Reflection on Monday by Wang Haina

I never knew what it felt like to wake up at 5:20 every morning for a week, until this curious JXP programme. The dining hall in RVR shortly before 6 o' clock was pretty much like the one before an flight departure during our first Home Leave, surrounded by drizzling darkness and lit up with piercing light that the eyes found hard to adjust. I was dressed in the curious MOE red shirt and a black skirt I bought from Marks&Spencer just the day before... I kind of cursed the weird regulations on proper attire, envying the boys who could wear pants. We had packed breakfast of Baozi, Milo and noodles that were in typical RVR style, and then headed to the bus.

It was extremely dark, and light bulbs looked like pearls floating all around. I fell asleep as soon as I reached a seat in the bus, until our really responsible team leaders told us that we had arrived at Victoria. 

It was in LT1 that I met my buddy, Elizabeth. She is a vivacious cute girl who loves to wear a mischievous grin. We were both a bit shy at first, but soon the ice breaks and we began talking about everything from VJC to NUS. Although she has been in VJC  for only one month, she already knows everything about it. She giggled (heheheee, hahahahaa) all the way through our conversations! Surprisingly, she speaks with a Singaporean accent that is very comfortable for me!! All these months I had been hating Singlish and I would never have known it could sound lovely and nice but for Elizabeth! 

Their first class was physics. It was on uncertainty, something the Chinese education would regard as trivial. However, thanks to this lecture, I felt that the underlying principles in uncertainty are profound. Partial derivatives should be applied, for example, if you are to really understand why fractional uncertainty is so important.

Then we had a General Paper tutorial. As the name suggests, my Victorian friends were really working on a paper that aimed to practice their reading comprehension skills. We do the same things in China and NUS. I really, really do not understand why answering these questions helps one's critical thinking or skills of expression!!! They hone sheer exam-taking techniques, to my honest understanding.

The greatest part of the day, or course, had to be the chemistry experiment session! They were doing double-indicator titrations, and I marvelled at how organised and advanced their lab equipment is. All the reactants were orderly placed in cupboards that surround the room. Apparatus were sorted in their fixed places. Titration tubes were resistant to both acid and base, and the way to pump water in and out was simply pressing two buttons on a rubber balloon. Their chairs were designed to multi-function as ladders. When students needed to pour a solution into the tube which is very high, they stood on a beam above the bottom of the chair! The students are highly independent in conducting experiments. They went to collect all the chemicals and apparatus they needed with great speed and confidence!

I heartily feel that compared to Singapore's chemistry education, China still has a long way to go.

BTW, the food in VJC canteen and cafe was extremely delicious！