Looking at NUS with Block B4 Eyes

Its official! As of yesterday, the fridge has been cleaned. Well, its being cleaned. Most of the internal parts, the clear plastic trays that serve as platforms where our foodstuff stands inside the fridge, have been removed and presumably being washed at some unknown location. The fridge was left ajar and unpowered, with several remaining items of foodstuff that will probably go bad quite soon. Wait… that includes my cheese. Damn.

Hopefully, the fridge will remain clean and usable for the remaining weeks in the semester. Oh, and in the day that I saw the fridge being cleaned, there was a dead dragonfly on the sill of the water dispenser. Yay.

In other news, walking along C block corridors on the way back from class you can see that several doors have been defaced with white chalk. Now, the C block corridor I walk down to my room is a Female Floor and the things that are scrawled on the doors are almost of a hate crime.

I must! I must! I must increase my bust! The boys! The boys! The boys are counting on us!

Will have sex for transport.

TH Official Ch**bye.

Fr33 s3x!

and other assorted innuendo.

If the weather’s been any news, its been raining on-and-off since last week. Its irritating because I can’t go running anymore… unless I run in the rain.

Sunday morning (or rather, Sunday afternoon at 3pm) I went to make myself lunch from various kinds of food that I have bought earlier in the week in the Block Kitchennette. I had bought bread, canned tuna, tomatoes, cheese and green apples and all these ingredients lie inside the communal kitchennette refrigerator. As it were, they were preserved well by the cool air that inhibits the growth of micro-organisms as well as retarding chemical reactions that contribute to the rotting of food.

Nevertheless, I have to keep my own food in a plastic box when storing it in the refrigerator. Not only does it clearly mark out that these perishable foodstuff as belonging to me as well as serving as a basket of goods, it also prevents the stench of other foods from permeating into my own food, rendering them inedible due to bad odor.

Now, you may ask if this is a valid proposal, should the stench of other food in the refrigerator affect my own stored food? I should answer, yes, for the communal refrigerator is a disgusting and smelly communal facility, which does not get cleaned very often, commonly abused through the lack of responsibility on the part of those who use it, and the storage of foodstuff kept long beyond its expiry date. Even semi-cooked food has been stored in there, packets of food meant for people who have long left the hostel for holidays stay untouched. A platform for placing food lies derelict in the fridge, greasy brown grime crust its surface. A pot of uncooked food, made from unknown ingredients and from an unknown hand lies vacant. All these, contribute to the pungent, unbearable stench that emanates from the fridge every time its door is opened.

The fridge stinks.

Do your part. Use it well.

My first paper is tomorrow, hope I get to a good start.

The hall is relatively quiet at times, with most of everybody studying hard either in their rooms or whatever communal areas there are.

But let me tell you sometimes its not really all that great if you get a double room right smack in the middle of a floor of seniors. A floor of sportsmen. A floor of ex-NS men. They tend to stay in their clique, save for the friendliness of individuals who tend to be friendly and a few other stragglers not in the clique.

They were making a lot of noise after dinner today. As usual, they were kicking a ball, shouting and screaming. A friend said that they could hear them from A block. My roommate, who really works hard, got kinda pissed. This wasn’t the first time they made such noise and at times it was worse. They used to have “parties” at 2am. But I’ll tolerate it if it was Week 1 or Week 12. But definitely not at this period of time.

So they were kicking the ball and the ball rolled its way in the direction of our room. We got a loud “CHEE BYE” screamed right outside the room. My roommate was NOT very happy with it, and went to address them with a few expletives of his own.They told us to close the door, but its true that the walls and doors don’t muffle sounds very well. They did comply in the end.

In other news, back down in level B1, somebody set up a Cosy Corner, with papers stuck to the wall writing “Cosy Corner”, two stools and squat little table. I bet they use it to drink and play cards. Will have a photograph sometime in the future.

Edit nov19: Chang pointed out they don’t. But I bet its a great place to… except that its in front of the RF’s flat.

Edit Nov22: Chang: Biscuits are free btw. Have some while u walk by nxt time ^^ Korner is 4 us to sit ard and-beep- ard while having biscuits. Great place to watch eusoff girls walking past too ^^

And mark it that Thursdays the caterer serves Western food. The main course is either chicken chop, fish fillet, braised chicken wing, or maybe fried chicken. Its served with additional servings of baked beans, mash potatoes, and a sandwich. I particularly do not like the fish fillet.

Today B block had our block supper.We had it on the balcony area of B4 which was outside my room. It started at about 11pm, and about 12.30 people started going back to their rooms. By 2am they were cleaning out the stands. The Resident Fellow, Mrs. Goh came for a few minutes only. There were two electronic steamboats cooking the usual steamboat food: imitation crabsticks, fishballs, glass noodles, that kind of thing. They also bought some agar-agar, but it wasn’t enough for everybody. They got a small cooler down too, with root beer and ice in it. Some girls were kind enough to attend to the food the entire night. Some guys also brought furniture from the dining room so that we could use them to sit down and socialize. Good, I got to talk to some people, finally. I just hung out there until the end, there were few people left but it was worth it to get to talk to some of the people there that I never had the chance to talk to.

I took out my trusty, almost three-years-old, digital camera and took some pictures. My favourite the one I slapped on top. I’m thinking of using it as a header banner. Heh, heh. Here are some of the best ones that I’ve taken. Quality isn’t that good though, this camera doesn’t perform very well in low-lighting situations even with a relatively big lens.

Its good that they have these things. I like having block supper, save the fact that I haven’t done any work in the past few days. It seems that there are three kinds of people left in the hall: 1 - Assignments done, but still slacking off (that’s me); 2 - working like mad; 3 - Assignments not finished, but taking time to do it.