Indecisive like a girl

I love being practical and straight to the point. When I am unable to make a decision for myself, it drives me crazyyyyyyyy. Oh, the dilemma!

Should I take the right path where there's nothing left? or should I take the left path where nothing is right? Mr Parrot has a ponder.

Now I'm just thinking, should I sit for my GEO114 paper tomorrow? I would be able to get it off my chest asap but suffer almost 4 days straight of exams with a high probability of ending up VERY cranky. And nobody likes being cranky.

OR should I leave it till the 20th and way finish later than everyone else?

Don't you talk to me like you know me better than myself

Deep breathing

I am pushing myself to complete my degree within the next two years, ie by the end of 2011. I will have to overload my next three semesters in order to achieve that (and not flunk anything!). It would be quite a daunting challenge especially when I plan to juggle that with a casual job. I hope I am not being too bold by subjecting myself to all that pressure which could possibly consume me.

But when I come to think of it, two years isn't really long. In fact, it's short. When I first enrolled into university, I had 5 years ahead of me. I am down with three, only two to go. I am absolutely thrilled about getting myself all out there, working and to be in various parts of the world, taking up exploration projects and be a part of a strong, dynamic team of professionals. I would be able to pay off my dues to my parents who have worked hard for my education and be fully financially independent, hopefully with some money to spare on luxuries and travels. That's half of my lifetime dreams comprised there!

I guess meanwhile, will have to focus hard to really get myself there. I've been telling myself that the coldest time of the day is right during the break of dawn. The light at the end of the tunnel is visible, but there is still that one final battle to make it through the last stretch of cold - the bleakest one. It won't be easy, but things will lift up from there. Just got to hold on.

Letting go lightly

One of my housemates have moved out from the flat today to be in Queensland. Slowly, all of us would have to eventually move out and I'll be the only one coming back in to Flat 48 next year. I have had a great year here living with my housemates. Their presence has helped me to settle nicely here in Perth and staying on campus means I am never short of friends. The boys were quite a pain in the arse though - just imagine discovering your bottle of Chivas that is only 1/3 consumed one day being filled up with dried chili flakes! Argh!

But anyway, that brings me to think just how temporarily some things like friendship and acquaintanceship can get. When separate paths are taken, people start to drift away from one another regardless of how close they once were. Whenever I accept new friend requests on Facebook from people I meet here, I think bitterly to myself how I would not see quite a number of them again after a semester or two because our stay here, including mine, as a foreign student is so temporarily and uncertain.

This has lead me to think that we involve ourselves in this sort of awkward interaction because we need to in order to adapt more so than to genuinely have friends. The people you've gotten to know are mostly kept at your disposal. I will miss my housemates dearly but I am aware that I will have new ones again whom hopefully, I would have a great time as I did with the ones I had.

And the cycle continues..

Did the chicken actually make it across alive?

On some days when I'm insomnia ridden, I find myself wondering whether that's the day I'd stumble upon my own death. With my focus blurry and mind groggy, I keep thinking of how it's highly possible that I'd get run over by a car when I'm crossing the road. It scares me sometimes how it can seem like an unbelievably difficult task to just double check the traffic before crossing with a tired mind.

Catching sparks

I think I'm burnt out for today.

Mandurah excursion

I absolutely love my Geology field trips! I suppose being foreign here adds a little extra excitement to it. Next year, I would have a week long excursion down to Albany, another to Kalgoorlie, plus a few other day trip ones along the way. I can only imagine the alcohol and craze that would involve!

Last Sunday, I had an excursion down to Mandurah for my Environmental Geochemistry unit. Attendance is a requisite to pass this unit so like it or not, everyone had to rock up for it. I reckon it was good fun save I came home with a sunburnt back.

The purpose of this trip was to study nutrient pollution and acid sulphate soils around the vicinity of Mandurah which lies on the Swan Coastal Plain. Apparently Mandurah has the highest developmental growth rate in Australia so we were also there to see how the canal home development, channel dredging and the construction of the Dawesville Cut are affecting the environment's geochemistry. Most of this had to do with the changes in the water salinity and ecosystem of the Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary.

At about 2pm, we stopped at the Mandurah waterfront for about 40 minutes for lunch break after visiting our first four locations - Halls Head Beach, Avalon Beach, Dawesville Cut and the western shore of the Harvey Estuary.




Our trip took a twist right after our break when the bus broke down LOL The engine started smoking up and made a couple of ciggy smokers at the Irish bar across the road choke hahaha! The bus managed to move for another 4-5 kilometers before completely breaking down (right in front of a church LOL). According to one of my lecturers, the upper compartment of that very bus somehow caught fire a year or two ago LOL. Very dodgy indeed.

Those who went there with their own cars went on with the excursion whilst the rest of us were stranded in the middle of no where. All of us decided to make our own way to the train station so we could head back to Curtin despite not having a clue how.

We eventually did get to the bus station by hopping into a Transperth bus. The driver was like, wtf when she saw the bunch of us and she gave us all a free of charge ride because she couldnt be arsed collecting 60 cent from 20 kids to the train station. So yeh, we managed to catch the train and woot, it was home sweet home from there. No need for a field report submission too :D

The silent battle

I battle myself to sleep every night. I wish sleep would come easy for me like how it does for most people. I have given up trying to sleep early on most nights. I just stay up till I tire myself so I could crash almost instantaneously. It does the trick pretty well but sometimes I reckon I'm actually adding salt to the injury by making that a habit.

Sleeping any time before midnight means waking up 3-4 hours later to not be able to sleep again until hours later (usually during the most inconvenient time :( ). Sleeping around 1-3am means having to stay awake for another hour or.. four until I actually dose off. The worst case possibly that I could go through is actually wanting to sleep because I feel absolutely shattered, but can't. It's almost like I'm too tired to sleep. The other scenario would be like tonight. I'd like to sleep but I just don't feel like it even though I have a test in the morning tomorrow. Le sigh. I think I'm living in the wrong time zone.

I recently bought a bottle of mild off-the-counter sleeping tabs. I'm staring at them, contemplating.. but I swear they are nothing but placebos. They do make me feel slightly drowsy but not actually sleep. I hate to admit this as well but for some horrible reason, it makes me wana keep getting up to PEE. I've been telling myself that this has to be a very ugly prank. Not funny. I'd like my $25 back please.

Life can be so cruel

I am once again at Curtin's computer lab. It's 10 p.m. and I have been here since four. I am starving! I have not had my dinner and I am tired.. but I really neeed to go through some more notes before I head home.

This Asian dude just came in with KFC. Of all the places, he had to sit right in front of me! Food is not allowed in the labs by the way. I am cringing from knowing how ignorant some people can be. From the edge of my screen, I can see that rude m.f. nonchalantly gobbling away, licking his fingers and then typing with them - those greasy and slobbery fingers *shudders*. Ooh, and I can see him looking blankly back at me. I wish he could know just how much I'd love to stick a pair of chopsticks into his eyes right now.

I live while the whole world dies

Everyone has just one known lifetime. But what happens if we had more than one?

I would say my life has been relatively blessed and clean. I can't be more grateful. Perhaps for that reason, if I was granted a second life, I think I'd like to live it painful, tainted and ruined. I would plot my own tragic downfall by doing all the wrongs - just to know what's it like.

I would like to be that ten year old girl who was forced to sleep with older men and being wedded off at a tender age to feed her family. The one who chose to run away from home and never to be found again by the people she once knew. The one who had never knew what it was like to go to school and to have friends to share secrets and play girly dress ups with.

She would also be the one who could never bear to look into her own eyes in the mirror. And she would starve and cut herself to feel beautiful again. She would be the one who would seek solace through drug addiction, loitering at the ghettos, waiting to be offered by a passerby for a one night stand in return for some money so she could continue feeding that addiction that quells the pain. She would pray to god every night to unanswered prayers. She would end up being pregnant at eighteen without a clue who the father was and she would not be able to afford an abortion so she had to find ways to cause a miscarriage.

Eventually, she would take her own life away to end it all. Yet, her unfortunate death would not be known until one day, an unsuspecting someone found her corpse sprawled along the river. But her corpse was already decayed beyond recognition and no one would ever know who she really was or where she belonged.

On second thought, I think I shall take my words back. Let's just stick to one lifetime for now.