A Day of Panic, Relief, Surprise, Hunger, Blindness, Pain, Humming and Cold Sweat

30/10/2008 - Thursday

7.15am - I wake up to study whilst having breakfast. Last efforts, today's the day.

9.15am - I'm tired and my brain feels like it's saturated with information, I decide to nap.

9.45am - I wake from my nap, flip through notes, change and eat breakfast.

10.40am - Leave home for the exam hall.

11.00am - Perusal----PANIC

12.40pm - An hour and a half into the exam, there just isn't enough time to write everything you know in a properly structured, coherent essay----STILL IN PANIC MODE

1.10pm - As an NESB (non-English speaking background) student, I'm allowed an extra 20 mins, this time I actually need it, so I use it-----STILL PANICKING

1.35pm - Panic is over, I'm waiting for Reina to finish her last sentence, she's sitting next to me. Helen, my lecturer and tutor, and for today, my invigilator, sees that I'm just sitting in my seat with everything packed, she says, "Jamie, I need to speak to you..." so I walk down and hand in my papers-----RELIEF

1.45pm - I'm told I was recommended by Wayne, my multicam lecturer/tutor, for a camera department job on a shoot that starts this Sunday, Nov 2nd and ends on Nov 24th-----SURPRISE

At roughly 1.50pm til about 3.00pm - Walk around KG urban village with Reina discussing the exam with her while trying to settle on a place to have lunch... but we end up bumping into friends JP (stop 1), Nadira, Pat and Rich (stop 2), Killian (stop 3), Grace, Elissa (stop 4) everywhere!!-----HUNGER

At roughly 3.10pm - Grace and Elissa come over to pick up some stuff, we chit chat and Char comes home from Perth in between and Heather comes knocking when we're about to leave------HUNGER

At roughly 3.45pm - We leave my place and head down to get lunch (mainly for me), as we're walking down to urban village once again, I feel like I always do before I get a serious "period cramp attack" cos today's my first/second day of period, I swallow a painkiller, little do I know, I'm too late...

At roughly 4.00pm - We part ways and I sit and wait for my 2 take away marinated chicken burgers and fries (for Char as well). As I sit, my vision starts to go... everything looks blown out and as the pain kicks in, I see less of everything and more white than anything----BLINDNESS

At roughly 4.10pm til about I don't know how long later, but it felt like at least 20 mins or half an hour - I sit there with my eyes closed and pain in my stomach, at times I feel like vomiting and a constant weight seems to be pushing my whole body down into the chair, I feel "heavy", I hear a loud high pitched hum in my ears along with the restaurant's techno music and soon I break into a cold sweat. Food comes just in time, just before I lose sight completely, I thank the guy who knows me and Char since we're regulars, I place the bag of food on the table next to me and continue to shut my eyes. To the people at the restaurant I must have looked like I was sleeping, but sleeping while sweating like mad, which would be weird cos I could feel the strong blast of the air conditioning on my face at times. Anyway, thankfully no one disturbs me or asks me to leave, since they probably thought I was so tired that I was taking a nap on the spot. Quite funny to me now, but at the time I couldn't care less. I was literally blind as all I saw when I opened my eyes was white and I was seriously drenched in sweat like I'd just been exercising. All I could do was wait til I could see again before attempting to walk home------BLINDNESS, PAIN, HUMMING AND COLD SWEAT

At I-don't-know-what-time-anymore - I regained my vision, the pain in my stomach was less sharp and I could only hear faint humming. I opened my eyes, picked up the food, said thanks to the guy at the counter and walked as quick as I could back home, all the while trying to ignore the pain and the little white spots obstructing only a bit of my vision----PAIN AND COLD SWEAT

At no-idea-what-time - I get home and call for Char who helps me out. I sit on the toilet for a fair while in pain and still sweating cold beads, then Char gets me a dry set of clothes and lays down a towel for me on the living room carpet, I change and lie there in more pain but less sweating now. Occasionally she feeds me fries when I ask for it, thank God she's back today if not I would be worse off trying to do everything myself. I get up to sit at the table when I feel a bit better and start to eat my burger and some fries, but then I feel another cold sweat coming so I lie back down. Char puts my food in the microwave for me and lets me nap awhile.

5.40pm - I get up and finish my 'lunch' and finally reply Shannon's messages and return some calls. I make a call to Polly regarding the film job on Sunday just so she knows I'm on board. It's all good. Then I call my boss to tell him that I can't work even though I told him I'd be able to after exams. He tells me to return my uniform (at this point I thought I was fired), but only cos he's hiring a lot more staff, he says I am welcome to work when I get back next year and so is Char, since I asked if she could. So I suppose that's a good thing. Haha. In a way I still have a day job if I'm not doing film jobs.

8pm - I've finished typing up this post and should probably go wake Char up from her nap. She's still tired from travelling.

Thanks for reading and thanks for caring!