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Bloody Semester 2

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Being direct and frank is good, so as you can see in my very direct and candid heading for this post, I am having a bloody stressful Year 1 Semester 2.

Okay, maybe my judgement of this semester to be stressful is rather skewed because I spent my entire last semester (Y1S1) having way too much fun (and also spending lots of time settling my relationship problems). I was surprised with the minimal amount of effort I put into my tutorials and work, I could score pretty well (I expected all B and below, but I got 3As instead).

Anyways, just in case any of you want to know what modules I took in NUS Year 1 Sem 1 (because, I totally know you guys want to know), here are the modules....

EN1101E: Introduction to Literature (or something) 
Relatively easy and manageable. It was very fun, I liked the readings, I had 4 books to read, but I really only read one carefully, which was Wide Sargasso Sea. I don't think the rest of the books need to be read in too much depth, not unless you have an assignment based off it. I only really read around 5 stories for the book of short stories, if you know what I am saying.
The assignments are fun to do, and my tutor is totally awesome. Love him, not kidding.
Lectures are either too fast (when they are conducted by Susan Ang) or too slow when they are conducted by John Richardson. I gave up going for lectures in the end because I can never learn much from a lecture that I can't catch up with or one where I can't get the gist.
Self study is really the key!

GES1028: Singapore Society 
Interesting module, but the lectures are really unmanageable boring. Non-stop droning for almost 1.5 hours with 10 min break in between. I cannot focus for the whole period most of the time, except for that one lecture where I forced myself to focus to not think about my sad breakup. See, breakup can be good, because I had to use academics to distract myself.
Not really much assignment, in fact, none at all. Love it.
Tutorial preparation consists of plenty of reading (never procrastinate the readings, they are long and usually heavy, sometimes hard to grasp without making notes) and class participation. My tutor literally takes down the names of people who speak, so I forced myself to speak even if my points are lousy. I mean, who cares?
I thought I would get a B or below since I ponned all but 3 of the lectures and never ever studied it except for completing tutorials. But guess what? Bless my brains, I got an A.

GEM 1036: Globalization and New Media
Interesting concepts are taught in this module, and I cannot understand why I didn't pay attention in the first half of the sem. (I know why, I blame it on myself for being too infatuated then.) Anyways, if you are able to listen to the lecture by taking notes (always use laptop or print the slides beforehand) and jotting down Mr Gui's examples, you will learn a lot. And it is very useful and interesting.
Weekly tutorials are fun with lots of readings (or one LONG reading. By long I mean at least 20 pages, usually 30 plus to 40). Discussion style, talk more for marks. Not very stressful, but not that relaxing either.
Assignment. Woe betide me, 2 assignments. One powerpoint and one essay, both of which I procrastinated till last minute with shockingly amazing results. This is a terrible positive reinforcement for a nasty habit. Basically I scored full marks for powerpoint and 29/30 for the essay. Like I say, shocking. (JX must have heard me boast endlessly about this when I got back my assignment grades.)
I predicted a B- initially, but my assignments totally make me ace it. Woohoo for another A!

PL1101E: Introduction to Psychology.
Very fun, very interesting, I love all the concepts but I ABHOR the lectures. I feel like I am withering and dying in the lectures, I am not even kidding. I attended around 2 lectures and ponned the rest to do self study...that only happened before exams. Not the way to go, especially not with the amount og HARDCORE memorizing you will need to do. Do practice and make sure you know what will be tested (I heard the lecturer likes to give hints in his lectures, so I suppose you should waste your 1.5 hours listening to hints).
I wouldn't say I screw it up, especially not given my emotional circumstances whilst I took the exam. I was proud of my mid term B because I didn't really study for it and did pretty okay (when I expected a fail). I am disappointed in my overall B because I studied more for finals and uh...I guess I still didn't work hard enough. SU it!

SE1101E: Southeast Asia A Changing Region.
BAH. I can't even begin with how much I dislike this module. Heavy content. Heavy reading. Lecture early in the morning. Whilst some concepts are interesting to understand and listen to, I don't get why our group essay got a B-. It seemed awesome to me and I would totally give it A+. I mean, afterall Alex is freaking genius. As for me, I honestly had no idea what was going on. Like literally, zero idea. I studied sufficiently for finals and mid terms, did will for mid terms and didn't do so well for finals. Finals are hard, 20 short answer, one essay. Personally I didn't enjoy this module at all and the only redeeming points are:

  • Lecturer is funny and witty
  • I had my best friends Chelsea and Alex to sit together with and go for tutorials together. I thank my 6th senses for choosing a different slot then what I wanted at first, or I won't be with these awesome peeps.

My greatest accomplishments of 2015? I juggled school, emotional burden and setbacks, my homework and skating commitments pretty well. (At least, I feel.) Then of course I made friends with the most awesome people in my skate group, and I really adore Meh, QY and JX (I'll grudgingly say that JY is nice at times.) In a way, skating helped me to cope with my most difficult times, where my fun group mates and friends were really really wonderful to be around.

Of course another accomplishment is that I lost almost 10kg in the year, but by now I have gained 3kg back. Hehe. Self control!

2016 shall be awesome. Since parts of 2015 were painful and bitter, I shall strive to make 2016 a truly wonderful year. I am taking a module with my favourite Meh and Chelsea, hanging out with skaters and having a blissful time (*beams*). Oh but my modules are kind of tough this year...I am taking a level 3000 literature module, whom people think I am crazy to do. There is no crazy okay guys, only dedication and talent (*flips hair*).

So my mods for this semester are:
EU1101E: Making of Modern Europe (bahh bahh bananas. History.)
EN2201: Backgrounds to Western Culture and Literature (HARD! So far tougher than EN3231)
EN3231: American Literature. (Love it)
GER1000: Quantitative reasoning. (Actually interesting. Starting to like it.)
GET1029: Life The Universe, Everything. (No likey. Redeeming point: with Meh!)

Okie that's about it. I need to blog more. This blog is dying and I shall try to add it to my list of to dos to blog more. Should I blog about my life or do product reviews? Hmm....