Epic Fail

We are?

I'm not.

Yesterday, the wait for the consistently inconsistent bus took longer than usual. Which is saying something. Usually, I spend about 40% of an outing simply waiting for buses, at stations that either have open drains with cockroaches scurrying about, or stations with nonexistent seats.

But now, it's worse. Why? Because of the stupid government and their stupid policies that just burden the lives of the people, especially penniless students like me. They thought that by raising the bus fare, we "rakyat" simply shell out extra dough for public transportation (it's only a 100% increase, right?) and the government can laugh maniacally as they swim in pools of our RM1 notes. End of story. Not.

Because bus drivers need to distribute tickets every time someone clambers onto a bus, it makes the bus's journey slow down to a handicapped snail's pace. The fact that the ancient ticketing machine take its own sweet time to even produce one measly ticket doesn't help, either. Because of the lengthier duration the bus takes to arrive at each stop, more and more people pile up like helpless sausages at each stop.

And you know what that means, right?

Yep, us unlucky sods who unwittingly wait for hours at the final few bus stops of UIA will get a glimpse of that one-of-a-kind, only-happens-in-T231-buses smile that bus drivers flash us every time their bus clunkers past us without stopping. This unique smile is a mix of I'm sorry, but what can I do? with a subtle dash of so long suckers! and an underlying I hate my job so much and this is one of the few joys I get in it.

You do not want to see that smile even once in your lifetime, nor feel the wind whistling past your ears as the bus rumbles past you, taking along with it your desperate hopes and desires of leaving the campus without the hour-long wait.

But after seeing that smile three times, there's nothing one can do but to resort to taxis.

Ah, taxis.

Last week, a 10 minute ride from campus to Terminal Putra by taxi cost RM5. Kira ok lagi ah. Bila dah split tu sorang 2.50. But now it costs a freaking RM7!!! My GOD! I could buy a buka puasa meal of nasi ayam percik with frothing fresh orange juice at Mokku for a cheaper price than that! (Try it there one day. It's worth starving all day just to get a taste of the food there.)

So you see, how can I be proud to be a Malaysian when just commuting around the city makes my life increasingly difficult?

So far, so good

Apart from being randomly insulted on a gaytard's blog and facebook, this semester has been going great, Alhamdulillah.

After feeling bouts of loneliness and alienatiation for a year since the Great Friend Mishap Of 2008, I think I'm finally getting my groove in Sociology. At first, it was kind of intimidating to be in a class of strangers, especially being the youngest, but I'm learning to shed my shyness and self-esteem issues by slowly approaching them one by one. And I've found out that Soca students are very friendly people once you get a conversation started with them :-) There is still the wariness in me when it comes to making friends and growing too close, I think because the fear of being ditched has now been permanently etched inside of me. So the few friends I've been making, I keep them at arms length. You know, like divulging little personal information, and limiting contact to the bare necessities, like classes or when we accidentally bump into each other. Not because I don't like these friends I've been making, but because there is always that niggling little fear that history would repeat itself with these new set of people. The fear that if I open myself up and show the vulnerable, real side of me, they'll just spit in my face that I have an attitude problem and never deign to glance my way again.

Whoah, okay, I didn't mean to let out like that. Sorry.

Anyway, back on topic. Classes are LOVE this semester. For some reason, my strict but grandfatherly lecturer for Anthropology seems to have taken a liking to me ever since I asked one question in his first class. Ever since then, it's been "Anisah, do you know the answer to this?", "Anisah will take attendance", "Anisah will coordinate the class into groups", "Ah, Anisah, I'm sure you know the answer." It's flattering that my name gets called out multiple times in ever class with him, especially as he's most feared and revered lecturer in the whole of the anthropology department. He's been teaching for 70 years, for crying out loud, and has taught half the lecturers in the department. It also makes me buck up, studies-wise, because I obviously don't want to embarass myself when he inevitably asks me questions. On the downside, I probably piss off my classmates for looking like a Suck Up.

Sociology of Marriage and Family is taught by the head of department, who is extremely nice and warm in a motherly sort of way. She teaches us about how social forces shape our expectations of what marriage and family life would be like, and the various types of marriage and family patterns that exist. Like, what constitutes a family? Is it a social group related through blood ties and marital relations? If so, then what about cohabiting couples? What about lesbians/gays who have children? What about adoption? And Kak Aisya cracked up when I recited the definitions behind the 7 norms (or types) of residence for married c0uples -- neolocality, patrilocality, matrilocality, avunculocality, bilocality, ambilocalitya and natolocality. The joke is too geeky to be explained here though.

The other classes I'm taking are Social Change and Development, Industrial Sociology and Islamic Aqidah. A bit difficult due to the reading material, but I can tackle it with patience, perseverence and hard work.

Ooops, I'm late for dinner. See ya!

Harry Potter and the Half-Assed Movie

Wow! I thought, my mind racing as I watched the movie. I grabbed a mouthful of popcorn and settled comfortably in my seat. The cats in UIA have more charisma than Daniel Radcliffe.

Don’t believe me? Well, the tom cat that lingers outside the library has a vast vocal range, from low, sexy purr to a plaintiff meow. And don’t get me started on his 1001 facial expressions, including the classics Muka Manja and Muka Kesian. It’s enough to pull my tangled heartstrings every time I bump into him.

Daniel Radcliffe, with his monotonous voice, bad haircut, and exactly one facial expression, simply withers away like a dead leaf in comparison.

It’s moments like when the lead character sucks worse than a sparkling vampire with an eating disorder, that we movie-goers realize we’ve made a shaky investment. Without a proper hero to root for, we’re left to depend on the story and lesser characters to keep our interest levels from plummeting into the red.

Story? Did I say story? Because, despite its epic running time of two-and-a-half hours, nothing, like, actually happens, dude. Sure, there were sub-plots, but they were either hastily tied up with a messy bow in the end, or ended up being tossed back into the Ocean of Redundant Storylines.

Take, for example, the sub-plot of Hermione and Cormac the jock. There was a beginning, in which he was eying her with interest. There was a middle bit, when they both went to the party together. And then… he simply disappears after eating some dragon balls in the party (which are supposedly perilous to one’s breath… a point that was supposed to be funny, I think, but didn’t quite reach its mark, just like all the other jokes haphazardly thrown into the movie). And he never resurfaces again, either on screen or in conversations.

It made me wonder; did they throw in these pointless sub-plots to make us forget that the actual story is thinner than a starving model?

Ginny, by the way, is beyond annoying – on screen, she’s depicted even worse than in the books, which is an amazing feat I never dared to think could be achieved. Like, SUDDENLY Harry’s in love with this annoying twerp who’s been invisible for the past few movies, and we, as an audience, are supposed to unquestioningly accept that? It pissed me off in the book, and even more so in the movie. Because, as badly as it was handled in writing, at least JK Rowling showed the “romance” of Harry-Ginny (Hinny? Garry?) unfold. In the movie?

Harry hugs Ginny.

Harry thanks Ginny for making the Quidditch team shut up.

Harry sees Ginny making out with her boyfriend Dean.

Harry praises Ginny’s skin to her older brother.

Ginny ties Harry’s shoelaces.

Ginny feeds Harry biscuits.

Ginny orders Harry to shut his eyes, kisses him, and says it can be kept a secret.

Hermione says to Harry that Ron is okay with Harry and Ginny’s relationship.

Seriously! Barf all you like, but that is the step-by-step development of Garry! It’s like, one moment, Ginny the cheating slut is kissing Harry in a secret room and suggesting that they keep it a secret, and the next moment, Hermione exposits that Garry is now a fully-fledged relationship, complete with blessings from Ginny’s older brother! HUH? When did all this actually take place? The least they could have done was show Ron giving his blessings to Harry personally!

I don’t think Dean was the only one who felt cheated.

My brain turned into sludge as I watched the screenwriters’ miserable efforts at adapting the book to screen. Now, the book was definitely not my favourite in the series, but what the screenwriters did to the story was plain first degree murder. The script was awkward, stilted and short, which resulted in the actors looking like they actually wanted to say more in every scene, but could only resort to pained facial expressions because there was a character limit to the words coming out of their mouths. The end result? I felt like I was just watching a bunch of people simply going through the motions of acting. And badly, too.

Other pointless scenes and plot holes left me baffled.

They made such a big deal out of Malfoy fixing up the Vanishing Cabinet so that the Death Eaters could enter Hogwarts and wreck havoc. But if the Death Eaters’ idea of “wrecking havoc” is smashing some cutlery and burning Hagrid’s cabin (which, you have to admit, was actually doing him a favour), and then running back out, I fail to understand why everyone is so frightened of them. My one-year-old nephew could make worse damage if left alone in the kitchen. Even without a wand.

Why did the Death Eaters burn the Burrow? If there had been some follow-up scenes to it, fine, I’ll accept this divergent idea. But we’re just given a lingering shot of the Weasleys, before we move on to the story. And the burning of the house, which should be a big deal, is never mentioned again. Something tells me this time-wasting scene was for aesthetic purposes only.

Why were Lupin and Tonks even in the movie, if they only had two lines each? Are the actors that desperate for money, causing the director to take pity and conjure up a miniscule role for them in this movie?

What was the point of the Half-Blood Prince with the whole story?

Harry himself summed up the movie best in his final words before the credits rolled: “It was all for nothing. Everything was a waste.”

I whole-heartedly agree.

HELLO EVERYONE

Haven’t updated in a month, and obviously my status of “the bookaholic is studying for her finals” is a downright LIE as I have actually been on holiday these past two weeks. Not that I intended to lie. I was just… lazy, you know? Lazy to edit the status. Lazy to update. Lazy to go online.

I’m lazy. So sue me.

Not that my two-weeks holidays have been just about laziness. Aside from making up for sleep I lost during revision period (which resulted in nothing – have I ever mentioned how I hate lecturers who expect you to answer based on their answer scheme, and if you don’t, they’ll just give you a crappy grade, even though you wrote your ass off really convincingly in the exam? Or how about lecturers who refuse to give their students A, and instead give them –A even though the students deserve the damn A. AAARGH. Okay, I’m rambling), I’ve been playing Sims 3 non-stop, to the point that, in the game, I am now married to a hot power broker named Daniel Idris, and have a pilot son named Yusof. HAHAH SAH AKU TAKDE KERJE.

I also went to KL UrbanScapes last week. We didn’t pay for the ticket to watch the concert because, well, I’m more broke than Humpty Dumpty, so we instead wandered around the colourful bazaars. Besides, because the concert area was open-air and enclosed by a flimsy metal fence, you could hear the bands warbling away from a mile off for free, so what’s the point of paying? And I would NEVER pay good money for such rubbish performances – rather, I’d pay them good money to shut up. It was noise pollution, for god’s sake. I know Yuna was supposed to be performing in the evening, but meh, her songs are so flipping boring, and I had to be at home before Maghrib anyway. And Sentul is like jauh giler from my house y’all.

But we really enjoyed the free performance. The KL stompers played amazing beats using glass bottles, black bins, ladders, metal chairs and whatever nonsense you can think of. There was also this Sabahan duo who played Blues music using just an acoustic guitar and percussions-or-whatever-you-call-’em. My favourite song by them was “Anak Babi” (which, come to think of it, was probably a foreshadowing of the swine flue scare that occurred there later in the day).

Unfortunately, the other free performances were just plain rubbish, especially one by a band named Furniture (I shall not kutuk the name, I shall not kutuk the name... *inhales and exhales deeply*), which is supposed to be famous for appearing on Kami, or something like that. (I'm not so well-versed in the local Indie scene. Sorry.) They were rubbish because the sound-checking (also known as masturbating by music buffs) took ages, and they even conducted an interview there and there which no one could even hear because the sound system was awful. I felt like stomping off -- it was boring like mad and I was freaking hot, plus I wasn't wearing any sunblock at all) but I stayed because they were supposed to be *popular* (or however popular Indie bands can actually be) and that must be for a reason, innit? But I was fooled. They sucked.

Finally met the parents on that same day as well, which was nerve-racking and awkward and nerve-rackingly, awkwardly silent for a while… Seriously. You could only hear the sound of everyone at the table chewing on their food. I mean, I’d prepared for an onslaught of questions about what I’m studying, where I live, what I want to work as… basically, a killer interview where I was to prove worthy of their trust. So finally, after several bites of my Carbonara Spaghettini and darting subtle glances at everyone else, I mustered this really awkward laugh and lamely said “kenapa semua orang diam…?” So that started the conversation ball rolling. Albeit haltingly.

I wasn’t sure how off I come as (especially as there was one part where I was making really stupid faces at him – the inflation and deflation of the nose -- to lighten up the mood, when his mum’s back was turned, only to figure out later that she’d actually caught it in the mirror that Delicious hangs around the whole walls of the restaurant. She even asked him about it later. How embarrassing! Jatuh air mukaku!). But apparently they approve of me. THANK GOD I passed the mother (and father) of all tests.

Well, that’s it for now! I’ll see some of you guys in Gombak next week! :)

Who's Afraid of Farabi Philosophy?

Ok, so the real title of the drama I watched two nights ago is 'Who's Afraid of Farabi', but I think the title above is way more apt. At least, it would warn me what I would be getting into. If I had known it was going to be a two-hour session of non-stop babbling about FEE-loh-soh-feee, and the meaning of life, and monkeys in aerospace, and chocolate-coated presidents, I think I would have run screaming at the top of my head in the opposite direction of main audi.

*takes deep breath*

Philosophical talk aside, the drama began very impressively. When the actors marched on stage in the dark, with a paper mask covering their faces, my intrigue sensors immediately went haywire. Then a single flashlight focused on each one of them as they uncovered their face to introduce themselves. Coooool concept. Some of them delivered their lines very sassily ("I have a class to torture, I mean teach!") and gave it there all; while other actors came off as flat and boring, even though you could feel the potential just hanging there in the words they spoke. But it set a very good stage for the rest of the drama, as we were introduced to characters such as MO-hammed, the arrogant SRC president with a fake Brit accent and gender issues, Dr. Khair, the kind of sharp-witted, no-nonsense lecturer I'd really relish, Rasheed, the flamboyant class clown you love to hate and hate to love, Fitri, the typical lazy bum who'd come to class 45 minutes late with his shirt un-ironed and toothpaste remnants on his chin, Salmyyah, the Perempuan Melayu Terakhir whom MO-hammed has the hots for, and Sofia, the badly represented bookaholic.

After that is a classroom scene of Introduction to Political Science. This was when the actress playing the lecturer really wowed the audience with her amazing acting skills. You could feel the charisma radiating from her every step and gesture. She really brought her character and the script to life, to the point that I was wishing I had a lecturer like her. Yes, I am that geeky. Rasheed, the class drama king, is also hilarious and exaggerated, and I do wish he had been given more scenes to act out in. His humour was much-needed to inject more life in the rest of the drama. MO is... kind of boring, which was sad, really, because he was meant to be one of the main characters. And by the way, isn't he supposed to be the president of SRC? Why is he taking a first year subject that he intends to major in? Does it have anything to do with the female jacket he is so mysteriously wearing? Theories abound. The rest of the characters are just filler material, really, not even worth mentioning.

We are then introduced to Ah Lee, the "witty" janitor who likes to eavesdrop on classes while sweeping under the hot sun. Unfortunately, his monologue was drowned out by the overly dramatic music being played in the background, though I did catch his accent, if not the content. A janitor, speaking like an upper-class Brit? How quaint!

After the class is dismissed, Dr. Khair, is left with MO, who, being an overzealous suck-up, will be presenting on Farabi. Dr Khair summons Ah Lee into the classroom, because she's one of those hawk-eyed types who would spot you SMSing under your tudung, never mind a giant hulking janitor who's been talking to himself while sweeping the same spot for an hour and a half. Ah Lee talks about how he got his queer name, the meaning of life, the wonders of the library, and how degrees do not equate to education. At this point, my brain goes into hibernating mode. We learn that he is a janitor by choice, because his parents were janitors and he wants to continue the legacy, yet he reads books in the library, thus explaining why he can sprout philosophy like an Oxford professor. It... doesn't really make sense, but that's okay. Dr. Khair is suitably impressed, and invites him to attend her class. She even asks him to work with MO on the Farabi presentation! Thus begins a wonderful story about two opposite personalities forced to work together, ending in a bromantic relationship based on grudging respect and shared makeup tips.

Except, it doesn't work out that way. The next two scenes are of MO and Ah Lee, and they just talk and talk and argue and talk and talk and wave the penyapu around a bit and more talking and.... you get the gist. Because my brain absolutely refused to digest the highly intellectual dialogue, I shall now focus on the acting.

MO's acting was very flat. He just acted cocky and spoke cocky, with cocky inflections in his voice that was emphasised by his highly affected accent. If I hadn't heard stories about him, I would have thought he put on that fake accent to add more character to the role he was playing, which would have suitably impressed me. Unfortunately, the truth reveals otherwise. And since I could no longer process the words they were saying, I also noticed how much makeup he was wearing. Now, that's a lot of makeup. I could see the shade of lipstick glistening on his lips a mile away. And the powder on his face look 50 shades paler than his original skin colour. It would have made Edward Cullen's Sun Sparkles™ look dull in comparison.

As for Ah Lee, hats off to him for memorising such huge chunks of lines. And when I say chunks, I mean gigantic, meaty slabs of it that need careful chewing, lest you choke yourself while swallowing. Acting-wise, he's either very good, or very bad. I say this because, although he delivered his lines almost perfectly, I felt like he wasn't really immersing himself in the role of the humble janitor with a brain too big for his skull. He was just being himself. Anyone can do that, innit? The point of acting is to become another person, and to bring that person alive, not stuffing as much of your original essence as possible in the character. Especially if your original essence stinks worse than pickled petai.

After two scenes of dialogue between two actors that go in detours and circles, peppered mercifully by the odd joke or two, Ah Lee goes on stage to deliver a monologue which I don't really understand, but, according to Nazriq, "I could be wrong, but I think he's somehow inspired by Farabi and is deeply affected by it and begins to ponder on his life and people around him. I guess he was possessed by Farabi? Okay don't blog about this please!"

HO-KAY.

In the next scene, we suddenly see Salmyyah and Sofia again, although there is no point of their existence. They are in Dr. Khair's office. Soon, MO comes barging in to complain about his partner, and mocks him and... I don't remember, this scene was kind of boring and pointless, but at least we got to see Dr. Khair again. Yay! She is so funny. "O-U-T, Owwwwwwt!" she yells at MO, to the delight of the girls sitting behind me, who immediatey mimic that line.

Next, MO and Ah Lee are being philosophical AGAIN. There are lots of really meaningful messages here, really, but the way they are being delivered -- figuratively shoved down our throats, telling instead of showing -- make them fly past my ears with a slight whistling sound. This is a drama, not a lecture, and I know it's supposed to be intellectual (a word that, clearly, is not in the vicinity of my vocabulary), but why not show the wonderful philosophy of Farabi being applied, instead of simply being recited, again and again? The audience are supposed to be intellectual, so it's not right to just spoon-feed them these ideas instead of making them THINK. The fact that some of the actors' delivery was so half-hearted didn't help, either.

So, MO and Ah Lee are talking and arguing, and then suddenly the curtain pulls back to reveal the whole class, Dr. Khair included, listening to them. They are all clapping and grinning, and Dr. Khair congratulates them for the great presentation.

HUH???

WAIT, WAS THAT IT?

THAT WAS WEIRD.

In the final scene, Ah Lee is bidding bon voyage to MO. MO is still cocky, but they have reached mutual understanding (I think -- it's not very obvious, thanks to MO's B-grade acting). Suddenly, the rest of the cast appear to say goodbye, including characters I totally forgot had even existed in this drama. This frustrated me, because why create characters if you're not going to properly utilise them? They could have been used for a story within a story. Instead, they were basically human props. Anyway, they mention something about MO and Ah Lee being two opposite sides of a coin, and Ah Lee going off to Thailand with protection.

THE END.

Random spewing

Man, I can't believe it's been two years since I first stepped foot in CFS PJ.

I've changed a LOT.

Financially, I had a lucrative job and was spending like a maniac. Subtitling crappy Malay dramas was easy money, but at the cost of killing your brain for the two hours it takes to finish the work. Some of the actors were so darn ugly, I sometimes stuck a piece of paper on the monitor so I wouldn't have to see them and their cakey faces. I wished I could put the show on mute so that I didn't have to listen to their voices, but then that defeated the whole point of subtitling. As for the scripts? Gargh, methinks that the scrip-writers do their jobs in drunken stupors. How else can you justify scene upon scene upon scene upon scene of repetitious whining that is not even remotely entertaining? And a storyline that only a sadistic teenager would come up with? Oh, by the way, why is it that villains in Malay dramas either end up suddenly crazy, or suddenly dead? Like, one minute, they're cackling wickedly over having just pushed the protagonist out of a speeding car, and the next minute, they're either talking to themselves in baby voices and getting shipped off to a mental institution for life, or they get run over by a car. Talk about lazy writing.

Now, I'm jobless, dead broke and figuring out how to do the PTPTN thingy. IT IS SO COMPLICATED YOU GUYS. Especially since I have to do extra paperwork because I'm applying for it after one year of studying in uni. Sigh =/

Plus I was way more active back then. In Nilai, I had so many posts in so many clubs I could barely keep track. I only got back to my room past one, and I literally slept with society reports and BTQ notes scattered around me, while warning letters lay buried under my pillow. It was exhausting, but at the same time, I learned a LOT, and met all kinds of people I probably wouldn't even bother approaching under normal circumstances. Plus, it was kind of an ego boost to see endless posters with a tiny pic of me plastered in every building on campus. Tee hee!

Now? Nada. Besides Green Team, which barely takes up my time because there's not much to do besides write articles and clean up a river now and then, I am doing nothing even remotely extra-curricular. Oh, wait, there are the random emcee stints that I get contacted for. So, from Secretary of the Student Council to a freelance emcee and occasional river-cleaner. Hmmm... I've definitely gone a long way.
*Mental note: JOIN A CLUB NEXT SEMESTER. Preferably with a whole bunch of new faces.

Before, I used to be really trusting and outgoing. I'd blab out all my secrets to my close friends, let them read all my text messages (but not look through my photos -- but that was only because I was embarrassed by the crappy quality of my phone's camera), and would trust them with my life. During short sem, with zero club activity, I treated my roommates like family. Slept with them (once I accidentally hugged my roommate in my sleep, causing her to shriek and jump off the bed), ate with them (we had a huge box where everyone contributed food, some more than others, and every evening we'd gather around the toaster for a Nutella-with-toast session), joked with them (the lesbian variety included), and even randomly insulted them in the name of good humour.

Now, I rarely open up to people. During my first semester in Gombak, certain experiences traumatised me to the point that I never wanted to make friends again, and would burst into agitated tears at the thought of having to hang out with other people. Emo, I know. I'm okay now, because time can be really healing, but it's definitely taught me to be more wary about getting close to people. My current roommates? I can't even remember their names. My current classmates? The one or two I talk to are nice, but I would never dare to hang out with them outside of class. I'm such an introvert. Argh.

I was 17 when I first entered CFS. Next month I'm going to be 20. Wow. Time flies.

Lecturers are like a box of chocolates; y'never know what yer gonna get

I've had lecturers who taught me life lessons, and lecturers who brought lessons to life. Some lecturers make their classes so stimulating, it's like sipping on the most tantalizing mug of hot coffee while reading the latest issue of National Geographic. You know these type of lecturers. They're the ones whose names remain at the tip of your tongue even though they taught you two years ago, the ones who ignited passion for the subject within you, the ones who made studying an enjoyable and interesting experience. You use them as the benchmark for "The Perfect Lecturer", and inevitably compare all other lecturers to them, almost always unfavourably.

Unfortunately, there also exists a category lecturers who make their classes a hideous, pus-filled pimple on the flawless forehead of a brand new day. To attend their class is the equivalent of being forced to watch Twilight -- in other words, you'd rather just sit at the back and engage in conversation with the person sitting behind you, or derive satisfaction from the experience by bitching about it.

Here, I shall list down the worst crimes a lecturer can commit, based on my experiences:

a) Speaking monotonously
I'm sure each of us has, at least once, secretly wondered whether the person speaking at the front is actually a robot. A robot programmed to recite terms and definitions while the real lecturer is off smoking a ciggy somewhere in the staffroom. So astounding is their dictation that even a topic which you know should be exciting sounds like a grocery-shopping list for a family of 12. As your eyelids droop and your attention wavers, your goal for an A in this subject couldn't be more desperate and fleeting than if you were stranded in the middle of an ocean, praying to be rescued. Your lifeboat is your text book, and God forbid if it's as flimsy and full of holes as the Intro to Political Science text book.

b) Speaking off-topic
Nothing brings life back to a boring lesson about, say, social theory then when the lecturer suddenly sits on the desk, hands clasped together on top of his crossed legs, and starts narrating a really interesting story about how he got arrested during his back-packing trip to Iraq, or a hilarious anecdote involving his neurotic wife, his overweight baby and a bowl of cold porridge. But then, when he spends the rest of the one-and-a-half hour telling that story in intricate detail, no matter how interesting it all is, you start to wonder; does this have anything to do with what he's being paid to teach, and you're paying to learn? It's okay for lecturers to stray away from the course outline once in a while, especially if it's to liven up a class on a Friday evening, or to impart valuable life lessons. But it's not okay for them to turn a subject about the Psychology of Development into a subject on How To Deal When Your Wife Goes Shopping (And Other Life Stories of Me), fascinating as it may be.

c) Reading strictly from PowerPoint slides
These lecturers, upon entering class, immediately sink into their seats comfortably and start reading, or mumbling, PowerPoint slides out loud. All else is forgotten by the lecturer, including the definition of 'teaching'. What also slips his mind is that university students can read for themselves what is projected in gigantic fonts on the board in front of them, and that what they actually need is a lecturer who can explain or elaborate upon the points written up there. But maybe the expectations of us students are simply too high; after all, there's a reason the term "absent-minded professor" was coined.

d) The Syok Sendiri Syndrome
This is the lecturer who stands up at the front of the class and talks and talks and talks, while the students don't have a clue to what she's talking about. When you raise a hand to ask a question, she either says, 'wait! I'm not finished yet!!!' and starts steam-rolling on with facts that mean nothing to you until you give up and play a comforting game of Quadrapop on your phone, or she listens to your question and calmy answers, 'If you'd been paying attention to what I've been saying all along, you'd know the answer. Now shut up and listen to me teach'. When she hands back your horrible examination papers after marking them, she'll either say, 'I don't understand how so many of you could have failed. It's so easy!!!', or 'You idiots, have you learned nothing from me? Have you not paid attention in class?' If you show one sign of not understanding their complex explanations, instead of rephrasing, giving more examples, or elaborating further, they just get exasperated that you can't catch up to them -- never mind that they are Ph.D or Master graduates in this subject, and you're just a 20-year-old who's learning it for the first time. These, you see, are all symptoms of the Syok Sendiri Syndrome.

That's all I can come up with so far, based on my personal experiences and tales of woe from my friends. Feel free to share your opinions in the comments! :)