The setting is foreign, yet I feel as though I fit like a glove. Perhaps it's because I've been more or less westernised growing up, or maybe it's just the influence of having been part of such a community in a parallel universe (Popmundo, not really anything supernatural ha!). Sure, my body's still running on Singapore time, but my heart... my heart's already taken up Melbourne citizenship.

I enrolled in RMIT early yesterday. Had been waking up at 9am previously since I jetted in on Sunday but I made an effort to set the alarm to ring at 7. I was expecting that the 3 plus hours would fly by before I knew it. But as usual, I was far off the mark.

I found myself outside on the streets by 8.30am and there was really nowhere to go before my 10.30am appointment at Building 4. Well, better to be early than sorry. I've learnt that too many times in the past. Fresh begginings call for fresh practices after all.

10.30am. I'm seated in some classroom that I'd just found. I was the second one in. The room rapidly filled up after that. The first friend I made was Ron Yap from Malaysia. He sat down beside me, we started chatting and that was my first contact. After that, the names sorta started washing past me. I've never been good at names. Odds are unless I have a chance to meet you again and catch your name another time, I'd hardly remember it. Only thing I noticed was the answers to "So which country are you from?" started to generate the same answers in a pattern. "Singapore... Malaysia... Singapore... Malaysia." Ye gawds, we might as well build a causeway across the classroom and be done with it.

But one question struck me in particular.

"Why did you choose this course? What made you want to study it?"

The answers from some were typical. They'd been studying it previously. They'd wanted to take PR, but had been rejected.

Me? I don't know. I've always been a science student. A horrible one, mind you. But that's the way it is in Singapore. You take science, or you take art. And woe betide you if you're bad at both of 'em.

I can't say I have a flair for languages. I kinda hate Mandarin and that's my mother tongue. After 10 years in Chinese educated schools, 3 years of English education almost robbed me of my grasp for Chinese. It's that bad.

I guess it's because I just love writing. I love words. You know, if you ask a painter how he paints, he'll tell you it's just that. He's painting what he feels. If you ask a musician what his music is about, he'll tell you it isn't just the lyrics, his music has a soul of its own.

That's what I feel when i write. I may not be able to draw well or to play an instrument, but give me a pen and I can do anything. I feel as though i can mould words to my cause. I can flex them and move them so they talk to you. I can make you feel pain and sorrow, love and bliss. That's my answer to your question.