Skyscraper Day/Strawberry Festival (Maryland)
2004-05-22 @ 11:47 p.m.

Another eventful day is coming to an end. Went for the UN seminar today, organised by the United Nations Association of Singapore. Thought the first speaker was terrific, even if his Danish accent was a bit incomprehensible initially. The speakers just went downhill from him. The highlights were the two tea breaks at lunch, which was Chatterbox's chicken rice, supposedly one of the star attractions of the Meritus Mandarin Hotel. Sorry, didn't really think it was that great. I liked dinner at BigO better, a sinful sundae called Earth, Wind and Fire. Earth was (understandably) Double Chocolate Chip, Wind was (mysteriously) French Vanilla, and Fire was (somewhat understandably) Summer Strawberry. Also bought a packet of mints and toffees from Marks & Spencer, which also happens to sell biscuits "smothered in thick milk, white and dark chocolate", which I'm thinking of buying for the class someday. I love the mints and toffees, even though my mother flipped when she heard the price. I happen to disagree with her assessment that $3.90 was expensive! Dinner was expensive, $15.95, and it wasn't even a main course. I want to watch Laws Of Attraction! Not to mention Shrek 2 and The Day After Tomorrow. What I should really be doing are my three essays, and studying for the GP common test and French contrôle. Life can be so strange...

New discoveries of the day follow. Number one - I can finally make that sound using the wet rim of glasses! Figured it out during the seminar, which just goes to show how bored I was. We were playing hangman, passing a sheet of paper that slowly evolved into this Messenger-like conversation. Melted a Mentos in my glass of water, and it tasted quite good actually. Sugary, like my tea at lunch. Did you know? Mentos makes carbonated drinks explode. Found that out when Matthias dropped one into a bottle of Coke in Hong Yi's room. Number two - American Gothic, this bizarre drama series on Channel I, which made precious little sense, but has a boy with a really cute Southern accent. Will keep watching if only to figure out whether the sheriff is some demon-possessed freak. Number three - Criss Angel, a magician who kicks both Davids' (Copperfield and Blaine) asses. Magic delivered with a goth-punk attitude. Was watching his show, Supernatural, earlier, and some of the stuff he does is quite freaky. David Blaine's stunts are tame in comparison. Compare setting your clothes on fire to starving in a box. Number four - Amici Forever, "the first opera band", which has fairly decent looking singers, who sing as good or better than they look. It's like bond for opera! Will get their album soon. Not sure if I should wait for a special edition though, because there's already an Asian edition with three bonus tracks. Still haven't bought Amethystium CDs and Era's The Mass. Need to draw out a stack of notes from my account soon, not just to buy this, but also some French VCDs/DVDs. One week to go...