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How would life be if she had followed the "normal" educational system? Perhaps she would not be as open, perhaps she wouldn't have come to like different languages and appreciate different cultures.. perhaps.. perhaps.. perhaps...
Then ReiShin was whisked to the land of Swiss cheese and Alps.. Welcome to the "real" Swiss life.. join the local Swiss Kindergarten! It was a quaint little suburb called Bernex-en-Combs, in the District of Geneva. The kindergarten was called Luchepelet (dubious about the spelling) and she had some really fun times with her mates (Nadia, Olivier, Benjamin, Yves, Vanessa, Blaise, Audrey, Xavier, Didier, Sandra (best friend), Laetitia and Diego (another best friend)...) climbing sticky pine trees and catching snails on a rainy day. Though it was a serious case of "chicken and duck talk" during the first few weeks!
Two years of gabbling in French was more than she could take so off ReiShin went.. back to Singapore. Ahhh.. finally some semblance of normalcy? Well enjoy it while it lasts dude! Anyway ReiShin managed to wriggle in to Fuhua Primary School during Primary 2 and wriggled out again before the PSLEs (smart girl, that ReiShin). ReiShin will always be grateful to her patient parents who taught her Chinese, English and Maths while living in the Land of Sinful Chocolates. With a skull that thick, patience was definitely a must! In the meantime, ReiShin would like to take this moment to say hi to her old classmates (whomever's names she can remember, that is): Gene Boo, Huang Wenliang, Michelle Hoo, Melinda Ng, Zhou Huiwen, Deng Yiyou, Latika, Bony, Azlinda, Tang Chin Chun, Amy Koh, Xie Yiruan, Wendy, Huang Meihua, Hu Peishi, Lin Caihong, Fairuz, Wu Weiliang, Chen Junwei, Zida, Youwei, Li Zhenming, Chen Bojing, John Lim, Li Kunyuan, Lai Ronguang, Chen Zhirong our class clown etc.
Thus four and a half years later, ReiShin found herself once again in Geneva, Switzerland. What's with Switzerland anyway?? Liking Lindt chocolate and Gruyere cheese is not the excuse to be there all the time! It must have been the beef and salmon tartare... and the wonderful potato & walnut bread from Migros, the buttery Pain au Chocolat from Grand Passage, the thirst-quenching Ice Lemon Tea from Co-Op and the glistening strawberry tart from Placette.. Oh boy.. bye bye figure! But we digress.. ReiShin stayed in this beautiful, quiet little neighbourhood of Thonex which is 5 minutes walking distance to the French border. As for school? ReiShin took her first step onto the path of International Schools. The International School of Geneva (also fondly known as Ecolint), La Grande Boissière Campus it is. The first day was scary, but the students were friendly. Perhaps they were just so used to seeing new faces few times a year. But yes, the bane of all International School kids is that friends come and go... Even though the contacts are lost, these are a few that ReiShin will remember for a long time to come: Claire Botwright, Sophie Broderick, Lee Jung Dae, Tono Satomi, Uhm Tae Ho, Takahashi Shunta, Sandra Schwyter, Anna Norberg, Salina Israni, Linda Farragher, Alexis Freling, Alvaro Los Arcos, Marie Jenkins, Philip Walker, Jacob Schroeder, Michael Parson, Luciano Andriani, Denis Grigoriev, Katja Miller, Alfredo Gonzales, Ryan Everett, Gary Pachany, Claire Hussin, Saja Al-Tikriti (Saja, I hope you are alright, wherever you are.), Sumeet Bali, Mairin Barclay, Barry (BJ) Dupuy, James Harvey etc..
Another 3 years down the road finds ReiShin in another new location. Back to Asia, but it was Indonesia. Jakarta was... different, to put it nicely. ReiShin felt very much like a jailbird during those two years.. for transportation was not reliable, and thus the "Saturday trips to the Malls!" was an outing much anticipated every week. Had some long standing affairs with several satellite channels as well. Perhaps ReiShin grew to like Japanese dramas thanks to StarAsia channel. Pathetic social life aside, ReiShin was enrolled in the Americanised Jakarta International School. The people were not as memorable as Ecolint, but ReiShin will still remember the following: Olympia Chard, Sylvia Choe, Chao Wei Ling, Sheldon Chuan, Darpa Dasgupta, Jeremy Fontanille, Maria Frederiksen, Honda Ayako, Kim Mee Seun, Charlotte Lee, Jessica Lie, Carlotta Maggio, Aarti Natesan, Gunjan Modi, Aditi Moghe, Dwan Najar, Anuj Ralhan, Eray Ong, Kimberly Thiel, Sato Maki, Jennifer Wan, Wong Hoong An, Michael De Graaf etc.
Moving again? No fret. Just let ReiShin go home!! And so poor Dad moved to Hong Kong while ReiShin moved back to Singapore with Mum. It was the final year of High School, and thus the final year of the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme. So ReiShin, being the good girl that she is (not!), joined the other final year students at the United World College of South East Asia. It was one of the best years of her life! Academically was tough, especially having to catch up with Economic *nightmare!* classes, Maths was a failure, but English Lit was a joy. Ms Lajam, thank you! Friends were great! Loved them all, especially Rachna Dhir, Sinchai Luesukprasert, Marietta Darmali, Katrina Braithwaite, Joachim Ljunggren (made Maths class a riot!), Minna Raikkonen, Tachibana Kaori, Marcel Van Hardenbroek, Wong Kee Seong.
You would think that after moving to so many countries ReiShin would wanna spend her sedate Uni life in Singapore. Well, she tried. But NTU's School of Communication (then) wanted to give her an interview as they have never heard of the International Baccalaureate! Goodness.. "world-class" university? Where? Where? So ReiShin, spooked by the mere mention of "interview" flew all the way to Australia.. Monash University, Gippsland "moo-moo" Campus in the state of Victoria. Why "moo-moo"? Well Whenever ReiShin pulls open her bedroom curtains in the morning, Cows enthusiastically greet her. The little "ulu" (nice word for "Where in the #$%@ is this place??") campus erm.. village, is located 1 hour by bus and 2 hours by train away from Melbourne city. In fact the only thing we all looked forward to each week is grocery shopping at this tiny supermarket. Sad but true. The treat of the month? A trip down to the movies and bigger shopping center 45 minutes away by bus. The treat of the semester (total of twice an academic year)? A trip down to Melbourne! Woohoo!
So after a year at Gippsland, ReiShin moved again.. not because of the environment. But because she wanted to study Mass Communications at the best University possible. Monash was better for... other subjects, let's put it this way. So she shifted all her various "barang barang" to good ol' state of New South Wales, none other than vibrant Sydney (45 minutes by bus away from campus). Macquarie University was where she finally graduated from with a Bachelor of Arts in Media & Cultural Studies. Social life was interesting to say the least. First year there was spent mostly with the Hong Kong gang. Second year was spent with the 'badminton gang' (consisting of Malaysians and local Aussie Chinese). It was also there that ReiShin met her good bud, "KK". Thank God for the move to Sydney!!
After graduation, Singapore beckons once again. So 3.5 years and 3 jobs later, ReiShin is a student once again! At NTU's School of Communication and Information doing her Master of Science in Information Studies. (see the irony here???) Anyway, her dissertation has been examined and graded, the hardbound copies and CD-ROM have been submitted, and a softcopy has been uploaded onto the NTU iGEMS (As if anybody would wanna read it.. duh!)... and then.. GRADUATION IN JULY 2005! Yay yay yipee yay yay!!!
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