Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Ever since I came back from the PESS camp close to midnight on saturday last week, I haven't had much time to come online and really make a decent entry. I'm not going into the details for the camp yet cause I forsee a very long post that will takes ages to finish. Might as well talk about the the events that I went through these few days.
Very thankful that the semester for degree students start on 6th August which is next week so I get 1 week off to recharge my batteries before uni life officially begins. Not that I've been idling away for the past few days either. Have been going back to school for some briefings almost daily to facilitate myself with the new system in campus and how certain things work. I mean to a small extent, jc does prepare you well for uni but that's like 10% only. Of course it does cut the spoon speeding that we were used to in sec school but we were still pretty reliant on our jc tutors. Uni now is like we are pretty much on our own and if we have any queries, we have to like email our professors. If we were to have a face to face session with our profs, we have to like send an email to his or her secretary to fix an appointment. That's how busy they can be.
There's a few changes we have to get used to now that we're in uni. Of course it would be nice to address your profs as sirs and madams, it would be even better to just call them profs. It shows you know them when you acknowledge them. Not to mention the fact that they all have Phds so they're all doctors. The only teacher who had a Phd is Dr Philip Tieh back in acs(I), came across none during my jc time. Back in sec school, we could just stay put in our class the whole time for all lessons, jc we started to move around a bit more. In uni, it's really a lot more. There's a whole campus awaiting you so it can be a bit rush in between breaks. Like having to rush to the toilet before the next lesson and that tutorial room or lt is miles away.
For those who don't know, all teachers, even pe teachers have to take 2 subjects. The first one aka AS1, is your core subject. The one you will be teaching while the second minor one is aka AS2. For me, physical education and sports science is my core subject while my AS2 is geography. It used to be English but I got it change back to geography. I mean there are pros and cons for it. For English, it's mostly whether you have it or not but at uni level, it's more technical. You learn the technical aspects of it, no longer do we write like summaries or define the meanings of certain bombastic words. Not so much content wise as compared to geography. For geography, we know it's really a content-based subject. You can't go for exams without knowing your stuff. However, I did have a difficult time deciding between geography and english but I followed by heart in the end. It's very important really, not to follow the crowd and really follow what your heart says. It's like don't take english because it's slack. At uni level, nothing is slack. So all uni students, especially in fass, don't take english modules. It sucks.
For me, it's as in I'm taking a double degree, having the best of both worlds. I get to pursue my love of sports and my interest in geography, having taking geo since sec 1. I've come a long way in that subject. That's the good thing about NIE, it allows you to pursue the courses and modules you have an interest in. You don't have to worry that other non-related modules will suddenly find its way into your course.
I was playing squash in the late morning in nus src when I happened to find out that the fass matriculation plus other nus faculties' ones were taking place. Being the curious me, I decided to check it out cause it's very near the squash courts. Walked over to the multi-purpose hall 5 to see the place flooded with people. Queues were snaking around the place. Met friends from sec school, jc and army. Met Sadiq,Miq,Nicholas Goh,Farhan,Shaiful,Simian,Chris Chua, Guo Sheng,The acjc band people, Yi Hong, Kenneth Teo(I can't recognize him with his long hair so when he called me I was like who was he?), Pek Hong,Simon,some acs(i) seniors in nus at the cca booths, Amir,Sum and many more.
It seems most of my friends are in smu and nus. It's just as well. You gotta get out of your circle and get to know more people. Gotta stop staying in that sheltered zone. That was something I was talking about with Joses yesterday, I mean it's good in a way to have some friends around in your course but you can't alway depend on them. For me, there are very few people from my sec school in ntu, more from army and jjc. It's all right with me, I get to make alot of new friends. Get to widen my social circle.
The thing about me, I never like to stay in my comfort zone, I like to venture into unchartered waters and see what the world outside offers me. Getting to discover new things and make new friends, I can't ask for more. Especially when you're in uni. My brother in law told me this line "How busy, fun or interesting you want your uni life depends on how you want it" So I always keep that in mind. 4 years in ntu seems like a long time but before you know it, it's gonna be over. I wanna look back and say "Whoa, it was a memorable 4 years spent in ntu, not bad sial" and not have any regrets.
Security was very tight for nus freshies entering the hall 5 for matriculation purposes, the malay guard was like checking everyone's matri card before letting them in. For a ntu student like me to get in without any identification, I wonder what happened to the security, maybe because it got a bit relaxed in the late afternoon, he let me, kwan rong and paul(A year 3 uni student btw) in. Not bad la, the laptop fair and we proceeded to the cca booths upstairs and there were aggressive promotion by the various, clubs, societies and sports from nus. The funny thing is, they were trying to promote their respectives stuff to me even though I was wearing my ntu shirt. They were very nice people, friendly and polite. 1 malay guy from one of the booths even offered his popcorn to us even though we were strangers to him. I got to have a view of what's on offer for a freshie in nus from a neutral's point of view. I wonder why people always say there's always that rivalry between nus and ntu before smu came into the picture. We chose our uni based on the fact that they offered the courses we want and how they can help us into getting that degree.
Just looking at the crowd yesterday, the guys in fass are indeed very lucky when it comes to the dragon girls. It was really 3 to 1 ratio. Very blessed as compared to my class, only 3 girls out of 30 plus people. I could have been at the matriculation and registering as a fass student but I rejected that offer. It was a decision not many people would undertake. Give up a place in fass(with the girls), the location of nus and how fun it's gonna be etc. I'm not in uni for the girls but to study and for the fun, I think for pess students in ntu/nie, it's a case of having too much fun, we probably need to study more after playing so many sports daily. Location-wise doesn't matter to me anymore after a 2 year stint in jjc. I guess for me, it had been proven that I study better in jurong.
Hear it from a year1 ntu freshie that the best canteen belongs to the engineering side. NIE one is not bad but compared to the bustling crowd and the varieties in canteen A, it's really no fight. I had chicken cutlet today for only$2.70 and it was really damn cheap. Fries, chicken cutlet, 1 piece of bread and a fruit salad by the side. Followed by $1 sugarcane juice. Not to mention that the NIE one closes early so NIE people usually head over to the engineering side to have dinner. I mean the setting of the canteen plus the fact that macs is there helps alot. I headed over to south spine(business side) with a few of my classmates because they wanted to check out what's on offer for laptops before the fair at 8 flags(the computer shop). The business canteen really looks disappointing. Let's hope the humanities side can prove me wrong when I head over next time. It's good to know your campus inside out, slowly bit by bit.
How do you differentiate pess students from the rest of NIE? We are often dressed in berms, sports shorts and sandals(no slippers allowed in campus) for practical reasons and comfort.
