All of My Days

9

September 2012

Bang.
Bang.
Bang. Bang. Bang...
Oh.

Seri squeezed her eyes shut as she rubbed her temples. Propping her elbows on her desk, she sighed, watching her sticker notes sway, hanging on her shelf in front of her. The banging grew harder and louder, the thin drywall not really helping with any noise, let alone the banging of the metal bed frame against it.

Seri opened her drawer slowly, habitually pulling out her thick headphones, connecting them to her laptop, and covering her ears. When you live in a dorm, these handphones are a must-have. She turned on some chill instrumental playlist on youtube and tried to get back to her assignment.

Yes! Harder!

The music was not really covering the sounds coming through the wall, so, unable to focus, Seri decided to take a break from her homework. She took off the handphones and considered for a second just knocking on her new apartment mate's door. They probably wouldn't hear the knock though, Seri reasoned. Might as well just wait. How long can they possibly last?

She went out of her room, heading towards the shared kitchen adjoint to the living room. As she waited for the kettle to boil, Seri leaned on the kitchen counter and looked around her new place. It was an apartment-style dorm unit with 4 private bedrooms, a shared kitchen and living room, and a shared bathroom with 2 stalls, a shower room, and a separate room with a bathtub. She just moved into this unit the day before, although she's been living in this building ever since she arrived in Canada. Every academic year the assignment of rooms changed, so this was her third unit and her third set of apartment-mates. She did not remember the first set, really. The first year went by in a daze. She was severely depressed, adjusting to her life in Canada poorly. She did not talk to anyone if she didn't have to. And then she spent quite a bit of time in the hospital before being placed on suicide watch and allowed to live on her own eventually. She still had weekly check-ups with her RA, who was notified of her tendencies, but her therapy sessions have now been reduced to once a month. She was recovering nicely, she was told. With a set of heavy medication, she was, yes. If that counts.

Her second unit in this dorm had all Chinese neighbors, they were nice but preferred each other's company and did not socialize with her. Seri did not mind. As per her usual habit, she focused on school. With her first year being such a mess, she was only allowed to take a reduced course load, so when she got relatively better she tried hard to catch up and ensure it wouldn't take her a year longer to finish her degree because of what happened. Business school was not a joke, and with all her subjects in English, it took her more effort to keep up, although by now she's gotten considerably better at it.

None of the "easy" subjects here are in fact easy, simply because they are taught in English.

Seri shook her head, getting rid of the memory, and turned to the counter to pour herself a cup of hot tea. She then sat down at the dining table by the wall and traced the edge of the cup with her fingertip, enjoying the warm steam on the palm of her hand.

"Hahaha, ok well, tomorrow then," she heard the voice of her neighbor from down the hall in a few minutes. Some more laughter followed and a conversation followed in lower voices, before she heard the entrance door squeak open and shut, after some more giggling and what sounded like kissing noises.

That ended faster than I expected, Seri looked down at her still-warm cup, only half-finished. She heard soft footsteps approaching the kitchen and raised her head to see a short blonde girl enter, wrapped in a baby pink satin robe.

"Oh, hi," the girl smiled brightly as she spotted Seri at the table and moved to open the fridge, bending down to pick something from the lower shelf.