- I like sneezing. 2002-04-09 23:19:49 All of a sudden I feel an itch to work on my Nausicaa video. Must be because I have countless academic assignments due in two weeks. It's the curse of procrastination - the urge to find something not-so-urgent to do in to escape the reality of an impending deadline. Eg: "My 30,000 word essay is due tomorrow! Hm, I think I'll go burn all the AMVs I've downloaded since last year into alpahetically ordered CDs. Woo yay! Now I need to go to town and get blank CD-Rs!"
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I want to be a replacement killer. ~ Eva
2002-04-09 01:50:24
Aargh. Headache again. Feels like my brain is trying to birth itself from my eye socket. I need a midwife.
Don't know why I am so prone to headaches these days. Actually I shouldn't be too surprised. My lifestyle isn't the healthiest, and there are tons of reasons why I should get some kind of cancer anytime now:
1. My room is dark, dingy and airless.
2. I never seem to get enough sleep.
3. I don't eat enough.
4. I don't drink enough water.
5. I don't poo often enough.
6. I don't exercise.
7. I expose myself to computer radiation much of the day.
8. I sit scrounched up in such a way that my lungs are compressed to half their capacity.
9. I lose blood on a daily basis from peeling my fingers.
10. I've been eating decomposing strawberries out of a bucket for much of the week because I am too cheap to throw them away. Long story. Will tell another time.
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Again! Again again again! ~ the Teletubbies
2002-04-08 09:18:46
Ami: Hey look, it's just like Sims, but with more personality.
Wally: Yeah. And the station can't afford to let them die either.
Ami: (Chey. No fun.)
The second season of Big Brother just started today. For those who don't know what it is, BB is just like Survivor, but indoors. Like Sims, but involving real people. It's HUGE in Australia. Aussies are suckers for reality TV.
I try not to watch it in case my brain starts dribbling out my ears. The way I see it, it's kinda like the Teletubbies. There's nothing much, but damn, it's addictive. You cringe and you want to switch off the TV, but you c..an..'t. -
Call me Poison Ivy. Mmm... maybe not.
2002-04-07 19:10:45
Against all odds, my plants are growing back again.
Wally bought me a pot of hyacinths last winter. In Australia that was June/July. My room is rather dim and dingy because the only window I have is one that faces the corridor. It provides opportunity for people to peek in while I change, and a little light from the skylight in the corridor, but not much else. Anyway, the flowers do wonders in brightening up the place, if only for two weeks.
http://www.geocities.com/feistyfeline78/pictures/melb6_0018.jpg
This picture was taken last year. Unfortunately, me being the idiot I am, I went and threw the pot of bulbs away after the flowers withered. I will never forgive myself.
When we went to get my second pot, the shop owner told me that they would the bulbs would sprout again next season. Now, I must make it known that the only experience I've had with bulbs is when I grew spring onions for my science project when I was 9. Oh, and my mom plucked them as garnish for her porridge before I could hand it in.
Back to the hyacinths. I was kind of losing hope that my hyacinths would ever resuscitate, especially after the pot was up-ended a couple of times by passers-by as well as myself in the dorm-corridor.
Today, however, I peered into the pot and noticed two tiny little shoots coming up. I am as happy as the little girls in My Neighbour Totoro when he made the huge tree sprout out of the seeds they planted.
They've been through plant hell, from being under-watered to being kicked down the corridor like a football to being put no more than two metres from the heater going full-blast. I think I'm going to get some fertiliser or plant food to reward my plants for being so resilient and Ami-resistant.
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"What's the point of having a cake? It's not as if she's going to be there to cut it."
2002-04-06 05:24:28
I called my sister yestrday to ask her how she was doing with regards to the death of her friend. She sounded like she meant it when she said she was alright.
The results of the DNA test are back, and the results are no surprise. The remains have been identified as that of Xingling. But instead of planning a funeral, it turns out that the family will do without one, because it is not proper in Chinese tradition for older people to 'send off' those younger than themselves. She was the youngest in her family, so not even her older brother is supposed to be able to attend.
My sister is a little upset that there won't be an opportunity for closure. I myself think it a little unfair that the dead girl's family would deprive her friends of the opportunity to say their last goodbyes. And then I feel guilty for thinking that... I mean, they must be feeling absolutely awful now, I think I can understand if they considered only themselves at the moment.
My sister did say though that Xingling would have been mighty pissed not to have a funeral. "She was the kind who liked things to be done *properly*," she said.
Then my sister started recounting some of the memories of her friend. Somewhere between the mimicking of the broken-English way Xingling used to say "I'm so touch-ded (touched)" when she wanted to express gratitude, and the way she always used child concession tickets to save money, I started to cry over the phone.
I think it has finally sunk in how she is really GONE - that the girl with the garishly dyed red hair and the jutting chin with the awful hyena laugh is *dead*. She will never graduate, she will never marry, she will never have kids. She may have watched Ice Age, but she won't get to watch Star Wars Episode II. She won't watch the next episode of Buffy. She won't hand in her next assignment.
Tomorrow is supposed to have been Xingling's 20th birthday. My sister is organising a group of friends for a small reunion in memory of Xingling. I told my sister to encourage her friends to remember Xingling as she was alive, and not obsess over her awful last moments.
One girl suggested buying a cake. My sister said there was no point. I agree with her.
My sister is terrified that she will start to forget her Xingling. She said that now that she isn't around to create new memories, the old ones can only fade with time. I didn't see the point of feeding her the crap about people living always in your heart with if you keep their memories. Yes, you always remember them but you will *still* forget the small things, which make up a big part of who they were. You'll forget the sound of their voice, their irritating habits they had, their minute physical details... the everyday things. Some of these things would have been replaced by new memories, new experiences, but when someone is gone... The human psyche is built to forget pain and grief, no matter how raw and hideous it feels. And sometimes pain is what keep the memories keen.
At one point my sister said wonderingly to me, "I am talking about Xingling in the past tense." We sat in silence and thought about that.
JOURNAL: Amizadai (Lee Amizadai )
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