Posts filed under 'College Life'
it’s been a weekend of tiered festivities, what with chinese new year and valentines’ day falling on the same day this year. Flushing, New York was redder and more boisterous than usual this weekend, with stalls of roses lining the streets and calls of 新年快乐! being jostled back and forth amongst the exuberant crowd. some of us had gotten together for our own reunion dinner the night before, courtesy of carol the domestic goddess, and this morning we all went for a dim sum brunch before scattering back to our various locations in the american northeast once again.
as we ate, we could hear the faint sounds of the lion dance drums rolling up from the streets beneath us, the familiar thumping rhythm calling out to our homesickness like the pied piper. some of us wanted to leave the restaurant to quickly catch a glance of the lions, but how lucky we were that the lions came to us instead. two of them, white and red with silver skin, burst into the dim sum parlour along with their troupe, and we dissolved into such excitement. i wondered aloud why they had the same colours. ‘twins!’ he responded. and suddenly i was young again, short and sitting on my dad’s shoulders, watching two lions with big eyelids prance around the crowd, soaking up love. ‘twins,’ the adults would nod in marvel and say knowingly, as if twin lions were rare and magical. i used to cry when i saw the big ceremonial platters of roast pig with its head still intact (complete with flower in its dead mouth), but i loved the lions. i loved the wooden ladders and watching the two lions dance up and down, up and down– before one of them would emerge victorious with the red ribboned vegetable in her mouth. i loved getting a fraction of the prize money from my parents if they won the gamble on either lion. and i did so hate chinese new year music, with its annoying pitch, but i loved the pink plastic cherry blossom trees and the red paper fishes that we used to help our aunts make out of angpau packets.
and of course i loved angpaus too. chern han and i chanced upon a little temple in flushing today, and we stepped in to offer joss sticks. they gave us little angpau packets (from Citibank!) as we left, and i thought they would contain some Taoist good luck charm, but instead each packet contained $2. i was so very thrilled, but the slice of authenticity felt strange in my hand. it was my one and only angpau this year. if i were back home, my brothers and i would be hoarding red packets, counting to see who got more this year. my mom called me today to talk about some money that i owe her, and i jokingly said that she could help me keep my angpaus from her friends as part of the repayment. she snorted and said that’s more like a rebate on the angpaus she had to give out this year anyway. and i laughed because it still seems so familiar to me how my mom used to usher us quickly into a corner and make us check how much Uncle This or Aunty That gave us, so that she could ‘pau’ the same amount for their children. in my semi-angsty teenage years i used to think, wow, how artificial this practice of giving angpaus is! but who cares! money is still money. angpaus are still angpaus and they’re still awesome and i still want them. the adults can worry about all the red packet politics!
we didn’t gamble last night but we did play games with cards. chinese new year does lack something without the crackling sounds of mahjong and the smell of new crisp paper notes. i was always the ‘water fish’ so i shied away from gambling, but now i wish i’d learned how to play from my parents and my brothers, who are all incredibly pro at anything involving cards and money. it’s something that you miss out on, just like how you’re missing out on a whole world of existence if you can’t read chinese and you find yourself in flushing or little bourke street, taipei or hongkong, or a chinese dessert place with no english menus. but at the very least i am redeemed by my ability to peel a very mean mandarin orange uni-peel.
i called my parents the other day to wish them a happy chinese new year. they were having reunion dinner at my grandfather’s home, as is the annual tradition, where my aunt makes the best foochow fishballs, steamed fish, fried glass noodles, wined chicken and all sorts of wonderful festival fare. my parents passed the phone around, and for 5 minutes, my soulless suite was filled with life as my relatives gabbled down the phone. so much shrieking! when they hung up, all was quiet again, and it was just me in a house of people who don’t quite get along, in a wintry state, surrounded with schoolwork and the problems introduced by dictatorial democracy, frenemies, long distance, and growing pains. i’ve grown so much stronger being here, even if i often feel helpless. i guess giving up some years of chinese new year and valentines days is a worthy trade.
this is my campus in the snow. it looks beautiful. i was late for class one day but stopped to admire the vast fields of snow as the blizzard raged. days like this i love my school and can’t imagine myself anywhere else. especially when we get snow days where all classes are canceled and there are snowball wars! though i’m still very bruised from particularly well-packed snowballs.
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early last night we walked past one of those flower warehouses that was open all night in preparation for the valentines’ day rush. the buckets and buckets of flowers and fillers and strewn newspaper everywhere reminded me so much of valentines day in 2005, and the flower project that we had in high school. we’d went all the way to cameron highlands, song jun and i, to look at the different grade of roses so that we could order them in bulk to make bouquets for sale. i vaguely remember us having them delivered to someone’s (aira’s?) house and storing all the flowers in her bathtubs before we started the wrapping. jamie, who’d worked in a florist the year before, taught us how to wrap bouquets and shred curled ribbons. it’s a lot harder than it looks, as is de-thorning roses. but we made so much money! it was the most exhausting valentines day ever, but so memorable. this year, i have a silly smile on my face. it’s quite like the silly smile that sieutheng used to get so aggravated by back in form 2. :) there is a lot of health in how i’m feeling. these smiles keep spreading across my face like– dandelion seeds! in the wind. and they are really quite unstoppable.
happy chinese new year, happy valentines day, and happy life, everyone! :)
February 14th, 2010
t’is just a quick note from the dismal belly of the international affairs library. there’s a snowstorm here in northeast america and i’m stuck here. but that’s just as well, because i still have so much more to read before i take my last three finals tomorrow and the day after. so my quick note is about how college leaves me smitten so very often. there are just too many smart and charming people moving around this place. they are all provocative in their own ways, but i have realized that the sort i am most fatally attracted to is unembellished intelligence. tonight i had a review session for the macroeconomics exam i’m sitting for on monday (jian wei if you are reading this, why is your macro course a 4000 level one but columbia’s is a 3000?! it’s the same syllabus!). most of us came in armed with a deranged muddle of notes, textbooks, formulas, problem sets and confused questions that should not be asked this late in the semester. myself included, of course– i was in my usual worried flurry of coffee cups and excessively scribbled-upon notes, but i sat beside this guy who came in with just a blue pen. the pen didn’t even work, and he had to borrow another. he did have paper too, but it was one mere sheet of crumpled lined paper which he’d torn out of a notebook and unfolded out of his back pocket. he was blonde, with brown eyes, and had a very lazy european accent. polo shirt. scruffy. incredibly good looking. although the TA was making a few mistakes at the board, he wouldn’t correct the TA, but i noticed that he was deriving the right answers with the appropriate corrections on his disheveled scrap paper. at one point, he leaned over (omg!– smelling of fresh soap) and asked me a question about the liquidity constrained consumer. i answered as best as i could, but midway i hesitated to give it some thought, at which point he answered his own question. so i asked him back another question about the borrower’s behavior in C1 and C2. the girl next to us launched into some textbook answer, but he interrupted her with a real world example that took all of 5 seconds to put into perspective. then he said, when in doubt during an economics exam, just think about what you would do with your own stuff in real life. and he smiled this simple smile. i do love smart real world examples, especially when they come from sparkly-eyed, drawling, scruffy blondes with a cute smile. way too sexy.
December 20th, 2009
while walking through campus today, i saw a little kid pummeling down the walkway on his plastic tricycle, tilted forward like a colorful torpedo!, as his dad strolled alongside. i wanted to quickly bend and take a picture, yet it felt disrespectful of the moment, so i just walked and watched. when we all shored upon the stone steps outside the library — me, the dad, the kid and his tricycle — the boy got off his vehicle so that his dad could carry it down the steps. but he also held on to one handlebar as he tottered down the steps, while his dad held on to the other handle, and they both lifted the proud tricycle down the steps ceremoniously and carefully.
i really liked that. for 11 years, i went to a school where little kindergarten children were driven up to the gates in big, glossy cars driven either by uniformed chauffeurs or curly haired, clackety-heeled young mothers who would gather around in a perfumed gossipy gaggle after they’d walked their children to the classrooms. these same children had their bags carried up to the classroom for them either by accompanying maids, or said pin-neat perfection mothers. during recess, their maids would bring them lunch in tiffin carriers, and often feed them, as they grumpily ate, fidgety and itching to join their friends at the quad. of course, not many students at our school were like this — i think the tendency falls more towards the younger generations of our institution — but nevertheless there were some older kids that displayed teenage versions of such behavior too. mostly they came in the form of self-entitled kids who would say things like, “you think my parents never pay school fees ah?”
money is a good thing to have, but it’s a better thing to have when you can bring up your children to still be kind and gracious in the midst of such abundant blessings and opportunities. i recently discovered that the grandson of singapore and hong kong’s largest property developers goes to school here, but he’s one of the humblest and nicest people i’ve ever met. my boss from a previous internship came from a very affluent family, but the heritage was never apparent; quite the opposite in fact. i used to find it so amusing when i went with him for meetings at clients’ offices, and he’d get very excited when he saw that there was free parking in the building. omg su ann! free parking! YES! likewise, there were the little kids in my school who quickly learned to be embarrassed of their wealth, and would hurriedly grab their schoolbags and run into the school building after saying thanks to their drivers.
i’ve been missing my grandmother a lot lately. i had a truly awful night last night and all i wanted to do was curl up in bed and talk to my grandmother in (broken) cantonese. when i was younger and did that all the time (i was a crybaby… actually i still am), she would make me marmite soup and pat me to sleep. when i woke up, there would be barley boiling on the stove in that little pot that always looked like it was going to fall apart. when you make barley, you need to use ping tong (rock sugar), she would say. so there was always a packet of rock sugar in the pantry, which i liked to steal from. the little tablets of sugar were like sweets! and i used to do the same with the rice from the rice cooker — open the steamy thing and steal bits of rice with my fingers. once, my grandmother was having dinner with my aunts, and she loudly exclaimed, “hah! i think we have a mouse in the kitchen that’s been stealing food (”tau yeh sik”), because there are always little holes in my freshly cooked rice! one day i’m going to catch this mouse and punish it!” i remember feeling very indignant -_____- catch me! you will never!
i wonder what my grandmother is doing now. it’s about 7 A.M back at home which must mean she’s just about to get up.
my grandmother has never been the kind of grandmother to bring me food at school, or walk me up to my school gates, mostly because my parents never encouraged that sort of behavior. i remember once i had an issue at school over something fairly bureaucratic, and i wanted my mother to do something about it. at my school, Parents Complaining is a big event, always spoken of in somber tones, and it’s the trump card of any student’s affair with the administration. but my mom would have no such thing. if i recall correctly, she told me to grow up and handle things on my own if i really wanted the problem solved. tough love. but the right kind.
family’s such a strange thing sometimes, but it’s always just there, orbiting around everything else that happens. my roommate has consistent screeching fights with her mother over the phone, and each time she does, i’m always glad that my parents and i dont have a stretched relationship. we barely fight, and my parents are reaching that mango-ey stage where they’re trying to act cute all the time. despite the excessive freedom that they’ve given us, and it’s excessive enough to let any child go wayward, i think all three of us turned out pretty okay. pretty darn good, in fact, if you disregard the occasional lack of concern for authority :) we each know what we want and how to get it, but we dont forget what’s important.
we’re moving in December! i only have two weeks off during winter break, because we only get three weeks this year and i’m spending one of those in Honduras (very excited about this). i’m debating if i should go home for the house-warming. what’s a house-warming without me there!!! but i’m afraid going home for two weeks isn’t worth the airfare, and that i should probably spend the two weeks somewhere closer to NYC. like, New Jersey or something. WTF. but i miss home :( and my family.
here are some pictures of children, fun and fall leaves. i’ve been through many so months of fall leaves but i still get so thrilled by the colors, the crunch, and their carefree flitting.
November 8th, 2009
on the first night of the halloween weekend, my roommate Piglet (she picked this pseudonym on her own!!), one of our suitemates Monkey, and i all got into a big fight. i had honestly wanted to just stay in with some soup and catch up on Grey’s Anatomy and post-midterms sleep, but the big buttery blocks of tension in the air thwarted that plan. so i half-heartedly dressed up in my costume and met some friends at the same bar we were at for halloween last year, basically The Bar of our university. it’s where we all had our first freshman year party, used our fake I.D for the first time, had / will have our 21st birthday celebration, spend every Halloween … i guess one could say it’s an institution. just remember not to eat there during the day, when it sunlights as an Italian restaurant.
it was a good, long night filled with many laughs. i didnt drink as much as i did last year, but everything else was exactly the same, except we were all a year older. it felt just like yesterday that i was prancing around The Bar in my very short sailor costume and Martian was being quite grumpy about it. i remember seeing all the same faces a year ago, and what they were wearing at the time. it’s amusing to know that even after a year later, their drunken greetings dont change as they wrap their arms around me to say hi. they say all the same things, in the same fashion and lazy lull.
this time last year, it was colder, and i loved school so much more than i love it now. i was so bright-eyed and excited about the novelty and the abundance of everything. now everything has the sanitized bleakness of industrial-sized something. it’s been a long story, which perhaps warrants a whole new post of it’s own. dont worry, i’m happy — it’s just that i constantly struggle to reconcile two polar parts of myself that seem to grow apart in distance more and more each day. apparently, it happens to all of us.
as i was leaving The Bar, i dropped by a 24-hour pizza place to get some food for myself and Piglet. i knew she’d be hungry, and that she was ready to kiss and makeup after our big stupid fight, so i got us some soup and three slices of pizza that we could have while watching a korean drama (Autumn Tale, or Autumn in my Heart, to be exact). i was having some trouble balancing all that food in my hands as i was walking back to the suite, so i sat down. i chose to sit down on that stone bench in front of Furnald, right at that very moment, to arrange the paper plates of food, and on a whim, i chose to take a bite out of one particular slice of pizza — the ziti one, that was basically pasta-on-pizza.
that was how he stopped to say hi. “this is a really funny sight, a yellow duck sitting on a bench eating pizza.” that smile. that stunning smile. “it looks good, by the way. where’d you get it?” and that’s how i offered him some pizza, and we started talking — about pizza, about restaurants near campus, about hong kong, about how singapore and malaysia split in 1963 and the different versions of that story (he knew the real version, which was impressive), about universities built on lakes, about the selfishness of people from our school (or at least just the undergraduate student body, which i am in, and which he is not in), about selling out (which he did, which i am on my way to, it seems), about politics, about religion, and life. before i knew it, we’d finished all the pizza and an hour had gone by. it was really cold that night, and i wasnt dressed in very much, but i wanted to keep talking. i jokingly said to him that men are so simple: you offer them some free food and they sit with you to talk about nothing at all (or plenty) for an hour. he laughed, but walked me back home.
pictures from halloween weekend!:
#1 i walked into The Bar and saw this guy, and i thought he was dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan (it was dark; i couldnt see the yellow of his outfit!!). i thought he was trying to be ironic, so i found it really funny and laughed. he didnt understand why, and finally he explained to me that he was really dressed as a Brown Mustard bottle. hmph. that’s just so in your face -_- the irony would’ve been funnier.
#2 yes, i was dressed as a duck! i thought i may as well, since everyone thinks i remind them of a duck (?!) and i love ducks anyway. this is me with julie.
#3 julian and david, who both dressed as CEOs, haha. they came in with a bevy of office ho’s too!
#5 stephanie and julie. so pretty <3
#6 these girls were next to our table, being completely rowdy. we started talking, and i complimented one of them and said she was really hot. she replied with, “well yes but no one’s been hitting on me tonight!”
#7 Posh Spice. i asked her if that was her little gucci dress, and she said – “huh?” clearly not a true Spice Girls fan…
#8 it’s ALI G!!!!
#9 and then people started wearing my hat. this is alex
#10 and bikram. yes, like the yoga
#11 A, who is so boobilicious <3 sorry, the more unique names are gonna be truncated as always... i'm being googled way more than usual lately by people from school, so i'm getting a little nervous. locked my twitter as well, but feel free to request permission. i add everyone.
#12 isnt she totally adorable
#13 us with BRUNO!!!
#14 with the pi delta psi guys + singaporean girls
#15 he was a condom -_- i didnt understand, even when he started charging at my groin headfirst. i thought he was a trash bag…
#16 and this is the bartender from The Bar!!! he came dressed as a barmaid :D :D
#17 and he posed for this picture so willingly. it was his idea, even. GLEE!
#18 A and i. she came as a flapper
#19 his name is actually Gabriel
#20 the mighty morphin’ power rangers!!! when the green ranger was still around. taken during the pi delta psi halloween party, which was so packed i got my foot stepped on twice and burned by a cigarette as many times.
the second night of halloween was spent at the above frat party, where i didnt take anymore pictures, because i was (miraculously — given the sardine can conditions) wrapped in conversation. the third night of the halloween weekend was spent in … Boston! pictures to come soon. for now, i have to study for my huge macroeconomics midterm that’s happening in exactly 24 hours :(
November 3rd, 2009
we always walk into heartbreaking things, or slip into them. i was sitting in starbucks today with the usual mid-week brain cramp, staring into space, when a young blonde woman paused to rest in the center of my vision, and for some reason she brought me back to earth, and i caught sight of her clear plastic bag of apples just before she turned away. the apples reminded me of my TA from one of my classes last year. the professor had introduced them at the front of the lecture hall in the first lecture, but i wasnt paying attention, so i never put the names to any faces. inadvertently i picked his section. i walked into the little room in the math building one day, and there he was, all curly hair and crinkled white shirt like he’d just rolled out of bed reeking of intelligence and manliness. i couldnt place my finger on who he reminded me of. i later realized it was timtam he was reminiscent of — although it must be said that i wouldnt think of timtam as reeking of intelligence or manliness, ha ha ha — and it made me miss timtam, who was in aarhus at the time. but timtam likeness notwithstanding, i looked forward to section every week. cos he — the TA — was so smart. so scatterbrained but so smart. he was my first columbia crush, i think. i later chanced upon a really weird photograph of him straddling the merrill lynch bull, and that made me giggle. finance guys with horrible penmanship… just cant run away from these patterns. briefly i wondered if he could be gay; with this school, you never really know. but then i guess i didnt care too much if he was gay or not — inspiration fornicates asexually. he’s graduated now, and i have another TA whom i have not met. i wonder what he’s doing now. and i meant to write this post a whole year ago, the first day i met him, but i eventually forgot. there were no apples around to remind me.
October 15th, 2009
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