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.