The End...

22 December 2006 - New Yorker, I am not

This the official final day of my SEP. The feeling is weird and have kinda mix feeling towards the whole thing. I still remember my first day in NY, end up roaming in Harlem by myself, wondering how my roomie and suitemates will turn out to be. Seriously, I pretty much enjoy the companion of my roomie. Lifestyle dun really clash and we can really crap around with each other which is strange as prior to coming, I always thought that it will be pretty hard to mix around well with someone from an entire different cultural background. How wrong this notion was man. We clicked pretty well and have lots of opinions in common. Even the kind of dilemma we face in life are similar. Which is pretty shocking when we talked about it. 2 of us agreed that this whole experience can never be replicated. There won't be another time whereby I come to NY, not knowing what to do and not knowing anyone and have to adapt to a whole new lifestyle. This whole experience can only be experience once and never again. While on the last night, though the 2 of us are pretty tired as we burnt midnight oil together the previous night to attempt to finish our IB revision, we still made an attempt to stay up and chatted till 4am where I have to go off to San Francisco. We drank, we chatted, it was true friendship in the making. Though, I will never discount the fact that once we leave for our respective destination, we might just drift apart. But seriously, the memories that linger on is good enough.

The Whole 26th Street Residence, 23rd Floor's final gathering

Andrew Suh (L) and Peter Yi (R) - My Suitmates. American Born Koreans

These are my suitmates. Pretty laid back individuals. Nice people and I enjoy staying together with them. Peter Yi is a lady killer. I think he has like 15 gf for the past 2 years. During examination, he will still bring his korean girlfriends (note the "s") back and smoke weed and get high. Dunno what they do behind the door la. haha, and my roomie was like saying," Man, he behave like he is the exchange student and I am the full time student here" He is a neuroscience major. That is serious stuff ok. haha, but really nice guy except the time he keep making drink So-ju till I puke big time. Andrew Suh is more quiet, like your typical accounting major (no offence here). Nice and always bring his guy friends back for video game. Note the contrast with his roomie. haha. But dun be deceive by his nice boy look. He is also a pot head. hahaha. But so what, that doesn't make them baddies.

And lastly, there's Vivian who was my American born chinese exchange buddy. Seriously, I never thought we can become friends. Usually, such exchange buddy thingy usually fizzle out after the first 2 weeks and none of my exchange friends kept contact with their buddies. To my surpise, 2 of us still actually talk to each other. Of course, not like great pals but at least, its still a good friend made in NY. Haa, my impression of her changed totally from day 1 man. I still remember, 8 hrs before my flight to NY, I was still frantically packing my luggage and trying to book a place to stay in NY as I made a big booboo in my previous booking (tts how I end up in Harlem). Then, suddenly I saw Vivian online. Feeling desperate, I decided to badger her for advice etc.. then she was kind enough to give me her number etc... then she suggest that we put our pics on msn so that we can recognise each other when we meet up. When I put on my pic, I was like whoa! So glam, is she a model or what man. And she mentioned that look out for a very tall girl, 1.83m (not bad, she actually convert from foot to metres for me knowing that I am a Singaporean.) with heels. Tall + Glam + NY = naturally I will think that she is a model or something. Then when we finally met, she was sort of an ice beauty. Not much smiles etc.. Pretty hard to get the conversation flowing. But as the times went by, we talk more after class etc... not bad, she is actually quite funny esp when she tell me of her days spent in NUS etc.. I also share some of the nitwit stuff I did in NY. We met up one last time after our final papers for breakfast and it was pretty nice meal. Then pretty embarrassing , cos she keep insisting on treating me and she really end up paying. Felt really bad as she actually has also helped me keep my luggage while I go on a tour on the west coast of US. Hmm, better buy something for her to show some appreciation. Especially, the first conversation we had over msn while I was still in Singapore panicking etc... That converation gave me a big psychological boost as I know that whatever it is, there is someone in NY that I can contact. Seriously, I was pretty nervous (beneath the cool facade, haha) when I was making my lone foray into an unknown world. Contrast to now where I actually made my own trip to San Fran(yes, I am in San Francisco now as I am typing this) and later Vegas, I actually feel pretty normal. That is definitely one plus point of this exchange. International Exposure + Confidence

Finally, after such a long draft, I better end this entry. I guess the ties that I have made in this exchange was the best thing that happen. Haa, suddenly I have friends in HK, Aust, Korea and NY. Pretty neat stuff. Though, I am still feeling sad that this whole thing is over, but perhaps its precisely that its over that makes it so special.

Now, its time to move on and kickstart my one week adventure in the west...