Nanyang Technological University

I haven't posted much lately, now that research is finally underway, and my life is swamped with the mundane act of getting up and going to work everyday. None the less, I thought I would show you what that looks like by giving you a bit of a virtual tour of NTU. (p.s. Have I told you that "Nanyang" means "Singapore" in Chinese? It was founded by Chinese immigrants in the 50s. Thus the title)

This is my bedroom that I share with my awesome-saucem roommate Wendy. The green bed is mine (see the four leaf clover bed sheets? So I'm insecure in my Irishness. Sue me)

And no graduate student bedroom would be complete without desks. Although I never manage to actually sit at desks. So far have been using mine as a very insufficient storage space (on the right, naturally).

And closets. Mine is the messy one that it seems is too much effort to close.

Dining/laundry area. Because for some reason they are one and the same.

Kitchen

Common area.

Wendy and I share the common spaces (kitchen, bathroom, dining room etc.) with two other girls. But none of us ever really hang out there if we can help it. The common areas have no air conditioning, and no fans. And I've been in green houses that were cooler.

I live right on campus, and I walk to work every day. These pics are from my daily commute. NTU is really far out on the west coast of the country, and its a good 45-60 minutes to get to downtown, which is really annoying. But the plus side is that the campus is really beautiful. A daily reminder that I am living in the jungle-filled tropics.

This pic is of the Art and Design building. And it doesn't do it justice. One of the coolest buildings I've ever seen, it consists of several, overlapping arcs of black glass topped with GRASS. So the roof comes right down to the ground. You can hike up it, and apparently the top has the best star gazing in all of Singapore.

Other angle of the Art school.

Most of the sidewalks on campus have covers, to protect students from the harsh sun and the almost daily downpours.

An on campus residence hall

Overlooking the "Spine", one of the main clusters of buildings on campus.

Inside one of the main libraries. Can you say computer stations?

The Psychology Building!

Inside the huge open foyer of the psych building.

My office. 4th floor. Mine is the messy one (notice a trend?). I was supposed to get a cubicle on the 3rd floor with the other grad students. But since I'm all VIP and stuff, they gave me a part-time/temp staff office. Bigger, and in the faculty wing, with only one officemate and my own computer and printer. This is so much nicer than my office at UM. And the labs here are unreal. Tons of space, and resources and cool gadgets.

Guess I have no excuse for not getting work done...