I feel I just graduated from...

High School!


"Redundancy..."

I slowly opened my eyes, wondering why in the world I said that.

As the grogginess disappeared, I could make out.... Prof Bart!

Shucks. I was in an Operations Management lecture.

"What?..."

"Redundancy..." I muttered under my breath, still not sure why the heck I was saying that.

"Sorry, didn't get that..."

You're not the only one prof, I don't get it either.

"He said 'redundancy'...." a classmate offered. He, like the other 30-odd people in the class... having no idea what was going on.

A few eyes were transfixed on me, waiting for an explanation.

"Transportation", someone else answered.

"Aha that's right..." Prof Bart finally giving out that super big grin of his, glad that he could understand someone now.

There is an art when one wants to fall asleep in lectures. I had it mastered pretty well, most of the time I looked like I was in deep thought, as opposed to in deep slumber.

There are two dangers though. The first is the one like above. One's own mouth.

The second one? Friends. (How do I know I look like I'm in deep thought while sleeping? Friends with camera phones in lectures. And I thought phones were not allowed in lectures.)

I was in one of my slumbers towards the end of the first half of a Management Information Systems lecture. I got up due to the normal commotion caused by people getting up for the break.

20 minutes later, back in the lecture theatre, I realised that we were given a group assignment cum presentation for the break. As I had nipped off for coffee during the break, in addition to the fact I was not awake in the lecture, I didn't know much at all about this presentation.

"Who's presenting for this group?"

And in one of those moments that will be greatly difficult to forget, my four soon-to-be-ex-friends-for-the-day, unanimously, pointed at me.

"Me?"

They had been plotting the whole time!

I was sucker-punched!

I pride myself in being the master of practical jokes and gotchas. This was difficult, but I managed to weasel my way out. Ask a question about the Greater Manchester Ambulance Service project, and Prof went on about it for about 15 minutes.

Sepandai-pandai tupai melompat, akhirnya jatuh ke tanah. I know.

There are many people out to get me, but until that happens, I will continue with my practical jokes and gotchas :-)