Thanksgiving and Jumaat Hitam

My first Thanksgiving in the United States was.. interesting.

- hauled six or seven bottles of 2 liter drinks to Stever.
- skinned potatoes.
- carried a pot of mashed potatoes to Stever.
- shopped at Grove City from midnight to 4am.
- got stranded there till daybreak.
- reached CMU at 10am.
- slept 11.30am till 5.30pm.
- ate dinner at 10pm (gah that sandwich was hugomongousgantic).
- still awake at 5am.

I've never heard of Black Friday, but apparently it's like this day for shopping and stores have massive discounts. Budaya organized a Black Friday shopping trip, and we shopped from 12am to 4.30am. o_o

It was MADNESS. There were huge discounts on branded stuff, and people were lining up to get into shops and lining up to pay. It wasn't like a casual shopping trip where you take your time, slowly choose what you want, try it on, decide it doesn't fit you, put it back, try on other things etc. It was like a competition. In some shops, I just looked at the long line of people lining up to pay and I didn't feel like buying anything at all. And there was this feeling that you HAD to quickly get from one shop to another shop. I didn't know shopping could be so pressurizing.

But yeah, it was pretty fun. And we actually DID need winter clothes so it wasn't like we were aimlessly shopping.

Things got even more interesting when our bus wouldn't start at 5am. (True story.) We waited for workers from a towing service, who tried and failed to jumpstart the bus because it needed a new battery but they didn't have one. We had to wait for the bus company to send another bus over, which would take 1.5 hours. FOUR LETTERS: Z. O. M. G. So we went back to Grove City and just crashed at the food court.

The second bus came at 8.30am, everyone slept on the bus (I slept for the last five minutes) and we reached CMU at 10am, half dead. After helping Abrar to haul King's HUGE picture (as tall as me) (not that I'm huge) back to his dorm, I got caught in.. something. It wasn't really rain, because Pittsburgh rain is wimpy but this actually hurt a little bit. And it wasn't exactly snow because the ground wasn't covered in white or anything. So I think it was small pieces of ice? Or, like, frozen rain. Haha.

SIGHHHHH pictures!


Chun How, who was kind enough to let all the (other) freshmen tag along with him and hehehe. Hee.


Jyo and Mark and a few plastic bags.


Yi Xiang and his basketball shoes.


Jyo imitating Ricky! Hahaha this picture is cute.


Sleepy people.


lol.


I didn't sleep on the way home, and it was nice to watch the scenery. I briefly wondered if any of these were Amish houses, and I remembered how I used to fancy a life in the countryside. Why not? Peaceful. Halcyon. Simple. But it's hard to picture now. I'm so technologicalized or something. I can't wake up without my handphone beside my pillow because I'd be completely disoriented if I didn't know the time. I'm online every night. Facebook. Email. Youtube. Google. Wikipedia. MSN. Blogger. Hard to imagine my life without these things.


From behind the windows of a bus, we saw snow. Real, live white snow that covers the ground and rests on tree branches. Truth be told, I wouldn't have noticed the snow if Chun How and Jyo Lyn hadn't told me it was snow. I was looking out the window, but my brain wasn't really processing the sensory information. And yeah, I was just thinking about lots of things and feeling blahed, so seeing snow was really the last thing on my mind.

And I initially didn't want to go for dinner because weather.com said it was 1 degree Celsius. Later I caved in to Yi Xiang's persuasion and discovered thaaaaat 1 degree Celsius is NOT super duper wuper cold after all. BUT when the wind blows it is HORRIBLE. Add it to the list of circumstances which induce me to say "shit." Let it snow!

P/s: My shoulders and arms are aching like crazy, probably from dragging more than 10 kg of soda and aggravated by the shopping bags. I feel 50 years older. T_T

Puncture

because when your heart breaks, the pieces puncture your lungs and you'll be gasping for breath. loud, desperate gasps, because it's human nature to struggle to survive. and you might want to think that you're weak, you can't deal with this, you just want to give up. but you won't, and you'll continue to live even when you die, again and again, inside.

City of Bridges

So I've been thinking that in the City of Bridges, all you have to do is pick one of the 446. What else can you do with a bridge?

Happy Birthday Mum!

Ready or not, here's another video because making videos is my latest addiction hahaha. Some parts are blurred on purpose so there's really no need to get your eyes checked!





from: aliciadotcom@gmail.com
to: davidlow05@gmail.com

Hey dad,

IF you guys have (not) mailed Bubu yet, please send along lots of pilot G2 0.5 blue ink refills! (If you've mailed it then nevermind). Thanks!

---

from: davidlow05@gmail.com
to: aliciadotcom@gmail.com

You know what....mum is a mind reader! Mayb she got the gift of telepathy. Last night she bought 1/2 dozen of the G2 0.5 blue ink to send to you..........even before you ask. What a mum.




Love you mummy, hope you have a great birthday! :)

Alicia Advice

Alicia * 君 says: lol
Alicia * 君 says: well
Alicia * 君 says: if you want to spend a lifetime with someone you'd better get used to talking for really long with them
Alicia * 君 says: hahaha
Alicia * 君 says: because a life time is pretty long
Alicia * 君 says: definitely more than 4 or 6 hours

:D