1. updates on life. point form for first time in long while cos too lazehh
2. blog title is coincidental reference to my watch which keeps lagging and misleading me. i was taking my own sweet time studying today cos my watch said it was 8.40pm, but the sky was strangely dark outside and i checked my laptop, turns out it was 9.05pm. felt like i just lost 25min of my life.
3. speaking of studying, there was a funny moment just now while we were all studying tgt in one of the group study rooms in the library (they have like 50 of these amazing little seminar rooms here, as compared to NUS which has three times the student population and five times fewer of those rooms in CLB. unbelievable). we looked up at one point and were like, why are we studying so hard just to pass?
i guess it's kind of funny how the attitude and willingness to learn just changes so much without the pressure of grading and competition in NUS. really loving my student life here, and how i have a workload that actually allows me to breathe. all of us pretty much dread going back to NUS.
4. also had oily chinese food today for dinner, cost about SGD7. it was from the little chinese restaurant a floor below the uni canteen- we'd been meaning to try it for some time now. it was underwhelming, but oh wells, was a funny experience actually eating from one of those stereotypical american chinese takeout boxes you only see in movies. (didn't come with fortune cookies though.)
5. i realised a few days ago that 2 of my exams are in august. facepalm. gonna take them in SG by hook or by crook cos ain't nobody going through that whole german bureaucratic nonsense just to stay half a month more and take 2 exams.
but this means my last day of school will be 20 July. so... to fly back early to sg alone, or to travel around (maybe to croatia or something), then fly back on 1 Aug with my friends? really cannot decide sia. on one hand, i get to go home early, settle down, chill a bit before i take my exams and start the next semester. but i have to take a train and fly for a total of 17-18 hours alone. on the other hand, i get to travel to another country, and then fly back with my friends!! but all the travel planning, and the giant amount of travel money... and the extra settling-down time i'll lose. omg i really dk.
6. in other news, next 1-2 weeks will be pretty busy- going to zurich with the uni this coming saturday!! excitinggg. then next week i'm going to lucerne + interlaken, and the week after, to pompeii and naples. it's crazy cos i always see videos of lucerne + interlaken on fb, and now i'm actually going to go there. can't believe it.
7. random fact: i've developed a newfound love for full fat milk. it just tastes so GUD.
8. the weather has been really changing of late, and after 2 months plus of being here, i've finally changed my jeans (yes, i've been wearing the same pair of jeans for >2 months) for a lighter pair of jeans and my jacket for a lighter spring jacket. yayyyyy.
on the down side, i wake up feeling a little sweaty these days, even though i've already adjusted the heater to its lowest temperature. #signs of summer
9. i know it's kind of early to be thinking about this, but damn i'm gonna miss the friends i've made here on exchange when it's time to go home. but tbh... it's just one person HAHA she's a hongkonger who's somehow infiltrated our nus clique, her name's Susanna and she cooks amazing meals. just putting it here on my blog so i will remember her many years later when i come back to read my archives. (omg so sad.)
exchange life would not have been the same without her presence for sure; she's the most extroverted out of us by far, and she's been like glue, meshing ice-cream sticks together.
i am terrible at goodbyes.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Time after time
Just realised my profile pic on blogger is from like 2012, wow
JC was some strange times man
I am back blogging after only two days!! (Is it? Didn't check)
Actually I'm just bored of doing my soci reading and randomly felt like blogging (how rare)
I realised I didn't really update about life in konstanz in the previous post. There's so much to say, but every time I open Blogger I just forget everything.
Iirc life has consisted mostly of cookouts with friends, buying groceries (last Monday my friends and I discovered Kaufland... it was straight out of a dream), attending classes and trying to plan upcoming trips out of town, which is tough cos I've been to most of the nearby cities, and flying out to anywhere further requires a 30 CHF train ride to Zurich airport..
The other day I was eating my chapalang rice for lunch while sitting in front of the laptop surfing youtube in my tshirt and sweatpants, procrastinating on chores and homework. It was such a standard moment (wow sounds so physics-y) but I felt so cool. LOL. Like I had finally experienced what it means to be a student living overseas. Young me would be proud.
One of my favourite things to do here is just be outside. It's been two months and I'm still in awe at how charming this little German-with-Swiss-influences town is. There's nothing to do here, and I love it. I asked my german flatmate who's been living here at least 2 years: "What do you do for leisure in Konstanz?" And he said "Oh, well, I go to pubs sometimes... watch soccer on tv..."
The most happening things here are Barry's, a club that offers free entry on Monday nights, Kula Bar (located in a really ulu area, but surprisingly crowded and noisy inside, just like 90% of places in Konstanz), and chilling by the famous Lake Constance with 1 euro ice-cream, catching the occasional whiff of weed.
The uni is a 10-minute walk from my apartment complex, which I love. Just gives me so much more time in a day to do other things. Just recently it also occured to me that Konstanz is so small we only have buses. No trams or trains within the town.
I didn't like the design of the uni much at first but for some reason it's really grown on me. It's mostly primary colours around, with a lot of glass windows, and it looks like a kindergarten. LOL. Very strong contrast to the castle-style unis of other cities like Tübingen or Freiburg. The canteen food however is hypertension-inducing. Weekly salt intake fulfilled with one meal.
German coffee is really bad, which apparently is a well-known fact. But there's a vending machine near the canteen that has really good coffee for half the price of Campus Cafe. LOL
And Germans are soo nice? Every German I know has been nothing but friendly and welcoming to me, and even though they're very private people, they're definitely nowhere as closed-off as Singaporeans towards foreigners.
I'm taking four courses at uni- three econs and one soci. The workload is nowhere as crazy as NUS' and I love the pass/fail grading basis cos it really takes the pressure off of studying and I feel a lot more genuinely interested in my courses.
Lastly, one of my favourite parts of konstanz (if you haven't already seen my snaps) is the field that lies between my apartment complex and Jungerhalde. Omg it's so pretty in the day? It looks exactly like a movie setting. The flowers are starting to bloom there, and it's just so amazing when you look around and all you see are trees and grass, the blue sky and tiny little flowers everywhere. Tried so many times to take pics and snaps but nothing does it justice.
Walking through this field at night however is a totally different experience. It was so dark my vision was blurry- felt like I'd never known darkness until I walked through that field. The other downside is the mud!! Rain or shine, day or night, somehow I always make a huge mess of my shoes just walking there. I now have a rag dedicated to cleaning my shoes every time I come back from Jungerhalde.
Now, back to my reading
BYE
Edit: While Germany is a nice place with a relatively low cost of living compared to other european nations, please don't come for exchange. There's simply too much red tape and bureaucracy, and it's honestly quite disgusting, for lack of a better word. Let me give just a few examples
Compulsory opening of bank account: EUR 150 admin fee (not to mention the numerous times you will have to re-send your account application forms to germany because you will fail at least one time thanks to morbidly incompetent staff at the local German Embassy (actually just one lady in particular))
Compulsory visa: EUR 90 admin fee
Compulsory insurance: At least EUR 30 per month, the ones the Uni highly recommends are about EUR 100 and they don't tell you about the budget ones unless you ask
Plus, idk if it's the same everywhere or I'm just too sheltered as a singaporean, but coming here has me realize how if you are a poor powerless student nobody cares about you; even if something happens to you that is some random admin person's mistake, you will be forced to pay for it... quite literally pay for it. Whatever the amount.
Between less than five of my friends and I, the german system has failed us too many times. One of my friends is in a terrible predicament rn thanks to the wonder that is German efficiency, but that's a story for another time.
JC was some strange times man
I am back blogging after only two days!! (Is it? Didn't check)
Actually I'm just bored of doing my soci reading and randomly felt like blogging (how rare)
I realised I didn't really update about life in konstanz in the previous post. There's so much to say, but every time I open Blogger I just forget everything.
Iirc life has consisted mostly of cookouts with friends, buying groceries (last Monday my friends and I discovered Kaufland... it was straight out of a dream), attending classes and trying to plan upcoming trips out of town, which is tough cos I've been to most of the nearby cities, and flying out to anywhere further requires a 30 CHF train ride to Zurich airport..
The other day I was eating my chapalang rice for lunch while sitting in front of the laptop surfing youtube in my tshirt and sweatpants, procrastinating on chores and homework. It was such a standard moment (wow sounds so physics-y) but I felt so cool. LOL. Like I had finally experienced what it means to be a student living overseas. Young me would be proud.
One of my favourite things to do here is just be outside. It's been two months and I'm still in awe at how charming this little German-with-Swiss-influences town is. There's nothing to do here, and I love it. I asked my german flatmate who's been living here at least 2 years: "What do you do for leisure in Konstanz?" And he said "Oh, well, I go to pubs sometimes... watch soccer on tv..."
The most happening things here are Barry's, a club that offers free entry on Monday nights, Kula Bar (located in a really ulu area, but surprisingly crowded and noisy inside, just like 90% of places in Konstanz), and chilling by the famous Lake Constance with 1 euro ice-cream, catching the occasional whiff of weed.
The uni is a 10-minute walk from my apartment complex, which I love. Just gives me so much more time in a day to do other things. Just recently it also occured to me that Konstanz is so small we only have buses. No trams or trains within the town.
I didn't like the design of the uni much at first but for some reason it's really grown on me. It's mostly primary colours around, with a lot of glass windows, and it looks like a kindergarten. LOL. Very strong contrast to the castle-style unis of other cities like Tübingen or Freiburg. The canteen food however is hypertension-inducing. Weekly salt intake fulfilled with one meal.
German coffee is really bad, which apparently is a well-known fact. But there's a vending machine near the canteen that has really good coffee for half the price of Campus Cafe. LOL
And Germans are soo nice? Every German I know has been nothing but friendly and welcoming to me, and even though they're very private people, they're definitely nowhere as closed-off as Singaporeans towards foreigners.
I'm taking four courses at uni- three econs and one soci. The workload is nowhere as crazy as NUS' and I love the pass/fail grading basis cos it really takes the pressure off of studying and I feel a lot more genuinely interested in my courses.
Lastly, one of my favourite parts of konstanz (if you haven't already seen my snaps) is the field that lies between my apartment complex and Jungerhalde. Omg it's so pretty in the day? It looks exactly like a movie setting. The flowers are starting to bloom there, and it's just so amazing when you look around and all you see are trees and grass, the blue sky and tiny little flowers everywhere. Tried so many times to take pics and snaps but nothing does it justice.
Walking through this field at night however is a totally different experience. It was so dark my vision was blurry- felt like I'd never known darkness until I walked through that field. The other downside is the mud!! Rain or shine, day or night, somehow I always make a huge mess of my shoes just walking there. I now have a rag dedicated to cleaning my shoes every time I come back from Jungerhalde.
Now, back to my reading
BYE
Edit: While Germany is a nice place with a relatively low cost of living compared to other european nations, please don't come for exchange. There's simply too much red tape and bureaucracy, and it's honestly quite disgusting, for lack of a better word. Let me give just a few examples
Compulsory opening of bank account: EUR 150 admin fee (not to mention the numerous times you will have to re-send your account application forms to germany because you will fail at least one time thanks to morbidly incompetent staff at the local German Embassy (actually just one lady in particular))
Compulsory visa: EUR 90 admin fee
Compulsory insurance: At least EUR 30 per month, the ones the Uni highly recommends are about EUR 100 and they don't tell you about the budget ones unless you ask
Plus, idk if it's the same everywhere or I'm just too sheltered as a singaporean, but coming here has me realize how if you are a poor powerless student nobody cares about you; even if something happens to you that is some random admin person's mistake, you will be forced to pay for it... quite literally pay for it. Whatever the amount.
Between less than five of my friends and I, the german system has failed us too many times. One of my friends is in a terrible predicament rn thanks to the wonder that is German efficiency, but that's a story for another time.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
I know it's been a while
Hi
If you are reading this fresh post... you must be my biggest fan
Hi jiams
Sooo it's been another month since I last updated, and so many things have happened I don't even know where to start
Trip to Scottish Highlands > Edinburgh > Aberdeen > Glasgow > Amsterdam > Brussels > Prague > Bratislava > Budapest was
A M A Z I N G
Thoroughly enjoyed myself those 3 weeks. Felt like the best time of my life. Only regrets: Didn't spend enough time in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Edinburgh was so beautiful! Glasgow was also beautiful but in its own way, idk how to explain it but the city just has this run-down charm. I think I just love Scotland. Would totally go back. And the Scot Highlands tour was bomb, so was Aberdeen which for some reason has the same grey buildings everywhere, and also their beach which was really quiet yet nice. Seagulls and strong winds were everywhere though. But loved Aberdeen for its quietness.
Amsterdam was very touristy and 'youngin' as Jess (my travel buddy up till Brussels) puts it, also very shady. Technically we also visited Den Hague because our airbnb was there (Ams airbnbs and hostels were way too expensive), which looked like a great place to live.
Also went to Keukenhof tulip gardens- very beautiful but not sure if worth my 24 euros since I'm not the type to take lots of pretty pictures, went there mostly just to see see. It was too crowded too, and that kinda marred the experience for me. Beautiful tulips nonetheless
Van Gogh museum was pretty rad but we got in late and I didn't have time to leisurely finish going around :(
Didn't have much to do in Brussels. Ate belgium waffles which I think are overrated, went to 3 museums (I fell in love with Magritte museum), found a place that served great value Chinese food.
Flew alone from Brussels to Prague which was pretty scary. Made it to my hostel in Prague in one piece, where I met up with Lianne and Clarissa. Prague was also really touristy albeit beautiful (LOL this must be most used word in this post), preferred Cesky Krumlov which was quieter and food was pretty dang cheap especially compared to Prague. Also it snowed while we were there and while it looked amazing, it was really freezing
Bratislava was great, especially the food which was cheap and good. Budapest was a great way to end the trip, it would have been one of my favourite cities ever if not for the locals who were pretty unfriendly and occasionally rude. The food was the cheapest out of all the cities. Found a Chinese place with amazing noodles (we went there twice hahaha) and I had probably the best pasta I've ever had there, which only cost SGD6.
Okay time to clean my room and cook dinner bye
If you are reading this fresh post... you must be my biggest fan
Hi jiams
Sooo it's been another month since I last updated, and so many things have happened I don't even know where to start
Trip to Scottish Highlands > Edinburgh > Aberdeen > Glasgow > Amsterdam > Brussels > Prague > Bratislava > Budapest was
A M A Z I N G
Thoroughly enjoyed myself those 3 weeks. Felt like the best time of my life. Only regrets: Didn't spend enough time in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Edinburgh was so beautiful! Glasgow was also beautiful but in its own way, idk how to explain it but the city just has this run-down charm. I think I just love Scotland. Would totally go back. And the Scot Highlands tour was bomb, so was Aberdeen which for some reason has the same grey buildings everywhere, and also their beach which was really quiet yet nice. Seagulls and strong winds were everywhere though. But loved Aberdeen for its quietness.
Amsterdam was very touristy and 'youngin' as Jess (my travel buddy up till Brussels) puts it, also very shady. Technically we also visited Den Hague because our airbnb was there (Ams airbnbs and hostels were way too expensive), which looked like a great place to live.
Also went to Keukenhof tulip gardens- very beautiful but not sure if worth my 24 euros since I'm not the type to take lots of pretty pictures, went there mostly just to see see. It was too crowded too, and that kinda marred the experience for me. Beautiful tulips nonetheless
Van Gogh museum was pretty rad but we got in late and I didn't have time to leisurely finish going around :(
Didn't have much to do in Brussels. Ate belgium waffles which I think are overrated, went to 3 museums (I fell in love with Magritte museum), found a place that served great value Chinese food.
Flew alone from Brussels to Prague which was pretty scary. Made it to my hostel in Prague in one piece, where I met up with Lianne and Clarissa. Prague was also really touristy albeit beautiful (LOL this must be most used word in this post), preferred Cesky Krumlov which was quieter and food was pretty dang cheap especially compared to Prague. Also it snowed while we were there and while it looked amazing, it was really freezing
Bratislava was great, especially the food which was cheap and good. Budapest was a great way to end the trip, it would have been one of my favourite cities ever if not for the locals who were pretty unfriendly and occasionally rude. The food was the cheapest out of all the cities. Found a Chinese place with amazing noodles (we went there twice hahaha) and I had probably the best pasta I've ever had there, which only cost SGD6.
Okay time to clean my room and cook dinner bye
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