2 things I absolutely abhor abt my academic life.

1) When I tell ppl I go to RMIT. For ur very kind information, I was offered positions in all 3 Unis here in Melbourne. Meaning RMIT, Monash & Uni Melb. If u, with some warped perception, think that I entered RMIT because it was my only choice, u're bloody WRONG. Instead of chosing to write essays and sit for exams for the rest of my uni life, I chose a course that would give me a good mix of everything. A uni that would prep me well for my entering into the work force in the related industry. Plus, there's a very strict criteria to enter RMIT Communication and Design courses and they have a ballpark average of thousands of applicants each year, and only a couple of hundreds get picked. So try getting accepted into RMIT Comms in Melbourne and try being a consistent HD student before you give me that cringed up look and sound mildly disgusted when u hear RMIT!!

2) When my friends comment that I'm only doing so well now because I've taken all the modules in Poly before. Excuse me, do u know how different it is here compared to Poly? Besides, the only unit that's pretty much the same as what I took in Poly is Radio and I don't take 4 units of Radio ya.

Sigh. Right. All off my chest now.

Caption: I swear I'm study.

Life is good. For now. Mayb becos I just had a really awesome coffee session with Cheryl. I don't know why we don't meet up often, but I really think we should.

So I found out via an ex-colleague's tweet that Neil Gaiman's going to Singapore for the writer's festival on the 31st Oct and 1st Nov, but I'm not gonna b around then. Yes, I'm cussing under my breath. But thank God for good people, my ex-colleague offered to help me get a book signed if he's gonna go. :) May not be as awesome as being there personally, breathing the same air Neil Gaiman's breathing, but it's better than nth. And awesome to know that I have good friends who share the same interest. :)

5 more weeks until I'm done with this semester. Time really flies. It's like, I looked down to check my outfit and the semester just whisked by in a speedy gust of wind. So many things to do everyday, but it feels like I'm not doing anything significant any day. And now, I gotta head out to Kairos to facilitate Dine's hair cut. :D Hopefully will get some readings done when we head to the library after.

My ex-boyfriend once told me a story of one of his colleagues who got married and, as a newly wed, always stayed late at mass with the rest of the guys instead of dashing home right after work and relishing in the after marriage honeymoon. So one day at mass, curious, the guys asked him why the hell he chose to stay at mass instead of returning home and savouring as much of the honeymoon as possible. His reply was that he was conditioning his wife to being used to him not scurrying right home once the knock-off bell goes. If not, she would always expect him to walk through the front door half an hour after 6 and would probably throw a hissy fit if he walked in 2 hours later than usual.

When I was first told this tale, I said nothing. Because my ex-boyfriend seemed to fervently agree with that practice and, well, what he believed was law. It would have been absolutely ineffectual and unwise for me to try and bring my point of view across, so I saved myself the effort and kept my blood at 36degrees.

I would never marry a guy who would try and condition me. What is this? A game? Am I a puppy you're trying to potty train? Ridiculous. If you don't want your other half to be too used to a certain way of living, talk to them about it. That's why God gave you a voice. You guys are married for crying out loud. If you can't talk to each other and understand each other, then you shldn't have gotten married in the first place. And if your marriage is built on a series of games and codes of behaviour, you're better off marrying a PS3. And for the closest intimate experience to meet your libido, you could always buy one of those big ass heaters and sandwich yourself between 2 slabs of fresh meat.

You may disagree, but that's my point of view. If marriage's a game, then there's nothing else left that's honest and pure, except for parental love.

This is us, hangin' at the livin'. Doin' the thin' we do at 4 in the mornin'. Which is actually suppose to be working on assignments and meeting deadlines. Instead, Dine made herself a bowl of leftovers and I was getting reading to go on Skype & go to sleep.

We have such unwavering attention spans, we shld be awarded for our sheer will to focus. To focus on everything but work that is.

If we go on like this for the rest of the semester, the 30th of Oct will be the day of our death. Or mine at least. Dine's shld be earlier seeing how she's got an essay due on the 21st and another on the 28th this month.

Uni staff are on strike again, so that means no classes for me today. BUT, my Sex & Gender lecturer/tutor decided to shift today's lecture and tute, and spread it over the next 2 days. The next 2 days which are (now were) 2 of my 3 no uni weekdays!! So much for that. Pfft.

So I'm sitting here, having only just woken up less than an hour ago, staring at my big box orange tictac, contemplating if I should finish Gossip Girl and the tictac. As I contemplate, the tictacs are depleting. Oh well, GG and tictacs it is.

But just before I exposee my windows and treat myself to GG&TT paradise... Yesterday, I almost got pick-bagged (bag version of pocket) with my rent in my wallet. Full-on sets of 50 dollar notes, 900AUD worth of it. Good thing I've always had an Aunty streak in me. Once I felt like my bag was being tugged, I swung it from the side-closer-to-back to right-bloody-in-front, and kept it there. First thing I did was to check and make sure my wallet was where it's suppose to be, before I threw a glare at the bitch. The bitch who was being, well a bitch, and was pretending to look around like nothing happened. She had a jacket over the crummy hand that she intended to stick into my bag. I kept my bag in the front of my body the whole way back.

Call me Aunty but I would trade looking stylish for my belongs any second of the day.

Can you really forgive if you can't forget? But how do you forget? How do you forget about the betrayal that destroyed the friendship? How do you forget the lies that landed you in muck? How do you forget the hurt that made you lose 10kg?

Now, I think when we say 'forget', we have to exam what exactly 'forget' constitutes. Does 'forget' mean literally forgetting? To practice selective amnesia and actually erase from your memory that which requires forgiveness? Or are we saying 'forget', as in, to allow/make/condition a life-changing something become a matter that isn't worthwhile remembering? To ignore it. Or are we saying 'forget', as in, let so much time go by that even the biggest disappointment and the most life altering event seem too far away to matter?

Whoever came up with the saying of 'forgive and forget' should be more specific under what circumstances it can be applied to. Sure I'll forgive someone who spilt coffee on my shirt, and I'd probably forget it in a day or 2. I'll forgive someone who stepped on my foot in the club, and I might just forget about it 3 wines later. But to forgive and forget someone or something who broke your heart into more pieces than it can be broken might be quite the challenge.

Well, I guess if you're magnanimous enough, you could just forgive that person. Have no hard feelings whatsoever. So with forgiving do you forget as well? Is it like a domino effect?

Maybe that's why the saying is in the sequence 1) forgive, then 2) forget. It doesn't specify when exactly you're suppose to forget. You could forgive (if you're really that big-hearted), and the 'forget' chapter might only come a few chapters behind. Or at the very last one that inscribes the last days of your life.

So the next time some smart alec tries to debate you on how you can't forgive if you don't forget, highlight to them the sequence of the idiom and it's unspecified timeline. Lets see what else they'll have to say.

And here I am, in Melbourne Australia, going on roadtrips and far off places, feeling all smug when I think about my poor darlings stuck on tiny little Singapore (and some dying to get off it) where one end meets the other in a brief 45min drive. I shld be punished for scoffing in the dark.

Because compared to someone living in Geneva with her caucasian husband whose mum has a to-die-for garden. And taking roadtrips in Italy. Flying to London occasionally, and enjoying sights of yards of grass as far as the eye can reach. Not to mention, having the option of settling down in any random cosy little cafe that has windows laced with potted flowers, and bask under the candescent sunrays with the light cool breeze brushing through her hair whilst drinking hot coffee without worrying about sweating like a pig after. Ok, wait, I could do the coffee bit, but everything else ... Le sigh. The life. And the mysterious 'she' featured here happens to be one of my friends/acquaintances from back in poly. No, it wasn't a shotgun. Contrary to common belief, young people are actually capable of commitment.

This is a classic case of 'the grass is always greener on a mountain a thousand miles away'. I wanna tour London too. And Italy. And France. And China. And Japan. And the States. And Korea. And Venice. And Rome. And New Zealand. And and and and!!! One shld practice the art of being satisfied with what one has, or in this case, with where one is.

To make up for my lacking travel experiences, I shall make a date with Salvador Dali next weekend and pretend that I'm moseying through the aisles of the Dali museum in Spain. Imagination will have to do for now.

The mid semester break isn't exactly suppose to be a break. It's the school's way of torturing you. They hurl a thousand and one assignments at you, then say, oh yea, and here's a 1 week leave from classes. So what do they actually really expect you to do in this one week? Not rest. No. No such thing. You're students. Rest and relaxation shld never appear in your schedule, like, ever. The idea of the 'one week break' is there to con you into thinking that the school cares for your well-being.

But I don't know why I'm complaining. I have nth to do this week. This week which is my 1 week break. I cld do forward log readings. Work on my oral presentation which is 3 or 4 weeks away. Start thinking about my essays and my impending radio packages. I cld. But I'm not. Which is probably not the best move. Mid semester was not this relaxing last semester. It shldn't be this semester. Doing forward log work is healthy for you, Val. Evenly spread-out work is goooood (chants).

So anyway, I kicked off my 1 week break by not going for most of my classes last week. Ha! And I expect to get myself 4 HDs this semester. GOOD LUCK, ALTER EGO. Aaaanyway, it all started with not going for classes and heading off on a 2 day roadtrip along the Great Ocean Road with Sfee, JT and Mani. As I've mentioned. Yes, I got back alive. Thankfully. And it was quite a blast! :) Many thanks to Sfee for organising the whole thing and all for the wonderful company. I had the most amazing high, which I didn't really get to exploit to my full advantage, but lets not get all angsty about it. Good things will come eventually! :)

I guess it's time I do some work to ease my load when semester starts again. Some shots from the roadtrip to go!