i woke up early at 6am, and since i felt so awake i pondered if i should take out my notes to start studying. but its 6am, and i'd only slept for 5 hours, so i decided to lie on the bed until breakfast instead.

at 8 i heard my mother wake up, but i had started feeling sluggish... and before i knew it i had fallen asleep...

and once again i was thrown into a dream-world. but this time i knew everything that had happened before, i knew the people around me, i knew what was happening, and it felt like i had spent a long time there before, complete with childhood memories, families (quite similar to the present members) and books that i'd never read in this world but i had referred to in the past in the dreamworld.

and an important item i had in my care from way before was missing due to my absence, and i tried to recall where it was last at, and it was then that i realized that my memories were a jumble of the real life and the fake, and there were unexplained gaps in between.

when i woke up it was 9am. i probably haven't been asleep more than half an hour, but somehow the memories from the dream were all lodged in my brain as 'knowledge and fact' instead of 'fantasy ideas' and i had to sort them out using the analysis: 'is it possible in this world? if not it belongs to the other' 

schizophrenia? craziness? i don't know, and i don't seriously think so, but as of now i feel like i had lived two lifes and my brain feels drained from overwork even though i had just woke up.

if i had no ears, if i had no eyes, if i had no feelings, if i had no hands, if i had no heart, no thought, no voice, no wit, if i wouldn't feel so alone in the world perhaps i am truly bad

3 project meetings one after another today and a presentation made my day. at 7pm when all was over, i was swooning with hunger, having missed my lunch earlier and having just a miserable bun for breakfast.

so i decided to go by the newly opened Subway to grab a sandwich.

i tottered there unsteadily on my slippery new heels (only the heels were new), down one flight of stairs, up 2 flights of stairs, and along the long long length of the building; i was just 15 miserable meters away from my dinner when i realized with a sudden lurch in my stomach that i left my thumbdrive in the lab.

the sacred thumbdrive which held my FYP, coding project, lab notes, favourite one-shots as well as the Nodame Cantabille Live CD music which had taken me a precious weekend to download. i would have taken that few extra steps towards the salvation of my stomache if not for the curious phenomenon of thumbdrive harvesting in the labs. basically, around this time, right before the labs close, some entreprenurial people would raid the labs for forgotten thumbdrives. hey, we're a business school.

so i painfully hobbled the entire way back to the lab and recovered that miserable piece of plastic and some metal, before hobbling back towards Subway again.

my footsteps were heavy- my feet hurt and i'm sliding left and right due to (i swear) a slightly lopsided heel. my skirt clung to my legs and the hard fabric of the blouse bunched up unsightly as i heaved myself forward on pure determination.

i was ravenous and weak with hunger. i was a little goldfish in an ice-cream sundae.

i walked past a group of industrious people studying hard for their exams. i saw notes, books, stationeries and files piled all over the table.. and a weird looking plastic bag of... sour plums. my stomache growled.

i walked past this LT where apparently some talk had just finished and they were clearing up cups of aromatic coffee. they just HAD to push the cart of coffee right past me on a squeaky trolley. my stomache squeezed itself.

and at long last i reached Subway only to see it chock full of people, like lines of ants flocking around a piece of meat.

i ID-ed the shortest line and asked the polite looking guy in front "are you queueing?" and he said "yes."

two minutes later the guy beside us turned around and said "eh, are you queueing? the queue's not here."

so we trudged back to the looong queue, to which 3 more people joined before we reached the end. i'd been walking for 40minutes, five more minutes is NOTHING. i was already in heaven.

at last i was here. Subway. it'd been a long hungry misfortunate journey, and i felt i deserved a treat. looking at the yummy pictures hanging above my head i decided that i shall splurge this time around.

maybe i'll try the meatball marinara, hell i'll even fork out a full extra dollar for the chicken teriyaki, which i'd never dared to buy. (normally i eat the cold cut trio, which was the cheapest thing on the menu). as i was trying to decide between the two, and whether i should dig out that extra 30 cents for a teriyaki, the friendly Starbucks staff came out with a sign and said "sorry, but we're closing. i'll cut it here~" and chopped right before the polite guy who'd been in the wrong queue.

who was in front of me.

its amazing, really. there were only the two of us, and no one else behind us; they could have just let us go on by you know? and the three lucky people who joined the queue got their orders.

too weak to argue, i trundled back to hall silently, and watched silently and very grudgingly as this very supple, energetic and obviously well-nourished guy cut across the road in front of me swinging his 6-inch sub and a cup of lemon tea.

* * *

a silent tear rolled down my cheeks as i watched the auntie chop chop chop a third of the chicken chop (why~?! its not like u're gonna leave it for tmr~ its 8pm, just gimme a lil more neh~?), put two calculated lettuce leaves and one thin slice of cucumber on the rice, plus a small dollop of sticky lemon sauce and say "2 dollars".

...its true that when u're hungry everything tastes good...

sob.....

oh ho. a food entry again.

well, in case no one's realized yet, i'm counting down to my last 3 days of hall life. sitting in my semi-empty room (yy's cleared out, although i'm slowly eating into her space these past 2 days) and pondering where to go to get my daily grub makes me very nostalgic.

as such, i decided to spend the last few days here eating around the school, and getting a last taste of some of the best foods on campus. no more of the $2.30 rice from the canteen downstairs if i can help it!

so this evening i walked all the way to canteen A for their japanese curry chicken rice, $3. it comes with a generous splash of curry that just coats the chicken katsu and rice, with mashed potatoes, shredded crab meat and miso soup as sides. one of my favourite foods in NTU.

it was closed.

for a while i grappled with myself as i debated whether to go to the nearby Subway or to another far far away canteen in search of good food. 

nostalgia prevailed, and i made my way across another quarter of the campus to canteen 2 for their fabulous fried fish soup set, which comes with a tasty 4 chunks of fried fish, healthy veggies, two succulent tofus, and the famous fluffy and crispy super-deep-fried-eggs that they are so famous for. 

and towards the end of the meal, i suddenly felt a sharp pain as something (either an ikan belis with a very sharp and pointy tail, or a fish bone) pieced into my throat.

my first instinct was to grab my throat and try to push it out with external force. 10 seconds later i realized the stupidity of it, as 1. i was being strangled; 2. it seems i was pushing it deeper in ; and 3. i looked idiotic.

i was contemplating whether to throw the panic trigger, at which i would start coughing hysterically, and worse come to worse, dig my hand down my throat to dislodge it. but i decided that i would rather risk the very small odds that the situation would turn deadly, than to look like a complete lunatic in the middle of the crowded canteen, and so i calmly moved on to the contemplation of plan b.

plan b was to leave for hall, where i can pull my panic trigger in the privacy of my own room, or yahoo for 'fish bone in throat help'. hell, if i could get used to the pain that ensues when i move my throat muscles i would even call home for help.

it was then that i remembered my mother's advice: if there's a fish bone stuck in your throat, swallow large gulps of rice to dislodge it.

there were two pathetic spoonfuls of rice left on my plate. i gulped mentally. i had two shots at this. and then its plan b.

amazingly, the first spoonful of rice did the trick! but just to be sure i cleaned up the second spoonful, and gulped down the soup for good measure.

the throat still hurts, but at least i can't feel something poking the opposite wall of the throat channel now. either the poky thing got pushed down into the gullet, or it got pushed right into the muscle, mwahahahaha- owch. 

on days like this when i feel cranky and moody and attention-seeking and generally mean,

i feel like playing horrible pranks/bullying/being mean to

some poor innocent people who just happen to be around and convenient to take my frustrations out on.

such targets include the hapless new neighbour, the unknown girl bathing alone at 2am in the morning, or the unfriendly hall cat.

*fantasizes*

but then i think about how horrible it would be for the victim and stop myself.

geez, i'm too nice.

or rather i'm one of those bully/tyrant/joker/meanie wannabe that has a lot of hot air but no action.

sucks to be me.