Part II

After we had finished reading and discussing the text Stasiland, we were instructed to open a word document and briefly take notes on what we had done earlier that day. I found this a little hard considering I had woken up about an hour before my 3.30pm class (whoops), but I think I managed ok.

Our tutor had us take notes on:
- Our first thoughts upon waking
- The first thing we had done that day
- The first thing we had eaten, and how is tasted
- How we had gotten to class
- A thought process we had gone through
- Everything we had eaten that day

We were then told to go back and find way to expand on something that had happened, as in, link it to a memory that was relevant. Then, we had to expand on our notes, and make them into a story. Finally, we had to go back and change every sentence that began with 'I', which drove me crazy because almost half of mine did. Here is what I ended up with:

Awake at 12.45pm, I discover that I have somehow ended up with my head at the other end of my bed. Momentarily disorientated, and annoyed that I had slept in so late, I tumbled out of bed, stumbling over the bags, books, empty JD bottles and clothes, to go to the bathroom.

Coming out of the bathroom Marte, my unit-mate, barrelled out of her room, jabbering about waking up at 3am with a huge huntsman on her leg. Unable to kill it, she had thrown shoes at it and then huddled in the corner of her room. Sleep was impossible. I hate spiders, and I particularly hate huntsmen, so I armed myself with 2 cans of Mortein, located the bastard, and emptied half a can. The next 3 minutes were fraught screams and frantic scrambling onto beds and desks as he twitched and clawed his way down the wall, onto the floor. He was still twitching when Ben finally arrived and fufilled his manly duty of removing him by flushing him down the toilet. The unit stank of the cloying and suffocating smell of bug spray. Feeling heroic and accomplished, I went to lunch.

Like everyday, I grabbed takeaway from the campus cafe – a vegetarian roll and grilled fish, in spicy penang sauce. Usually campus food fills me with dread, but today was different. To my surprise, there was actual flavour, and I suspected that for once the food may be fresh, and not frozen. To celebrate, I sat on my patio smoking and eating with a friend I ran into in the car park.

Time for class. I share a car with my brother, and it works pretty well. Except when he takes the car 5 minutes before class because he’ll ‘die if he doesn’t have a boost juice’. Standing impatiently in the car park, I chain smoke and worry about parking in the western car park. I was 45 minutes late to a workshop yesterday, the parking situation was catastrophic. As I left campus, what looked like a swarm of, oh god, bees, pollutes the air around the entrance. I am glad I haven’t opened the window for a cigarette. I am glad I’m not walking. I am not a fan of nature. I turn off the aircon on the chance an enraged bee makes his way inside, and makes a beeline – really? – for me.