all these smells i have almost forgotten. it feels good to know them again.



the smell as i stick my head out the kitchen window in the mornings after i wake.

the smell of the hawker centre as i walk past it on my way to the main road bus stop.

the smell of borders as i approach the entrance.

the smell of heeren as i step through the automatic sliding doors.

the smell of warm city streets.

the smell of air-conditioned buses.

the smell of my home as i get back after a day of being out.

the smell of fresh laundry done at home.

the smell of my room everytime i enter.

the smell of my mother cooking in the kitchen.



i'm tired.

aight i'm back.



it's been an alright two days home so far. the weather isn't like really hot and unbearable. feels just like last time at home. anyways it's been raining all the time so far. so it ain't that bad.



when i got on the bus yesterday i suddenly felt like i was being overwhelmed by all the noise and people. the tv mobile seemed much louder than i remembered and it was a human crush in the bus. i guess i just got used to the wide open empty spaces in perth. the whole day i felt like there were too many people everywhere i went. oh and i almost forgot to tap my EZlink card everytime i got off the bus also. lucky there were other people getting off before me everytime.



it's been a quiet two days. and the straits times seems to have revamped itself. where the hell is the sunday plus? and all this little section headings on almost every page. it's a little confusing. and the comics look so big it's weird.



one good thing is that i can now listen to my cds on my stereo at home and blast it. 4 months of cheap small speaker music really makes your life really bland. now even my cheap stereo sounds like it has a fantastic bass sound or something. it almost injects some verve into my life.



i really really need a haircut. any recommendations on how and where? and one more thing. anyone of you got any idea whats the best deal for me for internet access? i'm using the starhub dial-up now and the it's faster to go to the library to find info than to search it on the net. i'm gonna be here for about 3 months. so please please tell me if you have any idea of any good deal i could make use of eh?

so this is the last night.



well, it's a warm muggy night in perth and i have been restless the whole day. spent the day packing and putting stuff away in the storage rooms in hall. i'm not bringing back much. which suits me just fine cos i don't like carrying much stuff anyways.



my room is so bare and empty. all my posters and whatevers have been taken down since two nights ago and now every drawer and cupboard is empty. the only things remaining on the shelves are my morning toiletries and facewash. i won't be coming back to this room again next semester cos somehow me and three friends managed to get a really lucky deal and got ourselves allocated to the flat on the ground floor. so it's like this living area with four rooms and a quite large kitchen and dining area i heard. basically, we landed the largest living space in hall. sounds like a good place for wild debauchered parties to me. but my future flatmates aren't that happening. but neither am i in any case.



so i guess this entry should be reflective and retrospective and all that usual stuff that comes along with the end of things. well i can't really say what is really like significant from my time here. but that doesn't mean that there wasn't any significance at all. it's hard to pick out this kinda stuff. tell you what. when you guys see me back home and sense anything different, ask me about it, then maybe i'll be able to tell you more about whatever you notice.



oh, and if you were wondering. no, i don't have a new accent. at least i'm pretty sure i don't. it's not like i hung out much with australians. it's a mini singapore here. together with dozens of other nationalities.



well, i've run out of things to say here. this is probably my last entry this year from perth.



but there'll be plenty more in the next 2 and a half years.



see you guys back home.

it's over!



it's all finally over!



and now...er...



...now i have nothing to do.

one more to go.



ONE MORE BEFORE I UNLEASH THE FURY UPON THEE.



ok i'm not making sense. shut up.

is it just me or is rock now uncool?



and



even more rockin'!

i just remembered something.



a few weeks back, i overheard this angmoh dude sitting at the table behind me in the dining room talking during breakfast about terrorist attacks. what he said was that he was going to stay in his room and not go anywhere on the 13th of November cos he claimed that that will be the next day the next big terrorist attack will happen. his reasoning was that the twin tower incident happened on September 11th 2001, Bali incident happened on October 12th 2002, therefore in 2003 something big will happen on 13th of November. sounds like an interesting argument to me.



i know it's the 14th now here. but i also realise that the US is almost a full day behind me. so hey jiwwo if you're reading this, keep your eyes open and watch your back.



i'm not paranoid. i'm just letting on what i heard.



i'm also getting pretty hungry now. think i shall go sleep off the hunger.

ahh...

sitting in my room on a rare cool thursday night trying to study some philosophy with rancid on the speakers.



does it get any better than this?





of course it does, bitch.



...

i had my linguistics exam today. last night out of desperation i resorted to acrostic means to remember a set of headings for a certain bit. and this was what i came up with:



From:



Participants

Parts

Stages

Linear Sequence

Causation

Purpose



i got:



Para

Para

Sakura

Lanjiao

Cheebye

Puki ma



and it works like a charm. i can still remember it all now as i type it out. too bad i didn't have to use this bit of info in the paper today.



two more to go.



and home here i come.

because rock is important.



and



religion will kill us all.

exams start tomorrow. and it's my favourite subject first. boy i can't wait for this to be over as soon as possible.



been waking up even earlier than usual and holing myself up in the library which is such a change of scene for me that i think i might change my name to preserve my anonymity.



i'm quite stoked that i'll be heading home in about two weeks time. wanna be all walking around town and eating some familiar hawker food again. i am really getting quite sick of the food i'm getting in hall. so much so that yesterday i didn't even have lunch or dinner. i just ate instant noodles. which i don't think is that much healthier than hall food but oh well.



itinerary for today:



get up, morning ablutions, breakfast, library (till i'm sick of it), lunch, library again (until i get tired), dinner, maybe library again? or back in room stoning and trying to study whilst listening to music on laptop.



i am a CD library. i have lent out i don't know how many CDs. i hope i get them all back before i leave here. i'm not too worried about the CDs that i lent to singaporeans cos i can get them back from them back home. but i've lent some to a japanese girl too. and Osaka is quite a ways away to be getting anything back from anyone.



soon this will all be routine and mundane. this is my life now. shuttling between countries. i'm sure i will start to really feel displaced after a while. not really in sync with the groove back home and not really in time with the beat down here. of course things will never be the same when you return to them after a while. but i hope i'm not missing out on so much that i'm a stranger to home. that i'm a stranger to you, you and you.



this is quite a ramble.



it's too early and i'm too tired.



Phantom Planet - "Lonely Day"