tala @ so-phobic

I don’t like the rain when I’m outside, dressed in starched, smart office attire, trying to get to the office in one piece. But during the summer, when I’m stuck in the central business district instead of at the beach, when I’m surrounded by concrete and the honking of automobiles, ah, I love the rain. I turned the aircon off and left my windows open. I spent the day lounging in bed. Mmmm. I wish there were more days like this.

I finally got my own copy of Neuromancer. I am ashamed to say that I haven’t read the book in its entirety, only in Cliff’s Notes. I’ve temporarily moved out of my fantasy haze (until the next A Song of Ice and Fire installment comes), and I am so ready to explore the worlds of Gibson, Dick, and Stephenson. I think I bit more than I could swallow, no, chew! with Cryptonomicon. Yes, maybe I should have started with Snow Crash instead. I just finished The Devil Wears Prada, which was a complete waste of time. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to see the film. It will probably be entertaining. But as a book, forget it. The characterization was bland and uninspired. Sayang. It would have been better if it was written by that Bridget Jones author.

I came across Scott Adams’ blog. He’s the guy who’s responsible for snarky corporate slave, Dilbert. He was talking about his pet peeves in his blog, and shared this as one of them:

Unclear Queues
===========

It bugs me when I can’t figure out who is next in line. I always blame the second person who arrived. The first person is blameless because one person can’t form a line even if he tries. But that second bastard can doom 20 people to incurable tension by refusing to stand directly behind the first person in an obvious “this is the line” fashion. That second idiot will start drifting to the side, perhaps checking out nearby merchandise or reading signs. That’s when the trouble begins.

The third person arrives and has no idea where to stand. It’s starting to look random. By the fifth person, the odds skyrocket that I will be accused of line-cutting no matter what I do. I spend my entire time in line rehearsing my imaginary defense for how I really was behind the guy that keeps wandering around.

This reminds me of the pre-CRS UP days. During sophomore year, the comfort of block scheduling disappears and students are introduced to the elitist tri-college (CS, CSSP, CAS) priority enlistment, prerog (teacher’s prerogative), and to the loooong lines that give the moniker University of Pila.

The nightmare lines are for the popular GE subjects Soc Sci 2, Hum 2, and Kas 2. During my sophomore year, I had to be at the registration site by 7am, since Eng’g wasn’t a priority college. Still, I’d find 20-50 people ahead of me, camping the line outside the classroom.

The irritating thing about these lines is that at some point, the last person has no idea for which subject the line is for. What’s more frustrating is that they don’t seem to mind the idea that they might be in the wrong line. I had to line up for Soc Sci 2, and the reg was in a classroom next to the Hum 2 reg. There were a bazillion lines snaking out till the AS lobby, and each person I asked (Which line is this for?) had 3 or 4 different answers. I had to fight my way to the frontlines (amidst people hissing for me to line up) to ask the person in charge what subject I the line was for. And when I went back to the end of the line and told the people in front me that it was for Soc Sci 2 and not for Hum 2, they wouldn’t even believe me. That it, until they got to the front and realized that they wasted 2 hours of their life lining up for a subject they didn’t want/need to take. As for me, I ran out of slots and had to prerog my way into a TTh class. Hehehe.

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