prof p, who has never taught in singapore before, asks whether our recess week is like an american spring break or a reading week. “not the american kind,” said someone in the back row. “we are going to study [prof p’s subject] all week.” (to which general laughter.) i would dearly like to have an american-style spring break, where the rest of the student populace goes to cancun or wherever to get disgustingly drunk and i enjoy peace and quiet and having no roommates and lie around the house in my negligee reading exactly what i want to read and not worry about school at all. and always, out of doors the magnolias would be in bloom, my favourite flowering tree. o spring! saucer magnolias, to be precise — they flowered so extravagantly in both charlottesville and cambridge, the one constant love in my two american cities. instead we all seem to approach every recess week feeling that the semester is badly out of control and that only with this respite, dear heavens, a temporary dam against the deluge of work, this week, for this week only, might we, with sufficient frenetic remedial work and sleep (so long forgone) be able to find, once again, our inner pace of learning, to plant our feet firmly down on our reclaimed emotional centres. and every semester we come back on the monday after still under-prepared and knowing there’s nothing for it but stumbling through the rest of the semester to epic exhaustion and exams, until we fall into the arms of the long vacs. i am too old for this.
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