This Weekend

I'll be at the Navigators Fall Retreat held here : www.threemountainretreat.com
Think it'll be fun. It's just that I'm so tired right now... I just wanna sleep. And I haven't thought of what to be at the costume party on Sat night.
Will post pictures when I get back on Sunday. Take care all, and use the tagboard!

pictures

top to bottom (these aren't in chronological order):
free soda after the maze - worrying about squishing the pumpkin - with becks at BBQ lunch - the glory of corn - awesome gourd-like fruit - gail punching her card at our first stop

Marble Falls

idontcarewhoyouarewhereyourefromwhatyoudidASLONGASYOULOVEMEEE...
You were my strength when I was weakYou were my voice when I couldn't speakYou were my eyes when I couldn't seeYou saw the best there was in meLifted me up when I couldn't reachYou gave me faith 'coz you believedI'm everything I amBECAUSEYOULOVEDMEEE...

The radio served up some great songs from the '90s as we cruised along the highway toward the town of Marble Falls for the Sweey Berry Farm Texas Maze. Oddly enough, there were no berries to be found at the farm, only pumpkins. And LOTS of them. The largest cost $25. Kids were sitting on pumpkins and rolling around in the haystacks.
Overalls-checkedshirts-scarecrows-homemadejam-cornmazes-strawbarns-pumpkinspumpkinspumpkins...

The maze took us 1hour15mins. We had to find 12 'towns' and get our cards punched at every stop. By the 6th town, I'd had enough of the blazing sun and walls of cornstalks. But with Rebecca's gifted leadership we soldiered on and found the last 6 towns in 15 mins. After that, of course, the sun was brilliant and the maze was beautiful. We got free pink lemonade too. Mm.

Apart from a really good time at Marble Falls, I was blessed with a really pleasant surprise today. I went to pick up a parcel from the Post Office, which the postman had tried to deliver twice before. It turned out to be a Creative webcam from Skype, as a prize in their September Back To College Giveaway! The last time I won something significant was a trip to Phuket in a children's contest by the Singapore Zoo. Haha. It's been a while. Thanks Skype!

So yes. Today was a good day of 'recharging' after a rather draining week. I'm all ready for the week ahead. In about 6 hours I will be taking part in the Great MG Gals Five Timezone Chat (with participants in Singapore, US, UK, Canada and Australia) and I'm wondering if I'll be awake enough to actually contribute anything significant to the conversation.

Alright, I'm going back to digging for deeper layers of meaning in the Disney Hercules movie for my Greece/Rome: FIlm and Reality class. Miss you guys.

Where I'll be on Saturday morning:

We're taking on the Sweet Berry Farm 'Texas' Maze! The sight of that thing fills me with childish delight. It's gorgeous. It'll get me through the two tests looming before me.
Right now... Missing home and the familiar. I wouldn't say the novelty has worn out or anything; every day will always be at least a little exciting and there's definitely no shortage of new things to do, people to meet, restaurants to try (from Rebecca's very own Amazing Austin Makansutra. I aim to cover them all!)
But you know the feeling. It gnaws at your insides. Like a beaver. The webcam is a wonderful device, but not nearly enough.
More to come after my tests.

My baby, my desk (which I assembled MYSELF. And oh it wasn't easy)

Don't you think my lamp looks like the Pixar Animation Studios one which hops onto the screen before a movie starts, jumps on and flattens the "I" in PIXAR and then kind of stares at you while everything fades to black? That being said, doesn't it seem like it's WATCHING YOU now? Creepy, huh? :)

Everything seems possible after a bath

Hi all (especially my dear Kyle, whom I haven't heard from for ages... can't believe you're half-blind, boy, but yeah you can do the ray charles/stevie wonder thing - hey, isn't that what you've always wanted??)

Mid-Autumn Festival was pretty cool, we had a little booth in the Union Ballroom in school along with all the other Asian societies. Of course all the Vietnamese girls were wearing their cute flowy ethnic outfits, and the cheongsam-ed Taiwanese/Chinese girls were strutting around in all their old-Shanghai glory. They looked really good though.

Here's a picture of our booth:

The 4 tubs to the right contain goldfish, which were the most popular prizes of the night. And my friend Andre on the left is pretending to be a beggar. That plastic container he's begging with originally held jelly sticks... the kind you can either squeeze out and eat right away or freeze for later. haha we loved them so much we tried our best not to give 'em away as prizes. I love the purple/grape flavor. FlavoUr. Whatever. I can't decide whether to spell American or British. One of my friends insists on the extra 'u' to show our loyalty to the crown. I know, weird.

But it was cool celebrating MAF (to steal a Hwa Chong term) and asking people quiz questions like, "How many suns did the archer Hou Er shoot down?" Answer: 9. BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW. Except maybe the HwaChongians.

After that we headed to a Chinese restaurant for nice rice and sesame chicken and kailan and doumiao and stupid but hilarious fortune cookies that taught you Chinese words at the same time.

Okay, gonna go do some Government reading. That's one subject I don't really like. But before I go, HAPPY EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY BETH!! Glad you got the top, yes you look UBER-HOT in it... I'm gonna go out and grab a kimono blouse for myself very soon too.

Til the next post then! And I like my simple grey on white layout, so no it's not gonna change anytime soon.

Okaaay

Alrighty.. so it doesn't sound so crude, I changed my blog address.
Any vulgar Taiwanese connotations were purely unintentional.