Joining the Church Choir

I just joined the choir "shi(1) ban(1)". Initialy I was really reluctant.... but then with a lot of encouragement and persuasion... (actually its not that difficult to persuade me.... hehehe) I went for the first choir practice after service. I was really uneasy initially, cause I dont know how to sing the notes on the score, so I just follow along what the others were singing. And the lyrics were in fan2 ti3 zi4, which made it more difficult.

But through participating, I felt I got to know the people in the church better, especially those in the choir... its like you are more accepted... and there is more interaction and see how people are when doing things together. There is a sense of love and warmth in the fellowship. Besides me, there were only 2 other guys in the choir, compared to 10 girls. I guess that why they were so persistent in persuading me to join... cause i have never sang in a choir before.

This is the Iowa River down at City Park... its brown because the whole place was under flood waters.

Home grown veggie

One china couple grew chai xin in his backyard and he gave me a whole plastic bag full of it. Organic :) but that meant that the leaves had some holes and really had to wash off all the soil from the veggies. But you don't get this kind of veggies here in Iowa, so it was a good change!


The chinese restaurants here in Iowa, or in America in general like to cook this dish (mushrooms, broccoli and cauliflower) and then make the gravy thick with corn starch. So i attempted to do my own rendition of this dish... looks the same just that I did not put msg, so not so tasty. Haha.


I bought a variety of beans that the hispanics love to eat as their staple food. So I threw in a handful of black beans into my rice... and out came something that looked like pulut hitam... hahaha. cool! Of course, it didnt taste like pulut hitam, only looked like it.

Dental School

Dental School


Grad Pros Lab, my second home. :)

The endo pot hahaha

Today is the first time I used the endo pot. My friend gave me the pot. :)

Food for thought

I keep blogging about food... i guess that's what I miss here. hahaha

Fast meal

I am like seriously running out of ideas of what to eat. Its like I dont want to keep on eating the same things over and over again... its not like I have been here for a few months already. But eating the same thing again makes me feel deprived and pathetic, like I have no choice.... maybe I dont have a choice... :P

I was thinking since I have no exciting meal to look forward to cook this sat afternoon... maybe I will just skip it, didnt feel that hungry anyway. But then... i think I should eat... after all I will get hungry later and still have to cook something, and I dont feel like going out to eat... It kind of funny how you just have to just get down to opening the cupboard and taking out something first and then the next thing and the next thing will just follow. So the first thing I took out was instant noodles! hahaha... then its like.... what will go nice with it... Had some dumplings in the freezer, had some thawed chicken in the fridge, and then just throw in like a bit of everything that I could find in the fridge... ahhaha...its really rojak instant noodles! Doesnt taste like anything familiar but still edible.

Friday evening

I went to church today after school. They had dinner(home cooked food!!) and then bible study classes in the evening. Bible study was split into the older generation, the chinese speaking younger generation and the english speaking younger generation. I went to the english one today just to see what its like since I tried the chinese speaking one last week. We studied 1 Peter with Larry (who is an American but worked in China for a number of years) and i guess the question that I took away was, "Do I see myself as a alien and stranger in this world... or am I too much a part of this world?" I guess the answer is obvious. :P

Anyway, after classes, Eddie (a 20 year old student from HK) asked me if I wanted to go out after church. I was thinking, "yeah, why not... get to know him better..." We ended up going to a pub/disco with another HK guy, Ben and a Korean friend of his, Chi... not my kind of place. Too loud and people are just dancing, gyrating and drinking... which i like just stare and stare at... hahaha Ben and Eddie went down to the dancing floor while me and Chi got acquainted. Thankfully, Chi (Korean) and I decided to leave Eddie and Ben at the dancing floor while we went out in search for a quieter place to chat and drink some wine instead of beer. hahaha... Chi said it must a generation gap thing, cause he not into disco, he's 25 years old... sigh.. that makes me the oldest amongst the 4 of them. But it was a good decision to leaving the disco and move to somewhere my quiet for the evening. :)

First porridge meal!

My first porridge meal!!! Again by coincidence... hahaha... I didnt know what to cook today... so i started with cooking rice.... then I added too much water... so it became porridge!

My friend told me that for fried rice, I have to use cold rice (like overnight one) so that it will not be sticky... i was thinking whether it has got something to do with the kind of rice I bought...

Today's dinner - fried rice

I really didnt have fried rice in mind when I first started out cooking this evening... I definitely wanted to try cooking something new... and as I took out things from the fridge and started chopping some vege and thawing the chicken... I decided on fried rice.
Well taste wise wasn't too bad... the chicken was a bit overcooked and my rice too soggy... will fine tune that next time. But overall, it was a positive experience. :)

I miss my niece

I miss Mikayla... I have her picture as my desktop picture. She'll be 5 years old when I come back from my program. :(

Pictures of my flatmate's home in Iowa that I'm staying in for now

My apartment is on the second storey. And that is my flatmate's mercedes car.


That the living room, and everything you see there is all my flatmate's


And this my room.


Kitchen

First 2 weeks in Iowa

The first 2 weeks in iowa has just gone by. If I look at it the other way... its 154 of 156 weeks left to go. I came here on 24th June 2008.

I feeling quite sick now. Been having this flu and hacking cough (with lots of yucky stuff) for the past 2 weeks. People have told me that I should make sure that I get well before the winter comes in December, if not the cold dry air will just freeze my poor lung. I have been having head and neck anatomy and dissection classes for the past one week and I don't the formaldehyde fumes from the cadevas are helping either. I guess I have to stay off jogging, swimming, cycling and any other physically strenous activity until I fully recover.

This weekend, I got myself a bottle of multi-vitamins and "immune boosting" supplement from the local supermarket here, hopefully downing these pills will help me recover faster. But its really annoying that these chunky big pills always seem to get stuck half way down my throat, despite gulping down lots of water.

Food:
I must say I am quite proud of myself to be alive still after 2 weeks. I really didnt know what to do and what I was going to eat. The first morning after I arrived to Iowa, I had no breakfast and my flatmate had to offer me his milk and cereal. The second morning I still had nothing, but I think it wasnt nice to keep eating his breakfast... so I just skipped breakfast... hey... its not like I have not skipped breakfast before. In the end, I managed to get to Wal-mart and bought like a lot of food. Well, its lasted me for a week till now... and I still have a bit more to go. I've started to cook. Struggling with getting the estimate of how much to cook for one person. The first time I cooked, I cooked too much and invited a class mate to come over to eat. Thankfully, he said the food wasnt too bad. But after this week, I have decided not to cook using sesame seed oil or garlic cause the smell is very strong and it just permeates the whole house. I dont mind it, but I dont think my flatmate would like it... especially he's ang moh... so I will have to wait till 1st August when I move into my own apartment.