Funny Ethnics by Shirley Le

Author:Shirley Le
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Published by Affirm Press in 2023
Published: 2022-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

11

FML

The blow flowing through Cabramatta’s veins emulsified into bubble tea. Dealers transmogrified into doctors and I, I was still dragging my body to law school. In one of the khaki toilet cubicles, a message read Ps get degrees in liquid paper. My favourite part was the lectures because, duh, I could sleep in there. I was always sleepy, just like in high school. It was how I processed reality. Failing to get an internship at a media agency turned into a dream where I found myself inside a lift drifting in the middle of the ocean. Being late to class turned into doing doughnuts in a clock-shaped racing car around campus. Other dreams, like catching my teeth as they fell out of my mouth while walking to Yagoona Station, were harder to decipher.

My least favourite part was the tutes. To earn 20 per cent of my final mark, I had to ‘participate’, aka rabidly fight my classmates to answer questions like a pompous potato head. And if I failed to ‘participate’, I failed the entire course. Tell the tutor you’ve got social anxiety, ‘AgreeablePrune89’ on Reddit told me. I’d never heard of social anxiety before. It sounded like a made-up disease that crafty lawyers used to get their clients less jail time. I knew about general anxiety – my mother had been diagnosed with it and she refused to see a therapist. Instead, she drank raw aloe vera shakes and meditated. Ba didn’t see any point in encouraging her to see a therapist. ‘Why would I pay a stranger to find out our personal business?’ he asked.

Our torts tutor was a young guy named Warwick whose oversized T-shirts accentuated the softness of his shoulders. He accessorised the shirts with two thick gold chains, one of which had a Cross pendant that was at least ten centimetres long. Despite his kakapo-meets-church-rapper look, Warwick was just as square as all of the other tutors. He’d already sent an email warning us to do the readings or risk being embarrassed if he directed a question at us.

Warwick had a habit of pacing while he talked. He’d walk from his desk to the projector near the window and then back towards the door on the other side of the room. I would watch his Adidas sneakers with the red racing stripes pad back and forth on the carpet, tension gripping my brain and shoulders. The plastic red second hand on the clock above the whiteboard trembled. Tock, tock, tock. I was too scared to breathe in case it drew the kakapo rapper’s attention. The jingle from the Forty Winks ad played in my head. Forty Winks, 40-hour sale, Forty Winks, 40-hour sale. Save. Up. To. 40 per cent. My last essay got forty per cent so I needed those participation marks. But only for 40 hours. I wondered if Warwick would yell at me for being so stupid. Save. Up. To. 40%.

He’d already called on Alfred and Josephine, the other two Asians in the class, to answer his questions.

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