17 July 2004
I went to Subiaco just now to buy bread, chips, more ham, my Multi-Rider card (that’s like a card that stores 40 bus rides and it will save me 25% as compared to paying by cash) and 10 kiwi-fruits. Heard that over in Sydney, there isn’t any student concession transport fares to talk about. Luckily there are fare reductions for students over here in Perth.
We (the four of us in the house) had a small meeting just now to iron out our share of the household chores etc… Hmm. Household chores? That sounds like a foreign word to me also. So is shopping for groceries. Imagine cheow going to the fruit market and trying to pick out 10 beautiful kiwi fruits. He’ll probably come back with 10 rotten ones haha.
Mum just called. And she was telling me to take care etc.. then she was saying (in between sobs) that “everyone really misses u because you were the one who made everyone in the house busy.. from asking dad to drive you to the bus station, asking me (mum) to buy fried noodles in the middle of the night… screaming at Kevin to get out of the computer whenever you want to use it, calling Joy a smelly toad and now, it’s so silent at home and we’re wondering where have you been, where you are, whether you’re okay…”
And I felt the tears coming… yeah.
Wonder what it’d be like back home when I come back in Feb 05?
I hope my family still remains the same way as it is… hopefully my mum gets along well with my grandmother by then.
I hope… that I’d have seen the money that the school owes me in my bank account. And that my ex-colleagues would have gotten paid what is due to them too.
I hope my friends remain the same… and that good things will come into your life… maybe you’ll find the right guy or girl? Maybe… NS will be abolished? nah. That won’t happen and u know that. =X
That Valuair will fly to Perth from Changi Airport!!! I heard that plan is currently in the pipelines.. so pray very hard that it’d go through yah? =)
19 July 04
First day of semester today… feels quite cool to be back in school after 8 months, but in quite a strange twist of fate, school isn’t in Singapore anymore but in the land down under.
First lecture for today at 10am was the Political Science 102 lecture. And the unit coordinator (aka main lecturer) is a Dr Samina Yasmeen, who is from Pakistan. She looks a lot like Ms Jebamoney (TJC Geography tutor – the similarities come down to their saris as well haha.) Like, she was blasting some Pakistani pop-Bollywoodish sounding music across the whole LT before the lecture started… cool. Some of the guys said the group who sang those songs is called the “Buddha Bar” – what an interesting and mysterious name for a pop group. Nothing academic was lectured, it being the first lecture but the next lecture, which is on Wednesday will be on International Systems: Basic Elements. From the crowd of students, it’s pretty obvious that this is a very popular unit.
Second lecture for today at 12pm was the European Studies 102 lecture. And I think, as far as my eyes can see, there are only two Asians in the entire LT. *shrugs* We’re talking about civil society in Europe after 1989 over here, particularly pertaining to individuals like the migrants, the far-right, media and film. And this lecturer started to get down to business right on the first lecture. One interesting thing about this unit is that there are a lot of films to see… erm but yeah, lots of film reviews have to be done and it’d be counted towards the final score for this unit.
Third lecture for today at 3pm was the History 152 lecture. The lecturer couldn’t make it cos’ he is away on research leave (??!) but he video-taped himself and he got a post-grad student to show the video. Kind of funny to have a lecturer talk to u via a video tape, like some science fiction thingy…
There are so many readings I think I can just cry now k.
Like, there is a PS lecture on Wed and there are 3 essential readings + 2 further readings for the one lecture alone?? Even though an Arts student has relatively fewer contact hours (I only have 12 proper on-campus academic hours per week), the readings will just slowly bury me deep down or something… but I’m gonna try to do my best around here.
And I realized that time management is so important around here… u really must juggle all the readings from the four units…
I found one friend who’s doing the exact same units as me today (with the exception of European Studies) – his name is Jeremy… used to be from AJC. Phew. Thank god that I’m spared the agony of entering a LT alone… and many of my OG mates are doing the PS unit also. =)
Right. Got to run. Can’t possibly be writing blogs everyday now… my first anthropology lecture is tmrw and cc is asking me over to his place for bak kut teh for dinner tmrw.
20 July 04
And i'm aware that:
1) China made a huge protest over DPM Lee's private visit to Taiwan. Like, an unprecedented outburst.
2) That the same guy in (1), DPM Lee, will take over as S'pore PM on 12 August.
3) That there was a tragic fire in an Indian primary school that killed 89 kids.
so i'm not exactly isolated from local and global news over here haha.