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JolielleLife is not about how many breaths you take, but it's about the moments that take your breath away
July 01 farewell and birthday又是一个6月28，又是一个生日。。。
这个生日过得很好，
21岁了，终于可以在美国合法喝酒了。
再也不用借女友的ID进酒吧了；
Asians all look the same to some Americans，
所以我才得以次次蒙骗过关。
倒不是我有多爱酗酒，
只是在美国文化里大家就是喜欢hang out in a bar, chill in a pub
所以没有人喜欢被isolated from social life because of being underage
所以2/3的宾大学生有假ID证明他们“超过”了21岁,
即便办一张假ID要150美元
"you can vote after u're 18 but u can only drink after 21"
这就是荒唐的美国法律带来的另类market potential
文宇和david开车从san francisco横穿美国直到东海岸又接着开回去
不偏不倚正巧在28号这天到了费城
也不知是巧合还是刻意
但不论如何我很满足
能在生日这天重逢挚友知己
只是，下学期他要去oracle做实习了所以暂不回新加坡
所以又是半年见不到了
迪箴这个周末专程从pitsburgh飞来探望我，
初中毕业一别至今六年未见，
如今她已是MIT electrical engineer的高材生，
又女大十八变，丰姿绰约
只能感叹时间太匆匆，我们都太匆忙
初中种种事情记上心头，
那个遥远的纯真年代
那些朦胧的美丽回忆
生日的前一天终于考完了intermediate microeconomics，
也交完了high tech venture development的final report
The timing can't be better
宾大super hectic的summer term终于落下帷幕了
下周一就去florida找the colton family,
已经认识了十多年的朋友，
和美国人一起过independence day (jul 4th)应该别有感触
7月5号去south bend (near chicago)找the tacchella family 顺便参加rebeccca's wedding
他们于我就像教父教母一样，
恩爱关怀备至
感谢那巧合的相遇和这不断的缘分
7月10号离开费城飞回新加坡
7月15号再从新加坡回厦门
突然想起Rob Stewart苍凉的歌喉
"i'm sailing, i'm sailing,
home again, across the sea,
i'm sailing, i'm sailing,
to be near you, to be free"
周五的晚上是我的farewell party + birthday party
本以为暑假一至，宾大校园人去楼空不会有人气了，
最后却也来了10多个宾大的朋友再加上NOC的同仁，
大家齐心协力，几瓶alcohol和wine便轻松下肚
毕竟，21岁的生日怎能没有酒精呢？
我开始头晕也有些哽咽
不知是被酒呛的还是被感动的
最后大家坐在地毯上天马行空地聊天直到4点
这已经是我连续第三个晚上4点以后睡觉早上7点多起床了
托生日和farewell的福最近老有人请吃饭
算是新一轮的farewell dinner/lunch，
上一轮是在五月初宾大spring semester结束时我去英国旅游之前
知道等我一周以后回到费城大家都已纷纷离去
所以就每天breakfast/lunch/dinner/second dinner都安排满当
饭后，照相，拥抱，祝福，再见，再回首，再挥手。
"So long, fare well, Auf Wiedersehen...
Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you..."
farewell永远是悲伤的事情
更加悲伤的是不知一下次会什么时候会面。
去年离开新加坡的时候并没有那么忧伤
是因为总知道一年后会再见的
心里有了定数就不那么迷茫。
可惜呀，这个世界未知太多，
我们这一代的人mobility太大，
总像浮云流水一样漂移不定。
真的不知道，
何时何地再能与你相遇
千言万语最后只能汇成一句ancient celtic blessing：
May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face, And the rain fall soft upon your fields And until we meet again May God hold you In the palm of His hand June 16 maine, new hampshire, boston, white water rafting AND graduation ceremonyBasically, many things happened the past few weeks...
1. Went on a road trip to Maine (Acadia national park), New Hampshire (Mt. Washington), Boston
2. Went white water rafting in Pocono and strawberry-picking nearby
3. NOC graduation ceremony...
Maine是美国最东北部的州，我们开了12个小时的车才到达。那里最出名的是龙虾。那里到处都有lobster farm。我们每个人直接从笼子里挑了一只活蹦乱跳的龙虾，令餐厅当场水煮了让后就大快朵颐，痛快之极。
Mt. Washington was astounding! 高达1917米的mt. washington是美国东北部最高峰，以峰顶变化多端的天气而著称，山脚下是夏日炎炎，山顶上却是白雪皑皑。峰顶记载中的最高风速是372公里/小时，当时我们去的时候大约也有64公里/小时，感觉比飓风还把我们吹得无处可逃，东躲西藏。一路开车去山顶，路边的风景从热带变亚热带再到温带最后是寒带，到了山顶就是零下了。
真的很喜欢boston，有历史有文化有学术有美景。即便她天气不如San Francisco来的温和，我还是决定vote Boston as my favorite city in US. Thanks Khang and Yang Ming for showing us around Harvard and MIT respectively. Harvard Business School is so much more scenic than Wharton, which looks much more commercial. 哈佛商学院看上去就像个公园，小巧精美玲珑别致。下定决心了，以后MBA一定来Harvard。
上个周末去了白水漂流，或者说皮筏漂流。
White water rafting is awesome, second only to skydiving in terms of adrenalin rush~~ but, i got such a BAD sun burn after 5 hours of consecutive white water rafting!
I barely knew how to swim, so at first I was really scared that I would end up falling into the water and get a bad scare in the best or get drowned in the worst! But then it turned out that the river was kinda shallow, though the rapid was really swift. So if you ever fell into the river, the problem wouldn't be drowning, but would be fighting to stand up in the rapid water!
This is a class III white water rafting area so there are plenty rocks in the middle of the river, some showing themselves while some lurking treacherously just beneath the surface. Many rafts, as did ours, ran onto them and got stuck there. Then we had to bounce around the raft to get it unhooked.
周一， 是NOC的毕业典礼。一年了，突然很感伤。大家一提到要道别了都感慨万千，甚至唏嘘不已。由于费城比San Francisco 小很多，所以我们18个人都住的很近，之间走路不超过10分钟，所以基本上可以说是生活在一起的。尤其是和自己的housemates, 更是朝夕相处，已经大有一家人之势，但现在却别离在即。以后，应该会在某个时刻，突然很思念和neisha躺在各自床上仰望窗外星空谈着心事的日子; 应该会想念那个很疼人，心胸宽阔却略微腼腆的Elvin, 应该会怀念楼上的Xian Kan温和的笑容, Ka Mung的冷笑话, Jessie的热情 和 Gim Huat的listening ears and understanding nature. 会想念所有的人，包括下一界的9个人，大家一起煮饭一起谈笑一起旅游一起做傻事。要走了，却突然发现自己根本没有准备好，于是变做一只鸵鸟，一头扎进TV series和小说的世界里，pretending that by doing so i can put off the moment that I start preparing for departure. Anyway, my emotions are beyond words now, so let me just quote a girl friend of mine:
"And all the enthusiasm had fade away. I had too many loose ends to tie, too many pimples to cure, too many pounds too lose, too much emotion to settle, too much due work to wrap up. Unreadiness was what struck me the most."
May 29 The Dead by Billy CollinsStumbled across this entry and found it so strikingly poignant yet beautiful that I decided to put it here...Let's make it a tribute to those who died in the shooting at Virginia Tech, although it was awhile ago...it's also to those who exited from our lives too early. afterall, for some, it's too soon, too soon to say goodbye. but just bear in mind that they are all shining down on us from heaven, like stars... http://yichenwang.spaces.live.com/PersonalSpace.aspx?owner=1 The Dead ----- Billy Collins
The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.
诗人的文字，能把逝去的写活，能把恐怖的话题写得可爱的好像孩子的眼睛，能把哲人探讨了千年的问题浓缩到两句话里面。
好的诗像一朵怒放得烟花，震撼，美丽，过目不忘，回味无穷。 May 17 英伦9日上传了照片，写一篇entry, 这次英伦之旅就算有了完整的交待，我终于能够甘心地结束幻觉离开梦境回归现实。 大致行程安排如下： Sat：oxford Sun: cambridge Mon-Wed: London Thu-Fri: Edinburgh Sat: London again... Sun: fly back to philly... 牛津剑桥的魅力自不待说，光是历史，文化和学术的积淀就倾倒世人，我就不一一阐述了。不过两天以来的最高潮的莫过于摇桨于康河上。原以为徐志摩的《再别康桥》神话了康河剑桥，但亲自荡舟其中后发现其实不假。每一座经过的桥都有她自己的故事，河岸边的每一栋房子都有她自己的传说。Bridge of Sighs原本是威尼斯的，是即将被关入监狱的犯人入狱前的最后一段路，所以他们都不免哀叹这是他们最后一次见证威尼斯的美景了，因而得次名。后来，牛津剑桥都有了自己的叹息桥，据说考砸了的学生们都常去那里唉声叹气。不过英国的学生考不好确实该沮丧一下，因为他们每门课一年只考一次，平时的作业, project都不怎么算分，所以一年一度的期末大考就占了很大比例，如果考砸了整门课就废了，和美国或者新加坡continual assessment的方式很不一样。Queen's College的Mathematical Bridge据说本来是不费一螺一钉，完全靠精确的几何构造计算受力的方式搭建而成。结果后来有人不信，把整座桥拆了验证这一点，结果再也搭建不回去了，只好依靠螺丝钉的帮助重新建了桥。所以现在大家看到的就是浑身是螺丝钉的桥。康河沿路经过的都是剑桥最令人景仰的college，King’s college, Queen’s College, Trinity College etc etc…所谓的college其实最主要是一个住宿单位，每个学生住在college提供的房子里。至于学习，学生们到全牛津或者全剑桥统一的教室上大课，然后review session or tutorial则由每个college自己开办。 伦敦和纽约其实有神似之处，都是国际都市，同是金融中心，同样是博物馆，戏剧院荟萃。不同的是，在伦敦，museums are free, but entering cathedrals or chapels are not. This is the exact opposite in NYC. 第二，伦敦的地铁错综复杂程度比纽约更胜一筹，并且“深不可测”，要坐老长老长的天梯一样的escalator才能钻回地面。更好笑的是，伦敦地铁时常会开着开着半途戛然而止，然后全车熄灯，然后又重新亮灯一切恢复正常。对于第一次坐地铁的人而言，一定有一种大祸临头的感觉。在伦敦，去了Big Ben, Westminster, Trafalgar Square, British Museum, Tate Modern, St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London, Buckingham’s Palace, Windsor Castle, Eton College, Greenwich, watched musical Les Miserables, etc. 最爱London Tower的那个滑稽的guide. He told the Americans in the crowd: The long history of London Tower could have been yours, if you have paid taxes…He told the Australians in the group: Australians are filthy rich, cos even animals have pockets! He called people like him peanut-eaters because: in ancient times, the guards of Tower of London were fed beef and thus called “beef-eaters” by outsiders. But now they could only be called peanut-eaters because they were paid peanuts (=paid very little). He also said that, the prisoners to be executed usually had to pay the executer for rendering the “service” of severing their heads from their bodies, and thus the “severance fee”…最爱温莎城堡，透着帝国不凡的气度和贵族的气质，尤其是那些丰富得让人触目惊心的收藏和奢侈无度的皇宫装饰。Windsor castle has been the royal residence for hundreds of years till today. So how do you know if the Queen is in or not? There is a flag on top of one of the buildings, if the British national flag is mounted, then Queen is elsewhere. If, however, a royal yellow flag is mounted, then Queen is in the castle. The Queen happened to be in the castle when I visited, but I never got to see Her Majesty though... 最后去了爱丁堡，典型的英国城市，典雅，古朴，宁静，天空永远是灰白色的，时不时惆怅地落几滴细雨，街头巷尾飘扬的是哀伤温婉的风笛声。去了Edinburgh Castle, 在高高的山坡上独自矗立，有一种英雄陌路的悲壮感。去了highland tour, 见识了苏格兰美妙绝伦的高地，见识了沧桑的古堡，见识了穿着花格子裙子吹着风笛口音奇怪的苏格兰男子，见识了出“水怪“的尼斯湖，。Loch Ness can hold more water than the total of all waters of England and Wales and is 30 meters deeper than the deepest of North Sea. But for a lake of such capacity, Loch Ness is surprisingly unproductive, being the living place for just a dozen different species of fish, because of its lack of minerals in the water, which in turn sustain little micro-organisms, which means little fish can survive in the water. 9天的马不停蹄的旅行，让我疲惫不堪，几欲破产，但却大长见识，如饮醍醐。要隆重感谢郭睿和龚挺，用他们的魅力吸引了大批老同学前来聚餐，让我也结识了一批剑桥牛津LSE, Imperial的英才俊杰。感谢honghao和lisha提供的住宿，让我住得舒服还省了银子。 当然，魅力无限的英国并不完美，现在让我来小节一下英国的三大缺点： 糟糕的天气：都五月中旬了，却还冷风飕飕阴雨绵绵，终日难见阳光。据说每年英国只炎热短短的一个月，而偏偏英国的大多数地方都没有空调，比如地铁，譬如每个家庭，所以那一个月就格外燥热难熬，热死者无数。但其余时间英国又阴冷交加， 阴晴不定，这天气脾气还真怪！英国人自嘲道：at least this weather is interesting, and full of surprises! 饮食的地狱：大家都听过French cuisine, Italian food, Chinese food, Korean food, Japanese food, Greek food, but has anyone ever heard of “English cuisine” before? Exactly, for budget eaters, England has the lousiest food ever in the world! Anything bordering on delicious is bloody expensive! 高不可及的生活费：一个sandwich 2.5-3 pounds, 1 CD for 20 pounds etc… these coupled with high tax rates make UK a bad place to save money indeed! 所以很多ibanker都不愿意在英国office工作，因为昂贵的生活费和高税率。英国税高是有原因的，想想吧，英国看医生是免费的，只要在英国呆满一年以上的外国人都享有这个权力。英国的学校是免费的，就连上牛津剑桥本国人也一年只交1000多英镑。而美国呢？医疗费是最为昂贵的了，而大学学费更是很多家庭的难题，一年40000多美元呀～ May 04 The entry before departure to EnglandActually, tons of breathtaking stuff happened in April. But anyway, I just uploaded a whole backlog of photos and here're a few notes to them:
Disclaimer: Although I was seen holding a beer bottle in some pictures, I really am NOT drinking much, it just so happened that all those pictures were taken in succession and I didn't even get a chance to put down that beer bottle! Eventually, I only managed to finish half of it, and got a good tease from ryan about not being able to even finish a beer...
Hey Day:
This is a special tradition of Penn and takes place on the last day of the Spring semester. All the juniors (that is, 3rd year students) are supposed to wear a hat and wear the specially designed Hey Day Tshirt and parade on campus with a cane. The seniors (4th year students) who line up along the two sides as the juniors walk by will have the right to harass them with whatever they like: eggs, tomatos, ketchup, chocolate syrup, mustard, flour. Afterwards, all gross, the juniors will gather to listen to the speech given by the President of Penn formally declaring them "seniors". Vivre class of 2008! :)
Fixed Income Securities team:
yeah, we had really good bonding! kudos to nikolaus, casey and parvesh! we had tons of fun while working together on the two simulations and finally celebrated the finale with a gourmet dinner at POD, another fantastic fusion food place opened by restaurant maverick Steven Starr. but...we spent bloody US$47 each on dinner and drinks~
Engineering Entrepreneurship:
I LOVE THIS COURSE! i love prof. cassel, the TA, the classmates and mostly my dearest team mates ryan, alex and manuel for our team called CardioGuard! Ok, at first there was quite a bit of misunderstanding. To me, ryan was a typical american white college kid from an expensive school like penn: he is on penn squash team so as an athlete he's quite burly, he's from a well-to-do family cos his dad's a doctor, he's from a fraternity so he should carry the trademark symbols of a frat boy: party-animal, alcoholic and smokes weed. Well, he was somewhat offended when he learnt what i thought of him at first and started out proving to me that i was wrong. after all those scintillating conversation, constant interaction and my observations, i found that, despite the fact that he drinks a lot and parties heavily, he is brainy, aware of what he's doing, what he wants for life and is someone with principles and morals. besides, he's been very helpful and enthusiastic in introducing more about american culture to me~~ i really couldn't ask for a better teammate! through him and alex, although i may necessarily approve of what's going on on american college campuses, at least now i have a better understanding of where it's coming from. Alex is a very sweet guy, considerate and diligent. Manuel is a rough but cool Mexican guy. Other coursemates of the course are equally amazing and we had so much fun during the class and at the "survivor's party" at Cassel's palatial home. Brandon Malet, Michelle Jacobson, Shannon Devat, Vipul, Dan Tomascho, Rick Stevenson, Kaned, Nick Drake, Mike Provenzano, Jessie, Elvin, XK, Ka Mung etc...u guys are awesome!
Alright, I gotta bounce now~~ 4 hours towards departure and i haven't even started packing yet! April 05 miscellanous发现自己blog是越写越短了。。。
anyway, 几周以前和宾大的ballroom and latin dance club一起去了princeton university参加比赛，虽然我只参加了"new comer" category. 我回新加坡一定要继续这个new found passion~
放几张照片，算是给大家对于近况的一个交待了。
P.S.发现自己化妆以后看起来像女鬼。。。还是素面朝天的好。
P.S.S. 五月份准备去英国玩儿，have been fantasizing about england for a long long time... March 19 NBA game--76ers VS Rockets basketball game如题
生平第一次去看现场篮球赛，费城的76人队主场对战Houston的火箭队。姚明是火箭队的，可76人队是主场，我很为难是要为哪方加油，最后民族主义战胜地方主义，我大力为姚明呼喊。不过毕竟身在虎穴，不得为非作歹，所以叫的时候很小心，姚明进球的时候我没敢拿出100％的音量，怕被身旁的球迷痛扁。
我不懂球，其实我与其说去看球不如说是去看姚明，幸得有身旁的YX同学解说，才看懂了一半的比赛。到后来比分实在相差太大，火箭队以30多分领先，我就没了兴趣，买了粉红色的棉花糖左啃右嚼，弄得一幅狼狈不堪的样子。这就是真球迷和假球迷的区别，真正的球迷应该是会坚持关注比赛到最后一分钟的。最后，火箭队以124：74赢了76人队，如此悬殊的比分在NBA中应该算少见的。可怜的费城，请别为次哭泣。Success if not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.
在宾大的时间不多了，我开始好好计划每周的安排：学车，去D.C.看樱花展，去Boston拜访故友，去Virginia看海，安排和人吃饭，去纽约看百老汇的演出，去听费城的交响乐团演奏......
我.真.的.不.想.走！！！
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