Today was a very hectic day. Lots of things going on, and very little sleep, despite the jetlag. First of all, flying for 8 hours in a middle seat is very uncomfortable; especially when you try to sleep. I talked quite alot with a russian IB student, though, who seemed quite interested in philosophy and my knowledge of physics. Always nice to spread your knowledge to an interested audience!

Anyways, upon arrival, I immediately noticed the strictness of the country, as every person who wanted to enter singapore had to fill out a form, scan their fingerprints, and have their papers ready for approval (that is, unless you were already a Singaporean citizen). I had to stand in line for about an hour to get through…

Having gotten through, I got in a taxi and talked to a pretty nice driver about Singapore over the 45 minute drive to NTU. Towards the end of the trip, I told him that I hadn’t really come here to study; that it wasn’t my main goal. Then he took one look at me and stated that I, as a blonde, tall westerner would have no problems with the ladies. And then I was sent off to collect the keys for my room, and off I went to my nice, air-conditioned appartment on the 12:th floor. Except it wasn’t nice; it smelled pretty weird and had a few ants running around on the floor. It wasn’t airconditioned; you had to buy and charge a card with money for that. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even an appartment. It had closer resemblance to a cell, and shower, toilet and kitchen wasn’t part of the room - that belonged to the bigger complex of appartments on the same floor. And I couldn’t even find the showers…

But I figured that maybe this was good anyways, cause it just gave me a whole lot more reasons not to stay in my room, and instead go out and meet new people, do stuff and have fun. So off I went to the kickoff event for exchange students, where I already on the way made friends with a greek guy, Vassilis. Living off the social atmosphere, I started to talk around with almost anyone that was standing near me, and that resulted in me getting a group of 5 friends that I hung around with the rest of the day. More on that later…

First, I just wanted to process the kickoff seminar, which was quite funny with jokes and interesting info about the university and stay here in Singapore. However, when it came to course registration… Holy shit, do they know how to make something unnecessarily and incomprehensibly complicated. I wish I could recall the things she said about it, but man did she put my jetlag to a test there… And as I’ve found out now during the evening, this complicated process wasn’t complicated enough if you’re a graduate student. Apparently, close to zero information is given to graduate students about their add and drop preiod, which of course means that they should have an entirely different add and drop system than the undergraduates, and that this system should consist of the good ol’ email & reply. Yeah, I don’t get it either. I don’t even know if I’m a graduate student or an undergraduate. It should be the former, as this is the form I filled out, but you never know…

Anyways, I’ve really started off well with networking, as I’m eagerly striking up conversations left and right. Now I’ve already fixed a group of friends to hang out with, and I will only try to make it even bigger, so that I have stuff to do every day. So that is something I really recommend when you’re new on exchange studies: use the smallest reasons to talk, to actually talk with someone and make a connection - even if they’re a stranger. That’s how I hung around with a greek, a turk, 2 austrians and another swede to the shopping mall today. It felt like a really great day!

Until, of course, I got it confirmed that NTU might be a super strict university that is only focused on studies. The University started getting extremely quiet and almost uncannily still around 21.00. They have in paper forbidden all interactions between men and women after 22:00 in any student room, and they may only hang out with an open door. It remains to be seen how strict they actually are with these rules, but the policymaker really likes strictness like noone else. Apparently it’s only NTU as well, not the other university I could have attended: NUS. They’re even closer to the city… Welp, my fault for not having caught this in my research. It’ll probably turn out to be a whole lot less strict in reality anyways. I’ll still enjoy this stay to the fullest, and maybe bend the rules once in a while.

Also, this is a reason why, if you choose to study and live in NTU, you should travel alot and network in order to get out of its rules and influence more freely, on your own accords. Just keep up the stamina for socializing, and realize that this is actually an opportunity to see how far your abilities to network reaches. I will definitely practice this, anyways, and I hope it will help me get to the sociable ideal I work towards. But in all fairness, choose NUS if there’s ever a doubt in your mind! These rules are extreme.

Anyways, it’s late and I should definitely get to sleep now. This day has definitely been a rollercoster, and to sum it up, I thus far strongly dislike the university, but strongly like the people. But I’m very grateful, because it isn’t the other way around. Perhaps some of these initial views will change further on, though, as I start to see from more perspectives.