And I say to myself, what a wonderful time... *

2007-06-29 4:25 p.m.

The summer holidays are officially here (they have been since the 23rd of June) and thus that marks the end of my first academic year. In all areas, academic, social and well cultural, I would most certainly say it has been an unforgettable and magical experience.

Eight months or so ago, this short Singaporean packed his bags and travelled to the place of his tertiary education, Birmingham. His knowledge of the UK was wide, but limited, comprising of UK politics, a smatter of its history and well, Jamie Oliver. What would its second largest city and its university be like?

You probably read the answer previously, but it was an experience that I never dreamt of and was certainly downright amazing, everyone moment of it. From the first minute I stepped into my room at Flat 67 to the very first proper lecture, straining to comprehend the varieties of accents, from the scrumptious Sunday night dinners from watching blazing fireworks at the lake side and from the conjuring of essays to finally closing my flat door for the last time. There is just so much to recollect, so much to look back on, wondering whether I could just relive those times again and again.

Acknowledgements are therefore in order. This would fill a whole long list so I’ll try to say so in groups. Those whom I can’t “group” well, fret not.

My flat mates were really the best group of individuals from start to finish. I could not have asked for more. We’ve managed to turn a dusty, partly broken flat into a home of fun, laughter, teasing and simply almost unending friendship. Memorable moments included the several moments of drinking all kinds of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks on the table, whining about stuff from work to that of the food of Shackleton, cleaning mainly when the inspection letters came (and darn it, we passed all flat inspections, congrats guys!), and not forgetting Xbox and Play station, where the ever common game was Mario-Karts. Also the Sunday night dinners with the ladies upstairs, watching each other cook weekend meals and so many other minute yet funny instances. You guys were simply the best. No body does it better….

To the ladies of Flat 72, you were like an extended part of our flat. Just like the boys, the thank you is for all the fun and laughter we had, inside and outside your flat. A great big thank you for the amazing Sunday night dinners, and yes, frankly, the food was wonderful, which definitely set the tone for the “craziness” afterwards. It was definitely a wonderful time watching shows like Ocean’s 11, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Pyscho. Also the photographing of our weird antics, the teasing and joking as well as the snatching of the stuffed animals (refer to the Block 12 video). A personal thanks for my scrumptious Birthday dinner, especially since you took much trouble to get the food that I loved.

To my Economics/Politics group, you guys are another marvellous bunch. The past academic year has filled me with a myriad of views from them, especially since some of them were from other countries. Thanks for the many brain wrecking discussions we had in all our modules, for all the complaints we remarked about the university system, for all the poking and joking at each other. We’re all going to have a great time together…

To the others in my other tutorial groups, such as Principles of Economics and Quantitative Methods, you guys were just as great, by pushing the away the boredom of tutorials with the constant hilarious stories.

To the Tennis Courts community, most notably Ed Sparkes and his TERCA group, thank you for building up TC into the most wonderful home away from home. You guys really did a lot, from constantly pressing the Vale Manager to fix our blocks and the ever broken down laundry, to organising all the activities like the sports and Big Wok events thus spicing up the life in TC. Oh yes, not forgetting the floats and games at the Summer BBQ and the beautiful Summer Ball. I’ll definitely miss you guys, even those who would make a racket outside, playing rugby or soccer when the signs so prominently “no ball games.”

To Selly Oak Elim Church, the pastors and all, thank you for being such a welcoming Christ centred community. All of you were so helpful in helping me balance my work life and Christian life. What was most surprising and well delightful was that quite a number of the elderly folk had travel to Singapore several times. They had much praise for my country, but that will be in a later entry.

To my UN Society group, you guys really made me find my new passion in this society. Much thanks to Sam Carpenter and the others whom I worked with for the Millennium Development Goals Campaign. That really fired up my interest in such campaigns and petitions. A great acknowledgement to those who constantly took part in all the Model UN debates. You guys made me find Model UN much more “classier”, much more stimulating than that of normal WSDC or even British Parliamentary Debates. Cheers to the past committee for their effort and to my wonderful new committee, yes , as Marek said, we managed to clean up some mess and re-establish the society as a prominent one. Vale Festival could not have been a success without you guys. Cheers to the next term.

To the various others like the Guild committee members, the few PhD. Students that I had lovely discussion with, and the various others whom I encountered at the various events or just walking through the University grounds, you guys still were a joy to meet. I probably met more friends and comrades in these eight months than all my other schooling life combined. And all of them just made University life magical.

University life is of course not just all play but also work, but the lecturing and tutoring was by far the best I’ve had frankly, versus all other teachings in my life so far. One of the reasons I fell in love with several of my modules was because of the wonderful teachings from the lecturers and tutors. Although sometimes I disagreed with their views and struggled to keep awake with their monotony of their voice and teachings, on hindsight, they were superb. So thank you to Dr. Matthew Watson and Dr. Montgomerie for making me adore the subject of Political Economy, to Dr. Peter Kerr for all his humour from lecture number one to the end (especially showing us the dating programme he was on)—wait, thank you also for all the brain wrecking lectures (his module was in my view the hardest) and Mr. Lassman for his drumming on all the classical political thinkers. It is pretty easy for me to see how their ideas are still present in contemporary politics.

For my Economics lecturers, kudos to all. To Dr. Martin Jensen, whom I term as the anti-Sloman, anti monopoly economist, thanks for the few discussions we had. To Dr. Rob Elliot and his wonderful slides on macrcoeconomics, to Dr. Ercolani, for his methodical teachings which brought me far in quantitative methods. To Dr Barassi, I would always remember your jokes and you waving the pointer saying “if I catching cheating during the test, they feel this against their backsides!” Oh yes, not forgetting him playing the piano during the short break time. Thanks also to Prof. Liu who kept on encouraging us to attend tutorials and Mr. Horsewodd who gave us instructions on the computer based examination.

To my tutors, they deserve equal praise. All of them, despite working on their PhDs, went all out and above the call of duty to teach us. I really mean it, they went beyond what was expected of them. To Ben Taylor, who never wavered despite all our questions that we had, thanks to Valentina who forced us to think of subjects beyond that module, and Chris Holmes, who could answer question (in fact all of them had knowledge all at the tip of their finger tips). This was similar for my Economics tutors. I tip my hat off to Vimal, who forced all of us to review papers like The Economist or The Financial Times, to Dr. Jackie Smith, who would never waver despite me ask her questions that I was always stumped on. Oh yes, to Ben Xia and Di Wang, who made me grow to love Microsoft Excel.

There are others too, and these include the librarians whom without complaint would always guide me as to where to find a journal or a book, and most definitely the secretaries of my two departments, Wendy, Shavie and Linda. All of them also went out the way to help us Freshers settle in, send us countless important emails, and even help us find our lecturers and even rectify the mistakes on our examination marks. Other service personnel I wish to thank were the kind till ladies at Spar and Costcutters and the service girls at my most frequented Café. Oh yes, the food personnel at Shackleton too. One thing I can tell you about service personnel in the UK in general is that they will always provide you with a lengthy but accurate instruction as to where to find this or that and always smile despite you burying them with requests. This is so unlike Singaporeans, who would give you curt and short information. Same goes for the lecturers and tutors.

I’ll miss (for these few months or so) walking back and forth from university centre to the library (when I suddenly think of which book to acquire) and miss the two marvellous days of snow, where almost everyone took time off to enjoy it. I’ll miss the greenery of the Vale, which looks almost exactly like what you read in Children’s stories books by Ronald Dahl or Enid Blyton. I’ll miss walking through the gooey mud daily to Shackleton (and despite our petition, the problem has not been rectified) and chasing the ever fat ducks and swans along the lake side. I’ll always be surprised how safe it could be for students (especially girls) to trudge back all the way to their residence at the Vale at the darkest hours and miss how we constantly dodged traffic just outside Centre Court. I’ll miss the student area of Selly Oak, which despite the large variety of restaurants and pubs, would have piles of rubbish outside. Then there was the “hills” of the Vale, where the memorable event was that of the Vale Festival and camping out under the stars, watching a movie. Oh yes, the studying crowd on virtually every piece of grass during the summer holidays.

In Birmingham, in the UK, I found a huge amount of friendliness, of laughter, or just really craziness, and a fired up passion over subjects I never once dreamt that I would touch or even love. I discovered a whole new arena of opportunities, of personal challenges, successes and disappointments, and yet virtually things that shaped me in a very positive light. I thank God for leading me down this path. To all who made my first year a memorable experience, to everything that brought me thus far, have a wonderful summer and see you all in September for another round of fun and studying.

The title really says it all, “and I say to myself, what a wonderful world…”

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