My doctor is grandmotherly.

I felt the rotting remnants of sick again on Wednesday, it was as if my body has grown more susceptible to mild diseases lately. A trip to visit Dr Ooi put everything in order with amazingly fast-healing fever/sore throat pills, and I queried her for the sake of asking, “Why do I get sick so easily? I’ve only visited you just last month.”

She gave me answers that I already know or suspect – stress, and lack of exercise. I did have stress over studies and assignment in the past few weeks for the first time in years, and I certainly rarely exercise, despite my (less than) enviable slim physique. One of Dr Ooi’s ‘selling points’ as a doctor is being very grandmotherly (in a good way) – she’s willing to listen to you talk, and she’s willing to talk about her own experiences, not to while the time away, but to reassure you. How many doctors are willing to spend the time to talk to his or her patients, and not dish our diagnostics and pills to go by?

Of course that also means that sometimes to get to your turn, you have to wait for hours. The trick is to go at the ‘right’ time – during noon, when there’s less people.

And speaking of stress, she asked what education system my college is using, and when I told her Australian, she jumped on it immediately and told me how she thought the Australian and British education system are stupid. Seeing that it’s more exam-based (despite the assignments etc, look at our SPM, our education system was based on the British system), she told me that the American edu system is less stressful and taxing on the students – it’s more exam-based, and exams probably take up about 70% of your total marks.

In fact, so adamant is she against the Australian education system, she advised her son who’s currently studying in Australia to take it easy and just pass his exams – don’t bother about the Distinctions and whatnot. His friends used to say, “Wow, you’ve a cool mum.” She also said that part of the objective of being in a tertiary level is to gain ‘networks’ and learn to develop other cognitive skills.

I can assure you that my parents would hardly agree to her views but I felt less pressured now – there are less expectations to fulfill (scholarship, etc), and there is only one goal: to get my degree embossed in paper in the shortest time possible.

I want to be out there doing full-time studies on things I really love – photography, languages – not what actus reus or mens rea in Law 100 means nor the purpose of having two different types of accounting because I don’t really give a flying fuck.

Maybe I really should listen to the random ex-Curtin graduate who talked to me while I was waiting for Andy to finish tapau rojak for his mum at SS15 with Angela and Shawn yesterday, that I should go to Perth and experience studying there. He was there for only 6 months yet he said he had the time of his life.

But I don’t know. I’m too comfortable here to want to leave behind everything to taste a slice of what independence really is. I’m too comfortable with my routine of DotA-ing with my usual kakis every Friday night, too comfortable of illegally downloading TV series and watching it on my laptop, too comfortable with having language classes every Tuesday night and Sunday evening.

I’m afraid of having to start all over again from a clean slate of being friendless.

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Friday night, after our 3 hour and a half worth of DotA with Alvin, Ding, Fang Chyuan and I headed to Angela’s house where we reached her place at 12.30am, after which we went to the nearest mamak.

Poor image quality due to it being snapped on my handphone. It was Angela’s birthday past midnight!

19 years old. With each person’s birthday passing month by month, it serves to remind me how soon I’ll be hitting the two decade mark wtf. NOOOOO.

The usual chatting follows, I was tired and sleepy so went back early at 2am. Sorry Angie.

Saturday 12pm went to SS14’s Yuki bak kut teh, it was alright – I think dipping the yao char kuai in the herbal soup’s the best taste in the whole world. There’s a distinct aroma and fine balance between the crunchiness and the wet, spongy yao char kuai that made me love it so much.

..Andy’s Waja overheated on the way back which meant no air-con, which coupled with the traditional Malaysian afternoon had us sweating out kilojoules of energy.

DotA followed that night for 3 hours.. and today another hour at the cybercafe at USJ 1 lmao (today’s Japanese class was cancelled, received the SMS from our teacher halfway doing our homework at Daniel’s house). Alvin (Ding’s friend) and I likened it to ‘nafsu yang mesti dipuaskan’ having not played the game for almost a week (Monday-Thursday), not even at home these days as Ding had uninstalled DotA thus no kaki, and assignments and exams rapidly assault me.