Hahvahd

I never thought I'd say this, but I really do miss our small island nation with no natural resources. It's been a month and a half now, and the lack of "lah"s and "nehmine"s, coupled with bloody American spelling, is getting to me. Unforunately, while there is another Singaporean here, she's from UWC and is half Canadian, so I've had to turn to Mr Brown to keep me sane. Go ter kwa!

Anyway. Life here is really hectic. Since I'm missing school to do this, I figured I may as well try to get two As - which I later realised is above 95. This therefore entails studying most of the time (so this is what being a wafflesian feels like!). On the other hand, the courses and instructors are excellent, the campus is gorgeous, and the people are absolutely amazing. Most of them aspire to start some literary renaissance, win a nobel prize or solve world hunger and/or villages of starving orphans, so its really difficult to answer what your ambitions are when asked, without sounding absolutely retarded. Currently I've settled on being world hegemon, which I suppose will be kinda neat in due time.

Speaking of Mr Brown, I just went to visit his namesake the week before. For some reason or another it reminded me a lot of good old AC, with a very heavy emphasis on CCAs and a tad less on academic grades. Also, I just returned from an eight hour roundtrip to Yale, which is without question one of the most beautiful yet idiosyncratic places on the planet. For example: in both Harvard and Yale, there are bronze statues with the founders' names below them. People (chinese and japanese tourists especially) pay megabucks to come from all over the world to touch the statues' toes, which apparently brings luck to the admission process. As a result, the toes of the statues are gleaming gold from people touching it and transferring its dust to themselves. However, because all paintings of them were destroyed in various fires, the statues are NOT actually of either Harvard or Yale! Rather, they're just two random people the artisans picked out when they made the statue. Very very silly. More pictures to follow.

The depressing part of all of this is that its going to be really difficult to get into any one of them. A quick trip to the COOP here will explain (in "How They Got Into Harvard, 2nd edition") that unless you're a valedictorian, captain of three national sports teams, and related to the president (yes, all at once), you're better off selling ice to eskimos than applying to a top ivy. Ah well, much work lies ahead.

On the plus side, in two weeks I'll be back. Which isn't entirely good either, because theres going to be a mountain of stuff waiting for me. But I knew this would happen when I signed up for it anyway, and its certainly been worth it, I think. I hope.

Aiya sian already, see you all soon lah.