spring break in cancun!

sun, sand, sea
tequila, margarita, disco
mayan ruins - chichen iza

and parasailing (super fun). but no pics. whoops.

went for a weekend trip to quebec city in canada.
so cold! the snow was like 1m high on the sidewalks! and they have pro snow clearing machines.
stayed over at the ice hotel for a night and literally froze over. haha. also tried the outdoor spa! run out in bathing suit at -22 deg c, jump into hot tub, watch hair freeze.

fall break. (sadly over)

the crack crack of leaves underfoot.

the squirrels are back, in full force.

boston, for singsem.

singsem = singapore seminar.
boston = city
singsem = meeting other scholars in the us
friends + city = fun
city = chinatown = dim sum = happy

rhode island.

drove 6+ hours out to rhode island for a 4day 3night pre-semester trip.

fantastic views, great sunsets. WONDERFUL seafood.

we tackled the cliff walk on the first day, and drove around the scenic ocean drive.
took a 1hr ferry out to block island on the second day. cycled, checked out the lighthouse, and went to the beach.
drove to cape cod on the third day, went whale watching!!!!! and explored the sand dunes.
then visited brown university on the forth, and drove all the way back to ithaca.

good trip.

nyc, washington dc, philly, delaware, atlantic city.

when i was young, i wondered what it was like to be a hairdresser.

now, i cut my friends' hair in my spare time. 

=D

mommy, your scissors have been put to good good use. 

lingy and i are (un)officially setting up a salon in our house.

our cut hair count is currently at 

me: 2 1/2 girls, 1/2 guy
lingy: 1/2 girl, 2 1/2 guys
total: 6 (daring) people

our vacuum cleaner has a lot of hair in it now. 

*amused*

so i moved into my new apartment in collegetown, and it's been an interesting few weeks making it look like a home! 

couple of pics just for you guys to see what it's like here...


my blue-rimmed dinnerware! (it matches the blue cookware that i bought too!)

by being around during the grad weekend, i also managed to kope a couple of appliances for the kitchen... thanks seniors!!


panasonic microwave!


toaster and sandwitch maker...

of course, the kitchen doesn't look so neat now that 4 pple cook in it, but it's still not bad in my humble opinion.


not to forget the bathroom, with matching green furry rugs at the bath and toilet. =D (it IS actually this neat now)


my very blue (messy) room!!

hehe.

it's a really interesting feeling to have a house that you can call your own. even tho it's just rented and we aren't even going to be living here for very long, i feel somehow like i.... belong? 

it's nice. =)

好幸福

too long to talk about.

naples - rome - florence - pisa - milan

the pics pretty much say it all.

london photos are up!
was very pleased to meet so many pple there! =D nice catching up with you all... come ny visit me okay? haha.

anyways, as a summary:

day 1:
touchdown, nearly got lost in airport, found cherie after calling her hp, had lunch (with beer! lol), went to walk walk, see market, got annoyed at the rain, went back to dorm. met junli, had very sad hall dinner with cherie, knocked out on her bed (jet lag i say), went to meet up with italy pple for supper.

day 2:
buckingham, st pauls, big ben, met nezzie, went to look see what the london eye was abt. saw the queue and freaked out, had big lunch with nezzie and cherie, walked more, got tickets for musical (spamalot), chinatown, met elsie, dinner, spamalot.

day 3:
korean lunch with italy peeps, tower bridge, madam tussauds, big scrumptous dinner, watched movie and hung out.

lots of fun!!!

we went rowing and hiking in adirondacks,
ben&jerry's ice cream factory, vermont teddy bear factory, the path of life garden, cornish-windsor bridge in vermont,
then walked around in boston, ate great seafood, went to visit mit, and drove around harvard.

many pics. =D

the air motor which ate my life, in all it's completed glory:



fellow comrades:



i think after seeing each other mon-sat for several hours at a time, including a handfull of almost-all nighters,we've sorta grown into each other. much thanks to dave who braved the pain of finding a carpark so that he could drive us back to our dorms in the wee hours of the morning.  yay also to the two lovely ladies that i had the pleasure of working with, and travis for finally stepping up to machine at the end. 

other parts of my life worth mentioning...

my small group!




fellow faithful church-goers:



the campus gets very beautiful in spring:



more pics, of course, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/illuminia/

pics of me and lingyun in florida!

we went to 2 parks out of the 4 in disneyworld: magic kingdom (that's the traditional disney one with mickey mouse and princess castles and whatever) and epcot (which has futuristic stuff and little buildings representing parts of the world).

we also went to universal studios, which had totally great and thrilling rides. *happy* we took my favourite accelerate u up and drop u vertically ride (dr doom's fear fall i think it was called) 3 times! =D

the weather was nice - warm and windy, and it was sunny when we were at the theme parks. only rained on the last day as we were departing florida. =) yay. thank god.

it's spring break now, and YAY i have time on my hands once again!!! (ah, the joy)

so here's a little pic update on what i've been doing recently.................
(go flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/illuminia/ to see more)

1. my most beloved rock crusher project is over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



the end product, in action.

it was lots of work and energy and time. but the end product (it's called the seismc) managed to exert a force of ~6600N on the load cell during testing!! how cool is that? haha! the thing weighs 1kg and the black handles screw out to fit into a 6x2x3 inch casing. =D 

i'll miss working with my group. despite the mountainload of work we had to do, we still managed to have fun doing it - seeing who could make the best (unburnt) popcorn, slacking in the lecture theatre at 2am, cracking up at each other's silly moments of agony and frustration. i do hope my air cart (that's the next project) team will be as enjoyable to be with.


2. i went easter egg painting with the fellowship of christian singaporeans (fcs). fcs is a christian bible study group, yes, for singaporeans. and no, although i'm not actually in it, i did take the opportunity to go take part in their fun easter egg painting event! 



my painted eggs!

so i realise that i haven't been writing in here for ages... but i have a gooood reason to!

haha. been really up to the neck in projects and whatnot. actually mainly just 1 proj. just that we meet ~5 days a week for 2-5hours each time (and that's outside regular class time. not to mention we bring work home too.). it's a mechie design project, and we're going through the design and production process of a "rock crusher". yes, it sounds silly, but basically the thing is a hand operated contraption that amplifies the force of your hand grip, allowing you to apply ~16 times the force in order to crush a "rock". hehe. it's realllly fun and enjoyable and interesting but also eats my time like anything. argh. 

apart from that project, my cool pe module for this sem is SNOWBOARDING. which is totally totally cool and fun and fast and exciting. (also initially rather painful). had my last boarding lesson last week though, so sad. =( the weather has been really erratic for the past few days, it keeps alternating btw raining and snowing, so even if there were lessons we wouldn't be able to snowboard.



here's a little pic from my friend's cam. haha. the only one i have. hope more pple send me pics soon. =D that was taken after the lesson when we met a couple of seniors at the bottom of the training slope. hehe.

yepz. anyway, basic description of snowboarding: you attach yourself to the snowboard (snowboarding boots bind to the board), and you go down the slope! go wiki or sth if u dunno what it's about. =P it's really fun, but hard to turn at first cos u gotta lean forward and backward to turn right and left. your left foot always goes before your right foot (that's for regular footed pple).  yah. which kinda explains how we fall alot. super alot. haha. 

okay. i should probably sleep. going to do sound for the first time in my church tomorrow! hope it all goes well. =) 

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

okay. i have never felt so cold in my life before. 

it's currently 9deg f out (aka -13deg celcius) out, plus windchill factored in, -7deg f (or -22deg c).

i am COLD. ^#)%*&#^@% COLD. 

went out to watch ice hockey match today, then had dinner at collegetown. 

it's insane when the wind blows. seriously insane. first u can't feel your face.. then thighs... then feet... X.X

thankfully my winter jacket is GOOD and blocks out the wind. and it keeps my body nice and warm too. 

BUT STILL. 

*shivers*