ahem...I passed?

Hey, the results for my first semester at NUS is out.

How should I say this? It's like you leaving a socking by your bed on Christmas eve, just for the fun of it, and discovering that it has been filled on Christmas morning. On one hand you are sort of happy that you got presents but on the other hand, you are thinking: "How the hell did this happen? This is crazy!"

Exactly what I'm going through. "I didn't failed ANY thing? How the hell did I pull this off?" While I'm glad, in a happily selfish way, I'm also kina of losing faith in Singapore's education system in the sense that if I'm getting Bs, imagine the trash we are passing out the University.

No, I'm serious. If I'm the one marking my papers, I'll fail me. But that's not to say I didn't learn anything this semester, in fact, I had a great time! For the first time in my life, school is fun and actually lets you learn something.


Geography(1101E), Place, Environment and Society:"B-".
Well, I was never quite sure what geography is all about except that it got something to do with rocks and rainfall. The reason I picked this module is because T.C.Chang's mussing about "magical eyes" and "seeing the world in a whole new way" caught my imagination at the beginning of the term. I was not disappointed. Dr Chang's human geography has introduced an important concept that I have never consider before, the idea of "geographical imagination". How people impression of a place can be influenced and the various social and political agendas behind such imaginations. A good example will be Iraq. Think back to how the America media present the country before the war. isn't the images and message specially tailored to justified going to war? America was portrayed as liberators. Not unlike the colonisation of the East by Western powers in the pre-coloniser era. Edward Said has in his book "Orientalism" proport that Colonialism is the direct result of the stereotypes of the East by Western powers as lazy, backward, ignorance and needy of civilization. Such imagination has been used successfully to justified colonialism. Our P.M Lee's national day message and our national songs are flowered with various geographical terms, think "land of opportunity", "home", where I belong", "land of peace".
The physical geography by (the newly) Dr Lim is a whole lot of joy as well. They never fail to make me laugh.


Chemistry(1535), Our Atmosphere: A Chemical Perspective:"B-".
No idea at all, the exam is MCQs, what can I say? I'm lucky.

Philosophy(1101E), Reason and Persuasion: "A".
Ever have a classmate that never seems to do any serious work, yet breeze through exams, and score really well? Don't we just hate people like that?
Well, I think I have found my niche here. I really enjoy philosophical text and the lectures are better that stand-up comedy (to me anyway). I mean, it's really interesting. The realms of ideas, truths and uncertainty suits me who grow wearily of this mundane existent.

Sociology(1101E), Making Sense of Society:"B-".
Sociology is unsurprisingly a very popular choice of major. Not for me though, too much like real work. I prefer to read a book and call it research.


Southeast Asia Studies(1101E), Southeast Asia: A Changing Region:"B".
This is one fun module. We watch movies, listen to songs and discuss about black magic and sex. Way cool. What is puzzling is how I got a B, because I know for a fact that I did very badly in the exam, and my assignments are worth crying over.