First Week of Class

I started class this Monday, July 26th and I wasn't ready yet. I'm not sure I would have been ready at any point soon because I'm still having  trouble sleeping at night.

Monday I had my first class at 9:30 am. There were 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.

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 what 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 terrorist events. This was really interesting as they are not what you would expect them to be. 

Orchard Road area. View from Marriot Hotel

Catholic Church near Raffels hotel

My second course on Monday was my International Relations required course. "The Study of International Relations" It is going to be mostly a theory class, which looks like it might be review from my undergraduate studies. I'm hoping that we go into more depth.

View from Campus of the other buildings.

After class, I met up with Jan, another Rotary scholar, and Daniel, a student in the same program. We are going to be living together. 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.

My last new class is Professional Skills Enrichment. It looks like it might be an interesting class. I like that it is being taught by many different professors. 

The View from my room on 2 Taman Mas Merah

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.

Rotaract Meeting

Me, Jan, and the NTU Rotaract members

On last Wednesday all of the Rotary scholars who were currently in Singapore went to dinner in China town. It was nice to meet the other scholars. I think we will all try and travel some together. At least we will try and do some stuff in Singapore together. The scholars are Me, Jan (from Germany and also studying at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies), Sharron (from Canada and studying at National University of Singapore), and Rachel (from Atlanta, and studying at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS).

This years District 3310 Rotaract President's Goal

At the dinner John, Sharron's host offered to take us to the Rotaract District Assembly. John came and picked us up this morning and we were all tired and wishing we were sleeping. We got there much earlier than was probably necessary but it gave us time to meet with other Rotaract members. Jan and I met the NTU Rotaract club which was nice. We might be able to give a presentation there and also we might be able to join them on some of there outings or service projects.

The actual speeches were not as good as they could have been. I think it is hard for speeches here to be really good as they are given in English which is most of the time the persons second language. I respect that they can speak more than one language but it seems to me they are missing some important parts.

3 Rotrains, Jan, Sharron, District President, Me, Rachel, and 3 Rotrians

After the speeches we had lunch. At the dinner on Wednesday night I said that I did not eat red meat and as a result they think I'm a vegetarian. This might be better for me as the vegetarian food seems to be pretty good once I finish picking the mushrooms out. Okay so I'm a picky eater. The nice thing about the meeting was that we were all able to connect with people.

I'm really starting my hunt for houses now and we will see what happens next week. Hopefully by Monday when I start classes something will have come up.

Registration and a Room

Walking on NTU looking across the road at the top of the hill

Today was registration and I thought I would get to campus early and register. This did not happen though. I got up really early but as I had neighbors who were running around and ringing the door bells until about 3 in the morning I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked. I went and got some breakfast and headed back to the hotel. I checked out and then checked my bags for the day. I'm hoping that I will be able to have a room by the end of the night.

It took me quite some time to get checked out and by the time I got to the train and then got confused and got off the bus to soon I had missed registration and had to wait until it opened again at 2:30pm. I had lunch at Subway, not very original of my I know but I just needed something to eat and I didn't want to have to think about it. I got everything I needed for registering my candidature and then went to the Humanities and Social Science Library (HSS) to sit inside. I'm having some trouble getting used to the heat. Once in the library I realized I had an email from Jan another Rotary scholar studying at S. Rajaratnam School of International studies. We emailed and were finally able to meet after I registered.

A quad area near RSIS

It was good to have someone else to talk with. We both got phone cards as we already had phones. I can now call people. I'm hoping that it will make it easier to find a place to stay. I got an email from Patrick Alexander who is a real-estate Agent who was recommended to me. He says I can stay in a room in his house while they are moving out, which means I have to find a place by the end of August. It will be much better than staying in a hotel. I went and looked at the room and took it. I went and collected my bags and headed over. The taxi driver got a little bit lost which was a pain but at least I have a room I can stay in and not have to worry about how much it costs.

The family has a maid so she will do my laundry for me. That seems a bit strange to me but I kind of like it as I have been going and going. The room is really big and it has a door into the bathroom which I share with 2 other people. Over all I really happy with the room.

In Singapore

My Hotel Room

I have arrive in Singapore. Jetlegged and hungry, but safe. My host Rotarian Dr. Reto picked me up at the airport which really saved me. I don't know that I would have made it out of the airport without him. I am staying at the Panisular hotel until I can find someplace else to stay. I'm on the 13th floor and have a view from which I can see the harbor and even a blur which is Indonesia. The first night I didn't sleep much and when 10am came round I really wanted to stay in bed instead of going out and seeing the city and the University. Dr. Reto took me to breakfast and then to the University where we got all of my medical stuff taken care off.

View from my room on the 13th floor

It was really good to see the campus, which is huge. They have an internal bus system which kind of scars me. I'm hoping that I won't get lost tomorrow when I got to register.

View from my room

Dr. Reto took me back to the hotel and I tried to find a place to find a place to stay. I have a possible room for a short time but I have to contact the guy. I'm so tired that I hope I can sleep.

Rotary Blog

This is going to be my blog for when I travel to Singapore on a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship. I will be studying at Nanyang Technological University at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. I hope this blog will let people have a look at my experiences. I also will try and give a little bit of a summary of how I applied and the process I went through to get the scholarship for future applicants.