I *luv XXX so much
*think it in an infinite exponential inverse proportion
Look out for the * signs to know why
Warning: More rants
We’ll start on a good note, though. It’s XXX’s convocation, and I think Dr M was here, not entirely sure, he must’ve been.
So, as is the tradition that goes with local uni convocations (not sure about overseas), we have a plethora of stalls – food, computer gadgets, clothes etc. But none selling jerseys.
Anyway, the highlight is of course, food! Glorious food! So for the 3 days that the convo lasted, I eat here. The best, for me at least, is ayam berempah. This is also the first time I had char kuay teow with gravy (isn’t it supposed to be dry and as the name says it, charred?)
I have no complaints about the stalls – kudos to the student committee for organizing such a big thing! They also roped in VE (local pop group) as the closing act. 3 of the guys were once my classmates, oh hell, I really shouldn’t make such claims now that they are popular. But really, they were! Lah was a good cartoonist (still is, I guess), Shah was a good sprinter. Zaf, I’m not really sure, but he was fair skinned, and a bit chubby. They started off by taking part in a singing competition organized by Pepsi (during Form 4 or 5), which a band called Dead Mushroom won, and they were second. Good for them that they’re now popular!
Students queue up to get VE's autograph
Right, the next day we’re having Petroleum Economics. This class is supposed to be the week after (in Sept) and I already told Mascle that I’ll accompany her back to KL. But XXX just had to ruin my plans!!!! When we asked the lecturer later, (he’s from Edinburgh, fyi) he told us that the date was already confirmed back in April, but only conveyed to us 5 days beforehand!! *Reason #1
I console myself with the fact told by Mascle that the lecturer’s really cool, and ahem, good looking. Heck, she even gave him a ride back to KL, and treated him lunch at her parent’s house. But half an hour has passed, he’s nowhere to be seen. Suresh, my classmate phones PGO to confirm whether class is actually on or not. PGO overwhelms us by saying that Mr Julian (Fennema, our lecturer) was nowhere to be seen in his hotel. PGO’s driver is supposed to fetch him and the Geoscience lecturer. But the driver only picked up the latter! *Reason #2
So, while waiting for the driver to re-pick up Mr Julian, we had our tea break first. We talk about Siti’s ( a local pop singer) wedding which will be on later today. I’m really surprised that Tatmi knows Siti will be Datuk K’s 4th wife ! I thought only our own gossip editor, Ms Aula knows these kind of things!
Mr Julian arrives about 1.5 hours later. And yes, Mascle was right! He is cool ! He’s the youngest, in his 30s, the other lecturers were almost touching or over 50. I think he looks like Chris Martin of Coldplay. He keeps us entertained in the class with his witty one liners and jokes. He also brought us Secret Recipe’s Chocolate Cheese cake for Merdeka day! Thanks to Scott for choosing the cake!
What else could go wrong you think? Worried about the ever-changing last minute scheduling, Suresh calls PGO. To our disbelief (but not surprising), we are told that we’ll only be taking 1 paper (instead of the original 3) for our Oct exam due to non availability of invigilators during Raya. Our first 2 papers fall on the 2nd & 3rd day of Raya, so we informed PGO in July to request for change of date from Heriot Watt Uni (HWU) Edinburgh, but we were advised against doing so. PGO said the exam will carry on despite the holidays. Now they’re telling us the exact opposite thing! To get away with it, they’re only going to register us for the 3rd paper which will be on the week after Raya. But we wouldn’t want to lump 4 papers in April next year when we’ll be busy with FDP!! (project). *Reason #3
To add insult into injury, the person in charge (PIC) to register us for the exams is off to Vietnam (perhaps looking for Ba Son, we joked!!) and will not return until after 9 Sept. Our exam registration deadline is 12 Sept !!! This is really making me nervous!! *Reason #4
That must be all, you guess. Not just yet. One of our assignments is supposed to be submitted to PGO. Our tutor asks us to submit it to Mr F at PGO, but we wouldn’t want our assignment going missing! When I went up to Mr F to submit mine, and asked him to stamp “received by (date)” for proof of my submission. To my horror, he put my assignment on PIC’s desk and left it there, without putting it in a specified incoming tray or anything organized for that matter. I told him, PIC may not know what this is for and may just chuck it away!!! Mr F replied, yeah, but surely you have the soft copy? Hello brother, you expect me to print it all over again??!! (I didn’t exactly say it that way, but in a nicer way alrite) I took back my assignment and said, never mind, tqvm, but I’ll wait for PIC to be back from Vietnam. *err, how many reasons already? Oh yeah, 5
The horror continues and follows me back to my hostel. On one of the nights I was recounting my misadventures in XXX, I smell something like burnt rubber. I ask Aisyah, my room mate, and she agrees. So we went looking for the pak guard to alert them, but there’s no one in the security room. Aisyah phones the hostel’s fellow, but none are around. I decide to use the walkie talkie left in the security room to get help. A pak guard responded and ask who I was. I replied, a student (damsel? hehe) in distress, and there might be something burnt at my block!
He could not track what / where the source is. He’s also clueless on what to do. His superior then arrives, and calls for maintenance. We wait for half an hour for maintenance to come, only to be told that there’s nothing wrong because the circuit breaker hasn’t tripped (we already know that, thanks, if it did, we’d all be in total darkness already). But we can still smell burnt rubber. Maintenance guy then gave a number to be contacted, but not his, as he’s only around til 11pm. Aisyah asks him at what level of circumstance (meant to be sarcastic) should we contact the number then, and Mr Maintenance replied just pray that nothing happens. This is very worrying, as XXX’s security don’t seem to be trained in case of emergency!! *Reason #6
I try to stay positive by thinking that FDP is starting in November, which means we’ll be spending more time in Carigali’s office in KL, and thus minimizing our time in XXX, and hope to avoid all these unnecessary headaches. But then again, life wouldn’t be too exciting if everything turns out fine and dandy all the way, right? At least we wouldn’t be taking exams on the 2nd & 3rd day of Raya, provided PIC registers us on time. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Newsflash: PIC tells us that the email for our registration has been sent. OK, TQ PIC!!! Hope we'll be fine then.
Moral of the Story: Always contact PGO from time to time. Do not wait for information, seek them!
Look out for the * signs to know why
Warning: More rants
We’ll start on a good note, though. It’s XXX’s convocation, and I think Dr M was here, not entirely sure, he must’ve been.
So, as is the tradition that goes with local uni convocations (not sure about overseas), we have a plethora of stalls – food, computer gadgets, clothes etc. But none selling jerseys.
Anyway, the highlight is of course, food! Glorious food! So for the 3 days that the convo lasted, I eat here. The best, for me at least, is ayam berempah. This is also the first time I had char kuay teow with gravy (isn’t it supposed to be dry and as the name says it, charred?)
I have no complaints about the stalls – kudos to the student committee for organizing such a big thing! They also roped in VE (local pop group) as the closing act. 3 of the guys were once my classmates, oh hell, I really shouldn’t make such claims now that they are popular. But really, they were! Lah was a good cartoonist (still is, I guess), Shah was a good sprinter. Zaf, I’m not really sure, but he was fair skinned, and a bit chubby. They started off by taking part in a singing competition organized by Pepsi (during Form 4 or 5), which a band called Dead Mushroom won, and they were second. Good for them that they’re now popular!
Students queue up to get VE's autograph
Right, the next day we’re having Petroleum Economics. This class is supposed to be the week after (in Sept) and I already told Mascle that I’ll accompany her back to KL. But XXX just had to ruin my plans!!!! When we asked the lecturer later, (he’s from Edinburgh, fyi) he told us that the date was already confirmed back in April, but only conveyed to us 5 days beforehand!! *Reason #1
I console myself with the fact told by Mascle that the lecturer’s really cool, and ahem, good looking. Heck, she even gave him a ride back to KL, and treated him lunch at her parent’s house. But half an hour has passed, he’s nowhere to be seen. Suresh, my classmate phones PGO to confirm whether class is actually on or not. PGO overwhelms us by saying that Mr Julian (Fennema, our lecturer) was nowhere to be seen in his hotel. PGO’s driver is supposed to fetch him and the Geoscience lecturer. But the driver only picked up the latter! *Reason #2
So, while waiting for the driver to re-pick up Mr Julian, we had our tea break first. We talk about Siti’s ( a local pop singer) wedding which will be on later today. I’m really surprised that Tatmi knows Siti will be Datuk K’s 4th wife ! I thought only our own gossip editor, Ms Aula knows these kind of things!
Mr Julian arrives about 1.5 hours later. And yes, Mascle was right! He is cool ! He’s the youngest, in his 30s, the other lecturers were almost touching or over 50. I think he looks like Chris Martin of Coldplay. He keeps us entertained in the class with his witty one liners and jokes. He also brought us Secret Recipe’s Chocolate Cheese cake for Merdeka day! Thanks to Scott for choosing the cake!
What else could go wrong you think? Worried about the ever-changing last minute scheduling, Suresh calls PGO. To our disbelief (but not surprising), we are told that we’ll only be taking 1 paper (instead of the original 3) for our Oct exam due to non availability of invigilators during Raya. Our first 2 papers fall on the 2nd & 3rd day of Raya, so we informed PGO in July to request for change of date from Heriot Watt Uni (HWU) Edinburgh, but we were advised against doing so. PGO said the exam will carry on despite the holidays. Now they’re telling us the exact opposite thing! To get away with it, they’re only going to register us for the 3rd paper which will be on the week after Raya. But we wouldn’t want to lump 4 papers in April next year when we’ll be busy with FDP!! (project). *Reason #3
To add insult into injury, the person in charge (PIC) to register us for the exams is off to Vietnam (perhaps looking for Ba Son, we joked!!) and will not return until after 9 Sept. Our exam registration deadline is 12 Sept !!! This is really making me nervous!! *Reason #4
That must be all, you guess. Not just yet. One of our assignments is supposed to be submitted to PGO. Our tutor asks us to submit it to Mr F at PGO, but we wouldn’t want our assignment going missing! When I went up to Mr F to submit mine, and asked him to stamp “received by (date)” for proof of my submission. To my horror, he put my assignment on PIC’s desk and left it there, without putting it in a specified incoming tray or anything organized for that matter. I told him, PIC may not know what this is for and may just chuck it away!!! Mr F replied, yeah, but surely you have the soft copy? Hello brother, you expect me to print it all over again??!! (I didn’t exactly say it that way, but in a nicer way alrite) I took back my assignment and said, never mind, tqvm, but I’ll wait for PIC to be back from Vietnam. *err, how many reasons already? Oh yeah, 5
The horror continues and follows me back to my hostel. On one of the nights I was recounting my misadventures in XXX, I smell something like burnt rubber. I ask Aisyah, my room mate, and she agrees. So we went looking for the pak guard to alert them, but there’s no one in the security room. Aisyah phones the hostel’s fellow, but none are around. I decide to use the walkie talkie left in the security room to get help. A pak guard responded and ask who I was. I replied, a student (damsel? hehe) in distress, and there might be something burnt at my block!
He could not track what / where the source is. He’s also clueless on what to do. His superior then arrives, and calls for maintenance. We wait for half an hour for maintenance to come, only to be told that there’s nothing wrong because the circuit breaker hasn’t tripped (we already know that, thanks, if it did, we’d all be in total darkness already). But we can still smell burnt rubber. Maintenance guy then gave a number to be contacted, but not his, as he’s only around til 11pm. Aisyah asks him at what level of circumstance (meant to be sarcastic) should we contact the number then, and Mr Maintenance replied just pray that nothing happens. This is very worrying, as XXX’s security don’t seem to be trained in case of emergency!! *Reason #6
I try to stay positive by thinking that FDP is starting in November, which means we’ll be spending more time in Carigali’s office in KL, and thus minimizing our time in XXX, and hope to avoid all these unnecessary headaches. But then again, life wouldn’t be too exciting if everything turns out fine and dandy all the way, right? At least we wouldn’t be taking exams on the 2nd & 3rd day of Raya, provided PIC registers us on time. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Newsflash: PIC tells us that the email for our registration has been sent. OK, TQ PIC!!! Hope we'll be fine then.
Moral of the Story: Always contact PGO from time to time. Do not wait for information, seek them!
Labels: Ramblings
posted by aiyda at 1:39 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home