The flight was... ergh.

It started out crap enough, about an hour and a half late because of weather in Saudi Arabia - the plane was supposed to be coming from Jeddah. Then half an hour longer before we could board though it was there because of technical reasons. Then because of the cyclone in the Arabian Sea off Muscat, the plane had to take a different route by flying north first towards Iran, then by Pakistan, and then down to Bombay. It usually takes 2 hours when they fly in the straight line from Abu Dhabi past Oman and the Arabian Sea to Mumbai, but this took three and a half. So... yeah.

The flight attendant who sat in the jumpseat across me was this nice girl really called May, she was Filipino. I think she liked Grey's Anatomy because she kept saying 'Seriously?' whenever I said... anything really... even if it was in reply to something she asked. Pretty nice American accent, sort of pretty too, very pale legs or that might've been her tights, heh, they must've been pretty well-suspended or something, it was difficult to make out, no visible creases or anything although that is really the point isn't it of tights. Well she was the most junior member on board apparently, she'd just joined. Anyway we were all set to land and I told her exactly what was going to happen as soon as the plane landed, because this was her first flight into Bombay - she just said 'Seriously?' again and laughed a little, I don't think she believed me. So we were on final approach and that, and I looked out of the window and then back at her and said 'Don't you think we're coming in a bit too fast?' and then hoped those weren't my final words -- the plane hit hard and took forever to slow down on the actual runway so I had been right, yeah, we had been kinda fast. Then I heard that familiar immediate clickety-clack of seatbelts being unbuckled - what I told May would happen. On these flights about half a second after the plane even appears to slow down and might start taxiing - these absolute cheapo Indians just jump out of their fucking seats and open the cabinets above. When there's been turbulence before the shit just literally pours out of the overhead things and falls on the heads of the people below because of those cunts opening them before the plane's even got off the runway. So she (May) looked at me and giggled almost and then joined in the chorus of the other stewardesses saying 'Sir, please sit DOWN', not getting out of their jumpseats themselves because they know all of the fifty million things that can go wrong when the seatbelt signs are still on.

My taxi guy was there, waiting, apologised to him more than humanly possible about the delays, he said it was no problem, he'd gotten used to that sort of thing then. I called mum on his - taxi guy's - phone (I'd called her when at the airport too, I knew about the then-one-hour delay and thought ought to tell her), then called my mobile credit recharge guy who recharged my phone, bought bottled water, and we set off for this miserable fucking city, not quite so personally miserable then because my God can Xanax stop me from panicking and half-dying in the airport terminal bathroom.

Really. Alprazolam, I love you. I even tried to test it a little, forced myself to think sad thoughts and feel miserable but I couldn't, I felt normal, it was surreal. It was so real it was surreal. I was in the airport. The plane was delayed. The plane came. We went on it. We landed. I got into my taxi. I came to this city. And that was it. It's only now, about... 24 hours later really - all the old fuckeduppery's come back. Heh.

Anyway, my results for last year's finals were today. Interpret this as follows:

Subject - First Sem marks - Finals marks - Total marks

Compulsory English - 16/20 - 60/80 - 76/100

French - 18/20 - 42/80 - 60/100

Psychology - 16/20 - 65/80 - 81/100

Sociology - 12/20 - 59/80 - 71/100

Philosophy - 16/20 - 64/80 - 80/100

"Grand" Total - 434/600 = 72.3% = First Class with Distinction/Full(ish) First/Decently above-average in terms of GPA &c.

By personal standards, for the second set of exams, the finals, the ones marked out of 80, I did pretty fucking good considering it was just a few weeks after learning about the whole Toronto thing having to die, I mean in order, skipping French, the marks on 80 come to: 75%, 81%, 73.75%, 80% - all firsts, or in 'stricter' settings, three firsts and a 2:1 just shy of a full first. French... I laughed so hard when I saw that mark people stared and must've thought I was one of those nutcases you see all hysterical at these results-revelaing events. It's ridicullous, 42 marks out of 80, me, in French, I mean obviously it's an error. These things do keep happening in this state -- it's such a beautiful thing. You always hear about the kid who had to almost repeat his year because some dumb shitbag corrected his paper arbitrarily -- 'almost' repeat because they usually appeal to the state board and the papers are re-evaluated and the balance of things is restored. Me though - I don't really want to contest the mark. Sure, it's brought my total aggregate down. Sure, my extremely hot French teacher with great legs and kids who are about my age will ask me how much I got and then give me a funny look. I really don't care. I didn't fail, and the day I forget how to call Pri a whore whose boyfriend's cock is better deserved in my - figurative - hands -- is the day I can say, 'God I've become bad at this French thing.'

And you know, I was thinking, even if with these marks I don't get to declare Psych - fuck it. Seriously. I phoned my mum an hour after I left uni to the British Library down the road and I said, 'Well you know whatever happens happens for a reason so I'm not worried.' I didn't tell her about the French thing though, I was just talking about things in general, it's a good aggrie, yeah, but I was saying even if I don't get in Psych etc. French - she wouldn't want me to appeal the damn thing or anything, it's just that I don't want her to be... well I can't get the word, something like 'disappointed, but not about the French, but the dragging down of the aggregate on the whole, also simultaneously knowing nothing really can be done, about the French, because this state Is Just Like That and therefore indignant without the anger that's part of the meaning of the word indignant.'

She reminded me about The Thing About Middlesex... well unless we win some sort of lottery or the potato I'm currently potato'ing on gets potatoed this year and earns me enough potato to be able to potato the tuition... sure, why not. Otherwise - I don't want all that money wasted just because I came up with yet another little thing I've convinced myself I want to do for the rest of my life. I've made enough bad choices so far - whatever happens I just need to finish this one undergrad degree, I can't take the seemingly easy way out, there are no shortcuts to life. You fuck up, you deal with it. Others fuck up for you, you deal with it too, you can't kill yourself, that'd fuck up someone else's life and there's nothing worse you can do to make a person the most pathetic thing ever than than to have them hate you when you're dead.

Coming back to the phone call, I also said, 'Anyway, if I do take Psych I'd have to do a Masters and then eventually a PhD and that, and if it's a Masters I have to do then it's going to be more years here in India and I don't want that' - so despite my rather immature fervent praying to our Lord God Vishnu before, really, I think I'll do what Caroline 'rathers' me to do, viz., Eng Lit.

Utterly useless degree with no coursework whatsoever and extremely subjective exam correction -- that'd get me nowhere, mind; and egh, I suppose it's back to the tally-ho-seneca-college-in-toronto-with-your-journalism-course plan then, only now after I finish my degree, around this time in 2009.

The money might be there by then, might, mightn't. I don't want my mum in more debt because of Middlesex because... well, I'm not going to repeat that whole 'You fuck up, you deal with it' thing again. But yeah. That, basically.

The hilarity of the French thing just suddenly struck me again. Hehehe. Geez. I never knew I could be so... nonchalant, really - about being hardly ten marks away from failing (the final exam's pass mark is 32 out of 80 - I got 42 innit) but meh, my marks throughout my 'conscious' life since 10th grade have ALL been none of my doing -- I may be short, poor, fucked-up, and all that, but when it comes to exams... if ever I need proof of the existence of some vague higher power I just turn to two things: music, and my education track record. The big fag in the sky's looking out for me in that little regard at least.

Because really. Not being modest or anything, I'm not smart. Plenty of people get better marks than me and while I know in India that's more about luck than intelligence, I'm not good at studying. At least not the subjects that I have - Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, those. When UofT sent me the acceptance letter/package - there were all these incredibly amazing courses listed in it, stuff about film, stuff about sexuality, stuff about other stuff... just so... so fucking amazing. Even in majors or whatever - these interesting sub-courses, the extra stuff too, the seminars, the workshops, the one pretentious class that spends a week just sitting in front of a movie screen and watching French New Wave cinema and getting actual, valid credits for it because it supplements whatever they're studying... that sort of thing will never be here. It'll always be stuffy old classrooms with uncomfortable wooden seats and bored dying self-proclaimed professors on a platform.

It's very hot but there's a little lightning overhead, it might rain later (it's nine at night now) or maybe early tomorrow morning.

Also yesterday in the taxi I texted R, new friend whose privacy I shall protect here as am not sure what exactly is appropriate anymore -- texted R., who is A.'s friend (A., darling hope you're feeling better now), and in the afternoon today at around one I called her. Our schedules are so crazy we can't meet this time, but we decided to keep texting and calling and the next time she had an off day from her orphanage gap year duties we'd meet, if not - sometime later next month when a confirmed break is scheduled. She sounds really lovely, really sweet too, pretty in a pretty sort of way from her Facebook pictures, love how she says 'about', it's a Scotch thing I suppose.

I'm not a stalkery freak, I swear. It came up when she asked how old I was - (either because [a] I sound much older than I am which is kind of true, my voice is deepish or [b] because it followed her question how do I know A., am I at uni here or at uni with A.? and so on.) - she asked how old I was and I said, 'aaahhhh' (because when i get nervous/talk to new people on the phone i say ahhhh or ehhh a lot) and I said 'ahhh about nineteen.' And she laughed and I felt stupid, not because she laughed (that's when she repeated, 'about nineteen'), but because it was like saying 'I'm four and a half years old. Four and a half.'

I am much, much, much smoother with girls in person. I swear to God.

Not with guys though because if there's a guy I'm attracted to, if not slightly under the influence, I'm trying my best not to be spotted by him. Which obviously is not the most effective way of being spotted. Then by the end of the night I'm trying to drown myself in the tub like Meredith Grey. Only I have no McDreamy to pull me out and say damn gurl you iz whack.

...

I can't believe the shit that spews forth from my keyboard sometimes.

Pictures next entry, not many but the bulk are on my Facebook, so you know. Broose.