This author is currently on hiatus for the ignoble cause of mugging. The public is advised to remain calm, as this routine protocol has been shown to have no effect on one's violent tendencies in 96% of cases.
| Saturday, February 03, 2007 |
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Had to go for the mentor's tea for HSSRP yesterday. Apparently, there was supposed to be a briefing, then an introduction of the mentors, who were mostly professors in NUS or NTU, so we could meet them face-to-face for the first time, before ending with a library tour. After being released about 10 mins late by Mdm Cao at around 1.40 pm, those of us from HSSRP met up an ran for bus 151 to NUS, by which time was already 2. We arrived there at 2.20, and found out we alighted at the wrong stop. I mean, i think NUS is more than twice the Hwachong campus, and if Hwachong already spans 3 bus stops, you can imagine how confused we were with which stop to alight from. There's even buses running on 4 internal routes to ferry people around the gigantic campus. The smart Kia Wee decided to live up to his status of being an adventurous Scout and walk 4 bus stops - almost the entire width of NUS - to our destination building, whereas we, the more logical ones, took a look at the map and decided to take the shuttle buses instead. And guess what - we found Kia Wee at the very next bus stop, squinting at the map - applying the map-reading skills of a scout! We gestured wildly at him, and thankfully he saw us, got the message and boarded the bus. We arrived there just in time (the Nanyang girls weren't there yet) and the briefing began. Nothing interesting here. Next, they introduced our mentors - and guess what, only 4 of the ~15 mentors were present, and my mentor, Dr Lee Jin, was one of them. Just great...i hadn't really prepared much for my project yet. But what could i do? I went over and greeted him with a stiff "Good Afternoon, Dr. Lee". He had a sort of conservative look about him, and as his name suggested, he seemed to be from China, speaking with a mainland-Chinese accent. I needn't have worried, since Dr. Lee was the one talking the most in our discussion, with me replying with an occasional "Mmph" or "Yeah." Ah well, looks like my first personal interaction with a professor didn't go too badly after all. Halfway through, though, he had to leave to return his office. Just as well, since i was running out of new points to discuss. After that, we had our "tea", consisting of carrot cake, some ngoh hiam thingy and tiny eclairs. Oh, and there was chraysanthemum tea which looked rather yellowish, too. It was a measly catered spread of largely tasteless food, though the eclairs were probably the most appetising. But e being the "hungry ghosts" we were (we rushed to NUS without even having our lunch) took 2 or 3 servings, since no one really wanted the food. Finally, we had our tour of the Central Library in NUS. Its comparable to the National Library, with 6 storey crammed with a couple of million journals, encyclopedias and research books (no fiction! =() with a lot of info. Well, not really surprising, since its a university after all. On a side note, i was actually falling asleep during the tour, but its quite dangerous to be dozing off while climbing stairs, however even playing Worms Fort secretly on my phone couldn't wake me up. Unfortunately, our library cards weren't ready yet, so we couldn't borrow any books. After browsing through the wide selection of books, though, i realised the books i borrowed from the NLB libraries pales in comparison. There's books eprtaining to almsot every field you could think of - Genealogy, Criminology, Chemical Engineering etc. And if you can't find what you want there, don't fret, cos there's another 6 specialised libraries in the campus you can go to! o_O After all that, though, i think the name "Mentors' Tea" isn't really suitable, since only a few mentors were able to turn up in relation to the "Mentor" part, and the "Tea" was more like mere refreshments. Perhaps something like "Boring Intruduction with Snacks" might be more apt. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:39 am.
