Rainy Weekend

It started raining sometime Friday night and it has not stop till a short while ago. Not a very fun weekend at all. Ping went to lab on Saturday morning, thinking there wouldn't be as many people tailgating (basically having a bbq or picnic before a football game) since it was raining heavily. But guess what, the people here are super hardcore about the game because there are as many people tailgating as any sunny day.

Later that night, we had a steamboat session at Chang-Wee residence to celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival (中秋節), also known as Mooncake Festival. We wanted to go lantern walk after that but unfortunately, the rain did not stop at all, even after we ate all the mooncakes. By the way, green tea mooncake is yummy!!! Ah Pei brought some back from M'sia and that's the first time Ping tried it. Thanks 親愛的!!!

Spend most of the morning reading for ESP's assignment on animal agriculture. While on it, Ping realize that the local community here play a pretty big role in decision making and they definitely take the initiative to be heard. It is such a big difference compared to the M'sian culture. If the same issue is happening in M'sia (the negative impact of Confined Animal Feeding Operations, CAFOs), people are more likely to just brush it off or gossip about it during the morning market gathering. While sometimes Ping agree that there is no point in making a fuss about small stuff, issues like the CAFOs need to be taken seriously. Someone has to take the initiative to make the communities opinion be heard by the authority and residence should be part of the stakeholders. M'sia has a long way to go until the people take action. We are still very use to the 'whatever lah' and 'all talk but no show' attitude. Now Ping is curious on how they assess the risks of CAFOs in M'sia.

This is definitely a weird weekend. Michigan rarely get rain continously for two days. The rain are usually not more than a few hours. Feels like rainy season in M'sia. 感覺悶悶不樂的. Hopefully the rain will stop when Ping needs to get to campus tomorrow morning. It is definitely not fun waiting for the bus under the rain. But at least Ping's plants are very happy!

Sunny Sunday afternoon

It was rainy and gloomy early this morning. But as the Sun rises higher, the rain went away, and the sky started to clear. It was then when Ping started to 三心二意 (lose concentration), looking out the window after every paragraph Ping read - was reading on the significance of BGE measurement in modeling the net C flux between ocean and atmosphere (at the same time kept wondering why is it so hard to obtain similar measurements for soil environment...grrrr!).
Alright, no way is Ping staying indoors when the weather is so lovely outside! So off Ping went, planning for a picnic at the Rose garden. Unfortunately, the gang were not interested. So Ping ate her cheese, cucumber, turkey cold cuts with crackers while watching bits and pieces of 籃球火 - 小豬 is super kawaii!!! The basketball scenes just crack you up!

Went back to reading stuff for class and not too long later, Ping started looking out the window again and felt that it is just so wrong to be indoors when the Sun is shining so bright out and the weather is just lovely. Ping managed to get Jo to accompany Ping to take a walk at the MSU Perennials Garden and MSU 4H Children's Garden.

The bright yellow color always catch the eye, they look like bees buzzing all over the place.
A cute one. Double Japanese something...nope, Ping is not good with flowers. They remind Ping of sunny-side up.
A perfect rose!

Ping's favorite is the lavender colored flowers!!!!

Mummy, is this daun kadok (lon kaluk, the one that we use for nasi ulam) that air itam ahmah used to grow at the back corner of the house? What is the daun kadok called in English ar?
A nice quote at the garden entrance.
We ended the afternoon with a walk through the Sanford Natural Area. Thanks a bunch for the walk Jo! It was refreshing! Am glad we didn't waste the precious sunny Sunday afternoon.

Oval Beach, Saugatuck

As Malaysians are celebrating the 51 year of Independence, we were having the time of our lives at Oval Beach, Saugatuck. There was an MSO organized Merdeka Day celebration but 'the gang' had already made plans to go to Saugatuck since early of the week. However, Ping, ah Pei and Jo did show our face for a short while to participate in the new committee election.

Once the clock striked 1.30pm, we headed out west, towards Saugatuck. Saugatuck is the first city in Michigan that Ping have visited after Kalamazoo as the Off. of International Students and Scholars at Western had organized a trip there during the international students orientation weekend. It feels like it was not too long ago that the bunch of us from Sunway came here to the States to pursue our higher education together. Now we are located all over the world, from Australia all the way up north of US.

Fortunately for us, the weather was on our side. Hot and sunny, even the water has not cooled down yet. It did got a little colder later in the afternoon but it stayed comfortable long enough that we had fun playing in the water. Ping also had a 'float' that Jo and Ping blew up and just relaxed, thinking about margarita and 帥哥 - which were both not available. But we did get entertained by the guys trying to do slam dunk.
The last and the best was sitting at the beach with close friends to watch the sun sets. This is second sunset by the beach that Ping seen in the States. The first was at Carmel, when Ping visited San Francisco three years back.But overall, 最開心的事 is enjoying the beach with 我最好的朋友們!!!!