"It's like I have ESPN or something"

You know that sick feeling you get when you haven't finished your homework and it's already 7 am Monday morning? And you're desperately trying to copy down all the answers underneath your school desk and you can hear the heels of your garang Add Math teacher in the corridors. Too late, she's at the door and everybody's standing up to greet her. Standing there at the door with that sour smile on her slick red lips, you are certain she's staring right at you and she's just relishing the punishment she's about to mete out.

I've been having that feeling for the past two days. Like I've forgotten something very important and I'm gonna get in trouble for it. Last night my heart was beating so fast, it was like those times before I had to be on stage, but different because I welcomed that type of anxiety, because when it was over the rush was like nothing else. I thought it was because I was nervous for the Apex team on the Apprentice, but surely I can't care that much about those bunch of over-achievers.

Blood pressure? Perhaps I should cut down on my salt.

Have you ever been one of those people who get bad feelings and know for sure a member of your family's in trouble? There's the story I overheard (because that's the only way you find out the family gossip) of my cousin in Kuching who suddenly burst out crying for no apparent reason until she got the call that her parents, who were visiting relatives in Kelantan, had got into a terrible accident. My mother said when her mother died, her eye twitched something fierce until she got the bad news. Now whenever my eye twitches I think something's wrong with my mom. A friend told me he got a bad feeling hours before his house was broken into.

It's like these people have a kind of connection to their family members, some kind of signal they're attuned to that'll tell them when their loved ones are in trouble. I don't think I'm that special enough to be on that kind of frequency, though. Besides, you don't know for sure what those bad feelings mean. It's only when something bad happens you put two and two together. It could just all be a coincidence, right? Hindsight's 20/20.

Maybe I'm just anxious about going home, although I don't see why I should. I mean, all the food you can eat, what's to be afraid of?? I have been fretting over the fact that I'm frikkin old and suddenly I'm seeing/meeting all these early-twenties kids popping up everywhere (go home to your mama, kids). Or the fact that it's been what, frikkin years since I graduated and I haven't done anything remotely useful. And maybe the thought of meeting all my friends who have jobs they're okay with, kids, a house in construction, the works is somehow making me anxious, I don't know.

I'm rolling my eyes. At myself. For being so silly. Maybe it'll all just go away. Soon.