My midterm examination schedule was actually something like this:
3rd April – Audio-visual Technique and Malaysian Studies
4th April – Academic Reading & Writing II
5th April – Scriptwriting and Multimedia Design Principles
But I’m gonna elaborate on those later. First, we go back to a few weeks prior, when I was still an excited girl, thinking,
Bullshit
That dream was soon killed by Ms. Xuan’s innocent exclamation of
You can imagine my reaction
Yeah, sorry for my fail Japanese. It’s saying ‘ZetsuboushitaAAA’Ms. Xuan. Sweet, strict, all-smiles Ms. Xuan who made my Hetalia-ness escalate because she’s from China, decided to make a replacement class on that study week holiday. I can’t imagine skipping her class
Yeah right.Especially since she said
Actually, there were TWO replacement classes. On Monday and Wednesday so I basically had to forget any ideas of returning home at anytime during that study week for it just wasn’t worth it to return only for a few days. Tickets were expensive no matter how you look at it.
After class, I immediately called nee-san.
Consequentially, nee-san had planned to buy the ticket once she finishes class that day. It was pretty late and I was nearly afraid that she had already bought it.
Nearly, because if she had, I’d have no reason to stay in KL
Sadly, she hadn’t yet so I despairingly told her
Wait, what?
No, I told her that I couldn’t return home and she should buy her own ticket. We messaged later and she asked who I was going to stay with and I said Rieya-chan and she was like
Yeah, duh.
Turns out okaa-san won’t let her return if I was all alone here in KL. Since Rieya-chan and I went through all sorts of hell together this sem, she was also going to the replacement class so I would be bunking in her place. That eased nee-san I guess.
Didn’t ease me though.Later that night, nee-san happily told me
That feeling of slapping someone silly has never grown so big.
The least she could do to ease my despairing heart was tell me that without such a big goofy grin on her face.
The next day though, I got a call from someone I didn’t really expect. It was nee-chan.
She called and asked me,
You cannot imagine how happy I was.
She told me I needed to do something in order to be able to go and I needed to do it the next day.
So on that fine and blisteringly hot Friday, Rieya-chan, who was urged to go out on a spur, and I began our journey earlier than usual. It took a good hour to get what I needed before we made our way to the appointed place.
Appointed place being the Astro building somewhere near Stadium Bukit Jalil.
I seriously have never gone that far in KL by public transport.
And I didn’t even know Bukit Jalil was listed as one of the LRT stops on the Star Line.S-sama, who had been a great help to get those tickets
-I’m sorry. As it was a request from the great Okaa-san, I cannot disclose about the event here-Had actually told me something startling as I was just about to begin my journey.
Yes, that meager amount startled me so much. When you’re a student in KL, particularly learning in a private university, every cent counts. PTPTN and MARA be damned. Especially PTPTN
Plus, I was paying for Rieya-chan.
Because I was the one asking her to go with me, I felt bad if she had to pay a sum of money for something that had nothing to do with her. I could only swallow thickly as I waited for my wallet to thin.
It never came.
We flagged down a metered cab once we reached the bus stand at Jalil Hill Stadium (lolz for translation) and I told the taxi driver to ‘bring me to Astro’. I think it was a pretty obscure address but thankfully he understood.
I was in awe (both in shock and amazement) when we reached the building. It turns out,
If he was actually Berwald a.k.a Sweden, I would’ve hugged him but he wasn’t so I didn’t.
I did what I had to do and later, Rieya and I returned.
And in the end, we missed the day’s lecture.
The next day, on that very busy Saturday, Rieya-chan and I
– you’re gonna be hearing a lot of her in this entry - went to Low Yatt to get our laptop fixed. There was worry that the trip would wear me down because I had a big event that night but we went and did it too. I ain’t young for nothin’
Sadly, I can’t elaborate more about the event so I’ll have to cut that part.Nee-chan spent the night over at my hostel and
The following morning, we went back to Low Yatt to install
Adobe Master Collection. Rieya-chan looked really awesome when she managed to talk the guy into installing it for free on both of our laptops.
Nee-chan departed back to Kedah on the day and I said my goodbyes to her at Berjaya TS
She definitely is my own version of Prussia-sama
Nothing interesting happened after that as I was waiting for Monday to come.
Oh, but I managed to learn to play around in Adobe Premier.
Replacement class turned out to be quite okay and she most definitely gave tips.
Everything was,
When we returned home, I told Rieya-chan that I’d bunk in hers that night and we separated at the lift. Once evening started rolling in though, my body felt uneasy and my temperature rose. The major indication of a fever coming down was my runny nose. So, I texted her to tell her I couldn’t come for fear of infecting her innocent self with my untimely germs. She tried to reason with me that it wasn’t safe staying home alone but I was adamant.
A runny nose was
No matter how you look at it.
The next day, I spent most of my morning lying in bed. It wasn’t such a good Tuesday for me and when evening rolled by, I got very hungry. Rieya-chan texted me that evening to invite me to her house since all her housemates have also gone home. I relented but also asked if she could accompany me to the night market. You could tell from her face that she felt sorry when she saw me in my dreadful state.
Every few minutes she’d ask, “Are you okay?” to which I lied.
Duh
Wednesday and Thursday passed with us locking ourselves in Rieya-chan’s house.
I didn’t find out until that Sunday that our Wednesday replacement class had actually been cancelled.Friday morning of the 26th of March began with a healthy me. The only remaining illness was my cough and I was jolly all over again.
No more sleeping for hours and feeling like there wasn’t enough sun! Thank you God! Thank you Rieya-chan! Thank you coolfever and Maggi’s Instant Porridge!
Ah, thanks okaa-san for the moral support!
That Saturday, I returned home and cleaned around a bit. Nee-san was returning that day. Gradually, so were the others.
Nothing worth mentioning happened that weekend. The midterm atmosphere was around but with all the classes I had, I barely felt it. Rieya-chan kept asking if I had opened my textbooks and I did become troubled for a while because I barely did. I tried though, that should earn me a few points on hard work.
So, back to that Wednesday; A-kun told me she was going to give me the script for our Scriptwriting class. When I met up with her, it was like I was seeing Alfred a.k.a America-san sick.
The thing is, A-kun is pretty loud and proud and she’s also a technical kind of person. There wasn’t a day in class that you don’t get to hear her voice at some point. She also has a lot of absurd ideas sometimes.
To put it softly, I was
amazed.She gave me the sickleave memo to give to Ms. Xuan and told me to come pick up my pendrive after class. She had yet to finish the script at that time.
So, Rieya-chan and I made our way to Ms. Xuan’s Audio-visual Technique class and she taught us how to edit videos inside Adobe Premier. She also asked to see the photovideo she told us to do as our third assignment. I was the only one who showed.
Here’s a few screencaps of my Hetalia-cosplay photovideo:
click to view largerI used a hell lot of transitions and every single technique she taught and some. Because I chose the song
‘From Y to Y’ by Hatsune Miku, I did subtitles – something I actually figured out by myself because we hadn’t covered that part yet.
I didn’t know how to make the title cover in Adobe Premier so I used Illustrator instead.
My hard work earned me a 10/10.
You can’t imagine how proud I felt
Rieya-chan wanted to show hers and I, myself, wanted to see it since she’s been having trouble with Adobe Premier since forever. Turns out she forgot about the ‘source folder’. We were both really disappointed and she felt embarrassed throughout the whole class.
After that, I went back to A-kun to get my pendrive back. Along with it, she gave me the Celtx software, something to make scriptwriting much easier.
Thursday passed with a short Malaysian Studies quiz. Everything asked on that quiz was in our midterm exam. Rieya-chan and I were thrilled to have this ‘shortcut’
Shows how awesome our lecturer is.I also took a look at Aina’s script and imported it into Celtx before doing a full editing to turn it into a celtx script format. The work felt kind of awesome. Here’s what the software looks like:
click to view largerOkay, it needs major help. I so totally know but it’s not like I have movie scriptwriters as BFFs
That is my part actually. I wrote it.
A-kun wrote everything above it. If you read the entire script, it actually feels kind of like this:
In which, Rieya-chan is Iggy, A-kun is America and I’m the China with a laptop.
Yes, a laptop and it’s not even going to be mine.
And yes, pocong shuffle. Just because A-kun has seen it on youtube.Okaa-san isn’t going to be proud
I’m supposed to be the one in charge of doing the camera shots. In our notes, that’s actually the job of the director. In other words, I’m unofficially the script director of this film.
So far, A-kun is most DEFINITELY our producer. She’s taking care of everything. From the casting, to the equipments and she’s even asking a friend to ask for permission to film on the bus.
She’s our HERO!I feel really bad since she’s a really busy person and to top it off, she’s not feeling well. She fixes people’s laptops as a side job and is also in the MPP. To top it off, all the other assignments we have to do. It’s really a lot. Even I’m barely getting through my studies at the moment!Enough about her, let’s get to the Friday after that.
Our last day before midterms start!
Oh kay…I’m actually pretty tired already from all the writing and prompt drawing.
.
.
.
.
.
.
So, TBC at the next entry. =3=Note that the drawings in this entry are all done in SAI paintool. Ugh, I'm gonna go despair
