An Outlet: Part 6

11 April, 2019.

I had my last prelim paper today, Marketing Research. We have never had a class for this subject so yesterday was the first time I opened the book.

Since this is an elective, very few people turned up for the exam. Less than 20. We started early and in about half an hour, half the population got up and left. In fact they were waiting to do so since 15 mins into the paper.

I was taking my own sweet time writing the answers. Since I wasn't fully prepared, I knew answers to only a couple of questions. Seeing everyone get up so soon, including Kristen, I literally half assed the paper half way through and submitted my paper with more than an hour of the official time left.

I have never done this before and I am never going to do it again. It does not feel good. I don't know how people do it like it's no big deal.

Anyways, Kristen and I first contemplated which area to explore. In the end, we kinda gave up and decided on a lunch place. That took quite some time tho. It kinda defeated the purpose of exploring and then chancing upon a good restaurant. But it was still an impromptu plan and we decided to walk the whole way so that's cool. Plus we decided to have some German food that we had never tired before so that was a totally different experience...

Or would have been a totally different experience.

After walking for more than half an hour, we got tired of walking all the way to that German joint and instead settled for a Burger place that we spotted on our way. Hey, we did ultimately do what we had planned to! That thought didn't even occur to me at the time!

Anyways, the burger/sandwich/hot dog place was clearly more "take-out" oriented because of the limited seating area but we were the only customers at the time so we practically had the entire restaurant to ourselves. The burger and sandwich that we had were very delicious! We spent about an hour at that place and by 2:30PM, we found ourselves walking towards a ice cream place that Kristen likes.

But because there was no indoor air conditioned seating area and it was burning hot, we decided to have our desserts at a popular cafe that I've been to quite a few times now. The interiors/vibe of the place is too good and they have a huge variety of freshly made food to order from but I can't help but notice how expensive everything there is. I'm not sure if their items was always this highly priced or they've hiked them up due to popularity.

Anyways, I got myself a brownie (instead of my usual bread pudding) while Kristen went for a lave cake that I did not enjoy. We stayed at the cafe for about 2 hours talking about fancy dresses, family problems, her study house situation, food, music (mostly Justin Bieber because the cafe only played his songs today for some reason), suicide talks, etc.

Kristen's parents were going to go out for the rest of the day so we decided to head over to her place since it was nearby. We decided to walk it up once again now that the sun seemed not too harsh. On our way, we visited a church and a graveyard next to it. I don't even remember the last time I visited a church. And technically, I didn't really enter the main church today as well because there was a funeral going on. We did explore the graveyard tho. Kristen was telling me how she ironically found peace in that graveyard one particular stressful day. To be honest, I can understand why the place would be calming, as creepy as that sounds.

We proceeded to go to her house, meet her sister and then played some Uno and Monodeal. She also made me have a Pepsi cola, something that I haven't had in years! We also made and ate noodles afterwhich I left for home. It was 7PM by the time I did so. It was dark by that time and at first I couldn't find a rickshaw. And when I finally did, the dude didn't know the way to the station.

Since I don't frequent that area on my own, I didn't know the way either. I Google mapped it but it was very difficult to follow and at one point we landed up at a shady area so I was kinda nervous and desperate to reach a familiar looking place, or better yet, the station itself. I thankfully reached near the station but I didn't have change so the rickshaw guy settled for less money.  I feel grateful tho. You don't find a lot of rickshaw guys who do so.

I bought some puris, spoke to Venus on my way back, and reached home by 8PM.

So here's the thing. I have gone out with friends quite a lot of times and my general curfew is to be back home by dinner, unless if it's a dinner plan. I normally give mom a time and message her if I'm going to be late. This happens quite a lot of times and it happened today as well.

But my mom is being very unreasonable about the timing today. She was pissed at me because I did not come home by 7PM. But I did message her that I'd be late. I know the reason why she's doing this and I don't agree with that as well. So today morning, she told me that today shall be the only day I spend outside with friends until my finals get over. She seemed a tad bit unsure of letting me go today as well. When I told her that I had a plan of meeting Kristen and Venus on Sunday, she flat out refused.

She wanted this curfew thing to be her argument for why I shouldn't be allowed to go out on Sunday.

Let me explain why all this pissed me off so much.

First of all, she knows it's my tradition to go out somewhere after any kind of continuous exams. So there was legit no reason for her to say no for today.

My finals are more than a month away so I don't understand why she's making such a big deal out of it. Besides, even if they weren't that far away, I can decide these things on my own now. She doesn't need to be this restrictive anymore. I'm twenty fucking years old for god's sake. Stop treating me like a school going kid. I'm big enough to know which plans to say yes to and which plans to avoid.

I don't know which era she's living in. People my age do so many things that I haven't done even once. Some of that is because I personally don't want to do them and others are because I'm not allowed to. I don't know how things were when she was a student but she needs to understand that the generation has changed and her parenting style can't be the same as when she was young. She can't expect me to be the way she (apparently) was. She can't expect me to have the same priorities that she had.

She had the privilege of having a "reunion" with her school and college friends after she lost contact with them. But that was majorly because social media and instant communication did not exist back then. Everybody is so connected now that you need to make time to meet others in order to stay in contact. I'm sure I'm never going to have reunions like she did. She needs to understand that social life is as important, if not more, as an academic life. More now than ever.

Having said that, I by no means have an active social life. She said that I need to "control myself" when I don't even go out much in the first place! In a time where people make daily or weekly plans, I sometimes don't have plans for months altogether! She's being too controlling and I hate it. Thank goodness I have Alex to defend me. It's kind of like she's taking advantage of the fact that I respect and listen to her and don't rebel as much as Alex does.

Coming back to good things, BTS' comeback is tomorrow and I think I'll study tomorrow morning so that I can fangirl from 2:30PM onwards!