the delayed introduction
Monday, June 18, 2007
bowls of ice-cream and cookie dough later, i am pleased to say that i am highly medicated ;) though watching an episode of the korean series 'princess hours' sent tinges of annoyance and frustration down my spine, it is now back to my books and with less time to spend pondering my ridiculous fate.
unfortunately my excitement of returning home is marred with sadness as i'll be leaving max over at the vet from this wednesday. with no one to take care of her while i head home for 3 weeks, the nearby cattery has agreed to keep an eye on her. but with all the errands i need to run before boarding the plane on friday afternoon - and not to mention the paper i have to attend on thurday AND the studying i'll be doing before then - i'll have to part with my dear roommate on wednesday afternoon, and spend the first of 2 nights in my chapel street apartment without her :(
but melbourne city got a taste of chaos today when tragedy struck in the cbd at 8.15 this morning. because as late night party gooers slept off their one too many beers, and hardworking commuters made their way to work, 8 gunshot rounds rung out from the corner of william street and flinders lane. after falling asleep at 2am, i was awoken by a frantic aunty margie to report that 3 people were gunned down in the city, with the shooter still at large. for the rest of the day, southbank (and along with it my suburb of south yarra) was cordened off from the rest of the city by ambulances and homicide squads. at close to 10am, the gun supposedly used in the offense was found dumped at a construction site at queen street - 2 roads parallel from where the shooting occured. the story currently stands that the shooter pulled a woman out of a cab at 8.15am by her hair, at which point he was intervened by 2 bystanders coming to the woman's aid. he then pulled out a gun, shot the woman he was assaulting AND the two men who got involved. by the time paramedics arrived, one of the men was pronounced dead. though the remaining 2 victims are said to be in stable condition, it has now been over 10 hours and no report of the shooter's apprehension has been released.
i know i'm beginning to sound like a printout from the day's paper, but when most of your friends live within a 10 block radius of where 3 people were shot in broad daylight, and with none of them diligent news watchers... you tend to want to get all the details you can ;) thankfully joe's current bout of sleep deprivation left him unconscious in southbank and jacq was too busy with her family to play nancy drew :D
and though this has absolutely nothing to do with the topic i started off talking about... something recently occured to me. over the last few months i've been raving about my roommate max... but i've never even bothered introducing her! so here's a graphic representation of the most loyal friend i could ever ask for :D
unfortunately my excitement of returning home is marred with sadness as i'll be leaving max over at the vet from this wednesday. with no one to take care of her while i head home for 3 weeks, the nearby cattery has agreed to keep an eye on her. but with all the errands i need to run before boarding the plane on friday afternoon - and not to mention the paper i have to attend on thurday AND the studying i'll be doing before then - i'll have to part with my dear roommate on wednesday afternoon, and spend the first of 2 nights in my chapel street apartment without her :(
sigh...
0 comments
0 Comments:
in the words of michael buble... let me go home!!!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
only two thoughts currently plague my mind.
thought A... must get a big fat HD on my next family studies exam to make up for the crappy psychology paper i had on friday.
thought B... must. get. home!!!!
over the last day or so i've been obsessing about the divine moment when i'll be able to walk through the terminal gates at klia, get in the car and drive home. just relishing in the absolute bliss of getting goodnight hugs from mom and hafiz, climbing my high-rise bunk bed and just passing out for hours with spike next to me ;) the awesome food and meeting up with friends can come later :D
and here's a little insentive why?! the view from my apartment balcony on friday morning when i woke for my exam paper...
see that remotely white coloured building in the middle? that's channel ten's headquarters. you can't even see their illuminated emblem on the roof!
the fog was so bad it didn't dissipate till atleast 10am. an 11-year-old melbourne girl was hit by a bus crossing the road to school that day because the bus driver couldn't see her through the smog! she was pinned under the bus for 30mins and sustained severe injuries to both her legs... poor little girl :(
but horrendous weather aside, things have been pretty rough around here too. despite the rollercoaster that has been my semester finals thus far, it seems to be the least of my problems. in fact, i forsee myself successfully surviving them better than i will the predicament at hand. because right now... the one thing in life that i absolutely want is at jeopardy. for it is not the question of whether i'll get it - i WILL get it - it's the matter of timing, and the possibility of being personally miserable when i get there.
for my friends and family who truly know me and have seen me struggle with this decision, know that i've finally made up my mind. to say that i am okay, completely unaffected and not in the least bit hurt... would be the largest lie i have ever told. it feels over the last few weeks like i've been stabbed over and over, thus prompting me to make up my mind in the hope that it'll just stop. it doesn't make any sense. it never has from the very beginning. it shouldn't be this hard, and i'm pretty sure if i were someone else, it wouldn't be. but i can't change the circumstance to which i've been privied. i am who i am. no one, not even myself, can change that fact...
so i want to go home. back to where life truly feels safe. where mom's hugs can gradually take away all the pain. where the food can gradually drown out all the voices. where my friends can gradually take my mind off it. and where my cats can gradually wipe away all the tears i'll be shedding soon.
i am currently pain and confusion in a nutshell ;) but i've got finals to think about and cookie dough to help medicate me... so in the words of michael buble... "i've had my run... baby i'm done... i wanna go home..."
0 comments
0 Comments:
ticking clocks. rainy days. and dreaded fates.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
for the first time since arriving in melbourne, i am able to describe the past week's weather in a single word.
depressing rains have re-commenced just in time for the dawning winter. so everyday, not only are we plagued with crazy winds... but falling rain and chilling temperateures all at the same time! thankfully i haven't left the house enough to suffer through them ;)
since mom and hafiz leaving on the 31st, i'd only ventured to vic market with aunty margie the following weekend to stock up on groceries. placating the devilish imp that visits me from time to time... i made her walk all the way from the apartment to south yarra station... then from melbourne central to vic market :D i have to hand it to her though... it may be a routine walk for me considering i make the trip atleast once a week on average... it felt like miles the first time i attempted it! but with the exception of a few huffs and puffs and questions as to whether we could take the tram back next time, we made it there and back without a hitch :D
then the lockdown period began. from 2 saturdays ago, i've spent my every waking hour at home! with my friends in melbourne uni having finally concluded their exam run, it was my turn at dear-old deakin to experience the pain of finals. once acting as self-appointed cheerleader for jacqueline sim and mark tan, as well as the occasional 'you can do it! you love this stuff! you can sleep next week!" for joel lee at rmit, it was now my turn to buckle down and make friends with solitude. to say that the past 2 weeks flew by would be a massive lie. for the first time EVER i'd experienced what it was like to study without support. true... i had auntie margie here to cater to my occasional need for chick flicks (though hers come speaking in korean ;p) and ensuring that i remember to eat on time... and i have mom and fiz cheering me on at home, i'd never studied independently before up until now.
a proudly-proclaimed back marker in sri aman, finding people to give me a hand in school (that's if i evern bothered to look for it) wasn't too daunting a task. i particularly remember anya giving me a 20-minute crash course on KH... 20 minutes before the pmr exam! and i aced it thanks to her! but yeah... that's what my schooling history has been like. always having brilliant people at arms length who's brains i can pick apart when mine runs out of battery ;) trinity was no different. with averages no less than perfect, my congregation of friends made up some of the smartest minds appointed by the college for their february intake. and though they strongly argue with me on that point... i know that THEY KNOW i'm right... as i always am ;) dun dun dun!
but yeah... it was easy going through school knowing that if a lecture passed you by and you pulled a jack sparrow on it, that there would be people you could turn to for help. this year it was an entirely different story. because now... i'm a 'mark' or a 'jacqueline' or an 'anya' for someone else. because now... with teachers who remain amazed that you want to know anything at all... and classmates who are just as lost or couldn't be bothered... whatever information i manage to grasp... isn't for me alone ;)
so yeah... i'd been devulging basic chemistry for the past week and a half. unfortunately it did nothing to relieve my nerves. in the morning i was greeted with the usual pre-exam tummy ache. the weather outside was so depressing i just wanted to curl up and die. but it was my first exam at deakin univeristy... and part of me wanted to know what they could throw at me ;) so i left 2 hours early, anticipating the worst from public transport, but for the first time since starting in february i'd arrived more than an hour early!
i walked the elevated hallway from the main campus grounds to the spot known as the 'central precint', a modernised structure built to support tutorial rooms, the ymca, cafes and of course the university gymnasium - my exam venue for the day. as i passed the glass structure and caught a glimpse of the makeshift exam hall, all i could think about was how much it looked like a cemetary! 650 white coloured chairs lined in perfect rows in a deserted auditorium... reminding me of the grounds where soldiers killed in war are laid to rest. mana tak takut?!
but all in all the paper was good. the questions weren't too earth shattering and the practise test they provided before hand proved to be extremely helpful. just one problem though...
it was raining outside with an atmospheric temperature of no more than ten degrees... BUT THEY TURNED THE AIRCONDITIONING ON! yeah i get the concept of things getting a little stuffy when almost 700 people fill a room... but it was cold outside (and i don't mean the harry connick jr and leann womack version either... cause i know you were thinking that mom ;p). the people who know me will agree that i have kindergarten handwriting. my tutor nurul used to say it was like cirles run over with a steam roller ;p and i know it helps when teachers grade your paper and everything looks presentable... but when your fingers approach frostbite and you can barely feel them whilst balancing out chemical equations... i'd like to apologise before hand to judy gordon or doug mccann... i couldn't feel my freaking fingers so excuse me if i couldn't give a rodent's behind about how neat and circular my handwriting was!
by the time the paper ended it was already dark outside. my first night walking through deakin grounds. it was kind of monumental since only melbourne uni harboured that honour in the past. so with a cup of hot chocolate, me and lauren made our way to the tram stop and back home... concluding our first semester together at deakin uni (turn off the dodgy indicator jacq!) ;D
so now it's back to studying again. psychology beckons on friday, and with less days than i had during chem to study for it... i got a lot of work cut out for me :(
till the next time i see sunlight :D
FREEZING
depressing rains have re-commenced just in time for the dawning winter. so everyday, not only are we plagued with crazy winds... but falling rain and chilling temperateures all at the same time! thankfully i haven't left the house enough to suffer through them ;)
since mom and hafiz leaving on the 31st, i'd only ventured to vic market with aunty margie the following weekend to stock up on groceries. placating the devilish imp that visits me from time to time... i made her walk all the way from the apartment to south yarra station... then from melbourne central to vic market :D i have to hand it to her though... it may be a routine walk for me considering i make the trip atleast once a week on average... it felt like miles the first time i attempted it! but with the exception of a few huffs and puffs and questions as to whether we could take the tram back next time, we made it there and back without a hitch :D
then the lockdown period began. from 2 saturdays ago, i've spent my every waking hour at home! with my friends in melbourne uni having finally concluded their exam run, it was my turn at dear-old deakin to experience the pain of finals. once acting as self-appointed cheerleader for jacqueline sim and mark tan, as well as the occasional 'you can do it! you love this stuff! you can sleep next week!" for joel lee at rmit, it was now my turn to buckle down and make friends with solitude. to say that the past 2 weeks flew by would be a massive lie. for the first time EVER i'd experienced what it was like to study without support. true... i had auntie margie here to cater to my occasional need for chick flicks (though hers come speaking in korean ;p) and ensuring that i remember to eat on time... and i have mom and fiz cheering me on at home, i'd never studied independently before up until now.
a proudly-proclaimed back marker in sri aman, finding people to give me a hand in school (that's if i evern bothered to look for it) wasn't too daunting a task. i particularly remember anya giving me a 20-minute crash course on KH... 20 minutes before the pmr exam! and i aced it thanks to her! but yeah... that's what my schooling history has been like. always having brilliant people at arms length who's brains i can pick apart when mine runs out of battery ;) trinity was no different. with averages no less than perfect, my congregation of friends made up some of the smartest minds appointed by the college for their february intake. and though they strongly argue with me on that point... i know that THEY KNOW i'm right... as i always am ;) dun dun dun!
but yeah... it was easy going through school knowing that if a lecture passed you by and you pulled a jack sparrow on it, that there would be people you could turn to for help. this year it was an entirely different story. because now... i'm a 'mark' or a 'jacqueline' or an 'anya' for someone else. because now... with teachers who remain amazed that you want to know anything at all... and classmates who are just as lost or couldn't be bothered... whatever information i manage to grasp... isn't for me alone ;)
so yeah... i'd been devulging basic chemistry for the past week and a half. unfortunately it did nothing to relieve my nerves. in the morning i was greeted with the usual pre-exam tummy ache. the weather outside was so depressing i just wanted to curl up and die. but it was my first exam at deakin univeristy... and part of me wanted to know what they could throw at me ;) so i left 2 hours early, anticipating the worst from public transport, but for the first time since starting in february i'd arrived more than an hour early!
i walked the elevated hallway from the main campus grounds to the spot known as the 'central precint', a modernised structure built to support tutorial rooms, the ymca, cafes and of course the university gymnasium - my exam venue for the day. as i passed the glass structure and caught a glimpse of the makeshift exam hall, all i could think about was how much it looked like a cemetary! 650 white coloured chairs lined in perfect rows in a deserted auditorium... reminding me of the grounds where soldiers killed in war are laid to rest. mana tak takut?!
but all in all the paper was good. the questions weren't too earth shattering and the practise test they provided before hand proved to be extremely helpful. just one problem though...
it was raining outside with an atmospheric temperature of no more than ten degrees... BUT THEY TURNED THE AIRCONDITIONING ON! yeah i get the concept of things getting a little stuffy when almost 700 people fill a room... but it was cold outside (and i don't mean the harry connick jr and leann womack version either... cause i know you were thinking that mom ;p). the people who know me will agree that i have kindergarten handwriting. my tutor nurul used to say it was like cirles run over with a steam roller ;p and i know it helps when teachers grade your paper and everything looks presentable... but when your fingers approach frostbite and you can barely feel them whilst balancing out chemical equations... i'd like to apologise before hand to judy gordon or doug mccann... i couldn't feel my freaking fingers so excuse me if i couldn't give a rodent's behind about how neat and circular my handwriting was!
by the time the paper ended it was already dark outside. my first night walking through deakin grounds. it was kind of monumental since only melbourne uni harboured that honour in the past. so with a cup of hot chocolate, me and lauren made our way to the tram stop and back home... concluding our first semester together at deakin uni (turn off the dodgy indicator jacq!) ;D
so now it's back to studying again. psychology beckons on friday, and with less days than i had during chem to study for it... i got a lot of work cut out for me :(
till the next time i see sunlight :D
0 comments
0 Comments:
bringing it all back...
Monday, June 04, 2007
before i go on about how perfect the past 3 weeks were with my family here, i'd like to share with all of you an audio miracle :)
have you ever heard a song that just sets it off for you? a song so brilliant in composition and lyrics that it triggers a wave of instant emotions and memories relating to the happiest days of your life? i know... a bit much for a 3 minute session... but this song did just that for me!
it's everything by michael buble. after having heard joel rave about it for weeks (and with my internet bandwith having been recently reinstated ;p) i decided to check it out. and though i shouldn't have doubted buble's brilliance in the first place, this song sent me dancing around the living room in my pyjamas with max :D memories of singing out loud in class or just going nuts dancing in the apartment... every time i laughed till my stomach hurt... every time i realised how amazing life was... each blessed moment that made last year great... and every moment i laughed and cheered with mom and hafiz... each came flooding back from the minute i pressed play ;)
*previous visitors would have been able to access a music player for the song... but due to some messed up problem with activex lately... you're gonna just have to take my word for it and get the song :D sorry people!
now back to my family's visit. what more can i say?
as previously reported, mom, hafiz, mak tok and kak nur arrived on the 14th at 7.30pm. having kept his promise, hizwan picked me up at 6.30 and we grabbed some kebabs before heading to the airport. though the flower-acquisition ordeal i had to endure beforehand wasn't too pleasant - with everyone between bridge road and church street staring at the awkward krumpler-slinging teenager with the huge bouquet of red roses - i was pleased with the fact that i managed to keep my annual mothers' day duty.
a large amount of hugs and screaming later, everyone laid their eyes for the first time on
apartment 808 after me inhabiting it for 4 months ;) and as far as i know... no comment is always a good comment :D max was undoubtedly apart of the winning party... ever grateful at the multiplied number of people to play with! for the first time since i've moved in here... i got up each morning to the sound of people's voices and breakfast on the table. and eventhough it was annoying back in kl, having my little brother play ps2 while i was still asleep came as a welcomed relief.
home was making a house call :D and the timing could not have been more perfect...
over the next 3 weeks we did a HUGE amount of shopping, with my closet now stocked with less blacks and plenty of dresses (for some reason mom thinks being 19 means i need to start dressing more like a girl... where she got that notion from i have no idea ;p). mak tok met up with her dear friend mr. tattersalls and kak nur managed to have her first holiday away from malaysia since leaving indonesia. best part was... everyone was happy. something none of us had experienced in a long while :)
unfortunately the weather sucked! it rained everyday, thereby forcing us to stay indoors. our previously made plans to go for picnics and ride the ferris wheel at southbank were postponed to make way for the heavy daily downpour.
instead we spent our days roaming the halls of chadstone shopping mall and curling up on the couch at home watching chick flicks :D for three weeks i didn't have to take the tram to school or worry about oversleeping in the morning. because for three weeks... my family was here... and everything just seems to get better when you're family's here :D
the night before leaving, me, mom and hafiz went to the borders bookstore on chapel street near the house. as usual, hafiz ran off to the comic section and i grabbed a handful of magazines before joining him. we spent no less than an hour at borders, as mom stocked up on cookbooks and manuals for her new kniting fad ;p with no more books to read, i wandered to the section with picture books on cats. before long, the three of us were in a laughing frenzy (there was one of a REALLY FAT cat lying on its back wearing a toddler's overalls! ;D), all the while ignoring the staring glances and the limited time we had left before they had leave.
so yeah... the past few weeks have been great. auntie margie has taken over the 'babysitting' shift and will be keeping me company till i head home on the 22nd. all i have left on the to-do list for now is to study for the finals and get my freaking acceptance letter from melbourne uni...
happy listening and i hope michael buble brightens up your day as he did mine ;)
... hello mr. chemistry notes... sigh...
have you ever heard a song that just sets it off for you? a song so brilliant in composition and lyrics that it triggers a wave of instant emotions and memories relating to the happiest days of your life? i know... a bit much for a 3 minute session... but this song did just that for me!
it's everything by michael buble. after having heard joel rave about it for weeks (and with my internet bandwith having been recently reinstated ;p) i decided to check it out. and though i shouldn't have doubted buble's brilliance in the first place, this song sent me dancing around the living room in my pyjamas with max :D memories of singing out loud in class or just going nuts dancing in the apartment... every time i laughed till my stomach hurt... every time i realised how amazing life was... each blessed moment that made last year great... and every moment i laughed and cheered with mom and hafiz... each came flooding back from the minute i pressed play ;)
*previous visitors would have been able to access a music player for the song... but due to some messed up problem with activex lately... you're gonna just have to take my word for it and get the song :D sorry people!
now back to my family's visit. what more can i say?
IT WAS AWESOME!
as previously reported, mom, hafiz, mak tok and kak nur arrived on the 14th at 7.30pm. having kept his promise, hizwan picked me up at 6.30 and we grabbed some kebabs before heading to the airport. though the flower-acquisition ordeal i had to endure beforehand wasn't too pleasant - with everyone between bridge road and church street staring at the awkward krumpler-slinging teenager with the huge bouquet of red roses - i was pleased with the fact that i managed to keep my annual mothers' day duty.
a large amount of hugs and screaming later, everyone laid their eyes for the first time on
apartment 808 after me inhabiting it for 4 months ;) and as far as i know... no comment is always a good comment :D max was undoubtedly apart of the winning party... ever grateful at the multiplied number of people to play with! for the first time since i've moved in here... i got up each morning to the sound of people's voices and breakfast on the table. and eventhough it was annoying back in kl, having my little brother play ps2 while i was still asleep came as a welcomed relief.home was making a house call :D and the timing could not have been more perfect...
over the next 3 weeks we did a HUGE amount of shopping, with my closet now stocked with less blacks and plenty of dresses (for some reason mom thinks being 19 means i need to start dressing more like a girl... where she got that notion from i have no idea ;p). mak tok met up with her dear friend mr. tattersalls and kak nur managed to have her first holiday away from malaysia since leaving indonesia. best part was... everyone was happy. something none of us had experienced in a long while :)
unfortunately the weather sucked! it rained everyday, thereby forcing us to stay indoors. our previously made plans to go for picnics and ride the ferris wheel at southbank were postponed to make way for the heavy daily downpour.
instead we spent our days roaming the halls of chadstone shopping mall and curling up on the couch at home watching chick flicks :D for three weeks i didn't have to take the tram to school or worry about oversleeping in the morning. because for three weeks... my family was here... and everything just seems to get better when you're family's here :D
the night before leaving, me, mom and hafiz went to the borders bookstore on chapel street near the house. as usual, hafiz ran off to the comic section and i grabbed a handful of magazines before joining him. we spent no less than an hour at borders, as mom stocked up on cookbooks and manuals for her new kniting fad ;p with no more books to read, i wandered to the section with picture books on cats. before long, the three of us were in a laughing frenzy (there was one of a REALLY FAT cat lying on its back wearing a toddler's overalls! ;D), all the while ignoring the staring glances and the limited time we had left before they had leave.
so yeah... the past few weeks have been great. auntie margie has taken over the 'babysitting' shift and will be keeping me company till i head home on the 22nd. all i have left on the to-do list for now is to study for the finals and get my freaking acceptance letter from melbourne uni...
happy listening and i hope michael buble brightens up your day as he did mine ;)
... hello mr. chemistry notes... sigh...
0 comments
