School Life

So it's been about 4 weeks since I've started school and I must say that i'm ridiculously behind which is starting to worry me just a tad bit......It's ridiculous how the local students are so immensely focused on the school work, and literally seem to do nothing but eat, study, and play whatever sports they're involved in. Even back at home, I always thought most Americans including myself had pretty bad study habits compared to people from Asia seeing how even at the beginning of the school year they would basically be the ones hitting the library already, I guess being here just reaffirmed me of that. I really need to fix my study habits, oh and another thing I noticed was how much school pride they have, that it can get quite ridiculous. I mean not just for NUS (national university of singapore) as a whole, but even for whatever departments they're in, such as with FASS (faculty of arts and social sciences) I mean they have their own intermurals I guess you can say within each department, and almost everyone seems to be heavily involved in that. They definitely take school pride to another level here.. haha....

Oh, another thing I noticed is that Singapore is definitely not a country made for walking, and the locals are quite lazy, no offense. Everytime you ask for directions, they just tell you the directions to the nearest MRT or bus station. When you ask for the walking directions, most of the time they wouldn't know the walking direction. Also, even the roads and stairs everywhere, it's ridiculous how small the streets are sometimes, and  even taking the stairs at school, it's designed so inconveniently, going zig zag when it can just go straight up that they make taking the elevator the preferred choice. It's quite shocking how skinny and fit everyone is here still.

I thought it was quite funny, how for half of my classes, I have American Professors, it's not like I came to Singapore to be taught by Singaporean professors anyway -_-.... They really love having American or even foreign professors here, I guess this would be a good place for a job if you ever look into education since they just love hiring foreign professors haha.....

Definitely, I think i'm starting to miss the food back at home, or even the convenience of cooking, since for SOME REASON, my place doesn't believe in having a stove, and all there is in the kitchen is a friggin microwave and fridge only... Apparently it's a fire hazard or something, and there is not a single stove to be found here.....Feels like they're trying to force us to always eat out or something.....which I don't mind, but sometimes you miss a home cooked meal or two...

Since this is getting pretty long I think i'll just leave it at this, oh and it's been a pretty bland couple weeks cause of school and all so I don't really have much pictures to update haha....
but definitely this month is gonna be good, trips to both Kuala Lumpur, and Thailand haha...not like I came here for school anyway -_-

Malaysia/ almost been a month

It's been almost a month now since I have arrived at Singapore, and just finished my second week of school, but before that, let me give a brief recap of my trip to Malaysia this past weekend


Due to the Muslim holiday of Hari Raya, the end of Ramadan for them, we were able to have the monday off, so a group of us decided to head off to Melaka, Malaysia for the heck of it and check it out and that too being our first trip as well, keeping it close by...
So we took a coach bus to Melaka there and back and took about 3-4 hrs the way there and almost 6 hours the way back. When we first arrived there, my first thought was how ridiculously hot it was there, and how small and underdeveloped this country still was. Made me just not only appreciate Singapore much more, but how it reminded me of how fortunate we are at times to be living at first world countries, and now even to be able to live/study at Singapore. There are still plenty of countries that needs much assistance and rapid growth and to just come out of poverty as a whole and how sometimes we just tend to take things so much for granted.

The hostel I stayed at Little Nyona, not exactly the best hostel I have ever been to, well this was my first time at a hostel too, but I really appreciated their concept of this hostel along with the owner Reno? I believe...her generous hospitality as well, drawing out a map of places to go, places to eat, and even reserving a table for us at this cafe that her friend was playing at the very last night of the trip here. Though it may have been cramped, hot, full of bugs, and etc. I think their concept of a family and her hospitality made up for it, and would highly recommend this place to anyone around that area.

The food there wasn't quite as various as I expected, well I am eating all kinds of Asian food in Singapore so not much expectation, but they did have this delicious chicken rice balls found only in Melaka, of Malaysia, it is basically a rice shaped into a ball with some chicken fragrance basically what the name suggests and you get that with a whole fried or steam chicken and that just hits the spot... haha....well other then that, not much to do in Melaka to be honest, for it was quite the small city, saw everything basically the first night, St.Paul's church, Chinatown, Little India, night markets, and a couple museums, definitely I think the stay in Melaka was a bit too long as Melaka seems to be more of those small pit stop cities you stop by on the way to a bigger one.

Well I still highly enjoyed the trip, and was quite the learning experience that being the first trip. Definitely want to go to Malaysia again, next time to Kuala Lumpur, Tioman, and hopefully to Thailand, and even Cambodia and Vietnam as well. We'll see what happens, but for now time to catch up and focus on school now which is quite hard being in a different country in general.

Till then, here's some more pictures!

 

Little Nyona Hostel!

 Gives quite the European like Norwegian feel no?

 Good ole' Chinatown

 Chicken Rice Balls, kind of miss them already

 

like Venice but dirtier and hotter

It's Finally Begun

After 2 weeks of intense travelling, getting lost, and just learning the Singlish Culture and History, my journey has finally begun as I have successfully or somewhat finished my first week of school.

Before I talk about my first week, I have got to say that these past two weeks were amazing, but now i'm starting to get the feeling that maybe we rushed a bit too much in trying to see everything as now talking to locals, it seems as if we have seen a good portion of the main attractions in Singapore alreadyy.. -__-... damn it.. lol.....and spending tons of money within the first two weeks as well...not good.... but w/e I have no regrets, and it was all a valuable learning and bonding experience...haha....

Another thing I noticed was how I seem to have met more foreigners than singaporeans -_-......weird huh? ....prob cause of where i'm living, since i'm at UTOWN which is where most of the exchange students are accommodated kind of inconvenient in meeting locals which can be like one of the inconvenience in living at Utown. .. guess I just got to meet people through classes, clubs, and w/e thats out there...

As I have finally finished my first week of school, through much sweating, getting lost, and pushing my way to board the bus, I can say that I have somehow got all my classes I wanted after sitting in about 6 classes, I was able to add the classes I needed. Kind of trippy how I have American professors at a university in Singapore...not what I expected, but it's a completely different classroom environment being in class with local Singaporeans. For this whole week, I felt as if I didn't get the memo, or was missing out on something as even from the VERY FIRST DAY, everyone was reading, studying, and just preparing for the lecture, printing out everysingle slides and notes. Felt a bit overwhelmed and stressed just looking at the students as if I should be studying, or be keeping myself occupied with school instead of preoccupying myself with my upcoming Malaysia tripp XD.  Damnn it's sooo crazy how i'm actually travelling out of the country just for a weekend, and then coming back for school with people I've literally just met 2 1/2 weeks ago. Crazy how things work out sometimes, pretty stoked.

One annoying thing I noticed about the NUS class system is how we don't sign up for tutorials when we first sign up, but still have to keep the tutorial schedule in mind when we still sign up for classes so gets a bit annoying. Also, sucks how we can't have any classes at all if the tutorial (discussion) overlaps or the final exam schedule overlaps, so the system will just completely not let you add the class you want. Still taking me a while to figure this stuff out, but starting to slowly get the hang of it.....and damnn gonna be a hassle to, buying the books, and jus borrowing the txtbooks at the lib, nvr did that before since i'm more of the type to just study at home, so we'll see how that works out as well. Maybe it'll force me to be more diligent and actually not procrastinate as much, since the time is limited on how long I can borrow the txts.

Well that's it for now, and next time I post will probably be after my Malaysia trip hopefully with some pretty sick stories and pictures...haha...peace

and some more pics...

 

one of the world's best zoo's out there.

this place always seem to amaze me no matter how many times I come here

La/Le/Lo huh???

Hello everyone, thought it'd be a good time to update with what's been going on so far. So far, it's been exactly 1 WEEK since i've been here, I can't believe that it's already been a week already. It's been probably one of the most physically draining, exciting, and breathtaking week for me not to mention the most I've ever walked since the last time I could remember..haha...From this past week alone, I've explored vivo city, Imm, chinatown, little India, orientation, Marina Bay, southern ridges(hiking path), and istana I think (the white house of america). I'll post with pictures below, since this would take a while to talk about.

I also noticed that Sinaporeans not only have this weird accent or speak in Singlish, which is still hard for me to understand at times....they also seem to add La/Le/Lo at the end of their words or sentences, which just throws me off even more and i'm just like like huhh???  Apparently from what i've heard, they add these words to the end of definite statements, which I could be wrong but for now lets go by that. 

like...its over therela, or thats 10 bucksla....still don't get the diff from the la/le/lo but w/e time to start using it la...

Man it's still soo surreal to me how i'm still here in singapore, doesn't feel like it at all, and more importantly that i'm here to take classes, seriously feels like i'm here to travel haha....well i'm still pretty excited to going to a foreign school and taking class with singaporeans and meeting the locals, should be a good experience.

I think I understand now why not many people can be seen on the streets walking and instead they're all taking the mrt (subway) or the bus, cus it's so damnn HUMID here, the past couple days of walking everywhere has been good, getting to know the city and stuff, but pretty darn tiring, probably a sign that i'm out of shape....

 that's it for now, and now here's some pictures....

                                                    I swear....they just love adding durian to anything edible....don't think thats                
                                                              good for ya  

 

time for  a fish massage!

 

spore's version of chinatown

 

 

buddhist temple that we were able check out

 

la group

 

forgot what this was called, but the pot where you put your lighted matches after a prayer or so.. 

 

pretty interesting of all the similarities between this and christianity and other religions, similar yet so DIFF....and how religiously diverse this country is too,hinduism/buddhism/christianity and etc. 

 

night view of marina bay....quite the sight to behold

 

time for an early mrng hike!

 

entering a forest/trail thats right off this bus stop, crazy how eco friendly singapore is

 

 

 

pork in some black bean soup i believe

 

 

hmm...wonder if they would move if we jus bugged them a shitload....

just chilling in front of the presidential palace

his own personal backyard/golf course...-_-

the pres himself!

national museum of singapore, where they had a collection of fruits/spices/herbs and much more, and you could even smell a few of them...