Prologue to Second Year (~jinghan)

Note from the Author: A survey of my first-year blog revealed that I had written some fourty-three “chapters” and an estimated 45000 words – so pretty much a novel. I got rather attached to my strange narrative way of blogging during first year, so it only seems fit that I continue the saga with a second “book” in what you might consider the trilogy that is my Bachelor of Science. I pay my respects to the bloggers who have been loyally writing here before me and hope they do not mind my posts slotted in beside theirs. Oh and… my name is Jinghan and I’m studying maths and informatics as part of a Bachelor of Science, and the rest of me you must discover on your own. Enjoy!

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Early December, I pick up a diary and flick it open, and toss it back on the sales cart after just a glance at the inside. I seems planner-diaries are often made for people with no life. Of course, I mean no offence to any with such a diary, but I cannot accept that it is adequate for Saturday and Sunday to be squeezed into the same space that every other day of the week has to itself. I intend on making the most of every day of the fast approaching new year.

I pick up a red diary, the one with swirling leaves and open blossoms embossed in the (maybe fake) leather cover, and flick through the pages and take note of the features that I like: pretty cover, week-to-view, good size, handy notes section for each week, space for contacts, space for notes at the back, a pocket for miscellaneous paper in the back cover and most importantly: a fair share for space for Saturday and Sunday. Even for someone as picky about diaries as I am, it was perfect. The only question left was… red or brown?

Early February, I open my brown diary, the one that hasn’t left my side even during holidays. I see streaks of coloured highlighter and black loops of ink. What did I get up to last year if this is what this year is like? Try as I might I can’t remember much of first-year. Perhaps I enjoyed how open and friendly people were at uni, perhaps I discovered what I wanted to do with my life, perhaps I enjoyed having a bit more freedom and independence – but these are just well rehearsed lines that I’ve worn out a little in the first-year of uni. What occupies me now is the present and the future.

There is a blur of events in my new diary: Go to Sorento, Garden Party, MSO Free Concert, orientation host training, ortho apt., Leave for Adelaide, F’s Birthday Dinner… and I haven’t had the guts to put it in yet, but it’s written there in invisible ink: grandma’s funeral.

Among the blur of events, this is the first time I’ve had time to stop and think and feel. On my kitchen bench is a vase of pink and yellow roses. And I think of the friends who gave them to me. I like how, of the friends I have right now, I can’t tell the difference between those I’ve known a long time and those I’ve only known a year. There’s A who is always kind and humble. D who is very young but mature and smart. M who’s always looking out for other people. C who never seems to run out of love and friendliness. And S who is brave and ambitious. Yellow roses mean friendship and pink roses mean gratitude. I smile.

In the pages of my diary that are waiting to be filled and coloured will be lectures, tutorials, workshops, a voluntary placement as a classroom mentor with the In2Science program, voluntary tutoring at Friday Night School, (no job,) salsa classes, book club meetings, maybe SALP seminars, and an anticipated exchange trip to California.

What isn’t written down is the guilt of hurting a friend without meaning to, the sadness of not knowing what is the right things to do, the fear of having to confront death of the first time, the uncertainty of a yet to be tested long distance relationship, the nervousness of hosting a garden party when the weather is not looking great, the joy and love of knowing that your friends care about you, the peace that comes when death finally arrives and the hope that all will be well in the end.

I look at my diary again:

February 2011

8 Tuesday Mardi Dienstag Martedi Dinsdag Martes

3-4pm orientation host training

6:30pm dinner with I—

To my diary it means nothing, but for me, it’s a confrontation with the reality that I am now no longer the first-year student I was, a return to the world of uni after two months of wild adventures and a meeting with a friend from a long long time ago in the primary school era where friends were hard to come by and true friends only by luck.

I’m armed with nothing but the warmth of friendship, a brown (possibly fake) leather diary and a blog, but you know what? I think I’m ready to face this year.