First Day of Pre-Departure Orientation!!
5th of January ‘07
I reached Hotel Singgahsan hotel in Petaling Jaya at around 2:30 p.m. Once I entered the hotel, I was looking for someone that I recognized. While I was at the same time looking for a bathroom, I met my first familiar faced person^^. She’s Lisa Khoo whom I’ve met at the US embassy during the Visa interview. I also met her parents whom were pleasantly friendly. Next, I was practically rushing to the bathroom for my nature call ><. After relieving myself, I went upstairs to register myself. I met Kak Gee and Wendell. At first, I thought that Wendell was a facilitator as well but her turned out to be one of my program buddies. After taking my name-tag which I wrote SUE ANN (duh..), I went downstairs to dabble around with the other YES program students. I saw a few friends and quickly went to greet them (Sim, Lisa, Wei Liem, Burn, Joyce). Then, we started introducing ourselves. Finally, we roughly knew each other and we asked each other where in America they’ll be. Lol.. we’re all so anxious for our exchange journey. I found out that Sim will be at Maryland as well. She’ll be living in Baltimore and I’ll be at Williamsport. After all the introductions, it was time for us to carry our luggages up to the conference room. We put our bags at the back of the room and started our Q&A session for the parents. We sat down and listened while giggling like mad kids because Lisa was making fun of the background music that was playing in the room. After the session, we had another session with two American ambassadors. They were both really funny and they showed us pictures of America and the high schools over there. Then, we had tea and a session with all the AFS volunterrs. We punished all late comers by making them spell "MISSISSIPPI" with their buttocks. Lol.. nice butts though. We had a couple of serious sessions after that till my neck and butt hurt after the sessions. We learnt a lot and made lots of friends. Then, they gave us our room keys and I was in charge of Room 206. My roommates were Azreen and Vanessa. When we got into the room, we rested for a while. We went down again later for another session. After the session, we went back to our respective rooms. I went into the bathroom to take my lenses out. I was so noob at it that I dropped it into the sink. I didn’t know it was in the sink, so I almost cried because I thought my lenses went behind my eyeballs. However, I found it in the sink later on. That was a big relief and shock for me. I said a billion thank you’s to God for helping me find my lenses. Then, Arthi, Jilian and a few others came into our room to discuss our cultural performance for our American trip. After the discussion, we went to room 311 to have a nice chat with the volunteers. I was so happy that the day ended so nicely^^. Well, our first day was mainly filled with sessions. Continue reading to find out about my very personal experience in the U.S! Nights.. Muax^^
January 8th, ‘07
12:45 p.m. (delayed journal)
