MEN's Basketball (TAMU VS OKLAHOMA)

Yeah my 2nd Basketball Match & this is MEN's bball!! Although I've blogged about basketball match, this one is different! Bcos the earlier one that I've watched is Women who is ranked 32nd (ard there) while the Men are ranked No. 8. Ah... the tickets were hard to get and we were really lucky 'cos Zheng Dong's RA's boyfriend is not free, so she gave ZH the tickets & i got to go together with her! Hahaha...

Though the picture looks sunny & nice weather- nah, it was actually quite cold (my hands were freezing) 'cos it was so windy! The match was scheduled at 1p.m and we actually had to meet at 11am. The North Gate opened at 11:45am and there's already a long queue when we reach there. Oh man, I thought queueing is a Sporean thing.

Yup, this time i tried to take more videos and photos of the cheering bcos TAMU's cheers are quite interesting. For eg: when TAMU gets a free throw- all of us will put up our hands (as shown in the pic), as the ball goes into the net, we'll throw down our hands & "whoosh!" *low pitch. If the guy misses, then... just keep quiet.

Also, when the opponent has fouled & TAMU are awarded some free throw, we'll chant "You. You. You. You." Like chiding the opponent.. And also, when the opponent gets a free throw, there's a few options- we either all sit down, then as he throws, we'll all suddenly stand up & make noise OR we wave our hands & sing some cheer again- all this tactics are just trying to distract the opponent. But normally it doesn't work. Ha.

I tried to upload the videos of the guys leading the cheers - they are big mascular guys wearing white uniforms and they have so many hand gestures for each different cheers- but can't seem to put up videos..


LM

Dinner with UT Austin people

We met on Friday around 7pm at Jin's Place (Chinese restaurant) and there was over 20 of us in total. There are 5 people from UT Austin and the rest are our friends' friends or the Austin people's friends or friends of their friends.. Haha.. It turned out I actually sort of know 3 of the 5 Austin people! The one at the bottom row (far right) is Gillian and she transferred from NUS to UT Austin just a year ago. We happen to have a few common friends like Kimberly( my SCGS classmate who also is staying in Texas!), Priscilla (my VJC friend whom went for the Nepal OCIP trip tog!) etc etc...

And the one beside me on my left is Andrea whom i found v familar because she used to stay at Raffles Hall! Haha.. We too have some common friends like Min Chen, Jia Xing, Ghim Song (she's from blk 5 while I'm fr blk 4). Andrea is the only one of the 5 who is an exchange student while the rest actually is studying at UT Austin.

Lastly is Christopher who's not in this picture (bcos this is a GIRLS' pic), we know each other through Denise! Denise is my PD for GAW '07 and also my marketing head for GAW '06. When she heard that I'm going to Texas, she introduced her good friend Christopher who's studying at UT Austin.

That was a very long weekend for me. After the dinner, we hanged out at the MSC where we played some games & talked, then we went over to Berny's for ice-cream and finally I was backed in my dorm at 2am. Slpt at 3am.

The next day, I had to wake up at 10am to meet Zheng Dong for Men's basketball match! She got free tickets from her RA. Hm, more of this on my next blog. Yeah, I thought that I could go back to my dorm to do my homework after the match. BUT!!! I ended up reaching back my dorm at 2am again. 'Cos I went for dinner with Joyce & Wenhui at a Vietnam restaurant, then coffee at Starbucks before we got a call that the Austin people are back at TAMU, so we went to meet up with them. OH, think i didn't say this earlier - the Austin people are actually going to Houston and College Station is on their way which is why they stopped to meet up with us. Yup, we bowled for a while, then went for supper at iHOP (International House of Pancakes).

AND.... the next day i was still in my dreamland when Joyce called to say that the Austin people are going for lunch! So I woke up at 10am & we went for lunch. I reached back my dorm ard 3pm BUT..... we are supposed to go meet another group at the Rec center at 4pm for a game of badminton. So, this was my 3rd time at the Rec center in a week. Anw, I managed to reach back my dorm at 7pm!! And finally had time to do a tiny bit of work before I zzzzzzzzzzz..

Very tiring weekend
LM

Icy Cold Days + Sam's Place (once is enough)

Brr.. It was cold btw 15-18Jan! There were ice everywhere as it was raining intermittently during the few days. You can basically skate from place to place provided you don't fall on ur butt. I couldn't wear the new shoes that i bought from San Marcos cos the shoes doesn't have any grip. Oh my, I fell down once at night, luckily i was wearing so much clothes, I didn't hurt myself at all. :P

Bcos of the weather which makes it dangerous to drive, sch only started on Thurs! Supposed to start on Tues, hee gt 2 extra days of holiday. Four of us went to Sam's Place on Saturaday. It is a supermarket that sells stuff in bulk. They also sell furniture, electronics (like 40" plasma TV, fridge, mattresses) but I bought my favourite food-chocolates! Wahaha I bought a 30 pack chocolates which cost abt US15. Cheap right considering that the vending machines sell those btw .75-1.25 for each bar of chocolate. And I bought 12 Cinnamon Rolls! I was so excited when I saw those. But its really sweet, cos there's a layer of frosted sugar on top of the cinnamon roll. So this can last my sweeth tooth for at least 1 month. Haha. To balance my diet, I bought Apples! Again, it is only sold in bulk. There's abt 12 apples, I'm only a quarter way through. Hopefully the apples don't rot that fast in cold weather.

Yea, talking abt Sam's Place.. Must mention it was the most memorable shopping trip so far in my life. First: The place is big, everything seems cheaper so we excitedly chose our groceries. But when we were abt to pay at the cashier.... Let me re-enact the encounter:

Cashier:" Good afternn! How are you today?"
Soo Whee:"Good! Thank you."
Cashier:"Are you a Sam's Club member?"
Soo Whee:"Uh, nope..."
Cashier:"Oh really, Hmm....... You need to be a member to make purchases here."
ALL OF US - STUNNED.

Me:" How do we become a member? Is there any fees?"
You can sign up at the counter there. It will cost abt US40 bucks per card"
Eugene:"Can we just pay by cash? Its our first time here.. We didn't know abt this.."
Cashier:"Eh.. Well, let me make a call... *Ring Ring* Sorry. You have to be a member of Sam's Club to buy things here."
ALL OF US - Shocked + discussing what to do..

Discussion: This place is not v accessible - there's no bus shop nearby, we walked abt 15 mins to reach there from the Post Oak Mall. Share the membership card? Not worth it. Are we gg to come again? Nah, not very likely.

To cut it short, the manager came... :" We are very sorry. But why don't you all sign up with us?" "No, sorry we are only students here for half a year. We'll put back everything. Sorry abt it" THEN the manager relented! "OkOk i'll let you all off this time, just once. But you all have to pay by cash." Phew.

Then came the 2nd shocker: There are no plastic bags. After scanning the items, the cashier puts everything back into the trolley. !!!! How are we gg to carry back? OMG. We were the only ones in the supermarket who doesn't have a vehicle. Ron found some boxes and we just dump everything into our bags or into the boxes. And we lug those along the highway, past some fields + petrol kiosks, inside the shopping mall before we reach the busstop. OMG. Its so embarrassing.

Road Trip + enjoying life

It was the first road trip last Sun 14th Jan. We set off at 11 am and managed to get there by 3pm. Haha. Rightfully, the place is only 3hrs away from College station but we keep U-turning (cos we got into the wrong highway a few times), and we stopped dunno how many times (just to confirm our direction). Anw i'm glad that we got there in one piece. Lol..

The place is a heaven for shopping!! OMG, there were >140shops selling brands like Gucci, Prada, Hilfiger, Addidas, Puma, Nike, Levi's, Crabtree, Oakley, Fossil, Converse, Coach, NineWest, etc etc etc really too many for me to name & definitely not enough time to shop! It was fun shopping there, but bcos the shops closes at 7pm on Sun, so we were like some impulsive shoppers, go into the shop quickly buy what we want, then leave, go into another shop again. The place is so huge, there are abt 3-4 sections, each with its own carpark, and you can't walk the whole area, we drove from 1 section to the other.

And the shops really promptly closes at 7pm, at 6:45 the shop will announce "our shop is closing in 15mins time, can all shoppers kindly proceed to the cashiers now.. bleah bleah.." and they repeat this every 5mins, until 7pm. Finally we went for dinner (our first meal of the day) at Taste of China, its this buffet place which serves Chinese food! And it was quite good, there were noodles, rice, sweet & sour pork, desserts, ice-cream, fruits, etc and it cost abt US8. Quite worth it. I reached by my dorm at 1am.

The next day, we met for dinner and then we went to a nearby club. The music there is really lousy. On tues, Wenhui and I went over to Joyce's dorm to watch DVDs. On Wed, we went to the Weasley Foundation for a free dinner then worship and we went over to Ryan's apartment for "a cup of hot chocolate" and games!

Basketball Match + Italian dinner!

Went for a basketball match yday! It was cool! There were 8000+ audiences in the indoor stadium. It was a match btw Aggies and Baylor and Aggies won! The atmosphere was good, though i can't kp up with their cheers. Haha. Their cheers were fun, and everytime the judge says "Aggies' ball" We will all shout "Aggies' ball!!!" *cheerful high pitch tone* Haha.

After that, we went over to the Weasley Foundation and played a few rounds of ping-pong. The americans call it ping-pong and I really find it funny everytime they say so. Yeah, Ryan, Eric, Kristen & I forgot the last guy's name *Oops! are really nice to bring us ard yday. Drove 6 of us to the bball match n back, then drove us to dinner n back.

We ate italian food! It was affordable and the breadsticks are really GOOD! Finally we found a place to eat spagetti and stuff. Nice.. It was a really fun day.

Finally settled down.

Okay, the picture on the left is my hall, Neeley Hall. Its a modular Hall, double sharing, co-ed (boys n girls stay on the same level) and each room has a bathroom. Its big in comparison to other halls and tts y its also more expensive! Anw I've stayed here since Sun 7 Jan till Thurs 11 Jan. Didn't get to see my roommate before I moved over to Briggs, the picture on the right.

Briggs is smaller, and it has 2 common toilets on each level. But each room has a basin for you to wash up in the morn. If you all wanna know more, go google it, there's a virtual tour of each hall. Yup this is much cheaper than Neeley although I enjoyed having my own bathroom. Anw I've gt another friend staying at Briggs so its kinda nice to have another sporean in the same hall as you.

Well, I've settle most of my admin stuff and academic stuff (meeting up with advisors to discuss lessons etc) so my weekend will be free! I'll be going to watch a women's basketball match this afternn, and tmr I'll be gg to travel ard with the other sporeans! There's abt 10 of us in the group so we normally go ard tog. Actually only 8 initially as 2 only arrived on Thurs, while the rest all came in on 7 Jan. Yeah, a student here invited us to the bball match, he bought tickets for us, cost abt US1.

Knight's Inn

Yup this is the place where I'm staying for 2 nights. It is called Knight's Inn. Its VERY QUIET here. Just a few other pple staying. We've got to lug our luggage to our room on the 2nd floor! So heavy lor. I'm kinda glad that I'm staying on the 1st floor of my hall.

While eating breakfast, I've noticed 3 things:
1) No buses on the streets.
2) No people walking on the streets.
3) No taxis on the streets.

What does this mean when none of us can drive? We can't go anywhere! How are we gg to get from here to the University?! We've tried calling the university BUT they don't work on weekends. No one to help us too. Left stranded in this quiet and ulu town.

LM

Arrived at college station!!

Finally I've reached my destination!

Wat a long flight. Flew for 3hrs+ to HK, transit for an hr (which I almost didn't have time to visit the toilet bcos the security check was so mafan. There were 2 rounds of security checks, 1 of which gotta open you hand luggage and check item by item).

After which is a 12hrs flight to San Francisco. I couldn't sleep on this flight which is horrible. But the food on SQ is really nice, I esp like their ice-cream. I just kept on eating on this flight.

The security check at San Francisco was super fast, out of my expectation. I thought it will take hours (like 3-4 hrs) but I finished everything less than 10 mins. Including the waiting time. Thats bcos my friend's luggage came out quite late, so by the time 3 of us were ready with our luggage, the queue for security was pretty short.

Next is the terrible waiting time at SF airport. We've got to spend 10 hrs there before we are able to check in!! We slpt on chairs and got to look aft our luggage all the time. Its not fun! And the airport is so quiet! Esp at the domestic terminal, all shops were closed. Guess partly is bcos its like midnight till wee hrs in the morn when we were there.

Finally, we are able to take the domestic flight to houston. Its a 6 hrs flight. We could see the beautiful sunrise on the airplane!! So nice. Then we spend 3 hrs in transit in houston airport. Nthg much to do, just slp.Finally Finally, we can board our plane to college station!! Its an hr flight.

Ok finally finish talking abt my long flight.
LM

My First

Finally created my own blog. This is specially for my SEP to Texas, USA. I'll be leaving tomorrow afternoon, yet I can't really feel the excitement. Maybe I'm just tired from all the preparation.

I'll be catching the 5p.m flight SQ0002 to San Francisco, transiting at HK for an hr plus. After reaching SF, I'll be catching flight to College Station, Texas, transiting at Houston. All in all, I think i'll be flying for 23 hrs (non-inclusive of transiting time).

LM