French class is fun when you meet interesting people.
My new classmates are 2 young men and a lady who was apparently also studying business. The lady was very fair with jet-black hair and Asian features, but had a heavy accent. I thought she was Indonesian Chinese, though her accent sounded much more exotic than that. Halfway through she told us that a certain French word was also the same/similar in Russian, so I thought wow, she knows Russian too?
Anyway … during the break I asked her which business school she was from, and she gave me a name that I never heard of before. She added that halfway through she quit because she didn’t think very much of it, and was planning to re-apply to a school that was internationally recognised.
I kept quiet about which school I was going to. Eventually she asked, and I told her. Her demeanour totally changed from serious to friendly.
“INSEAD??” She enthused. “My boyfriend was there!”
I learned he was a graduate from the class of 2006. She congratulated me a few times. It was one of the most positive reactions I’ve ever received, and from someone who was up to then a total stranger. Now I knew she had been an INSEAD partner.
Later on, during a silent moment as our teacher was writing on the whiteboard, she turned back to me.
“I can bring you costumes! You will need them!!”
I was tickled.
“Seriously! I am in Singapore for the next xxx days and I can pass some contacts to you. You definitely need costumes especially during the International Days.”
Up to then, I thought that only students of a certain country who successfully bid to have an International Week would have to wear the costumes and teach others about their culture.
But I like wearing costumes. We don’t do enough of that in staid Singapore. So I thanked her for her offer. Let’s see if she will really get me some costumes.
And along the way I learnt she wasn’t Indonesian at all. She was from Kyrgyzstan!!!
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