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Saturday, November 15, 2008
GREETINGS FROM MAVIS!!! IT'S FREEZING IN TORONTO!!! Here's how I look like when it gets too cold here in Toronto...It's only when you're faced with the howling winds that you fully appreciate the utility of the almighty shawl.  Since I'm waiting for dinnertime, I thought I should really update my forsaken blog on my recent escapades :) Here goes.. --------------------- HALLOWEEN Halloween went past rather quickly... I was actually pretty excited at my first halloween celebration, so I took the bus down to Orfus Road that morning in search of my outfit for the night! I would have loved to dress up as a medieval princess/ firefighter/ policewoman..... but the costumes cost so much and I was on a tight budget! SO, I got myself a wig, and another for Geraldine too! The whole store was packed! They had really really nice acessories, everything from fake blood, face paint, retro specs, handcuffs, glow in the dark crayons, blink blink fake eyelashes...... I almost wanted to dress up as a bottle of salt but it was so bulky! haha! Say hello to Mavis the Afro! A lot of you guys know that I've always wanted to try this look. I realised that it didn't work for me very well cos the wig was so heavy and it made my face look rounder! So, I'm contented with the few hours of being an afro, and no thanks, I'm never going to try this style again!    I look better in the purple wig hor!  The group of us had fun dancing around, and teaching our new friends Mandarin the whole night. So they spent the night saying "ni hao" and 'xie xie ni" to everyone they met! haha! They had this costume competition and everyone rushed to participate. Some costumes were really cool!!!    Loved the raisins!   -------------------- CN TOWER Me and Geraldine went on a weekday afternoon, and we were lucky to find that there was no queue! They had this weird security screening machine that involved having you to walk into this compartment, having the front and back gates close on you, then having air shoot out from both sides of the wall onto your body 3 times, which was more ticklish than anything else..  Taking the great glass elevators up 553 metres to see the city from the Observational Deck was astounding and breathtaking, though it was also a little scary. haha! Vain self-shots...   They also had this glass floor thing that was quite scary, considering I'm always paranoid that structures aren't very safe... But after psycho-ing myself that I won't fall through the glass down 553m, I wobbled onto the glass floor and took A TRUCKLOAD of photos to make my "dangerous stunt" worthwhile.    -------------------- Introducing the mock medieval Casa Loma!
It's this 98-room mansion built for Sir Henry Pellat, a castle in the midst of the city buildings... This happens to be the first stop of our City Pass - a $64 pass that covers admission charges to 6 major attractions in Toronto for a period of 9 days..   We had this audio guide that introduces us to the various rooms in the mansion... Instead of faithfully listening to the descriptions of the historical significance of each room the whole time, I contented myself with loads of phototaking instead. Oops.    Because Halloween was just around the corner, they had decorated the place with jack-o-lanterns, spiders, skeletons....And they had pumpkins in every room and corner too! The corpse bride, frankenstein, pirates and staff in costumes were roaming the castle too :P Even the people who came to visit were dressed up in costumes too!     On another random note, I've been to an American Football game (the Argonauts footall game) in town, at the Rogers Centre. It was really fun seeing huge men pile on/knock down/ attack each other.... But i particularly enjoyed the whole atmosphere, screaming the cheers and singing the team song whenever our team scored. They also had quirky half-time activities like the "Kiss Cam", whereby the cameras will zoom in on random couples in the crowd. So you'll see couples, initially surprised to see themselves on the huge video wall, then realising they had to kiss! haha :)  
12:53 PM
It seems so surreal that instead of busy preparing for impending examinations, I'm sitting here, watching the rainfall, enjoying my days in school as the strike intensifies.. The latest headline of the school paper screams "No Immediate End In Sight", with no plans to resume talks and negotiations, and student told to be prepared for the strike to last for a long while... Coming Monday, there's going to be a rally against the strike- the "anti-strike strike". Goodness, what an exchange experience. I thought a strike would involve angry students holding banners and huge signs hurling verbal abuses or chanting slogans.... It was hence a surprise to note that the strike in school only involved students walking around in a circle with signs or trying to persuade students and vehicles to not enter the school in support of the union. Not handing in assignments will not be penalised and classes are suspended till further notice. Which effectively means I'm free as can be. And my days can get as meaningless as " wake up- think of what to have for lunch- eat lunch- sleep- think of what to have for dinner- eat dinner- sleep"... I'm finalising a few travel plans though. Most of the professors are already touring South America to escape the cold winter in Toronto... I'm feeling pretty blissful here actually.... with all the exchange students wishing the strike will prolong (which means no final exams...).. But then there's still the nagging problem of whether we can map our modules back to those in NUS.. Oh well, the international student office did say they'll ensure the successful completion of our exchange experience... So, meanwhile, I'll still be enjoying the cool weather, falling maple leaves, sipping hot chocolate, and reading story books in the comfort of my room. I should start selling textbooks and packing my lugguages lor. Haha!
12:40 PM
Friday, October 24, 2008
 It was raining heavily that day...And I was sitting at my desk, doing work... As I turned to look out of the window, I thought I saw small white specks flying past.. I stood up and wondered which inconsiderate neighbour was tearing up paper and throwing the scraps down. Then I stared... And I stared for like 15 minutes, I stood in front of my window and stared... "is that SNOW i see?" I talked to myself.. rationalised that it's too early to have snowfall anyway... Maybe I was imagining things... or maybe it's just the rain... In the midst of my looking out of the window, Diviya called me and screamed loudly into the phone that she saw SNOW!!! It was so exhilarating!!! I went downstairs to look for Geraldine and we both stood out in the chilly cold to experience our first snowfall! It was so beautiful :) Temperature's falling to almost 0 degrees now.. It's scary to think of how winter will strike soon... SPEAKING OF STRIKE... i know it's very dramatic But there is like a very very very high chance that a strike that will take place in York University. The headlines of today's newspaper screams "York Teaching Assistant Strike grow more likely".... And the conflict between the teaching assistants is escalating.... The thing is, apparently, the university will force a lockout if the agreement between them isn't reached by Nov 2... And the school administrationa actually announced that they are not likely to backdown whilst the teaching assistants said they're prepared to strike (with 85% of them actually casting a b ballot in support of the strike mandate)... Classes will be suspended if that strike occurs... And I really don't want to think of what is going to happen to us exchange students when that happens... But Nov 2 is nearing soon... *shudders*
11:57 AM
Monday, October 20, 2008
I should have done this post on New York City early, but I've been struggling/ still struggling with my heavily-weighted midterms right after I came back and really could find no time to pen this entry... It's still kinda surreal because the trip went past so quickly, yet, because of the packed itinerary, it really did seem that I went for a bit of everything..5.30am. The 4 of us were at the Student Service Centre, waiting for our cab to arrive. We began to panic when the cab didn't come on time, so we made another call to the cab agency and asked for another one to pick us up. But all is well, and we made it to the Bloor-Yonge Subway station in time to catch our coach.
 We met up with the rest of the group, and together, the 9 of us boarded the coach and began our journey to New York City!  We da-bao-ed breakfast to munch on the bus and pretty much slept throughout the journey there. Geraldine and I were up the whole night mugging, because we had SO MUCH to finish before we could leave. In an attempt to feel less guilty, we also brought some notes over to study, DUH, the notes remained untouched. But we were so tired...   We got to see the US side of the Niagara Falls when we were nearing US customs. Our tourguide, Noam, kept reminded us not to talk during the customs, only to answer the officer's questions and say nothing else, not to look at the security camera .... His tone and repeated advice made passing the customs seem so scary, but it was really not that terrifying an experience really! And the queue wasn't even long in the first place!  There were loads of Mexicans going with us on the trip, and they were pretty rowdy, to say the least... Like the girls were taking off the guys' clothes, doing wild dancing and singing loudly on the bus... The Singaporeans were simply sitting at the back of the bus doing what we enjoy best, EATING (and sleeping)~! Everyone brought different snacks so we were busy passing all our junk food around the group most of the time...The tourguide commented that we were very communal, and that he has never seen a group that took care of each other so much! heh!  There were a few stops along the way. Food was pretty expensive, so we spent most of the time out in the sun, taking photos and talking with each other...Got to know Meryl, Sam and Alex from the University of Toronto, which effectively broadens my circle of Singaporean pals in Toronto, to a grand total of 11 people!   See! The trees are really pretty now, because some are green, others turned yellow and some are red already!  The traffic was pretty bad, and we were an hour late in reaching our hotel.. We stayed in the Marriot Inn hotel that was in New Jersey, slightly off New York. We had to leave right after dumping our bags in the hotel that night though, because we had to rush off to Times Square for the night! 10 hours plus bus ride okay! It reminds me of the horribly long plane ride I have to endure when I go back to Singapore in December... but I shall not think of that first.. But I really liked the hotel. It was comfortable, bathroom's big, with 3 huge mirrors, and the best thing about the room, seriously had to be the heater. haha!    I had expected myself to go crazy shopping in Times Square, but surprisingly, this place was not at all THE place to rave over when it comes to shopping. Mostly high-end shops (with no sale), and tourist shops...       So, the group of us was attracted by this huge M&M flashing advertisement board, and we went off to visit the M&M speciality shop, and it was SO COOL! It was 3 storeys of M&M products, they had chocolate everything! No wonder the shop was so crowded.   This was super tempting!    We didn't have time for dinner, so we just grabbed $1 ice cream sundae from Mac before heading back to the hotel to retire for the night :) It comes with free peanut toppings here!!!!!! 
10:55 PM
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![If you had only time for one attractions in Toronto, you should really visit the CN Tower (short for Canadian National Tower)... [This sounds suspiciously like a cheesy advertisement]. It's like the city's icon.](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-d8Vyp04JwpD9VP4Iy-c3v80HOl6o-bAfAnjgObUxdc4mbkOD43zZ_LJqb5ALofp6oRFd1xtqtDIZL7_aYFR_x1V-XAB0TTk5ihAL10NDEBv8-BjhpxUQux5Pc6SBncdL6Ffpx5FSPhe4/s1600-h/IMG_5149.jpg){kind=link}