Raya (Eid)

November 16th, 2010 (Tuesday)

Today, besides being Gina's and my sister's birthday, is the Eid day for all Muslims around the globe!! Eid mubarak to everyone >-<. Unfortunately, I have class today so I couldn't celebrate it like everyone else T-T. However, I 'skyped' with my family, who were having Eid celebration at our house today. It was really great and I could see those faces that I haven't seen in 3 months ^-^.

I only had one class today, which was accounting, since I have MIST lab exam this week (the teacher cancelled the lecture class for the whole week..cool right?). Usually, I will wake up at 5.30am for Tuesday and Thursday because I have MIST class at 8-9.15 (have to take the bus at 7), then accounting at 9.30-10.45. But, since I didn't have to go to MIST class, I decided to go back to sleep after I prayed and guess what, I forgot to set the alarm to 7.30!! So, I overslept T-T...Thank god the accounting class has three sections (9.30, 11.00, and 12.30), so I went to the 12.30 section (I woke up at 10!!). I guess I should have set the alarm before I went to sleep *huhu*.

This is all for today I guess. Tomorrow I'll have my lab exam, which will be about Microsoft Excel, so I need to sleep early today ^-^.

Ame (Rain)

November 15th, 2010

Simple design but it's blue!

As the title had stated, it was raining today. Thank god it wasn't a really heavy rain like 2 weeks ago. Since it was raining, the girls went out wearing their colorful rain boots and I found it a bit amusing to see some of them wearing the same pattern. I think a lot of them bought theirs online or from Target (even if it's online, it's still from Target I guess) and I also had ordered mine from Target through Amazon for $30 (plus tax and shipping). Yeah, I need to buy it because it rains a lot in Georgia compared to California (didn't even think about buying it when I was in Cali). I wasn't wearing mine this morning since it hasn't arrived yet, so I had to bear with having wet shoes and feet (which I really, really hate). However, I'm glad my order arrived as soon as I reached home after my class ended. I will wear it tomorrow since the weather forecast said that it will still rain tomorrow ^_^. I've never seen someone wearing the same design as mine yet, but it doesn't really matter though *hehe*.

Gloomy...

Talking about class, I was supposed to have 2 classes today but my English teacher cancelled our class last minute (I'm glad I read his email about the cancellation or I will have to wait there for nothing). Well, at least he pushed the dateline for our paper to Friday instead of Wednesday. So, instead of going home at 1.30, I went back at 12.30 and I even managed to capture few pictures while waiting for my bus. It just that the redness of the trees is really fascinating and since today is kind of gloomy, the color stood out. Maybe you've guessed already, but yeah, I bring my camera with me all the time just like my cell phone and watch ^-^. I will feel really awful if I couldn't capture something worth capturing when I go somewhere *huhu*.

11/15/2010

11/03/2010

In contrast, while I was walking, I saw trees that are almost bald already, although Winter hasn't arrived yet. Compare the above picture, which I took today, with the one below it, which I took almost 2 weeks ago. They both display the same trees though I took them in two different angles.

Athens Multimodal Transfer Center

Before I forget, something funny but dangerous happened while I was on the bus today. There was this one guy who hopped into the bus at the first stop. There's nothing unusual with that, but when he tried to sit opposite of me, I heard someone screamed "Don't sit on my baby", which startled everyone on the bus. Actually, there was a kid sleeping on that seat. That guy didn't see her I guess. Everyone burst into laugh and I'm glad that the guy didn't manage to sit first or we will see some tragic accident on the bus. So people, please check the seats carefully before you decide to sit whenever you ride a public transportation ^-^.

Got my Cajun Pasta

Just now, I went to Chili's with my friends for dinner to celebrate my friend Gina's birthday, which will be tomorrow (my sister will have her birthday tomorrow too ^-^). We had a fun time together and I ordered Grilled Shrimp Cajun Pasta (it was okay I guess). So the 3 out of 5 of us ordered diet coke for drink and one of the 3 asked for a refill and so the waitress gave the refill. The funny part was, suddenly came another waitress who brought with her another 3 glasses of diet coke for us. We were shocked, but as long it won't count as another glass in the bill, we don't really mind (free refills for sodas). Since I don't drink coke (in fact, I don't really drink sodas), I couldn't help with finishing them *hehe*. As for the birthday girl, Gina, she got a card and an awesome cake from my roommate, which made her really excited. Hope that she will have a great birthday tomorrow and to my sister too ^_^.



This is it for today though >-<

Gina's birthday cake. 28 is the number
of her favorite Viking's player.

Tsukareta (Tired)

November 13th, 2010 (Saturday)

Today, I was dedicating myself on finishing my 3rd paper for my English class. Since I'm not a good writer, it took me the whole day to finish it *sigh*. I'm writing about the impact of text messaging on us. Well, the fact is, I'm a heavy texting person too *hehe*. Since I'm done with my English paper, tomorrow I will focus on accounting (really hope so though ^_^).

Actually, I wanted to go to Wal-mart today for grocery (what's left in my fridge are some shrimps, a loft of bread, and 2 cans of tuna). However, since I was so caught up with my paper, I didn't realize that it was already past 3.00pm *huhu*. To go to Wal-mart, I need to get ready by 4 and take a bus to the main station. There, I need to wait for the bus to Wal-mart which departs at 4.45. Then, I'll arrive at Wal-mart around 5.15 and have to do my shopping within an hour (the bus comes once in every hour). By the time I reach back home, it will be 7.00pm and the sunset right now is at 5.30pm!! So, I decided to forget about it and just bear with the foods I have for the rest of the week. Maybe you wonder why don't I go to Wal-mart tomorrow? Too bad, there's no bus on Sunday and all my friends with a car go back home every weekend T_T. Life is so hard without a car and a driving license.

Nevertheless, I will take my driving license in California during my thanksgiving break which starts in one more week >_<. Wish me luck ^_^.  

Yakusoku (Promise)

I promised myself to create a journal of my life when I turned 21 but it has been almost a week since that day. Life isn't always be like you've planned *sigh*. However, starting today, I'll try my best to update my journal daily or maybe weekly. First, please forgive me if I have grammar mistakes (sure I'll have tons of them) since I'm not a native speaker ^_^.

Prior to Nov 12th, 2010

I've started my life as a Dawgs in University of Georgia, Athens (UGA) on Aug 16th, 2010.

Since I came from California, almost all people who met me asked the same question, "Why did you choose UGA?". For most of them, who were born and raised in Georgia, California is like a dream place. They thought that if you're already in Cali, you'll never want to go out. Well, I guess those statement might be true to certain people, but California is an expensive state and I'm not sure whether I can survive studying there without my parents, and without any scholarship (yeah, I'm using my parents pocket money for my tuition for now T_T). So, every time they ask me the question, I will repeat the same script that I've prepared, "I came here because the Risk Management & Insurance program (my major) in UGA is ranked as second the best in the US". It's true actually. I chose UGA solely based on that fact. I didn't know anything about the school football team or the fact that it is the 1st party school (ranked by Princeton Review).

I can even remember the first day I came to UGA for orientation back in June. Me and my parents were lost and couldn't find the venue for the orientation thing. A lady in Terrell Hall (the admission building) said, "Owh, you're a new dog in here, aren't you" straight to my face. I was a bit offended since I didn't know that the mascot for UGA is a Bulldog and the students call themselves as 'Dawg'. *hehehe*

My mom was a bit reluctant to let me go at first since Georgia in on Southeast where California is on Southwest; It takes around 6 hours by flight. Well, it's not really that long considering the flight to Malaysia, where it takes around 24 hours. I don't really mind stranded in this place alone as long as I can get the best education for myself. Actually, I'm not really alone since there are few Malay families living in the Atlanta area (around 1hr 30min from Athens), which I'm really thankful for letting me stay at their house whenever I need to :).

So what am I taking for this semester? Since I really hate learning about history (I'm not good with memorization), I kept delaying on the subject. I think that I should have taken it while in De Anza College, but no use in regretting it now (life needs to go on). I am also taking English, Management and Information system (MIST), and Accounting class. My favorite class as for now is accounting; tough and challenging class but fun :). It's so tough that after our first exam, around half of the students were gone. A lot of them blamed the teacher but honestly, I don't think we can get any better teacher than Mrs. Bhan *huhu*.

You might think that my life is very dull with same routine everyday - go to school, go back home. Yeah, I think so too. To spice up my life, I decided to enter a competition hosted by PricewaterCooper (PwC), one of the big four accounting firms in US, called xTax Competition. As stated in the name, the competition was about tax issues dealt by companies. For this year, the case was about a company that wanted to expand their business to e-commerce (online store). I've never thought that you would get taxation problem if you wanna sell things online, so this competition definitely opened my eyes to the real world issues. The participants should be in groups consisted of 5 people and we were given 2 weeks to solve the problem. At first, my group had 5 people but one member had to drop out because she had a lot of things going on in her life (yeah, right).

We worked for the rest of the two weeks given as a 4-member group and unfortunately (or maybe god wanted to test us I guess), the dateline fell in the week of midterm exams for most business classes (for me and my other 2 members -> accounting exam. For another member -> finance exam). Still, we met each other every night until the day of the presentation (Had to stay at school til around 11pm *sigh*). However, we had a fun time working together, not to mention, precious experiences and also free dinner and stuffs ^_^.

Furthermore, I managed to get full score for my accounting exam (yay!), which I considered it as a birthday gift (which fell during the weekend after the exam) from me to myself *hehe*.

Talking about my birthday, I had a 25-hour birthday this year thanks to the Daylight Saving Time (more sleep time) >_<. I received presents from my family back in California. I also got a surprise visit from my friends Gina, Ashleigh, and Dana on Saturday evening with cupcakes!! *huhuhu*

Present from my parents. Key to freedom I guess ^_^

I think I'll stop rambling about my life here for now ^_^.