On One's Loose Grasp of Sand
So, it's the last day of school for the week. Friday, which last semester was a perfectly nice empty day, has become a quite packed day this time 'round. Well, not today: the tutorials only begin next week, so my classes today only actually start at 2.30pm... which begs the question of why I'm typing this at 10.11am, which is easily answered by the fact that my tutorials (if they were being held) should begin in another 19 minutes.
Of course, it's now obvious that I didn't check the timetable properly before setting my alarm clock last night and now I'm blurry and wishing I could go back to sleep for the next 3 hours: but it's too late and my roommate has flooded the room with the morning light. Yes, I know, it hardly counts as morning since it's almost noon. To heck with that: anytime before lunch is morning and "just-woke-up" time with me.
I wonder where the past week went, along with all my energy: I've caught myself stumbling around between classes occasionally, only recognising people far too late and being left with a grunt of surprise as the only reaction there's time for before they finish saying "Hi" and disappear off on their route.
(Incidentally, I prefer to nod the head as a sign of recognition, instead of speech: nodding is easy to do, immediately recognisable, and can be done without stopping forward motion. Its only drawback is that people aren't used to it, and tend to stop themselves in surprise.)
It's only the first week, after all, which is supposed to be the least tiring. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to get more sleep, or whatever will help: I can't afford to go through the rest of the semester like this... And at any rate there's a lot of stuff coming up that I've got to get through.
For one thing, my School (think of it as a subset: University comprised of several Schools, which are comprised of several Courses) Welfare Club has mysteriously decided to hold a bash to celebrate the beginning of the new semester, and for the life of me I can't see why they chose Thursday for it. Granted, it's the cheapest day of the week on which to have a bash--according to them, anyway--but heavens, Thursday night? When we still do have classes on Friday morning? I'm not particularly interested in going; but as a member of the publicity/publications subcommittee, I had to buy a couple of tickets.
And now I'm quite likely to end up in exactly the same position I was in last year: go read the relevant post. Without the Corn or the Emoticon nearby, worse luck. Unless the Corn decides to go slightly mad after her hall productions practice, that is; or the Emoticon somehow manages to get hold of a ticket, which will be nothing short of astonishing since he's a trainee teacher and not at all related to my course and since the Corn says he's got the flu. And I don't even know that many other people in my School Club (yes, I know, reclusive).
I suppose it'll be another excuse to don the Quincy pentacle pendant, but really--what's the use of going clubbing if you can't afford the alcohol AND you can't dance AND there's nobody around to talk to AND you've got to wake up early the next day for tutorial classes anyway? I hate being alone at social functions: it always feels like I'm singlehandedly undermining the very term.
And then there's a bunch of school stuff to handle too: I've somehow managed, I think, to lose my SPM and A-levels results slips. Of course, the certificates themselves are (I hope) separate from the results slips and thus likely to still be in the schools' safekeeping--but after that many years, my hopes aren't high. The A-levels ones, I think I'll ask the Coconut's mom to help me check; the SPM, I'm supposed to get my little brother to help me do a huge roundabout through several layers of contacts to get at. It's quite inconvenient not having anybody in the family on-site, so to speak, but what's one to do?
And then the electives, which are my third headache: all the ones I want are fully taken up, all the ones that aren't fully taken up clash with my current timetable, and the rest are simply completely unappealing to me. I'm checking them again now, but to be honest I don't have high hopes for these either. In fact I don't think I have high hopes for any of these three bothers...
The Corn will read this, sigh, mutter about morbidity and faithlessness and fearfulness, and then probably deliver another lecture to me later about how I should trust God more and be much more optimistic. (And then, of course, another lecture on how she doesn't really give lectures, it's just a long speech is all, and anyway her motives are good... and so on.) Not to say I don't enjoy them; it's just that I sometimes wish she wouldn't pick times when I'm half-asleep or semi-conscious to deliver these. At least then I might be able to reason out something; as it is I only strengthen her position by long pauses between replies that sound completely inane even to me.
From my point of view, of course, pessimism is the more profitable route: if things don't work out, you don't get annoyed--or at least you're less annoyed since you were expecting it anyway; if things do work out, then you're pleasantly surprised and all is well. Optimism, while it may seem more attractive, is the one that gives people heartbreaks--and since it expects things to work out anyway, the only possibilities are that things work out as expected and you're just mildly happy, or things don't and you get badly disappointed. But the Corn is partly Sanguine and partly Choleric and neither of those is pessimistic in the least.
The bash is next Thursday; if I cannot sell off the tickets by then, I expect I'm going to be ringing everybody on my MSN Contacts and try to convince them that going is a good idea--even if I have to make a loss on the tickets. But what's to be done?
Of course, it's now obvious that I didn't check the timetable properly before setting my alarm clock last night and now I'm blurry and wishing I could go back to sleep for the next 3 hours: but it's too late and my roommate has flooded the room with the morning light. Yes, I know, it hardly counts as morning since it's almost noon. To heck with that: anytime before lunch is morning and "just-woke-up" time with me.
I wonder where the past week went, along with all my energy: I've caught myself stumbling around between classes occasionally, only recognising people far too late and being left with a grunt of surprise as the only reaction there's time for before they finish saying "Hi" and disappear off on their route.
(Incidentally, I prefer to nod the head as a sign of recognition, instead of speech: nodding is easy to do, immediately recognisable, and can be done without stopping forward motion. Its only drawback is that people aren't used to it, and tend to stop themselves in surprise.)
It's only the first week, after all, which is supposed to be the least tiring. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to get more sleep, or whatever will help: I can't afford to go through the rest of the semester like this... And at any rate there's a lot of stuff coming up that I've got to get through.
For one thing, my School (think of it as a subset: University comprised of several Schools, which are comprised of several Courses) Welfare Club has mysteriously decided to hold a bash to celebrate the beginning of the new semester, and for the life of me I can't see why they chose Thursday for it. Granted, it's the cheapest day of the week on which to have a bash--according to them, anyway--but heavens, Thursday night? When we still do have classes on Friday morning? I'm not particularly interested in going; but as a member of the publicity/publications subcommittee, I had to buy a couple of tickets.
And now I'm quite likely to end up in exactly the same position I was in last year: go read the relevant post. Without the Corn or the Emoticon nearby, worse luck. Unless the Corn decides to go slightly mad after her hall productions practice, that is; or the Emoticon somehow manages to get hold of a ticket, which will be nothing short of astonishing since he's a trainee teacher and not at all related to my course and since the Corn says he's got the flu. And I don't even know that many other people in my School Club (yes, I know, reclusive).
I suppose it'll be another excuse to don the Quincy pentacle pendant, but really--what's the use of going clubbing if you can't afford the alcohol AND you can't dance AND there's nobody around to talk to AND you've got to wake up early the next day for tutorial classes anyway? I hate being alone at social functions: it always feels like I'm singlehandedly undermining the very term.
And then there's a bunch of school stuff to handle too: I've somehow managed, I think, to lose my SPM and A-levels results slips. Of course, the certificates themselves are (I hope) separate from the results slips and thus likely to still be in the schools' safekeeping--but after that many years, my hopes aren't high. The A-levels ones, I think I'll ask the Coconut's mom to help me check; the SPM, I'm supposed to get my little brother to help me do a huge roundabout through several layers of contacts to get at. It's quite inconvenient not having anybody in the family on-site, so to speak, but what's one to do?
And then the electives, which are my third headache: all the ones I want are fully taken up, all the ones that aren't fully taken up clash with my current timetable, and the rest are simply completely unappealing to me. I'm checking them again now, but to be honest I don't have high hopes for these either. In fact I don't think I have high hopes for any of these three bothers...
The Corn will read this, sigh, mutter about morbidity and faithlessness and fearfulness, and then probably deliver another lecture to me later about how I should trust God more and be much more optimistic. (And then, of course, another lecture on how she doesn't really give lectures, it's just a long speech is all, and anyway her motives are good... and so on.) Not to say I don't enjoy them; it's just that I sometimes wish she wouldn't pick times when I'm half-asleep or semi-conscious to deliver these. At least then I might be able to reason out something; as it is I only strengthen her position by long pauses between replies that sound completely inane even to me.
From my point of view, of course, pessimism is the more profitable route: if things don't work out, you don't get annoyed--or at least you're less annoyed since you were expecting it anyway; if things do work out, then you're pleasantly surprised and all is well. Optimism, while it may seem more attractive, is the one that gives people heartbreaks--and since it expects things to work out anyway, the only possibilities are that things work out as expected and you're just mildly happy, or things don't and you get badly disappointed. But the Corn is partly Sanguine and partly Choleric and neither of those is pessimistic in the least.
The bash is next Thursday; if I cannot sell off the tickets by then, I expect I'm going to be ringing everybody on my MSN Contacts and try to convince them that going is a good idea--even if I have to make a loss on the tickets. But what's to be done?
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