V.I.Parents

Apologies. No KKB write-up yet. Soon soon. Anyway....

There I was, comfortably seated in the auditorium with a few friends, enjoying the Diwali night performances, a bag of chips in one hand and chips in the other. Yeah, the show started late, like an hour fifteen minutes late, but what the heck, we were enjoying it... when suddenly...

X: Excuse me, but would you mind getting up so that some parents can sit here?

me: *thinks* wtf? who the heck are you? -looks at Eve-

X: Yeah, there aren't enough places in the hall so I was wondering if two of you would mind letting some parents take a seat here...

me: *thinks* yeah of course I mind. who the heck do you think you are? -looks at Ken-

Ken: -looks back, raises eyebrows, wtf?-

Eve: Get up only lar. Never mind.

me: *stunned*thinks* huh? i didn't expect you to give in this easily. i would have thought that you'd at least question X about the issue.

Eve: -beckons me to get out of my seat-

Vincent: Never mind lar, I'll move. -proceeds to vacate seat and head for the center aisle of the audi to sit.-

Eve: -vacates seat and moves of to one of the front rows where there's a free seat.-

Me: *still stunned* -moves into Eve's seat.-

*enter V.I.Parents. Or more appropriately, V.I.Parent and bratty son, who shall henceforth be referred to as Brat and proceeded to really annoy me for the rest of the performance by repeatedly asking his V.I.Mother, "I want to go home. Can we go home? Go home Ma?"*

A short while later, Eve, Iona, Tony and Jasmine are forced to vacate their seats up in front and they proceed to stand in the side aisle up against the wall beside our seats. Later on, when Ken and I questioned them as to why they had to move, they replied that they were asked to vacate their seats so that some V.I.Parents could sit and enjoy the show.

Seriously, this is ridiculous. If the performers want their families to be around while they're strutting their stuff on stage, would it have been so hard to make certain how many family members they would want to have watching them and proceed to reserve seats? Would it have been so hard for the committee to arrange a couple more rows of chairs in the front for their guests to sit? Oh wait, perhaps they couldn't arrange more seats in the front because a ridiculously colored piece of art depicting two sadly misshapen birds was taking up a third of the floor-space which could have been used for additional chairs. Stupids.

One more thing that has been bothering me. Why did we have to be the chosen ones? Why couldn't the young lady who asked us to vacate our seats choose someone else? Why ask Sem 4 seniors to vacate their seats when there were only about two hundred other people in the hall to choose from? Ridiculous. When I posed the question to Eve later on, this was her reply...

"Well, it's because you look like the kind of person who's nice and considerate enough to move to let parents sit."

And here I was thinking that I had a serious "face-problem". Perhaps I do. People think that I'm nice and considerate. Well, I can be nice and considerate. Of course I can. If you're my girlfriend or happen to be my girlfriend's parents or if you're a friend I trust or if I respect you somewhat or if I feel that I owe you a favour or if I just feel like being a nice person.

But if you think that I'm gonna vacate my seat for V.I.Parents who arrive nearly one and a half hours late just because some individual I don't even know asks me to, well, you're sadly mistaken. Firstly, I have no respect for V.I.Parents who waltz in 1.5 hours late and still think that there're seats available. Secondly you're not my girlfriend. Thirdly, you're not my girlfriend's parents. So, yeah. Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot. And double foxtrot. Make that triple.

Anyway, kudos to the performers that night for putting up a really good show. And kudos to Eve and Vincent for being the nice and considerate people they are. And kudos to Iona who believes in respecting her elders.

I however, believe that respect has to be earned. Ken does too. And walking into the hall 1.5 hours late does not in any way raise my already low opinion of you. Unless of course you're late because you had a punctured car tyre, or a broken leg, or a dead family canary, or something similar...

Please proceed to http://www.whitecrane.blog-city.com/respect_1.htm for Ken's view of that night's incident.

May the Force be with us.

Brat!

First off, my apologies. I know I promised to chronicle my last KKB rotation in my last post but I just have to blog about this to get it off my chest.

At a welcoming party for a certain IMU society a couple a days ago, I had the 'pleasure' of meeting one of the most insensitive individuals this side of Kuala Lumpur.

It started innocently enough. A couple of us were having a discussion about our society's fund-raising projects. We were talking about how IMU students always donate generously whenever they're asked to. Someone then points out that he was getting pretty tired with the way the various societies keep asking for donations... like (exaggerating) 10 times a semester.

The discussion then moves on to how much we're selling our society's t-shirts for. The t-shirts are being sold for 20 MYR a piece, regardless of the size. Someone then says that he/she's pretty sure that all the shirts will be sold, given the nature of IMU students. Someone else mentions that with all the fund-raising and other stuff going on, there would be absolutely no reason for a person to shell out an extra 20 MYR for a red t-shirt with 'I have AIDS' printed all over it. We all have a good laugh. We realized that it was meant as a joke.

Along comes the afore-mentioned insensitive individual. She joins in the discussion. Barges in more like it. Yeah, the tubby lump of lard. Anyway... Someone mentions that we shouldn't expect sales to be very brisk, as he was getting tired of shelling out cash for the activities of the other clubs he's joined. Someone else says that that's true, and that he barely had enough money to last him the week (till his allowance arrives), let alone take out 20 MYR to purchase a non-essential t-shirt. Another person is of the opinion that there would be many people who wouldn't want to buy a shirt, simply because didn't need another shirt, or simply because they wouldn't be able to afford it. I agree with him.

Along comes Miss Insensitive. "Well, if they can't afford to buy a 20 MYR t-shirt, then they shouldn't even be in IMU."

I stare. I raise my eyebrows. My friend recognizes my facial expressions. I have my 'WTF?!' expression on my face.

Miss Insensitive opens her mouth again. "Yeah, if they can't afford something like this, they should be in Manipal or something."

*for those who don't understand the words 'IMU' and 'Manipal'. IMU stands for International Medical University, a 'premier' private medical college in Malaysia and happens to be the first choice for many aspiring doctors in the country, and is where I'm currently studying. Manipal would refer to the medical school of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India, which is also extremely popular among Malaysian students and is not much, if any, cheaper.*

Let's return to the original topic. My friend then voices his opinion. It sounded something like this. "Why would you say something like that? The student's parents might be struggling just to put him/her through med school here in IMU..."

And Miss Insensitive's reply. "Why, are you a scholarship student or something?"

She happens to be a medical student. If she graduates, she'll be a doctor. Whatever happened to the 8 IMU values the teaching staff is forever trying to inculcate us with? Whatever happened to the IMU CARES motto?

I rest my case.

May the Force be with you.

The Almond Tree

I found these lyrics in a book I'm reading. They're from a song, "The Almond Tree". I have no idea how the song goes but I find the lyrics simply beautiful...

She shook the flowering almond tree one sunny day
With her soft little hands,
The snowy blossoms on her breast and shoulders lay
And in her hair's dark strands
The snowy blossoms on her breast and shoulders lay
And in her hair's dark strands...

But when I saw my darling thus in snow
arrayed,
To her sweet side I sped
I brushed the gleaming petals from each
lock and braid,
I kissed her and I said:
I brushed the gleaming petals from each
lock and braid,
I kissed her and I said...

Oh, foolish one, to deck your hair so soon
with snow,
Long may you have to wait;
The dreary winter days when chilling north
winds blow
Do not anticipate!
The dreary winter days when chilling north
winds blow
Do not anticipate!