everything in ntu is the epitome of imbecility. from adminstration to logsitics. by administration i mean the way they deal with students. this is a very bad week for the school, cos i bet student dissatisfaction with the school has increased by 400% during this week.

first of all the add/drop session screwed up big time. their system screwed up and allowed students to log in one day earlier. then they realised their mistake and shut down the system again. then on the actual day it’s supposed to allow us to log in, they claimed that the network would be too congested and declared the starting hours to be postponed by 4 hours. *blood boil* we pay the increasing tuition fees for what. free one ah. give us such screwed up systems. if they know the network is going to be congested like every other semester, then make preparations for it lah~ it’s not as if this is gonna be the only time the network is gonna be congested. add/drop period screw up, even registration also screws up every semester.

then just yesterday they sent us another blood-boiling email. it doesn’t really concern me since i’m not doing a minor, but i empathise with those who are doing in their minors. two years ago when they gave us a briefing on this new system of general electives, they declared that if we choose to do a minor, we can just fulfil 15AUs worth and they’ll give us the remaining 1AU free. no strings attached. now they say cannot, even if you have 15AUs you need to exceed the minimum requirement, at least must get 16AUs. And they had the cheek to say, “We hope this message serves to clarify the message which may have been erroneously conveyed to you or possibly misinterpreted by some of you at a briefing on NTU’s Minor programmes conducted at the MLT sometime back when the university minor programmes were first rolled out for your co-hort. “

such insolence. everyone i asked vividly remembered my version of the story lor even before i prompted them. shows that everyone heard the same thing. itz either the speaker had a concussion or it just proves that the school is damn bloody screwed up and fickle-minded. in cases like these, who is the ultimate victim? the poor bloke who did a minor and probably sitting there shaking legs thinking he can have a pretty free timetable. now the poor bloke has to add/drop within this two weeks, find something that doesn’t clash with his entire timetable, increase his workload for the semester and worst of all, log into stars to add a subject.

even the transport system is damn cocked up. it’s becoming so bad there’s actually a black market transport system liao. i don’t even know if it’s approved by the school authorities (better if it isn’t, otherwise it may turn out to be less efficient) shiya and i were waiting at the bus stop around 8.30pm and we waited for about 15 to 20 minutes before the sbs 179 showed up. a single storey bus which so so damn crowded (thanks to the fantastic frequency) it passed by without picking up the people waiting at the bus stop. wait wait wait. still no bus. finally a plain white passenger van stopped at the bus stop. the friendly driver asked, “going to mrt station. 70 cents per trip. want to hop on?” we were like “huh?” but there was no time to going huh-ing and since the passengers did look pretty much like students and not crazy kidnappers we hopped on. tadah, we reached the mrt station quickly, without much fuss, had seats and everyone were happy.

if ntu has small little issues like that they can’t even solve, they’re doomed. no wonder no one wants to invest in ntu. smu and nus get those big-assed sums of donations and we, ntu just sit here on our bums waiting for our saviours to come along in those damned 179 buses.

by the way, i have dropped the elective on world politics and added malay lessons instead. wahahha. it’s a truly desperate measure on my part. but then at least i’ll be able to shop around in malaysia speaking some malay. those roadside fruit stalls, durian stalls and satay stalls in malaysia always have malays who cannot understand english. malay lessons would come into handy. but then the real reason is because i was very traumatised by the environment of the world politics class.

when we stepped into the class, there was silence. the awkard silence was just there throughout the entire hour i was there, minus the parts when the lecturer was speaking. the lecturer was a hitler in disguise lor. cannot do this, cannot do that. absent die die must have reason, during lessons cannot leave the lecture theatre. only got 2 breaks in between, cannot go out unless it’s an absolute emergency. even if we want to leave the class early during the break gotta tell her. i’m surprised we didn’t have to report to her if we wanted to go to the ladies. blah blah blah. and she talked as if she were giving a speech lor. a very nice and formal speech to the parliament.

the other students in the lecture were scary. sit there wanna show that they know a hell lot of world politics like that. there’s one which shiya and i still can’t figure out its gender. but that’s not important. anyway i impulsively decided to leave the class early during the break. defying the lecturer’s rules and regulation #158. but never mind, i dropped the module immediately after that and probably wouldn’t ever see her again. amen.

all in all, school is still less smelly than attachment.

first day photos:

oh yah, the poor seah fengyi is on mc for two weeks, which explains her absence in the photos. first day of school kana chicken pox. *flabbergasted* where got people so sway one. but i cannot laugh at her cos i’m scared of retribution. no fengyi in school no fun one. no one sitting next to me to suan, no unglam lunch moments, no one to scold me when i have evil thoughts. sigh.