Brenda Yap

I haven't written in a few days because I have been pretty overwhelmed.

Firstly, I finished my course last Thursday. The moment I finished my speech, and the critique and Q&A session ended, I felt a sense of relief, confusion, and exhiliration.

I had some good comments, and a few questionable ones too, but all in all I think it was good. But when I went home, and the more I thought about it, all I could remember were the questions I was asked and the little issues. But it's always like that, the more you think the more you syche yourself out of it. But anyhoo, I am so happy to be finished!!!! I have worked so hard towards this.

Not the best picture, but there's me, my long panel, and 4 out of the 7 people on the critique panel.

And Friday night I found myself chilling out with Mel and Shah, and some classmates phoned us to let us know they were at Seven, so Mel and I went there to meet them.

As jakun as this may sound, I have not been clubbing before. Seriously. But I guess it's because I know it's not really my thing, and Wazir and I got together when I was pretty young and he doesn't like clubbing so I somehow never went. Plus I reckon I spent too much time as a teenager at bars, ages ago. Wazir and I are very much antisocial homebodies here in Melbourne who love spending time with each other and close friends, lol.

Anyway. I did the stupidest thing. I don't even know how to phrase it so it doesn't sound stupid because it is absolutely dumb. Basically Mel and I took a cab to the club, and I left my passport in the cab. As usual, when I got out of the cab I checked my belongings. Phone, check. Purse, check. I peeped into the cab window to double check that nothing was left behind. Then he drove off. And I looked in my bag and thought... Passport.. Shit, where is my passport? It was in a black leather case so i totally missed it sitting on the back seat of the cab. And the ironic thing? They didn't even check for ID when I entered the club. They just stamped me and let me in. KNNCCB.

We didn't know the cab number, the driver's name, or even what cab company it was, so we phoned the 2 major cab companies in Melbourne, lodged a missing item report, and was given a reference number and was told to call back every half hour or so to check if any of the drivers had responded to the message that they sent out to every cab driver. And it seriously did not help that the club was so bloody packed and noisy, and we had to make the phone calls out at the smoking area which was loud and smelly. And damn Seven is such an Asian club! Now I'm not being racist because obviously I'm Asian myself, but it's just really overwhelming. I did not like it at all. And I was totally dazed and freaking out about my passport.

I stayed at the club for about an hour plus, I suppose there wasn't much to do but wait at this point, but after more than an hour I still couldn't get it off my mind, and since the cab companies had not heard anything back yet, I decided not to heed my friends' advise to get drunk, and I left the club, took another cab back to the city (and I made sure I didn't leave anything behind this time!), and my housemates and I went to the nearest 24 hour police station to make a report.

At this point I was freaking out because I had come home to check the immigration website and since there is not Malaysian Consulate in Melbourne, the nearest one is Canberra. And to make things worse, they only renew passports in Canberra, but they don't replace lost passports; instead they give you emergency travel papers to go home to Malaysia to get it done. But of course I don't want to go back to Malaysia now! I only have less than 2 months before I intend to go home!

So we made a missing item report at the police station, and I was told that as long as I had the report with me I was not an illegal immigrant lol. They said they would contact me if anyone turned my passport in. And by the way, I have to say, Australian police are incredibly helpful and friendly. It was 4am and the officer who helped me was so nice.

At 5.30am I was about to go to sleep but was still lying in bed tossing and turning thinking about how stupid I was.. So I phoned the cab companies again. The operator at Silvertop Cabs was so helpful, he even checked their records to pinpoint particular drivers and tried to contact them. But he said that he didn't think it was his company, because the routes were a little bit different from what I described. Still, he spent a good 20 or so minutes trying to help me out.

Then I phoned 13 Cabs, and I was soooooooooooooo relieved when she told me to hold, instead of the other times when other operators just said, nope, they hadn't gotten any response. Then she came back and informed me that the driver had turned my passport in at the Box Hill Police Station. She even went the extra mile to give me the address and search for the phone number. I don't think I have ever been so relieved and thankful in my life.

I find that I have this tendency to, pardon my French, fuck things up everytime I'm happy and I'm looking forward to something. This time, I was happy to finish my course, and my sister was going to arrive in Melbourne to visit in 6 days. And I lost my passport. 2 years ago, I was going home for my 3 month long summer break in 15 hours, and I managed to hurt my back doing something stupid (it's really stupid and embarrassing so I won't reveal it atm).

Anyway.... About 5 hours later I woke up and searched for directions to go to the police station and I discovered it was frickin far and would take me ages and I would probably get lost on the way, knowing myself and my terrible sense of direction. So I phoned Su Jin and Lohon and they drove me way out there and I got my passport back!! Thanks so much to the two of them. I don't know what I would have done otherwise.

So the moral of the story is.. Always check when you get out of a cab (seriously I've always known this and I did check but I still missed it. Damn tulan.), and the Australian police are very helpful, and so are the cab operators and drivers (this does vary though from person to person - I spoke to a few nice ones and a few ok ones).

Damn this is a long entry. Sorry, I just had so much to say.