It feels as though I had left ages ago, and so much has happened with adjusting to the new environment, taking trips, etc. But now that I'm left with shy of a month, it seems as though time has really whizzed by.
I've had many posts, but none of which quite summarises my normal life. It's mostly about trips I've taken, or random exploring around this archipelago. So here's (soon to be) 5 months of Stockholm summed up in a single post
The start of exchange was slightly overwhelming - from meeting new people, to having to take care of myself, to realising that "HEY I can travel around Europe!"..."ALONE". Not to mention the crazy weather that made my toes numb and metabolism rate shoot up even further.
GOING DOWNSTAIRS
My normal life mostly consists of cycling to and from school, stoning in lectures, grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, and hanging out in Nigel & CH's room in the evenings because my room's pretty... less interesting hahaha. My room mate and I get around fine, with the occasional annoying each other. We tell each other about our day, but we don't really have much in common beyond that heh.
Most of the time, I would like to think that we bully each other. But sometimes, it feels like I suddenly have two older brothers. So true to the character of older brothers, they bully their younger siblings but they're still nice la.
And that also means facing their eccentric habits... like Nigel literally pushing me around on the pathways, and CH's nonsense and ridiculously lame jokes... Sometimes, I'm even rechristened as jiahwee because that's how 'jiahui' is pronounced on Google Translate. BUT, I give them a lot of nonsense too, as numerous as the crumbs that I drop in their room.
COOKING
Most of the time, I cook the same thing for myself, because I usually just cook for myself. So there are many instances of me eating chicken soup 2 days in a row for a few weeks. Then again, in SG, I always order the same stuff until the CAIFAN vendor knows what I want...
caifan leh... you know how many permutations they get in a day...
There are exceptions, thankfully, when I go downstairs for dinner when the boys decide to endeavour culinary escapades like chicken rice, japanese curry, and quite recently claypot rice and curry chicken. I wanted to have culinary escapades, but before exchange the roomie didn't want to form a spices/sauces/pre-mix alliance :( and I honestly couldn't carry much up after rice, milo and a pot haha. Ok, in all honesty, they're a lot better in survival and common sense hahaha.
In exchange for them preparing dinner for me, I cook broccoli HAHAHA. And it's only broccoli because
1) I'm too lazy to be adventurous with vegetables. (Or cooking in particular)
2) CH doesn't eat tomatoes, carrots and peppers. Which are just about all the other vegetables I buy...
So now I'm a pro at broccoli right? NO HAHA. I've been told that I take dayummm long to cook broccoli hahaha. In fact, there was one instant whereby CH's friend's first sentence to me was "Why do you take one hour to cook broccoli?"
Ingrate. Kidding. But... I kinda forgot his name. Yong something.
CYCLING
Essentially, since April, I've been cycling 80-90% of the time. Well it's my only form of exercise, unless you count climbing mountains and walking round and around in my trips. It'll be something that I definitely miss because Singapore doesn't have such a well-developed bike system nor the weather for cycling. Life's also a lot more chill, so even though cycling may take a bit more time for certain routes, it doesn't matter because time isn't a constraint.
It's pretty cool that the island is filled with bike stands. All I have to do is get a bike card (like an ez-link card), tap it at the stand, and the bike is mine for 3 hours :)
And I've almost abandoned public transport and the student pass, which makes me a burden whenever we go out as a group. I'm not sure why I'm the burden hahaha, but let's just keep it as that.
WEATHER
Swedes talk about the weather a lot, and it's easy to see why. Sweden's usually colder than many other countries in Europe. There are even days that the temperature plummets back down to that of late winter early spring, despite it being late spring early summer right now.
It's also pretty dry, so I'll just throw my opened packets of chips and biscuits into my cupboard without thinking about it being laohong. There are amazingly very very little insects and pests around here too.
CELL
I think it has been more than a coincidence that we've got a sizeable number of about 10 Singaporean Christians who have somehow connected and decided to have cell on a regular basis.
In the earlier weeks of exchange, Nigel CH and I were attending this cell group 'Credo' because they had a booth during orientation. On one of the weeks that Nigel & CH were attending, Louis, CH's friend from VJ appeared!!
Then Louis (and some others) realised that HEY we've got enough people for a cell and BOOM cell group!
Okay there was a lot more to that, like Louis's hardcore perseverance to keep cell going week after week, with programs in place. Coming to exchange felt like a sabbatical from service for the past few years, and I was glad to have that. Also, the fact that travelling is one of the main thing exchange students do means a lot more coordination required and facing even more rejection than the average church program. Which is why I'd say that this guy, has got a real heart and gift for organising! And many of us have been blessed by this ^^
Okay, that's what I can think about for tonight. Peace out.
I've had many posts, but none of which quite summarises my normal life. It's mostly about trips I've taken, or random exploring around this archipelago. So here's (soon to be) 5 months of Stockholm summed up in a single post
The start of exchange was slightly overwhelming - from meeting new people, to having to take care of myself, to realising that "HEY I can travel around Europe!"..."ALONE". Not to mention the crazy weather that made my toes numb and metabolism rate shoot up even further.
GOING DOWNSTAIRS
My normal life mostly consists of cycling to and from school, stoning in lectures, grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, and hanging out in Nigel & CH's room in the evenings because my room's pretty... less interesting hahaha. My room mate and I get around fine, with the occasional annoying each other. We tell each other about our day, but we don't really have much in common beyond that heh.
Most of the time, I would like to think that we bully each other. But sometimes, it feels like I suddenly have two older brothers. So true to the character of older brothers, they bully their younger siblings but they're still nice la.
And that also means facing their eccentric habits... like Nigel literally pushing me around on the pathways, and CH's nonsense and ridiculously lame jokes... Sometimes, I'm even rechristened as jiahwee because that's how 'jiahui' is pronounced on Google Translate. BUT, I give them a lot of nonsense too, as numerous as the crumbs that I drop in their room.
COOKING
Most of the time, I cook the same thing for myself, because I usually just cook for myself. So there are many instances of me eating chicken soup 2 days in a row for a few weeks. Then again, in SG, I always order the same stuff until the CAIFAN vendor knows what I want...
caifan leh... you know how many permutations they get in a day...
There are exceptions, thankfully, when I go downstairs for dinner when the boys decide to endeavour culinary escapades like chicken rice, japanese curry, and quite recently claypot rice and curry chicken. I wanted to have culinary escapades, but before exchange the roomie didn't want to form a spices/sauces/pre-mix alliance :( and I honestly couldn't carry much up after rice, milo and a pot haha. Ok, in all honesty, they're a lot better in survival and common sense hahaha.
In exchange for them preparing dinner for me, I cook broccoli HAHAHA. And it's only broccoli because
1) I'm too lazy to be adventurous with vegetables. (Or cooking in particular)
2) CH doesn't eat tomatoes, carrots and peppers. Which are just about all the other vegetables I buy...
So now I'm a pro at broccoli right? NO HAHA. I've been told that I take dayummm long to cook broccoli hahaha. In fact, there was one instant whereby CH's friend's first sentence to me was "Why do you take one hour to cook broccoli?"
Ingrate. Kidding. But... I kinda forgot his name. Yong something.
CYCLING
Essentially, since April, I've been cycling 80-90% of the time. Well it's my only form of exercise, unless you count climbing mountains and walking round and around in my trips. It'll be something that I definitely miss because Singapore doesn't have such a well-developed bike system nor the weather for cycling. Life's also a lot more chill, so even though cycling may take a bit more time for certain routes, it doesn't matter because time isn't a constraint.
It's pretty cool that the island is filled with bike stands. All I have to do is get a bike card (like an ez-link card), tap it at the stand, and the bike is mine for 3 hours :)
And I've almost abandoned public transport and the student pass, which makes me a burden whenever we go out as a group. I'm not sure why I'm the burden hahaha, but let's just keep it as that.
WEATHER
Swedes talk about the weather a lot, and it's easy to see why. Sweden's usually colder than many other countries in Europe. There are even days that the temperature plummets back down to that of late winter early spring, despite it being late spring early summer right now.
It's also pretty dry, so I'll just throw my opened packets of chips and biscuits into my cupboard without thinking about it being laohong. There are amazingly very very little insects and pests around here too.
CELL
I think it has been more than a coincidence that we've got a sizeable number of about 10 Singaporean Christians who have somehow connected and decided to have cell on a regular basis.
In the earlier weeks of exchange, Nigel CH and I were attending this cell group 'Credo' because they had a booth during orientation. On one of the weeks that Nigel & CH were attending, Louis, CH's friend from VJ appeared!!
Then Louis (and some others) realised that HEY we've got enough people for a cell and BOOM cell group!
Okay there was a lot more to that, like Louis's hardcore perseverance to keep cell going week after week, with programs in place. Coming to exchange felt like a sabbatical from service for the past few years, and I was glad to have that. Also, the fact that travelling is one of the main thing exchange students do means a lot more coordination required and facing even more rejection than the average church program. Which is why I'd say that this guy, has got a real heart and gift for organising! And many of us have been blessed by this ^^
Okay, that's what I can think about for tonight. Peace out.
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