Monday, October 08, 2007

today, i received a package in the mail. i'm actually expecting something i ordered from a local independent australian online site, so i thought this was it..until i noticed it was sent from south carolina in the USA.

at first i thought it was wrongly addressed or something, then smacked my head because my name was there staring at me..and it was my address. so i proceeded to rip it apart.


and then came this note:
it thanked me. i have no idea what for, because i actually cannot for the life of me remember having done anything extremely benevolent that deserved a gift. moreover, i do not recall knowing anyone from south carolina.

but these are my two gifts:
i'm quite thrilled with my mystery gift, but more so because i have no idea why and from whom.

this baffles me! and what was i thanked for?

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fen at 1:10 PM | | Comments

Sunday, August 05, 2007

just a mini update:

1. i am taking 3 units of english literature this semester. and one on european studies. the deadlines for all 4 units coincide with each other, goddammit.

2. i am waiting for my UvA transcript to be in my letter box so i can finally transfer my credits.

3. i currently live with a very pleasant malaysian girl whose mum is visiting at the moment. the latter cooks herbal soup, of which i get a portion, which creates a rather homely atmosphere amongst the somewhat old and dull apartment. nonetheless, my room is more spacious than my previous and i will dutifully try not to make it ooze with junk.

4. we live 150m from the supermarket. as much as i am stocking up on kitchen necessities, i am trying not to make our kitchen cupboards burst with food. but housemate seems to be more talented in that department as her share of the storage space is...going into overdrive.

5. winter in perth is nothing compared to winter in europe. 18-20 deg celsius is glorious weather to me.

6. i am thinking of my future (studies).

7. i am at the library now trying to finish off a summary on Habermas (whom i adore, but think is a pain in the bum to summarise) but am getting distracted by friendster, facebook, blogs and other nonsense. the girl opposite me is of no help, what with her furious typing a la machine gun and concentrated gaze on the screen.

8. i shouldn't be making lists because the only lists i make, and get excited about, are about where to travel to next. grocery shopping lists are just a mild substitute.

9. i am trying to exhaust these damn bullet points till i reach..

10. i cringe at my boredom.

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fen at 2:18 PM | | Comments

Thursday, May 31, 2007

i chanced upon this picture from passiveaggressivenotes and immediately thought of my neighbours upstairs. yes, they're extremely nice people who helped us when we were locked out, but they also both have very heavy steps.

we can hear them even if we have music playing in the background.
we know when they walk from the room to the kitchen.
we know when one of them is out for a smoke at the balcony.
we know when they return from work; we hear them go out.
we know roughly where their staircase to the 2nd level of their apartment is when the footsteps die down at a certain part of our ceiling.

we also when know when they argue. shudder.

ok, you can exclude thomas from some of these statements, really.

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fen at 11:45 PM | | Comments

Thursday, May 10, 2007

thomas and i locked ourselves out of the apartment yesterday evening.

it was one of those rare nights that we headed out for takeaway dinner at the nearby turkish place. i closed the door to our apartment, and as we trudged down our steep spiraling suicidal steps, we realised we BOTH didn't have keys. thomas has a habit of always bringing his keys with him; yet i have a habit of always asking him (don't ask me why). but yesterday was different - we both forgot our usual routine of 1. taking the keys and 2. asking if he has keys. and neither of us had our mobiles on us.

ugh.

so we knocked on our neighbours' doors to ask if they had any spare keys to our apartment as that seems to be a practice here in europe. the one on the 1st level (2nd to me..) has always been a bit...reserved and a tinge unfriendly and curtly replied 'no', so i apologised for disturbing him. the neighbours above us (a couple) were the total opposite - friendly, did everything they could to help us (which includes loaning us a sharp knife, a hair pin, scouring for keys, letting us try different keys). it was a whole operation, i tell you.

half of me desperately wanted to be able to break into the apartment; the other half was numb from thinking about the possibility of actually breaking into it (which means others could too).

in the end, we called a locksmith from our neighbour's mobile. we sat outside in the slight drizzle eating our turkish pizza and broodjes while looking out for any van that came along. perhaps from the locksmith's eye, anyone who's locked out is pretty easy to spot as he immediately waved to us while passing through our street.

i told thomas to be patient as he could try all different sorts of keys blahblahblah which could thus take him a while, but 20 seconds after he started on the lock not with sets of keys, but some dodgy apparatuses, it was opened and the familiarity of the apartment was a welcomed sight. damn, it's that easy to break into huh?

20 seconds was also all it took to make us €90 poorer.

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fen at 10:24 PM | | Comments

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