Finally got to try the famed Palladium brunch. There was such a wide spread of food! From the normal bacon, sausages, eggs, muffins, mashed potatoes, rice, french toast, omelettes, cookies, cakes and salad to roast beef brisket, turkey, smoked salmon, cinnamon rolls, yoghurt parfait, cheesecake, eclairs and croissants, among many many others. This is most probably the best meal you can ever get on campus. It was well worth the walk :)

I tell you... American food gets a lot of flak, but Cosco cookie are freaking ORGASMIC. My suitemate brought a box of them from home. They're not too sweet, and have just the right hardness. They're not too dry either, and leave a very lasting sweetness in one's mouth. Oh and they're pretty cheap. $6 for a big box. Unfortunately, you need to pay a $50 annual fee just to buy from the store. Yes the $50 applies even if you do not buy anything - they're so good that they can brazenly charge this way.

 

Oh, and tonight was October Fest. It's some German festival where everyone just eats and drinks a lot. Hayden dining hall styled their dinner after this festival. They had super good frankenfurters and roast beef. They also served root beer and ginger ale (remember, we aren't allowed to drink till 21 in America). I got a roast beef, swiss cheese, lettuce, pickles and mustard sandwich, a frankenfurter and a pasta. Oh and I also got a bottle of ginger ale. So, so good haha. I'm sure I'm gaining weight like crazy here...

 

By the way, my communication for professionals class started this Monday. It's pretty enjoyable, but slightly intimidating. It seems the class is aimed at seniors and grad students - I think I'm the only freshman there. Also, almost everyone else has attended a communication course before. Ah well, I guess I'll just catch up by reading the textbook, which is incidentally a pretty interesting read!

2 days ago was vegan night at Hayden dining hall... The funny thing is that even at vegan night, there was chicken and meatballs haha; but virtually everything else was vegan. It was pretty good actually, even for a carnivorous person such as myself, which says a lot.

 

Just yesterday night, a friend brought my suitemate and I to a Japanese curry store at St. Mark's place. I never really liked Japanese curry because it is too sweet, but this one I tried yesterday was really, really good. It was not too sweet, and I feel, it had just the right saltiness. They also put some Japanese pickles on the side, so you could mix it into the curry to give it a sweeter flavor - probably aimed at the Japanese population here. 5.50 USD for the japanese curry with rice, salad and a drink - not a bad deal, especially when you consider the cost of living here.

 

Writing the Essay is getting quite tough. I'm not totally sure what is required of me; I'm too used to writing argumentative essays. We were supposed to write a letter addressing a "void" in an essay we chose. I'm not exactly sure what we're supposed to be doing for such assignments, but I know what I did is wrong because I essentially went Dear (author), you're a complete idiot, regards. My prof says that we have to note that these writers are fantastic writers, and that if something is not there, it's not meant to be there. Somehow we're supposed to find bigger concepts which the author may be addressing - we're supposed to analyze striking sentences and discuss what they may mean. I've absolutely no idea how to put it into an essay.

 

Oh well... I think that for now, I'll just pick out sentences and explore concepts, and try to come up with something.

This is weird... I've never had such good Indian food in my life even though I'm from Singapore. Regardless... A couple of Indian friends of mine brought me to this place about 2 minutes away from my dorm. It sells kati rolls for 4 bucks per roll - steep, but it was really good. Essentially it's a roti prata with your choice of stuffing, and they roll it up like a po piah. I chose beef (of course) and it was really, really good :) Spicy but not overpowering, tender but not soft, slightly burnt but not just totally disgusting.

 

Ok back to work...

The weather is finally getting colder! It already dropped below 10 degrees celsius today :) and I think people think I'm crazy cos I still haven't broken out the sweaters.

 

Anyway, I went to Max Brenner's yesterday for Derui's birthday party... Chocolate place. It was mad. There were chocolate pizzas, chocolate soup, chocolate fondue etc. It was all good but so sweet and oh so sinful haha... Nice experience though.

I have started collecting quarters ^^

 

Why? You may ask... after all... washing machines and dryers now use campus cash for payment so we no longer require lots and lots of quarters. The reason is this: collectors' items!

 

Normal quarters have a picture of George Washington on one side, and the picture of the presidential coat of arms (eagle with outstretched wings) on the other side. However, some of them have state maps on the side meant for the presidential coat of arms! I think there are 51 altogether (number of states in the USA), and so far I've 4 - Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Rhode Island. :)

I have never had falafels before... and we were treated to some at Investment Analysis Group today. It was ok I guess... I'm not crazy about it, or maybe it's just the wrong kind of meat they put in (for my taste).

 

Today's IAG meeting was highly productive, if full of contention. Caraustar was the company chosen to be dissected today. Boy... were the presenters flamed. They claimed that Caraustar (laden with high debt and apparently, not a profitable business plan) could turn things around by selling off their non-profitable parts. Hmmm... I don't really like that idea. It's going to be really hard to sell their company when the paper industry is shrinking or remaining stagnant year on year, there is a huge possibility of outsourcing and the other companies in the sector are probably not even operating near full capacity (especially probable when you take into consideration the stagnation of the industry). Of course, I don't have any figures to back me up so... this is all talk.

 

I finally woke up from my FSX slumber today, and purchased a few stocks - Oracle (ORCL), SanDisk (SNDK), China Mobile (CHL) and WalGreen (WAG). Fine this is not very diverse, but I couldn't be bothered to spend too much time on FSX. Actually I bought Oracle yesterday, and it has already risen 3% today. However, that profit is not a good gauge since the market was rather bullish in general today. I believe Oracle will hit 24 within this year, which will give me a sweet 11% profit. There'll be a shareholder meeting in early November so we'll see how things go then.

 

SanDisk will be announcing their quarter soon and I expect it to be good news (post holiday sales). It went down for no good reason (as far as I can see) today so I bought it just before the close.

 

China Mobile should be a good medium-term stock. With so much growth potential (China, need I say more?), I don't really see it dropping. I'm with it until early 2008.

 

Walgreen... long-term stock. Probably not for the day trader. I'm keeping it till it shows 10% returns. It has a good amount of revenue and may even be up for a buyout.

 

Disclaimer: Everything above is merely an opinion... Buy at your own risk.