A beautiful song

Heard this from a friend's blog. I was so mesmerized by the angelic voice and beautiful lyrics that I want to share it with you guys.

Fantastic KTV session

Yes. There's a karaoke lounge in Berkeley and it has all the latest Mandarin songs here. Guess what's the big deal? The whole KTV session of 7 hours were fully sponsored by Singapore International Foundation, a foundation set up to support Singaporeans in overseas colleges. Plus we get loads of free food and drinks. Yippee. Had a great time singing. We even have a singing competition at the last hour of the session and all the contestants were excellent singers. Fantastic. What a great karaoke session we had. But what I valued most was the amount of networking I accomplished through this KTV session. Not only did I interact and exchange contact with the executive director of Singapore American Business Association (SABA), who later invited me to help her in an upcoming SABA Gala Dinner in SF, I also interacted with a big bunch of NOC - NUS Overseas College program students who are currently working in Silicon Valley and studying part time in Stanford University. There was this cute girl currently in NOC who caught my eye early during the KTV session, but I didn't expect the following events to happen. I merely bumped into her outside the restroom and immediately we struck a great conversation. She was so impressed by my credentials, just because she knew it's hard to get to UCB for exchange and that set the tone for her to know me better, though I keep telling her she was flattering me. What surprised me was her eagerness to persuade me to pursue NOC after I expressed my interest in NOC and my reservation in delaying my graduation by a year. Guess she has such a strong urge to help me, she even walked into my KTV room late on and pulled me out of the room to get my contact and gave me her heartfelt personal sharing and advice to extend my graduation and come to Silicon Valley NOC upon identifying her own plight with me. It's rare I get anybody sharing so passionately with me, though I also got great advice from the rest of NOC students who similarly gave me the same encouragement to pursue NOC in SV. All these inspiring encouragement might just make up my decision to relive my American dream, i.e. pursue NOC in SV. I am still undecided at this stage, but my heart tells me to go. One reason is I so love America.

I shall leave you with a song which kinda describe my mood a few days back. I just learnt this song today and kept humming it in my head till now.

My First Ever House Party

Yeah. I just went for my first house party in a big bungalow. It was free entry and free flow of drinks too. How great a deal can you get? I have never let loose myself so much that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Girls were scantily dressed and most people were dressed up in all kind of costumes. One wore a cat costume and carried a whip. Another one wore a superman costume and so many guys crossed dressed as women. And oh my god, their boobs and long hair look so real, I almost thought they were ladies in the dark. Music was great and I had a great time dancing. The only spoiler was I didn't manage to get any girl to dance with me. Haiz. It's ok. I didn't expect much but my hot female house mate who was picked up, later give me tips on how to pick up girls. I shall try them out if I get to another house party. Haha. And I puked when I reached home this early morning. I was having a bad headache more than feeling nausea for the rest of the morning. Guess I can never be a good drinker.

From Agony to Jubilant

You can experience this two extreme emotions in just a matter of minutes. All you need is a evil, melodramatic teacher who loves manipulating and toying your feelings. And those who has been following my blog closely would have easily guess who he is. Of course, he's none other than my business law lecturer.

Today was the day of verdict for our mid term. Just as everybody was waiting anxiously for our paper, he started off his class in an unusual manner. "Honestly, I really love to give everybody an A for this class. You guys are a bunch of excellent students, but unfortunately, the school doesn't allow me to do this and I am sad to say most of you guys did badly." Everybody held their breadth by his sudden niceness and reveal of the truth. "Well, it's time to face the reality, no point crying over split milk, children."

Some background information. As the mid term was base on spotting and analyzing issues found in a single case study, he didn't mention anything about the total score for that paper before or during the mid term but merely state each issue correctly spotted and analyzed is worth 10 points and we are supposed to spot as many issues as we can. I just thought this was crap as how are we supposed to know how many issues to spot since there's no total score, so basically we just scrutinize for whatever issues we can find since we have no idea of the maximum number and pray that it's enough. So, when I got back my score and saw 117, I have absolutely no idea how I fared.

Only after he distributed the paper to everyone did he say there's 20 issues in total
and the total score is 200. Oh my god. I merely just passed? How can anybody pull off all the 20 issues in that case study. He starting writing out the grading for the different category of scores on the whiteboard. A >160, B 140-160, C 120 - 140, D 100-120, F < 100. Damn. I got a bloody D. What the hell am I doing in Berkeley? I really hate that sinking feeling again. I thought I was on the road to recovery after a few great scores in my past few tests and now I am back in the shit hole again. Am I not suited to come to Berkeley after all? At the same time, I heard loud moans around the class.

After the reality has sunk into us, he broke the dead silence. "These gradings are before we curve it, here's how things changed after curve." A+ >160, A >130, A- 120-130, B+ 110-120, B 100-110, B- 90-100, C+ 80-90 etc. Jesus Christ. My whole heart momentarily jumped off. I just got myself a B+ close to an A-. What a dramatic change. I expected myself to do decent for this paper but maybe not as much as an B+ since I wasn't wholehearted when I do the paper and I have never been a great writer. Apparently, those outspoken whites who always fight to talk in class are less fluent in writing or they have problem spotting issues which is strange to me. Well, heck, I just wanna rejoice for now. There's even a student questioning if that grading distribution is final to which the lecturer answered, " You think I have so much time to kill and do nothing for the rest of class."

There you go. Isn't it interesting to have such a lecturer teaching you? Lots of excitement and unpredictability. You never know when he's serious or when he's joking.

My blog smile back at me

Ok, apparently, my photos are back. Guess I was throwing my tantrums needlessly. =)

Even my blog pour on my sorrows

I am so depressed right now after I got some news in the morning and here my blog is pouring on my sorrows by removing all my photos. How miserable can you get? Do I deserve so much shit that "somebody" even has to play pranks on me too? Life just sucks.

Do not judge a book by its cover

Surprisingly, the lady whom I studied together today turned out to be a nice lady who gave me a 3 hour review on the content to be tested in the upcoming mid term. Amazing. She has pretty much turned into my personal tutor for that class. Haha. I thought I was going to sit through the session studying my own notes since I haven't done much revision, but yet she offered to summarize the important points and possible questions that could be set in the upcoming mid term. She's such a hardworking person that she attends the GSI, graduate student instrutor, office hours and obtained many tips and hints from the GSI on the possible questions that could be set and she shared them all with me unselfishly. Woo. Well, it's a norm to consult the GSI and lecturer in Berkeley, but somehow I am lazy to go for office hours, mainly due to my lack of revision, but I can't find time to revise early in the first place. Haiz. Now, I know how to get recommendation letters for your resume. Go to office hours and chat up with your instructor or lecturer.

Ambivalent Day

Yep, it's a strange day for me. Both a pleasant and unwelcome surprise happened in a short space of a day. I shall start off with the unwelcome first before moving to the pleasant one.

I was picked up by a girl. Ok, before you debate with me on this statement, let me say this is subjective and you guys tell me what you think. The same girl who asked me to study together in library tucked me, yep hold my arm, to accompany her to a nearby shop house to buy a drink. Being a nice guy, I accompanied her though I wanted to rush home and get ready to buy groceries at a faraway supermart as it's getting close to dinner time and I wanted to cook. Then this absurd thing happened. When she didn't have small change for her drink, she asked me to pay for her without mentioning she's going to pay me back. Oh my goodness, is that the way to get a guy to treat you? She kept chattering away telling me how stress she was for her exams and how much she wanted to ace her studies. She kept asking me questions about that class when I haven't done any revision on that class though the exam is next week. Worse still, she told me about the new dress she bought that day and how much she likes it and asked me to accompany her to shop because I told her to relax when she shared how stressed up she was. See, it doesn't always pay to be kind. She even misunderstood I was going to the supermart straight and accompanied me to the bus stop when I wanted to go home. How miserable can you get? Wonder how's Sunday going to be like studying with her? Cross my fingers.

Now, let me share my pleasant news. I happened to know this Vietnamese girl a few days back who took 2 same classes as me. I didn't take notice of her until one of the lab session which I didn't have to take but for exam review I went for it. As there was only 8 people in that lab session, I took notice of her and realized she was also in the same class as me for another course. On the same day, coincidentally, I bumped into her outside the computer lab while waiting for our turn to use the computer terminals as there was a queue. That's when we formally introduce ourselves and chat up with each other. We didn't talk since until we bumped into each other again. And guess this time where did we bump? Even I couldn't have imagined this happening. Yes, outside my apartment. She saw me in the dim dusk light and greeted me first outside my apartment when I was back from the supermart with full of groceries on both hands. Apparently, she stayed in the same apartment as me. How small a world can you go? And she stays directly underneath me. OMG. Yet, I never saw her while walking to our common 8am classes on Monday, Wednesday or Friday. Either I have been late or been skipping too many of that class or she has been skipping classes herself. Let's see how much more will I see her in future. Come visit this blog for all the latest actions.

Why you should study alone in the library

My eventful day continues into the night in a school library which opens til 2am in the morning. I didn't have the habit of studying in the library until I came over to Cal, as I do not have a bright room and the library is about 10 min walk from home. Just as I was studying in the library, guess what, a classmate whom I didn't acknowledge before today just came over and talked to me. It's a white guy and we started off dicussing about our preparations for tomorrow's mid term exam, before deviating off to chit-chats. He told me about his intention to come to NUS for exchange and gave me advices of places to tour around in America, telling me to visit him if I drop by at his hometown in San Diego. Cool. One of my objectives for exchange is to make more White friends. I will certainly show him around Singapore if he comes to NUS.

So, as you can see, it's common for people to chat up with you as everybody is pretty much alone in everything they do here, especially when it come to classes, so they make friends wherever they move to. I have spoken to alot of people while walking on the streets of Berkeley who recognise me as their classmates. So what do you think of Americans now? Friendly?

Shall come to library more often to make more new friends. Haha.

What an eventful day

Well, eventful in the sense alot of shit and surprises happened in the same day.

I woke up this morning, realizing I lost my green B4 size notebook and I went around the campus searching for it, but I couldn't find it back. In Cal, your notebook is your livelihood since most classes here do not have lecture notes, but luckily just a few notes have been written on this new notebook I just bought or I will be stuck in deep depression right now.

Then, came the shocking news from my friend via MSN offline message. Not completely shocking, but I didn't like the news. Shan't divulge anything here, but it affected me my mood at a crucial time when I was about to take my business law exam in an hour.

Things didn't get better later on. When I reached the classroom for exam, I didn't know I was supposed to come prepared with a bluebook to write your answers and there was only 5 minutes to the start of exam. OMG. Good gracious, I made a friend in that class who was kind enough to show me and run with me all the way to the place to purchase the bluebook. Now I know studying in Cal carries so much hassle, you need "extra preparation" for the exam. To my relief and expectation, the paper was very manageable and I finished 5 minute before time when everybody is still scribbling.

Later in the day, somebody whom I just met and talked to just once invited me to study with her this Sunday for the next Thursday paper. (Yes, I still have 1 mid term test every week from next week till 1st week of November on top of quizzes and journal article reviews to handle.) Pretty surprising given the situation, but guess I am still very much a shy boy who feels coy when approached for such invitation by new friends.

Now, it's 4pm, wonder what else will happen tonight?

Round 2 of Photos

This should be my last entry for this week before I kick off my intensive preparation for my next 3 heavyweight tests on 3 consecutive days next week. I am been fooling around, in other words having fun, every weekend so much so I have yet to touch on any of my notes for 2 of upcoming tests. Good Gracious what am I thinking? 6 weeks worth of untouched notes plus an additional week of lecture before a 40%, a 15% and a 50% worth of mid term exams. I just finished 3 mid terms and now I have to deal with another triple. Jesus Christ. American university just placed so much weightage to mid terms you can't even afford to catch your breadth during the semester, needless to say lack of break other than public holidays. But somehow everybody here can do it? Damn. What happened to my supposedly high IQ I learnt from my Mensa score? Well, I am certain I will pull through in the end, have faith in me.

Ok, enough of lamenting on academics. Here's what you guys have been waiting for. For the past 3 weekends, I have watched a college football at Cal stadium, celebrate Mid Autumn Festival with Singaporeans and Malaysians at Stanford University and spent 2 days one night at Yosemite National Park. Enjoy the pictures.

Cal Female Volleyball Team in ActionCal Pong Pong Girls

Stanford Pong Pong Girls

Cal Football Stadium

Cal vs Arizona

Stanford University

CheeseCake Factory

Ok, I am dead tired uploading all the pictures and it's 2am now. I will upload more UCB campus, Yosemite and personal photos next week if I managed to survive through the tests. I leave you guys off with my favorite photo so far. See you next Wednesday.

The Daily Californian

Here's a sample of UC Berkeley daily weekday newspaper. It's written by Cal students themselves. The headlines today are more peculiar.
If you can't see the headlines clearly, here there are:
1) Freshman Found Dead in Unit 1 Dorm
2) Employees Protest I-House Conditions
3) UC Berkeley Lectures Now Available on YouTube

For the first headline, I thought it's another murder case as gunshots are pretty common in Berkeley. But on closer inspection, it's classified as natural death. Phew. I thought it was another case of bloodshed. God bless this poor dude who died at a young age of 17. His birthday is just another day long. And guess what's his first name? It's Lehmann, the same namesake as the Arsenal goalkeeper, but they are unrelated to each other.

For the second headline, protests are pretty common in UCB or America in general. That's their way of getting the attention they seek, or getting support from the public. In my short space of 1 month in UCB, I have already witnessed a few of them in the main campus plaza protesting for all kinds of funny reasons, Save the trees, Stop Discrimination against Blacks for University admission etc. People here are just more outspoken and courageous to fight for their cause. Speaking of protest, this links me to the Myanmar monk protests against the military government. I believe everybody back in Singapore should know about this, but it's oblivious to the Americans here. World news seldom reach here as Americans are pretty much in their own world.

For the third headline, I first saw this news on Yahoo Singapore news. Wonder if this news is actually so big that it has reaches Singapore too? Tell me if you guys saw this on Straits Times Newspaper. And speaking of lecture, I just can't keep laughing in my business law class. My law instructor has such cool attitude, he just keep teasing everybody with his crude jokes in class. Here's just one of the many examples of his crude jokes. My law instructor is herein known as Ross.
Ross: " Does anybody in class sings well?"
No response. So he got to arrow someone.
Ross: " Jaime, can you sing?"
Jaime: " No, I can't sing well."
Ross: "How do you know?"
Jaime: " I don't know."
Ross: "Ok, prove to me. Sing Case 3 out."
Loud roar of laughter.
Well, of course Jaime didn't sing the case out as we all know it's a joke.
I bet this lecturer would easily garnish the most hits if his lectures are placed on Youtube. If only his lessons are web casted will you guys fully understand what I mean. If not, I try tape recording them and place them on Youtube myself. Haha.

This really sucks

I just got back one of my mid term paper. Amazingly, the GSIs here are so efficient they take only 4 days to marks our 2hour short structured questions of 130 plus students. It's my immunology paper and guess what. I failed by 1/2 a mark, yep 62/125. Suddenly just feel so lousy about myself. Not that I expected high marks, but being the competitive person I have always been, this is not the kind of result I expected. The professor showed us the bell distribution and the mean is 85/125, standard deviation is 17.5, 95/125 for an A which is only 76% for a A. My housemates have been jerking me for studying so much and not knowing how to chill and telling how dumb the students here are and how easy it is to ace more than 90% for each of their paper. What they failed to understand is different professor set different standard of paper. I have a easy paper on Monday as well but I am still holding my breadth for my 1st mid term that I took. Sad.

Round 1 of photo feasting

Apologies for being away for so long. Your readership is greatly appreciated and any inconvenience caused is deeply regretted. So pardon me k? Been boiled down with mid term exams for the past one week. Finally can take a breather after one long week of mugging. I almost died. Haha. All this mugging is done in the midst of lessons with homework assignments. Gosh. Exams here are tough, all open ended questions and require you to think of experiment techniques to solve problems. I have one test which requires me to get 70% in order to get a C. WTH. I am crossing my fingers I will do fine in the end. Here's some of the outdated photos which I took in the past one and a half months when I was still staying in the backpacker hostel in San Francisco. Enjoy.

Fishermen's Wharf


Golden Gate Bridge


Alcatraz Island


Sausalito

So close to seeing Natalie Portman

Oh my god, I can't believe I was so close to seeing Natalie Portman. She was giving a talk about poverty in one of the auditorium in Cal this evening, but because my house mates delayed in getting out of the house, we ended up at the back of the crazy long queue and couldn't get into the auditorium. Haiz. In the end, we couldn't even catch a glimpse of her and walked off reluctantly. How often do you get to see a superstar up close? Someone who has both the brains and looks. Bet it's less than once in a blue moon. FYI, she was a Harvard graduate with a degree in psychology.