Teemu – Finally posts something

Our sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that there is another guy writing this blog and I think it is past time I make an appearance.  I am Teemu, I study game-programming at KUAS. Having finished my first year I fled to Singapore for more studies in terror of upcoming vacation (who wants to not be at school?) I figured I should as well make everything out of exchanging so I applied (and got accepted) to NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in Netherlands for half a year. Only recently did I realize that the exchange period of NHTV was actually a full year, which took me aback for a moment but I can’t complain: looks like a 13 months of invaluable experience for me. Coincidentally, my schedule matches with Sami, so we decided to co-write this blog with him, thus people will hopefully know what to expect should they ponder the possibilities beyond KUAS and so our relatives won’t have to pester us with constant messages for they can read how we are doing. Unfortunately I fell sick right after arriving at Singapore so I write a little late. I will, however, try to scribble down something every week.

About our project

I am not going to reveal much about the actual contents of our project, but I can still tell how we are doing. First of all, we have no courses except the project-course so we are doing it five days a week for twelve weeks. Our school days are rather tiresome: they start at 09.00 and go on until the clock finally ticks 18.00. We have a one hour lunch-break so our days are technically eight hours. In the west we usually calculate the lunch/hour into the working hours. I guess that shows the difference between Asian and European work-culture.

Surprisingly, I got into the same project with Sami and Eero making it three Finns in the project. The rest of the Finns are pretty well separated. We have a total eight members in our team, one of which hasn’t arrived yet. That is a decently large number, certainly greater than any I have worked in Finland. Thus the scope of the project is also quite large, which makes me stress out quite a bit. I am also rather stressed because my co-programmers have studied for two years longer than me, not to mention they’re Asian. It’s not a question for me who is the scrub. Well, truth be told I don’t really care how we do here, what is important is what I can learn in the process. This should be a good boot-camp for NHTV.

About life

The nine Finns that arrived in Singapore were separated into two buildings. I and Sami got four engineers with us, and the six of us now live in one building. Aside from the shortage of personal space living here is pretty nice. Every day is full of the engineers’ lame jokes and we usually spend our evenings doing something together. More often than not, we find ourselves going to the nearby district for more food and groceries after school and after that (usually around 20.00) we are tired as balls. As for weekends, I was sick the first one so that was pretty much me sleeping the whole time.  This weekend we didn’t really do anything exciting: we’re Finns and nerds so we like to hang out indoors after all. That being said, I think we’ll tour the city more later on.

About Singapore

We have been deep into the city once when we got our student passes. We were also given train cards, which can be used for the local trains in Singapore that take you to wherever you want to go in the city, like the underground of Helsinki. The city looks rather beautiful, it is clean and there are gorgeous trees everywhere. That being said, we are practically at the equator so it is hot! It’s 30 degrees Celsius day and night and the air is really humid. What always blows my mind is the fact that it is hot and dark at the same time after the Sun sets around 19.00.

Our campus is quite large and it has pretty much everything we need: Four (I think) “canteens” aka places filled with food courts. There are gyms, swimming pools and courts for tennis/basketball/whatever for those sportier than me. We have also found a grocery shop although it is more like a large kiosk than an actual shop. It seems normal stores are a delicacy here in Singapore, we usually go shopping in the nearby district and have managed to find one grocery store there and even it doesn’t sell, for example, bread. I’d sell my soul for some rye bread.

About food

The food here is cheap. At school we usually get whatever at around 2 euros, and that isn’t cheaper for students like in Finland, it’s like the actual price for the food that is pretty much cooked for you on the spot. Singapore doesn’t have its own traditional food, instead they have a collection of pretty much every county nearby: there’s a lot of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Indian food. Chicken rice and its many variations is perhaps the most commonly seen meal. Other common sights are ramen-esque soups or actual ramen and barbeque dishes. In almost all cases, there’s either noodles or rice. As for meat, chicken is very popular, “normal meat” exists too and seafood is largely present with a lot more variety than in Finland: squids are not at all uncommon. Of course I don’t always even know what I am eating. The food is really good, though I was expecting it to be spicier. Maybe I just haven’t looked from the right place.

Then the sad part: There is no Pepsi Max, I have to stick with Coke zero for two more months, I don’t know how I will look when I will return. Bread seems to be a delicacy here, I can’t seem to find it anywhere (let alone rye bread, hah), which means that I am often hungry at the apartment. Everything seems to be covered with sugar like it would automatically make stuff taste better (guh).

About future

I have three things planned out for the future. One: the NHTV exchange in the Netherlands, two: Chara expo, a large video game/anime event held next weekend here in Singapore (I’ll blog about it, don’t worry) and eating ghost pepper wings. That’s all, have a nice day!