A month has passed since I departed from Malaysia. Not exactly a tumultuous or extremely celebratory event but a special moment to be treasured I suppose. I somehow love doing these one-month annivesary things to cap it off and move on to another month and so on.
My mind is clogged once again with so many things and people and topics and random oddities I've learnt from, be awed by, charmed off, and appreciate the little and big things in life and within the crazy octagon or heptagon walls of International House which will be known as IH from now on therein.
Happy belated St. Patrick's Day (and to you too Pat, who is IH Student Council's Vice President and hails from Klang. At least I think so.) to everyone who is Irish or non-Irish. It was the first time I myself made time to celebrate this green day of festive drinking and making merry just for the sake of it. The meaning of St. Pat's Day got lost throughout the years with hordes of people skowing beer and drinking beer and enjoy getting pissed and drunk in the name of Pat. A small entourage of us journeyed to 'Puggs' which claims to be the quintessential Irish pub where we, five or six girls with a male escort, waited in line to get in for almost more than an hour just to get squashed in the two-storeys pub with sticky and gooey textured floor carpeting and swaying away to some local band playing rehashed American songs and definitely non-Irish music as far as I know. It was a good experience which I don't think I plan on reliving it anytime soon and it only cost me AUD$5 that night. Decked out in green and sipping cocktailed beer. On another note, walking home with two wasted and drunk guys randomly shouting at passing cars and even denting the hood of a parked car was both funny and scary at the same time. Scarily funny is not something one should do on a daily basis. Take note. There's just too much to say about the medley of people and different cultures and habits and speeches coming together in a place like IH. I want to invite everyone I know to come here for just two nights and experience what it feels to be an IHer. I had thought that it would be difficult of a transition to come here and feel at home considering I am still but not so much missing my life back in Malaysia. Surprisingly it was not and I really do love waking in the morning to chilling coldness, being shocked at the appearance of another human at the entrance on the way to the toilet, getting brekkie in the dining hall, which usually consists of toasts or cereal and on Sunday we get brunch which is actually quite good, and making small but interesting talks with different people every other day, before making my way to uni along the sun drenched pathways. Returning from the humdrum of lectures and tutorials, I walk into people in the foyer where we talk some more and maybe read the headlines in the Junior Common Room, which will also be from now on declared the JCR, and chat with more newly made and met friends for almost an hour or so before retiring in my room. Dinner is somewhat a mundane affair now as we've gotten used to wearing our academic gowns to dinner every Tuesday and Thursday evenings while Monday and Wednesday is more of a casual dining thing. Then come Friday where it's my official once fortnightly laundry and cleaning and vacuuming the room day. Occasionally I do venture out from my comfort IH zone and into the city where the streets and roads are a labyrinth of mazes and hieroglyphics to me and only me and I always need someone with me to guide me through the trams and public transport. At five pm every Friday for the next eight weeks I have self-help dining duties where I just basically wipe tables, help around the kitchen a bit and annoy the weekend peer supervisor, kitchen staff and chef while dolling out food for ravishly hungry residents of IH as they bring their tray along the assembly line. Saturdays and Sundays are relaxing and fun days as I never know what the next weekend might bring me. The week repeats itself again but without the monotony that I always get back home. I still can't believe that I'm here and really here. I need a moment of silence to reflect and record it all mentally.
Now that that's done. Dutch National Night! To say the least, it was great, awesome and a whole lot of fun. Choir was good and so was the rest of the performances including Pat's skit titled 'What Google has to say about Dutch Culture', another hilarious and maybe slightly too mean for words skit describing Dutch's 'titi' culture aka prostitution, marijuana, and cheese, Dutch dancing, and slave auctioning off the O-weekers. Food was pretty alright considering it was Eurest which provided it. The Dutch pudding magically disappeared though I don't know if there is such a thing as Dutch pudding. However I do know there is such a thing as Dutch potato patties and that was good along with the red cabbage which was shockingly the best thing out of the entire meal. Granted, I was left still feeling hungry even after the cheeses and crackers and pumpernickle bread which was not so good. The after-party was held in this basement slash cellar under the dining hall which I never knew existed till that night. Never knew that there were so many IH dancers that could actually move but nothing really surprises me anymore since coming here. All in all, I want to do National Night all over again and yay for another one next semester. I hope it'll be a good country again.
I just realized that I'm joining and taking up quite a few stuff now. Even if it is just the first month, it all seems pretty overwhelming yet I want to do more. Odd. Signed myself up on the deco team for Cafe International which is one and a half month away and which Ling calls it "National Night on steroids!". Should be good stuff. There's this other club in uni that I've joined as well called AIESEC which is actually quite interesting. Well, the most attractive part of it is actually the internship program part of it which is what they really are about. It's really quite complicated and hard to explain so will leave it at that till I actually do something substantial or worth telling about.
The IH Ball themed 'Viva Las Vegas', is coming up as well on next Thursday and I'm so grateful that I don't have classes the next day unlike some unlucky souls. The dress thing is currently pending and am planning on browsing or shopping for a proper and affordable one on Friday at Myers. Otherwise it'll be a repeat dress from last CNY's.
Come Easter break, Sharon will get a visit from my friend and I for about a week in Sydney. Will be traveling on the overnight train so should be an interesting and cool trip. Following directly after that, am planning on going for an AIESEC State Conference trip which goes on for three days and two nights and is held on the last weekend of Easter break before returning to uni. Hopefully the conference will be good and interesting fun as well. I can feel the money evaporating as I think about the plans and events that I have for the next month or so.
It's been the longest I've ever gone without watching TV and for that I feel so proud of myself. There's an IH photo session at seven in the morning tomorrow where we bring our academic gowns for the serious shot and random stuff for the fun shot. Whatever the random stuff that may be I still don't know. I just don't want to look too sleepy in the photo.
It's about time I start on my tutorials once more and more reading of BusFi, IFA, BPA, and QM2 lecture notes and additional textbooks readings. Don't bother asking me about those acronyms because they're just boring stuff.
Lastly, I just want to make passing mentions that the photo is of the State Victorian Library located along Swanston Street, I think. There are two guys named James here who are probably the only guys that have captured my attention so far. Damn my infatuation with the British born and boyish good looks.
