Informal student exchange
Cramming up your modules, trying to be the very best and make far ahead plans to go for a miserable exchange... That's the mindset of many students, who want to try something new instead of circling round and round in their school, eating the same old boring food and passing by the school advertisement board which has not been updated for the past year or so.
Well, is it really a good idea to go for exchanges? To get a feel of what is it like, War and I had an informal local student exchange! :D Ok la, it's not really on the trying out, it's more like kinda sian, dunno what to do, so its good to see what is like to crash other people's lessons. =P
What War wanted: Sian leh, go NTU see how is it like.
What Jeff wanted: Sian leh, go NUS see how is it like.
Posting about the exchanges! :)
==========
26/9, Thur
NUS: Recess Week
NTU: Week 7
Thursday, a super rainy day. After the (crashed) Linear Algebra tutorial, I went to JP to meet up with War. It must be a very nice weather to sleep, but the 179 bus is super empty. (besides the bus captain, I'm the only person) War is surprisingly early for a trip, and contrary to my impression, he wore jeans and not some random attire (as WL described, Uncle attire). o.o The usual complaints about his difficult-to-understand philosophy, other arts subjects, bla bla bla. I have never understood arts, and I don't think I would like to understand it. =P
Around 10.40am, we reached the Innovation Centre. After saying hi to WenJie (nt War) and the rest of the people, we went to the carpark for some rest before the calculus lecture (more like War wants to find a place to do his assignment). CT saw us walking in Koufu, and sorta stalked us all the way to the carpark table.
Strange as it may seems, Gab and CT are seperated! No, not in the gay sense, and definitely not in the fuck buddy sense (as War described) too, its just that they are studying different courses. I remembered seeing Gab's photo getting a scholarship, with atas photos taken and shining so brightly at the edge of glory. CT is just the opposite, but hey, he is in NTU NBS.
I forgot what we chat about, I think it's something about who got more MCs/AUs (no one could beat my 21), who got more difficult subjects, who can graduate earlier and all the nonsense. I also learnt that it's Kun Da who is studying in SPMS. (Know that after 7 weeks) Sorta browsed through War's work too (esp. on Philosophy). I think it's something about ministers salary, factory worker's salary and some star player salary, moderation and justification. Nobody gives any shit about it. :)
Come to think of it, the 3 of us were kinda surprised by one another's presence. This could be a summary.
CT -> Jeff: Eh you are studying in NTU?
CT -> War: I thought you are in NUS!?
War -> Jeff: (Not really surprised actually)
War -> CT: You are in NBS!?
Jeff -> CT: You are in NBS!?
Jeff -> MY: Sia la you came?!
You didn't see wrongly. There's another non-NUS student crashing NTU's lessons. After CT left to join back his T2/P2 NBS group, MY called and tried to find us in the carpark. After what seems like 10 minutes of lost sheep in the maze, he found us. Unlike War and my purpose, his intention is really clear straightforward.
ASK ALL THE MATHS, DO ALL THE MATHS
That would work if and only if I had actually study all the calculus he had learnt in his electrical engineering course. MY has just learnt about some Taylor Series (commonly mispronounced as Taylor Swift) and is practising the MCQ questions for his upcoming midterm. The assumption that a MATH student had studied all of his syllabus is a very huge mistake.
What engineering students are learning: Taylor Series and integration
What actual maths students are learning: What is differentiation
I didn't help much, except for those obvious ones which you do not need any prior knowledge. I think WL can do the paper just as well or even better than me.
--
1130hrs - Calculus Lecture
If not for our fixed seating arrangement in JC, I don't think we would have chosen to sit in the first few rows of the LT. At least that's the case for me and War. The previous lesson was something about logic gates, hope I don't have to learn that. War sorta commented that LT27 is quite small. Maybe PJ LT2 bigger, but LT27 is definitely of a nicer design! :D
Nothing much at the beginning of the lecture, except that War / MY had a feel of how is it like to reserve 10 seats for WenJie and the rest. That's a big difference between being in a big group vs in a small group. It's not easy to find a long vector seating arrangement or a decent size matrix to accomodate so many people. =/
SH: Eh Jeff? Those are your friends?
Jeff: Yeah~
SH: Are they learning calculus also?
Jeff: Nah. (Points to War) He just came to visit, he is from FASS.
SH: Wow! Then how about him? (Points to MY)
Jeff: No idea why the hell is he here. =P
MY: WAO!
MY did his Taylor MCQ questions, War did his ? questions, while I'm learning what is differentiation. I didn't understand what MY is doing, neither did MY understand what we're learning. Not sure if we're studying the same concept or it's just totally independent... The lecture ended 15 minutes early, an awesome thing which every student desires. :)
--
1220hrs
NTU should seriously consider expanding the seating place for Koufu. I actually thought of eating together with WenJie and the rest, but finding a 4-seats table is gonna be a real challenge, so I guessed finding 3 tables of 4-seaters should be almost an impossible task. On that 'aiya sian' note, we left the group and thought of alternatives.
Talked about life and random school stuff. While waiting for the shuttle bus, a Comfort taxi suddenly stopped and some passenger asked us about the whereabouts of the Nanyang Executive Center. Well, one does not really need to know the exact locations of different buildings / places, but seriously I'm kinda guilty for not even having the slightest hint of where / what Nanyang Executive Center is. =/
Arty-pro War must have felt my incompetence in maps, and gave some advice on how to handle sticky situations like this.
"Just give them a random direction. In NUS, when some people asked me where some place, I just point to one random direction and quickly run away."
Jeff: Sia la you make them lost ah! O_O
MY: WTF!
If WL heard that, he will probably contribute a few vulgarities or something. No wonder everytime when War leads the way, we ended up in random places.
A couple of minutes later, the shuttle bus arrived and we took a rather big round to the North Spine. Honestly, I prefer NUS' shuttle bus, it looks nicer and somehow gives a more tourist feel (lolwut). NTU shuttle bus is stable, but its just a normal looking bus. MY asked a few logic questions, which I didn't get any of them, one of them goes something like this.
Penguins are black and white.
Old movies are black and white.
Therefore penguins are old.
For those who understood this logic, kindly explain to me. :)
--
1250hrs
Subway had a hell of a queue! Can you imagine 60 people queuing up for their favourite subs? [Exclude the possibility of WL cloning himself 59 times, and asking his whole army to queue] We ended up buying some Old Chang Kee snacks (cheesy balls for $1!), and found a place (surprisingly quickly) to lepak. Munching on the delicious snacks, MY shared his interesting 2SG life in Tekong. His daily life, his way of handling recruits and reports, his bootlicking skills towards his superiors and wayang his ways out, and other activities about his efficiency being a Sergeant. (Lost things, handling trash, handling guard duty rosters)
Before MY described his 2SG life, I can't visualise the image of MY being a Sergeant. After the story, whatever left of the image of MY being a proper Sergeant is totally destroyed. He is seriously lucky to not going to Civil Defence, otherwise sure kena bullied by the firefighters. =/
After lunch, War and MY did their homework while I looked through the logic quiz materials. Nothing really interesting there...
--
1440hrs
I think the clicker device is quite a special item in NTU, since both MY and War have neither seen nor used a clicker in NUS before. Before the quiz, I showed MY on how to use the clicker and he seemed rather fascinated by it (fun lor =P). That seemed to be an excellent strategy as during the clicker testing, the guy on the left of MY had some trouble with the clicker device, and MY sort of showed him how to operate it, and declared the clicker to be fine. :D [MY seemed to be rather happy with himself]
Before the start of the actual quiz, the Prof wanted the people whom he tapped to stand, and it just so happens that half of the top few rows people got tapped. -_- Just when War and MY thought participation couldn't get any worse, they were tapped!
This is how the seating arrangement is like:
Clicker guy (SAFE) - MY (TAPPED) - Jeff (SAFE) - Warren (TAPPED)
Those tapped were asked to move in front, since it's a bad idea to move in front (skali ask for class participation), and it's quite obvious to just stay and not move, what's the perfect strategy?
Jeff: Escape from The LT! :D
Alamak crash 1 lecture become so dramatic sia. After the pair came back, the clicker guy got curious on the epic scene, and had quite a rude awakening when he was told that MY was from NUS. Aiya sian, NTU student taught by NUS student on how to use a clicker. Best moment in life. XD
I got 14/15 for the logic quiz. The lecture ended 2 hours early. Double yay. :)
--
1610hrs
Studied at Starbucks, and to realise that the gift card with Karen gave has $20 in it, excluding a free drink! Thanks Karen! ^^ An atas ugly curry puff with a large cup of hot chocolate, splendid. =) MY did his maths homework, I studied Cryptography alongside answering War's Philosophy questions, testing him on his English midterm and correcting language errors from MY's essay which include wrongly phrased sentences of 'how to make a bomb'.
One of War's Philosophy question: "If there's a machine that has a non-reversible process that leads you to another world, where you can be much happier, would you do that?" What do you think?
Jeff: As real as PH showing up that day.
Meaning: True story. PH returned War some games, and waved.
1900hrs
MY went to find his gf at Chinese Garden. Not sure why the necessary condition to meet him there, but saying that ODNS meet at Chinese Garden in the night is logically equivalent to morning cannot eat chicken rice. Me and War proceeded to eat Wendys (Fish burger) and then bought his calculator.
That's about it for the NTU part!
==========
3/10, Thur
NUS: Week 7
NTU: Recess week
If I had chosen NUS because of convenience (shorter time / shorter distance), it would be a super WRONG decision. The MRT journey must have taken about 20mins longer than usual, but yeah, still arrived at Kent Ridge punctually (<0900). :D After WL and War arrived, they brought me to KR bus stop to take the shuttle bus. Personally, I am not a big fan of shuttle buses (since the public transport transfer fare is less than 10 cents), but since I'm visiting NUS, why not take the shuttle bus for the experience?
So according to WL's guide, the buses work in this way...
1. The science faculty is extremely walkable from the bus stop (Around 20 minutes), very good if you are going to be late, can practice running. [Running from Pioneer to NTU is even worse]
2. It takes quite a lot of walking from the bus stop to the Arts faculty. (The arts faculty is like the extreme end of KR)
3. Every shuttle bus leads to the science faculty! (An interchange station)
4. Only 1 bus leads to ALL Non-science faculties. (Must be a very big bus / sibei high frequency)
Nah, the buses are really big, but they sure give felt more comfortable (tourist feel) than NTU shuttle buses (despite the sardine state)! Passed by the Science Interchange bus stop, and other random ones (including an Under Construction museum) before reaching U-Town.
--
0940hrs
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to U-Town Shopping Center."
This is supposedly the heart of NUS's glory and fame, the whiteness of purity, the elegance of glass windows, the high-class looking shops, the magnificent research buildings. In short, a Shopping Center. =P One may wonder why the heck a shopping center may have a research building, the reasoning could be similar to why having chicken rice in the morning is not allowed. :) The Cheers(?) convenience store was playing CRJ's 'Take A Picture', should have taken a nice view of the shopping center. Sian.
Oh, besides the beautiful exterior view, the LTs are supposedly nicer looking too. At first glance, it's just normal looking... Upon further observations, it's still normal looking! Not sure why the LT is so special, hopefully the NUS students are just exaggerating about the condition of the LT, otherwise it would lead to a false impression that the Arts & Science faculties LTs are in a self-destructing state. O_O
1000 hrs
After doing some of my FOM tutorial (Strong MI and series) and answering some weird questions from War's Causal Philosophy Assignment, the Physics lecture started. The first half of the lecture is dedicated to going through the answers from the Physics [GEK1521] mid-term (MCQ). While War is cursing at his wrong answers, WL is busy analysing the cohort's score through his apple laptop. An interesting marking scheme, 1 mark for a correct answer, 0 for an empty response, and a negative! 0.25 mark for an incorrect answer. Scary~
Correct / incorrect
WL: 25/4 -> 24/30
War: 21/8 -> 19/30 [Number of wrong quite imba]
Lowest in cohort: 9/18 -> 4.5/30 [Number of wrong super overkilled!]
I played with WL's apple laptop for awhile (He has a 'private' blog which is about selling clothes(?)) and got reminded of the reason why I don't like Apple products. (Hard to use, confusing and breaks away from the standard usage of normal laptops) Probably that's the reason why I didn't like the iMac in BP, never got attracted to an iPod and gave the iPad Mini to my mother to play. =P
Aiya, Science subjects don't need bring laptop/iPad to classes de, write on paper can liao. =P Well, the irony is that unlike NTU, about half of the people had laptops with them! Not much on doing work / perform real analysis on results, but rather surfing FB / play games, etc...
Some random things during the lecture...
1. Position is a vector. As Miss Sia tell you ah, PO-sition VECTOR!
2. WL has a private blog for selling clothes. Minor in Entrepreneurship.
3. Now I understand why War gave such a dramatic response during the Calculus lecture, Only 1/4 of the LT is filled during the whole lecture.
4. There is a sleeveless guy with Fucking big muscular arms! (I think the radius of his arms must be twice as long as WL's!) Not sure how he survived in the super cold LT. =/
5. WL laughed at the useless packaging of Strong MI compared to Ordinary MI.
Even though I am supposed to be an attachment who should be interested in knowing about Physics in Life Sciences [WL even printed lecture notes, how nice!], it's a rather difficult task to pay attention to the lecturer. Other than the multi-distractions from WL and the China-accent, it's hard to understand what the lecturer is saying. The only part which I found interesting is the video, something about Starships, I mean Starfish.
Premise: The starfish patterns are the same.
Premise The starfish patterns are actually different!
Conclusion: Starfish, were meant to fly! (Provided by WL)
WL attempted to explain how they are the same yet different at the same time. I felt War's silence was better to prevent further confusion inside my brain. Nice try. Thank goodness the lecture ended at 1130!
--
1135hrs
If WL is present, then probably lunch will be at Subway. (Premise 1)
WL is present. (Premise 2)
Therefore lunch is at Subway. (Conclusion, sound argument)
Unlike NTU, the place offers 20% discount to all students who ordered a meal/sub. Sounds great! I had a Steak and Cheese meal (ended up to be close to $8) and was rather thankful that I didn't this order outside. Not as tasty as I thought. The meat is a bit hard, even though the serving portion is still reasonable. Quiet a silent lunch, blame it on the Physics Lecture which traumatised everybody. -.-
--
1230hrs
After lunch, we walked around Yusof Ishak house / FASS to take a look at the standard buildings of NUS. A very nice walk to help in digesting your lunch. Quite a lot of uphills, with lots of turns and unexpected underpasses. The faculty of engineering has a very factory feel, not sure if that is supposed to inspire engineering students to study better and probably sponsor a few materials to help improve the facility. XD
"Studies at the staircase of Yusof Ishak house has shown that every step would result in a loss of 0.15 calories." I walked up and down 2400 steps to nullify the calories increase of the Steak&Cheese. Believing this statement is equivalent to saying that War's 'secret' study place is atas. What do you think a secret place for studying could be? No, don't relate concepts of fanciful technology or beautiful garden corners to an ideal place.
Answer: 'An uncle bench' (As described by WL)
That description is fairly accurate. It looks old, it supports weight, and it looks like it could tahan an impact of WL jumping up and down on the table (but certainly not a stomp from Jeff). Shortly after reaching the bench, WL left for his psycho lab rat experiment, while I stayed to continue my FOM tutorial, and answering War's Philosophy questions...
--
1340hrs
After War finished his Philosophy assignment, we left the ulu table to let War explore the beauty of the Engineering Mac. (War: Huh enginnering faculty got mac ah!?) Nothing really eventful happened, unless you count War's amazed look (Wow really got mac sia) and his awesome tour around design building (which resulted in us being lost) as happening events. In the end, I brought War out of NUS before we start to sink into somewhere deeper... How come NTU student know the routes in NUS way better than a NUS student ah? =P
That sorts of conclude the NUS tour! I went to War's house to sort of finish up my FOM tutorial. War had an idea of setting up a tuition center with Rota Shift tutors. Not sure if that is going to work. =/
==========
That's about it for the exchanges! ^^
Well, is it really a good idea to go for exchanges? To get a feel of what is it like, War and I had an informal local student exchange! :D Ok la, it's not really on the trying out, it's more like kinda sian, dunno what to do, so its good to see what is like to crash other people's lessons. =P
What War wanted: Sian leh, go NTU see how is it like.
What Jeff wanted: Sian leh, go NUS see how is it like.
Posting about the exchanges! :)
==========
26/9, Thur
NUS: Recess Week
NTU: Week 7
Thursday, a super rainy day. After the (crashed) Linear Algebra tutorial, I went to JP to meet up with War. It must be a very nice weather to sleep, but the 179 bus is super empty. (besides the bus captain, I'm the only person) War is surprisingly early for a trip, and contrary to my impression, he wore jeans and not some random attire (as WL described, Uncle attire). o.o The usual complaints about his difficult-to-understand philosophy, other arts subjects, bla bla bla. I have never understood arts, and I don't think I would like to understand it. =P
Around 10.40am, we reached the Innovation Centre. After saying hi to WenJie (nt War) and the rest of the people, we went to the carpark for some rest before the calculus lecture (more like War wants to find a place to do his assignment). CT saw us walking in Koufu, and sorta stalked us all the way to the carpark table.
Strange as it may seems, Gab and CT are seperated! No, not in the gay sense, and definitely not in the fuck buddy sense (as War described) too, its just that they are studying different courses. I remembered seeing Gab's photo getting a scholarship, with atas photos taken and shining so brightly at the edge of glory. CT is just the opposite, but hey, he is in NTU NBS.
I forgot what we chat about, I think it's something about who got more MCs/AUs (no one could beat my 21), who got more difficult subjects, who can graduate earlier and all the nonsense. I also learnt that it's Kun Da who is studying in SPMS. (Know that after 7 weeks) Sorta browsed through War's work too (esp. on Philosophy). I think it's something about ministers salary, factory worker's salary and some star player salary, moderation and justification. Nobody gives any shit about it. :)
Come to think of it, the 3 of us were kinda surprised by one another's presence. This could be a summary.
CT -> Jeff: Eh you are studying in NTU?
CT -> War: I thought you are in NUS!?
War -> Jeff: (Not really surprised actually)
War -> CT: You are in NBS!?
Jeff -> CT: You are in NBS!?
Jeff -> MY: Sia la you came?!
You didn't see wrongly. There's another non-NUS student crashing NTU's lessons. After CT left to join back his T2/P2 NBS group, MY called and tried to find us in the carpark. After what seems like 10 minutes of lost sheep in the maze, he found us. Unlike War and my purpose, his intention is really clear straightforward.
ASK ALL THE MATHS, DO ALL THE MATHS
That would work if and only if I had actually study all the calculus he had learnt in his electrical engineering course. MY has just learnt about some Taylor Series (commonly mispronounced as Taylor Swift) and is practising the MCQ questions for his upcoming midterm. The assumption that a MATH student had studied all of his syllabus is a very huge mistake.
What engineering students are learning: Taylor Series and integration
What actual maths students are learning: What is differentiation
I didn't help much, except for those obvious ones which you do not need any prior knowledge. I think WL can do the paper just as well or even better than me.
--
1130hrs - Calculus Lecture
If not for our fixed seating arrangement in JC, I don't think we would have chosen to sit in the first few rows of the LT. At least that's the case for me and War. The previous lesson was something about logic gates, hope I don't have to learn that. War sorta commented that LT27 is quite small. Maybe PJ LT2 bigger, but LT27 is definitely of a nicer design! :D
Nothing much at the beginning of the lecture, except that War / MY had a feel of how is it like to reserve 10 seats for WenJie and the rest. That's a big difference between being in a big group vs in a small group. It's not easy to find a long vector seating arrangement or a decent size matrix to accomodate so many people. =/
SH: Eh Jeff? Those are your friends?
Jeff: Yeah~
SH: Are they learning calculus also?
Jeff: Nah. (Points to War) He just came to visit, he is from FASS.
SH: Wow! Then how about him? (Points to MY)
Jeff: No idea why the hell is he here. =P
MY: WAO!
MY did his Taylor MCQ questions, War did his ? questions, while I'm learning what is differentiation. I didn't understand what MY is doing, neither did MY understand what we're learning. Not sure if we're studying the same concept or it's just totally independent... The lecture ended 15 minutes early, an awesome thing which every student desires. :)
--
1220hrs
NTU should seriously consider expanding the seating place for Koufu. I actually thought of eating together with WenJie and the rest, but finding a 4-seats table is gonna be a real challenge, so I guessed finding 3 tables of 4-seaters should be almost an impossible task. On that 'aiya sian' note, we left the group and thought of alternatives.
Talked about life and random school stuff. While waiting for the shuttle bus, a Comfort taxi suddenly stopped and some passenger asked us about the whereabouts of the Nanyang Executive Center. Well, one does not really need to know the exact locations of different buildings / places, but seriously I'm kinda guilty for not even having the slightest hint of where / what Nanyang Executive Center is. =/
Arty-pro War must have felt my incompetence in maps, and gave some advice on how to handle sticky situations like this.
"Just give them a random direction. In NUS, when some people asked me where some place, I just point to one random direction and quickly run away."
Jeff: Sia la you make them lost ah! O_O
MY: WTF!
If WL heard that, he will probably contribute a few vulgarities or something. No wonder everytime when War leads the way, we ended up in random places.
A couple of minutes later, the shuttle bus arrived and we took a rather big round to the North Spine. Honestly, I prefer NUS' shuttle bus, it looks nicer and somehow gives a more tourist feel (lolwut). NTU shuttle bus is stable, but its just a normal looking bus. MY asked a few logic questions, which I didn't get any of them, one of them goes something like this.
Penguins are black and white.
Old movies are black and white.
Therefore penguins are old.
For those who understood this logic, kindly explain to me. :)
--
1250hrs
Subway had a hell of a queue! Can you imagine 60 people queuing up for their favourite subs? [Exclude the possibility of WL cloning himself 59 times, and asking his whole army to queue] We ended up buying some Old Chang Kee snacks (cheesy balls for $1!), and found a place (surprisingly quickly) to lepak. Munching on the delicious snacks, MY shared his interesting 2SG life in Tekong. His daily life, his way of handling recruits and reports, his bootlicking skills towards his superiors and wayang his ways out, and other activities about his efficiency being a Sergeant. (Lost things, handling trash, handling guard duty rosters)
Before MY described his 2SG life, I can't visualise the image of MY being a Sergeant. After the story, whatever left of the image of MY being a proper Sergeant is totally destroyed. He is seriously lucky to not going to Civil Defence, otherwise sure kena bullied by the firefighters. =/
After lunch, War and MY did their homework while I looked through the logic quiz materials. Nothing really interesting there...
--
1440hrs
I think the clicker device is quite a special item in NTU, since both MY and War have neither seen nor used a clicker in NUS before. Before the quiz, I showed MY on how to use the clicker and he seemed rather fascinated by it (fun lor =P). That seemed to be an excellent strategy as during the clicker testing, the guy on the left of MY had some trouble with the clicker device, and MY sort of showed him how to operate it, and declared the clicker to be fine. :D [MY seemed to be rather happy with himself]
Before the start of the actual quiz, the Prof wanted the people whom he tapped to stand, and it just so happens that half of the top few rows people got tapped. -_- Just when War and MY thought participation couldn't get any worse, they were tapped!
This is how the seating arrangement is like:
Clicker guy (SAFE) - MY (TAPPED) - Jeff (SAFE) - Warren (TAPPED)
Those tapped were asked to move in front, since it's a bad idea to move in front (skali ask for class participation), and it's quite obvious to just stay and not move, what's the perfect strategy?
Jeff: Escape from The LT! :D
Alamak crash 1 lecture become so dramatic sia. After the pair came back, the clicker guy got curious on the epic scene, and had quite a rude awakening when he was told that MY was from NUS. Aiya sian, NTU student taught by NUS student on how to use a clicker. Best moment in life. XD
I got 14/15 for the logic quiz. The lecture ended 2 hours early. Double yay. :)
--
1610hrs
Studied at Starbucks, and to realise that the gift card with Karen gave has $20 in it, excluding a free drink! Thanks Karen! ^^ An atas ugly curry puff with a large cup of hot chocolate, splendid. =) MY did his maths homework, I studied Cryptography alongside answering War's Philosophy questions, testing him on his English midterm and correcting language errors from MY's essay which include wrongly phrased sentences of 'how to make a bomb'.
One of War's Philosophy question: "If there's a machine that has a non-reversible process that leads you to another world, where you can be much happier, would you do that?" What do you think?
Jeff: As real as PH showing up that day.
Meaning: True story. PH returned War some games, and waved.
1900hrs
MY went to find his gf at Chinese Garden. Not sure why the necessary condition to meet him there, but saying that ODNS meet at Chinese Garden in the night is logically equivalent to morning cannot eat chicken rice. Me and War proceeded to eat Wendys (Fish burger) and then bought his calculator.
That's about it for the NTU part!
==========
3/10, Thur
NUS: Week 7
NTU: Recess week
If I had chosen NUS because of convenience (shorter time / shorter distance), it would be a super WRONG decision. The MRT journey must have taken about 20mins longer than usual, but yeah, still arrived at Kent Ridge punctually (<0900). :D After WL and War arrived, they brought me to KR bus stop to take the shuttle bus. Personally, I am not a big fan of shuttle buses (since the public transport transfer fare is less than 10 cents), but since I'm visiting NUS, why not take the shuttle bus for the experience?
So according to WL's guide, the buses work in this way...
1. The science faculty is extremely walkable from the bus stop (Around 20 minutes), very good if you are going to be late, can practice running. [Running from Pioneer to NTU is even worse]
2. It takes quite a lot of walking from the bus stop to the Arts faculty. (The arts faculty is like the extreme end of KR)
3. Every shuttle bus leads to the science faculty! (An interchange station)
4. Only 1 bus leads to ALL Non-science faculties. (Must be a very big bus / sibei high frequency)
Nah, the buses are really big, but they sure give felt more comfortable (tourist feel) than NTU shuttle buses (despite the sardine state)! Passed by the Science Interchange bus stop, and other random ones (including an Under Construction museum) before reaching U-Town.
--
0940hrs
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to U-Town Shopping Center."
This is supposedly the heart of NUS's glory and fame, the whiteness of purity, the elegance of glass windows, the high-class looking shops, the magnificent research buildings. In short, a Shopping Center. =P One may wonder why the heck a shopping center may have a research building, the reasoning could be similar to why having chicken rice in the morning is not allowed. :) The Cheers(?) convenience store was playing CRJ's 'Take A Picture', should have taken a nice view of the shopping center. Sian.
Oh, besides the beautiful exterior view, the LTs are supposedly nicer looking too. At first glance, it's just normal looking... Upon further observations, it's still normal looking! Not sure why the LT is so special, hopefully the NUS students are just exaggerating about the condition of the LT, otherwise it would lead to a false impression that the Arts & Science faculties LTs are in a self-destructing state. O_O
1000 hrs
After doing some of my FOM tutorial (Strong MI and series) and answering some weird questions from War's Causal Philosophy Assignment, the Physics lecture started. The first half of the lecture is dedicated to going through the answers from the Physics [GEK1521] mid-term (MCQ). While War is cursing at his wrong answers, WL is busy analysing the cohort's score through his apple laptop. An interesting marking scheme, 1 mark for a correct answer, 0 for an empty response, and a negative! 0.25 mark for an incorrect answer. Scary~
Correct / incorrect
WL: 25/4 -> 24/30
War: 21/8 -> 19/30 [Number of wrong quite imba]
Lowest in cohort: 9/18 -> 4.5/30 [Number of wrong super overkilled!]
I played with WL's apple laptop for awhile (He has a 'private' blog which is about selling clothes(?)) and got reminded of the reason why I don't like Apple products. (Hard to use, confusing and breaks away from the standard usage of normal laptops) Probably that's the reason why I didn't like the iMac in BP, never got attracted to an iPod and gave the iPad Mini to my mother to play. =P
Aiya, Science subjects don't need bring laptop/iPad to classes de, write on paper can liao. =P Well, the irony is that unlike NTU, about half of the people had laptops with them! Not much on doing work / perform real analysis on results, but rather surfing FB / play games, etc...
Some random things during the lecture...
1. Position is a vector. As Miss Sia tell you ah, PO-sition VECTOR!
2. WL has a private blog for selling clothes. Minor in Entrepreneurship.
3. Now I understand why War gave such a dramatic response during the Calculus lecture, Only 1/4 of the LT is filled during the whole lecture.
4. There is a sleeveless guy with Fucking big muscular arms! (I think the radius of his arms must be twice as long as WL's!) Not sure how he survived in the super cold LT. =/
5. WL laughed at the useless packaging of Strong MI compared to Ordinary MI.
Even though I am supposed to be an attachment who should be interested in knowing about Physics in Life Sciences [WL even printed lecture notes, how nice!], it's a rather difficult task to pay attention to the lecturer. Other than the multi-distractions from WL and the China-accent, it's hard to understand what the lecturer is saying. The only part which I found interesting is the video, something about Starships, I mean Starfish.
Premise: The starfish patterns are the same.
Premise The starfish patterns are actually different!
Conclusion: Starfish, were meant to fly! (Provided by WL)
WL attempted to explain how they are the same yet different at the same time. I felt War's silence was better to prevent further confusion inside my brain. Nice try. Thank goodness the lecture ended at 1130!
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1135hrs
If WL is present, then probably lunch will be at Subway. (Premise 1)
WL is present. (Premise 2)
Therefore lunch is at Subway. (Conclusion, sound argument)
Unlike NTU, the place offers 20% discount to all students who ordered a meal/sub. Sounds great! I had a Steak and Cheese meal (ended up to be close to $8) and was rather thankful that I didn't this order outside. Not as tasty as I thought. The meat is a bit hard, even though the serving portion is still reasonable. Quiet a silent lunch, blame it on the Physics Lecture which traumatised everybody. -.-
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1230hrs
After lunch, we walked around Yusof Ishak house / FASS to take a look at the standard buildings of NUS. A very nice walk to help in digesting your lunch. Quite a lot of uphills, with lots of turns and unexpected underpasses. The faculty of engineering has a very factory feel, not sure if that is supposed to inspire engineering students to study better and probably sponsor a few materials to help improve the facility. XD
"Studies at the staircase of Yusof Ishak house has shown that every step would result in a loss of 0.15 calories." I walked up and down 2400 steps to nullify the calories increase of the Steak&Cheese. Believing this statement is equivalent to saying that War's 'secret' study place is atas. What do you think a secret place for studying could be? No, don't relate concepts of fanciful technology or beautiful garden corners to an ideal place.
Answer: 'An uncle bench' (As described by WL)
That description is fairly accurate. It looks old, it supports weight, and it looks like it could tahan an impact of WL jumping up and down on the table (but certainly not a stomp from Jeff). Shortly after reaching the bench, WL left for his psycho lab rat experiment, while I stayed to continue my FOM tutorial, and answering War's Philosophy questions...
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1340hrs
After War finished his Philosophy assignment, we left the ulu table to let War explore the beauty of the Engineering Mac. (War: Huh enginnering faculty got mac ah!?) Nothing really eventful happened, unless you count War's amazed look (Wow really got mac sia) and his awesome tour around design building (which resulted in us being lost) as happening events. In the end, I brought War out of NUS before we start to sink into somewhere deeper... How come NTU student know the routes in NUS way better than a NUS student ah? =P
That sorts of conclude the NUS tour! I went to War's house to sort of finish up my FOM tutorial. War had an idea of setting up a tuition center with Rota Shift tutors. Not sure if that is going to work. =/
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That's about it for the exchanges! ^^
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