Apathy

"... the student activist culture has become splintered. It functions in categories of niched, specialised enthusiasts. These are students who have waded through the wealth of available information and are highly knowledgeable on the ins-and-outs of their specific cause but operate within their own activist realm, mutually exclusive from the other causes. So whilst we may offer a nod of agreement to fair trade initiatives, or sign a petition in favour of gay rights of green power, the majority of us have only a general understanding of these issues and so are reluctant to deeply engage in advocating major change. Replacing what was once a mainstay of an inclusive campus culture, there is now an increasing tendency to designate the 'enviro, hippy type' as the keepers of the student activist tradition, whilst maligning them for their misguided allegiance to a bygone generation of protest and placard rebellion. And with sociologists and behavioural researchers telling us that we are more career driven than any previous generation, it's difficult to simply accept the honourable aspirations of these passionate few without viewing them with a suspicious, disingenuous glint that it's all part of some greater self-serving resume-padding exercise."

- Lisa Visentin, ' Where Have All The Protests Gone?'

Handwritten

Behind him I stood, straining my eyes - and he moved a friendly smile. As he moved on to observe my preoccupation, as I did his - a chuckle escaped him.

"I thought I was going blind. This is Braille, after all" 

I concurred by giving a slight laugh. The parchment we were observing was a letter by Louis Braille, who was born a blind man, and is - according to Helen Keller - the source of indebtedness by blind people of retrospect and on the future - in the same manner in which mankind is indebted to Gutenberg. I moved on to the next transcript on display - Charles Darwin.

This was just this afternoon - a windy and chilly affair - and I was running across the lawn of the national library, ascending the stairs in haste lest I be denied of admission due to being an hour late. My audience was booked for 2 pm, and after spilling excuses I was inside. Having only an hour and a half to explore Handwritten, I set to the task at hand immediately. Instinctively I took my phone out, and proceeded to take a picture of Hegel's letter regarding the importance of dwelling in philology before traversing into the study of philosophy, only to be told to delete it by the exhibition official.

But at least I made away with these droolworthy postcards...

I was overcome with awkward awe as I primarily walked through the Justinian code manuscripts - the authoritative text which paved the way for the 21st century Western civil law. Among others - Galileo, Napoleon, Newton, Marx, Curie, von Bismarck, Einstein, Beethoven, Cook, Michelangelo, Watt, Volta, Schubert, Schumann, Mozart, Descartes, Brahms, Handel, Austen, Pasteur, Nobel, Machiavelli, Nightingale, Grimm, Kafka - among others, I lost count as well as memory.

But despite of leaving me feeling high, I was rather worn out. Not once did I yawn after an hour of walking around the gallery (unforgivably rude, as some would see it) - and I retired to a bench in the middle of the room, looking for a sense of liveliness in the guidebook instead. The stature of the things in front of me was undeniable - it was indeed a perspective of a thousand years of history being put there for my experience - for me to see, to feel. But they did not trigger the same jubilation that I experience when coming into consideration of, say, the judgment of Mason CJ on Mabo. Indeed, Eddie Koiki Mabo was the centerpiece of the exhibition for me. I spent a considerable time experiencing the text that he wrote on a regularly-lined A4 paper, using a ballpoint pen, as with the typical nature of self-written texts. I read his plea to his people, and to the pro bono heroes of the profession I aspire to enter, regarding the indigenous people's right to native entitlement of land and laws - spurning a ten-year battle for almost a century of sovereign denial.

Mr. Mabo's self potrait- placed beside his text.

Sitting on that bench, in the middle of all these manuscripts, written by those who have contributed to writing arguably the world's primary history,  I chanced upon a realisation. This was not my history, and I could only feel detachment. These letters did not elicit a scene in my head of the centuries of change, they did as much as to remind me that these people - who I revere as much as the next average person - are not part of my consciousness, they did not form my conception of the past that I claim to be mine. 

And instead of feeling deprived, feeling denied of the opportunities traditionally available to those raised in more affluent surroundings (such as early exposure to literature, and musical education, etc.), I breathed a sigh of certainty: my real history is somewhere else. 

In those tar streets of Taman Aman Tiga. In that preexisting state of messiness that my house has eternally been. In those wooden steps of St. Dominic. In the small library in Fajar. In the PCs of MacroTech in Milimewa - and of the 50 cents noodles in Angel Cafe. In the gravel-road rides to enter Silabukan. In the small buses that go to Sepagaya. In the universe that Batu Dua was. In the green-ness of the road to a certain SMS.  In the small town I knew every inch of. In the faces of those I have known all my life. In the conversations, or rather non-conversations with the ones I love.

I could go on forever, see?

Corps(e) Law

"One feedback said, 'Thanks to Corporations Act 2001, I have acquired wisdom AND upper body strength"

I flashed a quizzical look at Tali, who laughed before showing me a mockery of a barbell-lifting exercise.

Ohhhhh. That was the joke I missed on Thursday.

Beth and Jo

Beth lay a minute thinking, and then said in her quiet way, -
"I don't know how to express myself, and shouldn't try to any one but you, because I can't speak out, except to my old Jo. I only mean to say, that I have a feeling that it never was intended I should live long. I'm not like the rest of you; I never made any plans about what I'd do when I grew up; I never thought of being married, as you all did. I couldn't seem to imagine myself anything but stupid little Beth, trotting about at home, of no use anywhere but there. I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven"

-Little Women, Louisa May Alcott.

And This Is (Just One of The Reasons) Why Paul McCartney Is Awesome

All the lonely people,

where do they all come from?

All the lonely people,

Where do they all belong?

Arrival

9th February 2011

... Arrival day. ANU's huge. Canberra's lovely. My room is okay. In fact everything is, except for the toilets which don't have pipes. Yes I'm okay, and Australians are very pleasant people...

17th February 2012

I've just arrived. New carpet. Felt like I've only been away for only a while. Music playing downstairs - O-Week party tonight. 

New SR, nice guy called Tristan, whom I've created an impression of being an extremist within seconds of our acquaintanceship. Made me laugh at the nameframe he installed on my door while I was away - 'Karim' (saw me laughing alone at the door, add nutter to the impression). Cece, Eva, and Shaneel (with his new fridge) are still my  neighbors. Max's room has a new tenant- Daniel. I'll miss the study groupmate/tutor/confidante in him.

Packing should have been a breeze, only it's not. Unpacking a lot of things I want stowed away from my mind. Finding things that were never mine in the first place. Thought about what Ani said to me at the airport, and what I have been thinking of, all summer. 

Journey has been okay. Still managing well after close to 40 hours of travelling. Went through two jet-lag sessions in the process. And would you know it, when the bus came to the Condamine Street stop it started raining heavily, thunders included. And I thought Canberra's best was weak drizzles.

Met an Indonesian-speaking Aussie who helped me put my 40 kg worth of stuff on the bus. Met Dan Rose, the new FRC president who used to help me sort out my internet connection, and he did not open the front door for me (mind you - 40 kgs of stuff, drenched in rain, no proper hygiene whatsoever for the last day and a half). Let me wait for the Duty Warden instead.

Have yet to call home. Have yet to send that dreaded email. Have yet to catch up with fellow Malaysians. Have yet to acquire secondhand textbooks (and, by extension, have yet to start the dreaded readings) for start of uni next week. Have yet to do the common registrations housekeeping.

Have yet to leave home, actually. 

Have yet to leave my sisters. Have yet to leave my parents. Have yet to leave my uncles, my aunts, my grandmothers. Have yet to leave the person I was when I was with them. 

When I sob at the thought of them, I realized that they are probably the only people I ever sincerely loved.

Trespass

You take me on a jolly walk

And I wandered across your kindness

Foolish me, I should have walked away.

Usurer!

Sweet talk me to loans I can never repay

And you think you did me a lifetime of favour.