Kampua Talk

Sidenote:

• Just watched Evan Almighty a few hours ago. Funny and meaningful. All the hoo-haas about religious sentiment in the movie was just downright stupid because if anything, Christians should be the one making all the noises *straining my ears, listening very hard* and the silence is deafening!

It is mid-semester break for my university at the moment and I, of course, would try my best to get out of there as soon as possible. On my way down to KL yesterday, I chatted with a senior I met on the bus. She has just finished her industrial training and had to go back to UUM to submit her report on that.

Well, from our conversation and remarks made by people I know, I came to a conclusion. We, human being, are a selfish lot! We are never satisfied with what we have. We want everything to be of convenience and in favour of our needs but nature has it that it is the other way round.

When we were students, we looked forward to leave school or graduate and get a good job before settling down. But once we are in the working environment a.k.a. becoming officially a modern slave, we wished we were back in school again. Tell me if this is not true. I have heard countless of seniors, friends and relatives complaining about the work pressure and stress that they have to endure at work. They often wished upon the shooting stars that they were back in school again.  Regarding the things (read: tension) that you have to encounter at work, there are countless of blogs out there to check out, namely Zewt’s, Alvin’s, Monkey’s, just to name a few.

As for students, they yearn to land on a good job, experience the joy of receiving paychecks, venturing into a totally different dimension, etc. Little do they know how harsh the reality of modern slavery is. We’ve heard students complain a lot about assignments, lecturers being ridiculous, grades, exams, etc. Those are next to nothing compared to the workload, the money you cause the company to lose when you screwed up, dealing with unreasonable clients, working with idiotic colleagues, suck up to the boss, so on and so forth. You can check a number of blogs out there by student bloggers regarding university life, some love it, some hate it, some are pathetic - for example, this blog, Clement’s, Foo Kiat’s and a lot more.

Somehow, after venturing into both worlds - working as well as studying (I worked part time during semester break lor) - I have made another conclusion. Both world has its respective pros and cons. It is the way we look at them and face the challenges or opportunity that makes you take full advantage of the world you are/were in. Well, the grass is always greener on the other world but you never really know until you actually step onto the grass.

Whether you are the student or the modern slave, it does not matter. You still need a prayer to start your day:

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I have to kill today because they pissed me off. Also help me to be careful of the toes I step on today as they may be connected to the ass I have to kiss tomorrow”