I'm That Guy

A literary meme inspired by MercerMachine and his post that started it all.

I'm that shy little boy, who followed the popular kids around from a distance so that I might learn their secrets and be popular too.

I'm that guy who needs a visit to the dentist and get his teeth cleaned. I'm the guy who needs to spend money on himself and stop drinking bad coffee.

I'm that guy who cares too much and doesn't care enough. I'm that guy who's too patient and too impatient. I'm that guy who knows too much and says too little.

I'm that guy who would sing only when no one is around to hear him. I'm that guy who would play 伍佰 songs over and over again. I'm the guy who tries to cry but can't. I'm that guy who punches watercoolers so that I can feel something. Sometimes, I feel like doing that again.

I'm that quiet guy that leaves his room door open, in the hope that someone will stop and talk to him. I'm that guy who replies "I donno" with a smile when asked how it's going. No one figures that it means I'm down.

I'm that guy who, tried as I might, could never get you to love more. I'm that guy whose heart you keep breaking. I'm that guy who keeps coming back for more.

I'm that guy who's just doing the best he can.

Bees

Today, I help 2 bees escape from my room and another bee escape from someone else's room.

I feel good about that :)

Camping

Phew, finally a chance to take a short breather and write something.

Martin and Chris got me along for an adventure camp over the weekend, in a place called Arm River, near the Cradle Mountains. I was in two minds cos I had (and still have) an uncompleted assignment.

But it was really a good deal, just 35 AUD for 2 nights and 1.5 days with food and lodging included so I went. Stopped at Campbell Town on the Friday evening drive up for a pizza dinner and it was wonderful.

It was a very "medical" trip though, since it's organised by a society for medical students and most of the people were medical or nursing students. But it's a wonderful chance to meet new people.

They got an real-life Aboriginal to come in on the first morning and he took us on a short bushwalk and showed us the kinds of food that can be obtained from the bush and talked to us about how they used to live off the land and their traditions and beliefs.

This was the most educational part of it and just for this, it was worth abandoning my essay for a weekend.

Went abseiling in the afternoon. Was a long time since I last did that. The way they do it is so safety...double line plus a double knotted safety line. I think I prefer the SAF way, single line with an improvised harness, no safety. :-)

Games and group activities at night. Laugh until stomach pain...loads of funny picture resulted...and a very good sleep.

Rafting in the morning. This is new to me, never rafted before. And it's all I expected: wet, cold (feet especially), impossible wetsuits. But at least now people ask me to go rafting I can say I do before and still think it's not worth the wet and cold. But fun.

All-in-all, a very good time, even though I'm disappointed that we didn't go caving. The caves were flooded from the unexpectedly heavy rain.

Just one assignment left for the sem. Almost done. Just have maybe another 15% left, mostly writing a coherent conclusion and going over for spelling and grammar and making sure the references are good. I wanna finish by tomorrow night.

HRM test next week today. I hope I can still remember how to cram cos it's really alot of material and I have not even started yet. I wanna finish my above mentioned assignment first.

Wonder if Grace is aware of the test. Have not seen her in class for awhile. But I really should not be wasting neurons worrying for someone who can't seem to bother about anything herself. But maybe I'll just mention it if I bump into her.

Yeah, boring life for the moment. Back to work!

Crap for Lunch...

Called HER last night after arranging a telephone coversation on Monday night via SMS. She talked far more than me. As usual.


Kitchen served "Make Your Own Salad Roll" for lunch again. In protest, against the no-food-should-leave-the-dining-hall rule, I took my self-made salad roll to the JCR and ate my lunch in front of the TV.

So there.

What If...

What if this is all just a dream? What if I go to bed tonight and wake up tomorrow morning at home and find that actually I'm jobless? What if I wake up in Batam and have to go to work?

Sometimes, this place, this things that I am doing, seems so beautiful, so unreal that it all seems to be just a dream.

Lonely

A break the the rain, fog and gloom. Took a chance. Another long, lonely run. Was caught in the rain. But glad for the chance.

Sometimes, I'm so lonely I just wanna break down and cry.

Heavy

Heavy rain now. It's just bloody pouring. It's raining like the way it rains in SIN. Making me miss home alittle. But actually, I think I'm missing home only because I am not not quite as enjoying myself this semester. I never had this problem.

Uni, or rather just this sem, is bringing the worst out of me again; the parts about bad tempers, impatience and perfectionism. I know that it's just that I'm not having as much fun, that I haven't been given a choice of units this sem and I'm not enjoying them as much as last sem and I'm not having as much social interaction in the classroom now.

Well, just a few more weeks, nothing to do but to just push on.

But given everything, here, I have finally had a chance for quiet, undistrubed reflection and I am more at peace with myself now than for as long back as I can remember. I'm rather more sure of myself and I'm not longer actively searching for myself now.


Another, much better, shot of my botak head. I'm enjoying this haircut. I might just keep it as long as I am here. This was something I had always wanted to do but never quite did. And in SIN I might just get mistaken as a chao REC again. Dowan that to happen.

New Hairstyle

Botak head!...much more cooling...


I was gonna shave my own head but Vern and Huey Yi chanced upon me and couldn't resist having some fun. I would guess it's better than doing it myself. Have to go buy them some chocolate.

Vern says I look like ninja turtle. I hope she means my fave one, Michelangelo. Gillian then said actually she wanted to do it for me. I wonder what it is with girls and shaving heads...

Build Your Own Salad Roll...

For lunch. And I pay 250 AUD a week for this... :( ...lazy kitchen

Katrina: The Anti-9/11

The Anti-9/11

"(T)he only lessons of Katrina are that life is dark and death is everywhere, that nature isn't our friend and that Americans, too, can behave like savages under duress, and that all the blessings of liberalism and democracy and capitalism can't protect us from the worst. There's nothing we can do, except give money and pray, and there's no lesson to be learned - except, perhaps, be careful where and how you build your cities."

It's awful, awful. What's disturbing me the most is that the images I see on TV, that those left behind are almost exclusively black and poor(?). Also the public fingerpointing. Shouldn't those in leadership positions be doing something more worthwhile rather than pin blame on others, though I see the current mess as a result of failure of leadership starting from the mayor up to Bush.

And the most puzzling thing is why they are taking so long to respond to this, something they knew was coming, in contrast to the tsunami.

Well, hindsight is easy...Washington Post editoral: Left Behind

First Day of Spring

The first day of spring. A bush beside the Commerce Annex. Flowers.