Hello London; SOAS Library; IOC - NDP; Scholarship Article

"Hello London!"

Well, loads of Americans tend to stay at the hotel opposite the institute. And today, one of them opened the window and screamed her hello across the street.

mmmh. It can be quite interesting working or having classes opposite the Royal Hotel National. Sometimes there are really good views from 676 or 736, and sometimes they can be really really distracting. *blush* :p

Just came over here after perusing the books at SOAS. Had meant to just focus on the task at hand, i.e. the CE essay. However, got kinda distracted by the loads of books on Singapore there. Flipped through LKY's memoirs, a bit of Emily of Emerald Hill, and nearly borrowed a copy of the SPG comic book thingy. However, the librarian somehow decided that IOE people can only borrow three books instead of the four that I have been borrowing all along. She explained that if I run away with three books, the IOE will compensate SOAS for the three, but if I run away with four books, the fourth book will not be compensated for. (??????) Ah well. So I was a good boy and borrowed the book I was supposed to borrow and not the one I would borrowed just for laughs and leisure.

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About to log off, but decided to take a peek at Singapore Ink. And there was an NYT article there regarding the IOC thingy back home that made me laugh. First, I will show the laughable bit, then reproduce the whole article.

Singapore has added its own particular flair to this process. On Saturday, with I.O.C. members beginning to arrive and bid cities jockeying for access, the country unfurled a fascinating distraction. What appeared to be a significant portion of the Singapore military paraded through the streets, with legions of soldiers, dozens of tanks driven by men in full camouflage, and trucks carrying missiles. The display ended with a flyover and a 21-gun salute.

The event was one of seven practice sessions for a National Day parade in August. While the rehearsal was taking over Singapore’s streets, New York’s bid leaders were forced to walk through a maze of underground malls to reach their scheduled news conference. They emerged from the crowded string of stores joking about the prospect of Manhattan needing to stage seven practice runs for all of its parades.

And then the full article is at the Comments link (trying this out to make the main text less text-ty):

A Frantic Finale for Cities Vying for 2012 Games

Ed Wray/Associated Press
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain is in Singapore as part of London's bid to become the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games.

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And finally, a wonderful article posted on Singapore Angle: http://singaporeangle.blogspot.com/2005/07/singapores-scholarship-system-study-by.html

I love the blogosphere!