In five days

Ah, time for a breather.

This week has really zoomed by. Seems like things pick up pace really fast once we reach Week 3. Test dates are either already set or are set along the way, assignments start building up, each subsequent chapter gets longer, time seems shorter, sleep seems more precious.

But this week hasn't been all about work and no play. I've been redeeming the times that I missed out on college events last semester. The only college event I attended in Sem 1 is the Idol competition. Sem 2 saw me holing up in my room to study most of the time (yeah, boringggg). So I attended the Malaysian Cultural Night on Tuesday night to watch my friends perform. WY and YY played the solar drums and sang in the choir alongside Karyn, Beng Yen, and Olivia. I got to watch people play the diabolo (Chinese yo-yo) for the first time. I had never heard of the diabolo until I came here. The show was very entertaining and kinda amazing, especially the part where all five of the people onstage threw their diabolos into the air and caught someone else's diabolo with their strings. All in all, I think the event went quite well, with several songs peppered along the way. The flow from one performance to the next was rather smooth because the emcees kept the audience's attention quite well.

The next day was the Street Party. I was looking forward to it because it seems to be one of the biggest on-campus events. Early Wednesday morning, the corridors outside the hostel blocks were already set up with tables and chairs. A stage was set up near Block N. By noon time, a couple of stall managers had already started setting up their stalls. Come evening, after American Idol, we headed over to the 'street' and saw a massive (not that huge taking into account the institution's population, but massive in comparison to most other events) crowd gathered in anticipation of a mini parade. We joined the crowd and watched as groups of people walked past; each group was led by a flag-bearer. Some of the people were dressed in their traditional costumes - that was really cool. I'd never seen some of the costumes before, like the one the Tanzanians wore.

The Malaysians

After the mini parade ended, the crowd surged towards the food stalls. I was excited to check out the stuff on sale. But I was in for a disappointment. AIH. After walking back and forth twice, nothing much caught my attention. I ended up buying only a box of three cupcakes. After that, I stuck around to watch a couple of performances - a dance by the people from Bethany Home and a song by the fellow residents. After that, it started feeling too hot and stuffy there (maybe it was the glaring spotlight shining in our direction), so I headed back to my room. So much for my Street Party experience. On the bright side, at least I got really nice cupcakes. :D

3 for RM10 cupcakes

Green tea-flavored

I love this one with the coconut topping :)

Sinful chocolate :D

Maths has been a highlight all this week. Now I have Calculus classes every day except on Tuesday (during which I have only one Statistics class). And this week happens to be the week of our group presentation (yeah, I know, like... what? Yep, we have presentations in Maths class - whoop!) and first quiz. MEH. The three of us formed a group and got randomly picked to present this week. When our lecturer drew the lots right in front of us three last week, and announced 'GROUP 12', all I could think was WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN - AGAIN?

Anyhoo, the presentation went well - and thanks to Beng Yen's magical finger we got those points for teamwork. :D And today was our first quiz. It was kinda funny. We did it in pairs. Beng Yen and I found out how overly analytical we are (I guess it can be bad even though we're doing a course that has analytic geometry in its name...) because when we got the answer sheet, the solution was only one line long but we went the (very much so) extra miles by writing out three lines. Ah. :P

A blue plasticine sphere - our prop for the presentation

Oh, yes. I know now why the course is called Calculus with Analytic Geometry III. From Day 1, we have been prompted to imagine, visualize, draw, analyze, and conclude. And that is not a piece of cake. No way. Even figuring out which way the planes lean can take a while sometimes. I think our Stats lecturer was intrigued by our conversation during the break just now that she came over to our seats when BY and I were discussing a tutorial question that got my mind twisted in knots. Because holding up a ruler and waving a piece of paper beside it (with frustration) just comes with the fact that you're in college. Or university - whichever you prefer.

Speaking of which, I have assignments to complete now that my nails are dry. Meh. There is now an easy way to make me happy - hand me a bottle of nail polish and leave me to my own devices. :P Oh, and I feel kinda cheated lah. The smoky Elianto eyeshadow I bought does not turn darker when I add water to it, like what the salesgirl told me that is supposed to happen. I see no difference la. Aok jak lah. Hmph.

Yeah, yeah, getting to work now. Pasar malam tonight and 1Utama tomorrow. :)