So how are you feeling?

My secondary school days have given me few friends, but they gave me friends that stood the test of time. We've been classmates for nine whole years practically. And during that time, they all got too well acquainted with my fair share of ill luck. And it was my ill luck that broke my mundane Saturday morning today.

As part of our Lenten sermons, Y4J will hopefully release a booklet aiming to introduce young people to Jesus. Today, one of the illustrators had to meet up with me at University to hand me his drawings. I gave him the liberty of coming at any time between 9am - 1pm, as I was going to be there anyway to study. He said, "OK, no problem! My mum can take me there." Well...to cut a long story short...he just didn't turn up. And just when I started packing up my things at 1:30pm, he finally messages saying, "My mum cannot come to University." Love is patient says the Bible. But I am not love, hence, my patience has its limits. God I cannot believe that this booklet is more stressful than my University assignments!

Oh well! Best count your blessings ej? After all, up to last week, I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning at a Behavioural Science weekend at the Halland; or as one of our class reps rightfully put it...Hell Land. For those people who are unfamiliar with what this weekend is, I'll give you a briefing:
1. It's compulsory
2. You and your classmates get to be split into groups (and no, you cannot suggest with whom you'd like to stay) and each group will have a psychologist or psychiatrist leading the several sessions that would have been assigned for the day.
3. Depending on the tutor, you get to talk about utterly useless things like how to be a big softy when taking to patients and how you can work more as a team with various health professionals including your consultant (oh gosh! These people seriously need to get to terms with reality). I heard that some tutors were quite good. Mine wasn't so bad. There was one thing that bugged me though...the word "feeling" was used in 50% of the questions she asked us. We actually started off our 1st session with her asking us, "So how are you feeling right now?"
4. Sometimes, you can take part in role plays were the bitch lying within can be totally unleashed as you get to be the ruthless, insensitive doctor with a larger than life ego - various role models to choose from. That was the only part I enjoyed. I got to be the psychiatrist that did not want to tend to worried patients after clinic hours. Two people in my group actually clapped at the end! :S And, trust me, I'm not a good actress. I guess I can be naturally mean!
5. Then, when it's time to eat you can do one of two things: either cook your own meals (recommended - the Halland kitchen won't mind giving you the necessary utensils) or you eat their stuff. I'm not a fussy eater so I went for option number two, obviously at my own risk. Friday evening when I went out early so I don't know how dinner was. My friends said I didn't miss anything. I took their word for it, especially when I heard that the Halland staff had made Faraaz an omelet (coz he doesn't eat meat) and he spent a whole night pucking it out. :( Poor Faraaz!
6. Also, you have to make sure that your room is clean and tidy in case any brown visitors might decide to show up unexpectedly. Quite a good number of rooms had cockroaches. And one particular room had a good number of cockroaches. The hotel happened to be arranging the water works during our stay. Something went wrong and one room got infested with creepy crawlies. Luckily this year Sullivan, the organiser of this thing, actually took our comments seriously (for once) and has actually tried to "challange the hotel" on this cockroach case (O yes! Because the Halland did not want to belive us when we complained about the matter. They said they wanted evidence.) But then again, this is Malta; usually nothing is done on anything.

"So, what will you take home with you after this weekend?" Simple. Gastroenteritis and empty Pif Paf cans!