The name 'examination' and a few delightful mental excursion
I don't know if everyone else goes through
this kind of mental stage as I do or not: the closer I get to final
examination, the lazier I become to pick up a book, any book. My
tendency is to browse through everything that I have learned throughout
the semester at the very last minute - usually the night before the
exam. Four years here and I guess I should have learned the lesson:
last minute study is bullshit. What you nornally do is just browsing
through pages and pages of photocopied notes, and casually-scribbled
notes on loose leaves of paper, but not a single thing gets absorbed,
and when you're already there sitting in front of the exam paper, you
tried in vain to recollect everything that you have read but it's
useless because your brain malfunctioned last night. Probably
recollecting memories of eating lasagna at that shop near Kyros Kebab,
or its delightfully amazing egg tart. Or the equally amazing Shepherd's
Pie. Now, my first paper will be World Literature in English (with the
wisest man in IIUM probably, Prof. M.A. Quayyum), 9 a.m., Tuesday 25th
of March. Two (old, old, old, Indian) film, six short stories by Jhumpa
Lahiri, Chuah Guat Eng, Rabindranath Tagore, and a host of other
writers, and one novel by R.K. Narayan. That's fine; I still have
Saturday, Sunday and Monday to do revision.
My second paper will be Literary Criticism. I have to reread on Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Semiotics, Modernism, Post Modernism, Feminism, Negritude, Eco-Criticism, Marxist Criticism, Dialectical Materialism, Existentialism, Stream of Consciousness theory, Post Colonialism, and many more theories I can't recall. That's still fine. Exam is on Thursday, 27th of March. So, Tuesday afternoon all the way to Wednesday night to spend on rereading theories by dead philosophers (and crazy ones like Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytical theory).
And then I have three more papers, namely American Literature (the equally bullcrap Transcendentalism theory by Ralph Waldo Emerson to read), Computer Applications in Language Learning (useless stuff that I don't need for God's sake), and Malaysian & Singapore Literature (Suchen Christine Lim, Kam Raslan, Dina Zaman, Haresh Sharma, Wong Phui Nam, Huzir Sulaiman, and poems by our own beloved lecturer, Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf).
That's a lot of book to read, a lot of theories to digest, a lot of issues to discuss on, but before the brain-jam kicks in, I have put up above, what I believe, the most beautiful sight on Earth. Before the reality sets in, let me just drift away for a while and dream of a heavenly place where I want to grow old in: Norway! If I'm not mistaken the photo above was taken somewhere among the hundreds of gorges in Norway; that's where I want to be. A lonely, small, beautiful house, facing a huge, placid lake, surrounded by green hills and snow-capped mountains, and I'll be sitting in my writing room, admiring all the natural beauty while writing my next classic, epic literature work.
But before that I want to climb the Everest, I want to cycle on the entire length of the Great Wall of China, I want to visit Antarctica before global warming melts all the ice there, see the penguins, I want to sky dive in the Patagonia, and... if only I have the financial means to do so. Hahaha. Poor, Malay boy.
And I have always dreamed of dying while having my body floating in the
outer space, alone, swimming along the stars and the planets, towards a
colorful nebula like this one. What a wonderful way to die - I mean to
die of natural cause, that is. You know, when I'm old, and is close to
my time of death, just release me from the space shuttle, in my space
suit, and just let me float towards eternity. I don't want to be
cremated. Experiencing all this while listening to this song by
Coldplay as its soundtrack; God, it's brilliant.
I am very good at talking rubbish. Now, exam.
My second paper will be Literary Criticism. I have to reread on Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Semiotics, Modernism, Post Modernism, Feminism, Negritude, Eco-Criticism, Marxist Criticism, Dialectical Materialism, Existentialism, Stream of Consciousness theory, Post Colonialism, and many more theories I can't recall. That's still fine. Exam is on Thursday, 27th of March. So, Tuesday afternoon all the way to Wednesday night to spend on rereading theories by dead philosophers (and crazy ones like Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytical theory).
And then I have three more papers, namely American Literature (the equally bullcrap Transcendentalism theory by Ralph Waldo Emerson to read), Computer Applications in Language Learning (useless stuff that I don't need for God's sake), and Malaysian & Singapore Literature (Suchen Christine Lim, Kam Raslan, Dina Zaman, Haresh Sharma, Wong Phui Nam, Huzir Sulaiman, and poems by our own beloved lecturer, Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf).
That's a lot of book to read, a lot of theories to digest, a lot of issues to discuss on, but before the brain-jam kicks in, I have put up above, what I believe, the most beautiful sight on Earth. Before the reality sets in, let me just drift away for a while and dream of a heavenly place where I want to grow old in: Norway! If I'm not mistaken the photo above was taken somewhere among the hundreds of gorges in Norway; that's where I want to be. A lonely, small, beautiful house, facing a huge, placid lake, surrounded by green hills and snow-capped mountains, and I'll be sitting in my writing room, admiring all the natural beauty while writing my next classic, epic literature work.
But before that I want to climb the Everest, I want to cycle on the entire length of the Great Wall of China, I want to visit Antarctica before global warming melts all the ice there, see the penguins, I want to sky dive in the Patagonia, and... if only I have the financial means to do so. Hahaha. Poor, Malay boy.
