It's been a long week...

Last Sunday, I had what I would describe as a "close to perfect" day. I had almost no contact with the outside world. Yes, and that is what I consider perfect... 'cos after dealing with people day in and day out, not having to even speak to another person causes less grief.

Then I had to get up and go to work on Monday... sigh...

(1) Mitsubishi ad on radio.

Mitsubishi has an ad on radio where their tag line is "investment with long term value".

There we are, trying to teach our kids about what an investment is... and there these stupid fools are, trying to unteach what we teach by deception. A automobile is NEVER an investment unless it is a collector's item. A Mitsubishi will never ever be a f**king collector's item. Yes, it may be a reliable Japanese made vehicle but as far as I know (and I have personal experience with one such vehicle), it does not even fetch very good resale value. 

The statement may be true that it does have a long term value... as in, at the end of 10 years here, you may be able to sell the damn thing for a couple of bucks... but IT IS NOT AN INVESTMENT!!!

(2) Dumbass government servants.

In particular, my boss. Last week our final exams got done. As usual, there were some kids that failed one, maybe more, subjects. They are now set to sit for a supplementary paper. So, there will be revision for them. I was assigned to "coach" a bunch of 10 kids who had failed a certain subject. Their supplementary paper is in 10 days. I have NEVER taught the subject. It is not even a subject offered by my department.... but it's ok, a certain someone things I can learn the subject in 3 days and then present it to the kids and help them pass in 10 days... interesting. Either she must have super great confidence in me... or (and this is my favored choice) things just don't pass through what she calls a brain before assigning.

(3) And then I had to attend a class.

Which only served to reinforce the idea that everything is lip service.

Again, in the class, which is a follow up of classes I had attended when I first started work here, the focus is on our audience... the students. The class was about how to make learning more interesting and effective for our students. It is being drilled into our styles of facilitating education... but it is NOT practiced when we returned to the real world by people we are calling our "mentors"... it is a complete waste of time.

(4) And is all ended yesterday, how ironically, Friday, with a stupid annoying incident.

A couple of coworkers and I had gone out to lunch. The parking lot was packed but we managed to find a spot. It started raining, very heavily, while we were having lunch. When we were walking back to the car, we realized that the car had been blocked in, by a vehicle that was illegally parked. Being that it was raining hard and that this parking lot was just way over crowded, I decided to be patient. I honked a couple of time, but not excessively and waited. After about 10 minutes (yes, I did wait a whole 10 minutes), I decided to call the cops. Interestingly enough, the illegally parked vehicle was blocking 2 cars, mine and the one next to me, and both vehicle's occupants were in their cars ready to depart. The first call to the cops drew a very passive response. They said they would come by. This not being an emergency, I was ok with the idea they would not be there in 5 mins or less. My coworker decides she is also going to call, just so the cops gets a sense of urgency. Another luke warm response. The cops finally show up after about 15 minutes. We have now waited 25 minutes. They DO NOT acknowledge anyone in the 2 cars waiting. They look at the illegally parked vehicle and then run off behind us. When they come back, about 5 minutes later, they said they had gone to look for the owner... YEAH RIGHT!! IF IT WAS SO F**KING EASY TO LOCATE THE OWNER, I WOULD HAVE DONE IT MYSELF... OR THE OWNER WOULD HAVE KNOWN WE WERE HONKING AT HIM/HER SINCE HE/SHE WAS ILLEGALLY PARKED!!!! 

I asked if they could tow the vehicle so we could get out and they said no. I asked why and here are the 2 reasons they gave... hold on to your seats.

REASON 1: THEY DID NOT STEAL THE CAR.

REASON 2: IT'S IN A HDB LOT, THEY DON'T TAKE CARE OF THAT.

(HDB = Housing Development Board, the people that are technically in charge of these parking lots)

My coworkers and I were really speechless. 

No, the car was not a stolen vehicle, but it was illegally parked, blocking in 2 cars. It may not be a crime, but it is still an offense.

AND, I thought the police had overall jurisdiction over EVERYTHING. So, if I murdered someone in a HDB parking lot, they would leave it HDB to prosecute me? WHAT THE F**K? Has this country downgraded it's police to playing hide and seek? All they could do for us was to LOCATE the owner??? All in all, we wasted almost an hour in the parking lot and we only managed to leave when the other car to my other side left and I had to do a 12 point turn to go round this illegally parked vehicle. It's a f**king joke. 

It's finally the weekend again. And hopefully, like last Sunday, I can deal with as few annoyances as possible. Plus, I have to study by this weekend (2 whole days) a class that lasted an entire semester (18 weeks) so I can help them pass their supplementary paper... Superman at work this weekend!!!