Sat, Feb 26
Woke up at about 10.30am or so.. kind of occurred to me that Jeremy should have touched down in Perth about 4 hours ago or so. Anyway, felt quite lucky that just when I was wondering what's for lunch, Noorshidah asked if I was free for lunch. Went to Broadway (contrary to what you may think, it's NOT some musical avenue full of grandeur) and I had crumbed fish rice at the Japanese stall, while she had those Turkish kebabs. She couldn't finish her food though. Pity.
Went to Co-op to see if they're open... turned out that we were a little bit late, today being a half-day. I have this really weird habit and that's actually dragging my feet over any purchase, expensive or otherwise, compulsory or otherwise. I do know exactly what texts are needed for this semester, but everytime I get around to the Co-op (which I've been faithfully going to every day of the past week), I'd just pore at the pages... And walk out empty-handed. Just buy it, right? At least you get to utilise the book for THIS much longer.
I think, part of it actually stems from the fact the textbooks are so darn expensive. They've always said that buying 'em from NUS will save you a bomb, and it's still cheaper even if you factor in the packaging etc, but it's quite difficult for any arts & humanities texts to be the same - even novels are considered as "texts". That isn't the same for "standard" courses like economics, science and the likes, you see. Got mabz to help me to a quick check at NUS, but I'm certainly not counting that she'll be able to find them there. Also, I don't like buying second-hand books... I like the crispness and sophisticated feeling that comes with buying new books. I must say it irks me to be reading a book which has been highlighted somewhat by someone else. Ok, I'm spoilt.
Went to the city myself after lunch to get a calling card, it's cheaper in the city (the Wellington Street bus station to be exact) - you get 20% off there. So, for a $10 card, you pay $8 - and get 500 minutes worth of time to bug people in Singapore. The best cards for calling s'pore are supposedly GPS and Oasis - anyway. Went browsing at Angus & Robertson, and later Dymocks... browsing travel guides to be exact.
The bus 102 passes by the Swan River to and from UWA, and there's this boat ramp that you'll see, which is a kind of narrow stretch of elevated walkway (about 1km) that leads you quite far out into the water. As the bus went by, there was this newly-wed couple in their bridal costumes (?) walking hand-in-hand out and on top of the water, with the photographer snapping behind them. It just looked absolutely serene.
And all the girls in the bus went.... "awwwwwwwwwww...". It was very audible.
I thought my heart skipped a beat as well.
Returned back home to find that Yuen has just returned from Melbourne, after spending a holiday of 3 weeks with his relatives there. I think I was really awed when he was telling me about his experiences there, especially this particular phrase he said:
"If you're really into arts, Melb is THE epicentre of it all in Oz."
Dinner was my not-so-badly cooked rice and beef stew. I think, I'm not too bad at this. I still don't like cleaning up the dishes though. But who does?
Watched the election coverage on ABC after that. Labour won, Geoff Gallop's going into his second term.
However, I was somewhat bewildered when the referendum results for extended shopping hours was 36% YES, and 65% NO... what's so bad about extended shopping hours and shopping on a Sunday? The political commentator said the counting for the referendum votes was still in its preliminary stages, but I think we are definitely looking at a NO vote, if anything preliminary is to go by.
I had to call up 3 guys who put their name down at the OCF booth yesterday, to ask them if they'd like to go to church tomorrow and whether they're coming for the freshies welcome on Tuesday at Subiaco church.
The thing is, I'm so bad at doing anything vaguely associated with "asking people to do something".
I hope I didn't offend anyone by saying that... it's just that, I find it so hard to say "no" to requests and favours, hence I said I'll call those guys whom I talked to. But I do believe that religion is a personal thing, it should be an individual choice. Sign up by all means, but whether you want to attend church is solely up to you and you yourself... I mean, it's clearly stated in the flyer that the service is at 10.30am tomorrow, isn't it not?
It turned out that all 3 guys were not free tomorrow, at least that's what they said. One or two said they might be free for the freshies welcome, but it does make you wonder if it was just more than just lip service.
Decided that i'll give a call to jw, mabz and val in succession, cos if you keep the calls in a single loop without getting out of the "system", it is considered as one local call only (aka 20 cents). But I now realise that Saturday night is always a bad time to bug people, cos' it turned out that all were not at home.
Because they do know that if they said they were at home, it'd be at least an hour of incoherent ramblings, too many "as in", "it depends", "what if", "well...." coming out from yours sincerely.
Okay... so this is what it probably feels like when they're not around.
I almost certainly didn't ring with the intention to find out whether "cultural anthropology" has been found.
If this is what it feels to miss people, I guess, I have to admit that I miss you guys.
But I do realise very clearly that this is no time to dwell on everything that's on the other side, despite how green it may look. Certainly not when I've just returned to Perth, and not when I'm feeling bright.
It's ok, really. It won't hurt to cook by myself for a little bit longer.
After all, if you want to eat, you should learn to cook. So what if you're a guy?