Month: August 2008

First three weeks into university life, the ‘stress’ is starting to build up.

Initially, as there were no tutorials in the first two weeks, it was still quite slack. But now that tutorials have started, there’s peer pressure and stress from other people to work hard. Everyone’s like mugging somewhere or sometime. It’s quite scary, especially with all the foreign talent stealing our spaces and opportunities. It is very evident especially during tutorial classes when there are class participation marks involved. It seems like Singaporeans are less willing to answer questions and speak up.

So far, the most interesting lecture is the Marketing lecture. The lecturer is very interactive and engaging, and the advertisement videos show during the lecture are quite funny and interesting too. Second best is of course Film Art, in which finally I get to learn what I like to learn. Unfortunately, it’s slightly daunting because it is a literature-based module, and during tutorial class the artsy people will use bombastic literary words to describe. The interesting thing is, out of a class of 20+ people, there’s only 4 guys. lol. Discrete Structures are still fine, it’s maths and logic. My maths is pretty rusty, hope I can survive. Programming is not too bad, learning everything all over again in Java. Economics lecture is boring everyday. It’s not that I already know what’s it about, but the lecturer is really boring. Fortunately I can read my old JC notes. There are group projects coming up for Marketing, and need to continue doing tutorials!

Food is generally around arts and business, with the occassional stint at engin or elsewhere. The central forum is always abuzz, the library is always filled with people studying. Went to timbre musicfest last wednesday at UCC, it was not bad, although the music is very blues and a bit loud.

So far, I’ve attended two sessions of nuSTUDIOS film school, which was too crowded in my opinion. Too many people trying to learn with not much interest of staying for the long term. I also went for a Life Meeting of Campus Crusade, which was quite interesting.

University is like a mini-reunion, where you meet your old friends from secondary school and JC. Many hi-byes and with no fixed class, it’s quite difficult to make longer-lasting friends. Treasure your moments.

Finally, I started life as a freshman! Finally, I can study what I want to study! (Or most of it.)

Well university started with a bang with School of Computing’s (SoC) Freshmen Orientation Week (FOW) on Aug 1. It was a one night stayover. Although the games were not as exciting as the camp, except for the ones at night, it was still fun and I made some new friends in my OG, Star and Justice. I especially liked the one in LT15, in which we are supposed to walk through the LT in complete darkness, with 2 ‘wardens’ looking out for us. The next day, we had photohunt at Holland Village, and I left to go for FOP.

Monday, 4 Aug, was Freshmen Inauguration Ceremony, which marks the official start of our university life. They made us come at 7.30am when the thing actually starts at 9.45am. Stupid timings. Met some familiar faces there, such as matt lau, bing wen, hoosy, yh and a few other people. After that my OG ate at eng canteen, which as pretty good food. Afternoon was some talks and games.

Tuesday was Flag Day. However, as I had to attend the NIS ceremony, I could not make it for flag day. I met my OG for lunch at Dhoby Ghaut before going to The Arts House for the rehearsal. Ahhah, coincidentally, Terence, two years my junior, was sitting beside me! lol. he’s also under the same company as me. How interesting can it get? The world is so small. The person who succeeded me in VS IT Club now has the same thing as me. (I trained him one leh haha =p) The ceremony was held in the Old Parliament House and it was quite funny to sit on the seats of the Cabinet. The front row seats even had names of the previous ministers. After the ceremony, there was a cocktail reception and some live band playing.

Wednesday was more talks and banner painting. However, I left at 12pm to watch The X Files with zhan vic jr and kc, which didn’t turn out very good. In the evening, I went for a nuSTUDIOS gathering at The Mind Cafe at Boat Quay, and we played some games and interacted. It was not bad.

Thursday was more talks (again) and some games. In the evening, we had the finale dinner outside SR1. The food was pretty good, worth the extra $4 we paid for package A I guess. I think the package B people really lose out cos they paid $8 for nothing much. Quite wasted. After the dinner, some groups stayed behind to help out in the rag, while others like my group went back home.

Friday was Rag day! We were asked to come at 7.30am (again) but actually the programme only started at 10.30 or 11am! lol. Waste our time waiting. Anyway, we changed to our soc fow maroon tees and proceeded to the SRC, where there are already different groups of people cheering. we sat right next to pharmacy, which happens to be wearing maroon too. so the cheerleaders decided to create a combined impromptu cheer called maroon power lol. science in front of us were very rah-rah. they had a pretty big group, all dressed in bright blue, and even had cheerleaders on ladders. they cheered very well, comparable to some of the halls.

When we went into the ‘cheer box’, I realised that how small group we were. Nevertheless, we did our best in cheering. they distributed singapore flags due to the national day observance ceremony. SoC’s float was second, after business, and comparing our dance team to the rest, we are very small and simple. no fanciful gymnastics jumping stunts, no smoke, no special effects, no frills. But we try made our presence known still. It was an eye-opener to see the other floats and dances, and some were really very well done, very meticulously created and detailed. Some dances were quite impressive too. I liked pharmacy’s float best.

I think the best part was the ending when we went to our float and took a group photo. the SoC spirit can really be felt there as everyone started cheering spontaneously and continuously, even as the fop director gave his thank-you speech. It was a sense-of-satisfaction moment for many who spent days and nights preparing for this day, and for the rest of us, to appreciate what they have done and what it meant.

After rag, I ate lunch with Syl and Adit at Megabites. It was great western food and good price. I had creamy pasta with grilled chicken. After that, we went to meet some of the justice people at k-box and had dinner at Waraku at Central, with Cliff and some others joining us. We had a good time and during the chit chat, Syl and Wing started calling me 克林韦见 endlessly. lol. a combination of my chinese translation of my english name and my original chinese name. lol.

And that marks the end of Freshmen Orientation Week.