Yes, I’m alive and well in the States. My uncle has kindly lent me one of their many laptops to work on, check my email etc. The laptops must be really cheap here coz no way is someone going to have at least 5 laptops around their house back in Singapore. Even getting 2 desktops is going to make your mum grumble about the amount of money she has to fork out. Not to mention getting internet connection for both plus the electricity bills.
Anyway, I survived the long plane ride here. No jet lag. Now, don’t be surprised coz I hardly slept on the plane. I always find it hard to sleep sitting up. Too used to sleeping on my side so I need something to lean on. Each time I looked at myself in the toilet mirror, Jiemin’s favourite words come to my mind. “Hello, my name is Jin Ai Kun (meaning always feeling sleepy in hokkien) and I have natural eyeshadow.”
Once, my aunt tried to sneak me in to the business class section to let me get some proper sleep. Yea, my aunt and uncle were sitting in the business class. After 4 hours, I got awoken by a black stewardess. The way she got me to listen to what she had to say…was she rude or what? She wriggled her finger to make me sit up from my lying down position. Then she told me I couldn’t just come and sit here as I like. WTF! I know I look like a kid to you, but I’m NOT!!! So please talk to me politely, it’s not like I’m going to be difficult. I do understand your position as well.
Mum told me to be careful since Asians are a minority here and there are some pretty racist people around. Wah lau, these people wouldn’t stand a chance if they were in Singapore. Simply coz we have a more colourful language and we are smart. So smart that we’ll take your picture with our trusty handphone and post it up on forums so everyone can shame you. And really, we Singaporeans are so kiasu and kaypoh enough to be united in such things. Which come to think of it isn’t always a bad idea since it comes in handy at such times.
The weather here is hot since it’s still summer. But it’s not that much of a killer. It’s hot and dry so you don’t perspire that much. What a relief coz I hate getting my back all wet. The temperature drops in the night to more like air-con temperature so it’s fine to sleep without the air-con or fan and the windows open. Don’t really need a blanket too.
So far, I’ve gone on a tour of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Toured the school on Friday. The campus is HUGE! It’s really a town of its own. The school even owns the airport – not the one I arrived at in Chicago, the little one in Champaign. And what’s even cooler, the top floor of the union house is a hotel. The shops around the campus is called University Town and is catered for the students. 😡
Checked out the Singapore Students Association website for activities as advised by my aunt. Couldn’t find any listed activities on the site but found a link for their forum. Haha…being a typical kaypoh Singaporean, I checked that out. Found out they were meeting for potluck on Saturday. Aunty just announced matter-of-factly that we were going to gatecrash their party. :rofl: Ehz…we aren’t freeloaders ok…aunty bought a cake. Haha…
So I got to meet the Singaporeans in U of I. Sort of felt at home and out of place at the same time. At home coz it’s a relief to hear people speaking like me. All the lahs and lors. Kinda out of place coz everyone seemed come from some top JC. But anyhow, everyone’s nice. And one of the freshmen girls, Man Ling has agreed to let me shadow her for all her classes this coming week.
How come everyone knows what they want to do and I don’t? 😥