Day 3-4

It’s 6:52pm now, and the sky is looking like it’s 4. You won’t believe how bright 9pm can be in the northeastern part of the states. The summer here is erratic, with the wind for the past 2 days being exceptionally warm, unlike the first 2.

We finished our tournament earlier this morning, and it sure makes me wonder why I’m spending possibly the most important times in my June holidays in La Crosse, where I should be studying instead. The 2-hour booklet competition was alright, and I should say that I was rather happy to come up with a significantly more creative solution than usual. But when I use “creativity” here, i really mean the sort of outrageous, completely impossible solutions that FPSI has come to encourage. It is of no small importance in American brainstorming that feasibility does not come in way of expressed “creativity”. This has left a distasteful impression that has been gradually growing for the past two days. The sheer focus on the enormity of America’s appetite for cheap creativity is mildly off-putting at best, and intensely sickening at worst.

I should comment on the sheer size – and the unquestioned social acceptance – of the stomachs of Americans. There is a good sample size here, given the 50 states represented. People pant as they walk and talk. Worse, the sheer size of the canteen at this university (Uni of Wisconsin-La Crosse) and the accompanying variety of food offered corresponds directly with the size of the people occupying it. The sight of people leaning over the dispensers, trays and racks to get more ice-cream, more pasta, more drinks, more food is a highly uncommon sight in Singapore, which could explain my disgust. It could be purely a function of social norms that invoke such a response, but I doubt that some part of it isn’t myself. My teammates seem fine with this image. Why do I even care?

Ah. My teammates. It has been awfully boring for the past two days as I struggle to communicate with people whose overwhelming chief concern is themselves. They spend almost all their breath on speaking about themselves. At dinner today I just gave up on talking and let them talk, deliberately dropping out of the conversation. As usual they discussed a wide array of topics, including and certainly not limited to themselves, themselves, and themselves. It is an absolute bore to spend time with people whose only daily observances, hourly mediations and minute ruminations are themselves.

Alright time to bathe. I shan’t bore you, if you managed to get to this part of the post. Tomorrow is free and easy, and I hope it will be as the name suggests.