Moving Garbledygah

The room is in a shambles; there are boxes all over the place, full and semi-full and empty, and dust is everywhere; tomorrow I shall go out for a flu vaccination and then come back and empty out the semi-full boxes to see if I can't throw away some of the things and compact some of the others, and more or less in the end get all my possessions to fit into the various containing-things I own.

It turns out boxes aren't free anymore, at least not large ones; most of my boxes are now the kind that A4 paper gets transported in, small and squat and packed with paper and books. I have 6 of those boxes and they're all packed absolutely full and they're all much heavier than any box has a right to be, apart from the Very Large Box which is overflowing with clothes.

Essentially at the moment I'm something of a nervous wreck, worrying about at least four things, of which at least three are school-related; whoever said school was easy and relaxing? I was so much more relaxed when I was an intern! At least in the working world the system admits it's out to screw you over; while honesty doesn't make it all better, at least that way you know what to expect. Instead the University goes on and on about how wonderful it is and how much importance it places on we the student body (these sentiments are most strongly expressed in the letters pleading for the graduating class to donate to the University) while at the same time causing me three major worries.

Let me address the most immediate one: accommodation, which I keep on misspelling with only one 'm'. This is why I am packing; you will have heard me rant often and loud and long about the way the halls decide who gets to stay and who doesn't, and this year the complainers are very many indeed, as the cutoff has miraculously and expectation-defyingly risen to the level where nearly nobody has any sort of room allocated to them. At the same time they've proposed and approved a system that will make it practically impossible for any foreign student to stay more than two years within the hostel; if there was ever a clear sign that nearby housing is a good investment, this would be it. The number of people looking for rooms to rent is going to grow exponentially in the next few years, and with most of those people being foreign students with very little other choice... it's a houseowner's market out there, people! But as it is I am having to scramble for a place to store my things while I go off to Cambodia and possibly to Patience... hence the boxes and dust and so on. It's a great hassle.

On the other hand, the rummage is turning up discoveries of things I'd forgotten about or thought I'd lost, like my Swiss Army knife or a stack of angpows or a little squeezy brain. It's fun, but the effort involved is far too much.

The second issue: courses. Registration is tomorrow; I hope to get my first choice of tutorial times, so that I can have a chance of applying for certain prescribed electives (hah! The word prescribed is supposed to imply a choice whether or not to take the prescription--they should use the word enforced for greater accuracy) that I absolutely have to take, but hate the very idea of... I'm hoping to get Fundamentals of Management, which (if Scott Adams is right) should consist mostly of Where to Find the Best Donuts and How to Hire and Fire People. But as it is I'll have 20 credit hours of core modules, and the elective will be an additional 3 hours; if I take an Unrestricted Elective too, I'll have a total of 26 credit hours next semester, in addition to working on the Final Year Project. I had 25 two semesters ago, and suffice it to say I got the worst GPA so far that semester, though to be fair every new semester brings a worse GPA than the semester before. I just don't know if I'm up to the challenge. Of course, I do still have my pass/fail options to be used if the challenge overwhelms me.

The third issue? The Final Year Project, of course. I've talked to the professor in charge of the project I'm interested in, but I fear he's forgotten about my existence despite me being on the list (hopefully) of people interested in the project... I was supposed to have heard by now about it but I haven't yet; I'll probably ask a friend to help me out with it, if possible. It's a very worrying situation overall; and I'll be away in Cambodia during the pre-allocation and computer balloting periods, which makes it a very very frightening issue indeed.

The last worry, which is at least not school-related, is Cambodia; this is probably the first you've heard of it. But I am going to Cambodia with a 12-person team, as part of Campus Crusade's mission efforts; we will be there for 18 days, carrying out our plans; and then we will come back. I'm... I don't know what to think about it really. Other friends have started returning from their mission trips with anecdotes and stories of how God's worked in/through them and various testimonies; it helps encourage me, but it's when I'm alone (as I am now) that the worries come back--am I good enough, will I be empathetic enough, will I accidentally commit a string of faux pases, will it work out given the language and cultural barriers, will bad things happen, will there be accidents and crimes and whatnot... I'm a Choleric/Melancholy/Phlegmatic. When stressful situations arise I try to find some way to get things under control, failing which I run a mile, and if that doesn't work out I simply throw my hands up and go "meh". Not even in that order, sometimes; I'm very good at going "meh".

...tomorrow I need to get vaccinations; I need to finish my packing and leave nothing in my room but the barest essentials; if there's time I want to have a swim, and I also need to get some postcards or souvenirs (though those can be gotten on Wednesday as last-minute things). Today, actually. Today I need to be a flurry of energetic activity.

...I'm going to miss the people of the House of Bread Bible Study Group. Today's porridge was excellent--century-egg porridge and seafood porridge, and fried bread, and some sort of interesting-tasting salad. I think I'd like the recipe for that bread; it was very, very tasty, by which sign it was also very, very unhealthy.