This Is A Salty Popcorn Zone

despite the imminent dawn of 4 more midterms and the tragically slow elevator in my residence hall, college is still all kinds of awesome. i’m going into my third month here, and i’m still as thrilled by the novelty of the university and the city – and i suppose the new life in general – as i was when i first arrived. i remember thinking as i got out of the car on that crisp August day, that i would never be able to familiarize myself with the maze-like neighborhood that encompassed the campus. but now, two full months later, i feel local already. i know all the nearby restaurant names by heart. i’ve learned the price difference in stationery between the three different bookstores in the vicinity. i’m also a regular recipient of routine emotional abuse from the cashiers at Morton Williams. now those girls have some ‘tude. but i forgive them, because they are the last barrier between me and a nice hot plastic plate of microwaveable tikka masala.

you guys, you all have to come study here. or at least, come visit. i dont quite know how to convey my excitement of just being here, and how much i think so many of you would love it here at Columbia or in New York. for instance, we discussed memes in Frontiers of Science class today, and i couldnt help but think of Waffle who wrote us an angsty email once because we kept referring to online personality quizzes as ‘memes’ when it really meant something scientific. i see cute white guys and i wish Skyler were here to feast her eyes. and yesterday, i bought some Keebler peanut butter cookies because KY says they’re really good. and i know Wai Min would love latin dance classes every Tuesday night as much as i do.

i’ve found some kind of comfort here that i cannot explain. yet, it is a fast-paced kind of comfort, because there’s always something to do or something new to explore. all the museums, art galleries, neighborhoods, dog parks, bookstores, shopping avenues, chinatown, avant garde boutiques… how does one not feel overwhelmed by the sheer expanse of this place? how does one know where to go first? i suddenly feel like 4 years here isn’t enough. i fear that New York will evolve before i get to experience it fully. and that it will keep evolving, and i will never be able to ever say, i know New York.

in a more micro sense, i love my room. i love the people at college – my floormates, my classmates, the people from Model UN, ballroom classes, the DDR club (oh yes), italian cinema nights and the random ones who strike up a conversation while waiting in line for bubble tea. they are all so smart and knowledgeable that it’s thrillingly challenging, yet fun. and i love my bottom drawer where i stash all my food. i love the fact that if i need anything, i can just walk down to the 24-hour supermarket across the street. and i love the cheesesteak at JJ’s…

in many ways, i feel like someone who’s been reborn, learning to speak, walk and talk all over again. i’m delighting in all the new discoveries – the apprehension in the pit of my stomach as i load my clothes in the dryer, room raiding drunkenly at 4 in the morning, learning how to play ping pong and getting hit in the nose by the ball, crowding in front of the television to laugh at Sarah Palin, salty microwaveable popcorn on Gossip Girl Mondays. then there’s also the stress of assignments and classroom expectations; i wish someone had warned me there would be this much work in college. i have my burn-out moments, but i think i’ve come to relish the stress of working hard. it feels so good to see a perfect score on my assignments even though i spent sleepless nights working on them. plus everyone here doesnt sleep at night, so there’s always company in the long horrid hours of churning out a 2000-word paper on the day it’s due.

it’s 7 in the morning as i write this; i’ve been up all night cramming for my Literature Humanities midterm tomorrow. i feel good about it, which is inane because i only started studying yesterday and have been Sparksnoting my way through the semester so far. which is why i have to go back to studying now :) but i leave you with an exclusive photograph of an original Martian masterpiece. this is the front of a card he left for me:

i love my boyfriend very much, but for the sake of modern art, i hope he never decides to take his artistry to professional levels :\

41 comments October 22nd, 2008

A Little Bit Of Home

the corners of my mouth are still a little bit greasy from the half-slice of bak kwa, or yuk kon as my family prefers to call it, that i generously allowed myself to have, a few minutes ago. the wonderful sweet meat is from a little shop that i stumbled upon while walking along Allen Street in Chinatown today. this is the first time i’ve seen bak kwa being sold in NYC, and i was so glad and relieved to have found the shop. i couldnt wait to sit down and open the packet to have some bak kwa! and now that i have, i am experiencing that sticky and double-chinned but satisfied feeling that i always get when i eat bak kwa. this city always gently holds out to me little slivers of home when i least expect it.

i had some very fascinating conversations with several fellow freshmen the other day. it was during an event for international students, and while talking to this Swiss guy who seemed to know a fair bit about Malaysia, a Polish guy joined us and shared that he was vacationing in Penang during the 2004 tsunami. so we all started talking about Malaysia, much to my delight. the Swiss guy seemed to have the impression that KL is a very ugly city because he was told that we have many highways and that the city is very pedestrian-unfriendly. undeniable on both counts, but i assured him that there are very, very few cities in the world that are more beautiful than KL to me. the Polish guy then chimed in and said that he found it very amusing that Malaysian girls seemed to hate getting tanned, because when he was at the beach in Penang, he noticed that a lot of Malaysian girls darted quickly under trees or were constantly in long-sleeved shirts despite the heat. i couldnt help but laugh because i immediately thought of Tze Ching. and Darren.. although he isnt exactly a Malaysian girl.

the novelty of people knowing about Malaysia’s petroleum industry and Anwar Ibrahim has worn off a little bit, but i got very excited when i spotted from across the room, a guy wearing a shirt with a Malaysian flag on his sleeve. he was in the middle of a very heated discussion, and i was fidgeting for about 5 minutes wondering if i should just interrupt and ask him why he was wearing that shirt.

i eventually did, and he told me he was in KL last year for a Model UN conference at ISKL. i got even more excited and squealed that i lived really near there. “oh my god, you live in Ampang?” he asked, equally excited, and i was extremely impressed that he pronounced it correctly (äm-päng, not ām-pāng). he went on to say that he thought the best thing about Malaysia was the mamak stalls, also pronounced with the correct ‘a’, and that he loved tosai with dahl. amazing. he knew and could remember so much about KL even though he was only there for 4 days and was at a conference most of the time. it kinda mitigated the slightly depressing conversation with Swiss Guy who heard KL is ugly and the one with Polish Guy who said his first observation of Malaysians was that they nonchalantly threw trash everywhere.

after all these weeks of talking mostly about politics when the topic of Malaysia comes up within my new friends, it felt strangely – but i guess not unexpectedly – good to talk about something trivial like mamak stalls. apparently the one that Model UN Guy went to all the time was in Taman Sri Ukay, because he lived there with his host family. to hear a foreigner say ‘Taman Sri Ukay’ in perfect intonation is an experience everyone should have. i felt proud, a glowing feeling that lasted a couple of hours, that Malaysia was so interesting to this one person that it could captivate his fancy this much.

spotted in an asian mart, next to some cans of 100 plus and milo

i also love hanging out with the singaporeans here because they ALL (except this guy called Chang) still have their accents and can switch back to it within a split second. lah leh mah meh wah sibeh ex. i loooove the fact that after a full day of straining to speak in an American accent and practicing Italian speech for my classes, i can meet up with the singaporeans and let my tongue loose (in a purely linguistic sense of the phrase), and we can compare notes on the little Americanisms that we’ve observed over the course of the day. like.. how everyone here holds doors open for the person behind them and how everyone in your vicinity says ‘bless you!’ when you sneeze.

but of course, there are no proxies that are better than the real thing. in my first week here, i was introduced to a whole bunch of Malaysians (of course, by means of Chen Chow, because EVERYBODY knows Chen Chow…) working here in NYC. i’m really glad to have met them because they are so much fun to hang out with, and they remind me a lot of my friends back home.

i met up with some of the Malaysians over a buka puasa ramadhan bazaar at the Malaysian UN Consulate sometime last week, and the array of food drove all of us crazy. it was so good to see onde-onde, satay, asam laksa, karipap, cucur udang, bubur durian, nasi dagang, nasi lemak, popiah and RAMLI BURGER all under one roof, cooked by the wives of malaysian ambassadors and delegates working here in NYC. it was also nice to speak malay again, ‘berapa kak?’, ‘pedas tak?’ ‘ni buat apa?’. even though i didnt know any of those ambassadors or their wives, it was so easy to strike up conversation in Malay and talk freely like friends. if there is any reason for our government to insist on children learning 11 years of Bahasa Malaysia, this is it. the ability to speak malay is an access to unity that i have sadly taken for granted all of my life.

us girls very excited to see sugar cane and lychee drinks at the bazaar

i was also really amused while listening to the young children talk. they all had flawless american accents when speaking amongst themselves, but they almost always reverted to colloquial malay when speaking to their parents. the kids were the ones manning the Ramli burger stall by the way, and i must say they make a very mean burger ayam special tambah sos cili!

Carol is staying over with me right now, because tomorrow we’re going with the singaporeans to Woodbury Commons for a full day of fabulous shopping. i’m really glad to have her here with me :) next week Suet is coming to stay and that will be much fun too. Carol will join us, and then we will have a night of Malaysian dinner and a lot of good ol’ gossiping and catching up.

i feel thankful for these little slivers of home (though sometimes they feel larger than life) that i am serendipitously finding in little nooks and crannies of New York, but sometimes bared out in the open for me to just reach out and grab at. whether in loud or subtle ways, my transition from home to away is eased by these things, and i find that every day that i spend here in this new city, i love it more and more.

65 comments September 27th, 2008

Times Square Shines As Bright As You

i woke up today to many long emails in my inbox, from friends and strangers alike, all offering encouragement, support and their own LDR success stories, following my comments-off post from yesterday. even till now the mails are still coming in. thank you :) i’m feeling so much better and a lot less lonely now. you all are so cool!

i loved reading the success stories the best, many of them about long years apart and finally ending in marriage, or high school sweethearts who are still together to this day. stories like these fill me with so much hope and encouragement. and it’s always so interesting to hear how different couples have navigated the arduous LDR process! webcams and skype are everyone’s best friend, it seems :D

today was a good day and i was kept reasonably busy. got caught in a sudden downpour at one point and missed a class because it was all the way at the other end of campus and i didnt have an umbrella. all my books got wet too :( i cant wait to go umbrella shopping and buy the cutest umbrella there is. and a pair of colorful wellingtons to splosh around in!

i also signed up to tryout for the Parliamentary Debate team here at college.. but i’m not sure yet if i like the american parliamentary style. it’s two-a-side and the opposition is unaware of the motion until the government start speaking. it’s a challenging format that displays excellent rhetoric, but at the expense of structure and in some cases, substance. oh wells, i will give it a shot anyway :) i’m going to be in my element because talking fast (something that i always gravitate towards despite harsh rebuke from previous trainers) in american parli is a good thing, but i already foresee myself having a big problem talking fast without segueing into Manglish. over here, they dont understand me when i speak with a Malaysian accent :( speaking in an American accent is fine, but it can be tiring. i dont know if i’m up to debating in a whole new accent..

and after a lot of thought, i decided not to write for any papers. i’m also going to do some form of dance, but i’m not sure which. either that or figure skating. or maybe equestrian. and i also signed up for the surfing club, hahaha! there’s no Malaysian club here so i joined the South East Asian League. oh and the Singaporean Club had a durian at their booth!!! i squealed and tried to eat it.

i also meant to take some photos of my campus to show, but the skies were so gloomy today. so, another time maybe. but for now i will show you pictures of Times Square!! it’s an amazing place with so much to see and do, and i will definitely be blogging more about Times Square when i have the chance to explore all its nooks and crannies!

#1 one of those ubiquitous hot dog stands

#2 hot dog with relish, kraut, ketchup and onions! yummm :D

#3 we went to watch Little Mermaid the Musical on Broadway. sigh! see my excited face!! i am swooning just recalling it. it is an excellent musical and adaptation of the Disney movie. trust me when i say the story is better than in the movie. and i say this despite the movie being my favorite Disney show of all time. will blog more about this soon, or maybe after i’ve watched a few more Broadway shows

#4 Times Square at night

#5 posing ala deodarant!

#6 this guy and his bunch of friends saw me doing that and started imitating me in their own photos. hahaha so funny. so i snapped a pic of him!

#7 and then we took a photo together!

#8 me and Martian :) stupid Bank of America sign bleached the whole photo red.

#9 in Times Square, even the subway station is lit up with neon signs..

#10 as well as the McDonalds!! even the police station here is done up in neon signs.

#11 EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ^_________^

#12 Martian made me do this -_- apparently because i pout a lot in photos. YA MEH WHERE GOT

#13 ‘The TShirt’. only as common as the phrase “New York, New York”

#14 this spray paint artist (among many others) was doing such an amazing job. that piece of work on the table was done solely using spray cans, some round covers for the planets and a little piece of cardboard that he used to ’scrape’ out the outline of the buildings. so talented

#15 while we were watching the artist, suddenly all these cops started running past us O_O and running VERY quickly too! our first NYPD-in-action sighting!!! besides the men on foot, several cop cars quickly blocked all traffic at the intersection. just to nab this one woman in a tight black dress and heels. i was so impressed that they actually caught her! the above photo is them shoving her into their vehicle. i’m so curious to know what she did…

#16 back to being happy after the NYPD action was over

#17 i seriously wonder how much it costs to place an ad on that tall skinny building in the middle

#18 a totally accidental pose, i swear!!! Martian’s just very good at capturing moments

#19 but i’m better :D my favorite photo of the night.

okay gotta go! have to finish Italian homework. folks back home, please eat some mooncake for me!

72 comments September 10th, 2008

Things I Learnt About College And NYC Part 1

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?

97 comments September 5th, 2008

The Tale Of The Flatiron And Other Stories

at the foot of the Flatiron building – a famed and historical structure in Fifth Avenue NYC – at a little past midnight yesterday, shortly after i attempted to put up a good struggle but lost:

Martian: sigh. look at it, baby. isn’t it wonderful?

Martian: ….

little things like the above conversation always snake their way into my days to remind me of just how different Martian and i are, and also to make me smile. to most people, this little snippet of lovers’ dialogue must mean nothing, but it’s precious to me. i really like how Martian and i share things and do things together, even though we dont necessarily enjoy it. this Flatiron building for instance – Martian has been insisting for the past week that he absolutely must show me this building, otherwise he can’t sleep. i still dont know why he likes it so much; apparently it was an architectural wonder back in its day, but i played along anyway because he was just so excited about it. in the same way, he probably doesnt understand why i like musicals so much and why i cried buckets while watching The Little Mermaid on Broadway earlier tonight, yet still brings me to these shows and sits through them even though he hates them.

nevertheless, here’s the Flatiron. it’s actually triangular but you cant really tell from this picture:

anyway i also want to say that Martian and i have moved up one significant rung on the metaphorical relationship ladder! this happened a few weeks ago, and i apologize for keeping so quiet about this, but i just wanted to figure out the best way to break the news to everyone, especially my parents. and after a lot of thought, i have realized that there is no better way to do this than to just be frank. after all, the whole point is that this means Martian and i are closer than ever, and that is a good thing.

so… what’s happened is that… Martian now unabashedly wipes his boogers on me.

i’m not farking joking. he used to be so shy about it, but now when he doesnt have any tissue after picking his nose, he’ll just, like, wipe it on me. and then he laughs. he doesnt even care if i’m wearing a new top. is this supposed to be cute? is this supposed to be endearing? is this what happens after two people see each other for too long? i will never know the answer. so i just wipe my boogers back on him.

a couple of photos from last weekend, when my aunt took me to visit UPenn:

1. this is the Broken Button at Penn. Yau tells me that people apparently have sex underneath it… o__O

2. i tried to climb up onto that platform to take a photo with the statue of Benjamin Franklin, but it was quite high up so it was a bit difficult. while i was trying to climb up, campus security drove over in a little cart and started honking at me -_- then they started following me around -_- what is this!!! i wasnt damaging property or anything…

3. sigh so i had to content myself with a boring picture of sitting on the lap of another Ben Franklin statue.. which i’m sure EVERYBODY has done before… -_- *grumpy

4. you know you are Malaysian when you are very amused by things like this and MUST take a photo with it. happy merdeka everyone!!

5. and lastly, spotted at the Philadelphia Museum of Art – a funny rendition of The Scream by a 15-year-old girl called Danielle.

50 comments September 3rd, 2008