Classes

27 May 2005
Time: 00:00

I think it's time to blog :).

The last few days have been a little disorienting. Our classes started on Tuesday and the first thing we had was Intro to Chinese and all the lesson was about is how to write your own name. Let me backtrack a little: There's 2 choices, Intro to Chinese with kids with zero background in the language, and Chinese for Communication, for those who took Chinese in their SPM. So where did that leave those who took Chinese in UPSR and PMR? They are the unwanted, floating students, mwahaha. I mean, seriously, we're learning pi hua (pen strokes) and pin yin (enuciation/phonics) like kids in kindergarten are doing. Its seriously too elementary for them, and Chinese for Communication involves literature (or so my friends said) which is too advanced. Back to the subject, though, imagine the class starts at 8.30 am, is for 90 minutes and those who know how to write their own name can leave. The next lecture is at 12 noon.

After a dreadful wait, we went into lecture hall to discover, yay, there will be no lessons at all for that unit for the rest of the week and no one rejoices cos the next class will be at 2 pm and I don't know about the rest of them, but I'm feeling the start of a headache. At any rate my head was spinning from the unfamiliar hours and the lack of sleep and when KK told me he's going home, it didn't take much persuading and mental arguing for me to hightail it as well.

Wednesday. Even more pointless if you ask me. Of course you didn't, but I'm going to tell you how pointless anyway. We had one single lecture: English for Communication. Enter a woman whose first words impress upon us that she will take no nonsense and that she can be a bitch when you're a jerk and she proceed to tell us about the unit outline that sounds awfully like what we took in TARC in sem 2. Complete with argumentative, cause and effect and *something* essays, memo and enquiry letters. Ouch. And when she mentioned we might get exempted, we're happy, but its looking shortlived. She specified diploma students. We're pre-u. Darn. We learnt well enough the first round with Ms. Melissa you know! This sucks. And ahoy, class ends one hour later. Its not even 12 noon yet and there's a Dean's address at 2 pm. These people love 2 pm. I left.

Thursday, the last day of class for the week, thank goodness. Also one class, the famous LAN a.k.a. Pengajian Malaysia. This one drama sial. Class is at 8 pm, we entered the classroom, and I talked with Darlene, a new classmate. Turns out she's from Tawau, Sabah and I started mental calculations and came to conclusion she's the same age, so I mentioned I have a net friend from Tawau who's her age and also did his SPM. She started asking for a name and I blurted "Benjamin Sew" and she gasped "I know him since I was 5!". Cripes, Benjamin if you're reading, it's a SMALL world out there :). And we waited for 20 minutes and I headed down to office and they told me to go to another class and check and I went and the lecturer said she have no journalism students and I went back down and office told me yes she's our lecturer and we're to join her and if the class is too small please ask lecturer to go down to office and I relayed the message and get snipped at "What do you mean office ask me to go down? This is between you and office! I'm only lecturing!" Lo, I was holding my tongue lest I let out something rude and then she went downstairs and came up into our class and asked us "Who told you to come here?" Ish. And then ALL of us: Journalism, Broadcasting, Chinese Studies and PSychology headed to the biggest hall upstairs.

UTAR sucks in its administration, I tell you. Loads of miscommunication. I miss TARC.

Oh I was in Mersing last weekend for the wedding dinner of my uncle's wife-to-be. The car journey there was eventless, except for a near miss near the Air Itam toll, and my mom and younger uncle (who's driving and not the one getting married) enjoyed a half-hour running down and insulting all Johorean drivers. Some of the snippets include "Johoreans cannot differenciate right from left. When they switch their right signal on, they meant to go left, vice versa" and of course, the conversation turn to Singaporean drivers (who run plentiful down south) who go berseck in Malaysia and drive like shit, anyways. Anyway, if I ever thought my father's hometown was really far and isolated, wait til you go to Mersing. We passed by my dad's hometown and then another hour of twists and turns in a joy ride inside a vast oil palm plantation. I mean, it was in the felda/felcra and Taman Negara Endau-Rompin! But the seaside there is beautiful. Seaside everywhere is beautiful. I still love the sea. There's something really hypnotic about the sound of waves and the smell of the water. Tioman is just an hour away by ferry! But there wasn't time. It wasn't in the agenda. Sigh. Too bad. One day, maybe. I ride alone in my older uncle (the one getting married) and his bride's car so I had the entire back to myself, which is well enough because I realise how terribly close to ground a Wira is (his car is exactly the same as mine, only it's stick and mine's auto) and I came really, really close to being carsick the entire 2 and the half hours he navigated from Mersing to out of Kluang. It got a little better on the highways and I slept. We stopped at Air Itam so that my mom, grandma and aunt can buy some pottery stuff and both my uncles commented that my mom's sai lang (emptying) her wallet. Then we resumed journey and I slept. We made a stop in Melacca for their chicken rice ball and walked like a kilometer to a shop to eat a totally overpriced, underserved cendol with durian dodol. And then I slept. Did I mention I slept? Then we made another stop in Serdang to eat a chicken dish cooked with Chinese alcohol called "Fa Tiu Chau Kai". When you're with my mom's family, rest assured food and the next meal is always on the agenda. Sigh. Too much food already.

We started our journey in Mersing around 11 am and should've reached home safe and sound around 3-4 pm but you know what time we reached home? 10 pm. It's like a road trip down south and back, only it should be renamed food trip.

And I made like, 400 konnyaku jellies for my uncle's night-before party. I'm so sick of the mango essence and the nata de coco. I've stopped stealing from the pile after my 5t or 6th jelly. My mom and brother is tenaciously opening the huge containers and stealing though. He's having the Chinese ceremony (the one where the groom go and pick up the bride and get pranked by the chi mui or sisters and the tea ceremony) and dinner at Grand Seasons this Saturday. Aw. Uncle is a big boy now.

This is long enough a blog, yea?

Comments:
Jun Hoe made this comment,
I hope you're not going to take the same path as Alvin Choong to blog death-dom. With more and more people shutting down the blogs, I might as well just remove the links on the gutter. I know Amelia's blogs have been terminated already, and it's still hanging there for old time's sake. Alvin's will probably be removed once Blog-city terminates it as well.
On the plus side, it does seem you're getting along better in uni now. Things certainly get better once you venture out and get involved in more stuff.

Cheerios.