From a post I wrote last April about exam season in NUS. 3 semesters later, I venture that things are pretty much the same (except that the 6th floor of the Central Library is not open 22 1/2 hrs a day on weekdays):

Exam tales

My sources have been telling me tales of what school looks like during exam period, so the following is all compiled from second hand data, since I study (or try to, anyway) at home.

Apparently when the Central Library opens at 8am, it's like a shopping centre holding a sale. People are waiting outside the doors, and once the doors open, they rush in. Apparently one morning there was this PRC in running attire, and as he ran in he was laughing, perhaps driven mad by the stress of the exam period.

Meanwhile, in Engineering people bring hammocks to school for their overnight camping expeditions (maybe they think the spirits of Engineering students of years gone by will infuse them with their power, wisdom and knowledge), and hang them by the handles on the windows. They also bring enough food enough, according to my friend, to last him half a year. At one location, after a few hours the whole corridor (which is air-conditioned) smells of cup noodles.

Over at Science, people mug overnight in the canteen and the next day, they're still raring to go, so they continue mugging throughout the day. In Medicine, there are "PRC couples making out in the medicine library", with "unshaven armpits, unshaven moustaches, and fucking bad dress sense". Someone else adds that: "oh man they all smell weird".

And in Yusof Ishak House (YIH), there's a 24 hour study room, so people get really hardcore. The libraries at least have closing times, so people are forced to leave. In YIH, however, people camp overnight, and the floor is strewn with plastic bags. It is also crowded, unhygienic and humid, so diseases easily spread. All in all, the place looks like a refugee camp. Meanwhile Munchie Monkey's has unveiled a supper menu and gone 24 hours, so the muggers can ensconce themselves in YIH 23/7 (the room is cleaned for an hour daily) all the way from the start of the exam period to the end of it.

All throughout the school, libraries are jammed up (though my No 1 fan tells me that there's a 'surprisingly high number of cute guys in library this semester'). There are more people with outbreaks on the face, and instant drink machines run out of coffee. Printers go into overdrive as people who have never printed their notes before go print a whole semester's worth of notes at the sole printer, clogging it up. All hell breaks loose.

This is awfully depressing, and enough to get one to study at home. Maybe studying's a social activity for them; mutual suffering is a time-honoured ritual of human bonding.

[Addendum: skye bleu: the PRC students they put some "tea leaf" kinda sediments in their water
bottle and they ALWAYS dump the sediments when they empty their contents in the
dispenser.. GROSS.. could someone teach them some manners? haha!!]


Now, of course NTU has to go one-up on NUS. And so they have. Spectacularly.


Hungry Ghost Festival in NTU

"The yearly hungry ghost festival in NTU. Gates of hell are opened and the hungry ghosts of NTU are released.

this is an actual scene of students rushing into lib at 830am"


Someone: looks like they are refugees rushing for food handouts sia
even the toilet queue at the national stadium isn't as bad