WL in UCLA (USA)

Ok, WL turn now...

Just to set things straight - WL is not enjoying his stay here. But then... what else do you expect from WL? Does WL ever enjoy anything? No... Life sucks. Period.

Major complaints so far, and lessons to be learnt (in descending order of importance):
1) DO NOT live in a Shared Room. Do not underestimate the power of sharing a room with another person has on one's mental health. WL is going nuts now... LITERALLY. Need to see Dr Melvyn. Not to say my roomate is the roomate from hell... but seriously there is no privacy! I have not felt so violated ever!!! This is like a total regression of my rights!!! I feel like I'm being raped everyday!!!
2) DO NOT eat on a Meal Plan. Oh, in case you were wondering WL is living in a Dorm. Now... No laughing! No laughing dude!!! It's not funny!!! See... this is what happens when you spend 1 second and using your ass to make the decision on where to live!!! Stupid WL...
3) Because of pt 2, I am eating Chicken everyday. I swear... I am developing Chicken phobia. I'm in America, you know the world's only superpower... and they do not serve Fish or Prawns in the Dining Halls!!! Let me categorically state UCLA Dorms do not qualify as being part of a "Developed Country". I'm living in 3rd world conditions here man...
4) Food sucks. But then again I think it's because of pt 2 and 3, and most importantly my choice of what to eat is limited. One would think with the variety of food offered at the Dining Halls, WL will find stuff he likes to eat. Hey, that was my reasoning too! Wrong....!
5) Because of my fixed Meal Plan, WL has no chance to eat microwave food! Dude, I'm in America... land of the Microwave Ovens! I haven't eaten Microwave Food since I got here! This is ridiculous!
6) Despite the glowing reviews of customer service in the Western World... let me just say that the Banks and Telcos here are just as evil/bad as the Banks and Telcos back home. Don't do business with the Bank of Americunt. T-Mobile is evil.
7) Climbing stairs. I'm sure you know how much I love climbing eh? I'm fucking jinxed. NJC was on a fucking hill with a shitload of stairs. NUS is on a fucking hill with a shitload of stairs. UCLA, in particular my Dorm is on THE HILL, and you can count on WL to mutter "fuck fuck fuck" everyday as he walks up and down the stairs to get to campus. Always remember to check the topology of the terrain! I swear the next educational institute I go to will not be on a hill!!!
8) Americans have a walking fetish. The UCLA Shuttle Bus and the great genius who designed it decided that the route it should take is around the campus not inside it. So how do you get from one point on campus to another point? Walk... And you know how much WL loves to walk, yeah I really get turned on when I walk long distances. In America, either walk (which I hate) or get a car (which is a problem since I can't drive nor do I have the money to rent a car). Note to self: Learn driving before I graduate.
9) Americans have a burger fetish. If you like bread (like my mother), you're in heaven. If you don't (like me), you're in hell. Oh ya, Fish-n-Chips is not American Food, I can't find it anywhere!, I speculate it's British Food.
10) There are no naked drunk girls walking in the corridor of my dorm, knocking on my door asking me for sex (contrary to what Dhruv mentioned a few years back). Dude, I'm fucking disappointed!!!
11) After more than 6 wks here, I realized that in America, Party = Sex. No wonder I haven't seen any fucking action here cause WL doesn't attend parties.

The not-so-bad stuff (in no particular order):
1) Online shopping rules! I don't have to walk at all to order stuff. To date, I have ordered 8 items to my address :) Caveat: You must have a US-based debit/credit card to do online shopping in America. Don't believe the shit advertisements back home that your Mastercard or Visa is universally accepted. It is not. Your Singapore card is broken here... useless for online shopping. An additional point to note, that if you do not have a US-based debit/credit card (like I did for the first 5 weeks!!!), you are really deprived of this online-ness in this country. However, sad to say to truly take advantage of online shopping you have to reside in US for at least one year. This way, you can order 6-mth worth of groceries and have it shipped to you for free, and you never ever need to walk to the supermarket!!! Also, you can order the X61 Tablet PC that sadly has only US warranty but it is fucking cheap... it has been on perpetual offer since Dec 2007, and I am really pulling my hair out cause I can't buy it (no warranty in Singapore). Arghh!!!
2) The Mexicans make good food, as I found out eventually, because once u remove the vegetables they serve FISH and PRAWNS. Middle finger to the rest of the fishless and prawnless food here.
3) Newegg is good. Amazon is good. Ebay is good. Most companies dealing with computers and IT have good service, but you need to chose the good ones. Much better than the telcos and the fucking banks here.

Other misc observations:
1) Fundamentally, there is no difference between LA and Singapore. People talk about culture shock, I haven't seen it yet. Maybe it's because LA has a large proportion of Asians. So far the major problems have been Digital Shock (in the first 5 weeks), in which all my finances were hardcopy (no debit card remember)... almost went nuts. Only main lingering problem is specific to my accommodations and meal plans, in which I cannot back out of without a substantial amount of money.
2) While America is very much similar to Singapore, it is also different in many aspects. It's like chirality. Everything is same but different. Cars come from the other side of the road, you board the bus on the other side, power sockets have no switch, papers are Letter size not A4 (now you know why MS Office defaults to Letter format eh?), etc...
3) African Americans are referred to as Blacks, Caucasians as Whites. Asians are referred to as Asians... why? I thought it would be Yellow, doesn't follow the trend...
4) Asian girls here are seriously underaged. I swear some of the girls in lecture look like secondary schoolgirls. Damn... I'm an old fossil now!!! This sucks...
5) UCLA has an appalling standard of Inorganic Chemistry. I'm not kidding. In terms of knowledge taught in undergrad courses, the American here are seriously under-learning. But then again, America is top in research... obviously they're doing something right and Singapore is doing something wrong...
6) In America, Med School is treated at the Grad School level, meaning you can only apply after you complete your first degree. I support this system. It's seriously better than the Singapore system, where a bunch of 18 year old kiddies get to join Med School based on A-Level results and interviews... At least this way, the Americans must wayang for 4 years before getting into Med School unlike in Singapore where you wayang for 2 years only... and trust me wayang at the university level is much tougher than at the JC level. Seriously I'm like WTF... No wonder Singapore doctors sucks... Hey isn't alot of the people in our class doctors? LOL... Oops... You can't kill WL remember! Hippocratic oath!!!

Finally, why I hate UCLA. My wife is appearing for a convention on 2-7 Apr 07 in Vancouver. Theoretically, I can go see her and take a photo with her. As in the REAL PERSON. But... thanks to UCLA and their fucked up Quarter system, school ends on 25 Mar 2008, and that leaves me homeless for 2 weeks+. The cost of the accommodation from now till the convention, the convention tickets itself and the bus trip from LA to Vancouver and back... is staggering. Fuck... I should have gone to UBC. Why? Cause mid-Apr is still term time, and it's in Vancouver!!! Arghh!!!

Oh ya if you're bored you can drop by at:
http://uncleinucla.blogspot.com/

There is like almost 180 posts at the moment, so I advise you not to waste your time reading through it. In short, about 1/3 of the post is WL complaining about housing/food and threatening to bomb various American companies. Another 1/3 is on WL lamenting on how lazy he is and how he is not doing any work here. The remainder 1/3 is some more "serious" analysis on America and Singapore.

Oh ya, UCLA is damn slack. I'm taking 20 Credits (MCs) now and I have too much time on my hand. No, don't ask me to tour the place. Details in my blog. And do you believe that the academic counselor was reluctant to allow me to take 20 Credits (max is 19)??? WTH man... Fuck UCLA... there is no pressure...