Friday

I realise that the sun is rising earlier these days; 5.34am to be exact. I’ve seen it rise outside my window when I was crawling into bed the other day, which reminds me, I really have to start sorting out my sleep pattern before it really screws me up.

I've been up all day up to the wee hours of the morning, listening to the songs on my laptop to keep me awake just because I'm a bloody lazy fucker and I can't seem to study so I resort to reading the thoughts of other people in the blogsphere. Blog hopping is my hobby; I have an insatiable appetite to know what other people are thinking and what's going on in other parts of the world. Kepoh.

Like the fact that Frangi is charging for entry, and that my favourite Nasi Lemak stall in Cheras no longer exists.

I've never really detached myself from my homeland. I feel that my life has become so dependant on past memories that it is inevitable that I base my current way of living on whatever it is I was used to back home. I realise how empty I feel now, not being able to even feast on Bak Kut Teh or live off meals of Limau Ais with Roti Pisang at 3am because I was lonely at night.

I still try to hold on to that past, keeping “traditions” alive by taking 2 hour showers because water is cheap and plentiful and flooding the garden so that the little wormies will die and rise to the surface. So much for Stage II Water Restrictions in Melbourne.

~

Today the sky felt obliging enough to deliver a few droplets of water to the parched earth... something it has been reluctant to do for the past month or so. Yeah, so there were a few droplets of water falling from the sky last week too, but I do not even consider today's brief downpour as TRUE rain. To me, rain is anything in excess of 20mm/day. THAT is rain. Anything else is just pathetic.

Rocks in my hand and in my head. I'm studying for my geology exam and I can't make sense of all the bloody bits of earth in front of me. So, this is GRANODIORITE and that is GABBRO. So this is TUFF and that is SCORIA. So this is HORNBLENDITE and that is PYROXENITE. Makes no difference to me, really. They are just grey lumps of hard stuff placed into tiny individual boxes and stuffed into a drawer so that first year geeks like me could look at them in search of some sort of enlightenment.

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I've not had a real meal in Melbourne. Maybe I'm just fussy, or broke, or clueless, but this city doesn't seem to offer any gastronomically challenging food. The closest they have to SWEET is some bloody diluted syrup water. The closest they have to Dim Sum is bloody DIMSIM, don't ask me where that name came from, but yes, it's DEEP FRIED in batter and tastes like you're eating horse cud.

Same goes for the bloody food I'm eating in the Union House. I force myself to swallow the dry bits of chicken in the Foccacia, telling my brain that it's really SATAY chicken as they claim it is, and not some ciplak version using bottled sauce from the local supermarket. My brain fails me yet again; I wonder why.

More chemical molecules in front of my face. Whoever came up with the idea of "examinations" for students should have been locked away into an iron chest and thrown into the sea. I don't see the point in knowing whether this stupid compound is a cis or trans or meridian isomer. I don't care about the crystal lattice theory, or why Titanium is stable at its (IV) oxidation state. These things are all gibberish to me. I don't need them to survive.

Why the hell am I learning about them then?

~

I must have dozed off. The lights are shining directly at me, and my eyes are hurting. 10.28pm. I've not eaten for the past 8 hours but I don't feel hungry.

I'm at it again, chewing my fingernails, and scratching at the scabs that are starting to appear on my arms because of dehydration and lack of moisturiser on my already dry skin.

Three more weeks to the end of the exams.

Just three more weeks to freedom.

I have to believe that I can do this.

I have to believe I’m not just trying to be.