Part 2

Everything was going well for me in law school; until I got 3/30 for my Contract Law II midterm. It was not until the week before my finals when I realised that I got 3/30 and not 3/20. So it was actually much worse than I thought. That night I was sitting in front of my notes just thinking about my first year subjects. It was all a lie. They made everything seem so easy at first. Then when you finally realise otherwise, it would be too late to pull out. I mentioned about always trying to avoid ice-breaking sessions. Well unfortunately, skipping the whole week of orientation did not make this evitable. My first English class, my lecturer made us draw lots and whoever’s name you get, you’re given five minutes to ‘interview’ them and later we would have to present our partner in front of the whole tutorial group. Ahh great. Just great. Half of the time, I wasn’t concentrating on the ‘interview’ questions Amirah Yasmin was asking me; instead, I was thinking of an excuse to get myself out of that dreadful class. Like I said, I hated the whole idea of having to forcefully make people become friends.

When my interview was done, I had to move along and proceed with interviewing this guy called David Chau. Thank god, i thought – someone with a name that I could pronounce. When everyone was done, it was finally time for our presentations. I wasted no time in standing up and walking towards my lecturer to tell her that I had to go. You would THINK that I made an escape. No, not really. “Oh okay. CLASS, she has to leave early so we’ll let her present first, ok?” WHAT?! REALLY?? Oh god. I’m never good with presentations. I hated standing in front talking and having everyone stare at you like you have something disgusting on your face. “So... (oh god oh god) I’m going to present on David Chau (ok should I point to him? No, that’d be rude. Wait HOWHOWHOW). David enjoys football and er... (BRAIN FREEZE* Lynette, just READ whatever’s on that piece of paper you wrote!) “ Well that did not turn out as bad as I expected. As I made my way out of class, “Thanks for introducing me” David said courteously. WOW! I thought. Is everyone this nice around here?

So as I was saying. What ever happened to merely having to introduce your friend for your presentation? What about the days when our assignment was to choose colours for our website in Computer Applications? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS A 3/30?! Is that even allowed?? What am I doing taking this course? What was I thinking?? Then soon after, tears started streaming down my face. Yes, I cried out of sheer pressure. I knew that I could not afford to fail this paper. If I were to fail this, what about future subjects? I had YEARS ahead of me! So no, I was determined to nail my finals. I tried studying at home. See, my parents could never understand the reason why I couldn’t just stay at home and study there. They did everything to make me study at home. They even had a study room prepared for me with a huge study table, cushioned office chair, air conditioned and what not. The problem is, there was also a queen sized bed in that room beside the study table and not to mention 20 steps away from the TV room and not to mention another 10 steps away from my room, my pillows, my duvet, my stereo and not forgetting another 20 steps away from the kitchen. Need I say more? I needed a place that would make me feel like dying every 10 seconds – a place where no one is going to spoil me like an overgrown princess.

Days and nights were spent in the library discussion room together with Q and also Kai Choy. An accidental friendship, I would say. One day he was just there reading every newspaper he could find lying in the library and he and Q were somewhat friends I guess. So he joined us and voila, we formed our very own ‘study group’. We would spend almost everyday together – the three of us; breakfast, memorising together, studying together, helping each other summarize chapters. That was also probably when I started liking the idea of having friends around. I had a reason to hang around campus now after classes. I had a reason to drive all the way to campus even if there were no classes that day. I turned human again for some unknown reasons.

See, the reason I was so against getting so attached to anyone is because when I had to part ways with my high school friends, it hurt real bad. The fact that I was probably the only one who felt that way about our separation hurt even more. Since then, I vowed to never ever make ‘friends’ my all and never having to depend on them for anything. Because this phase is going to end somewhere some time soon and I just did not want to go through it all again. However, like any ice-breaking session, this was inevitable.

Soon I started making more friends... (cont)