HELLO!! :) am currently sitting on my bed typing under the lovely flourescent lamp my parents lovingly affixed to the bedhead (knowing my habit of doing everything on it). it's 7.30am on a sunday and i haven't brushed my teeth yet (will do..eventually) because, why, inspiration has taken me by storm!! (as it hasn't the last two and a half years - haha thanks for the patience mila). nah not really. but there's lots to update on, so i shall start my little story, systematically..

got to cambridge on the afternoon of the 29th, after a two-week parent-daughter tour around the uk (which was mostly great :) but that's another story for another time). i wasn't terribly excited cos i'd already gotten a little glimpse of cambridge when we visited on the 18th for some bank documents, from which i kinda knew i'd love it. but it was somewhat climactic still cos it was like the culmination of the whole trip (which was partly meant to help me acclimatise), and after wandering from city to city for a while you just feel like calling someplace home again. i was curious about my room though, which we finally got to after great physical exertion (mostly on my dad's part..). over the past few days it's been stocked up with living essentials (some of which doubt the essentiality of..but still, thanks parents, really appreciate it:) and i'm happy to say it is becoming home :)) the rooms in my accommodation (sussex house) are relatively big i think, about three-quarters my room back in singapore? (if that helps x) no toilet bowl (which i'm apt to require every hour @_@) but there's a nice little cupboard sink, nice little fridge, TWO long-ish desks and shelves (the envy of many), a 1.8x1.2m pinboard (the upper half of which i cannot reach -.-).. all in all outfitted pretty comfortably, if not newly.

BUT what's BETTER is the people who stay around me, especially my corridor mates. so far i've met two girls studying theology (HOW COOL IS THAT) who've been here a week already to learn greek and are really really nice, one musician (who is the organ scholar), one 2-metre tall land economist, one classicist (called Rose, who IS as sweet as a rose), one red-headed freckled irish engineer who still speaks with a cute boyish enthusiasm and voice (AND accent HAHA).. there's one more guy on my floor but i haven't met him yet. upstairs there's another musician (who also sings and plays lacrosse), a seriously funny tall physics dude (who can SERIOUSLY drink. but we're not surprised - he's bavarian), three medics, and well some others. whom we'll all get to know in due course, hopefully :) it's great  that they didn't just assign all the internationals to the same place as they did last year cos it really makes the local-international barrier bigger. at the same time, i'm really thankful that i have one singaporean, lynn from rj too and reading medicine) living just above me. she got here on the 28th, and over the last half week i've spent most of my time with her, settling college stuffs, exploring cambridge (and other ppls' rooms), scouring the salvation army for really cheap crockery, grabbing quick bites, etc. it wasn't uncomfortable in the least, cos from the start i found it easy to talk to her. perhaps it helps that she's just ONE CENTIMETRE taller than me (a rare find in this part of the world), but mostly i just like that she knows her own mind, speaks candidly, is down-to-earth but has aspirations, and bothers to try and understand, relate to, and respect people - although not, as she says, in a i-am-doctor-i-radiate-goodness kind of way. it's great, cos it means there's someone i can go to to share illegally downloaded music and commiserate on the sadness of it all when neither of us can summon up the courage to knock on my neighbour kitty's door (we'd just gotten back) and join in her party (HAHAHA x). conversely, it means there is someone i can go with to knock on neighbours' doors and say, Hi, nice to meet you!, something i'm learning to do cos, really, most (say 80%?) of the ppl i've met so far are genuinely friendly and are as open to making friends with internationals as they are locals :) all the same, there are differences in culture and language we'll have to adapt to. it's surprising how accent play such a big part in hearing- even if you have perfect pronunciation it can be difficult to be understood because of the musical inflections of singaporean intonation xD

which brings me to the topic of meeting new people in college. yesterday saw the start of Freshers' Week - billed the week of orientation, crazy fun, meeting ppl (and promptly forgetting their names x), and of course, the western staple, BOOZE. after the afternoon garden party in the Master's Garden (i.e. the only time we can step on his forbidden grasses) where i met my really nice college 'parents' and 'brother', fellow internationals, and listened to several heartening welcome speeches, we were off into our subject groups. WHERE I FOUND OUT THAT I'M THE ONLY GIRL AMONGST THE ELEVEN FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERS AT SIDNEY, and only asian-asian for that matter (there is another chinese guy, but he grew up in spain). talk about venturing out of your comfort zone. >< but it's all good, so far i've spoken to a few and they seem a pretty mild-mannered and interesting bunch (as engineers go..maybe minus the 'interesting' for many ppl x)) at 8pm we headed back to the college bar for freshers' meet-and-greet, which was a massive squeezing session for all the freshers and some seniors into the small college bar. it was really stuffy (wasn't the alcohol i swear! i only had two glasses of sth really mild) and SUCH A DIN. but after the first few minutes of surveying the crowd and feeling slightly daunted i decided to join in the squash and really just get to know more ppl. (haha in the past i might have just sat at the side with a drink and talked to one person, but i guess you kinda get used to it and become less apprehensive about mixing with strangers. which is an improvement :) there were conversations i was happy to just listen in on (unobstrusively..haha!), conversations in which i couldn't hear what was said clearly and guessed the gist and nodded, but there were also ppl who were nice to talk to. overall it was quite fun (: abit past eleven lynn and i decided to go back to our rooms, but we ended up talking about our families for close to an hour, after which i went down and found myself in a brief floor gathering in kitty's room. climbed into bed shivering at one, couldn't really sleep for some time, and naturally woke up (AGAIN X_X) at 7. there's lunch and punting at 12, so i'll finish this quickly, bathe, then shut my eyes for half an hour.

oh and i realise i haven't said much about the cambridge itself. i'm really liking it so far, and here're six reasons why:
1) small (population of 100000, a fifth of whom are students), contained and safe. it's got all the regular shopping haunts, facilities, lotsa eateries and pubs, books, antiques and art shops. and a lively little market square
2) lovely buildings (especially the colleges and churches), all in different architectural styles. gives the town a lot of character
3) the river camb, and the pretty postcard views from the backs
4) excellent street buskers (in london too..those ppl sound like professional musicians)
5) no cars in the city centre in the daytime, although there are buses and lots of bikes. but it's really nice to just walk along the narrow streets window-shopping
6) convivial and intellectual (or is it just me? x) atmosphere

yups that's about it. tata for now! (: