Saturday, December 13, 2003

2: Queue? (Sounds almost like a franco-latin interrogative)
Then it was a trip to AU to pay my semester fees. The queues were extraordinarily long and moved very very slowly. For about 15 minutes into my wait, I thought that the procedure at the other end was time-consuming, but soon realised that there was a whole new reason for the delay. Each of those persons in the queue carried not just his/her pay order, but also of ten other friends. OK, this actually saves time because one person taking care of things for a whole group actually makes things quicker. But I was absolutely irritated to find out that these guys had joined the queue with only their papers, but had accepted insertions along the way. Why the heck should I share the burden of another lazy person�s queue-time, while he or she chilled at the cafeteria, waiting for the receipt to delivered? A couple of good friends asked me to carry their drafts for them, but I refused point blank. No! Why? Are all these people, waiting in line for the past one hour, fools? After close to two hours, a whole lot of bitterness and painful stiffness in my knees, I triumphantly finished the payment procedure in a matter of seconds and staggered on to lunch. I was famished. The lunch brought back more than a sense of fullness. It brought my cheer back.
When I got cranky as a kid, my grandmother used to blame it on hunger. I, in further insult of my righteous reason having been patronisingly ignored, used to kick and scream my way through mouthfuls of food and eyes full of tears. But as my stomach began to fill, my anger magically vanished; with not even a little bit remaining to �fig leaf� my pride. Nevertheless, my family hardly used to rub it in, and even if they did, it couldn�t make me angry; I was full of food and cheer.
So here�s a trick that works for me. When extremely bad-tempered, eat well.

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