fate.destiny.chance.love.souls.: back to student-dom

Saturday, August 19, 2006

back to student-dom

it's been a week since I got back to school, and let's see, hmmm... all i can say, i'm happy going back to becoming a student again. :)

happy to trudge the roads of studenthood, wearing my casual wear and toting my bag of lect notes and 'CAMPUS' note organizer and colourful pencilbox, and to fill my sticker-bound daily organizer with my timetable, notes to download, texts to buy and homework to do. ahhhh... seriously, nothing beats the feeling of being a student. i remember how the younger us in p sch and sec sch long for each booooring school day to end, and yet now, maybe it's cos it's my final year(in a long time to come), i'm trying to hold on and treasure every last minute of school-life. yeah, call me a geek, but i love school for its lessons-attending and notes-taking.

And it could be that for the first time in my life, i really really feel like i like what i am doing, that what i am doing is something substantial, not like in the past when i took my Sociology modules, all you need is a mouth filled with crap to whiz through the module, and where lectures and tutorials are taken in such a slack manner it doesnt matter whether you attend the lessons as long as you can manage to crap your way through the term and final papers. Or maybe the teaching style is too americanish for me to like it or appreciate it much. Granted, NUS has one of the best sociology departments, or so they say, but maybe i am just not cut out for that style of learning. i need concreticity i think.

That being said, I am starting to appreciate the beauty of knowledge, how knowledge can be so interrelated, and how it is just waiting for you to uncover all the little secrets it contains, and it's like a never-ending discovery fest. i am no whiz-kid, and there are times i may doze over my notes too, but the appreciation of garnering knowledge still appeals greatly to me. For instance, my social work lecturer was showing us a video i watched for my Sociology module, Sexuality in Comparative Perspective, last sem, and asking us to discuss it in the context of social work values in our first tutorial. 2 disciplines of studies embedded in one socio-documentary. ok i sound silly but i am intrigued ok? i love it. and I can't wait for the tutorial to start for that module so we can discuss it.

There are times i still feel inclined to drift off and wander off into my own little dreamworld and procrastinate, but yeah, i think i'm just gonna do fine this sem. i love my student-life, i love what i am doing now, what can go wrong? (or maybe i shun say too early)

Only thing is, there are no familiar faces when i sit in my lectures, or walk the walkways of NUS. No one really to smile and say hi to. Actually, in the past, i dint even have that many frenz in my Sociology and Literature modules. Not that many acquaintances. For one, Sociology has one of the largest cohorts amongst the ARTS students, and the Lit crowd is just a tad too weird and lost in their world, so i normally just stick to cat and syl. But then, there were still familiar faces. Now, the social work classes are filled with young, eager, unknown faces, year 1s rising into year 2s, the gals at least 2 yrs younger than me and the guys the same age but still unfamiliar faces. After all, my decision to take up social work was made only last sem, and the modules i'm taking are the basic modules for social work. Besides, given the year I matriculated into NUS, i should have been in 4th year now if i had cont'd my academic studies, but for the series of events last year. The ones from my year are those taking honours now, and they take very out-of-the-curriculum classes for that i think. Hence, this situation. I am supposed to be a 3rd-year-yet-not-a-3rd-year-student taking 2nd year modules. Bleargh. luckily i have the modules to explore to anchor my otherwise kind-of confused student state.

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Lessons being done, let's see what and who I have done and met this week:

*Darlin' grace! yeah the babe is back, and she brought me gifts!! a super soft and beautiful shawl and an intricate incense-holder. ahhh dear, u never fail to know what i like best:) and babe, i may not have always been talking to you since u have been back, but just wanna ya to know i'm here whenever u need to tok or just to get over the confusion of things k? we dint tok much that few snatched hours tt day, but we'll tok more soon yeah? and pls pls take the time to settle down, most imptly ur emotions. and i dunno how many times i say this, but PLS PLS rest more k? i'll see ya on sunday soon again..

grace was mentioning abt appreciation on her blog, and it just struck me, one of the happier times i had overseas this Jun vacation of mine (of whh i still owed my dear frens the pics.. i think they gave up on me oredi.. heh) is that i actually felt i could just live healthier and happier there, despite the rush in our time schedules. and surprisingly that was in China, whh is sposed to be less clean and hygenic than Spore, but i actually loved all the walking i did there. Just walking from point A to point B, letting the scenery pass u by, even a simple walk across a few streets made my step just that bit skippier, and of cos, there's all that benefits of walking. but most imptly, it was the pace that made me appreciate of the finer points of life. We could just walk on and on and never really feel tired, and there's so much to see and do. and even just sinking into the beauty of the scenery ard me made me realise how little this is appreciated in Spore. perhaps, walking in spore could lose its interest as we have so many handy public transports on hand. there is a bus stop every 200 metres, a dial on ur HP and a cab comes to your doorstep faster than you can say 'Taxi!'. The inaccessiblity of places in China by transport made me appreciate the joys a long walk can bring. and till now, i haven't been able to recover the beauty of it in Spore.

*sha and debi and zheyan: i'm so glad we are making the effort to keep in touch. met sha and zheyan for dinner at raffles place on zheyan's last nite of work. met debi and zheyan at their school for lunch, and then accompanied them on a trip round Spore(just kidding heh). cut and bleached hair with them (ok guys pls dun get a shock when yall see my hair again k?). met zheyan(again) today to go gym and then met up with debi(again) tger later to go for a job interview which lasted 2 hrs and then dinner at LJS. by the time i got home, it was nearing 12 midnight and my cousin had phoned up almost the entire world, nearly going to the cops, cos she tot i was kidnapped. ERMM. it's cos my HP died-ed on me midway thru school today and she smsed me in the evening and i dint reply cos i dint even know. ERMM. ok la.. so it was really a slight on my part. Anw i gave her a list of my frens' numbers so in future if any of u guys receives a call, ermm, it's most prob my HP died-ed and i cun get back to my cousin.

*ruth and jy over the weekend: my first fireworks display in the flesh!! oooh, it was a wonderful display and tho we dint get to see it upfront in the waterfront of Esplanade, i still managed to get a good view and had a couple of videos i wanna share with yall but i dunno where to upload. maybe the computer geniuses could offer me some ideas.

A Couple of my better shots on the fireworks display: