An indignant post
You can imagine my indignation when someone tells me "no need to study so hard" and attempts to direct me to do certain things which exchange students are "supposed" to do i.e. "not just to explore the place, but to interact with the people!". And after that, to apologise for being judgemental, but you know what? The damage is already done. As you can tell, I'm pretty much still seething over what someone has said about what we should do during exchange.
I don't think people should have a right to prescribe what other people do on exchange. They can go on drunken rampages of debauchery if they so wish, or mug until their eyes bleed, or take the middle lane. But is that your problem? You can have certain "rules" of what exchange students should do, especially exchange students who S/U their modules (like me), but these rules do not necessarily apply to me or to any other exchange student.
I'm all for exploring the city. I like exploring new places, and not so new places. I like exploring places which are rooted deeply in my consciousness, like the public library in New York. The movie Spiderman was a big part of that for me because it showed me New York and I wanted to know if the notion conveyed by the film, and the notion I kept in my head of New York i.e. my memory of what I think New York is like, and the place itself i.e. New York, converge. The process happens like that for most of the not so new places I want to explore but which I have in my head.
Vancouver, notwithstanding its not being a large part of my consciousness, is very interesting too. I've seen the largest sports shop I have seen in my whole life with gear oriented toward whitewater rafting, running, hiking, climbing and the like. And them other places, oh look at them other places. A couple of days ago when the weather was fine, I ran from UBC to the beach, down a slope, and there I saw a mountain range peeking over the trees, and a field of dandelions and daisies, and when I reached the Spanish Banks, downtown Vancouver sparkled with the reflections on skyscrapers' mirrored glass of the setting sun. Dogs swam in the ocean, and runners ran by with astonishingly good postures. It's a new experience, and all I had to do was observe.
And bollocks! to you if you think that by exploring the city, you aren't interacting with the people. When you are by yourself and new to a place, you don't wait for people to interact with you. You go and make conversation with them because you don't know how to get to Yale from New York, and you just need the confirmation. And that was how I met Steve the Korean who hates the Japanese for the war in the Pacific, 1939-1945. That was how I knew what to visit in New York because he very kindly drew a map of Manhattan for me. Yet, you can also wait for people to interact with you. In Vancouver, you just have to stand in a corner with a map and look lost and people automatically gravitate toward you and ask if you need help. So much for interaction with the people being something you have to actively pursue.
Nonetheless, while I actually do my own little bits of exploring and interacting, does it mean I have to do it on the scale that you dictate? Does that mean if you say that exchange students must do so-and-so, we must follow what you say? Isn't that being totalitarian about an experience that is supposed to be created of my own volition and in the way I think will best benefit me, not of how you think I should create this experience?
This is how I feel I want to create my SEP experience: I want to make it meaningful and for me, "meaningful" would be runs to the Spanish Banks to see the mountains, trips (not too expensive, or not whale-watching) to places within the city and outside, and studying for my modules because I want to 1) learn stuff while I'm on exchange, and 2) understand how university education in Singapore and Vancouver differ, or are alike. I like observing as an experience rather than actively going out and creating a situation that I can deem as an experience, and that's what "meaningful" is to me, and if that's how I enjoy myself, then you don't have the right to make me enjoy myself any other way.
I don't think people should have a right to prescribe what other people do on exchange. They can go on drunken rampages of debauchery if they so wish, or mug until their eyes bleed, or take the middle lane. But is that your problem? You can have certain "rules" of what exchange students should do, especially exchange students who S/U their modules (like me), but these rules do not necessarily apply to me or to any other exchange student.
I'm all for exploring the city. I like exploring new places, and not so new places. I like exploring places which are rooted deeply in my consciousness, like the public library in New York. The movie Spiderman was a big part of that for me because it showed me New York and I wanted to know if the notion conveyed by the film, and the notion I kept in my head of New York i.e. my memory of what I think New York is like, and the place itself i.e. New York, converge. The process happens like that for most of the not so new places I want to explore but which I have in my head.
Vancouver, notwithstanding its not being a large part of my consciousness, is very interesting too. I've seen the largest sports shop I have seen in my whole life with gear oriented toward whitewater rafting, running, hiking, climbing and the like. And them other places, oh look at them other places. A couple of days ago when the weather was fine, I ran from UBC to the beach, down a slope, and there I saw a mountain range peeking over the trees, and a field of dandelions and daisies, and when I reached the Spanish Banks, downtown Vancouver sparkled with the reflections on skyscrapers' mirrored glass of the setting sun. Dogs swam in the ocean, and runners ran by with astonishingly good postures. It's a new experience, and all I had to do was observe.
And bollocks! to you if you think that by exploring the city, you aren't interacting with the people. When you are by yourself and new to a place, you don't wait for people to interact with you. You go and make conversation with them because you don't know how to get to Yale from New York, and you just need the confirmation. And that was how I met Steve the Korean who hates the Japanese for the war in the Pacific, 1939-1945. That was how I knew what to visit in New York because he very kindly drew a map of Manhattan for me. Yet, you can also wait for people to interact with you. In Vancouver, you just have to stand in a corner with a map and look lost and people automatically gravitate toward you and ask if you need help. So much for interaction with the people being something you have to actively pursue.
Nonetheless, while I actually do my own little bits of exploring and interacting, does it mean I have to do it on the scale that you dictate? Does that mean if you say that exchange students must do so-and-so, we must follow what you say? Isn't that being totalitarian about an experience that is supposed to be created of my own volition and in the way I think will best benefit me, not of how you think I should create this experience?
This is how I feel I want to create my SEP experience: I want to make it meaningful and for me, "meaningful" would be runs to the Spanish Banks to see the mountains, trips (not too expensive, or not whale-watching) to places within the city and outside, and studying for my modules because I want to 1) learn stuff while I'm on exchange, and 2) understand how university education in Singapore and Vancouver differ, or are alike. I like observing as an experience rather than actively going out and creating a situation that I can deem as an experience, and that's what "meaningful" is to me, and if that's how I enjoy myself, then you don't have the right to make me enjoy myself any other way.
posted by david at 6:25 PM
1 Comments:
hello mr david. how are you? WHY SO LITTLE PHOTOS?!
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