How Fast Time Passes

 Hey all,

They say when you're enjoying something, time passes quickly. And I suppose that's how it is with the start of my university life. I only left Malaysia seemingly not long ago and here I am in Sydney for almost 4 weeks now... Just can't believe how fast time passed.

Time passes quickly...

Occasionally, I am still reminded of the day that I left Malaysia. For some reason, the memory always comes back to me. Packing my things. Waking up to get ready for departure. Leaving my grandparents' house with my grandmother. Going to the airport. Leaving my grandmother. Tearful. In the plane. More tears throughout the flight. Arriving in Melbourne. Spending time with my brother and my cousin at their university. Flight to Sydney. Sydney. Uni. International House ...

So much seems to have happened since then. Everyday was different, unpredictable, full of surprises and hence memorable. Adapting to new friends, new feelings, a new city, a new room, a new environment, a new school, a new life, a new beginning. Now, things are slowly stabilizing and my perception of life gradually returns to normality. No more excessive highs and downs.

A new city

A new skyline

School has commenced for 3 weeks. Ideally, I ought to distribute my efforts for my subjects equally, but as I study, I find that I tend to spend most of my time revising and studying economics, psychology and sociology. I guess simply because they appeal to me most and they are my potential majors (Psych's a definite major). Not knowing what I wanted to do a few years back, I can now confidently say that my decision to take up psychology, economics and sociology subjects was very smart of me. Studying a subject that I'm interested in really brings joy to learning. Outside of these subjects, I do occasionally follow up with readings on philosophy but I rarely really critically think about or revise it. With statistics, on the other hand, I don't even bother. It's just incredibly boring and I only work when I absolutely have to.

This is me during economics, psychology, sociology and sometimes philosophy

This is me during business statistics.

Over the weekend, I found this awesomely quiet and serene place to study in IH: the library. I've known it existed but I've never actually bothered to go try it out. But over the weekend I did and I was happy with what I found: exponentially increased productivity. Well, if you're from IH and you're reading this, you'd be sure to occasionally see me there studying throughout the semester for sure.

I have a few favourite routine things that I enjoy doing during my stay here at IH. Of no particular order:
1) Laundry: the maturity and calmness I get from laundry...self-satisfying
2) Walking to Broadway at night: the serenity and thoughtfulness of the night plus the nice windy weather... unbeatable
3) Meals: I just love socialising with friends over meals; reminds me a lot about SSIS and how we used to just joked around with different people during lunchtimes... fun

Doing laundry provides a sense of calmness in me

Outside of schoolwork, I try to engage and immerse myself in meaningful activities. May it be IH activities or school clubs and societies, I force myself to make the most out of the opportunities I have within my grasp. So far, I've been elected as the photography for the IHMA (Member's Association) and participated in various activities with the Photography, Buddhism, Malaysian and Singaporean societies.

Though my university life so far has been a fruitful beginning, I do regret not shooting enough photos. I've always wanted to promote my photography but how can I do that with no new photos to show? And without practice, my skills are not improving -- to the extent that it could be declining! I've got to get out there and shoot. But saying that I have to do something is one thing while actually doing that something is another. And at this point, excuses come from all directions to attack me. Who could I shoot? Who would be willing to me photographic model? Where could I shoot? I have to study. What if people don't like my photos? Have I lost my fiery passion? I'm lazy. Am I good enough? Argh! Inspiration...inspiration...come to me! <--- that's an excuse too... I've been having quite a few ideas recently but none have been implemented. I've even decided that I would like to give talks on photography, starting in IH, but what have I done to move towards this goal of mine? Perhaps I need to kick myself in the butt and drop myself in the middle of the ocean by starting a new project abruptly. I'll think of some thing.

Hopefully the next time I update the blog, some photos will be up on Young Lights Photography. For now, adios.

Note: I'm using other artists' works and being an artist too, I have to credit their works as an act of respect and gratitude: dear artists, thank you for contributing to my blogpost!

The First Week of Many

Hey all,

It's Saturday morning over here and there's not really much to do so I guess I'll update my blog now.

First week of uni. Went pretty well I guess. I'll narrate from the beginning of the week.

At around 3am in the morning of the first day of school, the fire alarm of IH suddenly rang. And everybody, in their grumpy looking pyjamas, had to drag themselves out of their beds and follow the fire emergency instructions. Later it turned out...that it was only a false alarm -- dang it, oversensitive fire detectors!

Classes are so different from high school. All of my lectures are huge lectures, with at least 100 students in each class. Honestly, I don't like it this way... it's really hard to get close to anybody, including the lecturer. Sometimes when the lecturer asks a question and I know the answer, I don't even dare to raise my hand to answer because it'd be real awkward if I mess up in front of hundreds of other students. But one thing I like about the classes is that they don't feel much like classes at all. In high school, we would need to wake up real early, take a bus to school and just have class after class. But in uni, classes are pretty dispersed throughout the day so we could rest in between if we wanted to -- which I do since I live within school campus. And because classes are so dispersed, you get a sense of independence everytime you walk to lectures. 

Of all my subjects, I find Economics and Business Statistics the most boring. I think the lecturer thought it was boring too because he himself taught really boringly. He occasional tried to joke but nobody laughed. It was that pathetic... Other classes were alright, but most lectures this week were introductory classes anyways, so we didn't really learn all that much yet.

The weather hasn't been all too consistent this week. Rain came and went. One morning it would be raining heavily -- enough to flood one of my lecture halls -- and in the evening it'd be sunshine again. I checked the forecast everyday to make sure that I was adequately equipped for the storms and the sun.

Even though I told myself that I need to study, I haven't been doing much in the first week. I don't even know what I spend my time doing...really. The university's so big and there are so many things to take care of. Keeping updated with the Counselling and Psychology Department, Learning Centre, Career Centre, Clubs & Societies and what not. Oh, and I still need to get some of my textbooks via secondhand dealers.

Anyways, I'm going to stop writing here because I feel that I've been losing my inspiration to write. Over the next few weeks, I think I'm going to be updating this blog less and less frequently. Not sure if that's a good thing for you but it's definitely not a good thing for me. I want to write, but more often that not, I don't even feel like writing anymore.

Mardi Gras

Hey all,

Just want to have a short update as it's late and I'm not really in a mood to write.

Yesterday, I attended my first Mardi Gras parade ever. A group of friends and I went to the city to check the parade out right after Lasertag (which wasn't that fun...). It was quite late when we went so the parade was over by then. What was left were streets full of litter and people.

It was like China. Everybody flooded the streets and most people were in weird costumes of all sorts. Gays and lesbians were also largely present, as they dress up in eccentric costumes. Peacock tails, fairy wings, bikini dresses were all common. Some of the special ones included wearing a tight underwear and suspenders without a shirt on. It was a good but different experience from the ones I have had before in my life.

Sadly, I didn't bring my camera with me. So I didn't take any photos. But one of my friends, James, did use his Galaxy SII to snap some photos of us posing with some of the people in costumes though. It was quite funny. Everyone was all quite friendly and they were all willing to snap photos with random strangers.

After walking around the streets for an hour or two, we decided to head back. But most of the roads were closed off to buses and cars so we had to walk quite a distance to actually get to a bus stop. By then, we were quite close to our dorm already so we decided to walk/semi-run back. The weather was quite windy and cooling so the walk home was smooth.

When we almost reached our dorms, for some reason we decided to head off to a park opposite, where we played around with an exhilarating flying fox in the playground. We played around for a bit before heading back to our dorms to chill. Lisa, who you can consider the head of our dorm's resident council, brought us to her room to have our handprints on a poster on her wall. She painted our hands and we just smacked them on the posters. A really cool idea, I feel. Following that came ice cream, which I offered. We just chilled a bit while we ate our ice cream down in the dining area. We went to bed straight after that.

It was a good day. I liked it. I know that there won't be many more days like that but I'm glad that I had that day. Thanks Lisa, James, James (there were two James), Evan and Neil.

PS: Tomorrow's the first day of school. I'm not exactly nervous nor am I excited. I'm kind of in a foul mood right now so I don't really want to think too much about school. I just want to promise myself that I will study hard because my parents paid lots to have me come here and I'll be wasting their money and my time here if I don't even try. After 8 and a 1/2 months of holiday, I think I'm ready for school. May tomorrow unfold itself. Cheers.