Blue Riesling bottles and little baskets hung on the wall (occasionally used for delivering muffins and such) frame the kitchen window of the house i stayed at for 3 nights. i guess there really wasn't THAT much to do in Louisiana, but thanks for my very nice hosts, stay was nonetheless very enjoyable. i guess good company can make all the difference :) maybe it's just me, but the places i visited somehow all had a very country, homely feel to them. perhaps some ppl would call it backward, but there's just something about some of these places that's holding me back from blindly labeling them in this way. also, i guess my weird affinity for the cute antiquey-looking fans common to many of these homes/restaurants plays a small part? haha.

and in less than 14 hours i will probably leave Berkeley 'for good'... this afternoon while waiting to have lunch with Jacqui i strolled around downtown Berkeley trying to 'absorb' the atmosphere and feel for one last time what this quirky place feels like... as i type this blog entry from my bed on the last night in my cosy room in Berkeley, i already know that i will miss this place+school... a place that holds some of my fondest memories, a place that made me mature from innocent little girl to less-innocent-more-independent-more-comfortable-in-own-skin big girl, a place where i made some of my dearest friends, a place that made me much more aware of the importance and the power of good education, a place that made me appreciate diversity... oh well. dun hav that kinda flair to put jumbled thoughts into well-articulated prose, but yeah, today i look back at my uninformed decision to apply to Berkeley and fully appreciate the significance of that fortuitous acceptance into this school...

I have been in the company of some really kind Louisiana residents the past 5 days or so. am currently in a small town north of New Orleans, called Mandeville, at a friend's aunt's house. and the commute to downtown/French Quarter in New Orleans involves driving across a 24-mile bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, easily more than twice the size of Singapore! this causeway apparently held the world record for longest bridge in 1969, but has since been surpassed by others, i think. what's the longest bridge in the world? i have no clue... but ya, not that i am unaware of how small sg is, but when you put things in perspective, it kinda reinforces this point :P anyway, one thing that really struck me when i first arrived in Shreveport was how green/tropical foresty the place was.... i guess cos my only comparison is Berkeley, and to a smaller extent, DC... and the other cities up north, it never really occurred to me how much closer to the tropics certain parts of the US were, too. and it's hot down here, and definitely more humid. hehe preparation for heading home next week, i guess.