I wish I also can come back home after work every week and kick off my shoes haphazardly, not caring where they land, but get angry the next morning when I don’t find them nicely placed on the doormat.

I wish I also can buy what I like to eat back for dinner despite there already lie 4 big plates of dishes, nibble a few morsels and declare a full stomach fifteen minutes into the meal.

I wish I also can spit out the fish bones, etc, all out on the clean table, even when there is a placemat specially for us to place our dirty stuff on.

I wish I also can push back the chair after eating, stand up, light up my cigarette and talk on the phone, leaving behind almost-full plates of food and half-eaten plates of rice, etc.

I wish I also can lie on the comfortable sofa after dinner, lean back contentedly on the cushions, channel-surf and place my feet up on the coffee-table, while the ton of dirty plates and wasted food get miraculously cleared away behind me.

I wish I also can fall asleep ten minutes later on the sofa, with the television blaring away, and wakeup angrily to scold whoever goes to switch the television off or lower the volume.

I wish I also can interrupt someone’s study time every ten minutes by asking questions like “How to spell ‘consistent’?” and flare up when he/she protested.

I wish I also can do all the above every single week without fail and be without care for anyone at all.

the end of the semester, that is.

CAs are all finally done, and now is the mad rush to the exams. True, I cannot complain now of having no time to study. I have about 2 weeks to really get going and I figure I can do it.

Some modules are relatively hard to study for, especially modules that I have no choice but to take this semester, but with the help of some friends and the internet, I think I can safely say I will pass.

In contrast (I wanted to type “on the other hand”, but I remembered the wise advice of a teacher not to write that unless you have “on the one hand” before that), some modules that I was pretty confident in at the beginning of the semester, now seem more difficult and threatening. The exam format of those modules is not quite what I had expected, and this brought my confidence down a little.

The amount of extra readings I printed is amazing. I can’t believe I wasted that much time standing at a photocopier printing and printing and printing, when I could have used the time more wisely, that is catching up on my assigned readings in the first place. I initially thought that my knowledge of the subject was so limited to the assigned readings that more extra readings should help. Some do, I am glad, but I think I wasted a lot of money on the others. Not to say they were of no use at all, they could come in useful in an open-book exam when you are at your wit’s end and all you can do is just cram irrelevant stuff in, hoping some of them can get you a mark or two. Unfortunately, my habit of printing double-sided makes these extra stuff unavailable for rough paper in the future.

Everyone’s so busy studying. I miss him. We haven’t met in weeks and I think there are more weeks to come. My exams will only start one week after his exams have ended. But I am glad in a way for him, because at least he can enjoy what’s left of the holidays before he goes for his IA next semester.

Amazing how I can find time to write such a long post when I still have a mountain of readings to do.