Following the Trend

Nowadays, it's not uncommon to see crowds buzzing around the streets, shopping, working, generally going about their daily activities. Once apon a time, that used to be enough. Once upon time, we were satisfied to concentrate on our lives and to leave it at that.

Not any more.

Now, the milling, buzzing crowds remain the same. Mix that with the newfound inventions of the ipod, the mp3, mp4 or walkman and voila - you have the Y2K crowd. Suddenly, the new generation is not satisfied to simply get on with life on a daily basis, but must now add these confounding distractions in order to get through the tough 24 hours, seven days a week.

We've been told that we will be the deaf generation [along with being the pampered generation, the rich generation, the technological generation...] at the rate that we listen to all our music devices.

How can we help it though? In todays world of instant gratification and impatience, we cannot simply wait for things to happen, or wait for life to pass by as it happens anymore. While we obviously have no control over how fast our world spins on it's axis, the least we are able to do, is distract ourselves from daily life, and to pretend that life is not really as humdrum as it seems.

Whilst I was still in secondary school, I regularly forgot that I owned an ipod as life was about as crazily busy as you could want it to be. Not to mention, I was also getting picked up from school by a parent.
Sad to say, once I got into university and started taking the bus as my mode of transport, the reasons for regularly sticking two earbuds into my ears have rung true [pun not intended] and I have now become a follower of the trend.

Speak to me in another 5 years and you may find that I am unable to hear you. :P

Dear God, please give me patience to get through the day. And please give it to me now.

Mishy <3

Global Recession

I am markedly afraid.

=(

Kevin Rudd just went up on TV and more or less said nothing about how we're going to get out of a global recession, or how we're going to fight our way through it. Instead, we got lots of other people coming up to talk about it and to give suggestions. We even had some funky commercial with little kids singing 'It's a hard knock life for you' and an advertising about a Lentil Restaurant in Melbourne [why do they do this is us poor freaks in Perth] where you have a choice on whether to pay or not. And Kochie from Channel 7 going on about housing mortages and saving money by bringing your lunch. Yet Kevin Rudd was supposed to be the highlight of this interview.

I've begun to rethink my opinions on people who head the country, and that the position of Prime Minister is not quite as intelligent and demanding as I once thought it would be.
If anything, all Mr. Rudd did was to blast away at the opposition and beat about the bush on the topic of global recession, as though this were merely another session of Parliament and not an interview in which he was supposed to give information, assurance and comfort to the people who had lost their jobs at Bond's factory.

Whom in my opinion should be rioting in front of the factory and beating on the door of the owner of Bonds right now demanding a fat paycheck as retribution for their troubles. Same goes for any others who've lost their jobs.

Save money save money save money.

Why is is so hard to save up once you get to student level?

But, point of the fact was - it's here, in my face, and it won't go away. There's so much I want to do, want to spend on, so much I have to save up for etc etc.
Suddenly, Singapore looks like very much the ideal place to live.

I have a clear memory of my New Years Resolutions, and that one of them was to stop spending so much money this year. I am not sure how succesful I've been with that recently. =/ But I'm starting to think that it may not be as easy as I hoped it would be.

Mishy <3

PS. On the topic of spending - I've just realised that my calendar is full of people with birthdays in March. And due to migration patterns of people coming to study in Perth, it appears as though I will be very broke this month.

A Crap Week

I have a confession to make.

When I enrolled for uni, I knew it would be a lot freer. And that there would probably be a lot of work to do. And that travelling time would tire me out even before enduring a series of 45 minute classes would.



But I wasn't ready, nor was I informed of the crazy amount of reading I would have to do!!



I just went in for my english tutorial today, and before that, I had to read 18 pages for text. Eighteen pages. And the writing wasn't set at a nice humane font either. It was inhumanely small and all 'times new romans-y'. With lots of words I'd never even heard of before, and an unhealthy amount of pre-1950s movies that I'd never even heard of before, being used as examples. All of that put together just made english class suddenly seem worse than usual.

I already miss Mr. McInerny's teaching. And it's only been two weeks of uni. How will I survive like this??

So majorly uberly jealous of MSHS kids who're hogging Mr. Mc's amazing talent all to their greedy, underserving, unappreciative little selves right now.

I was also completely unprepared for the way I would have to go after my own assignments rather than letting the assignments come to me. I've never had to rely on a computer so much in my life for my work. To the point where I would rather be away from the computer than near it. This is quite a difference from what I was doing in high school!



Then, I tried to change my service provider. I was previously on Telstra which was alright all through high school because I barely messaged or called anyone, and could therefore survive on AUD20 a month. [And when you're working and paying for your own credit - suddenly 20 bucks a month is actually a lot...] Then, in February, I somehow managed to use up AUD50 of credit in about 4 weeks.

50. 50. FIFTY!!

I'm still trying to figure out how I even reached that amount. But I decided that if that was how much I was going to spend at uni from now one [and hey, March hasn't ended yet, but it's very likely], I needed a better service provider.
I bought and attempted to install an Optus sim card three days ago. I still haven't been activated under Optus yet.

I'm ready to kill both service providers.

I was told I'd be able to use it by 10am tomorrow. If not, I will go to someone, complain and most likely abuse whoever is in charge of Optus for such crappy horrendous service. I've been wandering around Perth without a way to contact anyone for 3 days. This should be illegal!

On the plus side - I found the most amazing spot to sit, relax and even study *sigh* if need be.

Better start hoping my friends will always be available to enjoy it with me then. =)

Mishy <3

PS. Refering to my last post - I've just realised how many people at uni are old friends.

I'm afraid. This is quite a number. =/

Reason

BECAUSE THE AUSSIE GOVERNMENT FINALLY SAW IT!!!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Doesn't exactly take Einstein to see I'm utterly, mentally and definitely excited and estatic all at the same time.
I reckon I may have just said the same thing in about two or three different ways, but who cares.

I'm happy!

My Zimbo friend has finally been given a student visa to come here. And after so many trials, so much tribulation, and definitely more trouble than it's worth, she's FINALLY reached the shores of WA.
Dancing, singing and general festivity, here I come!
I've been praying for this for a long time now, and so for that, I give all praise to God for helping her and for giving a friend back to me. Amen.

I've actually just realised that I know a lot of people at my university. People I met back when I was born. People I met in Malaysia. People I met in South Africa. Even people I met in Australia. And suddenly, they're all being forced into one concentrated space that is university. And it's scary.
I am aware, however subtly, that some part of me changes everytime I move to a different place. I am strongly influenced by the country, it's history and it's culture.
I feel a need to go back to the way things were with people, which is fine if they all stay in their separate places. But when they come together in one space...suddenly I feel a little more than a fake. Because I've changed.

And something about them has not.

I don't know how to act, how to feel...I don't even know what accent to use! And it's weird. People want to know where my loyalties lie, which country I now belong to. How does 'new me', react to what should have been the past? Deciding whether or not I am even the same person my friends once knew so long ago is difficult enough.

Like all my worlds are colliding into one big heap that is my life.

Help!

Mishy <3