Bad two days!

What's wrong with me?

Yesterday, I forgot something very important.
When I realized it after dinner,
I was feeling so bad and lousy.
Had to go on a walk to calm myself down.

After all these years of walking, I reckon there are 3 kinds of walks:

1) The solitary walk: where you choose your route, walk at your own pace, stop to smell the flowers (metaphorically, of course) or to observe one thing or another and enjoy the solitude. this is a peaceful kind of walk.

2) Walk with a couple of good friends: good time to catch up, find out what's happening in one another's lives, being each other's eyes and noticing things along the way the other person might not have noticed. this is a refreshing and happy kind of walk.

3) Walk with a big group of people: this usually happens when you're on an excursion or going somewhere fun. this can be tiring because you feel the need to address so many people. but it can be a fun and invigorating walk as well.

Then today, at lunch, I caused an accident :(

I was attempting to melt a piece of cheese for my fishburger, so what I did was place that slice of cheese on a piece of bun, and put it through the toaster.

Sadly to recount, that treacherous piece of cheese chose (ha, a sneaky attempt to remove my agency) to pop off the bun and fall into the dark recesses of the toaster, and go up in flames!

It took the following people to put the situation under control:

1) One to switch the toaster off
2) A second to unplug it
3) A third to blow frantically into it to extinguish the flame
4) A fourth to douse the burning cheese with water
5) A fifth to affix an 'Out of order' sign onto the toaster

I'm glad we're stopping at 5. If there was a 6, it would be to run for the fire extinguisher, and a 7 would be to call the fire brigade!

Enough of mishaps!

The day must get better. Yes, I'm pretty sure it would!

Crazy crazy week!

Blog title says it all!
Mad, mad week.
My thesis is due next week.
1 year of hard work coming to fruition!
I'm excited!

Had a meeting with my supervisor on Wednesday, and he's suggested more changes!
I must say that writing is an ongoing process,
and you're never going to get a perfect product.
I'm really grateful to him for the care he has shown to my writing -
He goes through every line,
scrutinizes every word,
questions each ambiguity.
I like a teacher like that!

In between working on the thesis,
I had to re-read
Pride & Prejudice (found it less silly since the last time I read it)
Great Expectations and
Jane Eyre (found it less subtle and more cliched than how I'd felt about this book, though the cheesy flirtations between Mr R and JE never fails to amuse me)

I'm currently re-reading A Doll's House, starting to plough through a biography of Chaucer, attempting to transcribe Troilus and Criseyde and finding out more about good ol' George Hebert...

And trying to catch up on sleep as well...have been managing an average of 5-6 hours everyday!

I really feel like Victor Frankenstein locked up in his solitary cell and cut off from civilization these few weeks!

Whoosh....Now I've gotten everything off my chest!
I believe I sound very nerdy in this post...just books, books and more books!

I will attempt to get a life soon.
Maybe that'll begin tonight when I have to dress up as Noddy and help serve alcohol.
Hilarious times!

Am so glad that we're going to an operetta on Saturday.
Hope it'll be good!

Washing out cats!

I was reading the first chapter of the 1818 version of Frankenstein this afternoon and somehow, all the talk about braving the elements and seeking glory at the North Pole made me remarkably sleepy, and hence, the afternoon nap.

Then, I had this weird dream where I was back at home, at this high-rise apartment block that was swarmed with stray cats, and the authorities were washing them out by creating a flood. In the dream, I was positioned over the block, and had a bird's eye view of this culling process. As the flood waters rose, I saw cats of various sizes and colours being washed out from all the holes (!) and gaps they were hiding in, and with them, came all kinds of vermin and pestilence, like roaches, flies, lizards etc. that were washed out in this gigantic flood. A Dickensian moment eh?

Now, would anyone like to interpret this dream, or to psychoanalyze me? :)

The strange thing was I was viewing this scene through the lens of a television news reporter, so it seemed really official and had the stamp of authority.

Rather drastic measures to rid yourself of stray cats. Made me think of people who would do anything to solve a problem, as the ends justify the means. Hmmm.

On another note, we had a good floor gathering yesterday. 100% attendance!! (Just 2 exclamation marks, considering that we are a population of 9)

We all got to know one another better, and I was pleased to know that a couple of the people here have a deadpan sense of humour!

Apres un reve

I had this dream last night that made me very tired this morning. I dreamt that I had to leave my family and I was counting down the hours to my departure, and the moments were so precious because every one of them counted and I think I was trying to sort of prolong them in my dream.

Sounds familiar? Well, I've just said bye to my family slightly a week ago as I flew back to Melbourne once again. Call this homesickness? Probably not, since that was the the fourth time I had to bid them farewell to embark on a long journey that will remove me from them for months.

I don't know if you've suddenly felt at some stage of your lives that your parents have grown old, and you wonder if they are happy, if they can take care of themselves, and of course the very practical things, like falling down, nutrition etc.

I'm listening to Bach as I type this. It's amazing, the universal quality of his music. I know this sounds cheesy, stuff about 'universal quality', 'speaking across the ages' blah blah but Bach does make you feel like you are on a long journey, and you are alone on a huge expanse of land, gazing out at the endless space around you, with no cares at all, and the only thing you need to do is to be yourself, to listen to nature around you.

I miss teaching

All of a sudden, I feel that I miss teaching. And all the stuff associated with it.

Taking morning attendance
Setting test papers
Marking test papers
Walking into the classroom
Getting ready to deliver a lesson
Seeing the anticipation in their eyes
Explaining something so someone understands
Trying to find the right amount of harmless sarcasm

I don't know and can't see how I will do classroom teaching again.

I hope I will. I know I have more to contribute.

Mary Shelley is a crazy nut

Today, I had 2 very meaningful discussions, one with my Dickens lecturer, and the other with my thesis supervisor.

I'm going to be looking at religious depictions in Dickens' novels. This marries my two great interests - religion and literature. I'm very happy with that.

With my sup, we discussed Mary Shelley's novella Matilda, a bizarre work where Matilda's father declares his love for her! Shelley's really a crazy genius. While her writing is definitely not as stylish as Jane Austen's or Charlotte Bronte's, her boundless imagination is amazing.

Back in college for dinner, and I met this year 12 boy who's visiting. He's Malaysian but he's been in Oz for 3 years and he told me he's picked up the Aussie accent because people can't understand the Malaysian/Singaporean accent.

Well, I guess at 28, my accent is more or less settled and I'll not be able to pick up any Western accent. As long as I speak grammatically, that'll be alright.

Busy...busy

I've not blogged for a few days, and that's because these few days have really been packed. The research methodology module is really intensive (Dr. Rutherford calls it the 'boot camp'). Every week, each of us has to share with the group the development in our thesis. So far, I'm still working on the idealistic individual but it's apparently too broad and I might have to narrow it down to the idea of an idealistic child. Well, let's see how it goes when I meet my supervisor next week.

Earlier this week, I attended a forum called 'Politicians and the media: bedfellows or adversaries?' or something like that. Well, politicians and the media traditionally have an uneasy relationship. In some countries, the media is closely scrutinized by the government, or used as its mouthpiece; in others, the media is very open and free, where everything goes, and it acts as a political watchdog, making sure that the government is doing the right things. One interesting thing (which we actually all know) that was mentioned very much during this forum was that politicians often have a slippery way of evading tough questions posed to them by the media, and how frustrating that is for the hapless reporter.

Anyway, I met this lady who sat beside me at the forum, and I told her I'm in Melbourne studying English Literature. I guess she must have misheard that as 'studying English', because when we parted, she told me (very earnestly) that every speaking and listening opportunity is a great lesson in English and urged me to make the most out of them. How funny is that. I think it's stereotypical to think that every Chinese person who comes to an English speaking country to learn 'English' must be here to learn how to speak good English, and not to pursue other English disciplines like linguistics or literature.

Another thing I have to mention is that I'm so glad that I'll be serving in the youth ministry of a baptist church here. I attended their youth fellowship on Friday and in a fortnight's time, I will be leading the music and bible study. The even more interesting thing is that the youths there are all from a Chinese background, and some of them are from the same dialect group as I am. I'm grateful to God for opening to me areas to serve Him everywhere I go to, in Shanghai and now in Melbourne. This is great blessing indeed.