non-GEP students are generally more proficient in the language.I didn't make this up! Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said it:
http://www.moe.gov.sg/speeches/2006/sp20060928.htmIf you can access ST Interactive, here is the original article:
High-ability pupils in non-gifted stream are stretched too; ST, 29 Sept 2006 (Fri)Since my time we have been working rather closely with the GEPs in external competitions and projects. Anyway there isn't much difference in ability between the non-GEPs and GEPs, and certainly being a GEP doesn't mean much after secondary school.
And now MOE has given me another reason to be proud of being a non-GEP :D
Exams..
Well I'm actually quite stressed now. First time since 28 Nov 2003 to be stressed over an exam. How about that.
I kind of underestimated the power of the the biochemistry paper that I am supposed to take tomorrow. When I first started preparing for it I downloaded the 2004 paper and it was pretty easy. So I thought, oh well, if that is the standard, I can certainly breeze through it...
Then I went to download the 2003 and 2005 papers to do. It seems easy enough on the surface, but there are questions like these here:
1. True or false: The Standard Free Energy Change of a reaction at equilibrium is zero.Well, you know very well the answer is FALSE, because Standard Free Energy Change = -RTlnKeq. But if you are not careful, will you be REALLY tempted to put TURE?!
2. Phosphorylation of amino acid side chains is an important mechanism for regulating protein activity. Which amino acid(s) most likely undergo phosphorylation?
a. Ser b. Thr c. Tyr d. Ser, Thr e. Ser, Tyr f. Thr, Tyr g. Ser, Thr, TyrI know that Serine gets phosphorylated the most frequently, followed by Threonine and Tyrosine. Well, base on this knowledge, which answer will you pick? A or G?! I will need my pencil to help me decide on this. Please help me decide if you can.
3. Two or more different proteins often associate to effect a biological function.A statistical examination of the structures of protein-protein complexes revealedthat certain amino acids occur more frequently at the protein-protein interfacethan one would expect by chance. (The protein-protein interface is the surfaceshared between the two associating proteins). Which amino acids do you thinkwere found at the interface? (Hint: think about what you know about the forcesthat govern protein folding and structure)This can really fight with Hwa Chong Bio. Even after you have studied, the most you can do is 'make a informed and logical guess and convince yourself that your reasoning is right'. And I fully believe that I got A for Bio in prelims because my lucky star shone on me and made all my reasoning the same as my teachers'.
This is really really freaky... and there is NO ANSWER KEY.
And the worst thing is, after hearing all the stories from seniors that they did not do well for their biochem and stuff, I went to practise their paper and compared my answer to theirs... and I found that they are almost exactly the same!! So the only logical conclusion would be, if I took their paper with them, I would be screwed too :
Now I am feeling like as though I am going to take a HC Bio paper without tutorials, without excellent lecture notes (HC bio lecture notes are superb), with a rather bad textbook (I would not recommend Berg really. If you want a good Biochem text, get Lehninger. My mentor recommended it strongly and I find that some parts of our lecture actually comes from Lehninger.), without Mrs Foo, Mdm Tan, Mrs Tan and other teachers whom you can even SMS to ask questions, and without people like Songyu and Joyce whereby you can start hours long discussions with while trying to sort out confusing ideas.
What do people here discuss about? Well I'll quote an example from the bulletin:
Dear Professor Hill,Why does the slope the lineweaver-burk plot for Uncompetitive Inhibition
remain Km/Vmax (i.e. unchanged from the slope of the graph for no
inhibition)?Well, if you know what is a Lineweaver-Burke plot, the formulae associated (which are all covered in lectures and the book) and the concept properly, just rearrange the formula and you will know that the coefficients governing inhibition cancel out when you are finding the gradient!
Haiz. The Bulletin is useful nevertheless, as there are also certain questions which I do not know the answer so I can learn from those too. And I have also posted some doubts so that I can get clarifications from the professor. But still, tutorials are much more interactive...
And I fully acknowledge the fact that not all people are dumb and lazy. Most certainly are not in JHU.
So I'll see how I'll do for the first exam. Hoping for the best... off to sleep now...
Hmm I decided I should write something first before plunging back into my books. What a sad life I am having.
Everyone seems to be studying very hard nowsdays. According to Yi Chung who went to the library to mug over the weekends, the library was filled with people mugging. And of course he was one of them. I am not spared either; I spent the whole weekend in my room studying too, except for the 1 hour when I went out to play soccer (getting ready to be thrashed again :P) and the morning buying grocery and doing housework. Certainly nobody intends to screw up the first ever serious exam in 3 years.
However there is one good thing about this: my expenditure has decreased significantly for the past week. When I opened my accounts book almost all the entries were 'Lunch' or food related, and it amounts to only around 5 bucks a day except grocery day. No wonder GCS says that he can survive on 200 a month only excluding his rent and car-related expenditure.
And by the way, I have bought my ticket to Chicago over thanksgiving. Southwest airlines, $249.10 in total... That is really expensive (considering flying to London and back on BA costs $518 nett?), however, it is the cheapest I can find online and there isn't much room to delay further. And Chicago is not reachable by ground transportation. At least there is something now to look forward to though :)
Went out of study mode!
Did no work yesterday. What an achievement :)
So this is what I did after classes ended at 12pm:
1. Went to Fresh Food Cafe with Yiran to have my once-a-week buffet feast.
2. Returned to my room and started using MSN...
3. Analysed the historical role of Empress Dowager compared to how she is portrayed in Forbidden City (courtesy of Shireen who TYPED out the synopsis + historiographical overview (whatever that means) and sent them to me...! Other than amazed at how fast she types I was also, dumbfounded..)
4. Read Tuesday's to Thursday's Zaobao and every single article about the coup in Thailand
5. Went to play street soccer for the SSA in an intramural match against the ang mohs, and although we have a great ang moh goalkeeper we still got thrashed ~15:2~ roughly..
6. Went to Fresh Food Cafe again and paid $11.95 because of Yiran and Yi Chung's insistance and because the rest did not insist in alternatives :P
7. Came back and read Friday's Zaobao
8. Attempted to study but fell asleep, so decided to sleep then and study today :)
Next Friday there is a mid-term for Biochemistry. A 5-page essay would be due next next Monday. See how I'll die :P
In Study Mode...
For the whole of this week have been studying whenever I was free, except yesterday afternoon when I had a little nap after class :) well, organic chemistry lab requires quite a bit of concentration, you know...
And writing has been taking up much of my life! Just spent 3 hours reading the court cases (again) and writing a not-even-one-page-long analysis of a small paragraph inside one of the cases. Just to choose the paragraph to talk about already took up a lot of time. It forced me to really think hard, though I guess much oil is still required to lubricate my rusty brain. In class today, the professor taught us the structure of a thesis, which resembled a scientific paper a lot. Probably a law thesis doesn't differ much from a scientific one? And eventually I have to submit 4 of that for the whole semester... The first one would be due 2 Oct...
Hopefully what I have written makes sense to the professor though :P
Biochem is another one. Just a lab report can take up 2 hours of my life (it is just the nature of it...). And they have just taught us cooperativity and the way to quantify it, using Hb and Mb as examples. Well, Hill Equation and all that stuff, and the oxygen dissociation curves again... Just that I cannot agree with one of the Mb plots the lecturer showed us, and that caused me to spend another hour online doing research...
Haha though I still consider myself quite lucky when I saw those plateaus, hills and mountains that Yiran and Yichung has to integrate. That might just have killed me :P
On Sunday I went over to Teck Chuan's place to have dinner. A 'family' dinner! I contributed a plate of fried eggs with onion/tomato/ham (I don't dare to call that an 'omelette') and Lynn contributed Bak Kut Teh. It feels so nice to be sitting around a table again eating like I was at home :) and rice from a bowl! Haha I am still surviving on bread/spaghetti/noodles/cereal/cookies. No change in status.
Tomorrow the SSA will be playing in an intramural soccer match. I will be there to support and play if necessary :)
Some random photos...
North Avenue light rail station
View of downtown from Penn Station
University of Baltimore
Sometimes a bus-stop can just look like this...
Just outside my block. Hmm there had just recently been an armed robbery case on 30th Street, just behind where I live. Got to be very careful always... :P
Walmart!
Was trying to figure out yesterday what I should do this weekend and decided that I should try taking Baltimore's public transport. Obviously cabs do not count. Dragged Yiran along (luckily he has nothing to do too) and planned out how exactly we should go about doing it.
(By the way, Yichung went over to Philadelphia to visit his friends in Penn, so the Inner Habour sightseeing trip suggested by Chyan Ying ought to be postponed...)
Baltimore has 3 main kinds of public transport: Buses, Light Rail, and Metro. Johns Hopkins University, sad to say, is situated at a location served only by 2 bus routes, both going south towards Downtown and north towards Towson. There is also a light rail station somewhere around North Avenue about 1 mile away which can bring us to the Airport directly. The main train station, Penn Station, is also nearby, and this would be one of our gateways to Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. (And I am waiting for Yichung to come back with his experiences on Greyhound...)
So we set off in the morning, trying to walk towards the light rail station at North Avenue. We reached the station after a rather long (probably 1/2 an hour?), a direct effect of me misreading the map causing us to go a really big round around this semi-industrial area before getting back onto the main road. Well, I guess the right route should be walkable as we knew this guy from Indonesia who walked from the station all the way to JHU with his small luggage (his big one was delayed) when he first came......
The small black figure on the right is Yiran. Too bad I didn't take a photo of him; people can tell that he's from RJC 100 feet away because of the pullover he wore!
We took the light rail from there to Penn station (which is only 2 stops away) to try out how it is like. It is pretty comfortable, clean and spacious, so it can be a good choice when I am travelling light, considering it only costs $1.60 per trip. Of course, for today, we bought a day pass for $3.50; we are not so mad that we will pay $1.60 for 2 stops...
Penn Station was surprisingly small (and really empty). I expected something more spectacular to be Baltimore's main station. Well, I thought it was supposed to be a bustling place with people rushing in and out (that is my idea of a train station) and lots of shops and stalls selling food. Probably it might look like that during a weekday?
We took a bus back to school to have lunch (Yiran needs to consume his meal blocks, so I got to pay $9.40 in order to eat together with him...), and then up to Towson to revisit the Walmart we went to previously. It was not an easy journey: I was misled (again) by the online schedule that the bus goes directly to Walmart from JHU, but it turns out that that bus runs an alternative route on weekends! At first we waited a wrong stop, then didn't get on the right bus as the driver misunderstood me, then got help from this lady who was really nice by explaining to us how to go about going there, and finally got up the right bus. The driver got us to alight somewhere near Walmart and asked us to wait for a connecting bus, which only runs once per hour. It was a really long wait... So when we were going back we decided to walk instead of taking the connection. It was a less than 10 minutes walk.
The Penn Station bus stop
From the connecting bus-stop
Outside Walmart
Walmart!
Bought back a vacuum cleaner. That is the only way to clean my carpeted floor by the way, and it would really be disgusting if I just let it accumuate dust. Anyway, it was only $19.88 so... Cheap enough for me...
No rice cooker though. The only rice cooker there was a display unit WITHOUT a power cord. So am I supposed to use superpower to cook my rice? I don't need a rice cooker to do that...
By the way, my food! (Haha as you can tell I am REALLY quite proud of what I have done :))
Chicken Stew! Quite successful finally. Still without carrot. Should look nicer without the leaves from the celery though... and the shattered potatoes...
Chicken chop again :) but this time it's marinated with soy sauce instead of salt and pepper.
This is an experiment: attempts to make bread taste better. Have already successfully made french toast with sugar filling, now trying to make (normal) toast with sweetened peanut butter. The peanut butter here is not sweet enough to be used in french toast by itself, and the honey I bought tasted awful on it. Depending on sugar for the time being.
Some additions.
Nowadays life has been simple. Even lessons are kind of... boring? Today's lecture was almost entirely from the textbook, and even for organic chemistry I have not seen anything new so far. The tutorial session today was simply, well, I should have slept through it in my room. I guess writing class is the only time which is more intellectually challenging. At least the professor was telling us stuff that I do not yet know.
Spent around 2 hours doing my biochemistry lab report yesterday. It was a rather elaborate one, and considering that all Laura's lab reports were over 22/25 except the first one, I guess I have to keep up the standard (and I don't know how the report format is like...?) Also borrowed Solomons from the library today also to supplement my Fessenden and the lecture, and hopefully it gives a more complete explanation of the MO theory.
By the way SSA held the first dinner in a restaurant inside the Museum of Art on Tuesday. A $10 dinner which was quite acceptable, and the ambience was rather good. Another relaxing talking crap session (which is utmost welcomed). At the end of it we got an old lady to help us take a group photo, and she was asking where we were from. We told her that we were from Singapore, and after the picture was done, she said 'Have a nice trip!' to us!! We were really amused... :D
It was raining the whole day again today. It was getting quite chilly (you know, the 'too warm to switch on heating but too cold for air-conditioning' kind of temperature)... Getting more and more difficult to wake up in the morning. And my Doraemon umbrella certainly was not doing me much good...
Due Process...
This is what I have to read nowadays:
Constitution of the United StatesAmendment V.No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Amendment XIV.Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.King James Bible, Deuteronomy 17: 2-11[2] If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant,[3] And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;[4] And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel:[5] Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.[6] At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.[7] The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.[8] If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the LORD thy God shall choose;[9] And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:[10] And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the LORD shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee:[11] According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.
Some stuff worth talking about.
I guess life has gone into routine once again. Wake up -> Call home -> Go to classes -> Lunch -> Classes -> Back home -> Cook dinner -> Bathe -> Study -> Sleep. Soon ECA and Lab will go in there somewhere.
Realised that a lot of the seniors actually double major and overload in their classes without problems. Was trying to look through the course list to find a possible option, and actually found that Economics and History of Science, Medicine and Technology are quite feasible. Will see what happens next semester... (But the disadvantage would be, I won't get to learn German...)
And I intend to be part of the Hopkins Emergency Response Team. Contacted the group via email and they say that I need to pass a test before I can be part of the team. Reasonable I guess :) and I feel more confident with that too. Got my dad to send me all my qualification documents in case they need them (anyway, in Singapore we have to carry the cards with us when we practise, so I think in the US it won't be much different?). And they told me they are going to conduct a course during Intersession to upgrade all team members to EMT-B (Emergency Medical Technician - Basic) level, which means that if we can't find a job and want to be ambulance crew members we can :)
And discovered a stamp dispensing machine at the basement of Gilman where the old post office used to be, and managed to solve my stamp problem! Bought a book of 24¢ stamps. So when I send something back to Singapore or to any other part of the world except the US, Canada and Mexico, I can use 24¢ + 24¢ + 39¢ = 87¢, which is only 3¢ more than the required amount. I seriously do not understand why 84¢ stamps are so hard to get...
Classes are quite alright so far, no problem coping as yet (considering Chemistry has always been my strength?), but that Billy Bud is really not an easy read. By the way, attended the first Writing class and it was indeed quite interesting and insightful. The group discussed about due process and references in the United States Constitution and how it is defined. I need to respond faster though, as the Americans respond to questions really quickly, and usually most of the time they have spoken before I can put my thoughts together :(
And was trying to reproduce the chicken stew we made during the pre-departure programme. It was a failure: I think I added the plants too early, and canned potatoes really suck. I am determined to make it work. So eventually it will.
Those beef cubes I made today was a success though (haha I will only put up pictures of my successes, so imagine for yourself how the failure looks like :)). An all time favourite (for me):
Black pepper beef cubes / Fried eggs with onion / Spaghetti. And *pseudo* Amaretto coffee :)
Life continues.
So classes continue. There hasn't been much things taught to us and the biochem professor is already behind schedule. Well, I guess is a good thing... And Yi Chung was really freaked out by the BME Molecules and Cells assignment given to him. It was really *quite* difficult; if anyone wants to see it I have it...
Luckily I just have to mug amino acids. More or less done by the way. Classes will come full swing next week...
Well, have been cooking dinner and buying lunch everyday; and I figured that if I eat at the buffet at Fresh Food Cafe everyday I'll just go broke in no time ($8.95?!). Discovered some rather nice curry chicken rice on campus anyway, and it costs $5.51 (still...)
Went to Towson (Vera and Ben fetched us there in their rental car! :)) and got my handphone line and a printer. The line comes with a Nokia 6010 which I believe if I were to sell it it won't worth a cent. Anyway, it's free... and bought a HP Deskjet, the cheapest I can get over there. Still costs around 40 bucks though.
I have been trying to get stamps and it is really difficult! Anyway got 10 39 cents stamps from the post office (only ones they sell on Sat, cos it's from a machine), and International Mail costs 84 cents. I really don't know how I am going to utilise them. I will have to try my luck again with Wolman mail room on Monday...
Went downtown to walk around (of course with Vera and Ben, though they went off after we arrived). Inner Habour was quite nice, but Yiran, Yi Chung and me did not have any travel guide/map with us so we did not really do much. And we didn't want to pay anything so we didn't visit any of the attractions... (waiting for mum and dad to come :))
And went for a SSA gathering at night to celebrate Vera's birthday. Wow the suites in Homewood are really really nice! Yiran and Yi Chung are sufficiently convinced that next year they will move here and we should all get a 3/4 bedroom suite. Met a few Hong Konger cum Singaporeans (i.e. same identity as me...?), and to my surprise, Clive (02S77) was here too!! He told me that he saw me at Maryland/Krieger that day and he wasn't sure whether that was me, and now sure he is... Apparently he did not do NS. And was surprised to find out that Lynn was actually 03S77 also?! I don't seem to remember seeing her around in HC at all... Well, you know how bad my socialising skills are :)
By the way my (finalised) contact details:
Home: 1-410-516-2473
Hp: 1-410-900-0993
Address: 3003 North Charles Street, Apt. #322, Baltimore, MD 21218-3811, United States of America
First Day of Classes.
Just came back from a debating demonstration by the debating council... basically was quite grossed out by their cultural insensitivity while the speakers presented their arguments. Though they were indeed quite charismatic but there were quite a few inaccuracies in their arguments. Well, I don't intend to join anyway...
My first organic chem class was cancelled, so ended up with only a biochem class today. We were asked to MEMORIZE the structures of all 20 amino acids by the professor. Well, back to mugging mode...
And I think I should thank the Biology Department of Hwa Chong Junior College dearly cos they really trained us well for University. The professor mentioned about 'implications behind textbook knowledge' and I thought that was what we had been doing during our block tests set by Mrs Foo and her troop of teachers? 'Memorizing everything doesn't mean you will do well.' Ha. In Hwa Chong if you only memorize you will fail.
More photos!
Look what I have? All these bought in Baltimore...
Hmm I'm actually quite proud of this. Let me see what else I can come out with.
Last Day of Orientation
Hmm finally lesson is going to start... And mugging is going to start too... :( (I might have to be working REALLY hard?)
By the way, yesterday didn't get to eat free BBQ food as it was raining, and they move the stuff indoors where I was turned away by the lady guarding the door (I wasn't too happy about that as it was like, hello, if you all happen to be serving food on the Beach are you going to check my J-Card and attempt to deduct non-existent meal points from it?!). So I went to the Chinese take-away to get some crispy noodles (it was atrocious), and bought back eggs, ham, tomatoes, lettuce, chicken, spaghetti, soy sauce, sesame oil, mushroom soup, etc. to get ready for the first showdown :)
Did some research and picked out some research groups that seem to be doing some interesting work. Will continue searching... and I might also be emailing Red Cross to see what kind of work I can do with them.
Well, today was the day for all freshmen to 'serve the community'. Apparently, the organisers grouped everyone according to Resident Halls, and since I do not live with the rest of the freshmen, I do not belong to any group and so, I joined Yiran's group together with David, a guy from Indonesia who also does not live on freshmen halls. However, Yiran's group had so few people (because everyone didn't go?!) that the organisers combined several small groups into a big one to go around the neighbourhood park to PICK RUBBISH. How exciting this was. So we spent the whole morning walking around, talking crap and well, PICK RUBBISH. We did manage to fill up 2 trashbags though, as there were a lot of bottles and newspapers left everywhere. (Mum's advice: pick BIG pieces and then we can rest earlier! :))
Later will be meeting Teck Chuan and Chyan Ying to go down to a Chinese provision shop near Peabody. I'll see what they have there :)
And check this out: it tells the story of my family.
http://www.zaobao.com/yl/yl060905_501.html
Orientation continues...
Baltimore's weather is even more freakish than Singapore's! Well, on Monday morning there was a clear bright sky, with not even a hint of clouds and you can basically see aeroplanes flying all above you. Then all of a sudden, after spending just 1 1/2h in my room, it was raining nuts! And today, it was raining the moment I stepped out of my hall, and it rained and rained and rained till early afternoon, and this is simply irritating and depressing...
However the locals whom I chatted with told me that they have had a whole month of dry weather and basically it doesn't precipitate much in Baltimore. Hmm I'll see...
Yesterday was not exactly interesting, neither is today. There were talks all the way yesterday, from some ethical assembly in the morning, to my academic advisor meeting late morning, then some academic interest panels, which gave me some useful information though. There was a talk about sex in the evening (apparently it's quite a big thing here, I have a notice board at the lobby telling people how to avoid STDs and the medical center actually gives out free condoms like our airport immigration counters giving out candies) and a comedy show at night, but I was simply too tired to go, so I slept through the whole thing in my room...
And I did my laundry yesterday for the first time! Clothes feel so nice after they were dried by the dryer :)
And by the way, the guys at the academic advisor meeting were very surprised at our LAMINATED A-Level certificates. They were even more surprised when Sneha and me told them that it actually CAME LAMINATED... :)
Today is an early day as well; there was a Dean's assembly in the morning, then it was a series of open houses. Basically I went to 5, with only Biology and German being relevant to my interests. Apparently JHU's German department offers a very extensive programme, and they are supposed to be really very good, so I guess I should be able to pick it up well if I have the time to take it up next year? And by the way, out of the ~100 people at the Biology open house, only 6 of us indicated that we will be doing graduate school, and almost everyone else is pre-med... When I saw the amount of hands up I was freaked out... But the nice thing is, Professor Beemon told me that she might have a project for me when I told her that I was into cellular mechanisms of cancer, so that might be an opportunity :)
Later there would be a BBQ gathering for all freshmen, and I will be there getting some food then most likely I'll be back looking around for some research opportunities and some voluntary clinical work at the Hospital (I heard about it today and it really sounds like something I might want to do). Don't think I'll be going for the Aquarium, ESPN zone and Observatory Tower thing... I have to pay for that (at least $30? not too sure...) and if I go with my parents when they come to Baltimore then I don't have to :D
More photos:
Shriver Hall and the Lower Quad
The other side of the Lower Quad: the stairway at the end is a popular backdrop for a lot of films.
Some news...?
My mum was telling me about fatalities from bird flu in Maryland but I guess since not even the ducks are sick there is no cause for concern?
Reuter's coverage on H5N1 in the USAnd read this of you have time:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060904/ap_on_en_tv/obit_irwinSad...
Orientation finally started!
Haha spent the whole morning plus half an afternoon checking email, chatting on MSN, reading newspapers, cooked my second meal, and settling video conferencing problems with my dad. The connection was there but the sound quality was bad, basically not a single sentence from them was complete without stutters. However, they seemed to hear me fine so, since when I called them via Skype it was alright, clearly the limiting factor was their connection. Dad refused to fix it (or rather upgrade it) when I told him about my screwed up MSN and now, haha, Mum will somehow force him to do it :)
At 4pm I went for convocation, and because I live away from all other freshmen I arrived later than most of them did and I had to sit by myself. Basically it was the opening ceremony for us, completed with National Anthem, 4 speeches and the Johns Hopkins Ode. President Brody's and the rest of the speeches were quite standard, welcoming us, telling us that we are privileged, telling us the importance of ethics, telling us to make the most out of our Hopkins experience, blah blah blah. However he did make use of our programme sheets to quite innovatively tell us how privileged we are. I guess he got the students to tailor-make them.
After that was the student advisor's meeting. It was quite alright, our group went to a sandwich place below my block to have dinner and talked over dinner. Basically the people there were mostly Biology majors or some sort of Engineering majors. Well, when they knew that I am from Singapore they were quite interested in where we were (haha the China question did not pop up), how we were like, and about army (I was quite surprised that some of them actually know about that). So I told them as simply as I could (so that I won't confuse them)...
Well there was this girl with parents from HK and guy with parents from Taiwan, though they were ABCs and did not know much about Asia. And this American guy was asking me for my opinion about America's involvement in Iraq and I was like telling him, nope I don't support the idea of war in the first place...
There was a short film screening after that, and it turned out to be quite an insightful discussion about maintaining (or losing) your cultural identity in America. People participating were sharing their view quite openly, and well, I could not say anything as I could not relate to the situation. However, that does exposed me to an aspect of American society: the social pressure to conform to the 'norm' and American values, in the expense of losing one's cultural or individual identity, seemed quite strong. Well, so far for everyone that I have interacted with, it doesn't matter what race they are they all behave in the same way as long as they are Americans. Maybe that's my very superficial observation but if that's true (and with an increasingly conservative government), isn't America moving towards a state resembling 'Matrix'? If conformity is what it takes to maintain harmony (this seemed subconcious though), then it is scary: it just showed an inherent inability to accept, tolerate, and understand, which is what we were taught since primary school? Well, I won't risk saying all these in public to piss everyone off, so probably wait till I am more familiar with the whole thing first...
Haha it was Playfair after that, an annual event for all Freshmen. Basically it was just an Orientation thing which got everyone together to run around, get into groups, introduce yourselves to one another, do silly things, etc etc. It was just simply rewinding my wire 4.5 years back to my Hwa Chong orientation, but I think the Hwa Chong one was even more wild than this (no flour, ketchup, and fire)... and guess I am too old to be RUNNING around with a bunch of, well, my sister's friends?!! (I bet some might even be younger than her! Hanging out is fine, but RUNNING around?) -_-"
Then later went with Yiran to the Upper Quad to watch Wedding Crashers outside Gilman Hall. It was a really funny show :) recommended if you had not watched it.
And also go check this out:
Hossen Leong's Singapore History Song Listen/watch for yourself and comment :D
and
Pluto is not a planet anymore! Army related, quite amusing too :)
Another Slack Day.
Basically today is another day with nothing much to do: In the morning, I met Yichung and Yiran to collect our J-Cards (Student ID) and to correct our names on our J-Cards (cos they are not used to double First names, so I became 'Hiu Lau' which is ridiculous). They were quite amazing: in less than a minute they were able to produce a new card for me from the J-Card machine.
We were determined to try the school's meal (nope, no more fried rice for Yiran) at the school cafeteria so we went. It was insanely expensive ($9.20 per person?!) but it was completely buffet style, with a wide choice of different food complete with salad, soup, drinks and fruits (imagine buffet in a hotel, nope not A*Star's). The food was pretty alright (guess because it's the first time for us? I guess it would be different after 1 month). And they serve watermelon and bananas as fruits (dad are you happy now?!)!
Well spent the whole of my afternoon slacking in my room until 4:45pm after going to the bank with Yichung (to his horror, it was closed, and he was like telling the lady in front: "But my ATM card is not working and I have no money..." Luckily for him, it would be open on Sunday). There was a security meeting after that, was seated right at the back and couldn't hear anything properly, but we still managed to get the emergency number and the number for the security van which could be an alternative to cabs when necessary.
Cooked my own dinner, though without fresh food in my room you can imagine what that was. The night was nice, went with Yiran to the Art Museum (It's just opposite my apartment by the way) to listen to a concert put up by JHU's Jazz Band and 2 of their A-cappella groups. Their standard was pretty high, esp the Jazz Band; just that I don't understand why the Saxophonist did not do vibrato when it is appropriate to. Probably he didn't know how to? :)
Slept before 9pm: didn't know why I was so tired, probably because I slept too late the night before. Anyway, luckily I did not have the RA (Resident Advisor) meeting that Yiran and Yichung had, cos I stayed with the upperclassmen...
More photos:
Gilman Hall
Garland Hall: Where all our mails are addressed to!
At the lobby of Wolman Hall
Hmm. Self Explanatory.
This is Homewood Apartment: where I am staying
Adventure day.
Haha today was really an adventure! Guess we could film '3 Singaporeans in Baltimore' with this. By the way, future travellers please do not learn from us. Extremely stupid and senseless.
It was raining since morning (well since I was awaken by this idiotic fire alarm which sounded with deafening volume accompanied by a blinding flashlight at 2am, was forced to evacuate and stood in the chill and rain for 30 minutes before the FIRE ENGINE came and discovered it was actually just a malfunction of a fire sensor). After I got some stuff from the bookstore (yes, again) I went to join the rest for a lecture for all international students. It was boring, repetitive and telling us things we had known, and basically what Yiran, Yichung and me understood was 'if you want to do anything silly, go look for the people at the International Office'. I am sure they need 90 minutes to tell us that. If I had someone to SMS with I think I would have gleefully started a conversation.
However the food served was good! Typical American though, no more curry puff, mee goreng, scallops with brocconi, chocolate eclairs etc but hamburgers, cheese (only 1 kind though, unlike Germany), hot dogs, lettuce, BBQ chicken, coleslaw, potato salad, a lot a lot of soft drinks, etc etc.. Hopefully I would not get sick of it too soon. Too bad I forgot to bring my camera. And talked to the group of people from Taiwan, with the Barhain guy, an India guy and a girl from Denmark, and continuing to receive comments like 小羊不小 from everyone who could speak Mandarin.
Haha after that was the interesting part! Yichung, Yiran and me (the girls, Grace, Sneha and Denise were never with us throughout, absolutely no idea where they were) decided to venture out north to Towson to get stuff, since we got hold of the shuttle schedule. It was raining even more heavily when we set off at around 4pm, and when the shuttle came (we kind of hid in the library while waiting for the shuttle), the driver told us that because of poor weather conditions (?!! should they like extend the service because of poor weather?!!! It was just RAINING, not SNOWING or STORMING,) that would be the last shuttle up north and there would not be anymore shuttle coming down.
So well, as we had the cab company's number, we decided to go ahead as we could always get a cab back. It took a while for us to get to Towson Mall, and as we got there, we realised that we were just simply ill-informed: that mall is so high class that it was just not possible for us to get anything there. So as we were enquiring about T-mobile plans, we asked this guy from the mobile shop for directions to any nearby Walmart or any superstore where we could get cheap stuff. To my extreme surprise, the guy was very very nice, explained everything including directions and what shops were around, printed a map from Mapquest which showed that it was not possible to walk there from the Mall in the rain, and even offered to drive us there!! Initially I turned him down but Yichung and Yiran seemed quite alright with it, so I followed along.... I was extremely skeptical about this whole thing, as it was just simply against normal safety common sense! I was praying hard that nothing would happen and indeed, we got to the Walmart without anything funny happening. Extremely luckily for us the guy was simply just nice!!
DO NOT LEARN FROM US!! Use this instead:
http://www.mtamaryland.com/So at Walmart we shopped for 2 hours straight, got whatever stuff we possibly could. So now I have everything, from forks and spoons (@$1.00 for 6), pots ($8.84) and pans ($12.97), pillow ($5.00)and blanket ($14.82), bloom and dustpan ($2.84), envelops ($0.94 for 50) and writing paper($0.50), to one whole week of canned food($0.40 for 1 can of corn)/bread($1.55)/noodles(@$0.10)/Pepperidge Farm cookies (@$1.97). Absolutely Singapore price or even cheaper. It's a pity we didn't manage to buy back a microwave oven ($19.90), rice cooker, printer and ink catridge. There simply was not enough manpower to carry those stuff.
Well coming back is another adventure. The rain got heavier, and in addition to that, my handphone could not reach the cab company's number. So Yichung went to find a payphone, which he did, and after a very long while he asked me for more coins. Again, after a very long while, he came back and said that idiot at the cab company said that he needed a credit card account to order the cab, and afterwhich he was cut off!! So Yichung got a Walmart guy to help him call, and in the end he got this reply: 'call back in 20 minutes to check the status of the cab.' Well, 20 minutes! It was already almost 8:30pm and we had not even had dinner?! I couldn't help myself but got a donut from an outlet there first.
Luckily for us a cab pulled over soon and the guy on it says that it was called over by Yichung to go to Johns Hopkins. Well, when we started to load our extreme amounts of stuff, we had to do it all in the rain! There was no shelter at the pick-up point at all, so even if you had a car you would still get you and your grocery wet anyway.
Ok here our adventure was over and we had learnt some lessons:
1. Never assume that a mall comes with a supermarket
2. Never assume that everywhere is near everything
3. Never assume that a shuttle will run according to schedule
4. Do enough research before embarking on any new adventure
5. Never assume you can call for a cab even if you had the number
6. And that cab from Walmart (Towson Place) to JHU costs $15.80 (i'm very sure the guy did not make rounds)!!! I just knew that there is a bus actually. But not in that kind of rain though.
So now photos! Let me show you how homelike my room now is:
A really slack day.
Our third day was really uneventful: got some textbooks and a map of Baltimore from the University bookstore (which hid so well inside Gilman Hall that we walked the whole building inside out before we could find it), and after that I spent the whole afternoon reading about Thermodynamics (you can see how free I was.).
At 4pm all the International students who has arrived met at the International Office for a picnic and informal gathering session. It was quite fun talking to them, met some one from Barhain, France, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, all over. They had quite some food but strangely nobody was eating, everyone was just talking :) according to the people I met, they didn't know that there would be food so they ate heavy lunches which rendered them incapable to eat further...
We sat in a really big circle, introduced ourselves, played some ice-breaker, followed by a sharing session by some seniors (one was from Singapore (I've never knew she existed), one from Malaysia and one from Korea). The guy and the girl beside me introduced themselves to be from HK, but they were all the time conversing among themselves in English with an American accent which caused me to think that they were actually immigrants to US or Canada like me to Singapore. Didn't get to ascertain as I did not get to talk to them at all (they seemed to not to be talking to anyone else except each other anyway...)
After the first day.
We had breakfast at the airport and took a cab down to Johns Hopkins. Moving in was smooth and easy, the staff at Housing Office were generally friendly and helpful. Soon I got my room! Here is how it is like initially:
I was trying frantically to put the bed together without success. I gave up after I realised that I won't be able to put it together until I could find 8 hooks/screws/nails to hammer everything together. Well, of course I couldn't find them in my room...
The unpacking was fast. After I had organised everything satisfactorily, I went out to meet Yiran so we could report to the International Student's Office. Everything was easy: we filled up a few forms and got some information from a Chinese guy working there. Though, we didn't get to see first hand who Kevin Murphy (the I-20 guy) is...
Soon we headed out again, now to set up a bank account. There was only 1 lady at the Bank of America doing that, and there were 2 guys in front of us. Well, we thought it was going to be fast, but hell, no! Each guy took at least 20 minutes to be processed, so you know how long we waited outside and inside while the lady was helping us. She was keying in everything alphabet by alphabet and you know, really slowly... However, despite the inefficiency, her attitude and service was excellent. While we were extremely confused about what to do when she asked us to 'sign our name' (meaning WRITE our name) and 'write our signature' (!), she explained to us very patiently (which confused us further, oh well...) and even cared to answer the stupid questions we posted about cheque writing. If we did that in Singapore I think I would have been shouted at.
Ok after that we had fried rice at a Chinese fast food stall next door, and subsequently went to buy our insurance, get our Internet cable (I got myself connected almost as soon as I got there, but it costs like US$26.50 a month?!!), ask about our J-card, enquire about our accounts, and for Yiran to settle his strange citizenship problem (JHU thinks that he is an American citizen :D), all at the basement of Garland Hall! And then we did some basic grocery, bought some bread and a few apples, and got a Subway sandwich for dinner. Subway here is exactly the same as the Subway in Singapore, even their choice of pickles/dressing and cookies are the same!
And after some final touch-up my room looks like this:
The very first day.
So let me start from the very beginning.
On 29 Aug 2006, 1705hrs, I was officially on my own and out of the jurisdiction of my parents (actually it could be around 2 hours before that when the both of them and my sister left the airport BK EXTREMELY CHEERFULLY). Well, although they didn't wish to send me all the way in (which cost me $300.00 in return), GCS, Shireen, Kenneth Lay, Ghee Chuan and Sook Yee were there (thanks! :)), so at least I didn't need to go through immigration alone...
After that was the most tiring plane ride (26hrs! Beat that..) I have ever taken. In Singapore, Taipei, Los Angeles and Baltimore, my plane was always parked FURTHEST from the checkpoints. And to add to it, Yiran and me were seated on the LAST row on SQ30. So when we were at LA, we decided to brisk walk all the way and try to overtake everyone in front of us so that we could be ahead in the queue. However, it didn't work! We got stuck in front of the stupid immigration checkpoint for more than an hour; we saw the baggage belt started running, then stopped, and our bags being thrown out of the belt while still waiting for those people to clear the queue. However when it was our turn, we cleared both immigration and customs pretty quickly, and saw this guy next to us with one whole bag full of Twistees, Mamee noodles, etc being checked by custom officers wearing blue latex gloves. We were so very amused... :D
Despite us setting aside 3 hours for transit, by the time we cleared everything we only had 45 minutes left to the next flight, and we got to find Terminal 7, which was all the way at the other side of the airport... Yiran and me were literally running across the airport (at least 500m) to get to the right terminal, got checked again, got halted halfway when we were finding the gate as the security officers were doing a drill, and when we finally got to the gate (which was again furthest from the checkpoint), we barely had 15 minutes before boarding started...
Well we arrived in Baltimore in one piece though, and I saw the sky turning bright (cannot see the sun though) while on the plane. It was a nice start...
