Apa jadi semalam?

Dua-dua kelas... potong stim dan rasa macam tak guna langsung 

 Kelasku yg pertama. Perbentangan tak jadi sebab tak cukup masa

Kelasku yang kedua. Biasanya, aku tak mulakan percakapan, tapi semalam dia macam bermasalah dan tak sanggup nak cakap dgn aku. Tak sanggup nak cakap dgn org lain dlm kumpulan kita masa kelas sebab dia ucap sesuatu yang....Bincang pun macam tak bincang sebab tak faham soalan. Lepas tu, kita semua senyap je. . Sedih, takde org cakap dengan dia. Akhir sekali, aku je yang cakap dengan dia walaupun I admit dia sepatutnya cakaplah elok sikit. Ataupun, mungkin dia tak bermaksud nak sakiti hati org.  The AMs yang teramatlah bijaksana... macam itulah... tapi nasib baik aku tahan je lah apa yang dia cakap tu sebab he's the friendliest to me. I can't afford to lose what we built in 4 weeks and I can't afford to lose another friend 

Aku terangkan kenapa. Semalam, lepas kelas, dia tanya aku apa aku nak buat di hari minggu. Lepas tu, aku pun boraklah. Entah kenapa tiba-tiba berubah tone pulak dgn aku. Hairan, masa dalam kelas aku cakap dgn kau, macam tak nak je cakap dgn aku. Then, before I walked out I said BYE lagi tahu tak tapi dia sibuk dgn benda lain :(

Aku fikir kenapalah dgn dia nie. Mana tahu, tiba-tiba dia jalan menuju ke arah aku. Buat kali pertama, dia pakai lif. Sebab biasanya dia pakai tangga dgn kawan-kawan dia. And the nicest thing he did for me was hold the door. Aku tanyalah, eh, kenapa tiba-tiba pakai lif? Jawabnya: Because you keep me company. 

Ya ke??? Tapi masa dalam kelas kau macam.... haih, takpelah. I realise I should keep this friend forever, man. 

And when we arrived at the cafeteria, about to walk off hurriedly, he said: Bye! See you Monday!

Pelik  tapi benar. Aku pun tak tahu kenapa  dia baik sgt dgn aku. 

Ah, semalam. Hari yang tak produktif langsung.

I still can't believe

I actually went FIRST  to speak on the presentation yesterday. Like, hello? I was shaking when my first few slides popped up but thank God I hid that fear with my LOUD voice. TO be honest, I didn't expect my voice to be that loud. I don't even speak to my kawans in that kind of volume.

I think the exchange students purposely let me go first.... because apparently, my slides were too awesome >.<  Few mins before presentation, that guy just casually told me: You're up 1st! 

My reaction: You're kidding me!

Well, it's kinda my fault also; didn't tell them I refuse to be 1st but because I had a choice of which part to do so I thought... it's okay-lah... I don't mind anything.

HAHA, I swear the exchange students were telling me to relax and take it like NOTHING. That's the best part of cooperating with exchange students, man. You see the difference between them and us Asians. 

Needless to say, all went well. Everyone in my group esp. that guy was praising and complimenting me non-stop. 

I'll miss you guys so much esp. when sem is over! 

The beauty of our friendship

You know, I've never been this close to a person before... Sometimes I think, am I dreaming? Is it really happening? Never have I felt this way before. Especially with someone you met just 4 weeks ago.

I like how you're really, really, really casual with me.

You talk to me like I've known you forever.

You're non-judgemental and caring.

You're thankfully NOT ROWDY.

It's truly a pleasure meeting you, buddy :) From day ONE until now and forever. I can't believe we're halfway thru' the semester. Yet, in just 4 weeks of friendship, I've learnt so much, so much from you :) Thank you for working with me on our oral presentation and for the very beautifully-crafted compliments that followed after. It's truly an experience for me... I guess it is for you, too haha. :) 

I'm going to miss you when you go back to the land down under. 

Promise me ONE thing, mister. Don't DELIBERATELY FORGET ME once you touch down in Kangaroo Land.

Working with the exchange students...

is pretty RELAXING. Maybe it's their style of doing things, pretty laid-back unlike us Asians or at least M'sians who get paranoid and jumpy at almost everything the moment something doesn't quite work out.

Trust me, I've had tons of experience working with the M'sians and MOST of the time, my group members are just........ well, you get it-lah.

So, I thought for a change, WHY NOT the exchange people kan?


And I think their laid-back-ness kind of gives me my OWN space and time to do my work. NO pressure at all! Like, really? Is this what group work with them is like? Wow? I'm amazed!

Just gonna go with the flow and see what happens. For a change.  Gimme a break, wei. I've been slaving for the past idunnohowmanyyears like crazy.


I'm working with two Australians and another M'sian. Thank God, the Australians are quite friendly though sometimes I feel like they're MUCH better at expressing or explaining themselves. I dunno why but the way they write and talk to me is just.... ahhhhhhhhhhh... so BEAUTIFUL :) Even when they say my name, they take the time to enunciate/pronounce my name properly. This, once again, I have to thank my parents for giving me and English-sounding name which I think suits me PRETTY well =D. Otherwise, I dunno how they're gonna call me. Probably have to think of ONE which is gonna be hard because... everyone's rachel, melissa, sarah, caryn, vivian. Eh, so common-wei. hahaha. how did i get here?

Ah, JL, stop! Now, go do work!

Here I go again...

Possibly one of the most memorable tutes ever... Global Cities first tute.

when we were asked to introduce ourselves, letting ppl know your future careers, and our favourite city.

So, everyone else started thinking and then when the time came, everyone started blabbering...

Came one  M'sian girl's turn, she said her favourite city was Melb (like, duh because she went on exchange there) which was enough to send the Melbourne-nians in my class into
laughter that died down when they realised they needed to give others a chance to speak.


Then, one Aussie girl in my row said her favourite city was KL.

KL? REALLY????

NOW that made the whole class LOL a thousand times harder than we did with Melb.

How I wish every tute was FUN like that...

Indeed :)

Final sem syndrome

Final sem syndrome is getting to me. Of course, I try to submit my assignments on time like I usually do BUT there are times when I feel I haven't given my all; things could've been better IF I had slightly better vocabulary so that expression isn't so unclear. I realize that at times, I tend to just follow whatever that darn journal article has to say... then after writing so much, I think, wait... whatthe>>>> am I supposed to say again? It's like, you wanna say L but you end up saying P. Then, when I've submitted the whole thing, it's like AHHH!!!!! YA HOR, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF IT THAT WAY????

Not to mention, I'm also taking things slower. Not PANICKING for presentations at all even though I'm literally UNPREPARED because I don't wanna seem so bossy with my group... since that guy is VERY VERY NICE to me. This is also owing to the fact that I unfortunately and unexpectedly TWISTED my leg on that fateful Wednesday morning just right after getting dressed when I noticed I didn't have my phone with me and went back to my bedside table to get it. Gah, I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself. One, for being super forgetful, Two, for having stubborn, culprit, jinxed legs.  For once, it had to be the left leg that was cramp...MY RIGHT is supposedly weaker than the left (which probably explains why I hate to play the pedal on the piano).


Then again, because of the cramp left leg, my right kinda pushed the left a little. Next thing I know, I fell *SPLAT* on the floor.

Don't ask me HOW i managed to walk on Wednesday for classes but I went off after apologising  to that guy abt delaying discussion for presentation till the following week - our presentation week. Thankfully, he understood why and didn't SCREAM at me or appear to be agitated/irritated/frustrated/wanting to start a fight with me.

Instead he went: Hey, how're you...... Oh, okay. Get better soon.

NO Thanks to that rather nasty fall, I had ONE day of excruciating pain, couldn't walk, had to delay another presentation and forgo 3 classes.

Very nice, JL.

Non-stop assignments, here I come!

When I think back...

how on Earth did I manage to kawan the Ang Mohs? I dunno. I'm such an introvert, okay? You say, aiyah, of course-lah you got cousins who are AMs what? Heh. Ya, you think so easy?

Trust me, I don't think it's that straightforward. Maybe I'm just lucky this year that the exchange students seem to be mixing around a bit more. But well, that doesn't change the fact that I took two years just to assess the Ang Mohs. Some gave pretty much one-word answers when I asked them something and then well, I'd just stop there... Most of them just appear to be busy doing their own thing. So, I thought, okay, fine. Aku mmg tak biasa, diorg pun tak biasa, next time, x yah ckp apa2.




This year though, sem 1, My Auth study group... we took some time to break the ice, ease the nerves and small talk. See, I told you? Not easy. But at least, we'd remember each other for life out of that experience.

Sem 2, I came back to uni knowing nothing of the exchange students, thus expecting NOTHING at all! But guess what? Just when I thought they're not interested in initiating conversations with me, suddenly I made ONE (Well, actually, 3 but the friendliest is the ONE). Oh, AND even  got CLOSER to another ONE (coz she was here the previous sem).

And I continue to wonder... 

***

When will I ever be closer to my cousins on the other end of the world??? It's so funny. It's always on the last day when they're abt to go off that all of us start T_T and actually TALKING to each other as MUCH as possible before they go off.

You know you're stressed with assignments...

when you RENAME your browser GOOGLE SCHOLAR instead of GOOGLE CHROME

I dunno what I did, "Google Chrome" suddenly got deleted and became "f". Not a good name for a browser, right?

Kept telling myself  :Google Chrome" but for some reason my fingers went and type "GOOGLE SCHOLAR"

I just pray my assignments are OKAY this sem. Don't have to get too many DIstinctions or HDs. I have better things to worry abt after I grad.

the exchange students at their best

What I learn from the exchange students in particular the Australians is that they can never stop talking, they must get their point across, and that they're pretty expressive.


That guy hahaha omg the other day, he said he went bowling which was REALLY REALLY REALLY CHEAP. Haha, see what I mean, by EXPRESSIVE? And then, he thought he could go catch a movie at the cinema/theatre but since you know what month it is now, there were way too many people; tickets got sold out SO FAST!

You know that guy has been talking to me EVERYDAY without fail (okay, maybe except yesterday when he sat with another M'sian... also someone I knew but not very closely... and I was like... finally, he's making friends with other M'sians and he ain't just TALKING TO ME) Isn't it a bit awkward and perhaps, boring to talk to the same person over and over again? Haha, plus, I ain't really the most interesting person on this planet. Maybe, aside from the fact that both our mums share similar occupations. HAHAHAHA! Small WORLD! 

NOW YOU KNOW HOW FRIENDLY HE IS TO ME. AND NOW I KNOW HOW MUCH THEY CAN TALK TO ME... and I wonder why...

I think I need to surround myself with more of those people before I say goodbye to university.

totally made my day

That OZ guy I was talking abt totally made my day. I dunno why but he seems to be VERY VERY friendly to me haha. Is it because I asked him to be my group mate? :) And it's funny how we met. I wasn't sure if he was gonna talk to me or not but we did.

It's only been 3 weeks of friendship but yet it's like we've known each other for like ages! Much of our conversations are small talk but well, sometimes he just brightens up my day. And at times, I feel OMG, what is he gonna ask me next? And what IF I FAIL to answer him back? LOL. He's YOUNGER than me but he seems to know A LOT MORE than me (you tell me why)

He came into a class that I didn't know he was taking and he just went HI! How's your weekend???


In my heart: He's talking to me???? * pinch myself repeatedly*

Then at the cafe where I was eating.

Waved at him when I saw him with a few other Aussies exchange students

What I did not expect him to do was to come by and say Hey, so how's your day been????

After he went off...

My friend sitting next to me said: Eh, actually it's nice you know, he comes and talk to you just like that..

I went: Yeah, see I told you. Now you know why I'm so happy, right???

It's only been 3 weeks!



Mike, you have been very nice to me. Really. It's a pleasure meeting you. I hope Malaysia treats you well throughout your entire stay here. I trust you'll have an amazing exchange period over here :)

when all you wish for is for this to be over

maybe it's true that  after so many freaking sems in uni, all you want to do is grad. Dunno why this sem I seem to be slacking. Never been so 'blur' my entire life as a student.

Here's why

1.Until today, I still can't remember my classes/where my classroom or lecture halls are
2. After so many years of looking for journal articles and scholarly ones, I realize I am SLOWER NOW
3. Not to mention that I actually FORGOT to SAVE my articles after downloading them to my computer
4. Not enjoying my classes at all. Maybe, media texts (because we get to watch films/tv series/read scripts) and Global Cities (because I get to BORAK with the Australian guy (possibly the most friendly))
5. Not really sure with what I'm doing.. as in horrid assignments... even though they are supposedly a lot easier and straightforward in comparison with Authorship and Writing. Survive authorship and writing, and you can basically survive anything, they say.
6. I think this has also partly to do with the countless number of public holidays we have. Yay, you say. But, it's nay when it comes to replacements because it's really tough to find a common time for everyone!!! Boo!:(
7. Can't decide whether to go for that FREE-FOR-MONASHIANS party...

Sigh...

very simply written

Went for the INTRO to POETRY class today. Actually, I wouldn't say it's a CLASS but more like personal enrichment as the facilitator put it. Went in with MUCH curiosity, though my brain probably wasn't ready, knowing I don't usually have my usual classes on Tuesday but just so happen that I had a replacement for Nuzul AL-Quran... so yeah, that's why I was there to KILL time before 2 pm (when my replacement lecture was)

I was thinking: Yay, like, finally, university listened to me. 

Maybe it's just the first class, first time, first whatever but at least, it's something different from the usual TV studies or FILM studies or Media. What do we have? Literature? Yeah, like what? 2 units outta the many similar units with COMMUNICATIONS students. Oklah, for WRT ppl, they have their WRT techniques and what EXPERIMENTS? but that's not gonna meet you until you're in your third year... which I believe is a bit too... meh, never mind.

Anyway, I met this girl whom I think was in one of my FTV tutes probably back in 1st or 2nd year. She was quite surprisingly on ONE crutch. Facilitator asked her what happened and she went: It was an accident. Wahlau, seriously? She at one point disclosed that a motorbike rammed into her suddenly while crossing the road. 

OMG!!! What's wrong with these ppl?

And tthen we also talked abt my beloved lecturer (who's probably the only fun one around) because he happened to have supervised the facilitator before. Man, sometimes I wish my lecturer came back or better still teach the remaining units hahaha nnt semua turun gred sebab he's quite a strict marker.

Now for the interesting bits:-
1. This Malay-mixed(i think so?) girl talked to me for a while. Apparently frm Sci school but berminat sgt in mass comm/wrt.
2. She teman-ed me to cafeteria and for once I walked faster... than her, at least. Hehe. But, I waited for her, OK? (I am so nice, right?)
3. She parted ways when I was approaching the cafeteria
4. I was so scared that she'd fall down. What's worse is that both of us trip and fall... but thank goodness, luck was on my side and her side
5. Unexpectedly met again at the other end of the cafe. Actually not really the cafe but a place to sit...  which btw wasn't v. comfortable. I only sat there becauuse the cafe was so packed with other homo sapiens monashians who decided to come over to study and kill themselves. Okay, i shall stop crapping.
6.then, guess what? she looked for a place for me to sit. lol. I find this downright hilarious lah. 
7. she actually offered to get me sth from the cafe which i initially accepted but later when I got a proper place to sit, I refused because, hello??? she's the one that supposed to be resting, instead, she's going around for me???  FAITH IN HUMANITY restored! :)

Maybe it's true that life can be pretty beautiful sometimes.

there's something about this song that makes me want to listen to it OVER and OVER again

When it all falls down, the only way is UP, UP, UP

LOL

"I think the problem is that you guys just read your readers [and that's it]. You have to read your SET TEXTBOOK side by side. The reader is meant to confuse you".

LOL. So true.

Raymond Williams did not write with YOU GUYS in mind. He wrote for other academics.

HAHAHAHAHA Yeah, I think I've to read my TEXTBOOK first and then the reader and then have them side by side just so I am actually READING them A LOT OF TIMES. Let's hope this works.

Actually, MCP is possibly the ONLY other subject with a set textbook other than Media Studies... so that's why Monash Arts students are unsurprisingly going bonkers with the readings (mostly academic articles with very high-sounding words and loads of theories which are kinda dry).

A set text(book) helps a lot in terms of defining the key terms + explaining theories in a much simpler manner compared to the readings bleargh. Never mind that some of the readings use font size 6-8. -.-''




In other news, yesterday, for the record, I actually PUSHED on a DOOR that said PULL. Very nice-lah. Sweat. Went to Lunch Box for lunch. Not the best but at least edible... MORE edible than the cafeteria food anytime... this was where I PUSHED the door that said PULL on it. -.-''

The highlight of this sem? week?

I don't know. You decide.

Have you ever met someone you barely knew and the next thing you know you're friends? Well, I guess that happens everytime we meet new people. But, I'm talking about making new friends in the space of 30 seconds in one tutorial.

I'm usually not the talker and neither do I like to LISTEN IN on others' conversations... but just so happen this Aussie guy was talking abt the lecture we had earlier and because I couldn't resist it, I asked "Which lecture are you talking about?" And to my surprise, he turned back (while entering our tute room) and answered me :) Woot! That's a good sign! He's talking to me???? Like, hello??? *brb pinching myself*



When we finally entered the tute room, I sat down at the back of him.. but then figured that I'd like to sit closer so I could actually catch what my lecturer is saying considering his accent sometimes makes us go "HUH?" I thought the American accent shouldn't be too difficult! It's as if his accent is more difficult than the Australian accent!  The OZ accent can be a challenge because it leans towards more of a British accent. Actually, you haven't heard the NZ accent yet. Everytime Bernadine and Hilary and Uncle Pete come back, it is a challenge (in a good way) not only because their accents are thick but because our PROFICIENCY IN ENGLISH is put to the test. You really have to listen closely to what they're saying in order for you to UNDERSTAND what they're asking you. 

Which is why I sat CLOSER  (next to that Australian guy) so that NUMBER ONE: we can talk to each other and NUMBER TWO: I don't have to "HUH" so much.

Surprisingly, he and his other Australian mates were quite friendly. The Aussie guy spent time talking to me, the usual stuff and I'm like... Sorry, didn't get your name??? >.< *paiseh Asian/Chinese...Thank God my parents gave me an English-sounding name so that I don't have to come up with my OWN just so it would be easier for them to remember.  I have a very easy-to-remember name, so easy that ALL my lecturers don't have trouble with it after hearing it for the first time. Even if they EVER get it wrong, they can somehow sense that No, there's something not quite right abt that name. HAHAHAHA, hilarious-lah. (Guess who that lecturer is?)

Guess what? we're group mates for presentations! Eh, you people better make sure you work together with me, okay??? PLEASE, I BEG YOU. This is my final sem. PLS make my last the BEST! Oh-so-cliche-lah-kan???


Ahhhhh!  I'm just jumping around from Aussie guy to my cousins, accents and what-not. Aiyayaya not a very good writer.

Siggh, never mind. At least I know now that I have new friends froom Australia!!!!!!! * cheh, so perasanlah*