Day 13 of Work & Travel - Sunday Off!!

Guess wat!?? i somehow overslept again!! i missed my breakfast and also my bus tour. I hope that tour was actually fully booked so i wun feel so bad about missing it. so when i figured i've missed my morning activities, i went back to bed, and only woke up at almost 12 for lunch. i had a seemingly light lunch, cos i only ate some meat and dessert.

I went back to the gift shop after lunch, cos another manager is leaving, and today is his last day. His name is Travis, tall, big, old guy. Nice person but always intimidating. Scary sometimes working with him, always have to worry about "did i do something wrong?". So we took a few pictures with him as remembrance.



he's more of a strict father figure than a friendly boss, however in no way is he mean or bad. :)

I continue walking around the old faithful area myself. I really explored the general store and the gift shop at the old faithful lodge this time. I bought a sweater for myself. It's a really big and cosy sweater, with yellowstone printed in front.. i think i really liked it. :) and it's quite cheap also. It only cost me 21.19USD compared to the 25USD i had to pay for a pair of gloves!! CHEAP CHEAP lar.. :)

I came back to my room after wandering around the place, just to wait for an early dinner. I decided to join shawn and Lorraine on a hike up to the mystic falls. Su join us also cos her boyfriend was working. At dinner we met terrence and rachel who are also planning to go to the mystic falls. So 6 of us went on the hike together after dinner. It was almost 5 when we set off. and it was a long long trek just to get to the base to mystic falls. it took us almost 45mins but that was the easy part. The bottom of mystic falls is a hotspring basin known as the biscuit basin. And the picture below shows me in the mist if the famous sapphire pool. quite cool, feel like sauna. :)



we took a rather adventurous route to the mystic falls, we went up to a lookout point with is way up on top of the hill. The tiny trails were steep and winding, i was super exhausted halfway up. I took a brief rest and catched up with them. reaching the lookout point is only half the journey. there was another mile or so before reaching the falls and as we continued on the trail, there were several parts which were still cover in snow. We have to trek thru the snow, and I only had SAF-issued track shoes. Ice was in my shoes and pants. COLD!!!

Thankfully, the view we had of mystic falls at the end was pretty amazing. We took quite a few pictures there before heading back home. Basically the whole trek took us almost 5hrs and covered at least 12KM!!!

Day 12 of Work & Travel - Off again!!

after working for the past 7 days it's finally time for me go off again!!! yeah..but however, i did not have anything planned for today initially and i also waked up late. missed breakfast again. been talking to dear the whole morning since i woke up. haven talk to her for along time. connection kept breaking, luckily it held out today. lots of things have been happening while i'm not around her, and i think we really miss all the stuff that we do together.

We talked until i went for an early lunch. Burger set, I have to say it again, i think i really like the food here. hahaa, but i do miss the local food back in singapore. especially when dear said she's gonna have minced meat noodles!! aarrggghh.. :P

planned to go out for a hike around 3plus to 4, but it's raining. I wonder wat else i could do. the rain gods of yellowstone seems to like playing with me. at about 4, the rain stopped and the sky looked good to go. so i gather a few people to have dinner before heading out to the trails. But as we finish our dinner the rain came pouring down even heavier then before!! aarrrggghh.. there goes my trekking.

I din want to spend the whole day in my room, so i went to the rec hall. there weresome sports going on and so i join in. basketball and volleyball. my shoulders are now hurting from all the sports. luckily, i have my yoko yoko with me. gonna soak my shoulders with that later on. there was a hiking trip to mystic falls at 6pm leaving from rec hall, there was vacancy but i wasnt prepared for wet weather dun have the clothes nor shoes prepared for that. so too bad.. but it turned out to be a good choice that i did not go. cos my frens, xiaodan and wanglin who went, were totally soaked!! PHEW!! hahaa...

oh yah.. i'm gonna take part in the 3on3 volleyball tournament. i'd most probably be joining 2 others from ukraine, a guy and a gal. not sure if we could win anything. but it's for the fun. so we shall see about that. I'll be joining the volleyball league as well. I hope there are more pro players there.

I hope i can have a more eventful day tml. I plan to go on the bus tours organised by the hotel and emplyees get to go on them free if there's vacancies. so ya.. time to sleep early, cos the bus leaves at 8.15am.

Day 11 of Work & Travel - Movie Night

2nd morning shift in a row, i can really feel the strain to get out of bed. Especially after quite a long day yesterday, work at the inn and lodge followed by volleyball at the rec hall. Even though it was rather amateurish, it still drains me. Perhaps it's the altitude. Today it's been on of my busiest days so far. there were endless guests coming in for the majority of the time. Worst still was that one of my co-worker, Kelley, she got sick too. So she was sent home to rest after a while leaving me in the cashiers ALONE!! sobzZ.. but it was alrite, just handle watever i could and the rest will have to wait.. no choice...

The rest of the selling of the day were normal, nothing really special happened. there was this group of taiwanese aunties, who were very troublesome. I find the taiwanese aunties the most troublesome of all the different countries i've seen so far. They were like buying 1 key chain each.. and they couldnt decide to pay with cash or credit... or to pay together. in the end.. all 3 aunties used credit card to pay for a 2.5USD key chain... totally a waste of my time...

that was the more irritating incident, but there's also these 3 guests from new zealand. Me, Su & Alvin were chatting with them. About the trip, about Singapore, New Zealand. Basically i think we made their day. They even came back in a while with a comment card saying how much they appreciated us. That pretty much made made my day too.. think perhaps tml i'll go look for the comment card and take a picture of it.

Since i started early i was going to end early too.. 3.30pm and i'll be off. just before i knocked off, i met george. My roommate back at mammoth, he was with his wife and they are here for the morning. Yup, he was the guy who drove us to old faithful. I was actually contemplating to have them drive some of us down to the lake where they are at for the night, but he scooted off before the rest knocked off.. hahaa... scared already... :P

oh well, so i arrange to meet up with su and lorraine at 8pm at the lodge. cos lorraine moved to a new dorm with better facilities at the same price. so i wanted to go take a look. so me went back to the dorm to change, expectiing to play some ball b4 8pm, den i met up with xiaodan for dinner before heading over to the rec hall.. played some basketball till 7 den they started showing movie, cos it was movie night. thanks to popularity vote, we watched "the illusionist" good show, but i've already watched it. but since i was still waiting for ppl, i watched it again. But in the end you know wat? They left for the new dorm without me!! SObzZ....so i went back to my dorm. actually even if that dorm is really very good, most likely i would not move, cos it was much further away. Now i only take less than 3 mins to walk to my giftshop.. whereas the new dorm is like 15-20 mins away.. no good...

so that's like my day, time to catch a good sleep.. super tired after 2 morning shifts.. oh and volleyball too... shoulders & back all aching.. feel so old.. and it was so cold when i playing.. it was quite hard to warm up..

Day 10 of Work & Travel - Volleyball

My first super early monring shift today. Start at 7am, 6am must wake up and start doig stuff and have breakfast. Quite tiring to wake up and work so early. especially when i din really sleep super early last nite.

Met corry in the dining area and a few other co-workers in the morning, during breakfast. He just came back from the grand tetons and will be on his way to his new work place soon. Starting work at 7am although tiring but it's actually quite slack, cos morning not much people coming in, mostly looking for newspaper. And yes, we sell newspaper too.

nothing much happen during work today, except Mike, my boss asked if i could go help out at the Lodge after my shift. I agreed cos i wanted to play volleyball today after work, the place to play is just next to the lodge. Went over to the lodge to help out, nothing much to do there, really dun see why they need the extra help... hmmm..

anyway, i treated volleyball as the highlight of the day but it was rather disappointing cos the standard really very amateurish. So i just play along and act dum every now and then. There will be a volleyball league going on soon, i hope i can be part of that. Hopefully the standard is more exciting. :P

Day 9 of Work & Travel - Snowfall

It started off as rain early in the morning. As i went for breakfast, the rain got lighter and becamed snow. It the first time i ever saw snow. Started work today the earliest i've done so far, 10am, it's a rather weird timing, cos there's 2 meals during this shift, which is also quite a waste of my $$ earning time. I skipped breakfast today so i could sleep alittle more. However i think i still had a pretty good day.

I got to know the resident artist for our gift shop, his name is James Reed. He does paintings which are very very very life-like. So i spoke to him for a while about what he does, what i do. Oh yah, he's a full-time artist now and he was a fireman before he retired. Cool rite? When he told me he was a fireman, the first image that came to my mind was all his painting burning up and he fighting the fire to save them. hahahaa..

That was slightly after lunch, during lunch i ate with a few co-workers who were from US, there's Kelley from yesterday, her sister Katherine who works at the gift shop at the Old Faithful Lodge (we work at the Inn) and also Lance from our gift shop. It seems the snow brought ALL the crowd to the lodge and they were having a crazy day over there. Perhaps because of that Katherine seemed really sick, anyway I'm actually quite glad everyone stayed at the lodge instead od coming to us. hahaa..

It's GAD (Guest Appreciation Day), we were expecting hoards of people coming in to grab the offer items, we have caps, mugs, Tees, photo frames, plush toys and tote bags all going for 5USD. I believe that wouls cause a stir too, but thanks for the snow, not too much of a rush was created here. Like i said the lodge was going crazy, cos the snow prevented people frm getting out, and the lodge is the place where they could see the Old Faithful geyser from indoors.

I did about 2hrs of extra work today, cos Zing, also fell sick. So i cover for her as she went back to rest. Those 2 hrs did not feel like extra hrs as all. I think i was kindda enjoying my time working there. I'm starting to learn to talk to guests more and that makes my time happier.

I took a few pictures as went for my breaks during lunch/dinner and also after work. Seeing snow really got me pretty excited. But too bad i could grab someone to go take photos with me. Only managed to get Lance to take a picture for me during lunch.



Oh, I had Lasagne for dinner, it was really good!!! hehee...

Day 8 of Work & Travel - Work

My shift timing is the same as yesterday but i woke up for breakfast today. I told myself not to eat too much for breakfast cos i'll be having lunch in a very short while. Breakfast the the usualy american breakfast stuff, but it's nice, it's like eating macdonald's breakfast everyday.. quite shiok. hahaa.

Went to the general store before going for lunch & work cos my shoes have opened mouth both front and back for both pairs. So yah, in need of super glue which doesnt really work when i tried it on at night. i wonder how long my shoes can last me. I also bought a pair of gloves, 25USD, the cheapest ones in US, but those are the only ones here. Brrrrrrrrr cold..

work went pretty well today, accounts balanced at the end of the day. another manager from snow lodge came over to help out while corry is gone and waiting for another manager to arrive. so in any case there are always 3 managers around. Travis is the manager from snow lodge, he's very very organised and sticks very closely to the book, whereas the manager of my shop, mike, is quite casual about most stuff. relaxing to work with him.

several interesting things happened during work today. first there's this indian american couple who came in for a shopping spree. Our shop has this promotion where you can get a wool blanket for 15USD when you purchase above 50USD, and when you spend above 100USD, we will aloow you to buy as many blankets as you want. And since this couple was on a spree, they had above 200USD to start with. And guess how many blankets they got? 13!!! They only have 3 kids. Anyway, I helped the deal along the way and i'm very happy with that. :) that was definitely the sale of the day.

then there was this other couple whom i identified as french due to their accent. and so we start chatting abt some french, they were very nice and very eager to teach me some simple french words and i have a few.

mer ci = thank you
s'il vous plait = please
de rien = you are welcome

I could only pronounce the 1st 2, the last one totally destroyed me. I cant make the croaking throat sound at all. hahaa. interesting couple. :)

Work was following and i was just going on and on. Tml will be a special day called GAD day. Guest-Appreciation-Day, this is a day where there are several items which will go on sale for 5USD only. Supposingly a very busy day, so me and alvin stayed a while beyond our off time. And in turn we were given 5USD of cash vouchers to use in yellowstone. COOL!!

I had lunch with a co-worker called kelley, she's from washington state and in nursing. the both of us closed the sale for that indian couple together. chatted with her quite a bit during lunch, mostly about singapore, cos she is like totally alien about singapore. she's never been out of the american continent before. I was introducing her to come to singapore at some stage of her nursing career, cos singapore is so short of nurses, especially nice ones which i believe she will become.

Oh yah, i got to know a few more people tonight, they are basically frens of another of my colleague, sze ying, who goes by zing over here. She just had her 21st birthday yesterday. Really cute gal, and her frens, a few guys and gals are like so surprised that my room has internet connection. :P it was nice knowing everyone. :)

hahaaa.. until tml....

Day 7 of Work & Travel - Work & Hike

I slept thru breakfast today, but it was ok, cos i'm working at 11.30am so i'll have an early lunch. I figured that i would have too heavy a meal when i had breakfast and lunch in like 2 hrs interval. Anyway it's off to work and today i was incharge of stock. I seriously don't like stocking, i dun mind carrying the stuff up and putting them into the shelves. What i really hate is to look at the shelves and deicde what needs to be stocked. I just cant figure wat i need or dun need. 8 hrs of stock is really very tiring, i would rather do cashier whole day. :)

Today's the last day of one of my assitant managers, he's Corry. He's going to take charge of another shop at Canyon. He's a nice guy, very corny and always teasing gals. That seems like the common factor for most of the US guys.



After work, I rushed back to my room to change and get ready for a full moon hike. The moon was really full and bright. You could really see the ground just under the moonlight. The hike consisted of a huge group of people, there wasnt any registration required, just be at the rec hall and be ready to move off. There were 6 of us in the gang initially. Su & shangzhi, lorraine & shawn, wanglin, and me. We were going up to observation point. Although i've already gone thru that way with wanglin a few days back, but going there at night was a totally new experience.

I was totally ready for a long hike, with xtra jacket, tripod, torch, food, 1st aid kit. I could hike for a long time. But the hike was pretty short. And it was so crowded at the observation point that we could hard find space to take photographs, anyway we did end up with some photos. My camera just din really perform too well at nite. sucks man. oh well, that's wat you get for being just semi-pro. hahaa.. the pro part is acredited to my tripod.

Day 6 of Work & Travel - Back to Work.

After 2 days of off, it's time to get back to work and start the money rolling. I wonder if it's working blues, cos i didn't really felt like going to work today. Maybe cos it's a sunday, but ever since getting here, it doesnt matter wat day it is. As long as there are guests coming into yellow/old faithful, there's work to do.

This was only my 2nd shift of work, so i'm still relatively new to everything. But i feel quite confident about most of the procedures already. So quite good. There's a few new staff who came in today, Jane from Ukraine and Kelly from Washington State. Also got to know a few more seasoned staff who werent around the past few days, Rob, Lance and Delicia.

I think there's nothing much to say about the day, cos there were too many customers and i couldnt really remember anything special happening. I was focused on making sure my numbers tally. Anyway, my numbers did tally today and i clocked in 2.6k USD. which was about 1k more than thursday. Woah!! Never expected myself handling so much cash. Real cool.

Because i was working for most of the day, there wasnt any pictures taken except a few which i tried to take of the moon while i was walking back to the dorm after work. None of them looked nice anyway. :P

Tml will be a better day.

Day 5 of Work & Travel - Off Day 2!!

This is my second day off and there wasn't much plans to start with. Except to go to the Rec Hall office again, this time to sign up for hikes and trips and not just looking. That in itself had been topsy turvy. So let me start from the beginning of the day. I've arranged to meet Su and Wanglin for breakfast @ 8am. Wanglin only woke up at 8 when i went to knock on her down. Damn funny, cos when she finally realised someone was knock on the door, she went 我的天啊! I almost burst out laughing, but i left her to get ready while me and Su went ahead to the EDR first.

breakfast was the usual stuff, there's always scrambled eggs, which is fine. Anyway, the food here suits my taste!! I'm good with it. :) sidetrack a little, carlos, the guy from columbia, he totally dare not try the food here. He says the tastes are different from his home and he doesnt wanna eat them. So he's always having sandwiches and salad. Funny guy.

After breakfast, Su went giddy she went back to her room while i'll help her sign up for the trips. So wanglin and I went to the rec hall to sign up trip my trips, wanglin already signed up yesterday. But since she had nothing better to do, she tagged along. We got to the rec hall, only to realise it's not opened yet. We were there at almost 10am, but it only opens at 1pm.

So we decided to venture into the trails and to our best of luck, the trails which were closed due to bear sightings were being opened as we are walking there. So we were lucky enough to be the first few people to walk trail ever since it was close due to bear sightings. The trail itself leads us to several places, Observation Pt, Solitary Geyser and also the Upper Geyser basin. The toughest part it the first part of the trail UP to Observation Pt, although it's only an ascent of 200ft, it was 2km of walking uphill. Super exhausted when we reached the top. But the view was great. :)



The next part of the trail took us to the Solitary Geyser, like its name describes, it's a geyser by itself way up on the hills. Geysers look very nice and are deceivingly dangerous. They are filled with bacteria because of the high temperatures, they could also cause surround ground to become brittle and if some unlucky guy steps on the brittle ground and falls into the hot spring or geyser. It's SAYONARA!! The water temp inside is way above 100 deg celsius. scary but beautiful.



Finally we got down the hills and arrive at the upper geyser basin. When they say geyser basin, it's literally loads of geysers gathered together in sort of like a basin kindda place. Some of them go exploding all the time. Some take a few yrs to explode. After going thru the various geysers at the basin we had to go for lunch before it's gone.



Lunch was quite good today, we had burgers at the Snow Lodge. It was quite good, better than the burger i had at mammoth. Met Alvin and Lorraine at the Snow Lodge EDR. And Alvin went on with his blabbering again. Can't stand him. Talks super non-stop. After lunch Alvin tagged along with me and Wanglin to the rec hall office.

It was not a sight i was expecting as i got to the office, all the trips and hikes which i was interested in are already filled up. I was kindda sad and disappointed, but the good new is, more trips will be available every friday. So when the new ones are up, i'm going to sign up immediately. Rraawwrrr!!!

That's basically the end of my day already, wanglin and i intended to continue our track up north from where we left off. But after lunch we were feeling the strain already. So some other time. We just went back to the dorm and rest.

Xiaodan came to my room to chat after she finished her work, cos she was the one who was super enthu in the hike up the hills. It was close the past few days so she couldnt go, and when the trail finally opened, she's working. She wanted me to bring her there, but i was just too drained already. hehee. So we just chat and use comp in my room. Later alvin join us in the room, and my room kindda became a lan shop, everyone with their own lappy. hahaa.

So far Alvin has successfully made everyone who he came into contact with be afraid of him. Why? cos he talks non-stop. He is very knowledgeable, and he can talk to you about everything in the world and he will always ask you questions you CANT answer. He's nice but just don't know when to stop.

Gotta rest, working tml. And very sleepy now, seriously, i dun think i'm losing weight. I hope i can.

Day 4 of Work & Travel - Off Day!!

Several dum things happened over the nite. I sent my clothes to the laundry for washing. I was in Tshirt and shorts and the laundry room was in the next block. SO just imagine pitch black, super cold, Tshirt & shorts!!?? Ya, you can imagine. :P Anyway, i was actually in Tshirt and shorts the whole nite. COLD...

2nd dum thing i did. My dorm room will lock whenever the door closes. I took a bath in the morning, all was fine, i remember to bring my keys, but when i got back to the room, pick up my toothbrush. I closed the door, with my keys still inside!! that's it, i locked myself out of the room, SUCKs!! I was in tshirt and shorts again... so smart of me. :P.. I had nothing except for my toothpaste and toothbrush, so i could go for breakfast, the RC (resident coordinator) will only be in at 8, which was time the breakfast ends. I kindda accepted the fate that i will miss breakfast due to my stupidity, but @ 730 i felt i had nothing to lose. So i walked to the EDR (employee dining room) and go ahead with my breakfast. Luckily the staff allowed me to eat after i told them i locked myself in the room. When i got back from breakfast, the RC is in and i could open my room with his master key!! SO all's well!!

I've been trying to get online when i came back into my room but it seems the connection really sucks when there's more people using. I'm constantly surviving on 1 bar on connectivity. But somehow the photos slowly get uploaded, emails are slowly received and MSN sends messages with a lag. AND I wanna re-emphasize SLOWLY!!

Cos it's my off day, i intended to walk around the area and get to know it better. However, due to the not so fast internet connection, I only started my wandering around old faithful after lunch. but i'm glad i only started after lunch. cos the moment i step out of my dorm, I met wanglin whom i knew from san francisco airport. It was great to see her again and it's her off day too. So we went walking around together with another guy called carlos. he's from columbia and a very funny youth guy, I knew him from the bus ride in bozeman to HR.

We asked our way around and got to the recreation hall office. That's where we could find out abt organised trips for employees. On the way to the rec hall office, i spotted another fren xiaodan, and 4 of us went to the office together. There were a few trips which we wanted to join but i wasnt sure of my work schedule so i have yet to sign up.

And since we were at the rec hall, we shoot hoops for around an hour. finally started sweating after a while but our shooting really really sucks!!! and the basket seems higher than normal. hmmm... anyway the rec hall looks like a cosy place, i'll be back for more sports and entertainment.

Carlos had to rush back to the dorm to get ready for his work in the evening. I brought xiaodan and wanglin the the gift shop at the old faithful lodge where i tried to show stuff which i found interesting as much as i could. to the extent of my limited knowledge at least. I wanted to visit the other gift shops also to visit my fellow trainees at mammoth. there are 3 gift shops in olf faithful area, I work in the old faithful inn and there's 2 other old faithful lodge and snow lodge.

Outside the gift shop, we met the driver who drove us into yellowstone from bozeman airport. Her name's kelly, very nice lady and she totally reminds me of a female version of hagrit. We chatted with her for a while and we went on to see the old faithful geyser. It was an amazing sight, the water shoots up over 10 storeys!! WOAH!! look at the photos for more insight. I've linked all the photos to the fotopic website so you see all the photos.

Day 3 of Work & Travel - From Mammoth to Old Faithful

Today I woke up at 3am and started going online to do stuff. When to bed at 10pm and i had 5hrs plus of sleep and i felt good when i woke up. Seems like we need to sleep less and the body seems to recharge faster. Den i went to study and read thru my manuals @ 4plus.. den i started packing my stuff into the bag to move to old faithful @ 6plus before going for breakfast.

after breakfast we had some familiarization practices on the cashier and i think i did quite good for a first timer, and considering i only read the thick manual this morning. :) it seems others think i'm doing well too.. so that's good.. Anyway, i only got news this morning that i'm on duty this evening!!! which was like super shocking to me cos i only read the manuals this morning and i'm suppose to handle customers in the evening!!?? anyway, it's done deal. I have to do it!! :P

we were suppose to start moving over to Old Faithful after lunch but cos of the duty in the evening, our trainer suggested we should go earlier. so at 10am we got a ride from my roommate was going in a similar direction. He was going to another village further south. so 4 of us packed our luggage and other stuff into his car, which was amazing cos we managed to get everything in.

Btw, his name was George, so he drove us all the way to Old Faithful, on the way we saw loads of stuff. Herds of bisons, elks, boiling rivers, piles of unmelted snow everywhere. it was a beautiful sight, and i forgot to take photos many times... we did stop at this one little fountain to take some photos though.

Old Faithful looks totally different from Mammoth. It still looks very countryside looking here, but there's much more people because of the famous Old Faithful geyser which spurts water up high at regular intervals. I'll be working in the gift shop, and the one here is 3 times the size of the one at mammoth. I'll be thrown directly into the thick of action.

but it wasnt bad. I think i kindda got into situation after the first 1hr or so. There were loads of guests but they were very patient cos i told them it was my 1st day there. And it was great. Most of the guests were very nice and very accommodating, but there were a few who were black-faced the whole night. But overall was good, at the end of the day i clocked about 1.7k of sales, but my final cash was $1 short. According to my sups, $1 is not a big deal. okie!! me and vj are supposed to be on duty, but su told the manager she wanted to work too. but she was just walking around cleaning up things everywhere, and she earns as much as i do, she is so SMART!! hahaa... so that's the end of my 1st shift!!

Here's some photos and a map of yellowstone so everyone wun be too lost about the wheres i'm talking abt.

Day 2 of Work & Travel - Training Day in Mammoth

Among those who arrive on the same day as me, there's only 2 people assigned to Retail and i was one of them. And i found out that i was a reserved position, which meant i was only allocated this position at the last minute. Think they figured they need more people and so here i was. The other person is Lorraine from NUS as well, graduating Biz student.

Yesterday i got to know a few people, Alvin from NTU Sociology, he has a weird british accent. Imagine a singaporean in USA speaking ina UK accent? WEIRD. But thanks to his introduction of the place and people, i got to know a few more people here. There's this guy Frank, he's from Germany, but he speaks good english and he's really funny. He's a bell captain aka bell boy, but he's 42 yrs old. Most of the older people are very nice. There a lot of retirees here, it's like this is the post-retirement job. How nice is that?

Anyway, today's my first training session and also my last. Will do some practice in the morning and i'll be off to old faithful. Had the full 3 meals here in mammoth's EDR (employee dining room). Food is much better when you arrive earlier. :)

Today's training consisted mainly on general knowledge and sales procedures, dos and donts and also how to use the cash register. First time on a cash register, kindda nervy on that. But it was fun, the training Marlene was very nice. I was lacking suitable pants for work as were Lorraine and Su, who came earlier then we did. Marlene drove us into town and got some from our uniform store, Su & Lorraine even got new shoes.

The 3 of us went up the hot springs trail for a hike after dinner. It was a vertical ascent of 300ft but the windings and steps really make us OUT of breath. It's not just me. :P here's some pictures to tell the story.

Day 1 of Work & Travel - To Yellowstone

due to the confusing time differences, i'm considering the time i got to san francisco as my day 1. the flight from taipei to san frans was quite boring cos there wasnt any in-flight entertainment available, which was super disappointing considering the good quality entertainment we had on the flight from sg to taipei. there wasnt any personal tv or game consoles, no nice music, so in the end i spent most of the flight sleeping, waking up in between only for food and to go back to sleep again. boring, even the movies on the big screen were boring.

things have been good since getting to san frans, i made some frens. when i walked out of the customs, i bump into these 2 guys whom i felt i shld try to get familiar with, paul & jianlong. I was repaid well, thru them i got to know 4 others, first was kangwei & ailing, then wang lin & xiao dan.


knowing them relieved me of the feeling of being alone and immediately i was feeling happier. although we had to spend the nite at airport for the transfer, we had a pretty good time exploring the airport compounds together. the result was a great find, a 24 hrs subway which has a promotion price from 12am to 4am. 2 footlongs for only 9.99USD, which adds up to only 5 USD per footlong, which adds up to 2 meals, which is SUPER SUPER worth it!! :)

the first 4 people i met were all from NUS final yr engine students. initially they were together with me then we realised our final flight to bozeman had different timings which meant we could be at different villages, which is kindda sad. So i'm left with the 2 gals, wang lin is from SMU 1st yr and Xiao dan NTU Final yr. So we have a conglomerate of ALL Unis in SG. hahaa.. All 7 of us took quite a few pictures together, loads of fantastic mountains in my pictures, i'm definitely going to blow the limit of my photo space in fotopic, i wonder if i shld buy more space, hmmmm....



At san frans, there was no free internet but there was still reception on my auto-roam phone. At bozeman, there isnt any auto-roam AT ALL!! That's a huge proof that the place is RURAL. had my social security application done and job allocation done. I'm in the gift shop as a retail staff, how cool is that? hehee.. the best thing is that it's different from the usual housekeeping and i'll most likely get to meet lots of people. Challenging, exciting and getting kindda scared and shivery now... :p

Anyway, i'll be ending up at Old Faithful, which is kindda cool cos that place supposing has internet access and great view. BUT, i'll be staying at mammoth for 2 days for a training session. I'll only go to Old Faithful after that. I'm on the way to mammoth now. I'm typing this on the bus in advance. :)

HELLO YELLOWSTONE!!

Finally found a way to get online. I'm now in my dorm in Mammoth, same thing, no Hp recep but luckily we have wireless here. Otherwise i'll feel so so so disconnected. Had my first meal in yellowstone, we were late so there wasnt much food left, so it wasnt really fantastic. I got to know a few people, whom i'll be training with. Really have to get to know loads of people really quickly. Everyone seems to know everyone!! It's a really small town at mammoth, 5 mins walk and it's one end to the other end. Will post some photos about mammoth tml. Meanwhile, it's time to sleep.

Day 0 of Work & Travel - Transit in Taiwan

I'm taking a break now at the first stop of my many transfers to get to Yellowstone. I'm now at taipei, toa yuan airport. And i'm quite happy to to find sockets and free wireless available here. :)

My next flight will take me to San francisco but i still have a few hours to burn. And my electronical devices somehow seemed drain of their juice, all needs recharging. Luckily for the sockets.

8 Year Anniversary

Today is our 8th year anniversary, but she's in Vietnam and i'm flying to USA today. The next time i'll see her will be 2.5 mths later. So we had to celebrate our anniversary on saturday. We spent the whole day together. Went to the Singapore flyer for a great view of the city and a great dinner at Hog's Breath.



It was a happy day, and i'll miss you loads dear!!

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Movie

1. Made of Honor

It's a comedy, a good one. But sometimes i would rather it be a pure romantic love story. Great acting by the cast and interesting storyline. Great show to catch.

(score = 3.8 of 5*)

MAYDAY MAYDAY!!!

HELP!! My jaws are aching like hell!!! I made the boldest decision in my life to remove all my wisdom tooth at once on monday. And now i have 2 VERY VERY swollen cheeks!! OUCH OUCH OUCH!!! It's really painfull and torturous, but i'll have to do it in SG. Cos i'm leavin gfor US next monday, and healthcare & medical in US is super super ex... so it's impossible to do it there. I just hope now that the swelling and the pain will subside soon. Cos i really really feel miserable now.

Have been eating porridge the whole day. I cant really chew, cant really talk much, cant really open my mouth at all. Feel quite paralysed. Very depressed that i have to feel this way after my exams. Will be off to US soon, better be well by then, or else!! I dunno what i'll do there.

This week is supposed to be busy, wanted to meet up with my various groups of frens before going to US. but this aching jaw is really turning me off all those ideas of going out.

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Movies

1. Nim's Island

I was actually looking forward to this movie. The trailer was good, so i was expecting some excitment and adventure to be going on. However, there was none. quite lame actually. disappointing.

(score = 1.8 of 5*)

2. Ironman

This movie is actually quite good. One of the better superhero movie of recent years. Quite cool, all the high-tech gadgets and stuff. Some parts were really funny too, but not to the lame extent, so that was good. Oh, if you are watching it, remember to stay after the credits. It tells us to expect Ironman 2 soon.

(score = 4.8 of 5*)

April's Fool

Nope it's not the day of the month... but the person of the month. I'm declaring myself as the officialy fool of the month.. Oh well.. I shall not wallow with my grievances... i'll juat talk abt the happy things.

Went Melaka with dear last weekend. Drove up to Melaka. Drove so far up north for the first time. It was really shiok, but tiring. yet it was all worth it when we reach the destination.

Watched a few movies over the past few weeks.

1. Definitely, Maybe

Story about a father telling his love story to his daughter. And the daughter guesses which character in the story is really her mum. This is a very funny yet touching movie. Very NICE.

(score = 4.8 of 5*)

2. Forbidden Kingdom

Jackie Chan & Jet Li + pretty gal Liu Yifei!! BUT the story line is very lame and expected. This movie is totally made for ang mos to watch. To asians or chinese, this story just produces loads of "????". The fight scenes are not extremely exciting. So yah, unless you are a HUGE fan, not that exciting.

(score = 2.8 of 5*)

3. Superhero Movie

Super lame show. Funny from start till the end. BUT!!! there was problem with the screening. missed like 30mins of the show. And we made GV compensate our loss. That was the disappointing part.

April oh April!!

April is officially the most dreaded month this semester. Deadlines, presentations, projects, reports, you name it i have it. At the same time it also means the semester would be over soon, and i'll be off to WAT very very soon.

In the past week, i've successfully abstained from all CE lessons, be it lab, tutorial, lecture. I've converted myself somewhat to a business student, how cool is that? Not very cool actually, business modules are deceiving, very deceiving. They make your timetable look damn good, sometimes 3 day weeks even. But when it comes to the workload, BOOM, hell-high. Readings, preparations, projects, the worst is projects, can totally take 10 times the "allocated" time to complete. Damn tiring.

Oh did i mention Exams start end of the month, that's also WHY this is the most dreaded month!!!!

Movies,

1. The Bucket List

2 terminally ill men met in their wards. When it became clear to them that they both have not more than a year to live. They made the bucket list, things they ought to achieve before the "kick the bucket". It's a very nice show, great acting from the 2 main actors and a very entertaining plot. A great show to catch.

(score = 4.8 of 5*)

Ghosting Time

Time is a thing, it's something,
you cant see, yet you know it's there.
you want to have, and never have enough of.
always seemingly working against you.
crawling slowly like forever, when you want it over fast.
speeding past you and you wont even know it, when you want it slow.
some people say can be made, if you arrange your activities properly.
only moving forward, it will never standstill or move backwards.

Time is Precious, and I'm a Pauper.

Time just passes me by, how i wish i can turn back time. I used to be happier, when things are happening within my understanding.

Yet time is my only ally, for i believe...

ALL will be FINE when time comes.
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2 weeks past since my last post, and it seem like time just flash past me once again. And hence my passage above to somehow illustrate how i feel about time. I've also labeled myself the "Habitual Potang-er" in MSN. Been missing school many many times. Not very good for my grades, but i somehow convinced myself it DOESNT matter.

Tried to make myself feel better by spending more time with dear and watching movies, and other things that are supposed to make me feel better. None working so far. Well....

Movies,

1. 10000 BC

This show is about a legend, a legend never before told cos it was SO SO SO long ago. Most likely it's fiction, but the plot is quite refreshing. Even though the show was quite long, the pace was good, it's quite intense so you gripped in the seat and dun get too bored. Comp Gen graphics are not bad too, they had to create all those prehistoric animals. Well it was a good show to watch.

(score = 4.2 of 5*)

2. The Spiderwick Chronicles

Same actor as August Rush (Freddie Highmore), seems like this kid is popular in hollywood. He doubles his roles in this movie, he's a twin, which is quite cool cos he had to portray 2 very different characters. I wonder how they create the scene with them fighting each other. A very fantastical story, perhaps too out of this world to believe yet you feel it could be quite true. The ending wasnt fastantic though.

(score = 3,9 of 5*)

3. Slam

I would never watch this show if you gave me a choice, but this was a surprise screening and i was pretty much forced to watch it. the plot was actually quite good, the basketball skills portrayed in the movie were not bad, but too faked, too showey, not very realistic. Perhaps that just due to poor acting. Although plot was good but how they brought out the story was quite bad, motives not clear, sometimes i simply cant understand what they were trying to show or say. A bit TOO confusing especially the ending.

(score = 2.5 of 5*)

4. Vantage Point

This was suppose to be one of the shows i really wanna watch after seeing the posters and trailers. But it's quite disappointing, cos i was expecting more. It was suppose to show the different perspectives of various people differently involved in a certain incident. That was interesting, but they showed the different views one by one.. and there's this part where they had to literally, "rewind" back to the start point, not once, not twice but 6 times before they allow the whole story to unfold. the "rewinding" was really getting on my nerves!! but the plot and story is quite good, except it felt like watching the serial "24".

(score = 4 of 5*)

A week after Break

It's a week after the break and nothing much have changed since then. I'm feeling unmotivated once again. How will i find the motivation. I guess i've found the answer. I'll need to find the one thing that I really liked to do. The one thing that i'll feel very happy and satisfied after doing it. I've not find it yet, or rather i'm not sure if i really found it. I think it might be sports, it might be music or singing. It's almost definitely not studying...

I've just watched this movie "August Rush". This is the best movie i've watched this year. Once again it's a great movie with great music, i've always prefered that combination. Here's wat's the movie is about..

**WARNING**

this is the WHOLE plot. If you dun wanna spoil your mood for the movie.. skip the italics and watch the trailer below instead.

The main character, Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore), can hear music in everything around him. He is being raised in an orphanage with no contact with his parents, although he insists that he can "hear" them. Evan believes that the music that he can hear in everything from the wind in wheat fields to the buzzing of electrical lines, is some kind of message from his parents, whom he wants desperately to find. During his stay at the orphanage, Evan meets a counselor, Richard Jeffries (Terrence Howard), who gives a name card to him, introducing himself as a New York child service department member.

Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that his parents were a famous concert cellist named Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell), and Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an Irish guitarist and lead singer from a rock band. They met and fell in love in one night, but through a series of events, were separated. Late in her pregnancy, Lyla was in a car accident and was told by her father (William Sadler) that her child didn't survive. Lyla and Louis both had trouble concentrating on playing music and were miserable without each other.

During one night, Evan hears what he considers "the ultimate call." He follows the sound with the name card from the man but gets sick and passes out. Evan is picked up by a trucker, is taken to New York, and the trucker calls the number on the card. Evan is told to stay in a certain spot but after the wind blows the card into a vent, he wanders around the city and finds a boy named Arthur (Leon G. Thomas III) playing the guitar. Attracted to the music, he follows Arthur and falls in with a group of street kids, all musicians of some kind, who are being cared for by "Wizard" (Robin Williams). Wizard is a busker who sees the children as "investments". Evan gets access to a guitar and begins to play music for the first time. He turns out to be a child prodigy, and Wizard gives him the name August Rush, both as an alias and a stage name, from a slogan on a random truck driving by about the August rush to the beach.

Lyla's father confesses to her on his deathbed that her son lived after all and that he forged her signature on the papers giving the child up to the state. Lyla goes to New York City in search of her son. Meanwhile, Evan's father Louis has also begun to play again, and while trying to trace Lyla, has also ended up back in New York City, where they had originally met.

Meanwhile, Jeffries is seeking him. He becomes suspicious of Wizard and has the police follow him. They raid the condemned theater in which Wizard and the kids live. Having run away, Evan hears a choir singing in a church and meets a little girl named Hope (Jamia Simone Nash) who sings in the choir. She teaches him how to read and write music, and he begins to play the pipe organ with consummate skill. Reverend James (Mykelti Williamson), the pastor of the church, has Evan enrolled in Juilliard School, where he does brilliantly, eventually writing a magnificent piece called "August's Rhapsody", which is going to be performed in the open on the Great Lawn of New York City's Central Park with the New York Philharmonic. By coincidence, Lyla Novacek, who has been repeatedly nudged by her friend to play with the philharmonic, agrees to do so.

But Wizard wants to make money from Evan, and having found him again through the concert advertisements, he forces Evan to leave Juilliard and the organizers of the concert by implying that he will tell everyone Evan's real name if he doesn't, in which case Evan will be sent back to the orphanage. Evan reluctantly goes with him. While busking under Wizard's supervision, Evan meets a fellow guitarist, who is, unbeknownst to both of them, his father Louis Connelly. Evan, who uses his name August Rush, says that he has a big concert coming up, but that he can't go. Louis tells him that if he had a big concert, he wouldn't miss it for anything. Evan decides that he must go to the concert. But first, he has to get away from Wizard.

On the day of the concert, Evan is in the subway station with Wizard and Arthur, counting money. Evan tells Wizard that he is leaving. Wizard does not let him go, but Arthur helps Evan by hitting Wizard with his guitar, allowing Evan to escape. He arrives at the concert just in time to conduct his piece just as Lyla is leaving the performance, who coincidentally is attracted to the music and turns around to approach the stage. At the same time, Louis and his band are in the area, driving in a car. He sees a lamp post advertisement of the performance announcing August Rush performing, like the boy told him, and also Lyla. He runs out of the car towards the music. After approaching the stage, he notices the conductor really is the boy he met in the park. Coincidentally he finds Lyla right next to him, listening to the music. As Lyla goes closer to the stadium, Louis follows and stands right next to her, holding her hand. In surprise, Lyla looks to her side and sees Louis. And as the piece ends, Evan turns to the crowd, and the three recognize each other. The movie ends as it fades out of the concert at Central Park, with Evan saying in the background, "The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen."

(score = 5 of 5*)