'bit hard to ignore

Arrive in Melbourne.

Sam accompanies me to Optus to get a new mobile plan. I'm praying for a good deal. He tells me to use his ABN during registration. I get a brand new Blackberry handset for free.

Subject registration begins on Thursday, 17th Feb, but a sanction prevents me from completing the online enrolment. I book an academic advice consultation on Friday and the advisor offers to lift it for me "immediately". Later that afternoon the sanction is still there. I pray and occupy myself with household chores. In the early evening, I am able to complete my enrolment.

Saturday. I change my entire course of study and am uncertain about my capricious decision to do Media & Communications. I pray for a sign of affirmation.

Sunday, church. 10 minutes before service begins I am sitting by myself when a girl moves into the row in front of me. She seems interested in starting a conversation but sees that I am texting, so she hesitates and starts to turn around. I notice this and lean forward to scratch my ankle. She seizes this opportunity to say hi, and we introduce ourselves. She is a recent graudate of Melbourne University, with a degree in Media & Communications.

Orientation week. I've never had good experiences with orientation; and VJC's was particularly rubbish. I pray for a friendly group and knowledgeable Host. The first day goes better than I could have fathomed. I am paired with a girl named Kira during the ice-breakers and it is immediately apparent that we click. We have lunch together after the day's events. She gives me a hug before going home.

School starts. I pray fervently and out of sheer terror.

English & Theatre texts:
Romeo & Juliet
Othello
Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period

Pride and Prejudice
Great Expectations
Jane Eyre
A Doll's House
The Cherry Orchard

IDF subject texts:

The Iliad
Women of Troy
Song of Roland
Henry V
Mother Courage and her Children
Regeneration

If This is a Man

Aunty Lili visits. She helps bring over 5 of the 8 texts I need for English.

A week before we are scheduled to start on the Norton Anthology (AUD40+ book). Two girls in my Media & Communications tutorial suddenly start being extra friendly to me. One of them says she bought all the English & Theatre texts before deciding not to do the subject. "I'm happy to lend you whatever texts you need," were her exact words.

First assignment tasks come in. An essay for English and one for the IDF. I pray fervently and out of sheer terror.

My printer is low on black ink, which is a problem since I need to hand in a hard copy of my English essay. In Trinity, I wormed my way past this problem by getting permission from my tutors to print all my final essays out in blue ink. This time I don't get away so easily. My English tutor laughs and says I should try using the school printer. He's worried the blue ink will be "annoying" to read. I do not understand this reasoning but am not about to argue with him so I nod and leave. From friends' reports, the printing system at the school library sounds complicated and expensive. Two days before the English essay is due, it suddenly occurs to me how odd the ink-deficiency is. Ma and I purchased the printer and ink cartridges in January 2010. My final Trinity assignments were due from April-May 2010, during which time the black ink in the printer had already begun to "run low". This meant the black ink stores took a mere 4 months/less than 50 pages of documents to be completely depleted - highly unlikely. Furthermore, the ink level indicator on the printer display screen shows the black ink stores to be full. Something tells me to realign the ink cartridges and give the printer a few good bashes with my fist (I've seen Pa do this with the printer at home). This proved to be the solution. My first set of assignments are completed and handed in without incident.

First Law Skills Test is completed without incident. I pray fervently and out of sheer terror. 38/40.

A friend from Trinity contacts me to make dinner plans. He studies law at Monash and this will be the first time I'm seeing him in almost a year. We arrange to sup at 'Vegie Bar' on Friday, 1st April, and he tells me to invite a few others, so I do. On Thursday he texts again. He is unhappy that I've (unknowingly) invited someone he dislikes. I feel bad and offer to remedy the situation.

I am then faced with the near-impossible task of uninviting the someone, whom I personally do not dislike, without having to lie or hurt his feelings with the truth. I manage to do so, but the someone tells me he's been looking forward to dinner and I feel terrible. I promise we'll go to 'Vegie Bar' again as soon as possible.

I begin making arrangements for this second trip to 'Vegie Bar'. It becomes clear that organising events is not my forte. I finally manage to gather some 6 lovely people for lunch on Sunday afternoon, and decide to make a reservation - the restaurant is notorious for being constantly packed and having a long waiting list (i.e. the kind of waiting duration that would make Pa restless). By this time my stress levels are ridiculously high, even higher than they were during the assignment weeks. I call up Saturday night, and to my mortification, am told that reservations cannot be made on weekends because patronage is exceptionally heavy on those days. The waitress even tells me large groups like ours will not be entertained at all. I am standing on the balcony while making this call and upon hearing this, contemplate throwing myself off it. I hang up, and am at a loss. There is nothing I can do, so I decide to pray everything will sort itself out.

Sunday. After church, I meet 3 of the 6 people in town before heading to 'Vegie Bar'. The 4th is running late; in fact she is so late that one of the initial 3 decides she won't be able to join us for lunch after all. Our group is left with 6 people. The someone has decided to make his own way to 'Vegie Bar', and when he calls I ask him to inquire after a table for 6. He calls back to say we only have a chance of being seated if all 6 people are present, and the waitress will not do reservations or make a waiting list. And as expected, the place is packed with customers. The 5th person is running late too, but we head to the restaurant first. On the tram ride there, I am nervous and sad. If we cannot get seats at the restaurant, this entire endeavour will be a huge failure. My friends try to assure me it isn't a big deal. I pray quietly to myself.

We arrive at the restaurant and meet the someone. I go inside and it is crowded. A waitress approaches and I ask her for a table. It is the same waitress that the someone spoke to. He quips from behind "Yeah, our whole group is here now". She smiles at me and says, "A table for 6 just opened up".

We are seated immediately.

-zicheh.