At 10am today, I was seated in Casey Plaza Theatre in a row with Roy, Brana and Shirley. The place was full to the brim and students were overflowing into the sides. Crystal was somewhere down below on her own because she'd arrived early. Ha! May was nowhere to be seen. Lots of other familar faces though. But few names to go with them.

Was pretty boring at first, but not as bad as yesterday. Roy and Shirley were on either side, playing with identical phones they'd just got. I contented myself by ticking off with my fingers the number of "Um..."s the girl from RMITV used. 28 when she was done, and that wasn't couting the few I missed at the start. So we were told how to use the RMIT website and whatnot on campus and then after an hour, it was time for a campus tour!

Unfortunately, the student volunteer spoke softly and looked totally lost at sea. We were constantly backtracking and stuff and a typical description went like this "This is the library. There are computer terminals here and books and... *mumble mumble mumble* It was to quote one of my mates, "the blind leading the blind". Met three new people today. There was Tim (the Man U fan wearing the Barca T), Evangeline and Darius (Two more Singaporeans! Hooray!). But as I mentioned later, it's strange that everyone I've come into contact with is doing exemptions. Am I the only one here doing the full course? Will I be the only one left by the third year? Darius said there were a few girls doing 3 years too but somehow I haven't met any. He then proceeded to try to give me a few tips in chatting up girls. Erm right, mate. Is that going to help anything? I mean looky here. People I've met so far in my course: Roy, Brana, Darius, Shirley, May, Crystal, Evangeline, Valerie, Natasha. That's 3 boys to 6 girls. I think it's more a case of luck then anything else heh.

Had lunch with Brana and Shirley at Rose Garden on Elizabeth Street. Portions were large and service was quick. Wasn't half bad and they do takeaways so I may be back soon. So what have I got planned this weekend? Well there's the football (Ok soccer. Everytime I say football, people presume I mean footie) tomorrow at 7.30pm at Telstra Dome. And that's practically it. Hoo-freaking-ray...

Two souls brushed past
while waiting at the lights
and for that tiny fraction of time
something sparked inside

No words acknowledged
no glance askance
no look back at the other

but what was inevitably left behind
was the feather
the angel dropped
on the sidewalk

There's supposed to be this really boring talk today, from 11 to 4. That's 5 hours of just sitting there listening to an elderly lecturer drone. Might be good practice for when school reopens I think. It can't be any worse than 5 hours of staring at the sea, can it? I think I'm prepared :P

How do I know it'll be boring? Well I heard from Brana, who supposedly heard from Crystal (authentication needed). Well at least I've got Ron for company. We can probably start tearing chunks out of each other if it gets to that stage. The speaker would probably get the hint.

Last night at Queen Victoria's Market was a bust. Jon never made it, claiming that they made a detour. A detour? What is this... The Amazing Race? So yeah since Crystal wasn't keen on making the trip again, it was just me visiting the market. It was pretty bare to be honest compared to what I had seen when I'd visited in the day. There were less than half the stores and I wasn't hungry, so the food stores didn't appeal. The only thing different were the live bands. Got a birthday present for my sis, scrounged for a cloth artwork at a garage sale, then headed back for Swanston.

What festival day? All I did was wander around RMIT collecting freebies. Instant noodles, drinks, hot dogs, tshirts... even condoms...

Yeah and Jon seemed to mention something about heading to the Night Marker with a bevy of girls. Wouldn't hurt to check it out hee.

It was cold this morning. Really cold.

Woke at 3.20am and couldn't get back to sleep. Gave up trying after awhile.

Put on some long sleeves and took to the streets. There were already people up and about. Road sweepers on mammoth vehicles that trundled down the streets, preparing for a new day... Cabs circling aimlessly past traffic lights that didn't change.

It was about 5 blocks to LiHao's place and I swear I could almost see my breathe as I trekked past empty streets with the wind caressing my frozen cheeks. I shoved my hands deeper in my pockets. Last time I try something like this, I swear.

So just for effect, what can I do when inspiration's around? I'm sure I've posted this elsewhere before, but it's still one of my favourites. Done when I was still pretending to listen to some boring lectures at the start of my stint in the navy. It's meant to be song lyrics, but I don't have any music for it. Just grab a random tune and make it up as you go ;)

Pink Champagne On Ice

The ground is broken beneath my feet
I haven't had any decent sleep
A recurring dream haunting, these days past
I've got to find a way to escape here fast

Kisnetically pleasing butterflies
With neon coloured lights entice
While the masses mill around like mice
Another round, pink champagne on ice

A klaedoscopic whirl of colour
The city life is all a blur
The waking dream has yet to go
It chills my body to the soul

Flashing diamonds light the skies
A shooting star, someone dies
Cut the bleeding sacrifice
Another round, pink champagne on ice

The winding road is long and empty
But wandering ghosts there are a'plenty
The dreaded spectre still stalks my mind
This endless life is such a grind

Fragrant corpses with glass eyes
Glinting, flashing in the pale moonrise
Pour a draught and throw the dice
Another round, pink champagne on ice

I come across an overgrown graveyard
It's markers faded, tired and scarred
The apparition leaves me at the gate
This is where I'll sit and wait

Mourn the jester's crafty demise
Jackal's liver, oils and spice
Revere the fool and scorn the wise
Another round, pink champagne on ice

The world, it's growing dark and dreary
Can hardly see my fingers really
long awaited sleep a'beckoning
Is here the time of my reckoning

A dash of sugar, a pack of lies
Thou waking tumour will suffice
The gods will try her on for size
Another round, pink champagne on ice

Never speak my name again
I live not in the land of the sane
Unable to breathe the air
We know not how it will fare

Now raise your glasses way up high
Just enough to touch the sky
Take a drink for when we die
Final round, pink champagne on ice

RIP,
me.

I read through my previous two entries and I don't quite like 'em. They seem strained... almost forced. That's what happens when i force myself to write.

There's a common term for it. Writer's block. I'm sure you've heard that somewhere. It's also a favourite excuse for us writers, but nonetheless a valid one. It's not so much a case of not being able to write for us, but more a case of writing unreadable stuff. I can't remember a time when I started writing when I didn't feel like it and actually produced something nice. It just doesn't happen. Call it procrastination if you want, but inspiration is what gets me going, and without it, I'm kind of helpless. Which doesn't bode well for me if I'm to follow that as a career path by the way.

Moving on, can I state for the record once again that I'm utterly bored? I stayed in bed as long as I could this morning and turned on the television to see the tv anchor promising morning rainfall. Which didn't materialise anyway. I'm hoping their prediction of real warm weather tomorrow is about as accurate as their earlier reports of high temperatures last weekend (which was inaccurate). The cold winds are whipping through the city, especially in the late afternoon these past few days. Chin Swee was sorta blue in the face when I met up with him that day, wearing two shirts and all, but I have to say, anything above 10 and I'm fine with a T-shirt.

Finally bought some plates and a mug so I can stop eating off my lap. I wonder how many trips I've to make across the street before I remember everything I need. At the moment, I'm averaging a trip a day. Thank god I'm living where I am. Oh yeah, tomorrow will see my scurrying back for some dishwashing liquid.

I went to the gym yesterday and hit the treadmill for about 45mins. My calfs are aching today but it's a good kind of ache. It's been ages since I ran. In fact, apart from a few rounds (typically 20) around the driveway back home, I've hardly been on a long run since leaving the navy. Which explains my chubby built at the moment probably. But no problemo, it'll be gone pretty soon. I'm averaging about two meals a day. Don't ask me why, but I don't feel as hungry in Melbourne.

I'm suspecting I may have lost a little weight. My new pair of jeans keeps trying to fall down on me. So it's stride, stride, yank, stride, stride, yank... You get the idea.

And I just realised yesterday that I didn't bring a cable along for my camera. So unless i find one in the city (unlikely), there'll be no pictures till at least July. Booooooo!

Yeah that's been me recently. Was worried over how I wouldn't be able to take the contextual major of my choice but it's turned out alright in the end. I do think I might have overdone it though. The guy at the admin counter in Block 6 seems to know my enrolment status by heart and as for the woman (can't remember her name argggh! But as I mentioned previously, names elude me sometimes) who's in charge of admin stuff for Applied Communications, she stopped me in the stairwell to ask if I'd got them all settled. Yes I have, thanks. But it wasn't till later when I suddenly realised that apart from a message I left on her voicemail and an email sent to the profcomm address, I hadn't actually talked to her face to face. So how did she know that was me? Strange.

I've taken to waking up a little later the past two days since there's not much to do early on. headed over to the campus today to get my security ID done. Was a breeze really. The Ngee Ann Poly guys and gals had just come out of their meeting and were attempting to start enrolment. Total chaos, mind you. Thank god I've had mine completed after three days of running around. Don't know what I could have done without Crystal really. She somehow knows all the little bits that I'm missing out. All I'm good for is directions :D

Helped May out a little with enrolment too. Apparently, she crashed and burned at the first hurdle when her login to the network failed. I'm thankful I'm not in her shoes.

Ron's always running around somewhere with his sister and their Malaysian friends. Last night while I was doing my timetable, he called while sprawled out on the lawn in front of the State Library, inviting me to join them. I flashed my lounge lights at them from above, chuckled and continued with the timetable. Now that's something more to worry about come Tuesday. But in between? Utter boredom apparently.

The setting is foreign, yet I feel as though I fit like a glove. Perhaps it's because I've been more or less westernised growing up, or maybe it's just the influence of having been part of such a community in a parallel universe (Popmundo, not really anything supernatural ha!). Sure, my body's still running on Singapore time, but my heart... my heart's already taken up Melbourne citizenship.

I enrolled in RMIT early yesterday. Had been waking up at 9am previously since I jetted in on Sunday but I made an effort to set the alarm to ring at 7. I was expecting that the 3 plus hours would fly by before I knew it. But as usual, I was far off the mark.

I found myself outside on the streets by 8.30am and there was really nowhere to go before my 10.30am appointment at Building 4. Well, better to be early than sorry. I've learnt that too many times in the past. Fresh begginings call for fresh practices after all.

10.30am. I'm seated in some classroom that I'd just found. I was the second one in. The room rapidly filled up after that. The first friend I made was Ron Yap from Malaysia. He sat down beside me, we started chatting and that was my first contact. After that, the names sorta started washing past me. I've never been good at names. Odds are unless I have a chance to meet you again and catch your name another time, I'd hardly remember it. Only thing I noticed was the answers to "So which country are you from?" started to generate the same answers in a pattern. "Singapore... Malaysia... Singapore... Malaysia." Ye gawds, we might as well build a causeway across the classroom and be done with it.

But one question struck me in particular.

"Why did you choose this course? What made you want to study it?"

The answers from some were typical. They'd been studying it previously. They'd wanted to take PR, but had been rejected.

Me? I don't know. I've always been a science student. A horrible one, mind you. But that's the way it is in Singapore. You take science, or you take art. And woe betide you if you're bad at both of 'em.

I can't say I have a flair for languages. I kinda hate Mandarin and that's my mother tongue. After 10 years in Chinese educated schools, 3 years of English education almost robbed me of my grasp for Chinese. It's that bad.

I guess it's because I just love writing. I love words. You know, if you ask a painter how he paints, he'll tell you it's just that. He's painting what he feels. If you ask a musician what his music is about, he'll tell you it isn't just the lyrics, his music has a soul of its own.

That's what I feel when i write. I may not be able to draw well or to play an instrument, but give me a pen and I can do anything. I feel as though i can mould words to my cause. I can flex them and move them so they talk to you. I can make you feel pain and sorrow, love and bliss. That's my answer to your question.