the weather hates me because i called it gross

Throwing stuff all over the place, hastily pinning her hijab in a barely-acceptable presentation, the girl silently cursed her habit of doing everything last minute. It was nearly three, and she was about to be late for her lecture.

I need to finish reading that stupid Getting Past OK book to get out of this vicious cycle. She thought to herself.

She peeked out her window to see if it was raining - who was she kidding? this is Ireland she is living in, the rain is some sort of an outlandish powerful being over here. Invisible, silent. It attacks you out of nowhere, and the next thing you know you're soaking wet, wishing socks and pants had never been created.

But I digressed. It wasn't raining (or so she thought). Grabbing her bag, the girl ran downstairs and slammed the front door shut as soon as she was out.

Two minutes into the long-stretch-of-road-with-no-place-to-seek-refuge walk, it started to pour. I mean it actually poured cats and dogs and sheeps and whatnots. I'm talking east coast Malaysia tengkujuh sort of rain here. Visible and audible and even with bits of hail! good God.

In a pathetic attempt to rescue herself from the insane shower, the girl ran down the hill as fast as she could, holding her (totally not waterproof) fake Kipling backpack with one hand and holding the hood of her jacket with the other.

Needless to say, all that running was just a waste of precious calories. By the time she got to the sliding door of the hospital, she was dripping wet from head to toe. Looking like an absolute freak show (because it only just started raining, and everybody else got there early so they were as dry as an ikan kering), she walked into the lecture hall.

The good news is, the lecturer wasn't there yet.

As she was walking up the stairs to her usual seat, she heard a voice yelling her name among the noisy chatter of the hall. She ignored it, since she was too busy feeling sorry for herself and trying to hold her composure and not take off her pants in the middle of the lecture hall because it was wet to the point that it stuck to her skin and threatened to cause her hypothermia.

'ATIQAAHH!!!!!!!!!' that voice again. she turned and saw a freakishly tall Irish boy with blonde hair grinning sheepishly at her.

'What!?' she yelled in reply, rather annoyed.

The boy pointed at her soaking-self, tilted his head back and laughed his bloody tonsils off.

'GOD, Sheehan!' the girl yelled again, throwing her arms out in an exasperated manner, calling the boy by his last name.

What a jerkface. She thought to herself.

This is going to be a trying year for her, being stuck in the same class and in the same group with her former love-hate friend John Robert Sheehan all over again. He moved on to second year while she repeated first year in 2006, but last year he took the year off from medical school to take some other classes to qualify him for a double degree.

So now he's back in her life, tormenting her every day with his big giant 6"2 self.

Anyway. The girl walked away from him, walked up the stairs and sat down on her seat at the middle row. She unzipped her backpack to take her notepad and pen, and gasped in sadness/horror.

Her copy of Getting Past OK is ruined.






Getting Past OK : page 35