What I have got for my modules

Contary to popular belief, I am not dead like my blog is and while you are still speculating, I'm here again to revive my blog.

The lazy bones in me are dominating my soul and I always find the excuse of the lack of inspiration to blog. Which is partly true because in this 2nd week of university life, I'm still caught up with all the settling in and module bidding that I can't recount anything barely interesting.

Well, it's not right just blogging every 2 weeks or so because I know of a handful of avid readers who seemingly find direction and solace in my ramblings (uh hum..) and it'll be sorry to disappoint them. Let's just say I shall try to blog more often ok?

Module bidding and tutorial balloting are over and the initial modules I got were Economics, English, Calculus, Chinese Studies and Theatre Studies.

You heard the last 2 correct.

Chinese Studies - History of China and Chinese Literature. First lecture was a giant boot to the sleepy face. Nothing short of traumatising, I was left frozen in panic a couple of moments through the lecture. Lecture was in mandarin (ok duh) and presentation was in traditional chinese characters. I was momentarily swarmed by ancient chinese facts regarding history and culture. It was a sudden blow to the senses because I've lost touch with the language.

Theatre Studies - Don't want to go too much into it as I was seriously disturbed by the whole atmosphere when I stepped into the LT. Well..even before that I was already feeling apprehensive. I don't know what it was. Probably the small course intake, probably the lecturer, probably the people I saw in there. It was stifling in all sorts of the word. Luckily the lecture was only an hour. Apparently there is supposed to be a 2 hr practical every week which required you to 'wear loose clothing as you are required to do movements on the floor' and I guess that really scared me away.

Yep. Guess I made the decision to appeal out of the course and tranferred to Political Science. I have decided to stick with Chinese Studies though because heard that it wasn't as scary as it seemed and today's lecture I actually could understand. About 90 percent of it. Great.

Ok, gotta go off now. It'll be good if I can blog again in a couple of days.

off cors and bidding

Past week has been an emotionally stressful one as the bidding for modules progress. The system is called CORS and although it has a nice ring to it, it still fails to hide its facade as one big mind game.

Mind game it is, as behind the seemingly passive looking system, lies the necessity to predict the actions of hundreds of other minds with similar objectives. Any moment of fickle-mindedness and unexpected bids will upset the delicate balance, sending the numbers spiralling.

What adds to the complexity is the fact that no one knows what the other is bidding or where he stands, other than the highest and lowest bid and the number of vacancies left. Personally, I had spent numerous hours on bidding day camping in front of the screen, making appropriate changes while nervously hitting the refresh button every 10 minutes.

Maybe it isn't that necessary, maybe I will not be so tense in the subsequent rounds, which undoubtedly would last throughout the few years or so. However the past few days have been an emotional roller coaster. Afterall, I only got the 5 modules after the third bidding round and they weren't my initial choices.

The next thing on the agenda is the balloting of tutorials and their allocation will determine if my Fridays will be free. The possibility of a 4 day week excites me but any unexpected turn of events will wipe that out.

I seriously need some luck.