Meeting the Sponsor (MARA)

Two weeks ago (November 10th, 2007), all the MARA scholars were invited for a dinner with MARA director, Dato Seri Abdul Hamid Zainal Abidin and other fours VIPs who flew all the way from KL to have a so-called meeting with us in Chicago. MARA will give us a free night stay in Holiday Inn and 40 USD (allowance) for this particular meeting.


So, I off again to Chicago for the second time. We went there at noon because there was a slight problem. That morning was so cold that I wore gloves and 4-layers of clothes. We went there by car. When we reached Evanston, where MSD Chicago is located, we went up to the building. The main entrance of the building was actualy locked and we needed passwords to open the door. One of the MSD officers was so clever that he or she put a notice telling us about the passwords (in Malay) to enter the building. "Untuk Masuk, Sila tekan "bintang, tujuh, tujuh, tiga, tiga, lima"" I smiled when looking at the notice.


We actually went to MSD Chicago to have our lunch. I was so elated to eat Malaysians food on that day like the Nasi Beriyani and rendang. I should be thankful enough to eat those food although there were no kampua and kolok mee, which I'm really miss those noodles. And one more thing, if we want to enter the restroom, we also need password to enter. I don't understand and this is really ridiculous.

Then, we off to our final destination, which is the Hotel Holiday Inn North Shore in Skokie.

When we arrived there, we checked in room. I did not stay a night there though. Although the room was nice, I had to leave that night too.

When my friend switched on the television, something caught my attention...

Can you guys notice the third box from the left? The title is actually "Adult desire". Hmmm..

So, that night, we prepared ourselves for the dinner with the VIPs. The food were delicious. :)

After the speeches from the Scholar representative and MARA director, we started eating and I really enjoyed eating every single dish that they gave.

When the function was over, it was photo-taking session. But, I only took photo with Mdm Huda, the MARA director of Washington D.C. because there were too many people.

Okay, I might look different in the photo. I know that.

Then, after the function, I packed my bag and we went back to my university at 1.30am. My seniors and I reached West Lafayette around 3.45am. Overall, it was enjoyable yet tiring journey to me.

Homecoming 2007

I was supposed to write this post last week but I had been procrastinating till now. So, yeah, we had Homecoming events going on three weeks ago. The events were like "Boilermakers Night Train Homecoming Parade", "Pep rally with King and Queen coronation" and fireworks which happened the night before the Homecoming Football match (Purdue Boilermakers vs Northwestern Wildcats). I felt anticipated to watch that game in the stadium that I actually bought the ticket like 5 days before.


The night before was the coronation of Homecoming King and Queen and I was there with my friend watching the event in Slayter Hill. I was amazed by the performance by the Purdue Marching Band. It made me think of my former high school marching band. I really hope that my former high school would somehow perform superbly like them in the future or few years later because I believe that they are improving right now, aren't they?

So, the next morning, I woke up as early as 10.30am. Yea, it was early for me. I got myself ready and went to my friend's house to go together to the stadium. As it was first time, I felt quite impatient to watch my first American Football match live in the stadium. Once we got there around 11++am, we sat there waiting for the match to start. It was quite cold and windy.

Initially, the match was quite dull because I couldn't feel the excitement. However, as our home team got their first TOUCHDOWN, I started to feel the excitation. When our home team got their FIRST DOWN, we would utter "1,2,3,4,FIRST DOWN, B*TCH". *lough out loud* I didn't know what was going on at first but when Purdue had few first downs, I started to follow them too.

Overall, it was a memorable experience for me as I got to experience the excitement going on in the stadium rather than watching it live on the television. Plus, I saw Neil Armstrong from far as he was invited to officially launch the opening of a new Hall in our campus-"Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering". Ok, you guys might be wondering why he was there to officiate and why did they name the hall after his name.

Neil Armstrong, the first person to have set foot on the moon, was actually the former student in my university-Degree in Aeronautical Engineering with a US Navy Scholarship. He was graduated in 1955.

The Beauty of NU and Lake MIchigan

Below are some photos of NU and Lake Michigan.

It is a nice car, isn't it?

Castle

Last but not least,