University: Week 1

I can't believe it's only been a week, like somehow, it's felt longer than that? Although, there has been a lot of things that has happened.

Last Weekend
Saturday night, knowing that I could bid for the last vacancy in the GES I wanted, I sent an email to the lecturer asking if I could sit in the first lecture even if I haven't secured a spot in the module, and she was fine with that. Fast forward to Monday though...

Monday
Round 3A of bidding. Ah yes, I was intending to use that round to bid for my SP, which unfortunately, wasn't available at all. That GES, I checked the bids for it. Lowest minimum bid? 606 (thats almost teh deviles's number!!!!!) So I ended up replying to the lecturer saying that I probably won't sit in since I can't possibly get in as a freshman lol (darn seniors saving up their points and spending it all in year 2...) So in the meantime, I applied for Indonesian, and  continued with school as per normal.

First lesson of evolution was quite interesting, at least I like the female lecturer we have. My GET, eh, since it was a back up mod, I guess I can't expect much out of it. At least I have an OG mate with me, so that makes things less worse. By the time that ended, I was on my way to the station, and decided to check my email, to see if the lecturer replied. She did, but I checked too late.

Her email said that I could still sit in, but by the time I reached the station, the lecture was gonna start in like, 10 minutes. I thought to myself, okay, 10 minutes I can make it back in time, right? Well technically yeah, if you take the bus in the right direction. I took the bus to the end of its line, and thought that maybe I should just go home. I emailed the lecturer (honestly I don't know what's with me and unnecessarily emailing her omg I realise that maybe I sent too many indeterminate emails)  saying that I saw her reply too late and that I won't be coming in 'cos I was already on the way home. So, I had to take the bus back to the station. But guess what? The bus was gonna pass by the lecture theatre, where the lecture was being held!! I told myself that if I didn't get pass by the lecture theatre by 4.30pm, I'd go home - but I got to the LT on time, so screw it, I just went ahead and sat in, half an hour late lol

During the lecture itself, I felt like maybe this was a mod worth fighting for, like I should at least try to appeal for it, and whether I get it, is up to whoever is in charge lol Even if the mod depended quite a bit on doing things outside of school schedule, like going to nature reserves in your own spare time, I thought that it was something worth doing, and that if I want to get myself involved in science in Singapore (or at least reporting stuff) this is something I should do. But that would have to wait till I had the chance to appeal, on Thursday.

Tuesday
National day lol Everyone else was out and about playing pokemon, I stayed at home, 'cos 1. I didn't want to go out so far lol and 2. Istilldon'tlikethatpersonwithapalindromicnameandIdidn'tunderstandwhypeoplewerestillgoingtotheirplacejustforpokemonlikeomggg Also, I had switched off my phone to charge, and during that time, Joanna had messaged me saying they were at Botanics. I saw that message like one and a half hours later, and when she replied, they had already left lol

I went out with my bro that night, while NDP was being aired, to just walk around our neighbourhood, like from our house, to the main road, walked a bit along the main road, and then back in. At first when he said that we can go on a poke walk, that we would be going to botanics, but nope, just around lol But I suppose I'm p fine with just the two of us walking around, and hatching our 2-km eggs lol

Wednesday
Not much that day, since I planned for two tutorials that day. There was the GES lecture in the afternoon though, which I went for. I left early, 'cos the shuttle bus timing closest to 4pm was 3.20pm which would be barely enough time for me, so the next earliest bus was like 1.35pm lol Guess what though, I missed that bus, so I ended up walking all the way to the bus stop at the main road. I even got on to the wrong bus, and stopped at a bus stop somewhere near the Adam road hawker centre, and decided to walk to Botanics from there. It wasn't that far anyway, and there was a starmie at the hawker centre that I wanted to catch, so that worked out well LOL I spent about an hour walking around Botanics, draining my battery from about half to 37%, but I caught quite a couple of pokemon, like a dratini that I never caught before!

Then I headed to school, which in hindsight, I didn't have to go for, 'cos all the lecturer did was brief us again on coursework, grading, and the situation about how she's still waiting for a reply on whether she can increase the intake of students. Basically not really new information. I did drop by the co-op to buy my evolution textbook - and even if our OG mate found it online, I'll still use the hardcopy lol ('cos at this point, I pretty much have to.) We were released early, and by the time I was on blue line, I missed the 5.30pm shuttle bus, so I ended up in Botanics (again) for another half an hour and just walked around, until heading to the bus stop for the shuttle bus to go home.

Thursday
Finally, the day I can appeal. Went to school for our evolution mod, appealed for GES during that time (although now that I think about it, maybe I should've taken a little bit more time when it came to writing my reason for appealing, but to be fair, I didn't really know what kind of reasoning they wanted so lol ) and went around school a little out of it. For some reason that morning, I woke up with my head feeling heavy, and I think it might have been because of the vaccination I had on Tuesday, and my exposure to the sun on Wednesday. I still went with Ju to look at the student's life fair, but we didn't stay very long before we went to Clementi for lunch, and then headed back.

We were coming back to school in the evening though, for this mentorship programme that we signed up for within life science. The group I have, I don't really know them, except for one Indian girl I talked to quite a fair bit. But I guess I also know that there are other people I now know of in the same ST session as me (I didn't see them today though, but then again I was rushing to school since it was at 8 in the morning, and I took public transport!!) It's also nice to know some insight from a year 4 student, and listening to the seniors. We ended up reaching the station by about 9.30pm, so yeah, we were there for quite awhile.

Friday
My appeal failed. So, Indo it is, which isn't such a bad thing, after today's lesson, but that's later in the morning.

My first official ST lesson this morning, at 8 (sigh) Not much new information. The lecturer just recapped some stuff she said in the webcasted lecture, and even the stats she talked about was nothing new to us, just same old stuff from JC. I guess to be fair to those who went through poly, or the year 2s that are sitting in, they do need a refresher on the basics. But so much of it could have been cut down and shortened, and if she did, I wouldn't have needed to rush for my make up Indonesian class. (The Indonesian lecture slot I had bid for was on Tuesday, so we had to go for one of the make up ones on Thursday/Friday - but it's all the way in arts, in a building I've never been in, on the sixth floor.) I left before she finished talking, and just rushed to arts. I even ran up the stairs of the hilly portion leading to the canteen.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed today's Indonesian lesson. Everything was p straightforward, simple sentences, the meaning of the whole sentence can be deduced (each individual word, not really lol) and I guess I felt some sense of accomplishment pronouncing things correctly and being able to follow lol Maybe I was under the impression that learning a new language was hard, and I was always afraid of pronouncing Indo words in case I butchered it lol orz But yeah, I left the class feeling p happy with myself. I was supposed to meet up with Jessica today, 'cos I wanted to pass her some stuff I bought for her from France, and she was at NUH anyway - but I forgot to bring the things :I I also did another dumb by topping up my adult-fare EZ-link with $20, forgetting that we have a student one. (I haven't gone to get it yet though, so I suppose my mistake wasn't unreasonable lol)

Yeah, that's how my week has been so far. After typing it out, I don't really know what to make of it lol but it is what it is, and at least things have turned out okay c: (Until tutorial balloting is over, but that's another challenge on its own orz)

University: O-Week and Week 0

I didn't know if I can blog about my science orientation week, since you know, drama about orientation camps, but I guess I can say some things.

Initially, I thought I was gonna be awkward 'cos you know, talking to and meeting new people. And I guess when I sat down to one of the guys during lunch and tried to talk to him, there wasn't much to go on, like he was almost interested in nothing after working at a Crocs store almost all day every day. I guess that kinda gave me a bad vibe of what the rest of the camp would be like: awkward conversations, having nothing to talk about with these people lol That was until, I sat down next to the guy, who listens to ancient Chinese songs, and discovered he's actually a weeb. Then talking to people on the train during one of our trips out and about, we learned we have a lot of people who watch anime. At least that made me feel more comfortable than compared to the Catholic camp lol orz Also Julia was there, so that made me feel better c:

Our OG also won the very first round of games on the first day, even though the remaining games were won by one OP house... At least that was something to our name lol And to my surprise, I actually felt disappointed when we were told the camp would be cancelled halfway. And that's coming from me, someone who was hesitant about orientation camps and socialising with people lol

Anyway that aside, bidding for modules has been a painful experience for me. During round 1, I was hoping to bid for my SP and one of the freshman seminar mods, and I ended up not getting either :/ During round 2A, I thought I would only need to bid for my GEMs, but then I discovered I could bid for my freshman mod too!! So I did bid for that lol And one of the GES/H, that I didn't know was a popular mod - but I Had no idea it would be so popular, and surprise surprise, I got outbid again. So now, after 2A, I ended up bidding for a GET that I didn't want to do, but I guess I can live with it, 'cos it's kinda TOK-based lol Also I learned that Crocs Boy is in my class too, so I guess having someone in the same position as me (it was a back-up plan for him too) makes me feel a little better.

All that I needed left was my SP, but I just learned that it's not available for bidding in round 3, so that's out the window. However, one of the GESs I wanted is available - but only one spot, and I don't know whether I should risk it. I mean I'll still try and bid for it, but as to whether I get it is another thing. Also if I do get it, it means I'll have missed the first lesson since it starts on Monday, the same day as bidding, and I don't want to miss a lecutreeeeee My back-up though, is taking Bahasa Indonesia LOL Honestly that's not a bad idea, since I have an Indo boyfriend and I should learn how to speak his language. Also taking up another language is not such a bad idea, it's a useful skill. But I guess I'll just have to wait till Monday to see what happens.

TL;DR bidding for modules is horrible, causes me a lot of heart pain and stress lol Just hope that next sem my compulsory mods get allocated to me... Module bidding is very sian and has characterised my week before school actually starts. Oh well :/