Silver’s Corner

Today I am 10,000 days old. Yay!

I’m doing a masters degree at the Australian National University. I hate group assignments.

80% of the group doesn’t contribute. There is an over-eager team leader, who annoys everyone, and the subject matter isn’t brilliant. It’s a pain.

Our pet Budgie just died two weeks ago. I was holding him in my hand when he gave up. He seemed to have some kind of cancer, as he had at least two tumours; one on his leg, and one his chest. He didn’t appear to be in much pain, but did pick at the tumour on his leg and make it bleed, hence the reason I was holding him. He was struggling as usual one moment, staring into my eyes with his left eye the whole time. Then he stopped struggling, but kept looking at me. I couldn’t say the exact moment he died, but it was clear that he was giving up in the moments beforehand. The first I was sure he was dead, was when his head went slack, and his eye started to close.

I’ve never had anything die that close to me before. Sure, I’ve swatted a mosquito, but this was quite a bit different. I hadn’t realised how much the incident affected me until the last few days. The last look he gave me has been replayed in my head quite a few times, and I can still see his resignation. I can’t say I feel particularly sad or torn, he was just a budgie after all, but that moment of death was quite a shock.

Yesterday I turned 25. It is scary how fast time goes by. This year looks to be quite different from previous years, however. Much more going on professionally, personally, and socially. I will be starting a Master of Engineering shortly, which will eat up a lot of my spare time, I’m sure.