Some thoughts and opinions

It's the start of my fourth week here and I'm still in Durham, and as of now, we still don't have plans to go anywhere else. I know people like to make road trips and go sightseeing, but I'm perfectly content to just laze around in the room all day. And read.

But it hasn't all been monotonous. I HAVE gone to some performances and watched some movies. Yeah, not "WOW" exciting, but at least it's something. =P

I went to the November Dances the first weekend I was here. It's a dance performance showcasing Duke senior dance majors' work, and it was good.To me, it was different and refreshing, mainly because you don't always see dance forms like ballet making it to TV competitions like So You Think You Can Dance. It even felt highbrow. Like, the fine arts, wow.

Best part was, it was free because Eu Fern got two complimentary tickets as an usher. ;)

That Saturday, we went to the mall.
Yup, we also went to watch the Hunger Games 2. =P

Last weekend, we went to Duke again for a Christmas performance by Something Borrowed Something Blue, one of the campus'  acappella groups. It was pretty good too, and fun to watch.


We also got tickets to The Nutcracker this Saturday at the Durham Performing Arts Centre (DPAC). No picture 'cause it's an online ticket. Haha.

It's so refreshing to be in a culture where the arts are given due recognition on par with other fields. This is probably a luxury Third World countries don't really get to enjoy, since the demand for professionals in the medical, engineering and law sector is more pressing. In Malaysia, dance is usually some extracurricular activity you do for fun, not as a serious career consideration. The worldview here seems more balanced, I have to say. 

I'm also very impressed by how college kids here have diverse interests and actively participate in groups. Maybe there's some extra credit involved or something, but it's seriously impressing that they have the level of quality to produce their own albums (a campus group producing an album? Unheard of by me). I don't really know if my opinions are misinformed, because I never went to a public university or a private one in Malaysia. Perhaps you get more passionate individuals there, and I just can't fathom how a university kid would have enough time to juggle everything. Also, my opinions are based on how crazy the IPG schedule is, so maybe I don't know all that much. 

My being impressed is probably also influenced by meeting Jameson, JW's housemate, who's done so many things in the mere 24 years of his existence, who's passionate to keep exploring the world and at the same time, has the level of focus necessary to be in a PhD programme. I mean, music major turned biology major turned post-grad student in marine biology turned post -grad student in etymology? How do you DO that? It's almost like you were born with an extra quota of brains and attitude. 

JW says not everyone is like Jameson, so I don't have to be so impressed. Hahaha. He says Duke IS one of the top five universities in some rankings, so I'm being exposed to a not-very-evenly-distributed sample of Americans. Teehee.

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