This is the long-promised post about classes! I'll start backwards, chronologically.
My Thursday class is Human Rights in Asia, which is a fascinating topic. Unfortunately, there is a positively wretched amount of reading for it, which goes a long way in dampening my enthusiasm. The professor is incredibly knowledgeable as well, but oh man does she have trouble delivering her wealth of knowledge to the class in a clear and concise manner. She doesn't use slides but rather lectures at us, scribbles on the whiteboard in a haphazard manner, starts lists but doesn't finish them, and loses herself on tangents without finding her way back to the main point. It makes me so aggravated, oh god. The J part of the INFJ in me is just shouting for a properly outlined and structured approach to the class, with every nicely delineated and neatly tied together. Or at the very least some sort of logical flow. Do I ask for too much?
But really, the topic is fascinating. We've touched so far on broad issues like how to define human rights law in Asia (Who's a human? Slaves didn't used to be. When does life start? What are rights? Are they positive or negative? How are they different from needs or interests? What is a law? Where is Asia? When is the Middle East? Etc.) and the cultural relativism argument (Human rights are a form of Western cultural imperialism; other places in the world can take different apprroaches to human rights, etc.).
Tuesday mornings I have Legal Issues in Virtual Worlds, which I originally thought would be something like Internet law. Something like that indeed, but more narrow: it's actually about rules in virtual worlds like Starcraft, World of Warcraft, Maplestory, Second Life, SIMs, etc. and how laws in the real world affect those virtual worlds. It's the geekiest class ever, but so hilarious. At least half the class are trufax gamers, so it's kind of surreal and definitely amusing to have a forty-some-year-old female professor lecture us about the intricacies of games probably half the class is far more intimately familiar with. (Granted, she probably knows the legal issues far better.)
This past week we had guest lecturer who focused on the cultural aspects of gaming rather than the legal aspects, and introduced her lecture with talk about the growth of the Asian entertainment market. She touched on the Korean wave and included examples such as Korean dramas, kpop, a Thai movie set in Korea, and a Filipino boy band staged to copy kpop's style. It was hilarious to see all the Asians in class grinning and acknowledging these familiar pop culture influences, while all the foreign exchange students stared in bafflement. "Wonder Girls? Never heard of them," their expressions seemed to say.
On Mondays, I have two classes! In the afternoon I have Law & Development in China, which is another interesting class that is difficult to suffer through because, oh my god, the professor's monotone voice. He also does that awful thing where he continually poses questions at students so we listen to uninformed and waffling opinions for twenty minutes without learning anything on a topic that would take the professor five minutes to sum up. I hate why-don't-you-tell-me-your-uninformed-opinions discussion time; my 1L property class was nothing but that and clearly I learned no property law, as it was my worst grade in law school to date.
Thankfully, I have a little background in this due to my seminar in Chinese law with Minzner last year. My final in this class is a paper on China; I plan on making heavy use of either my seminar paper (legal status of homosexuality in China over time) or my Note (development of a sustainable legal NGO in China). I.e., the research I already put into both.
Monday mornings is my favorite class ever ever ever. Ever. It's Entertainment Law: Pop Iconography & Celebrity. It is basically every single subject in law I'm interested in combined all togetther: copyright law, trademark law, contract law, freedom of speech issues, right to privacy, right to publicity, etc. And, of course, huge amounts of pop culture. I'm a pro. This is my happy place. If this class were a person, I would have dirtyfilthyawesome sex with it. I don't even care that it's at 9am on a Monday morning; it fills me with such glee. Everything about it is interesting to me, plus we get loads of pictures and videos as lecture visual aids.
On top of all this? PROFESSOR, OH PROFESSOR. He is young and pretty cute (I guess?? I dunno, I am not personally attracted to him, but objectively I think he is pretty good-looking?) and smart: law degree at Melbourne, masters at Harvard, Ph.D. from Melbourne, and now teaching at NUS. What else? ALSO A FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER. Why do I find this absolutely hilarious? Probably because those two careers are such a strange match. I don't know anything about photography, but man, can I just say that he takes a lot of pictures of very attractive shirtless men? (There are women too! They are clothed.)
And a bonus note of pure geekery: OH MY GOD HIS SLIDES ARE SO DELICIOUSLY CLEAN AND WELL ORGANIZED AND PRETTILY FORMATTED AND UNF NOT TOO MUCH TEXT, NOT TOO MANY MESSY PICTURES PILED TO THE EDGES, GREAT COLOR SCHEME, GOD IT'S LIKE A POWERPOINT ORGASM. Seriously. YOu have no idea how many hideous powerpoints I've seen in my academic career. His are amazing. The cherry on top of the proverbial sundae, I suppose you could say.
Now to fill in more background info: the law faculty has a separate campus from the main one where most everyone lives. There's a free direct shuttle from the main campus to the law campus, which takes about 20-30 minutes (depending on traffic). There's a canteen on the law campus where I eat lunch typically Mondays and Tuesdays since I'm there; the selection is decent, I suppose, but definitely cheap, which goes a long way. Also: coffee is 70 cents and fills me with joy and caffeine.
The other exchange students on the whole are all pretty chill, pretty nice people. Generally they seem to enjoy clubbing and drinking more than I ever will (but that's just me, I've an old woman and an introvert; I prefer my quiet outings with smaller groups), and sometimes I'm not sure they're at all interested in seeing the "real" Singapore as much as just having a good time in all the tourist traps and ex-pat spots, but to each their own, right? So long as they're having a good time and I'm having a good time, whatever.
Oh fashion-photog!prof, I am going to email you and meet with you and have coffee and basically make you tell me how to get into your field or possibly your job. /CRANKS UP THE CHARISMA
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