Pray (Yuan)

Freedom! That’s the first thing I can think of when I sat down to write this post. The last two weeks have just been… hellish, to be honest. Last week, I had a 2,500 words assignment to write and for the first time ever, I actually had problem reaching the word limit whereas before, it was always “oh, okay” cut, “oh, again?” cut and “no, please don’t make me do this” cut. Yesterday, I had a mid-semester exam that covered week 1 to 7 so that was a lot of cramming to do over the weekend. The exam seriously made me reconsider my study skills. If I could catch up an entire week worth of lectures (relistening to them while taking notes) in one day when I really tried (I even managed to do one lecture while on the train), how on earth did I fall behind? So I guess I’m now sort of determined not to fall behind. I’ll let you know how this determination’s working out.

I’m now loaded down with heaps of pracs, some of which are actually quite exciting. Tomorrow, for example, we’ll get to actually dissect the cadavers (whereas before, we only got to see instructors do them) and since we’re learing about NDM (Nutrition, Digestion, Metabolism) this semester, it’s all about the abdoment and GIT (gastrointestinal tract). Not sure how it’ll go but should be an interesting experience. A pity I have lunch right before it, huh.

Hm.. I can’t remember if I told you guys already but my parents “permanently” (that’s what they said about Brisbane AND Glasgow so hmm… I don’t really believe them) relocated to Melbourne to look after me/overfeed me. Well, now that I’ve moved to an Eastern suburb, I catch the train every single day, which is surprisingly an amusing experience. As my friends already noted, I’ve compared my experience in the train as an emperor penguin, chicken and sardines. The first was because I noted how when passengers all get crammed in the train, we were like emperor penguins ruthlessly guarding our territory against invasion by other fellow penguins. The chicken was on those bad days when we all just cram in like chickens waiting to be slaughtered. On a really really really bad day, we were like sardines 😀 I know, I’m sad but seriously, when I have no moving or breathing space on the train with nothing to do for thirty minutes, my mind does wander quite far.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that I always always get picked on by the ticket inspectors in Melbourne Central. The first time kind of took my by surprise because I thought why on earth would they bother checking in the city, you kind of need a ticket to get out of the station. But an inspector asked to see my concession card. I was bewildered, how on earth did he know I even had a concession ticket?! Nevertheless, I faithfully produced my card and left. Next day, same thing happened. Out of the last two weeks, I’ve been picked 6 times all at ~7:40am. I’ve noticed that if I exited during peak hour (8:30am) they don’t really bother but before 8, they always check. Maybe I’m paranoid or something, but they never bother asking all those other fellow passengers. I’ve got 3 theories going on right now. A) I dress like a poor uni student, b) I look immature or c) I have a guilty face on whenever I see them. Whatever it is, I am now carrying my concession card around like a shield against them. I’ve got 2 options right now. Hopefully, eventually ALL the inspectors would have picked on me and eventually recognises me so that they would stop or I will just have to resign myself to getting asked for the next five years. Fun.

Moving on to the US election, I feel America is doomed. Latest polls show McCain is actually in front. Yes, him, the old bald guy who should get adopted by the Bush family with his bear-killing teenager-pregnancy-promoting VP candidate are actually leading the polls (albeit only by a small margin). Why?! What could people possibly see in him and his foreign policies about wars not to mention those environmental policies about oil drilling. I still can’t believe Palin refuses to acknowledge polar bears are an endangered species just so she can drill for oil in Alaskan reserves. As much as the argument about anti-abortion is valid, I think it’s up to the woman herself. Not allowing abortion is pretty much telling those victims of rape and incest that it’s all your fault so suck it up. And do we really need to promote teenager pregnancy in this world? As one guy on mX adequately said, leave those caribous alone and go shoot that bugger that knocked your daughter up. What on earth are they promoting anyway? Grrrr, if they end up winning, the world is going to be doomed.

What else? Oooh, watched the paralympics opening ceremony on the weekend and oh my goodness, it was so touching. Any of you guys see the lighting of the torch? All through it, I just sat there, absolutely astounded he could perform such a feat. It just goes to prove we are all equals and if you believed, you can achieve what you want.

Today is September the eleventh and it still doesn’t look the war on terror is going to end any time soon. The following is the chorus to the song “Pray” by Tina Cousins. I think it’s very relevant to the current state of the world:

Pray for good and pray for love
Pray for peace and pray it’s enough
Pray for salvation; Pray that we’re right
Pray one day we’ll open our eyes, and
Pray for them and Pray for us
Pray one day we can live as one
Pray for the children whose time is to come
Just pray they forgive us for the
Stupid things we’ve done

On that sad note, I’ll say goodbye.

Until next time,

Yuan

Disclaimer: The lyrics do not belong to me so please don’t sue.