X'mas fun

It's hard to believe after a giant snow storm the weekend before Christmas that left the streets covered with more than one foot of snow, there's going to be another 6 inches piled on this new year's eve. The weather sure knows how to dampen the spirits of new year firework-watchers (such as us). Nonetheless, dc and I have never seen so much snow throughout our three years in Hopkins. The non-stop 50+ hours of snowing kept us at home to write our autopsy reports, which we handed in right on time on Xmas eve. We are also proud that we took an hour in the last moments of the storm to trudge through the white and slippery streets of Cambridge. Check out my large snowball that I accumulated during our walk!

Meanwhile, we monitored the weather and the road conditions closely after the snowstorm, and on Xmas eve, made the decision to undertake our winter holiday to Newport, Rhode Island! It's a snap-finger-and-go trip, we knew little about what to expect or do, but New England amazes us in fascinating ways.

First up was our favourite hotel Marriott Residence Inn. It's affordable, spacious and we love the fully-equipped kitchen in the suite together with all the amenities. We enjoyed the room so much that we prepared and had our dinners in the hotel the two nights we were there.

I have never heard about Newport being a major town in Rhode Island - it is really a very scenic coastal town where the tycoons in the Guilded Age build their summer homes. Here's the gate of one of the 'cottages':

Impressive? A street along the coast of Newport are dotted with mansions that are built by wealthy families like the Vanderbilts, JP Morgan, and interiors are decorated in an extravagant and opulent way beyond our imaginations. The way in which these people spend to keep up with appearances in the past just blew dc and I away.





It's a pity that photography was not allowed indoors in order to preserve the paintings and fabric, but here's a photo I took off the internet, just to give a feel of the majesty of the mansions. (Photo: John Corbett, Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County) Marble pillars, chandeliers, gold foils lining the skirtings, one-of-a-kind wall fabric. An interesting nugget of information we learnt - Anderson Cooper of CNN is a son of the great-granddaughter of the man who built the mansion in this photo. It's almost like having a royal lineage.



Not forgetting the beautiful cliffs near which the mansions are built, the wharfs of Newport, and the vineyards dotting New England.. The cobblerstone streets and colonial architecture speaks much about the history of Newport as a colony before the revolution, and for a moment, we felt like we were back in Edinburgh.

More photos of our Newport trip on Google photos here!

And so it concludes our little Christmas getaway. The photos do not do justice to the fun we had over this much-needed break. The semester has been tough - I had problems finding a lab, and several times dc and I questioned our ability to do well enough in our classes to fulfill the department's requirements. By the grace of God, everything turned out very well! A prof took me in, though I do not have the skills for what he wanted me to do. His students all speak very highly of him (I was told he makes the best chocolate and ice-cream!) and my exchanges with him have been very comfortable. I'm so excited to start some lab work! Amazingly, dc and I both received As for the extremely difficult class! We were literally screaming and jumping and hugging each other in our little apartment. :) Praise the Lord!

End of first semester

It has been a rather event-filled semester.

Other than the usual mugging we kindda expect, it was definitely good to have people coming over now and then ever since we arrived here in Boston. Zhen Xing, Bryce and Yichung, then our parents, sister and the whole gang of ka, pi, pao, chuan etc etc. Not to mention this was the first time I went to outlet mall so often.

All-in-all, I would say this is a semester of hard choices (Yup, just like a class entitled "Principles and Practice of Hard Choices" taught by God.) Our being in Boston was already the start of this series of hard choices. As we transversed the wet and windy streets of New England and joking about "wouldn't we be enjoying better weather if we had made our decision to go somewhere more sunny and less cloudy", we were almost instantly reminded that we made this decision ourselves. This is not to imply that this has been a bad decision. Many aspects of Boston still leave us grateful for being here. But I guess the notorious gloomy skies are always a good scapegoat to represent the collaterals of choosing to come to MIT or perhaps choosing our Phd program. Anyway, we have come to realize how hard the choice we made have become. Academic requirements, outcompeting the incredibly smart classmates for a few select nationalities, cost-benefit-risk-interest-everything under the sun analysis in choosing our labs are all on a fine thread under high tension. Again, not that it's bad since level of difficulty does not equate the level of goodness but it still intrigues you when you look back at your own decisions.

This will be our 2nd Christmas away from home. A white christmas perhaps, if it snows enough and the temperature remains cold enough to stop the snow from melting. We are all ready for it, with a nice Christmas wreath, littl' O Cypress tree, pink carnations, Xmas Tree lights from CVS. We even prepped ourselves by listening to Christmas Carols all day during our mugging. (Now we can guess the song with just 2.546 seconds into the song.) Now, we will just enjoy our well-deserved break (once we finish writing our autopsy report) and chill.

Happy 25th!

Hope this year will be better than the last! (Though the last was already excellent with me officially entering your life :))

Yours always,
cy

Thank you for the wonderful Thanksgiving holiday

Thank you for travelling half-way round the globe to bring everything we miss about Singapore to us - chicken rice mix, Indocafe coffee mix, kuei lapis, durian cake, etc, and THE family! We are truly blessed to have you stay with us for the past three weeks, and we certainly hoped you enjoyed your holiday as much as we enjoyed your company (despite CW's classmates teasing her about coming to Boston to 'play computer games').

I love you.