Monday, September 11, 2006
awesome
i'm better! -insert big grin- the past week was nasty, with me stuck in princeton alone and feeling disconnected from the world. it was definitely a huge change from singapore, where you know you are surrounded by people all the time. at least i knew i was, with the kid in the flat above mine forever screaming and their family flushing the toilet at 3am in the morning and just having background noise constantly. usa, on the other hand, is big. okay that sounds juvenile, but i'm overwhelmed by how much space they have here. the buildings are spread out and seldom more than three storeys high, the highways stretch out for what seems like forever and there are absolutely no houses next to the roads. i think if your car broke down in the middle of nowhere and you don't have a cell phone, you will feel downright helpless. so, anyway, i was stuck in the sch with practically no one around, my laptop wasn't with me and i only had a prepaid phone card that costs 20cents a minute for long-distance calls to singapore (which is outrageous, considering that for 10 bucks in singapore you can talk for 5 hours when calling usa, not 50 measly minutes), so i was hardly the happiest person in the universe. it could get so silent that all you hear is the sound of you breathing. asphyxiating. it's much better now though, with everyone back on campus. the whole place is bustling with activity, so there isn't time to feel alone.i think i will definitely grow to love princeton. i've only been here for a week and already i have so much affection for the school. my camera's back with me so i can upload some photos as proof of how gorgeous princeton is. (okay there's something wrong so i can't actually upload them. will try some other time.) the whole place is lush with greenery and the gothic architecture makes you feel as if you've been transported to eighteenth century europe. and the squirrels! they really are everywhere and i adore them. i spent 10 minutes watching one digging around in the ground and nibbling on some nuts. the squirrels seem perfectly comfortable with human presence, so they don't make a mad dash for the branches whenever they sense human activity. i've heard that some obnoxious ones actually go into dorm rooms in search of food, but that may be just urban rumour, or in this case, suburban rumour. the suburban thing reminds me how different things here are, so i'm going to digress again. the malls here are definitely not your shopping centres in singapore. they are huge and flat, so you can spend hours navigating one single storey but once you are done with the one storey, there's no going up or down. i'm not sure if anyone has seen that cell phone commercial where a room gets folded up into one phone (to emphasis how small yet all-encompassing the phone was i guess), but it's the opposite here, so you have your five-storey shopping mall unpacked into one level. definitely takes some getting-used to.
back to school and life on campus. i'm such a nerd so i've not been to any of the parties here yet. will take a look once classes start and i start having a routine. right now i'm just running here and there and feeling busy and lost at the same time. i have no sense of direction and keep asking people how to get to places and they give this 'oh you silly little freshman' look. one day i will cease to be on the receiving end of some looks and start giving them instead. i swear. still, everyone here is so amazingly nice i'm startled. and they're so social i feel like a misanthrope. i make my attempts at being friendly and energetic, but really i'm not that extroverted so it takes a lot of effort. it's kind of draining to be loud and go 'HI~~~ HOW'S EVERYTHING GOING? OH THAT'S AWESOME!' all the time. and i realised that 'awesome' seems to be the only positive adjective here. everything is awesome. my room is awesome. my roommates are awesome. the classes here are awesome. the architecture is awesome. the weather is awesome. princeton is awesome, and really, how awesome is that? i think you get the idea. everything here is terrific, but i can't help but wonder if there're substitutes for 'awesome'.
okay this is getting kind of long, so i'll stop here though i've tons more to write. think i'll update more often and try to let you know what's going here. everything is new, i'm still adjusting, but i know i'll be fine and i am going to learn so much from this experience.
ray at 4:26 PM
