So class has been requiring more attention of mine than I’d like recently. As mom said, ‘You’re in a foreign country - travel first, class second.’ Somehow I can’t quite bring myself to follow that. Perhaps it’s the years of conditioning I’ve gone through, since during most of my life I’ve been in school. What happens now that school is coming to an end (barring graduate school)? Do I transfer that mentality to my job? I don’t know. Catching up on homework and reading has taken the number one priority spot for now. What does it take to realize that these things are not that important but still not blow them off completely?

Aside from that, I guess I’ll just let you guys know what’s going on here. Singapore is still amusing to me. An example is that NUS sets guidelines on how the final exam should be structured and, I think, topics it should deal with. That sounds reasonable, though a little controlling. The funny part is that this information is confidential! The professors are not allowed to give hints as to the format of the final exam beyond a certain point. At UCLA, the only thing imposed on professors is that they must actually give a final exam, but they don’t really care much about the content or format beyond some very minimal guidelines. That and they make no attempt to keep this information secret.

I call these things funny or amusing because I’m still looking at it from the perspective of an outside observer. I don’t have to actually deal with it for very long, so to me it’s just like ‘oh how odd’ and then I move on. The students here don’t have that luxury unless they can take the really long view. Singapore is, to me, sort of like a petulant child who was given control over something and relishes it, afraid it’ll be taken away. Everywhere there are signs that tell the citizenry how they should behave: ‘Go Green, Clear Your Tray’, ‘Stand on the left when using the escalator’, ‘Please allow passengers to alight before boarding’, ‘Clear the area at the bottom of the escalator after alighting’, ‘For your own safety, please don’t board from the back of the bus’, ‘Move to the back of the bus to allow passengers to board’, ‘Please give up these seats to someone who needs them more than you’, ‘No eating and drinking on the bus/train’, ‘Ask for less sauce’, ‘Ask for more vegetables’, ‘Ask for healthier food; help fight cancer’, ‘Help prevent crime; it’s all our responsibility’, ‘Don’t throw away our future, recycle!’, ‘Arrive alive, do not speed’, ‘Do not jaywalk’, ‘CompUter SecUrity is incomplete without U’, ‘Protect your PC, don’t be the weakest link’, etc. There are many more. The funny thing is that no one seems to pay attention to these or follow them. No one stands on the left on escalators, no one gets up for elderly people on the MRT (except once, I did see it), people jaywalk, the university is a Windows monoculture, which is very bad for security… How is it that the government can make these suggestions? They’re ludicrous and it seems that no one really cares. What I have noticed is that people follow the rules that have fines attached to them, like the no eating and drinking one. I don’t understand it, and I think it’s one for the sociologists.

So I’m also planning on travelling to Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos after school is out but before I come back. Anyone have suggestions as to where I should go in the meantime? Email me!