Xiii: Singapore, Were here!

HK Summary - 3 Days of Shopping - Drinking at night - Dim Sum in the morning. Done, not much more to be said.

Singapore Begins -
First day, 2:17 AM:

Just settling down, unpacked. Ready for this exchange program to begin!

The Changi Airport was absolutely amazing. Beautifully designed, very classy. It's definitely the best airport, though the HK International Airport isn't bad either.

Jim and I both had no idea how to get to NUS. We finally got there by MTR (Subway) / Bus cause were too damn cheap to take the taxi. The city is VERY humid. I brought all those damn sweaters for no reason.

Touring around our residence, Temasek Hall, we havn't really met any locals yet. It seems like were going to have a hard time communicating as their English is very-very choppy. Yeah, damn.

Oh - there's this creepy ass alley way thats almost pitch black - we need to walk past that every time we want to get to 7-11. (pics to come) We walked down and ate at the cheapest place we could find, which turned out to be not so cheap. It was about $5 CAD, for some crappy crappy fried food and - semidecent - coconut rice. After being extremely cheap, we couldn't handle it anymore and finally bought a Water Chestnut drink for $0.80. That is some damn good juice.

We settled down, bought our SIM cards at a nearby 7-11 and had a nice beer. The alcohol here is INSANELY expensive. A bottle of vodka is $66! The bottle of beer that we bought was $4.25 - which was the CHEAPEST there was. Compared to HK, I had 3 Beers for $1.5 CAD.

As far as school goes, after building our timetable - we have NO classes on Tuesdays and Fridays! On Monday, we have a overlap of classes, doesn't seem like were going to those classes anyway. Hopefully the classes will be easy though, travelling is our #1 priority. :)

For travelling - it seems like were heading over to Indonesia on the weekend.

This is going to be one wild ride.

Pictures to come..

-SotC-

Xii: Goodbye Canada!

The day has come! Off to the airport in about 2 hours, and straight to Hong Kong!

A bit surreal, finally leaving for exchange. That bittersweet feeling enters my stomach - must be too excited. Who knows what adventures lie ahead in these coming 4 months. My goal is to update this blog, at least, once every week. It's all about living life on the edge.

And, HERE - WE - Go!

-SotC-

Xi: Why Pickup Lines Dont Work

Here's a random work-day question: What's your best pickup line?

And..............Survey Says!

ML:
I know its not Christmas, but Santa's lap is always ready.

RK:
What's a pickup line?

NJ:
I don't have pickup lines, I just show up and it works.

WW:
Hi! you dig?

AS:
lei ho, nei gong ying mun? (Translation - hello, do you speak english?)

SS:
Cute dog, *looks up*, but your cuter.

AC:
Do I know you?

EL:
Do I know you? No - seriously. I feel like I've seen you somewhere before. You weren't at.. Well, this might be weird if you're not the person I'm thinking of.. But last weekend - I went to this dog costume parade in Brooklyn and bumped into a woman and spilt water on her pants.. But she was in a hurry.. .. .. Gahh - I guess it wasn't you, then. Funny - you look EXACTLY like her?


Then - she responds: Hehe - you must be mistaken. But you went to a dog costume parade? I've never heard of such a thing! Must have been SO cute!

-SotC-

X: On the Other Side of Interviews

So back to the blogs I go - my boss sent me on a mission to hire the next co-op student for my position. Here's how the day unfolded.

Hand Lotion? Are you Kidding Me?
I wake up to excruciating pain in my lower back, I hate that damn bed. Dragging my lazy ass outta bed - I quickly realize that I left my set of interviewing questions at the office. Luckily, the house I rented out is only located ten minutes from the office. I arrive at the office, and I figure, I might as well make myself a nice orange ginger flavored tea. As I create that damn exotic cup of liquid, the aroma of a goddess fills the air when suddenly... "Hey law!"

E: "Wow, your here a bit early aren't you?"
L: "Yeeeeeeeeeah, interviews man, interviews. I left the damn questions here."
E: "What the, whats that orangey smell? Is that you?"
L: "Yeah it's me, I'm making..."
E: "Never admit your wearing hand lotion! Even when you are!"
L: "......tea"
E: "Guys should NEVER admit it"
L: *Rolls eyes* "Yes you caught my sensitive side"

That Damn Security
Where the hell am I going to park? Well, thinking that RIM provides free parking to students, I leave the car at RIM / DC parking lot. It was 8:58 AM and my interviews start at 9. Running across the campus, dressed up for interviews, felt pretty stupid - but James Bond does it all the time - cept he's not running across the campus. A quick glance back to my car, I noticed a security walking around. No time to think, I'm late, I gotta get to TC quick. Long story short, 8 hours later, $25 cut from my next paycheck.

Interview Bits and Pieces
9 AM -1 PM, 8 Interviewees, and no break inbetween. Sounds like fun. Turns out I ran 1 hour over time till 2 PM. Here's the memorable NON-MVP moments from different candidates...

Q: "What do you know about Ericsson?"
A1: "Um...they are big? and...they are known...are they in telecom? ummm my friend told me its a relaxed environment...ummm, yup."
Me: *Ok, your not ranked look* given to her

Q: "What do you know about Ericsson?"
A2: "Um Sony Ericsson makes great phones" *takes out his SE phone and shows me*
Me: *laughs* "Nice phone, but did you know that Sony Ericsson is not the same as Ericsson"
A2: "Oh..right right...I knew that"

Q: "What seperates you from the other candidates?"
A: "Because..I know I can get the job"
Me: *wtf eye brow* "How would you possibly know that?"

Q: "What do your know about this position?"
A: "Um I like the job title"

Q: "Ok so you figured out the code is creating a new email message & does something with the attachments, what Microsoft Application is it most likely using?"
A: "Microsoft Excel?"
Me: "Yeah....Not reaaaally....No."

The Story After 2
..TBC

-SotC-

and off they go

man, staying in dc at 10pm on the first weekend of the school term, how sad can that get. Well there is sort of an excuse, with Bell not giving us internet or some reason (yeah work completed my ass), so to get my daily internet fix I have to come to DC lugging my laptop. 

Anyways I'm realizing how busy this term will be, maybe I bit off more than I can chew. 2B, Class Rep, reffing, soccer team, research, mentor..... I'm already feeling a bit too stressed... but somehow i got just pushed into doing all of this. oh well... 

but man, i know all of them (Jim, Law, Spanny) are over their hardest terms, and now they are coasting towards the end. Sometimes I miss those guys, it's just weird not having them around sometimes. I actually can't wait until my 3B term, when I get to see them again for their last term. It will be a bittersweet term, feeling happy that they are finally done and they got through with their minds intact, but on another hand, I would feel sad that I'm not there anymore. But things happen for a reason. I guess this sounds kind of stupid, but I know I will not go for exchange in my 3B term just because I don't want to miss them for their last term. 

Anyways enough of this random ranting, time to get back to work, especially with wtr due in a couple hours... fuck cant believe i'm doing this again... 

ix: Its over, isn't it?

With the finals just completed, after becoming a lychnobite for the past two weeks, a tad of relief is sinking in. The most difficult terms in systems engineering are over! A weird, but admirable feeling. I can't help but feel - somewhat - proud. Sitting here, thinking back - good memories, bad memories, and of course - the undescribable gay memories. Summarizing the courses this term:

Engineering Economics - pretty useful excel crap.

Systems Models - hardest course after Signals, according to the txtbk, we can model 'anything' now. Yeah right, haha.

Intro to Design - fun group project, though the reports are disgustingly annoying to do.

Engineering Optimization - Interesting ways to optimize applications, but, loads of tests and quizzes throughout the term makes it very stressful.

Theromodynamics - halirious prof, Mahmud, your awesome. Just like any other physics class, plug into equations and solve.

And....Lets round off the top 5 moments.

5 - Adopting the sexiest cat alive. Sadly, we had to give it away. Miss you, sexy tiger.

4 - Sweating through Batman The Dark Knight on opening day, in a retro theatre, with no air condition. Still - sitting through a sauna watching Batman was an amazing experience. Plus, there was this cute girl, who buff man, tried to make a 'move' on. Unfortunately, the 'oops i dropped my wallet and hope she picks it up move' did not work. Well, "A" for effort.

3 - Wonder Girls - watching their sexy music videos as we take our much needed breaks from studying.

2 - The twenty octave high voice of Simon Tsang. "Thats *CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY* man" I Wish I had a voice clip. Yeah, systems people, weird as hell?

1 - As I wait for my ever-important marks to be revealed on August 17th, a year of massive studying and working out all comes down to five measly numbers. It's weird how a simple motivation, like exchange, can change people this much. But then again, the Singapore Bikinies are waiting at the plane.

-SotC-

Viii: Shutter - Goes the Term

Exactly 1 week remaining in the oh-so-terrifying 3A school term, the pressure begins to ease. Through each term, comes great memories, and this one proved no different. Heres to the friends and the foes:

-Top 10 Greatest Hits of 3A-

10) Eugene Jinwoo Lee's awesome study questions.
- Night before Systems Models (a course based on bond graphs) midterm: "heyyy, do we need to know bond graphs?"

9) The Patent Simon Spotting
- As savvy as Simon is, for some reason he makes the spotter do his last rep of a set for weight lifting. Yeah, thats TERRRRRRRRRRRRIBLE man.

8) The Emergence of an Enemy
- He who shall not be named has spread his diseases upon 3 innocent souls during a group project. He is the extreme opposite of the Wonder Girls.

7) The Ridiculous Profs
- Mahmud: "In thermodynamics, were gona be learning about some heat and wok"
- Calamai: after asking him a question, he responds, "your mother must be so proud of you asking me this on the day before exams"
-(To Matt Chan) "CHICKEN!!"

6) Albert Chen's priceless quotes.
"Michael NOT KIDNEY Lung" & "hes a Leung cha, not a fuu cha"
"Daddy long legs, Daddy long legs" as a super leggy girl walks by.

Top 5 to be revealed...

-SotC-