Friday, February 29, 2008

i'm sick and tired of looking for cars, haha, i tink i mus have seen at least like 8 cars and test drove them. from a car idiot, i've become more and more 'car savvy' and i actualli know models of car now. Bet that wasn't part of the NOC curriculum. haha, our electrical bill this month is wayyy super high, must have been the 2 heaters that have been keeping us warm. haha, we use portable heaters instead of the central heating system to save that little bit of money.

this weekend should be packed with stuff, OAP projects, swimming, car hunting, ugh....hopefully i get a car and will be able to drive to stanford on mon, leaching on others is definitely not a good feeling. bleah, on a brighter side, got my california license, yay! going to post a picture of it tommorow.

Been reading a book, which tells me that passion does not necessary equate to happiness, having passion means putting in your fullest into what you do. There are so many entrepreneurs here that have gave up their cushy job just to go after what they really want in life, to be in control and not be controlled. Went for this event at this chinese restaurant, it was basically a cleantech event, which really made me enjoyed every part of it especially hearing new things that are currently happening in California now.

Looking forward to the fedwick and west event next week, which basically features venture capitalist who will talk about the current investment trends for their companies and which section of the economy is doing well:)

Its strange how things that matter to me once just starts to lose their importance. Was I the one who fail to cherish it or perhaps I want more. Life in the valley is tiring, but fufilling. So much is happening, so many events, but we only have 24hrs a week.

Back from death Valley, took some time to upload the pictures that we took! Definitely a fun trip with loads of sightseeing at the desert. The most cool part was on one side, there was a desert and on the other side of the mountains, there was snow at the tip of the mountains.

My house for the year:)






Zhi Kuang brand new mini cooper

Thank god it is friday! Finally have the weekend to slack, and the best news is, we might be planning a trip to death valley next weekend! yay:) road trip road trip, which should be quite fun! finally a rare chance to go visit the desert. Anyway, today was an exciting day as we managed to complete 120g of titanium oxide powder, haha, though it might seem really little, but it was super funny to see all of them so excited about sending out the samples produced. I didn't even know that the powder had to be sealed thoroughly and even put into metal tin cans with nails. The most funny part was definitely the taking photo part:)

today was a good day at stanford, lessons ended early today cos we had this session on teamwork building, and our project group was supposed to discuss and evaluate each members individually as well as to come up with ways to improve on our project. in the end, as the weather was super nice, like 5 degrees with the sun shining brightly, the guys decided to sit by the fountain on the grassy area to discuss our project. Haha, and it was super fun, first time i'm having such a discussion outdoors, accompanied by the nice fountain and comfy grass, and we were super productive. In short, I'm beginning to love my project group nowadays more and more.

Been discovering the good side of being here, analogous to the U turn signal. In America, you can make a U turn as long as there's no sign to say no unlike Singapore. Which is precisely the reason why life might be more meaningful here, failure is accepted, in fact, failure forces people to be stronger. In silicon valley, one is allowed to fail many times, and it is those who fail that ultimately succeed which is pretty different from Singapore where there's often no room for failure. Most of the people here are not simply caught in the rat race, they enjoy the rat race. Of course, failing here does not carry a heavy price tag, people simply just move on and pick themselves up.

trip to san fran today, but it was raining heavily:) sian, but we had a yummy lunch with my favourite cold crab and yummy clam chowder in a bread bowl! we went to the golden gate bridge as well as fisherman wharf but I'm feeling super super broke as I've spent almost all my money, haha, wait till my bank cheque gets deposited into my bank!




golden gate bridge!

rainbow coloured bridge


5 of us in the cooper

hard rock cafe



outside the bakery!

the end of the week, finally got paid. hee, i nid to go exercise soon! but tomorrow shall be a fun day at San francisco, visiting the golden gate bridge and the china town:)

Finally have the internet to update this place, Lake Tahoe was beautiful. Haha, can’t wait to go back there again besides the fact that I’m super broke after the trip, but it was all worth it. Hmm, we drove up 4am on Sat morning in our rented car and reached around 8am at Tahoe. Then we proceeded to drop off our bags at the accommodations that we were allocated and went straight to attend our skiing lessons. Haha, it was super scary, as I’m very afraid of falling downL but the lesson did help though, learnt a few basics about skiing, haha, and 2.5 hrs later, we went to take the lift up to the top. The view down was super nice and breathtaking, nothing that I have ever seen before. It’s really nature that makes me feel so insignificant and small. But the lift itself was quite scary as we had to ski up the lift and quickly ski down once the lift hits the top. Following that, we went to the beginner’s slope to try out our ‘skills’, haha, it was so hilarious as we were trying to compete who was the fastest and ended up with all of us falling down. But it was really fun esp when we got used to skiing even though I was travelling damn slowly cos I was afraid of falling down.

We returned out skis at evening time and went back to our accommodations. Dinner was prepared by some of the Singapore Stanford students as we planned our trip with them. As usual, I ended up being a bit hungry as I didn’t like cheese but almost all their dishes had cheese in it. Makes me wonder how I’m going to survive the 11 more months here as I don’t like cheese, milk, fast food…… basically I dislike the food here. I seem to be losing a bit of weight which is in contrary to the rest who seem to be gaining abit of weight. Maybe I haven’t been long enough or maybe the cold weather just suppresses my appetite and I haven’t been eating very well lately. Haha, with the exception of the yummy Indian, Chinese and Mexican food that’s readily available here. Oh. And starbucks is quite cheap here, time to get my coffee fix with those yummy muffins.

Back to Tahoe, the day ended with me falling asleep at 9pm, haha, I practically concussed on the bed. Next morning, we went sightseeing abit, taking pictures, building our snow man and it was the first time I experience snowing. It was freaking cold but super prettyJ I guess this is really a plus point of being in a country with 4 seasons. We tried to drive home but there was a snowstorm approaching and we had to put on snow chains which was super hilarious. The guys practically removed the whole car tyre just to put on the chains, which was super unconventional! Haha, and it was snowing so hard, I felt dizzy watching them fix the chains. The traffic jam down Tahoe was horrible, we were stuck in 1 place for 30 mins, in the end, we decided to fill out tummy and found this place offering buffet at 6.95 USD which is super cheap! Continued our journey back home and we reached home around 10pm which meant we driving for 8 plus hrs, totally disgusting considering that it should only take 4 hrs by car.

First road trip, so many hilarious moments that I seem to remember. I definitely want to go back to Tahoe again….haha, maybe when I get my first pay check thenJ. Oh wells, the past few days after I returned back from Tahoe was spent doing our business case analysis at Stanford til 10 pm as we had work the entire day!!!! And its freaking inconvenient to be in California without a car, we had to take a train, change 2 buses and walk in the freaking cold for 10 mins. I think if this goes on, I might catch permanent flu from the cold cold weather and the public transportation here is sooo expensive. But on a happy note, our business case turned out to be quite good so yay! Will update soon again!