EAP Reciprocity

It was quite an interesting day today. Man Utd handed a whooping to Dynamo Kiev, 4-0 was the score.

What was better was that I went to a preorientation briefing for UCLA students that were going to Singapore next semester. I was quite surprised to know that there were individual booklets for each country that UC students are assigned to, plus another general guide. They also arranged for past students who were on exchange in the same country to come down to share with the newbies information that would have been extremely valuable for their exchange.

Got to meet several new people who were going to come down next semester, and also a guy that was in NUS the past semester. I guess what really struck me was that, this guy went around most of South East Asia in his time in Singapore. He was flying every weekend to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and also to Taiwan and Australia. I mean discounting the powerful US currency at that time, travelling all these countries must have been quite an eyeopener. Guess I kind of feel abit weird that I haven't been to most of the SEA countries before. hmm...I guess I really should. And I will!

The sharing session went good, although I was quite surprised that there might be a lack of on-campus housing for the UC students. Surprised they want to do internships in Singapore, surprised that some of them know about JJ Lin. (WAT !?) I told them to just spend time travelling, and figuring out CORS. Also, I guess this question never really struck me, but, are there cheap apartments near school available for rent? I've been staying at home for so long, but now I'm wondering, how much does it cost to stay away from home exactly...What would that experience be like? (Don't tell me like army. Definitely not. Hahaha.) Still, I guess nothing beats home. Hahaha. Its at times like these I'm really thankful that Singapore is such a small place that home and school is merely an hour away. Now, I really should ask them, why did they choose Singapore to go for exchange in the first place? Hahaha.