21st Birthday

Well, the title says it all, I'm officially old.

I've had nice surprises over the past two days, and I guess, it's as good as a birthday can get when you're away from home.

Yesterday (which was Cat's last day in New York as well :s), I tried on 2 shirts in a shop along Soho and just as I was about to pay, Cat suddenly said, 'STOP. Erwin and I are paying, it's your birthday present.' Nice.

We had dinner at Shabu Shabu, which serves incredibly healthy (and hearty servings) Japanese steamboat... and it so happens that there were birthday decorations in the restaurant. We were eating with Erwin's friends as well, which was pretty nice. I would post pictures, but my SD card isn't with me at the moment.

The plan was to sit at Starbucks and talk until it was time for Cat to leave for the airport, but we ended up sitting at Macdonalds while waiting for Erwin, who went to send his friends to the Subway. It's pretty amusing on retrospect. Cat and I started writing Erwins (ultra belated) birthday card... and just as I was writing 'Happy Birthday Erwin', it hit midnight and 3 things happened at the same time- (1) Manda called me (thank you so much babe, sorry I was a bit distracted because too many things were happening) (2) Erwin appeared with a slice of cheesecake (3) Cat started shoving Erwin's card into my bag. Pretty overwhelming to talk on the phone, while trying to make a birthday wish and hide the card... haha.

I was really tired, but my mum woke me up with an sms this morning... told me to come online with my webcam... which led to me spending an entire hour trying to find my webcam in the mess of my suitcases... I thought everyone at home just wanted to see me, but they bought me a cake! So there I was, in bed with my laptop, looking incredibly awful because I just woke up, and 'blowing' my birthday candles. And well, complete with making a wish and watching everyone eat the cake on my behalf.=) Thanks mummy, dad- you all are so sweet.

And I was quite busy trying to thank people who wished me happy birthday on MSN while talking to my family... thanks everyone who remembered.

Then I had a late lunch with Estelle at Chinatown, before having dinner with Erwin after he got off work.

Erwin and his overdue birthday card! Quite ironic that I was giving him his birthday card on my birthday.

My card from Taitong, Cat and Erwin.

We finally made it to Starbucks today... been saying we should all sit in Starbucks and have coffee at least once since it's an American icon. Too bad only 2 of us made it... and not that you could even tell it's Starbucks from the pictures, heh. And no coffee either, only Apple crumble, and nice long conversation.
And Nathalie bought me a flower! I'm living in her apartment now, and she's incredibly nice... she's been reassuring me that she didn't forget my birthday from last night until today. And this morning, when I woke up, she started telling me about how she was going to buy a muffin but didn't get up early... and promised that I would still get a 'surprise' muffin at night...and she came back with a huge flower instead!

To everyone who remembered, and everyone who tried to make it special for me, thanks :)

And I guess, this birthday is tinged with nolstagia as well... both Cat and Taitong have flown off, spending the first two hours of the day reminiscing with Cat and Erwin at Macs, seeing Estelle and thinking about how it doesn't seem too long ago when we talked so much about us being in New York together (I wish we met up more :s ), three people flying off on this day (Poy, Sujin, Cat)...oh well.

Bye 26th, Bye many people, updates

Updates first... End of exams isn't worth talking about. It ended, I went to the gym for a workout, came back. Spent the next whole day being bored because no one was around... but at least, Poi called in the evening and we headed down to this Jazz bar with Erwin and the korean girls. The live band was pretty good... until the singer started getting people to dance with him, and I was the first one he dragged on stage. This always happens to me in the states, miami, new york...hehe. Later on, we headed to Poi's place to play Wi... so fun, I'm a champion boxer! We made stupid videos of ourselves looking stupid playing Wi tennis and Wi boxing, I'll upload them if I think I want to share my embarrassment anytime soon.

Can't remember exactly when, but there was yet another fire at the dorm, 1am in the morning. This time, we went down (almost) immediately... the funny thing was, the next day, Cat and I woke up to the fire alarm, and we were like, 'OMG I don't believe this is happening again, we just had a fire last night!' In my miserable, sleepy state, I started pulling on track pants and grabbing a jacket... then the alarm stopped, and it dawned on me, 'oh brilliant. It's the tuesday fire alarm test.' (We are usually in school Tuesday afternoons, so it's the first time we heard it.)

Woodbury's shopping trip wasn't that great this time, but I still ended up spending quite a lot. We said bye to David, didn't get to say bye to the Hongkong people (not that we ever hung out much with them, but still, it's sad)...

Then we started packing up ourselves, sigh. I've so many things, so so so so so many things... I wanted to pack everything in an organized fashion, so that I can live out of my suitcase until the end of May, but I gave up and threw everything into my luggage, and stuffing things wherever there was actually space. Yesterday, Erwin and I wheeled my luggage and carried two bags from 26th to 4th street… I emptied out two of the bags, brought them back and this morning, carried 3 bags with the rest of my stuff to 4th street again. Moving to Nathalie’s was supposed to be a ‘rehearsal’ for moving back to Singapore, but well… it’s obvious I’m going to have problems bringing everything back!

Oh, Erwin and I watched Spiderman 3 on Imax yesterday. Absolutely loved the huge screen… and it’s so cool when you start seeing different parts of New York City that you recognize!

No time for updates

I've to move out of my dorm tomorrow. Packing is such a chore, and so is dragging your luggage down 22 streets.

Life these few days? End of exams, woodburys, spiderman 3 Imax, clearing the dump of my room.

Sorry if I can't talk to anyone lately.

Sigh, so sad.

Running by Hudson River

I'm talking to Liza online as I type this!

Anyway, Donna brought me running by the Hudson River today, all the way up at 10th Avenue... it's so nice! Running by it really reminded me of the Singapore River-Esplanade area, just a lot longer... and it was so nice running round the Pier, looking across at Jersey City... and I could even see the Statue of Liberty in a distance... it's really kind of far, but I think I'll run there again tomorrow.

And we had a nice dinner at Vanessa's Dumpling's after that. There was this 'auntie' at the cashier. I heard her speak, and asked her, 'Are you from Singapore?' And she said, 'You're berrryy clever.' (It was so obvious) haha. And she still asked me where I was from, isn't the accent so obvious?

Some pictures of Hudson River...

I love New York City! With three more weeks to go, it suddenly feels like there are so many things I've yet to explore, sigh... I need to find some way to see things, do things, shop, buy things for friends once exams are over. Speaking of which, I'm already behaving like my exams are over... I haven't touched anything since last night! (Slept at 5am because I was reading Shophaholic in New York...and I think I'll continue reading now *embarrassed face*)

Just talked to everyone at home over MSN Video Chat... I do miss Singapore. I can't wait to go back, but the thought of it is quite depressing.. don't quite know what to feel. :S This is my weekend in this apartment here, but the rest are all up at Ohama, Gesche (the girl in the apartment)... so that makes a lonely last weekend.

Oh well.

One more exam to go!

Yep, just one more paper to go... and I'm feeling great, because I've 4 days to study and I just have to prepare a cheat sheet, so it should be fine... So sleepy from having two papers today, but all I want to do is stay up and watch Gilmore Girls.

I barely studied for the Movie marketing paper today, and it turned out to be quite difficult. Not that it would have made a difference if I actually studied... I actually realized I'm pretty disadvantaged, being an exchange student and having been in New York for less than 5 months (ok, maybe I'm making excuses for myself)... I feel like I know so little about how movies are released here, the huge campaigns, the distribution in big markets like New York and LA etc... I was trying to think very hard about magazines that print ads are featured in and stuff, but I barely know any of those either. Oh wells.

Went to Shefali's place for a dinner with my New Product Group today... it's the only project group I like here, because it feels like a real group, not just a working relationship. (I actually liked it enough to revisit whatever Excel VBA knowledge still left in my memory to create a program for our presentation, can't believe it). And we did well for our project! :)

So, here's me pretending that I'm actually doing the cooking. Truth is, I was slacker. For one, I can't cook. On top of that, I came straight after my paper which ended at 8pm, so I didn't bring anything either.

The girls in our group! Sujin, Donna (going jogging by East River with her tomorrow), Shefali's roommate (forgot her name), Shefali

Oh, I must mention, it was my first time visiting the dorm at Water Street. I always knew I lived in a dump (the dump's at it's dumpiest state right now), but now I feel like I live in an absolute dump. My apartment has two bedrooms, each for two people. Shefali's dorm is meant for 2 people... and it's TWO STOREYS. They have a kitchen, two bathrooms, a living room... omg. That's not all, each level is bigger than my entire aparment.

Home alone this week. Everyone else has gone off for the Warren Buffett AGM, which I'm not going for anymore, because I couldn't book a flight to Omaha (it was actually all booked up due to the thousands of people flying there for the AGM).

And, one more week left in this place before I move out. (will be staying at someone's apartment for the summer). Exchange feels like it's ending soon...

Hello I'm still alive

Long overdue updates! I'm a bit too lazy to talk... so here are long overdue photos.

Mambo Night @ EarthNYC. We waited FOREVER before Mambo music came on... Christian's trying to push me shorter than him in this photo as usual. Realizing he's from Australia, I told him that we had to teach him how to dance Mambo, and omg, he copied everything I did...not everything I do is Mambo! (don't even know half of it)
Singapore Day, with Chris (who was up to celebrate her 21st!), Engsiang, Jac... felt like National Day. Unfortunately, we barely ate anything because the queues were so long, for puny portions. It felt exactly like National Day... and they somehow managed to import the Singapore heat into Central Park as well, it was the hottest day in New York City! So hot that we all gave up, and Es and I went shopping!

Estelle! Oh, she's holding Just Tea. I don't know if it's the heat, but Just Tea suddenly tasted so good. I don't even drink Just Tea in back home...

Central Park. I think I look fat in this photo- stupid shadow in my arm :S Anyway, Central Park looks much better now. Bluer skies, cherry blossoms... in fact, there're cherry blossoms everywhere now. I think it's Spring, for real.

Ultra overdue photo from ice-skating. Erwin claims I look like a professional skater here... haha, should see my wobbling around like a duck when I'm not posing.

I've been running around Washington Square Park, amongst all the green trees and cherry blossoms. I don't think I can ever run in the gym, ever again. On Wednesday, I was huffing on the threadmill, gave up after 15 minutes, and ran out.

Exams are coming :( I'll find someway to continue slacking.

Projects, Projects, Projects

Despite the stress (I think this is the first time I've ever mentioned the word 'stress' on this blog!), I'm feeling quite pleased right now. I planned on not sleeping until I finish my Consumer Behaviour Project, and I was under the impression that I would be up until at least 4am, but it's 2:15am, and I've finished!

Projects are a real MAD RUSH over here. All done at the very last minute, and I mean, REALLY last minute.

Today, my New Product Development group finished our project report 10 minutes after it was due.

I don't even know the names of some of my Movie Marketing project mates. Well, I know their names, but I can't match them to faces. We did everything through E-mail- 'you do this, I do that, we all send to her, she compiles, we present what we wrote.' Anyway, I'm pretty happy with my presentation today. I was freaking out because I had no time to even look at the updated slides, and worried that no one would understand me, but I somehow managed to talk my way through everything, and I'm pretty sure everyone understood me.

I wish I wore a skirt for my presentation today. (Only those who know why I always wear pants for presentations will get this.)

One project meeting tomorrow. Two more project presentations. One more project presentation to prepare. I'm going to finish all of them at all costs- need to go for Singapore Day and Mambo Night on Saturday!

Fire up @ 26th

Yes, there was a fire at my block today, can't believe it.

I was changing to go to school, Cat had just got out of bed... when the fire alarm started ringing. And we ignored it for about 3 minutes because (1) we were lazy (2) we thought it was probably a false alarm. And I was still searching for my shoebag, gloves, coat, packing my schoolbag... in short, I didn't panic.

Then it got annoying. So I looked out of the door to see if there were people dasing out. Quiet lobby, nothing, no footsteps. So I told Cat, 'Ah there's nobody. Probably a false alarm.'

The alarm stopped for three seconds, and I was convinced, 'Yea. False alarm.'

Moments later, it came on again, so Cat went to check this time. And there were sounds of people running down the steps. So I grabbed everything I needed for school (honestly, I still felt like it must be a false alarm) before leaving.

...and omg, we dashed down 23 storeys. Wait, the steps were so steep, couldn't have dashed even if we wanted to. We walked down 23 storeys. I thought I was going to fall with my coat, bag, gym clothes (haven't even packed it in), breakfast in hand.

And I was STILL expecting to hear people curse about a false alarm the moment I got down. To my horror, there were firefighters at the lift and a whole lot of people outside...

I later found out that the fire was on the 24th floor, just above me. I really can't believe that I almost stayed in my room.

I never thought I would actually be caught in a situation where I've to evacuate a building due to a real fire (too used to the faulty alarm in PGP!) I guess it's a lesson learnt.

Anyway, they sent out an e-mail. No one was hurt, thankfully.

Oh yea, Erwin didn't know it was a real fire until we called him from downstairs. He later told us that he saw the firefighters at his door when he came out, but instead of asking, 'why the hell are you still here?', they just looked at him and went along. Gosh.