Having spent the past five and a half weeks doing absolutely jackshit (no, really…I’ve done nothing productive whatsoever), I’m not willing to go back to uni. I may only have two days of it a week, but now I’m so used to staying up all night (insomnia, please drive off a cliff) and sleeping in until the late afternoon, that the entire prospect of a routine life that consists of more than being a sloth almost scares the shit out of me. And then I remember, hey, I’m 18, and I should be vibrant and excited about the university experience! AWESOME! *does a cheer*
Bullshit.
I’m having second thoughts about my course. I wish I’d chosen Journalism instead of Psychology and Education; the only reason I picked the latter was that it wasn’t 1.5 hours away by public transport (on the contrary - it’s ten minutes away) and I am, after all, the laziest ass you’ll meet within a 10-kilometre radius. I can always transfer to a different uni and a different degree (provided I maintain a certain GPA, the subjects line up, yadda yadda, and provided I can be arsed to socialise and whatnot), but…as I said before. Lazy ass. So while I sit here for weeks on end, not studying and cruising through uni life with a Distinction average, I’m plagued by thoughts of “Xuan…you’d be so much more content and adept at Journalism”.
So hello, I’m rather successful at mindfucking myself.
Briefly (ahahah…hah…) on the topic of university - I passed all of my first semester exams. I won’t screenshot the marks and everything (because that would require effort on my part, and I’m perfectly happy just to sit here and ramble ad nauseam), but I’ll just say that this entire deal reaffirms my previous theory - one shared by many, many alike souls: Bachelor of Arts is so. easy. to. bullshit. your. way. through. Joyous.
By the way - welcome, everybody, to the Centre of People Who Almost Died In The Duration Of World Youth Day Festivities. I head this committee of like-minded individuals who woke up every single morning last week to pilgrims on the corner of the street singing their asses off, took congested public transport wherein pilgrims were so irritating that they should have all been kept in a cage, and really couldn’t turn around on the spot without seeing the trademark red children’s backpack worn by half a million people across the greater metropolitan Sydney area. Please wipe your shoes, relax your vocal cords, and prepare to join in the festivities.
World Youth Day in Sydney last week was a primary reason behind my staying home (on most days) watching re-runs of Gilmore Girls on loop and eating so much ice cream that if I didn’t have my current metabolism, I probably would’ve packed on 40 kilograms. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve nothing against youth-oriented activities, but when you see grannies (hey…wait…what happened to the youth part?) from the world over taking 583763847 pictures of the same fucking building whilst blocking the way of everyday commuters in the city, you can’t help but wish they’d hosted it somewhere else. Boo.
Other than the fiasco last Tuesday (the one day I was out of the house), I found myself completely oblivious to the actual significance of the World Youth Day events. Pfft, a 400,000 person strong mass gathering for Mass (mass Mass?)? P’shaw. Famous musicians and religiously-affiliated bands playing concerts at all hours of the night while pilgrims stood in awe of the fact that Sydney harbour has a bridge that looks like a coat-hanger? Wut? Should I be glad I didn’t pay attention to anything that was going on outside of my house? Because, in retrospect, I’m quite glad.
I go back to uni (AHA! He returns to the uni talk once again…) in one week. I’m on campus Tuesdays (11:00AM-6:00PM) and Thursdays (9:00AM-1:00PM), and my non-uni time will be spent sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, going out with friends, not paying attention to any prospect of study, and drinking until I’m adept enough at walking in a squiggly, Z-like line. I look forward to it.
So tune in next time. I may actually update within the month!
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 | Filed under Food & Beverages, Life, Rants, Work & Uni |
And probably not the last time I’ll be sneaking onto Wordpress from my uni library; I’m currently on a loaned laptop from the campus library that “facilitates portable learning”. I snickered when the librarian mentioned that on the tour way back in the day. Amidst all this havoc, I’m sneaking onto a mobile version of MSN, feeling rather bored and straying outside of the uni network because Facebook is much better than my “required” readings for Australia and the World.
I have a research thing to do at 15:30. Until 17:00. And I’m still debating about whether or not I should go to dancing tonight, considering I might possibly be too tired, and I’m already conscious about my fucked-up-looking left eyelid (I got attacked by moqsuitoes whilst sleeping over at a friend’s place on Saturday night after her 18th birthday party - I was smashed off my face, of course. One of them got me on the eyelid, and there are five more on the rest of my face…). I laughed derisively at myself this morning because of it, and then went “BAH!”.
So…the past week has been rather hectic.
I had a fairly crap (okay, completely shit) Mother’s Day on Sunday; to sum things up concisely, mothers and children were popping up everywhere and outnumbering the rest of the population, and I wanted to crawl into a hole and die for a while; I missed my mother terribly that day. I shouldn’t've left the house on Sunday. Then, at around 9pm, my father’s sister called in tears to tell him that my grandmother (their mother, with whom I was close - not as close as they were with her, but still, close) had died. On MOTHER’S DAY, of all days. FJKhsfkjshfkfjshfjk. Why hello there, random slim entrance to a cave in the middle of a cliff-face, I think I’ll crawl into you and die for a few days.
I got very little sleep on Sunday night, and forced myself to go to uni on Monday because I needed to pre-occupy myself with something other than sitting in my mother’s old room gazing at her pictures and wondering why the hell this year’s suddenly gone down the bloody hill. I won’t be flying to Vietnam for the funeral and cremationg, nor will my father be doing so; my aunts are going on behalf of all of us. But at the moment, I really wish I was fucking going.
I’ve spent the better part of the last five or six days down at the studio (mostly to cheer myself up and distract myself in the last few days, especially), alternating several times between 1) one hour blocks of shin-aggravating dancing, and 2) teaching little kids how to dance, so that one day they may properly aggravate their shins in the same manner as well. It’s a beautiful, rewarding cycle. I lost count of how many times my classmates let out an “Ouch! My fucking shin/ankle/foot/toe/everything!” after two sets of two hands and a dull throb beginning to creep into my shinbones that was punctuated by bursts of more mild pain.
Now I’m sitting in the library at university with both of my legs propped up on top of a brought-from-home cushion on a chair from the adjacent study room, drugged up on ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory over-the-counter drugs purchased from the pharmacy down the road and feeling supremely proud of myself. And my friend is cackling at me.
All this talk of athletic prowess and general passion for a sport that is also an art (shall we call it a “spart”? I believe we shall.) can’t be complete without at least a bit of complaint about how unfit I am. Naturally, seeing as I consume a lot of fast food (and by no means whatsoever is that “a lot” meant to be underestimated), my arteries and body are whinging like hell. The subsequent reaction is usually along the lines of “Oh my God, I cannot get through this jig, someone get me an oxygen tank and a reservoir of water”. This is followed by “Xuan, get yourself off fast food. NOW.”, usually coming from my teacher or myself, yet oddly enough, never both.
I spend a considerable amount of time - and thus invest a considerable amount of effort into things - over the next few days watching what I eat. Then the cravings set in. On the right shoulder, there’s Dexter. He says “No, Xuan, DO NOT GIVE IN, DAMNIT!” with such fervour that I want to punch his lights out just so I can concentrate properly on whatever task is at hand (funnily enough, the cravings usually start during my English lecture on Mondays). On the left shoulder, some random named Sinister is hopping around, taunting me with “Doooo ittttt. Eattt itttttt. Chomp on ittttt! Mmmm, FATTY!”.
Neither will shut up. Then I wake up from my dream (oh, did I not mention that I always fall asleep during my English lectures? It’s a delightful experience, really), and the lecture finishes. My jaw is set… I walk out with uni friends, and take the bus home. Must. Not. Give. In. To. Temptation.
About an hour later, I’m sitting in McDonalds with dance friends, eating a double cheeseburger and a large fries piled on with so much salt that I could go into cardiac arrest from just nibbling on the end of one fry (is that even the actual singular form of “fries”? Meh, now it is). You’d think that, hey, after trying to get off junk food as many times as I have, something would’ve at least gone right, right? But no. I have given in, yet again.
You win, Sinister. You win.
Posted on May 14th, 2008 | Filed under Food & Beverages, Life, Rants, Work & Uni |
