Crackle Girl: A Short Story

This morning I had my Cost Management lecture, so I get over to the theater, make my way down the steps as I keep a keen eye for Cute Cashier From Safeway, and opt for a seat near the front. Just as class is about to start, this girl rushes in, carrying a cup of take-away coffee and a paper bag of what I assume is some sort of pastry or bun, and she sits right next to me, plonking her bag down on the empty chair on her other side.

So my lecturer starts talking and I get my attentive face out, with a plan to listen properly and take notes(I swear!). The girl next to me takes her lecture slides out, her pencil box and stuff all ready, and then she starts eating whatever it was she bought in the paper bag.

Okay, I thought. Must have missed breakfast. Wonder what she's having,I wish I could have a pastry too. So I focus back on my nice lecturer, but I find that I'm having a hard time concentrating, and I soon ascertain it's because from beside me crackling noises are coming out at regular intervals. Every few seconds-crackle. A few more seconds after-more crackling.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the girl is still eating whatever she bought, and it's not a pastry after all, because she uses a spoon to dig into it. And every time she goes to dig some more of it out, she grips the paper bag, thus causing the crackling sound.

The noise soon gets under my skin, and what was one second ago a mere background sound effect has now morphed into the bane of my very existence at this very moment. I can't concentrate on what the lecturer is saying and though I try to clutch on to his explanations of cost allocation and cost drivers, I am being swallowed by the fury that is emerging for this idiot of a girl who is still bloody crackling the bloody paper bag even though it's now half and hour into the lecture and we've covered quite a few slides.

I want to turn to her and scream "WTF, WOMAN??". She just crackles, chews, crackles, chews, and takes a swig of her coffee. I can hear her paper bag crackling, I can hear her bloody chewing, and I can hear her gulping her coffee, it's driving me mad!

I try to sigh loudly, to give her a hint that it's bothering me, but of course she doesn't notice and continues chew,chew,chewing and crackling the paper bag. And for a minute I'm stumped, is it just me who finds it annoying? The girl on my other side gave the Crackle Girl a look just now, but she doesn't seem perturbed, she's furiously scribbling on her notes and high-lighting all the necessary bits. Crackle Girl is oblivious, of course, she's eating while turning the pages of her slides to keep up with the lecturer. Is this normal? Am I being overly sensitive?

10 minutes later she finishes(whoo!), puts the damn paper bag aside and takes out a pencil and bends over her slides, writing something. I think,'at last!', and feel somewhat sheepish('must have been overreacting just now') and turn to give my full attention once more to VG(my lecturer).

But wait. Crackle Girl, in her intent to write notes, has placed her left elbow on my table. MY TABLE. Isn't there a bloody courtesy rule that says you can't mess with the space of people you don't know? Especially people you've just annoyed the hell out of by chewing and crackling for the past 40 minutes? It's not smack in the middle of my table, it's to the side, but it prevents me from putting MY elbow on the table when I want to write something.

I narrow my eyes at her to give her a death glare, but her head's still bent over and so I admit, I spied on what she was writing on. It turns out she's not writing at all, she's DRAWING. Fucking DRAWING. Drawing flowers! FLOWERS! What the hell do flowers have to with Cost Management?!

She draws a flower, followed by another, and another, until she has a whole bunch. She snaps to attention at something VG says, takes out a red pen and writes down something(related to the lecture this time), then goes back to drawing. We change pages on our slides, and she starts drawing a princess.

And while I was mad, some part of me found it pathetically funny. Here I was, fuming over this girl, too chicken to say something for fear of coming off like an overly sensitive prick, too caught up in being annoyed that she was drawing and that her stupid elbow on my table to just shrug it off and pay attention to the lecturer. And there she was, happily and intently drawing, concentrating only when she thought it was necessary, completely oblivious of me and my troubles. I had initially started off with righteous anger and notions of superiority, thinking I was the better one for wanting to pay attention, learn something,etc, while she was the fool for her drawing and her nonsense. But between the two of us, she was probably the one better off. She herself was choosing to either draw or listen, while I on the other hand was letting my actions(in this case my attention) be dictated by by my irritation for her. Why couldn't I just choose to ignore her and listen to VG?

Does this make sense? Bleh. I'm crap at describing what are already crappy, nonsensical thoughts to begin with.

When the first hour was up and we had a break, I looked around and saw Tai waving at me. He proved to be my savior, having an empty seat beside him for me to move to.

Trivial woes.

Don't you want to curve away?

Firdaus's tag, 13(instead of 25,sorry) things/habits/goals/random things about myself:

1. I get touchy when I meet someone who has the perception that an accountant is someone who is very dry and boring. ACCOUNTANTS CAN HAVE FUN TOO YOU KNOW!

2. I have this belief that my skin looks better than what it actually is when I first wake up in the morning. I'll shuffle over to the bathroom sink to brush my teeth, and when I look at my face, it seems like every pimple has shrunk, the skin feels smoother and in general looks nicer. But then it 'wakes up', and once I've showered, it resumes normal ugliness. Can anyone scientifically confirm this for me?

3. Kakak once told me that if she were able to marry a song, she'd marry Les Cerfs Volants, this french song by Benjamin Biolay. I thought that was a very interesting question. If you could marry a song, what song would it be? I reckon I wouldn't mind being paired up withPostcards from Italy by Beirut for life. (Come, come, introduce me to your song-wife/husband! I'd like to know)

4. I saw the cute Safeway cashier I used to stalk last year in my Cost Management lecture! HOHOHOHO!

5. Sometimes I get weary of movies/stories that have such clear cut protagonists and antagonists. Surely people are not so easily lumped in either category?

6. Album of the moment: Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut. Three phrases to describe it: Beautifully soothing harmonies, distinctive American folksiness, reminds me sometimes of Simon&Garfunkel. Favored song of the album of the moment:

What's particularly interesting about the song(besides that it sounds good), is the fact it only has one verse repeated throughout the song, and that one verse is made up of lyrics that are a bit haunting(I suppose the red he sings about refers to blood?

I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go,
And Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime

Eh eh. Terpanjang pulak number 6 ni.

7. I really ought to be doing homework now. I don't think there ever is a time when I don't. Someone slap me and make me get started already.

8.I can arch my left eyebrow up a la Ziana Zain. I can't remember how many zeros a mega has, I can't swim, and I don't have a natural chemistry with dolphins, but I can arch my leftbrow. All is well.

9. My mom always gives the credit for baking something to me, even though all I did was the menial work like measuring out flour and sugar. I miss her.

10.A source of joy: storage solutions.

11.I think my Cost Management lecturer is sweet. He really tries hard to convey what he's teaching as clearly as possible, and he seems genuinely interested in the subject, which is not something you can find in all teachers.

12.Picture!
This was taken the day I came back, I think. That's Kelly and I in the background, I was probably telling her how I loved how long her hair was(Reading this over, I snorted and thought 'of course I'd be talking about hair. What were the chances I'd be discussing Freudian ideas or analyzing stimulus packages?') . What I like so much about the picture is Anna's face(don't kill me Anna!heh). Macam nak gelak tapi at the same time it's as if she's smirking. It makes me smile whenever I see it.

13. Dengan rasminya saya ingin tag Kelly. KELLY. Kelly,ftw!

Once again kakak saves the day!

With a beautiful song to stop me from banging my head on the table in frustration.


Every semester, without fail, there will be that one subject that manages to get under my skin, and I find that I can't seem to quite keep up with it. This time, it's the unbelievable, superbly talented, absolutely gorgeous(If I butter it up, perhaps it'll be kinder towards me) Business Finance!(whoo!Turn on applause sign)

But this time I have it better, because I actually like the subject. I do believe it's interesting. It's just a matter of digesting this abundance of information and formulas I'm forced to swallow each week.

Eh, this City and Colour ni seems very, very promising, the kind that requires full youtube/myspace/amazon research. Tabik spring to kakak for giving me the head's up.

I went to this talk yesterday, about kick-starting your commerce career. Apparently, I'm supposed to be looking at applying for internship programs, join a society that offers work-like experience, and start sharpening my skills, not merely academically, but also in terms of employability. I'm also highly encouraged to attend career fairs and meet with company representatives, to be able to network and get an idea of what prospective employers are looking for. All of this to be done starting right about now.

Hello, grown-up world. Where'd you come from? I didn't see you. Hello, wearing suits-to-work days, and the scrambling to enter the corporate environment, is it time already? Do I have to start saying my goodbyes?

I get so distracted
by some people's reactions
that I don't see my own faults for what they are
-City Colour, Sensible Heart

See, told you they were good.

I'm sorry I didn't reply to your very kind comments on the last post, I've been(well, it feels like it) busy. (But if I were busy, surely that busyness would have included completing my Business Finance tute? But I haven't. Maka, secara konklusi, adakah kesibukkan yang saya nyatakan di sini sekadar sebahagian imaginasi saya?).

Anyway.

Hang on folks, it's already Wednesday. We're halfway through to get to the weekend!

Proper Groceries

I have so much I want to blurt out here, so much thoughts pouring out at the moment.

I want to talk about the awesomeness of the Coldplay concert, and my excitement for Kings Of Leon, and I want to get off my chest the fact it bugs me when I read blogs where people condemn them for becoming too 'mainstream'. I don't think I'm all bugged up about it because I am against that opinion, I don't really care, but I do get irritated when I read blog posts made by authors who must think they are positively omniscient.

I want to talk about clubbing. The other day I asked Kelly whether she would be open-minded enough to go clubbing, and now in retrospect, I cringe at how badly I worded the question. Just because a person doesn't go clubbing, that doesn't mean that they are closed-minded. It's strange isn't it, coming from a background of schooling that positively condemned clubbing to the pits of maksiat and therefore hell, and then being exposed to another section of society who find it perfectly fine and adopt it as a regular activity? Clubbing doesn't have to equal alcohol and maksiat. Does it? One the one hand, one can argue that of course it doesn't. We can go for the music, we can go for dancing, we can go for the good times with good friends. I went clubbing once. I didn't drink, I had a good time watching Shao doing the running man. It wasn't a great experience though(it was a mediocre club with mediocre music).

I want to talk about how I won't give in to this shit that is self-pity. I will be better than this, I'll study harder, I'll try to be friendlier, I'll try to have more courage. I won't give up, I won't. I'll pray to Allah, I'll listen to good music, I'll write and paste things in my journal, I'll try not to stop even in the face of discouraging circumstances.

I want to talk about guys and how I have this deep longing to actually experience being liked by someone properly. Yeah. bodoh, kan? 21 and never been liked. And since practically most of the people around me have experienced it/are experiencing it at one point or another, it's a bit worrying. Ah. bodoh. This whole paragraph is bodoh. Why? Because I do believe I have several repetitions of this exact same paragraph(albeit expressed differently) scattered throughout previous blog posts. Therefore, not only is it unoriginal, it means that the situation hasn't changed. next.

I want to talk about God and how the memories of umrah are becoming fuzzy, they aren't in pristine, sharp , technicolour condition anymore, and that sucks. Melbourne and its distractions are getting to me, and I want to persevere. And I want to talk about how I was reminded of the fact that 'Islam' means to surrender to God, and I'm supposed to build my life around God, not try and find ways to fit God into my life. I want to be stripped of this arrogance I have, of any cynicism, sarcasm and skepticism in my head, take them away, what good have they done me? Obliterate this pretentiousness.

I like my lecturers this semester.

I have reading and tutorials to do tomorrow.

Lemon tea

Hello to anyone who has still been bothering to check this page despite the unchanging post at the top, grazias, syukran, terima kasih.

It's been a whirlwind of sorts, but I'm finally back in Melbourne, and what's more, I find myself lying on my bed with nothing to do at the moment, so huzzah! Here I am.

I would love nothing else than sit down with someone who would want to listen to me as I prattle on enthusiastically about Makkah and Madinah, seeing the Kaabah for the first time, the refreshingly different Arab society, the revolting taste of Arab coffee and experiences of trundling back to the hotel with cups of dates, kucing Arab with their skinny tails, white robes, black abaayas and red and white checkered kuffiyahs. However, I'll spare you the incoherent ramblings and just describe the picture above. That's mom and I laughing our heads off(for what reason I can't recall) in a place called Al Ula, which is some four hours outside of Madinah. And you see the big rock in the background? There's tons of those everywhere in Al Ula, and it is spectacular. It is awesome, there's a scattering stretch of those rocks that go all the way to Jordan. It is astoundingly beautiful, far different from the hills you see around Makkah and Madinah themselves.

The lady whose head you can see right between mom and I is Kak Liza, who is pretty cool and has a really funny mother. Towards the right, you can see two Arab men in their white jubah and kuffiyahs(one of them is super good-looking,fuyoh), they were our tour guides. Their English left much to be desired, but they were nice people, eager to answer questions and show us around.

I'm listening to Coldplay's Viva La Vida, trying to pump up some excitement to go see them, and so far it's working. I think my favourite track is Strawberry Swing, with Lovers in Japan, Lost! and Death and All of His Friends following close behind. I have a feeling I will have good time. I wiggle my toes, I close my eyes and try and savour the songs. They're not very danceable to are they?

Aina gave me a brilliant present when I got back the other day, Kings Of Leon's Youth & Young Manhood! Thank you Aina, thankyouthankyouthankyou. The album's distinctively different from how the new one sounds, and when I listen to it, I can't help but feel like I should arch my eyebrow and walk jauntily down the street while running a hand through my hair, pretending to be on a ranch....yeah. Aware that I would look unbelievably stupid if I actually did it, I'm content to just walk normally and stare down at my shoes with a small smile.

Kelly, bless her sweet soul, gave me this huge book called The BIG Book of Baking. Think page after page of some sort of cake,pastry or tart, with accompanying recipe and picture. It's going to be book I peruse whenever the day gets overwhelming. It'll make me dream of apples pies, strawberry shortcakes and choux pastry when I sleep, bliss. Grazie, Kelly!

We'll sambung this soon. I'm thinking of going out to get some lemons. Nak buat lemon tea, whee!