Obviously, for the first lesson, the professors/TAs just basically introduce themselves and give you course syllabus. Grading system here is quite different.. a lot of marks placed on assignments, tests and quizzes, not so much on final exams, and for English, class participation is also counted (ugh!). We have to get 90 to get A, 80 will be B and so on. Kristan and David (the RAs for my dorm floor) have asked the whole floor to get a GPA average of 3.0 (which is apparently not that easy to get.. that means you have to get B for everything), and they said that if the floor average is 3.5, we can ask them to do something crazy haha. I think Americans are quite outspoken in the sense that they dare to ask questions and to speak up. Like whenever a prof asks someone to share his/her opinions, there'll always be someone who raises up his hand and shares his views voluntarily, and sometimes there're so many people who raise up their hands that the prof can't possibly go to every single person. And for classes, I find that Americans like to take the front seats haha.
Anyway, for programming, the professor asked us to address him by his first name, and I'll be using Apple computers to do programming. Don't know if this is good or bad..I haven't used a Mac before, but they don't seem that difficult to use. Only a little bit confusing at first. And at the end of the first lesson, the prof just gave us an assignment to be submitted today (2nd lesson), expecting us to do our own readings. And today, I've another assignment that's due on Friday. I find programming quite interesting and actually understand the stuff the book's talking about, but one big problem I have is that I can't compile the code and if you can't compile, you can't run the program (i.e. cannot do the assignment). Got quite frustrated trying to figure out how to compile. I think I'll just have to ask for help haha.
I think for me, the Interp & Arg class would have to be the hardest (English, or writing, has never been my forte) and my uni requires all freshmen to take that course. The course syllabus for this one is the thickest and looking through it, I realized I'll have homework for every lesson, mostly reading but have to prepare points to discuss for the following lesson and I think every week, there's an assignment. There're 3 major papers for the course, and we have to do 2 drafts (rough & final drafts) for each. After the rough draft, there'll be peer review (there'll be 4 people helping to review your draft) and after peer review, we have to write review statement, which will count toward the final paper. And for the paper, we have to do citations and write bibliography (sounds like PW uugggh!!! The citations look exactly like the ones we did for PW). Doesn't help that on Monday, my teacher was like, "This course is freaking difficult". Yes, she actually said that. Luckily, my section is doing food, so hopefully, lessons won't be that boring since we'll be discussing food. I better speak up on Friday or else I won't have class participation mark. Today, we had a discussion and almost everyone was like raising up their hands to speak up. Have to get used to that pretty soon huh.
Most interesting lesson would probably have to be Econs. It sounds boring and dry because let's face it, I've done it before (and didn't get credit for it), so I'm pretty familiar with much of the material. But my prof has quite a good reputation here. And I actually enjoy his lessons. Anyway, he was like saying that we'll have games a few times during lect, in which there'll be buying and selling. At the end of each game, you have to hand in your earnings. At the end of the sem, your earnings will be totalled up and you'll be given numbers for a lucky draw. So if you earn higher, you'll have more numbers (more chances to win). The top prize is $100 cash haha..not bad huh. Oh apparently we'll have to do our assignments before he discusses the topics, so we're not expected to be accurate. I think assignments are in fact graded based on effort and not accuracy. There're also detailed solutions, so you can also cheat if you want to. But my prof said he has intentionally put a wrong digit in a multitude of numbers so if we make that error, he'll know that we're cheating haha.
The Math courses are so-so. I find Calculus boring..it was like a revision to me (doing vectors now). Doesn't help that prof goes v fast, speaks in a boring tone etc. And I think my TA for recitation is quite inexperienced. He's British so has a British accent (which to me is so hard to understand) and doesn't seem to have confidence in himself. Concepts of Math is very cheem, but I actually find it quite interesting (doing logic now). Unfortunately, prof is also very bad, and this time, my TA is Indian, so it's another accent haha.
Anyway, I realized that I've sort of found people that I know in almost all my classes. I know Brian, this guy on my floor, is in the same calculus and programming class as me. I can actually ask him for help in programming, but me being me, I haven't really spoken with a lot of the guys yet and yup..haven't really spoken with him yet. Gerentt is in the same calculus class as me, Kim is in the same computing skills class as me, Lawrence (another guy on my floor) is in the same English class as me, and I think Kamya is in the same Econs class. I only don't know anyone in my Math Concepts recitation, but I think that's partly cos it's mostly sophomores taking the course.
Also, I'm already sick of the food on campus. Granted, I haven't really eaten at all the places yet, but they all seem to be selling the same thing. I'm usually not that fussy about food, but when you've to eat roughly the same thing everyday, you're definitely gonna get very sick of it. It's the meal plan la.. have so many meals and cash given to spend on. If we don't spend on them, we're gonna be wasting our money cos we've already paid for our meal plan.
The biggest thing I don't like here is the weather. Oh my goodness, the weather just totally sucks! It rains everyday. And it's the kind of rain that's not very heavy, but heavy enough so that you'll have to use umbrella. Actually, I realize that everyone here uses umbrella anyway. And it sort of rains the entire day..seems to me that it doesn't rain at night only..bad timing huh. The rain is also very unpredictable. Like when you go in for one class, it can be not raining but after 50min, it can be raining heavily. Very irritating. And rain means that the floors in the buildings are very slippery. I almost slipped twice on Monday and I saw others almost slipping also. But my "moment" came today when I totally slipped in front of everyone else and it was really in front of a lot of people. How embarrassing! And I didn't even walk fast or anything.
Oh ya, US Open is going on now. Super good timing huh. But very sad la..Andy Roddick lost in the first round! How unbelievable! Oh and I just found out results for the Badminton World Championships that ended last week. Can't believe that US actually won the men's doubles! C'mon, US has never been good in badminton! But yay for Taufik! Oh and MU so far has a 100%record. Yay to them too! It gets harder to follow soccer scores here, but I'm trying my best haha.
Anyway, I better start doing my homework now or else I'll be having another late night. Shoulders are aching so badly from staring at the com and trying to figure out programming homework. I think I'll do the rest of my homework first and do my programming homework tomorrow.
Anyway, orientation has been fun, albeit hectic. I've been getting along better with the people on my floor and talking with them. I actually like my floor..people here are fun, enthu and I think we're e craziest floor around with our own cheer (which is erm..quite disgusting) and facebook group with a corny name. But that said, I've only mixed around with the girls, not so much with the guys, although I know a few of them. Seriously, I'm not the type to go over to the guys' side and hang out with them. But then again, you never know.
Orientation also means less and less and less sleep. The Science people had a stayover at the Science Center which was quite fun. I like the Science Center..they had quite interesting exhibits and shows. I like the observation floor (forgot the name) the best, where you can see the view of the entire city which is gorgeous. And there was also a telescope, although you can't really see e stars clearly. There was a laser show which played along to the music of U2. At first, I thought it was quite cool, but halfway through, I found it a bit draggy and loud and I actually fell asleep uh-oh. And a Chem professor also performed experiments for us, which were quite explosive. Found it exciting. My big mistake for the sleepover was not bringing a pillow. I didn't expect the ground to be so hard and even though I brought a fleece blanket, I was freezing. Managed to sleep, but it wasn't really a deep sleep and I woke up a few times.
Thursday, we had Convocation, sort of the official induction as the Class of 2009. It was quite a hyped-up affair and for the first time, we got to see the famous Kiltie Band play (the band was wearing kilts..supposed to be a Scottish tradition. CMU was actually founded by a Scot). After dinner, went for the Clippership Cruise. It was supposed to be mainly dancing with about 800 people, but quite a few of us didn't want to dance. Me, Jessica and Gerentt just sat, talked, enjoyed the view and watched people dance. I didn't expect Pittsburgh to be so big actually and there were so many amazing views. I'm gonna take the Incline one day..apparently the view from the cablecar there was voted the 2nd most beautiful scenery in the US.
We had House Wars on Friday. House Wars is like well, a war between the various dorms. For my house, we had to wear a tie-dye (is that how you spell it?) shirt. I was supposed to buy a shirt from David, the guys' RA, but he ran out of shirts to sell and since I didn't want to sacrifice one of my shirts (brought so few here), I didn't tie-dye it. But all of us put on green paints on our faces. There were a few stations in House Wars..must say some of them are quite interesting, and I thought our floor rocked. But House Wars came down to a tiebreaker between Morewood and New House as the final 2 dorms. The tiebreaker was the Orange Relay, where you had to pass oranges using your neck only and you can't drop the orange cos if you drop it, you'll have to start over again. I thought at first that my house was going to win cos Morewood dropped their orange, but we dropped ours right before the end and so had to start over again. Big lead wiped out just like that and we lost. Was quite disappointed that our house lost, but at least Donner didn't win again. After House Wars, we had Almost-Midnight Breakfast, where you basically just have breakfast at midnight. Gosh..I ate so much!
I realize that I've been eating a lot lately. And I've to get used to not eating rice everyday. That's probably why I feel like eating so much. Rice is much more filling. I hope I don't get sick of the food on campus real soon cos I'll probably have to eat to survive.
The weather this week is getting chilly and rainy. Yesterday, it was basically raining the whole day and it was freezing cold. If summer is already this cold, I wonder what winter will be like.
Anyway, I'm now like slowly nodding off. Going to sleep now and get ready for tomorrow (or later). I'm trying to get pumped up and excited but I haven't suceeded.
Anyway, I arrived here last Tuesday night. Very very long flight and we missed our connecting flight from Washington to Pittsburgh. Felt really bad cos we'd asked someone to pick us up at the airport. We completely forgot that there'd be security check, so we spent way too much time at a relative's place. The security check itself took like more than 1 hour and I think we weren't the only ones to miss the flight haha. I realized domestic flights are really punctual, but the food sucks.
Life here is okay so far I guess. Moved in to my dorm on Thursday. I love my dorm! It's the best on campus (and the only one to have a/c haha) and the newest, so the bathroom is the cleanest. But I think the showers are too few.. there're 28 girls sharing 4 showers, but all of us shower at different times which is good. My room has 1 loft bed and 1 "normal" bed. Since I moved in early, I got to choose which side of the room to sleep in. I wanted to choose the loft bed at first cos of extra space, but the loft bed it's kind of weird. It doesn't have a ladder, so you've to climb on the small cupboard next to it before climbing up through the back of the bed. It's basically quite troublesome and with my fear of height, I decided to sleep on the other bed (I also wouldn't know how to put on the sheets anyway). The other bed though has a weird height. It's too high to sit on it and too low to put a ladder on, so I've to prop myself up to get on the bed. When I'm tired (like last night), it took me a few tries before I actually managed to get up on the bed haha. Moving in was really exhausting, but I've sort of settled in. Only my table is kind of messy cos now I just dump my stuff there haha.
International orientation was from Thurs night - Sat. There're surprisingly a large number of Singaporeans (22) and Indonesians (5 - which is already a lot) this year. Most of the international students are from China, India and Korea. I'm now quite close friends with Jessica, Kamya and Gerentt (from Singapore). Thursday night, during ice cream social, 4 of us along with Halima (who's also from Singapore), got high on lemonade and we were basically the happiest bunch there, laughing throughout haha. Went dorm-visiting after that and that's when I realized I'm lucky to be living in New House. On Friday, we went to Waterfront for shopping. The place is huge and has practically every single shop in it and Friday night there was a pizza party downstairs at my dorm. Jessica and I signed up for restaurant hops for Saturday night (going for dinner with current students). We signed up for the Korean restaurant, which was maybe a mistake cos we're the only girls there and the only non-Koreans. The Korean guys pretty much kept to themselves, but the ones sitting next to us were quite friendly, so we had a good time talking with them. After dinner, Kamya and Jessica came over to my dorm, and we spent quite a long time analyzing the guys in the Pic Book (it's like a book containing pictures of entering frehsman) haha. Then Jessica had the crazy idea to visit Gerentt in his dorm (which is all-guys). Gerentt was complaining abt his room all the time cos it's supposed to be for 2 people, but there're 3 beds and only 1 desk in his room. Not as bad as I thought it'd be though. After that, 4 of us sat on the path in front of the University Center, talking and looking at the stars. The only bad thing was that it was really cold cos it was past midnight already haha.
Sunday was the start of Freshman Orientation, which meant the locals moved in. It was so messy and busy cos there're many many more people moving in and they brought more stuff. My mum and I went to church in the morning and after coming back, had various activities so I didn't get to see my roommate until the floor meeting at night. My roommate looks really different from what I'd expected. For one, she's much shorter than I thought she'd be and she looks quite old I think. She is quite quiet and introverted (well, she told me herself she's introverted) but seems very intellectual. I try to talk with her and we can get along, but after a while, when we've nothing else to talk about, we just do our own stuff. So far so good. The only problem I sense is that she's an early sleeper and I sleep late, so I feel quite bad coming in and out of the room and making a lot of noise after she slept. My whole floor, the girls are mostly Caucasians or American-born Asians. There're 5 international students, but most of them are Koreans, so they keep to themselves. Being with the locals and with international students is a different feeling. I sense that international students are much more friendly. I guess if you talk to the Americans, they're also quite friendly, but I've no idea what to talk to them. The Americans can easily talk among themselves, but I've to really think of what to say to them. Not only that, I've to also think of how to say it to them. So it's kind of hard for me. And Americans, they're quite used to jumping in and just joining conversations. It's really hard for me to do that cos I'm quite quiet. And quite often, they talk about American stuff like their high school, states, accents, stuff that I've no clue about. And of course, different accents. I don't know why but talking with Americans makes me talk faster and with the different accent, I think it's quite hard for them to understand me. (Ugh..I think I'm slowly speaking American accent, which I think is quite fake but nice). Felt really left out and it was especially bad cos I didn't meet my Singaporean friends that night (couldn't just go into my room now) and my mum also couldn't spend so much time with me, so I felt really homesick.
Monday was slightly better only cos Monday night, I met with Jessica and Gerentt after Playfair and we went to play pool. It was really liberating to be able to just talk freely and talk the way you want to. And I think they felt the same way too. It seemed like ages since I havent seen them even though it was only for a night. Anyway, Playfair is this icebreaker thing involving the whole school (about 1400 of us). All of us were gathered in the stadium and basically, the point is for all of us to get confused, but it was a lot of fun. Got to know a whole bunch of people, but it was just acquaintances. The Orientation Councilors (OCs) were super enthu though, so they made the whole thing really fun. And I think our bunch is quite enthu too haha.
Today, felt really homesick again and I tried to stop myself from crying. The good thing was that I think I talked more to people today, but still felt really homesick. Hopefully, it'll get better over the days. I know I should just open my mouth and talk, but it's quite hard.
Anyway, I'm rambling now cos I'm really sleepy. Gonna sleep now, but realized I've a few stuff to do. Sigh.
Had lunch yesterday with Anna, Zaneta and Saby and then went to watch Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. Had a good time talking with them. As for the movie, it's erm..interesting but weird. Don't really know what I think of it haha. But I like Charlie, he's cute and adorable.
Went to have breakfast today at Killiney Kopitiam (I think..) with Eunike, Tjipto and Bing Kuo (my Chinese course classmates). Ate the kaya toast (yummy!) and sat there talking for quite long.. I think we sat there for more than 2 hours haha, but I really enjoyed just sitting and talking with them.
I know I shouldn't feel so stressed, but I can't help it. I worry too much huh. I just can't bear the thought of leaving and maybe that's why I'm so unwilling to pack my stuff and instead, find something else to do. Maybe that's why I've also been having stomachache these past few days. Must keep on telling myself to take it easy. If I forget to bring something, I can just buy it over there. As long as I bring all the important stuff, it should be okay.
Anyway, I'm having headache suddenly. Think I should take a nap..everyone's been saying I look tired and I've dark rings under my eyes (even though I think I've enough sleep!). I should do a little bit of packing too. Hope that'll make me feel better.
Anyway, today I went out with my primary school friends - Melissa, Jevelin, Anita, Meliana, Novita, Budy, Albert, Hans and Julius. Except for Melissa and Jevelin, I haven't seen the rest for 7 years!! Can't believe that it's been so fast! Gosh we had such a fun and amusing time together. And laughed a lot (of course, they laughed at my voice and my indo haha, as expected). A few comical things happened; the most ridiculous was when Budy when to get his house key from his bro, thinking that he'd reach home earlier than his brother, only to find out that his brother was actually already going to go home while Budy still had to send the rest of us home haha. Had a nice time talking on lots of random stuff and reminiscing our primary school days and laughing at our silly ways back then haha. That was such a long time ago. I think the girls haven't changed much, but the guys oh gosh.. Albert and Julius look so different from back then! Julius especially, even though I'd already seen his photos on Friendster haha. I think the school life here and there is so different. Makes me wonder more often than not what'd have happened if I'd stayed here instead. Anyway, 8 of us went in Budy's car..shall not comment on his driving skills haha..basically lots of speeding. We went to Gading Mall (first there yet), and it's so incredibly big. They have Mall 1, Mall 2, Mall 3! We parked at Mall 3 and walked all the way to Mall 1 to have lunch haha. Obviously, we walked a loooong way but we talked a lot along the way so it didnt really feel long. I realized that the shops here and there are almost the same (Indo is also getting more Westernized). They've Sakae Sushi there which sort of surprised me. Oh ya, there's also Fish & Co, Charles & Keith, Rotiboy, Breadtalk, Crystal Jade La Mian, Sushi Tei, Cafe Cartel. Of course Charles & Keith stuff are more expensive here. What I find ironic is that Rotiboy is originally from Singapore, but I only just tried it here when I went to TA. And it's very popular here too..long queue. Anyway, my friends taught me a lot of Indo slang words and I found it quite amusing that they knew about Singlish too! Apparently, the word 'lah' is quite popular hehe. I think after being here and talking to them for 1 week, I've probably talked a lot in Indo and used their slang (gue, lu, bokap, nyokap, gile, etc.) and sms-ed more in Indo. Sigh..gonna miss my primary school friends. Don't know when I'll be able to see them again. Seems that we're all in different countries. Hopefully we'll still be able to keep in touch with one another.
Also met up with my Chinese class people here as promised, but unfortunately, all of us couldn't meet together because Santana came back late. So I had dinner with Eunike, Diana and Witha at Angke on Monday, and then lunch with Santana at TA on Thursday. But it was nice to see them again. Sigh..gonna miss them and the days we used to sit at the canteen (?) downstairs during the break, talking (and last-minute studying for tests too) till we're late for our class hehe. Hopefully, all of us can still meet together next time.
I've been eating a lot these past 2 days. Gosh.. argh! Ate lots of Indonesian food and when I go back to Singapore, I'll probably be eating a lot also before I leave. Sigh. Anyway, my roommate emailed me first and she sounds like a nice girl. Virginian girl. We've emailed each other a few times, looking forward to seeing her soon. The first time she emailed me, she asked me about room decor, which I haven't even thought of! We decided to lease the MicroFridge (microwave and fridge) and split the costs and she's probably gonna bring a rug. I think e rest we decide later when we've seen our room. Our room is also supposed to be slightly bigger than the rest, which is good. And I finally got my schedule, which sucks. Lots of late classes. Mon Wed Fri it's 1030-1620 and Tues Thurs it's 1530-1920 (so late!!). Thank goodness the 1830-1920 class is only half sem.
I really should be sleeping now. I've driving later at 6.30am and it's now 1am! And I still have tennis and packing to do after that. Sigh..another late night. Anyway, driving has been fun and no major incidents so far (don't want that to change after driving later). Managed to drive to the tennis centre and home from dentist's. I think I'm still having problems with slope and braking in time, but I can definitely drive faster now. Maybe not fast enough though cos the other drivers are still honking at me :(