interesting encounters

It has been a mid week of strange encounters with interesting people.

Monday

Woke up at 11 am and saw this sms from my hearing-impaired friend. He asked me to help him give his boss a ring to explain that he can't make it for work as he wasn't feeling well. Oh well... easy enough eh? But I gave his boss a call only to receive a tirade of super mega hokkien-chinese expletives. I think the boss was kinda angry, but oh well, think I became his punching bag. Unfortunately, I was semi awake and I'm bad in chinese/dialect conversation. So I can't really defend my friend.

Lesson of the day: Learn hokkien and chinese, and I don't mean the expletives.

Later the day, I bump into this person in lib who smiled and say hi to me. Problem is, I'm totally convicted, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he is a complete stranger whom I do not know at all.

So the logical biological response was a puzzled face and a 'huh'???? look.

He rolled his eyes and walk away with a look of utter contempt.

Lesson of the day: 1) Smile at everyone, you never know who are your friends. 2) Guys can be quite b****y.

Tuesday

Talked to a classmate, who belongs to the same tutorial class AND project group, while trying really hard to remember her name. Ended the 10 min conversation still trying to figure out the name.

Lesson of the day: 1) Smile, even when you forget your friend's name. 2) Pay attention in class.

Wednesday

Was reading Gramsci in the mrt when this exchange student from a leftist school in canada started commenting that Gramsci theories are really tough stuff. I told him I'm studying Gramsci to see how neo-marxism can be applied to singapore politics. What happened after that was a nice exchange of opinion on how civil society is armored by the political society. I think if there were any political police in the mrt, that would have meant the end of my potential political career. Still, it was pretty cool to exchange political philosophy with a stranger in an mrt. Maybe this is what they meant by academic freedom.

Lesson of the day: Be a pseudo philosopher.