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So – - – I’ve done it. I should be arriving at 15:55 on the 7th April and going back on the 19th

I had problems with my stupid credit card so had to pay with wire transfer which should be fine – I am receiving my ticket next week, so I will confirm you I am coming 100% then. There should not be any problems, but I will be extremely nervous until I don’t get it.

I still can’t believe it! I am so excited, so happy I am seeing you so soon. I hope you feel the same. You know that I am going to be extremely annoying and asking if it is ok for you MILLIONS of times?? I am very risk adverse and feel this is kind of crazy, so I have already shocked my own self – - the thing is, I am sure it’s gonna be worth it. I just hope you don’t feel it is too much for you.

It’s soooo good!!

I’ll talk to you soon I am just going to study and do homework with my cousin today (I have the feeling she hasn’t done any while I was away)

Love you!!

Arianna
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I will be counting the days! I can’t wait to see you again.

I suddenly realise that subconciously I don’t want this to end! I find myself counting the days, and the days are running out fast. One and a half months have just breezed past like this, and I’m sure the rest of the two and a half months will too. This is too scary for me. If only time will past just a little slower ..

I certainly get the meaning now

she smiles despite the fact she hates me

ugo, carlo, marc, ece

maria, luigi, marina

italian sign language, you get it don't you?

Quote of the day: This is America, there are rules here! - Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Whichever decision you make is going to be judged. From a third person’s perspective, someone has to be the antagonist, the bad guy. Will you make the right choice? The right choice for who? The right choice for yourself or the right choice for other people? Will you make the decision to ruin a life and make yours better? Or will you make the other choice, the safer choice?

You always seem to have a solution to everyone’s problem and nothing seems like it cannot be fixed, ONLY when the person involved isn’t you. Now that you are involved, you don’t know sh*t about what to do.

What the fuck is your problem?

Be a man and make a choice.

So, yesterday after catching Forgetting Sarah Marshall we all went to a bar. Unfortunately I did not expect to be going anywhere else after the screening so I DID NOT bring my passport. There were also a couple of others who did not bring theirs. Nevertheless we decided to try and challenge that very law that night.

home of the Red Sox

seriously? world champions? Korea beat your ass in baseball!

The street along Fenway Park were laced with sports bars serving mostly Red Sox fans around the area. Anyway, our attempts, they kinda fell flat on our faces because the “door dudes” were instructed to only accept passports and nothing else. I made a pathetic attempt in trying to show other photo IDs like my International Student ID and my Malaysian ID. Well, the student ID was really not official enough and the Malaysian ID, well … let’s just say the dudes had never seen it in their lives. Well, Andy made it through with his Australian ID so I guess it kinda told me how much my Malaysian ID was worth! Argh!!!

So all of a sudden the idea of getting a liquor ID doesn’t sound so ridiculous anymore. Wahahaha

So really, whoever did not have passports went back to get it. Hyatt wasn’t really too far away to deter us. We are a determined bunch to party! And so, we got in. We got drunk. We got out =)

And: HAPPY 51ST BIRTHDAY MALAYSIA!

MALAYSIA BOLEH!! (dalam badminton. yang lain belum lagi)

So to continue where I left off, I’d start with the day after I explored Boston city. As usual I woke up 630-ish, turned on my computer and checked my mail, surf my usual sites, bla bla bla, while waiting for Hale to wake up. That guys seems to sleep like a 100 hours a day.

I seem to notice that I get hungry really easily these days. I was really really hungry and by the time he woke up, would literally KILL to eat. We had a choice between Macdonald’s on our left or going back to IHOP on the right. IHOP was still pretty foreign to me and I’d been browsing the menu online while waiting for Hale to wake up, I managed to convince him to go back to IHOP, despite the fact he didn’t like his BBQ chicken the last night.

I hop! I hop! I hop hop hop!

Well, at least the Tooty Fruity Fresh ‘n’ Fruity I had for breakfast was great again. Ham, Bacon, Sausages, Eggs and Strawberry pancakes. Absolutely amazing. Which brought me to my first foreigner awkward moment. The latina waitress asked me how I wanted my eggs done. Well I almost blurted “Medium-well” before I held myself back to think for 5 seconds. Finally I blurted “sunny side up” which to my relief was the correct answer!

After breakfast we took a walk all the way from Days Inn in Brighton down to Harvard across the river. One thing I noticed is that Boston is pretty similar to JB in the sense that nobody waits for the traffice signal before crossing the road and cars only stop for pedestrians when they are forced to by the lights. I waited stupidly for the first few lights to turn white (NO green man, WHITE man) while locals crossed at their own peril while glacing at the 2 stupid asians waiting for the lights. Finally we gave up and joined the dark side.

And a few times I almost got myself killed because cars here drive on the right side of the road. I have totally no idea where to look everytime i cross any road and of course I never fail to instinctively look away from oncoming traffic the first time. Don’t worry, when I finally get myself killed, I will let you know.

So on our way to Harvard Square we first passed by the Harvard Business School which was on the Boston side of the river separated from the rest of the campus the way BTC is from NUS main campus. We made that our first destination and never looked back. School of the best, and elitism at its most elite!

Harvard wannabe! Tee hee hee

Next stop was Harvard Square, followed by Chinatown and the Back Bay district then finally Quincy’s Market for dinner. All that travelling on the T (the term Bostonians use for their public transport system, but mainly refering to the subway) got us really tired and soon I found myself nodding off everytime I had an opportunity on the T.

Quincy’s market proved a challenge to find for me, the stubborn tourist who refused to ask. Well, men don’t ask for directions do we? So apparently Boston is a city where similar street/district names can be in totally opposite directions. We headed for Quincy station on the T which was a station pretty far off on the red line.(THINK Orchard when you are at Choa Chu Kang). By the time we got there, we were told that Quincy’s market was NOT IN QUINCY and that we were totally in the wrong direction. (THINK Choa Chu Kang when you finally got to Orchard). Damn! So we made our way back, all feeling fucking tired and a lil’ disappointed. I could probably tell from Hale’s face because I was the one who suggested getting to Quincy’s district and then finding our way to the Market.

OK, one thing i finally start to notice is everything here is UPSIZED!!! The cookies are UPSIZED! The fruits are UPSIZED! ice cream UPSIZED! Dill pickles UPSIZED! Pizzas UPSIZED! Burgers UPSIZED! Lasagnas UPSIZED! Heck, even the people are UPSIZED!!!

Upsized people on the T.

Well, the next day I checked in to the Hyatt. It’s a really really nice room besides the fact that:
1. we have no laundry services in the hotel
2. we’re separated from the rest of the campus by the Charles river
3. There is no fridge/microwave oven and no way I can heat any food up in my room.
4. ONE damn ethernet cable for 2 to share!!!
5. No water dispenser.

The perks are:

1. it’s a HOTEL room
2. 50% off the price of the food in the hotel for BU students which brings it down to the price of Macdonald’s
3. A nice hot shower and bathtub
4. A large TV which I haven’t touched
5. An OK roommate. Vincent’s from France and is a really cool guy. Probably a womEnizer like the classic french stereotype because I overheard phone conversations about ‘gangbang in Hyatt’! Not only that but yeah, it’s classified.

Ma Room!

BU’s orientation was nothing like the NUS one, in a much better light of course. They let you experience the prestige that is BU and leaves you feeling a little fuzzy about yourself. At the opening day presentation, the number of students from each country were announced and students of that nation were asked to cheer/make noise when their country was announce. Singapore had a whooping 25 students this year! Malaysia had 4, but hey, it sure as hell felt like I was the only one cheering. What? You fucking rich spoilt malaysian brats are so ashamed of your country? Get a life people. You can’t choose where you were born the same way you can’t choose which family you were born to. I sure as hell don’t see you hating and bad-mouthing your filthily rich parents who sent you here who i’m sure look as fugly and have the same bad character as you. (NOTE: this is not a personally directed msg, and as life is, there are exceptions). And yeah, if you Singaporeans were feeling proud about having 21 more than Malaysia, I’ll tell you where the Malaysians are.

*tongue in cheek*

They are probably across the river at Harvard, beating you 25 to 4. Sorry, I just had to say that! =)

By the way, summer is never what I thought it was. I always thought summer over here would be extremely hot, but i was only half true. It’s only hot in the afternoon when the sun’s up in the sky. It get’s extremly cold in the morning and late evenings when the sun goes down.So the day transits from COLD –> HOT — COLD, which is NOT exactly fun!!

OK, 2nd day of orientation coming up. I’m gonna get prepared and go brave the cold. Breakfast starts at 9 and I gotta get across on time.

Jin out.

hey, why do we argue over stupid things?

Actually I don’t even know if yesterday would have been the right term for “yesterday”, BUT my 36-hour “yesterday” was a whirl. Long distance travelling across timezones felt a little like time travel to me. Technically it probably counts as the only viable method of time travel that we can ever understand. Kinda makes me believe that time travelling would eventually be possible in many generations to come after humanity overcomes the boundaries of space. Since the universe is revolving the same way earth is, and the light from stars we see are light from the past, and flying across the globe had Jin travelling into the near past, it can’t help but mess with my mind that time travel would probably be based on the concept of travelling along/against the revolution of the universe. Perhaps the planets we won’t reach in our lifetimes are not inhabited but aliens as hollywood had taught us to believe, but merely the worlds of our past and future……..

Coming back to topic, the flight from Changi to Narita cost me 8 hours. They had personal entertainment screens on board but I was too smashed from the (total) lack of sleep from the last night I spent doing my usual last minute packing. Browsed through the selection of movies, making a mental note that Batman Begins was on the roster. Attempted watching it, but my mind kept wandering. The next 8 hours played like a fuzzy old VCR.

*blurrrr footage* … *black out* …. *clear footage showing consumption of food played in first person* *black-out* ……………….*inaudible voices* *blinding lights* *footage of overexposure* …. *auto focus* … then I realized I had started to chat with the lady sitting beside me who was going to Seattle to visit her daughter taking a fashion design course. Also on the same plane, I met Charles, the guy I met in my freshmen year SoW OG. I don’t even remember his last name. Sorry Charles. He’s also going on SEP, to U of Alberta, home uni of Sarah, Kara and Kellie. He was travelling with this FST girl whose name I totally cannot recall.

The cross pacific flight from Narita to Detriot was another long and painful experience. NO PERSONAL ENTERTAINMENT. LONG FLIGHT. UNATTENTIVE WHITE STEWARDESS. NARROW UNCOMFORTABLE UPRIGHT SEATS. IRRITATING PRC PEOPLE WHO DON’T CARE HOW MUCH THEY ARE ANNOYING THE WHOLE CABIN WITH THEIR BANGING, PULLING AND KICKING OF OTHER PEOPLE’S SEATS AND STRAY HANDS, LEGS AND OTHER BODILY EXTENSIONS INVADING OTHER PEOPLE’S PERSONAL SPACE. 2 MEALS ONLY FOR HUNGRY JIN. NO SLEEP. INABILITY TO SLEEP DESPITE EXHAUSTION.

Ok, you get the picture.

I was so relieved to finally reach Detriot. Love the airport, but my camere battery let me down. Custom Officers weren’t as bad as everyone portrays them, unless you rather believe Jin gets special treatment even in alien lands. I slept all the way to Boston after that.

After meeting Hale. we both took a “student cabby kinda service” to Days Inn. Met this Israeli couple on board, had a great chat and found out what a great bunch of people they were despite how Malaysians were supposed to hate Israelis. FUCK politics.

Had late dinner at Ihop. Giant steak omelette with more pancakes. I start to notice things here seem so upsized. Cars, buildings, people, even meals. (I’ll post photos the next time I update this post)

I hope this city doesn’t magnify me too much.

Till next time. Jin out.

i saw you in my dreams, the same scene from our last day, waving, teary eyed as I walked away …

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