What's in Your Room?

Thomas in his cosy room:)

Ah, aren't we all curious to find out what people have in their rooms...

Having been on a few exchange programmes myself, I understand what it's like to move your entire collection of prized valuables to another country, whilst adding on to that collection during your stay there! So when I met Thomas Luff, a fellow student at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in NTU, I asked to take a peek of his room!

Thomas is from Miltion Keynes in the UK and does linguistics back home, but is doing modules at WKWSCI, and is interested in sports journalism. I found out that he lived in the same hostel as I do, and he was kind enough to let me visit him. So, to all you hungry voyeurs out there, Thomas has agreed to give up some privacy for y'all.

Beware of the girl who sneaks into boys' rooms...hehehe...

As I stepped into the room I felt like I was enveloped in a combination of humidity and heat. It was crazy. And I'll tell you why. I never expected a non-local student to be able to take the heat! I had expected the door to be open, the windows too, and fans blasting away at maximum speed! However, the place was enclosed, and quiet. Of course, he did have a huge fan right infront of him, but it just didnt feel right, and I couldn't explain why. As I stood there thinking, I realized there was very little, almost minimal ventilation. I mean, for us Singaporeans to live in such conditions is okay because we're so used to the heat, (and sometimes even I cannot stand it that way), but for someone who lives at a place with cold seasons, it was totally unexpected and UNBELIEVABLE!

I could tell Thomas was amazed at how amazed I was. That aside, I must say Thomas has a very interesting room to share.

A DESKTOP GIRLFRIEND! His father gave him this figurine. What a cool dad!

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..."A short note written by his girlfriend of a year, Rachel, to him. :) A small passport size photo of her is just beside.

A good luck card sealed with a kiss. "My girlfriend gave the picture to my mom and asked if she would make me a card before I came to Singapore." The words "Good Luck" are written by his mom, a calligrapher as well as an art designer.

In the midst of all this blogging hype, nothing feels as personable as diary, in physical form. Thomas keeps a diary that was designed and bound by his mother. His room mate was like, "What! You keep a diary!! My goodness." To which my reply was, "I bet you didn't know so much about your roommate until today."

"Never, never, never give up." -Winston Churchill

Rachel gave him: A cow figurine, a dice that says 'Yes', 'No', and 'Maybe', and a puppy. "My girlfriend likes cows...and she says I look like a puppy," Thomas said with amusement. As for the dice, it's because he's a very indecisive person.

West Ham United cup. No explanation needed. No haters, please.

Some of his favourite books...

Maps to help him get around

A basketball for the ocassional game here.

Thomas used to play the basketball competitively back at home.

A silver pen given to him by his grandparents before he came to Singapore for exchange.

Looks like a hairdryer but it's actually a webcam.

Creams for his skin. "I have very sensitive skin and so I bring with me creams around to curb the rashes," says Thomas.

"I stopped eating this halfway...I don't know, these things just don't taste the same here as they do back home. Like chocolate? It just doesn't taste the same here...I don't know why."

When chocolate doesn't taste the same...it means you're homesick.

Ramadan and Tabernacle University Fellowship

Last Saturday marked the end of the month of Ramadan, which is also celebrated as what we call Hari Raya in Singapore.

To all Muslim friends, I hope you enjoyed the celebration with your family and friends!

Coincidentally, on the Wednesday of the last week of Ramadan, I learned some interesting and somewhat exciting things about two religions, Islam and Christianity-from our exchange students-in ONE evening!

First, I attended a church fellowship gathering at Nanyang House at about 6.30pm. First I must acknowledge that it was my friend, Jonas, a computer engineering student from Switzerland, who introduced me to TUF, short for Tabernacle University Fellowship.

The TUF is a very small Christian group, consisting not more than 15 people. The members are all from the Tabernacle Bible Presbyterian Church.

The members were all very friendly. They welcomed me with great sincerity and asked me alot of questions about myself. I felt very at home with them.

Here are some pictures from the session that I participated in.

Practising songs before the sing-along session

Another exchange student from Japan-Kenta!(on the right). He studies in Tokyo, but his hometown is in Hokkaido. It was a great chance for me to practise my Japanese and share my homestay and exchange experiences with him about Hokkaido!!!

Time for some self-introduction!

Playing ice-breaker games-0,0,7! Bang! AHH!!! (they saved a space for me, but I was busy taking photographs.)

You forgot to raise your hands! One shoe out!

Looking at the song lyrics before the sing-along

Sing-along session

Jonas giving his testimony

I know that you can't hear much from that video but actually Jonas is giving a testimony, and in it he talked about how he and his family (his parents and a younger brother) had moved to Indonesia when he was about 4 years old, and lived there for 5 years before returning to Switzerland. Because of a lack of Christian missionaries, his parents, as pastors of a church, decided to move over to Indonesia. Until that day I did not know so much about Jonas, although I had chatted with him before both in person and online.

It was no wonder now, that he was one of the few angmoh students I knew who loved spicy food (no offence to all angmoh friends! hehe). He could also speak a bit of the language, but the memory of the language of his childhood, he said had been gradually drowned in the new vocabulary of German and French when he went home.

He tried speaking a bit of Indonesian when he travelled to the country during the recess week, but he realized that it was difficult to recall the words and communication was not easy.

I then talked to Kenta, Japanese student whose hometown is in Hokkaido but is studying in Tokyo. He's great fun! He speaks absolutely great English and has travelled to places like Poland. In our excitement to share our experiences, we spoke too loudly and did not realize that the other members were waiting for us to keep quiet so that they could give thanks! Oops.

After giving thanks, a pastor from the Tabernacle church came and talked to us about relationship builders and destroyers. We discussed the different factors that could either make or break- the positive ones being friendliness, sensitivity and so on, and we even came up with funny ideas like BODY ODOUR and BAD BREATH for the negative ones.

HAHAHA...

......................................................................................................................................

It was about 7.30pm that I had to leave halfway, and I must apologize for disrupting the session but I had heard about a pre-Hari Raya celebration at the International Students' Centre and I was really interested in going!

Now it appears that everyone needs a ticket to get in, and obviously I hadn't been invited, and so I was nearly rejected at the door! Then Jonas stepped forward and explained that I was his friend, and "couldn't I come in?". I gave a pathetic "I won't bite" look and the lady let me in.

When we reached there the event had almost ended. However, I did manage to talk to Ashraf, 22, a year 2 psychology student. Ashraf is from the Malay Society of NTU. I asked him to explain the origins of Hari Raya and what Ramadan signified.

I know I'm totally ignorant, by hey, don't pretend you know this! Ramadan is actually the name of one of the twelve months in Islamic culture. That means they have names for each of the twelve of the months, just like how we name our months January, Febraury and so on in English. Ramadan is known as the month of fasting, followed by Syawal, which refers to the victory month. The breaking of fast or the end of Ramadan is celebrated by the dawn of Syawal. At daybreak of the first day of Syawal, Muslims break fast.

Fasting is also known as "Terawih" in Islam. It helps to burn off calories and also to detoxify one's body. Contrary to alot of common belief that NOT eating is bad for health, it actually does wonders if done properly, such as reducing depression and helping you to sleep better!
I must try it myself one day.

Thanks to Ashraf for sharing this with me!

Pictures from the event!

Smile! Our foreign students from Iran, Suadi Arabia and India, as well as our local Muslim students! In the centre, dressed in green with a blue headscarf is my dear friend, Elham N. from Iran.

Guests preparing to leave the buffet dinner celebration at ISC

Arabian style grass mat...pretty design.

As the guests started leaving one by one, I found myself talking to Moussa, a French Muslim student of Algerian descent. He was really personable and sincere, and was funny at times too. I asked him how old he was, and when he said 22, I replied, "Cool, we're the same age." He grinned and said, "Oh, so you can be my girlfriend!" and we both laughed it off.

"I'm going to write that down in my blog!" I said. "No way, I don't want to be famous for the wrong things again," he answered. "I have already been featured on the Nanyang Chronicle (NTU's student publication) for saying something off the record! Haha."

Moussa, French Muslim student

"I have no trouble surviving here at all- in fact, I had my first MacDonald's burger here! Everything here is halal so it's very convenient for me. Food is not a problem at all," he told me.

It also turned out that, to Moussa, his religion is a little different from the mainstream Muslim culture in Singapore. There is no such thing as having a "girlfriend" to him, it's almost taboo-and a sexual relationship is a definite no-no. Close female friends are okay (I think he defined this as girls who are a little more than platonic friends but whom you maintain chastity with and do not go beyond certain physical limits-vague, I know, but this is what I gathered), but usually parents play a great role in deciding who your soul mate will be.

After chatting with Jonas and Moussa, I felt enriched. At the end of the dinner, Jonas was talking to Moussa as well, and sharing about each other's religion. It wasn't just me who was enriched, so were they.