The Misanthropic Misadventures of an Idealist

Friday, June 23, 2006 | 23:28

return to the familiar

In about twenty four hours or less, I'll be sweltering in the year round similar heat season, drowning myself in a refreshing cool, cold shower before finally slumping on my long-missed bed where I'll drift off peacefully into dreamless sleep for twelve hours covered under my sheets in my familiar air-conditioned room.

It's almost hard to believe that I'll be back home so soon. It almost feels like I never actually lived out of my home yet and that I'd been living on a very long extended holiday only. Perhaps it's just taking me a bit longer to soak it all in that I'm actually going home after being away from all things familiar for the longest time in my life. I sound so untraveled and feel like raw and fresh unadulterated meat being thrown into the cruel world where you get to meet some nice and cool people who carefully and painfully takes it in his stride to put in the time to guide you through the complex pathways and scary corridors of life. I think I'm getting the hang of packing smart and fitting my overgrown number of stuff into my luggage. I'm rather proud of myself on that note.

Returned from a Korean dinner with a group of us IH-ers in honour of one of our resident British IH-er leaving us this weekend to return to London and begin working at an internship of some sort on Monday morning as he'd be graduating this year already with a degree in science I believe. The British can be such wry humourist types really. Anywhos good luck and all the best for your future endeavours and plans, and go you for being all super smart and an all-rounder type as well. I predict that in five years time there'll be a newspaper article out in the Star proclaiming the next prodigious business man or earning a doctorate on some degree thing where the country will make proclamations on how he's half Malaysian which is true and that we're all really proud of what we can produce. Like hell, what happened to him being half British then? I'm just being all ranty again. I smell of barbeque. My hair stinks. But I couldn't be arsed to wash my hair this late in the night.

I really am going home tomorrow. Woot!

Oh yeah, exams are over too. It seemed like a big deal just a few days ago but now I'm just indifferent over it. How odd that just a few days can make one feel totally different over such a matter? Just give me a grace period of a few days before I'll begin stressing over the impending results being released very soon in a matter of weeks.

Football will return to my life once again after a four year break of deprivation. Will be rooting for Spain to take the cup this year. Finals here we come!

Less than a megabyte to go. Damn. My room looks empty and desolate right now. I hate it. I hate being in my room tonight. I can't stand rooms looking so vacant and devastatingly plain. Anyway, am done for the night. Will be blogging from my room back home come the next post. Hola and good night.

Jill |

Thursday, June 15, 2006 | 23:43

personal time zones

Two down and two more to go. Time is passing by too slowly for my own and everyone's liking. The hours and seconds really do slow down during exam periods and everything else in the beginning of the semester till the week before SWOTVAC goes by in a second and a half. Just can't wait till the following Saturday after this weekend before I'll be cosying up in my own comfy bed, sipping 3-in-1 Ipoh White coffee, couching in the living room and enjoying football at its world best in the comfort of my own home.

For now, it's crunch time as I've got to focus the rest of my brain power to the last two papers of the final week of the exam period. Easier said than done.

The last three weeks have been spent couped up in the Peter Waylen tutorial room in IH where approximately four to six of us will gather in the bright sea blue walled room, every day and night to study, play, listen to music, and watch random video clips and animation thingies on our notebooks. It's got a lingering strange smell now, reason being the multitude of people moving in and out of the room every hour and in addition to the various food being eaten in it including pizza, almost every night, coffee, milo, tea, and an assortments of chips and biscuits. One could get really fat and stuffed from just hanging round there every day. That person would be me. The pounds have really been creeping up on me. Damn winter seasonal hunger pangs.

World Cup fever is here and well alive in IH as well what with the Australian team qualifying for the WC in what seemed forever. I'll be on the red and yellow side once again supporting the Spainiards as I did four years ago. As most would already know by now, of Spain's slaughtering of Ukraine where they went down crashing with 4-0. If only I had managed to watch it but alas no. Well, at least I can comfortably and confidently say that they would be able to get into future matches when I'll be back home enjoying the beautiful game. And I didn't know that there existed so many Iker Casillas fans in IH as well. Hooray for cute Spanish goalkeepers!

Moving away from the world of exams and football (not soccer, damn it!), life has been pretty interesting. A few people have permanently left IH already. Them being the Med students going off on their third year research study thing in the UK for a year before returning to the University of Melbourne to complete their degree but I doubt that they'd be coming back to IH. So, it's almost as if I might not see those two again. Unless of course I make the effort to visit them in either Penang or Singapore where I'm in the middle of the two places. Heh. The end of the semester is approaching with the exchange students leaving in about a week time. Most will be returning to the USA, China, Canada, Japan, or Britain. Must remember to get their contacts before they leave too. It gets quite depressing after a while when you see people you've just met and they're going already. Even though it's only been three months, it feels like you're known them for a year or so. I suppose time really does pass at different modes and phases in a college.

Speaking of college, the amount of people in IH has been reduced to about half the people as it used to be. The main reason would be the people leaving for greener pastures or yellow if you want, and also people finishing exams earlier and faster. By this time next week, there'll be only three 8-seater tables filled during meal times. And I'll be around to witness that. It's pretty sad. Hopefully my next semester's exam timetable won't be as skewed as this one. Oh man. I'm starting my quoting of random QM2 notes now. Perhaps, I should return to it soon.

Like now. On a last note, watch more football, dress warmly (if you're here down under), study hard but play harder, and will return with my last post before I leave for home next week. Ciao!

Jill |

Tuesday, June 06, 2006 | 23:43

yields in life

It's definitely an omen. Today's date I mean.

There's some times or moments in one's life when you have to suffer the worst mental breakdown in your life to actually get on with life. Last night was mine.

I really don't know what happened or what caused it to happen. Halfway through studying Business Finance in the tutorial room last night, I almost shed tears just because I was feeling the most pressure I've ever felt since...well, since never. I don't think I've ever felt this pressured; emotionally, physically and intellectually. Then when I returned to my room at round past midnight, my eyes started watering really badly and then before I knew it I was crying quite terribly and sobbing slightly while trying to hold it in when talking to my parents. I think I made them kind of worry about me a bit but it's all good and fine now. The worst has passed. I hope.

The worst outcome of all this is that there's no one else I really want to see or talk to besides my parents except for a certain crush of mine who doesn't even stay in IH or know me apart from my name, which makes the void all the more intolerable and painful to fill. The first person to appear in my mind when I wanted to talk and just spill my guts to someone was him. I don't even know him that well but there's something in me or him that makes me want to talk to him and just get to know him more. Like if I talked to or just see him today, I'd know that everything would be okay and alright. Which I did see him today but was too shy or slightly stunned from seeing him here of all days to actually approach him and just talk about today. Hopefully he'll rock up tomorrow for whatever reason and then I'd be able to say something at least for even a minute or five.

I blame my hormones acting and sneaking up on me. At the worst possible time.

So yes, the Business Finance final was held this morning. At the Royal Exhibition Building (REB). It was quite daunting, intimidating and I was too stunned or shellshocked from having to sit for an exam in such a venue to actually admire the surroundings articulately. It's a bloody musuem for heaven's sake. Complete with sky-grazing murals, endless hallways and all. The next three times that I'll be visiting the hallowed halls of horror won't be for entertaining educational purposes but for purely educational factoring reasons. The following sojourns to the REB won't be filled with remorse and grief but intrigue and awe at the architectural aspects of the place. It really is a nice looking place. Just not right now. Or for the next two and half weeks.

Allowed myself some time off today where I did my laundry, cleaned my room a bit, had tom yum soup, Thai salad, and sushi for lunch, and went to Safeway to stock up on even more chocolates and biscuits for whatever reasons they may be. It feels good. The therapeutic reasonings behind the freshly scented washed and dried clothes and spending money on unnecessary items like instant coffee and or chocolate for those late night cravings should be carefully examined. Bad on the purse strings but good on enlightening a stressed out girl who've just had a breakdown the previous night.

Soon it'll be another morning when it'll be time to pick myself up and continue on my panicky and unwittingly unfunny journey through the foggy and treachery mists of IFA, BPA, and QM2. I'm getting hungry again. It's the bloody cold weather tricking my body into thinking that I need more fuel also known as fats to be stored up for the hibernation period which humans generally don't need.

Thus end the rantings of one very agitated, pissed off, and conflicted female blogger. Shall return for more bitchings about men, smart-asses, and bad food causing me hunger pangs at the most inconvenient times.

Jill |

Thursday, June 01, 2006 | 01:04

rolling along

SWOT VAC had officially begun four days ago but it would be almost a week for me from tomorrow as I had ended all my classes or lectures or tutorials that I was obligated to attend last Thursday.

It's been going fairly alright and interesting on my part. Did some soul searching, started on a new book, revised most of the lectures that I had neglected and had been intending to do so for some time, watched a movie, randomly joined study groups in the library and dining hall, and indulged in some dodgy gossiping and secret-revealing conversations.

Though not as scandalous or vivacious as it may sound, it was indeed a refreshing change from the constant and monotonous subject discussion of CAPM, Calls and Puts, Imputation Credit, WACC, and a multitude of other various Finance abbreviations being thrown around. It's come to that point where I actually feel really comfortable talking about my crushes; past, present and possibly future ones, without actually blushing to the limit where my cheeks actually feel hot to the touch. I finally got the courage to talk about my latest most embarrassing and traumatising dream to date, revealed my secret crush of the past two or three months, but have not admitted to the fact that I may or may not like this specific other guy because I'm not sure if he does anymore. And I'm pretty certain that he has moved on.

Nothing new there.

So moving on to the next topic of the general public's interest. X-Men 3. Watched it on Tuesday night at Hoyts at Melbourne Central with a group of people which consisted of a ratio of 2:3 girls to guys. It was my first cinema watching outing in the land down under and I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable and cool the place was. The popcorn salty no doubt but it was a relatively more relaxing atmosphere as compared to back home where there'd be screaming kids along the aisles and handphones ringing incessantly throughout the movie. I don't think there was even an advertisment reminding us to switch our handphones off or put it on silent mode and I managed to get through the movie smoothly with no jarring ringing interruptions in my ears. Except for an ex IH-er who's apparently a fervent Wolverine fan who randomly hooted at Halle Berry everytime she appeared and held those disposable wooden chopsticks between his fingers ala Wolverine with his claws extende, and waved them in the air whenever Logan killed an enemy or generally did or said something cool.

I generally thought that the third installment of the X-Men franchise could have been a lot better considering that there was so much they could do with the abundance of character development; new and old, in the movie. I morosely lament the omission of what could have been an awesome cameo appearance of Gambit but it probably was for the best anyway because he wouldn't really have much to do in the movie as like the rest of the cast except for Logan, Ororo, and Hank McCoy. I don't want to spoil the movie for the ones who have not had the chance to watch it yet but do listen to everyone else. Stay for after the credits. It isn't that big of a deal to me but it does hint at a rather forthcoming idea.

The movie outing was probably the biggest thing to happen to me or here since I've arrived and done anything else outside of IH. That's how much my life has descended into the doldrums with the impending doom of the exams looming over my head. Stress levels high and rising with every passing day. Getting free chocolates at breakfast this week helps boost one's enthusiasm a bit but it just doesn't helps you dig your way through to getting an average of H1 does it? Maybe. We hope so.

Pancakes for breakfast at 9 later. Hoorah.

Jill |