Tuesday, August 23, 2005

SMU is ingenious! Never before, since primary school, have I seen a class size this big (40 people!!). They save on huge lecture theatres and since they operate in such big class sizes, efficiency is maximized. What a smart idea. And to think that they champion a “new breed of pedagogy”; no more huge impersonalized lectures when now, instead of distant lectures, you have distant classes. Hurhur. 40 people to a class is primary school sizes lah!! Have they not done education in GP? It teaches that the standard of living in a country is co-related to the education level, which is in turn correlated to many things like literacy rate and classroom sizes. Smaller the classroom size, higher the education rate. Only the poor children in India sit on the floor without tables and chairs in their classrooms, in classes of FOURTY. big class room sizes are never good for learning.

Okay enough lamenting about my school. Actually it’s been an O.K. 2 days because I’ve pretty much thrown myself into lessons and I think it’s kinda cool, I still feel like a holidaying mood (maybe it’s cos I haven’t had biz law, MA and AS lessons yet) and waking up at 9am everyday for a little swim just before heading to town to meet friends, drink coffee or study just sounds like a nice and cushy idea. My classmates have kinda been repetitive – I think Phuong and Lynette are in almost all my classes. Wait, I think Phuong is in ALL my classes! I love her lah. So far, 1 Greek prof and 1 Caroline Yeoh who looks really intelligent but I have no idea why she places all those hello kitties and whatnots on the desk before teaching. Maybe its her method of making the class “a creative environment”. Haha.

Classmates have been of MANY nationalities. Indians, PRCs, Vietnamese, Burmese etc etc etc. There were PRCs and I was kind of shocked actually, I thought they would be in NTU! My creative thinking groupmate is a PRC. His name is Jincheng – I like to think of it as Jin Cheng Wu, but anyway – he gave himself an English name. (don’t like calling it a Christian name cos some English names aint Christian, you know): Cristiano. Or Cris for short. WOW I was impressed heh heh heh. There’s the chao chiobu from my BGS class who’s in my group for CT! Vanessa! She really is very pretty :) and this other girl, denise who was from VJ S42 but I have never seen her around before blehhh :P I have bad memory yes.

And when me and my group sat down and were happily discussing what to do for our group project and all that stuff, this strange girl came over to ask us if we minded if she swapped places with Mr. Jincheng because she’s in a group with 3 guys and she feels uncomfortable working with an all guy group and would we mind if we swapped. My first thought?

What the fuck. Seriously girl. Did u go to NAJC or something? Nuns Association Junior College. Uncomfortable working with guys? I haven’t heard something so lame before lor. Even if you go out there, you can’t choose who you’re gonna work with. You can choose your employer but you will never know you boss. Get with it and move on! Learn to work with new people! Stupid. I did not object (she didn’t take him in the end; said she was just asking for opinions) but I was secretly hoping she wouldn’t take him! I mean he’s the only guy in our group! I love working with girls but I think guys provide that fresh, different perspective and even though he’s a PRC I must admit that he has some pretty interesting ideas that provide for more food for thought.

His English really CMI leh. Everything we say, he also don’t understand, especially if we talk really fast. Then he got this “I’m really trying to follow, don’t let me slow you down” face but I know he really doesn’t get what we’re saying. So I asked him “ni yao wo men jiang hua yu ma??”and he happily and eagerly replied: “Ke yi ma??”, and started rambling on and on his many ideas in Chinese. There was some communication breakdown at first but I think we’ll do fine, heh heh.

Siqing is stressing me out she just told me we have biz law readings to do. Sian. Gotta wake up early and go school library to mug mug mug tomorrow. Speaking of which, I have yet to step inside! I hope the aircon is not too cold.

Oh and I totally dig the idea of doing your homework on the go, where ever you are. Gives me a sense of busyness and efficiency, like I’m making full use of all my time, typing at the laptop whether I’m on a taxi, in a coffee house or in school or in the car. Something like that. Work on the go. Like this whole post was typed in a word document in the car! :)

Mrs Brightside at 9:30 pm

{xoxo}