First Week of School

My First Day at NUS: The school has arranged a shuttle from Commonwealth to campus and back, unfortunately the schedule is rather inconvenient so despite my class being at 4 I hoped on the last available bus before class at 10am. It gave me time to explore campus and sort out some administrative and registration issues. I ate at one of the campus canteens and then headed to Foreign Policy of Singapore (2-4 once a week, Monday). The professor went over the syllabus and a brief lecture before giving a brief bio. He studied in the U.S. at Washington State, Wisconsin, and Harvard. He will also be visiting New Orleans over the Chinese New Year break in February. The class sounds very interesting and he seems like he is going to be a good professor. Next I went to Foreign Policy and Diplomacy (4-6 once a week, Monday). Nothing too special about the class but the professor will be gone for the next three weeks because of the mandatory service for all Singaporean males so the class will be web cast. After class I headed home for a much deserved peanut butter sandwich, a staple snack in the apartment. The very eventful day came to an end with an uneventful evening.

Day Two: No class. I slept in. After some emailing, etc I headed to the hostel office to complain about some broken chairs and hot water heater. The heater has never worked but the hot weather makes a cold shower very bearable. I explored around the neighborhood and did some shopping for snacks, etc. The picture on the left is my favorite building around my apartment. It is a parking garage that is covered in flowers and plants and explains what much of Singapore looks like. After enjoying the day off I headed to the hawker with Samm for dinner and "bottle service" with some other exchange students. The beers are served in ice buckets. It was a great way to get to know some of the other students and I really enjoyed talking with people from very different backgrounds.

Day Three: (Wednesday) Back to school for Public Policy and Administration (4-6). The class was fairly boring but I expect it to get more interesting as we get deeper into the class. Additionally the discussion about the mentality of the people about the govt. seems to be a common theme of the class. I headed home on the MRT and grabbed dinner on the way home. The plan was to have some people over for a little gathering before Ladies Night (a very popular night here). It turned out that a few other apartments in our Block (71) also had people over and the small gathering turned into about 50 people on the grass in front of the building. It was off to Clark Quay to meet up with more international students. We hung out for awhile and avoided the $30 cover by bringing some of our own drinks and stayed out of the bridge until around 2. It was a pretty good night.

Day Four: I changed my schedule around to avoid having class on Friday. It turned out that I will mostly have classes on Monday/ Wed. and a few tutorials (every other week discussion classes) on Tuesday and Thursday. We spent the day planning a trip to Bintan, Indonesia (a small island about 1 hr away that will be the feature of my next blog). That night a group of us went to Little India to join in on the festival of Pungol (A harvest festival similar to Thanksgiving). The scene on the left is the crowd that gathered to watch the performances. We found a restaurant around down the street and listened to the music and enjoyed some Tiger Beer (which is much cheaper in Little India). After we went shopping for towels and bathing suits for the trip to the beach on Friday. I stumbled upon a great hat which I couldn't pass up.

Day Five Preview: A small group heads to Bintan.