Singaporeans Should Be Proud To Have Me As An Ambassador

The last thing I thought I'd be doing here is enlightening everyone of how awesome the English in Singapore is. ( Now ain't that a joke.) Many people here (by many, I mean more than one) now have the impression that all Singaporeans have beautiful accents and gloriously eloquent writing skills, and I'll just have to step up and claim the credit for myself. So I had been talking about how they forced me to belittle myself and take the English as a second language test, and then after that made me do yet another diagnostic test. Well surprise surprise, I've been exempted from the whole English course, and hence have fulfilled my Communications A requirement, a requirement everyone here, including locally educated students, have to do.

Their tone has completely changed after I got exempted. The profs now go 'Oh, you studied in Singapore, no wonder.', when in the past it was 'Singapore? Go take the second language test!". When is this absurd arrogance that only Americans can be native English speakers going to end. (Come to think of it, I *am* American..) Well in any case, the 'screening committee' now undoubtedly has a great impression of Singapore-educated students, so you're all very welcome. Feel free to add in 'Ambassador' to my resume.

Classes have finally begun for me - I was going stir crazy at home - and they couldn't be better. My first class, ever, is Geog 120 (Global Physical Environments). It's basically Physical Geog, a subject I loved so much in Secondary school, and I full expect at least an AB in this class. The classroom I walked into was just everything I'd expected a college lecture class to look like. It was a pretty small class, as far as lectures go, around perhaps 250 students. I was just on time, and the class was already ready to go. The eagerness of college students here is so evident in all these little details. No one has to quieten anyone down, or shush anyone, people are just geared and fired up for lessons.

The getting to classes rush in the morning is pure madness. More than 24,000 students walking, cycling, driving and moped-ing around the campus, trying to get to class on time. My classes are all pretty close to where I stay, and it's usually just one straight path. Still, trying to find the exact building and classroom is total pandemonium when tons of students are crowding about, trying to find their own rooms. I was pretty lucky, though. All the classes I needed to find always happened to be right in that random building or door I chose to enter. Lectures here are all only 50 minutes each, so I could only snort in derision (outwards, of course I portrayed the sympathetic pal, but you know I'm just in stitches on the inside) when people keep complaining about how tiring it all is. If only they had experienced the lunacy we had to endure with 2.5 straight hours of Math lecture as the last class of the day.

The motivation I have to study now probably comes from taking classes that I'm actually interested in. I truly find delight in reading A Midsummer's Night Dream, as opposed to the Herculean effort it took for me to do even a simple physics question in the past. Decoding the seemingly nonsensical prose of Shakespeare is much more rewarding to me than solving a physics problem. So it takes 'Jack' 50N of force to move the crate across the floor. But does he understand the beautiful, flowing poetry behind the cosmic significance and the hidden imagery of this simple motion? No? Dumbass.

I really would love to continue this rant about how awesome school life is, but there is a huge piece of sirloin tip steak in the kitchen, waiting for me to grill and devour it. (Food here is seriously so cheap, have I mentioned that? That piece of steak, which would cost me around $7 to $9 in SG, only cost me $2 plus here.)

Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you~