College and breaks

I havent been blogging much, if at all, recently, and since I am slightly free-er this week and so I decided to make a surprise appearance here.

I will only be back in Singapore sometime around June, because that's when my school year ends. My school generally starts later than the other US schools and end later as well, maybe because we are on the quarter system (I honestly dont know why this is so, I am just pulling out excuses from a hat). Whenever my friends leave for the US in August, you feel sad saying goodbye to them, but you also feel somewhat relieved that your break hasnt come to an end. But when school for everyone ends in May, you are only halfway through your quarter, you are going through midterms (and not even finals!) and you cant help but feel sorry for yourself that you have so far more to going home and starting your break. I only have a sample size of 1 or 2 though, because clearly as a sophomore I have only gone through the process of going home from college once.

We have 4 major breaks in the year, namely thanksgiving, winter, spring and summer. Thanksgiving break is a week long for us and it comes a few weeks before finals week (but still towards the end of the quarter), so in my opinion thanksgiving is the most valuable break, yet the most stressful one out of the 4 because you actually have schoolwork on your mind. Friends will invite you to their places to celebrate thanksgiving, I suppose thanksgiving to Americans must be like CNY for us in that it is like a reunion dinner. I like spending thanksgiving with my friends here, last year I remember going on a road trip with a few of my dormmates and spending thanksgiving itself at friends' places and in my dorm where we had a dorm thanksgiving dinner! This year was epic too, in that again I spent it with my dormmates and some other friends on roadtrips and just having fun together.

Winter break for us is longer, it's about 2 weeks and it marks the end of fall quarter, so we dont have to think about work! But 2 weeks is a bit short for me to be going home, so I spent it this year traveling around the west coast with my dorm neighbor. Spring break is 1 week and last year I spent it backpacking in this place called the Lost Coast (going into the wilderness)!

Summer is 3 months long, and most people go home, do internships or stay on campus to do research. I did summer school last year, taking classes like I would any other regular quarter, and summer is really relaxed because of the weather, but also a little lonely because most of my friends were not around on campus. Nonetheless, the weather is about 16-20 degrees, and it's not humid, you can walk around in sandals and shorts and feel very comfortable.

This year summer, I will be going back to Singapore to do my internship at one of the Ministries. I am not sure what I will be doing in spring yet, probably traveling. Breaks are great! :)