Thoughts in Boston

Surprise! I'm blogging again. Yea I've been pretty busy this past week settling into Boston, going for orientations and stuff, and I keep putting off writing this blog post until now. I have many thoughts to pen down and I guess the most coherent way would be to list them as general subject headings and talk about each a little bit.

Weather

It's an often-made joke that when conversation is awkward, people talk about the weather, and I only fully appreciated it when I came here - because there really IS something to talk about, unlike in Singapore when it's just sunny and humid all year round. When I first arrived it was pretty cooling, you could walk around everywhere without sweating that much... but it's actually getting hotter! Damn. No idea why.

The nights get pretty chilly, dipping to 15 degrees sometimes. So it's literally colder outside than indoors (air-conditioned).

I'm hoping it gets colder actually, because I have no fan in my room so it's HOT in the day :( No a/c or anything! I mean, if it's cold you can just wear more clothes.. when it's hot... you SUFFER. Well you can fan yourself with stuff but that's troublesome.

Food

The. Food. Is. Freaking. Awesome. I am working on a blog post that I will post next Sunday (not this coming one) night I hope, and you will see how awesome it is. But just to give you a rough idea - restaurant - style buffet every single meal. And the food is good. (This is dormitory dining halls, AKA hall food in Singapore)

Courses

Many of my friends return from exchange boasting about how little they studied yet how well they did - but somehow I don't think I'll be able to end up like them. I just feel the compulsive need to study... yet again, I am lazy to begin and my brain feels hella rusty. Plus I'm not really getting enough sleep every day because my Muslim roommate wakes me up at 5AM everyday to do his prayers -_- sigh.

ANYWAY. The courses I am taking are pretty awesome - one of them has 4 tests - the first 3 are not cumulative tests (i.e. Test 1 covers Chapter 1-5, Test 2 covers Chapt 6-10, etc), but the final exam is cumulative. However, your score is the best THREE out of the four tests. Which means that if you're satisfied with your first 3 tests, you don't have to take the finals. HAHA. What a joke! Why so easy one. (Maybe the content/tests are very hard that's not what I meant.)

Then I have another module - two essays, no finals. haha!  And another module with 2 tests - no final exam. So essentially.. I only have one finals. Woohoo!

Friends

There is a very open culture in the US where you can go up to anyone and strike up a conversation and then know the guy's name and where he was born and how many pets he has and when he lost his first tooth. Ok I am exaggerating but it's really very NORMAL to do that. Consequently I realize what the whole 'picking up girls' thing is not as woahhh as I thought it was... well my definition of 'picking up girls' is just chatting with a girl and getting her number (not having sex with her) so maybe it's different. I think I have done that (get the number, not have sex) like more than 5-10 times already, with both guys and girls (remember, not the sex).

Ironically (or maybe not), I have made more asian/international friends than American friends. I don't know, there's something about americans that make them harder to talk to and befriend... ironically. This seems to contradict my earlier point but firstly, half the people here are not Americans but international students, and secondly, talking randomly to Americans does not necessarily lead to having a longer conversation and exchange numbers.

Accent

Do I have a US accent yet? No I don't. Nowhere close. Don't think I'll be able to develop one.

 

Ending Thoughts

I admire students who study full-time here, or anywhere overseas in particular. It's quite a big commitment, and a big adjustment to have to make for 4 years. I can't imagine that, really. I'm just really glad I have two Singaporeans here that I can really get along with, and we are meeting new people together. And my favourite part for now is the food hehehe nomnom.