Saturday, June 24, 2006
short update
back from work.. and tomorrow's finally my off day for the week! :) this is my 4th week of working 6 days a week! but too bad i have 2 off days for next week... so i'll only be working 5 days a week.. which means less tired, more fun... but less money.i took quite a few pictures and stuff of my new housing and with my colleagues... but i'm SO LAZY to post them up on my this blog.. sighs. it really takes alot of time and effort. besides, i'm not done with taking pictures with all the colleagues that i want to take with! haha. maybe i'll do that when i'm more or less doen with all. hehez.
anyway, just a short update of myself. i've been so busy working! and i must say i've really settled down and got used to the life here. living at VCU dorm and working at kings dominion. 4 weeks have just flew past like that. 4 weeks full of work. it's fast.
i'm happy and enjoying life much better now. better than the first few weeks we came. yes it's busy, but it's fulfilling. in fact, i like going to work. the hours are long... clocking like 50+ hours a week... much longer than what i would clock as a temp office worker back in singapore... but it's ok when you get used to it. we normally work like 10 hours a day with a 45min break in between where 15mins of the time is spent walking to the canteen lor.
i hated this job initially cuz it was an extremely tiring and dirty job to me. it still is except that i've gotten used to it. the amount of trash i've picked up here is definitely more than the amount of trash i've picked up for the past 20 years of my life! and clearing up trash cans is something i've never done in my entire life before! goodness gracious... it stinks big time and it is SO FILTHY. disgusting. and the amount of floor that i've swept is probably more than well... how much i've swept for my life too! i hardly sweep the floor at all... i only vaccuum them. haha. i hardly sweep at all back home... but i come here and sweep up trash every single fucking day that i work. it's like, i can't believe i flew 20 over hours and spent a few thousand bucks to come here to pick and clean the trash that americans litter. gosh. but seriously, working here is probably also the most amount of money i've picked up so far in life. haha they drop money like they drop trash. which is also a good thing i guess. i pick up lotsa coins quite frequently... it all depends on my luck and how sharp my eyes are. haha. but i know the park is definitely filled with alot of money everywhere! people drop all their pennies, dimes, quarters etc when they ride the coasters. it probably drops all over the place when the coasters go upside down. sometimes i get really amazed at how these people can keep dropping money man! maybe it's just because i work in an amusement park. i often start up looking for trash and unconsciously end up looking for money when i'm cleaning... hahaha. i lose my focus when i start seeing shiny round coins around. haha.
anyhow, i must say i've been quite lucky so far in my job here and all. i get along well with people i work with.. and i would say that i'm lucky most of them quite like me. i mean not that i'm trying to be bhb... but sometimes you can tell when people like you more than others a not. and for me i guess people quite like me, whether they are blacks or whites. perhaps it's just the nature of my character where i can talk to people easily and am more friendly... it helps to make a difference la. and when people at work like you, it really helps to make your job much easier. firstly you enjoy working with your co-workers more... secondly people would also tend to "take care" of you more. hmms.
in fact, i like it here and i seriously wouldn't mind continuing life like this for a longer period of time. i wouldn't mind extending my time working here... because i realized i only have slightly less than a month's time left... which is quite sad. haiz. but things would change even if i stay because most singaporeans would have left by then... new people would come in and all... so all i can do is to treasure the times that i'm having now.
i realized that in life... change is probably the only constant thing. it applies for everything in life... so well, things will never stay the same and the only way is to accept it and well, get used to it. because sometimes, change might not be for the worse, but for the better.
i enjoy going to work simply because of the motivation from my co-workers i would say. i think it's the people around you that makes all the difference in your attitude. the job scope itself is boring and sian because YOU DO THE SAME THING EVERY SINGLE FREAKING DAY. it gets really boring... but the chance of getting to interact with the friends you make there and also some of the guests can really make your day. it makes all the difference. and having different types of motivation in looking out for some people also helps to make the days pass by better.
we spend so much time talking about work and colleagues after our work end everyday. we are all from different rides and so we meet different stuff too. when we get together back again on the bus and back at the dorm, gossips and all start going around... and the latest updates and discussions of what happened in the park during the day and also about Mr/Miss S0-and-so starts going on. it's lotsa fun cuz we have endless to talk about everyday.
i can just foresee how much i will miss life like this when i leave next month. sighs. i will miss USA, i will miss kings dominion, i will miss all the singaporeans here, i will miss all the friends i've made at work. sighs!
anyway, i'll end off with my favourite picture for now. it's taken with some of my colleagues after work one day... at our ride station with the train and the background shows part of the ride area. will post more thoughts and pictures next time! :)
YuAn® spun on 1:08 PM.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Philadelphia Trip
the day finally came when we finally decided to depart to philadelphia! we went to find my cousin, yewzhen who was studying at university of pennsylvania. she was kind enough to provide us with one night of lodging! yay! it was supposedly a 5 hour drive which passes by 2 states, maryland and delaware before finally reaching pennsylvania. our trip lasted for 2 days from 24th-25th May 2006.
armed with all our barang barangs.. on the way to enterprise to rent the car!
some photos we took along the way... we took like 6 hours to get there in the end... yicui was the one who was driving all along.. kudos man! i was the navigator and i must say long drives are really horrendous, even though we did get to stop and rest. it's hard to keep yourself awake on long and straight roads... zzz... and i mean like LONG LONG LONG roads. 100 over kilometres in one stretch is no fun.finally....! we reached philadelphia downtown! on our way to find my cousin's place.
after putting our stuff at her place.. we went to visit the famous Upenn campus!
taking a picture with one of their significant symbols... a button..? er i mean a big button.
posing with benjamin franklin's statue... he's like the founder or something.
in the campus...
sir benjamin franklin...? hi, how're you doing?
and finally... we reached the famous WHARTON SCHOOL!!! the one that we travelled all the way to see. haha. the place where some of the professors in our school came from... the school which we collaborate and model after... the school where my finance professor, this genius whiz kid choong tze graduated with a GPA of 3.97.
we've been to wharton school!
me and my cousin inside the wharton school building.
wharton wharton wharton!
this is how their GSRs (group study room) look like. similar to SMU's except that they have like 2 desktops inside lor. ours don't have and we need to self provide our laptops!
this is something like SMU's SRs (seminar rooms) where they probably hold their classes, except that they call them classrooms.anyhow, wharton is like similar to SMU so i think we kinda copied them a bit too much. oh well, what to do since we are an american university. it has like escalators and all... and we went there to see how it really is like cuz we've always heard so much about wharton but never been there personally.
after we were done fascinating with wharton, we made our way for dinner! for the famous philly cheesesteak!
yummy yummy! but damn fattening!
at first we thought it was like a steak kinda steak where you choose like well-done, medium etc. haha but apparently we were too ignorant i guess.
posing outside my cousin's apartment.
yicui and i with our red car we rented!
the next day we went back to upenn again to visit their bookstore cuz my cousin says that it's pretty interesting with lotsa stuff.
right at the entrance.
we passed by our of upenn's carpark entrance... look at how disgustingly expensive their parking rates are!!! my gosh. and USD$1 is approximately S$1.60!! next, we finally decided to go visit the famous liberty bell in pennsylvania.
along the way we saw like horse carriages on the roads.
it's free to enter!
me and the bell!
another picture with.. another bell that's right on top.
anyway, liberty bell signifies some freedom thing for america... i read the stuff and it is a very significant symbol for them.
we weren't that keen on visiting museums and thought it was really hard to find parking in the city area at philadelphia that we didn't take into consideration when deciding to drive there. so we finally decided on dropping by one of the states on our way back instead to go for more shopping at their outlet malls!
posing at the petrol station during one of our stopovers.
scenery pictures along the highway of maryland... it's a really pretty place!
finally we spent about 3 hours to reach our outlet mall at hagerstown for shopping shopping and more shopping! it was kinda like a detour back to richmond but we still went ahead cuz they had lotsa brands there!
at the carpark when we were about to leave.
we reached richmond and wanting to finally utilise the rental of our car... we decided to go to krispy kreme!
YUMMY!!
yeaps, that was the end of our trip to philly. it was overall a pretty enjoyable though a bit rush and didn't had time to do much. hehe. but it was interesting and good. :)
YuAn® spun on 1:53 PM.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Washington DC
sorry for the horrific backlog. it's really hard to go back when you start lagging. sighs. i see my counter jump everytime i come on.. but there's no new updates at all. my apologises!so many stuff has been happening for the last few weeks.. so many photos taken.. but so little time to organize them and blog. i've already moved out of the hotel and am now staying at VCU (Virginia commonwealth university) dormitory. i'm staying at rhoads hall! couldn't get internet connection for the first few days didn't help to make things better.. after that when i did, i started working like 6 days a week which only left my free time with sleep and eat.
anyhow, i went on a one day trip to washington DC on 17th May to look see. it was mostly visiting their museums and walking about. it was organized by the company and they chartered bus to bring us there for free! here are some of the photos.
infront of white house! too bad they don't allow people to enter now.
erm i can't remember what is this.. it's just this tall long thing.. some memorial stuff for the people who died in the war i think?
whoever that were present just went into the photo. haha.
after that we went to some lincoln park memorail thingy...?
especially for sheena..! your friend! haha.
finally see lincoln park! hahaha.
some of the group photos that we took.. frankly, i really wasn't sure where exactly we were and what we were taking. haha.
this was inside the museum.. the oldest post office that is still functioning!
then it started raining.. and well, apparently only girls brought umbrellas..
one big group photo with our international relation officer, Erin!
ending off... with a street of washington DC!
overall, it was a pretty boring trip to me la cuz the whole day was spent walking about and visiting museums and reading about their history which seriously didn't interest me much, if not at all. so my blog can't provide any insightful knowledge to anyone who might wanna know more about it cuz even me myself don't know much. haha. there was no shopping at all also.. and we were confined to one area only. but anyhow, i guess it was good to go out of richmond to look see.
okay, that's about it for now. i am so tired! will blog more about my new staying place, my philadelphia trip and my workplace soon! :)
YuAn® spun on 11:40 AM.