Oopsy..procrastination has gotten the better of me yet AGAIN! Thereby, I update you on the 3 biggest events so far within the past 2 weeks.

I'm no longer overloading courses. Why not take it easy since I'm doing a full summer term anyway?=)

Washington DC trip:
Braving the strong winds and an unending sunday of snowing, 7 Duke students proceeded to see 4 museums in 5 h. Isn't that unbelievable? Our schedule was *so* tight that we spent an av of 45min per museum (actually one museum can take a person the whole day). The funniest one was that we spent 10 min at the Botanical Gardens, which was a huge greenhouse. We just walked one round through it!Another one was the Art Museum...express tour in 30 min. I was practically running through the rooms trying to view the exhibits.
The greyhound ride to DC was pretty smooth cuz the bus was relatively empty. We spent our first night (Saturday) at Chinatown enjoying Chinese cuisine. The THING is that the tax was so high that we refused to give a tip. The waitress was obviously speechless. Now I think she has a very bad impression of Singaporeans.
We spent Sunday chionging through museums and visiting Georgetown. Besides its superb location near DC, Georgetown is in no way comparable to Duke. The campus is small and Jiayu has such a small room (but aircon lah) that faces the cemetry!Ugh... The roads were hilly AND slippery. We had dinner at a Thai place...expensive..once again hehe.$.$. Finally, we saw the first FCUK clothes store at Georgetown. See lah, Durham is so pathetic that it doesn't even have a FCUK store. Laura went siao shopping at Georgetown. We wanted to go into urban outfitters but it just closed! Had coffee at Starbucks to evade the chilling cold. Later on, a few of us who were still game to explore tried to go to the Thomas Jefferson memorial but it was too far away!It was soooo windy and chilly that I still felt cold in my 4 layers and down jacket.
On Monday, we visited the International Spy Museum. It was a great place to know about reconnaisance activities etcetc. Then we proceeded to the Holocaust Museum. The exhibits were pretty poignant and it really showed how the Jews were discriminated against, tortured and killed. Terribly gruesome...Right after that my fren and I decided to visit the White House, Abe Lincoln Memorial and Thomas Jefferson Memorial. It was A TORTURE walking with him. @#$@#$ him. Made me make such a big round. It didn't help that we were in a hurry so I had to speed walk at his pace for almost one hour!My legs were almost breaking when I finally trudged back to the Metro station. Ok lah he wasn't so bad after all, volunteered to lug my bag around. I think if this continued for a few days I'd become the ultimate muscular legs woman.BLeAh!

The ride back wasn't so good cuz we started queuing late and most ppl ended up with other people whom they didn't know. I was really lucky cuz this woman right in front of me moved beside another man and vacated the seat for me and jinghui. I slept for most of the journey anyway. Just woke up and found my neck extremely stiff! Jinghui said it was really funny when the bag I was hugging started tilting towards her side so she thought she could help me remove it but I apparently yanked it away from her (while still asleep). Reflex action eh?

CNY @ Duke
No School holiday=(. That's the first time in my entire life that I don't stay at home and wait for relatives to come visit.
Nevertheless we had our own form of "student" fun.
Eve- Ate on campus Chinese food. Each person ordered one ala carte dish. Yummy...
2nd day- COOKOUT for SINGAPOREANS. We invited a few people from China and Hongkong to sample our dishes. They liked the Mee Siam, Satay and dumplings that Yingmin whipped up. I made Mango and Honeydew pudding....If I say I don't get fat means I bluff you....
Later, we got a ride to Triangle sportscomplex to play broomball. Imagine floor ball on an icy surface and voila you have broomball! The guys really played rough. Ppl get hit in the shins and got their fingers jammed between sticks (like me). I'm currently nursing a sore thumb that I sustained when I crashed into a girl.

Snowing no school!
The title is self evident. This Monday and Tuesday, school was cancelled. I think it's because Duke is a school in the south so it is not ready to deal with snow problems. Also profs can't get to class cuz the roads outside Duke are slippery. We basically spent the two days slacking, watching movies and doing work. It was a bad experience walking outside when the snow melted and ppl kept slipping and falling. We tried to slide down a slope with a cardboard box but it was unsuccessful. Heard that some ppl stole a tray from the Marketplace and had a smashing time sliding down slopes all around campus!