SNOWING

It's REAL SNOW ! WOOHOO !!

finals

Like Shan blogged/plurked/somehow mentioned somewhere, one eighth of my university life is like.. poof. It's gone ! It seemed only yesterday that i prayed for my safe arrival at Ann Arbor, that i hopped off the cramped mini airplane at Detroit, that i whined at the apartment lobby about the tiring journey i just had.

Three months swooped by, and now it's the same old pre-final exam period that i have gone through again, again and again for the past few years of my life. It's painstaking and horribly stressful, but we all very well know what's awaiting us after that =DD Geosci final in two days time, and then Calculus 3 and DE in a week's time. I don't ask for much, just wish me luck =D

Met with the Malaysian Association of Michigan (MAM) chairperson Scott the other night. The talk was almost three hours long and pretty much all about his living and working experience in the US. It One thing i learned was that, and I quote, "if you can take shit and feel good about it, you're good enough for anything. "

Enrollment sucks. Because priority is given to students with more credits, most classes I planned for next semester are now full, and selecting alternative sections doesn't help because that involves arranging a whole new schedule altogether. And that sucks.

Gonna spend a few days outing at Chicago during the coming winter break. Woohoo can't wait for that anymore !

*sorry for my epic phailure pretense of being uber excited about that*

Jin won't be there though, too bad =(

And lastly,

ZHEEEEE CHUANNNNNNN !!
*see i mentioned your name*

Alright got to go now. Having class. Bye =)

flaws

Flaws, we all have them. And one of mine would be my habitual bouts of picking on others' flaws. It's not inherent. It's acquired. I grew up that way. I grew up viewing everything from a cynic's eye.

thanksgiving's over

How time flies. A full week of holiday is over =(

Potluck dinner checked. Turkey checked. Black Friday checked. And Thanksgiving's now officially over ! I finally understand what Black Friday is all about after months of waiting. It's not about buying things i truly need; it's splurging money for things i WANT and poof ! there goes my 200 bucks HAHA !

On Friday midnight, thanks to Rachel's friend we got a ride to Birch Run Prime Outlet to join the midnight shopping frenzy. It's a tradition that shops would open and offer special midnight sales after thanksgiving dinner. Just as anticipated, we got held up in traffic congestion for a while. Finding a parking space was a nuisance too, but well, we eventually found a parking anyway.

There, almost every better known outlet was packed to the brim with hungry customers craving for cheap deals. Guess which shop was craziest of all?

*drumroll please... *

....

...

..

.



* COACH FACTORY STORE *
* photo grabbed from KR's blog *

The queue was ridiculously long ! Probably more than 100 meters. Imagine having to line up for 3-4 hours just to step into the shop.

Throughout the outing I didn't snap any photo because my camera's battery died out =(

I ended up buying two pairs of jeans, two scarfs, a belt, a hoodie, a pair of gloves, and a headset. I just placed an online order for another affordable blue fleece hoodie too. Haha !

Alright then. Gotta get myself back up for the coming strenuous three weeks till the finals. It's gonna be yet another cycle of homework, assignment, homework, paper, exams, homework.... again.

To Jing: I hope you're having fun in Perth right now, and do get in touch with me whenever there's chance to online okay? And do get me some presents =D !

happy thanksgiving !

One thing about festivities is that most people celebrate them, and those who don't eventually follow suit in fear of missing out. We the Michigan peeps belong to the latter, and thus the bunch of us decided to celebrate Thanksgiving slightly earlier by having a scrumptious lunch at Downtown (you probably knew it if you watched my Facebook video) and then dining a turkey feast at home. So.. we set off after class at around 1.30pm.

Downtown Ann Arbor actually refers to the Main Street where most upper class shops are located. The price, and also the dining environment if you take that into account, is the main difference that set apart the higher end restaurants from those near the central campus. Without much thinking, we decided on Mongolian BBQ Grill, a buffet style eatery that serves fully self customized food. Throughout the 15-20 minutes walk from our apartment we recorded a series of short video clips, mostly featuring KR presenting trivia he found interesting. I will upload the videos on Facebook after compiling them together (which is why i just downloaded adobe premiere elements in hope of coming up with some decent product)

Pictures do the better explanation, hence behold.


* Nickel's Arcade *


* This is NOT the Main Street aforesaid *
* Looks dandy, but these shops are cheap *



* An outing isn't perfect without a group photo *


* I WANT IN TOO *


* the Mongolian BBQ *
* grabbed from KR's blog *



* duck, lamb, meatballs, pepperoni, fish, chicken, pork, beef, prawns, scallops, squids, NY strips, etc *



* Salad bar, and soups *

And there's two more bars that serve vegetables and sauces, dressings and spices. I didn't bother to take any photo of those because my growling stomach couldn't hold any longer =DD


* How our food were grilled *


* Of course. Buck the fuckeyes, go Wolverines ! *

And that's about it for the downtown outing. Actually there's more to see in the said videos, so be patient while I get it done !

At night after Kroger's, we all dined at Rachel's place. Her housemate had gone home for thanksgiving, so we had the whole apartment to ourselves =D. We prepared a roast turkey with readymade stuffing, a whole lot of salad with four choices of dressings, some garlic breads, mushroom soup, mashed potatoes, apple crumbles, two bottles of sparkling juice and lastly two boxes of ice cream as dessert. No doubt it's another costly meal, but definitely worth it because this kind of gathering don't come too often.


* THE dinner *


* ever excited KR *


* contented me *


* and delighted Rachel *

That's about it then. Time for a good night rest =)

P/S: This is probably the fastest post i ever blogged, in terms of length to time taken ratio. Can't believe i only spent ~30mins for this.