Just Married

Whoops, seems like I've almost forgotten that I've a blog here. Well, life's been good. I'm currently on my last semester in uni and I hope that I'll scrape through and pass everything and finally graduate!

Been quite involved with Guild activities. The Guild's what we call the student council/union here in Western Australia. I've realised that we're the only ones who call it the Guild; others call it the Union or something like that. Anyway, I'm not on the council, but am just an ordinary active member who did some campaigning for them for the current student elections. It's swell and I've been participating in fundraisers and stuff like that. And just today, I got married! Naw, not for real. It was a fake marriage. In fact, you know what blind dates are hey? Well, this was something like that, but it was a blind marriage. Yup, I didn't know who I was getting wed to until 15 minutes before the ceremony. It was hilarious! I barely know my wifey and it must've been the most unglamorous wedding ever! We were totally underdressed under the scorching hot sun, wearing sunnies. Can you imagine? I think the only convincingly dressed person in the ceremony was the priest. And at the exchanging of rings, we asked 2 guests to lend us their rings! Geeeps! I felt quite embarassed that most of my classmates were there to witness everything. They were nice though, and even brought me to the tavern later to celebrate.

I'm surprised at how fast news spread. I went into lab and the rest of my classmates were congratulating me. I couldn't help but laugh when my lecturer did the same. He's a really serious guy, I'm often intimidated by him. Them cheeky classmates must've told him, but left out the "fake" information.

But yeah, that's how I've been spending my time away from the books lately; silly, but memorable activities and events... Gosh, I'm gonna miss uni life.

And talk about missing: Darn I miss home...

Final Approach

Exams are just 'round the corner, and what's a better reason to procrastinate than updating the blog? I realised that there's so much to do, anything that has nothing to do with the books; ie new facebook apps, old videos, school photos, drawing, cleaning the room, catching up with friends, burning CDs, ... the list goes on.

I've only 2 papers, one on the 4th and the other on the 8th of June. So in 2 weeks from now, I'm officially on winter hols! Staying here for 2 weeks cuz the parents will be visiting, and will be returning to KL on the 28th June. Will then be flying over to Canberra for a student conference for a week in mid July. That should be fun! Heard that Canberra's boring, but I'll be the judge of that. And hey, having over a hundred students bunking together in a city... I really don't think it could be that bad, right? We'll see, we'll see...

Finals finals... Sigh. Wish me luck! :)

Freaky Friday

Last night, I went to Freo for the Fremantle Prison torchlight tour. Definitely not for the faint hearted! I learned something that night: I'm sensitive, emotional, and courage deficient.

The entrance to the prison.

The tour started at 9:30pm, and our group had around 30 people.

It started off with us all being crammed onto this bench. This is the first room where the convicts were brought to and made to sit stark naked on that bench. One by one, the prisoners would be inspected before they were allowed into the next room for a shower.

One of the prison cell blocks.

I think it has a really spooky look to it. That building in the middle with long windows is the chapel. It's still currently being used, for weddings! Oh gosh, imagine being wed in a prison chapel!

We were then brought into the cell block. It's multi-levelled, exactly like what you see in the movies. The net was installed after one of the inmates commited suicide. After she told us this, there was a loud scream from the upper floor. Naturally, I was frightened and noticed that people started to move away from me. I looked up and to my horror, directly above me was a human figure caught in the net! Immediately, I screamed and ran! Luckily I had my friends to hug and comfort me. :(

Next was the kitchen, where I didn't listen to what the tour guide said nor did I take any pictures as I was recovering from the trauma. But while she showed us pictures of when the inmates were working in the kitchen, she said that she liked a particular picture of the inmates baking bread. She liked it because there was fresh bread in it, but unfortunately, because the doctors believed that fresh bread was an aphrodisiac, the bread was left for 3-4 days to go stale before they were given to the prisoners. How sad. :(

We visited the area where the prisoners were whipped with a ninetails whip with hooks at the ends. I don't think I need to elaborate on what the hooks were for. And as if that wasn't enough, salt was rubbed into the wounds after the prisoners were flogged. Ouch! :(

Solitary confinement was our next stop. Double doors, sound proof rooms. Prisoners spent 23 hours a day and up to 28 days at a stretch in here. Then all of a sudden, a door opened and an "inmate" ran out shouting, talking to himself, crazed. Again, I freaked out a little. :(

Then we progressed on to the gallows. Kim and I sat this one out. We waited outside while the rest of the group toured the room where prisoners were hung. After 2 minutes, Krystal came out to join us. I don't blame her, I would think that it's a very depressing and traumatizing room to be in. People died in there! Some may say that it's such a waste that I didn't go in to at least see how the room looked like, but I'm thankful that I didn't. Just looking at the other sections of the prison was so distressing that I'll be happy if I don't get nightmares about it. :(

After we gathered again, we were brought into the other cell blocks. There was a loud banging noise of steel gates and a scream from the upper level again. And again, I lost it. I ducked, put my arms over my head, and ran while yelling in fear. After collecting myself, I held onto Krystal's hand while the "inmate" from the upper level told us a story, of which I didn't listen to cuz it was a horror story of what happened to one of the inmates. Then Krystal moved to my right (she was previously on my left) and started swearing and cried. That scared me even more. I hugged her and kept my eyes closed.

Our final stop was the chapel. Though we were in a sacred place, I still didn't feel very comfortable until we finally left the prison. In my opinion, having to spend time in prison is far worse than death. Death is an immediate end to one's life, probably just a very sharp pain before one dies, but imprisonment is a lengthy torture. It destroys the mind, soul, and blows out the light of hope in our hearts. Overall, the visit to the prison was a truly memorable experience, though not a very enjoyable one.

This was the last picture I took - the stairwell in the cell block. It's also the last picture that I'll ever take with my beloved Sony Cybershot. Why? ...

After the prison tour, we were walking on the street towards the stretch of cafes and nightclubs in Freo, and we crossed paths with a group of aboriginals. For no apparent reason, one of the bastards pushed me so hard that I fell to the ground. I dropped and broke my camera. And while trying to get up, another asshole kicked me. Like seriously, WTF?!! Immediately, Vanessa started hurling very strong adjectives at them. This scared Krystal, cuz she was brought up from a rural part of Australia and said that these fucktards would actually even take a swing at girls. Thank goodness there were a couple sane ones in their dipshit group who apologised and walked away.

So if you think that you've had a worse day, please step right up!
I'm all ears...

Stressed Out

I just realised that it's been almost 2 weeks since my last entry.
That's long! (that's what she said!)

The reason for the lack of updates is because I've started anonymous blogging. Well, it's not exactly anonymous cuz I have a pseudonym. There are some things on my mind which I can't talk about here. It's strange as I seem to be getting more readers there than I do here, or at least that's what I assume.

Anyway, my week's been a little hectic. Thank goodness the weekend's finally here! Sleeping before midnight is a luxury I can no longer afford. I've been getting off with 5 hours of sleep on most of the nights this week. Ughhh.. Comfort food, please? Chocolate chocolate, ice cream, peanut butter! Oooer... Okay off to bed now. Building on that extra layer of warmth in preparation for winter.

And hey, it's Friday the thirteenth today! Didn't we have that last month? Hmm...

Seven Bands

When dark clouds blanketed the earth.

When sunlight was dimmed at midday.

When gloom settled in and all seemed dull.

When the silver lining could not be found.

And just as I thought that the day was lost to blight,

A rainbow brought hope.

Midnight

So it took me 5 days before I finally realised, "Where's Zoe?". Zoe's our house cat. She's been around ever since I moved in 2 years ago, and now she's gone! Her absence is a long story for which I've no desire to tell here nor anytime soon. Oh well, it may be a good thing cuz at least there'll be less fur to vacuum off the carpet from now on.

It's strange how my lifestyle has changed now that I'm back down under. In fact, it all changed in a single night! Back home, I used to stay awake till 3-ish in the morning before I hit the bed. This was an everyday routine. This week in Australia, I haven't stayed up past midnight at all! I start to get drowsy by 10 and fall asleep an hour later, sometimes less. Amazing inn'it?!

I called Jin at midnight (KL mean time) which was 1am at Perth this morning to send her my birthday wishes. No, I'm not contradicting myself on what I said earlier about not staying up past midnight. I actually slept at 11pm last night and set an alarm to wake up at 1am to make that call. Seriously. Hee! A shoutout to Jin, Lemon and Vish - Happy Birthday! Hope you have a great one! :)

End of Summer

It's over. 12 weeks of bumming around, finally over. The luxury of sleeping whenever I wanted to and doing whatever I wanted to whenever I wanted to has come to an end. The brain's rusty, time to get the whip cracking and back to work!

I'm having mixed feelings for returning to Australia. I'm excited to start the semester with the same old lecturers teaching new stuff. I'm happy that I'll be enjoying my student life yet again; the weekly routine of waking up early, walking to campus, attending classes, hanging out at malls on Thursdays, grocery shopping, and the works. I'll try to keep this post cheery and not talk about the sad and depressing parts; It's quite obvious what they are anyway.