My new best friends

Guess who my new best friend is? Mr. GOOGLE!! Thank you very much, Sir! I think you are really gonna save my ass in France. Thanks to Mr Google I managed to understand at least half of the material so far. Another best friend of mine? Mr. Word Reference! You faithfully and patiently translate all the words i dunno...

Studying is really a chore here. Firstly, I am still on holiday mood. Come to think of it, when was the last time I studied? Hmm..early May which was end of exams.. that was almost 5 months ago! Secondly, I have to take double or triple the time to understand sth over here. In class, firstly I have to listen, then take down notes. When I thought I understood what the lecturer said and tried to write down, I forgot what he said cos he already moved on to another thing. When they ask me to speak, I have to think in English, translate to French and then pronounce it out correctly. Argh. When u wanna study the rare few lecture notes, u have to translate the terms with the help of Mr. Word Reference. If u still dun understand, I have to approach Mr. Google for the ultimate solution. But sometimes Mr. Google gives u too much information that u spend half of ur time scanning which ones are relevant to ur subject. Then...u go back to ur notes to see if u have really understood it..

Arhhh..and it's not helped by the fact that I am always distracted by other friends. Mr. Soccernet always tempts me with his latest update from the footballing world. And Mr. Easyjet as well as Mr. SNCF always tell me without fail to ask me to find cheap tickets for my holiday. So when I spent 6 hrs in front of my laptop yest, effectively I spent only 1 hour studying. Well done.

I should really be just a little bit more focused. I know I cannot afford to fail at all. All the more because my exams only 25 jan. by then nus would already have a 2 weeks headstart. I am telling myself that I have to leave on 26 jan..so i really cannot afford to have any re-exams!!

Anw just a thought that strikes my mind of these days: have the Singaporeans (and I) in any way mistreated/misunderstood the PRCs? This came to my mind as I thought the French perhaps are looking at the Asians the way most Singaporean students look at the PRCs. Ok, perhaps it's not that bad. Some of the French are nice. It's just that it's difficult to strike conversations because of the language barrier. I personally wanna interact more with the locals, but I always found myself dumbfounded when they were talking in rapid TGV french. I put myself in the shoes of the PRCs who came to Singapore to study. I was thinking: do they really not want to interact with the Singaporeans? Maybe they do, but they just don't speak that good English and hence, they have a tendency to be more reserved in the presence of the locals. I think I was like that when I first came to Singapore but I forgot how it felt like ever since I got used to the system. So I am telling myself this: the next time u meet a PRC, do not judge him/her. Go back to my past 7 years ago and put myself in his/her shoes. They deserve benefit of the doubt.