First day of the new semester!!

Yeah, well, woke up at 6 am this morning (something that I haven't done for a long time; probably not since I had to wake up at 5 am to make it to Jurong for the AAS Shoot) for my first lecture of the semester: an 8 am lecture for SC2218, Anthropology and the Human Condition.

When my alarm went off, the first thing I thought was, "Tell me again why I wanted to take SC2218?!?"

But, well, it's quite a good consolation that my lecturer (and the TAs) seem all right; quite friendly and humorous and they seem to know their stuff. And the whoe first hour of the lecture was spent watching this DVD that our lecturer (Dr. Eric Thompson) had brought in, called "Baraka"; was a lovely thing which consisted of various scenes of various rituals and routines and cultural practices of different countries around the world; like a story of a day in the life of the world, you could say. And no, there wasn't anyone narrating or anything; the whole film was just filled with soft, ambient music in the background, with the real sound from the footage coming through at times. And sometimes, they changed the music to suit the mood; like how in a shot which showed hundreds of people scrounging around in a garbage dump, the music was this heart-wrenching wailing-- not unlike the wailing in the "Troy" soundtrack, really, come to think of it. :P

And the best thing of all? Dr. Thompson says that we'll start every lecture this way. With a film for the first half of the lesson, that is. Sounds like a pretty good way to start a week to me. :)

So, after SC2218 lecture, I strolled back to clubroom after buying my lovely new course pack, feeling slightly more awake and quite happy after seeing that beautiful film; found Steven and Ivan in the clubroom, sitting around the computer looking at photos of our club's events for the last semester.

Ivan was wearing the shirts that Denise and I had given him! Yay!! Hahaha... :D Although the overshirt did look a size too big for him... so sad; Denise and I thought we would be safe with an M size for him. Even he thought that M would've been all right. Oh well, I think the best thing he could do would be to alter it and make the shoulders of the shirt less broad; it'd look more fitting that way, coz right now, the sleeves of the shirt start somewhere just after the drop of his shoulders. Me was wearing a new shirt too, lol. One of those tops that Wan-Tsin managed to convince me to buy after OG dinner that night. It did look pretty nice. :D

And Ivan passed Jie's and Kenny's Christmas present to me; T.S Eliot's Collected Poems, 1909-1962! Even my mum is jealous, haha. Okay, maybe not jealous, but she likes my present. But it's MY present, so nyah. Wahahahaha...

Oh, but the funny thing was when Ivan and I decided to go for lunch with William; they were standing around the bench just outside the clubroom and talking to another friend of theirs, so I just hopped up onto the nearest bench-tabletop and perched there, waiting for them to finish their conversation.

And then this guy walked past, wearing the same T-shirt as the one that I'd bought Ivan.

I saw him glance at Ivan, then do a double-take and look over at him again before walking on at a slightly faster pace, haha. I was giggling to myself by then. I'd noticed the guy too, but I hadn't really noticed the shirt till I realised, "Hey. That shirt looks familiar."

So I told Ivan about it, and he looked quite stunned, haha.

Anyway. Lunch. During which William decided to get something "light". When he'd gone off to look for said "light" refreshment, I told Ivan, "The only thing 'light' here is him, and if he weighed a little less, he'd float away when someone exhaled."

Heehee. Yes, William is skinny. To prove my point, the only person whom I know of who's skinnier than him is Wei Jian. So Wei Jian still holds the record, in my book. :D Anyone skinnier than Wei Jian would definitely be anorexic. :D

Sigh. I know I planned my timetable such that I'd have a four-hour break before a four-hour stretch of lectures; I'd originally planned to sleep for the four hours, but not surprisingly enough, I didn't. Spent most of the time hanging around with Ivan, William, Denise and other people who happened to be around the clubroom. Went downstairs to check out the Sports Bazaar and help out a bit at the Archery booth as well.

And then Ben came up to write down a friend's name for recre archery, and he was wearing a new shirt. The same T-shirt that Ivan was wearing.

I almost died laughing right there!!

Okay, see, when I went out with Ben on the last day of our exams last year on 1st Dec, we decided to do some Christmas shopping, and Ben helped me pick out that shirt for Ivan. However, he liked it as well, so he got one a size bigger for himself.

And as luck would have it, he decided to wear it on the same day as Ivan did. :D :D :D

Which means that on the first day of school, there were at least THREE people in Arts wearing the exact same T-shirt, hahaha!!!

EL1101E lecture.. during which I spent the first half of the lecture nodding off. I forgot to buy Lemon Tea from the vending machine outside before going in for the lecture. Damn.

After spending just one semester at NUS, I've learned very quickly just what things will keep me awake. Caffeine in the form of mocha will only kick in about a couple of hours later. Caffeine in the form of Coke will send me on a sugar high almost immediately, which is not so good for studying coz I won't be able to concentrate, but it's good for irritating the hell out of people. Caffeine in the form of Lemon Tea, however, has just the right effect. It's an almost immediate effect, yet I still remain sane after drinking it. That's provided it isn't already nighttime and that I wasn't already high before drinking it. :P

Anyway. EL1101E lecture ended 15 minutes early. Moved up to a better seat for Philo later, and later found my Philo lecturer thoroughly amusing. :D

I'm so glad that I spent far too much time when I was younger reading A LOT of Greek and Roman mythology (Norse as well, actually); the names and time periods and events mentioned in the lecture made a lot more sense to me than many others in the lecture, I'd say.

And just after the break, he was giving us a background history of the dialogue in Plato's Euthyphro; he used a map of ancient Greece on one slide, yes, Thessaly and Phythia and Corinth and Sparta and Argos and Thebes and Athens and all that.

You know, on maps, they mark places with little black dots and then write the names of those places next to their corresponding dots? Well, at the top right corner of the map of ancient Greece, I could see a little dot just at the edge of a coastal area; like a peninsula, I'd say.

And knowing my ancient Greek maps fairly well, I knew that that small dot was Troy. And I had the feeling that if my lecturer were to show a more "zoomed-out" version of the same map, such that you could actually see Asia Minor and Thracia and the whole landmass around the Aegean, then Troy would definitely become visible, and some people (I specifically had the girls in the lecture in mind), would definitely make some noise. Excited, squealing noises of recognition, to be exact. Something along the lines of: "Oh, look, Troy! Finally, something which I'm familiar with! I know all about Troy and that Orlando Bloom was really hot and-- oh, my bad, it was supposed to be Paris, wasn't it?"

Okay, maybe not the later two sentences. :P

But guess what the next slide was.

You've got it: the map of the entire Aegean area. And there it was, Troy, with Troas behind it in slightly larger print; Phrygia and the Propontis, and with Ionia and Sardis and Lycia further down. Although on this map, Lycia was indicated as "Lydia". No idea why; I've never seen another name for Lycia before, unlike how Phythia is sometimes spelt as Phthia.

And after 3 seconds, the girl on my right squealed softly, "Eh, that's Troy..."

*Rolls eyes, grins subtly and sniggers silently*

Philo is going to be fun. :)

And it looks like on the whole, my new semester is off to a pretty good start, despite the fact that it still really feels like I'm stuck in last semester and it doesn't feel like a new semester!