Just My Luck

I walked to the bus stop last night and was blocked by the exiting members of the PAP rally. There is was, stuck because Chok Tong and Boon Yang and the guys were walking to their cars. I had no choice but to wait, surrounded by crowds of supporters who were cheering "PAP! PAP! PAP!".

I would have been excited, but for the fact that I was in a hurry to get back to school, on a Tuesday night at ten, carrying a bag that weighed about eight kilos and very irritated from reading a textbook about marketing.

I ended up snapping at my friend on the phone and also missing my express bus, which cost me a half hour wait (testament to the lousy bus service). To me, a good bus service is always freshly air-conditioned, smell-free, teenage-chatter-free, drives very fast, and arrives every four minutes.

I arrived in my room the find the water heater still leaking, sink still choked, and the lights blown. Beautiful.

Internet connection, slow as always. I connect to more than four sites and the MSN goes down. If you want to stay in NTU, drive your own car and susbcribe to SingNet broadband for your room. Bring your own portable air-conditioner and fridge, and bring your own washing machine too.

The shittle, sorry, shuttle buses here run an average of five times less frequently than the SBS services, drive at about two-thirds the speed, and carry half the passengers. I don't know why we are paying for it at all, or that the school is desperate enough to subscribe to this shuttle bus company.

I don't know why the administration can get away with supplying hall residents with dial-up speed connections, especially when deadlines are always looming and thousands of students need to download billions of bytes.

I don't understand how residents can put up with machines that leave layers of lint on the washed clothes, and washing cycles that take more than an hour to complete.

In short, I don't see how this jungle can live up to the world class image that it is trying to portray. It is only world class in its absolute rurality, and the fact that you can be buried in the next door cemeterial complex if you get killed by a stray mortar bomb from the live firing area, also next door.

Comments

[Xin Hui]

Firstly, you kind of sound like you're on personal terms with Goh Chok Tong and Lee Boon Yang.

I like that.

Secondly, you ain't seen nothing till you've stayed at Hall 7. I'm not sure where you're staying, or if you need to vote, but you might want to go to an election rally and bring up your grouses. Maybe they'll do something about it.

Maybe. In a pig's eye, perhaps.

[A.]

I would call them Mister Goh and Doctor Lee in person, but I find it nice to refer to them by their given names in writing. It's so much more personal.

I have stayed over at Hall 7. I like it because the room was airy, I don't have to waste time cleaning my own bathroom, and it takes me five minutes to walk to school.

I don't think an election rally grouse will increase the efficiency of NTU. In a pig's eye, perhaps.