Back Needs (another) Break. Quick.
I’m actually not at all free to do something like WRITE A POST, but while waiting for my 50-page assignment to be printed out, I thought, why the hell not.
So it’s been a back-breaking week, meeting deadlines of assignments, and because I treasure my weekends so much, I did have to spend sleepless nights to finish up half of my assignments due tomorrow and over this coming week. So far, 3 down, and 3 more are due soon. It’s been better than expected; I only have 1 full assignment left to complete (I’m really hoping to spend 24 hours ONLY to finish it, cos you can only do so much with it.) 2 assignments coming from one same lecturer (for 2 different modules) are 90% done, just saving the finishing touches for the-night-before-deadline, so I’m not gonna think about it now. And the last assignment is due like… almost 2 weeks from now so since I’ve done 40% of it, I’ll put it to rest for a while.
Yeah, I’ve become quite the adrenaline-junkie after these 2 years of studying; I shall hold off some assignments just so I can feel that heart-pumping panic 10 hours before the deadline.
Heh I’m kidding. Actually I don’t panic anymore. I just don’t. Somehow (so far) things just fall into place, and I have actually been consistently peeping at my assignments and typing stuff here and there and everywhere every now and then. Contrary to popular belief, I am not totally slacking. (The husband has photographic evidence of me hard at work even while on holiday.)
Speaking of holidays, I think I shan’t write about my last trip yet, because I am so missing Vietnam, and writing about it will only make me- hate where I am now. It’ll only remind me of my EXAMS (coming soon in about TWENTY-ONE DAYS’ time) and the resumption of my TEACHING CAREER. (Pass me the kleenex please.) (And the prozac.)
So I shall write about my adventures there some other time, but in the mean time, you can get updates from here and here.
And speaking of back-breaking, I really mean back-breaking. My back is breaking. I’m running out of the muscle-relaxant/ painkilling medication/ deep heating rubs/ koyoks and what-have-yous, and since it doesn’t seem to get better, I suppose it is time for me to go to the sickening doctor again for a review.
_________
Doctor: It could be muscle strain, as you have been sitting up a lot, you said?
Me: Yes (looking remorseful)
Doctor: I’m hoping to rule out any slipped-disc problems, but I can’t be too sure until we see the x-ray.
Me: (Ok whatever) ok.
Doctor: Uhm… it could also be your weight, you know, that it’s causing a strain on your back?
Me: Ok, so can that problem be solved by tomorrow so the back pain will go away?
Doctor: (forced chuckle) uh… of course not, but…
Me: SOOOO Dr Smartass, shut the hell up before I put on this surgical glove and shove it up where the sun don’t shine. THINK of another alternative. THINK HARD.
Doctor: (Gulp.) Ok sowwie. (wipes tear from eye)
________
Sigh. Young-punk doctors these days are getting too smart-mouthed. They should remain geeky. 
Lessons learnt from studying
I am trying to complete ONE assignment by 7am (it is now 4am). Assignments are generally due on the last day of March/ 1st week of March, but since I will be leaving for Vietnam in 4 days’ time, Friday (yes, yes, in the middle of a difficult term, I know…), my aim is to finish everything before I leave.
Oh you’ve GOTTA be kidding me.
OKAYYYY I am being overly ambitious here, so let’s just say… I have to complete AT LEAST three out of five assignments before I leave for Vietnam. I know I will bring my lappie for the trip anyway, knowing full well it will only be used to watch Teletubbies/Hi-5 vcds on loop (to occupy Ooyah), so I truly hope I needn’t have to worry about my assignments while I am trying to enjoy myself shopping in Ho Chi Minh.
Yes, I know, I’ve got my priorities all messed up at the moment but you know what? This would be my ULTIMATE last trip before I embark (again) onto that scary endless voyage on a wreck of a ship I call WORK, so I’d better enjoy it. In about a month’s time, future trips to foreign lands will require an APPROVAL by the almighty PRINCIPAL, and and and, future trips will ONLY be made during that dastardly period called SCHOOL HOLIDAYS which means: noisy kids everywhere, in pools, in planes, and PEAK SEASON which means you’re blowing off more than you should to spend your holiday to be with a million (nasty) school-going kids. Urggghhhhh.
Anyway….back to my ASSignments….
I have learnt many things (un-academic) just by staying up tonight:
1) I SHOULDN’T be staying up to study tonight. Or any night for that matter. Why? Because studying requires me to SIT, which results in my back feeling like it needs to be snapped right in the middle (pretty much like when you’re snapping long-beans into shorter bits to make gulai). It sure as hell is killing me right now and I will suffer the fate of a strained back this whole week. Wow, I can’t hardly wait.
2) Google Earth should REALLY consider improving it’s tech capability; it should be able to penetrate through concrete (not just clouds and smog) so that my friend and I can see interesting things like one of our lecturers wearing a sarong at home (this to prove a point that he truly is a classic Malay man that we imagine he’d be). And I really don’t give a damn if there’s someone out there who’s using Google Earth too to see what I am up to. Well, nothing much going on here, that I can tell you.
3) I have technically understood the whole essence of death (from the Islamic perspective) and also funeral rites in Islam, from the moment of sakaratul maut (near-death) to the whole burial and post-exam burial activities. Why am I dabbling in such morbid readings, you ask? Well, I seriously do not know. Apparently I have an assignment that requires me to have that knowledge, never mind the fact that it is sure as hell giving me the heebie-jeebies.
4) I am ONLY supporting Man U JUST BECAUSE Abang Cris bin Ronaldo is so pretty. And because he is so pretty, he should win. Well technically he is Adik Cris, but I’d like to think of him as someone older and dominant hehe. I don’t really care for anything else about the team, really I swear. (But he sure could use a haircut though, snip snip and goodbye to the wet hamster/wet chicken fuzzy thing he has growing at the nape of his pretty neck.)
And what’s the progress of the one assignment I have to complete? Well you’ll be surprised- above all those observations that I made, I completed 3/4 of my essay muakakakka.
Am I amazing or what? Yeah, I hate to say it but that’s what it is. 
No Place for (Fightercock) Old Men
My ‘SERIOUS STUDY SESSION’ (triple S for short) at the library opposite my house (can we just call it MY library from now on?) today was suddenly interrupted by loud shouting in the newspaper area. Two old men, and I MEAN old (both had white hair and shake when they walk) were shouting at each other. Over what? NEWSPAPERS. Chinese newspapers. I (and about a million other people) stared in awe as they did the finger wagging thing to each other’s faces, banging tables, and the final straw, shoving each other.
I’m sure there was a lot of saliva-missiles shot over that area. Yuck. Thank god I wasn’t so near to them.
Then one of them decided to take it a step further and challenged the other one to take it outside. Honestly I don’t see why they couldn’t just fight in the library because the meek librarian who was trying to stop them could not do anything else but watch. The librarians here are HOPELESS I tell you (you can actually EAT/MAKE OUT in the library, as I have witnessed many times).
So what did I do?
I joined them of course! I mean, followed them outside, not FIGHT with them. (Can’t win with the saliva-missiles). I abandoned my laptop and other belongings (???) to witness the oldies fight, but I was disappointed of course. It was just more shoving, pushing each other on the chest, over and over again, in some dialect. One of them got bored with the fight (or maybe he was SCARED) so he just shouted something really loud and left the scene. (I was half hoping there would be some good punches thrown and perhaps some broken bones). The one who emerged victorious strutted smugly yet shakily back to the newspaper-reading area, giving the ‘HEH! I WON!’ look to everyone who witnessed it. Then he picked up the newspaper and continued reading.
I don’t know what it is with this library. It’s become a hangout place for Ah-Pek’s and labourers/expats from China and India AND their wives and babies. It must be the free newspapers. They can hang out here for HOURS and HOURS, moving from one newspaper to the next (the expat wives will be glued to the bollywood tabloids while their kids run amok in the whole library). I generally avoid the newspaper-reading area because I have observed that the orifice-digging pursuits of the Ah-Peks and Nyonyas become more vibrant while they read. I am quite sure that there’s plenty of farting and corn-peeling going around as well, and if you walk close enough, you can detect the greyish smell radiating from the area. For all you know, the fight that broke earlier could be the result of a booger that was flicked astray by one of the ah-Peks. I shudder when I walk past that area.
Moral of the story:
1) Buy your own newspaper. Boogers that stick the pages together aren’t worth it.
2) Study at the void deck. Ah-Peks found a cooler place than the void deck!
3) Librarians should stop hanging out at the prata joint in the library. They should be WORKING.
Kontot: In Memoriam
An ode to my in-laws’ pet cat, Kontot, who died this morning of old age (or some cat-disease that I’m not familiar with).
No more missing food from our kitchen and pantry
No more loud asthmatic wheezing from our service balcony
No more death-defying CATwalks on the window ledge
And no more CATnap slumbering in your cage
No more stare-offs with Ooyah and Ramli
But best of all, no more grey hairs on my clean laundry.
Though I may not have pet you as much as I should have
(For you glare at me viciously with bated breath)
Though I have blamed you repeatedly for tainted laundry/clogged air-con compressors/foul-smelling excrements et cetera et cetera,Do not doubt, dear Kontot, that I am saddened by your passing.
You have lived well up to the ripe-old cat-age of 20, except for your last 2 years of ailing.
Kontot,
You will be missed.
