my old stomping ground

i just saw some photos of 17. mai celebration around the world and, as usual, there are some photos from queensland.

last year, i actually spotted a known face in one of the photos. someone from work was studying in townsville for half-a-year and she happened to be there on may 17th. her pic made the paper here. how fun.

aaaanyhow. this year, i saw a photo of people going on the parade at my old uni and as soon as i saw it, i went, ‘b block!’

aaaaah…. b block. brings back lots of memories. you see, b block was my home. i spent my free time in y block and library (for the ac) but all my studying was done in b block.

the big lecture room on the first ground where i had my absolute favourite class ever was there. it was creative writing and the unit-coordinator was the most awesome lecturer i had throughout my many years at uni. she was a goth who had a strickly all-black dress code. she even had dark hair (not her natural colour, i’m sure). she wrote this goth book which, until this day, remain the only goth book i ever read.

the slightly smaller lecture room where i once did a role play as part of my assignment was there. i was george w. bush. i borrowed a suit from some guy for that. this was the same room where we held our one-day conference for an international student organisation. i think i was the mc for that event. gosh. was i really ever that brave?

the editing suite where i went ga-ga over my oh-so-cute tutor was there, on the second floor. right next door to the editing suite where i once sat with my group going through hours of footages accompanied by the stink that was one of the girls’ baby’s smelly diaper.

the computer room where i went to after class to finish the lay-out of the two pages i was given to was there, on the third floor. my pages made the edition, thank you very much. writing sessions were done there. editing sessions were done there. consultions with tutors were done there. crying, pleading and begging for someone to help was done there.

the telephone interview room for radio where i once interviewed a source without clicking on ‘record’ was there. seeing that this was for radio, that was baaaad. fortunately,the lady i interviewed was very understanding and didn’t mind doing it all over again. 

and the most dreaded room of all, the room where we did our radio news program, was also there. i’d wake up super early so i could check the… uh, i don’t remember what it was, where you got all your news… ap? anyway. checked what i could do a segment on that day, wrote down details to take to the meeting. there was a phone there. we all spent a lot of time looking at that phone with hope because that was the phone where people would return our calls following our requests for an interview.

our program went on air, live, before 1pm (not sure the exact time anymore) so i did a lot of panicking and scrambling around there. i swore i wouldn’t do radio for a living in that room. i declared my hatred for radio in that room. i announced my love for tv reporting in that room.

also in that room is this tiny booth where we recorded our segments. and where we broadcasted the program. i once did the newsreading and went totally blank when i had to read some numbers. i don’t know what it is with numbers, i always do them in indonesian. up until today. i might dream and think in english but when it comes to numbers, my brain switches automatically to indonesian. so there was this big numbers i had to say out loud and somehow it was written down in digits instead of words and i lost it. but this was live so i soldiered on and got a ‘well done’ afterwards.

most of my journalism lecturers and tutors were based at b block so i was constantly there to hand in assignments. i took a wrong subject once and went to tutorials for that class there. the language lab where i stared on a computer screen watching people talking german, trying to understand what the heck they were saying so i could pass my german class, was there.

it wasn’t all serious stuffs though. i once bumped into this guy i had the hugest, most ridiculous crush on right outside b block. we then went behind the building that was b block and sat on a bench under the trees to had a bit of a chat. it was right after 9/11 because another guy who i also happened to had the hugest, most ridiculous crush on (what? ! i was young and free) came and the two of them went on talking about it (engineering guys).

i once took a pizza slice from a friend who was carrying some boxes of pizza to a meeting somewhere while i was waiting for MOH at the front of b block. i once cried my eyes out over a guy in a toilet there. i stood in a lift with a newsreader from channel 10 there. a very popular, very good-looking lady who read the late news. as a journalism student, i was in awe.

as i said, b block was my home.

isn’t it funny how just one picture can bring all these memories to surface?