And it’s all over.

Last Friday I got an email from Student Admin saying that my results have been amended, and the Failed subject, which was Withheld for the longest time, is now a Pass.

In case you have trouble following the chronology of the Drama That Is My Academic Career, here is what happened:

Last semester, which was supposed to be my final semester, I was bogged down by general slackerness and handed in that particular assignment late. I’d been granted Special Consideration on the grounds of my sleep disorder (which was an actual medical problem that semester, instead of something I bring up at convenient times), but I still couldn’t meet the extended deadline. Thus, the (rather snobbish) lecturer failed me automatically, without even reading it. This felt like an enormous failure (instead of the regular kind) because it was a huge essay of 4000 words, and I’d put considerable effort into it. When, two days into the new semester, the Withheld result was changed into a Fail, I enrolled in Novels and flew back to Melbourne in a hurry, with about a week left on my student visa.

A new student visa application (>$400 on credit card), a new medical examination for the said application (>$200 on savings account), and a new subject enrollment (>$2000, invoiced but yet to be paid) later, I get an email saying I actually passed, and that I’m back here, basically, for no reason.

All weekend I thought about continuing with the current subject anyway. It will be a better grade than a Pass, it’s a Creative Wroiting subject, I actually enjoy the class, and, five weeks into the semester, it feels like a waste to not complete it.

On Monday I got a call from the Arts Faculty, confirming the completion of my course, and my two majors in Media & Communications and Creative Wroiting.

When I asked if I could continue with Novels anyway, the lady said no. I’d already completed 300 points, and I’d have to apply to over-enroll, and there was really no reason for the Faculty to grant me that permission. I hung up the phone and involuntarily began to cry, which turned into continuous bouts of heaving sobs, after which I felt slightly better, but also rather silly.

I don’t know. I just get really upset when I’m told I can’t do something, even if I wanted to.

On Tuesday I went to see International Student Services, who were very understanding of my situation. Laura* congratulated me and asked how I felt about it all. I poured my heart out to her and it felt very much like a therapy session. (Not that I’ve ever been, but you know.)

I got advice on what to do, where to go from here. I would have to wait for the next graduation ceremonies in August, because I’d missed the ones in March. I would also have to apply for a new visa within 28 days, if I were to go ahead with my plan of Getting Some Work Experience while I’m here. I would have to request from Student Admin the “evidence of qualification”, the piece of paper saying I’m finished with uni. And technically, I would have to turn in my student card.

I thanked them for all their help, and walked out of the office in a sort of daze.

I’m done with uni.

I’ve finished.

Suddenly.

It’s like an absurd tug-of-war, these past few months. No no, you fail, they said. Come back, go to class, do assignments. Hold on a second, on second thought, you pass, congratulations, hand in your student card, kthxbye.

And I’ve worn the label ‘Student’ for so long I hardly know what to do with myself now.

So I walked around uni, pretending to be one, for one more day. I walked through the hallways, past the rooms where I went to (or rather, more often, skipped) classes. Past the computer lab where I spent many midnights, frantically working on and printing my assignments. Through the buildings where I’d managed to become and remain anonymous for much of my uni life; on pathways and shortcuts where you can walk for hours without ever bumping into a familiar face. Into the main library with its endless rows of books and journals, where you can browse for hours without ever passing by the same shelf twice.

It took me months to feel like I have any business or right to be here at all.

And now that it’s all over, what have I got to show for it, really?

What have I learned, really?

Lots. And also, very little, depending which way you look at it.

My university student email will cease to exist tomorrow. I have mixed feelings about it all. There’s relief, of course, that it’s all over. There’s a bit of happiness, a bit of sadness. But mostly, I’m just terrified, I guess.

Meh. I’ll figure it out.

More random conversations.

My morning (ie afternoon) started out rather hazily. After stumbling out past the receptionists, through the door, with coffee in hand, I headed to my usual smoking spot to find somebody else sitting there. This is unacceptable. (Also, after a few unsuccessful attempts to spell unexceptable I looked up the dictionary and found out I’d been trying to spell unacceptable.) If you know how much I laugh when other people get their spelling wrong you’d know I’m mentally kicking myself right now.

After I had my coffee and smoked my cigarette (at a different spot) I went back upstairs, and a lady rushed for the lift just before the door closed. She smiled, and I thought oh God she wants to talk. It is way too early for a random conversation.

“Hi,” she said.

I managed a smile, which, with fuzzy brain, unwashed face and poofy hair, might as well have been a squirm, a feeble attempt to contract my facial muscles upwards in the general direction of a smile.

“Hi,” I said, squinting.

“Are you from Malaysia?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. Hint hint, don’t talk to me.

“Oh! I’m from Singapore.”

“Oh,” I said. “Cool.” Hint hint, feel free to stop this conversation.

“Are you Malay?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Oh! Me too!”

(God damn it what is she so happy about. Has she honestly not met another Malay in Melbourne before? Throw a stone in any direction; you’re likely to hit one. Why is this lift so damn slow? Are we really only at the second floor?!)

“At first I wasn’t sure,” she said, “But then I saw your family around and I thought hmm—“

“Oh did you really?”

“Yeah!”

“Cool.”

“Anyway, I’m Faridah*,” she extends her hand.

“Nadia.”

Ding, my floor. Shake hands. New friend. See ya around. Take care.

She didn’t see my family around. The last time my family was here was almost three years ago, and I lived somewhere else.

*Shrug.*

I’ve realized that if I ever leave my apartment, I meet one random stranger every other day.

Like that crazy dude on the ferry in Sydney (oh I went to Sydney, did I tell you?) who played the harmonica and was almost in tears when I told him I liked his music. He asked me where we were, walked with me for a bit and then said goodbye by way of sticking up three fingers in the air and saying “Peace!”

“Do you mean,” I said, showing him two fingers, “Peace?”

He looked at his hand, counted his fingers, adjusted them, then said “Oh yeah yeah, PEACE!”

Or that dude in Hungry Jack’s (ie Burger King) who complained about the long line and got excited when Bonnie Tyler’s song was played.

Or little Chloe and her dad, who I met on the train. Chloe is three years old and sat next to me when I moved my bag which was taking up the extra seat. Big blue eyes, blond curly hair, and just learning to talk. As soon as I sat down, we waved at each other, and she showed me her juice and her glittery bookmark from McDonalds. I moved my bag when more passengers got on the train.

“Who sit there?” she asked, pointing at the empty seat.

“Nobody’s sitting here, “ I said.

So she said there.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m going.”

“You’re going? Where are you going?”

“No,” said her dad. “She said hi I’m Chloe.”

“Oh! I’m Nadia. It’s very nice to meet you Chloe.”

“Look outside! It’s all dark!”

“Yes. We’re in a tunnel.”

She looked confused. “Where did the skyyyy go?”

I just laughed. Her dad said it must be night time.
Out of the tunnel, blue sky outside.

“LOOK AT THE SKY LOOK AT THE SKY!”

“Yes, I see the sky.”

“LOOK AT THE SKY LOOK AT THE SKYYYY!!!” She touches my arm, nudging me nudging me to look, look, LOOOK!!

Other passengers turning to look at the sky, then at Chloe, then at me. Some with looks of aww, she’s so cute. Some with looks of ughh, be quiet. I’m laughing.

Her dad tells her shhh. I say shhh, a little softer.. we need to use our inside voice.

Shhh she says, whispering, shhhh… the bowalas are sleeping.

Chloe shows me her glittery bookmark again. Then a plastic bag from a souvenir shop, with a picture of a kawaroo (kangaroo) on it. Inside, a pair of bunny bowala (koala) slippers, which she pats lovingly.

All through the train ride she talks to me, making jokes, giggling, and I talk back the way I talk to my younger siblings. At my stop I tell her I’m getting off here. Her dad explains that means we need to say byebye. We say byebye, she waves, I pat her head, and I walk out of the train station still smiling.

At certain times of the day, random strangers are great. Not very early in the morning (ie afternoon) when my brain’s all fuzzy and I don’t appreciate being asked if I’m of a particular race. I feel like launching into a Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian race) essay, but it’s too much effort and my brain’s still fuzzy.

Random conversations.

 Sybille had a foot “injury” the other day, a result of wearing horrible girly shoes for too long in the blistering heat. She made me go with her to the clinic to get the blister looked at, in case there was an infection.

(Hypochondriac? Who?)

While waiting for the nurse…

Sybille:  What does ‘psychedelic’ mean?

Me:  Hmm?

Sybille:  Psychedelic. I use that word all the time but I just realized I don’t know what it means exactly.

Me:  Uhmm.. it means.. uhmm. Well you know. Psychedeliiiic!

Sybille:  Psychedeliiiic! What is it?

Me:  Uhmm. I think it means.. head-tripping. You know. Psychedeliiiiic! Gained popular usage in the ’60s, with the hippie movement. I think.

Sybille:  (Blink. Blink.) Oh.

Me:  Why? What did you use it for?

Sybille:  (Starts laughing.)

Me:  Did you use it in a sentence?

Sybille:  (Laughs.)

Me:  What did you say was psychedelic??

Sybille:  … A pigeon.

Me:  HAHAHAHAHAHA!

—–

A psychedelic pigeon. Classic.

—–

Yesterday I went to my regular butcher shop and there was a dude I’d never seen before, and we had a random conversation. The dude’s from Turkey, and probably new here. Or at least new at the butcher shop.

Dude:  Would you like anything else?

Me:  Some salami, maybe.

Dude:  Mild or hot?

Me:  Hot, please.

Dude:  Sorry?

Me:  Hot.

Dude:  Yeah?

Me:  Yes.

Dude:  You like hot?

Me:  Very much.

(Blink. Blink.)

Is it weird that I think he was being flirty?

Dude:  What do you study?

Me:  Media.

Dude:  Ooh. Interesting. Clever girl.

Me:  Meh. I hope so.

Dude:  How long have you been here?

Me:  Me? Almost three years now.

Dude:  Wow, three years.

Me:  Yeah. I come here all the time for my… (dammit, ‘come’ and ‘meat’ should never ever be in a sentence together)… halal… meat.

Dude just grins.

Me:  Okay gotta go byebye!

Dude:  Nice talking to you. Come again!

Me: (Blush, turn, run out.)

—–

The end.

Back in Melburn.

I really should get in the habit of updating this blog more often.

I mean, I really should get in the habit of updating this blog. Heee. But in any case, if any of you still bother, I really do apologize for my pseudo-return to the blogosphere and mysteriously disappearing again. I promise think I’ll have really really hope for more regular updates from here on end.

Heee.

I dunno. I *think* I still want to maintain a blog. I wrote lots of draft posts, mini-posts, pathetic unreadable posts, but somehow never got around to actually putting them up. Somehow all my posts seem unpostable. I start a sentence and it sounds wrong. I finish a paragraph and there’s a voice inside my head going uhhh, no.

*Shrug.*

And once you stop, you know how hard it is to start again. It just isn’t in your routine anymore, the whole setting- aside- half-an-hour-a- day-to-type-random-nonsense -to-be-read-by- random-strangers- thing.

But I still think I want to do it. I dunno, maybe it’ll be good for me.

So let’s get on with it, yes? Yes.

—–

Before we get into the dirty juicy shtuff (why yes, of course I have some dirty juicy shtuff to tell you) let’s just get the most pressing updates out of the way, yes? Yes.

I am back in Melburn (burn baby, buuurrrnn). I got back a week ago, expecting some kind of an “Autumn” kind of weather, vaguely processing the logic of coming back from “Summer” holidays, therefore it should be “Autumn”, right? Right?

Wrong.

It is. Insanely. Hot.

I think we’re in the middle of some insane “autumn” heatwave or something, because it is. Insanely. Hot.

Day temperature’s been in the high thirties (that’s Celsius, darling) all week. It’s like living in someone’s armpit. You step out the door and your skin burns, the top of your head sizzles, and you sweat in places you weren’t aware could sweat. You get on the tram and it smells like sweat, and everyone’s under-dressed, and it’s all skin and legs and thighs and cellulite and armpit hair galore.

Get the picture yet? Just imagine it. Imagine an insanely hot day.

Good. Now imagine an insanely hot day and all your clothes smell like curry.

Because that would be me, my first few days back in Melburn.

—–

I told my mom not to pack any food. I told her that there’s nothing I need to bring that I can’t get over here.

Actually, on second thought, I think I might have told her not to pack any food in my bag, while simultaneously sending mixed messages about how her poor hopeless daughter will possibly starve to death if she didn’t put any Maggi packets in my luggage. So she packed. Lovingly, she put those instant curry Maggi things in a plastic bag, and put it in my luggage.

Said Maggi curry packet decided to explode in my luggage.

Poor hopeless daughter realized it two days later. Went “Shit!”

And “SHIT SHIT SHIT ALL MY CLOTHES SMELL LIKE CURRY!”

Couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it at that particular time.

Hence, walked around with curry t-shirts for a whole week, before finally washing clothes today.

Anyway. The point of the story is, I now have clean, curry-free clothes. The end.

—–

The next thing I wanted to tell you, before anyone asks, is that I am back at uni.

I’m back for one subject, because it turns out that I failed that subject that was ‘Withheld’ for the longest time last year. They could have told me up front. I would have gotten upset for a while, but I wouldn’t hold it against them. If they’d told me earlier, I could’ve done a summer subject and gotten this whole uni thing over with already. Now I’m back, grudgingly, hesitantly, pissed-offly, that I’m denied my graduation for one more semester.

The upside of this is that I’m not actually late in graduating, I’m just not early. I would have completed a three-year course in two and a half, but now I have one more semester, to do one subject. Hey. It’s practically a six-month holiday.

And the subject I’m doing is a creative wroiting subject called Novels. We learn how to plan and write a novel. I figured, if I have to stay, I might as well learn something I actually want to learn. The only other choice was something in cinema studies, but my mom said I have to take this creative wroiting subject, even though the coordinator is the Person In Charge whom I begged, begged, to pass me for that other subject last semester.

Out of ego, and sheer Asian-ness, I wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with her after I begged and didn’t get that Pass. But my mother, out of ego, and sheer Asian-ness, said that I especially had to take her subject, “to prove to her that you’re not an idiot, actually.”

So yeah.

I’m enjoying it so far. The class is great. My tutor is awesome. But I think that deserves its own entry, another day.

You know. Because I update this blog so often, and all.

—–

I’m still living at the same apartment with Sybille. For now there’s a Canadian girl named Louise who’s living in our very liveable living room. She’s a high school friend of Sybille’s, and she’s nice, friendly and tidy enough, so I really don’t mind.

There’s a newish security guard downstairs, Omar*, who talks way too fast and way too much if you make the mistake of asking “How are you” and standing around for too long. When I walked in after three months away he said “Nadia! Long time no see!” and I felt very special because we’d only ever met briefly, once, and he remembered my name.

But still, I wonder if there’s something I do wrong, or something, because other people can walk by the reception area, mumble ‘how are you’ and keep walking, and they don’t have to stand around and listen. Me, I ask ‘how are you,’ and I can’t seem to leave, because they (the security guards) just keep talking and talkingandtalkingandtalking.

This past whole week, each of my smoke breaks have lasted no less than half an hour, when it only takes five minutes to smoke one.

I know that Omar is 38, is of Syrian descent, has four children, one of whom just turned 8 years old today. He and his wife were dating for 7 years after his then-girlfriend said marriage or we part ways, and four kids later he still sometimes wonders if it was the right choice. He likes sushi rolls and ‘those beautiful flat noodles’ (kuay teow, I assume) and was at one point on the verge of diabetes, but he’s been watching his diet. He smokes Winfield cigarettes and in his free time, trains would-be security guards at a training center he runs with his brother. He offered to train me, if I ever wanted to be a security guard, (I mentioned I was sort of looking for part-time work). Some time next month he is going back to Syria to transfer the deed of his father’s property into his and his brothers’ names, and he is looking forward to buying cheap CD’s and clothes.

He just keeps talking and talkingandtalking.

I know that Davin* is from India, and graduated in Law, but can’t practice law here because his degree isn’t recognized. At some point he wants to practice, but for now he works as a security guard to save enough money to settle down, and he is also waiting for his permanent residency application to go through. His girlfriend was born in Bangladesh and grew up in Canada, and they’ve been together for about a year, and she is the jealous possessive type who gets jealous when he talks to girls. Or when some random girls (*cough cough, flatmate, cough*) bring him a slurpee from 7-11 because the weather’s so hot. He’s been working out and watching his diet because he suddenly got aware of the effects of age, he even quit smoking, but he still smokes occasionally, especially when he is fighting with his girlfriend.

He also just keeps talking and talkingandtalking.

The other security guard, Harry*, talks of nothing but the weather. He can tell you exactly what temperature it is at any given time of night. He memorizes weather forecasts for the week to come. If you’re ever planning a trip somewhere, talk to Harry first and he’ll tell you whether or not to bring an umbrella.

He has the extraordinary ability to talk so much and say nothing at all.

So there you have it. The guys who keep me company at night. Sometimes I can’t sleep, go downstairs for a smoke and end up talking (or listening, rather) for hours. I like to think they’re glad of the company too.

—–

Oh would you look at the time. Almost 4 am. Methinks it’s time for bed. I’ll see y’all next time, then, for more random stories, eh?

So. Y’all be good now. Toodles!

Chat box, Syira’s play, and a new resolution.

 So the chat box that you see on the right isn’t really a tag board.. unfortunately WordPress hasn’t gone that far yet. This meebo thingy, meanwhile, lets you send private messages to me. The upside: if you don’t already have me on any of the instant messaging platforms, we can chat here. The downside: nobody else can see what you say. Which can be a good thing, depending which way you look at it.

Meh.

Anyway, I went to see Syira’s play yesterday. She was good! She was really good, actually, I believe she stole the show… not that I’m biased or anything. It was a Bangsawan play, of the traditional sort, so imagine lots of songket, kebayas, sultans and puteri ayus. The play itself is pretty straight forward, and in this kind of play I figure the more stereotypical the character, the better. Syira was the villain, of the really evil, bitchy sort, and she did it extremely well. Twice, the woman sitting in front of us (who I later found out was the registrar of the school) turned to my mother and said, “Jahatnya anak you! She’s so evil, your daughter!”

So it was a competition thingy between the four houses of the school. Syira’s play went something like this:

-  A bunch of fairies come down to earth to play and relax, but one of them lost her magic shawl, so she can’t fly back up to the sky. The other fairies left without her. This one, stranded on earth, called herself Melur.  Melur meets a simple guy, the Laksamana, who is handsome enough, and they fall in love and marry.

- Meanwhile, the Sultan’s son, Tengku somebody, finds the magic shawl, falls in love with it and longs to find the owner. Narimah Sari, Syira’s character, (the evil bitchy villain) is in love with the Tengku. When the Tengku finds out the shawl belongs to Melur, he wants to marry her, and goes to his daddy the Sultan to make this happen.

- The Sultan, after his son threatened to commit suicide if he doesn’t get the girl, reluctantly orders his Laksamana (admiral) to divorce his wife so that the Tengku can marry her.  The loyal Laksamana does so.

- And this is where Syira does the Evil Face really well. Narimah Sari, knowing that her Tengku is in love with Melur, goes to Laksamana, and convinces him to kill Melur, instead of giving her to another man.

- He believes Narimah Sari, and goes to kill Melur. However, at the last second, he changes his mind, but the Tengku already saw him with the kris. A fight ensues. Complete with silat moves and backflips. Laksamana and Melur end up dead, tragically, like Romeo and Juliet.

- Tengku ends up crying next to the dead bodies. In walks Narimah Sari — shocked! of course! — and she sits next to Tengku to console him. The villain got what she wanted. Her face at the end was evil and satisfied. Evil I tell you, evil!

—–

My parents and I left after the second house performed, because we were all hungry and it was a long drive back. In the end, Syira’s house didn’t win, and we all thought she was robbed of the Best Supporting Actress award. Nevertheless she was happy we came and we’re all very proud of her.

Pictures are in Syira’s camera, I dunno when she will upload them or if she even wants to… she’s kinda in full makeup and a yellow kebaya. She also had to re-colour her hair black — goodbye, Eric’s expensive colouring job.

—–

On the way home, my mom and I were recapping all those times when we went to see Syira perform. She’s always been the performing sort, my sister. From kindergarten concerts to school productions to that one historical play at Istana Budaya (which we both auditioned for, and I didn’t get, and that was the end of my acting career). Apparently my mom was the performing sort too, and she’s glad one of us got that gene at least.

Me I’m more of a behind-the-scenes person. I wrote school plays, poetry for choral reading, that kind of stuff.

Can’t act for nuts.

—–

Today I went to Midvalley to do some shopping, because I’m feeling a bit.. uhmm.. how do you say it.. fat.  I went to buy new goggles (because I read that swimming is a good way to lose weight), new swim shorts (because I lost mine) and a few work out dvd’s, including an introduction to yoga (because I read that Madonna does yoga and she has good arms). All this, of course, after a huge lunch at Madam Kwan’s. Siiigh. Diet tomorrow lah, like this.

Return of the Nadster.

Uhmm.

*peeks around*

Hello.

I thought it was high time I opened this poor neglected blog, which I signed up for in a hurry and never got around to updating. So yeah hi. I mean… let’s try that with a little more oomph, shall we?

HIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!

Hello!!! HOW THE BLOODY HELL ARE YA?!

My gawd it’s been a while, hasn’t it.

Did you miss me?

Actually, don’t answer that. I know you did, dahling. When my old blog mysteriously disappeared, you painstakingly typed and re-typed the URL into your little Firefox browser, cursing Streamyx and restarting the router every time that damned ‘Page Not Found’ screen shows up instead of me. I know you checked. I know you googled every variation of my name, letting out a little sigh of frustration, kinda like, haih, every time the Nutty/Nadia blog that you found was a different Nutty/Nadia, and in your head you asked Where is Nutty,goddamnit where is she? Has she forsaken her loyal stalkers? Has she — oh dear gawd no — stopped writing forever? How will we survive the cold winter? And why, why, WHYYY does she have such a common name, with more than a gazillion google hits leading to more than a gazillion Nutty/Nadias, WHYYYY??

Heh. Heheh.

Truth is, I have not forgotten you. Really. I’ve just had… other things to do.

But now I am back, dahlings, after what you would call a hiatus (or for the more pottymouthed of you lot, a bloody long ass hiatus) and it feels a bit weird, kinda… it feels like going to your high school reunion. Everyone and everything looks vaguely familiar, and you know you shared the same experience once upon a time. You sat at the desk and scribbled graffiti and poisoned your desk mate to ponteng class together, and then in a blink it’s suddenly 10 years later and the jock you had a crush on is a pot-bellied drunk and the prom queen (gawd you hate her) is still the most beautiful girl in school. And her entourage, the Stepford Sisters, are now staring at you expectedly and you’ve got a maximum of five seconds to come up with a one-sentence answer for ‘So what do you do’ but you can’t say what you really do because you’ve got to impress them, you’ve got to wow them, somehow.

And then as you’re thinking of how to describe ‘Unemployed’ in the most interesting manner possible, out comes something completely stupid like “I’m currently contributing to the nation’s economy by spurring maximum expenditure with minimum capital investment on my part.”

Like, dude. I don’t even know what I just said.

But anyhoo. Now that I’m here, I’m sure y’all wouldn’t mind some rambling. Right? Right. So. Say it with me, all together now…

UPDATATION!

Oh but first, some things about this here “new” blog.
It’s Kinda Nutty, version 5

- I realize the blog looks kinda bare right now. Bear with me (eheh eheh… “bare”). I plan to add more stuff as I get more rajin along the way.

- When the usual characters come up in the blog I might be using their real names from now, because other people have been calling them by their blog nicknames and confusing the hell out of me. They’d ask How’s Tallie? And I’m like who’s Tallie. OH, Sybille! Her name is Sybille.

- If you are reading up to here I assume you already know me in some way, or else you’ve been stalking me for some time. I am quite tired of getting “Eh, what happened to your blog?!” (Why, I’m fine thank you how are you) so you are welcome to share the URL with whoever else that’s been asking.

- You are also welcome to send gifts, shiny things and monetary donations to me, and I will love you forever.

- Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy the ride (eheh eheh… “ride”) and let’s all let out a big yeehaw as we get on to the updates. (Well finally, Nadia, we’ve been waiting for ages.)

—–

Ready?

Yeehaw!

Updatation 1: On [m]academia.

I suppose you could say that the reason I haven’t been blogging is because of uni. Or rather, because of the gazillion assignments that I let pile up until the last possible minute. In what is supposed to be the three weeks of my final semester for my undergraduate degree, I had six subjects I vaguely remember signing up for, and eight major projects to wade through, and that time period now officially qualifies as The Worst Time of My Life, Ever. I couldn’t even breathe in between assignments; I finished one, gave a little sigh of relief and immediately had to start another. Sleeping, eating and personal hygiene became optional breaks from being hunched over my computer, only to be taken if the said option takes less than half an hour, and of course second to smoking (which takes only 5 mins) by order of importance. By the final assignment, I had managed to completely piss off my friends (especially Sybille, I think, because she had to take over cleaning the apartment) and I was also worrifying (yes that’s a word) my mom, because I was calling her every other day in tears.

Of course I brought it upon myself, but at the time, I had the utter desperation of someone who had Fucked Up Completely, and I really didn’t think I’d get through. I probably wouldn’t have, without the wonderful people I now have the good fortune to call my friends.

But now, when I tell people it was the Worst Time of My Life, Ever, and I got through eight projects in approximately 21 days, they say: Dude. Tak jadi gila ke? (Wouldn’t you go crazy?)

And I am secretly proud that I didn’t go gila, and I pulled through, and once again I reaffirmed my status as the Champion Last Minute Worker.

Eight assignments!!

Champion, man.

But never again. Never, ever again. It’s not good for my health, this last minute stress thing.

And after I finished the assignments, (I’m gonna go completely cliché here) I breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders. I think I screamed and jumped around in my apartment a little bit (by that time Sybille had already left for Holland). And then I cleaned house, packed up, flew home, and never ever wanted to see an empty Word screen again.

It’s been two months, and I’ve been in Malaysia, thoroughly enjoying my holiday.

Before you ask whether I’m finished with my undergraduate degree or not, the answer is I dunno. I’ve passed five of the six subjects I was enrolled in, and the other is still Withheld. After hounding the Faculty, the School, and the Lecturer for an answer, I was told “not to stress too much about it” and that I will get it definitely before the new term starts. It is out of my hands. And so.. we wait.

Of course, when you half-ass all semester and do everything at the last minute, you don’t expect your results to be great. My best subject this semester was a H2B, and that was for the artsy fartsy subject I hated and had major mental block trying to complete. My mom said: Dalam tak suka tak suka, tak pergi class, assignment last minute tu you can get a B?! Imagine if you’d applied yourself all semester.

I told her, Ya lah. Actually, didn’t you know, I’ve got brains lah.

Ya lahhh, she said. If you used your brains a bit more maybe you wouldn’t underachieve.

Hmm. You know, that makes sense.

Anyway. I’m hoping this last subject, the Withheld one, will be a Pass at least. Because it will totally screw up my plans for the year if it’s a Fail.

Updatation 2: On holiday.

So I’ve been on holiday for two months. I briefly entertained the idea of searching for gainful employment, but that idea evaporated as quickly as it took me to open up World of Warcraft again. In case you wanted to know (and even if you didn’t) I’ve been busy leveling up another character, a girl character, and she is a kick-ass gnome mage named Ditsy. The upside of having a character named Ditsy is that people don’t judge you too much if you say something stupid — “Go left! Troll on your left! I mean your other left! Right! Your right!” — and you’re always forgiven if you aggro the whole damn dungeon because you walked too close to the boss.

/end geek talk.

I also spent a week in the Netherlands, staying with Sybille and her family, and after that I went to London with my family. It was a damn good time, but that’s a story for another entry, and an entry for another day.

Besides computer games, I’ve been eating a lot — a lot — and steadily gaining back all the weight I lost while playing the part of the penniless student living away from home and hopelessly can’t cook. I come home and it’s eat eat sleep eat. I wake up and it’s hello tummy, welcome back, I missed you.

Well. You know. Can’t complain.

Life’s good.

Updatation 3: What now?

Hmm. Now?

Now I have to go. My sister Syira, also known as Middle Child Who Constantly Complains of Being the Black Sheep, also known as Drama Queen, is in a play at her school tonight. We have to leave soon because of course her school is hours away and of course we have to be there early, or we’ll never hear the end of it.

Let me just figure out how to put in a tagboard by the side there, and then we’ll get this blog rolling.

So. Y’all be good now. Toodles!

Testing, testing.

I am back online!

Am off to fiddle with the custom header thingy. And then maybe I’ll sleep… it is far too early for breakfast, even though I really really feel like some roti canai. But yes, I’m back. New blog, hooray!