Saturday, April 22, 2006
So Spring Carnival has ended and normal school life resumes. The past week has passed by in the blink of an eye, with most of my time spent on booth. Schoolwork took a backseat as I spent my evenings working on booth till midnight, and then, in typical fashion, spent the wee hours of the morning rushing my homework. I barely slept and I'm still trying to get back to my normal sleeping pattern. I'm just glad I've managed to survive the past week and also the whole Booth experience. We ended up third and I guess it was a big disappointment to us, but looking at the big picture, I guess third place is not a bad achievement, considering how before move-on, our booth still looked far from completed. I've mixed feelings about the whole experience and being in the Booth comm. The past few days have definitely been quite fun as many people came down to help out and make sure that everything was okay. But I won't deny that being in the booth comm was a trying experience. We had many problems along the way and I just hope that I didn't burn bridges with too many people (is that the correct expression??) as I went about doing things my own way. Those who know what happened will know what I'm talking about. Overall, it's definitely been fun and also rewarding, especially when you see the final product, which is impressive. I would definitely help out next year, just that on a much much smaller scale.
Anyway, I've spent the past two weeks thinking about the courses to take and stuff, about what I want to do for the rest of my stay in CMU. Fall registration is next week and I have a really bad registration time (2.30pm). I'm prepared to be waitlisted, just that I hope I'm not waitlisted in too many courses. This is what I hope my schedule will be. So I'm now majoring in Computational Finance. Frankly, I'm not even sure if that's what I really want to do. I'll probably find out. But I won't deny that I'm really interested in the field of finance, just that comp finance is really very maths and I'm not sure if I can handle so much maths haha. I know that I want to do something that involves both maths and macroecons. Still interested in econs, surprisingly, and I'm definitely considering an additional major/minor in it. Changed my mind about doing something in psych. I still want to take psych courses, but the higher level psych courses involve lab research and stuff, and I don't like labwork haha. Oh well.
On the way back from dinner just now, Zhengheng asked me why I want to finish in 3 years. He asked me what's the difference between studying in US and Singapore and about why I want to rush off in 3 years. That set me off thinking. I would gladly stay one more year rather than working, but it's not only that. The fees are expensive and I know my parents would prefer me to finish in 3. But what really made me think was Zhengheng's comment about how if I rush, I'll probably end up not learning much. And I think I find that to be very true. It doesn't help that the uni style of education is such that you're learning something from a course for a sem and after that, you're learning different stuff. Well, maybe you still use a bit of the stuff that you've learned, but generally, I don't think that's the case. I know I definitely have forgotten most of the stuff I learned last sem, which made me question if I've really learned anything since coming here. If not, then what's the point of going to classes and everything? And I realize I've become more grade-oriented than ever this sem, if you know what I mean. Doing enough to get an A rather than learning something.
Anyway, went to Ikea for furniture-shopping again, or rather, to look at the furniture. I'm really impressed by the way the guys have designed their rooms and everything. They seem to know so much about furniture and stuff and they're really good in furnishing their house. Their house looks really cosy! For me, I'm just fine with simple stuff. Think it has to do partly with the way I was brought up. But besides that, I think the guys generally are so much more mature and independent than me. I must admit I'm really quite naive and I guess, pretty sheltered, all this while. Next sem, when me and jess have to stay on our own and do everything ourselves, will be the true test haha. It'll be definitely a time of learning and to me, it is one of the differences between studying here and back in singapore. I mean, if I'd stayed in Singapore, I wouldn't have been forced to do everything by myself. Suddenly reminds me of what my Sunday school teachers told us last time. They told us girls to find a guy who's studied overseas cos he'll probably know how to cook haha.
Just realized that it's 2 weeks before the spring sem ends, and after that, I'll be a sophomore already. Summer school and before I know it, it'll be HOME HOME HOME! :)
posted by vivien at 8:24 PM