End of exams, an end to our stay in Med-Syd and a new beginning to the next stage of our adventure

4 exams in 5 days was an experience to remember. With the exception of the management module MOS 101a, the rest of the modules were suffocatingly packed into 5 days. As if this was not enough, MME 303a (killer module Fluids 2) was rescheduled to a Sunday morning due to a snow storm a week before. I have never had an examination in my entire academic life on a Saturday, much less on a Sunday! Hence, you can imagine the vexing frustration me and Jiahao went through during the preparation for our exams. Despite the ridiculous schedule, we did managed to pull through this trying period somehow. But with the end of the examinations, so was the end of our 3 and a half months stay in the alluringly charming residence of Sydenham. Knowing that our exchange was about to come to an end, fellow residents of our floor surprised us with a bagful of souvenirs each during our final floor meeting. The gifts probably did not cost a lot of money, but the memories that these fellow residents had provided us for the past three and a half months were priceless...


Floor meeting at the Jay-Hen, our floor Don's room (in case you were wondering that, "Hey! Isn't a Don the moniker for a mafia boss?" That's what I thought too, but his/her role is really the chief administrator of the entire floor and makes sure that harmony reigns between residents). Me and Jiahao always had a good laugh at these floor meetings from the spontaneity and in your face remarks made every single time the Don tried to make an announcement. Notice that 2 very unattentive souls at the floor meeting were posing for our camera: that guy's Shawn, one of the funniest person of our floor and Miss Congeniality, Margot who hails from United States Pennsylvannia.


Our floor Don, Blake. From they way he posed and dressed, you guessed it, he's a rocker and a lead guitarist in his own band! Cool dude eh?


Our Residence Advisor (RA) Galia (a.k.a Rant) with Jiahao. We always thought that she resembles a penguin!


At the residence's hall taking our floor pictures with Miss Congeniality Margot. I'm gonna miss having the days we had lunch and dinner together at the residence's cafeteria.


Mitra (of Philipino heritage), a cool dude on our floor, check out the add-ons to the ridiculous costume.


The theme for our floor photo was to drape everyone in black thrash bag (some kinda theme...), hence, the explanation for our weird costumes. From left: Yours truly me, Ilona (of Finnish heritage), Kim (coincidentally she lives in Singapore at the 6th Avenue and flies back to our little island during the summer holidays!), our floor rep Terone and Dana.


Our Floor Rep Terone (a.k.a T-bone) from the Bermudas. A charmer with the ladies (I wonder why) and perpetually flashing a wide grin, he will forever be remembered for saying, "Wassup?" whenever he runs into me.


The rest but not all of JN-2 (our floor's residence),
Top (from left to right): Shawn, Greg and Adam (Greg's roomie).
Bottom (likewise): Erin, Allie, Terone and Margot's boyfriend, the wildly hilarious Lenny.


Our floor's Soph (Sophomores are second year students) Chuck and freshman Harley (he's the floor appointed fire warden).


Our floor's cleaner Christine, a nice and sweet lady from Poland who always had plenty to chat with us when we asked her about her country. Gonna miss her alot too! Could never thank her enough for keeping our floor spick and span every single day despite the mess we made when we were drunk. Love you Christine!

Although Allan lives in Med-Syd with me and Jiahao, he was assigned to a different wing in the residence. Hence, let me introduce some of his interesting fellow residents from his wing.


Allan with his Floor Rep Itai.


Allan with his floor, full of whacky and quirky folks as shown in this picture.


This picture is wrong in every sense! Feel like retching out my meals every time I see it!


There're actually quite alot of Asians living in Canada. This Korean freshman (don't know his name at all) lives just right next to Allan.


Allan with Med-Syd's Academic Programmer (apparently, his job as a soph is to organize study group or self-improvement study methods talk) James.


Allan's RA Elena from Kazakhstan. She's got the demure damsel in distress look when she's wearing her glasses.

Floor meetings were held every week on a Tuesday to announce important floor or residence events and build the entire floor's cohesiveness. It is pretty strange for 3 twenty three year olds to mingle with a bunch of 18 year old freshman, not to mention that the floor Don (a final year student) is only twenty two years old. Therefore, we are considered as the 'senior citizens' of our repective floor. However, our fellow residences thought that like them, we're only a trio of 18 year old freshmen. You can imagine their expressions when we revealed our age (Rant gasped, "No way!" when she learnt that me and Jiahao were already 23). Before these floor meetings, Tuesday was to me a mundane and monotonous midweek menace that was standing between me and my weekends. But floor meetings, no matter how time consuming they were, always managed to bring me much needed respite for the entirety of the week, with the numerous hilarious exchange of words between these freshies. For that, I thank Jay-Hen for this lasting memory.