I was going home past midnight and as I was crossing the road to my apartment block I saw a very surreal sight - the word "Koupmans" floating disembodied in the air; it was a sign on a construction crane, the body of which was invisible due to the heavy fog.
Andrew told me his brother went vegetarian in UK to save money; when you include meat in cooked food here the price goes way up. For uncooked food the price premium is still okay.
With my monthly bus pass, I can travel 2 zones with my card. I'm thinking there might be a loophole where you can travel 2 zones, get off at a zone boundary, walk across it to the next bus stop, travel 2 more zones and repeat until you get to your destination.
I don't know how people can wear scarfs and more indoors. These people have mastered the Art of Zen - they can all wear tudungs in Singapore already.
One more reason I don't go clubbing - I don't like shouting and being shouted at to be heard above the noise.
Cigarette vending machines here need an Age Coin inserted before you make your purchase, to ensure you're older than 16. Of course, this defeats the point of having a vending machine, since you need to get the Coin from the counter.
Some students are very slack. One is skipping school for a week in Week 4 (next week) to go skiing in France. Meanwhile attendance is taken during lectures in Oregon, which now one-ups NUS in this respect.
I saw a woman riding a bicyce, and behind her her son seemed to be riding one too. However, on a second glance I noticed that he was peddling curiously in sync with her, and was following a bit too close. I then noticed that he was on a cute bicycle add-on - a seat and wheel attached to the back of his mother's bike.
A housemate who went to Amsterdam and toured the red light district complained that the girls were all very old - some were even his mother's age.
There was mold growing on some slices of bread and I ate one slice with the stamppot mentioned in a previous post (this was almost a week ago so I doubt it did any harm to my system - thank you Malaysia!) I was quite upset because I bought it only a week before buying it.
Someone: "u start to realise bread in sg has unnaturally long life
bread nvr lasts a wk in europe
in fact normally it last for 3-5 days max"
Someone else: "mold in general is not poisonous i don't think
it's just like cheese, right."
I can't find normal cheese here. I tried looking for Mozzarella, Parmesan, Cheddar etc. but to no avail. The only familiar cheeses I saw were Feta and Camembert. In the end I bought "Jong" cheese - the cheapest and mildest sounding. My French housemate uses Belgian Jong to garnish his Bolognese so I suppose it's okay.
Chicken ketjap manis stew
I fried onion and garlic on olive oil, cooked chicken cubes with a splash of ketjap manis (sweet Indonesia soy sauce) until they were about 60% done and then transferred the thing to a pot, adding more ketjap manis. I then added some cubed potatoes and sprinkled some salt. While paring the potatoes for this I cut my thumb - I wonder how many body parts I have left to injure. In the end, the potatoes were a bit hard (I need to let them cook a bit longer next time - agaration is not perfect); watching Yan Can Cook doesn't teach you everything!
I saw a girl wearing a turtleneck sweater with lots of holes, with the largest ones around her shoulders and collarbone being so large I estimate a thumb and one other digit could go in. I wonder what the point was (well...).
During my 5:15-7 lecture, I noticed a decline in post-break attendance, despite it being cold and students likely not having any classes located close by spatially and/or temporally. Economics students understand the concept of sunk costs! Either that or their time is so precious that gaining even 45 minutes gives them much utility.
My croissants keep getting burnt in the oven. First I tried heating them at 230, or thereabouts. The next day I did 210, and they still got burnt. Then yesterday I tried 120, and even though I checked on them after only 2 minutes at most, they were still burnt. The directions say 250, so maybe I'm using the wrong oven mode or something.
Quotes:
[Lecturer: ***, can you do better?... Otherwise you can take the floor.] *sotto voce* I could try.
[It] Has 2 characteristics, which are? I understand a lot of you passed the retake exam... Is this the group which didn't pass the retake exam?
I realise now that that's the thing with Institutional Economics. Lots of stories, no maths, no econometrics, no graphical analysis... That's what you students do. Tell stories.
He was not an Economist, not at all. Many of the theories in Economics don't come from Economists. That's how it works in the real world.
Dad wade cost (deadweight)
Monopoly money has no value right? Then you're wrong. This was an exam question. 5 credits to him [who said it did], 0 credits to the rest of you. (marks)
Basically Economics is quite simple... It's made difficult by you students, by Professors.