adelaidemedblog

Now now nownownownow, we’re sitting in Ventrilo, playing DotA, and feeling sad.  Sad for reasons other than computer game addiction, that is.

At the very end of the MCQ/SAQ I sat on my chair and pondered.  Pondered my line of reasoning, my thought process, the journey that brought me to that very place, to think that very thing.  That I was SAD.  Not sad in the sense of having no life, though that may be the case in the eyes of whoever.  But sad that I would soon be free of the shackles that be exams and student life.  I miss being stressed.  I miss the pressure that keeps my eyes glued to the page and what it is that keeps me studying late, what wakes me up after a 3am night at 6am the next morning, to study without a headache.  I don’t understand why I can sleep for 12 hours and still start to fall asleep in the middle of a 9am lecture during the term, and yet I can concentrate perfectly during an intense 2 hour study session on the morning of the SAQ/MCQ at 6am after only 3 hours of fitful rest.   It’s the energy that nerves gives.

Yong went back to Korea.  Selina went back to China.  Gloris is going to Melbourne soon.  And I’ll be left…. well not really alone because Ariel (fortunately or no) will be here, but kind of.  At least for a few days.  So Selina might be gone for good.  I wonder… I didn’t really feel anything when she left.  No, I’ll correct that… when she left I WAS SLEEPING.  But in all fairness, I did have an exam the next day and I stayed up until 7am that morning studying (I mean studying DotA, but we’ll leave the details alone).

Selina.  How long has she been here for?  I mean, at least for long enough that she deserves her own paragraph.  Going-on-middle aged Chinese accountant working in a cheese factory that might as well be next door to the house I’m living in but is most likely multiple connecting bus routes away.  Lived here for 1 year, nearly more, might come back but cleaned out her room.  Tall and skinny, desperately trying to gain weight via whatever means possible: ate fast food 257 out of 365 nights for dinner after work, alternating between Mc.Donalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks all in or near Rundle Mall with or without the cake and coffee at Gloria Jeans afterwards.  Bought 23 packs of Shapes, 13 packs of TimTams, numerous fun-size packs of chocolate bars (Picnic was the last), and borderline obsessively cooked chinese cabbage and carrot fried in oil Jiangsu style on those 107 nights she ate dinner at home.  Constantly commenting on the food to Gloris in Chinese, as she opened the back door in the evening to get her dried underwear off the line.  The cake today was too dry, the meal at KFC was too oily (!!!) and so on.  Her mum even visited for a few days.  I guess I AM fond of her after all.  Talked to her all of two weeks - when Gloris was in Macau and it was just her and I in the house.  In that time, I improved my Chinese.  It was good timing too - just after I had vowed to start practicing again after a year’s leave of absence.

So, she took one last day off work on Friday, “They said there’s not much work today,” and was gone on Saturday morning, before I (or Yong) had got up to say goodbye.  I shed a (metaphorical) tear at her absence and carried on with exam revision.  Now I reflect… or I am reflecting.  She might not ever come back, and I never really said goodbye.

Then Yong left.  After that it was just Gloris and I, and then just I at night.  I think it’s interesting to think that I like people being around.  I like business, chatter, liveliness.  I like hyperactivity, sound, music.  I need quiet to study, though.  So that doesn’t really make sense… but maybe that’s just because I like concentrating…  but then… whenever the stove fan is turned on, it makes that constant whirr…rrr….whirr… then when it turns off, I almost feel something in my chest, as if something is suddenly gone and there’s a hole in my chest.  I can really feel it, physically.  It’s really strange - I feel the physical absence of sound.  I might try next time to turn the fan back on and see if that hole fills up.  It almost helps me to concentrate, THAT sound.  It’s like white noise… letting me block out other things, so there’s no distinct things I can subconsciously process.  So I can’t study when people are talking around me.  But it’s sad when they’re gone.

Take now, for instance.  Gloris and two friends in the house, walking around, watching a movie, laughing.  One’s using a laptop and chatting to her boyfriend while the other and Gloris are sitting/lying on the couch, heads cocked, blue/blue/white wool blanket on top, watching Casino Royale.  Their presence is energy in the room.

Well… at least it was a long paragraph.