Sunday, April 13th, 2008
After four hours of non-stop intensive concentration in class, I was brain dead. My mind was blank as I stepped out of the seminar room. The only thought left was to go home. After some shoving, pushing and squeezing, I managed to board the tuna-can-esque trams, sandwiched in between hordes of students.
As the tram slowly chugs towards the city, I realised the visibility of the cityscape was low, very low. It was as if Melbourne was covered with fog. Soon i realised, it wasn’t fog, but dust blown about by the strong gale earlier this arvo. That gale was exceptionally strong. I was blown a few steps to the left as I left a building earlier.
Reaching La Trobe Street, I got off the tram to wait for another tram that would take me straight home. The wait was long as usual. Tram 72 never comes on time, and occasionally never turns up. This was one of those days the it never came. Inconsiderate people smoking, blackening my lungs with tar from their cigarettes adds to my annoyance. How I hate them with a passion. The weight of my backpack didn’t help make things any better. A laptop, textbook and a bottle of water starts getting heavier the longer you carry them. Then, the rain starts to fall.
Finally after about forty-five minutes of waiting, the bloody tram finally came. The tram was suppose to come every twelve minutes. I guess because of the terrible conditions, it missed its schedule. So forty-five minutes roughly equates to about three to four loads of passengers clamouring for that specific tram to take them home. You can imagine how tightly pack that was. The humidity due to everyone being drenched didn’t improve the situation any further.
Tired, annoyed, dizzy, I only wanted to go home and have a nice warm shower and sleep. Little did I know, that more was to come. After another forty-five minutes of commuting, I finally arrived at my destination. I walked through the alleyway as quickly as possible hoping to end my suffering asap. Then, i started seeing things that resembles stuffings of soft toys strewn everywhere. It was a mess. Somehow this mental image came to mind.
Yeap, it really did look like some giant hamster came around and rip every furniture and soft-toys to shreds! As I walked closer to my apartment, I started seeing damage. Pieces of glass, splintered wood pieces, torn metal objects and some twisted metal beams. That must be one heck of a hamster attack. As I walked the footpath to my apartment, fallen trees was blocking my way. I had to dodge through a few to reach the landing of my apartment.
It was then I looked up and saw half my apartment’s roof was missing. It was then I realised those stuffings were actually insulators and the metal and wood pieces were the roof! I ran upstairs barged into my apartment, looked around surveying the damage and was thankful my roof was still intact. Though I can’t say the same for my neighbour. Making a round taking stock of the apartment, I saw my window missing. I looked out the hole where my window was, looked around and saw my window stuck in someone’s windshield. I wouldn’t want to be the owner of that car.
What a day that was, and it happened about two weeks ago I think. Took awhile for me to find time to blog this. At the moment, the damage were all sorted out “neatly” in piles and the missing roof was covered with canvas. My window is still being boarded up with emergency platings. It will take awhile until all these gets sorted out.
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