Let's check in with Mr. Pei, reporting live from the Equator of the Blogosphere...

I released Prince George, the huge tarantula-like spider that I kept for a while. He wasn't eating and seemed to be getting weaker, so I let him go in the grass near my building. By the way, that was a really weird religious rant that some dude left on my blog on that last post... you'll have to pardon my confused, immature friend. But it's OK I doubt few people actually read this blog regularly, one of the advantages of blogging vs. FB.

My daily routine has become much more routine since I got here, as I've pretty much settled into life in Singapore, a sign that I should consider traveling somewhere soon just to spice things up. But besides being more comfortable with how things are run around here, I've also stabilized more due to the realization that I probably need to start working for school... it's not entirely vacation. Midterms are coming up, and before I assumed that, hey, no big deal, I'll just pass my classes and everything will be A-OK. Oh wait, what about grad school? Ah poopers. If I ever want to try my luck with Stanford or MIT, I will certainly need to get good grades while here since they will want to see my transcript from all schools attended for.

Research activity has also increased since I first talked to my new supervisor, Prof. Choi, who I mention earlier for being especially kind in helping me settle my courses and offering me a position in his lab. I'm currently working with another undergraduate, Gabriel Lim, a really cool guy whose life's motto is like mine, "Work hard, play hard", except he's much better at it than I am. He's a real expert in his work, but he also goes to clubs and plays sports actively. He's showing me the ropes in the microfabrication lab, and he seems very glad to have me working with him on his equivalent of a senior design project so that's good. He was also in Europe working for the summer by coincidence, doing research at TUM, which is in the other big -ich city (Munich). Oh and another really strange coincidence, this Prof. Choi was also Yaliang's senior project adviser... I'm just hitting it with all the right people these days.

Outside of work, did fun stuff over the weekend. I think I talked about everything but Sunday in the last post. Sunday was when I went with Rachel et al to Sentosa for my second time, this time to see the Underwater World. My camera doesn't take good aquarium pics so I didn't even bother taking out my camera much, but fortunately Rachel's does so I'm going to use her photos on FB for future reference, as well as just these two that I took which show basically how amazingly interactive this particular aquarium is.



Unlike Monterey, which is memorable for having huge exhibits with very true-to-nature environments, Underwater World emphasizes letting you come face to face, or flipper to fin, with all their animals. Above you can see the world's longest traveling aquarium-tube thing, and a little girl feeding the fish in one tank through one of the ingeniously designed access ports. There were also many petting tanks for rays, sharks, etc. Like a typical Asian, I couldn't help but wonder what each of them tasted like as I touched them, but I managed to refrain from sneaking any of them out in my pockets. There was also a nice dolphin show, featuring pink dolphins, as well as those ugly pink apes (migrating from England or the US for the winter months) who stripped off all their clothes to go swimming with the dolphins during the show. Another law that Ryan humbly suggests to the Singapore government for consideration; restrictions against fat, old, and sunburned Caucasians from exposing anything more than than their faces in public... so gross.

That evening we had hotpot, or "steamboat" as it's called around here. Pretty fun, although I will admit that perhaps if Singapore ever has the right weather for eating hotpot, then we are all probably very screwed. Afterwards our kind hosts talked with us about their experiences traveling to Western countries, especially in Europe, where they encountered a large number of guys who hit on them (you know, that epidemic in the West called yellow fever, which I myself probably cannot test for negative). They were funny stories, but by the end I was starting to think that they were just bragging about being young, Asian females who could make so many guys lives miserable. So here I would say in defense of those pink apes, you can toy with them all you want, but make the most of your time because as you approach your metamorphosis into an old Asian lady, when driving they won't even want to share the road with you.

Just talking about that makes me scared of becoming old. What will happen when I can no longer travel the world? When I become slow and start wearing velcro shoes and slippers? Hopefully I won't be rotting somewhere wishing I was able to just go back to places like Zurich and Singapore to relive my youth... omg, what if I even start to miss Houston *gag* if I live elsewhere? OK I'm stopping here before I go into another rant.

Yesterday was the last day of the Lunar New Year's (I've learned to say "Lunar" rather than "Chinese" to be more politically correct, since a lot of other SoutheastAsian nationalities celebrate it as well). I had the last day's dinner with Yaliang and his girlfriend at his apartment. Right now he's taking night-time webcast courses from MIT for his master's, so hardcore. I also learned that last night was the fullest, brightest that the moon has ever been for the last 52 years, and it certainly was very bright.

OK, got to get to work for once. My regards to Mommy, this weekend was her birthday. Haha I still remember missing my flight from Houston last year to get home for her 50th... what a mess I am, need to get in shape in terms of my timeliness, starting NOW.