I am Chinese....

Location: Computer Lab, Level 5, Building 5, Monash.

I was planning to study in the uni coz I've wasted the whole weekend doing nothing but... wait, I did nothing for the past weekend. Apart of feeling empty right now, I cannot help but wonder why after reading Jing Yi's post it kept raining in where I'm staying now. Like practically every day, sometimes twice somemore. Think rain can be spreaded through blogs these days?


Ok, enough of being real dumb, it's time to talk about my boring everyday experience.

The thing about being dumb is still okay if you're not really forgetful and unorganized. What did I do this time around? I handed in my JRN final assignment leaving the transcript behind. like WHY would I do that?!! So beside being unable to study in the hostel, I came to school just to hand in the transcript to Mr Wong.

Once... Twice (during lunch)... Trice. Not there. I thought of an genius plan to stuff the transcript under the door like how Felicia and Snowy chan used to communicate (buahaha, inside joke) While i was smiling darkly inside, I kinda forgotten that I'm wearing that really comfortable but low-waisted pants (when I bent over) -- While i was still celebrating my own brilliantness on the inside -- I stand up to see many people shooting that weird despising look.


You know how gals would react when they see something really 'interesting' right? they'll share it with the thousands of people standing beside her and all will be trying to look but pretending VERY hard not to look then when their eager eyes meet, they'll giggle in unison. Hey I'm a gal, I should know. So, tasting my own medicine to find that it ain't sweet.

Quickly I unfroze and approach Dr. Jaga's office to check my COM result. It's not that good (no surprise there) but can pass for sure, just no where near distinction. Then Dr. Jaga was alone (and was actually just bored) , he called me into his room. I was so scared that I did something wrong and that He remembered my face. That's one of the few moments in my life that I wanna be invisible. Or hoped that I look like Dawn Yang so that I can batt my eyelashes to wiggle my way out of hot water without grossing people out...


Anyhoo, I went to the cafeteria to buy some overpriced food to fill my bottomless stomach (I finally sound like a real journalism student!!) and met Yuna. Yuna's one of the very few Korean students studying in Monash as far as I know. We sat and had lunch and had small talk like both civilised people, which is quite new to me and met people like the crazy Veenah, really not-crazy-on-the-outside Belinda and soft spoken Marina.


After the whole ordeal, Yuna asked to use my phone to call her dad and it'll only take a second. It really took less than a second. Anyways, that's besides the point. When she was speaking Korean (I have no idea what do Koreans speak. I assume Englishmen (British) speak English so Koreans speak Korean?) to her dad, I truly feel the social differences we're in. Like totally different world we are from yet we're so alike (as in we're both humans; she has a dad, so do I, stc...) .


When I was on my way to Building 5 again, it got me thinking. I always have been really proud of my multilingual ability and more than once that it came in handy.

I was struggling to embrace my Chinese heritage lately, like trying to be more 'Chinese' as I fear that I'll forget my Chinese-ness if I don't use it on a regular basis (like I did for the past 17 years of my life). I started reading online chinese newspaper like SinChew Daily.com, well, just one chinese paper and it's not written using the simplified mandirin words.


For a gal who did not enjoy interpreting Chinese literature in the first place, I find it quite tough to imagine what the words mean by trying to come up with loads of possible meanings for the word and see which would fit best in the context. However, I kinda like Chinese calligraphy, though I was never really good at it..

Like what I always tell my friends, "I never got B in my Mandarin b4 ok?! I always get C one lerrr!" -- except in SPM and PMR (as u can see, how low the standard is lerrr....)

--- there's this guy in the lab giving me this demeaningly weird look!
What's with people today?!!---

Ok, back to the diverged cultural gap thing, in the short few seconds it struck me that I'm so deprived of knowledge (yes, enlightenment can happen in different places for different people). This feeling is new to me coz even when I hung out with vj and the gang, or when I went to Korea with my family, I didn't feel that strange sensation of being an outsider in this world.


I'm not a really religious person but why must we all have different languages all over the world? (coz of the babel thing) I have always feel so privileged knowing mandarin, cantonese, english, hokkien and malay but today it just doesn't seem sufficient anymore, like I'm lack of something...


Maybe that's how bro felt before deciding to take up Jap classes.



p/s: Sze Vien, now I can't get my mind off imeem!! It's partially your fault.. boo-hoo...

pp/s: I don't know why I keep bumping into Ben Ben in the campus...