I caught this video while at the Detroit Metropolitan airport. Very unique and sort of uplifting for the travellers.

Light covering of snow

Snow:
As early as November, I started looking for a snow shovel, anticipating that I will have to dig my car out soon. It’s after mid-January now and this is the first accumulation of snow on the car. I’m not complaining though. Officially, it had snowed twice here, both times, early in the morning and leaving just a light covering of snow. And both times, I missed it…still sound in bed.

Semester:
The semester has started. After checking out the prices of the textbooks that I needed at the bookstore, I bought my books from Amazon.com, saving me $15. This semester I’m taking the dissertation proposal seminar. Basically, it’s a class to push us, students in the 4th year, to get a working draft of our dissertation proposal done in 14 weeks. According to the professor, we should set aside 20 hours a week for the next 18 months to get our dissertation done. And weariness descended on all our faces.

STAR:
Today was a STAR day again. No tutoring session but tutors were supposed to spend some quality time with their tutees. But as I looked around at the other tutors, it seems like this spending quality time can be quite “painful” to some, me including. Although we were told that our tutees really look forward to this time, it seems the kids were more enthusiatic about their cellphones and mp3 players. I’m sure the gadgets were more entertaining that us, tutors. As for lunch, by the time I got to the lunch table, all the chicken fingers were gone: only pizza, fries, and iceberg lettuce left. I’m ok with that but then later I saw someone throwing away his plate together with 3 chicken fingers on it Oh, one more thing - There was an IT program overview today and as an ice-breaker, the speaker asked the kids about their favorite technology. One girl said the car is her favorite technology. When asked what sort of car she would like to have, the girl answered, “An expensive car.”

Parallel parking:
I almost didn’t get my driving license because I parallel parked so poorly. And since I started driving I don’t really ever need to do that (or maybe I just avoided it). Last night, when I reached Becky’s place for the bible study, I saw a spot near her house. Since there was no car behind me, I thought I would give it a try. I tried to back in twice but couldn’t do it. Gee, I must be really bad at this, so I left and found another spot that I could drive straight in. Later at Becky’s place, Erica and Rebecca came in and Erica asked me if I had parked outside because she saw a car with the headlights on. I proceeded to tell them about my parallel parking failure, and guess what? Both Erica and Rebecca also tried to park in that spot but couldn’t as well. So maybe I’m not so bad after all. Now I just need to learn to estimate correctly, and remember that I’m driving a Passat, not a Kelisa.

USPS & Pos Malaysia:
I sent a bunch of Christmas cards on December 13, and my brother in KL received his, 2 days after Christmas (2 weeks), and it took over a month for my cousin in Penang to receive hers. What an amazing range!