update on not updating...

Ack! So naturally I've failed at being a good little blogster... It's been nearly a month since I last checked in and wrote something. We've had two amazing and successful trips--Vietnam (magical!) and Borneo (ridic with wildlife & plants)--and the usual Singapore mischief has occurred.

The past couple weeks have really hit me and though I feel torn between being an exchange STUDENT and acting like an "exchange student," I've been trying to focus on my studying. I just had a group presentation, group paper, individual paper due, and I've got three group presentations and another group paper before I'm in the clear. Well, in the clear and studying for finals! I have exams on the 25th and 26th of Nov and the 1st and 3rd of Dec.

A few things I've been thinking about:
1.) I cannot believe how ridiculously kind some people here are. Things have happened that I'm convinced wouldn't happen at home.

a.) One day I was working on a marketing assignment that was due in a few hours, and (surprise) I was a few minutes late to class. I decided to walk to beat the bus system, but of course 2 buses passed me on the way. I broke one of my flip flops, so I walked into class with only one shoe on. After class, the girl next to me, who I'd not met before and who had noticed my shoe problem, asked if I lived at PGP. Then she offered to go back with me barefoot so I wouldn't feel silly. SAY WHAT!?
b.) The lady at the juice stall at the business canteen calls me sister sometimes... I know it's not just me, but I really like that. :)
c.) I arrived at my operations management tutorial (late? yes...) and there was only one seat left in the back, awkwardly on the corner of a table. I squeezed in and instead of being annoyed, the girl next to me whispered, "We have a quiz next week; all the information about it is on the board right there." I guess maybe this would happen at home, but from a stranger?
d.) My marketing professor, who is really entertaining and smart, is apparently also very kind. She seems to notice when I attend lecture (sometimes calling me out as "Wisconson" in front of the class of 300!), and in the past 3 weeks I've attended a different lecture time each week. So the other day, she asked that I come down and talk to her after class. I thought she'd tell me that I should try to attend the lecture I signed up for because the lecture hall is usually pretty full, but she just wanted to point out that since I attended a different lecture last week, I should study the services section of the product slides because that class had already gotten the info and maybe I had missed it. SAY WHAT!? :)

2.) My group meetings have been on average 3-4 hours long. I think that is, like, illegal in the states as they say anything over an hour is not productive, but I wouldn't say it's all bad. In the U.S. we would have a short discussion about the project, immediately split things up, and then get back together in a few days when our individual parts are done and maybe spend an hour compiling or editing. Some of my friends here have spent almost a whole day in a meeting! It's a different mindset, I think, and it seems less efficient, but if you have the time, it's kind of nice to discuss back and forth and work out the topics together. You come up with some meaningful conclusions you wouldn't have come to on your own. Everything gets done, just in a different way.

3.) On a more personal note (ee!), I haven't really felt homesick yet--minus that time in Kuala Lumpur when I was sick and had a throbbing headache and had to sit outside our broken A/C room to get warm and eat mango biscuits with my pain pills.
I think it has something to do with it really being quite a short amount of time that I'm here. And with all the traveling, maybe I don't feel like I'm even fully settled yet! I was thinking about how some of the exchange students are here for a year, and I wonder if I'd learn more about myself and the world by staying for a year... I don't really have that option since finishing college and getting a job is something I'd like to do before I'm 42, but I wonder how that would change how I see Singapore and how I see the U.S. And then I realized, I've never lived in a place for longer than 9 months at a time since I was 18 anyway (granted, that's only 4 yrs, but still...). Maybe I'm just used to not having a "permanent address." That will certainly be a change when I get a fulltime job and I'm there for more than 6 months! ...or maybe I can avoid that somehow. Can we say, "International assignment?" :) winky ;)

Here are some new pics, too. I'll write about Vietnam and Borneo and share those pics asap!

those times in singapore btwn travels, or the BEST times! - SG 16
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2461906&l=fe1f2&id=8605287
including: EXCLUSIVE pricewaterhousecoopers party, powerhouse on a sunday, and the making of our beautiful butterfly wings

halloween's "the flight of the bumbleb- i mean BUTTERFLY" - SG 21
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2462957&l=1f492&id=8605287
halloween party, which was mostly exchange students, where our friend Stéphane was DJing!