Entry 6: 'Cause You Had A Bad Day

I had my first bad week in a fortnight here, and one doesn't need to employ statistics to know that's not a good sign.

I sort of lost my bike at the bike rack, or maybe it got stolen. Technically my bike is still chained there (or at least I think it's my bike), but the chain is not mine, so it sort of got "stolen" by the chain owner. How ingenious. It's like changing the lock on someone's doors and the house is yours.

And then I lost my room key, along with my gorgeous rotary engine keychain. I had to pay them $25 to replace the key core. Tomorrow I'm having my first test in about 3 years, and it's a calculus test too. What with the f(x) and limits and integrands and stuff, stuff that I couldn't seem to put to use during my times with the SAF.

Speaking of transport.. Ok technically I can't use it here because I wasn't really "speaking of" it in the previous topic, but I'd suggest you keep your mouth shut instead. Anyhow, people here have very varied modes of transport. There's the walkers, the bus riders, the drivers, the cyclists, the skateboarders and rollerbladers, and then there's unicyclists. UNICYCLISTS! Once after Engineering Lab I saw this guy lugging a unicycle with a wheel about two-thirds my height, then hopped on it and unicycled away.

The other thing I like about this place is the warmth and friendliness. In Singapore, people just release doors and let it slam in your face; over here, people actually bother to hold it open for you, even if you're a few steps away from reaching it. Of course, there's the occasionally asshole who doesn't say thanks, but in general it makes life much more worth living. So the biggest wonder is why there are so many emos in America.

The ladies at the Tarkington (my resident hall) dining hall call me "Joe" for some reason. But whatever floats their boat I guess: at least they can recognise me when they swipe my card for dinner. Lovely ladies.

Long weekend ahead due to Labour Day. "Perspectives" trip around Greater Lafayette with other international students, and then the Aurora trip organised by the PSSA (photos I promise! Stop threatening me!). Hope they go to Aurora: I just wanna escape this place for a weekend. Somehow everything still feels like a holiday, the food, the people, the weather. I just keep having this feeling that I might someday find myself waking up, eating white rice with hot plate tofu (tie ban dou fu) or venison with ginger (jiang cong lu rou) or something like that. I'm not missing char kway teow or chicken rice though. Not yet anyway.