Now That’s Unusual

The oddities, quirks and just plain weird aspects of NTU...

(NTUSU Tribune - Features - Feb '10)

The first few days spent in NTU are largely the same for everybody. For the first ten days we walk around with maps, turning them one way, then another, trying to figure out how to get to our desired destination. We look at all those calmly passing by and wonder how they accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of knowing the campus as well as the back of their hands! And after a while we become one of those passers-by. To my way of thinking, that’s when the magic of it all vanishes into thin air. The beauty and oddity of NTU becomes neither striking nor visible. My mission was to rediscover all the weirdness that had come to feel, well NORMAL!

The previous Friday, I was headed to tutorial class with a bunch of batch-mates. We were at level 2 of the North Spine and had to make it to Level 5. Seeing as there were more people than could fit into a lift, a handful of us decided to take the stairs. It was only three stories and exercise is good for health right? Well we’d forgotten that a storey comprises 3 flights of stairs. Where in the world do you see that! Needless to say we were leaking sweat like faulty faucets leak water by the time we got to class.

A second quirk I had never paid any attention to before was brought to my attention by a couple of students through a conversation I happened to overhear in an elevator.  “Isn’t it so weird that there are like 5 basements but only 2 floors? And the second floor is the roof, that shouldn’t even count!” remarked the girl. “I wonder who thought that was a good idea...” replied her friend.

I was realising that everyone had an opinion about NTU’s oddities, and the oddities themselves were numerous. Susanna, an exchange student from Mexico pointed out, “The prices of fruit are so different in canteens across campus. It’s weird. I mean it’s all just fruit you know... Canteen 13 is so much cheaper than ‘Food Connection’ for instance!” I don’t know how to explain that one myself.

A few hall 3 and 16 residents were of the opinion that it was weird that their halls were being painted. Why did they think it was weird? Well, because they couldn’t tell the difference between the before and after! Frankly, I think I’d have to agree since I didn’t notice the said painting until it was explicitly pointed out to me.

By far the most common responses I received on this topic had to do with Shuttle Buses and their whimsical travails across campus. One would think they’d been invented to obey Murphy’s Law – you never get one when you desperately need one and you get an entire fleet when they’re superfluous. Oddly enough, the shuttle buses strike me as an accurate reflection of NTU. Whimsical, frustrating, densely populated and circuitous, yet cool to be inside- literally for shuttle buses and metaphorically for NTU!