The day to day

I may be on the last segment of my time in Singapore but people still ask me what my life is like here and most are simply wanting to have an idea of what a typical day is like.  I looked through my previous posts and I don't think I've ever really given a run-down of what my day to day life really is all about.  I guess in many ways it feels similar to home and so it doesn't feel too note worthy.  In my posts I've tended just to focus on the things that aren't an ordinary, every day occurance.  So I've decided to try and give you a compact version of my normal day/week.

Here goes: 
My class schedule for the semester was as follows:
 Monday: 10 -4
 Wednesday 9 - 12
 Thursday 12 - 3.

The classes at NUS are either 2 hrs or 3 hrs long.  For my 2 hour classes I also have an extra hour of a tutorial session at a seperate time in the week than the class time.

Tuesday and Friday's are technically my study days and I try to do laundry on Tuesdays.  Any cleaning of my room that happens just happens when I get tired of the mess.  There are janitors who clean all the common areas such as kitchens and bathrooms.  That means all I have to worry about is my small space.  I don't complain about this arrangement at all :)  The only other important issue to concern myself with besides school, is making sure I eat.  Thankfully food is a huge part of Singaporean life so there's plenty of options!

Evenings are spent studying, going into the city, chatting with friends, relaxing or going to events that are happening on campus or around town.  Most Thursday evenings I've been going to a Bible study with other students at my residence who are part of a Christian Fellowship on campus.

Week ends, if I'm not traveling, are used for studying or exploring more of Singapore and Sunday services I've been going to a Methodist church close to campus.

It's not the best picture but this is the entrance to my residence: Prince George Park.

This is where my days begin and end.







Here's the front row of buildings for my residence.  It's taken from the staircase in my block.  My room is on the 6th floor out of 8.     
                                                 

                                            


In the mornings, once I'm ready to head to campus I head out to the bus stop to shuttle over to campus.  However, first there is the stop for an iced coffee.  I'm a frequent enough visitor that if they aren't busy and they see me coming in, they'll have my iced coffee all ready for me by the time I get to the counter so I simply hand them my $.80 and head out to the bus stop.





I usually am headed to campus between 8:30 and 10, depending on which day it is.  The bus stop is a two minute walk from my room and it's where I catch one of the campus shuttles.  If I were smart I would walk to classes for exercise but it's just too hot most days and the idea of arriving to class hot and sweaty isn't really appealing.  Although I usually sweat while walking from building to building so guess it wouldn't really be much different.

It may just be a bus stop but a lot of my life is spent waiting here or at one of its siblings around campus.  As a student who usually commutes to and from school it's been a switch to have to rely on someone else for my transport.  It is easy to get around and the first while it was fine but I can't state enough how ready I am to get back behind the wheel of my car.

Once on campus it usually means heading to class, finding a place to study or meeting up with people to work on group assignments and presentations.  Group work and presentations are a huge part of the student experience here at NUS.

To the left is a picture of one of the places that I frequent often to study, Starbucks.  Occassionally I attempt to study in my room but that usually ends in failure.

As stated before in an earlier post, all my classes are in the Faculty of Arts and Social Science section of the school.  This is just one of the 8 buildings which house the FASS departments and one of the 4 buildings which I have classes in.

Just to prove that yes, this is where I have been spending most of my life the past 3.5 months.






I'm usually back at my residence by 5 or 6 p.m. unless I have something else going.  I usually grab dinner at one of the residence cafe's.  However there is one Starbucks on campus that is open 24/7.  I love studying here in the evenings.  This Starbucks has a large outdoor area and in the evenings it cools down a little bit and there's usually always a bit of a breeze going through the space making it a refreshing and relaxing environment for studying.   

Foodgle is one of the main cafeterias at PGP.  It provides me with my morning iced coffee and Indian food.  The other cafeteria at PGP is called ecanteen and I get my fix of OJ and stir-frys there.

 This is The Deck, the main cafe in the FASS area of campus.  I seldom actually eat here because it's usually packed with students.  However, the one drink place makes a pretty decent banana smoothie for a decent price so on occassion I can be found here.




Earlier I mentioned that if I was smart I would walk to campus from my residence but don't because it's always too hot.  Well here's another reason why I don't feel the need to walk to campus:

This staircase only scratches the surface of the number of steps I can ascend and descend in one day on campus.  Thanks to the hilly landscape of FASS, there are staircases everywhere and so even though I do not walk to campus, I do make myself take the stairs instead of the elevator or the bus as I move from place to place.  I may not manage to run a marathon but I can run up a flight of stairs like a pro!


There's not too much more to state about my day-to-day existance.  As far as some of the things I've been doing recently to keep myself entertained outside of school:

• as an exchange student from Waterloo I was invited to an evening get together with the UW Alumni of Singapore.  It was good to meet people who have graduated from Waterloo and are here working.  It was also interesting to hear what Waterloo was like when they were students as it has been a while for some of them.
• Outdoor Movie night:  for a class project, some students had to plan an event and execute it so they planned an outdoor movie night on the lawn in one area of campus. It was a nice, relaxing break from the norm of life and studying.
• occassionally, for a change of scenery, I head into Holland Village, which is just a few stops   away from me and study at one of the nice cafe's there.  Here's an example of one of them:

 

What I like about this place is that it's up on the second floor and the wall facing the street is all window giving a nice overview of the street activity below.

 This is the name of the MRT station closest to us.  It is my 'key to the city' so to speak.

And ... no matter what my day all involves, it ends at the same place it began - a small room hidden among hundreds of others at Prince George Park Residence.

  

So for those of you who have been asking, I hope this gives you a bit of a better peak into my day to day.  It really isn't all that exciting or it feels pretty normal by now anyways!