The true freedom of speech

Sigh my blog entries have been reduced to weekly digests and it’s not how I want them to be. I’m not able to delve into tiny details from events or the things that I’ve done as my memories are addled with things I read or tried to memorise for my upcoming tests, among other things—and so, the clarity of my posts have lost their shine.

Monday, 7th September 2009

Cam came over to my place with his friend (whom I’ve previously seen at a poetry recitation and the monthly Foodies Night last month at Don Tojo) to collect his things. He took a whiff of his boxes and mentioned something about mothballs gathered there (and on that note, I’ve always wondered what mothballs mean), and then we carried his things to his borrowed car—made the trip twice—and quickly enough the smiling face of Amélie Poulain that graced the corner of my room is gone for good. My room looked a tad bit empty without those things, understandably so after a month or so of storing Cam’s belongings in my room—it felt bare and empty with the five boxes and two large posters stashed in the corner.

Tuesday, 8th September 2009

Ah, the fortnightly CouchSurfing Zone at Sister Bella. I was there early this time at almost 6.30pm (I usually go at 8) so I managed to catch up with Michael the PhD holder, Maria the Finnish girl.. and talked to a couple of new people like Justin (at least, I think that’s what his name was) the senior citizen from Christchurch, NZ and an Indonesian Chinese-mixed girl. (This is why I shouldn’t delay me entries—and I quote what I mentioned earlier about addled memories which happens the longer I delay writing my posts.)

I had initially wanted to stay till just 8pm ‘cause I wanted to do my uni work, but I ended up staying till 9pm as I chatted with the Indonesian girl (who told me “finally!” when she learned I’m a Malaysian lol). Other memorable things: this chap in his 20s came up to a few of us and asked if we want a beer and when we said yes, passed us a bottle—apparently he “just got a job” (and he said this very brightly in an almost child-like happiness). I later learned from Maria who had been chatting with him that he just arrived at Melbourne a few days prior and got a job very quickly.

Not just any job, but as… a milkman. I looked at Maria incredulously wondering if I’ve somehow misheard it, and asked, “A milkman?”. She repeated her answer, “A milkman”. So this charming young man was supposed to go around door-to-door asking if anyone wants to have their milk delivered, and still incredulous, I asked her, “Who does that anymore?”. “Well apparently he does.”

So I got a free beer (which I had decided not to buy any to save money) and ate some strawberries that came in its plastic container which Michael had brought over—apparently the strawberries were salvaged from his dumpster diving behind Coles lol.

Friday, 11th September 2009

I ate dinner with Ethan, Desmond (Ethan’s housemate), and Ivan (Ethan’s direct neighbour—it would require an illustration if I were to elaborate), or rather, I cooked my usual aglio olio and brought it over to their place and ate together with them while trying to watch The Simpsons without audio (the reception was poor supposedly). I was feeling a tad bit stressed out too so I had earlier asked Ethan if he wanted to watch Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete with me, which I had downloaded with its nearly 7GB in its entirety. :D

He acquiesced to it, and so both he and Ivan came a bit later to my room (after we’ve showered and stuff) and copied some files and said video to Ivan’s external hard drive. Then Ethan and I went back to Ethan’s room and watched Advent Children Complete with the lights off and us sitting huddled beneath the blanket and against the mattress which has been placed against the wall—ah, our own private cinema. The show has 20 to 30 minutes of extra/edited scenes that made understanding the movie much easier, and what’s even better is watching it in HD—the quality of the CGI was utterly flawless and quite surreal.

Towards the end, Desmond knocked on Ethan’s door and he looked a little inebriated or dazed—he was out with a few of his friends drinking, and Ethan said he didn’t look like he enjoyed it at all. We finished watching the movie, then watched a couple of 15Malaysia short films (Meter was hilarious—I’ve actually just watched it prior to FFVII:ACC in my own room beforehand, and re-watching Chocolate made me wistful again). We went over to Ivan’s place (right next to Ethan’s house) and re-watched Meter again on Ivan’s laptop wtf. Both Ivan and I also attempted to dissect Chocolate by re-watching it twice.

We ended the night with the drinking of cask red wine (Ivan’s) and played chor dai di, then played this Dutch card game which sounded like cartoon plaza (which it isn’t, I just don’t know how to romanise it), which involved putting cards on top of a cup filled with wine, and each of us has to blow the cards off until a single card remains, after which the person sitting next to the last person to blow the card has to drink the cup.

I had so much fun that night—it reminds me of the time with the extended family back home where we play stupid card games and get drunk and just talk—that I lost my initial inhibitions and.. cussed all night long wtf. I felt so much at home then—it was just me and a couple of Malaysian guys and Ali the Iranian shooting the breeze in a house at a quiet corner of Melbourne.

Saturday, 12th September 2009

I woke up at about 10am feeling utterly shitty—pun intended because I did diarrhoea-ed like 3 times the entire morning/afternoon, felt nauseous, have an awful headache, and generally felt like death. I couldn’t even bring myself to do any physical action at all, and I finally forced myself to get up and ate some Coco Pops with my lactose-free milk and then slept again after taking a Panadol. Nothing’s worse than waking up with a terrible hangover—plus I could still remember both Ethan and Ivan bringing me back to my room at about 2.30am the night before ‘cause I couldn’t walk straight wtf.

I felt better when I woke up the second time at 2pm and fixed myself two packets of instant noodles. Fast forward less than 24 hours after I drank wine the night before, I found myself drinking Ethan’s cask wine WTF at the ‘balcony’ area (for the lack of a better word) with Ivan, Des, Ali, and another Iranian guy. We found ourselves talking about corruption in our own respective countries (fulamak), nuclear weapons, etc.. yeah, we’re mature and educated like that wtf.

I couldn’t drink more wine though after the awful hangover that morning, so after half a cup I called it quits. Some American girl came over to our ‘balcony’ for a smoke, and sensing awkward silence (the conversation just stopped instantly wtf) I started talking about the cask wine and asked if there was another name for it (Michael told me about it before but I just forgot), and the girl asked, “Is it goon?”

Yeah that’s it—goon, the word used for cask wine which represents terribly cheap, low quality wine wtf. Apparently instead of beer pong, the Australians play goon pong (wtf) and “slap the goon” which involves exactly that, slapping the goon….. I am mystified.

After microwaving some sausages (Ethan’s) as Ali didn’t have any dinner but we ended up joining him for the meal with some bread (lol), I initially wanted to head back home but the guys called me over to Ivan’s place and we played cards—me, Ivan, Ethan, and Des. This time we didn’t use alcohol as our punishment but those clothes clipper things, where the loser has to clip one part of their face WTF, although we ended up just clipping our ears as that’s the least painful part.

Des lost twice during the beginning of the game. Oh, the loser has to deal the cards too.

I was actually going on a winning streak until the end where I lost thrice, and two of the times were because I drew with Des and the face value of my cards were larger than his wtf.

Ethan, Ivan, me, and Des. Hahaha wtf we look like a bunch of ‘tards.

It was also about 28C that day, which was the absolute highest I’ve ever experienced in Melbourne so far. Ah, spring. Hanging out in the balcony was just absolutely relaxing.

Sunday, 13th September 2009

I went out with Ethan and Spencer to Coles at Southern Cross Station to buy some groceries for our first communal dinner later that day.

At about 6pm I went over to Ethan’s place and we started cooking, starting first with my aglio olio, probably the only thing I know how to cook wtf.

Ethan and his failed corn soup hahahaha.

Des cooking his marinated salt and pepper chicken.

Said chicken.

My aglio olio mm. It was my first time cooking for more than 1 people and I thought I may have trouble trying to get the taste right ‘cause my ingredients have to be quadrupled as we had 4 of us there, but it turns out to be alright.

From left: Ethan’s failed corn soup hahahaha (it actually tasted fine to me), Des’ chicken, Spencer’s asparagus, and my aglio olio as the base food which they all praised.

Tuesday, 15th September 2009

So I was supposed to have a group discussion at 8am at my Business library, and I woke up at.. 8am. FML. I slept at 2am the night before so this was really to be expected. Then after our Vietnamese groupmate, Han, left for tutorial, a little while after both Estee and I heard a commotion downstairs and we looked out of our window and saw a protest going on.

We went downstairs immediately and it turns out that there were a bunch of firemen protesting! O_O

They were all chanting, “More firefighters, not less!”. I’ve no idea what was going on since I rarely read the news, but I think they were laying off firefighters or something. The police were escorting them too.

This was along Bourke St.

I think the mother and her children were curious enough to join the procession wtf.

A video of the protest as both Estee and I walked along Bourke St.

Later on that night, I went for the Golden Key induction ceremony. Ethan was supposed to come with me as I could invite two guests, but he last minute backed out when Spencer bought him movie tix to watch District 9 that same night without finding out if he had other plans swt.

The ceremony was alright, and thankfully not as long and mind-numbing as most events in Malaysia are. There were some speeches by some officers from the Salvation Army and from GK, and then all of us went up on stage to shake the hands of GK RMIT Chapter’s vice-president to receive our certs, and that’s it—there were free pizzas afterwards.

Ho Sheng was there too, who was with his friend Steven.. and when I chatted with Steven, in a curious turn of events I discovered that their mutual friend who introduced them to each other (in a way) was none other than Estee WTF.

I was also in my dad’s suit (thank god for this) and Des’ size 10 leather shoes which I borrowed at the last minute when I completely forgotten that I hadn’t brought my pair over to Melbourne. I walked a little funny but I thought I looked great—also met Ken at the tram station at La Trobe St / William St while I was waiting for the City Circle tram earlier.

I didn’t wear a tie but I thought the suit was a perfect fit, ‘cept the pants which were a little too long.

Wednesday, 16th September 2009

RMIT lecturers at the City Campus (sadly, not my Business building) were on strike hahaha.

They barricaded some of the entrances and when I wanted to enter to attend an Employers Secret seminar on Psychometric Testing, the women at the entrance to Building 10 asked me not to enter to show my support etcetc but I was like, I really need to go to the workshop and they looked unhappy about it wtf, with one of them telling me, “Well, maybe your workshop has been cancelled”. (It hadn’t.)

I was soo tired that day and felt under the weather so I didn’t really concentrate all that much. Saw Alex at the same seminar and we went on the Bowen St where events from World Week were unfolding—most importantly, there was free food!

Two ladies on stilts. I don’t know which culture they were supposed to represent.

Free powdered candy thingy.

We were given this long tube to fill in different flavours of powders and we were supposed to suck on it.

Mini Dutch pancakes given out for free from a van!

Aforementioned two ladies who were trying to get people to dance and shout with them.

Said mini Dutch pancakes which were quite warm, sugary and nice.

Friday, 18th September 2009

I went to another Employers Secret seminar at Building 108, and this time it was on Behavioural Interviews which I thought would come in handy when I’m looking for a job. Then I was at the computer lab studying/working on my research paper the entire afternoon and evening when at about 5.30pm I heard someone yelling through a loudspeaker outside—sure enough, there was another protest going on.

A protest again at the corner of Bourke St / Swanston St, and this time it was against the Israelis who invaded Gaza and some anti-capitalism sentiments were rife.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that the situation in Melbourne was unstable seeing that I’ve personally seen three different protests/strikes of some form just in a single week, and there were other protests in the past weeks such as anti-racism, etc. Feelings of dissent, if done in a controlled and peaceful manner, should be allowed instead of squashed like it is in Malaysia, where even peaceful candlelight vigils saw people arrested for it, seriously, WTF. This is true freedom of speech at its finest—and it is when I’m here that I’m glad I had the chance to experience something that wouldn’t be allowed in Malaysia because the government was too damn afraid for their own political gains.

So while walking through the protest, I saw a booth for a petition and went to sign it.. and this bespectacled guy came and talked to me about socialism, how capitalism has failed with the recent economic crisis, how there were millions of empty homes because of the crisis but the millions of homeless people weren’t relocated there but instead the empty homes were demolished to lower down its prices, etc. In short, it was interesting to know—and I had erred when I thought that socialism=communism, but it turned out to be two different things.

I was encouraged to attend their weekly meetings, and apparently there was going to be a Malaysian there who’d be giving a victory speech or something wtf. And I didn’t know this, but Liam (the guy I was talking to) told me that just last year a socialist party was finally legalised—I told him earlier that it wasn’t legal in Malaysia (so a foreigner knows more about this than me lol). And he then kept asking me repeatedly if I wanted to buy their Socialist Alternative mag for $3 and I didn’t want to as I told him I’m on a tight budget. Then he told me he’d give it to me for free since I looked interested and he’d figure something out about him paying for me wtf.

If someone were to ask me now what I like about Melbourne, this would be one of them.