What I Do in College

I’m supposed to have graduated. Yet I still faithfully go to the college, waking up everyday at 6 a.m. to hitch a ride with my mum who goes to the same place. Then the same routine – arriving before the sun arises (if there is no traffic jam) and buying the Star newspaper at the Caltex petrol station before going for a breakfast of two half-boiled eggs and a ham and cheese sandwich at the coffee shop.

Upon arriving in the familiar institution I call my college, I stumble in to the computer lab, switching on the lights, air-cond and computer, so forth. Oh joy! I’m connected to the Internet. After searching around Google aimlessly for some time, logging into my e-mail and deleting those e-mails I never read yet not reading those I would, listening to some songs, visiting some blogs, it’s almost 9 a.m. Some early birds would have arrived by now, preparing for class while I excuse myself to hide in some isolated studio where I slip into undisturbed dreamland.

Few hours or minutes later, I wake myself, momentarily deciding if I should start my work. Before that idea starts forming into something concrete, I’ve already gone on to slumberland yet again. It’s almost lunch time now, as I greet some familiar faces of those who make the same vigil to college as I do. I open up my pile of butter paper and sketches, looking at my progress and pondering… pondering… pondering. Time for lunch.

My feelings of dread come once or twice in a day. Once, when I turn my head to find the face and eyes of my lecturer staring back at me. Twice, when I turn my head the other way and find the same thing looking back at me at another time in the day. At which point I would usually turn away and run back to the work I’m supposed to be doing so that some degree of guilt would go away. I alternate between CAD and online messaging, or I believe the more flattering would be to say, multi-tasking.

All too soon, it’s almost 6 p.m. Work time is officially over, and mine seems so too. Some more surfing, some downloading, some reading, some listening, before Mum says to call it a day. Probably a dinner if the stomach protests too much, and then the sleeping car ride home.

Few people have asked me what I do everyday in college. I often shrug and give a Even-if-I-told-you,-you-wouldn’t-understand look.