Ur @NUS.

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An ex-junior college friend just came back from the University of California in Berkeley with her master's degree. We arranged to meet her up at the arrival terminal and helped her to load her stuffs in our cars.

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The first thing she quickly unpacked when we reached her home was her souvenir bag - and to my surprise, she handed out to us stuffs which was all about UC Berkeley; numerous keychains and caps, mugs, pens, photoframes, notepads, fridge magnets, small flags and other assorted paraphernalia AND not to mention the compulsory, must-buy standard T-shirts with large imprint of CALIFORNIA- BERKELEY emblazoned on them.

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You could say that she was a prouder alumni member of the kappa-beta-lambda-yada-yada-California-whateva fraternity in Berkeley than to her undergraduate days in NUS, which was seemingly reduced into a pale shadow of existence in comparison to her present state of gratification.

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I wonder too why I don't stock up NUS souvenirs when I graduated back then. I don't think the 'local-uni-not-stylo-enough' mentality affected me that much, because I was just relieved to get into one, and following the upstream crowd in securing a place in a local uni was good enough by my standards.

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Then I recalled a couple of friends who earned overseas scholarships to the UK and some Ivy League varsities. They came back with a prouder sense of belonging to their prestigious alma maters, and adorned their cars, wardrobe doors and foreheads with stickers and emblems of their uni logos, and made curiously yearly pilgrimage to visit their lecturers, hostels and campus grounds.

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I didn't think NUS was that great, but it wasn't that bad either, but there wasn't any lasting impressions about it.

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Frankly, I think it's because

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(a) the history of NUS wasn't made colourful enough (like not having an annual Quidditch Cup or something), or

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(b) it wasn't long and ancient enough (unlike those stereotypical angmohs' varsities that dated back to the Cretaceous Period)

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(c) or either that, it would take someone to solve great scientific riddles (like whether the egg or chicken comes first), or

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(d) win a Nobel prize or something of that magnitude to earn its 'sense of attachment' to all its' alumni.

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Either way, I believe one decides what one wants. If anyone was looking for an excellent tertiary experience in Kent Ridge, one don't have to look far beyond the shores of East Coast or Changi.

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I guess we simply have to be proactive and immerse ourselves in the pervading culture of each university, school or college in order to grow and maximise our potential and contributions to it. Which is, of course, easier said than done, because everyone has different priorities during university time - some play and pray, some play and play, and some just pray.

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Which is the reason why people who stay in hostels around campus says Uni is the best time of their lives, whereas people who dig their noses while walking past hostels around campus says there isn't much to it - Uni life, not the nose fillings.

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Which is also an interesting debate because the recent article in the papers about NUS alumni not contributing enough to NUS donation funds is a crystal reflection of how much attachment there is among the thousands of graduates every year that gets churned out through the convocation doors. Of course there are many statistical factors that determine this fact, but since this is not a GP essay, I won't bother.

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I will bother, though, about the nice souvenir Berkeley T-shirt that I got, because it's too damn big, even for a size L.