Why I'll take this artsy fartsy thing

You seem very annoyed by your Objective Narratives HASS. You even considered dropping it. Can I ask you about it?

Sure! I'd like to know why too!

So what is it about this HASS that annoys you?

Well, for one, it's so abstract and I fear that I won't do well in the subject.

Also, I feel that I might be wasting one HASS module slot, where I could be learning more skills to deal with people (like Orgs & People), or skills to better understand how society works. Things that would be useful in the workplace. 

How does that concern you?

I just don't want to feel like I'm wasting my time since time is precious.

And how does that affect you? Are you just worried you won't do well? Do you think what you'll learn in this HASS isn't useful?

It makes my mind actually think for itself and formulate abstract opinions that only certain people care about. 

I think I'm a rather practical person that runs ahead with things. 

What if I told you that these exercises would train you in "how you analyze art, composition, meaning, and it also trains conceptualisation skills, how you think about a topic, represent it visually, communicate" (Ian).

Yeah! I think these are things I'm lacking in - standing my ground and being daring to conceptualize something out of my own mind, rather than adapting to others' opinions and going with the flow. 

So can you get over the fact that learning this is not inferior to learning about the more "practical" things?

I think I can. THANKS HAHAHA!

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So I just had a conversation with myself, using the little technique Jane taught us during Collab class to use when trying to find out the underlying values or themes of others. It's supposed to avoid the "why" question to avoid getting you into an emotional cascade and missing the point! It's more about "how do you feel about it" and "what about it affects you?".

I was quite bemused when Chun Yong shared with us a conversation he had with himself during the last day, and I somehow just had this with myself because I was seriously considering changing HASS subjects! Still a bit uneasy, but let's see how this goes! 

MIT Winter IAP Day 10

Killian Court, the MIT Dome

It's Day 11 at Winter IAP! How time really flies no matter what you do. It's the middle of week 2 and I have yet to record down my thoughts and all. There's really so much to do, so much to see, so many people to talk to and all. MIT is a really exciting university, albeit it's ancient looking walls.

I really did intend to blog almost everyday, but I can see that's not really working out! But I'm thankful for the chance I have to be here, and the (little) skills I possess with my 70D. At least when I look at Lightroom, I will be able to recall what happened!

Here's how my timetable basically looks like:

My own IP timetable

I'm pretty glad I switched out of How to Train Your Robot, for Forces Frozen and Fixed Wing Aircraft. Because of that, I can have at least my week 3 afternoons empty, and I will be able to explore the rest of Boston while there is still sunlight! I'm thankful for the friends I have grown closer to throughout this trip. Generally, the people with the same classes as me are Ben Lee, Kevin Neo, Michelle Loke, Sarah Mao. And there was Clifford the week before. And I usually see Sharlene, Chunyong, Kenneth Cheah and Zhiling. I have no idea where the other 30 IAP-ers usually are! More about our classes and travels soon (:

This trip has been enjoyable, and I'm liking many parts of the American class culture will. More about that soon too, since I probably need to write a post about that for my Collaboration Across Cultures team blog!

Winter IAP Day 0

03/04/2014

Departed Singapore at 5.45 am, reached Hong Kong 3 hours later, transited there and reached Chicago 14 hours later. Waited 5 hours and got on a flight to Boston, which took 1 hour 45 minutes. 

The flight was pretty good - managed to watch The Maze Runner and Grease on the two flights respectively, and got 5 hours of sleep on the long haul flight! Watched a bit of "How to build a better boy," which is a Disney channel original from a few months ago. Good laughs. anyway, we touched down in Boston at about 9pm and were totally relieved to finally get to the hotel! 

Shall be blogging about more interesting stuff soon (: