Recess Week!!

By:

Reshan Selvavelautham

Published:

Countries

Demographics

,

Majors

Regions

Reshan Selvavelautham

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> Hello/Vanakkam/Ni Hao <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> Vassar College <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2023 <i>Destination city & country:</i> Singapore <i>Program provider:</i> Yale-NUS College <i>Major/minor:</i> International Studies <i>Demographics:</i> South Asian, First-Generation American, First-Generation College Student <i>Future career aspirations:</i> My dream is to become a diplomat. Otherwise, my goals include working in the U.S. government, NGO, non-profit and/or in education. <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> Learn how to be independent and to be more confident in travelling internationally; Immerse myself in the Singaporean culture by meeting new people and making new friends; Discover and learn about my own culture and heritage.

This week has been one of the most adventurous weeks of my life! It was our mid-semester week, which means no school! With all of this free time, I had the perfect opportunity to explore my host country. On Monday, we went to Singapore’s beach island called Sentosa. We took the bus from our college to the VivoCity mall, connecting Sentosa to the rest of Singapore. From there, we took the monorail to the island. It was so breathtaking. We walked to one of the beaches called Siloso. I have not been to the beach since the pandemic began, so it was something special to be here. I never thought in my life that I would be on a tropical beach eating watermelon and sunbathing on a Singaporean beach. Now, it was a reality. On Tuesday, we had an educational trip as my friends and I went to the National Museum. I got to learn about Singapore’s history and the celebration and the challenges of the small island state. It was really interactive as they had videos and audio elements. I felt like I was transported back to the time periods.

On Wednesday, I went to the Changi Airport because it actually is a famous tourist attraction since it has a mall, adventure, and the world’s largest indoor waterfall (Image 1)! The next day, we went to the Museum of Ice Cream (Image 2)! I felt like a little kid again! It was a fusion between an ice cream parlor and a playground. We went during adults’ night so we did a scavenger hunt and at the end of each challenge, we were rewarded with ice cream ranging from vanilla to a Malay flavor called pandan. You could say that my sugar levels were not normal that day. On Friday, we went back to Sentosa! Before we went to the beach, we went on the Skyline Luge! Sort of similar to the winter Olympic sport, luge requires the driver to steer (like a car) down a windy path. Before every ride, we had to take a ski lift, therefore; we got to see the view of the ocean and the skyline before our luge trip downwards. After the luge, we went to another beach called Palawan and stayed there until seven at night. Finally, on Saturday, I went on a field trip from my geography class where we got to learn about the human and physical geography of the Singapore River. Since it is one of my Zoom classes, it was so nice to meet my professors and the other students for the first time. I was the only American so I got to talk about my experience here so far and also learned about their geographical imagination of Singapore as natives.

Overall, this week has been one of the best weeks in my life and I get really emotional thinking about the past few days. I never thought I would be able to have the experience I had. I ate so much food from so many types of cultures, explored more places, and learned more about my host country.