oh, don't act so surprised

oui, i am glad to report that i am still alive :D i am at a loss for words on what i should write about, because somehow, it feels like the past two weeks can't be summarised in a few short paragraphs, because sometimes it gets so overwhelmingly lonely being away from home that all i want to do is expel crude words (which would be horribly unladylike) and other times, things get really fun that i want to fill this entry with exclamation marks of joy. so i guess, if i were to write an entry about college life without words, it would be something like this:

!!!!fdsaldsalf;fsdjfsfjkfjshfd!!!!jkf!!!!!!!!!!!jhdskfds*&&(&*7832jhfskjfdkj;!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!kjdsfk;ds'fsk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!495fd*(*()^&(^%5%$%$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...but i shan't because i'm in the mood of elaborating boring details (lucky you!).

orientation was fun, and provided some much needed distraction over the fact that i was living away from home for the first time, in a place surrounded by kelapa sawit plants (damn you taylor's students, with your mcd's and starbucks, eesh.), where i only know one familiar face (diana). during the first few days, it was like operating on autopilot, going wherever i was asked, doing whatever i was told. i remember thinking, oh shit am i really going to spend the next two years here??

but then things started to look up, people whom i introduced myself to remembered my name (eventhough i found it hard to remember theirs, which made me feel TERRIBLE), the orientation activities were really designed to orientate ourselves with our new surroundings and make new friends, instead of some stupid ragging by the seniors, which is pointless as hell. i made new friends (and hope to continue doing so; i hardly know every single person in my block) and the seniors are really helpful.

still, there are loads of things that i still need to get used to: lining up for meals, washing clothes by hand on a slab of tiles, wearing baju kurung most of the time, lights out before midnight (LOLZ), the abundance of flies (goddamn), walking 434832804 kilometres every morning to class (our block is the furthest away from everything, le sigh), speaking in bm 80% of the time, cold showers, not speaking freely about periods and making sure my kain kurung is all right because of the presence of boys here (hahaha).

classes have already started, we've only had introductory lessons so far, "okay sila perkenalkan diri anda semua" and my classmates are all nice and friendly. and you know what, i thought sri aman prepared me to face all the kiasus in the future, boy was i WRONG. after the first day of class, everyone rushed to the library to check out books we would be needing (because IB textbooks are expensive enough to kill for, honest to god) and almost everyone read THREE chapters ahead and did the tutorial exercises after each topic, even though the teacher hasn't even started teaching yet. someone help pls.

and in case anyone's curious, these are the subjects i'll be taking:

Malay A1, SL
English A2, SL
Business and Management, SL
Biology, HL
Chemistry, HL
Mathematics, HL

SL is the acronym for standard level and HL stands for higer level, btw. on top of that, i'll have to complete the Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge course, and Creative, Action, Service (CAS) it's all part of the great masterplan of the International Baccalaureate Organization to turn us all into "well-rounded individuals". is it weird that i think that they might actually succeed? because it feels like it's getting to me already. gaspethhh.

malay isn't as bad as the initial impressions suggests, because we'll mostly be doing literature. in the second sem, we'll be learning world lit, ie: literature that has been translated to bm. i've looked at the list and we'll be learning things like pride and prejudice, ("lagak wasangka"), and the great gatsby, ("tuan gatsby"). you have my permission to LOL. i'm kinda excited for my english class, because it's supposedly "elite", since they're only offering one english a2 class for the whole batch, and we'll be learning some cool literary components and structures of argument, culture and media, and PLAYS. which most probably means we'll be going to actor's studio, which means we get to get away from bukit changgang, if only for a few hours.

oh and i guess i should mention the reason of my being home since yesterday (friday) even though the college had seven million activities planned out for us, and the explanation behind it would be that, tiada bekalan air di kolej. harharhar. so those of us who live nearby, were "strongly encouraged" to go back home. gladly so. it's amazing how crisis bonds people, seriously. everyone was carrying their baldi at the pili bomba in search of clean water to clean ourselves with. the lack of water became the turning point between my roommate and i, we didn't speak much before, because i had some difficulty understanding her loghat utara, but going around the college hunting for water really does break the ice. :)

i suppose that is all from me for now. i have said much too much, and spent much too much time on the computer, when my purpose was to search for some material for my business and management class (yes we have homework already). OKAY, toodles.

p.s.: in response to aisyah and nicole's advice to me before i left for college, ("get a boyfriend, okay!") the good-looking ones are all taken, heh.