Pre-Orientation Day 4

Today was the last day of PREPARE. Overslept Again! Hahaha as long as I can find a reason NOT to wake up, I won't. Same for Vishal; good job lah roommate-matching software. Lol. Jogged all the way to Trillium Dining Hall.

I dunno why, woke up and my jaw hurt like a sonnuva. Really hurt. Couldn't chew on my right side, it's like freaking dizzying pain. It's okay now though lols. Weeeiiiird. I think I slept in a weird position and messed up my chin/jaw/face.

Passed by this auditorium, one of the largest in Cornell.
Pretty big!
Chatted with a bunch of volunteers for a coupla hours at Trillium lols. We decided to skip the two morning programs - seminars on students and health =="

Walked back, took a shortcut that's pretty scenic.
It's the huge bridge from previous posts! View's from another bridge lols.
View from the other side of the bridge.

Went back, grabbed some stuff and took a bus pretty far (2o mins?) to a park. Not like taman or playground, but big big forest/jungle park. Didn't take any photos though :(

There were large fields where people who took the earlier bus were already playing football, soccer, volleyball and frisbee! Lols.

Btw, quite note about football and soccer. Here if you say football they think you mean AMERICAN football. It's VERY, VERY different!
Much more brutal and doesn't really use feet as much lols dunno why they call it football. There are two (college-recruited) football players living two doors down, really HUGE guys. I mean, there's no freaking way they're nineteen! (They are). They're like freakin g TANKS or something. Roommate made a small mistake.
"You guys play football? I do too! "
"......." (both staring *down* at Vishal, who's not exactly a giant)
"I MEAN SOCCER, SOCCER. "

Lol XD

Anyway back to the park.

Had lunch, just average, but maybe that was because I couldn't freaking CHEW. Goddamn jaw was hurting like sin.
Lunch Lols. That's a veggie patty nearest to the camera. The thing about this place is that ALL THE FOOD is labeled really precisely. Every single dish in each and every dining hall has a little note printed under the name of the food, like "dairy, wheat, soy" or "vegan". Tons of vegan food lols.

Anyway tossed a disc (brought the MUO 2009 disc!) around for awhile then set up a game of Ulti. We had 21 people interested.. and ngam ngam 7 of them were in red, 7 in blue and 7 in white Lol. Damn cool. But right as we were starting they called us over for a group pic (huge. Will post when I get it) and then we started walking to the swimming hole.

After a 8-10 min walk, we reached this micro-mini lake thingy which connected to a river of sorts. Was 20ft at its deepest point! Had a really nice diving board pretty high up, and a constant (albeit quick-moving) queue. Lotsa people waiting to jump off :D

Good LL density btw :D

Used the board a few times, the water was FREEZING! Colder than anything we swim in in Msia. FREEEEEEZING. I was really shaking ahahaha. So many people cramped up.

Walked back to the big open fields with some fellas and set up the Ulti again. Lotta people joined, was really fun! :D They were mostly newbies but there was a handful of them who'd played quite a few times. Pretty good fun! Most of us missed the first bus back cause of that ahaha, stayed and played for another hour :D

And that was the end of PREPARE. It was pretty fun, though mingling was more or less up to the participants. Some really fun activities and was a great way to meet people. Met a buncha fun Singapore people lols. I'm really impressed with how everything went REALLY smoothly and right on time, not like in a certain country in between Thailand and Singapore. Volunteers were all really friendly, not condescending (we're freshmen after all!) and really helpful. Met and got to know quite few people, from all over:
Malaysia
Singapore
Spain
Japan
China
Korea
Canada
USA
Taiwan
Philippines
South Africa
Kenya
England
Mongolia
just to name a few lols :D So fun!

Dinner wasn't provided that night, so a bunch of us PREPARE people joined the Singapore Cornell Association for dinner; S'pore was the 2nd-most represented country at PREPARE wth hahaha.
Went to Taste of Thai Express. Foods just as good as Taste of Thai, though it's not a branch. The story is that one of them used to be run by brothers.. who had a big fight and then split up, one to eventually open his own Thai restaurant. Like TV series weih.
Tom Yum again. Love this stuff. Was much better at Taste of Thai though.
Pad Thai. Don't let the pic deceive you, cause:
#1: it's really, really tasty!
#2: it's FUCKTARDEDLY HUGE. OMGlah.

Could barely finish it lols.

Real orientation starts tomorrow, which is also move-in day. Everyone else is coming! Cool.

Eh, awesome experience today. Was playing the piano in our lounge earlier, since no one was around. 10 mins later, a slightly elderly man walks in and starts talking with me. Turns out he's the Faculty Adviser (every dorm has one or two!) of Court-Kay-Bauer, and his wife is the Teacher In-Charge of the Cornell Malaysian Association. The wife's also like a mother to all Asian students lols, super super nice lady. Might meet her tomorrow. Anyway he knows ChenChow! Pretty well too lols. Also plays badminton with some Malaysian upperclassmen lols. He pressed a few notes on the piano, and I asked if he plays. "Yes, in fact I do" was the answer. We chatted abit about genres and composers,
Me: "What composers do you play? "
"I play them all! "
Btw in your head, think of all his dialogue as spoken by a really mysterious, interesting old man.

Thought he was a retired man with lotsa time lols. Really, really friendly guy. I told him I was in PREPARE ("I know. *oldmannicesmile* ") and he asked if I'd performed for talent night
"Yeah, I did!" "What did you do? " "I played the piano! "
then he got really happy/excited/jolly/lolled and I told him what I played lols, improvised Mary had a Little Lamb with some modern music.
As he was leaving I was playing one of my favorite pieces, and he said,
"Chopin's Scherzo, very good. " while he was walking off. Is that a COOL OLD MAN OR WHAT!!!

So I head back to my dorm and eventually google him.
What faculty is he in/What subject does he teach?
Professor. Of. Piano.
.... EMBARASSING OMG LOL! I gotta go talk to him again! Hahahahahahahaaa!

Temperature: 21.1 C (day), 19.5C (night)

Expenditure:
Taste of Thai Express with tip: 15
Total: 15USD = RM52.9

Pre-Orientation Day 3

EPICly long post lols. Gets interesting at the back!
Woke up and went for breakfast. Was even later than yesterday! Downed some cereal and a coupla sausages, pretty tasty. Walked really really far to some place in central campus for a seminar on the writing programs, then went for lunch. Went to Collegetown Bagels (again) with some of PREPARE. Had a Collegetown BLT, really good! (:
Strange cookies in CTB.

Went to the Plant Science building for a talk on safety, a pretty fun guy from the Cornell Police was there giving a presentation. Skits by the PREPARE volunteers too! Those guys are awesome btw! Giving up a week or two of summer break to help us out, all really nice people!

Had a few hours before the next event so we bunched up with some Singaporean fellas (why lah so close to home lol) and toured the central campus. There was a guy who did a summer course, so he's been around for 3 months and.. kinda knows the place.
Passed by this building, Barton Hall, it's got an indoor track! :D Great!
Random plot of plants next to Uris library. I hear there's cherry blossom trees (sakura!) all around campus too!

Now Uris Library is awesome. It's PRETTY DAMN BIG for one, has many floors lol. There's a really complicated system of stairwells and paths that go all around the building, quite a-maze-ing actually, and lotsa weird rooms! Eg: A low, wide room with tons of old books and cubicles, really really secluded. Gives the feel of a giant broom closet, empty and silent. A snack room with a buncha vending machines and microwaves. Call rooms all around so you can call without kacau-ing people.
Stairwell?

There's a room that's quite spectacular...
The harry potter room! Looks like something right out of HP. Beautiful!
Note the many floors lols.It'sa me!
Totally HP man.
Old school sharpener stuck to lotsa bookshelves! Damn funky.

Moving on..
Really greenhouse-y stairwell that leads to the lower-level sections.
One of the lounges. Lotsa people sleep here (overnight!) when they study/research too much lols, pretty comfortable actually.
View from a window in the library.
One of the study halls. I swear that library has a stupidly large number of rooms lol. So easy to get lost/hide :p

Went to Olin Library again, there was a Darwin exhibit.
Written by Darwin himself.
I find it really quite sad for Darwin lols. It's really easy to kinda-explain his theories to people: Everything evolved through natural selection.
But for him to even dare to present it to the public in his time, he had to do a SHITLOAD of research, as shown by the pretty large exhibition of some of his research and artifacts. I mean, in those days if you went about saying our ancestors were apes, you'd get your ass whooped BAD.
A couple sitting on the roof of the Olin Library. Cool!
This is the gorge in the previous post, zoomed in on some rocks that someone's arranged on the rock bed. Happens alot apparently lols, kinda romantic huh!
Walking back to the dorms.
View from under Balch Hall, the all-female dorm (:
SUPER OLD SCHOOL tv in a friend's dorm's lounge! Hahaha! projector -> Mirror -> screen! Cool!

After that, walked all the way to (almost) West Campus, ten-fifteen minute walk, for dinner and the International Talent show. Had to go down The Slope lol. A really really steep slope that's pretty long. In winter, students steal dining trays from dining halls and sled down the slope! Snow goes up to your thighs or waist sometimes! Will post pics when I do, and I definitely will 'do'.

Dinner was mediocre, not gonna eat at that dining hall much (Jansen Hall), but the talent show was REALLY fun! Most fun I've had in a while ahaha! So so great. There were a TON of different talents, starting with the chief facilitator's swing dancing.

Pretty good actually! Then a guitar lady who had a nice voice, a coupla decent breakdancers from Korea, Pianist (volunteer!) who played one of Chopin's Nocturnes quite beautifully,
Met a Spanish girl who's really interested (and naturally, is doing) Agriculture Sciences, she's multi-talented! Did a rap in Spanish and then English about how difficult it was for her to learn English lols.

Spanish, not uploading the English lahs.

Now the amazing thing wasn't the performances (though they were pretty amazing. lol.), it's how they conducted themselves. Performing while layan-ing the crowd all the time, everyone was really happy and really, really funny! Ahaha! That's the biggest difference from talent shows back home. Now all the while I was thinking of performing piano, and spent 30 mins running a routine in my head lols. Managed to sneak a tell to one of the MC's, and after some messing around, they gave me a slot.

Salsa by two volunteers! Girl's from Penang btw! Lols.

There were soooo many interesting performances. Lotsa dancing/cultural dancing/guitar (one guy sang No Boundaries pretty well!)/piano (Memory, Your Song by Elton John [with vocals lol!]) and weirder stuff like calligraphy. Calligraphy guy was really funny, the way he presented himself, hilarious! From China lol. Lotsa talent from China. A girl from ShanghaiCanadaHongkong did stand-up with some dirty jokes, a caucasian guy sang in white-chinese, and eventually my performance.

No video! Was the most fun I'd ever had performing anywhere ahaha! Thought of doing the usual Campanella but then decided to do a routine involving... Mary Had a Little Lamb and Coldplay, with skills "growing" from an infant's to my current level. Talked on a mike through most of the performance, about.. piano duh. Started with terrible, one-handed, mis-pressed Lamb, then jazz/blues MaryLamb, then Clocks, and ended by fading out Viva la Vida and fading in Mary Had a Little Lamb again. Was really well received! So much fun, much more laughter than the usual classical stuff.

The girl after me (volunteer too! they're amazing) played I'm Yours on a ukulele! Tiny guitar thing so damn yeng


Nice voice/ukulele-ing huh? Whole crowd was singing along :D

Awesome Spanish girl performed again. She said she used to busk in Spain doing Poi Poi. That's the fire-spinny stuff they do in New Zealand. She was amazing again!
Only pics, cam low batt liaos.
Obviously no fire indoors, but it was still really cool. She's so damn good at it! I don't see how those things don't tangle up hahaha!

Next, PREPARE's main coordinator, Selena, sang something by Jolin Tsai! Lol! Sweet voice.
Sequins so shiiiiny. Nice though.

There was a really good pianist playing latin/spanish/columbian music, he was fantastic! Low batt ):
A Capella, all volunteers!

Final show was a Bollywood dance, to the tune of... Tunak Tunak Tun! Hahahaha!
The dancers.

The song (vid in background during the dance!). This song's.. pretty freaking hilarious. Wait for the chorus!

After awhile a buncha people got on stage and joined them! So so fun hahaha, doing the Lightbulb and the One-Leg :D
End of Talent Night! So super fun! Everyone was just amazing.
The three awesome MCs. (random quote from Calligraphy dude: "Cowboy, come, I need your help. ")
The Slope. Doesn't look so steep here but it's... REALLY FREAKING STEEP so yeah. Will take better pics in the day. This cam's settings are kinda messy in the dark.
Clock tower at night.
Bridge at night. Sweet.


Temperature: 31 C (day), 19.5C (night)

Expenditure:
ZERO! OMG ZERO! Hahahaha!!! :D

Cheers All.

Pre-Orientation Day 2

Breakfast at 8 - 9.30, woke up at 9.10. Vishal wanted to "go jogging at 7" too ahaha. Alike, at least. Rushed, inhaled food and jogged off so that we wouldn't miss the dean's message.
Scenery on the way. Whole campus is pretty walkable. A bike would be really nice, but it's kinda pointless cause come October snow's gonna make it unusable. Some places are just beautiful to cycle through.
Hall where the dean gave his speech.
Inside the hall.
Two of the three PREPARE coordinators. There are like 50 volunteers helping out too ahaha. PREPARE's just for internationals btw!

Some people of authority gave speeches, followed by a long long presentation about adapting to life in uni. After that, we split into groups for orientation-ish stuff. My group was pretty fun (: Had lunch after that, Subway sandwich, banana, muesli bar, bottle of apple juice lol. Had lunch on the roof of some hall thingy. Really nice view!
Seeeeee?
Pic on the roof :D
Another shot from the roof. Bad pic I know lols shaddap.
Random pic of a random building. Pretty nice eh!

Couldn't resist buying something from Louie's Lunch. Ordered a Pizza Sub with ham and mushrooms. Lotsa cheeeeese. The cook was this lady with a heavy accent lols. As she was cooking/frying/wtving it, could here her yell from the inside, "This is gonna be KILLER good! "
And it was. Mmmmmm Tasteh.
Cheeeese and pizza stuff. Tastes awesome but I was already so full. Tapaoed it but couldn't finish it in the end lol.

Went to the Ithaca mall again and shopped around abit. Bought a coupla sweaters from Gap! Really really cheap. 19.90 each, but 16.00 each if you buy two or more. Deal #2: Buy one get one free. Somehow they stacked and I got two for 16 USD lol. That's even cheaper than Malaysia!

Bought a Shitload of stuff from Target!
Detergent 11,
Campbell soup 2,
Ramen 1.20,
Instant Meat Stew thingy 0.9,
Command wall-sticker things 2,
for sticking up my [magnetic whiteboard + corkboard] 14,
Body Wash 5.5,
Some cutlery, a dish and a bowl for 6,
Mug 5.50,
20 hangers for 2 (cheap!),
That collapsible thing with lotsa compartments that hangs in a wardrobe which they sell at IKEA 8,
Suit hangers (3 pieces) 4.5,
Body Pillow (more on this later) 10,
Body Pillow Cover 10 (WTF),
Rubbermaid thing (USA tupperware lols) 3,
Bowl that says SLURP on it (for ramen-slurping purposes!) 2.
Total, including tax, about 97 bucks.

That's another thing weird here. Tax. Most of you already know that they don't have service charge in USA (instead using the much more effective tipping system) but.. they tax stuff like pillows and bowls and hangers and everything! Omglah! 4% tax on some, 8% on others. Mostly 8%. So annoying! USA really likes to be different grr.

Started raining pretty heavily. Totally didn't expect it! All I've seen is sun and (felt) wind, and all I've heard about is EPIC SNOW, so rain was like.. .huhhh? Almost missed the bus lol, had to really run for it.

Rested for abit and went for dinner.
Roast beef, Potatoes, Mashed Potatoes, Corn (which I didn't take), pecan pie, trays of cakes, assorted toastable stuff with spreads, lots and lots of salad, odd soups, a real selection of juices, soft drinks and dairy products (provided by the Agricultural department lol! Cornell has their own cows! Milk and chocolate milk here is AWESOME. It's just soooo fresh :D Can't wait to try the Dairy Bar with their ice-cream).
Rainbow after the rain lols. There's another, fainter one around it but I don't think it's visible in the photo.
Yes, this is a land of rainbows and sunshine.

Went over to the Helen Newman sports center (damn US spelling grrr) and waited for the 8.30, PREPARE-booked timeslot. Badminton, basketball, soccer (don't say football!), tennis and bowling for free today! Well tennis and soccer were called off on account of the rain. Some of us tossed a frisbee around for quite awhile! I bought a night-frisbee at the Ithaca mall, had LEDs that shine quite beautifully in 7 different colours. Could play even when it was super super dark :D

It's really very pretty to toss around at night lols. Will show you guys back in KL! Confirm Ninos people all drooling liao. Btw, the grass here is really nice. Soft and kinda bouncy Lols.
Shots of my nice disc. The disc has a really long sequence of colour-changes. Haven't seen it repeat yet lols. 4 LEDS that change at slightly different intervals. Really nice!

After that, played some badminton then took a walk around North campus with Vishal. Went to the Robert Purcell Community Center, where we had Casino night, which btw has unlimited pool (billiards) usage, and took another look at the piano I saw covered last night.
Hmmmm. Piano's actually a 7ft concert grand, can't really tell from the shot ._. Sorrylah.
AUMG DREAM COME TRUE!!!!! STEINWAYYYYYY!!!! One of the guys in charge there said that I can play it anytime I want! :D Played it for a bit, sounds wonderful, better than I'd been dreaming about ahaha. It's new too! Sweet!

Walked around outside for abit, ran into a group of people, one from my earlier PREPARE group, Indian-born guy who came in from Cairo, Egypt. Cool. He's contemplating physics as a major lols. Plays Ulti!!! Called out to us cause I was carrying discs ahaha. Tossed it abit and chatted with them. Pretty fun buncha people, others from Mexico, Canada and Ghana. Went to see Egypt-guy's dorm's ground floor, really really big! It has a pretty big AV room lols.
This was on the wall of the AV room wtf. Hahaha.

On the way back..
The night sky. Now I'm not using a professional camera, and yet you can still see some stars. Imagine what I was seeing with my eyes! More than you'll see in langkawi or wherever! Hahahahaa beautiful!! (:

Back to the room, set up the stuff I bought.
Whiteboard+corkboard+calendar.
Body pillow. Body pillows are AWESOME. They're like bolsters.. but pillow-ish instead of cylindrical. Super nice. Malaysia's like one of the few countries that uses bolsters instead hahaha! Cover's with Wen Jun somehow, will take it back tomorrow.

Will weigh myself every now and then lols.

Temperature: ?? C (day), 20.5 C (night)

Expenditure:
Target: 97
Pizza Sub: 4.5
Night-Disc: 20 (AUMG right =.=)
Total: 121.5USD = RM430