Viva Forever

I’ve finished my exams (results coming out in 4 days x_x) and the first thing that I do is catch a cold. Nice. Coughing, scratchy throats, lethargy and sore backs are annoying setbacks to attempts at relaxation after an incredibly stressful three weeks of assessments. Also, it’s bloody freezing here (I take back what I say about wanting to go to cold countries and to see the snow; having fully come to terms with how much of a pussy my body is, I think I’ll keep to the warmer climes) which is just darn uncomfortable. The good news is that Uni doesn’t start back until August 4th. However, I’ll probably be working a lot of it, definitely full time for two weeks at the very least.

In other news, I received an awesome birthday package from Amanda in the mail the other day. In it was three items of clothing; a lovely long, black dress with a long, mocha-coloured ribbon sash at the waist; a summery blue and white patterned dress that’s uber comfortable and a snazzy babydoll work shirt. MANY THANKS TO HER! They all fit nicely and very wearable. :D

This happened years ago, when I was about 16-17 years of age.

The house my family and I lived in was a two-storey house, with bedrooms upstairs and other rooms downstairs. One weekend, my parents invited family friends over. The guests were four people; a middle-aged couple and their two daughters. I was upstairs in my room when my dad called me downstairs for dinner. As I walked down the stairs, I saw an Asian man standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was middle-aged and wore a buttoned up shirt and some non-descript long pants. His expression was blank, calm, pretty unemotive actually. What was unusual was that he had a large camera hanging from a strap around his neck. It was an old-fashioned, black, bulky camera.

He was just standing there and didn’t say a word, and moved out of my way as I continued down the stairs. I had just thought he was another guest of my parents that I hadn’t met. When I arrived in the dining room, I saw that everyone was seated including the family we had invited. I asked my dad whether we were waiting for anyone else, and he said no. I asked him whether he was sure, but he said (rather impatiently) that everyone who was supposed to be here is already seated and that I should hurry up and do the same. After dinner I walked around my house but that camera man was no where in sight. I never saw him again.

I’d like to point out it couldn’t have been just some random person who walked into the house. Both our front and back doors were self-locking, that is, if the doors were closed then they locks themselves until you turn the knobs from inside the house to reopen them (or if you have the keys you can open it from outside). I was positive that the front door was closed because the stairs stopped right near the front door and I definitely noted it was closed as I was coming downstairs. The back door was too, and even if it weren’t, any stranger walking in from it would have to bypass all the people in the house who were downstairs at the time. The windows have fly screens on them and were generally closed too.

Until this day I get creeped out thinking about what had happened. When I walk around the house late at night (something I loathe to do), I worry that I might turn around and suddenly see this silent, staring camera man once again.

This is one of the reasons why I hate the dark.

So. My parents are planning to sell the house by the end of the year. I’m not too surprised, as we’ve lived for an average of 3.5 years in any one house before moving to another one. It’s like my parents are property investors, except they tend to be living in whichever house they’re currently investing in. They’ve already have the next house bought (aka heavily mortgaged) and it happens to be even further away from everything than our current house.

My plan is to move out of home before all this goes down, which means I only have until about December to find my own place, and more importantly, have some sort of income to pay for rent. I can work more next semester and if the lawyer I’m working for stops being so fucking stingy with money, and if I can get rental assistance, I probably manage to just make enough to pay for rent and maybe food. Since I plan to be moving out with Tim, if he has some kind of income too, that’ll definitely make things easier. My only concern is that once I’ve graduated and I start the intensive coursework at the College of Law, which is going to last months, I don’t think I’d have time to squeeze work in at all. Worse comes to worse, I’ll have to move with my parents to the new place and just take forever getting anywhere. Oh joy.

As I was falling asleep yesterday night thinking about this, I became increasingly worried that it would all turn out horribly. I know so many people who’ve moved out of home without much of a hitch and simply learnt quickly to be independent in terms of self-management, but what if I can’t do it? What if I end up stressing out over what food to cook and how clean my home should be? What if it puts stress on my relationship with Tim? What if I run out of money… for some reason? What if the house burns down? :(

I guess I’ll have to just take things step by step… the only thing I could do now is just start saving money. Oh and maybe start my assessments that are due relatively soon.