Long Long Overdue Update, Birthday, Summer classes, and my first time of........!

It's been ages, yes. I have always wanted to update my blog but there were always things that came about. Summer semester, the one I had after trips to Nashville and Minnesota. So I had one lab, one IPRO (Interprofessional Project) and one history class (The Crusades).

The lab wasn't too difficult, I teamed up with Anas and Analy (one year our senior). It was pretty fun for the whole class, where the three of us would have joked at each other, at the lecturer and at everything, basically we were carefree. The final project where we have to create a programming command to control the inlet cold water flow rate in order to maintain a beaker of hot water at a certain temperature. I did this on my own as they worked on the lab reports and presentation and I have to say, it was a really good eye-opener for me to some real world situations, and the fact that I did it alone, awesome.

IPRO. This is a class in my university where students of different come together and work on a project. My team was given a technology that separates oil from water and water from oil, just by using simple filtration mechanism, either one pass through, the other one gets filtered. Our project went smoothly as it didn't require too much effort, and I managed to find my way to get to talk to other students to look like I was important, because the grade is rated by the classmates and the lecturer. So the whole semester was built upon people throwing stupid ideas, people forgetting stuffs, people doing retarded things, and some smart ideas. I just tried my best to look like I'm helping and that was enough. On the IPRO presentation day, I wore a T shirt with jeans, and brought my blazer just in case. When the event started we didn't have enough people even though everyone said that they would be there, so I put on my blazer, and looked second best, as there was only one guy who dressed formally in my team. However, people don't really want to talk to me, they'd rather talk to people who wore a T shirt and a tracksuit. Maybe just because I'm Asian, I don't know. But I tried hard, when people walked past, I would walk up to them and initiate. I really tried. lol. My major contribution was the posters and brochures for the exhibition day.

One of the posters I was in charge of

The other one

Our product, to separate fats from gravy, for use in kitchen, and the filter will be placed inside

History class, it was really fun, thanks to the professor. He made the whole class easy, and I learned a lot about the crusades, cause I really have no idea what all these were before. The final paper I was really lazy to carry out a complete research, and since he offered us an option to go creative, I did 5 drawings of related subjects with my own interpretations and some descriptions, so the descriptions were basically what idea I'm trying to portray, not history material, not too difficult.

Siege warfare used to lay siege on city walls

City walls, colored as the same on both sides, signifying war gets you through the walls, but you don't get anything out of it. 

Red knight, blood, sacrifice, bravery, honor, passion

Crusade weapons, so deadly, but all drawn as incomplete weapons, as they are tools by men, men chose to start wars.

One of the wars betwen Christian and Muslim powers, two huge hands representing two sides, why? Because one move by any of these might have started it all or stopped it

During the semester, it was always assignments and Dota and gym, until my laptop got stolen. One day, I left my laptop in the living room together with Alvin's, he went out to the bookstore and I went to the gym. When I left I noticed the curtain wasn't closed, but I didn't think too much coz it was 12 in the afternoon. I got back to find the window open, and the two laptops were gone. I don't usually leave my laptop downstairs, but it just so happen that it had to be on a day where the curtains were open. So yeah, we called the police, they came and filed a report. And luckily I went to tell the apartment management and they reminded me of the insurance we bought, so we managed to get 1705 bucks back in total for both. Half half. I would say it was worth it, considering my laptop was so old, and it was even higher than the original price. But there were feelings. I really loved it. Well, there was nothing we could do about it.

We thought of moving into the building, somewhere higher and needed key to access the stairs and elevator, but after we found out that the juniors and Zairul will be staying next door, and the other next door right now is not black people, we thought of just staying in the same apartment. Then we saved the trouble of getting new internet and electricity too. I guessed we decided to just be more cautious of everything.

We went on to order Lenovo Y500.
3rd Gen Intel i7, 8gb ram, 1 TB, 2gb Nvidia GeForce 750M, 1920X1080 FHD. Around 920 bucks.
However there were issues and shipping would take one month, and my order just disappeared from their system. This made us mad and we found a deal in HP laptops, so we switched to HP Envy 15t-j000 quad edition.
4th Gen Intel i7, 8gb ram, 1TB, 2gb Nvidia GeForce 740M, 1920X1080 FHD. Looked better, and it was cheaper, definitely a no-brainer.
Shipping took quite a while, maybe 3 weeks and we got it. Same laptops. I have to say it is definitely a huge huge upgrade from what I had, but what I had was actually enough. Didn't have much time to play with it as I was heading to New York City the day after.

This is my baby now. There are some minor issues with it, but I can't say I'm not happy. 

NYC in another post soon.

I came back from NYC with JinHong. On 16th August, exactly one month after our incident, the other house next door got broken into. The juniors and Zairul had some stuffs stolen. Luckily they got to claim from the insurance company too.

So the night before my birthday, people came to my place, not knowing it was my birthday the day after, and we played drinking game. I think 4 or 5 people vomited that night. Then halfway I just let the word slip, and they found out it was my birthday, so Jennifer thought of going to sing karaoke in Chinatown. That was 2am and we were all almost there, as in almost drunk. She drove the 3 of us there, sang for a bit and returned home again. On the way she almost hit another car lol. And John vomited from home until Chinatown.

I woke up, with Jinhong, Alvin and Simon, the new junior from Kuching, we went to have buffet as brunch. Then we went to the annual air show at the beach, this year we went real close to the action, so the planes looked real close and was awesome. After that we went to the zoo, and so all the usual animals and birds and fish and everything, I have been there for more than 5 times hello! BUT THE POLAR BEAR WAS THERE! For the first time ever, I got to see the POLAR BEAR!!! It was hiding in the shades though, probably too hot for him. But IT WAS THE POLAR BEAR YEAY!

The air show planes

Then we went for a dip at Lake Michigan, literally just a short dip. Then dinner at Chinatown. After that was definitely the thing to do. GO AND BUY LIQUOR AND SHOW EVERYONE ELSE YOUR ID COZ YOU'RE LEGAL! So I got a black label Johnnie Walker and some stouts. They bought me a cake, yeay!

Simple cake ceremony and stuffs after that. And the next day? First day of class. That escalated quickly, yes real quick. I am really glad, my 21st birthday might not be as grand, might not be as heart-warming, but it was special, at least to me, and it was nothing less than a memorable birthday. I truly appreciate what everyone has done for me.

The first weekend of class, the people came over to drink again. So yeah after Zairul moved out, Dan came in, and the seniors graduated, so my place is now the hangout spot. I didn't have dinner before drinking, didn't think it would matter, I was so so wrong.

So we played, we drank, until we ran out of alcohol. Some went out to buy more, but I didn't want to go coz I don't wanna risk my life again lol. Those who stayed continued playing, and drinking. More alcohol came and more drinking. There was a moment where we were almost done, and we raised the stakes to catwalking. So whoever is picking cards has to do a catwalk. I had to do it, I tried, but I just couldn't do what they asked for, which was to cross my left foot to right and right foot to left, and I couldn't understand what they want coz I couldn't even remember my own name or any other shit. I jumped from left to right, shook my butt like a transexual and that's it. (All learned later on from videos). I thought I did it once, but in the video I did three times. And I kept cursing whoever who said I didn't do what they asked and some people laughed like hell.

What happened after that never came back to my mind, and there were no more videos. From all the witnesses I think I just went to sit, slept at the table, and people tried to wake me up but I just kept fucking them up, no fists involved and no penetration, of course, just verbal. Then they continued playing without me. Halfway, no idea how long I started vomiting, but I couldn't get up, so since my face was down on the table, I puked into my own face, it flowed down to my pants, and they put a bucket underneath the table. No one could move me I think, coz whoever touched me gets fucked, again. So I woke up next morning in my own puke all over my body, went to bathe and slept in my own bed.

Then I learned that Jennifer also vomited after me, and a second time in the morning. And also I felt pain all over my body, I think I now know why, I just fell from the table down to the floor, what else can happen if not bruises?

I wouldn't say that that was the most alcohol I had, and definitely not the worst, coz the previous week I had tequila shots, whiskey shots, vodka and all the others. Most probably because of my empty stomach, but I'm glad it all came out. My first time knockout, my first time vomiting. Both were not that bad, because you don't remember shit if you knockout, and vomiting after you knockout is not so bad, if you vomit while you are sober, it might feel bad. However I wouldn't want to have it all again, and yes, I regretted. Good thing is that I am fine, just that I had to throw away my shirt and pants I wore that night, and also had to buy a new chair for myself lol.

Second week of classes then. This weekend, I am sick. :(    Everyone else in the apartment too. And today, Saturday was the second last fireworks at Navy Pier (other than Halloween, 3 months away), so I asked the juniors and Alvin and Joseph to go together. The fireworks lasted 15 minutes and was the nicest at Navy Pier among the three times I've seen it. We walked around town with the juniors afterwards and reached home after 12am. Luckily Monday is Labor Day and Tuesday is my department meeting, so I still have 3 more days to catch up with homework.


So NYC post in a bit. Phew, all these writing and it's now 4.30am.