Love Affair

I’ve always adored the library. The first library I adored was the one in Taiwan. They had different libraries for elementary and middle school kids. The big kids’ library was the real deal. They had offices and it was all “Hush-hush, no running” kinda business. The sort of library you’d see in TV series of law school students. There would be a clearing which catered endless rows of exam tables. The bookshelves ran all the way up to the ceiling. The library that I had proper access to (the elementary one) had loads of good reads. The type with the likes of ‘Witches and Wizards, a complete dictionary of ghouls and ghosts’ haha. Lawak kan. I even corresponded with the author and I got a copy of that book with his signature in it. I had guts back then. Now I’m just a nobody.

The library in Dhaka was small, quaint and simple. I started to read more non-fiction books there. Our class did our Egyptian Week play at the small stage circled by the vast collection of encyclopedias. It was in those encyclopedias that my friends and I discovered an entry under C for caesarian that the article actually enclosed a picture of a woman giving birth with her legs wide open and blood everywhere. Why was it so bloody and gory? It was probably because then, I sorta believed that the white carrier pelican really delivered us in cotton wraparounds direct to the hospital beds right beside our moms.

It was also here that I’d spend my ramadhan lunch breaks with the few Muslim Bangladeshis who observed the month with discipline. I stole 2 beauty books from this library, the security wasn’t as tight as the one in Taiwan and you didn’t have to remember any codes or anything to check the books out. The book that I stole was ‘Beauty Tips from the stars of Saved By The Bell’ nice or not. It was also here that I checked out my first ever private and confidential ‘Getting your first period’ handbook. I still remember how I fumbled with the book and really really hoped the librarian wouldn’t notice the title of the book. I was in 5^th grade then, all the girls were talking about it.

I hated the library in my school in negeri sembilan. So I will leave that slot blank.

I am purely in love with the library here in UTP. Although I wouldn’t say that the topics they have for share is that great, and I really hate their arrangement system. What is wrong with dewy decimal? Tade sape pon yg paham susunan buku sni weh.

They used to let us bring in backpacks into the library, but now they don’t let any big looking bags into the premises. I used to bring in delicious savory sandwiches into the library for brunch. But now I can only munch on carrot sticks that would fit into small ice-cream containers. The library sucks, most probably because I still have kilos of uncollected memories laying in every nook and cranny of the big building.