first three days in guelph

so. i am here in Guelph, finally. i don't even know where to begin! so many things i've been feeling, so many things to say. maybe what would sum it all up is that being here is so very different from being back home. while i'm trying to make it all work out the way i intended it to, by the usual tenets of staying positive, be open - blahblahblah, i do think that being away from everyone is taking its toll on me. especially since i'm here all alone, and the friends i do make are well, not very close ones. just hi, bye, see you next week kinda thing. monday and tuesday were actually not too bad, today was just terrible. i spent most of my morning in class, from 930am right up to 220pm, with a one hour break at abt 1220 - and didn't sleep right last night. in fact, i haven't been sleeping well at nights here. my room is right next to the heater and it's on some sort of timer, so it kicks on and off every half hour or so. and when it comes on, it makes this really annoying knocking sound. so everytime it starts up, i suspect i wake up or something. whatever it is, i look like hell right now, with eye bags and all. and i feel like hell too, my body really aches. i feel so alien here so often, almost like an outsider looking in at things through my body. almost like an out-of-body experience, those that people experience at night when they dream and they can feel their soul taking flight and leaving their bodies. i never fully appreciated so many things back home in Singapore, things i've taken for granted, almost. the Asians here are few and far between, and then, they're usually PRCs or those born here. i feel so different, i never thought i could feel so different. i mean, back home, it's like, i thought races were unimportant, that race just didn't matter. i guess that was the idealistic me thinking, cos out here, i realise that the racial card is played so very often, albeit very very subtly. perhaps it's all in my own mind, - i differentiate myself from other people because i think i am different. but i keep telling myself yet, and yet it doesn't make any difference to my interactions. people give me really weird looks when i walk into class, mainly cos i'm a lit major and i suppose there's this preconceived notion of Asians being unable to speak proper English, much less enjoy reading or writing it. it annoys me, i must admit, to be looked at as different - i hate it. i don't like people staring at me cos of the way i look, cos i have black hair, yellow skin, and eyes with epithelial folds. i don't like it how professors look at me and wonder if i'm in the right class or not. i don't like it how i'm expected to struggle to speak the language i grew up speaking, i don't even like it when people tell me how surprised they are at my "perfect English". and some people even ask me what language people speak in Singapore - do you guys speak English, or Cantonese? i find it insulting, almost, how i'm expected to be unable to understand and speak English. and it's frustrating how everyone speaks with this American accent and expect me to speak the same way - and when i don't, i'm treated so differently. i don't like so many things about being here, and yet i do like many things too. i like the independence, i like meeting new people, i like attending my classes even, cos they're so different from those back in NUS, i like having so much time to myself, i like just being here and having the chance to live my life outside my tiny island for a change.

but it doesn't change the fact that i'm starting to feel really homesick, and looking at all the things from home in my room just doesn't help. in fact, it makes me feel worse. i dunno how people do it, those people who do their university overseas. it's mind boggling. i've only been here for all of three days but it feels like i've been here forever and it feels like i've been away from home for such a long time already. i spent a good two hours lying in bed just now just crying my heart out cos i miss home so much, and then tried to think positive but well, sometimes, it's not just in the mind. i need proper rest, and then perhaps i'll be able to take in all this more positively.