First Week of Class

I started class this Monday. I wasn't ready yet. I'm not sure I would have been ready at any point soon. I'm still having  trouble sleeping at night. I'm one of those rare people that needs to get 8 or more hours of sleep a night to function and I can't remember the last night I slept that much. I've not been able to sleep at night and them I'm waking up really early in the morning. Go figure, that I would still be adjusting to the time difference here 12 hours but I thought that over a week would be enough time. I actually thought I was adjusted and then Tuesday came around and I couldn't sleep and I was awake really early. Wednesday wasn't really any better. Today was the first day that I was really able to sleep in but that was mostly because I didn't get up when I woke up but decided to role over and go back to sleep.

Monday I had my first class at 9:30 am and I was not ready. There was readings we were supposed to have completed but I was unable to do them as I was looking for a place to live. The one good thing was that even though we didn't find a place to stay on Sunday. There were a couple of possibilities, we had a couple more places we looked at on Monday.

View from the Marriot hotel in Orchard Street

My first class is "Problems in Combating Insurgency and Terrorism". It is taught by a professor from Georgetown University, Bruce Hoffman. I might have dropped the class after the first day if I had not known was his name on my transcript would do. The course is divided into two parts one which Bruce Hoffman teaches and the other half taught by Gérard Chaliand. It is kind of strange to have the course divided like that but both of them are specialist in their areas. On Wednesday, the class became much more interesting to me as we moved away from the US and started really looking at who the individuals who perpetrated the events where. This was really interesting as they are not what you would expect them to be. 

Orchard Road area. View from Marriot Hotel

After class we went to Summerdale condo which we had seen on Sunday. We talked with the owner and said that we would take it under some conditions. We wanted to be able to move in on the 5th at the latest. This was not possible so we said sorry. I really liked Summerdale but the guys thought it was too big. It was pretty big but it was nice.

Catholic Church near Raffels hotel

I had to run back to class and I was a little bit late. My professor for my required International Relations class doesn't speak very loud and he starts out and then he fades away slowly, and during the fading he turns and faces the wall instead of the class. It was nearly impossible to hear him and I wasn't sitting in the back of the room. This is also a small class room. When I asked if he could speak louder he said he couldn't and I should move to the front of the room. Well seeing as there were not any seats in the first row I couldn't move. He also spoke in monotone so that it was really hard to pay attention. I really just wanted to scream. I was so happy when the class was over.

View from Campus of the other buildings.

I met up with Jan and Daniel and we went to look at looked at another apartment. We saw one apartment which we really liked however it didn't have A/C. We made an offer which was dependent on them putting in A/C. They didn't take our offer but gave us a counter offer which we accepted. Now we are waiting for the Housing Development Board (HDB) to approve us. We should know by Friday what the outcome is. When we parted on Monday we agreed to meet on Tuesday with the agent again and look at one more place and at the same time to pass over the good faith deposit. 


Tuesday Jan and I went to the center of town on Orchard Street. It is defiantly a shopping center. After Orchard we went to the area around Raffels hotel. When we looked at the other place it was also a pretty good location for us. It smelled like chocolate as there was a chocolate factory near by. If we are not approved on Friday by the HDB we will apply for this other apartment. 

Area in Clementi where I live

On Wednesday I had class again. Problems in Combating Insurgency and Terrorism got much more interesting. I had a lot of time when I didn't have anything to do so I tried to read on campus outside. I got to hot and started to get a headache. I ended up going to the library and took a nap. While I was napping I had a nightmare about my IR required class. One of the readings online was corrupt (in reality as well as my dream) and the professor was telling me that as a graduate student I need to know how to uncrrupt the file. It was a horrible dream.


When I woke up we had to go to the Professional Skills Enrichment class. It looks like it might be an interesting class. However I was really  tired so didn't really hear that much of what was being said. I like that it is being taught by many different professors. 

The View from my room on 2 Taman Mas Merah

After class a bunch of us went to dinner and then Daniel, Jan and I went to town and got a beer in celebration of a possible apartment. 


Today was a slow day for me. I thought about going to Boon Lay over by campus but decided to just walk to the grocery store near where I live. I got some food. I cooked a pizza in the little toaster oven and it was really good. It was really good to have gotten food and to have a day were I didn't have to do anything. I probably should have been doing readings for my courses but I decided to have a slow day. It was a good thing for me.