(This is where I'm living for the next 7 weeks!)After approximately 22 hours on various airplanes, I safely arrived in Singapore on May 27th and have just now gotten my first day of free time to blog! :)
I am open to all questions about Singapore and Southeast Asia, since that's the focus on my study abroad trip here. I'll tell you more about my flights and what I'm actually doing in this first post.
Last year, over 200 freshmen applied for SEAS - the South East Asia Study abroad program. Everyone was required to write two essays, both being two pages. The first one asked: " how will your participation in this program advance your academic and personal goals while at UNC-CH?" The second essay asked everyone to read a Singaporean newspaper for several weeks, discuss a common theme, and come up with a group activity to address this theme. I will publish both of these essays on my website for anyone curious to read them. :) I am especially proud of my incorporation of Freecycle into my essays! Regardless, after the essay process and the number was cut back, about 50 freshmen (this is a freshmen-only program) were asked back for interviews. From this, the 25 of us were chosen to come to Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia for the summer (for free!) to take two Asian Studies Courses: ASIA 243: Political and Economic Transformation in Asia and ASIA 244: History of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The site linked to these courses is the overall site for the program, which offers invaluable information about the program itself, how it was created, and what sorts of things we do through our involvement here! :)
(Another view of my surroundings! I'm staying at the Prince George's Parks Residences in the National University of Singapore - NUS)
The flights were insanely long and the heat when stepping foot in Singapore is overwhelming. We are about 100 miles from the Equator and the humidity is also enough to drive a person crazy, if it wasn't for our favorite invention: the air-conditioner! Singapore is extremely tropical and there are beautiful plants everywhere. You can definitely tell you're in Asia, especially with the presence of Chinese all over the place. Singapore, however, very westernized and a lot like the United States in many ways!
Tomorrow I'll talk more about my classes that I'm taking, as well as all of the things we did in the past few days. I'll put one picture with every post, but if you want to see all of my pictures, look me up on Facebook - they're available to eveyone! Or check out my website as I try to figure out how to upload pictures onto it as well :) At some point I will explain the languages of Singapore, the currency, the people, and more! But I am still getting used to the time - it's 3 PM here, 3 AM United States time :) The time difference is exactly 12 hours (I'm 12 hours into the future!) which makes things pretty weird!
