Thursday, February 12, 2009

My Mates and I

I landed in Singapore on a Sunday night. My best friend’s friend works in Singapore for the tourism department so he had come to pick me up. I had never meet him (Arun) before. Arun took me to the hostel, he got me dinner and a sim card. He was so helpful. He told me where to buy things and how to get around. Later I started to get around using a map. I started to explore the city with the help of the map and the internet. Initially, I always managed to get lost where ever I went. That's because in Singapore, every street looks very similar, clean and well maintained. Now I'm a pro. I know at least half of the city at the tips of my fingers.

Since the day he helped me, Arun and I became really good friends. He introduced me to Ramesh and Mohan who are his room mates. What came as a surprise was that all of us had studied at the same university in Coimbatore, but I'd never met them before. I was really lucky to find such good friends in a foreign country. Actually, they made me feel very comfortable here in Singapore.

In the hostel, I was first introduced to Navya. She's from Bangalore. She is such a sweet heart. Very helpful. We were to join the same college, so she was the one who took me to college the very first day. Through her I met Nayomi and Neelakshi who is from Srilanka. Then I met Anu, Komal, Bavna, Divya and Rama. Not all of us were close buddies, but we used to hang out often.

Some of them have now left Singapore. My close friends here are Samtha (she's my junior in college), Nayomi, Neelakshi, Sudha, Gauri and Divya. We make a good team. We went to Sentosa, Chinatown and Marina Bay. We have tons and tons of fun here. Melisa is my best friend. She's from Indonesia. Some of my other close friends are Kamal, from Singapore and Sebastian, from Vietnam. They are much older than I am so they treat me like a kid. Kamal is really smart, it's like he knows everything in the world and he's up to date in general knowledge and technology. He is Muslim, so he always gives me a lot of information about his customs and how he got married and about festivals they celebrate like, Hari Raya.

Sebastian is quite talkative and some times I really lose my temper around him but he's a really nice guy (except when he talks nonstop). He's creative and quick-witted and is very good at business solutions. He works as a video editor. He likes sharing his experiences with us and believe me, he's got a lot of interesting stories to tell.

Melisa is a cute looking, fun loving girl. She likes to roam around a lot. She doesn’t have much work experience, although she did live in Germany for 2 years. She has a lot of stories about their culture and how different the education system is in Germany. Thanks to me, she is now a huge fan of Indian food. After college we hang out in Little India and Bugis.

These are the nicest people I've met in Singapore. I hope to meet some more interesting people soon.

14 comments:

Saha said...

Hi Seevani,

Nice to see your blog.
(I reached here through the advertisement of Singapore Education)
With some official stuff I came there few times. Nice to see your narrations here and in Flickr.
And it was interesting that you have posted many pics of what I found interesting there.
Yes, Singapore is a really nice place. I like the neatness and civic sense of people there.
Regards
Saha

Sevani Rajasekar said...

Hi Saha,
It's really nice that you found my experiences here interesting. There's a lot more that I have to say about my life here. I love it here and I just want the people who are looking to study here to know what a great place Singapore is.

Thanks for your comment. Do continue reading.

Ravikumar S. Naik said...

Hi Sevani
This is Ravikumar from India, nice to c ur blog. I came to c ur blog through some advertisement regarding study in Singapore. With ur narration and interaction wit visitors it seems that the study in Singapore is good. I am a engineering graduate I wanna know more about higher education over there. If you could kindly provide me some more information I will very much thankful to you.
Regards
Ravikumar Naik
ravikumarnaik86@gmail.com

Unknown said...

Hi Sevani,
The way you've narrated ur experiences makes me more want to be there in Singapore...
but the reason m jottin dis down is dat i wanna fsrt hand info reagrdin the EDPs (exeternal degree progs) the various Institutes are offering in Singapore...plz be kind enuff and temme bout d genuinity of the same...
thanks

saravanan said...

Hi Seevani..
Its nice nice to see u here .. with lot of stuff .. hope you enjoying the days .. keep the moment going on..
Take Care
........saravanan(green park)......

Sevani Rajasekar said...

Hi Ravi,
Glad to know you follow my blog. I have so much information about studying here and my experiences here. I'm a design student so I don't know much about engineering. You can check out singaporetrails.blogspot.com. This is an engineering student's blog. Maybe you can find some information there. Or I can definitely get the right people to get in touch with you, who will give you all the information you need.

Sevani Rajasekar said...

Hi Sandeep,
Thanks for reading. I will definitely get some information for you. You can check out this website: www.singaporeedu.gov.sg. You can get all the details you require about courses.

Sevani Rajasekar said...
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Sevani Rajasekar said...
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Sevani Rajasekar said...

hi saha

Can you please send your email address so that I can send you further details on this.

Sevani Rajasekar said...

hi sandeep

Can you please send your email address so that I can send you further details on this.

Sevani Rajasekar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sevani Rajasekar said...

Dear Ravikumar,

Nice to hear about your interest in pursuing your higher education in Engineering in Singapore. Singapore has world-acclaimed schools of engineering, with a wide range of programmes in inter-disciplinary setting. National University of Singapore (www.nus.edu.sg) and Nanyang Technological University (www.ntu.edu.sg) are ranked among the world’s top technology universities. Singapore’s local universities have also formed strategic international alliances with leading foreign universities such as Georgia Institute of Technology (www.tliap.nus.edu.sg),Massachusetts Institute of Technology (www.sma.nus.edu.sg),Technische Universität München (www.gist.edu.sg)to offer graduate and research programmes in science and engineering.

For more details and to apply log on to the respective website:

Sevani Rajasekar said...

Dear Sandeep,

There are over 300 private institutes that offer external degree programmes in Singapore of which 55 are awarded with SQC - PEO and accredited with Case Trust.The Singapore Quality Class for Private Education Organisations (SQC-PEO) is awarded for their Standard for organisation excellence in the private education sector. SQC-PEOs enjoy various privileges such as ‘Green lane' processing of Student Pass . CaseTrust for Education was launched by the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), for private education organizations (PEOs).The scheme ensures good quality student welfare/protection practices and standards. Since 2005 only PEOs who have obtained case trust for education status are allowed to admit international students into their programmes in Singapore.