a day in the (boring) life of a journalism student

I wake up and glance at my alarm clock. Shit. I overslept again. Missed classes. That's not a problem though, I can easily just attend the afternoon tutorial session instead.

This time I'm quite careful to confirm my tutorial location. Earlier this week, I sat in on the wrong tutorial, and was listening to a teacher whose face I had never seen before, among a sea of students whose faces were also unfamiliar to me.

It's one thing to sit in on a wrong lecture, but when you sit in on a wrong tutorial, you start wondering whether there's seriously something wrong with your brain.

Today's tutorial is communication law. It's rather depressing that studying the law is a compulsory module for journalism students this year. It's such a dry and boring subject. I arrive at class, and listen to the tutor drone on and on, not understanding a word. Or rather, catching single phrases here and there, but not understanding the overall meaning of anything. The tutor is mumbling and he speaks with a strong husky Aussie accent. Finally, I give up trying to comprehend whatever he's saying, I just sit back and pretend to be listening. That's not so bad, considering the fact that my tutor looks like Jude Law.

We get into groups. When given our question, all five of us in the group just sat and stared blankly at each other. No one knew how to answer the question, and no one had done their readings, we laughed at ourselves and joked about it.

Towards the end of the tutorial, the tutor informs us that we are supposed to attend a court hearing at any of the Victoria courts, preferably the Magistrate's Court or the County Court. I would love to attend a Children's court case, but most family courts involving children are closed sessions, to protect the privacy of the children.

Amanda is telling me that our tutor is a 'beautiful' guy.

"Are you attracted to him?" I ask.

She was, until that is she got the opportunity to see him up-close and saw a row of black, stained teeth staring back at her. Rather a turn-off, she pointed out. "I think he smokes or something, his teeth are all black, and I like guys with white, clean teeth."

After further analysis the following week, she comes back to me with fresh results: He drinks.

Later on, she complains to me that our tutor couldn't stop staring at her boobs while talking to her. "His eyes kept looking down there," she said, gesturing at her cleavage-baring outfit.

After class, I am talking to Amanda and I notice Morash staring at her. The guy gives me the creeps. I try concentrating on what Amanda is telling me, but my attention keeps diverting to the guy in the black sweater standing behind Amanda and staring at her.

Morash is a pudgy lad from Pakistan and has the longest crush on Amanda. He tried unsuccessfully on many attempts to ask her out for coffee and to get her number. When we walk out of the class, Morash is standing by the door. I know he is waiting for Amanda, and Amanda tries her best to ignore him. I am perfect at pretending to be engaged in deep conversation with her.

When we finally emerge out of the building and into the cold winter air, I tell Amanda that Morash couldn't stop staring at her in class. She tells me that she could feel Morash staring at her during specific brackets of time in class. "Remember when he tried asking me out for coffee, and I said no, and then he went on to ask for my number? Why would someone who doesn't want to have coffee with you give you their number?" She reasoned.

I feel pretty sorry for Morash, though. He attracts a lot of negative attention. Whenever he walks into class or opens his mouth to speak, you can see a random student here and there giggling or sniggering behind his back. Whenever he sits beside someone in class, you can see the person straighten his or her back immediately and silently go, 'Why me?!' The other time when he sat beside me in class, I looked at S and silently went, 'Why me?!' S wasn't being very helpful when she started sniggering at the whole affair.

Amanda points out this incident to me. I am shocked. "You mean it (my reaction) was that obvious?" She nods and tells me, "When you dislike someone, you tend to take notice of other's reactions towards that person. And, I disliked him."

Don't get us wrong, we are not discriminating Morash because he's from Pakistan, and neither are we discriminating him because he can't stop talking about Iraq, Iraq and Iraq. But, because this guy has an ego the size of an elephant. It's okay to be smart, but it's another thing to be boastful in front of everyone. In the way that Amanda puts it, "Little doses of him is fine, but too much is not okay."

I say goodbye to Amanda and go to my favourite bubble tea store and Japanese restaurant for my takeaway dinner. I always go to the same place, because Don Don serves the best and cheapest Japanese food in Melbourne.

I am waiting at the traffic light and there are two Chinese guys in front of me. The taller guy is saying, "You know our teacher, I don't know whether she is from Singapore or Malaysia, but wah, she has this strong Malaysian accent. No one in class could understand a word she was saying!"

I have this perverted pleasure of walking really close to other people and listening to their conversations. Two streets away later, the guy is still complaining to his friend. "I thought Malaysians should be able to speak proper English...I mean, at least be able to communicate properly lah."

The two guys reach their apartments and went in, and I continued my way home in the cold winter evening.

(Update: Studying the law has been nothing but fun, fun and fun. Reading my law textbook is like reading a storybook. An interesting one.)