Wind In My Head: Back to School
Wind In My Head
Monday, August 15, 2005
Back to School
I know I work in a school, but it's weird when you go back to one, masquerading as a student. I was at NUS today, auditing a lecture incognito. And it was weird. I knew where everything was, including the washrooms. Physically, somethings look different, but the people, always look the same. I half expected finding my friends in the crowds. Are we all so interchangeable and replaceable? No wonder our tutors could never remember the same. We were really mindless automatons going through the conveyor belt of education and all they had to do was brand us with NUS on our foreheads as if it were a symbol to the world beyond Kent Ridge that we had passed quality control. And we all know how stringent its QC is.We had dinner at 5 pm in the canteen and most of the food stalls were still the same. It's strange when you've grown up and everything around you seems smaller but for some reason much more welcoming. Perhaps it's like going home. I still have the most amazing sleep when I go home to my mom's place. It isn't so much that I don't like my bed or I'm uncomfortable, it's just more familiar. And NUS felt the same way.
My experience in NUS wasn't all that memorable. I sailed right through it, more as a part time student and a full time dancer. I mentioned to Packrat, while waiting for the lecture to start that had it been me picking courses, the class we were about to sit in for, I wouldn't have even EVER considered because it was too late in the day and I didn't like staying late, possibly because I lived on the other side of the island at that time. And I overheard some girl mention to her friend that she had a free day on Friday. Yup, that was me. Much of the time, I picked courses so that I could get Thursday and Friday off. In my six semesters, I think I successfully scheduled myself into a three day week four times.
I tried hard to remember my time in NUS. What made me laugh? What made me cry? But they seem so faraway. I seem to remember being thrown out of a professor's office for insisting my tutorial day be changed to a day I was actually going to be in school. I had never seen anyone turn red so quickly! I also remember being told off by some prude of a liason officer guy for wearing a tank top around. I think he no longer works for the uni because there were tank tops all around me. I remember being hit on by a minister's son and could not live it down when in a subsequent lecture, we watched a parliamentary clip with the guy's dad on TV. I don't really remember studying and I don't really remember being all too stressed. To me, they were pre-university. I count true uni in Melbourne.
So what did I learn at NUS? I don't really know. But then again, the most vital lessons in life aren't those that can be put simply into words. They are the ones that become so much part of someone that one only realises it when it is cut out of existence. So one shouldn't really try. That would cheapen it far too much.
Hmmm, then again, perhaps I did learn something there- the iced lemon tea was quite good.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 21:27
1 thoughts...
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At 1:38 am
Unknown said... oh. im actually studying in melbourne uni currently so just wanted to ask about the college there since i thought you studied there before? wow, you mean you actually studied in NUS before you went to melbourne? to do postgrad eh?