Friday, October 28, 2005
The past 10 days at BIOC (basic intelligence officer course)were spent:
-Being truly interested in the military (for once)
-Attending some really good lectures
-Falling asleep at some really bad ones
-Bravely asking questions, however stupid they may seem to be, in an attempt to cultivate the habit of active class participation and analysing/questioning what I learn, in preparation for Penn! (hopefully)
-Being singled out and tactfully made fun of for being a commando (so what's new)
-Grocery shopping for basic neccessities like bread and peanut butter, 3-in-1 milo, coffee sachets... ->declared to be one of life's funnest activities
-Study groups, questions, and more studying
-Discussions on (ihatetoadmititbut pretty interesting) military tactics
-Attempting to get out of my comfort zone by interacting with people i dont really know
-Being geniunely interested in conversations instead of pretending to be
-Setting up maps, drawing arrows and circles till 2 am
-Push ups and crunches every night
and most importantly..
-Seeing drastic improvements in my spoken Chinese by (trying) to interact with 3 fellow coursemates on exchange from Taiwan!
Yes, together with the help of other (more effectively bilingual) coursemates, we were able to explain military terms and tactics to them, laugh over lunch, tell dirty jokes, and even take them on a trip to visit Suntec City and the Esplanade. Lovely.
It's kinda humbling really, to see how my intent to communicate, interact and share be crippled by a language gap. It's like having too much to say but not having a mouth. It's made me more determined to improve my spoken Chinese before going to the US. So do speak Chinese to me the next time we meet!
he rocked the party at 10:53 AM |
