Posts filed under 'College Life'
it is SO HOT today, i am practically melting into the floor. a bunch of us went for a picnic in Morningside Park nearby, but what little sunday morning enthusiasm we had was quickly worn out by the scorching sun. so we sat around playing some half-hearted frisbee (what is this Ultimate Frisbee thing?) and lazily debated the virtues of aspartame in a fake cola drink. then we trudged home. lazily.
pictures of my campus because the weather has been nice enough lately to produce some photos of vast blue skies!:
#1 this is a picture of College Walk, which is the quad area of the campus. i put my foot there to signify that i was in an elevated position! i was actually sitting on a really tall wall that has a statue at the end, under which is a secret spot of sublime shade and people-watching opportunity. actually it’s not very secret - lots of people love to sit and study under that statue. me included. my only gripe is that the statue isnt very pleasant to lean on cos it’s got all these painful statue-vertebra jutting out of it. and i also am always half afraid of falling off the wall :(
#2 from the other side of College Walk. that huge neoclassical building in the background is where that tall wall is
#3 and this is the building! it’s called Low Memorial Library, but it’s no longer a library. it’s an admin building now. it’s huge, prominent and smack in the middle of campus.
#4 people usually meet and hang out on the steps of Low cos it’s nice and sunny, and is right in the midst of everything. that’s good ol’ Alma, who also provides good shade!
#5 Low Steps when school started
#6 and this is Butler Library! i havent yet been in there, but from what i hear, come exam season and study breaks, people camp out at the doors so that they can secure a good study place. i think i will eventually have to join them in line, because the cafes around college are so busy that they dont really let you study in there, and the closest Starbucks has harsh lighting. i miss Starbucks Telawi, the most perfect study place on earth :(
#7 these are two of the residence halls! mine is the one on the right. the sky in this pic is so blue it’s surreal
#8 the lawns outside my hall. also a good place to sit and study. or sunbathe in bikinis, as many people have been doing. i’m not sure if this is common practice, because when i got here, already a handful of girls were laying out blankets and tanning in bikinis. so i thought this was normal (hahaha in Malaysia confirm kena suspend), and thought of doing the same to even out my tan, but then the other day i overheard a couple of people saying that people who tan on the green should stick to the beach. hmm! such confusing americanisms. but i’m learning.
#9 this is the Mathematics building, where i take my Econ and Calculus classes. buildings here are funny; they dont always open up to the first floor. the Math building opens to the third floor at ground level!
#10 and that’s Havemeyer, another building of classrooms
#11 The Lion, a symbol of Columbia. our collective athletic teams are called The Columbia Lions. our official color is a beautiful light sky blue :D
#12 the fountain at the quad, where Scarlett Johansson’s character was last seen contemplating a postgrad degree at Columbia in The Nanny Diaries. a little bit further up from here is Hamilton Hall, where i have my Italian classes, and also where the protest scene in Across The Universe (which is an amazing movie) was filmed
#13 spot the flag! :D this was taken during convocation (convocation here is not graduation, but is instead the welcoming of new students). i’m the only Malaysian international for this intake, though i’ve met two other Malaysian-Americans who mostly grew up here in the States.
#14 the Pupin building, which is wayyyyyy on the other end of campus, where i have my Literature Humanities classes. my Lit Hum teacher looks so much like Renee Zellweger…
#15 St Paul’s Chapel. it’s beautiful on the inside. behind it is Casa Italiana and beside it is Maison Francaise, though i forgot to take pictures of these two. from what i know, they function as some kind of mini Italian and French embassies on campus, where you can go to for information or research on both countries.
#16 the inside of St Paul’s
#17 more green. grass here is really different from back home.. you can sit on it and not get your bottom dirty or wet!
#18 the dining hall in my residence hall. i’ve discovered that the food’s not too bad! the other day they had chinese food… jasmine rice (but they put green peas in the rice O_O) and sweet and sour pork!!! the pork tasted just like what we get back home
#19 this was taken during a large Activities Fair on campus, where all the clubs, sports teams and societies would set up recruitment booths. i signed up for SO many mailing lists, but i still dont know what i want to do. i’ve shortlisted ballroom dancing, performing arts, figure skating, parliamentary debate (which has to be taken off the list because i decided not to go for the tryouts today :( sigh i immensely regret this), model united nations, political science group, the south east asian league.
#20 i followed it but didnt find anything absurd :\
#21 College Walk again. oh! that red brick building would be Maison Francaise
#22 the side of Low Library
#23 a really funny poster i saw on campus during activities recruitment week… hahahaha i laughed so hard
more to come soon! i havent actually explored very much of campus, but when i do, more pictures shall come. i really have so many things to blog about but i dont know where to start. not just about my new life here, but also things that are going on back home.
i’ve also been getting more and more emails regarding US college applications, and most of them seem to be asking the same questions about how to navigate the forms, how to write the application essays, and how to increase chances of admission into the Ivy League. so to any college applicants reading this, would you guys like me to write a walkthrough post on the whole entire process and also some tips and advice for essays and constructing your application? i give good advice :D leave me a comment if you do. if enough people want it, i’ll do the post.
okay, homework time :( i have another 3 calculus problem sets to finish.
September 14th, 2008
10 things i learned in my 2 weeks here. this is Part 1. many more to come in the 4 years i am spending here, i predict.
1. tap water here is drinkable, but tastes so bad when boiled. i’ve made 3 mugs of milo since i got here, and each one tasted reminiscent of chocolate-flavored swimming pool water. i have been unfairly blaming this phenomenon on the milo powder, thinking it some counterfeit version of the good stuff i am used to, but yesterday out of frustration i decided to stick a spoonful of it into my mouth, and found it tasting very much like the real thing. hmm! after some more experiments, i deduced the culprit to be the boiled water. so now i buy really big and cheap bottles of water to boil when i want milo.
2. that i would need sunblock. you know that tan i got after the Pulau Perhentian trip? ya the tan that caused my own mother to not recognize me when i opened the door for her. so i only recently managed to get rid of half of it, so i was almost fair again right before i left KL, and very happy about it too… but after 2 weeks in this hot US summer sun, i look roasted once again. it’s not fair (literally!!! haha.. ha.. ha..), it really isnt. i thought the east coast was supposed to be the land of pasty people wrapped up in winter coats :( but my collegemates tell me with much seriousness to enjoy the sun while it’s still here. they look so solemn that i feel pressured into believing them. hence, the new tan.
3. that i will need an American credit card to buy stuff online (actually, just a Macbook so far, but i’m guessing that other American companies would also require a credit card with an American bank too?) and that AT&T prepaid lines cannot be used to call and text internationally. haih. but it said on the flyer that i can call and text internationally….. =(
4. that there is SO MUCH WALKING to do. my dorm is actually on the furthest south end of the school, and almost all of my classes are at the furthest north end of campus. i walk on average 5000 miles every day, and if you think this is exaggeration, i can assure you it is not. every night, my feet cry themselves to sleep. i’m so glad i brought several pairs of flats, but i wish i’d brought more. high heels have absolutely no use here except on party nights, because even outside of campus there’s a lot of walking and subwaying to be done. sigh.
5. textbooks are expensive. you know how in college back home, you can either photostat an entire textbook for something like RM 20 or buy a used copy for RM 50? here, used and new copies are between USD 160 - 250. no, i’m not joking. a college student here could feed a small third world country with the amount of money spent buying books in one semester. case in point: my Italian textbook cost me USD 230. that’s RM 782 for ONE. TEXTBOOK. please shoot me - i feel like i have done myself an incredible injustice. luckily, Beaver introduced me to Half.com, so i will never again have to buy overpriced textbooks from my market-monopolizing college bookstore. now i just have to starve a couple of months to make up for that exorbitant RM 782 textbook.
6. that the stupid Benjamin Franklin statue in UPenn that i sat on (pictured in below post) is a common peeing spot for the drunken. nice, very nice. (and just for the record, i dont go to UPenn!)
7. that you have to run early to the floor lounge if you want to watch a certain tv show. Monday nights for Gossip Girl are fine because almost EVERYONE on my floor watches Gossip Girl. yes, even the guys, but actually i think they just sit there to mock us girls screaming when GG starts. we’re so excited for Gossip Girl that night that we even bring cushions and popcorn and stuff. but Wednesday nights for America’s Next Top Model, not so lucky, because there are a couple of people here who watch Project Runway that airs at the same time, and if this week was any indication, they are ruthless when it comes to not budging or sharing the remote. but i swear to God if anyone stops me from watching Grey’s Anatomy when it comes on in late September, i will kill that person. NOTHING comes between me and McDreamy. /fierce stare
8. tipping (and tipping well) is the explicitly stated #1 rule in NYC’s moral code. Waiter Rant wasnt kidding.
9. that New York City is not safe. i’ve been getting a lot of emails from friends who live or used to live here, and most of them tell me to be careful, especially at night in the subway stations where girls often get mugged. i’ve always kinda had their warnings at the back of my head, but never really believed them… but yesterday night Martian and i were followed from the back by this homeless nutter on a bicycle. it was so scary because it was at 1 in the morning, there was nobody around, and he’d trailed us all the way from a 24/7 eatery that we’d just left. he started circling around us on his bike, muttering stuff and at one point said to us, “i’m gonna get you motherfuckers!” WTF O_O we started walking really quickly to a brighter street because we were all alone in this dark street, but he still kept following us. then someone came out from a nearby store to take out the trash, and he quickly turned around and cycled away. so scary T___T i was so glad that Martian was there with me. i dont think i’m EVER going to walk around NYC by myself after this :(
10. people here walk around campus in their pajamas. i shall too.
and some random updates:
i got my first package in the mail!! i got the email notification in my inbox, and i was so excited to go over to the mail center to collect the package. it was from Chew Fui :D
she sent me some American snacks from her kitchen, along with some post-its (yay, i am a total post-its user and i havent bought any yet) and a lovely picture of her and her family in Virginia. thank you chew fui!!! i loved the animal crackers.. :D
ooh and i just found out the other day that my college sells bubble tea. i saw this girl happily slurping a cup of very asian-looking tea and tapioca pearls, and i just about jumped on her to ask her where she got it. Cafe East at the lobby of Lerner Hall, said she, slightly frightened. and with this information, i am now happily aslurping too! milk tea with pearls two days ago, mango with pearls yesterday, honey jasmine with pearls today. and it’s even better than the stuff back home! unbelievable, i know.
my classes this semester : Literature Humanities (we’re reading The Iliad right now), Frontiers of Science - a compulsory class which i thought would be lame but my professor is this really awesome guy so i think this class may just be fun, Elementary Italian, Calculus I and Principles of Economics. i could have placed out of the latter two classes because i did those in college, but then i decided not to because the syllabi may be different. but seeing how expensive textbooks are here, i just may place out.
i’m trying to finish up The Iliad but Martian is here in my room disturbing me. how to study like this? is this why all those church groups used to warn us against BGR?
September 5th, 2008
i write this in a mild state of shock - a direct effect of the sudden imposed revamping of my linguistic hard-wiring. i used to think that if i ever moved to the US or the UK, i would be able to quickly and smoothly adapt to the local lingo, owing to the fact that i read a lot and talk often to friends of both countries, but after four days here, i find that i have been grossly presumptuous about my adapting capabilities. it’s not as easy as reminding yourself to say ‘kleenex’ everytime you want tissue; instead, it is about being totally cautious about what multiple names any given item may have, and then running through your head what would be the American name for it. here, it is ‘elevator’, never ‘lift’. those nametags you hang around your neck during orientation or events? it’s called a badge. ‘faucet’, not ‘tap’. and like, no sentence is complete without throwing in the word ‘like’ as a precursor to like, your articulation of ideas. i observe and soak up these idiosyncrasies with intrigue and bright eyes. yet at the back of my head, i still miss saying, ‘what lah you!’.
so it’s my fourth day here in New York and i must say that things are getting very exciting. i was so tired for the first couple of days because it was non-stop speed-socializing on top of all the unpacking and settling down, and it was hard to even get a moment of alone time because everyone here is so chatty and eager to make friends. dorm room doors here are mostly left often, so people can walk in and out as they please, looking at your books and eating your cookies or whatever. that’s fine by me, but i must admit that my room door has been mostly closed, simply because i still need my me-time to do my own stuff without having to make small talk every now and then. small talk is easy, i know, but believe me it gets so exhausting when you have to repeat the same stuff about yourself every 5 minutes.
however, listening to (probably repeated every 5 minutes too) stuff about my new schoolmates is a whole different thing altogether. i absolutely love it. there are so many different kinds of people here, all of whom are extremely bright and talented individuals with the most diverse hobbies and backgrounds. i met this girl who’s a contortionist on rope - basically a gymnast who does all sorts of stunts on a rope suspended high off the floor. she showed me pictures of some of her performances and i was totally awestruck at how unique her hobby was. then there’s this guy who builds robots in his free time, and he once built a small machine that would run off on wheels with his alarm clock every time the alarm goes off, just so that he would have to get out of bed and hunt it down, awakening himself in the process. damn cool right? and there are many others with equally interesting stories. mine sound bleak in comparison, but the odd thing is, everytime i talk about myself, the focal point of the conversation always falls on malaysian politics.
almost everyone i’ve spoken to knows about malaysia and our politics. the first few times it happened, i was so fascinated, because i was expecting to say things like, ‘oh we’re north of singapore’. of course, Anwar is the most well-known topic among them, and one guy even knew about the Permatang Pauh win. the best part was when i was explaining the social contract to someone, and i used the word ‘indigenous’ in place of bumiputera.. and the girl sitting next to her piped up and told her friend, “oh the term is ‘bumis’” :O words fail me. i feel an urge to go read up on Venezuelan politics now.
thanks to everyone who’s emailed or MSNed me to ask how things are, or left me supportive comments on my blog. i’ve been good. tired, like i said, but very good. i’ve been settling down well. when i first got here, my aunt came to pick me up at JFK armed with this huge box of stuff that i really needed, like voltage converters, adapters, snacks, water bottles, mug, tissue kleenex and vitamins. then she took me to buy furniture and things for my dorm room. and yesterday she called me to ask if i wanted a rice cooker or a water boiler! she truly is an angel :D and then of course, Martian came here with me to help ease the transition and to give me extra luggage allowance!!! he’s staying at a nearby hotel and checking out museums while i’m at school, but he’s gonna be leaving soon :( i feel very thankful that he came with me though. i feel less lonely and homesick knowing that he’s just a few blocks away from me, and of course it’s so good to be able to spend some more time with him.
and speaking of luggage allowance, i really wish i had brought more stuff because i had something like an additional 20kgs that i didn’t use. should have brought Pooch, more shoes, more photos and more bags :( i really miss Pooch! (he’s this stuffed dog that Martian bought me, btw)
and while i dont have my American phone number yet (soon, soon! i decided on AT&T), what i do have is my mailing address! so if any of you guys wanna drop me a postcard or a letter, which i would really really love, the address is :
Su Ann Lim
5771 Lerner Hall
2920 Broadway
New York, NY 10027-8358
United States of America
i’m thinking i’m going to get my mom to courier Pooch to me :D along with lots of Maggi. dining hall food is balls. i’ve been eating nothing but apples and pretzels since i got here :( oh but yesterday Martian took me to Little Italy for pasta so that was good. and just to give you guys a gauge of how truly expensive NYC cabs are, a 20-minute ride from my college to Little Italy cost us 22 dollars, inclusive of a 2 dollar tip. that’s an RM 75 cab ride!!! oh the trauma! we swore never to take another cab in NYC again :\ the subway is cool but still a bit foreign to me, which is why i got lost coming back from Times Square. wuwuwu!
and uncharacteristically, i dont actually have any photos of my college! hahaha! i just realized that myself. have been so busy running around that i totally forgot to take pictures. but i will take many in due time. for now, i will just have to show you the only photo i have, which is a snapshot of one page from the used copy of The Iliad i bought from my school’s bookstore. the former owner basically annotated the pages with his own contemporary interpretation of the verses:
oh and i am changing the timestamp on my blog to NY time! i’m exactly 12 hours behind you guys, and it’s almost 7pm now, which means it’s time for a quick dinner before the next orientation event.
sigh. i miss lots of things already.
August 28th, 2008
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