Little little details of my life right now... :)

First things first...This entry was saved as a draft for a while cos something was wrong with Blogger. Sighs. So here goes...

Yupyup, so right now no major stuff's been happening in my life I guess. Things are going on pretty quickly (a little too quickly!!) and work is piling up waaaayy too quickly. But here are the bits of life that still make it interesting and exciting!!! :)

OK, first things first...I've never introduced you to the people who have made my world beautiful. And when I say world, I am talking about well, the house that I live in for now. Hee. So yeah, this couple works on the house and have been absolute darlings. The place I rented is unfurnished. But they've brought the bits and ends from their home, on their own accord and made my house a little home-ier each day. They aren't even the landlords! They merely work for the landlords but my! They are such a sweet couple!! Here is their picture and if you look carefully, the beaaaaaaautiful table they are standing behind is the really nice country table that they brought from home. It makes mealtimes so much more enjoyable!! *Hugs to Tom and Dorothy!*

I'm always sooooooo excited when they bring in new furniture. Once, they brought a lil shelf thingie for me, for MY ROOM, simply because "Oh, I just thought you might need some furniture." Ahh!! Isn't that just so thoughtful of her?! And that is NOT all! Since I am still sleeping in my sleeping bag, she thought the floor would get cold (and it is!!!!) because the floors are made of hardwood. So they brought me a rug!!! A huuuuuge rug from home so that I won't be cold!! I was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy when I saw it!! Wow, wow wow...So check out my room now...The shelf in the back and the nice new rug which I have happily placed my sleeping bag on. But I will get my bed! Actually, I have a bed now!!! 30 bucks for a bed and the stand. Pretty good deal. VERY good deal. Will upload photo of my new bed later... :) This was the before, with the rug...

Last but not least. I am once again proud of my very own creation for mealtime. Pizza! I should name it...OK, so impromptu, here I go: Green Mushmato. Yikes. Will think of a better name next time. Now I know why they find it so hard to name dishes. Anyway, Green Mushmato is so called (if you didn't already realize) because of the Green Peppers, Mushrooms and Tomatoes in it. Ha. How original. Tsktsk. But doesn't it look yuuuuuuuummy? Everyone, I am feeding myself well! :)

Homecoming...

No, I am not coming home. Homecoming was very much an eye-opener. For two reasons. Firstly, there was the American Football game that was played, the Golden Gaels (solid name, eh?) from Queen's versus the Ottawa Gee Gees (gee, what a name...)! It was my first time at such a match and it was pretty interesting (after having been explained to) and seemed pretty painful. And there were amazing cheerleaders too!!

But most of all, it was the atmosphere that was amazing. Homecoming is a time when the alumni comes back to visit, so the stadium was packed and although the Golden Gaels didn't do too well in the end, it was the Queen's spirit that was lingering in the air.

What I loved was the Alumni walkthrough. The happiest oldest Alumni was there! Check out the photo! Class of 1930 and 1940 leh!!

I felt pretty blessed to be part of the experience. I felt quite proud of Queen's though it's only going to be school for me for the next 3 months? NUS, having such a long history should have fun stuff like that! The Centennial Celebrations were pretty...Quiet.

Anyway, that was in the morning. At night, there was to be crazy wild partying at the infamous Aberdeen Street. I went!! Not to party, but just to check it out and to take some photographs. I went with the 2 macho guys I know, so they kept me safe. :) My housemate came along and I had the wildest adventure. Whew. Glad it's over. 'Nuff said about it. But a thank you to a dear friend, you know who you are...I owe you one!

But the party was really wild. I've never seen something on such a large scale.

The Kingston police were really excited too. Check out the horses parading the streets that night! They were pretty fierce, nosing people off the streets. Yikes. But pretty horses.

Yeah, so that was the wild party. Had to go look-see look-see. Such a rare sight in Singapore. That certainly was the second eye-opener for me at Homecoming. The students went so wild. *tsktsk* Even a car was overturned (though I didn't quite see that for myself...). The whole Kingston is talking about it now. Everyone's not happy with the student community. Hmmm...Oh wells.

Go check out more photos from Homecoming. Haven't got a complete set of the Aberdeen Street photos yet though.

International experience!

I've had dinner out the past few of nights and though heavy on the wallet, it's been a really cool experience. Why? Because each time we spend time with different groups of friends, or our friends' friends, and since we know many other international exchange students, we have really cool international experiences!

On Wednesday night, I had a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE dinner at a Greek restaurant (Shariq and the photo he took of my food can vouch for that!!!!) and it was fantastic. It came with a huge portion of Greek salad and rice and potatoes and the main course. I could have survived on the side dish. My dish was called Mousaka. It's like made of layers of potato with egg plant and ground beef in between. Yum!! I'll upload the photo when Shariq sends it to me. *ahem*

Anyway, aside the food. Yes, I was supposed to talk about the international-ness of the experience. There were two Germans, a Norwegian girl, two Canadians, two Indian/Singaporeans (the usual *haha*) and of course the Singaporean me! Will upload the photo another time as well.

Yesterday, we went to Curry Village - Indian food...And amidst us were the same two Indian/Singaporeans and a British girl and my Spanish friend! Ahhh!! So cool eh? It's like this whole mix of different cultures coming together. It's a nice experience I guess :) And here's the photo we took together! :)

My Photo Page...

Here's the website for the rest of my photos. Not all have been uploaded. But all the Niagara ones are...Plus my Orientation & Ottawa. All for Tania's sake :) Hi girlie! :)

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/eunicet.rm/my_photos

Tributes to people far away but close to my heart...

Well, this is the love of my life. Sure it's not easy to have such a long-distance relationship. But it sure is a test of time. 4 months isn't too long, but it's long enough. Thanks for holding on dear. And I'm clinging on, as a pitbull to its prey. (That's my non-emotional side working up. :) ) It's worth it.



Ahhh...My dearest dearest Serene. I think we never tire of taking photographs. But here's another one then I can't remember we took. Thanks for lifting me up in prayer. *Hugs* Love ya girl.

BTW, there is no particular order of who I love most...Haha. But this is Sheeeena!! Thanks for always encouraging me and listening to me. And for taking on the roles I left behind!!! We haven't taken enough photos!!
:( *Hugs* Love ya too...

Serene & Nana...You gals have been fantastic. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for being who you are, for never judging me but just being friends. You gals are awesome.

I love every single one of you. And I thank God so much that He's brought you into my life. I'm not feeling homesick or particularly vulnerable or anything. I just wanted to say how much you all mean to me. Praise the Lord that we have His love binding us! Yay! :)

When I Survey The Wondrous Cross... *tears*

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

This song is amazing. Speaks so much of the trauma that You had to go through dear Lord. Yet all that I can offer You is simply so small, so insignificant. Thank You for loving me the way You do. For being ever so patient with me. It was my sin that put You on that cross. Thank You that if it were just me, You would still be up on that cross shedding innocent blood. I know I still crucify You daily with what I sometimes do. And it cuts my heart to think of the grief I put you through. But I love You Lord. From the bottom of my heart. I give You my soul, my life my all.

Niagara Falls!!!! (1)

Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above with wisdom, power and love, our God is an AWESOME God! Hallelujah! All I could say when I saw the falls was awesome awesome awesome. God, You are awesome. His creation is perfect and it leaves me speechless. I had a fantastic time at the falls. And the most amazing thing happened. I almost can't believe it myself. And I thank God that He is a God that cares even to give me these little surprises in life. I love you Lord. *Big big grin*

Okay, so before I say what happened, here's a snapshot of one of the falls at Niagara! Awesome sight! I believe, this was the Canadian side of the falls, the Horseshoe Falls. Cool ain't it?! More coming up!!!

Ok, so I had the most amazing ride on the Maid of the Mist as you will see coming up soon. And it was really cool because we got to see the falls right up front and feel the gentle (not quite!!) spray of the falls. How can a fall of this intensity be gentle right?! :P

So I got reaaaaaaally wet on the Maid of the Mist. Here's before, with a new-found friend from Spain! - Beatriz:

And here's after!!!

Niagara Falls!! (2)

And of course, the most beautiful were the rainbows. If you ever want to be reminded of God's EVERLASTING covenant, just come to Niagara because there will always be rainbows to remind you of God's faithfulness. So hereeeeeeee!! So pretty right???? That one is formed by the American Falls...


And this huuuuuuuge one that Beatriz tried to capture in whole was almost impossible to. Behind is the Horseshoe Falls, which I guess can't really be seen. Hee...

OK, just a couple more pictures and I'll tell you about my night adventure!!

Won't you look at the force of that!!!!

OK, I have many many more pictures. But I'm not quite the camera man, so the pictures aren't the most exciting to see. But God is the ultimate artist! :) Woohoo!

Niagara Falls (3)

3 entries on Niagara Falls. I hope this is the last, though it might not be! But finally. To the little surprise I got when I was at Niagara. It started like this...My newly-found friend from Spain, Beatriz...Well, we went off exploring together. Suddenly, she spotted racoons! There were plenty of them! But it was hard to take a photo because they were far up a wall and it was getting dark. Below is an example of how the photo turned out. :P

Yes, all you see are the eyes. Right in the middle. Bleah.

So what happened is that Beatriz, in all her eagerness and excitement was climbing up the little slope to get closer to the racoons. Someone from the room upstairs called down, "Where are you from? Don't they have racoons over there?" Hahaha...We were like, "NO!" So he invited us upstairs to see the racoons! Surprise number ONE! So here are the racoons we saw!

There was even one who stayed in the drain and he was trying to get his little paws on the food...

To carry on, I'll have to use another post. Ha. Sorry about that...

Niagara Falls - Last one, I promise!

Well, the racoons were surprise number one. But guess what...The "little room upstairs" where we went to visit the racoons is actually the control centre for the light show of the Niagara Falls!!! So the man actually invited us to stay up there for the show...AAAAAAND! He allowed us to turn on the lights for him and change the colours of the lights as we wanted! How awesome is that?!?!?! I even have a certificate to prove that I was there. It says on the cert: "I lit Niagara Falls" Hahahaha!! I was simply THRRRRRRILLED! Check out my photos of proof. Hee...The middle photo with the man is the guy who's in charge of the lights :)

Yup, so that's it. Thanks for being so tolerant folks. Hee. Just wanted to share a little bit of Niagara with you all :) And to end off, a BIG (HERSHEY) HUG home to Singapore! :)

Life since school STARTED...

Well, school has finally started!! And my blog entries have started to slow down because life is slightly less exciting because most of the time is school. But hey! guess what! I managed to cook my FIRST dinner during the week! Check out the photo. I was so proud of myself and just so excited. The weird thing you see below the veggies is fish with Italian seasoning and garlic. Yum! Really, yum!! :)

Anyway, school. It's pretty cool to be walking along this nice nice campus, though it still feels a little surreal till now. The weather has been pretty warm, though today the temperature just dropped quite a bit! And you must always take in the WIND factor! It's the thing that makes you shiver...*Brrrr* But I was trying to play hero. I tried walking home with my jacket off. It was alright I guess. Argh! I wonder if I'm putting on some fat to block the cold!! :P

Okay, I just got distracted and went off talking about the weather. Shows you how interesting class is I guess. Not much to talk about. :) Well, the way class works here is pretty different. Most of my lectures are a lot smaller. Besides a night class I have, the largest lecture group is just about a hundred. The others are way smaller, like half that size and there's one that has only 15 people! For a LECTURE! And some of the lectures are a lot more interactive! Like an English lecture I had (ENGL 206 - History of the English Language), people were just raising their hands and giving their opinions. I thought that was way cool! :) I even got to talk! Woohoo! And the prof was asking who would say they have accents other than Canadian...My hand went up! Singaporean accent! Wahaha!! :P

That's English class. It was pretty interesting. All my other geography ones vary greatly. For 2 geog courses, I have lecturers who are kinda old and one talks really fast, the other mumbles! But either way, the content is interesting I guess, learning about lakes and about third world development (different courses lah...). But guess what?!?!??! The field trip that I so wanted to go for has been cancelled! For the lamest reason! Because we don't have a Teaching Assistant! I have made my complaint known to the Geog Department head. Bleah! The reason I took this was for the field trip. You hardly get any cool field trips in Singapore! (My coolest was...Bukit Timah Hill?!)

Anyway, for the other 2, I have rather young lecturers, one of them being pretty cute (in the words of my friend, uh-uh, not me... :P). So that's it. This seems to have been a pretty boring entry. Ha. But I'm going to go to Niagara Falls tomorrow! Will be taking loads of photographs! For my students in the future! Yay! Actual photographs that I can say I took. Geography coming alive. Whooopeee!! :)

Breakfast!

Daniel first taught me to eat cornflakes with yoghurt and milk. Thank you dear! Cos it's a fantastic breakfast! Except since I only bought Cheerios, I'm eating it with Cheerios... :) Looks good ay?

Queen's University at Kingston! :)

Darn. It seems my blog is really boring and not at all very smart because I've hardly talked about anything except blandly narrated what's been going on in my life, and just putting captions for pictures!! Hmmm. Hope to change that a little when I get the inspiraiton. But for now, since it's the first day of REAL school, more pictures! Ha!

This is a picture of the John-Deutsch University Centre, fondly known as the JDUC (pronnounced jay-duck). The Canadians seem to shorten everything really cool-ly...Like the University Health Insurance Plan (UHIP) is pronnounced you-hip. Ha. Cool huh? :)

Just thought this is a pretty nice shot, especially with the pretty tree. In the back back ground, a rather interesting looking building is the Stauffer Library. It's huge.

I can't believe I'm actually in Queen's. The 2 above are one of those shots like from the movies, but I'm actually here. I can't quite believe that still.

OK, moving off campus, across Princess Street, the busiest street in Kingston, a very long long stretch, but only part of it I have to walk thru to get home...Look at the picture below for a pretty nice picture of Princess Street, with the lights and stuff...

Yup, so that's it for this round of photos. I still have a photo of the outside of my house that I want to put up. Maybe when my entire house is done with renovations and I can take pictures all over the house. :) Oh, oh oh!! By the way, I saw a FAT RACOOOOON outside my house just now! But my camera was not doing too well in the dark, so I didn't manage to get a photo!! But I saw a REAL racooon!! So cool! :)

Last night of orientation before *sobs* school starts!

Yup, so tonight there was a semi-formal kinda party and it was pretty nice, being served in a Harry Potter kind of hall (as seen in one picture below...). Ahhh. End of the fun, school's gonna start in a couple of days time. Tomorrow will be the first time I'm attending church in Kingston! Yay! So excited!! Bethel Church...And there's gonna be a Power Praise & Worship at night too...Way cool! :)

So here are some pictures I took at the party...

This is my good Japanese friend - Chikako (not Chicago!!) happily displaying her food. She was insistent on getting the Harry Potter kind of hall in the background. :P

Again, with all the girls. Mostly the Asian girls. Think the Jap gals are really pretty. Not that the others aren't lah, but yeah, it was fun seeing everyone dress up. Hee. I was kinda freaking out about the "semi-formal" bit. Didn't want to under/over dress! Oh well, it turned out OK I guess.

This is the part of the group that attended the party. In the back row are Adam and Kylie (who are really pretty tall!!!!!) who are the geckos, our leaders. Then from left to right in the first row, Suzie, Chikako, Me!, Matt and Natalie, another gecko.

OK, this is how tall my gecko, Kylie is. Check it out.

To be continued...

Continued...

So again, these are the really sweet Japanese girls I've come to know. Maria (who was born on Christmas, thus her name...), Chisako, Chikako and Sayoko. I can spell all their names, not bad ay? :)

Shariq and me! Shariq's from SMU and both him and Kaushal have been taking good care of me, walking me home and stuff. Thanks so much guys, really appreciate it! Below's Kaushal's picture so he can't say I'm biased. But yeah, their walk home service beats Queen's actual walk home service cos it's really not too nice to walk home myself. So yeah. Thank you so much dudes.

So there's Kaushal. He's also been really nice. We're in our tams in this picture by the way. It's a tradition of Queen's, to be given these tams during occasions such as homecoming and all. We're all grown up...*Sniff Sniff*

*Oil Thigh Na Benduhlalala Na Benlala...Kayah kayah kayah!* This is another of Queen's traditions, and it's spelt totally wrong of course. I still haven't got the entire song right, but it's fun. Someone starts off with a finger circling in the air, going "Ooooooooooo" and then we all start singing. :)

So wow. I can't believe school is starting on Monday. Wonder what it's going to be like.

More photos from Canada

I've got a whole load of time now cos I'm waiting for my friends to give me a call. Can you believe someone actually took home my set of keys and didn't know they were mine?! And I spent ALL morning searching for them and missing out on an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast. :P Sighs. And now here I am. Oh wells. So anyway, the picture on the left is of me and a maple tree. I guess upon reaching here the tree isn't that fantastic, though the leaves still are rather pretty. The next one shows a leaf that has turned brown in advance. Hee...

Serene and me. :)

Hey girlie. I promised to upload the picture. So here it is. We do look pretty cool huh? :) I miss ya!

More photos...

This was taken outside the art gallery at Ottawa. We actually had a road trip there! It was so cool!! I was kinda reluctant to take next to the spider. It's so eeky. But oh well. Since I'm there, I had to make the most of it! :)


And in the background you see the art gallery itself. It's HUUUUGE! :) Looked really nice. Note I was in shorts and that day was sooooooooo cold! Good thing I had my nice warm GAP pullover. Got it from Singapore for like 10 bucks. Cool huh...


These people form my group - The Planeteers! (from Captain Planet) and another group, part of our 'family'. We're in our tams. It's a tradition at Queens, at homecoming and stuff...So cool! Got it as souvenir! :)

Check out the size of the bowling ball! We went bowling in Ottawa, after dinner. And it's so different!! Haven't asked if it was specially for us or if it's Canadian style of bowling. But it was pretty fun. :) The girl next to me is Yoshimi, a Japanese girl. There are about 5 of them. Really sweet. :)

Ok, more photos coming up in the future, when I have stable net access again! :)

Pictures of my room

Yay! Finally able to upload pictures of my room. So this is my messy room. Will upload more pictures soon. :)

Thank you God.

I was at quite a low point sometime today because I felt absolutely like a loser. There was some sort of a pre-party (with booze and those stuff) happening and I didn't want to go. But I was to meet them there before we set off for a concert. Well, I took a short nap, was all ready to go out, and I did go out. All the way to the pre-party house, and then, I felt totally lost. Everyone was like drinking and making noise, socializing. I couldn't even find my group members. I felt totally out of place, really awkward. Some people were looking at me funny and I was like whoaa...So I just walked off. Walked back home. All by myself.

I turned on my computer and hoped for the best. Wanted to use the Internet to connect to people with email or something. It was like 7.30 in the morning in Singapore and I didn't think anyone would be online. I didn't even know if there would be strong enough wireless Internet for me to tap on. After trying and trying and trying, I finally got on MSN. And Amanda was online! Cool stuff!!! We talked about Street E and how it went and stuff and I felt so achey inside. Man! I wish I could be part of it! Things always seem so exciting when I'm not there. It sure feels like that a lot. But yeah, I just wish I could be there to celebrate the salvations. But trust me, I'm doing that right here, 12 hours behind Singapore time. Truly, thank you God. You knew I needed to talk to Manda. :) You were an encouragement dear. Love ya.

Anyway, moving on to more happening stuff. This morning was pretty enjoyable though. And many of these ideas are really cool for future events (camps, etc!!) The morning started off with coverall painting. What's that? Well, earlier on we had coverall fittings, so we all got our own coveralls. And we just went crazy with paint!! Leaving handprints on each others' coveralls, some people just rolling in the paint. It was great fun!!!

Then we had what was know as the NEWT (see previous entry for what this stands for) Olympics, which was a series of station games, described below:

1. Dodgeball - Not quite dodgeBALL, but dodge sponge, cos there's like 3 groups of people - the trolls, the archers and the fairies. The trolls load up for the archers, meaning they soak up sponges with water and spray shaving cream on for the archers attack the opposing team's archers. Then the archers are the attackers, and the fairies are the ones who block the archers from getting hit. When an archer is hit, they have to go out for 30 seconds and then come back as a fairy. So of course, the last archer standing helps the group to win. :)

2. Twister - This can be reaaaaally fun. I was really bad at it cos I'm kinda inflexible. But basically, it's just Twister with a twist. Play it with a soapy mat and see what you get! (Wow, that rhymes!!) But it's really cool to play Twister and watch everyone slip and fall. Haha...

3. Normal sponge game - Pretty normal because you just stand in one line, pass a sponge down the line, alternatingly over the head and under the legs until the end with a bucket and squeeeeeze all the water out. Last preson run to the front and repeat till the same person reaches the back.

4. 4-legged race - We've probably played this before but it was fun cos the area is really grassy and there's sort of a slight slope and as we skidded across the soapy canvas to give the guy at the end a high five, it was pretty cool. I was really proud of my team cos we had 3 groups of 3 and won all! Ha! And my group in particular was really fast!!! Yay!

5. Balloon Toss - This one was ok. A volunteer from each group stood at one end with a basket on top of his head. Then members of the opposing team were supposed to throw mini balloons into the basket and make them burst over that guy. However, the guy's objective was to retain as many unburst balloons to win. So yeah. It can be cool. :)

6. Orange-tabulous - Don't know why it's called this, but our colour, as NEWTs is orange. So yeah. Anyway, this worked with a little hill. A huge canvas going down the hill, of course with soapy water again. Then we were made to go down the canvas with a balloon to pass to the guy at the end. The catch? The balloon could not be held in the hand. Also, when going down the canvas, more than just the feet had to be in contact with the canvas. You should have seen the way the guys just dived down!! It was really fun to watch. Hehe.

7. Tree game - Don't know the name of this game, but I thought it was pretty interesting. Haha. A member was picked to cling to the tree, and while he/she was up there, the members had to use tape to tape the person to the tree...Round and round and round until the person stays up there without his/her feet on the ground and without any support. First group that makes it wins. Never saw anyone play this game before. :P

So yeah, that was it. Thought I might as well type it out before I forget how it goes. Might be useful to add into our games list. :)

My first entry.

Kingston, Kingston, Kingston. Wow. I can't believe I'm actually in Kingston. Toodling about in Toronto, I thought I was just on a holiday. After all the stress about getting things done like settling housing stuff and getting furniture and all, I finally am here. Have been here a couple of days now...3 days actually. That's pretty short considering I'm about to stay here for another 100 odd days. Who's counting? *shrugs*

You can see my room in the photos (when I can upload them). It's a great room, except that there's no one living in the house with me so it gets kind of creepy. But I've never felt creeped out. Thanks be to God, for keeping my mind sane! Thank you Lord for giving me a sense of peace even in the dark of the night. I remember reading Psalm 23 on the plane flying to Toronto. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me;..." I was thinking, "Man! Such assurance! And it's not cos 'I fear no evil, for I keep my eyes focused on you', nor is it 'I fear no evil, for I think about you', but it is clearly 'I fear no evil, for you are with me.'" Ain't that cool?!

Anyway, had orientation today. It's an orientation programme for the NEWTS, or the New Exchange Woohoo Transfer Students. It was okay. There were 2 sections in my group basically, the REAL exchange students and transfer students, plus what they call, the "castle kids". These people were in a REAL castle in the UK studying under Queen's Uni and now they're back at main campus. So those guys are kinda cliqueish. Oh well. They're having some wild party night thing, which I have decided not to go for. Booze. Hanging out. Nah, no thanks. So here I am, tapping on the neighbour's super low wireless account.

I've been shopping around town a bit. I live right next to the main shopping street, so that's cool. :) Guess I'll have to get everyone's presents there. Haha. Lalala. Missing everyone at home. I can't wait for this entire blog to be full of cool experiences here in Queen's, Kingston. Please let me make the most of this dear Lord. Please.