Genuine teh tarek please

I was going to start whinging about how the whole references system here has managed to degrade students to high-strung individuals who will fight everyone for that extra brownie point and jump up and down at every beck and call, hoping to be seen as a competent and enthusiastic, overkeen student who deserves an excellent reference for an internship spot at some great hospital.

But,

I will not. Suffice to say, those who are not subjected to this references system - count yourself lucky. Seriously. This whole getting some well-known senior doctor as a referee is really bringing out the weirdest and worst in everyone. I count myself too.

Yesterday I had quite a surreal experience. I was lying on my bed staring at the white walls of my room. For the past 4 years, these cheaply painted brick walls have been the confines of my little space.

And I come to the realization as to why I love my teh tarek. Not the one I make. But the one I get from a little cafe in Clayton which is absolutely heavenly. For $1.50, you get a beermug-full of bubbly teh tarek goodness.

The Palms down Blackburn Road serve a mean teh tarek too. Except you get only a latte-cup-full of teh tarek for the price of $2.50. Which is why when the little cafe closed for two weeks, I became a bit antsy.

As I was saying this to someone while I was waist-deep in mind-numbing thoughts about life, human nature, the future and family,

"You see this is why I like drinking teh tarek. I know that everytime I buy it, I know exactly how it will taste like. And it's something I've known all my life. There's no fakeness about it. It's genuine. The real thing. I know that when I drink it, I'm getting teh tarek."

And that's what I really treasure. Plain honesty. Genuine people. No hidden motives, prejudices or superficial niceness, just a bit of honesty.

At times, I feel my existence here is so unreal just like the very first day I arrived in Melbourne. It felt that way yesterday while I was staring at the walls of my room.

The face of someone I met in first year came back to me. He was our facilitator during our rural trip in first year to Beechworth. It was a short two weeks. I barely knew him, yet I felt like I was leaving a very old friend when the trip came to an end.

I remember as I was sitting in the train on the way back to Melbourne, while my friends were excitedly chatting away, I started to cry. I did not stop crying for a very long time. My friends will remember this. Because I was so exhausted from crying that I had to lie on the seats. And the next day, I was overcome by such intense sadness, I had to call up my friend who was with me on the trip. I said desperately, "Bal, I can't stop crying. I feel so sad. And I just can't stop crying."

It occurred to me later that my response to this event in my life -seemingly insignificant to most, had unlocked something within me. Surely it must have bewildered my friends who too were sad to leave but somehow did not experience the depth of emotions that I felt when I had to leave the place. It bewildered me too.

It took me four years to realise this; I was not crying because I was leaving Beechworth. Or the beautiful plains of the country and the everlasting space. I was crying because I knew he was the first person I met that year that was so genuine that when it was time to leave, I felt like I was being thrown back into the real world of pretentiousness. I cried because my heart was fighting this reality and it knew that it was a losing battle.