Winter Wear/Where!

Went to shop for winter wear recently. Visited a few shops like Coldwear, Uniqlo, Zara, Pull and Bear, H&M, North Face, Winter Time, etc.

This is what you basically wear during winter
- Long John
- Thin woolen clothing
- Thick woolen clothing
- External coat like down jacket or windbreakers

Of course this depends on your body constitution. My uncle can wear a T-shirt and shorts in 5 degrees regions so... Personally, I think that Uniqlo has all your needs. They have good long johns called heattech shirts, nice thin woolen long sleeve clothes and a 4-way downjacket. All of my purchases are most likely going to be from Uniqlo, all I am waiting now is the Christmas, New Year or CNY sale. Luckily, they all occur before I fly, so I hope that I can get some good discounts there. Zara coats look good, but they don't really work in Europe in winter since they are more for 10 degrees and up. The same goes for Pull and Bear, but maybe those jacket with synthetic wool can go until 0 degrees. North Face is really good and can go to minus 20, but they cost about $450-650 so they are totally out of my budget. They are more for hikers. I overhead a man that was looking to climb Mt Fuji when I was in the store. Winter Time and Coldwear things are more expensive than Uniqlo and I don't think that they are much better. Also, most of their designs suck, especially Winter Time. As for scarfs, most places sell decent ones. I would recommend Zara ones cause they look really nice.

Gloves are a pain. Good gloves don't allow you to use your touchscreen devices, and those touchscreen gloves are quite thin so I'm not sure if they will be good in cold temperatures. I have ski gloves that my dad bought a long time ago, but I was scouting on Amazon and they range from $20-$40 for good waterproof gloves. Otherwise, Timberland sells them for $30 at their outlet store at IMM.

Now the most important thing of your winter outfit - boots. Essentially, if you can keep your feet, neck and chest warm, you will be able to withstand cold temperatures easily. Ideally, boots should be waterproof and can last you to 0 to -20 degrees. Timberland boots are nice, but they cost about $300, which is too expensive for me as I only intend to wear them for these 4.5 months in Europe. I doubt I will be able to wear them again as shoes can spoil if you do not wear them frequently and you must be kidding me if you are thinking of wearing these boots in Singapore cause it is so hot around here. Another idea is to buy Timberland boots from Amazon. They cost about US$100-150 and remember that US$125 and above gives you free shipping to Singapore. My girlfriend bought a ladies Timberland boots from Amazon for around US$125 and they look rather nice. However, being a miser, I am still not willing to fork out US$125 for a pair of boots for 4.5 months so I settled for some cheap boots from a brand called Kamik. Got mine from Amazon for US$38 and they can go up to -40 degrees. They are also waterproof and meant for very cold weather and they have splendid reviews. The bad thing is that the design totally blows and they look like what fishmongers wear at the market. But they do a good job of keeping my feet cold so no issues there. I just hope that no one will look at my boots =)

Scouting for Ryanair tickets now as I plan to go to Paris to find my girlfriend before my orientation starts. It starts on the 18th for me and I am landing in Warsaw on 13th, after which I will fly to Paris to spend Valentine's Day with her (Romantic indeed). But I did not realize that Ryanair only flies a few days a week so I need to find some random accommodation on 13th. Hopefully I will be able to crash at my buddy's place. Yep, WSE assigns every exchange student a buddy to help you, but it is not guaranteed that your buddy will be a super buddy as they also have their own things to do. Ryanair tickets require a lot of camping and analyzing as their price range fluctuates a lot. Warsaw to Paris One Way can cost SGD$60 around 2 weeks from now but can be SGD$20 about 6-8 weeks later. I haven't figured out the pattern and I doubt I will, so I advise you to visit their website every 2-3 days to run price checks.

Oh and remember to get wool socks. I got a good one from Amazon called Wigwam Men El Pine Socks. The rest I got them from Taobao.com. The wigwam one cost like SGD$20 for one and the taobao one cost like $10 for 5.

First Email from Warsaw School of Economics (WSE)

Hi! It has been long since I posted about my exchange. There has been many changes in the past four months.

Firstly, a person from the Warsaw School of Economics (WSE) will email you tell you about your exchange. Polish people have cool names. The person that emailed me Marta Sent-Pawlowska. She will send you the academic calender as well as an ECTS booklet. ECTS is the system that they use to count modules in Europe, so it's basically a list of modules. For SMU, I only need to clear a module that is worth 3 ECTS and above to map my modules back. Subsequently, she will email you telling you about getting your accommodation. I had some issues at this part. School starts on 19th February and the hostel only allows me to check in on 18th February. So if you want to go to Europe earlier you have to find some other form of accommodation. I plan to go to Warsaw early, like on the 12th, dump my luggage in Warsaw and then go to Paris to find my friends. So not being able to check in early is a problem. But I asked around and apparently there are storage rooms all over Warsaw. One place is this: http://www.cityselfstorage.pl/o-nas/city-self-storage-polska.html Another place is at the subway that is near my university. Apparently they have storage rooms that cost like 7-10 pln a day. That is just a few SGD. Well, worse come to worst, I hope that I can put them with my buddy.

Yes! Unlike most other universities, I get a buddy! And they send the funniest emails. I got this from them today.

They do sound quite friendly and nice. Which is good.

I also did some course selection exercise. In WSE, you select what courses you are interested in, then like 1-2 months later they release the schedule and you check if there are any clashes or maybe some classes close due to lack of students or professors or something. WSE will send you a login email and then you will follow their instructions and choose the many courses that they offer. This is what I chose. I tried to max out the cap of 70 ECTS as I see no harm hitting that amount in case all my modules get closed or something, which I definitely do not want happening. If you are an SMU student reading this, most of my modules are either map was Finance electives, IEA, GRS, T&E or Business Options. I have cleared my GE and my second major is corporate communications and I can't really map that over. 

Last of all, I have bought my air tickets! Uh-huh~ They cost me $1,150. Bought them from Finnair cause they have some Youth thing that gives you 46kg of check-in luggage. I'm leaving on the 12th Feb and coming back on 30th May. Changes to air tickets cost like 50 euros if I really need. These are two stop flights so I will fly from Singapore to Helsinki and then wait for 2 hours before taking a flight from there to Warsaw. Luckily WSE is only a 15 minutes car ride from the airport. Hope my buddy picks me up on that day!

Also, if you plan to travel around Europe, check out this website called airbnb.com. It is a website that you can find cheap accommodation, usually much cheaper than all those hotels. But some of them can be quite dodgy so make sure you read the reviews and choose one that many people have been to. This is my first time using the website so I am still learning but it seems to be a popular choice. 

Exchange Application at SMU

Hi everyone. I am a student from the Singapore Management University and the time has come for me to apply for exchange! I searched around for blogs to the school that I am going to but I couldn't find any, so I decided to start one in hope that it benefits future batches.

So I just ended my sophomore year and will start junior year this August. Application starts around 28th May and by 21st June we would all need to submit our forms. I always recommend going during the Spring Semester as the competition is less stiff. For my school, only the sophomores will apply since junior years will be on their last semester during the exchange unless they extend. Freshmen would rarely apply for exchange this early. If you are confused, you just have to know that you apply two semesters before your actual exchange in my college.

During application, you choose two universities that you wish to go and you try to map 6 modules over. This is just an exercise and will not affect anything thereafter. After completing the exercise, you will apply for the universities. You are given up to 5 choices and have to write an essay of max 5,000 characters about why you wish to go on exchange, etc.

So I am going to Warsaw School of Economics! I knew my results in the second last week of July. The email looks like this.

Yay! From what I hear, the cut off point is about 3.3-3.4 during my time. This is GPA wise. It will be more competitive if you apply in the Fall semester cause you compete with sophomores, juniors and seniors.

So after you tell the school that you accept, they will send you this.

Right now I am just waiting for a reply from them so that I can book things like air tickets, accommodation, etc. Also planning my Euro trip now, thinking of going to places like Milan, Rome, London, etc. So many places to go, so little time!

That's all for now! I will update with more information once I have them, but the posts will probably only start in about 7 months when I finally embark on my exchange. Till then!