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    Tuesday, April 28, 2009

    Finally! Recess week Part 2: Laos

    Finally! Part 2 of my recess week travels are up on the blog. Ugh! so much hassle! Tried to upload to Youtube but it was muted, and it's just not as good to watch if there's no music playing! Then I gave up and uploaded it straight to Blogger, but the size was too small, so adjusted the size and the subtitles were a little blurry and hard to read (>_<) But finally found a new video site that doesn't mute your vids! One more thing, the golden temple that's the national symbol of Laos was actually in Vientiene, not Luang Prabang like it was suggested in the vid, same with the arch and world peace gong lol! Enjoy!






    Click here to see Recess Week pt 1: Cambodia

    Saturday, April 25, 2009

    Random stumblings down Haji Lane

    My friend Rupek took Sophie and I to a place called Going Om. A nice little cafe/bar down Haji Lane, Bugis. Before, I was told that this place was a chill out spot for my friend and that he went there last week and there were fire eaters and people playing music and he just jammed along with them. It didn't surprise me at all when he guided the way to Haji Lane.

    Haji Lane is parallel to Arab Street and if it's not in your Lonely Planet books, it should be! (Actually I think it is) I went there once last semester when a friend took me there to shop. So, during the day Haji Lane is home to boutique stores with vintage and fashionable clothes and accessories. But at night, it's a where people go for Shisha and drinks and Going Om oozes a sense of hippy and bohemian lifestyle.

    The video is what manifested from events at Going Om.

    Friday, April 24, 2009

    Spiderman spotted at NUS library

    So I was given the following link from a friend and the only question I kept on asking was 'why were there so many people at the library at 1:30AM?! Yes I know it's their study week but still! They're worse than SMU. There were a lot of people that stayed over night mugging in the library during our study week, but I don't think you would have been able t0 find as many people in the entire SMU library at 1:30am than what can be seen in the video.

    Anyways, whatever it was, it worked as an interesting de-stresser for NUS students revising for their exams this week. Good luck to everyone at NUS! Jia You! =)

    Friday, April 10, 2009

    I guess Singapore isn't so clean after all

    Over the past few days I've heard news about some severe food poisoning in Singapore after the second death was announced yesterday from eating at a Geylang Serai hawker centre.

    Story can be found here, and the first outbreak of the news is here.

    The owner of the store is devastated, as he had no idea what was happening until the health authorities came. He seems like such a sweet man, really unlucky for everyone affected.

    I'm just wondering what on earth could have been in the food to have caused such chaos and extreme consequences??
    ...

    o.k. just found an answer a little closer to my question... nice...

    Wednesday, April 8, 2009

    The Celebs and the Conservative of Singapore

    Today I saw Ben Yeo, a Singaporean actor, whom I originally knew as Terry from TVB's Yummy Yummy drama series (one of my favourite series)! On my way to dinner at Cathay I recognised Ah Ben (as he's other wised known as in Singapore) queuing up for the ATM just outside Cathay! Then I heard my friends talking about him and I was so tempted to go up and ask for a picture, but I didn't have my camera with me and my Asian-ness also stopped me from randomly going up to people on the street asking for photos! I only remembered later that I have a camera function on my phone! I don't think Singaporeans randomly go up to local actors and ask for photos and autographs either hence why none of my friends thought of doing the same thing. I do wonder how those in the media spotlight would react to being approached on the streets. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I had gone up to him as I'm not Singaporean, just an international fan haha.

    Then after dinner, back to the library as usual, but there's music blasting out from outside, sounded like a concert. Then I recognised one of the songs as Kaiser Chief's "Every Day I Love You Less and Less"! Then another familiar song was played after it. Did a little research on the internet only to find out Kaiser Chief were actually playing at Fort Canning Park! Right next to school! No wonder I could hear loud music throughout the day! Must have been rehearsals. Then later on, I heard "I Predict a Riot". These are the songs that remind me of student life back in England and my friends back home! I really wished they were there with me at the library to play "guess the Kaiser Chief song" or even better, actually at the concert. I was in no mood to do work after I found out I was missing out on their gig which was happening right next door! (><) Gutted! So I had to force myself out of the library and head home to do work and blog about it to get the adrenaline and frustration out of my system. I was so tempted to stay and just listen to the concert from SMU! But deadlines are closing in on me, so I needed my will power to come into play. So not a bad day today!

    One more random thing that I want to share which happened yesterday. I was wearing my We Walk Butterfly tee (pictured left and right but mine is in orange) and as you can see from the picture on the left, it shows a lot of the back, so I decided to wear a black cropped bandeau top underneath so I'm not showing too much flesh, just the lower back and top half of my shoulder blades (but from the front it looks just like a normal tshirt right). Whilst I was on the MRT, an "aunty" (Singlish for a woman of the older generation) getting off at one of the stops tugs at my top from behind a few times as she passes me and says something in Mandarin. I only heard 'hou bien' which means 'back', so I guess she was trying to cover me up??? I found it rather amusing to be honest, but also thought 'since when was Singapore so conservative?'. There are girls who wear short shorts and tiny tank tops everyday and show a lot more skin than I was yesterday, I was wearing baggy jeans too! At least I was wearing something underneath. Only in a Chinese community do things like this happen. That's why I love it. =)

    Tuesday, April 7, 2009

    Confessions of an Amatuer Blogger

    This blog was originally started as an assignment for my Digital Media Across Asia module and what started as something I felt like I had to do in order to pass a course, become an exploration in the digital/social media phenomena and I've enjoyed all my experiences with the blogging and other social media tools that I was introduced to. So as a final post for class and Prof Netzley I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet but looking at my posting patterns, it's going to be hard! See 'Note to Prof' at the bottom

    First of all,
    thank you Proffessor Netzley for giving us this option as an assignment. I used to think a "blog" was an oxymoron in itself, because as a non digital/social media follower (or maybe I'm just slow at following these trends) I understood it as an online diary, so here was my logic:

    Diary = journal, often kept to oneself.
    Online = a cyber space that everyone can access
    Question: Why put your secrets somewhere where everyone can read them? can you understand the confusion I had?

    But now, I understand that it's not just about keeping an online journal. Blogging may have started out that way, but now it's evolved and has become more of a source for information as bloggers often write about one specific topic, be it social media, fashion, games, food, politics or sport, there are blogs out there for everyone.

    My blog was supposed to document about my experiences during my one year student exchange in Singapore and I tried to keep it consistent and not digress too much, but from my tags, I know I went off track a few times. Perhaps the reason for this was that I started it too late? I wanted to reveal the culture differences and the "weird and wonderful" things about Singapore but they no longer seemed weird to me after the first semester. So instead, I blogged about anything new that I came across and where I did encounter some cultural differences, I found myself having to explain the whole concept before going into the actual topic of the post in the first place.

    Was my blog a success?
    I'm not exactly sure to be honest. I'm still completely new to digital media so I feel I don't have the required knowledge to judge,
    that's where you come in Prof haha. As I got used to writing again the posts became easier and I began to understand what I'm supposed to actually write about, and tried to keep it related to Singapore as much as I could.

    The first time I realised that my blog is actually out there in the open for others to see was my World Wide Rave submission and David
    Meerman Scott left a lovely comment and linked my entry on his site. The second realisation was when I had friends both in Singapore and England telling me they read my blog and wanted to post comments but couldn't do so due to the comment moderation settings (I've changed it since but I think it still doesn't work? No idea why). Then the 3rd was when Ang Mo Girl became a follower of my blog (but I'm not sure whether it was because I followed her blog after she found me on Twitter?) I was thinking "someone outside of class and is not my friend is actually reading my blog?!"

    I've had over 20 views since I posted the Cambodia video but I'm not sure whether they were direct from my blog or random searches via
    Youtube. To me, that number seems quite a lot so I consider that as a small indication that people actually read my blog and take a slight interest in it... But from what I've learnt in class that number is probably minuscule when considering what uploading a video on the web can actually do.

    Ways in which it wasn't a
    success was probably my post topics. Ideally this should have been a platform for exchange students or other people coming into Singapore to read and find out more about the country and it's culture and be used as a source for advice for exchange or living in a different country. I don't think I've really provided that type of information, but I've explained why I think that already. However, maybe it can be seen as a source for something else?

    Twitter
    It took me a while to figure out Twitter and it's purpose, but over time I began to see the fascination with it. I figured I could try and incorporate it into my blog somehow (after all it is a microblogging tool) and put it at the top of my blog to be used as 'micro posts'. I think I've built a better network on Twitter than I have with my blog. I was surprised when bloggers around Singpore such as Angry Ang Mo, IZ Reloaded and a few others started 'following me' on there (I'm still trying to figure out why I was 'followed' in the first place), and I think there's the possibility Mr Brown might have read a post or two? Maybe that's just wishful thinking?

    The Future
    I've had a great time exploring the
    blogosphere and it's helped me realise a new area of interest I could go further into and how much it can actually help with people's daily lives. I'm still in Singapore for a while yet and I will continue posting about my time here until I leave. Whether I'll continue after I return to England, then for the purpose of this being an exchange blog, probably not, but maybe I'll start something new or turn it into something else?

    Note to Prof: Thank you for introducing me to something new and interesting.
    Sorry! I know you said to keep it short and sweet but I just couldn't help myself =)

    Saturday, April 4, 2009

    Goodbye SMU?!



    So I'm nearing the end of semester 2 at SMU and it's hard to believe that my time here is almost up =( Last Thursday it was the exchange students farewell party at Timbre, and Friday was Starry Night (above) marking the end of classes for the semester with live music and cheap drinks just before students start mugging for exams.

    This second semester has gone by a lot quicker than last semester, it definitely doesn't seem like it's been 13 weeks since classes started again and all of a sudden they've finished! I didn't want to think about the end of my exchange in Singapore and it's almost impossible not to now. I've met a lot of nice people here, both locals and other exchange students from all over the world and each of them have made my experience here very enjoyable and given me a lot of memories to take back. Along the way I've also experienced a few problems (mainly to do with my estate agent and my accommodation. Advice for future exchange students: DO NOT USE ERA AGENTS!!!) and I've learnt a few lessons the hard way, being so far from home puts the real world into a completely different perspective. When you're pretty much left on your own you learn a few things about yourself. I never realised how naive I can be, I found out that I'm not as culturally aware as I thought I was, and, as the Singaporeans put it, I can be really "blur" at times.

    I've experienced the SMU culture and have been taught in a completely different type of education system. The way SMU operates makes complete sense when you think about how it shapes its' students. It's no wonder that the University has such a high graduate employment rate, their students do stand out from the crowd a little, with compulsory 80 hours of volunteering and the requirement to do internships before you can graduate really put the graduates in a good starting position for the working world.

    Before I came here I remember reading that when SMU first started back in 2000 it used to be a University where the "not so brilliant" or "NUS rejects" would go and the University would aim to make them become "better people" (or something along those lines). But now, I really don't think that is the case anymore. Students always talk about the competitive environment here and it's no wonder, along with their "Kiasuism" almost everyone is fighting for that grade A (but the profs constantly remind them that grades aren't everything, which I think is entirely true, but if I was a full time student here, it's incredibly hard to believe when everyone else has the "must get an A" mentality). But that's not to say that SMU is all work and no play, there have been no reports of suicide just yet and I haven't met a student who has regretted coming here.

    With regards to experiencing a different culture... it's definitely interesting yet confusing at times to understand the culture of Singapore. In my module Intercultural Communications, my professor was explaining that Singapore doesn't have a unique culture because there isn't anything that's distinct to Singapore (ironic when the tourism board promotes the country as "Uniquely Singapore") , but there are things that people will say is very Singaporean like the use of Singlish and their love for food (they will travel to the other side of the country for good food). I guess the ethnic diversity in Singapore means that all the cultures are fused together, so could it not be said that Singapore's culture is a hybrid culture?

    A local friend said to me "Singapore is the most non-Asian country in Asia" and to a certain extent I agree. It's very westernized so apart from the fact that it's mostly Asian populated and there's a variety of languages spoken here, there aren't that many differences to England... But then again, if you go to the heartlands (i.e. Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio, Katong and a few others) it becomes less westernized and you can find the true Singaporeans there.

    Anyways, I still have time to figure it out because I might be sticking around a little longer.
    =)

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    Recess Week - Cambodia + Laos

    Half way through the term (week 7) we had a one week break at SMU called Recess week, and for local students this just means no classes but you'll still find a lot of them around campus during the week anyway. For us exchange students, it means a perfect opportunity to travel. So, I went to Cambodia and Laos for 10 days which was why there was a 2 week gap of no blogging.

    I've finally finished a picture and video compilation of Cambodia! Yay! Sorry it took so long, first time I've made anything like this and I didn't realise it would be so time consuming! So anyways, first blog post that I can keep relatively short so enjoy the video! =)







    Click Here to see Recess Week part 2: Laos