To people I love.

In pursuit of different aims in life. Different fields and interests but one motive in common: the future. Though we are apart, we dealt with distance knowing that we would meet up again someday. For eons I thought of going back to Melbourne: put it simple a good stressful getaway. I thought: I don't want to study and nobody would possibly employ me. Then I thought of how I would adapt, and I thought some more about how I would live, thought even longer how I would part.

Gippsland is not boring.

The first one to graduate.

The graduate's kick-ass uncle.

A year with best friend.

Unhealthy indulgence.


Equally unhealthy.

My canadian tutor I had a crush on.

Second most unhealthy indulgence.

Now that I different aim, I think again. Because to me I know this aim would take more than just my emotional investment to achieve. It takes a lot of balls too.

Perhaps the way I romanticize my final year in Melbourne disallows for closure. I know someday I want to return, it's just that: I wouldn't know what for.


*

People say I'm far-sighted. But the thickness of my glasses says otherwise =D

Examiner

Yep. In search of one for a doctor for my baby due Oct/Nov.

I finished reading this book the past week and this ushered in an ultimate Unagi moment.

This author agreed.

One down. One more to go.

Sledgehammer.

As nerdy as I sound, I really like my thesis topic.

I'm writing about dressing. Something so ordinary that people take for granted. I'm writing about dressing in the context of expression of faith. The visual-ness of Islam in Malaysia doesn't exist without the subjective-ness that lies beneath. Having said that, the fabric being part of the gender dimension of ethnic ideals as well patriarchy which cuts across all Asian civilizations. And how despite that, it can also be seen as a fashionable, current, modern piece of attire that can forges tradition and modernity presented as such in multiple media texts and cultural markets that solely dedicated to the female Muslim market.

Ok. So I need to expand this into 15000 words with Goffman, Foucault and some other theorists by my birthday. And I'm thinking to myself. Maybe, just maybe I can hit my hand with a sledgehammer and get an extension. Sounds like a plan.

So.

The Streets were Rowdy! And the octopus was correct. Somehow, the streets that night reminded me of Melbourne during one of those hot-spells. It has been eventful. :) For more, please check (shameless advertising here lol) THIS.

Chiang Mai, this quaint little city up north of Thailand yet so rich with culture, has a special place in my heart.

Trauma

"TRAUMA , MEMORY AND TRANSFORMATION:
THE MALAYSIAN AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN EXPERIENCE
Monash Sunway Campus - 22-24th June 2010. - DAY 1"

I feel strangely inadequate right now. Oh so many people flashing in front of me induced some psuedo-claustrophobic attack. EESH. But I generally felt today's session was productive.

One mentioned Susan Sontag's theory against interpretation - I miss COM3055. The course as a whole was awesome.

But heres some food for thought.

One session that got me thinking is the one about Acheh where two presenters talks about the dealings with trauma. Where the politics of erasure vs the spiritual Healing of trauma in relation to collective memory (a more macro sense with this term). All in all, I think we all agree that some trauma cannot be expressed in words. Very emotive, very dependent on the human conscious-unconscious. Hence, one of the things these professors + academics argue is that trauma can be described through other forms of art like visual arts, film, music, fiction and etc that may allow the unconscious to seep out.

Personally, I've not dealt with 'trauma' that's as severe as what was discussed today (war, history, natural disaster). I've lost my Wira in 2008, I had to deal with heck alot of drama at Melbourne, I look back and I think: These memories of discontent I deal with it by displacing it on someone or something else.

This must also be why I write Fanfictions.

*

Side note.

I'm never going to buy a second-hand cellphone ever again. I'm fed up. Got fking cheated.

Triple that.

imagine what you are doing now - just triple that... - YSG.


Omgeee.

I think

HOOOOKAY. I was INCREDIBLY chilled when people are stressed. It suddenly dawned upon me that I WILL BE PRESENTING IN FRONT OF

an anthropologist
a feminist
a literature critic
a film critic
a political scientist
no make it two, only difference is the second one is a professor.
and like a couple of others who are great in journalism, international studies.

It's not that I can't count I just don't want to. This is possibly the first hurdle, I consider my first hurdle, in Honours.

As you can tell, YES. I AM OVERSPILLING.

People get it. I don't get why I need to reiterate it all over again. People who know me well enough know inside this little bubble is not air. It's volatile and once it pops, something nasty creeps out. Which I find really disgusting sometimes. I'm either uptight and really occupied with my conscience. But when I loosen up, it seems like I lose my conscience.

I have a habit of randomly over-spilling because I don't express myself very well. It took me long enough to just eff the whole thing and just get out there and DO something instead of being stuck in that bubble which I'm comfortable in.

I really do miss that bubble. Right now, I'm just not being something I am.

At times, I feel like I'm being pushed to the corner. Only adjusting to that corner only adjusting because I'm forced to. I'm so bent on sucking everything in I can't find the right balance. There's going to be a point when I can't take the pressure, I make decisions I regret.

But it's too late now right to say things like that?

Hormones talking. I'm reconsidering this. I know I say even if this kills me I won't give up. Now I am thinking. "How did I end up here?" Did I take the getting-out-of-comfort-zone-agenda the wrong way? Or did I do this just to stay in my comfort zone because of my irrational fear of office politics. The irony.

But it's too late right? Wednesday is just 4 days away.

Incompetence

I stared at that pair of eyes peering through those thick rims. Switching alternatively from the longsighted one to the short sighted one. Thrusting candid comments as you read through my bad grammar. LOL.

And I thought to myself, is this what you do for a living? You just jot down what you see with that pair of eyes, publish it into an article/book. You mark like ten thousand essays and teach ten thousand kids and ten thousand lectures and deal with ten thousand typo errors.

But you're only one person.

I can only shy away with my incompetence.

Train of thought.

Banana Dance.

Free Pizza and extra.

Yap Ah Loy, Little India and PWTC.

The epitome of Nerding. Book hunting and fieldwork of sorts all in one day.

"The Malaysian Mansion" is actually a hostel-area for migrant workers, particularly of Indian descent. Used to be residential areas for the squatter people in KL in a really distant past.

And we got to see it.

FB ALBUM HERE.

This was probably the highlight apart from the biggggg book exhibition in PWTC. Two words to sum it up crowded and huge.

And I finally got my sundae =D and 2 other ice creams. Ice cream potong and Ice cream roti.

Sore throat brewing. o.O

This came late.

My coursemates. Jacqui far left followed by Natasha, Neneng, Belinda and Marina. Jacqui and Marina happened to be the first few people I spoke to during my first few days in Monash in orientation. X)

Joyce, the person who could balance up the atmosphere with some gilarness, Gippy people with fellow Zeming, Myii, Alva, Andrew and Kanina always up to some thing at the south houses. LOL. Much loves. Awesome company.

Not your average lecturer monash father-figure Dr. Yeoh, someone to look up to and know that I am in good hands.

Alex, the buddy who keeps my feet very firmly to the ground when I'm hovering up there somewhere and made difficult times easier. The one who came when many couldn't to hand me my graduation bear. Thankew. =)

My family, Dad, mum and Sze Wei, the ones who made this all possible. Thank you for your love and support and believing in me when I chose this path.

A non sequitur.

My chancelor looks like Dr. House.

To people who couldn't make it, it doesn't make me love you all any less. HAHA. =)

Graduation.

I don't FEEEEEEL like a Monash graduate.

Can't get anymore personal than that.

You remember those role-playing games you play. You roll up an A4 paper and tie it with a ribbon, tie a blanket around your neck like a cape/robe. No hat but it doesn't matter. You make your walk up the stairs and proud and all, mimicking what you see on the Brands' essense of Chicken or Milo adverts. LOL.

Those were the kind of ads that romanticised the whole 'mother' tears when child graduates thing. But I don't FEEEEEEL it. Don't get me wrong, my parents are proud of me and all that. But I don't feel like this is, as far as it goes, the proudest moment of my life. That this is actually the start of something that I potentially might like, but still have no clue of.

I know part of the reason why my graduation didn't seem like anything at all I expected as a kid, is because I have class at 9.00am today. X( BOOO @ Timing. LOL. But after catching up with my friends for a while, I realized there a number of them who are already working, and a number of those who are looking for work.

I wonder, what does it feel like to be them?

For me, the ceremony yesterday felt a lot more 'real'. Of course we can question 'realness', like it's happening, at this moment, at this very second I get 5 seconds on stage to take a piece of paper I worked hard for.

As soon as took off my robe, it's symbolic in a sense that, I'm no longer an undergrad student. I'm being thrust into this whole of set of responsibilities (which I actually 'failed' to fulfill today bummer).

It's like. No more running around the house naked or in a robe with a rolled up A4 paper in your hand. You gotta get out there. And be a somebody. Not just a graduate.

First class.

I had my first class today. Apparently the number of honour students this year is the highest by far so it is really really comforting to know that I'm not alone in this uphill battle with... hmm, books? (Deadlines rather). YAY YAY YAY YAY. From now I will bang through. And somebody is burning rubbish because there's this smoke smell coming in from my window but its not possible because it's raining how can there be fire when it's raining and

Downsides, I discovered the due date for my thesis is on October the 22nd. *headdesk* I'm permitted to party all night after I finish. LOL.

From the way I am writing, you can tell alot about my attention span.