passing time

Wow. It really has been a long time since I've posted anything new, hasn't it? Oh well, I've got no excuses, really. Just laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy as usual, I guess. A lot has happened since my last post...

*Dun dun dun...*

Well, for starters, I'm in Melbourne now. I'm composing this post on my brand new (relatively) Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook, in Room 50 of Wadham 1st floor at International House. I'm staying at a residential college near the University of Melbourne. It's about 15-20 minutes walk away from uni. It's quite nice here, and the food is decent. The people are the real "selling point" though. There's lots of friendly, fun, cool and weird (which is a good thing in my books) people here and I really love the atmosphere here. Also, I met up with quite a few old acquaintances, some also at IH. There are also lots of fun activities at IH, which you can't usually get if you live alone in an apartment. However, the rates are bloody expensive (about AUSD400 per month), so I don't know if I'll stay here for more than a year. I'm going to enjoy my limited time here as much as possible though.

Well, time for some details of what's been happening in the past few weeks, in no order whatsoever:

This past weekend:
O-Weekend at International House commenced yesterday. It's supposed to be filled with fun activities to welcome the freshers to IH. Well... Yeah, they were quite fun. The organization of all the stuff was abit messy, probably due to the fact that this is the first time they're having an orientation program for people who come in for 2nd semester. Also, not everyone participated in all the programs as some people had already made plans for the weekend. I did have fun though. There was an interesting talk about multi-cultural tolerance or something, which was quite useful. Then we played some games. There was this game we played in the front lawn of IHwhere people had to spin around and around, then fight to get to a chair and sit down. I spun and spun and got so dizzy that I crashed right into the bushes. Yeah, that was fun. We also learned the IH chants that day. Some of them were really insulting, and not entirely polite. Yeah. It's really wonderful getting lots of people to do synchronised insulting. Later that night they screened 2 movies and some funny videos. I watched "Run, Lola, run", which was a really surreal German film and a chinese flick which I can't remember the name of, but it was good. Oh, and the "Torn" mime was damn funny. I should try to look for it on the net or something.

Today was also a blast. I missed the cavalry charge in the morning, which was okay since only 4 people turned up, which makes a pretty pathetic cavalry charge. However, the Magical Mystery Tour was really fun. We just basically went around the city of Melbourne doing weird, stupid shit. We had about 30 people in a group on this Mission of Insanity, but most of them were seniors. We had signs saying "Honk If U're Horny" and went around the city getting people to honk, or ring their bells, or just say "Honk, honk!". Also, we did some shouting around, doing the IH chants, screwing around at McDonalds and Hungry Jacks and KFC. We got escorted out of Melbourne Central Walk or something though, while we were halfway through the Hokey Pokey. Yeah, that was reeeeeeally fun. Words cannot do justice to this crazy event. Oh, and then at night there was this pajama party, which was also pretty good. I got to meet a lot of people at IH then.

Past week:
I had orientation at uni the week before this. Pretty standard stuff. Welcome, explanation of the facilities and shite, a guided tour, enrolment, faculty briefings and other stuff. Some of the highlights: The guided tour was very useful to familiarise with the university. The two guys leading the tour were also very nice and helpful, which was a big plus. The bushdance, organised by MUOSS was also quite fun. I managed to meet some really nice people there too. I also signed up for o shitload of clubs during the clubs display, just for fun. I probably won't be able to attend all of their activities.

Leaving Malaysia:
The farewell parties were fun. I really enjoyed seeing all of my friends (well, almost all) in Malaysia before I left for Melbourne. I'll probably post up the pictures later. They've been sitting around on my hard drive for some time now, and I still haven't even got them resized for uploading. More work to put off till later. If you want to see some pictures though, Kwang has them up here. Ah... I'll definitely miss being able to go lepak at a mamak shop talking cock until late at night with the guys. I'll also really miss my cell group and my church, who are like family to me. It was really nice to see so many people turn up at the airport to send me off. I was really touched that all those people were there. It was really great when they shouted a goodbye to me.. Haha.. And I got stuck at the passport check because of the bag blocking the gates (not because I forgot to put my thumb, tze ching. You don't really have to do that). To those of you who were at KLIA that night, I love all you guys, and I'll really miss all of you back in Malaysia. (I still didn't cry though.. Probably too excited).

Hm.. I think I managed to resolve most of the things that needed resolving before I left. Now my mind is clear, to experience all the new things in this strange and wonderful land, of university life (and Australia too). But my heart will alwayss remain with Malaysia. Flawed it may be, but the people make it all so beautiful to me.