Thursday, May 30, 2013

almost became a murderer

back from a trip to alaska...i had a truly great shock of my life on my drive up to denali national park.

i was driving on the highway at a pretty high speed when suddenly a moose strolled so nonchalantly across the highway. when i saw it, it was already in the middle of the road and i slowed down and swerved round it to give it more space. luckily it didn't charge, if not it could run very fast and get hit. 

our car probably would suffer some damage and injury too, the moose was a full-grown male with antlers and all. it takes up like 1.5 lanes on the highway and was really tall, like a horse! i remember very clearly seeing its big eyes staring at me while leisurely walking on across the road. 

this was the first time i got a close up look at moose, and i really got a heart attack from it! luckily i didn't crash into it...now i know better to scan further ahead on the highway to avoid roadkills >.>

there were really so many moose in alaska though. when i first touched down, on the way from the airport to the hostel, i saw a dead moose in the middle of the highway. some guy was standing in front of it and waving traffic around it, which is really dangerous for that guy since it was darkening and difficult for people to see. the taxi driver said it was a baby moose, even though it's pretty big and took up the entire lane. i was shocked to see such blatant roadkills in the middle of the road, but turns out it is a very common occurrence as they cross the roads all the time without care for cars.

in denali national park, when we were driving through on the park road, we also saw a baby moose trying to cross the road. we stopped and took some pictures of it, but it got nervous or something and turned back to graze on the grass. then we realised it's a baby moose so the mummy must be nearby, and lo and behold! the mummy moose was to our right. we all got shocked and quickly moved up a little, bcos i think we were making the mummy nervous, and she might want to charge at us!

on the chester park trail around downtown anchorage too, we saw a baby moose crossing right in front of us, except this time we're on foot and out in the open. fortunately it just ignored us and went for the grass. we couldn't find the mummy though, we just took some pictures and quickly walked by.

haha exciting tales in alaska. seems like it is a place full of wildlife and nature stuff, and hunting/gun use is very common and even necessary. a typical weekend consists of a family going fishing, or a father bringing his son to go hunting. 1 in 60 alaskans are also pilots, more than 6 times the average in the US! this is because alaska is much more accessible by plane than by car or anything else haha, and they can go fly somewhere to fish or hunt before returning. they are not allowed to hunt caribou within 24 hours of flying though, probably because it is too easy to kill wildlife while in the air, so people have to camp somewhere for 24 hours and hike to hunt animals.

i think it's a nice and relaxing/fun way of spending time here, but this is too much killing and meat for my liking. i prefer a city life, with veggie and no hunting/killing involved >.> seems like i'm all soft and like a typical city girl haha. oh well i'm fine with that, not cut out to be on survivor or lost anyway!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

saying goodbye to undergrad life

yay last final of my undergrad life is finally over!! i'm so excited for graduation haha. i feel pretty sad about leaving berkeley though...it just hit me how wonderful it really is. just walking along the streets, there are so many different kinds of delicious food and cuisines that i didn't take enough advantage of - japanese, thai, korean, chinese, taiwanese, mexican, italian, western, greek, Mediterranean, and even has boba and my favourite froyo places. of course the boba can't compare to koi, and pinkberry is far away in SF (anywhere outside of 15 min of berkeley is considered far lol)...

the weather is also awesome. of course there are times when it's just foggy and cold and rainy and miserable, but this year has been great. barely any rain season this year, with some slight drizzles. finals week is beautiful and sunny out everyday, with the appropriate breezes to keep it cool and comfy all the time. sigh i sure will miss this nice weather...

with graduation, my parents will be coming over and i can bring them around berkeley and bay area! so fun haha. i'll then go to alaska for my graduation trip, and then returning home for an internship. of course, there's still more school to look forward to come fall, as i'll be embarking on my grad school life. hehe i'm excited to meet new people and learn more things, and delay a sad working career life  (and possibly find a rich and dashing boyfriend along the way).

on a side note before i forget, here are some memories i have of my wine-tasting decal and cantonese decal this semester. They were definitely the most fun classes I've done in a while (other than the Gospel chorus class, which was amazingly fun), and they definitely made my final semester more enjoyable and memorable haha.

Wine-Tasting History & Culture of Wine Decal

Got to bring home these two wine glasses at the end of the decal. we're supposed to just take one home each, but there were extras so i took another one. one smaller one for white wines (better for concentrating the smells), and a bigger one for red wines (better in terms of surface area and aerating the wine)
now i have legit wine glasses for drinking wines :)

the argentina wine i bought at trader joe's for an assignment. really refreshing and crisp, like a bright lemonade on a hot summer day

Cantonese Intermediate Decal

Here's the video of the final skit my group of four people did. I'm really proud of it because it's simply hilarious, and it was so much fun making the video. sorry for the amateurish acting and editing, i did it over like a few days, and video editing plus subtitles took over 20 hours for me. the acting was also filmed on two days, around over 6 hours, + writing the script took around 2 or 3 hours too. quite a bit of time-commitment for a pass/not pass class, but definitely fun!

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

happy for now

i feel really happy right now...just got back my business & ethics paper and i got an A for it! The comments were really good too, saying good structure, good research and that it's professional!

it's been a while since i last wrote a paper, and i have never written a research paper for a humanities class before. i've also heard bad stuff about how the paper really screwed up their grades, so i put in quite a bit of effort in it to make good arguments with a lot of research and stuff. i'm really happy that the graders like it after all!

u know with papers, it's always so hard to gauge and guess if people would like it. it's so subjective, and there were no drafts allowed for this paper. it was a one-off 10-page paper worth 35% of our grade, so i was really worried about whether the grader would like it. glad that it turned out well ^^

this really made my day, and now i'm all ready to chiong for the last final tomorrow :)

here's a song i didn't think much of at first, until i realised how impressive jess lee's vocals are, to sing so high so beautifully. and i got really freaked out by the mv, even though i know it's fake i couldn't imagine how the mv leading lady managed to endure all that!!!! >.>

Monday, May 13, 2013

the first white hair of my life

just discovered the first white hair of my life! it's pretty long too, must have been there for quite a while...i wonder when/how it came to be?

maybe it's from the the many stresses of college life/finals...

or maybe i'm really getting old T.T

here's a picture to commemorate the moment (in case it drops off/i can't find it anymore)

interesting thing i found out about my hair: it looks really brown under the sun or under light! (and nope i didn't dye it before...)

first white hair



Sunday, May 12, 2013

a belated mother's day

i shouldn't be here...i should be studying for finals. it's my last 3 finals of my undergraduate life (yepp my final finals hehe),  but somehow i'm procrastinating and not wanting to study T.T

my parents are currently on a plane, embarking on an 18hour+ flight to the US. they will be spending a few days in the east coast with my brother, and they're going to toronto and going to visit the niagara falls, before flying over to the west coast for my graduation. i'm really excited for them to come, and i can show them my life here and how i have spent my past 3 years on my own. i'm also really excited for graduation and just relaxing/having fun...i'll be bound to a 3.5 month internship this summer, which will suck up my entire vacation at home >.>

anyway back to the main point of this post. it was mother's day yesterday, but i didn't get to wish my mum a happy mother's day personally. i was too busy studying and during a quick skype IM my dad was just saying oh you should study and let's not disturb you today. i didn't think twice about it, and i told my dad to wish my mum happy mother's day on my behalf.

this morning when i woke up, suddenly i was afraid i wouldn't get to say it to my mum, especially since she was going to board the plane to the US today. if anything happened to her, i know i will regret this to death, so i called her up just now and wished her a belated happy's mother day. she was really happy to talk to me and see me (we were doing a video call), and i was really happy too. now i feel recharged and ready to study for finals! (erhem i mean after finishing this blog post lol)

at least it's one thing off my mind for now, and i really wish that my parents have a great time for the week ahead. can't wait to see them, and can't wait for my finals to be over on wednesday! ok just 3 more days of mugging...i see the light at the end of the tunnel! gambatte!!!