Money Does Matter

One thing should you know when it comes to furthering education at a private institution is that you need to be extremely ready to accept the changes made by the policy-maker governing your place of study. Note that it's not the kind of changes as in switching from your morning freshly-brewed coffee to a sugarless organic tea, or picking up a heel over a pump. Definitely something bigger than that.

Let's say you and your family just moved to Denmark because of some business-expanding things your boss did (and in this case, you're in). Despite all of the problems faced (shipping issues, problems adapting to new surroundings etc.), he had a second thought and ordered you to re-evacuate to Alaska, providing that Denmark is a mistake and changes must be made to save the company, and you're like "FTW Alaska are you kidding me? I'm not shifting to a place where the sun remains during midnight! How do you expect me to sleep?". The worst part is that you're given with just one week to make up your mind. You're thousand miles away from Malaysia and if you decline, you'll lose your job and the company shall not be liable for any financial cost needed for you to shift back to where you belong.

Evacuating from one place to another is no easy task, ya know, especially when you have belongings which are the size of a house with you. And ESPECIALLY when it's already 15th of the month. Obviously, this is one hell money issue.

Well, the point I'm making is that we are all victims of the capitalist system, ain't we? It's the world where you have to pay for every single shit you're dealing with. Or about to deal with. Whatever. Reverting back to the whole private university things I brought up there, 3 days ago, they (the management people at my university) published a notice about late payment charges to students who failed to collect the exam entry slip just A DAY before due and expects us people to be aware of it when everyone is so busy dealing with projects, assignments and FYPs. What the heck?

This happened before, ya know, and I fought back twice. The first one was last year when they started this and I was in second semester. I was 5 days late from collecting the document only to find that I was compounded a total of RM 10. So, I asked the scornful looking lady at the counter this: "Where on earth in the student's rules & regulation book stated that students need to pay for the late charges if they failed to collect the exam entry slip?"

She shot me a surprise look. Without looking at me in the eyes, she answered "Uh, it's stated in the rules, uh, you can go to the 28th level (the finance department) to confirm... Uh". I can tell she was unsure through her "Uh-s". My mistake was that I decided not to take the issue further. I wasn't well-prepared; my knowledge about consumerism right was pretty shallow at that time. So, I paid and requested for an official receipt in which she gave me another unbelievable look.

"What receipt? We don't issue receipts for payments made on late charges. Receipts are only for people who pay the tuition fee and stuffs."

There you go miss, talking like an ass. "It's my right to request an official receipt as a proof of the payment received on the university behalf. Without a proper receipt, can you assure me that the RM10 given just now will not go into your pocket?"

The lady let a hard sigh, hard enough that a male colleague who was quietly stood behind the other wall listening to our conversation came to her. How did I know? He asked "What's the problem here?" in which she made a quick 5 seconds explanation and voila! The guy was now the master of the whole issue.

"Take her to the finance department with this," as he handed the lady the RM10, "and grant her the receipt."

And I was right.

The weirdest thing was when we got at the Finance Department, after the lady requested for the receipt to be printed explaining this and that, the department's officer himself said "What is this late payment charges? I've never heard of that before. Are you sure?"

"Yes, they, they are in the rules."

WTF, eh? I'm so getting my hands on those thick law books after this.

Okay, so the whole thing was not an Infringement of Copyright issue LOL

Irony

Okay, here's the thing. I am not good in compiling programs. I have a hard time understanding some logical reasons behind every code and why they are written like that. I have, like, thousands of silly questions to be asked to the person who taught me before I could say "Oh, I get it". Now that I've choose to engage myself in this war of object-oriented programming, I'm pretty much ambivalent whether I will survive this battle as much as I enjoyed figuring out ways to overcome the uncertainty in handling the Debit and the Credit thing.

A snippet from my Java Programming book.

Yes, it's true. I came from non-CS background where most of the things I deal with were numbers, papers and calculating instruments. However, I do know how to code. I mean, most of the time, I do get my codes working correctly as I wanted; displaying the predicted output but they were only temporary. I fail to act like a sponge and ended up being a loser hours later. I forgot every explanation told by the lecturer in the lab as I stared helplessly at my laptop's screen 4 hours later in my room, trying to compile a freaking simple program that a nine years old kid like him could easily compile in less than 20 seconds.

I'm not the kind of girl who easily fall short of herself. Whenever my mind pulls a 'STOP' signboard to a certain unacceptable input and that I can't solve it alone, I let people help me see things clearly so that I could find the key to unlock the idea myself. It was always motivating to do so but not this time. Here's what I keep getting whenever I said I'm not good with programming:

"You are a Software Engineering student... Duh?"

How irony. I think I do fall short of myself this time.

Professional Matter

“Nad?”

“Yes?”

“Mind if I ask you something?”

"Shoot," My eyes narrowed upon his sudden query.

“How come you tak pernah tanya I pasal my love life?”

Speechless as one can be, the man in front of me just asked a question which was negative from my circle of expectations. My prediction of the typical questions he could had asked in the first place. Honestly, I DID NOT expect that at all.

Frankly saying, he's not a friend. Not even close to someone so dear to me. I get paid for cramming my head out of one thing he's great at: Music. He is the lead guitarist of a band recently signed under a local recording company in Kuala Lumpur. We don't really share personal issues with each other. He would usually had me sit and listen to his riffs and demanded my personal comment or had me checked whether his tune sounded the way I would approve it. Everything was still of serious business the last time. Well, at least. I mean, sometimes he did unfold stories regarding problems with his band mates or the industry. Issues with his royalty and the radio stations that don't go beyond the borderline and that's about it. But bringing the whole thing into something, err, less professional by getting aware with his love life? How do I start?

“Nad?”

“Well,” I began, trying to be firm with my words which I doubted best at that time. “I rasa I tak ada hak untuk tanya you benda-benda macam tu. Itu diluar bidang I. It's personal, right?”

“Sure,” came his reply. “Professional matter. I lupa.”

I don’t know what was the real issue but one thing I could tell is how weird his voice turned out to be. It was sounding pretty much sarcastic to my hearing. I remember catching this tone from him long ago when he was arguing with the audio engineer from the company about an issue. Okay I got the hint; obviously he was not cool about this. What ever triggered the idea of this whole conversation, that thing sure as hell had caused the situation between us to become awkward.

There was a pause, probably around 30 seconds. 

Joe Satriani

“Forget it,” he violated the silence at last. “Let’s get down to business matters back shall we, Miss Professional?” he said, looking away. He took his black Fender strat and started to playfully bend the strings mere emotional despite the guitar being unplugged to any of his gears, probably imitating the style of the famous Satriani whom he adores so much.

I couldn’t help but to think of how he responded to this. Does it matter so much for him that I’d be acknowledged about his love life? Shouldn't everything just be the way it supposed to be? Sensing deep sarcasm in his voice, I decided to just do one thing.

I looked away, too.