State of Affairs

I kid you not when I say that I didn’t study today. Or during the weekend. Or that yesterday, when I did actually managed to study, it was only a pathetic flip of two pages in the textbook.

Mind you, two pages of intense, heavily compressed, deeply-encompassing theory and required-understanding is no small matter. But fuck that, it’s still shitty progress nevertheless.

And adding to it was the entire last week that I just lazed and drifted through. I depended on my course-mates to finish up the lab report, and complete the assignment.

Since the submission of the fifty-page, six thousand-word assignment that was worth 30% two Fridays ago, I have reached a point of complete and utter mental saturation.

I can stare at a page the whole day and nothing would go in. I could force myself to read through the texts and that would be it: empty reading. I could resubstitute things into a formula and redo an example again and again, and not know how to do it minutes after.

I don’t even fear the finals, which is strangely odd.

As the days and the dates change, all I see are just figures passing me by -the same way I see passing figures as I do passing equations and formulae.

Worthless, meaningless figures and symbols.

I have become bored and sick and tired to death with entropy, enthalpy, nozzles, stagnation points, critical points, internal energy, the units kJ/kg, kmols, m/s and all the ensuing mass of garbled, jumbled mess.

It is my own downfall, all this. It is me who chose such a course because of my own initial self ‘interest’ in this field, and having lost it, I haven’t the ability to go on further.

I’d imagine the pressure has just not built to such a point where the sheer prospect of obliteration and the consequences of failure would force me to get all this stuff into my head anyhow, by hook or by crook, regardless of ‘interest‘ or ‘mood‘ or other ‘nonsense’.

And honestly, I hope that day better come real soon.

I...

I remember waking up early on Saturday mornings, speeding my way down the Sg. Besi highway. Keane, and Dashboard Confessional were played loud on the stereo. The sun having just risen, the highway empty of cars, the hot, humid Malaysian weather barely that, and the ever so troubling speed limit of 90 km/h I never obeyed. Ms Lee and JLJC were often the subjects of these trips I made to the big city.


I remember my first time drinking before the sun had set.

It was with Ms Lee, where in my order of Pepsi, she ordered a margarita. Then me, with a RM15 bottle of Heineken -what ensued wouldn’t surprise anyone.

That was also the first time I hung out with cousins I had never previously knew; the age gaps between us had ensured two decades of zero communication.


I remember finishing the 6 p.m. Machine Control classes on Thursdays, immediately jumping into the car with the clothes for the overnight stay already packed into the boot beforehand, and (again) driving speedily to catch dinner and a movie with LSH. And the early, sleep-deprived Friday mornings back to Nilai to catch another class. The Script were frequent favourites on the stereo. Many a times I left for Ipoh later the same day, or for KL early the next.



I remember that afternoon with ABS. It was one of the best conversations I’ve had in months, and certainly the most Heinekens I’ve ever had at one goal. I got so drunk I had a hangover the next day, but still drove back to Nilai to pack everything into the car before making my way back to Ipoh for the final time.

But what I remember most of all are the drives back to Ipoh on those Friday evenings.

With the sun about to set, a wonderful golden-hue was cast across the land. It’s boiling hot out there, but inside, the brand new air-conditioner of the brand new car is blowing an unending gust of freezing cold air. Andrea Bocelli is playing at at least a hundred decibels, as I (again) exceed the speed limit. With each additional rpm, the engine gets ever more powerful, rocking harder and harder with every speed increase -to a point where even the steep climb of the highway nearing Ipoh is no obstacle: the car just pushes through without a sweat. And it is roughly by then that the sun was almost completely set, where the xenon headlamps would have lit a million miles in front of me.

And then I remember reaching home. The drinks and the suppers with my dad, the chats with my parents, the white coffee in the evenings, my two cats, and the lovely meals.

Those simply were, the best times of my life.

I miss home.

Hours After Midnight

Another gruesome 14 hours in university. Another day passes. Another cycle beckons to repeat itself.

Before I plonk my head down onto the pillow and call it a night -something which I seriously need to do- I have this incessant urge to write.

Something deep. Something profound. Something meaningful.

Alas, there exists nothing within this skull but a tired and weary mind.

So I turn it off, and leave as little conscious intervention between my fingers and the keyboard as possible.

I have so many things to say.

I am happy.

I have been so for many, many days now. Despite the frequent, violent mood swings that would suggest otherwise, the unbearable stress and pressure to perform, despite the bastards and the bitches that plague my every living day, despite my moodiness --despite all this, there exists a deep, underlying current of happiness.

Of content, and of hope.

And belief.

Alas, after thirty extraordinary months, I have finally put things back in order.

I'm back.

Consequences Unknown

1 a.m.

Friday night.

In Sydney.

And this is me, having just gotten out of the shower from a gruesome sixteen-hour long stretch in uni.

I have decided that tonight, I will pour myself a strong one, and take time out for myself.

Just me, this yellow lamp, this huge bottle of whisky, my lovely set of earphones and a big fat internet connection.

Slaughter House

Last time I checked, we're three weeks to a month away from the exams.

Last time I checked, we're filled with so many assignments, so many reports, there isn't any time to study or revise.

Last time I checked, we're to pass all these stuff up on week twelve, the exams are on week fourteen.

How will four months worth of lectures, theories, and knowledge be crammed into the head, to be fully understood and applied to five final papers defies me.

That each semester costs forty grand is troubling enough, that the chances of not passing being so high is another pill too bitter to swallow.

"Save me" is so understated.





A friend tells me "it's not the end of the world".

I swing back and forth from fear, worry and nervousness to blissful ignorance.

Feels as if whatever I do won't make a difference.

Feels as if the war is already lost.