post-toronto-depression
US NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) scientists estimate you need one day for every one-hour time zone crossed to regain normal rhythm and energy levels.
great. 12 days of being a zombie.
i must start getting used to this new state of mind. get some new zombie-like wardrobe, think of zombie things to do, listen to zombie songs, eat zombie food…wow..
jet lag sucks
schools a bitch and then you die
im in an alternate universe
study time: abt 3 hours in buses, in strange hotel rooms, in between rushing lab report.
practice time: zero
results: 14/20 for MCQ, 11.5/12 for short answers
errmmm…ok
whatever
i just watched mean girls! good show 
love love tina fey!
ok and i just found out that gwen stefani is coming to SG
on the 14th of August
GREAT!
ok back to real studying
quebec city and thousand islands
Hello everybody! I am Not-A-Bear! I am a moose. Trust Me. I live in Quebec City in Quebec Province. This is a very old place dating from the 1600s and is a French city through and through. Even though the Brits came in in like the 18oos and took over, the Frenchi-ness still remains and is pervasive. Everybody speaks French here. We retain our old buildings, culture and traditions. I honestly think that Quebec city is reminiscent of a quaint old, romantic French town. Today was an exciting day because it is the Festival of Nouvelle France (the French settlers named Quebec New France) and there is a parade. People living in Quebec actually walk around in the 35 deg heat in their old costumes and stop to pose for pictures with tourists!
We have a fort, fountains and a funiculaire! Oh and voila ici: the Montmorency Falls!
Before i left for Toronto, we went to the Thousand Islands which is found smack in the middle of the St Lawrence Seaway which connects the Atlantic Ocean to Canada and the US. Took pictures of the island from the boat that we took! Filthy rich people own islands here and moon us plebians on the boat! (ok, it was this just one lil kid who pulled down his swimming trunks to show us his ass, rubbing it in that he owns an island.)
Ok thats it for today!
ottawa and montreal
yes! i survived today aka the day of the test and the lab report due and the fact that i went away for a four day trip during the weekend when i shd be studying and doing my lab report but hoo hoo hoo, i cleared them all. now i really need to study for the exam. And the most amazing thing happened. The spastic test that i took last tuesday, the geology one that i studied for like errm i dunno 4 hours or less, i got an 80% for that. What the hell! If only this happens in Singapore. Ok and i made another friend, who is in my tutorial class. her name is B.i.s.m.a.h and she is a Pakistani but grew up in Saudi Arabia and did her high school in Canada and she is a senior like me and she hopes to get into Med School, had a good time with her stressing abt the test and the stupid report and talking to her after the test about school, singapore, her background and about life in general. Too bad that this is like my last ten days here. One thing i really regret is not going all out to make friends. I mean yeah, i have ppl that i talk to in lab, tutorial and lectures and stuff, but you know, the exchanges are limited to just the school related stuff. but well, you have 7 weeks and school and running ard everywhere so, you take what you can get i guess. ok i digressed again. Ohk, and i also want to scratch that slack stereotype of education systems other than singapore. please, ppl here are as competitive (actually, a lot more) hardworking and grades obsessed as singaporeans heh.
Ok so here are the pictures as usual.
Hello everyone! Im Groundie the Groundhog. I live underground in the Parliament Hill complex in Ottawa, the Capital City of Canada. Here is my neighbourhood:
Well, obviously, the security here is so slack that ppl can come just come up into the complex to take paparazzi pictures of me and even enter the Parliament Building. This arrangement reflects the openness and warmth of Canadian culture, unlike our neighbour down south who are obsessed with national security yada yada
Ottawa was chosen as the capital of Canada because its neither Frenchified or Anglo-fied and was especially chosen by Queen Victoria. Also, check out the awesome Gothic Revival architecture style of most buildings here that dates from the 1800s. That creepy face stares at me every day when i get out of my hole! Bye everyone!
awesome (sorry, i love this word right now). Im in Montreal and I get to stay in a McGill University residence (Harvard of Canada y’all, best place to study medicine, engineering, sciences, psychology, islamic studies, ok, you get the idea). And half the campus is on the slopes of Mount Royale and many of the buildings are like old English Houses from the dunno-what-century!. So pretty! This place, Nouvelle Residence beats my Toronto residence anytime! TV and fridge in the room!
I MET C.H.U.N M.E.N.G! I was so happy to meet her (of course we very the excited then forget to take picture) She still looks the same, still talks faster than me, still the same old Chun, but she has really really matured into such a lady. She just left for London to work in Rothschild as an Investment Banker! Phwoooooooaaar! We sat at a lebanese diner (whats new?) and ate and talked and talked and talked. And then it rained/stormed (there were hailstones in other part of Quebec Province, how cool!) And then we ran in the rain to get back to the residence. Haha. That was just funny! So many years to catch up on, till the next time (anybody want to sponsor me to go London?)
Lotsa cathedrals in Montreal. First is the Notre Dame, the other is the St Marie and another one called St Joseph’s on top of Mount Royale (sorry, lazy to put up picture).The gorgeous Spanish girl beside me is s.a.r.a who is a radio presenter in Madrid, very humble and unassuming girl, lovely to talk to! spanish girls are really really gorgeous, there were many of them in my bus!
Montreal is like a mini european city with lots of old buildings and signs in french everywhere, menus are in french, ppl spouting french (which i catch no ball), you get the idea! Ok, i love love love Montreal and I have no idea why, I barely spent a day here, i didnt see much, but there is just something totally charming about the place.
More to come!
Somebody’s gonna get hurt real bad!
Yesterday I went for a free Comedy Show (part of the Toronto Just For Laughs Festival) by the man-of-racist-jokes himself, R.u.s.s.e.l.l P.e.t.e.r.s. It was free! There were like 15000 people (im not kidding) at Yonge-Dundas Square, they actually closed off Yonge Street to accommodate everyone.
Warm-Ups were some newbies that werent really funny (they often always resorted to the race and gay card to make you laugh but they just cant beat the Seniors). Nearer to Peters’ performance, there were two famous canadian comics (that i obviously dont recognise) but they were really really funny (the Black Guy talked abt race and the gay white guy Trevor Boris talked about being gay in toronto, but they were good).
So R.u.s.s.e.l.l P.e.t.e.r.s came on stage and he starts doing his improvs. I love how he engages the crowd and then proceeds to make fun of the poor guys that he picked out. (to this Jap-American dude: Wow! you can make half a good car already! *lol*) He made fun of emo-kids and boys with their butts hanging out of their pants and how kids like to talk in the ghetto slang. It was damn hilarious. encouraging parents to beat their kids. he made his usual asian jokes and such, hairy men jokes. so many of them, i cant really remember, i just remembered laughing a lot.
R.u.s.s.e.l.l P.e.t.e.r.s introduced this new guy called J.o K.o.y. He is really really really really good. He uses the race card (cuz he is Filipino-American). He can sing too, did a good imitation of Michael Jackson. If you are interested, watch him on you tube, his material is pretty much the same since he is new. His jokes were about his mum’s Pinoy accent, his wife giving birth and his 3 year old son. Really really really funny.
ok i know its really small, click on it so at least you can see him haha.
Gotta study for a test this Tuesday, do a lab report and also miscellaneous studying. so not gg anywhere far away this weekend. heh. still going to walk ard toronto and sightsee though…
oh yes, i still havent finished with NYC pictures.
miss everyone.
new york city part one
spent three days in nyc with the girls. slept at the Jazzhostel On the Park, Uptown. walked a lot, shopped a bit, Subwayed a lot. a bit too tired to blog frm the ten hour GREYHOUND bus journey…enjoy the pictures though
Random COLOURFUL building on 8th Avenue, Madison Square Garden y’all. Gritty, ghetto-ey Subway train that we took a lot of , Ugly Betty At Times Square.
this was actually on the second day, at Battery Park. We could see Lady Liberty waaay out in Ellis island, far far away. I snapped a picture but it was too small to put up. We met Lady Liberty at the entrance of Battery Park so i just had to take a photo with her. Obligatory flower photo. us aka ‘the girls’.
hahahhaha. yah, i was at the biggest toys r us in the world. i took a gazillion pictures of the toys and such. and yes, thats shrek! oh and in the middle is the Empire State Building.
more pictures (and words) soon. i need to zzzzz.
ratemyprofessor.com
this is my chem prof (thank god she has co-teachers for this module who are better than her and that the tutors are really good tutors) hahaha… poor woman. i kinda like her even though she cant really teach, plus she does Atomic Force Microscopy which is pretty funky.
singapore should have this hahhaha n.u..s profs will prob have super bad ratings hahahha.
bohemian like me
i got some backdated pix from a) Casa Loma castle and b) Greek Town look at that greek salad yummmm. they have greek signs everywhere! me (mostly) and monika were trying to read all the greek letters that we could recognise from maths and science, i was delta, chi, epsilon, alpha, beta, gamma. miu-ing down the whole street. oh and the first Greek shop we encountered was Pratta and Pratta (lol!). Law firm, not cheese prata shop, no! oh and they have the Greek Version of Dora the Explorer (my sisters will know who she is) ok i also updated the previous entry with waterloo pix so enjoy!
this 88 year old nenek from Tucson Arizona talked to me during breakfast. She is so sweet and doesnt look her age. She is in toronto to watch plays and sight see under this programme called Elder Hostel. So sweet, she just sat down and just talked to me while i was eating alone ( i had early class, everyone else was still zzzzz). sometimes i cant believe how nice people are. im still a cynic ok.
in btw class i went walking around. walked along Harbord St. nothing much. backtracked to Spadina Avenue and walked down to Kensington. Wow. Such a colourful place. Imagine that right next to Chinatown is this little bohemian enclave with the cutest little shops selling dresses and vintage clothes and hippy-ish clothings and cheese shops and grocers and jamaican grocers stores and mexican goods store and army surplus store and cafes and reggae music and colourful people and graffiti etc etc etc etc. i dunno how else to describe kensington market. SEE I NEEDED THE CAMERA! I love this part of toronto. seems like everybody is so artsy around here
and guess what i found at Tap Phong (chinese-owned shop that sells crockeries, cutleries, woks, cheap containers etc etc…u get the idea….). I was looking for another microwaveable container for microwaving hot drinks when i saw SPICE GIRLS PAPER PLATES…Wahahahhaha circa 1997. will post up the pix soon. i mean…wth! i had to buy it ok! 50 cents only. spice girls got reunion so who noes maybe i can sell that in Ebay and earn money hahahhaha
im officially sick of turkish/middle eastern/arab/indian food/rabbit food so i shall be eating my microwave cooking frm now on hahahha
so many things that i wanna do this weekend. toronto has so many things going on every week and many of them are FREE. i have two mid terms on tuesday so must prioritise. Oh and the Science Library in UofT, has the nicest reading room, with individual tables with individual study lamp! wah lau! i will take picture. and then they have STUDY HALL the day before the mid term with TAs on hand. wth! like that i also wanna study in toronto full time.
its hard not to notice the homeless. the ones at Salvation Army along Mc Cauls, the ones in chinatown, the ones just along that shelter near Spadina Crescent, that lady and her skinny little daughter in Danforth (“i work so hard for our money”). i hate myself for stopping myself frm putting some coins in their caps or stopping to pass that apple in my bag. I dont know. Am i suppossed to give them some pity? will they hate me for that? is homelessness a choice? In toronto, housing is expensive for the downtrodden/low income as they have (almost) none xistent public housing project hence some choose just to go homeless. I know that my conception of the homeless is tainted by Andrea-of-devil-wears-prada-giving-out-free-Starbucks-to-the -Homeless and hollywood in general. I dont know. I look in their eyes and then i look away because i hate the fact that i do not know what to offer them.
this city is a paradox.
im supposed to find myself here.
tim hortons pink pipes and tornadoes
im at sya’s in waterloo university. ok. it is the middle of nowhere. but it is one hell of a great middle-of-nowhere. I dont have pictures yet so bear with the ramblings hahahaha. let me just summarise the great things about Waterloo
a) there are bloody rabbits, beavers. chipmunks, squirrels, geese (who poo a lot and dirty the campus) and other miscellaneous animals running around the compound and the flowers! so pretty! i managed to snap geese, squirrel and rabbit. binatang lain semua malu nak keluar pasal ada tetamu!
b) the earth sciences building has a rock garden and a dinosaur/geology museum that is so rocking
c) the school is open 24 hours.
d) ppl study in the library on Sunday at midnight
e) the library i was at (Davis Centre) is a very kitschy looking building that has pink pipes and red and blue-green walls. very funky. Oh and word has it that its the noisiest library in the world.
f) They have a “why not?” spirit
g) Its a small school with a very homely feeling, very ’small town’ and friendly read: no airs
h) 5 tim hortons in the campus, 4/5 halal eateries, 1.5 hours to Toronto
i) we were walking towards Herrle’s Farm in the middle of nowhere (more than 5km walk) when we found a) Shopper’s Drug Market (cheap cosmetics!) b) Friendly, reliable Swiss-Italian-Russian-Canadian gentleman who gave me and sya a lift all the way to Herrle’s and waited for us to finish berry picking! And then sent us back to Village One where Sya stays. He got a nice strawberry pie from Herrle’s (from us). I learnt that people can be nice with no strings attached. c) Its nice to be in the middle-of-nowhere with gorgeous temperate country scenery and miles of miles of road ahead of you (and good company of course)
j) tornado watch! how exciting is that ok i know im psychotic but wth
k) genuinely nice friendly unassuming people.
