So I'm back from Chicago and Indianapolis... doing German in Wellesley now...

I don't like German. Seriously. It's giving me lots of trouble.

Never take intensive language course again. It's not fun...It's really really boring to work on German ONLY from the moment i wake up till the moment i sleep...

And I have to stay up late studying German...I don't have to do this at all for physics and chemistry lor. I miss physics. And I'm loving physics more than ever:p


*******************
Providence

I flew from Providence instead of Boston because the air-ticket was much much cheaper. Providence is quite a neat place. It is just that it is a bit too small. I arrived at Providence at about lunch time on my first day of the trip, and my flight was in the evening, so I went to Brown University. Gerald brought me around. Brown University is actually quite a nice place. It looks pretty much like Harvard. The buildings are pretty delicate. And I can't believe that they have a don't-know-how-many-storeys science Library.

After lunch I requested Gerald to play the guitar. He talked about guitar all the time, but I never got the chance listened to him playing. It sounded pretty good. Can't believe that he learnt all that on his own...If he cared to add some dynamics it would be really great.

*******************
Chicago

For people like me who come from the countryside, Chicago is really a CITY! The buildings are really nice. There are lots of nice architectual designs, unlike all the cylinders in Guangzhou (sorry i'm offending people from Guangzhou..)

Lake Michigan is pretty. It is just that it doesn't look like a lake. It is more like an Ocean. It is just too big. When we went to the lake, (which is just next to Yexin's dorm...and she told me that she hadn't been to lake Michigan..) the wind was really strong, so it gives me a feeling that I'm just a little insignificant human being compared to the hugeness of the lake.

I had lots of fun at Yexin's place. Leiyu was there too.(so you know when girls got together there's always lots of chit-chat including gossip.) ha. Then Cicy and Gorrilla, who's a member of the UChicago gang, was entertaining us too...So it was really very re4 nao4.

UChicago is quite pretty. It's buildings are quite grand and delicate. There are lots of sulptures on the building. And I personally think that it is the nice combination of all the lines and curves that make the buildings look grand .I can also feel that it is a mugger-place. (for those who are not from Singapore, mugger actually means hard-working people). The campus is beautiful and we were taking pictures around. Gao Shan suggested that there was a little lake that looked really romantic and we should go and take pictures there, but when we got there, it turned out to be a tiny little pond, which is as small as a quarter of a basketball court. doink. (Nevertheless the photo turned out to be nice)

One sad thing that I come across in Chicago is that the African Americans are viewed as "dangerous objects". I feel quite bad about this. People become alert when there is an African American come nearby, and this is unfair to those nice African Americans. But this is the way things are. I was told that during the warmer seasons, you can hear an ambulance and/or a police car zooming pass every half an hour, and there're quite a number of robbing, even stabbing cases just outside UChicago. On Christmas Eve, the evening that I arrived, I saw many African Americans begging for money. One of them walked towards us with one hand inside the pocket of his jacket and the other hand outside. I was really scared when I saw that. Who knows whether there's any dangerous thing inside that pocket?

Professor Kodera once told us that when he picked up Japanese scholars from the airport, the first thing that 9 out of 10 asked is where the blacks live. It seems that most parts of the world think that all blacks are dangerous. This is really sad, because it is definitely not true. But what can we do about that?


*******************
Indianapolis

I visited Liu Cong there. It is just so nice to meet up with an old friend.

On the way from Chicago to Indianapolis, I saw US farms for the first time. They are huge. And there's so much flat land. How nice it would be if China had so much flat land as well?

Compared to Chicago, it is much smaller. But it is quite peaceful.

Things are really cheap there.

And I visited Indianapolis Museum of Art with Liu Cong. It has lots and lots of Asian things inside, more than the National Art Gallery in Washington DC. There are many Chinese things that I don't even see in China. There's even things left over from the Stone Age.

wow.

*******************
Back to Wellesley

When I was at Brown, I thought Brown is really pretty. When I was at Butler, I thought Butler is really scenic. When I was at UChicago, I thought UChicago is beautiful. But then, when I got back to Wellesley, I suddenly felt that Wellesley was the most beautiful of all. As I was walking on a path between Munger Hall and Science Center, which I had never walked on before, I discovered an even more beautiful place on campus, where the grass is still bright green (in winter) and there are little bridges and streams. I just felt that Wellesley was such a heavenly place.