Now I know not to walk too (obviously) alone

One of the things I've set out for myself to learn is that, if I ever bump into a situation where it feels a little weird, if it is not an outright crime I'll take it as a learning experience.


And this is one of them.


Today, while I was on my way to GameWorks Seattle (to be precise - I was in between 6th and 7th Avenue) a guy called Cavalli Cash, and his partner Cali, pushed this CD/DVD set to me for $25, offering me stuff and claiming something along the lines of getting enough sales to have them appear on MTV or something, I didn't really remember.


Normally, I remember if I were in Singapore, I'd watch out for these people and give them a wide berth. The problem is, I'm in unfamiliar land, and this time I traveled alone entirely (to squeeze in some local arcade time) so I'm not protected by what I would call the "stopping force of groups ignoring you outright".


And indeed, I do think that $25 has just flown off, because off my head the first thing I saw was gangsta rap, and I distinctly remember disliking gangsta rap (in a way, I prefer Eminem's because he at least makes stuff that resonates with an international audience, and/or has catchier tunes) so I had a sneaky feeling I wasn't getting the worth.


But, and this is a huge BUT - if my mother's taught me anything, it's to "spend money to avert disaster." This is not to say you spend money indiscriminately, but that if money can potentially solve a problem that feels like it's burning either your bum, or is a nagging doubt at the back of the head, just give it up so that you get a safer passage out out the situation.


Given the origins of gangsta rap itself, who knows if I would get mugged if I refused? ^_^;


On a side note, there may have been other reasons why. I'll show them in picture form when I'm done sleeping. ^_^;

Friends = free rides?!?!?!

Singapore's small enough that trying to cramp friends into a car is usually something not very welcome even when presented with the right opportunities, and to build up to that stage usually means you're really good friends with that person.

But I speak in the Singaporean context.

Here, I've gotten a grand total of three free car rides (excluding the one that the apartment manager gave us to familiarise with nearby amenities - and to pay rent ^^;) and these are friends I don't already know for more than six months, like just weeks. It seems that they're a lot more open to giving people rides here, since it's such an ubiquitous transport.

In other news, I've got to remember how to do a roll on concrete properly. I knocked my knee (specifically, the point in my right leg just underneath the kneecap) and that was a week ago, during Friday of HvZ week. Now, touching it gives a YEOUCH response so I've got to be careful not to overdo it.

In yet more other news, I just finished the mid-term test for MAT140. While I don't say that I've gotten it all right, I do think I've prepared fairly enough for everything, except proofing questions for matrices.

Really, how could I forget that in the case of AC = CB, not only will C = I yield you A = B, but A = C^-1 will also lead to C^-1C = I, therefore making CB = I and making B also = C^-1??? For a while I thought if ONLY C = I will A = B... zzz. Since I was supposed to DISPROVE the theory, then I should say if AC = CB, A = B ONLY when C = I and A = C^-1, and everything else...

Shucks. How do i prove everything else =_=;

Ah well, test done. Just wait to get less than perfect score then >_>;

We're halfway there~

And today we met up with a CTO (yet again, names I always fail to remember). Had pizza and discussed a lot about our next six weeks in DigiPen, which was a priceless experience, once again, hearing from the professionals.

The story so far...

Since this week is HvZ week, I'll do a recap of the game so far from my POV.

But first ---

Mr Ellinger has requested us to meet him next Monday at 11.30am (i.e. 8.30pm Monday, Singapore time). Mr Lam, do drop a message if you want like, Skype together with us when we meet him (lol)

And then...

THE STORY SO FAR...

Due to a random admin error on both sides, one form of mine (the waiver, like the one Mr Lam gave us before we set off here) didn't get to Nicole, so I wasted Monday morning's sleep going to school early. No Tuesday missions either.

Generally speaking, I find the 6.30~6.45am time block a good time to go to school for HvZ purposes, because of how deserted the whole place is save for the people who're firing up the kitchen and preparing admin stuff. I (think I) saw Mr Claude Comair (I'm really horrible with faces! I should take note of him from now on) and he was pretty surprised at a student who's ostensibly much earlier than he is, I think.

No, it's just for the game unfortunately >.< the Washington morning is so hazy and chilly, I don't know if I'll have any other reason from HvZ to go early. But I'll strive to keep trying the 8am arrival timing (instead of the 9am timing) so I get a good breakfast of eggs instead of running to school on empty.

I DIGRESS.

Anyway, Wednesday night's mission was a blast. The zombies have gone half-half by this time, but we still manage to only lose like ten of us (me not included). I should really provide a picture idea of what happened, but I'll leave that to later during the weekend (which I don't think will be spent outside of Sammamish Ridge).

So, part one, we went to the back of the cafeteria, around the parking lot, on an escort-the-scientists mission. We got hit by one wave per spot we tried to "collect samples from", so it was pretty crazy as about five of us would go down per spot. I almost got tagged too, but the guy tagged me after he was shot in the stomach by Kevin.

Everything went south when (allegedly) the zombies started a respawn one minute earlier than they were supposed to, causing general chaos. That was also the reason why we lost more men at the last spot, including my project partner (oh no!).

(He's now a gleeful zombie. Herp derp >_>)

 The upside is I survived, and I got a vaccine for it. I got ONE tag too. So awesome -_-

Thursday's night mission was cancelled because of various school stuff like mid-terms (one for MAT140 is up next Thursday).

So today.

I decided to play G.I. Joe. After hitting two zombies outside the main gate (taking my tally here to 3), I got above my head. I taunted a crowd of no less than five freaking XXL-sized zombies, and realising quickly I was hopelessly outnumbered, I began to shoot the closest one, failing which I just decided to make a fast dash around the building to the front door.

Reaching the door, I managed to tag an unsuspecting zombie (taking my tally to four) and I got the zombies to crowd me around the safe zone, taunting me for my free vaccine. (side note - since when did zombies have human intelligence?!?!?!?!?!?!) So I was like, okay, gentleman's agreement:

1. They would hand me some of my darts back. Of course they didn't hand everything... But it was enough darts for one-shot-one-kill, but of course that was not going to happen

2. I would take two minutes, inclusive of reload time, after which I would be out of the safe zone and I'm free game for whoever can tag me.

I began a sprint, like some gun on a 1v6 Western-styled duel, only with one bullet cocked and everyone else just trying to catch me. I tagged the original guy who accepted the agreement on behalf of the group - then ran past a completely hapless girl zombie and dashed the way I came - back around to Pascal again!

Here's where things got panicky and hairy - I missed my chance to get in to the safe zone from the Pascal side, and I made a split-second decision not to go there - it was hopelessly overrun by zombies. So I kept running, to the zmoking - wait, I mean smoking - corner, where I quickly realised it was a horrible decision because I have to go down the stairs, and up at the other side. Nevertheless, I cleared that zone, taking out a zombie in the way, then ran all the way around the area to the cafeteria safe zone...

...where Nick (zombie) was waiting for me. I shot him before I went in, so that rose my tally to seven total. But I expended nearly all my darts in the run.

Lesson learnt -

Never try to engage zombies by the group - unless you're doing it as a bait and switch.

Always engage from a safe distance - you don't want to crash into them for both health and game reasons.

P.S. After the above, I got 5 in random skirmishes. WOOHOO
P.P.S. I got epic tagged by trickery. While I felt good earlier, this really made me look silly - think playing into a death trap -_-

Lesson learnt #2 - never trust zombies -.-

Challenge Accepted!

It has begun.

Explorers' Spirits

So we went to buy money orders yesterday from the QFC on 90th. Probably safe now to conclude that both QFCs are good for settling rent, but since we only need to do this one more time it's not really that big a bother now, lol.

And, as though the explorer's spirits in us all have awakened, we (or rather, Ken urging, me echoing, and JW + Faiz dragged along) went around and discovered some landmarks we've previously not been aware of.

For example?

There's a board games store down the same stretch of shophouses adjacent to the bubble tea shop. While the guy was okay, I felt the service was a little flat. But he did stock a Munchkin Bites expansion, so I got it.

And I conclude that I suck at bargaining.

Orz

Next, we went straight on and banked left (instead of right, which would lead us all the way down to the 7-11 close to Shalimar) and we found ourselves, among other things:

1. A humongous cinema complex. One whole building by itself. This would definitely be inconceivable in Singapore, given our limited land space.

2. A medical center - wait, is this the same one Mr Lam mentioned? o_o;

3. A sushi place. It's open and conveyors are running, but... uhh... nah.

4. ULTIMATE MARTIAL ARTS! I KUNG FU YOUR ASS! Just kidding. But outside the shop there's a ninja event thing... lol?

(oops, forgot to take pictures here)

Then, we went down to Redmond Town Center, mainly because Ken wanted to go Gamestop to get a DS Dragon Quest RPG game and Jun Wei wanted Starcraft 2 (cue sweeeeeeeeeet graphics inbound). I stopped earlier at Hobbytown to see what they would stock for Nerf, but after looking at the shelf (of a grand total of three unique guns, what) I gave up (unconsciously it was probably instant, but I picked one gun up, pretended to look at its specs while knowing I won't buy a Nerf there -_-).

So after they're done with Gamestop we went downstairs, and explored the area a little. Then we found ourselves another board games store, and it has a much more awesome title to it.

Uncle's Games.

We played chess for a little while (from which I conclude in all harshness that Singaporean chess has failed to pick up yet another casual strong player - seriously?) and then we moved on to playing Munchkin Quest, which ended up taking 3 whole hours to play because it's so awesome.

And Faiz won because he beat the last boss on one single dice roll (by luck, LOL!) and, since we decided not to use my re-roll-all-dices card because it didn't really say "At anytime", then yea. We were running a little late for dinner, too =_=

I know I was probably dead tired by then (I am getting old...) because I fell asleep in a dungeon playing just two runs of Dragon Nest -.-;

[more misc pictures inbound here?]

Coding is (always?) fun!

Especially when you can do awesome things to it.

That's why we all code, no?

Today me and Austin (YES! NEW PARTNER GET!!) discussed over lunch about a top-down shooter influenced by Battlefield BC and Red Faction (and possibly danmaku, or bullet curtains). Without going into details, I'm pretty confident I can prototype something reasonable over the weekdays.

The GAM100 Team Project is shaping up pretty neatly. Yokatta~!

In yet more other news, the guys sans Jun Wei went to Bellevue on the new RapidRide Line that now serves Downtown Bellevue to Redmond. There's quite a bit of pictures from yesterday, and I'm sure I got a lot of images, but since I'm in school now (in class as I type this) that'll mean this post is

TO BE CONTINUED... orz

Sundays with blogs

It's zombie season soon!


I couldn't resist going to their information session to take a look, after Nick Bugliarelli (yay new friend!) got all pumped up talking to me about HvZ.


Basically, it's the closest to street warfare with humans using Nerf guns and zombies playing tag. Simply speaking, if zombies tag, you will die and join the zombies, but you as human can take out zombies with a simple Nerf gun firing Nerf darts; when they hit it'll be counted as they died, and they can only respawn after five minutes.


I think I'd probably enjoy running down Willows Road being hunkered down by zombies ^^


In other news, ProjectFUN screwed with me by messing the Jukebox bit of my project. So I'm going to have to redo Pong from scratch, bummer.


-__-|||


Aaaaaand we all spent about 8+ hours playing Dragon Nest over Saturday. Which is a pretty huge bummer, considering we all saw how Jun Wei leveled faster than any one of us and, by now, should have hit Level 30. Level cap is 32, release was Wednesday, and he's already 30. Yea.


Too fast. Cannot take his awesome.


>_<+

どうゆ意味これ? (What is the meaning of this?)

*Any names used in this post is pure coincidence. No offence to the chai dians and chee dans! - @ Jun Wei

So yesterday I did something really silly in Edison, wanting to get my grouping early.

I held a sign up in Edison that says:

Looking for a GAM100 Project Partner? Talk to me!

Desperado-do-do-WHUUUT?

The reason for this is really simple. They have many weeks to complete GAM100, but we're leaving two weeks before the end of the semester. That means whoever partners with us needs to be on his own (or at least without overseas support for two~three days).

It's a little hard now because everyone's still trying to find their footing in this, so actually I can fully understand if people are still not in the mood to get into making games yet (as in, their students, not ours, we should be ever-ready I guess? Just guessing).

Luckily, that sign hanging got me a single name - Austin Kruckmeyer. ^o^

I find that DigiPen actually does this: through ProjectFUN, they teach you how you can rapidly prototype games without actually going to very deep levels of coding (although deepest I've seen so far is if/else conditional C++ coding), whereas in DET we're made to go through C++ codes FIRST before going onto making actual games out of it.

So is it our cue to maybe use an entry-level game prototyping software, something like Game Maker? Because the general sentiment now is that those in DET(G) VERY QUICKLY sees how programming is dull/bunch of maths stuff being thrown about/yada (yet while they do understand the hard of C++, they don't know FIRST how to make games fun as a base).

I find that a little disheartening, seeing people wading in a sea of lost codes. >_>;

Our course is, comparatively speaking, a pressure-cooker course for those who really know what they want, I find, because I know for SURE I wanted to program games all the way (unless something in life throws me a spanner/Jun Wei(???)/lemon) and many of the better programmers in our course (that is, better than ME programmers) are self-motivated to succeed in one way or the other through making games, but neither us nor the rest of the course sees first-hand how to make it fun first.

Principle of Game Design doesn't really count ^____^;;;;;; (sorry Mr Wee!)

[but PoGD IS fun, yes it is! But it's Year 2... a little late >.<]

Anyway,  I got to know three other guys from our classes through table tennis (since someone *ahem ahem* is too focused on his Alienware to care about a poor, poor friend, hmph).

Garrett, Steven, Blake.

[remind me to sneak a picture of them three all at once]

Yea. I'll try to remember their names by their hair and body shape, but it's going to be a little hard. I see Asians all the time back in Singapore, so of course it gets harder trying to identify Americans! >.<

The Departed (Jun Wei) and Infernally Electrical Business!

Ah yes, I've completely forgotten about that dinner picture from two posts ago so I'll do that later.

But first!

I've thought about it again, so today I posted on GAM100 about finding for a new partner. o_o; hope it works out yet again, but it's a risk!

Jun Wei is on tenterhooks today; after ditching him at home habitually now because of my sudden love for going to school early, I'd expect him to chase after my tail or at least get to school on time; today he's nearly late for lessons, and he was huffing his way to class.

On top of that he's kept checking his low-bat phone (how it got low is a mystery) for the delivery schedule (receiving a few smashes to the face from my ping-pong ball in the process, lol!), because his new laptop is coming and he cannot wait at all.

Well, at least it saves me a few hours on my audiospace away from "cheedan", "chai dian" and "is that true"... >_>

As if to help him settle back at apartment to wait for the laptop, Professor Schafer reported in sick on Moodle, so we have no more lessons after MAT140 (yay).

But while he skips back to the Ridge happily, I am determined to practice more on the circuits I'm so confused about, so I'm checking in at Archimedes for more practice.

I can't be defeated by a breadboard and so many wires! -_-+

Edit: And so I managed to get some gates working here and there ^^;;;

You'll notice a few familiars like the crocodile clip, resistors and LEDs. The one you probably don't know would be the fuse (black crocodile clip connecting it), a switch (blue thing) and relays (in white).

A relay is like a switch changer, pass electricity through the relay on the electromagnetic side  (far left edge) and the switch would change. In the first picture, it's a NOR (i.e. A=0,B=0,result=1) gate because it works such that if either switch is turned on, the circuit would break and the light won't turn on because the actual electrical connection (rightmost bottom, coil of red wire), which originally connected to the yellow line, now connects to nothing.


The next two pictures are the OR gate (notice where the yellow line is now on the first relay? And the bottom black line?) and the NAND gate (notice how the circuit will break if BOTH switches are turned on? Remember that NAND is such that only A=1,B=1 will produce result=0)


I know the OR gate is unnecessarily complicatedm but I needed to have a base in making the gates work. The pictures were uploaded in reverse manner. >.<


The AND gate is too stupidly simple to show. Put two wires together, disconnect either and you don't get jack. TADA. LOL.


The one gate I don't really get is XOR, because XOR is such that it MUST be either A or B but not both.

Trippy Days

So yesterday, after making that post with the flowers and the alternate route, I drank a can of Budweiser.


Oh, do you still call this a can by the way? It looks really long to me. The can says one pint and 8 fl. oz, whatever that means o_o;

Lesson learnt: Never drink beer unless you know enough of what you're getting yourself into.

I can be considered a teetotaler because I drink booze like, what, no more than five times a year? That can send me drunk, which was what I expected, but for the first time ever I found myself vomiting empty two hours after downing booze. The last time I boozed I just slept through to the next morning, so needless to say this is an unexpectedly unpleasant surprise.

The girls dropped by our apartment to cook again, which was nice, but just hours ago this wouldn't have been possible. The whole of Samammish just blacked out; thankfully when it happened it was around noon, so nothing adverse happened.


So I remembered someone in school had a zombie film to make at 2pm, and we (i.e. me and Faiz) were about to leave when one of the guys suggested Munchkins (specifically, the Vampires and Werewolves variant I bought at Barnes & Noble during the trip to Downtown Seattle). So we played it, and we left home... at 2pm.


By the time we got to Gibran, expecting a little crowd, we saw what was instead... a single person inside the classroom.


The closest parallel? Imagine it's a Sunday, and Rudi's inside spouting one-liners like "is that true?!" So yea.


Since that was the case, we left (after Faiz collected his newsprint for the DMDG guys) and we split ways at 90th; he said he needed to grab more stuff from QFC.


Dinner was fantastic - once again, rice and soup reminded me of home. The only thing that didn't quite match was tofu and beef (normally, it would be tofu and something else), but everything else was just good.


Yet despite all the good today, I'm increasingly feeling this strange, digging-at-me sense of unease.


Hopefully it's just me.


P.S.: Just a little update. Lauren Gold emailed me to inform me that she has found the original person she had wanted to partner, so I am out of a partner. Luckily, Kate had told me that it would be worth a shot to ask Mr Doug Schilling about a third wild-card on team, considering our status as sort-of-like-journeymen-students.

How to Get Lost without being Lost

I don't consider myself the most adventurous person around, but I've always told myself to maximise what I see, especially if I have control over going to places.


So today, I started by exploring an alternate route from the Redmond Way QFC back to Sammamish Ridge Apartments.


Oh wait, I went too fast, I'll start by mentioning what I did first.


(the tldr cat tells you that this could be a boring rant)

I went to Redmond Town Center alone to get a new pair of long pants (doesn't really matter if it's jeans or otherwise), as well as some new undies (well, what? It's normal!)


To be honest, I risked it because I never, ever got my own clothing, except for a few tees and whatnot. I am lazy and not confident back in Singapore, so coming to the US devoid of this kind of clothing support, I was determined to learn how to.


But that's all I'll say here because I'm sure this will bore you, so moving on...

(end boring rant)

So I deviated from the normal path. Here's how it roughly looks like.

The green path is the normal path we normally take to walk back from Redmond Way QFC to our apartment. The red path is the route I took.

From first glance alone you probably can tell it's a long way around.

But look what I found!

Pretty flowers! Yes, I am a guy who does stop to look at flowers.

These ones are just too pretty to pass up.

One of those information signs. It's interesting to note that here in America, they take everything green seriously.

That reminds me about how they deal with the trash back at DigiPen.

They have four receptacles in the cafeteria - two for general trash and two for recyclables.

A plaque for the mayor who made Sammamish possible. Yay! \o/

It occurred to me fairly quickly why this shrub is called Hens and Chicks. They're roughly the same shape, but of two distinct sizes. LOL.

To end off - the route is as long as it looked. I took three times the time (that is, close to half an hour) to get back to the apartment.

OTL...

Thank goodness for long baths.

Rice is Nice!

Finally, some rice.

[insert dinner picture here when I feel like it 24 hours later?]

Well yea, we just had a rice-based dinner with cooked food that vaguely resembles the quintessential Singaporean meal - one rice pot, 2 meat dish, one veggie.

With a strange hiccup or two - veggie not really cooked to done, and fish fillet actually having bones within (!!!)

Even so, for some reason, for the whole day I felt a strange attack of don't-belong-ism.

I mean, well, we all know we are not Americans, not by a long shot, but I get this strange feeling I'm probably the only one trying, and even so, I'm actually trying too hard to fit in.

I probably should keep trying though, despite how flat-out futile it seems to be.

Why?

Because if I do not make any attempt to Americanize my accent (which of course isn't anywhere close) my raw Singaporean accent will definitely make anyone give me that ?_? look, as Kate just showed me when I accidentally pulled it off on her yesterday.

This pretty much sums it up.

I don't foresee doing anything on Saturday, but for Sunday I am thinking seriously about that zombie film thing someone's trying to film.

Seems like a good chance to network in a casual environment, which I prefer over sterile school shop-talk >_>

Getting stood up in the US of A

So, following yesterday's failure to get Lauren's response, I wrote arbitrarily that I'll be waiting for her in Edison (the computer lab area) if she's still keen on the grouping.

I've been waiting here for the past hour and I don't get anybody asking me, "hey are you Joel? I'm Lauren."

I'm tempted to make this face...

 

Then I remember that we already had a picture in Edison like this:

Joy.

On the other hand, it's ArenaNet Day, and Faiz and the other artists are there. Faiz in particular, I think, because it's the company that developed Guild Wars 2 and he's going fanboy all over it XD

"I must recognise the faces in this video," says Faiz as he watches this Manifesto Trailer on Guild Wars 2 this morning.

Almost like cramming for exams, but the question is all about matching faces to name i think? lol

 

Sometimes the students and staff here gets really funky with what they do.

 

Case in point - A technical staff with curly hair walked around with a shirt that, on his back, said this:

"Got a question?

Ask me!!"

 

I'll be sure to wear a shirt like that next time... in another capacity altogether. XD

And the winner is...

Results day!


Okay, generally, I knew what I had been doing so I was quite happy to learn that my scores were "expected".


Not to say I'm absolutely satisfied with my results, but I can live with it. >_>


Anyway:


Didn't get to see Lauren today, there were some short breakage of communications somewhere that led to her not showing up (or me not showing up?).


Let's see about tomorrow!


In the meantime, Faiz said he'll do honey cubed chicken today. Hmm.

Another short before lessons

So I'm going to meet my prospective GAM100 partner, Lauren Gold today.


From what my new friend Kate said, she probably looks a little old. Uh... what?


The way she pitched her offer on Moodle is like a businesswoman, though. o_o so I just took it.


I hope my blind stab works out eventually.


Also, [Singaporean Found!]


A guy called Yap Junhuii messaged on that same post and mentioned that he knew of us from Doug. o_o;;; I should take up his offer and probably try to chance into him at Edison. ^^;

Dinner for two

The day was okay, though a little weird. The night before, I slept at 5pm so my sleep cycle is completely messed for that night. Strangely, I was able to keep awake for most of CS and (yet another) ping-pong session with Jun Wei, and I still had enough going for me to finish up MAT140 Assignment 2 (which is actually due next week!)

However, that wasn't the kicker YET.

Tonight, me and Jun Wei were presented with a most unique situation.

Kendrick and Faiz had to go to the Town Center to illustrate stuff for their lessons. Chong Foong, after hearing that from Jun Wei (who in turn took my phone call for me because I was in the middle of a very difficult dungeon raid) he went outside to settle his meal.

So cue dustball, me and Jun Wei and a kitchen.

We started cooking. I dealt with the pasta and he does the brocolli-carrot-ham combo.

Funny things we realised we missed out in the midst of cooking his combo:

1. No preheat on oil pan.

2. No oil! (lol) That was later resolved.

3. No onions. I picked out a small peck from the fridge at random, peeled it with the speed of a slug, and threw that peck into the pan.

Not to mention that stuff began to flew off the chopping board when he started chopping, and we had to repeatedly make use of the three-second rule to reassure ourselves. >_>

Wait, aren't the problems exclusively his? o.o;

Anyway, we got down to dinner, which looked like this:

I assure you this is COMPLETELY EDIBLE. >_>;

Short

Today I bought a DigiMug!

Basically, the DigiMug allows me to refill at their coffee machines at a quarter dollar off the paper cup cost. Yay for energy savings (?).

Oh yea, that's MY locker by the way. $5 for a personal space in DigiPen is well worth the money. Not like the over 80 plus dollars we have to pay back at NYP, now THAT was, comparatively speaking, horribly exorbitant.


I guess there's always a difference in-house versus outsource, eh?


Following last week's mad last-minute rush, I'm determined to get the MAT140 homework done this week, if not by today. And maybe clear the GAM100 project tutorials ahead of schedule so I can fully focus on the meat.

I wonder if I should go Downtown Seattle or Redmond Town Center to shop for more clothing. Macy's at the Town Center seems to be a much more convenient solution, but I wonder if I should just leave the buying to the weekend so I could just bus ride to Seattle instead.

=/

My apartment's conversation is now full of ninjas, GG, and chee dan.
My audiospace is messed up yo -_-

And then there were random musings

After I posted that post and ended off with Dragon Nest the boys went straight to Dragonesting for two straight weekends.


Rather unfortunate, but I do think we're all generally kind of lazy to keep going out after the spate of going-outs the past week. I'll probably travel downtown over this weekend or the next to shop, depending on whether the money comes in this week or the next (or even next-next week).


Shinpai suru na! I'm not starving yet! But that said there's still a need not to splurge whenever.


So two days ago we stopped DN for a while and went shopping at Shalimar's again (this is a South Asian [read - Indian] mama shop kind of establishment), as in, me and Faiz. Mainly because the meats and spices there reminds us of home. I'll probably take a few pics to show the estab next time.


On the way there we were screamed at by wild and drunken girls on a vehicle. Faiz waved back, but I don't know what on earth happened until he told me about it. I know I'm wols but that just takes the cake.


o_o;


This morning... uhh, kind of sad to say but I literally ditched Jun Wei to walk to school alone after failing to drag him out of bed by 8.20am.
I don't feel TOO sad though, because uh... at the very least I don't have to face him uttering "gg" like, every three lines. LOL. He's been doing that so much it got to borderline annoying xP


(Note: Now he changed that uttering to Faiz's "chee dan", which is Chinese for egg. OTL I'm going to take this for another 10 weeks desu ka?!)


I kind of feel guilty for not feeling homesick for now, but like jet lag I supposed it hits much slower.


I'm going to end off this blog post here now. Why?
Because Kendrick say I spoil market. xP xP xP


Later!

Big post NOW.

By popular request (aka one-man-asking) here's the BIG POST.


That is pretty much late by one whole week OTL


But no matter, I'll start with what I should have posted yesterday.


About MAT140 - I did a rather stupid thing on it. Instead of progressing forward fast, I essentially wrote my own homework twice at the midway point because I wanted to make it nicer to look at. Instead, I didn't manage to complete question 17 and bungled question 15 on a simple mistake.


I keep forgetting this thing about not doing double work. -_-


Yesterday I got onto Dragon Nest too, against my better judgment. Ergh.


Phillip was talking to me about the cross-product, so I gave him an idea of how the cross-product can be used in programming terms and how to get it.


No use hoarding this knowledge for myself =/

===VVV BIG POST BELOW VVV===

This is a skytrain at SEATAC (short for Seattle Tacoma International Airport) that connected our luggage collecting area with the main terminal (or something like that). According to what I know, no matter how you enter SEATAC by flight, you can always only exit it through the main terminal.

So essentially this thing brings us to the main terminal.

But get this - this is AFTER a conveyor belt right after customs, throws us our luggage. And before leaving this satellite building we were in, we have to throw our luggage onto ANOTHER belt that leads to the main terminal.

Annoying to say the least. But I guess this is unavoidable given the extenuating circumstances surrounding the US of A generally.

Korean text!!!

I was more expecting Japanese text because I'd heard (and since it's been so long after I landed in Seattle, saw for myself) that there's a fairly large Japanese community in Seattle.

But it wasn't obvious to me until I realised that the airport's decision to use Korean text could really have been influenced by DigiPen. I'll speak on that later.

More skytrain pictures. I don't like cameras over glass for this reason, but it wasn't like I could have gotten out of the train to snap any further.


It does kind of remind me how the Circle Line looked like with the frontal lights on. LOL.

Oh, short story here: We only got onto the skytrain I mentioned earlier nearly 1 and a half hours after we landed, because our dear Faiz was taken aside for some interrogation after he ALMOST cleared customs.


We couldn't contact him for nearly 2 hours because whoever had been interrogating him (I didn't ask!) had the policy that no cell phones be on them during the process.


In the meanwhile, that I show you above was what the group ate while we were waiting for him, at a nearby shop that sells A LOT OF BOOKS (I had to mention this - nearly half that shop is just mags and books!)


The cherry coke tasted more cherry (read: SICKENINGLY SWEET cherry) than coke, and as with any very soda-focused drinks, I hiccup the heck out of it. Now that I think of it, I wonder why I even drank that in the first place, but it wasn't like I wanted to drink what I knew as "cheap-ass Dasani mineral water made two times expensive in USA".


Like, we all know an average 1.5L Dasani is approximately less than one SGD, right? Here it sells for nearly 2 USD, and it wasn't later that I found out that it's NOT an airport-exclusive price, much to my horror.


-_-;

Our apartment, basically, before we royally messed it up now.

As was mentioned by Mr Lam on his blog (http://programmingpeon.blogspot.com/), this apartment is basically located at the base of a ridge.

What does this mean?

This means if we were trying to get to anywhere from our place, we either run downhill or face a long, STEEP climb up to the main intersection.

FML.

The fireplace... I wonder when we'll start to use it. I am speculating maybe 3 weeks, because right now my feet is freezing as I type (although when we came in the weather is Singaporean hot, yea).

I didn't take any pictures of DigiPen or our favorite supermarket chain, QFC. Basically here's how it is.

DigiPen is a relatively friendly community. By "relatively" I don't mean like it's SUPER-OH-HI-WELCOME friendly, but at the very least, the people here are approachable and are very, very good at basic manners, which I - SHOOT ME FOR THIS - find very lacking back in Singapore.

I am shy and so is Jun Wei, so the only thing we did to show that we're around is either by eating or by playing table tennis.

...we can both tell you most of the rackets suck. LOL!

We also got to meet up with a guy called Cong Fu, who was apparently one of Mr Lam's charges in his first year teaching at NYP. He's ultra-friendly, maybe because we're NYPians like him, but his accent isn't Singaporean. (I later realised that he was from China, but when I say this I don't mean I am anti-PRC.) So it was a little hard to listen, but he generally dispenses good advice the few times we saw him over the week.

QFC...

Uh, well, it's basically NTUC privatised, or Carrefour. So a lot of times it's anything-goes, and when I mean that, I mean ANYTHING goes. We later realised that approximately seven blocks down the same area is ANOTHER QFC, and that one is strange for several reasons:

1. It is located in a very remote part of the town... as far as I can see.

2. It is bigger than the one along Redmond Way.

3. It has Chinese food and Starbucks.

The crazy thing is, there are two Starbucks along Redmond Way too!

One inside QFC and a specialised, small building with a single Starbucks!

Guess they do play the term "laissez-faire economy" to the max here. Back home we'd have thought that was essentially a stupid move. Think of it as similar to Tampines Interchange small McDonalds against the bigger McDonalds nearer the CPF building, and (by my estimation) probably replicated so across America.

-_-

Okay, so there were very little pictures towards the end because I didn't take many other pictures during the week. I'll show you some of the miscellenous ones I took.

Borders in its death throes.


By the time we got here, the top floor had already been closed off. And everything in store is at 70% to 90% discount, which was pretty mad but understandable. Anything that cannot be liquidated is no longer of value, says Mr Lam.


Still... it's kind of sad to see it go.


Uh, wait, did I mention "everything" in store? Yea. Bookshelves were fair game too; so were the signs. The only thing that isn't seems to be the cashiers, but I wouldn't bank on it.


Oh I just let off a pun without even trying. LOL.

Turkish coffee!


According to Mr Lam it's horrible. Maybe I'll give it a taste when I go there again.

Beautiful sunset. ^^

Redmond Town Center where most of the above occurred. Yea, it's a pretty cozy place. Heard from Mr Lam it used to be a golf course o.o;

Okay, the big post is done. Now I shall Dragon Nest and then Project FUN!