Clairine

Yesterday I went to Bandar Utama with my family to get winter clothing for me. We sorta got lost around the Ikano-Ikea-Curve area. Just sorta wandered around aimlessly much to the dismay of my father and brother….. My mum and I had fun though, looking at all the clothes and shoes displayed all around the place as we got lost.

Bought 4 pairs of shoes. Two pairs from Theme, two pairs from Vincci. Mwahaha. I’m a happy girl.

Finally we ended up in Centrepoint for dinner and by fate walked into this Winter apparel store called ‘Goin Places’. This store is just perfect for young ladies who wanna be warm and fashionable at the same time. We bought sooo much stuff there… a few sweaters, pants, a huge-ass down-feather-lined water-repellent cushiony black jacket (black so that I don’t have to worry if it gets dirty - but I also wanted the off-white jacket and the blood-red jacket… ahhh well a girl can’t have everything right), gloves, thermal underwear (!!! don’t laugh), and even a freaking comb to brush off the fibers that might stick on my wool clothing, which is btw very prickly and itchy (it’s only meant to be worn with something under it I guess). All at 10% discount. So chun.

Today I’m going to Terengganu for a holiday until Thursday, then on Saturday I guess I’ll be going to Genting for some… performance… I dunno. Parents want la.

So, cheers. God bless this journey that it will be a safe and happy one.

Today I feel quite cheered up. Found out that I’ve been accepted to two of the three universities that I applied to last month, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The third one, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, is still pending. Thank you, Lord. I now realize how unfounded and baseless my paranoia for the past one month has been. I need to have more faith in myself, in my religion, in life in general…

I find that I am a very complicated mixture of very simple things. I had such high self-confidence two months ago in deciding to apply to only 3 universities. Then after I sent in all my applications (a very time-consuming and tiring, irritating process), I started to become worried that I might not be accepted into any one of them, then I’d be stuck in Malaysia until next August and started regretting that I did not apply to more universities.

This actually reflects how neurotic I am because every time I feel confident in myself and openly express my own confidence in the state of things, right after that I feel weak and powerless, like I won’t succeed in anything and will fail miserably in the thing that I had such confidence in at the beginning. So, is it true self-confidence that I have? Or just a manifestation of it?

Take for example, my severe last-minute behavior. I really hate this "quality" in me. I really don’t mean to boast, but I can do last-minute work very very very well. But I hate myself for it, because what do I get out of it? I want to be consistent, I want to be more disciplined, I want to stop all this maladaptive behavior and start being more responsible dammit. But I can’t seem to change myself. Because each time I do last-minute work somehow things always turn out okay. Things are always, always, always, okay in the end. This is obscene overconfidence on my part. Trust me I know I will regret this in the future.

*****

Parents are asking me which university I want to go to. I didn’t really want to bother about this question previously because I didn’t want to choose a university that I might not be accepted into. Stupid thought, right? But it reflects another part of my personality. I prefer to think negative thoughts, so that I won’t be too upset if I fail, but I will be pleasantly surprised if I succeed. I don’t really know when I started having this mentality.

Perhaps it was during PMR… or SPM. Damn those government exams. I believe that the PMR should be scrapped because it does no good to anyone and is a useless waste of time, money, paper, and pencils. I believe that form 4 and form 5 can be fused into a single year to maximise efficiency, and lower and upper six should be made compulsory. Also, the freaking SPM should have a ceiling to the amount of subjects one can take because it seems that every year someone or other is trying to break the record for the most number of A1’s and get his/her name into the useless Malaysian Book of Records.

What have I learned from the SPM?

That government exams are useless and there is no point in stressing yourself out over it. If you don’t get straight A’s your life is not over. If you do get straight A’s don’t think you are smart because the only thing that string of A’s tells people is that you can study.

My entire life can change in a moment. One year ago I was looking at the websites of those universities mentioned above, thinking ‘how nice it would be if I could attend these universities… but they are way too expensive… my parents would have to pay from their noses to send me to this place…’ and then settling for a cheaper alternative, Drake University. If I hadn’t applied for that scholarship in March, and if I hadn’t been shortlisted for that interview in May, and if I hadn’t been notified in July that I had been successful… I would be in Drake right now. And my life would be taking a totally and completely different path.

Now, a year later, I find that my dream has been fulfilled. I get the chance to go to those expensive universities. And my parents don’t have to pay anything at all. I felt bad about that, in the beginning, when I told my parents that I wanted to study in the States. I really felt bad that they would have to pay so much for me to go there. Which brings me to another issue…

What have I learned about scholarships?

That life doesn’t begin and end with the JPA (Public Services Department). Your life is not over if you are rejected for a JPA scholarship. Neither are you useless, stupid, a failure, or all three. There is more to life than the JPA. Those who whine to the newspapers about how many A1’s they got and how many co-cu activities they participated in and yada yada but still didn’t get the JPA scholarship need to stop because it is sickening to read about it year after year in the papers. Get a life and look for other options. You tried your best, now move on.

But I find that achieving one dream will come at the expense of another dream. There is always a counter for everything that you gain. In order to keep your life in balance, since there are no perfect choices, you have to sacrifice one dream to pursue the other. I visualized myself building a life in the U.S. after I graduated, but now that I have to come back to Malaysia to work for 4 years after graduation, I find that dream has detached itself from the tangled web that is my mind and drifted away, leaving only shards that torment my heart.

I think what is most important is having a clear-cut goal in your mind. To help keep things in perspective, you know? To make sure that you don’t run off track, and to steady your mind when it begins to sway the other way. Certain times I look at my textbooks and I ask myself ‘why am I doing this?’ and I feel like dousing my books with petrol and lighting them up then dancing around a huge bonfire of textbooks. But often I just scream a bit, talk a bit to myself, curse a bit, then continue studying. So I do this thing that helps me concentrate on what I am doing. I write down my goal on a sheet of paper, and paste that paper in front of my study table. To remind myself why I am doing what I am doing.

Because I always forget. It’s so easy to lose track along the way.

*****

I want to build a wall around my heart. A huge, big, tall, strong, triple-mortar-layered extra-fortified brick, stone, steel, and cement wall around my heart.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it. Then I wouldn’t have a heart of stone per se, just a heart surrounded by stone.

But one thing about trying to build a wall around your heart is that only you can build that wall, and the process of building it hurts, there will be cuts on your hands, sweat will blind your eyes and blood will run down your fingers, while you lay each stone, each layer, each brick, and as you try to seal the wall up, you might be attacked by a great number of unprecedented circumstances.

Caught up in the whirlwind of time,
in this particular moment,
when it is so quiet
I can hear the sound of the air,
when every movement is so delicate
that it pierces the skin,
when even the darkness
begins to hurt the senses…

Everything falls away like the crumbling of a great mountain and there are no barriers, no dividers, no restrictions, no rules, no consequences, no… reality… Nothing, except for the peaceful beat of the heart… a reminder that inherently everyone is human. Where there is passion, there will be pain. Each part of my life is like a canvas that is being white washed over and over again. And at the end of the day, the world comes rushing back like a bull on fire, attacking the calm serenity that was there before.

I hate myself for wanting things that I know I will never………. be able to have.

………. For wishing that things were different.

Today was the last day of classes. I felt rather neutral about it. Got up around 9.15 am but remained in a fetal position until 9.30 am when I finally dragged myself from my bed to my bathroom to wash up. Stood in front of my wardrobe for an overlong time thinking about what to wear. Blew dry my hair and made my face look presentable then stuffed everything I thought I might need for the day into my old, worn-out, but still very useable Deuter bag and walked out the door. Walked along the road while looking at the ground to make sure I don’t step in dog/cat poo, and keeping my ears open for motorcyclists coming up behind me because I’m paranoid like that. Braced myself for the wall of smoke that is perpetually next to the water machine in front of IDP Australia. Past the many cars, past the guardhouse, past the concourse, and to my class.

I don’t know if I place any sentimental value on INTI… although I am very grateful to this college for giving me 100% tuition fee waiver without expecting anything from me other than good grades. I took 67 credit hours at INTI, and another 6 uncounted credit hours for LAN subjects. Since one credit hour is RM300, and 3 LAN credits is RM300, INTI has technically given me RM20700 over the past 6 semesters I have been there. Thank you, INTI. I really appreciate it.

Semester 1

• ANT101 (Cultural Anthropology) - Had that memorable field trip to Kuala Selangor with a group of classmates for the assignment. This was the class that brought Rei and I together. Ms. Lim gave us an opportunity on the first day of class to "choose our fate" when choosing group partners. In the end she chose it for us by somehow putting us both in the same group. I will always remember Ms. Lim for her occasional neurotic behavior but friendly demeanor.
• ENL101 (English I) - Extremely fun class… I loved this class and I hated it at the same time. I remember one of the assignments had my group instructing the class on how to put on makeup. I was the reluctant model. I screwed up the coursework so badly in this class. I think I got a 41/60 but by some miracle managed to get an A- for this class. This class was a wake-up call, sort of - ‘your English is not as good as you think it is’.
• MAT132 (Calculus I) - Mr. Sam slapped us all in the face with reality, I think. He walked in to the classroom full of fresh SPM school-leavers, mostly, and asked questions like "what is 0 times infinity? what is infinity divided by infinity? what is zero to the power of zero? what is the derivative of x to the power of x to the power of x?". He gave us all questions that had no answers, watched us suffer trying to figure out the solution to those seemingly solveable but in actuality unsolveable questions then after all our egos have been successfully humiliated, informed us that "there is no solution". He made us factor… oh… equations to the ninth or tenth power. Thanks, Mr. Sam. Your class prepared me the best for what I was to face in college.
• BIO121 (Biology I) - My A in this class was not deserved. Truthfully I think I got the A only because the lecturer was so so so… so. LENIENT. Can’t blame Mr. Teoh though, he was just a new part-time lecturer at the time. Very young for a lecturer and kinda good-looking. Too bad he left after just one sem… hmmm I wonder why? *too lenient perhaps*
• LAN I (Malaysian Studies) - I am so thankful I took this class immediately after SPM when all the Sejarah was still in my head because I totally did not study for this class at all but still managed to scrape by with an A. If I had taken this any sem other than my first sem I doubt I would have been able to get through it without studying at all.

Semester 2

• MAT133 (Calculus II) - One word: Ouch. Packed with an insane amount of integration, infinity-questions and those damn tests of convergence/divergence. Another word: Ouch. Looking back at my notes, I wonder how I ever managed to get past this course. Ms. Shanta was a really nice and good lecturer, though. Will always remember how her nail polish always seemed to match her outfit for the day.
• ECO151 (Microeconomics) - Can’t remember jack about this class other than supply and demand graphs and opportunity cost.
• CHM107 (Chemistry) - Hated this class for some reason. Hated the classroom this class was held in. Hated the daily, mind you, not even weekly, but daily quizzes. But the lecturer was really nice, a truly nice man. And I only regret that I was not a better student for him.
• HIS251 (U.S. History I) - I absolutely despised this class. I visualized Dr. Borges as a walking, talking, sleeping pill. I couldn’t care less about the Alien-Sedition Acts, whether Thomas Jefferson was a hypocrite, or why the Boston Tea Party happened. I had to continuously drink water to keep myself awake. I gave him a really bad evaluation. All C’s, if I remember correctly. Read on to know why I felt so bad about it a year later.

Semester 3

• ACC201 (Accounts I) - First thing I thought when I saw Ms. Chou was ‘aunty’. She wore the exact blouses my grandmother would normally wear, wore two enormous jade earrings in her ears every day, and wore her hair in a low and short pony-tail. Not a very memorable class but I do remember how we all would go out for half-hour breaks at the canteen collectively so she wouldn’t be able to start class. To give her some credit, she is a nice person, and she did try to make sure we understood at least some of the basic material.
• ART105 (Art) - We did fauvism in this class. "Bright, strong, crazy brush strokes!" would be shouted at us all throughout the class. Mr. Badaruddin… the cutest old guy. Insisted we meet him outside of class a minimum of 7 times in a semester. And since it was a short semester, I foudn myself meeting him pretty much every week. This class was a piece of cake. I didn’t even need to be good in art to get the A+.

Semester 4

• MAT232 (Calculus III) - Dr. Chan was one of the BEST lecturers I ever had in INTI. Very effective, efficient, excellent teaching. When I entered her class, I was thinking to myself, ‘if only all lecturers in the world could be this good, the world would be a much nicer place’. The advice she gave me, personal and academic, and the care that she showered on all her students just really impressed and astounded me. Way beyond my expectations… I loved this class because of the lecturer.
• STA219 (Statistics) - If I describe Cal II in one word, I can describe Stats in one word too: Boring. I can’t say I liked this class, but I think it was mostly because of the lecturer. The stuff I had to study was interesting to me. The way I had to study it was insanely boring though.
• ACC202 (Accounts II) - Not much to say about this, pretty much the same comments as ACC201 except that I nearly vomitted on the day I had to take the final exam for this course, because I tried to study the last three chapters on Cost-Volume Profit, Budget Analysis, and Budgetary Accounting all within a night. I don’t remember a single damn thing about this course anymore except for stock and corporate accounting, because that’s the most interesting part of it.
• ECO152 (Macroeconomics) - Ms. J (name censored to protect the stupid innocent), I humbly present to you the award of ‘Worst Lecturer in the World’ or at least in my world and in my life. I should have dropped this subject within the second week of classes, but my innate faith in the goodness of man made me think that you might actually be suffering from beginning-of-the-semester blues and might actually not really be this lazy/dumb/irresponsible/unreasonable/lousy/callous/stupid/irritating/insert-negative-adjective-here all the time. You proved me wrong. I hated every single second of this class because you were teaching it and because of the way you taught it. It was a torture to make myself sit down and listen to you speak, because 90% of the time you were just talking shit, the other 10% of the time you tried to talk about macroeconomics it all didn’t make sense to anyone. I do not wish anyone to suffer what I suffered for 15 weeks in your class. It is the best possible form of slow-moving mental torture.

Semester 5

• ENL102 (English II) - Fun class, thanks to Cheryl and Kellie who made it not boring, and Ms. Kamala who is absolutely the sweetest lecturer around… I regret that I slept through half of the semester and was absent for about a fourth of the classes… cos Ms. Kamala you are really a great lecturer. But the assignments were boring. I would have preferred a more creative writing kind of class. Oh well, wasn’t her fault. It’s just a pre-req that I have to take to prove that I can write college-level research papers.
• COM110 (Public Speaking) - Can’t say I had much fun in this class. Just sort of got through it somehow.
• HIS252 (U.S. History II) - I loved Dr. Borges in this class. On the first day itself I walked in about 45 minutes late and he welcomed me by saying ‘Good morning, Miss Tardy’. I learned to appreciate his eccentric behavior of locking the classroom doors 3 minutes after class is supposed to commence. I started to really enjoy his dry sense of humor and the way he told stories or enacted scenes in the class. I learned a lot from him in this class. Maybe it was all there a year ago when I took History I, but I was too immature to notice it…? Anyway, I really really really enjoyed this class and all the wisdom he imparted. I got to know more about current events and politics and all other issues other than history. I gave him an excellent evaluation… mostly A’s this time. History II I have to say was a piece of cake for me, compared to History I. The 20% I earned for the pop quizzes was effortless, the 15% that I earned for the trial was close to effortless. The remaining 25% that I earned for the midterm was with effort, but very last-minute effort at that. You have to take History I first to fully appreciate how easy History II is.
• LAW301 (Business Law I) - This was a mindblowingly difficult subject. Ms. Vijaya, great lecturer, very friendly, very funny, and thanks for not making the class as shit boring as the textbook. Good luck to future students taking this subject, and I respect all lawyers from here on out for the rest of my life. *Salutes all the law students*
• LAN II (Moral Studies) - Oh don’t even get me started on this subject. I didn’t study for this either. The lecturer was too selamba about everything, including attendance, and I just slept and skipped my way through this subject. What a pure waste of time and energy.

Semester 6

• MAT242 (Differential Equations) - Took this subject for fun, much to the astonishment of many of my classmates and friends. ‘Who takes D.E. for freaking fun??!’. Ahem. As one of only 4 girls in a class of about 30 guys… I just felt bored at first, but it brought me closer to Wan Qi as a friend. If it wasn’t for her, I think I would have died of inactiveness in that class. And I still don’t know what Laplace is for.
• PSY105 (Psychology) - I took this subject because of Ms. Khor. She is another truly excellent lecturer. She just knows how to apply real-world knowledge with textbook knowledge, and tells us such cute and fascinating stories about life in general and her own life that we just can’t get bored in the class. I really really enjoyed this class because of the way she taught it, she made it so fun and interesting for us to learn and taught us in a way that was not too rigid but still managed to fulfil the syllabus requirements. I regret that I’ve been bitten by the final-sem-bug and it showed in my laziness with this subject… sorry, Ms. Khor. I still remember the 6 hours Chong Yih and I spent in Starbucks the day before the assignment was due, and the mad frantic rush we made the morning of the due date. And we still managed to get… hahaha…… quite an undeserved, by my own admission, amount of marks for the assignment… Only Chong Yih and perhaps Eugene can understand this… haha.

*****

If I try to recount all the memories I have in INTI… it will take a long time. Let’s try a random list of things for the moment:

On the first day of classes I couldn’t find Room 307. Which is quite dumb because college is so small and it’s pretty obvious that the first number is the floor that the room is on.

To date I think I’ve given the library RM40, seriously, in late fines. The librarians all know me as the girl who can never return her books on time.

I attended the Dean’s List ceremony three times until I got bored and slept at home during the 4th ceremony I was invited to. The food is always the same. Teh tarik, curry puffs, fried mee hoon, and kuih.

I nearly missed my ENL101 exam in the first semester because I thought the paper was from 4-7 when it was actually from 12-3 so thank goodness Wern How called me to ask me a question about the essay at 11 am an graciously informed me of my great mistake in time.

College Day 2005 was memorable because I dressed up in a clown-looking all-red sequinny oufit and marched a very gung-ho type of march and won the challenge trophy together with my team mates.

College Day 2006 was memorable because of the debate competition which was the worst I had ever been to in my life, but in a way the best because of the close friendships I gained during the competition… with Kish, Eugene, and the debaters from INTI Sarawak. I remember the 13 freaking hours we all spent in INTI Nilai. At the beginning of the day I was saying ‘I wonder why I didn’t come to study in this campus instead’. At the end of the day I was saying ‘Now I know why I didn’t come to study here’. Bwahaha. Ulu secluded place out in the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness for Subang Jaya.

This Indian guard who always smiles and wishes me hello whenever he sees me. I do the same thing back but til now I still don’t know his name…

I slept on the couch in the AUP Office once in my first sem and was reprimanded by Ms. Leen for it… Embarrassing.

Uncle Chong’s cafe was slightly better before it became a monopoly. I still remember, kind of, the old canteen before it was renovated. It’s a distant memory now but I still remember it somewhat. And the uncle and his wife who made the noodles. I was intrigued and at the same time disgusted by the way he made the noodles. He’d pour the soup into a tub then dip the noodles into it and then pour the soup into the drain next to the stove. Never seen anyone make noodles that way.

Torturous 4-hour weekend classes with Mr. Lai for 12 weeks. I don’t want to dwell on this painful memory.

I remember I used to like using the office toilet in my first and second sems at INTI and pretending I was a visitor if I got caught using it… since the other toilet meant for students was so far away. From my third sem onwards I just stopped using it anymore, dunno why. Guess I just got used to the student toilets.

I like looking out on the third floor in between classes at the kids playing in the playground at the nearby Sri KL.

I guess that is all the memories for now. I’m too tired to think of any more. There are a lot more, but I’m just too tired now. Maybe I’ll write more another day.

What am I doing.

What am I doing.

What am I doing.

I have a psych presentation on Monday and the 15-pg assignment due on Wednesday before 10 am.

What am I doing.

I haven’t started anything.

I have a Differential Equations test on Monday.

I still haven’t finished studying for it.

I hate Wronskian.

What am I doing.

What am I doing.

What am I doing.

I just downloaded these three songs:
1. Guns n Roses - November Rain
2. Delta Goodrem - Butterfly
3. Hinder - Lips of an Angel

I’m blogging.

I can’t control my mind…!

*sigh*

Focus. Concentrate. Focus.

Why does my mind keep wandering to…………………………….

What am I getting myself into…………………………….

*sigh*