i am not belle

WOOO! Three exams down! I had chem and psych yesterday. On the way to the Pavilion, I ran into a girl who also did the same chem course as me who told me that the 891 uni express buses all went to Randwick. I was skeptical, and there was another girl in there who said the same thing. Unfortunately, after we swiped our travel tickets, the driver made the announcement that the bus was not going to Randwick. I was a bit peeved, because there was no point in getting off the bus because we had already used the ticket. Sucks. The girl said she received some student email informing her of the changes made to the 891 buses, but I hadn’t received it. I suspect it’s probably spam. Such cunning timing. We ended up getting off the last bus stop and legging it to the racecourse, which took a good fifteen minutes at almost running pace. It did a good job at shaking off the pre-exam jitters, though. The entire Pavilion was full of chem students (moles).

Anyway, Jonathan waited around with me til my next exam, which was at 6. Night exams suck. It was raining as well, but thankfully, I was done in about an hour and twenty minutes (as a few other people seemed to be) and went over to Ash’s (thank goodness for the bus stop at Anzac Parade which takes us up a few blocks!). Met up with everybody and went to Albion’s for post-exam cheap steak. We went to Big Echo afterwards for karaoke and paid for an hour’s session and stayed for two and a half hours, but the people at the counter didn’t stop our music access, so we kept on going. In the end, we managed to sneak out without them noticing. It was really funny watching Chin and Ash sing to ABBA in falsetto. I wish I knew how to upload voice memos. I got the whole thing on tape (phone).

Am so tired. Joey and I got to Town Hall in time for the nightrider. I thought I’d sleep in this morning, but I ended up waking up at 9. That was just horrible. It’s a little past 10.30 now and I am so tired and sleepy. I feel like orange juice. Mmm.. cravings.

Despite the terrential downpour, I headed into uni today. As aquaculture gathered in my shoes, I was starting to doubt how wise the decision was. Chin and Ash had booked a study room in the library and had it til midnight, which was awesome. The bad thing about the rooms is that there are gaps on top of each side of the walls, so there really isn’t much privacy, especially when any talking is involved. You practically have to whisper to not get interrupted by the people next door telling you to keep it quiet. Come on, it was a Sunday. There were enough people there to make it look like a Thursday afternoon. I did some mass printing and actually got to the point where the printer ran out of paper. That problem was quickly fixed. With paper.

I don’t know what happened after that, but time flew by very quickly. Jacob came and joined us in the afternoon and we had ordered pizza. I can’t eat crusts so where was a stack of them in the corner. Some people say that the crust is the best bit of the pizza. I hate it. It’s just dough!

Did very little studying, if that includes skimming through your psych notes and highlighting every second dot point. I felt like highlighting everything, but I might as well have highlighted nothing, and the only good thing about highlighting is that you get to differentiate between relevant and not-so-relevant points. Needless to say, I was in no mood to do any sort of analytical thinking this afternoon. I blame the weather. And my wet shoes.

Ate raw salmon as soon as I got home. I feel like a Magnum later on tonight. I’ve been doing a lot of work. I deserve it. Well, it’s not technically a reward if I am feeding it to myself. Not like anybody else is here to acknowledge it, but that’s the best part about being by yourself. You don’t need to set yourself up to impress anybody.

I may or may not head into uni tomorrow. At this stage, it’s looking very unlikely, especially if the weather is going to be anything like it was today. Long commuting hours isn’t all that encouraging, either. Might give it a miss, but I do need to borrow Joey’s stats notes. Even though we’re doing different stats courses, we’re learning along the same lines every week, so hopefully it should help. I need to spend more time on chem equations and memorising. Argh, the perils of memory. How I lack capability in it.

I need a drink.

Went to uni, missed out on chem and maths labs. Showed up to the final psych lab where we were doing questionnaires that were aimed at testing our attitudes. Interesting, quiet as usual. Studied in the library afterwards and got some biotech notes down. Brought my laptop, so my left shoulder is temporarily paralysed. Rushed home to finish off psych report, but not before catching Family Guy and American Dad. Ended up finishing it just then and emailed it off. I am really sleepy but not tired, which explains why I am still here. I’m writing in half sentences tonight/morning because I can’t comprehend long, stringy sentences anymore. Boobies. I still have Joanna’s monkey finger puppet, who we’ve affectionately called Dilusha. It kinda looks like him. I’ve been sitting here for so long that my hot tea has now turned fridge-worthy. I used to get smoke and steam mixed up a lot, and the good thing about hanging around engineers is that they explain the difference to you. Unfortunately, I had written a poem where I used the word smoke instead of steam and a friend pointed it out, but no way am I fixing up the poem. That would totally kill the ignorant vibe I had going on. Of course, I had written that during my Arts days at Usyd, which are no longer. I had a dream about it last night, again. I’ve had several dreams lately where I am back there studying literature. It was kind of sad, but also sweetly nostalgic. I didn’t hang around a lot of people there (nobody, to be precise). There was Kaye, but we had different timetables and rarely got to see each other, and she made friends in her courses, where I had not in mine. Maybe literature was just a very lonesome thing to study. It’s all very reflective, and I suppose that means spending a lot of time by yourself to.. I dunno, think or something. I spent those times across the street in Broadway shopping. Am glad those days are over.

I told you I can’t have a clear head after finishing an assignment. I get way too giddy and sleepy. I should go to bed before I cause some real damage, like spill juice or something.

On Thursday night, a bunch of us went to the viewing of the CSE Revue, Gossip Geek. I am very proud of the performance put on by Segolene and Huy (personal friends), because they’ve put a lot of work over these past couple of months into the production, rehearsing into the wee hours of the night at most times. The rehearsals paid off with an impressive set production, dance sequences and geek gags. The show was based around a girl-boy romance story and narrated in a style similar to Gossip Girl. I found the opening titles extremely impressive, almost verbatim, but had a nice twist to the CSE theme. The only downfall with the revue was that there was a considerable lack of performers, but other than that, I really enjoyed the show. Out of the revues held by UNSW this year, they’ve definitely won in the technical department, except for the very last score, where there was a microphone glitch- or so it appeared to be the case. That’s the last of the revues this year, sadly. I don’t know why the Arts faculty doesn’t have one. It’s such an irony, out of all departments to NOT have a revue, it had to be Arts. I reckon they would do an excellent show if one was ever considered. There’s just so much more people would understand in a literary backdrop. One of the disappointments I’ve had with watching faculty based revues was that I didn’t understand what they were talking about half the time. I didn’t understand anything from Med, except it was just all about SEX. Law was just witty, in that, you had to have read the blurb of a Torts book before you could laugh like you meant it. CSE was much better, in that I understood the jokes they’ve put in, thanks to a science degree and engineering friends. Can’t wait til next year’s. A CSE night is always a fun night :O)

Friday was a day of pandemonium (for me). I had a psych report due and had done less than half of it. Geoff was nice enough to drop us home the night before, but even though I came home at a decent enough time, I was way too tired to turn on the computer, never mind continuing this blasted assignment. Jake always manages to fall asleep by the time Geoff reaches Cabramatta, I noticed. Anyway, I was in the library with Jonathan and Ashish trying to get the work done. They both managed to go away for an hour or two and I finished my work. Maybe I just needed to get rid of some distraction, haha. Never catch me in a state of panic- it’s almost hilarious. Running around the library computers, printers and photocopiers.

Had a POD meeting afterwards, which wasn’t really a meeting because nobody showed up. We did some YouTubing as usual, then went to eat at Ramen Kan. I really liked what Chin was eating- it kinda tasted like congee.

I spent today bludging and trying to do my bit for the biotech debate which may or may not be happening tomorrow. The lecturer said she was going to post up the names of the people who will be doing their sections tomorrow. She said this last Monday. It is now the Sunday before the Monday of our next lab, and they’re still not online. She’s so stupid. I’ve got my CATEI evaluation responses ready.

On a MUCH HAPPIER note,
NO MORE BIOTECH LABS! WE’RE FINISHED WITH E.COLI!
WOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(just tutes now, but it sure beats staying back for four hours!)

Also, the Moon Festival is happening in Cabramatta. I have completely forgotten about it. Had I not, I would go and laugh at all the little shits / wannabe gangsters.

It’s been incredibly windy these past few days. I’m surprised I haven’t seen a car blow over yet.
Hope y’all enjoying your Sunday!

It has been a rather tumultuous week for me and I have been trying to mentally and emotionally gather myself so I don’t fall apart any time soon. I am being vague because there’s a lot to cover, and it’s all just me really. Not what I would classify as a crisis or anything like that, but I’m entitled to feel a little shit about myself and my surroundings. I have been dealing with it well, I guess, seeming more composed than normal before going off to indulge in my own gloom and getting 23 mosquito bites all across my legs. It wasn’t so bad til the morning after (Friday), when I was at Ash’s and it just started to get really irritating. Alcohol was suggested, and the only alcohol in his room was Southern Comfort, so we swiped that all over my legs. It kinda felt better until it felt a little sticky, so lemons were like an after-coat on top of the alcohol. It was terrible. To make things worse, I was sitting my stats exam and it started to get itchy again and I wanted to scratch it so bad and I couldn’t concentrate and all I could think of was how much I wanted to hose down the alcohol and lemon juice with cold water. It was just painful sitting still for an hour. Before the exam, Chin and Ash walked me to the room and Ash gave Dilusha the Monkey (part of Joey’s finger puppet collection) to me for good luck. I placed it on my lap and upon finishing the test, I ran out of the room and Dilusha fell off! I didn’t realise it til 40 minutes into the next hour, so I ran back to the room. There was a class and the back row of the tutorial saw me as I was on the floor pointing to the ground and they ignored me. I got some paper off a guy and wrote FINGER PUPPET in large letters and sat right outside the door hovering the sign about, but to no avail. Those fuckers were lifeless. They had a quick glance at the floor, turned back to me and shook their heads and went back to BLUDGING. They weren’t even writing or noting anything down while the tutor was speaking. At one point, the guy at the end of the row almost slipped out of his chair! Grr. Anyway, I managed to grab Dilusha after the tutorial. Farking hell. I was just sick of that day already. A lot of worrying and running around and post-crying, I just wanted to get out of uni. Ulrika, Geoff and I went to Ramen Kan afterwards for lunch and then we strolled through Chinatown’s Friday night markets. There was so much food! Will definitely check that place out some time soon (next week, fingers crossed!)

Dilusha the Monkey (aka. Carol)

Aside from that, my Saturday was pretty usual in the morning. Went to Penshurst in the evening to meet up with Ray and Jake. It took me AN HOUR AND A HALF to get to friggin’ Penshurst. I was shocked. I didn’t know it would take me that long. Anyway, then off we went to Hilda’s for her 20th. The girl was already drunk and it wasn’t long before she passed out- and remained that way til about 10.30. We left at around 12, and Geoff brought his car and he ever so kindly let me drive it back to Cabra. Actually, I took him around central Cabramatta, Canley Heights, Bonnyrigg, St Johns Park, Bonnyrigg, Mt Pritchard and Liverpool. It was a fully fledged ghetto tour (sort of). Liverpool was particularly funny because we went to get Harry’s Hot Dogs (still open past midnight!) and as we were walking back to the car, the hooligans in the car lot were beeping their horns to the chant of AAPT. It was funny. So much beeping and people yelling at each other to shut up. It was the epitome of classy. Afterwards, we went back to my place where my dad greeted us and he looked so funny with messed up hair and he kept offering Geoff slippers. Sigh. We had some coffee, chit-chatted and he left. It was a good catching up night.

I had planned to start on my psych assignment today, but found myself reading up random articles on Wikipedia instead. I really should though, at least, get something done. Procrastination sucks.

& would rape sound better if it were pronounced rapé?

So much for staying up last night. I didn’t get to sleep til about 3.30 and when I woke, it was already 10.30- a quarter way into my stats lecture, so I decided not to go into uni today. Actually, I made that decision last night while I was still online. I might as well be definite about what I’m going to be doing today than go to bed unsure. At least, it would give me some peace of mind about some things. I definitely need certainty at this time.

I had some breakfast and watched the remainder of the US Open men’s finals. It went by so quickly- the last I’ve watched of the US Open was the women’s semi finals where Serena chucked that hissy fit and threatened the lines-person. That was kinda funny, especially how she denied the entire thing at a press conference shortly after. That was lame. I am glad Kim Clijsters got through, she won the finals :0)

Today’s a nice semi-sunny semi-breezy day. There’d be no point going into uni as I would be stuck in lectures and tutes for a straight four hours. It doesn’t seem like much, but I just can’t sit still for something like half an hour without fidgeting or finding excuses to get up. I would really like to just get up in the middle of a tutorial and go for a walk and come back with a clear head. I don’t think science is my thing at all. It requires too much analysis, and I like how things work without knowing all the intricate details. I mean, knowledge is something, but knowing too much just kills my lust for life. I don’t even want to be a scientist anymore. According to social psychology, scientists apparently have better quality friends. It’s to do with their work environment and because they spend most of the time working on their research, they have smaller groups of peers, which perhaps leads to closer bonding, as opposed to people who work with lots of people. I think it’s got to do with how you distribute yourself between everybody. You don’t need to conduct research on that, it’s just a basic fact and everybody knows it: the less friends you have, the closer you are; the more friends you have, the more effort you’re required to put in just to keep tabs on them.

Speaking of friends, I was looking at the birthday list of invitees and started to feel a bit nostalgic. There were people who weren’t there who should have been and people who should not be there were there. I altered the list a little and asked Ray to send an updating email to everyone, which he so kindly did. You never think the people who you were once so close with won’t be so close with you anymore in about a year or two. Nobody thinks about that often, and nobody really wants to, either. I don’t think it helps when you ruminate on such things, but it’s bound to happen, and sometimes it’s pretty sad. I was eating with a friend recently and from the corner of my eye I spotted a girl walk past whom I used to go to uni with and I wanted to wave, but had enough time to see her look at me as she continued to walk. That was a bit cut. It turns out she’s pregnant. Maybe she didn’t want to confront that, but it’s not like I’ll judge. I’ve already seen enough of my high school friends get knocked up and now there’s babies popping out everywhere. I don’t mean to make it sound so condescending (though that isn’t my intention), but it’s just weird. Maybe it’s not so weird (like up in the Central Coast), but it’s a bit sad. I think I’ve talked about this with a couple of friends and it’s unimaginable to empathise what teenage mothers might be going through. Here you are, just starting out your life when you fall pregnant and pop out a baby. If you’re working or at uni, you surely cannot continue, or at the very least, you must allow yourself several months to recuperate from the birth and bond with your child. Next thing you know, they just cease study or work and it’s all about the baby. Then again, you’re still in the peak of your life, despite the presence of a baby, and you’ll want to go out and have fun and enjoy life like any other teen/twenteen, and why should anybody stop you? Just because you got yourself knocked up in the first place… but still, haven’t these girls heard of contraception? They’re old enough to know the consequences. How slack is that, calling a baby a ‘consequence’. It’s true though, right? Fuck, I hate being so diplomatic. I can never reach a solid conclusion.

Damn it, I’m supposed to be studying stats.