The awakening?
Hell, I felt as if I have been suckered by a really huge punch. Today marks the first day of lectures and I’m already pretty exhausted.
Today didn’t start off well. I slept blissfully through my 6 hr mark at 8am with this strange thought that my lecture starts at 10am. In 5 minutes, I jumped out of bed half panicking. Somehow my brain suddenly realised that everyday starts off at 9am. After some mad scramble, I managed to reach the Advanced Calculus module at 9.02. If it’s of any comfort, I wasn’t the last. *snickers* What I suspected was pretty much true. Out of the 102 pages of calculus notes, we went through 10% in just 2 hrs. That would mean roughly a chapter a week.
Then it’s a mad rush to bid for Round 3A. You know what? I think I’ll just stick with 5 modules this semester. I don’t think I’ll be able to survive 6 modules. So it looks like I’m definitely going to spend extra semesters in NUS, no matter how things go (excepting that I suddenly grow a second brain). Oh yeah, I remember some secondary teacher telling me that 3 years is a very short time. When I heard that from the teacher, it really took some willpower to keep from snorting or bursting out in laughter. Come on, we live in a rapidly changing world today. Do you have any idea how packed is life today? Anyway, after 11 days of waiting I got my medical report from UHWC (I was supposed to wait only 7 days). I can’t really be that mad at them since they’re a staff of a dozen serving 6,000 students. That’s like a ratio of 500:1! At least they tried to keep me from waiting (my blood work was missing so they certified a fax copy for me to take on the go). But still, I have to miss Computing and Statistics tomorrow to go and get a Student’s Pass. I just hope they don’t go on and start teaching C straightaway, or else I’m screwed!
Since those 2 items took up much of my 2 hours break, it’s time for 10 minute lunches. It was nearly perfect, but I spent another 10 minutes trying to finish a cup of coffee ASAP. Bummer. It was necessary for without the psychoactive substance caffeine I would have probably K.O.ed by dinnertime.
Next up, 3 hours of Mechanics and Waves from 2 to 4pm. Lecture, mind you, not labs. This time, I barely made it on time. Embarrassingly, my brain wandered off while I was walking there, and I ended up at the 1st lecture venue, instead of the 2nd. Better not let that happen again. Oh, it’s not that we get 3 hr lectures weekly (thank goodness!) but our Prof have to go for a conference next week so we have to suffer this week to enjoy next week off. It’s no mean feat, considering most Engin students do a full Mechanics module. We’re supposed to be the ‘best of the best’ (that’s a load of crap, I tell you) and we’re doing ESP so we have to combine Waves into our Mechanics module. Even with a break in the middle of the lecture, it was disorienting to say the least. It was fine until Prof went into 3D vectors. It was quite simple actually, but a majority of us finished A-Levels or STPM last year or earlier so we had to relearn what we forgotten spontaneously. At the end of the lecture, he congratulated us for surviving the first blow, but I believe I speak for most of us when I say we all made it through alive, but we’re all sprawled out on the floor knocked out. I just hope I can aim to finish Tutorials 1 & 2 by Wed.
Then it’s off to get my reading list for the USP module (guys, I think all USP modules has a reading list!). Lucky thing is, we get to use our own USP Multimedia Lab to print and photocopy stuff, so we don’t have to squabble for PCs at the Library. 
Sad thing is, we still need to pay. 
At least mine was relatively straightforward. Transcript of Feynman’s lecture, The Economist article, Engines of Creation (the only book I have to read) and a few other historical overviews of nanotechnology. It’s quite a load, so I think I’ll try to finish reading the articles on the MRT tomorrow. Now I better figure out when to go and dabble in MATHLAB and MAPLE.
Then it’s back to PGP at 6pm to recuperate. Stomach doesn’t like cereal and chocolate milk for breakfast, so I’ll probably watch my diet for the rest of the week.
BTW, this might make those of you guys who didn’t end up at the top of the world feel better. So, Who needs Harvard?
P.S.: I’m on the lookout for a cozy place to study. Anyone interested to go scouting with me at University Hall?
