Pre-departure anxiety

On Sunday night, my house was turned into a drinking parlour of sorts, taking advantage of the fact that my parents and my youngest bro were away to Penang from Saturday till Monday.

The rest started to stream in at about 10.40pm-ish, starting with Kai, Ezen, and Suet, followed by Shawn and Heng, then Andy, and finally Ding who came at 12am wtf.

Shawn in his Lenin tee.

Ezen, Kai Tzin (completely blocked by Suet wtf), Suet.

We played card games – we literally have a walking card games encyclopaedia in the form of one Kai Tzin who taught us a new drinking game involving.. setting rules when you get a certain card, and stuff. Too long to be explained here but it was pretty fun!

..let’s just say that some involved taking off our pants for X amount of seconds (depending on obtained card) outside on my porch (Suet’s idea; and when Ding arrived the latest he was forced to do so too wtf) and shouting “FUCK” X amount of times (again, depending on obtained card). Shawn probably did the best when he made up the rule to shout outside of my house, and he did it when our most hated neighbours were outside =D but we thought that this is probably too risky, and when we did it in my living room instead, Andy prolly brought the house down.

Said stupid drinking game hahahaha.

Massaging Shawn.

We also played this category game derived from the earlier card game – I thought it was pretty rad, trying to recall facts like “names of European countries”, “names of America’s states”, “names of clubs in Malaysia”, “names of animals with fur”, “names of Malaysian food” etc when your head’s prolly not straight.

Me playing the piano in the background wtf. Kai, Ezen, and Suet went back first.

A highly intoxicated Ding. About 20 minutes before this shot, he told us that he was already “halfway there” and said that he wanted to try how being drunk is lmao.

No he didn’t vomit.. but we just readied a pail anyway just in case wtf. Nah the pail was to store the ice and drinks Andy bought and whatnot.

When we finally stopped playing our games at about 3.20am, I went to clean up the place while Heng started to resume his Call of Duty: World at War game on my Wii till almost 4am. Ding had to be shaken awake and the rest of the guys had to drive him and his car back home.

Haven’t been doing this for a long while now – I had fun. :)

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On Monday, three of my parents’ fish died under my care, the garden hose broke, and in the evening, just as I was dropping by at the Petronas behind my house to use the ATM, I noticed that my car’s tyre was out of air. Perfect, when I was rushing to go for my French class.

I thank the owners of the car workshop who opened right opposite my house, so it wasn’t a hassle getting my car tyres changed – they did the decently, and at about 7.30pm I only left my neighbourhood (I usually leave my house at around 7pm or some minutes before that), but surprisingly I still managed to reach my French teacher’s place in time right on the dot at 8.15pm, which was when my class was supposed to start. Plus there wasn’t any jam at that time, so I suppose I was lucky in that respect.

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I’m hovering in mid-air in a tension so fine I couldn’t detect it when it arrived – but it wrangled me in an instant, and all that pre-departure anxiety came rushing in, strangling me with an invisible rope that I couldn’t breathe, and then the panic strikes. Despite my friends’ assurances that cooking is really simple if I want it to be, I still feel deeply unsettled – yet, I’ve done nothing at the moment to rectify it, thinking “I still have time”. I worry a little about my accommodation, my exam and scholarship results, my visa, my health check, and a million other minute details I couldn’t possibly grasp all at once in one go – it’s like being thrown into a dusty room, and I have to clean up and settle every single nearly transparent dust that lodges itself in that room. I feel like I’m in that room right now, with time – ultimately like a ticking bomb – against me.

But just about an hour or two ago, I feel more.. settled. I took a nice afternoon shower to wash away this intense heat that completely torches my room, turned on my air-conditioner (sorry environmentalists, but I always have the temperature at 27 degrees if that helps), and I felt at ease, even if it’s just for a bit.

I’m deeply concerned how absolutely last minute my university is with our transfer to Melbourne – we were told to pay our tuition fees for RMIT Melbourne by this Friday, but even till now on a Wednesday evening, only one of my subjects out of 4 is graded (thanks to Ho Sheng who told me about it yesterday – I got a Distinction for my Law of Investment, a subject I was particularly worried about but managed to scrape by nicely at just 70 marks). We were supposed to only pay up when all of our results are released, as we could only transfer if we pass all of our current semester’s subjects. But when I phoned my college some hours ago, the receptionist told me that the person-in-charge won’t be around till – guess when? – Friday, while my Head of Department is really busy. The receptionist’s solution? Asked me to purchase my bank draft this Friday itself, at the last day of when the payment was due.

But all of this untimely problem that lingered around my head was quickly dispelled when I asked Ghavin (Jerm, Tomoko, PY, SK, and co’s gang) if I could possibly crash at his place temporarily, and he said yes very quickly without even thinking much. I was honestly surprised and genuinely grateful and touched at his gesture – he advised me things that I should know and bring (at least 10 copies of photostated official documents as photocopying is supposedly expensive there), offered to bring me around to settle my things when I arrive, and this is even though we both didn’t really talk much to each other for the past few years.

I feel heartened. All these things that were bothering me for the past few days are finally laid to rest, even if it’s just for a little while, and at least I’d have a familiar face to turn to when I board that maiden flight to a Western country (I don’t know if Australia would be considered as being at the west or not) for the first time in my life.