School's Out!

First semester of college is officially over! Woot (now recognised in dictionaries apparently)! What with the (mostly) no-exams policy here, I wrote two 20+ page research papers instead, one on China's environmental protection/economic development conundrum, and the other on same-sex marriage and the US political system. In some way, I might actually prefer exams. Because for exams, if you don't study, you can still show up and try to crap something. If you don't write your paper, then that's that, no way to salvage the situation. I will have a French exam at the beginning of next semester though. It's arranged that way so we have to work on it during the hols and thus not lose touch. Urgh.

It was a worrying last few weeks trying to confirm lodging for the winter break. The school has a fucked-up policy of not allowing students, even int'l students, to stay on campus during break. Thankfully, my int'l advisor offered me a job in the admissions office for January so I was able to petition for housing. I'll be staying on campus from the 1 Jan onwards. Now till then though, I'm housed in my Serbian friend's apartment in the UES. It's nice and cozy. Apparently, it was merged into one from four studios, so it's not very big, but there're plenty of bathrooms!

I went to Chinatown earlier today to get a haircut. I found this slightly dodgy looking place, which was in located in a basement, and it cost a mere US$5! Haha, there are things which can be done cheaper here than in SG! It was like I was transported into another city when I entered the salon. There was only one hairdresser, a Chinese woman with hair styled in the vein of HK stars circa mid/late 80s. She spoke Cantonese, and her boombox broadcast some Cantonese station where, from what I could make out, the DJs were discussing Formula 1, particularly the Schumacher brothers. She ostensibly got sick of the DJs yakking because halfway through my haircut, she stopped and went to put a CD in. It was some classic Mandarin oldies CD. Like I said, in that time, I did not feel like I was in NYC.

P.S: Snow is pretty and all, but ice which remains for days is annoying! It is so freakin' slippery and I've almost fell a million times walking. It's as if you're ice-skating, and you don't even need skates.