10:30 am Leases is what we're studying this accounting class. How to classify leases. And how to account for them, but that's way easier than figuring out a lease's identity. Does the world know how much we're thinking into a simple lease? How we're analysing theories and using formulas and performing calculations to figure out what we can name the lease?
Just how it is so much more difficult knowing yourself than knowing how to account for yourself.
6:00 am There are three reasons it's difficult getting out of bed this morning.
5:00 pm It's that favourite part of the day when I can temporarily experience someone else's life. This time it's Jack Gladney's life from White Noise. One of those heart-stopping plunges has just woken up in the middle of the night, and it makes him think of death.
First, I didn't use my usual tactic last night of putting the cell phone in the other corner of the room to force myself to get up, walk to it and make it shut up. The alarm sounds so friendly on my bed-side now that I'm comfortable having it here, singing to me. I am watching it vibrate and light up, wide-eyed. It hits me how something that happens every morning seems so interesting now, and I feel guilty for having ignored all the previous performances. But I can make up for that by appreciating it right now.
Second, my feet are too cold. Getting up would mean they'd have to touch the cold white floor before they find my slippers, and that's too much to ask from them so early in the day, even if it would just be for a few seconds.
And third, I am admiring my purple night-gown and then remember that my sister in London requested cotton ones from the Chinese pavilion in Global Village. I'm wondering whether she'll find it cute or lame if I get her the same one. The thought of not being able to predict the reaction of the closest person in the world to me is disturbing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:00 pm It's that favourite part of the day when I can temporarily experience someone else's life. This time it's Jack Gladney's life from White Noise. One of those heart-stopping plunges has just woken up in the middle of the night, and it makes him think of death.
Is this what it's like, abrupt, peremptory? Shouldn't death, I thought, be a swan dive, graceful, white-winged and smooth, leaving the surface undisturbed?
I like the thought of that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:30 am I am standing in front of the mirror, drowning my contact lenses in solution while I read the bottle label just for the heck of it. Slide in the right one, wishing I could see invisible foreign particles -to be safe, and then quickly taking my wish back. The left one is refusing to get in properly, and I pop it back into the solution angrily. It floats happy, cackling victoriously. Then I smile at my absurdity and put it smoothly back to my eye, wondering how normal it is to imagine inanimate objects capable of feeling.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:45 am I am standing outside with a close friend and a not-so-close one and we're making small talk. Starts with how pleasant the weather is. Ends up covering noisy neighbours, protective dads, and buildings in flames. I am trying to figure out how interested we all really are in what we're saying when I find myself talking animatedly too, and that's when I ask myself if that's how everything in life is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:30 am It's easy arguing for something you don't believe in. You just have to leave your own body and watch yourself. I look at myself standing in front of the room, trying to convince my sleepy Business Communications class that communication can't be taught. It's funny. I notice how much I'm using my hands to help me explain. And I notice other things about myself that nobody can see unless they really want to, like how white the tips of my fingers have become from holding the flash cards too tightly, and how I'm looking at everyone around me just because I don't want to hold eye contact with anyone for too long. When I'm done, I slide back into myself and marvel at how well I hid my nervousness.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
12:30 pm We're not done with leases yet. But we've had a break and now that we're settling down again, the guy sitting in front of me turns around with a precious Lindt chocolate bar in his hand. "Chocolate?" he offers kindly, and I stare at the picture of mint on the cover, my heart pleading and pleading me, knowing deep inside I am going to let it down but trying anyway. And I do let it down. "No, thanks."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:00 am My team member asks me who judges the winning team. Cigarette smell attach themselves to the words coming out of his mouth and stay there hesitating in the air. The smell makes me think of rotting lungs, black teeth and swearing. I can't help it. I bite back a cough and clear my throat instead. It takes me two minutes to reply and remind him it's not a contest.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:00 am I have an appointment with one of the warmest people in the world. Noorhayati is her name. Light of my life it means. Doctor Noorhayati. She welcomes me with a beaming smile in her office. I go towards her, meaning to hug her and then remember half way that it might not be the most appropriate way to greet a teacher. We end up awkwardly patting each others' arms. She wants me to speak on her behalf in a conference while she's away. And she wants me to co-author a chapter in a textbook. I feel like laughing out loud all of a sudden. I'm not sure why I get the feeling that I'm an actress on stage, faithfully keeping to my script. But then I look at the hope in her eyes, the big smile on her face and the memory book we surprised her with in our last lecture, sitting on her desk, and I want to cry instead. How selfish of me to not take on their trust.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
3:00 pm Us three sitting on the kitchen table, eating delicious fattening burgers and chips and drowning them down with Coke. My mom's thinking out loud: deep contagious thoughts. She is talking and I'm wondering if she knows how much I love her. She takes her calcium and back-pain-relieiving pills as she shares her thoughts on how cunning the pharmacuetical industry is, and how much more profitable they would be if they ran straight. I think of my accounting professor's words that same day, "It's not about knowing how to number crunch- it's about learning how to manipulate the numbers. Get to know these scams because one day you'll be a part of them." He's joking, of course, we think, as the class giggles nervously.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
