ICE.COLD.COFFEE

It's for the advanced placement course for International Economics.

And guess what? The teacher was late for more than half an hour! It was due to some miscommunication so he got the time wrong.

And while we were waiting outside the seminar room for the teacher to arrive, I was looking at the clothes others were wearing. Some of them dressed really matured. Some were ok ok... But they mostly looked nice. And when I walked around SMU, I realised that the clothes the students wear look quite expensive.

I wonder if I can dress nicely when I go to university since I don't really buy expensive clothes. My clothes look ok, they don't look expensive. It's just average. I really think that it's easier wearing uniform, although it's not as nice as home clothes. Because you don't have to worry about what to wear every morning and don't need to care how people will look at the way you dress.

I was glad that my clothes were quite presentable today. I think everyone dressed nicer than they usually do today to give others a good impression of them. Maybe their clothes will become more average as the weeks pass.

Luckily Sheryl (not the one from my class) and Qian Qi were there too. If not I wouldn't have known anyone else there. We knew each other from Bizclub. There were another 4 VJ guys but we didn't know them. We got to know some of them later when we were put into groups. Andy and Vi were in our group.

When the teacher came, we started lesson. The first part was about introduction to the format and syllabus of the course. The SMU system is such that 30% of the exam marks come from class participation. Meaning the teacher grades you on how much you ask questions in class and how much you participate in class discussion.

It's a disadvantage to those who are naturally quiet in class though (like me). Although I have to agree that this idea may help us to learn more if we ask questions and discuss stuff in class.

At first, people were quite quiet. After a while, they started speaking up. It was then that I felt I was kinda in the wrong class. How come they all know stuff I don't? Then I realised that oh, maybe it's because they read the newspaper and I don't. I see... Haha...

Some were quite open to discussion when other people voiced out their disagreements to their arguments. But there was this particular girl and her friend who were kinda arrogant. The tone of their voices seemed to say "Hey you! Listen to me. Cos I'm right and you're wrong".

They spoke really strongly and although they showed that they read the newspapers and had their facts right, it just puts me off. I don't like the way they talk.

The rest of the lesson was fine. We learnt about comparative advantage and strangly enough, we learnt about the same topic during econs lecture on Thursday so the lesson was rather easy to understand.

I felt that the way my econs lecturer taught us was made the topic much easier to understand than the way the SMU lecturer did it. It's strange when they took the same amount of time and I thought the SMU lecturer was supposed to be better.

The lesson ended at about 12.30pm when it was supposed to end at 12. From now onwards, Saturday is no longer my rest day (not that it ever was. I used to have training on sat morn.) but training was much more relaxing on the mind than this lecture.

I don't like the system of grading on participation. What if I understand the lesson and I don't need to ask questions? What if I don't have any opposing views on what the teacher says? How to voice my views like that? Or maybe I should say out loud "Yes, I agree" periodically to show my "participation". -_-"

Whatever it is, I'm determined to pass the exam at the end of the module (which includes doing well for the participation component). If not, I would have wasted 13 Saturday mornings. I could have been swimming or better still, sleep in if I was "sick". Haha...