Busy Busy Busy

School has hit me really hard. The transition from a peaceful lull to a full blown "study all the time" life was pretty much instantaneous. I'm now mired in a deep pool of tutorials, online quizzes and lab reports, leaving me with almost no time for recreational activities. The fact that I'm enrolled in a special programme doesn't help. Basically we learn pretty much the same thing as the standard classes do, but the questions in the homework we get are of a completely different difficulty.

University education is pretty different compared to that in high school, and I guess I'm still in the midst of adapting to it. For now, I'm keeping up reasonably well (falling behind is a big no-no. At the pace we're going at, it'll be very difficult to claw your way back up to par with your peers) and hopefully, it'll get better with time. I think the key to survival here is not to let yourself get overwhelmed by all the stuff you have to do. That is, to take it one thing at a time.

That said, I can hardly find time to blog now, and only got the chance to squeeze this little post in as I am currently waiting for my lab-mate to arrive to begin our discussion and data analysis.

And here he is...

And Here We Go...

Things have gone off to a pretty soft start so far, with the first week customarily consisting of lectures only. Things were made even easier given that my first day of school actually consisted of nothing. Yes, nothing! That doesn't mean that I was just off relaxing in my room though. The email account assigned to me by the school is currently under siege by a flood of emails telling me about this briefing and that briefing, and yes, attendance is compulsory.

Furthermore, due to some administrative error (again!) I've yet to receive my Student Card as well as a sort of remote control for answering quizes during lectures. And (in)conveniently, some of the lecturers happened on the idea to use it as an attendance marking tool (yes, there are marks given for being present). Its such a hassle really, having to explain to every lecturer why I do not have one of those things that everyone else has.

In reference to this post by Femgineer, I strongly concur with point number three, given that that was the reason I chose my current programme in the first place. We're expected to participate in a research project under the guidance of one of the professors starting from Semester 2, and honestly, I can't wait to start. Hopefully, I'll be able to dabble in other disciplines besides my project to get a feel of how everything works.

I'm not quite sure how I'd be able to spend time talking to the profs given that time seems rather tight (even more so for them!) and that I seem to have time to myself only after office hours. As for the most important point, I can only suppose that only time can tell if I'll make the cut (the aim here being to get into a decent graduate school with funding).

Snail-like Administration 2

Spent most of the week trudging around town running errands and picking up the last of the necessities listed on my to-do list. Time's really precious as the coming days are really packed, filled with outings with friends I'd met at the orientation programme, multiple freshmen welcome ceremonies (all of which comes packaged with tours around campus that they insist on taking us on) and compulsory freshmen welcome lunches and dinners. Frankly, I do not get the point of all these activities. I mean, sure we're new students and all, and its really nice of them to offer to show us around. Most of us though have already visited the campus, some even multiple times before even sending in our application, and have already been shown around by the more senior students over the course of the orientation (well it is an orientation after all). Therefore, most I dare say, already have some familiarity with the campus. By all means, organise these activities for there will certainly be some who are still lost in this new environ, but it seems utterly pointless to make it compulsory for everyone to attend, when most of us have other pressing matters to attend to (such as queuing up at libraries to print out lecture notes which are usually only uploaded in the dead of the night the day before the lecture itself).

Which reminds me of the half day wasted in the queue at my hall of residence when checking in. I had an appointment with a friend late in the evening at a museum just a short distance from the university. The plan was for me to collect my keys before meeting up at the museum, after which we'll enjoy a nice dinner at this quaint restuarant in town. I figured that the check-in would take at most 10 minutes of my time, and thus allocated it a generous 30 minutes such that I wouldn't be late should anything go wrong. And go wrong it did.

When I arrived at the lobby, I was faced with a long queue stretching from the innards of the building out into the blazing midday sun. It seemed that everyone checking in this semester was doing so then (and true enough, that was the case. The original commencing date for checking in had twice been delayed, leaving students with only one day to check in before the school term starts, split by two days of public holiday). But that wasn't the worst of it all. What really riles me up is the absolutely inefficient way the staff were carring out the check-in procedure. Something as simple as [Here are the keys, this one for the gate, that for the door and that one for the mailbox, these are the terms and conditions, please sign over here and here] took over 10 minutes per student. And they insisted on seperate procedures for students who will be bunking in together, when there is clearly no need to. I can only feel sorry for those who arrived two hours before hand only to go home empty handed after failing to get their turn before the offices closed for the day, faced with the hassle of moving in on the very first day of school.

I think I'm off to a very bad start in terms of sentiment towards the university...

Reply Received

Finally received a reply from the correct administrative department (people from different departments don't seem to know what one another job scope entails), just hours before the important administrative deadline. Looks like I'd worried needlessly for the past few days as the reply came with my first email to them quoted (I'd sent multiples, each varying slightly as there weren't any indications as to whether they'd actually received my application). According to them I'll still have to wait for a couple of days before my timetables are updated though...

With that out of the way, what's left is just to wait for the school term to officially start... Oh wait, I'll still have to move into my hostel before then. Packing is such a drag... Not to mention the fact that we'll all have to move out at the end of the academic year for renovation to take place. Makes me feel tired just thinking about it.

Snail-like Administration

What can I say? University administrations seem universally slow and unproductive. I'd been trying for the past week to make some changes to my programme of study, but instead got bounced all over the university from department to department and has not received any satisfactory answers so far. Worse of all, each department takes at least two days to reply and the deadline is looming in two days' time. To be fair, I really should have started this process earlier but got caught up with other administrative matters and neglected this. I suppose I'll have to call them up to speed things up a bit(the immediacy of a phone call should force them to act as compared to an email).

That said, the week wasn't all bad. Had much more fun than I thought I would at the previously mentioned "Orientation Camp", largely due to the complete absence of any "lewd" games that so characterise most other camps. Also, my orientation group consisted of only seven or eight freshmen with a handful of "seniors" to spice things up, allowing us to become a rather tight-knit group over the course of the orientation.

And so, after such a great experience to kick start my school year, I can only hope that things will remain positive, and even better things will soon come. Time to hit the books!

The Beginning of Something

Okay, yet another new blog that quite possibly no one will ever read... But I can still hope can't I?

I'm not quite sure what kind of content this blog will eventually play host to, but hopefully they'll prove to be an interesting read for anyone keeping track. Hopefully I'll be able to give an intersting peek into the life of an aspiring academic, starting from the Undergraduate days till retirement. Okay. That, I admit, is exceedingly unlikely to happen. But I shall try.

First of all, I'm currently a freshie enrolled in a somewhat decent university somewhere in the world due to start my studies soon. Soon being somewhere between the next 2 weeks to a few months. Not going to provide much details here. I'd like to keep this as anonymous as possible so that people can read with as little preconceived notions, cultural or otherwise, as possible. As with all universities, this one's filled with "Orientation Camps" over the course of several months meant to "Orientate" new students to the campus. In reality, they serve no such function, and are instead used as an opportunity/ excuse for complete strangers to go all crazy in front of one another, frequently degenerating into a competition for people trying to prove themselves to be the most enthusiastic freshman ever. And of course, for seniors (ie non-freshmen) to pick up young girls fresh from high school. That's not to say that they're all bad though. At the very least you'll get to know some people, and any help is appreciated in a completely new, foreign environment. Oh and it's supposed to be fun.

I suppose it's rather obvious that I'm not the kind of person who actively seeks out such "opportunities". Nevertheless, I've surprised myself this year by actually signing up for one, albeit a rather short one of only three days in length. The purpose of this is to ward off any future regrets that I might have from not attending (though it has to be noted that I'm having some regrets about signing up in the first place!).

Okay I see that I've rambled on for far longer than I'd intended to (one of the handful of stuff that I'm actually good at). Lets see how long this thing will last...