Thought of the day

I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul. / I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul. ~William Ernest Henley, Invictus

Government's promises are like the Ringgit, they depreciate with time.



Saturday, March 29, 2008

Just Had My English Test

Ahhh...........here I am, sitting in front of the PC with a cup of crysanthemum tea. Yes, I am drinking the crysanthemum that you prepared for me in Penang, my dear. It's so amazing that how well you could take care of me even when we are apart. Thank you so much and I appreciate it :)

Just had my English test in the Engineering Auditorium from 10am - 11.30am. Think I did okay and so now I am quite relax.

Yesterday, I actually got an A for my data commentary assignment and the teacher actually requested for the softcopy so that she can share it with the other classes. I am proud! And so, for those who pass the test with flying colours today, you guys owe me breakfast, morning tea, lunch, noon tea, dinner, supper and late night supper :p

Ok, here's the piece on quality of leisure life of international graduate students at NUS:

The purpose of the survey is to investigate the quality of leisure life of international graduate students at the National University of Singapore and to determine if the quality of leisure life improves with their length of stay.

Table 1 shows the amount of time international postgraduates spend on leisure per week. As can be seen, the graduate students who have been studying at NUS for at least a year have more leisure time on average than graduate students who have been studying for less than a year. This is the case as fresh international students may require some time to adapt to the new environment and education system. As a result, they tend to focus more on their academic developments and spend less time on leisure. Nevertheless, it is important to note that none from the two groups would spend more than 15 hours on leisure per week.

Table 2 shows the popular leisure activities international postgraduates take part in currently.
One salient trend from the survey shows that regardless of the length of stay, netsurfing appears to be the most popular leisure activity with more than 80% of participation from both groups. As can be seen from Table 2, there are 6 times more graduates who stay for at least a year who attend social activities as compared to the meager 5% of fresh graduates. This is probably because the fresh graduates from different countries would need some time to get acquainted with people and make new friends whereas the senior students have already established stable relationships with a larger social circle.

Table 3 shows the satisfaction of the international graduates with their leisure life while studying in NUS. Overall, there has been a significant difference in satisfaction between both groups of students. Only one out of nine fresh graduates is satisfied with the amount of leisure time. Relatively, all of them are not happy with the range of leisure activities available. The reason for this could be that some activities are not available to them because of the problem of affordability such as buying a TV and going to the movies. In addition, the lack of spare time further lowers the quality of their leisure for certain activities such as swimming and watching TV. On the other hand, every one out of two senior graduates is contented with the amount of leisure time and nearly half of them are pleased with the range of activities. These are strong indicators that the quality of leisure life for international graduate students at NUS will eventually improve with the length of stay.

In a nut shell, my leisure time per week is pathetically short, but it is quality time:) How I spent my leisure time:
  1. Google talk - I enjoyed this one the most:)
  2. Blog - When I don't feel like moving.
  3. Jogging and Squash - When I want to get sweaty and sexy.
  4. Sketching - When I am in the mood of an artist.

Ok, got to resume my experiment from where I left off last night.

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