My life at your convenience

bahasa indonesia

2008-05-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

wah, hebat. ini post ketigaku hari ini. di dalam bahasa indo lagi. kenapa ya? mungkin cemen iseng deh.

kalau ada orang indo baca ini, kasih tau aku dong kalau tulisan gua salah. yap, trims.

aku ini orang indo, tapi lama lama lupa gimana tulis ngomong baca indo. gawat gawat. jadi sekarang mesti latihan kan? iya dong

masa sekarang aku mulai belajar bahasa spanish sih, padahal bahasa indo nya masi belum di master (master di indo itu apa ya?)

waduh...........sedih aku, orang indo tapi tak bisa bahasa indo. satu satu nya jalan keluar adalah aku mesti belajar sekarang. yes, mesti.

2008-05-03T20:42:00.001-07:00

heh. just thought about my chances of getting into med school here. not only must you get super high scores, you must... or nevermind, like anyone will know the american education system anyway.... summary: it is very difficult.
ah, succinct.

then, med schools here typically give spaces to residents first, then any space they have left they will give to the best international students. that places me, an international student, somewhere below used tissue and above scum-stucked-at-the-bottom-of-your-shoe when it comes to being admitted into med school. hah.

and that is why i'm just a teeny tiny bit discouraged. ok, so maybe quite a lot. but hey, i wont give up! no way man! i'll prove to them that i can do it too!
I am so gonna work hard till i froth and foam at the mouth (figure of speech pls)!

GRR

kiddy genius

2008-05-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

hem, i've calmed down somewhat. no use worrying eh? at the most, i can become a camerawoman instead :D yeah!

anyway, on to today's post:

in my time (i'm feeling old now), people used to say to their 5 year-olds "Bobby, draw me a circle! good boy!"

you know what, my 5 year old cousin Christopher knows english fluently, bahasa indonesia fairly and is learning bits of chinese, french and spanish. goodness me. and one day, i was sitting with him as my aunt was teaching him, and she said " Christopher, draw me a pentagon!"

Pentagon?! what happened to circles? of course, like any normal kid, Christopher prefers to draw circles and rectangles or squares (yes, he memorized the difference), but he could actually draw pentagons! for those of u reading this who cant draw one, shame... shame...

apparently, as i soon found out, he was also required to draw hexagons etc. again, for those of you who cant draw hexagons at a whim, shame...shame...
this is required for kindergarten (he is in preschool now).

arent you feeling stupid now? yeah, me too...

Academic suicide

2008-05-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

however i look at it, i cannot escape. i have to take 22 units a quarter in order to transfer on time. i'm so gonna die.

why must UC davis have that blasted cap of 105 transferrable units?!

my only other option is to take it easy, and take classes that i want to take over a 2 year period. that's fine, except that because of that blasted cap of 105 units, half of what i take will not be transferrable.

ppl tell me, relax, take the classes because you like it. come on! who on earth can take a class that consumes 15 hrs a week of your time for fun? ARGHH!

blast it! i need to meet my counsellor...

coffeeholic

2008-04-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

in singapore, i thought that drinking coffee itself is not gd already. here, i am averaging 3 cups a day. oh dear. and not those crazy sweet more-sugar-than-caffeine concoctions.

here, coffee is a way of life, a ritual. first u drink it every morning. then u drink during break so that u dont sleep during class. when u arrive home u drink another cuppa if u feel like it. finally, a cup to keep u awake enough to do homework.

the coffee sold outside is always the brewed type; not the diluted monstrosity u get from the vending machine in st margs. i dont even know why i drink that. maybe just to delude myself into feeling awake since that coloured water couldnt possibly contain real coffee; it's too expensive you see.

haha, and i still remember how shocked mrs (er, my sec 4 math teacher who i really like and dont mean to forget her name just so you know in case she reads this) was when she saw me drinking that 'coffee' during the o levels study periods (the one in the com labs until 7pm). "what? why you drinking coffee instead of milo?! you're too young!"

if only she can see me now.

2008-04-22T18:36:00.001-07:00

oh no.

today eric told me that there are only 5 indonesian girls versus 30 indonesian guys. he asked some guy called hans or smth.

i refuse to believe this. nvm, i guess i'll find out during saturday's indonesian barbeque event.

i have a book review and summary to do :( i dont want to do it! procrastination is the way to go.

2008-04-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

It seems, unfortunately, that indonesian parents are more at ease with sending their sons rather than their daughters to the US. Which is why i became the only new indonesian girl this spring, compared to 4 new indonesian guys.

and now, 1 week after school has started, i found myself in the unique position of being the only girl surrounded by 8 guys during a lunch one day after church. it was kinda strange, but what to do. i discovered that boys probably inhale their food judging from the speed with which food disappeared from the table. The plate of mayonnaise prawns that i wanted to sample practically evaporated, leaving me sadly prawnless.

oh dear.

today, after yet another lunch, this time surrounded by 4 guys, i decided to give up hope of meeting more indonesian girls anytime soon. there are just too few. i see them in church, but not really in school. must make friends with them soon!

it's quite funny actually. someone up there must have decided that since i have been "deprived" of guys for 10 years (being in st.margs and all), i should be practically buried under them now.

haha..... sigh.

I miss sec school!

2008-04-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

oh man... they always say that uni is so easy cos the teachers dont care if you come or not etc etc and you can pon whenever you want and not do homework :))) unfortunately, i found out that it is so not true :(((

if the teachers read this, they wld probably have a heart attack :D wad? stephanie has such horrifying study habits??? hahaha

the rules are :
if u miss class more than 3 times (even if you are sick), you get kicked out
if u are late by 10 min, it is considered half an absence
if you dont pass up hw more than once or twice, either your grades will skydive or you get kicked out
the teachers NEVER accepts late homework.

oh dear...

Singlish is a Language!

2008-04-05T21:52:00.001-07:00

photos here. the 1st ones are of foothill college. very unflattering name, i know. makes me think of feet whenever i hear it. must be why de anza college has more international students. non-locals probably think : wad the? foothill? foot+hill? ugh.... but it's a gd college really. it is one of the few with an agreement with The University of California,Los Angeles Campus. if i can get there, that wld be great. the only downside is that housing will cost a bomb, what with the campus being near beverly hills and all.

anyway, let me defend my school. it is called foothill 'cause it is literally built at the foot of a hill. i actually have to huff up and down to different parts of the campus. the best thing is that whenever u are sick of studying, u can just go out of the building and enjoy the mountainous backdrop. very relaxing.

btw, i went to get my books the other day. they costed USD$500, and that is horrendous considering that i

1)made a point to buy used books 2)the books will only last for 3 months (1quarter) and 3) they are only for 4 subjects : chem, calculus and english and counselling (mandatory).

i didnt think that 4 subjects wld be hard. after all, i survived secondary school and O levels. but when the bookstore helper saw my books, she practically gulped and wished me good luck, saying that i had chosen a very demanding combination. oh dear.

oh ya, one more news that i think singaporeans will welcome: Singlish is a language! before i came here, i didnt think that singlish should be considered a language. but now, wow! when i introduce myself to people, they actually ask me : are u from singapore? and i will ask them how they knew this, and they will tell me : U HAVE A SINGLISH ACCENT.

wah, when something has its own accent, i think that it should be considered a proper official language. just like british accent and american accent, the singlish accent is unique, even though all three countries speak the same language: English. so, if the british get british english, and the americans get american english, surely singaporeans must get SINGLISH.

embarassingly, people here sometimes cant understand what i say cos of my accent. i had to inject some "ang moh" accent before they get me. i think mdm su wld be so proud, finally im speaking non-monotonishly.

hah.

anyway, the other photos are just to show u the pink trees found here. they are covered totally by flowers. i always thought that when spring comes, the buds and leaves wld come first, and then the flowers. apparantely not. the flowers appear on bare branches, and the leaves appear weeks later.

interesting

2008-03-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

i got my headset and credit card just now, so skype's on.

i went to Costco just now. it's a giant hypermart that sells everything uber cheap by buying and selling in bulk. so, why get 12 sausages when u can (and only can) get 30 in a super sized pack? and thus i found myself laden with huge-mongous 1.5L bottles of moisturiser. i would have prefered to get a small portable bottle, but no, that's not the Costco way. at least i might get muscles lugging the bottles around. my cup ranneth over with joy. (not the choklat joy, the emotion)

2008-03-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

hm, i havent written anything for close to a month now. well, i've been in the US since march 5th and i've visited mountain view, los altos, los altos hills, sunnyvale, san jose, saratoga, campbell, san francisco, davis, tahoe city, las vegas, sacramento, nevada state, los angeles, barstow, bakersfield and i cant remember what else and im crazy tired now. yawn.

i havent exactly found a place to stay yet. i get to stay with me distant relative and his family for maybe 3 months then i gotta find another place.

my laptop just arrived. it's nice. but i havent gotten a headset and credit card yet so i cant do skpe (oops, sorry liyu!).

I havent gotten a permanent phone number too. btw, my singapore number is gonna be cancelled.

the levels of english, math and chemistry here is lower than in singapore. english is like new south wales test. okok. math is like sec 4 level, just that they expect u to memorise all formulas including the sin cos tan stuff. no formula sheets. chem is like, wow, sec3 or smth. ok, maybe sec4. so, i guess it's true, standard's here abt 2/3 years behind singapore.

btw, the indonesians here are super friendly. on my first day of orientation, i met 2 indonesian guys, eric and kennedy, from singapore also. they were from beatty and bartly secondary. made friends, then suddenly met this indonesian guy, older, from the local indonesian church. he was actually waiting to befriend the new indonesians. so i met rudy. then i met another indonesian guy, denny,from hwa chong JC. where are all the indonesian girls?! after the orientation was over, we (me, eric, kennedy, denny) walked out of the meeting room to find representatives from the indonesian club waiting for us. Jessica, from ACJC!, another girl-whose-name-im-sorry-i-cant-for-the-life-of-me-remember, and this guy-whose name-i-used-to-remember-but-forgot. whooops, STM.

by friday that week, i had gone to the church BBQ and met many many indonesians-whose-name-im-really-sorry-but-i-forgot-also TT.TT

wow.

but there are also many non-indonesians. the largest foreign grp is the hong kongers, u can hear cantonese everywhere. I met ppl like Elif from turkey, eri and saori from japan, angela from korea, chender from malaysia, ann from russia, chuck and ilis? from india, someone from the mediterranean. err err cant remeber anymore.

im starting school on the 7th and im not ready yet.

sigh.

yay

2008-02-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

I got my visa today!

there was a crazy long queue outside the embassy and i had to wait such a long time before actually getting the interview. it was short. hm. i spent a lot of my time yesterday preparing for the interview: birt certs, land deeds, bank statements blah blah, i got it all. i tot for all that trouble i would at least be greeted with a small poorly-lit room with 2 strangers on one side of the table and me on the other. their faces will be hidden in the shadows and mine will be lit with strategically positioned lamps.

but no............. they've got to be completely practical. it was a little counter and we had the interview standing up (me). he flipped thru my stuff and threw some questions at me and that's it. " well, there doesnt seem to be any problem! you can collect your visa next tuesday, bye! "

hrump. and here i tot they were supposed to screen out the bad guys and prevent them from entering the country. ahwell, easier for me to get a visa i suppose. okok, so a part of me (the irrational crazy one) was anticipating some action! but nvm abt that.

hm. i have 1 week to pack. wad to bring wad to bring.......

Hem

2008-02-13T23:13:00.000-08:00

okay...... my second blog! (my first died after a paltry 1 post)

hem, hum, haw.....

strange.