note to self,
14 years ago
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Friday, December 3, 2010
NTU vs. NUS
Just some notes, since I've been both places.
Of course, I am constrained by the fact that I've only been in NTU one semester (as opposed to 6 in NUS) and my review of NTU is very limited by where I've been -- communication school and the canteens and libraries nearest to my building. I don't like to walk.
So... the comparison:
#1. EXAMS VIA COMPUTERS
I'm taking 2 exam papers in NTU on computer! Meaning I type, not write, my essays. Because my instructors are sick of deciphering illegible handwriting penned by students' hands that move too slow for their brains, like mine! Also, I have sweaty palms. I'm excited about this. I'm sure I can think better if I can read what I've written too haha
#2 TOILETS
There are too many dubious around-the-corner toilets in NTU that I'm not even sure the cleaners know about. Those with sanitary bins chocked to the top with ahem and vomit in the sinks. Do they even get cleaned? I really don't know! But they're poorly ventilated and humid, glow a dim ominous orange at night, and smell. Somewhat like NUS' pre-renovation loos.
#3 FOOD.
I can't comment much actually because I'm not a experimenter. I always eat Chinese. No Indian, Malay, Western, Korean or Japanese for me. Also, I've only been to two canteens: A and B (haha yeaaaaa I couldn't find C and I'm so OCD I can't go to D unless I find C. Kidding!) I think food-wise, they're evenly matched. Both have Macs and Subway. NTU also has Sakae Sushi, Old Chang Kee and my favouritest of all, MR BEAN. Soya ice-cream! My only complaint is that the communication school is so faroff from any canteen that anyone too weak from hunger can only either make do with lunch from a vending machine or die crawling to a canteen.
#4 LIBRARIES
The most annoying thing about NTU is that it has more power sockets than seats. So people who don't need sockets will be sitting right next to an empty one mugging when I neeeeeeeeed that socket but can't chase them away because there's no seat elsewhere. And the three holes right there taunt me so, and it takes all the living strength in me to... walk... away... longing backward gaze and all. I would never find myself in that situation in NUS. There's always places to sit but never a powerpoint. On that note, yes, NUS libraries do sit a lot more people. Even NTU's biggest library is hard pressed for space. In NUS I never had to share a table with 3 others. More like I'd always occupy a table for 4 by myself.
#5 CNM vs. WKW
WKW = Wee Kim Wee by the way. I get asked to compare the two so much by my NTU classmates that I don't even feel like talking about it anymore. So for the last time (today being last day of school):
I guess it is to be expected that a comms school would be better a comms programme, but the difference in the quality of instructors and lessons still surprises me. Granted, not all my NTU instructors are excellent. This one in particular who teaches International Affairs Reporting (oh yes, more interesting modules here too FOR SURE), is so idealistic and abstract in her teaching content that I unfortunately take away nothing valuable from her lessons, WHICH BY THE WAY ALSO START AT 9AM. Early morning lessons need to justify themselves by being worth it.
I think the major difference is this: NTU professors are more practitioners rather than academics. My other International Affairs Reporting instructor is --get this!-- a Reuters foreign correspondent! My Biz & Economics Journalism professor still is, as his module title suggests, a biz & economics journalist. My 'Production Management for TV & Cinema' instructor has MADE FILMS, albeit budget and independent, but duuuuuuuuude, let's not argue about the specifics.
I think you can't teach something until you've practised it. CNM lecturers read a textbook, or several textbooks, write a thesis, and get knighted a professor. They've never designed a piece of interactive media, or chased and written stories for a press, or actually designed a game or published their own magazine in the big, bad, harsh, cruel and unforgiving world outside. Everything they've learned, they learned in an armchair. No wonder they're not as interesting as NTU instructors.
That said, I take into account that CNM has less manpower (and probably funds too) to really organize its syllabus into something cohesive and comprehensive, so it probably just gotta grab whatever comes along. You offered legal advice on intellectual property law for a while? OK, come here and teach something, anything! And you wrote for The Straits Times for a year, you said? Alright, you're in. The media writing class is all yours!
And now I'm off on a tangent with my personal grouses, so I'm just gonna give you my last thoughts and leave.
Going on this exchange, albeit local, has taught me that
Of course, I am constrained by the fact that I've only been in NTU one semester (as opposed to 6 in NUS) and my review of NTU is very limited by where I've been -- communication school and the canteens and libraries nearest to my building. I don't like to walk.
So... the comparison:
#1. EXAMS VIA COMPUTERS
I'm taking 2 exam papers in NTU on computer! Meaning I type, not write, my essays. Because my instructors are sick of deciphering illegible handwriting penned by students' hands that move too slow for their brains, like mine! Also, I have sweaty palms. I'm excited about this. I'm sure I can think better if I can read what I've written too haha
#2 TOILETS
There are too many dubious around-the-corner toilets in NTU that I'm not even sure the cleaners know about. Those with sanitary bins chocked to the top with ahem and vomit in the sinks. Do they even get cleaned? I really don't know! But they're poorly ventilated and humid, glow a dim ominous orange at night, and smell. Somewhat like NUS' pre-renovation loos.
#3 FOOD.
I can't comment much actually because I'm not a experimenter. I always eat Chinese. No Indian, Malay, Western, Korean or Japanese for me. Also, I've only been to two canteens: A and B (haha yeaaaaa I couldn't find C and I'm so OCD I can't go to D unless I find C. Kidding!) I think food-wise, they're evenly matched. Both have Macs and Subway. NTU also has Sakae Sushi, Old Chang Kee and my favouritest of all, MR BEAN. Soya ice-cream! My only complaint is that the communication school is so faroff from any canteen that anyone too weak from hunger can only either make do with lunch from a vending machine or die crawling to a canteen.
#4 LIBRARIES
The most annoying thing about NTU is that it has more power sockets than seats. So people who don't need sockets will be sitting right next to an empty one mugging when I neeeeeeeeed that socket but can't chase them away because there's no seat elsewhere. And the three holes right there taunt me so, and it takes all the living strength in me to... walk... away... longing backward gaze and all. I would never find myself in that situation in NUS. There's always places to sit but never a powerpoint. On that note, yes, NUS libraries do sit a lot more people. Even NTU's biggest library is hard pressed for space. In NUS I never had to share a table with 3 others. More like I'd always occupy a table for 4 by myself.
#5 CNM vs. WKW
WKW = Wee Kim Wee by the way. I get asked to compare the two so much by my NTU classmates that I don't even feel like talking about it anymore. So for the last time (today being last day of school):
I guess it is to be expected that a comms school would be better a comms programme, but the difference in the quality of instructors and lessons still surprises me. Granted, not all my NTU instructors are excellent. This one in particular who teaches International Affairs Reporting (oh yes, more interesting modules here too FOR SURE), is so idealistic and abstract in her teaching content that I unfortunately take away nothing valuable from her lessons, WHICH BY THE WAY ALSO START AT 9AM. Early morning lessons need to justify themselves by being worth it.
I think the major difference is this: NTU professors are more practitioners rather than academics. My other International Affairs Reporting instructor is --get this!-- a Reuters foreign correspondent! My Biz & Economics Journalism professor still is, as his module title suggests, a biz & economics journalist. My 'Production Management for TV & Cinema' instructor has MADE FILMS, albeit budget and independent, but duuuuuuuuude, let's not argue about the specifics.
I think you can't teach something until you've practised it. CNM lecturers read a textbook, or several textbooks, write a thesis, and get knighted a professor. They've never designed a piece of interactive media, or chased and written stories for a press, or actually designed a game or published their own magazine in the big, bad, harsh, cruel and unforgiving world outside. Everything they've learned, they learned in an armchair. No wonder they're not as interesting as NTU instructors.
That said, I take into account that CNM has less manpower (and probably funds too) to really organize its syllabus into something cohesive and comprehensive, so it probably just gotta grab whatever comes along. You offered legal advice on intellectual property law for a while? OK, come here and teach something, anything! And you wrote for The Straits Times for a year, you said? Alright, you're in. The media writing class is all yours!
And now I'm off on a tangent with my personal grouses, so I'm just gonna give you my last thoughts and leave.
Going on this exchange, albeit local, has taught me that
- I can get used to any place given time.
- Starting to socialize from scratch in a sea of strangers isn't fun to me, but I don't mind it.
- I like studying for interest, not grades. It's easier to breathe.
- I'm not very sentimental. No photographs and exchanging phone numbers and bear hugs on my last day of school. Feels vaguely like I'm just passing through NTU for a while and am leaving no traces behind.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Maybe love and hate are synonyms.
Recently, my sister and I have been getting into many childish brawls. I thought we were over them by now, but suddenly it's like she's 5 and I'm 7 again.
I don't wanna bore you with the details of what we fight over, but it has something to do with the fact that since moving to our new house, we have been cramped for space even though this house is supposed to be bigger. Reason: my brother gets his own room now. So we squeeze our heck a lot of books and clothes into one room (i.e. 2 closets, 2 desks, 2 sets of cabinets for books, 2 beds) and the result is serious inconvenience each time she wants to leave the room, OR I want to use the printer. PLUS, if absence makes the heart grow fonder, I think proximity makes the heart grow more annoyed. She has ultra sensitive ears so if I play my music even just softly, her sense of hearing will pick it up and she'll demand that I stop blasting my music. I've tried cheating her by turning it off for a while then slowly turning it on with gradually increasing volume. But her ears always pick it up and she'll "OI!" me again.
What else. She likes to put her legs on my bed which I cannot stand because that's where I put my head and don't you think that's incredibly unhygienic? Fed up, I'll move my bed away from her feet and she'll irritate me saying, "My feet can still reach your bed, you know" (Damn her long spindly legs) and I'll move my bed yet further away until it's ridiculously far and at such an awkward angle that it blocks both our access to the door. "Now I can't get out," she'll rub it in. "I'll have to step on your bed and climb over it to get out." which makes my blood boil and at this point, it's not even about her feet on my bed anymore. I just want to win. I just want to come out with the best furniture arrangement -- most convenient for ME and the least for her.
I said I don't wanna bore you and look what I just did. We fight over a lot of other trivial nonsense that I'd be embarrassed to report here. But it has come to the point that I sometimes wish she would stay out all day because studying in the same room is really the optimal environment for conflict between us to brew, the same way agar plates encourage bacterial growth, and wet soil makes green beans germinate. It has all the ready conditions. And I hate it. I just want peace and quiet enough to do my own thing.
But then one day I was praying, and the weirdest thing left my mouth. (I find that the words I say without thinking are often my most honest.) I said, "God, please help me to love the people around me today, especially those I dislike. Because I know, God, if I hate them so much, it's only because I love them more."
(P.S. Please don't generalize this to your own situation; it might not be applicable. I can think of many examples, e.g. that colleague you really detest...)
I believe that there are so many things I can't stand about my family members but not my closest friends, simply because I have not had to live with the latter. Everyone's idiosyncratic habits gets magnified inside this contained space. My dad nags. My mum exaggerates. My brother is lazy. My sister is too sensitive. And I'm myopic and biased against them. When their behaviour irritates me, I think I dislike them and feel like I just need to "get out of this house, away from this madness" but on my worst days outside, where do I go crawling back into for comfort? Home. It's like my nest. At the end of the day, there's nowhere I can be myself more than home.
Every love is tinged with some portion of hate. There are always some things we can't stand about the ones we love. That's why 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says:
Remember this advertisement?
It always turns me teary-eyed for the very simple reason that the Indian lady is so patient with her husband's night snoring and farting. Were it me, I might have made him sleep on the couch. My sleep is important, you know. Just like playing music while I study. Just like having a clean bed to rest my face on, without your footprints, God knows where you've walked. THE TOILET?
But the Indian lady had something different to say:
So...new lesson for me: to live with my family's imperfections, because which family is perfect anyway? To love them in spite of them, because what do you know -- those imperfections might well be the things I miss most if I have to move away one day. Those trivial idiosyncrasies that drive me so crazy, but that I know only because I was close enough to them to know. It's the knowing that makes us family.
Love-hate, illustrated.
I don't wanna bore you with the details of what we fight over, but it has something to do with the fact that since moving to our new house, we have been cramped for space even though this house is supposed to be bigger. Reason: my brother gets his own room now. So we squeeze our heck a lot of books and clothes into one room (i.e. 2 closets, 2 desks, 2 sets of cabinets for books, 2 beds) and the result is serious inconvenience each time she wants to leave the room, OR I want to use the printer. PLUS, if absence makes the heart grow fonder, I think proximity makes the heart grow more annoyed. She has ultra sensitive ears so if I play my music even just softly, her sense of hearing will pick it up and she'll demand that I stop blasting my music. I've tried cheating her by turning it off for a while then slowly turning it on with gradually increasing volume. But her ears always pick it up and she'll "OI!" me again.
What else. She likes to put her legs on my bed which I cannot stand because that's where I put my head and don't you think that's incredibly unhygienic? Fed up, I'll move my bed away from her feet and she'll irritate me saying, "My feet can still reach your bed, you know" (Damn her long spindly legs) and I'll move my bed yet further away until it's ridiculously far and at such an awkward angle that it blocks both our access to the door. "Now I can't get out," she'll rub it in. "I'll have to step on your bed and climb over it to get out." which makes my blood boil and at this point, it's not even about her feet on my bed anymore. I just want to win. I just want to come out with the best furniture arrangement -- most convenient for ME and the least for her.
I said I don't wanna bore you and look what I just did. We fight over a lot of other trivial nonsense that I'd be embarrassed to report here. But it has come to the point that I sometimes wish she would stay out all day because studying in the same room is really the optimal environment for conflict between us to brew, the same way agar plates encourage bacterial growth, and wet soil makes green beans germinate. It has all the ready conditions. And I hate it. I just want peace and quiet enough to do my own thing.
But then one day I was praying, and the weirdest thing left my mouth. (I find that the words I say without thinking are often my most honest.) I said, "God, please help me to love the people around me today, especially those I dislike. Because I know, God, if I hate them so much, it's only because I love them more."
(P.S. Please don't generalize this to your own situation; it might not be applicable. I can think of many examples, e.g. that colleague you really detest...)
I believe that there are so many things I can't stand about my family members but not my closest friends, simply because I have not had to live with the latter. Everyone's idiosyncratic habits gets magnified inside this contained space. My dad nags. My mum exaggerates. My brother is lazy. My sister is too sensitive. And I'm myopic and biased against them. When their behaviour irritates me, I think I dislike them and feel like I just need to "get out of this house, away from this madness" but on my worst days outside, where do I go crawling back into for comfort? Home. It's like my nest. At the end of the day, there's nowhere I can be myself more than home.
Every love is tinged with some portion of hate. There are always some things we can't stand about the ones we love. That's why 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says:
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.That's why the songs sung by guys about loving a girl "just the way they are" turns girls the mushiest inside. Because if you really mean what you sing, that you don't mind their single eyelids, or birthmark, or love handles...you're not doing an easy thing. You're forgoing that illusion that you deserve perfection, and accepting AND appreciating what you've already got, counting it your blessing. Good for you. The most ignorant of us are still holding out to marry a magazine model.
Remember this advertisement?
It always turns me teary-eyed for the very simple reason that the Indian lady is so patient with her husband's night snoring and farting. Were it me, I might have made him sleep on the couch. My sleep is important, you know. Just like playing music while I study. Just like having a clean bed to rest my face on, without your footprints, God knows where you've walked. THE TOILET?
But the Indian lady had something different to say:
Towards the end of his life, when his illness was at its worst, these sounds indicated to me that my David was still alive. And what I wouldn't give, just to hear those sounds again before I sleep. In the end, it's these small things that you remember, the little imperfections that make them perfect for you. So to my beautiful children, I hope one day that you too find yourselves life partners who are as beautifully imperfect as your father was to me.I just need to talk to a friend whose father has walked out of the family, or another friend who has lost her brother to cancer, and I take all my negativity back. Yes, you do nag incessantly and make mountains out of molehills, but I think I can live with that. And I can live with you not helping with the dishes or putting your feet on my bed if it means that we're still together as a family. God forbid anything bad to ever happen to divide us, please?
So...new lesson for me: to live with my family's imperfections, because which family is perfect anyway? To love them in spite of them, because what do you know -- those imperfections might well be the things I miss most if I have to move away one day. Those trivial idiosyncrasies that drive me so crazy, but that I know only because I was close enough to them to know. It's the knowing that makes us family.
Love-hate, illustrated.Saturday, June 12, 2010
A JC Poem
What strange feeling is this
to have your heart numbed by failures,
innumerable;
to stare at the mark in red on your paper,
page 1,
and not see it at all?
I must have reached nirvana. How else
can I experience zen the night before an exam despite unpreparedness,
or acquire the ability to shade ovals on my OAS without reading the questions?
Or maybe I've become a pathological liar,
able to lie without a trace of guilt to all my favourite people
and say sorry to empty rooms only after they've left.
Been cleaning out my house and throwing stuff out. I found this poem while rereading an old journal. So this was how I had felt like in JC. I had almost forgotten that I used to fail every exam (26/100 for Chemistry prelims yo) and forged my parents' signature on every result slip. Lying that I got a C when I got an O8, and "No mum, they don't give out result slips in JC anymore." Until the paper couldn't wrap around the fire and my tutor called up my parents for a chat. And they finally realised how badly I was doing in school and life basically became hell afterwards.
I've forgotten that I nearly couldn't enter university. I had nightmares for an entire week before the results were released. I'm not doing so bad in school now, and maybe I need God's help far less academically now... but there was a time I almost couldn't make it, and He pulled me through and gave me an opportunity.
I'm graduating in a year's time with honours... but back at 18, I was praying for a university, any at all, to take me in.
I call what has happened, God's grace.
to have your heart numbed by failures,
innumerable;
to stare at the mark in red on your paper,
page 1,
and not see it at all?
I must have reached nirvana. How else
can I experience zen the night before an exam despite unpreparedness,
or acquire the ability to shade ovals on my OAS without reading the questions?
Or maybe I've become a pathological liar,
able to lie without a trace of guilt to all my favourite people
and say sorry to empty rooms only after they've left.
Been cleaning out my house and throwing stuff out. I found this poem while rereading an old journal. So this was how I had felt like in JC. I had almost forgotten that I used to fail every exam (26/100 for Chemistry prelims yo) and forged my parents' signature on every result slip. Lying that I got a C when I got an O8, and "No mum, they don't give out result slips in JC anymore." Until the paper couldn't wrap around the fire and my tutor called up my parents for a chat. And they finally realised how badly I was doing in school and life basically became hell afterwards.
I've forgotten that I nearly couldn't enter university. I had nightmares for an entire week before the results were released. I'm not doing so bad in school now, and maybe I need God's help far less academically now... but there was a time I almost couldn't make it, and He pulled me through and gave me an opportunity.
I'm graduating in a year's time with honours... but back at 18, I was praying for a university, any at all, to take me in.
I call what has happened, God's grace.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Our Research Project in Pictures
This sem for a research class, my group adopted SPCA as our client and did a research project based on what they wanted to find out:
How do youth's attitudes and subjective norms (i.e. peer influence) affect their intention to adopt animals from the shelter?
Attitude...
...and subjective norms...
...towards animals!
(Case you're wondering, guy holding report is a praying mantis. I KNOW YOU WERE WONDERING.)
Cheem module, demanding instructors, tedious project, but fun group, and that makes all the difference :)
How do youth's attitudes and subjective norms (i.e. peer influence) affect their intention to adopt animals from the shelter?
Attitude...
...and subjective norms...
...towards animals!(Case you're wondering, guy holding report is a praying mantis. I KNOW YOU WERE WONDERING.)
Cheem module, demanding instructors, tedious project, but fun group, and that makes all the difference :)
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Our House
For all the words I wanna tell you guys but have not the time to type because my mind is a whirlwind, I hope this song can substitute them for a while:
And if you want it in your iTunes, you can download it here.
It is a very very very cute and beautiful song I heard while driving (Yes, me! Driving!) about a man and woman living together in a "very very very fine house" and how simple love could be after all. Warms my heart :)
And if you want it in your iTunes, you can download it here.
It is a very very very cute and beautiful song I heard while driving (Yes, me! Driving!) about a man and woman living together in a "very very very fine house" and how simple love could be after all. Warms my heart :)
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