Exams over!
Finally, the dreaded exams are over! And along with it came other surprises too.For the record, I just want to say that I hate examinations! Yes, exams give you a measure of how much you have mastered a particular subject, but in all honesty, I find it pointless to have to memorize countless formulae by heart. Is it not enough to know it and know when to use it? Why must we know it down to the dot? Was it not Einstein who said “Why waste my time memorizing something I can look up in an instant from a book?”
Staying up the entire night before the final paper, I crashed into bed the minute I got home. For some time now, I kept getting this feeling that perhaps I should have dinner with my brother, just to do some brotherly bonding. So I invited him out for dinner. But to my great surprise, he told me that just the night before; my mother had shown up the night before and was now at his place. So I made my way there to have dinner with be both of them and have a chat with my mother. She seemed happier. Things went rather well initially, but it wasn’t long before we started arguing again, albeit on a smaller scale. As before, I just asked her what she was up to these few weeks and what she planned to do. I told her that my brother and I were through trying to tell her what to do, or try to force her into anything. If she were stay with us, she must comply with medicine. If she refused, she is free to do as she pleases. She said that she wanted to stay with us, but on her terms; meaning no medicine, and no treating her like she was a psychiatric patient. She said that she wants to buy a wooden house and live alone for the rest of her life. Despite the argument, we kept thing light, and I jokingly told her to just go in the jungle in that case. Funnily, my brother said the same thing to her. I said she to her she was pretty much a free spirit, wanting to do as she pleases; a nomadic hippy living 30 years too late. I told her there were plenty of wooden houses with nobody around in Mongolia. We asked her how long she planned to stay, she refused to give any indication, except to say that she came back because she missed us and will stay until the Lunar New Year. My father will be returning to KL for the festivities too. My relatives are going up Cameron Highlands this time for the reunion dinner, and my father says it too much traveling for him, so we’ll be giving it a miss (to my secret delight, since I didn’t want to meet those bunch anyway). Instead, in an unlikely turn of event, it looks like our reunion dinner will be a family affair, with the 4 of us, the original family unit together. I suspect my brother will be pleased.
On the other front, my girlfriend will be moving out this coming month. She has found a place, some distance away from her hospital, and she’ll be settling in with her brother, with the support of her aunt. She initially asked me to move in with her, but I refused. I felt that after what they have been through, the 2 siblings should have a place of themselves, without having a third party staying with them. And I didn’t want to be sending her younger brother the wrong kind of message. Plus, I’m fairly sure my brother expects me to stay with him after we sell this house. To place is small and modest, but sufficiently cozy, in a mostly family inhabited area, which makes me more relieved. We went scouting around for other apartments recently, and for the first time in my life, I got to see with my own eyes, the kind of slum some people live in. Since our search was for a low budget area, we ended up going to rather dirty and shabby parts of the town. I’d never expect to see such things in my own backyard of KL, but some of these folk were living on a pile of rubbish! Apartment blocks dirty and faded, rubbish everywhere along the road, dirty kids playing barefoot on the street, rusted cars by side, and a generally unpleasant odour throughout the entire place. Seeing places like that, its easy to understand why some people from poorer families end up becoming criminals. Even the basic necessities weren’t being met: proper hygiene, logistics, plumbing, playgrounds, heck many of the houses didn’t even have grills. Its rough and a rough place mold a rough person. So, even if the location is slightly off the general public transport route, the place we eventually decided on was at least clean(er) and more family oriented. Problem is, you really need a transport of your own for the place to be reachable (a sad, but true testimony to our transportation system) To add icing on the cake, my girlfriends aunt offered her a substantial cash loan to buy house necessities and guess what, small car to move around from her new place. In her own words, she feels like she is the luckiest girl on earth. Well, after what she’s been through, I guess you can say this is payback, but in the good sense.
On my side, the first thing I did after my exams was to call the company I mentioned earlier to arrange an appointment. Tomorrow afternoon, I will be meeting this ‘Uncle’, the managing director of the company to discuss a possible sponsorship. If all goes well, I will walk out with some financial security in hand. It’d be the earliest and biggest ‘ang pow’ I have ever received for Chinese new year.
That’s all for now.
posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 3:55 pm
Comments: 0
