...I might as well do something semi-constructive and fill in the blanks of the past few days.
Friday, August 13th: As I mentioned earlier, I finished the thesis revision, and off it was to campus to get my lecturers' John Hancocks. Sounds simple? It would be if they were all in the same place, and order of signing didn't matter. But nooo, I had to drive to my supervisor's house somewhere in the arse end of Depok before he left for Salemba, which freaked me out.
See, I'm not really keen on driving places I'm not familiar with, and if I have to, I always consult my Jakarta road atlas. The thing is, this is Depok - and I'm talking proper Depok, not just the general area of campus. I haven't got a road map for it, mainly because I've never had occasion to travel to the arse end of it. But fortunately, they'd recently opened a nice, new road heading in that direction, and the instructions my supervisor gave me were easy enough to follow, and so I made it there on time without having to wander around lost.
We had a little chat while he looked at my revision, and signed off without any reprimands. Now, I'm still uncertain as to whether he actually read it - hey, this is me we're talking about: nice guy, lousy student. I'm thinking, maybe he didn't actually read it and signed off because he had places to go. Or maybe he did read it but was willing to cut me some slack, poor bastard that I am. Or maybe he actually did consider it worthy of signing off on. But oh well - at least he signed it, and that's all I wanted, really. If he thought it was adequate, then that'd be a bonus.
And then it was back to campus to complete the signature collection. Unfortunately by the time I got there, they were in a meeting, so I had to wait several hours and ponder how the beginning and end of campus life are similar in this regard. It's like this: when you first enter here, if you want to enter the student association, you have to go through this whole initiation process, which includes hunting down seniors to fulfill a weekly quota of signatures. The enthusiasm levels of freshmen in the past couple of years or so for this process has dropped, but it's only now that I realise that they're not lying when they say the grueling process has its long-term benefits. So kids: go through that initiation process! It'll be more useful than you think...
After the signatures, went to the printing shop I'd visited earlier in the week, and had to convince the guy to have it done on Monday instead of Tuesday. Fingers crossed...
Saturday, August 14th: Today was the start of the English Premier League season, and I went to watch Liverpool's opening match against Tottenham Hotspur with the Big Reds gang. That in itself would seem rather special, but here's the big pay-off: we watched the match with John Barnes. Yeah, that John Barnes - Liverpool and England legend. He was in Indonesia for a coaching clinic, and we somehow managed to get him into watching the match with us. Pretty surreal sitting there next to him, and of course I managed to embarrass myself. See, Liverpool had taken the lead, and then Spurs pulled one back. Suddenly, Spurs were on the attack and had the ball in the back of the net again. Even though this goal looked like a dead ringer for the first, I couldn't help but groan in anguish. And then Mr. Barnes cut in and said, "That was a replay."
Sunday, August 15th: Today me and my high school friends held some sort of benefit for orphans somewhere in Limo. Well, make that my high school friends - I just tagged along for the ride and took pictures. To be honest, my samaritan side isn't that big and I hadn't been as active as I should've in helping, but I can't deny that it felt good to see those kids happy. Small steps...
Monday, August 16th: Picked up my thesis hardcovers from the shop. The covers were slightly askew - ah well, that's what you get for a rush job. On to campus, and time for the administrative run around. Well maybe "run around" is putting it a bit too strongly, but man, my legs felt like they were about to fall off after going back and forth numerous times. Though I guess all the tiring leg-work paid off at the end of the day when I picked up my toga for the graduation ceremony. I'll probably look dorky in it, but what the hey - I've waited six long years for my day of toga-enhanced dorkiness.
Tuesday, August 17th: Happy 59th Independence Day, Indonesia. What did I do to mark the anniversary of the most important date in this country's history? Absolutely nothing. Ever since graduating high school and no longer being subjected to mandatory ceremony, I've had no reason to get up in the morning and salute the flag.
Wednesday, August 18th: Back to campus to finish off the remains of the administrative process. Upon completion, me and Ardian slapped Dipo (figuratively) into getting his paperwork in progress. See, compared to the others, Dipo's had a much more complicated process, where all sorts of complications have arised, mostly to do with his supervisor who's been hard to contact and meet, and wouldn't approve Dipo's revision. Once again, a reminder as to how I've been fortunate with the whole thing - and I suppose it's this realisation that made me stay until evening to help Dipo out. Or maybe it was just guilt. Whatever. The point is that, barring any further complications, Dipo won't miss out on the graduation ceremony.
Been too pooped to post in the past two days, though I have plenty of musings. And there are other things that need to be done today, so it'll have to take a raincheck. Talk to you later.
