College Daze

I seem to know lots of people who were fortunate enough to go overseas for their education but for me, not wanting to burden my parents, I opted for a local college. I studied in Han Chiang College from 2003-2006. At that point of time, we were one of the first batches to study in English I think (I might be mistaken) When my father told me to enroll in Han Chiang, my first thoughts were, "Han Chiang? Where on earth is Han Chiang?"

I live on the northwest part of Penang nearer to Gurney Plaza along with Kern and Elisa. All our houses are about 5 minutes drive from one another and Han Chiang College was a good 15 minutes drive from our area to Han Chiang which is near to the State Mosque aka Big Onion. We live on an very small island where to get to one end to another probably takes about an hour so to us a 15 minutes drive is far away indeed. LOL, this is our mentality.

While places are close by the traffic jams are real killers. The roads are smaller and narrower and although we Penangites, have the title of being the worst drivers in Malaysia. I feel that this is undeserved. Other people from other states come to Penang and is unable to maneuver and adept to our smaller roads and therefore cause a traffic jam of some sorts. We are used to the condition of our roads, no roads are complete without portholes and bumps by the way and we are expert drivers in our own roads. A gentle reminder to others that people who live on the mainland where the roads are WIDE also carries the same P number plate.

*Our number plates all starts with an alphabet that lets others know where we're from. P is from Penang, A for Perak, W for Selangor, B for Kuala Lumpur and so forth.

If you've watch Initial D and watch them racing up and down Mt. Akina, well Elisa does it better. Our very own Elisa who's able to drive down Batu Feringgi at the speed of 90kilometres an hour with NO brakes. If you think "Oh what's the big deal? It's only 90 km/h." Wait till you see the traffic and the road structure. It's like a roller coaster ride minus all safety equipment. How do I know? I was in it.

In other words, we are in fact EXCELLENT drivers thank you very much. *puffs out chest and swagger around*

ARGH, I've digress yet again! Anyway back to my college days, would you believe it if I say that I was the only English educated fool in the entire college? It's like going into another planet where you don't understand anyone at all. I had only a handful of hands (EDIT: AHAHAHAHHAAA.. handful of hands?!?! Sorry but I meant to say handful of friends) as everyone stayed away from me mostly cause there was a communication breakdown and that I looked arrogant.

Instead with hanging out with the cool, pretty kids, I hung out with the smartest kids in our semester. I never regretted my decision. The smarter ones pushes me to push myself to work harder so that I won't be a burden to the group. I was usually in charge of editing and did most of the reports. The easy jobs :D

I remember on the third semester, we had graphic design and had to 'create' our own CD. Given that half of us were a bunch of computer illiterates that only knew how to switch 'on' the computer for MIRC or Friendster and the other half (me included) has knowldge of the computer but has never even touched Photoshop before, it was a mess. I was a stupid one. I drew everything with a paper and pen, scanned it and noobly coloured it with Photoshop and lost alot of hair and sleep while my friends took snapshots of themselves and paste it on the cover. I should have bloody hell done that. Okay so I gotten a slightly better grade but the amount of effort was...tremendously taxing on me.

Some of the sketches I did for the 'album', I took some of my favourite songs and paste on the lyrics.

Looking back at it, I wish I done better.

If I knew JeanJean then, I would have paid her to do it for me or bribe Kern or something. Of course Kern was then also busy with her graphic design course. I sit here and wonder, if I miss college, in the end, I'm happy it was over and done with. I could well say that it was lonely to study in a place where people judge you solely by the language you spoke and the way you look. I pat myself in the back for gritting my teeth and getting through all this without killing anyone.