Sleeplessness

Why can't I sleep? It's been going on for a number of weeks already, and it's very annoying.
I can't sleep when it's time to sleep. I lie down in bed, and these thoughts, memories, ideas, flashbacks run inside my head, constantly proliferating and multiplying, from one idea to another thought, from one memory to another flashback. Images, sounds, people, faces, places. All playing like an endless roll of film. All the while, I feel frustrated and defeated, especially as the time ticks on and on, and the morning draws close....

It's terrible not being able to sleep when you want to, when you're supposed to, and then to have to fall asleep when day comes, and sleep all the way late into the afternoon. The day is turned upside down, the night inside out, and I feel myself growing more and more frustrated and down everyday....

Because I can;t sleep...!

One down, three more to go

I did my exam in eight hours, not twenty four. After that amount of time, I just put a stop to it, and packed away all my books. Enough was enough.

There's only so much you can take of reading about airplane crashes, horrible accidents and emotional traumas from near-death experiences of falling out of an airplane. Even if they are fictional. I broke out in laughter more than once at the bizarre fact-case we were given to write about.... at least my professor has a sense of humour, which made the exam somewhat light-
hearted, and dare I say, easy (or at least, easier). I guess I'll find out when the grades are out.

So I got a response from the photo competition I entered a few days about, and I won! Not sure if it were the quality of the pictures, or maybe the lack of competition (ironically, in a competition), but the school office liked my pictures and will soon post them on the website. They called me to go sign a waiver form, basically giving them rights to use the pictures I'd taken.

I walked into the office, and there was a secretary at the door. She looked at me, a puzzled look on her face. I greeted her, and said my name, and who I was there to see. She looked into some kind of day planner on her computer, and tried to find my name, frowning when she couldn't. "What time was your appointment?"

"Well, I was told to come around ten, so there was no real appointment", I answered. The answer seemed to frustrate her. It was as if my answer was a stumbling block in the bureaucratic machinery that caused an unpredicted and unwelcome obstacle, delay, or worse, which prevented things from taking place according to rules, regulations, formalities and conventions. "No real appointment" seemed to be looked down upon. She picked up the phone, dialling.

A phone rang, the sound coming from behind her. No more than metre away, obscured by a small cupboard. After a ring, or two, I heard the other phone being picked up. I heard the other person speak, as the secretary spoke. They were so close, and I wondered whether they heard one another's echoes in the phone. They were so close, yet communicating over the phone. All it would have taken was to get up from the chair, take two steps, peak around the cupboard to talk to her colleague. But no, it seemed everything had to be so official, so formal, so proper.

The secretary hung up the phone, and I heard the other phone hang up too. Then I heard footsteps, not more than two, at most four. A lady with a friendly smile appear from behind the cupboard. The one I was meant to meet, even though we had "no real appointment".

I smiled, greeted her and shook her hand politely. But inside I thought about the queer episode that had just taken place before me. And I laughed. On the inside of course.

24 hours

Until now I've never done an exam that lasts 24hours. But I will be doing one this time tomorrow.

Not that the exam takes 24hours to complete, but we're given 24hours to complete it. And from what I heard, some people do take close to that whole time to do the exam. Perfectionists perhaps.

I just hope I can complete it in a few hours, and move on to the rest of my studying and maybe even start on the one assignment that I have pending. It's been almost over a year since I last did an exam, and I'm feeling the pre-exam stress / excitement / mix of indescribable feelings that swing between anxiety and euphoria flow all over me. Two weeks, three exams. It should be doable, since I've experienced much worse before.

But then again, this will be the first time for me to do an exam here in Canada. I'm not even sure what the professors are expecting... and I must do well, since each exam is 100% of my grade!
There's another reason why I feel under pressure. I must do well to prove that I'm worth the money the university is giving me to study here... how embarrasing it would be to be given a scholarship based on academic merit, when it turns out I'm no better (or worse...) than an average student....

There is also another reason, one that's been bothering me, or perhaps lingering around ever since I set foot in this new environment, ever since I started my studies... Dad would have wanted to see me do well, and he would have been so proud of me to be going abroad to study, and to do so with such a generous scholarship. He never lived to hear the news, or share the joy... and I feel I owe this much to him.

And much, much more.

Beautiful...

This piece always cheers me up when I'm a bit down... or when I'm drowning in books and papers and pre-exam stress and sleeplessness.

Dream, dad, dream

I opened my tired eyes. Warm all around me, the blanket that dad used to used. I lay in bed, visions of dad still fresh in my mind...

Another dream of dad. And like usual, I wake up suddenly with a sense of missing and longing. Dad is really gone, and even if I see him now and then in my dreams, he is really gone.

But dad's scent, dad's smile, dad's voice still lingers, as it lingered in my dream this morning. We were alone, walking in an empty street, sometime at dawn. As often when we are together, we were silent, but then again sometimes words are unnecessary. I felt close to him, and our footsteps were in sync. When I was little, I would always look at his feet and try to adjust my own footsteps to match his, even if it meant having to slightly skid and hop uncomfortably. But now that I have grown bigger, it wasn't necessary any more. Our footsteps and strides seemed to so naturally match.

I took a look at his face, and see the same dad that I still remember. That same haircut, those same energetic eyes and brows, and the same posture. He caught me looking at him, and he returned the look with a small smile. A smile that seemed to say, as he used to do before in those rare moments of affection, that he was proud of me. Proud of me, and of what I am doing.

We said nothing, but deep down inside I felt a sense of gratitude, love and affection that I never could say to him outright, and only managed to write down in words in my letters. I never could be sure if he read those letters...

Somehow, he went ahead of me, and before I knew it, was gone. I was left, alone, in the empty street, surrounded by towering buildings that blocked out ths sunright. And it suddenly felt so cold.

I told mum about the dream, and she wasn't sure whether it was a good or bad thing. I think it's a good thing, I said, because it shows how deep inside me dad's presence (and now his absence) still influences me. It shows, in a warming but at the same time sardonic and sad way, that he is still very much my dad. Even if it means that I sometimes wake up crying in the middle of the night, with nothing to hold onto but his blanket....