The semester is nearing its end and I feel I’m not ready for the end to come just as yet. It surprises me how fast time can run but of course, literally, time runs around the rate of 300 000 000 m/s but casting science asides, I cannot believe it’s already April 2002. The last time I realize that time actually run was roughly more than a year ago, back in Malaysia. Back then, I was sad to know that nearly all of my closest friends are heading to places where I won’t be around twenty four seven. I was afraid as there will only be me in Michigan with no one else to hang around with to plus and minus the girls but even now, I rarely see them physically. Nevertheless, my fear was unfounded as I found new friends here and I do have one of my ex-schoolmate to watch me over now and then.
Yet, I can’t imagine the day that I will hear “Hafiz, you are graduating!!!” Imagine, Khateeb saying that. “Hafeeeeeeeeeez, you are graaaad-uating!!!” Arabs…Wait a minute, he calls me by my father’s name. “Shaaaaaaaams, you are graaaad-uating!!!” I will miss him a lot once these undergraduate years end.
Graduating is hard, emotionally.
Back in the Malay College, I cried on the last day of school. I know I shouldn’t have but the tears were hard against my psychological bulwark.
Back in August 2001, I visited the airport nearly each day and it that visits cost me nearly RM 40 each day. Imagine, the want of seeing my friends for the last time managed to overwrite the economical sense in me.
Forwarding to 2005, I will never be able to bear the feeling of losing a place that I’ve fallen in love with.
Seeing the future is a love-hate relationship. Of course I want to earn my degree and graduate but leaving the beautiful Ann Arbor is something that I do not want to foresee.
Last week, I ate an early dinner at South Quad which is just across the street. As usual, I represented my Mcard to the machine and entered the dining hall casually. The menu was poisonous as usual but accompanying the menu was Frosted Devil Food – my favorite cake.
Routinely, I took a glass of chocolate milk and a glass of orange juice to challenge my taste bud. Once everything was on my tray, I moved on to the seat and pleasantly smiled upon seeing Unmesh and Khateeb were still eating their dinner. Routinely again, they were fighting but this time, the argument was about something serious. It was about the Mideast conflict. Unmesh presented an interesting point against Khateeb but my ears were deaf and heard nothing but the sound of my mouth chewing.
Here in Michigan, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is something that affects the students’ everyday life. Last week, even the CNN came to Ann Arbor to report about the students’ protest at the Diag.
The current situation in the Middle East is grave. Never in my recent memory have I heard a confrontation as serious as now. With the Second Intifada going at full steam, the Israeli government is forced to retaliate but their retaliation has gone too far. They invade the Palestine’s trust territories and kill innocent victims.
Israeli tanks fight against Molotov cocktails throwers, jet fighters against useless rifles. It’s just an unfair fight but in these scenarios, justice has never been the term that the pro and the antagonist searched.
I do remember one fine afternoon, I was watching an interesting show on CNN and suddenly the giant news feeder (a.k.a. manipulator) interrupted the program in favor of breaking news related to a suicide bombing at a pizzeria in Tel-Aviv.
Disturbed, I switched off the television and prayed for a better world.
