Today I tasted the fiery of the wind. But before that, let me talked about something else. At around 930am, my mobile phone rang and I knew it was from home. In the past, whenever I received a call from home when I was outside, I would have a dreadful feeling. I found it disturbing when my mum would call me checking if I would go home for dinner or where was I or what time would I be back. Now, the ringing tone of my mobile phone was the sweetest music to my ears. I was planning to call home shortly anyway.
I answered the phone and it was mum for sure. She asked if I was alright now and I guessed she must have heard the sadness in my voice during our last conversation. I told her I am fine (I truly am now) and told her not to worry. I also told her that she doesn’t need to wait for my call everyday. I promised I would call back every Sunday. I told her in details how I got here on the first day and about my life now. The previous 2 conversations ended in haste. She said that tonight my family would be attending the wedding banquet of my cousin Lingye. I told mum to give her my blessings. How I missed my relatives and the food in the restaurant!!! This was especially so when I was just having bread everyday.
After some words of encouragement from mum, I hung up and continue to finish my half-eaten precious bread. Then I went out and try to find the student restaurant because I had to be there on Tuesday between 1145hrs to 1230hrs to have my access card top up. Now, whenever I had to go to a new place, I would recce it in advance. Once out of the building, I was glad there was no rain because today I planned to take pictures around the campus. There were very strange blue birds here with crowns on their heads. I saw one but was too slow in taking its picture.
It was easy to find the restaurant and I must say my navigation skill had leveled up. There were some seagulls and I managed to take a few pictures of them, though they were not nicely taken. Soon I found that my hands were numb and so were my nose and ears. The icy wind was slicing across my face, shaving off every layer of warmth around my body. I could not bear it anymore and had to run back into the building for shelter. The feeling was like someone using a piece of ice and cutting it across your face. In the end, I did not take much picture but never mind; I still had 156 days here to do so.
Once back, I daydreamed for a while. It was easy to fall into my own twilight zone here because in the room, there was just me and the 4 walls. Suddenly, I remembered Dora, a senior who went to Hui’s city Grenoble for attachment. She mentioned that the first few weeks she still manage to cook but in the end got tired of it and started to eat bread. She also said that it was like prison everyday; work to room and back to work. And she watched “Finding Nemo” 5 times. I thought she was exaggerating. Now I felt glad that I brought 30 VCDs along.
Later in the afternoon, I watched the movie “King Arthur”. It was just as bad as the critics said but I enjoyed it tremendously. To be able to watch a film in a cell was a luxury. The show talked about freedom and fighting as freemen and this reminded me of another Hollywood movie “Alexander The Great”. Why does it always have to be freedom when it comes to American shows? Alex told his troops in the movie that they were fighting as Macedonian freemen. What rubbish. Macedonia was never being oppressed. In fact they were the oppressors! The only show that talked about freedom relevantly was “BraveHeart”. Thumbs up for Mel Gibson.
There were emotional scenes during the movie and even though they were typical and the words were cliché, I nevertheless shed some tears for the protagonist. This was because I felt extremely emotional now being all alone. Anyway, the show ended after 2 hrs or so and I went to lie on my bed. Time to hibernate again because I was feeling very hungry. All of the sudden, music was blasting from my neighbour next door. It was the same samba music I heard last night. Initially I found it catchy and invigorating, now I found it a nuisance.
Unable to sleep, I got up and start to read my work. My work was really tough and I thought I was sure to let my supervisor down. What was asked from me was that of the level of a PhD. So after reading for awhile and not understand a single shit, I decided to play some games. I replayed the game Civilization III again. This was a game that I had played thousands of times and still not get sick of it. By games, I meant PC games of course. After the game, I prepared dinner again which was bread and nutella and hot water. Even for beverages I had to ration them. I took small careful bites on my bread and chewing it very slowly to ensure I get enough nutrients out of it. I can’t imagine myself eating bread as if it was some sort of luxury in the past. I used to hate eating bread and would just discard those that I can’t finish. Now I treat them like jewels. I was using my spoon to spread the nutella on the bread and those that got stuck on the spoon, I would dip it in hot water and I would have an ultra diluted chocolate drink. The packet coffee selling at the mart was very expensive and I wasn’t sure which one was good. I guessed I had to buy some honey to make honey drink. Yes! What a brilliant idea. Cost-saving and nutritious. Most people felt dreadful on Monday; Monday Blues they called it. But not me because that was when I could use the internet and more importantly, I would have a proper meal for lunch.
Later in the afternoon, I watched the movie “King Arthur”. It was just as bad as the critics said but I enjoyed it tremendously. To be able to watch a film in a cell was a luxury. The show talked about freedom and fighting as freemen and this reminded me of another Hollywood movie “Alexander The Great”. Why does it always have to be freedom when it comes to American shows? Alex told his troops in the movie that they were fighting as Macedonian freemen. What rubbish. Macedonia was never being oppressed. In fact they were the oppressors! The only show that talked about freedom relevantly was “BraveHeart”. Thumbs up for Mel Gibson.
There were emotional scenes during the movie and even though they were typical and the words were cliché, I nevertheless shed some tears for the protagonist. This was because I felt extremely emotional now being all alone. Anyway, the show ended after 2 hrs or so and I went to lie on my bed. Time to hibernate again because I was feeling very hungry. All of the sudden, music was blasting from my neighbour next door. It was the same samba music I heard last night. Initially I found it catchy and invigorating, now I found it a nuisance.
Unable to sleep, I got up and start to read my work. My work was really tough and I thought I was sure to let my supervisor down. What was asked from me was that of the level of a PhD. So after reading for awhile and not understand a single shit, I decided to play some games. I replayed the game Civilization III again. This was a game that I had played thousands of times and still not get sick of it. By games, I meant PC games of course. After the game, I prepared dinner again which was bread and nutella and hot water. Even for beverages I had to ration them. I took small careful bites on my bread and chewing it very slowly to ensure I get enough nutrients out of it. I can’t imagine myself eating bread as if it was some sort of luxury in the past. I used to hate eating bread and would just discard those that I can’t finish. Now I treat them like jewels. I was using my spoon to spread the nutella on the bread and those that got stuck on the spoon, I would dip it in hot water and I would have an ultra diluted chocolate drink. The packet coffee selling at the mart was very expensive and I wasn’t sure which one was good. I guessed I had to buy some honey to make honey drink. Yes! What a brilliant idea. Cost-saving and nutritious. Most people felt dreadful on Monday; Monday Blues they called it. But not me because that was when I could use the internet and more importantly, I would have a proper meal for lunch.
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