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Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Monday 28 April 2003 (Day View) – Shan’s engagement

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28.04.2003 – Monday 28 April – Shan is engaged to Kylie-Anne

The present agony

• Hi ho, it’s off to uni I go. 6:27 train, cool morning but not too cold, arriving at uni just before 7:30 and checking my email from a computer in the union building while waiting for the main refectory to open so I can get some breakfast. Heading off to my lecture after eating a lamington and a drinking a soymilk, and then trying in vain to understand a single concept. Following on with my Discrete Math lecture, this the first with the new lecturer – Barry. At first he seems harder to understand but maybe it is the content he is trying to teach us. An hour spent down the labs rounds off the university day, and it is back to the train station I go. A train to Woodridge and a walk to the supermarket and I am home with some supplies, ready for my assignment. Some washing is done, and to work on my assignment I go. Feeding the animals breaks my agony, and then it is back again. Two hours later I have done questions one and two and dinner is calling. A quick mix of Mexican Rice fulfils dinner.

The agony to come

• Shan, his two sisters and his girlfriend come online in MSN and we talk. He has been engaged today, and is just now home from his girlfriend’s place. We talk about how fast things change and how fast a family breaks apart. His eldest sister is planning on going to Melbourne in around a month, and he is planning on getting married within the year, then it will be only his younger sister at home. I have left home, as has my sister. All of a sudden, it struck me that 22 years of family are gone forever – never to return. What we had we can never have again. Never again will my mother have us kids as her own kids that live at home with her; never again will we be living together as a family – except perhaps on holidays. It will never be the same again. For us children, we have our future, our dreams and plans, our desires and aspirations. For our parents, we are their future and their dreams and aspirations. I can only imagine what my mother must feel when she realises her children are gone – forever. Her children have grown – and are children no longer, although I am sure she will always see us as her young children. I am trying to think of a suitable Mother’s Day gift, as I think it would mean a lot to Mum to know that I am thinking of her.

Mental torture

• I begin to download Service Pack 1 for Windows XP, so have to stay online for a while. I use the extra time to complete question 3 of my assignment. Only one more question to go now, I will have another look at it in the morning and see if I can figure it out, otherwise I’ll see if I can ask the tutor tomorrow. I’m not sure if they’re allowed to help with assessable items, but I shall explode if I think any more tonight.