Bohemia Bunny

Illy Indisposed.

July 26th, 2005 by lynnylchan under Uncategorized

I don’t know if there’s really such a word as ‘illy’ as in ‘ill-y’ but it sounds funny anyway. I have been down with a sore throat and yesterday I was running a fever. I’m pretty much okay now, except that I occasionally feel like ripping my own throat out to immerse it in ice water to soothe the pain. I’d stick just my neck in, but since it’s attached at one end to my head, and at the other to my torso, it makes it a leetle bit difficult. And I can’t actually drink ice water since
a) it is believed to be ‘heaty’ and hence would make my throat worse and
b) it gives me stomachaches.

Anyway the new freshmen have moved into hall and generally I don’t see much of them, which is good. Freshies should neither be seen nor heard. (insert disdainful senior sneer here.) However, as I was finishing my shower, I heard distinct lian-speak coming from the cubicles nearby. It is just so painfully obvious that they are Singaporean (which in itself is not so bad) and that they were a shade too ah-lian for my taste. I don’t recall having heard so many ‘lehs’, ‘lars’ and ‘hors’ in a sentence since, like, I dunno. Yes yes I know that I, a Malaysian, also use these terms, but certainly I do not use them in such massive doses. Worse than the ‘lahs’, I find, is the nasal manner in which they speak. A foreigner can master the ‘lahs’ but you can always tell a true-blue lian by the slightly nasal intonation. And it’s only the girls. I don’t hear the boys speaking like that.

And don’t jump on the political correctness bandwagon and tell me that it’s mean to dislike ah lians. Agagooga doesn’t like them either, and I’m with him on that.

So anyway, when I exited the shower cubicle, I turned to see all 4 of the remaining cubicles occupied by said ah lians. I detest this practice of group bathing, simply because back in my first hostel, we had stupid immature secondary school girls who would hog all available cubicles and commence a 30-minute shower. Plus I just don’t get it. Why MUST you all shower together? I know there are lizards and spiders in the cubicles, but I think that’s as creepy as it gets. No uninvited guests from the ‘other side’, and anyway it’s only 11.30 pm which is plenty early to hall residents. What’s there to be scared of?

I’d pack them off to an Army camp to see how the boys can shower in 5 minutes with minimum fuss. I believe it’s all that inter-cubicle chatting that takes up so much of their time. If they continue this practice during Orientation, it will make them hugely unpopular, because during Orientation we play such messy and dirty games that everyone rushes to the showers immediately afterward. And having to endure the sweat and grime while a bunch of ah lians takes their own sweet time is quite unreasonable.

Some people just aren’t meant to live in hostels.

Anyway, on the way back to hall the other night, I saw a beautiful full moon. It was about 9 pm so the moon was still pretty low, and it looked huge and round. I tried to take a picture of it, which as it turns out, doesn’t do it the slightest bit of justice. You need a pro camera for moon shots, I think, so you can zoom in a whole lot. And so your flash can illuminate the foreground properly.

What a lousy picture. But I have enough bandwidth on my flickr, so.

Our Yousucks Adventure camp was cancelled at the last minute, as most of the freshmen had not matriculated and hence were not considered ‘real’ NUS students, hence they could not go about on hall camps due to safety issues. Boo. What a pity. The bus went alllll the way to the Far East of Singapore (we are in the west) and alllll the way back. I’d say it was at least a mini-road trip for the freshmen, but since the bus used the expressway, I doubt there was much to see. Bah humbug. I wasn’t on the bus. I was sick in bed.

And now, a funny nonsensical story to round up the day:
I was setting up my printer yesterday. Everything was plugged in, the socket switch was on, and I pressed the button. Nothing. I pressed it again and again. Still nothing. Changed the plug location to another socket. Nothing. I started to panic because the guy who stored my printer for me had jokingly told me that it was damaged, and I began to think that maybe he wasn’t joking after all. I took a good look at my printer and realised I had been pressing the ‘Resume’ button instead of the Power button. Gaaaahhh!
(I can differentiate them now, even with my eyes closed. The Power button has a tiny raised dot in the middle of it.)
In mitigation, I will claim that I was sick and feverish.