Thursday, July 31, 2008
I'll try hard not to go in specifics, but a frequent user of the library will be well aware of what and of whom I'm talking about.
A week before school started, I started buying up the books I needed for the new sem. Aim? To beat the snake long queues in the bookroom made up by freshmen who lack the experience to tackle the "system". Commerce books are very expensive, so I was quite thrilled when I found recycled books at the back of the bookroom going for $70 odd a piece. A good $30 to $50 saving from the mark price. Most expensive on the booklist was my macro book. A whooping $127!!! I contemplated photocopying the entire book then binding it myself. If it was cheaper that was. So I popped over to the library and saw 10 to 12 copies in the reserve so I figured I'll just photocopy the pages I need.
Lecture ends 10am tuesday morning. I reach the library 1015am tuesday morning. Only ONE copy left from that pile I saw last week. And it's in the hands of some ang moh browsing through. So I stand by and wait patiently. Then two internationals come waltzing in speaking the language I studied and never mastered for 10 years. And right in front of my very nose, take the book I was so patiently and obviously waiting for!!! Outrageous! I know! I didn't want to borrow the book in the first place, I just wanted to photocopy. And from my limited knowledge of that language I gathered all they wanted to do was to browse, and they had to go and loan out the book. If only I knew how to say share in that language.
So I stalk the library for the next few days, hoping to get my hands on that cursed expensive book, when I realise that it's all been loaned out!! The next one was to come in at 1145am. Time now? 1130am. So I wait patiently at the computer, trying not to make it too obvious that I'm lingering, and then BAM 1145am. I leave the computer and walk as fast as a man with a tight bladder going to the toilet would, and search that shelf for the book that's brought me so much irritation. But it's not there!!! I refuse to believe that the same internationals beat me to it by a split second. And I was right. They didn't. It was another international this time, whose former prime minister had to sack Kevin Keegan when he was doing a perfectly fine job at Manchester City. Standing at the loans desk, his face can only be described as "beaming with pride", and no prizes why.
Dan
11:59 am
