Finally since i've come back from the weekend i'm able to relax somewhat - with the two assignments (which turned out to be much less of a hassle than i had imagined it to be at the beginning of the weekend) all done and submitted, and only one small thingy left to do for friday - after which that's it for the week =) Of course, the work never ends and i've lots of stuff to prepare for my toughest class, which is a weekly three-hour-straight seminar on gender and welfare every monday, but still the immediate horizon is clear and that's all i care about for now, though thankfully the procrastinator mode that perennially plagues me in S'pore seems to have taken a vacation of its own, so thing will be able to get myself to get started on the monday work (fairly) early...
Speaking of my weekend assignments, one of them was to read (or more accurately in my case, re-read the first half and finally get down to reading the second half) Orwell's 1984 and then write a character-based response to it. I guess i'll soon enjoy the fact that here a lot of the readings are unconventional by the standards that i've been used to, in that there's a lot of fiction to read too, rather than just sleep-inducing academic stuff. For now, though, i'm still far more used to reading sleep-inducing academic stuff than fiction (i almost never read fiction), but i'm sure i'll enjoy the fiction stuff too eventually...
Oh, but i digress. My point was that right after completing the book [just in time to meet the deadline to return the book to the used book store on Franklin for a full refund (i already have one at home - remember, this is a poor international student typing this here)] and typing out the assignment, i logged on to facebook to find out that they've installed this new feature which is really freaky and weird, in that basically all your contacts' actions on facebook are now neatly listed in front of you when you log in, even all the stuff that does not concern you in the slightest, like "so-and-so is now friends with so-and-so-whom-you-do-not-know" or "so-and-so no longer likes to listen to Michael Jackson (who can blame him)" or other trivial stuff like that. Well, i have not encountered a single person who's for this new invasion-of-privacy program, which to me is really freakily Orwellian in nature, especially after just having read the book. It's such a big issue here (since practically every college student here uses it) that it's made the news, both on the paper as well as online, and is also a hot topic of pre-class discussion now.
So anyway, saturday saw me going for my first-ever football game. It was a very interesting experience - not just the game itself, but the whole atmosphere of the game was just great. Where the game was concerned, i underwent a crash course in how the game works, so that by the end of the game i became really bummed when Rutgers intercepted the ball for the second time - thus ending any chance of a UNC victory. At least when i go for my next game (more on that later) i won't be like clueless anymore, so that's a start i guess...
But it was not just the game per se - the whole atmosphere was just great. One thing i really dig about UNC is the degree of school spirit that they have - it kind of reminds me of AC days - particularly the annual rugby final which used to always be AC vs RJ (kinda like UNC vs Duke) - the enthusiastic spectators with their often too-colourful language, the cheering, the colour-coordination and the like. I genuinely felt involved in the whole thingy, though i've only been here for like less than three weeks - now this would NEVER EVER happen in nus (i wouldn't even go and buy an nus shirt), that i'm absolutely sure of...
The only sad part of the match was that i left my nalgene in the stadium after the match, and when i remembered it and went back in to get it all of five minutes later, someone else had already taken it. So sad... Ah well, the silver lining is that this provides me with the perfect excuse to buy a new nalgene with the UNC logo emblazoned on it...
After the match, had a quick dinner before heading off to Charlotte for the rest of the weekend. Went with Jon and Alex, and Greg drove us there and lodged us at his house. Now, the first time i ever heard of Charlotte was a looong time ago when i watched wrestling and they would introduce Ric Flair as hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina. Then after that i heard about the Hornets, and then the Bobcats. Yup that's basically all i knew about this city.
Although it is hardly the most interesting of places, we all still had a really great time there, to just relax, explore uptown Charlotte, visit the Discovery Place, and take in the sights and sounds of Matthews Alive, an annual Labor Day fair held at Matthews, a town right outside Charlotte near where Greg lives. Of course with your truly being a namesake of the town, it was inevitable that i'd have a field day taking snapshots of myself at strategic places with my name proudly etched on them. Talk about a cheap thrill heh... But anyway it definitely was a weekend well spent - and i'm very thankful for the hospitality of Greg and his family =)
Came back to school again - which is pretty uneventful as usual, maybe the only noteworthy thing that happened was that i went for my first-ever soccer match just now (as you'll probably know, i hate the sport) between UNC and NC State. I was willing to give soccer a chance since it was a UNC game after all... Admittedly however, i just could not tahan watching the full match and left at half time. It's just not my thing - though how i could last through three hours worth of football but can't even last through 45 minutes of soccer is beyond me.
Oh, and this morning woke up really early to head down to the Dean Dome (where the basketball team plays) to get into the line for the remainder of the UNC-Virginia Tech football game tickets. Went together with Clement, Jon and Sarah-Jane - we got to the place just before 7am (tickets were released only at eight) - needless to say we got the tickets, so i'll be off to football again this upcoming saturday... Should be great fun again, though from what i hear, i don't fancy our prospects...
I'm feeling too lazy to post the pictures here as well, but you can easily see them on the pics link there =======> Captions and descriptions coming soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment