Looking at NUS with Block B4 Eyes

Okay, I have only a few minutes to write a blo g entry here. I have not been updating because its been busy, things to do, places to go, books to read, meetings to attend. So here’s a quick summary of everything that’s happen with regard to school and hall.

Thursday was supposed to be the Dialogue with the Hall Master, to be held over dinner (i.e. Family Hour). I was supposed to be on duty for tech support, but I had major clash with every other co-curricular activity that I was involved in, and had to prioritize (Political Science Society, Cross Campus and Touch Rugby). In the end, I didn’t make it.

Sunday was Temasek Hall’s touch rugby day. Since I have been somewhat regular at touch rugby trainings during the holidays but not for the last three sessions during term time because I had other commitments, like on Thursday. I went to the SRC at 8.30am, and I played touch rugby for a total of 2 minutes out of five 10x2 minute games. Temasek Hall guys in the end ranked 3rd or4th. I want to play again next year.

On another note, the Temasek Hall sports shirt makes me go, “damn, that’s one fine looking shirt.” I think its the Nike Dri-fit material. Still, I like Salomon stuff better but as far as Hall shirts go, that’s one damn good-looking one.

Monday we had Combined Block A and Block B Supper at the quadrangle. Tech crew was there to give public address support, but I wasn’t on duty. They brought out tables and chairs in the open air, and served pizza, pasta and clam chowder under open skies. Managed to burp on the Public Address system and crack two lame jokes on it too. Managed to talk to some people (including one from my old church in Malaysia, gasp!) and the Resident Fellow, Mrs. Goh.

Academic-wise, I’ve been through at least two lectures of each module I’m taking. Here’s basic preliminary thought of them:

EL1101E The Nature of Language by Dr. Sunita Abraham: She makes her lectures interesting, but my interest in linguistics is fast dying. However, her “contractual learning” and explicit expectations between student and teacher is to be lauded. The project concerning Singlish could become a particular exercise to be loathed however.

HY2241 Why History? by Dr. Keck and Dr. Chancey. Has been okay so far. I don’t understand how people manage to keep up their writing stamina to write pages and pages of notes. Hoping I do not lose interest too much. Tutorial’s on Thursday, keeping my fingers crossed and am worried about this particular subject.

PS2233 Contemporary Political Ideology by Dr. Putterman. I’m still going strong with this one. Just had one tutorial, and it looks good. The small class size makes it feel very intimate, but I feel that there’s something that we can never really cover in the course because we’re not studying JUST any particular ideology in too much depth. I liked the presentation topic I got though, on Post-modernist Political Ideology.

PS2249 Government and Politics of Singapore by A/P Hussin Mutalib. Course pack is a killer to read, but I enjoy the lectures more. Professor Mutalib is a pretty diplomatic guy but knows how to imply things to a great degree of humour.

PS3240 International Security by Dr. Khoo How San. The material is interesting but I find the lectures to not suit my mind — either I don’t have enough understanding about Political Science to really comprehend at a higher level what he is talking about, or it all seems too random to me. The books make more sense. Downside, there is no coursepack. In particular, today’s lecture didn’t stop until the next class had to tell the Doctor to. I wonder if that’s the precedent that sets the standards. That’s doubly worrisome.

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.

Day 1 of school is much like New Year. You try to get everything off on the right foot. Its as thought the moment you open your eyes you gotta get off the right side of the bed and pray that everything goes well so that you don’t cause trouble for yourself too early in the beginning.

Day 1 is when I wake up early to grab some breakfast even though I have no classes in the morning. Met this International student from North Carolina living in Block A while having my half-boiled eggs. He was studying Electrical Engineering and had a cleanshaven head (which looked pretty cool). After we were done, I went back to my room, and took another nap. I blame it on the cold drizzle.

I woke up an hour later to meet a friend for lunch. That afternoon, I managed to print out some lecture outlines, check out CORS for one last module, borrow a book from the library, previewed a lecture, bidded on CORS for that lecture I previewed, and went for a lecture that I paid dearly for on CORS, Contemporary Political Ideology. After that, I went back to hall, had dinner, and tried to get to my reading while chatting up a storm.

Hall is becoming a hive of activity again. Wish I didn’t live in the corner of nowhere because I don’t get to see anything happen. At least my roommate and I can occasionally hear the seniors making a lot of noise on the balcony. Its the same thing, over and over again.

Finally, I checked CORS for the last time. I got my last module - EL1101E: The Nature of Language. And examining bidding statistics on CORS, I found that in Round 1b, Applied Ethics and Major Political Philosophers had little demand. Should have declared a Philosophy Major and snapped these up for one point, instead of taking HY and EL. Crap.

Okay, this has nothing to do with NUS per se. But this has something that I want to highlight for Malaysians and people travelling to Malaysia from Singapore and back by bus, especially for foreign students or exchange students who have no prior experience. Anyway, its a “BAD EXPERIENCE” so its useful for anybody who plans to travel.

Yesterday was one of the many times I have travelled on the bus from KL to Singapore. It was pretty much a routine trip, a 12 o’ clock bus from Puduraya down to Singapore on Sri Maju. I managed to pull out my laptop and watch a movie on the way back, and tried to play Serious Sam 2 without a mouse. The bus stopped by in Johor at the less-seedier bus stop where they always sell overpriced goods. I didn’t want anything and I had enough water to last me the trip so I just used the washroom and got back on the bus. It wasn’t an overly eventful bus ride except that the bus driver managed to reach Johor Bahru pretty fast as he was overtaking cars and other buses all the way there. Once, a 4x4 Pajero cut into our lane without looking, and the bus swerved into the emergency lane, but no great injury.

The bus reached Johor Bahru and was queueing up for immigration around 4.30. The queue was unusually slow this time as the bus was doing something like 20 feet every 5 minutes. Even the interior smelled of car exhaust. In the end, after waiting in the bus for an hour, the bus did reach the immigration building and I alighted the bus without removing my luggage from the luggage compartment. Seriously, this is the norm unless otherwise stated. When exiting a country, the authorities hardly check luggage. However, my valubles I kept close to me with my hand luggage — a backpack, a pouch and my badminton racquet.

I got through immigration, and when I got out something was funny - the bus parking lots and waiting area had been demolished to make way for a new immigration complex. At this point I would reboard the bus to take a short 2-minute ride across the causeway. I didn’t see anybody boarding any buses except the 170 public coach which still had its parking lot. So I guess that everybody was walking across. I followed suit.

After 15 minutes of crossing the causeway by foot, I got to the immigration complex on the Singaporean side. The police officers conducting checks on the buses said that the Sri Maju bus had already passed as I tried to go backwards to see if my bus had already arrived because my luggage was still in the bus. So if it had passed, it would have already been waiting for me. Right now I was faced with two choices: to believe the officers stationed there or to wait. I decided to believe the officers. I went through immigration on the Singaporean side.

At the end of immigration, I asked a customs officer if they had an extra bag confiscated from the bus. The officer went in to check, and he said no. I went down to the bus waiting area (thankfully that’s not demolished) and after some time my bus pulled in. The bus driver said something about my bag being upstairs and you ask the people upstairs your bag is there. So I went up, asked the officer who redirected me to the police post In the departure wing. I walked there, told them of my dilemma and they told me to wait while they get an officer to attend to me. A Malay officer came to me, took me downstairs to the ground floor where they search the buses and keep luggage found in buses (after scanning them, of course). There was none.

The senior police officer told me of several possibilities: Somebody had taken my luggage (read: thief), it was left in Malaysia during immigration, the bus driver had claimed it as his own. Otherwise, I could go back to the company, file a complaint with them, and file a police report. I decided to try my luck at the Sri Maju office in Golden Mile. I made a call back to my family in Malaysia to tell them of the bad news. Then by the policeman’s intervention, I got on an Eltabina bus headed to Golden Mile because that’s where the Sri Maju offices are.

On the bus, I faced the prospect of losing all my things in the luggage. My old digital camera outclassed by low-end cameras nowadays, winter clothes for my Boston trip, two pairs of shoes, some clothes, my laptop charger, and my file containing some documents. I thought of things that I could have done differently, waiting for my bus after Malaysian immigration, or before Singaporean immigration, getting the bus driver to come with me to find my bag with the Customs, or looking at the luggage compartment of the bus…

At Golden Mile, close to 8pm, I looked around for that particular Sri Maju bus that I rode on. It wasn’t there. I went to the Sri Maju office there and told the counter staff my problem — and at the corner was my bag with the bus number stuck to it. The counter staff told me that she had to put up with very angry customers who gave her a tongue lashing because the bus was quite delayed by me, in addition to the delays cause by traffic. Apparently they took the risk of bringing my luggage across immigration as their own to save time. Of course they could have left it with Customs and Police Officers, of which I could have picked it up. I talked and apologized to her for her trouble she got. And I should have tipped her or something.

I lugged my piece of luggage to the taxi stand and heaved in into the back of a cab. Got it to drive straight to my hall. If I could, I’d have it drive me to my room.

I’d like to thank and apologize to those people who were angry at me. They have all the right to be. Damn, I hate travelling alone.

But in all things, there is a God.

Okay, will publish a guide to Travelling Between Singapore and Malaysia for the Student Soon. (I’m a budding travel author).

Okay, I have to sum up the last week that I was in hall, as well as today.

The week before I left there was this weird camp. Walking by I told Robin, “The girls at this camp are quite cute.” Walking by a few times, judging by whatever I saw walking by, I think it was a cheerleading camp or something similar. Lots of hype and energy. I guess that’s what happens during the holidays in the halls.

And there is running and touch rugby. On the Friday that I left, I went for a two-man cross campus run, and then later in the afternoon I went for touch rugby training. I must admit I haven’t got my touch rugby game on, still fumbling with passes, don’t have that teammate-awareness, or that special technique vibe yet. Need to be on the field a few hundred more times and do a few thousand more drills before anything actually happens. It was from 2pm to 4pm and I got slightly sunburnt.

The week I was in Malaysia, exam results came out. I got off to a good start in my academic life, a CAP of 4.5 out of 5. Asking around now, people are getting about an average of 3-4 in their CAPs. There are a few people in my contact list that did really well in their exams, scoring 4.5 and 4.6 that kind of score. Oh well, a 4.5 probably won’t get me into the Dean’s List. Needs one or two more A’s.

And CORS bidding Round 1A begins Thursday. 1B Tuesday (in a week). Have to get through that dreadful process again.

And now I’m back from my Malaysia stay. First thing today I went to meet some of my committee members, and then I went for some touch rugby at the SRC Field 2. We started about 11am instead of the planned 10am, and in the meantime we watched the second half of the King Edward - Temasek Hall football match for Interhall Games. Temasek Hall won convincingly at 4-0. After some rugby with 11 other guys, I had lunch and it rained. Rain in Singapore is weird. It started when I was in the middle of my meal, when I left the canteen it was drizzling, and a few feet away from the hall it was bright and sunny with not a drop to be felt from the sky. Of course the ground was wet, but that’s the capricious weather here. Later at 3 it rained again.

Wanted to do my laundry but the rain made me feel lazy.

Okay, a few days ago I said that I would report a bit on the International Conference on Education.

Okay, basically I’m doing tech support for these two events on the International Conference on Education: One for the reception event when the delegates (read: professors from all around the world) check in at the Television Lounge in Temasek Hall, and they get to “network” with each other. The other is for the farewell dinner, we have to give tech support for all the performers doing their thing on stage at one of the halls at the Guild Hall opposite Temasek Hall.

I’ve got a few things for free from helping out at this event. I got a free dinner for the tech support at the dinner, and a few cups of free Tiger beer. Yeah, they get beer at BOTH the events, for what reason I don’t know. They hired some guy to set up a cooling device for gas-powered kegs of beer. I got two plastic cups (which was a mistake, taking two after not taking any liquid beforehand kinda screwed up my complexion and made me go real red in the face. I was better today during the dinner because had lots of water and liquid. A lot of the other boarders from Temasek Hall got something to drink anyway. Anyway, learnt my lesson, shouldn’t drink on duty. Food was better than most hawker crap there is out there anyway.

Somehow all the same people get the same jobs. At the dinner, Austen got the MC job, Xinyao performed, Band performed (although not too well, in my humble opinion), Choir performed, Danced performed and they hired some outside drag comedian to run around singing badly and to harass the audience (poor old me) with her bad jokes.

Oh, and the hall master actually got to know my name. He asked my name at the reception, and today after the dinner he was walking his Schnauzer, he greeted me by name. Seemed to me quite a nice chap, if we could look at each other at the same level. Friendly, nonetheless. They showed the “Master’s Video” at the dinner anyway, the video about his invention of the Smart Jacket which could detect falls and hard impacts then electronically send messages to hospital monitors.

I didn’t actually get to meet any of the visiting professors though, but it would be interesting to. But I get the feeling that they’ll just condescend and not talk about their work or anything like that.

Next up, the AIESEC conference. Yesterday I was just chillin’ in my room when an old buddy Sze Fei just popped by to say hi and that he was staying for a few days in Temasek Hall for an AIESEC conference. Registration booths were open the whole, and they had their orientation games today until late night. Saw many unknown faces. Waiting for them to finish so that I can go prata with Greg (who is also with AIESEC) and Sze Fei. I like it when people that completely don’t know each other get together. Its just better that way because people are more open to make friends.

Walking around looking for Sze Fei’s room, I saw Greg trying to crossdress another guy for the AIESEC thing. Bloody bugger.

And I guess that Temasek Hall isn’t really dead at the moment. There are enough of important people to make activities happen. Many of the seniors on my floor have got holiday stay rooms. Sports trainings are still going on, and people are coming back to make them happen.

And the gym is up. I saw one of my blockmates working out on it. Its just a small carpeted area, with mirrors installed at the walls. Gotta ask a gym partner to work out with me. I’m too scrawny.

Its Monday 2 p.m., and its raining with thunder in the sky.

A lot of foreigners have already left. Greg’s gone back to Washington, Chitra’s gone back to Sri Lanka, Lorraine has left for ChiangMai before she leaves for Germany, Tyler’s going back Tuesday. Heck, most of the Malaysians aren’t here anymore too, my roommate’s gone for a month already. Most Singaporeans moved out with their last papers.

There are some people still in hall thought. I know Charmaine, the JCRC secretary and Robin will be around. I saw my old OGL, the senior Malaysians and Weyland on the way to lunch. Some rooms are still obviously occupied, and a few rooms still have their occupants here at B4. But the emptiness can be felt… you can see if people have moved out if the shoes outside are gone. Again its ironic, term time I feel antisocial because of my work, and during holidays I feel more social but nobody’s around.

The Band put up some posters around advertising for day-long music lessons for S$2, drums, guitars, bass, keyboards, but I don’t know if there is any response since its the holidays. Poor them.

Some of the interhall games have started training. At least cross-campus are starting to train on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7.30 in the morning.

There has been a lot of construction in the Multipurpose room opposite the dining hall. They’ve installed air-conditioning units and laying out blue carpeting, and I saw sit-up benches and a square frame for one of those multi-purpose gym units. I think TH is finally getting a gym installed. It’s so ironic, a hall that prides itself being a sports hall but has little access to tennis courts, badminton courts, and even its own gym (well, until now that is).

And tomorrow Temasek Hall will be hosting an International Conference on Education. I will be serving as part of Tech Crew, setting up microphones and speakers and stuff like that. More on that as it comes.

Things are really winding down here in hall. Most people have already finished their exams by now, and I’m stuck with one of the last few papers which is tomorrow. Some Malaysians have already left for their hometowns, some Singaporeans have already moved out of hall. That leaves poor me in the corner of B4 for another two weeks.

Some people are planning to go clubbing tonight, and I really really wanted to go too, but even though my exam tomorrow only carries a 35% weightage, I rather get a good grade for this subject. And, I’m strapped for cash, so its all cheap activities for me. I feel like going to the park one bright sunny day.

Even my roommate has been going out more than usual. He leaves this Sunday.

I’ve recently paid my vacation hall stay fees, and for my double room it cost me S$200 (40 dollars a week for 5 weeks).

Nothing else much to report, because nothing much is happening. Sorry for not updating for a week.

At the common balcony area outside my room, a pizza box was abandoned on the common picnic table. It was open and still had bits of half-eaten pizza crust inside. That’s what’s left of the senior clique’s dinner I suppose. Saturday dinners and Sunday lunches are always a problem if you don’t have transport.

This weekend, I think, had a lot of locals staying in. Even more than usual because some of them have exams today (Saturday) and another one on Monday. Even if they didn’t have, they’d still have some incentive to stay. Got to talk to people like Linda, Gillian, Julia, Fengchen, and people here and there. You hear a lot of interesting things from people, suffice to say. From Gillian, she said that TS1101E (which I’m planning to take) will be difficult next semester because the tutors rotate and up in line are PRC tutors whom you will probably have difficulty communicating with. From Julia, she said that guys that end up in TS1101E will probably end up gay. Now that I’m wearing a hairband to hold up my long fringe, I think she’s worrying for me.

The kitchen is an interesting place to be because if you stay long enough you’ll meet everybody. Everybody needs to get water or cook or wash something. If you’re there, you’ll eventually run into the people whom have never been to orientation or the people who camp out in their room forever making their daily foray for food and water. There’s also interesting stuff in there in each different kitchen. Some kitchens don’t have woks. Our kitchen does. Our kitchen also has an open packet of sugar-coated cream crackers. I still dont’ know why the ants haven’t attacked it yet.

I don’t hate the exam period because of the exams. I hate it because a highly undisciplined person like me cannot survive. There are no classes, no formalized institutions to get me to move my ass. And I’m constantly straying back to nocturnality. Trying rather hard to get to my notes, download some previous semester papers off the IVLE, do some actual work but getting distracted rather easily.

My friends are going clubbing on the 30th and I still have a paper on the 1st. I am so screwed.

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.

Yesterday night, rooms received some welfare packs:

One packet - instant milk tea
one packet - instant milk coffee
one packet - crushed Apollo wafers

I don’t think the Apollo wafers are edible anymore, unless you’re willing to make something like a Farley’s Rusk with them. The welfare packs were one per boarder, so my room received two since I have a roommate. They were just left on the doorstep.

We also received a large green plastic bag from Collin who was so kind to go around distributing it to rooms. It was for putting paper and anything paper-based that you wanted to recycle in. Leave it outside the door when you leave and it will be collected on the 7th of Dec. And apparently the bag doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to SembVISY recycling.

Good stuff.

Talked in passing to another fellow boarder down in B2 at the kitchenette while I was making some noodles. His exams start tomorrow, then he has another paper the next day, and two more the following day. His last paper will be on the 25th, and he said it was an easy paper.

I don’t know whether to call him lucky or in hell of trouble. Suffice to say if one slacks off too much, its very likely that one will screw up four exams in a row. Unlike him, I’ve got spaced out exams all the way from the 18th to the 1st of december.

Last Friday was the beginning of reading week. For the locals, it means no classes, and its high-hell revision all the way. For the exchange students, it means they get to fly around South East Asia visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Kuala Lumpur and the like. I get to stay in my room and laze about (except for that night I went for some shisha, but that doesn’t count).

Even on Friday night at 2am, the communal hall for once had the sterile white lights turned on, instead of the warm, dim yellow ones they turn on during dinner. The air-conditioner was also turned on, which usually never happens at all, not even for dinner. People were there at the tables, some clumped together studying as a group, others by themselves with books and notepads spread in front of them. No more than 20 people were there, and the reading room probably was packed as well.

The weekend had a few more Singaporeans staying back than usual. Walking back from Fong Seng I could see lights from rooms not usually occupied during weekends. People were studying.

Walking back from church, passing through the walkways leading to classes, lecture theatres, offices and the central library, I saw people at the benches with laptops and books. Some of them were writing, chatting, reading but nonetheless there to study. I don’t know if they were Singaporean or not. One of them was wearing the Temasek Hall polo T-shirt. Looking at the dustbins you know they’ve been there the whole day - it was overflowing with white styrofoam food packets. But somehow, even on sundays, you know these people would be there every week. There are always people at the walkway benches every day of the week.

I was talking to my friend on the way back from church about hall culture. I guess I have to come to the conclusion that there is something of a perceived long-term culture, and an immediate culture. I theorize that most hall culture is transmitted through the people surrounding you and the generational institutions that are retained throughout the changing batch of students. This is in effect the immediate culture. This immediate culture is specific with respect towards each hall, and I wouldn’t want it any differently. Its the enthusiasm, the manner of social heirarchy is formed, the focus and emphasis on certain things that count for this kind of immediate culture. However, the perceived long-term culture is the knowledge that one obtains from history and comparison with other halls and therefore changes a persons attitude towards the institutions and conventionalities that take place.

My friend said that the Social Welfare Committee in Eusoff Hall was much more established than Temasek Hall and implied that had more effective activities going on. The recycling campaign in Eusoff is better implemented than Temasek, in the sense that there are more recycling bins in the halls. Thus she made a conjecture that Temasek Hall people are more selfish. Whether that’s true or not, I can’t say but its these kinds of comparison and information that needs to be propagated among the people staying in hall to encourage people to be more proactive to form a sort-of civil society. When I was helping out in rag and flag, they told me that every year for the past five years Temasek Hall has won something in the Annual Rag and Flag. When seniors tell you these things, it just strikes some people that they ought to do something about it. This is what I call perceived long-term culture. Its the power of knowledge to shape culture.

However, all these bits of information were spread by word-of-mouth, in my opinion, similar to tribal oral history. Nobody ever writes this things down for history’s sake. Indeed there is writing, but there is no formalized institution where public (hall) journals of the smaller life and activities of halls are recorded. We can’t compare ourselves to the past so we don’t know what’s going on.

When I set up this blog, I hoped that this would be one of the avenues for that — the propagation of hall history and knowledge. I want people to know the things like the social welfare committees, hall culture, and things like that. Contextual history gives people something to build on and advance instead of letting it remain a timeless, cyclical history that once we leave the halls, it remains no better than it once was.

I understand the need for publicity. If nobody reads, everything comes to futility. I hope my writing is salient and blogworthy. I hope I am doing the right thing. Because I feel that university life is reflective of civil society outside of the university. Its a microcosm of things to come. This is where young adults develop their ideas of how life operates outside of school. If a civil society can form within a campus, students can translate that into civil society in the real world.

I believe in a history from below.