.:Brutally Honest, Honestly Brutal:. \m/

LETTERS FROM THE LIVING

Sunday, April 29, 2007

There's way too much distractions right now. Summer trip finalizations, packing luggages, clearing apartments, youtubing, facebooking, thinking of what to do back in Sillypore, etc have been keeping me busy.

Well, dead week just whizzed past like nobody's business and my first paper is on tuesday. Almost covered one module but there's too much left to be desired. Anyway, I won't be mugging so hard as my grades are almost done and dusted. As long as I dun f*@k up my finals, i should be able to bring back a respectable transcript back home. Anyway, I conjured the motto for this GIP a few months back: "Study hard, play harder!"

Anyway, this weekend is happening la. We celebrated our gang leader, Jackson's birthday till 4am! Saturday, there is an event at Atlanta's latino club called Loca Luna; me and my roomies are watching WWE at the Philips Arena on Sunday!

VJ Titanium is bidding his American farewell with this ass-kicking trash metal track from upcoming band, Unearth! It's a shame I will miss their concert in Atlanta (end of May)...

Unearth - Sanctity of Brothers

Back to ~~boobs~~ books!

Laid to Rest at 7:12 AM;

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

After our final road trip this past weekend (@ the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennesse), it's now the final week of classes before the final exams! We call it Dead Week in GT, and class attendances pummelled like stock market prices to new lows!!

Dead week is a slang term for the week before final exams in the United States of America. The week is known thus because of the propensity for college and university students to save exam study until the last possible week, and because term papers are often due. Students prepare for the exams and papers by pulling all-night study sessions, usually with the aid of stimulants such as coffee, NoDoz pills and Red Bull. During this period some students will suffer from sleep deprivation, increased irritability, and stress [1].

Ref: [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_week, dated 07:34, 23 March 2007
(see what research term papers have done to me!!)

Also, Georgia Institute of Technology students have developed a "primal scream" tradition, in which students open their dormitory windows and scream at midnight, every night of dead week. It's called Midnight Madness!!! Interesting...

Anyway, most of the quizzes, midterm exams, project work, presentations and term papers are coming to an end. Just so you know, amidst the amount of fun and wild things I did, I had to toil through the mundane and stressful tasks as well! I reckon it's a testimony of God's awesome providence of wisdom, strength, grace, favor and miracle! Here's the amazing breakdown:

For 5 modules here at GT, I have done and submitted:
- 20x homework assignments
- 16x quizzes
- 10x midterm exams
- 2x individual research term papers
- 2x group project term papers
- 3x class presentations
and lastly, 5 papers in 3 frickin' days!!! 'Nuff said!

God bless meeeeee!!!!

Laid to Rest at 3:00 AM;

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

By the time u visit my blog, u would probably have heard or seen the horrific tragedy that struck Virginia Tech. Without going into the depressing stats and terrible accounts, this is officially the worst case of shooting in US history.

"Holy shit!!!" was uttered by my roomie on the lazy Monday afternoon just as he was watching tv after a long day of classes. It jolted me out of my seat and I went to watch what was happening on the news. My mind was still processing the constant feed of reports that was broadcasted and the next thing i did was to thank God i'm alive!

People back home in Singapore may not feel the impact, but i was feeling it throughout the day. In fact, i shuddered during the news broadcast. Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are pretty similar I guess... Same type of campus, same number of people, we are like sister schools according to the GT president's email and it's just happening at a neighbouring state!

For people even back home, let's not take safety and security for granted.

This blog entry is dedicated to the family and friends of the victims and to all the students, professors and staff at Virginia Tech. May God's peace and comfort be there for each and every one of them.

No music video will be put up as a mark of respect for the victims of this event.

Laid to Rest at 11:12 AM;

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Time and tide simply wait for no man, and I've been learning it the hard way here on a couple of occassions. As u can see, my blog has not been up to date. In addition to the many happenings during Spring Break(which was 3 weeks ago!), a flurry of events have also happened immediately after that. I can't really upload all the photos I've taken (a few GBs), so will probably share it with u people back home when I come back. Not to leave u guys high and dry, here's a breakdown of what happened since Spring Break!

- Was back at school to bear the brunt of homeworks, quizzes, exams and project deadlines! (look out for an interesting post about the amount of work I did at GT towards the end of this month!)
- Went skydiving the weekend following Spring Break. Free falling at 14000 feet is no mean feat! Of course, I was not qualified to jump alone - it was a tandem jump with an instructor. Nevertheless, it was shiok to the max!!!
- Realized that I have been splurging a lot in the US so far!
- FYP condurum!
- Attended a NHL ice hockey game and got to pose with the lengendary Stanley Cup
- Enjoyed a second fight night at Hooters with my roomie Tommy last weekend.
- Caught the flu bug last week and only just recovered.
- Bought PS2's Guitar Hero I & II!!!
- Will be going for another metal concert tomorrow evening!
- Going for whitewater rafting this Saturday!
- Final exams are just 3 weeks away!!!
- Frantically booking Summer Break trip air tickets...
- Planning the trip and departure was a headache!!!
- Will be coming back in the middle of May! CONFIRMED!!

I really really thank God and my family for supporting all this while, and the many wonderful friends I have made during this time! Gotta roll peeps! Here's a nice video to share! (courtesy of the not-dead-yet VJ Titanium!!)

Good Charlotte feat. M. Shadows & Synyster Gates - The River

Laid to Rest at 10:47 AM;

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Reached Miami, Florida in the unearthly hours of Sunday morning and checked in Malabo hotel (the pirated version of Malibu haha, and had the worst living conditions since our stay at Atlanta Youth hostel!). As most of the people concussed into mere oblivion at about 3am, we headed to the famous South Beach in the afternoon. It was very crowded with sun-worshippers, sea-swimmers, partying spring breakers and lots of locals and tourists. Played beach volleyball, Frisbee, football, sun tanning in the process and saw the occasional topless babe too. The guys also went on a raging rampage to start dunking dry people from our group into the chilling waters. The sunset and the dwindling crowd also signaled the end of the day at the beach.

Had a stomach upset throughout the late dinner. To make matters worse, the poor service and lousy expensive food did not help the situation much. Then the first drama happened when we went sightseeing at night. We drove more than 3 hrs to search for an elusive lighthouse and on the way back, one of the vehicles met an accident on the highway. It was not serious but some suffered bruising bumps and emotional trauma. In the end, the road trip to Key West was cancelled and we spent another day at South Beach.

The second day at South Beach was very fruitful for me. After a late lunch, Calvin and I decided to go sightseeing around the area. and soon I began on a secret quest to find Miami Ink; the famous tattoo parlor that has its own reality tv show on Discovery Travel and Living channel on cable. I was a follower of the series and the idea of visiting the shop and hopefully meet the stars on the show sent Goosebumps down my body. Jackpot! We stumbled upon the shop and began to frantically take pictures - along with many other excited tourists and customers! Alas, it was a shame that the shop was handed to other people to do the tattoos. The stars only do the tattooing during filming on weekends.

Went back to the beach to play catch and when we were heading back, we saw a commotion along the beach. There was a photoshoot and I sensed it was the guys from Miami Ink. I sped towards the area and to my amazement, it was them! All five of them!! They weere shooting for the new season of Miami Ink and were there to take the photos during sunset. Soon, I went forward and requested to take pictures with Yoji, Chris and Ami. What are the odds of meeting them?! Thank God!!

Next stop: The Island of Bahamas

Laid to Rest at 12:03 PM;