Democracy

Yesterday's class was pretty interesting as the exchange students were dominating the discussions as usual.

One of the Italian girls confessed that she speaks Singlish to the taxi drivers; I didn't really believe it until she let out a loud "HUH?" when she couldn't hear someone from the opposite side of the class. I turned around to look at her with a mix of amazement and amusement. The taxi drivers must be equally amazed with an ang moh girl using all the 'lahs' and 'lors' with them.

The European students later got into a discussion about the European Union. The Italian girl mentioned above tried to describe how the Italian parliament prefers not to solve the difficult issues and refers those difficult MPs to the European parliament with a commission with a nice-sounding name. Kasper, the Danish student, remarked that that's why the other Europeans 'love' the Italian politicians.

The Italian students were all tickled and rationalized why they are so loved: Because they sent the 'best' to the European parliament.

Absolutely hilarious.

The Burden of Reputation

Today I went to have dinner with the mountaineers and Sheng Chao at the new Popeye's outlet at Singapore Flyer.

My fellow intern Serene had asked this question before: Why a cabin does not turn outside down as it goes up the Singapore Flyer?

Makes me wonder whether she is serious or joking.

Anyway Sheng Chao was telling me 101 reasons why he will not go for SMU despite getting the exchange place there.

He heard from his friend about a SMU intern at the IT department of a bank who managed to upset the permanent staff at his department.

The person was quite screwed up from the description and the makcik at the office had a bad impression of SMU students as a result. Sheng Chao made a remark that SMU graduates are often good at interviews but the quality of work are often not up to standard.

The chairman of FTB 2007 had made a comment about the negative reputation that SMU students have received. I had to admit that it was quite evident among certain segment of the school population.

However I think that it's kind of unfair to generalize all SMU students even if there is some truth in it. Very often, the line between confidence and arrogance is a very fine one.

SMU's reputation often precedes the students' true abilities. To put it politely, a typical SMU student is supposedly to be confident, articulate and driven. However it can also be intepreted as cocky, snobbish and lack of real substance.

It's hard to build a good reputation; spoiling one is much easier with just a few bad apples. The only thing that I can do on my part is to try to do my best and produce quality work.

At least people won't judge me as just another SMU intern who can talk only.