Monday, February 21, 2005

It's the first day of my university life, though strictly speaking it's only orientation. Anyway I wasn't able to be on yesterday and post cause my internet connection was down, so perhaps I should update about yesterday. Ok here goes:-

Yesterday

Woke up early to attend church. The chinese service was at 9am in this church called Meng En Methodist. Saw a few people that I recognised from Toa Payoh Chinese Methodist back when I was a kid. There were Guo Chao uncle, his wife, son, daughter in law and his cute little grandson. There were also Mr Shi Sen En and his wife, who happened to be the Master of Ceremony for the service for today as well. These were people whom I last saw about 10 years ago, and I remember going for trips out in Guo Chao uncle's boat and plucking sea mussels off the buoys out in the sea. Gabriel and Joel are among the rare few who should still be able to share in these memories. Despite the vast amount of time in between when I had last seen them, they were still looking good, having appeared not to have aged a single day. The service ended at 10.30 am, and we adjourned to a small side room for refreshments of coffee/tea and biscuits (is it me or is there a connection between the Chinese Methodist and post service refreshments???)

After the refreshments, we made out way down to this dim sum place (again...) on invitation of Guo Chao Uncle for lunch with his wife and grandson. Had a good lunch and quite fun time playing with his grandson, who looks remarkably like Zhixiang when he was young. Will post pics of him when I get it. You be the judge.

Headed to the Subiaco Oriental Supermarket after that for a bit of food shopping. Good grief the prices here are insane, imagine muruku at $3 or mentos at $2.40!!! That's like at least 3 times the prices in Singapore!!! Left the shopping to my parents.

Went home and played some computer games, when Wendi came in with a manual lawn-mower, his newest purchase. Was set to work mowing the lawn, which was really back-breaking work. Aren't we not supposed to work on the sabbath? Had to go to bed soon after dinner, not only was my back sore from the mowing, but I needed to go school tomorrow too.

Today

Checked the internet connection in the morning, still down... Dang... Went to school, registered for orientation at Trinity College, and we were brought across to UWA for our first talks. Met Danny Yap that joker and his friends Ben and his landlord, who surprising turned out to be this young and rather good looking Singaporean gal called Jeanette. Went for the first talk together. After the first talk, as we were broken up into groups for orientation, I ran into Eddy Goh from my previous army camp, who happened to be in the same group as me. The rest of the day carried nothing of event as it consisted mostly of talks. Perhaps a noteworthy item would be the lunch; while not the most fabulous food in the world, was much better than the army muck they served in the cookhouse. Why did army food cross my mind? Because like the army, you had to queue up and get your food from one single vendor who scooped portions out accordingly, and you had to return your plates and utensils and cups at one allocated area. And the food does bear a slight resemblance.

The next event to be perhaps noted was while me and Danny were waiting for the next talk while students without a bank account yet were taken to register. Since we had an hour on our hands, we went to Mathilda's Bay by the beach. We, or rather Danny, was captivated by the ducks that were a fixture on the beach. We had a talk during which part of the conversation was as follows:-

Dan: Hey the ducks are damn cute huh.

Ian: Yeah, very.

Dan: Looks like wooden ducks man. I'd love to get a duck as a pet.

Ian: Haha. (Thinking of Huiyu, but that's not the funny part)

Dan: Look at that colourful feather. Wah lau, feel like plucking it out and keeping it.

Ian: You sick bastard.

Dan: No really lar...

Ian: Actually yeah, that part is really colourful and very nice huh.

Dan: Feel like plucking right?

Ian: You are really a sick bastard...

End

Orientation ended around 5pm, whereby we were to get the list of units (subjects) we are taking this year to be approved tomorrow. Looks like there are some tough choices I'll have to make. Waited for Wendi to come pick me up. Reached home in about 45 mins. Elison, my sis's friend, came to join us for dinner. Had a delightful after-dinner conversation and came online blogging after that. Sigh... Time to decide my units... Roger out.