I like to think that... endings are never real endings.

Yesterday was a really long day, we only reached back in hostel at about 2am! >.< Let's begin~

Thursday, 9 Aug 2012
Happy Birthday, Singapore~
In view of Singapore's National Day, most of the Singaporeans at KU ISC wore red shirts out! It just so happens that KU shirts are red (crimson) too, so there was a herd of red moving around, haha~

Well, today is course registration for my exchange school (if you don't know yet, I will reveal this at a later date..). It uses the fastest finger first method, which was super scary! It starts enrollment for courses at 10am, but lets students log into the system first to make a wishlist.

At 9.55am, I prepared and sat in front of the computer, mouse ready and all. I saw that for one of the courses, there were 15 people vying for 5 spots! OMG!
But miraculously, I managed to get all the mods I want~ Thank goodness!

After confirming that enrollment was successful (by refreshing and relogging in a few times), I went ahead to study Korean till it was time for class.

There was only media class today, as there were still presentations going on. Victoria and I went, and the presentations were pretty interesting... Prof. Park was really nice, because he said that he would give those who came to class extra credit!

(As I typed this, I suddenly remembered that grades are out!)

We then went to take photos around Woodang after lessons. Victoria helped me take a jumpshot in front of Woodang! Pretty awesome~

And then we took another self-timed shot in the middle of the roads. This is awesome too~

Victoria wasn't meant to jump anyway. And the camera was so smart, caught me at such a good time!

We walked to get waffle as Vic wanted to go back to CJ to do her makeup. She was tempted by me to eat something so she got herself a cup yogurt ice cream~ YUM! And I suddenly remembered that I left my gifts in the classroom!!!!

Victoria was nice, and she walked back into school with me. Well, it wasn't without complains, but she was alright with it in the end. Let's just say she was rewarded in a special way for accompanying me back! I had to enter a classroom with people taking exams!!! But I did it really quickly and then ran out.

And we walked the long long way back to CJ~

Today's Graduation Night!
The long dreaded day is here... D: Don't want this to end!!!

We went and got our gowns. YES! Graduation gowns!

Victoria was playing with my 'mortar board'.

Red + Black is probably one of my most favourite colour combinations ever. Second being pink + purple.

The ceremony was really simple.

There were a series of speeches. I particularly like Nina's speech, and it was truly inspiring!

There's Nina giving her speech. I don't know her personally though, but I thought she's pretty awesome.

The others went to take photos at the main gate after the ceremony. Took jumpshots again, but most of them failed because they wanted to do multiple jumpshots with 3 different cameras -_-

We then headed for dinner, but we realized... There were no seats left! O_O
We had to wait till people leave to eat, basically, so we just lingered around, took photos and all.

승익 오빠 found me where I was, and gave me a gift like WOW! :D 정말 감동해요!!!
I already packed it into my luggage now so I can't take a picture of it... But it's a comic book! Love books, mmhmm! 승익 오빠, 너무 너무 감사합니다~! ^_^*

I gave him a present too~ Hehe...

We were finally let in after some time, and we had to sit around because there were still no seats. So we grabbed our food and sat at the side. The food was not bad, but coz we went late, lots of dishes were finished already...

We then watched a photo montage. I prepared my friends mentally first as I told them that I did provide some pictures for the montage. Despite their pretentious 'OMG Cass WHYYY!', they really enjoyed the moment and obviously basked in the glory of being on screen =p
But good job on the video~*

The buddies then put up a performance for us! They sang a song, choral style! Both Seung-ik and Donghan (Caili's buddy) were in the performing team! Good job guys~ That was some good singing! I recorded the whole thing, though =/

The events after that were not of much note. A professor gave Jeff Jang a gift of appreciation. And I thought he really deserved it for making ISC such a wonderful, magical experience.

We all then decided to go for 노래방 (Karaoke) after the ceremony. The ones near Anam are really cheap! We chose TJ, the place with red neon lights. It looked shady because we had to go to the basement, but to be honest, there was nothing really shady about that place! Facilities are not bad too.

We paid 16,000won for 5 people, for an hour. We ended up singing for more than 3 hours, I think. The best thing? There was FREE WIFI in the 노래방!

We took turns to choose songs, so there was a mix of Kpop, English, Japanese, even Chinese songs!
The machine wasn't working awesomely, I think, though. Because we kept getting scores of 20 and 30+. Sometimes we get 100, but we never get anything in between... ?_?

I also got to sing the songs that I wanted to sing~
Oh yea, the reason why we all managed to sing the songs we wanted to sing, was because our time kept getting extended! When it's less than 10 minutes left on the counter, the guy outside would always add 20 minutes more to our time!

After we all got tired, we ended the session with 행복한 나를! This song is really touching, and has a nice tune! Although it was pretty low for me, I sang it in differing octaves, but I obtained a 100! O_O
That was a good ending~ :D

And after that, we thanked the owner outside there, and went back to sleep..

Well, I will blog about today... tomorrow. Because I'm currently really tired. Like my eyes, they're closing. ):
So, before I go, a smile for you~

Have a great day ahead ^_^

First day of class at KU ISC

My lessons started at 10.50am, but I woke up at 8.30am so I could go down to have breakfast. 

Pollock soup with rice and a variety of kimchi and pork with egg. Super filling! The pollock soup was delicious, and I especially like the mushrooms in the second slot. Yums! 

Walked to Woodang Hall with Grace, a girl I met at Frontier House. We were taking the same class! My first class was ISC263 Social Psychology. Shireen was there too! The lecture got a little bit boring in the middle but other than that the rest were good.

This was the room we had Social Psychology in. Before the lesson officially began.

Had a simple lunch of onigiri and milk under the trees. My satisfied smile says it all about lunch. There's milk, I'm happy.

After lunch was ISC366A Developmental Psychology. I like the lecturer! His lectures are really animated and points were easier to grasp thus. His readings are really thick though! >.< I'm still trying to read!

My last lesson was ISC282 Media and Popular Culture in Korea. This is the course that Jocelyn recommended to me, and it was pretty interesting. Though the lecturer is pretty strict... I hope I will be able to go for their field trips though! Coz the lesson before that might make my schedule bad, so might not be able to make it for field trip T.T

Oh ya, I got my student card today! Would have been prettier if they put our photo on it though... Like that like super plain design. But hehe, I am officially a student in Korea University now!

칼마시케시케시 고려대학!

(That cheer stuck in my head. But I don't exactly know what that means!)

The last lesson ended early so I walked around the streets near Anam station. 

Explored around and found Daiso! I just bought bread from paris baguette, acne patch from the pharmacy. OH YA, let me tell you, you can't find any pimple cream in Korea, unless you get a prescription from the dermatologist or something. So please bring some along if you need. It starte drizzling halfway, so I had to rush back really quickly. But it got quite heavy and I needed an umbrella anyway so I bought one from one of the small shops. Pink!

Streets of Anam are actually quite quiet, only few people walking. This junction leads all the way up to Frontier House!

Was really hungry when I got back, but had to wait till 5.30pm before dinner can be served. 

Dinner was radish soup with chicken! Kinda reminds me of the radish soup my mum makes at home that I actually love to the max. ;_;

The potatoes on the left were nice, and the radish kimchi on the right was nice too!

Nice dinner!

After that we just went back to hostel and did our readings...

And that concludes my day!

What about yours? (:

Thanks for reading!

Korea University ISC Orientation!

Today was my first day in the school main campus! Orientation was held in Inchon Memorial Hall, so we walked there from Frontier House. It appeared quite far on the map, but in actual fact it isn't! If we walked to school everyday we'll be able to tone our legs and get some exercise, not a bad idea at all!

Anyway at the foyer of Frontier House we met a new friend, Katie. She's from Northwestern University! She was alone though, so we took her along with us. ^^

Reached the Hall on time! They had a really cool fountain on the right where the pipes spray a fine mist! The effect was really pretty! Downside is that water flies around and you get a teeny bit wet after walking through there.

The building really looks like a castle, doesn't it? (: Just so you know, most buildings in Korea University look like this. It is a VERY pretty sight. Also, all the greenery in the campus are maintained well!

We went into the Hall and took a seat in their auditorium. Greeted by this sight. It was rather cool. Received a package like every other student, and was assigned to Group 1 for campus tour later in the day. They then had a few talks and speeches before they sent us off for lunch.

We had 2 hours for lunch! So we went back to the male dormitories near Frontier House to use our meal card and save money. Brought Shireen, Yi Fong, Celine, and Katie along with us as well. Lunch was good compared to breakfast yesterday.

We had some sort of chicken broil, sorry I don't know what's that called in Korean. The kimchi was alright as well. Especially liked the beansprouts and the Ojingo (beside the beansprouts).

After lunch, we went to take a look at the dorms at CJ International House. (I didn't take any photos coz it isn't nice to take photos of people's residences.) It was a nice place too! Compared to the hostel I've stayed in back in my home university, the hostels here are awesome to. the. max!

After the visit we explored the area and were just in time for the shuttle bus to leave! We took the shuttle bus and reached the main campus in no time. But we stopped along a road that was outside school so we had to find a way in through one of the small roads. It was easy, however, because Korea University gates are so distinct.

Anyway, we made it to Woodang Hall pretty fast.

Woodang Hall is where all our summer courses will be taking place! The interior is full of rooms similar to our tutorial rooms (but larger) back in my home university. It is pretty near the Students' Union building, where we went and got our course packs for some of our modules.

Lunch time was up pretty quick so we headed back to Inchon Memorial Hall. We had two performances lined up. The first one was by Harvard University A Capella group.

They put up a really enjoyable performances. Great singing! They incorporated quite a bit of humour too, so it was really really enjoyable even though after-lunch syndrome threatened to set in. :D

The second performance was by the KU Cheering Squad. I personally like this one!
Well, their cheering is not the typical stunts and what not, but they really really really focus on getting the entire school to cheer as one. Yes, get this right: THE ENTIRE SCHOOL. Not faculty. SCHOOL.

They have a dedicated team of cheerleaders who will stand in front to lead the entire school during sports competitions. So for us ISC participants, they also tried to teach us their school cheers! Me being a very 'cheer' person, wanted to be super enthusiastic but like most of the students weren't very enthusiastic so I just went with the flow.

Can't really explain their cheers, but it is really different from those we have back in Singapore with the messy screaming. They had fixed soundtracks for each cheer! And the entire school would so some simple actions, and yell out 고대! or make 'animal sounds' at the right places in the songs. Super the awesome.

I LIKE!

Can really see the passion in their cheerleaders, and the way the KU student volunteers participated.

Anyway after that we went for campus tours with our designated groups. I was in the group that my KU buddy was leading! I only knew coz I saw his nametag, but didn't approach him coz there were a lot of other students and it might get awkward. The campus is super pretty, words can't properly describe it.

At the end of the tour, they called for people to go drink beer eat fried chicken. I decided to go along and then other friends joined in too. They booked an entire chicken place for us! Quite surprised we fit in the shop! Chatted with the rest of the people, though the people I chatted with are all from Singapore.

I did make a new friend outside of my home university though! Quite glad! He's also a Singaporean but studies out of the country (: Found more friends staying at Frontier House too!

And that concludes my orientation day at Korea University ISC.

I really enjoyed my day today, but it was pretty tiring. Everytime I climb those hills or steps, I look forward to getting better-toned legs! But other than that I hope lessons go well tomorrow!

Thank you for reading! (:

OMG retarded photo but oh wells.