‘By Michael Biech (Philosophy) / Wikimedia Commons’
Philosophy is often misunderstood. Many NTU students tend to see philosophy as a chim (profound) subject because when they think of philosophy, they think of or remember how difficult philosophical text can be to understand. For example, here’s a quote from the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida in his essay, Différance: Continue reading
All I knew about Prof CN Yang, I learnt from a 20-second glance at his Wikipedia entry before my CN Yang Scholars Programme admission interview.
Fast forward a year and an email arrives in my inbox, saying that Prof Yang is going to be in Singapore for a conference and that an informal discussion will be arranged for students from the CN Yang Scholars Programme.
Groupies for life
Although The Huckleberry Friends were only formed in 2012, they already have numerous public performances under their belt. From NTU’s The Quad to live music restaurant-cum-bar Timbre, there is seemingly no place this up-and-coming acoustic/folk rock trio hasn’t played. Continue reading
Post-exchange travel rarely happens smoothly, especially if it’s also your first time travelling alone, like it was for me. All sorts of problems can materialise: delayed flights, missing an interstate bus, leaving something behind, overweight luggage… the list is endless. For me, my constant worry was about luggage weight or missing an interstate bus or flight.
While travelling in the United States after my exchange at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I mainly rode the interstate bus, Megabus, from state to state. Besides the lower cost, it’s better than flying as you get to admire the scenery zooming past. Like planes though, interstate buses in the US have weight limits on luggage, set at 50lbs (about 23kg). Because I had just spent a semester on exchange in Missouri and accumulated a pile of school notes, university merchandise and band T-shirts from metal concerts that I attended, I constantly worried about being denied entry when boarding the bus.
My dorm room the night before I left the University of Missouri-Columbia. Notice the remaining items that still need to be packed into the almost-full suitcase. Continue reading
As I wrote in my previous post, Japan was the last stop of my post-exchange travels.
From cashiers giving you change on little trays to heated toilet seats, Japan has no shortage of little amusements. Everywhere I looked, visually pleasing objects caught my eye, like sleekly designed, open-air smoking corners. Continue reading
A furnace. That’s what Singapore feels like after returning from a nearly five-month getaway in cooler countries such as the US and Japan. Although, to be fair, I was only in those countries during late winter, spring and early summer. I heard that summers in the US and Japan could be warmer than it usually is in Singapore.
The University of Missouri-Columbia
It had always been my dream to visit America some day. This is mainly because it has an individualistic culture that I can relate to better than Asia’s collectivistic culture. Also, it is simply a new place to explore. As I travelled alone, I relied on Google Maps heavily. Even though I’m back in Singapore, I now find myself consulting Google Maps even when travelling to everyday locations.
Sightseeing is typically the focus of a student’s post-exchange travels, but it was different for me. While I still went sightseeing, my post-exchange vacation was more social and musical. I’m an appreciator of heavy metal and its various sub-genres, and I have been writing about metal on and off for five years now.
Many metal bands hail from America, with Metallica being the most famous. (Although I’d argue they are a hard rock band.) And many fellow writers I’ve befriended on the Internet are from the land of the free, Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks coffee, too. Continue reading
Hello, everyone. It’s been a while! After a whole month of exams and assignments, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks cleaning up my room, after it became a dungeon of paint and paper during the busy end-of-term period.
In my earlier post, I shared with you what I learnt about landscape painting from my watercolour course at ADM, taught by Asst Prof Ng Woon Lam. During the course, I learnt that apart from technical skills, it’s important to know the basics of colour theory. This allows artists to select the best matching colours, hues and tones when painting.
I’m definitely not a “pro” at this, and despite all my ADM profs going through colour theory with me over and over again, I still sometimes give them a blank face. So it’s been a real challenge for me to improve the “colour” aspect of my watercolour paintings, since I’ve worked mostly in black and white with pens and pencils, like this sketch of Jiufen that I did during my recent visit to northern Taiwan.
For someone more used to sketching, my first few watercolour paintings were an absolute disaster. You won’t see them here as I don’t wish to strain your eyes. Continue reading
I’m in a reflective mood. As a member of the graduating Class of 2014, seeing a chapter of my life come to a close gives me pause to reflect.
Once you leave the confines of the University, there are no more modules, no more exams, no final grades, just a daily series of life assessments with no end. The day you graduate is the day you’re admitted into the postgraduate course of life, where as a working adult, you’re no longer given as many opportunities to make mistakes.
I believe that the working world is an opportunity to find greater meaning in life though, and I look forward to becoming a freshman in the “institution of life”.
What I want to focus on in this post is: regret. I don’t know why working people reminisce about the beauty of their university education, but I have a feeling it’s because they had more freedom then.
In an article in The Guardian, a palliative nurse describes the five most common regrets people have at the end of their lives. None of them are about worldly achievements:
How does all this relate to your four years in university? Continue reading
Hi, everyone! It’s been awhile since I wrote something related to school. In this post, I’ll be touching on something not new to most of us – watercolour painting.
My ADM professor, Asst Prof Ng Woon Lam, is a well-known watercolour painter in Singapore. He recently won his second Bronze medal from the American Watercolour Society. I’m very inspired by his work.
So, what is there to learn from watercolour painting? Quite a lot, as I recently found out from a module I’m taking that teaches watermedia landscape painting.
During the last week of the summer holidays, I went on a research trip to Perth, Western Australia, under NTU’s University Scholars Programme (USP).
Last year, we went to Taiwan, with “culture” as the research topic. This year, the theme was “sustainability”.
In Perth, we were split into different groups and delved into topics like water sustainability, energy sustainability, sustainable tourism, and sustainable lifestyle practices. This year’s topics were more technical and thus much more challenging. Nevertheless, all of us did our best and put together a great end-product after weeks of research, discussion and editing.
Although it was a research trip, we had our fair share of fun.
As we were a big group of about 80 students and faculty, we arrived at Perth on four different flights. My group was on the third flight, and by the time we had landed and checked-in, all the shops were already closed. Unlike in Singapore, all the shops in Perth close by 5pm. However, that did not stop us from taking pictures of the wonderful city!
We took the free bus into town. The streets don’t look that different from Singapore’s, except that they are more cluttered with random buskers, but they still look beautiful. Or maybe the grass just looks greener on the other side?
