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I have to admit, I’m not the most patriotic person around. I don’t feel as hyped up about YOG as some of my peers are. In fact, I was rather put off by the way the University was preparing its campus (and Halls) for the athletes’ Grand Arrival.

When I was staying in one of the halls of residence last semester, there would be the periodical cleaning of the corridors (which I never recalled having in the previous semester), the replacing of chairs and the testing of the newly installed air conditioners. And I must say, the new chairs did feel a lot more comfortable (and much better for the back) than the old ones. Which brings me to the question, why didn’t they do all this earlier for us?

Soon enough, near the end of semester (and nearer to YOG), greenery and the longest metal fence I’ve ever seen in my twenty years suddenly started springing up around campus. One of my friends even commented that the fences made the school look more like army grounds than, well, a “garden campus”. Now, if I were a YOG athlete, I’d feel a little, for the lack of a better word, claustrophobic. Of course, the fences were probably put up for safety reasons but perhaps it’s a little too overboard.

However, I was, for a little while, ecstatic about having a summer break of 4 months due to YOG.

Only after course registration for the coming semester did it hit me that those extra 3 weeks of holidays would have to be compensated for – in terms of having shorter mid-academic year holidays and exams that end merely days before Christmas.  Which student would have the motivation to study during the festive season? Not me!

Objectively speaking though, I’m sure the decision to push the start of the school term back was made with the most practical considerations in mind. Neither the overall length of the term has changed nor the upcoming semesters been affected. But frankly, I would rather have shorter summer holidays than have the school term cut into my precious December holidays. Understanding the rationale behind the delay definitely does not equate to supporting it.

With the University being the location of residence for the athletes, an increasing number of roads and transport routes are slowly being blocked out. Now, getting to school has become an issue (at least during the YOG period) as the bus routes have been redirected just for YOG. This makes it highly inconvenient for people like me, whose school bus stop happens to be one of those that the bus has stopped calling at for the time being. I’ve had to strike driving off the list of possible transport modes because of the lack of parking space during the YOG period. So, that leaves me with having to alight from the bus quite a distance from school and then walking all the way down.

Well, one thing’s for sure  – JJ Lin may be singing “oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah”, but for me, it’s more of “oh no, oh no, oh no”.

Audrey is an undergrad at Nanyang Technological University. She blogs on occasion here.

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