Monaco tops the list being little more than a city, Macau and Hong Kong also slot into 2nd and 3rd places. However, if we take them to be Chinese…Singapore bangs up to 2nd place!

This all came to light after my very interesting ponderings on world populations. If you look at a list of the world’s countries by population (new window) India, Pakistand and Bangladesh are all within the top 10! However, the physicaly size of these countries is vastly different – making Bangladesh, in particular, far more densely populated than the rest. Fascinating stuff i must admit! Oh…one more…if you put the three of them together (as they are all neighbours) and slap China onto all that (since it’s a neighbour too) then you get nearly 3/4 of the world’s population between 4 neighbouring countries!!! Scary stuff really! Scottish highlands here i come!

Nearly got all my packing done, big box of stuff sent home…plane leaves in a few hours – it’s really over and finished now.

This year has gone so quickly…but i guess every year does after it’s gone. However, i don’t regret 1 minute of it…it’s been a truly amazing year and i’ve had a truly amazing time. I’ve met so many really cool people that i won’t forget for a long, long time!, I’ve been places i’d never dreamed of and i’ve done things i never thought i would do.

I’ve learned so much. Not just my studying, but about different people and their societies, about the world through different eyes, about myself, about my friends and about life. There is definately no subsitute to life experience.

Sad? Yes…very. But happy to go on to new things.

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

Miriam Beard (1901 – )

Ah yes…it is a fine day, once a year, when all your exams for that year are over…and you have nothing to look forward to but beaches, diving and banana lassis. Ok, to be fair…that doesn’t all happen every year…but the exam part does. I still remember my last exam, last year, as it was the last day of uni in Edinburgh before i headed off to Singapore. This year, however, it’s my last exam in Singapore…and my last night in Singapore (boo hoo).

Unfortunately, i haven’t beaten last year’s record of having a solid pint of Tennants in my hand within 15 minutes of the exam finishing (mainly because you can’t buy pints of Tennants here…), but rest assured dear readers…that even though my exam passed a few hours ago…i’ll be passing out in a few hours due to the cheap beer found at the hawker stalls.

Yes…my 3 easy exams of little significance don’t really compare to Suzy’s 10 exams on quantum physics, dynamics of relativity, mathmatics for terribly clever people and the such…however my heart goes out to her and others in such stressful situations (especially Miss Whitefield for coping so well with it!!).

However, if you think i’ve got it all easy…i did have to spend like 2 hours on the phone to my phone company this morning trying to get my $200 deposit back, the DHL man turned up 25 minutes before my exam started and i still had to shower, print some notes, read my notes and get a 15 minute bus ride to where i thought the exam might be taking place. Some swift showering, some non-printing and non-reading of notes and a sharp jog when i got off the bus found me just minutes late to my exam…which i will hopefully have done well enough in to pass…possibly with flying colours…though that remains to be determined!

Another year down, another year older, the end of my time in Singapore is truly nigh, and i feel good. I’m happy to move on to new things, i feel i can go into the world for 4 months with new approach to life, a sense of adventure and a little gained wisdom from previous travels.

Before i know it, i’ll be back home, sitting on my oh so comfortable lazy-boy and this whole 16 months will seem like nothing but a dream!!

Kudos to Suzy and Helen coming out to Thailand in the summer!!

Last night in Singapore (sort of!) so headed up town for some sushi and to watch a film. The sushi was great, however the film not so good!

We decided to go see ‘The Producers’ because nothing else looked much better, and after leaving in the first ten minutes, made our way into ‘Ultraviolet’. After convincing Erik to stay, to at least get something for our money, we slept/bored ourselves to tears for the remaining hour of the extremely dull film (with a few nice ass shots in tight leather i must point out!).

I realised on the bus on the way home that this semester has been much more simple. Not at all in a bad way, but i feel much more at home this semester. Last sem was about exploring and being somewhere new, this sem was much more about coming back after travelling over Christmas, and just living. I can’t say i regret it, or that doing so much more last sem was better, because they were so different. I really felt like i’ve become a part of Singaporean society this year and will be really sad to leave.

One thing about living in Singapore is that you find yourself automatically enrolling in a shower masterclass! If you don’t have air-con it’s not usually that chilly so you end up being hot most of the time…most days i have at least 3 showers…sometimes 5 showers in one day!! It’s crazy!

Picture this…wake up…shower.

Go to class, come back…hot and sticky…shower.

Have some food, chill…whatever…hot and sticky…shower.

Supposing that i don’t do anything else that afternoon…i can probably survive until dinner time…hot and sticky…shower.

Come back from dinner…watch a film…relax…get ready for bed…hot and sticky…shower!!

It’s kinda useful though…i can now shower (including a full application of soap and shampoo) in under 23 seconds! And the great thing about having only guys on my floor…is that there’s never a queue!!

Anyway, it got me thinking, as i sat in the shade hiding from the heat, that i’ve only really got two weeks left in Singapore and its things like this that i’m really gonna miss. The hot sun, the cool shade, the delight of the 2 minute ride in the air-con bus. So, taking life by the horns i dived out of the bus shelter and jumped up to sit on the wall behind in the full glare of the sun. Not content that it was hitting every inch of my body, i lay down on my back on the grass behind.

What an amazing feeling. Just 5 minutes in the middle of the day, laying on the grass as the sun beats down with ‘Gare Du Nord’ pumping in my ears. You may not have sun or grass, and you may not have lounge music…but where ever you are, and whatever you are doing, take 5 minutes to just lie down and love life for all the little things. It will make you smile for the rest of the day.

Apple turns 30 this week and it makes me think of Macs and my tutorial today.

The girl that came and sat down next to me had an iMac. Now, without being sexist, she was the fastest little iMacer girl i’ve ever seen. To be fair, it is quite rare that someone can impress me on their computer use – not that i’m such a god myself…but i have seen people who are very good…so impressing me can be hard. The first thing i noticed was how fast she typed…fast ass typing let me tell you! Next, was how quickly she switched between pages and kept up with what was coming and what to expect…when she clicked on a page she knew exactly what she had to type or where to click, almost without looking. She was chatting to friends, writing notes on the presentation and checking her email and courses at the same time!

I was sitting messing around on my computer while i was listening to a presentation that i had to ask questions about. I figured that if i Googled the subject i would find lots of information that the speaker hadn’t mentioned, and therefore could easily catch them out. The fact that the girl next to me was one of the speakers and had got an A on her essay (which she was presenting) didn’t seem to disuade me. However, i promptly found out that there was bugger all information on the net, but did manage to find something. I squeezed out a poor question from a website that i found, and before i had finished asking i noticed her Googling the subject and browsing the same site! Darn-tootin quick i tell you!! Rock on computer chicks (she was quite hot too! even better i tell you!)

I was thinking that after having a busy weekend with my big bro (check out what he says about it here) that i should not leave my dedicated followers hanging any longer and write something. So, after having the ‘Create Post’ box open for an hour or two i decided that i would write about fruit!

Fruit…fruit…fruit! In most foodcourts in Singapore there is usually a fresh fruit stall. They are really great, you can get fresh juices or cut fruits and some even do milkshakes and desserts. So, most mornings i head down the three flights of stairs to get me some fruit for brekkie.

This morning i opted for a orange & pineapple mix juice (ps its real fruit juice – oranges go in the top…juice comes out the bottom!) along with my usual pineapple, apple, melon and banana. What a great way to start the day…get your 5 fruit/veg done for the day and feel good at the same time. Plus it’s not too pricey…roughly 60p for all the fuit and about another 60p for the juice.

However, both went swimmingly well (certainly compared to previous attempts), and in both classes i got an essay back. What did i get…well…i would definately sAy thAt A good grAde would be An A, And thAt people who Are Able to AttAin A’s for essAys Are certAinly doing well (particularly in NUS where marking is on a bell curve scheme so that only a very few people get high marks!!!).

GO FERGYBOI…today is turning out to be quite good indeed! Except that i have to write a 1000 word dissertation proposal and chose my courses for next year in the next 3/4 days!!

Now i know my site is usually hilariously funny and you never quite know if i i’m telling the truth or not (i’m usually lying for those of you that think i’ve got 19 tattoos, my cock, arse and belly button pierced and only one nipple left!).

However, let’s get serious!!!

Acres is a Singapore based charity that aims to educate people about animal welfare, and help animals in captivity that are subject to bad conditions etc. I guess it’s a bit like the RSPCA, except that there is so little animal welfare awareness here that it would never receive funding from the Government, and was instead set up by a group of compassionate Singaporeans back in 2001.

Anyways, they send me emails a lot and there has been a few news articles about a shark being held in a housing estate in Singapore. The nurse shark is roughly 2m long and is housed in a tiny tank where it cannot turn around without bending and twisting because it is longer than the width of the tank. I used to keep fish and was worried about having anything bigger than 6 inches in my tank because i felt it was too small…however i used to keep very small fish that naturally live in a very small area of sea and don’t venture much.

Sharks swim for miles and roam around the ocean like a playground…its really quite disturbing to think that this animal, that cannot stop moving or it will die, cannot even keep swimming for more than 2 seconds without bashing its head and hurting itself to turn around.

Unfortunately, despite repeated attempts, there has been nothing done about this and i ask all of you to help and contribute 9 seconds of your time to sign a petition to have it moved and set free.

To make matters worse, Acres, who have been campaigning for its release and support from the AVA (Agri Food Veterinary Authority Singapore), have just been told that they have to move out of their free office which was provided by Mutts and Mittens, who have an pet hotel here, after a random visit by the AVA.

I hope everyone will sign the petition and please visit Acres website and think about making a donation. Remember £1 goes 3 times as far in Singapore as cost of living is roughly 1/3 of the UK and there are S$3 for every £1.

It’s true – they would clamp your bicycle! I presume they would clamp your unicycle and wheelchair too, but sadly i don’t have the time or desire to investigate that further!

Was out roaming around (and getting a little lost – i ended up at the edge of a motorway then in a large field and finally found myself in the middle of a very big building site with lots of dudes looking at me!) Singapore recently so thought i would share some of the pics i took.

Check out the rest of the pics here.

Yesterday was Erik’s 21st so it was a full on night of good times.

We went out for dinner to a really cool French restaurant and had an amazing meal. The chef is from the same town as Erik (Geneva) so managed to get him to come out with a tasty wee chocolate cake and birthday message which was really nice.

We went down to Holland Village for 8pm and slowly the table grew as the people arrived (literally…it started as one table and by 11pm was like 10 tables…it was quite funny). With at least 8 bottles of vodka or whiskey, enough beer to drown a small country and two cakes which were hand fed by Erik to everyone there (Singaporean tradition), everyone had a great time (i hope!).

Some of us went onto MOS after and partyed on till the wee hours. Check out the pics here…

9 March 2006

SECURITY UPDATE – CON MAN NABBED

This is an update regarding con man who had tricked some of our staff and students on campus.

On 6 March 2006, a fellow NUS colleague (who was well aware of the con man situation on campus after reading our earlier Security Alert circulars) called Campus Security’s hotline at 6874 1616 and provided reliable information on two suspicious characters loitering at the vicinity of the Faculty of Science.

Campus Patrol Team arrived at the scene and approached the two suspects. On being questioned the two suspects ran towards the direction of AYE-Dover Road. Our Security Officers gave chase but lost sight of the duo at the overhead bridge leading to Dover Road. After careful combing of the area, the Security Officers managed to track down the two suspects in front of Block 29 Dover Road. Police were summoned to the scene and eventually arrested the two male suspects.

The successful arrest of the con man will not be possible without the vigilance and cooperation of the campus community. Please continue to report suspicious characters at NUS vicinity by calling Campus Security at 6874 1616 or the Police at 999. DO NOT hand over cash to strangers or provide accommodation to them. Refer them to Campus Security if need be.

Until yesterday i had never heard, and thought it rude to have, a room full of people shouting CUNT at the top of their voices…my eyes have been opened. 3 hours of 10 chicks talking about little else but their vaginas was definately an experience! What surprised me is the impression they gave about how little women know about their vaginas! I mean, if you lined up 1000 cocks i could definately pick mine (not saying that i want to see a thousand cocks…i would be happy to see only mine for the rest of my life!), but i don’t think many women could (of course they couldn’t pick their penis’s…i mean their vaginas!). Now, it’s perhaps because men tend to play with theirs more…well, no, that’s not true…but it’s defiantely easier for men to see theirs…or to see a womens, than it is for a women to see her own (as shown last night!).

Girls – i guess it means much more to you than it does to me…so if it’s playing near you – go check it out.

Guys – it can be a little awkward and at times boring when you’re not really sure what all the big deal is about…but it definately gives you a bit of an insight into the deep dark hole down there!

All benefits of last nights production goes to 3 charities striving to end violence against women and working towards equality for women in Singapore and across the world, so please check them out Aware, Unifem and V-Day.