yup, the long awaited holidays are here. Finally. No more essays and readings (well, not until the day before school reopens). smiley

Best of all, I’ll be leaving for a short trip (5 days) to New York City this Sunday and a day trip to Washington DC after that!! Gonna be doing all that tourist-y stuff, and hopefully shopping! smiley I’ve already booked tickets to go catch Phantom of the Opera in Broadway, and I can’t wait! But unfortunately, accomodation’s really expensive there, so me and xiaorong ended up booking a one-star hotel ‘coz it’s the cheapest we can find in the city. Pray it is a decent place. Not asking much. Just a decent place for me to shower and sleep. Fingers crossed, and not expecting too much.

I found out that weather in NYC is tons better than Ithaca. at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than Ithaca. A real welcomed change to the freezing cold here. Unfortunate thing is that on exactly the days that I’ll be there, it’ll be snowing. Argh. Same goes for Washington. All other days that I wont be there, will be sunny and bright. Is there some kind of conspiracy here??

Have to start packing my stuff and leave the campus tomorrow morning. I’m telling you, Ithaca College has like the weirdest holiday policies I’ve ever seen.

Everything (almost all residence halls, dining halls, etc, everything!) will be closed from Saturday for an entire week, and will not open till the Sunday before school starts. Well, if offices are gonna be closed, I’m pretty fine with it. But the thing is, we all have to vacate the residence halls by tomorrow noon, and I don’t leave for NYC till Sunday!! Doesn’t help that I’ll be coming back before the college reopens. (no money, can’t extend holidays either).

Thus, I’m left homeless. The college does not in any way help us foreign students in seeking places to stay on campus, i.e., if you do not know anyone who lives in the 3 residence halls that are opened, you basically have no way of negotiating a place to stay. I.e., you’re screwed.

Anyhows, I’m gonna end up staying with a friend from Cornell at the other side of the town. So dumb. But at least she’s willing and has enough space to give me a space to stay. I feel like a hobo. Or a refuge, more like. I want my room back.

Worse of all, the college threatens us with 1. $100 fines, 2. judicial action, and 3. immediate removal from the building, if we are found to be hanging around the residence halls during the week that it is closed. Just how dumb is that?

Oh well, plain weird, and they’re just trying to save money by closing everything down. Easy for the locals, since everyone has a car and can pack and leave whenever they want. But for foreign students, it’s not that easy. Guess they just never really thought about it, especially since the student composition here is very largely local.

Still waiting for pizza to arrive. Domino’s! ‘coz I forgot that the dining hall closes at 7pm on a Friday. Again.

Happy holidays.. smiley