Week 71 – 26th December – 1st January

Monday – 26th December

Sleeping off the previous day’s snowboarding was not an option as we woke up around 6 a.m. to head to Zakopane, one of the highest mountains in the area. We took a cable car up and we were at an altitude of around 2km by the time we reached the summit. I have no idea how they built it, but they supposedly cut down all the trees while building the infrastructure of the cable car before planting everything again. It made some sense because the forest was way too regular for it to have been an accident.

It was fairly clear and we had a spectacular view on the way up till we we got lost in the clouds. The level of detail we could see was simply amazing. It kind of reminded me of Skyrim actually. The day where video games will be like reality will come, I’m sure of it.

Once at the top, the fog was so thick, it was impossible to see beyond 10m. The frost on the cable lift system too was a sight I had never seen before. They actually had a ski lift system up there, and it’s not uncommon for people to ski down the mountain or hike down it either. It must be quite a rush to ski down although it probably isn’t safe to do it alone.

In the afternoon, we hit the slopes again and I opted for a pair of skis to try it out since I was there. It was a terrible idea because it is now apparent that I do not have independent leg coordination. While I had no problem with balancing on a board and it felt totally natural, the skis were a complete disaster. I basically rolled down the mountainside and swapped out for a good old trusty snowboard.

We met some of Pawel’s friends on the slopes and we ate McD’s on the way back. A year and a bit in the U.S. and I never touched McD’s, but in the short time in Poland, we ate it twice and it was glorious. We were home around 5 p.m., and I had to rest because of the whole skiing bit while the other two went to drink in the town center of Nowy Targ.

Tuesday – 27th December

We woke up early for one last quick session on the slopes, back on the gentlest of the three slopes we tried. It was easily my best performance of all the days and I was carving the slopes with a certain measured confidence and was easily recovering from my falls. Unfortunately, Pawel and Navin were both tired, so we didn’t stick around for too long. I did manage to get two nice videos of me on the slopes, doing turns and carves on the way down.

Lunch was back at the house, and after a quick shower, we packed up all our bags and headed back to Krakow, but not before stopping by at Sebastian’s place again. His mom offered us coffee and we said okay, but coffee ended up coming with cakes and fruits as well. The Polish hospitality is really at a level I have never experienced before. Makes you think that the rest of the world is barbaric compared to the civility they have. I do think it’s part of being a more homogenous society, like how the Japanese still have a high standard of social graces.

Sebastian came back with us to Krakow and after unloading stuff off at Pawel’s place, we went to the old town market square and enjoyed the Christmas fair. As always, I got my favorite waffle from a store, along with some other snacks. Navin and I bought quite a number of gifts from the stores there, stocking up on presents for everybody back in Daytona.

We slept early that night as we had to fly off the next day.

Wednesday – 28th December

While Navin and I were sleeping, Pawel sneaked out and we were surprised when he came back with Polish sausages and the raspberry syrup we so liked for us to bring back. The Polish hospitality is really something to brag to other people about.

Sebastian came to get us and send us to the airport and it was a good thing we were really early as it took an eternity to check-in and clear immigration. There were a whole bunch of Easyjet flights leaving around the same time as us, meaning the counters were swamped. Clearing immigration was also slightly problematic as the officer was questioning us on how we entered the country. In the end we had to call Pawel and get him to talk to her and tell her where we stayed and what we did. The problem was that we took the train in, but a flight out, which meant that the was no chop into Poland, only the one we had going from London to France.

The flight was smooth and we reached Gatwick early. The train ride into Victoria Station was also quite pleasant as we took the Gatwick Express. Victoria Station was also a mess as there were thousands of people moving, either leaving back to the countryside or coming to spend New Year’s in the City. Buying my Oyster card was a little troublesome and I was forced to use the supplementary card given by my brother as it was the only card with the chip.

Navin made his way to his sister’s place in Zone 2, while I found my way to Zixuan’s place at Tottenham Court Road.

His room is the most most spacious of the house and I settled in pretty comfortably although I would have to sleep on the floor that night as someone else had the airbed.  I got to know his two good friends, Felicia and Catherine, both studying law at King’s College. They stayed in and made dinner while I went to Chinatown to meet Navin and we ate at Golden Dragon, the same restaurant I ate back in 2003. The roast duck was awesome, although it does seem the duck in Amsterdam was more lean and hence nicer to eat.

We finally had rice for the first time in over a week, but surprisingly, Navin was the one who wanted to eat the duck more than I did as I actually had my fill of roast duck over the trip. Dinner wasn’t that cheap and I found myself watching my finances a little bit more as things could get nasty really quickly considering I was spending in pounds. At least the exchange rate of 1.6USD to 1GBP meant things were not that extreme as compared to going from SGD to GBP.

I also made contact with Desmond and he wasn’t really expecting that Navin and I would be around, so we had to reschedule to find another time to meet up. At this point, I had 13 days in London, assuming that I didn’t go out to Paris or something.

Crazy store selling only Panda related items

Thursday – 29th December

I didn’t sleep that well since I was sleeping on the floor and it was exacerbated by the fact that my body was still sore from all the snowboarding. I’m also not used to the noise of the inner city and trying to sleep in it. Pelican Bay is so quiet, even though there is the occasional siren and roaring engine from Williamson. Caleb’s place on the other hand, had a constant noise of traffic, police sirens and just an overall high level of background noise. My eyebrow actually started twitching pretty badly in London, eased up a little later on when I went to Bristol, but didn’t stop completely till I was back in Daytona Beach. It seems that I might have problems readjusting back to city life in the future.

In any case, I got up around 10 a.m., and I know Caleb stayed up really late studying, but he was still up before me. These poor British students don’t really get carefree holidays the way American students do. They have high weighted exams immediately upon the conclusion of their holidays and it kind of sucks having to spend the holidays studying instead of enjoying it. While he and his friends did spend a whole week snowboarding in the French Alps, they don’t have that carefree freedom we have of having the semester done and behind you with no need to worry about the future.

It took a while for Navin to get to the inner city, but we had lunch at his sister’s favorite Indian place. It’s called the Kati Roll Company and it’s basically Indian Burritos with parathas replacing the tortilla skin and Indian style fillings. We walked around Oxford street for the rest of the day just looking at the post-Christmas sales. Unfortunately, I’m not a clothes shopper unless I need something and with so many clothes, but no real need to dress up in school, there was little reason for me to buy anything despite the deals.

Caleb joined us for dinner and we ate at a nearby Fish and Chips place that was fairly well-known. It seems that like the past, I cannot eat too much deep-fried stuff without feeling really sick and while I did finish my meal, it was probably the most I could have eaten.

There wasn’t really much to do, so we ended up watching Sherlock Holmes 2 later that night at  a nearby cinema. The price was £12 per ticket, which is quite ridiculous. It seems that the movies aren’t a really big thing in London, especially since there are so many theaters around, and tickets for those are only around £24 for the cheapest seating, which means that instead of watching two movies in crappy cinemas, just watch one play/musical instead. Life is London really sin’t that cheap.

Friday – 30th December

Around 2 a.m., there were drunk girls outside in the street just making a ton of noise, till the point one of the neighbors in another building shouted at them, threatening to call the cops. I guess that is what city living is. Definitely not my cup of tea. I slept till almost 10 a.m. again, before mailing a postcard and getting a haircut at Chinatown for £7, one of the cheapest we found. Navin and I originally wanted to cut at Toni & Guy, a once in a lifetime kind of thing, but in the end, the price was exorbitant even if the haircut would be fantastic.

I finally met Desmond for a late lunch in a pub near UCL. We spent quite a while catching up on happenings, comparing the British City Lifestyle to the American small city lifestyle and I quite like where I’m at. Although the social life is a lot worse simply because of the variety, the small community spirit and the fact that I’m next to the beach more than makes up for anything that I’m giving up in a Big City. I spent my whole life in a metropolis, so I’m definitely enjoying the change in lifestyle. Apparently the pub we were in is normally filled with UCL students, and the whole street was littered with pubs in between the various UCL buildings. Desmond said he only spends about 12 hours a week in class, and hordes of students spent an equal if not more, amount of time in the pubs. Someone once joked that the Brits have a huge drinking problem, but since everyone has the problem, it ceases to be a problem.

While walking to his place to get some stuff, Desmond told me about a very interesting theory. The belief that London is an expensive city to live in holds true, and he estimates at least £1000 a month is needed in order to just barely get by, covering food and rent. However, he said that if you could push up to £1500 through whatever means, life in London becomes very luxurious. Watching world renown plays and eating at Michelin 1-star restaurants are about £30, on the order of double normal food and entertainment. He says that extra £500 can go a long way as while the base cost of living is expensive, the jump from basic living to some luxury is not as much as other places, especially places like Singapore. Your hawker food in Singapore may be about $5 on average, with an excellent restaurant meal costing $100 easily. London on the other hand goes from maybe £8 to £32 for that excellent restaurant meal, a jump of 4x compared to 20x.

We found ourselves back in Oxford street again, and it seems everything in Zone 1 of London is within walking distance. He returned some stuff that he had bought and I actually managed to pick up a few pieces of clothing. I finally met May who said she’d be in London, but what I didn’t expect was that she had her friend with her, Lumae. May’s friend seemed pretty cute, but I dismissed it fairly quickly as Riddle vision. While ERAU is good at making you work hard for your degree, you really sacrifice a huge enjoyable part of youth to get at it.

Desmond left to meet his friends for dinner, while the two girls and I went to meet Navin and another ERAU Malaysian at the Singapore Restaurant. It’s funny just how many Singapore/Malayisa ERAU kids were in London visiting friends or just holidaying. The cheap airfare from Orlando to London definitely plays a big part. While the others had Nasi Lemak, I opted for the mee goreng, which wasn’t exactly the best choice. While the taste was pretty much there, it was so oily that the plate had a thick layer of oil when I was done with the food. It’s a little annoying that they could charge so much for what we ate, but I guess it’s because Singapore cuisine is considered exotic foreign food over in London.

We tried to find a bar after dinner, but most places were full and we just ended up walking around in the drizzle, trying to follow that little map app I have on my phone.  In the end we all just went back to our respective lodgings.

Saturday – 31st December

May said she and Lumae would wake up and meet me at Borough Market that morning, but they slept in so it was just Caleb, Felicia, Catherine, and me at the market. I don’t remember visiting Borough market the last time I was in London and I did kind of go overboard on the food and ate way more than I should have. The coffee from Monmouth Coffee Company is easily the best I’ve ever had, and I don’t quite know what exactly makes it so good.

I easily spent over £10 just buying food although I suppose it did count as my lunch. I also bought macaroons, which were really awesome, but not that cheap. Caleb bought Turkish delights and I loved the rose flavored ones. I wished I had more time/money/appetite to just eat everything that, but Borough market is quite high-class and most of the things they sold are pretty high quality.

The three of them went to KCL to go study so I went back to Chinatown to meet Navin and the two girls where they ate at Four Seasons yet again. I had just a bowl of soup since I was already full from all the food at the market.

After lunch, we bought four tickets for the evening show of Wicked. At £38, the tickets aren’t exactly the cheapest, but it’s not everyday you get to see a theater troupe play on their home ground. The plan was to watch the show and head to the Ministry of Sound to celebrate the New Year’s Party. As such, Lumae needed a new dress and heels, and since everything was on sale anyone, we all headed back to Oxford Circus to see what we could buy. Navin was occupied buying stuff for Preethi, so May and I worked together to help Lumae buy stuff. I guess the years of shopping with Maxine and Felicia have actually taught me a lot about buying clothes as I was actively involved with the process rather than be one of the numerous guys just sitting around waiting for the girls.

While Lumae was looking for heels, I managed to find myself a nice pair of black dress shoes in the style I like that the shops in Daytona/Orlando never seem to have. I also picked out a pair of sneakers that on hindsight don’t fit my style that well, but they are comfy nonetheless. After the shopping trip, everybody went back to rest and change up before meeting at Victoria for Wicked. I was almost late as I didn’t expect to take that long to walk to the Tube and I was at the doors just a few minutes before they closed. The good thing was that our tickets were in the upper rings so we wouldn’t get stuck outside until the intermission or something.

The show was really good and despite the poor vantage point we had, I enjoyed the slice of culture and appreciated every moment of the storytelling. The show ran till almost 10:30p.m., which was when we ate at the nearby Italian place that we all enjoyed. We then got onto the tube to head toward Elephant and Castle, where MOS was. However, it being New Year’s Eve, there were numerous delays and we had to circle around in order to get to that station which almost left us inside the train at midnight. We barely got out onto the street when the fireworks started above the River Thames.

MOS was a whopping £50 to enter, but I figured this would be my one and only time going in, and it will prove to be my only time every for other reasons later on. It was quite nostalgic to finally be in a legit club for the first time in years, since the clubs in Daytona Beach are a joke. However, it does seem that I have left that part of my life behind in exchange for other activities. The music was alright and the alcohol wasn’t strong, but expensive, which means that the club wasn’t fairing very well in my rankings. Even worse was that the bartender didn’t know what a screwdriver was, which I’m pretty sure is on the list of drinks every bartender must know.

Sunday – 1st January

The first few hours of the New Year were spent in a club with Navin, May, and Lumae, so I guess it’s not too bad a start to the year. Compared to the previous year where I was with Tilford and his two cousins at Main Street, I’ve done well for myself this time. At the end of the day, I can conclusively say that the whole MOS trip was a huge waste of money, but it was one of those things that you just had to do and know conclusively that it was a waste of money.

By the time I got back, it was almost 4 a.m., and Zixuan-Caleb was still awake and we talked for a bit before finally sleeping at 5 a.m. He was up early while I just continued sleeping till noon or so. I managed to get some packing done before I followed him to dim sum with his friends. Talking to the whole group of Singaporean lawyers/dentists/doctors and the two engineers made me realize just how different the UK and US experiences are. I would say that for law, economics and medicine, London is definitely the place to be, but the US is definitely the place for engineering and science. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the US is actually fairly nice to live in, but Europe makes for much better traveling and holiday destinations.

In the evening, I met the usual trio again for dinner in Covent Garden, where we ate at this place famous for their mussels and it was really good. I had an excellent piece of salmon as well, which was nice. It was the last night in London for the two girls as Lumae went back while May went to Paris. It only hit me on the tube that May would be in Germany till the Fall and that she wouldn’t be in ERAU till August. She’s one of the wiser Singaporean/Malaysians, comfortable with the Americans, yet still having the core Asian values. She’s one of the few others that truly understands how our house views life in the US. It’ll be an interesting semester without having her around at all.

Week 70 – 19th – 25th December

Monday – 19th December

The beds in the Berlin hostel were really good and I got an excellent night’s sleep except the part where I had to lower the heater because somebody cranked it up to max, leaving me in a sweat. I woke up around 9 a.m., and headed down for the free breakfast, which was basically ham, eggs, cheese, and cereal, and swapped stories with the other Singaporeans. From what I could tell, they were not the most talkative of people, or they didn’t have stories to share. I think talking to strangers and making a meaningful conversation with well chosen anecdotes is a skill.

After Navin woke up, we headed to the main train station around 11 a.m., where we bought the Berlin Welcome Pass. This pass is a transport ticket that gives you unlimited travel on the city’s subways and buses, along with significant discounts at many tourist attractions. We headed to Checkpoint Charlie and took a look at what was left of the Berlin Wall, which isn’t very much. The checkpoint itself has become a tourist site and is actually very commercialized with trinkets and souvenirs. The museum on the other hand, was a really worthwhile trip as it preserved a lot of things from that period. A new wing was also added to it covering the topics of racial harmony and other genocides committed in the world.

We had lunch at a small German cafe nearby, where the young man running the place gave us a thorough explanation of all the food they had as he saw us staring at the signs in German. I had an excellent meal for only €9.

It was just basically wandering around the city after that and we saw the Brandenburg gate, along with the Reichstag, which needed registration and an appointment to enter. The plaza in front of it was huge, and you could just imagine how many people must have been at the rallies there held before World War 2. The Brandenburg gate was also very impressive because of its sheer size.

We went back to the hostel for a while to rest and warm up, because we had done a lot of walking. Following the recommendations of the reception people, we went to the area of Berlin that had all the bars and restaurants. Maybe because it was a Monday night, the whole place was pretty empty. I wasn’t complaining about the good sushi I got at half price though.

Returning to the hostel, we found two girls in the room, one from Mexico and the other from California. These two girls were working as Au Pairs in Paris and had taken a short trip to Berlin for a vacation. I had read about Au Pairs before, but I never did think I’d get to meet one. It’s a pretty interesting concept and I think it’s a great opportunity for girls, so good for them that they get to do it.

Random band playing in U-Bahn

I turned in pretty early, partly because of fatigue, and partly because the beds were really quite comfortable.

Tuesday – 20th December

We were supposed to wake up early to go confirm our train tickets to Poland, but by the time Navin woke up, we had to follow the group on the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp tour as they left the hostel at 10:30 a.m. The guide brought us to the Brandenburg Gate where all the groups from various places met before splitting up into the various tours. The company actually conducts a free three hour walking tour around Berlin everyday, and I regret not following that the previous day; there’s nothing like someone to explain everything and make things interesting. We paid €13 for the tour, and as we already had our Welcome Card, the train didn’t cost us any extra. We had an Irish tour guide, Barry, who is actually a lawyer-to-be, but took some time off to figure out his life and somehow ended up in Berlin working as a tour guide in the time being.

He actually did a very good job of explaining the cam and the functions and rationale of why the Nazis constructed things or ran the camp the way they did. Sachsenhausen was kind of the research and development camp for the whole concentration camp network and ideas from this camp went out to the others. As a result not as many people were executed there, but that number is just relative. Tens of thousands still died there, but not like the hundreds of thousands in other camps. They also conducted a lot of research on equipment and medication, which did benefit the Nazi war effort. However, the majority of research was toward proving the superiority of the Aryan race, which of course was a futile effort as it’s impossible to find something that doesn’t exist.

Out of the group of 30 or so people, it turned out there were something like 9 Singaporean students in the group. Besides the two of us and the three from the hostel, there were another four apparently from Glasgow University. Somehow, I get this feeling there are a ton of Singaporeans studying overseas, with a huge majority traveling during this period because we also spot others in the streets and at tourist spots.

During the tour, I could tell some people were visibly disturbed by what Barry was saying about all the atrocities the Nazis committed. I wasn’t very much affected, maybe because I already knew what had happened, and possibly because I’ve watched Band of Brothers. I know I was very disturbed when I watched the episode where the US liberated the concentration camps. They had made those scenes as realistic as possible, and the sights were just very disturbing. We chatted with a few of the other people on tour, and there was this guy from L.A. who was back from India, so we talked with him at some length. It turned out he was an engineer and actually knew ERAU. He was actually going to guess ERAU when we said Daytona Beach, but he wasn’t that sure. He actually thought I was American until we clarified and he told me I sound very American. I suppose I’ve finally caught the accent.

We went back to the hostel for dinner which was cheap and good, before walking to the Christmas Market happening down by the huge plaza. Barry had made a joke earlier about how Germany was going to collapse as the train was a minute late, but the truth is, their system is crazy efficient. It’s not difficult to understand why they’re one of the few countries in the EU right now that’s actually doing well and holding the others up.

It was our last night in Berlin, and we would be catching an early train the next morning. I had mixed feelings about a second trip to Amsterdam, and only the thought of what lay outside the city seems to warrant it, but a return trip to Berlin is definitely a must. There’s just so much history and culture in the place that two days just wasn’t enough to see it all. Sometimes people tend to forget Germany was very avant-garde in both music and art before all the nasty that is World War 2 happened.

Wednesday – 21st December

Having not confirmed our train plan the day before, we kind of winged it and followed the instructions give by the ticket seller. At 6 a.m., we were up and left the hotel soon after. Navigating Berlin is fairly easy and we actually managed to get on an earlier train to the border as the trains leave pretty much at least once an hour. We had a bit of time before the train left that we used to eat breakfast, which would later become our only  meal for the next 15 hours.

We had a a small issue on the German train because either we were going by the wrong connections, or we were ticketed wrong. There was a nice young German guy who translated for us with the conducted and resolved everything. We continued on our way since the guy said we were on the right track according to the instructions give to us by the ticket seller.

The German train took about an hour and dropped us at our first stop at Kostrzyn , where we changed from the German train to a Polish train. At that time, we weren’t sure where we were, but apparently we had crossed the border in the German train after I came back and checked the map. The first thing we noticed about the station was that it looked like if we were kidnapped/murdered, no one, not even the CIA might be able to find us. It really had that middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere feel.

The second train took another hour that brought us from Kostrzyn to Krzyz, the so called “International” station, which was still tiny. We were a little lost since there were multiple platforms and everything was in Polish. While Navin went to to the counter to check our tickets, I managed to find a guy who was speaking English on his cellphone. He showed us how to read the train timetables and we managed to figure out which platform we were supposed to take. The train didn’t take that long to arrive, but this train was a clunker.

Think of the trains you saw in the Harry Potter movies, the kind with a hallway down one side, with booths on the other, as opposed to the German/British/French trains where it’s seats with a center aisle. This old train also probably never went faster than 50mph, and while the journey was supposed to be 8 hours, we took almost 9 hours to get to Krakow.

We did have an interesting conversation with a Ukrainian guy who was headed home for Christmas. We had also made the false assumption that the train would have a food cart, like those in Western Europe, but we were so wrong. At least I had about half a liter of water which at least helped hydrate us, but apart from that, we had no food or supplies whatsoever.

Reaching Krakow, we had only the iPad for communication as both iPhones had died during the journey. We were already an hour late, and we were worried we wouldn’t be able to contact Pawel. The first logical choice was to head to Starbucks to get Wi-Fi, but strangely, they didn’t have it. The next choice was to go to McDonalds, which delivered on Wi-Fi. I had never appreciated American Capitalism so much before this.

We managed to contact Pawel, who was just on his way out because he and Sebastian, an ERAU guy we have never met before. Sebastian drove a pretty awesome Ford van that was retrofitted for road trips. It had 7 comfortable seats in its spacious interior, with a lot of nice wood paneling. The V8 engine also had a distinctive sound to it. It was a really comfortable ride, and we stopped by Tescos (Polish Wal-mart equivalent) to buy some breakfast food, before we went to Pawel’s apartment and got some rest.

Thursday – 22nd December

Pawel’s apartment is small, but decently laid out as they had space saving furniture. It seems to be the kind of place that you just sleep in during the week, and maybe you go out of the city back to your hometown during the weekends. It’s not a place you would stay long term as it’s really just two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen and a toilet. The hallway barely has space for anything.

After breakfast, Sebastian came to pick us up and we all headed to Auschwitz extermination camp about an hour out of town. This camp was a lot more disturbing compared to Sachsenhausen, mainly because all the buildings were still pretty much intact, and the whole place just a had that cold dark feel to it. The Polish are slowly turning the camp into an exhibition, and are working on it building by building. Some of the buildings we passed through showed the scale of how bad and how many people died in the place. The Nazis stripped away people of their personal possessions when they registered, and a lot of the stuff was just thrown into storage areas, which the Polish picked up and made into an exhibit. There was a room, probably the size of a racquetball court that was just filled with nothing but the shoes of the dead.

The site is still pretty much a work in progress, and they are still putting together exhibits whenever they get funding. It was interesting to see a huge bunch of Israeli soldiers touring the place. I don’t know what they were part of, but everyone had different colored berets, badges, and insignias, so they were definitely not from the same unit.

After that, it was a short drive to a nearby restaurant where we had some really good traditional Polish food. I was glad that I managed to eat trout, which was the first time in a long time. It was grilled to perfection and I ate pretty much the entire fish except the big bones that weren’t crisp enough.

Next on the list of events was a trip to the oldest continuously operating salt mine in the world, functioning since the Middle Ages, undisturbed by centuries of war. The system goes down some 327m deep and spans some 300+ km. The 3km walking route we took covered only 1% of the entire system. Having watched the Discovery Channel, I knew rock salt is quite different from table salt, but I didn’t realize you could polish it and make it look so good. It was fun to lick the walls though. The were a ton of sculptures and chambers in the complex, built over the years. There are many chapels built into the caverns, in part because mining was and still is a dangerous job, making miners a bit more of a religious bunch. The sculptures did make me think of Dwarves though, just of how blocky the carvings were. I quite like the underworld, and being in that dark place. Too bad there aren’t any orcs to kill or something.

Later that night, I got a chance to really experience what it’s like to live in Winter. Scraping ice off the windshield while the car warms up was fun the first time, but I recognized that it would probably  get very old by the second week or so. The whole putting on and taking off of clothes also sucks up a lot of time. I’m most definitely a summer person, where the sun is shining and I’m more afraid of the cold than the heat to  begin with. However, I haven’t really felt that cold so far on the  trip, because I’ve been erring on the side of warmth, which is probably why I haven’t been freezing my butt off. Whereas when I complain I’m cold elsewhere, I’m normally under dressed, or deceived into thinking it’s warmer than it really is.

After we got back to Pawel’s place, he had a few of his university friends come over and everyone just had a good time. Most of them were Pawel’s university friends, but there were also two other people studying at the Air Force Academy in the US. One’s a Polish guy who also loves trance music, and his friend from there, a Taiwanese guy came to Poland with him, just like how we came to see Pawel. Everyone had a good time just talking and the young generation of Poles definitely speak good English.

Friday – 23rd December

Everybody woke up late the next morning, all a little hungover from the previous night. Eventually we all dragged ourselves up, ate some food and took showers. Krzysztof and Chen, the two Air Force guys, were the two guys that slept over and had brought clothes. Together, the five of us set off to see Krakow and it was basically the two Poles bringing the Asian kids out.

The first stop was a mound on the outskirts of the city. It’s a burial place that was built a long time ago before the Austrians built a fort around it and placed a lookout post on the peak. Today, the fort is now a museum and the whole venue is a tourist attraction, one for the history of the place, and two for the spectacular view the peak offers. We didn’t have the clearest skies, but we did have quite a decent view of the entire Krakow city.

It had snowed the night before, and there was a decent few inches of snow covering the city and we had spontaneous snow fights along the way, since there were five of us. I realized that even waterproof gloves get wet after a while when the snow melts into it. A worse thing to do is play with the snow with your bare hands as I found out.

Much to the amusement of everybody else, Chen was walking around, hands in his pockets, complaining how cold it was like an old grandmother while everybody took potshots at him with snowballs. The idea was to not actually hit him, but have them fly so close to him that he got scared. Krzysztof and I made fast friends because of the shared interests in both trance music and video games as we walked around. Little did we know that Chen would prove to be a massive source of entertainment later.

After the mound, we headed to the old city of Poland, the heart of the city during the Medieval Ages. As expected, it was a large square with a church as the central focal point and was surrounded by the trade district. We also walked around the Jewish district of the old town, which in this modern day does not contain any Jews because of WW2. The physical city was not actually damaged much during WW2 although the scars on the people still exist till today.

We had lunch in the area and walked around, before heading down to the excavation under the city. One of the latest projects of Krakow was to find out what lay 5 meters beneath the city square, and they found many ancient medieval artifacts and foundations. They turned the whole thing into a tourist attraction, allowing you to see how life in Medieval Poland was like.

After that, we just continued to walk around the place, stopping by Wawel Castle and just looking at the architecture. This was when Chen became our entertainment as after eating Zapienkanki, which is a long piece of bread with stuff on top, similar to the Roti John you get in Singapore, he suddenly woke up and started becoming aware of his surroundings. His exuberance brought to active discussion something we had all known, but had not quite realized yet – that Polish girls are incredibly beautiful. Chen basically went crazy just looking at every girl we passed by on the streets, and there were honestly a few moments where all five of us were stopped cold.

Whereas the girls in the US are very plastic and made-up, these Polish girls were just naturally beautiful, and most didn’t wear much makeup apart from some lipstick and eyeliner. The one that made all five of us freeze was a girl so pretty, none of us believed what we saw. Chen went crazy shouting “she’s an angel!” and running around like a Jack Russell on crack. Krzysztof and I talked more and he said this is why he comes back every winter and will come back after his studies, even though he didn’t have much of a choice with that. He was also discussing about the values of Polish girls, and the fact that they learn from their mothers, helping to look after the house and cook and being a good Polish girl, very different family values compared to the West.

While Chen continued being a crazy person, we went back to Pawel’s for a simple dinner, before I knocked out at 9p.m.

Saturday – 24th December

The three of us woke up early as we were supposed to have breakfast at Sebastian’s on the way back to Nowy Targ, Pawel’s hometown. The level of hospitality we have received thus far is amazing. I suppose that it’s also because we were with people who are thriving in life rather than struggling makes it easier for them to be excellent hosts.

The traditional Polish breakfast we had was very delicious, and I actually wouldn’t mind having that kind of breakfast on a daily basis. It was cold pate type stuff along with bread and cold cuts of meat. It’s a heavier breakfast similar to bacon and eggs, but much healthier due to the vegetable content. I particularly liked the potato-carrot spread

I was quite happy to eat the bread, butter, and sausages, along with the eggs Sebastian’s mom cooked for us, and actually ate more than I normally would for a breakfast. I was quite full and satisfied when suddenly Sebastian’s mom brought out some cake, and it was so good that I finished it as well. Thankfully, it was a light coffee cream sponge cake, so it wasn’t that difficult to finish.

We couldn’t stay too long and we didn’t want to impose either. I realized that over the years of Christmases and other such festivities, I have learned to be a good guest. Along with the manners SJI trained me in, and playing host myself on a number of occasions, I know exactly how to sit, eat and talk to make the host feel proud of the spread the put out. It’s a useful skill to know how to pace the eating and complement the host, rather than just wolf down everything. I actually understand now how etiquette schools can make money; not everyone is so lucky to have been trained in such skills from young.

Pawel was basically speeding the entire way back on the empty highway for the 100km or so it was to his hometown. Nowy Targ was and is famous for their leather products, and in the recent decades, has become famous for cheese too. It’s a small little town and Pawel’s house was a typical Polish countryside house, with a squarish design and long sloping roofs so that snow slides off. It’s also pretty awesome that we have nice proper beds to sleep on, and for two backpackers, I think we were living a pretty luxurious life.

The bed that would help my battered body recover from all the snowboarding

Since we were stuff from breakfast, we immediately changed and hit the slopes. I must say that all the negativity that Navin was giving me before the trip on how snowboarding is not like skateboarding or surfing was proven wrong. While the sport is not the same, the skills of core strength, balance and heel-toe control carry over quite well. With no training whatsoever, I hopped onto my board, got up, and figured out how to stop quite easily. It felt very comfortable and natural to have the board under my feet and I knew how to balance on it and turning 90 degrees to stop was quite natural.

We both fell down a ton today, as expected. However, it didn’t take me very long to brake on command, and even turn and carve a little, all learned from just watching others and how they position they bodies while boarding. One thing that is very different from surfing is that on snowboards, the weight is mostly on the leading foot, whereas surfing has a variable weight distribution. By my 6th time down the slopes, I was barely falling at all, and had no problems in controlling where I wanted to go. The workout your thighs get is quite incredible though, as keeping a bent knee stance means that the thighs not only have to hold you up, it has to absorb all the shocks on the way down.

We spent about three hours on the slope, and we went back just in time for a Traditional Polish Christmas dinner. They don’t eat meat on Christmas Eve, so we had fried carp for the main. There were also two different soups, one beetroot and one potato which had mushroom pierogi inside it. Everything was delicious, and after that afternoon on the slopes, we were starving. The Poles also have a tradition of each person getting a large communion wafer before dinner that everybody breaks a piece of and eats it. The idea is that by the end, everybody would have partaken of each other’s wafer.

Midnight mass was not for a bunch of hours yet, so we all went to take naps for almost three hours. When it was time to head out around 10 p.m., poor Navin was so broken from falling down that he just continued sleeping. Pawel and I went out to meet his friends from the hometown, which turned out to be a huge group. I had put on my warmest set of clothing and Pawel gave me a pair of boot guards, so that snow wouldn’t go in if I stepped into a deep spot. It was almost a 1.5 hour hike up the mountain to where mass was going to be celebrated and the huge group we were in frequently took alcohol stops, where it seemed there was a contest as to who could come up with the strangest alcohol. I had hot wine, cherry vodka, vodka with hot water, whiskey with tea, and some other strange stuff. The good thing though was that they all warmed me up on the inside and I did not even feel the effects of the alcohol.

It was not an easy climb and I had to put in effort into the climb and it made me think that it was a good thing that Navin, in his tired state, did not come and exhaust himself further. Climbing up was okay because it was always easy to just fall forward and resort to hands to help balance. This would be my most special Christmas mass ever, first off that I was surrounded by snow, but I think it’s also the most effort I have ever put into going to church.

Sunday – 25th December

The mass was all in Polish, but it was still the standard Latin Rites mass, so I could follow along and I knew which stage of the mass we were at. Pawel’s mom and aunt showed up just before mass, having climbed up by a different way. There were also bonfires lit up all around that helped keep everybody warm, because I would have been left an icicle if not for those. Halfway along the mass, I had to use Pawel’s mom’s hiking stick just because the rain had turned the top layer of snow into ice, and I wasn’t as seasoned in standing on ice like everybody else was.

The mass took extraordinarily long at communion because the priest was the only one giving it out. Pawel’s mom pretty much dragged me up there and we were amongst the last few people to receive communion as the priest ran out of wafers soon after. Many people left at this point simply because it was freezing from both the rain and the wind. We left not too long after that, and I held on to the hiking stick, which helped me get down the mountain safely. I was quite impressed with Pawel’s mom and aunt as though they are both fairly old, they handled themselves on the mountainside very well for their age. Pawel’s mom hikes in her free time, which explains why she is so seasoned.

By the time we got back, it was almost three am and we all just turned in. We woke around 1030, and Pawel’s mom had breakfast ready for us despite the fact she slept after us. I don’t quite know where that woman finds her energy from; she makes  us young people look bad. Breakfast was Christmas ham, which has always been my favorite. We ate a full breakfast which prepared us well for the new set of slopes we hit later that afternoon.

I was a lot more stable today, but I wiped out fantastically a few times because I was constantly pushing my limits and seeing what else I could do. Navin on the other hand, was slow and steady today, and consequently didn’t fall down that much. His logic was that he fell down enough already and didn’t want to hurt his butt any further.

On the way back, we took a short drive to see the nearby dam and lake that it created. Being Christmas day, most places were deserted and there weren’t very many cars on the road, which made for smooth driving. Dinner was early and we had a hearty meal of beef and potatoes which rejuvenated us. We then took a quick trip to the nearby hot spring and it was quite cool to be outside in the winter wearing nothing but boardshorts. The pool was nice and warm and not five feet from the edge of the pool, there was snow. People jumped out of the pool, dived into the snow, and dived right back into the pool. I made use of the various water jets to massage out my sore muscles from all the snowboarding.

We slept early that night because we had to get up early the next day to go to one of the highest peaks in the region. The fatigue from all the activities also meant falling asleep was easy.

Week 69 – 12th – 18th December

Monday – 12th December

I can’t really remember what I did today. I probably played a fair amount of Skyrim and did some studying.

Tuesday – 13th December

I went to get some errands done in the morning at the bank and traffic department before dropping by Panera to buy lunch before heading to school to study. I overestimated the time I needed for my errands and thus ended up in school a good seven hours ahead of the exam, with all the time meant for studying. Along with some classmates, I did manage to do all the previous test papers I had, but seven hours is a little too long, and most of us were feeling quite poorly by the time the paper started at 7:15 p.m. However, the paper was very similar to one of the test papers that I did, the one where I could only get 90% of the marks confidently. I knew I had secured my B leaving the exam room, but was unsure of the A.

I was the last one to finish exams among our group, so once I was done, Jill, Reggie, Navin, and I all went to Derrika’s to just have a little end of exam party. It was a little strange to think that my second Fall semester was over, and that it all passed in a blur. An oversight in the planning of classes and labs meant that I did not do as well as I could have, as much time was spent doing busywork in lab reports, rather than actually studying.

Having three classes back to back was also not the best of ideas, and the change in lifestyle of living off-campus was also unaccounted for. Overall, it was a rough semester for all 3 of us as we had to adjust our lifestyles and cope with the distractions posed by home. I just hope that the results won’t be a mirror of my grades in poly, where the second year was the dip in all the grades.

Preface to the Winter Break Entries

There are a lot of photos that were taken during the entire three weeks and there is no way they can all be posted here. I will upload them all to Facebook and attempt to caption them as best as I can. Reading this blog while having the photo album open should make it easy to jump between the two and you have the photos to refer to.

Wednesday – 14th December

I woke up fairly early despite the late night before, and I felt really awake and clear headed. Maybe that joke about alcohol killing slow brain cells does holds some water. Navin and I had to go to the DMV to go check about the letters they sent us regarding some lost photos. I received my license, so I didn’t need to worry about it, but he had to get his photo taken again.

Getting home, Reggie was kind enough to settle lunch while we packed. I still felt kind of lost about what to pack and just how much. I’ve never actually traveled for such a long time frame before, and definitely not with a backpack. In the end, after three hours and packing everything into Ziploc bags, I think I did a fairly decent job of finding the right balance of stuff. I probably erred a little on the light side because I figured I could just buy whatever I needed since it was my own money anyway. What I did not skimp on were the thermal clothes, I had 3 sets of thermal clothes, although two of the tops were really just tight-fitting long sleeve polyester t-shirts.

I thought I wouldn’t have had enough time to pack, but I ended up with enough time to give the kitchen a clean before leaving, saving Reggie some work. Before I knew it, we were at Orlando International Airport, and it was a good thing we were there early, because checking in and clearing security took up a long time and we boarded the aircraft about 20 minutes before the stipulated takeoff.

It was a flight that was only half-full, and we were encouraged to spread out and make ourselves comfortable after take-off. The Captain said something about how we were all distributed to balance the weight for takeoff and we should remain in our allocated seats. While the plane was taking off, all I could do was look at the wing and think about the Kutta-Joukowski theorem and whether I got that question right. -.-

Thursday – 15th December

I found myself lying down fully flat on the center aisle of the 747, and after the meals, I fell asleep fairly easily. I think I had somehow deceived myself into thinking it was later than normal because my watch was already on UK time although I had no recollection of ever adjusting it. In any case, the flight went by fairly quick and I was wide awake when we touched down in London Gatwick.

Along the way, I actually met a Riddle student, this Taiwanese girl doing her Masters who always comes by the writing center for help. She followed Navin and I all the way to Victoria train station in London. The overland rail ride from London Gatwick to Victoria Rail Station wasn’t too bad, about an hour or so, and it was a nice view of the British countryside, and was also filled with people making their commute into the city.

Once at Victoria, I had to change some US into pounds so that I would have something to work with and to buy my tube tickets with, but I made the mistake of not asking if there was a service charge. The result is that I ended up with an exchange rate of almost 1.8USD:1GBP after taking the damn fee into account (my later trip to London had me at 1.6.)

We had some time to kill before our train left for Amsterdam, so the plan was to head to Leicester Square and Chinatown for lunch. While chilling in the Starbucks, I was on whatsapp with Zixuan, or Caleb as he is now known. It took about 30 minutes of conversation before he realized that I was in London. He immediately came down to meet us, and we went back to his place to put our bags down before we all headed to Chinatown to eat at Four Seasons. The roast duck was really tasty although it was a little fatty. He then brought us to his favorite dessert place where I had herbal jelly for the first time in years.

It would occur to me later that London is a city where you can truly find any type of food that this world has, and probably at a reasonable price too. Navin went to meet his sister, while Caleb and I took a walk back to his place. Before I knew it, it was time to head to King’s Cross and I met Navin there, walking from Caleb’s Tottenham Court Road walk-up. While the tube is incredibly efficient, London is quite a walkable city, with most of the things fairly close by, especially in this area.

The train ride took almost 7 hours to Amsterdam, and we had to change at Brussels, just narrowing making the connection; if not we would have had to wait an hour for the next train. The only border control we had to pass through was at King’s Cross, where we got a stamp saying we entered France. After that, and for the rest of the trip till we entered the UK again, there were no border controls at all.

We arrived in Amsterdam at about 10p.m., and it was a short, but cold, walk to the hostel from Amsterdam Centraal Station. St. Christopher’s hostel in Amsterdam was right on the edge of the Red Light District, with a ton of pubs and smoke shops surrounding it. It looked to be in a very happening area, but the rooms were pretty crappy, and looking back at photos on the website, I think we got one of the worse rooms. The hostel was also right next to a club, and I think the position of our room was quite close to it, and it would prove impossible to sleep the next few nights until 5a.m., when the club closes.

The hostel rooms. I think my army bunks were better.

It was still fairly early for us, and we had a quick dinner nearby before we took a quick walk around the Red Light District to look at all the prostitutes and some of them were quite unreal. You’d never think that such attractive looking women would be working as prostitutes instead of models or something. For the most part, the people walking around were mostly window shopping, and there were large groups of other people just walking around looking at the girls in the windows and have them tap the glass, inviting people in.

Dinner!

Walking the Red Light District provided a lot of food for thought and reading up about it gave even more to think about. My thoughts is that if ever there was a place to tempt a guy into prostitution, this would be the place. Mostly young girls of all races with ridiculous bodies would sway even the most upright of men. For me, the combination of being brought up as a Catholic and respecting women means I would never succumb to such a level. I will not deny that the thought crossed my mind as I was after all, unsupervised, but the idea was quickly pushed out of my head as I knew that such things would stain your soul for eternity. I suppose at the end of the day, it’s all about whether you can go to sleep peacefully.

Friday – 16th December

The room was empty, and we woke up really late, partly due to the noise from the club not stopping till really late, and maybe also to sleep off the fatigue accumulated from the train ride the night before. In any case, walking around the city, we found a nice little restaurant called De Behamel on the opposite side of the train station from where we were. It was a little pricey, but I had gravade lax on top of mashed potatoes with cod in it. It was a really fishy meal, but I loved every bit of it.

Amsterdam's a cycling city.

After lunch, Anne Frank’s house was pretty nearby, and it is now a museum, so we went it. It was reasonably priced and I’m glad I went in, because it was a big history lesson on antisemitism and the whole place was geared toward increasing diversity awareness and education. I always knew her diary was famous, but never quite knew why, and so this little trip brought me up to speed.

One of the problems with traveling in winter is how quickly it gets dark, and by 4 p.m. or so, it was dark already. We stopped by the Sex Museum since it was only €4 and on our way. It was more amusing than anything, in some ways trying to show that people have been getting funky for a long time, and that older society was just as promiscuous as it is now, although probably a lot more discreet. The gallery that chronicled all the deviant sex forms like S&M was quite disturbing though. You’ve got to be pretty sick in the head to find that kind of thing a turn-on.

Dinner was a simple lamb shwarma that was cheap and good, but my itchy eyes bought me an expensive Belgian waffle that was as expensive as dinner and just as filling. It was so good though. We had signed up for this barhopping tour since for €17 you get to go to 4 bars and a club, with a free shot at each one, and unlimited shots at the first for a certain time. We also each got a free t-shirt that said “Ultimate Party Amsterdam: The night you can’t remember but will never forget!” The idea was that you were supposed to get so wasted, you don’t remember anything. It was pretty fun as we talked to a Texan who insisted we have to go to New Orleans, and all the British guys who were just in Amsterdam to party.

By the time we finished the fourth bar, I had to bring a puking Navin back to the hotel room, after which I walked to the club on my own which was really quite small. The music was also nothing to shout home about, so I left around 2 a.m., to find a bunch of guys sleeping in the other beds of the room. These idiots would prove to be highly annoying later on. Unfortunately, the club next door was still ridiculously noisy, and I suppose it’s my problem that I’m such a light/noise-sensitive sleeper. By the time I fell asleep, it must have been 5 a.m., and I didn’t wake till 11 a.m., which meant we wasted daylight. The question is whether we were “wasting” time as after all, it’s not like we had a schedule to follow.

Saturday -17th December

We went for lunch at this Chinese restaurant nearby called Nam Kee. Whether is has any relation to the ones we know of cannot be determined, but the food was most definitely the most authentic Chinese I have eaten in years. We most definitely over-ordered, but we managed to finish the majority of the food, although it cost us a whopping €23 each. The roast duck was perfect, having just the slightest bit of fat for flavor, but not so much that it makes you feel sick.

Not sure if there's a relation with the Singapore Nam Kee

My outermost North Face jacket had its zipper damaged the night before because I stupidly tried to force it while it was cold; I should have heated it up or something before trying. As a result, there was a broken tooth on one side and we walked to the local North Face store in a mall to see if something could be done. They redirected us to a seamstress that was quite a walk away, but the journey there was quite fruitful. We passed by a farmer’s market that was selling basically everything you could want out of the backs of vans/trucks. Honeys/syrups, fish, meat, vegetables, fruits, cheese, bread, spices/oils, pickles/olives, and many other things were for sale. If you live with Amsterdam, you could easily get all your marketing done in that one place on Saturday, knowing the food is from the local farmers.

We also passed through a street market that was selling a bunch of stuff, and as my modus operandi, I found a store selling funny t-shirts. Amazingly enough, the owner of the stall identified us as Singaporeans even though he only had a few words to figure out our accents. Apparently he was there in the 80s and he still remembers that he loves chicken rice. It was a really strange meeting, to have someone like a street stall owner actually know where Singapore is and even more, know the good stuff about it.

Street Entertainer at the Market

The seamstress informed me that I would have to have the whole zipper replaced and such an operation would take time, something I did not have the luxury of. Fortunately, the jacket also had Velcro strips, so I could still fasten it close. For all the wonders that American synthetics is, the European button jackets do seem a lot more convenient at times.

From there, it was quite a long walk to the Heineken museum, but my offline maps app on my iPhone had not failed us thus far. The only problem was the compass and GPS were not very accurate, but navigating by street names was a sure fire way to get somewhere. We arrived at the museum half an hour before they were closing and managed to get our tickets. The lady was distracted when returning our change and we basically had a €10 discount. The museum basically went through the brewing and bottling process, things that I’ve already watched on the Discovery Channel, so it was more of a touch and taste experience than any actual imbibing of knowledge.

Both Navin and I tried the beer draughting challenge and it turns out I’m not very good at it. I have no idea why, but it seems my motor skills were just not with me at that point in time. I eventually got it after a few tries, and they really did make it seem that the beer was as cheap as water. We bought beer glasses from the store that we got engraved with our names, and one for Reggie as well, so we finally have proper beer glasses.

We took a tram back since it was a long walk, and the tram was not cheap because it lets you have unlimited rides for an hour, which totally sucks if you just want to go from A to B. We chilled out in the hostel for a while before heading to the area with the clubs the Texan from the previous night told us about. There was a street fair in that area, which resulted in us snacking since dinner was a simple wrap near the hostel. I caved in and bought yet another waffle which was equally good and filling. There was a nearby smoke shop, so we went in, and I think I chose the wrong flavor because I was so totally stoned for the rest of the night. I was literally spacing out while wide awake, which on hindsight was actually quite liberating.

Unfortunately, the clubs were only opening at 11p.m., and we had no intention of freezing ours butts off over there for another two hours, so we went back and hung out in the bar below the hostel. I was so totally stoned that I decided to just go sleep, but I got interrupted by one of the German guys who brought a girl back, which is actually against the rules. Navin and I regret not turning him in because we would have gotten our hostel money refunded, which would be €90 each. In any case, the German guy will provide me with a humorous tale forever due to some of the stupid things he said while doing the act. I had my headphones plugged in, but I still remember two events. One was him saying “is it too small, or are we doing it wrong?” which had me trying my best to not burst out laughing. Later on, it seemed he let go inside her and neither of them had any protection and they were both freaking out. In my mind I was thinking how stupid could these two people be, especially the girl. It’s times like these I’m glad to have some conservative Asian values as I’d never get caught in such a foolish situation.

Sunday – 18th December

My phone had died over the night and my alarm didn’t go off, and for once, the German guys were useful as their noise roused me to check my watch, which was the time we needed to wake to get to the airport. We arrived early and checked in at Easyjet, before just hanging out in the terminal, where I fell asleep on the chairs till it was time to board. It was supposed to be a one hour flight to Berlin, but a freak snow squall hit the airport.

The Dutch Airport outsourced the de-icing services, and it took almost two hours for them to get their act together. It took a while for the first machine to come, only to have them find out that it was broken. By the time the second one came, the ice had actually melted off the wings, but they still de-iced it anyway. The cabin crew leader was quite a funny guy and made jokes about Dutch efficiency and told everybody that we would have no such worries once in Germany.

I was falling asleep on the plane as well since I really didn’t get much sleep at all the whole trip so far. I’m never taking that hostel again regardless of how close it was to the action. It was only near the bars and Red Light District, which I think I can easily give up for a place more comfortable and conducive for sleep.

With a dead phone, we didn’t have my maps to navigate once in Berlin, but we managed to find the hostel anyway. Although it’s the same hostel company, the Berlin one was luxurious compared to the one we had left. The beds were big, there were curtains for privacy and it was just spacious in general. The other people in our room were an Australian guy and French girl who we hung out with at the bar, and we also found three Singaporeans from NTU on their end of exchange Europe trip.

Week 68 – 5th December – 11th December

Monday – 5th December

It was a pretty standard day. I went straight home after class and just ended up sleeping early. These last few days of school are an intense battle of motivation.

Tuesday – 6th December

The physics lab final was pretty straightforward since I had already taken physics 3. My calculated grade was a high B, but it was a grade where no matter how poorly or well I did, it would still be a B. I did my best anyway, just in case I get bumped up or something, but I doubt that would happen. Work was okay as a lot of people didn’t show up for their appointments, giving me time to do my own studying. I stayed in school till almost 11, just doing the thermodynamics homework, but I managed to do all the questions on my own, and figured everything out, which meant I wouldn’t have to really study too hard for the final, just do some revision.

Wednesday – 7th December

The last day of classes went back really quickly, and it felt like a huge burden was finally released. For the science and technology writing class, we were treated with a field trip to the NextGen test bed, which we were supposed to write our final story on. I had intended to just ignore the story, as Prof. Ziegler drops the lowest grade, and I already had A’s on everything else, but he wouldn’t let me skip it.

Before I had to go there though, the Sport Aviation Club had a relieve your stress event by beating a car. I paid $3 for 5 hits with a sledgehammer, but the damn car was a Volvo, and it could take a beating.

The NextGen Test Bed was actually a pretty interesting place to visit, and I can definitely see all sides of the story about how the new air traffic control system would affect everybody. It would be a worthwhile story to run in the Avion at a later date as it pertains to a lot of students.

I was ridiculously tired when I went home, and I think I slept at something like 10p.m., even though I had the NextGen story due the next day. My writing abilities have reached a point where I can write very quickly under pressure and still churn out quality work. I suppose it’s because I spend time outside thinking about how to write the story, instead of staring at the screen blankly; by the time I get to the computer, it normally flows out very quickly.

Thursday – 8th December

I was supposed to wake up early to write the stories, but I snoozed a little too much, but I still managed to finish them in time, and even had time to edit it thoroughly. I got a good grade for it in the end too (100!), so I have good faith in my writing skills. Unfortunately, it seems my flair for writing lies solely in the domain of more scientific/engineering things. I’m not doing too well in the news writing class where the stuff is generally just “news,” whereas I’m performing excellently in conveying technical topics to the lay person.

I had a quick lunch and went to school in a wetsuit to hand in the final papers before going for a session. It was the first time in a few weeks where I actually had some time, energy, and waves to go surf. Unfortunately, I didn’t account for the current and it ridiculous to the point where I didn’t even catch a wave.

Friday – 9th December

The designated study day before finals saw me camping out the library where I got a lot of work done. I didn’t really have to do anything for thermodynamics, so I basically focussed most of the time on aerodynamics. I put in quite a lot of effort, but calculation of the grade I needed meant a perfect on the final to get an A. It’s a case of too little too late because the first test was the one that killed me. I guess it’s just my luck that I had a professor like Golubev. He’s gotten a bad reputation among the undergraduates for a reason.

Saturday – 10th December

Reggie made an awesome omelet for brunch before we both headed for our respective exams. The  thermodynamics exam was a piece of cake and I felt fairly confident that I had a perfect score because as far as I knew, I didn’t make any mistakes. I spent the afternoon making pasta sauce for us to eat over the week, and also to finish up all the fresh food in the house.

Sunday – 11th December

I woke up early and went to church for mass. Karissa wanted to meet so we hung out for a while. It’s a little sad and weird to see how fast things changed over the course of a semester. For some reason, life in Daytona Beach flies by really quickly. As a friend once told me, the days are long, but the weeks are short. I think that is exactly the case here. In the end, I stayed around school and helped Angelica and Derrika with math while doing my aerodynamics.

Week 67 – 28th November – 4th December

Monday – 28th November

The second last Experimental Aerodynamics class. prepare for test. I’m at the point in the semester where it’s slowing down yet speeding up all at the same time. Slowing down because I’ve already finished most of my papers that are going to be due, but speeding up as the engineering professors try to finish up the material. Some classes like experimental aerodynamics and its lab are pretty much done. So it’s a strange time. I also got a postcard from Maxine!

Karissa and I had a big talk. We’re okay as friends now. Have to see how it goes from here, she still can’t decide on Europe.

Tuesday – 29th November

Work was actually okay now that we’re on an appointment only  basis. A lot of people get turned away because they didn’t make appointments and they won’t get a chance to have their papers seen. The temperature has dropped this recent week due to the cold front, so it is pretty cold now, gotta take a jacket out just for the 5-6pm period where the sun sets. The Avion meeting was okay and went by pretty smoothly, the last one of the semester.

Wednesday – 30th November

Jill’s car didn’t start in the morning, so we had to take the truck. It’s pretty much near impossible to survive without a car around here, unless you live within a mile or so of school.  My classes were normal. I went straight home after class instead of going to  because I was starting to feel a little sick. I think the changing of the weather is affecting me.

Thursday – 31st November

The waves were huge, almost overhead, but I stayed home for most of the day feeling slightly sick. It was a good call to not go out and risk falling sick. I did get a lot of work done though and managed to revise all the papers that were due. I started playing Anno 2070 which might not have been a good idea. It’s all about logistics management and supply chains, which is kind of fun.

Friday – 1st December

Classes were okay and just a blur really. Navin wanted to go to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, but with my throat and all feeling the way it was, I just stayed home and had soup. I just continued playing Anno 2070, mirroring what happened the previous Fall where I finished Starcraft 2 in the two weeks before exams. I guess I keep up with work for the most part of the semester, and once it’s near the end, where there’s not so much stuff due, I just have to undergo a therapy session to de-stress?

Saturday – 2nd December

I got most of my work done in the morning, and I finished Anno 2070 and deleted it, no more game to distract me. In the afternoon I went to collect my surfboards from the shop. Probably going to get a new fin in the Spring so I can noseride the longboard.

Sunday – 3rd December

The Avion’s last production took place in a record 3 hours. I also had my Tau Beta Pi induction ceremony in the afternoon before the Avion incentive in the evening.

We went to Daytona Lagoon and there was laser tag, go-karts and mini-golf before going to Johnny Rockets for dinner. Overall it wasn’t a bad incentive, a little different from our normal fancy dinners, and it was pretty fun.

Week 66 – 21st – 27th November

Monday – 21st November

Today was my only day of school before the Thanksgiving Break. I did fairly well for the aerodynamics test, so I think I still have a decent chance of getting a good grade for the class. Karissa was going to fly off in the morning, so she said her goodbyes to everybody in the Avion and Eagles FM that day. If you didn’t have any classes on Tuesday, you essentially got a 6 day break, plenty of time to fly to family and spend time with them.

Tuesday – 22nd November

So in my head I had no classes, but I had to go to school just for work. Snoozing too much in the morning led to me being crappy for the rest of the day. I slept early that night too, and it was just one of those wrong days. I didn’t even do much at work because it was so busy.

Wednesday – 23rd November

Day one of Thanksgiving Break. Travis never called back, so there were no plans to meet him in Tampa. Instead, I sent in the longboard to get it fixed. The old patch had delaminated and was taking in water. I left it to sun for a week to dry it out before letting the Salty Dog take care of it. After dropping it off, I went to go surf, but the offshore winds to strong. I was at Daytona Beach, Main Street Pier, and Frank Rendon Park, and it was all crappy waves throughout. The strong winds coming offshore just beat the incoming waves down before they had a chance to break

I spent almost five hours out of which at least three was on the water, much to the disbelief of everybody. After I was done, I hung out at the Salty Dog for a while and chatted with Bill and talked about angsty surfer kids who don’t know what’s good for them. Once at home, I played Skyrim until the evening where Navin and I went to do our shopping to avoid the Black Friday madness. I bought my boots from Timberland for $100 so I would have adequate footwear for the winter trip. We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory which really isn’t all that pricey considering how huge the portions wear. The cheesecakes were not cheap, but you need at least three separate sittings to finish it; if you finished it at one go, something is really wrong with you.

Thursday – 24th November

I chose not to surf today and instead spent the majority of the day on Skyrim. I did manage to marinate the pork, catch up on accounts, and tidy up stuff in general.

Friday – 25th November

I went Ponce Inlet in the morning and it was too messy, kind of like a washing machine. I saw no point in sticking around too long, so I left and on my way back, I found the Asian Market at Ridgewood. I met this lady who used to stay in Serangoon, but has been in America for a long time. I didn’t really stick around to talk that much since I had no idea if she was that interested. It was apparent she didn’t really know much about the happenings in ERAU, which means she’s not that involved to begin with.

After washing up, I went to Publix and Sam’s Club to do all the marketing for the week. I caved and bought some smoked salmon and had myself some Lox for lunch. It actually made my day that much better since I’ve been a little bored of eating lately. It wasn’t that cheap at $9 for the 3/4 pound, but it should last a good 4 lunches at least, which still makes it cheaper than school food. It still never fails to astound me as to how much better I could be eating if you bought the food yourself. People can get a simple ham and cheese sandwich, and I can be eating a Lox and cream cheese bagel for the same price

The afternoon was spent playing Skyrim and helping Reggie make wontons. We finally succeeded in our Char Siew and won ton noodles for dinner. I did some reading at night before sleeping early again. I think Thanksgiving Break for me was just catching up on a lot of sleep and surfing.

Saturday – 26th November

I finished up the house’s marketing by going to the Farmer’s market in the morning. I think we have not been there in a while because our vegetable lady said she knew we were coming that weekend because she had not seen us in a while. Austin, the orange juice guy was working and we talked about surfing and wetsuits. He let me try the new crop of navel oranges which were really good. It’s normally $2 for 4, but I somehow walked away with a bag of 8 oranges for the same price. I love the Farmer’s market.

It was a pretty quick affair and I made my way down to Ponce Inlet yet again and was exhausted the first set where I did catch a few nice waves. I almost called it a day then, but went back in once more. I was recharged and somehow the impact zone was a little less brutal that second paddle out. It was well worth it because I caught a few good sets and managed to ride the lip of the wave for quite a bit before dropping in and going with the pipe. We made the Prima Chicken rice for dinner which is turning out to be surprisingly easy now that we have a proper rice cooker.

Sunday – 27th November

I went to St. Paul’s for mass in the morning, the 1st Sunday of Advent and the new liturgical year. I didn’t quite realize it was the first Sunday, but something just motivated me to go to an actual church that Sunday. I spent the afternoon in school studying and even though I didn’t really buckle down to study during the whole break, I did get my work done, so I didn’t really have any homework to rush, it was just studying for finals.

Week 65 – 14th – 20th November

Monday – 14th November

The aerodynamics test went a lot better than the last one due to me actually understanding what’s going on in class and having prepared for the test. It was a pretty uneventful day with most of it spent in the library just preparing for the test.

My Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim came today though, and the box was HUGE. I brought it to the Avion, and called Karissa to see while I opened it. I think she now wants the collector’s edition as well. There’s nothing quite like having a foot high dragon statue in your room.

When I brought it home, I left it in the living room, waiting for Jill and Reggie to get back so I could open it. They were quite puzzled as to what the huge box was and Jill rolled her eyes when I opened it while Reggie just kept going “holy cow!”

Tuesday – 15th November

Physics lab was really quick and I don’t even remember in vivid detail what happened. It was one of those experiments where everybody gathered around one workstation to watch a few people do it. The writing lab was quite busy as everyone has papers due. The dynamics grading has slowed down quite a bit, so at least I’m not under pressure from all sides. I do have Navin’s Differential Equations to help grade in his absence, but it’s not easy.

The Avion meeting was pretty quick and we planned for the incentive. With Thanksgiving and Finals around the corner, most of the campus events are slowing down. I had a really early night and I think I slept almost 10 hours total by the time I woke up the next morning.

Wednesday – 16th November

It was the usual Wednesday of classes and we had Professor Jason Aufdenberg to speak about twin stars for the Science and Technology Communications class. While I understood the topic, I foresee myself having problems figuring how to write the story and make it appealing for the masses. I’m actually quite happy to be taking all these advanced writing classes because even though I don’t know it like a science, I find myself utilizing the skills of looping and periodic sentences. I’ll have to try out the one word or three word paragraph for impact soon.

It was warm when I was done with classes so I skipped yoga and immediately raced to get the truck and board to go surf. It was pretty awesome to not need a wetsuit in the middle of November and be surfing. The water was slightly chilly, but it was not going to make me catch a cold or anything. It’s also possible that I might have been getting conditioned to the cold water as well. I do not remember it being this warm last year, I seem to remember using the thick jackets around Thanksgiving time.

The only downside was that I got my board sliced by an old guy on a Stand-Up Paddle board who did not see where he was going. I was paddling out to the lineup, about to duck under the oncoming wave, and I see the guy off to my left, and his board, body position and head are all looking in that direction, and it looked like the wave was going to break in that direction anyway. The next thing I know, is that he suddenly cuts into my direction, which leads to me instantly yelling at him. I push the nose of my board down to avoid him, but with a big a board as his, he was on a direct collision path with me.

His three fins run across the nose of my board, with his main fin leaving a nice cut in the board and he fell off. I didn’t get angry with him or anything, but I told him that his body language and all were aimed in the other direction. He said that his board was a new one and that he thought he was the only one out there. This led me to believe that he is probably fairly new to the sport, as any experienced person is always aware of not just what is around you, but where you are in relation to the shore.

In any case, it’s not like I could get cash from him or anything, it’s one of those things where you just suck it up. The damage wasn’t really major, but the fiberglass was definitely breached, and the foam might have been damaged a little. I still carried on surfing and caught a few nice waves before heading home to prepare dinner.

Thursday – 17th November

Experimental Aerodynamics lab is done for the semester, so Karissa and I were supposed to go surfing early in the morning, when the waves were better, but and she was all excited about it as well. Unfortunately, her two group mates decided to abandon the paper since they were failing the class anyway, and she was up the whole night writing it. Sometimes, the stories I hear from the other majors makes me realize that in the AE program at least, the ratio of dicks and/or dumbasses is fairly low, especially in the higher level classes.

To survive and get to the 300 level classes in AE, you probably would have to put in quite a fair bit of effort and you’re not averse to hard work. For some of the other majors where the workload may not be as consistent, especially with project and papers based classes, it’s not difficult to get blindsided. The constant homework in the engineering classes force you to stay on top of things.

My hypothesis is that the higher level AE classes have a certain caliber of student, while a lot of the other majors end up with people who transfer out of AE. This is by no means insulting the other majors and putting AE on a high horse, as there will always be smart, hardworking people and lazy, don’t-give-a-crap people in all the majors, it seems that the lazy, don’t-give-a-crap people are not as common in AE. Maybe it’s because I’ve yet to meet those people?

In any case, I still went to surf on my own in the afternoon. I dropped the board off at the Salty Dog before heading out to Main Street for a quick session. Unfortunately, while the air and water were fairly warm, I had missed the sun and without it, it was really cold. I barely lasted an hour before I left.

Friday – 18th November

There’s only like 2-3 weeks more of school so these long day of classes are going to be over. My new semester is looking to be a lot more balanced compared to this one. I start at the same times as this semester, but I end at 3:15 on MWF, and 12:45 on TTH. I won’t get anymore free days or early releases like I have now, but it should be a lot more conducive to studying.

I still pretty much get half-days on Tuesdays and Thursday, which leaves time to surf and do other things. I might not work as much next semester, or space it out a bit more. In the Spring, my days were really well-broken up and I had classes and breaks as bite-sized chunks. This semester everything is a long block which makes the days long but the weeks short.

I did not study that hard for the thermodynamics test, but I’m confident of how I did. Somehow, I have a natural affinity for the subject and it’s possible my meticulousness helps. Paying attention in class and doing the homework is The concepts are very straight forward, and the only thing is knowing when and which formulas and assumptions apply. I seriously think that I could actually do more thermodynamics for a career, and get into gas kinetics and all that.

Immediately after school, Reggie and I went to picked Navin up from Orlando. I’m glad we insisted he take my jacket before he left as he needed it. He was complaining about how he didn’t even have a TV for economy class and Reggie and I were laughing our asses off. When we flew, we prepared our trips with books and PSPs. At least Navin had his iPad with all the textbooks on it, so it wasn’t wasted.

I’ve been wanting to eat at the Cheesecake Factory for a while, but by the time we got there at 8 p.m., there was still a one hour wait time, it was ridiculous. We had a cheap meal at Johnny Rockets, before heading back and I just played Skyrim till it was time to sleep.

Saturday – 19th November

I spent almost the whole day playing Skyrim except for the bit where I met Karissa for a while, and Navin and I went for our Sigam Gamma Tau Induction Dinner. Today was really quite a quiet uneventful day, but I had a decent escape from life in Skyrim.

Sunday – 20th November

I woke up fairly early and headed to Ponce Inlet for the first time in weeks. I was there quite early and while the waves were not as glassy as I would have liked, I caught a bunch of nice lines, and the thing I’m more proud of was that I only wiped out once. Most of the time, I was stable enough to go back down on the board rather than falling off.

The Avion production was very quick and we were actually done by 4 p.m. for the most part. My 1,500 review on Skyrim was the front page and I think it’s one of the most eye-catching covers we’ve ever done. It’s not really that big of news, but the people who play games in this school, (75%?) will definitely pick it up.

Dinner was the leftover duck we bought from Orlando on Friday, and it was awesome!

Week 64 – 7th – 13th November

Monday – 7th November

It was a pretty crappy day, but going for the Swing Dance class at night made it a little better.

Tuesday – 8th November

My usual long Tuesday and it was quiet at work for the most part, maybe a paper every other hour or so. The Avion meeting at night was quick and uneventful as well.

Wednesday – 9th November

I missed Yoga class when I really should have gone. I ended up attending the SGT meeting which while interesting, makes me wonder just how many things I want to be involved in. It’s days like this where I appreciate and envy Reggie’s carefree lifestyle of just sports and not having any major commitments. It’s one of those weeks, so I was having a bummed out day.

Thursday – 10th November

The aerodynamics lab in the morning got finished pretty quickly, so I went back home, got into my wetsuit, grabbed my shortboard and went to Frank Rendon Park. I met this really cool lifeguard named Art, who gave me a five minute analysis of the waves and the wind and where I should be headed. This was the first time I put my wetsuit on since early spring, and I am definitely not used to swimming with such constriction.

Rather than just fighting the water, I now have to fight the stretchiness of the suit, and breathing is slightly harder due to the chest constriction. I still put in a good effort, at least for the workout, and I caught a few waves, although having not ridden my shortboard for so long, I was very unstable. I really should figure out what board size I want to commit to and stick to it. The only problem is that it’s crazy difficult to take my 9’6″ when the waves are overhead, you need a shortboard to duck dive easily under those waves.

I didn’t even make it out to the lineup today, and just headed back to shore, and ended up listening to Art talk for the greater part of an hour maybe. He covered all sorts of topics like how the winds affect the waves, and what kind of winds gave the glassy waves that are good for surfing, and how the winds have a delayed effect on the water. He also talked about surfing in California, and how the cold water created calcium deposits inside the ears of surfers, which is why earplugs are important in cold water.

Some of the best advice he gave was about the mindset and attitude towards surfing, and from there to life. He told me about some people he’s seen, who come out with their boards on a flat day and they get the shakes, sitting there watching the water because they had not caught a wave in so long. Some people who go into the water angry, fail to catch that pipe and rip it up come out of the water even angrier, and he’s seen them punching the water and shouting.

He’s a longboarder, so that makes him pretty chilled out to begin with, and he told me how he takes the ocean for whatever it gives him. If it’s a flat day, he takes it as swim/paddle training, so that when the waves do come out, he’ll be fit enough to make it to the lineup. If the wave he’s riding on is going to carry him all the way to shore, he just let’s it go and follows the ride, rather than try to exit the wave and make it back out.

I particularly liked his little talk on negative energy. “The ocean is a great way to rid yourself of negative energy, but if you walk in with expectations, you’re going to leave with even more negative energy and that just ain’t cool.” A lot of what he said hit home for me, to just roll with life’s punches and take things as they come along. Fighting the flow too much is just going to leave you sucked under.

There was a party at our place, and the usual suspects came, Tilford, Derrika, Patel. I was quite tired and it was just a bad week to begin with, so I decided to turn in early, despite the party. I knew they would have fun and that they’d understand. It turns out everything happens for a reason, and a sober, well-rested me would be needed later.

Sometime around 1 a.m, when even more people were in the house having fun, Reggie woke me up and brought me into Navin’s room. He just found out Navin’s grandmother had passed away and we needed to get Navin back to Singapore ASAP. Together with Antoine, the three of us bought him an air ticket, packed his bag, settled all the passwords and other Daytona Beach issues, and we were on the road to Orlandon by 2:30 a.m., with me behind the wheel.

We had further problems in the airport, but between the four of us, we managed to settle them. By 5:30, Navin was behind the gates, and Antoine, Reggie and I headed to Denny’s to eat before going back. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to eat in Orlando because all three of us were a little sleepy by then. I had coffee and was still awake and aware enough to drive safe, but Reggie knocked out almost completely. Antoine was present enough to wake up every 10 minutes to make sure I was still okay.

I was in bed by 7:30 in the morning.

Friday – 11th November

I woke up at 12 and cleaned the house in record time. Turns out that there’s not much to clean if you don’t have chips causing crumbs. I spent the afternoon doing some work and got my lab reports done. It was a pretty quiet afternoon until Karissa called.

Apparently she had to call the cops on her roommate because he thrashed her room and she needed our boxes, so she could prepare to move out. She showed me the mess and her $300 formal dress that got totally crumpled and damaged. I would have stayed to help, but she’s the kind who needs to pack things herself, so I took the dress for safekeeping and dropped it off at the seamstress/cleaners near Publix for fixing.

I decided to stop by Gamestop to collect my copy of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but somehow I did not order the collector’s edition! I canceled my reservation, immediately went home to Amazon and ordered one. The rest of the evening was spent making lasagna and vegetating in front of the TV.

Saturday – 12th November

I stayed at home mostly today and just watched TV shows and finished up all my school work. I took a break and surfed at Sunglow for a while, this time encountering much more success as I got used to the wetsuit. It’s been a good wave week, and I’m happy I managed to catch some.

Sunday – 13th November

I surfed before Avion at Main Street since I had to drop off my longboard to get that rail damage fixed. I should have been more careful with my rail saver. I didn’t adjust the length properly and the string kept cutting into the board. The sun was shining today and the overall temperature for both air and water was around 74, so I decided to risk it and go with just my rashguard and boardshorts. It wasn’t too cold, although you wouldn’t want to stay out long. The waves were really glassy and I caught a few nice rides.

We had a record number of people at production and even though I only reached around 2 p.m., most of us were leaving around 5 p.m. I tried to do some grading for Navin while waiting for mass, but it was difficult because of how many students that class has. I ended up looking at the plans for the Europe Trip and at least that was productive.

Mass was okay, but I’m thinking I really should wake up for early mass and make the effort because it passes so much faster. Even though it was a quick mass, by 7 p.m., I’m so sleepy that it just drags and drags. The rest of the evening was chilling at home with Jill and Reggie in front of the TV. I managed to do some studying for Aerodynamics before sleeping, but this has been quite a crappy week.

Week 63 – 31st October – 6th November

Monday – 31st October

Today was Halloween, so I brought my costume along and put it on after my gym session. In the Avion, I was Priest from that movie, James was a vampire, Tilford came as Luigi, and Lanie was Tigger. We all thought it would be a pretty awesome Halloween on campus, but the rain must have discouraged a whole lot of people from dressing up, and the fact that most people already had parties over the weekend.

It was quite fun just walking around, and the people who were in costumes all acknowledged one another. I had originally wanted to skate, but the wet weather meant I ended up walking instead of just being a bad ass costumed skater.

At night, I bought some candy from Publix, and the buy one get one deals meant I ended buying a little too much. I waited for the kids, but our neighborhood is ridiculously quiet and we got maybe 6 or so kids. The house is now has too much candy, but Jill assured us she’ll finish it.

Tuesday – 1st November

It was a busier day at the writing center compared to previous weeks. The Avion meeting went fine and we I brought back all the new ideas from the conference. We had the SGA general session later that night and it was a total waste of time. People basically spent a long time sitting there, just arguing back and forth. The end result was that the divisions are now totally pissed off. I for one really am not that interested in all these politics crap, but now it’s my problem. We’ll see what happens.

As if the day wasn’t bad enough, Jill’s drunk cousin came to cause more problems later that evening, and the whole house was up just making sure his drunk ass didn’t cause trouble in the neighborhood. Basically, the whole day was FUBAR and SNAFU. Karissa and Angelina had more problems to make a bad day even worse and I was on the phone just defusing that time bomb.

Wednesday – 2nd November

Classes were normal and just dull. Not having MA441 knowledge is really hurting me in AE301, because I don’t have the full appreciation of some of the mechanics involved and the derivation of the formulas which needs some advanced math skills. I could just blindly accept the formulas, but better consilience is obtained if you could derive everything if needed.

Yoga class on the other hand was very good because Megan didn’t do much strength poses today; it was all about balance and muscle control. I managed to do a very nice crow position and hold it there, something I don’t remember being able to do easily.

Thursday – 3rd November

Aerodynamics lab was extra long today and I went back home immediately after we finished. I had leftover tacos for lunch and just spent time being productive. Around 1pm, Karissa finally called and we went to surf in what has been the warmest weather in two weeks.

She’s fit and has snowboarded, so she didn’t think it would be that difficult, but she couldn’t find her balance point on the longboard! It didn’t help that the waves were kind of choppy and fairly big for a first timer either. She loved it though and while she was catching a breather, I caught a few epic waves with the longboard and rode them to close out.

She decided to try with the shorter board, one that wouldn’t get caught by the wave so easily, but instead she lost control of that and her finger got hit, taking a chunk of skin with it. While walking back, a rogue wave picked up boards and sent them straight at us. I managed to intercept the boards, but the longboard still went around me and she got pinned under it, slightly twisting her ankle.

I felt terrible for getting her injured, especially since it was Homecoming weekend and she was going to be cheering for it. I guess this is where you see that true surfing requires you to pay your dues. I’ve suffered numerous bruises, abrasions, sore neck, and lungs full of water to learn how to manage the water and respect the power. She dives, and her swimming isn’t bad, but surfing requires a totally different skill set.

In any case, we went back and managed to ice and wrap it with a bandage to compress it, minimizing the swelling. The surf session was cut short, but I’m glad her enthusiasm isn’t dimmed. Reggie and Navin aren’t interested in surfing anymore, although I’ll drag them out one day to use the longboard.

Friday – 4th November

Reggie had his wisdom tooth operation today, and despite our thorough planning, his impacted tooth meant I had to miss two classes to just make sure he was okay. It wasn’t too bad, because writing and thermo are subjects in which I’m doing well in, and I managed to inform the professors beforehand.

From a $300+ simple extraction, it suddenly ballooned into a $1000, anesthesia and sedative IV drip operation. The medical staff took really good care of him, but it just kind of shows that while America still has some of the best health care in the world, it’s at a very steep price. In Singapore you could probably get 90% of the quality for 50% of the price.

I had to accompany him to get his prescription and soft food which took a while, but I didn’t mind that. What annoyed me was that in his drug-addled state he kept talking rubbish and giving me shit. Discussions the next day revealed that he had no strong recollection of the things he did and said, and I told him exactly how much rubbish he gave me when I was cleaning the house and cooking later that evening.

I somehow still made it for my aerodynamics class and I was awake enough to take good notes even thought I don’t really understand much.

Karissa and I were supposed to go to see the comedian Bo Burnham, but she had stuff to prepare for homecoming, so I made shrimp linguini and went to sleep really early. The whole week I woke up at 7 or earlier and was up till late, so that was the first time I finally got to get some good sleep.

Saturday – 5th November

I went to school early for the Tau Beta Pi honor society meeting, and turns out Bianca was there too. It was a pretty fun meeting, and I learnt a lot about the society and that I definitely want to be part of it. It would be very useful to be in this network for the professional world.

I stuck around school doing homework till the Homecoming parade, which was kind of boring, and not many students attended. The tailgate party followed after that, which had a slightly better turnout, but the weather was annoying. Sometimes it’s a little sad that Touch N’ Go puts so much effort into setting all this up, but not that many people show up.

The basketball game was pretty much the same as last year’s and I was just there with the camera, taking whatever photos, and waiting for the Homecoming King and Queen to be crowned, which in this school is a little pointless.

There was even a ball after the game which was even more pointless, considering the number of people who attended was maybe 50 at max. For a school population of almost 6,000, that is a very sad number. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother, but the reverse is true, if they don’t try, they won’t know. Maybe this is why the ball was the first in years. There’s probably not going to be another one for quite a while. Maybe if they up the female population in 5 years, they could try again.

The guys came to pick me up and we all went to Derricka’s place for a while to just hang out and chill. Their place isn’t as fun to have a party as ours because it’s a lot smaller. However, more and more people just kept turning up and I had fun for a while, until the fatigue of the day’s events caught up to me. Reggie and I left early, and I was in bed by 2, while Navin and Jill didn’t come back till much later, after the Daylight Savings Time adjusted. They left her place at3am, but reached home at 2am, which is quite amusing. Karissa liked the sunflowers I gave her for her first successful game.

Sunday – 6th November

I had totally forgot about the change in time, so I ending up sleeping a lot longer than I thought I did. I left for school early to clean the Avion with the others and the office is now superb. There’s actually desk space to work on now. Even though we started production an hour later because of cleaning, it was really quick and I was out of the office by 4.

I managed to do some studying in library before going back and doing laundry. Reggie has been raving about Cici’s pizza and their buffet for the longest time, so a whole bunch of us went there for dinner. I was still tired from the weekend, and everything was kind of hazy. I do know I didn’t eat all that much because it isn’t exactly the healthiest thing in the world to be eating.

Week 62 – 24th – 30th October

Monday – 24th October

The last day of Fall break was a lesson in procrastination. I had already finished my lab reports so I didn’t exactly have any work due. I had two papers due Wednesday, but I needed to do some required reading first, so I did manage to accomplish some of that. For the first time in weeks, I also managed to get out to go surf.

I headed to the Main Street Pier with my longboard, dressed only in my boardshorts and rashguard. That might not have been the brightest idea, but a wetsuit would have probably been overkill. The water was icy, but not freezing. I wasn’t going to cramp up or anything, but I knew that my performance would be hampered. I actually managed to catch a few waves pretty easily since I was on the longboard, but with the conditions, I really should have brought a shortboard out instead. The current was ridiculous though, and I had to angle myself 45 degrees to the shoreline just to fight the waves. I decided not to battle it too much, and left fairly quickly.

I can’t quite remember what else happened that evening, but it must not have been important.

Tuesday – 25th October

In order to attend the conference this weekend, I had to ensure I did my Experimental Aerodynamics lab today as I wouldn’t be around on Thursday. It didn’t take much to re-arrange and get some time off from work at the writing center to go for my lab which took all of 45 minutes. I ended up not losing that much of my potential pay after all!

Two labs in one day was fairly okay as both labs were not that difficult, but I don’t know how I’m going to handle the lab reports the following week. The remaining five or so hours in the writing lab was quite pleasant and I actually managed to churn out a 1200 word paper that I’m quite proud of.

Karissa also came to visit me at the lab and I gave her the Halo Reach t-shirt that came with my Thinkgeek shipment. The cool thing was that since I had ordered above a certain amount, they gave a free LED pumpkin, so at least 32 Cormorant Circle now has some decoration. There’s actually a lightsaber pen for her as well, but I’m going to save that till closer to the exam period to surprise her and just raise morale.

The Avion meeting was fairly quick and straightforward, and didn’t take very long. I was supposed to go with Zach to the Halloween store so I could get something for Halloween Horror Nights that I was definitely going to attend that weekend. Reggie will express great distaste for me caving in to commercialism and buying a costume, but the problem is I don’t know what I want to be, which is why it’s difficult to make a costume. I’m not exactly the most creative of people either, which makes doing things like that hard. In any case, all I have to argue is that the amount of money he spends on chips and beers a month pays for the costume.

Unfortunately, Zach had some problems going on, and I was kind of stuck in school, not knowing how to do what I needed to do and get home. For the most part, this arrangement of me not having a car is working out, but it limits my weekday freedom. Luckily, Jill happened to be in school for some reason, and she and I went to the store on the way home. $20 for a monk costume which I can rework into something else for next year is a pretty reasonable price in my opinion.

I barely had any energy to do work, so I opted to have a quick dinner, prepare for Wednesday, and sleep early, so I could rise early and get some work done. However, I did get interrupted by the neighborhood cat, who came in to play with us for a while.

Wednesday – 26th October

Since I was going to the conference, it meant I really only had two days of classes this week. News writing in the morning was fairly straight forward and uneventful. Now that I don’t work Wednesdays, I could put that free time in between to good use and prepared all my work and any things that were due during the days I would have been absent.

Angelina texted me that she had a whole slew of problems that suddenly came up and she wouldn’t be able to attend the conference, and for these things, if you are a no-show, you have to pay the school back for the cost. Her problems were solvable, but she didn’t seem intent on solving in. Going to conferences does involve a fair bit of sacrifice in terms that you miss out on classes and the time spent studying, meaning that the week before and after is spent studying harder. Apparently she didn’t plan as well as she should have, and fortunately for her, she found a last-minute replacement.

I honestly have no idea what goes on in her head, and right now, I don’t really care, considering how much other things I have on my plate. I submitted something like a total of 3000 words for my writing class, and totally forgot about the reading we needed to do for class. However, the wonders of modern technology meant I could read the article on my iPhone in class! An iPad does make some sense, but I really wouldn’t use it all that much. I’ve survived this far without the need for technology, I definitely can carry on with it.

I received back both my thermodynamics test and aerodynamics test with a 93 and 60 respectively. The average for the former was 71 (means I’m doing good!), with the average for the latter something like a 54 (not so hot.) Even back home, I wasn’t too good at aerodynamics and so I don’t have that leg up here. I need to work harder for that class. Thanksgiving break isn’t too far away, it should give me time to push my grade to an A again hopefully.

Jill was forcing us to go to the Tri-Sigma fashion show later that night at 8 pm, so there was some time to kill between my last class and then. I had to attend a constitution meeting to represent the Avion and although I thought I didn’t care, it seemed that I did care and had an opinion, and I think I represented the interests of the Avion quite well. I think that if I truly wanted it, I could be next year’s EIC, but I’m really worried about having such a huge commitment during my senior year of AE and I would rather focus on getting good grades in the senior classes. News Editor or Managing Editor would be fine, but EIC is a huge responsibility.

In any case, Karissa was also going to the show and since we didn’t have much to do, we went back to 32 Cormorant and had a simple dinner. Reggie joined us to go support Jill and we all headed back to school, not before picking up two tickets to Halloween Horror Nights for Friday.

The fashion show was surprisingly entertaining and fun, although I do think the way the girls were portraying themselves might be a little demeaning. However, the view really goes both ways. They could believe they are exerting their sexuality and embracing their position in society. Perhaps, I grew up in a culture of respecting women, and feel that they should not be strutting around on stage showing so much skin. It isn’t like high fashion where there is a definite element of art to it; this was more like a Halloween costume show, and for some strange reason, most of these costumes are very sexy. I don’t quite get why. It’s nice to know that Karissa kind of agreed with me as to how it doesn’t make sense why female halloween costumes show so much skin.

I got home around 10 pm and for the first time since Spring, I finally wrote an article. It didn’t take me that long to write it, but it definitely felt strange. I was done packing by about 12, and there’s always that surreal feeling when preparing to go for a conference. It just suddenly feels that I’m not a student for that short period of time.

Thursday – 27th October

I was up at 6 am and getting ready for the conference, packing my toiletries and all. Karissa was supposed to swing by at 6:30 am to pick me up so we would be at school at 7, so we could all head to Orlando in time.

Unfortunately, Karissa has been having problems with her roommates. To me, it just seems that they have no consideration or respect. The saying that you don’t truly know people till you live with them is really true. I’m lucky enough that I live with some of the best people possible, and every now and there you hear about other ideal households, but the vast majority of college housemates have some sort of problem.

In any case, we were running almost an hour late, but turns out the people in school were running pretty late too, so in the end when we arrived at Orlando, we weren’t that late actually. We couldn’t make the first two sessions, but we had a very productive rest of the day. It was a good thing I came, because in LA, Costas was the one who knew what was going on, that we needed to get our paper registered and all. At this conference, I’m the one who knows what’s going on.

The good thing is that I’m going for all the design and layout sessions, and learning a whole bunch of new things that will be useful for the Avion. I’m already in a news writing class, so the whole reporting aspect of journalism is covered by that. Allie and Karissa seem to be enjoying themselves a lot, although the proximity of Orlando to Daytona means that you can’t really get away from the events in Daytona and truly immerse yourself in the experience.

However, it being Orlando, I’m not going crazy with my food spending because the food is pretty normal. Unlike in LA where I went crazy on sushi, there’s really nothing special here I can’t get back in Daytona. The evening was pretty quiet, again it being Orlando, and I managed to get some grading and writing done, which was cool.

Friday – 28th October

Somehow these conferences have a tendency to fly by you. I went for session after session, took a lunch break, talked to the others, and the next thing I knew, it was 3:30 and I was back in the hotel room. Dan and John decided to do Halloween Horror Nights and joined Karissa and me, and we were at the gates of Universal about 30 minutes before it opened.

It was definitely worth going so early, because in the first 3 hours, we accomplished so many haunted houses and rides that it was amazing. It was the best theme park experience ever, to just stroll in and walk right to the front of the line for rides.

I didn’t know what to expect for Halloween Horror Nights, but after doing it, I now understand why people go back year after year. They had 8 different haunted houses to walk through, and had some rides open. There were also “scare zones,” places of the park where they decorated and had actors/actresses walking around in costumes and jumping out at you when you least expect it.

The expertise of the studio definitely showed because the costumes were top notch and very realistic. The chainsaw Nihilists were probably among the more outright scary ones because of the roar of the chainsaws.

For all the tough talk she has about many other things, I found it quite amusing she was so scared in this place. We literally had to drag her through the first few haunted houses as she just covered her eyes and ears. The actors of course notice this and pounce on you even more. I didn’t get frightened that often unless the person came from my blindside and was in my face when I turned. I think the fact that I have fairly good vision in darkness and I react really quickly to movement helped me spot the actors before they got a chance to pounce on me.

Another theory is that I’m also more scared psychologically than by such straight up frights. I would freak out more in a scary movie and be likely to constantly check my back after such a movie, rather than in a place like this. Games and movies that I get immersed in are more likely to scare me than people just jumping out at me. There was one scare zone that was so well planned out that it was impossible to see them coming and we all legitimately got scared by them. It was basically black body suit actors against a black background with strobe lights behind them. Impossible to see.

We also saw a performance that was quite cool. Nothing really fantastic, but it was interesting to watch them dance.

After a whole bunch of haunted houses, you kind of get immune to being scared and although you still jump when they do appear from nowhere, the first few houses were the ones I think I was frightened the most. We stayed almost till the closing time of 2 am and it was such great fun that I’m seriously considering going again next year.

Saturday – 29th October

Another full day of sessions before dinner at night, and just chilling out in the hotel room. The problem with Orlando is that transport isn’t as easy, and we’re from Daytona, so I think nobody really wanted to be paying for a cab because it sounded ridiculous. While we did have cars to get around for food, no one really pushed to go to the club or anything. It’s good because I feel my body clock was totally unaffected by this trip, unlike the LA one where I nearly fell sick when I came back. The good thing is that I’m not really spending that much money on food for this trip, and I think the amount of money they gave me should pay for food and the Halloween Horror Night ticket.

Sunday – 30th October

After the final keynote speaker, we all left the hotel around 11, and Karissa and I went to the Mall at Millenia to try and fix her iPhone. Unfortunately, her iPhone is beyond fixing because of water damage, so we headed straight back to school to help out with production. Production was extra quick and smooth and we got the paper out fairly quickly. The evening was spent back at home just preparing for the new week ahead.