Chapter Thirty-Two: And then the stress hit me in the face like a speeding truck (~jinghan)

Note from the author: Bit of a crazy emotional week, last week was, but don’t worry, I am okay now because I have made cake! (and I would not have the energy for writing a blog if otherwise). And also note that I have distorted some of these events for the sake of the story, and people’s privacy.

Chapter Thirty-Two: And then the stress hit me in the face like a speeding truck

It was Friday evening and I sat on the back service steps of the Grand Buffet Hall, my sobs echoing through the concrete stairwell, and, I hope, not into the Buffet Hall – where dance music is pulsing through the air, interjected by applause. This is shameful. I am crying in front of people who are  good acquaintances, but acquaintances none the less. This is shameful, I tell myself, but stead of quelling the tears it brings about another tremendous gasping sob.  I feel a powerlessness. It feels like this conclusion was inevitable. As if everything in the week was leading towards this: me sitting on the concrete step in the service stairwell at the back of the Grand Buffet Hall.

—

Monday evening, my back aches. I rotate my shoulders hoping to ease the strain, but as soon as I put my pen to paper again the ache is back. I look at the list of maths theorems, rules and little piece of miscellaneous that I’m trying to memorise. Almost there, just a few more left to go.

The aching in my back is probably not because of the three continuous hours that I’ve spent doing maths, but a sum of the eight continuous hours on Saturday, eight on Sunday, and the three today. I search for a sense of regret: regret at not being more organised and studying earlier in the day, studying during the weekend, studying in the previous week, or studying more during the semester in general. But I find none. I find none because all the moments in my days that could be considered wasted time were filled with sheer exhaustion.

Sheer exhaustion is what I feel as I scribble out the last formula. I flick through the pages of my exercise book. Their rustling is the only thing that suggests a sense of productivity. My mind has already wandered onto the thought that I haven’t practised enough questions. You can never win with rote learning in maths. I put a sheet with problems in front of me on the desk, but there comes a time in the day when no amount of will can force anymore learning into one’s brain.

I recall I conversation I had with a friend. He had been much more ambitious about marks and the such than me back at school, but now he was doing Med and he “just wanted to pass.” When had studying with thoroughness become a luxury, rather than a bewailed obligation?

I pack up and go to bed.

—

Tuesday morning, I am intensely looking over questions on the train. No time to look at them now. But its better to know what you know and don’t know before you head into the mid-semester test. The word ‘test’ reminds me of my physics in-class test, where the first question had caused me to panic, despite the fact that I had been confident in my studying leading up to the test. I dislike tests, I decide.

Wilson Hall is filled with neat rows of desks with numbers pinned to the corners. I find mine and sit down. I remember that I have left my phone and wallet in my bag outside and hope that no one will steal them. The clocks around the room tick their ominous chant. I open the test paper. “State the intermediate value theorem,” is the first question. A rote question. A rote question!

A flow of relief: my studying paid off. By chance, it seemed.

—

Tuesday afternoon – or rather, it is still morning by definition, but so much energy has been spent already that the beginning of the day seems already far off: I head straight from the test hall, back to my tutorial room where I left my coat. I head straight from the tutorial room to Union House to meet up with my dance partner.

We rehearse in front of the Buffet Hall on the landing of the stairs. Two floors worth of people can see us, but I don’t have the energy to care; and I am thankful that my partner was not picky about the location of our dance practice, because I could not bare anymore trekking back and forth. The Interversary Dancesport Competition is on Friday, and I just wanted to get it over with as painlessly as possible. He counts and we dance. I want to just do the routine we learned in class, but he keeps changing the steps. I don’t have the energy to argue.

—

Thursday morning, I am pacing back and forth in front of the mathematics office. What was supposed to have been a painless copying of some files to a USB, lead to said USB not interacting with the computer, and said files being shuffled into the seemingly slow email system. I flip open my phone. I flip it closed. I flip it open and enter a number. There is ringing, the click before the answering machine kicks in, and “Hi, this is the office of-” I impatiently drop the call and dial again hoping for a different outcome. “Hi, this is the office of-”

Another place I should be.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m kinda held up in the maths building, did you want to join me here instead?”

“Uh no. I’m going to get lunch.”

“Oh.” Wasn’t I supposed to be having lunch with __ ? But I don’t ask.

I peer into the office, and the lady who said she would send the file is talking on the phone. Do I need to be here for her to send the file via email? Why have I been waiting here for 15mins? I am annoyed at I hurry towards Union House. I flip open my phone.

“Hello?”

“Where are you having lunch?”

“The Cafe near Alice Hoy.”

Ack. I should have called before heading all the way to Union House, only having to head all the way back to the other edge of the campus. I let myself relax for a minute and a half while my lunch heats in the microwave. I’m with other friends and I worry about bothering them, because I know they will feel obliged to come with me to the other side of the campus. All I want is to just sit (sit!) and eat my lunch. Oh well, the quicker I get there the better.

“Do you want to join us outside? I have my own food so I don’t want to eat inside the cafe.”

“I think I’ll just have lunch by myself.” *

Perhaps it had been a long time coming, but that was when stress hit me in the face like a speeding truck… the first time.

Once I’ve hit this point, the best I can do for myself is head for the nearest bench and sit myself down. “Sorry,” I smile-cry as my other friends watch on with the look of people that do not understand what happened, and do not know what to say to make it stop. And I can’t say I was in too different a situation myself.

—

By Thursday evening, I have patched up my differences, dried up my tears, and rested myself into a state of quasi-calm – only to have to survive three hours in a computer workshop and one hour in a disastrous and awkward lecture. I think I will rest myself in the evening, but I end up debating about the Bill Henson case**, while trying not to neglect another conversation.

By the time I have managed to collapse into bed, I am exactly that, collapsed. Usually talking to my friends brightens my day, but I can’t help thinking about the work that had gone un-done, and the day I have ahead of me the next day: a 7:15am start with a 9:30pm end. And the more I thought about it I less I could sleep.

“I’m really sorry, I can’t come to your party on Saturday. I’m really stressed out at the moment. I will bring you cake on Monday. Really sorry,” I text at some point after midnight because I need to stop the thoughts running through my head.

—

Friday evening, I am prodding the empty container that had been my food-court dinner around on the table. My friend had decided to stay around to see the dancesport competition on a whim. I don’t know why, but I am glad that I’m not sitting here alone. Its hard to feel too dejected while making conversation. The cleaner shoos us away from the table so that he can put up the chairs for the night, so we make our way up to the Grand Buffet Hall.

I’m in a pretty red dress, but very nervous. I mean, I know the dance well, I just wish my partner would turn up so we can go through it once just so I know for sure that I know it.

“Can all competitors please head across to the registration table to get your number as soon as possible.”

I head across, and scan the list for my name. I find it next to someone who is not my partner.

“I’m sorry, but my name is written down next to the wrong partner.”

The girl at the registration table looks stressed and frazzled. “Uhg. Who is your partner? But I called him up and he said he was dancing with ___. Look can you wait till he gets here and bring him over so we can sort it out?”

I am a little bit unnerved by the news. He did say he was dancing with someone else, but that was in another dance right? I nervously go over the dance steps on my own. And then call my other friend who should be coming to watch because I don’t know what else to do to stop the ominous sense of foreboding. “Hi, are you coming to the dance thing?”

“What… dance… thing?”

“Uh. Dancesport competition. It’s tonight.”

“Oh no. What time?”

“Like, now.”

“I’m on a tram heading towards T___ at the moment, will I make it on time.”

“No. Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you next week!”

“Sorry! Good luck!”

The sense of foreboding has only increased. I smile weakly at my friend. I cross the room every time someone I know arrives. I keep harassing the frazzled looking girl with the clip board. (or was it that she kept harassing me?)  He finally arrives.

“You are so late!” I say in a light-joking manner.

It is several minutes before we finally sort out who is dancing with who. My dance is first, and I beg for one quick rehearsal before we hit the stage. But half-way through a muddled version of the routine, he stops and ponders: “Don’t you think it’s unfair. I don’t think I should be dancing in the beginners and the advanced sections.”

I don’t care! I don’t care if we get disqualified! I have survived the day, and I just want to get to do the dance as painlessly as possible! Can we just run through the routine once? Just once? Is that too hard to ask? But all I do is smile and then cry.

I wipe my face of tears. We rush into hall. I pin the number to his back. They don’t announce our name, but I pull him onto the dance floor just as the music is starting. We do the first few steps and then we keep repeating those first few steps. I smile, but in my head I am wondering what happened to all those steps we spent so many minutes rehearsing on Tuesday when I could have been… could have been! Or the fact that I could be right now, at home letting the week slide into the past, instead of hanging on for these last few minutes. I feel cheated of something.

I probably made him feel like it was his fault. It wasn’t, it was everything in the week that had lead to my collapse into tears after I left the stage. People probably assumed I was annoyed that I had danced badly. I wasn’t, I was just disappointed I had survived the week not to even have the chance to have something to show. And there I was on the concrete stair in the back of the Grand Buffet Hall, crying, because the week had run be down. My friend put his arm around me. If he thinks I am a pathetic sobbing mess he does not show it. And I am thankful. A girl from my dancing class brings me a drink and I am thankful. I wipe my face and one of the girls takes a group photo. She shows me the photo; I am surprised that my smile doesn’t look forced at all. And I am thankful.

I settle into a book as I take the train home. I can finally relax because the week is over.

“Hope you are feeling okay now,” says the text from my friend.

“Yes. Thankyou. Thankyou for hanging around.”

It’s the end of the week. And I am thankful.

——————————

*post script: don’t worry, it was all a misunderstanding, and has been sorted out between us. (moral of the story: do not make phone calls when you are stressed out of your mind, because you will not hear what you hear.)

** in 2008 Bill Henson’s photography sparked an art-versus-porn debate in main media. And on any other day I would have been glad to discuss the topic, since it is one of the few political things that I have a strong and well-read opinion on. But debating the one thing that you can’t let go off when you’re in need of rest is not good.