The trip to KMB was so eventful, there wasn't even time to sleep in the bus.. Here's a chronology of what basically happened.. And what I still have in my short-term RAM a.k.a. my brain.. (That's Random Access Memory for those not IT-inclined.. tsk..)
[ Saturday, March 13, 2004 ]
After class
3 buses were provided for the 120-odd students going to KMB.. The midday sun was blazing hot.. We were practically baking inside those engine-driven 'ovens' as the SC sports excos did their headcounts :P
On the road
I was sleeping when the bus stopped at an R&R.. F, who sat next to me, woke me up to tell me that the bus had missed all 2 (two) exits that would've brought us to Banting.. Apparently our bus driver was following the 2 buses in front of us so when the 1st bus missed the turn(s), so did the 2nd bus.. And when the 2nd bus missed the turn(s), so did us.. So it was fortunate that F, who knew the way to Banting, alarmed Z, our SC president who also rode with us.. Z in turn asked the driver, and it was confirmed that we had taken the wrong way.. And since we were on the highway, the only way to turn back was to head south to Seremban and make a U-turn there.. It didn't help that almost everybody on the road was heading in the same direction, causing a massive jam at the entrance to Seremban.. The whole detour added another 2 hours to our supposedly 3-hour journey.. That morning, my classmate P told me that if we get ourselves lost en route to KMB, it would take us 5 hours to get there.. And I laughed it off, thinking it was a joke.. I didn't know it was bound to happen!
At KMB
At 6pm, we were greeted mostly with warm humidity as opposed to smiles.. Yes, we know we're late.. Yes, we know you KMB guys waited for us since 3pm.. But don't you know already how remote your college is? One of them had the gall to say "Oh, we're so tired of waiting for you for so long," to which my chess teammate H coolly replied, "And we're tired of sitting in the bus for so long."
Game on/off
We knew that being late meant that we would be playing our first few rounds as soon as we got out of our buses.. Since it was already 6.30pm, we were raring to go.. Until we were told that all of our Saturday games were postponed to Sunday.. Darn.. That meant we had a killer schedule the next day.. In chess, our college teams had to play all 5 rounds back to back as compared to the other two colleges, KMB and Kolej MARA Seremban which had already played 3 of their matches on Saturday.. Talk about major headaches! To add more to our problems, it turned out that both colleges sent 10 boys to form their 2 teams, despite the rules and regulations clearly stating that each sport must send a mixture of 5 boys and 5 girls.. Which meant that we were highly disadvantaged, not to forget belittled.. A friend of mine even dared to forecast 5-0 losses because of our lineup.. How dare he..???
Opening ceremony
We were entertained by preschool kids dancing all over the stage as they were accompanied by demonstrations carried out by KMB's martial arts students - taekwondo, silat cekak and silat gayung.. It's refreshing to see these small rambling kids grooving their thing onstage while being perfectly complemented by liberal doses of tired, mistimed punches.. The female MC particularly showed me that contrary to its very rural backdrop, KMB had no shortage of divas as suggested by her swaying shoulders after every sentence..
I love KYUEM?
You always feel like you're being shortchanged all your life.. But one visit to KMB was an eye-opener enough for me to realize how ridiculously lucky I am to get stuck in KYUEM instead of KMB.. Our college is like a 5-star hotel compared to their place.. Their canteen is open-aired and its food is infested with flies.. In fact, our Dining Hall food that we would normally chuck in favour of cafe food is considered as 'one of the best dishes' there.. They don't have any power sockets in their rooms, let alone network ports like ours :P They even have separate eating times for males and females.. And I thought our Musolla Community was rigid :P
Man.. this is one long post.. I think I'll continue it tomorrow.. Want to know what happened on Sunday? Hang in there :)
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NHA at 3:59 PM ::
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