SUP. I've just completed the last week of my first semester as a freshman in SMU!

YES I ACTUALLY GOT INTO A LOCAL UNIVERSITY!
I've never thought I'll be able to enter because of the competitiveness we have here in Singapore's education industry. Constant worries about meeting my parents' and relatives' high expectations haunted me when I just started my polytechnic life. I'm so glad I fulfilled one of my parents' wishes.

Anyway, unlike in NYP, things get busy just from the first week! It was really a lot to handle and I've had a hard time adapting to SMU life for the first few weeks. SMU has a really great culture. Everybody was so bonded, so open without any discrimination I feared of. Each semester we have about 4-5 modules to take and we meet different people in each class. This is also another thing I tried to embrace because I'm such an introvert and meeting new people is like so exhausting.

Nevertheless, I've met awesome friends and even made a few close ones. Not to mention, my group mates so far, for all my modules, are so incredible. I actually depended on them quite a lot, which is something I have to improve on. For projects, it's very different from those I've done in NYP. A lot of discussions are needed, and I mean A LOT! There are weeks when everyday, from day till night I'm having different meetings. It's really much more tiring and draining as compared to NYP. So much hair was lost.... :(

Another thing I like about SMU is, the presentations, so far, have no fixed dress codes! We can wear smart casual or as normal, depending on the type of presentations we're giving. However, I'm still as nervous as shit. UGH.

AND. Class participation is super important because it's counted in our final grades like, 10 - 15%, it differs for some modules. It's literally my nightmare because I hate speaking up, I'm like so conscious of everything hais. So yeah, I'm lacking on my marks with regards to class participation.

I've also experienced a few times staying in school until 11pm which is like WTF?! Plus I live so far, the thought of the long journey home is very sian.

So far, my first semester was great. People I've met are very good to me and very supportive. It is especially the case for IS modules. Why? Because there's no bell-curve LOL. However, though there may be people who chose not to give assistance if it's a bell-curve module, I strongly believe and hope that there will be more people who give assistance no matter what. I haven't heard of any selfish cases here in SMU yet but I hope in the future I wouldn't have super competitive classmates.

Right now I'm just waiting to take my finals which will start from 21st November until my last exam on 30th November. Talking about finals, I think I'm screwed for BGS and Econs lol. SOBS. It's okay, I'll do my best! Ok I'm not going to dive into details about examinations all that shit. Let's move on to a happier topic!

About two months ago, I received an email from ICON-Woori Sayi. Woori Sayi is basically SMU's Korean Cultural Club and ICON meant International Connections which facilitates the different culture clubs. They are holding an info session for "Business & Cultural Study Trip to South Korea". I tell you, being a great fan of South Korea, I became so excited and started asking my friends if they want to join me. Unfortunately, none of them was free on that day or was simply broke to go overseas. I had to go alone. No biggie. It's a trip to South Korea after all. I WILL NOT MISS ANY OPPORTUNITIES TO GO TO SOUTH KOREA.

The info session was super interesting, we had opportunities to visit different companies like KBS, Naver, Diageo and also some famous places like Jagalchi Seafood Market and a folk village. There were also entertainment section like visiting Everland theme park. WHEEE.

So after the info session, they said that only 15 students can go. I was like... WHUT? The whole seminar room (SR) was completely filled! And the most expected thing is that there were only less than 10 guys in the SR, the rest were girls! HAHAHAHA. Anyway, of course there was an interview and I went for it. You'd have probably guessed it. YES I GOT SHORTLISTED! I'M ONE OF THE 15 PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING. Total there will be 20, 15 of us including 2 officers and 3 seniors.

The trip will be held from 18 December to 24 December, aww just 1 day to Christmas. But it's okay, I get to spend my Christmas Eve in South Korea hehe. I hope there will be days when it would snow but I've heard that even though it's winter, snowing in Seoul during December is very unlikely and would be more likely to snow more in January. SADDED.

The hotel we would be staying at is a 3-star hotel, New Oriental Hotel in Myeongdong, Seoul. For a 3-star hotel, the visuals seen from it's website has a very high-class feel. We'll be staying there for a straight 6 nights, which is awesome because that means we don't have to keep packing our luggage whenever we switched hotels (which is the case during my trip to Korea when I was secondary 2). That means I can bring my biggest, and also the newest luggage there and do not need to worry about transporting it here and there except arrival and departure. Yes, it's the pink one I've talked about in my previous post :3

Even though I'm excited for this trip, I'm also very worried because it's winter. I have cold allergy which sucks big time. I get cold hives whenever I get too cold, or whenever my body thinks it's too cold and it's so damn freaking itchy! I seriously need to pack warmer clothes and I'm gonna wear a lot of layers lol. I'm super looking forward to interact more with the people going on the same trip as me because they seem nice. All of us only met once ever since our first meeting on 15 October. We were supposed to have another meeting 2 weeks later but everyone was so busy with school that there weren't any arrangements made by the seniors. NOW YOU GET WHAT I MEANT WHEN I SAY LIFE IN SMU IS SUPER HECTIC.

Earlier this week, we received the news that we will be having our second meeting together with our pre-departure meeting so yeah, it was kind of expected because even with school ending, there were still finals that we need to study for. Nevertheless, I'm still looking forward to the meeting and to this trip. I've been doing a lot of research on what to bring over to South Korea, especially during its winter season. It was mentioned in the info session that at that point of time there were some political issues regarding NK's leader testing missiles that may be a concern for most of us and if any crisis were to happen in South Korea, this whole trip would be cancelled. As to date, there seems to be no conflict issues between NK and South Korea yet so I hope it stays this way forever, at least if anything inevitable were to happen, then hopefully it would be after our trip.

So yeah that sums up my life till now. I gotta go sleep now, I have a morning class at 8AM tomorrow ugh.

안녕!





◀ ▶