My very last semester.. finally

School started yesterday. This will be my final semester towards my Bachelor Degree of Commerce (Marketing). After that, I will be back to work again... and could be forever... =(

I always love to study, to learn. I love going to school, discovering new things. Well, I did enjoy my jobs somehow.. but if I had a choice, I would stay in school forever. =P

This very last semester would be quite a challenge to me because I'm taking 5 non-business modules. Although they are not totally irrelavent to business, still they are not something I'm really familiar with.

I'll be taking these 5 modules:
1. NM2201 Intercultural Communication
2. NM2216 Introduction to Interactive Media
3. EC3332 Money and Banking I
4. SE3214 Marketing Southeast Asia's Heritage
5. GEK2003/PS2249/SSA2209 Government and Politics in Singapore (Don't ask me why there are 3 codes for this course.. I also dunno!!)

I've only been to the first two courses till now.. I have the feeling that these two are those courses that I'm interested in learning but will never do very good in the exams. I mean like I will never get HD for these courses even I feel soooo interested in learning them. I think partly because it requires lots of readings and even I read all of them, I couldn't use it well in exams. On the other hand, in courses like Advertising, I tend to do very well because not only because I love advertising, but also I don't need to apply all the readings on the exams. But I will try my best this time.

I had the Introduction of Interactive Media lecture yesterday. I'm a bit excited about this course because it has been very long time that I haven't get in touch with IT stuff in academic aspect. I guess it's good for me to update myself a bit more properly besides learning bits by bits through daily access to internet. And since Interactive Media is playing such a big role in marketing nowadays, it will be an advantage for me to understand some theories behind it, right? I still remember how hard it was for my boss to communicate to the IT manager and thus everytime he wanted to tell her something, he asked me to talk to her. And I had to attend every single meeting they had to be the intermediary of the two of them...

There are 2 lecturers for this course, which is something I really don't appreciate so much. Same situation happened in my summer school here as well when we had 3 lecturers teaching for the same courses (u know summer school only last for 6 weeks?) and there was only 1 tutor for all the tutorial groups! The last course was quite ok because the 3 lecturers managed to seperate their topics well but this time... the 2 lecturers tend to speak at the same time... very funny.. I hope it wont happen later on when the teaching starts.

Today I had the 1st Intercultural Communication lecture. I kinda like the lecturer. She is actually one of the 3 lecturers who taught me the summer course in June. I like her partly because of her South African accent.. which is very close to Australian accent.. haha.. so I can clearly hear what she says.

This is the course that I really really want to take and I feel so lucky that I finally got approval by both ANU and NUS for this course. I always love to know more about different cultures. And one thing the lecturer said today that touched my heart so much was that "You think you know so much about your own culture until you leave and stay in another country" Because people are going to ask you lots of questions about your culture and you suddenly noticed that you know nothing about yourself, your country, your traditions. You know nothing!!

Another thing she mentioned today is that the culture we see is just an iceberg of the real culture. It's our own perception. This is very true too! We really have to study and understand a lot more before we can really understand a particular culture. For example, many westerners don't like the Chinese culture nowadays, but they never ever tried to understand the reasons why the Chinese have this kind of culture? Do they know Chinese history well?

For myself, I don't really know which culture I belong to. I guess HK could be a particular culture? See? I don't understand myself so well. But as a Chinese, I really want to know more about the Chinese culture. I used to have misconception about the Chinese as well, I'm not saying I can totall accept what they are doing now. But interestingly, I learnt a lot more about China and Chinese history when I was in Australia than in HK. I started to understand why China is like this today.. and why are every other countries trying to attack her, as what they did many years ago.. But don't take me wrong, I'm not a communist. =P And I will never forget 4th June 1989.

I really love this course!! But again, this is not something I will score well.. haha.. nevermind.. I just wanna learn. =P