7:10 I wake up and turn off the alarm clock that hasn’t sounded yet. I put it on 7.15, just in case, but somehow I always wake up naturally 5 minutes in advance. This is especially good news for Yiran, who can sleep a bit longer.
8:05 After showering, having breakfast and a quick e-mail check, it is now really time to go to the bus stop.
8:10 I meet Håvar, a Norwegian guy, at the bus stop, and we have a little chat. Strangely enough, he lives in a flat just behind ours, also has a Chinese girlfriend and also studies Mandarin at the same institute, but one class higher.
8:15 Bus 14 picks us up. This is always a double deck bus, and there is always a seat for me in the upper deck. Either I watch ChannelNewsAsia on one of the TVs on the bus and every day I wonder how Singaporeans could like the fact that the TV’s sound is played though the loudspeakers of the bus. Which is especially irritating when confronted with upbeat commercials in the early morning. More often, I read a book. The bus takes quite a while, and passes just through Singapore’s most famous shopping street: Orchard Road.
8:55 The bus arrives at the stop where we should be: Doby Ghaut station. Håvar and I cross the road and enter a shopping mall “Park Mall”, which, as I know since shortly, has as its logo a calligraphic version of the character 家 (home). They're mainly selling furniture. It’s a little wait for the lift that brings us to the 12th floor.
9:0x I arrive at the 12th floor, which is rented entirely by NUS Extension. They are linked to National University of Singapore, but provide courses to people from outside. You could compare it to Maastricht’s language centre. I enter the class and greet some of my classmates. Usually in Chinese.
During the next hours I and my fellow students are exposed to all kinds of new sentence constructions, and we are very often asked to construct our own sentences, of raising complexity. There are 4 hours with 4 different teachers. Between lessons there are luckily breaks which I use to get coffee. In the hallways, you often meet the strangest situations, such as a Norwegian guy and a Japanese girl trying to chat in Chinese (where the Norwegian’s Japanese is actually much better than his Chinese).
13:xx Class is finished and I take the elevator down. Though I’m quite hungry, I first take bus 14 home and alight just before home. There are all kinds of food stalls, and here I usually have lunch. Singapore’s great for the variety in food it offers and it’s not possible to make the food at home for a cheaper price than consuming it in a food court.
14:xx I arrive home and usually spend the afternoon doing homework for Chinese, doing research for my job hunt and doing things for OCEP. And of course the odd domestic thing, such as clearing the laundry.
18:xx Yiran usually arrives home later in the afternoon and brings food from her Faculty's canteen, which we warm up and eat together. We take some time to talk about each others’ days and then get set for another round of homework. Or sometimes we watch a movie.
23:00 This is bed time. How otherwise could I wake up at 7:10 every morning? Do mind that 11 pm our time equals 16:00 Dutch time. So if you ever wonder why you never see me online, this may have to do with it!
8:05 After showering, having breakfast and a quick e-mail check, it is now really time to go to the bus stop.
8:10 I meet Håvar, a Norwegian guy, at the bus stop, and we have a little chat. Strangely enough, he lives in a flat just behind ours, also has a Chinese girlfriend and also studies Mandarin at the same institute, but one class higher.
8:15 Bus 14 picks us up. This is always a double deck bus, and there is always a seat for me in the upper deck. Either I watch ChannelNewsAsia on one of the TVs on the bus and every day I wonder how Singaporeans could like the fact that the TV’s sound is played though the loudspeakers of the bus. Which is especially irritating when confronted with upbeat commercials in the early morning. More often, I read a book. The bus takes quite a while, and passes just through Singapore’s most famous shopping street: Orchard Road.
8:55 The bus arrives at the stop where we should be: Doby Ghaut station. Håvar and I cross the road and enter a shopping mall “Park Mall”, which, as I know since shortly, has as its logo a calligraphic version of the character 家 (home). They're mainly selling furniture. It’s a little wait for the lift that brings us to the 12th floor.
9:0x I arrive at the 12th floor, which is rented entirely by NUS Extension. They are linked to National University of Singapore, but provide courses to people from outside. You could compare it to Maastricht’s language centre. I enter the class and greet some of my classmates. Usually in Chinese.
During the next hours I and my fellow students are exposed to all kinds of new sentence constructions, and we are very often asked to construct our own sentences, of raising complexity. There are 4 hours with 4 different teachers. Between lessons there are luckily breaks which I use to get coffee. In the hallways, you often meet the strangest situations, such as a Norwegian guy and a Japanese girl trying to chat in Chinese (where the Norwegian’s Japanese is actually much better than his Chinese).
13:xx Class is finished and I take the elevator down. Though I’m quite hungry, I first take bus 14 home and alight just before home. There are all kinds of food stalls, and here I usually have lunch. Singapore’s great for the variety in food it offers and it’s not possible to make the food at home for a cheaper price than consuming it in a food court.
14:xx I arrive home and usually spend the afternoon doing homework for Chinese, doing research for my job hunt and doing things for OCEP. And of course the odd domestic thing, such as clearing the laundry.
18:xx Yiran usually arrives home later in the afternoon and brings food from her Faculty's canteen, which we warm up and eat together. We take some time to talk about each others’ days and then get set for another round of homework. Or sometimes we watch a movie.
23:00 This is bed time. How otherwise could I wake up at 7:10 every morning? Do mind that 11 pm our time equals 16:00 Dutch time. So if you ever wonder why you never see me online, this may have to do with it!