The things bloggers are willing to go through in order to get interesting stuff to post on our blogs…. O_O I, for example, signed up for a Short Story Writing elective this year and today I got my first taste of the lecture and the tutorial. I wasn’t expecting lots of things believe you me. I thought it will be a casual rock up to the lecture thing today but no… I walked in to a full lecture theater. Brimming with students and I found myself reduced to sitting on the steps for the duration of the lecture. -_-” The lecturer launched head on into what SS was about and dragged up a number of Russian, French, English names which I profess sound about as familiar to me as Greek. O_O I could mentally picture myself breaking out into a cold sweat (in reality, the hall was getting too warm). All I recognised were Edgar Alan Poe and Guy de Maupassant and these were only a vague ‘yeah, I think I’ve read something of theirs before’. I was literally a science student being plucked out of her comfort zone and dumped unceremoniously into an arts lecture because nothing made sense to me at all!! Haha… I now understand why some people cannot stand us talking about our coursework outside of classes. It is NOT a nice situation to be in. My apologies. Maybe I should start backpedaling a little and figure out what have i got myself into before I go into shock. Should I really go on with this course? A nice change of scenery it is but they have a reading list that includes at least 2 SS a week. I basically just signed myself up to 2 of the most bookish course in the uni - Med and SS. Shows what a bright person I am. Mr Bean wouldn’t make such a blunder.

And then I realised that I have a tute immediately after the lecture. Woo wee…. Great timetable planning there. I decided that I have to see this through and so I made my way to the tute room situated in a totally unknown region to me. PArt of the reason why I was adamant in picking an elective outside my faculty was to actually get the opportunity to move around the uni a little. My past 2 years have basically revolved around the med school and the dissecting lab. =P So anyway, the tute did not reach your nightmare threshold level and at the start I was filled to the brim with apprehension but it slowly trickled away as the tutor started talking and giving us ideas and feedback on how to write SS. She was enthusiastic but quite open to whatever opinions we had and I was really glad that I didn’t have to face some fanatical person with a rigid no-joke ‘you must follow the textbook’ writing style. I begin to see the effects of too much TV as I was mentally stereotyping my tutor before meeting her. You know, the tutor who is so absorbed in their own works that they find it criminal we should be taking other courses seriously at all. I confess I was a little disappointed with the students though. I was really hoping to see gathered around me a bunch of artsy people with quirky clothes and personalities. I mean. Aren’t arts students more free and easy ‘we shall worry later’ kind of people?? Instead, there were 2 computer science students, a law student and some others I tuned out after that. No weird and wild hairdo, piercings etc. =( I believe I’ve seen way more colourful characters in Medschool and in my year alone. Seriously!! Can’t let other people outshine you on what is supposed to be your forte!!! Closest thing was a guy who had his hair dyed black like an emo but he wasn’t deck out in the full emo gear. Maybe today wasn’t the day. =P Another was a mature aged student who looked like he just walked in from a construction site. O_O Boots, and tattoos and beard and tan and all… But he was the most enthusiastic student of all and really had quite a good flair for writing. =)

We did lots of writing during the 2 hours. Spontaneous writing that included everything from the person beside you to what do you think you can taste in the room (ahh… drew a blank there). When we had to describe using our sense of smell… I suddenly smelt tobacco. O_O in a tute room???? Next to me, the guy was rolling his own cigarette. Ahh…. maybe they ARE arts students after all. =P

* No I’m not implying that arts students smoke. Just that you know, there is some spirit after all.

** Whoever made the remark that medicine students have a lot of reading to do better do a double take. Arts students probably read twice as much (they just don’t need to remember all of it). I also signed up for Anthropology and we have 5 hour reading materials every week. O_O