Sem VII

The bidding process that we have to go through to procure our modules works pretty much like a simple auction -- each student is given a number of points, and you prioritise, strategise, and basically just plan where to put your magic beans.

The tricky part -- and also the most interesting -- is that two hours before bidding ends, the system goes into what we call the "Close Bidding" period. During this two-hour window, you cannot see what the minimum successful bid points are for each module, so you don't know if you've done enough to stay in the game, or if you're out of it, or if you just need that one more point.

Naturally everyone logs in during this period of time, to deliver that last-minute sucker punch, which no one can see, and therefore (hopefully) no one will outbid.



The thing is that, if this is the first time that they're doing this, then there is some excuse for the server overload. But this must be the fifth semester (or thereabouts) that they're doing this, and the server dies every single time! There are only so many students in the school, and given previous semesters' experience, shouldn't some provision have been made?

I'm just saying -- it's unfair for a deadline to be set, only for it to be effectively moved forward by three hours (or some other undeterminable length of time) without notice.

I was in the middle of typing an e-mail of complaint concern to The Powers That Be, expressing those very sentiments, when an alert came in (at 2:46 PM) to inform us that the bidding period was extended to 5 PM from the original 3 PM. Guh, okay.

***

These are the modules that I'll be taking next semester, if nothing goes terribly wrong:

• CN4119 -- Design I
• CN4210 -- Membrane Science
• CN4215 -- Food Technology
• EN2111 -- Reading British/World Texts
• LAB1201 -- Bahasa Indonesia I

I don't know what I'm doing taking a Level 2000 English module. Well, no, actually I kinda do -- they ran out of Level 1000 modules for me to take. Hur hur. I like having arts modules during the semester, because it means that after I throw up from looking at all the equations, I can lie in bed and read, and I don't have to feel guilty for not doing work. I'm just kidding -- well, partly -- but I did feel warm tears well up in my eyes when I held a Joseph Conrad book in my hand for the first time in many years.

This is actually quite a huge deviation from my original plan; I didn't have enough beans for the film module that I wanted. But it works just as well; I'll have one final unrestricted module for my final semester, and I've gotten so used to taking at least one arts module every sem that I'm not sure how I'd survive without it.

***

HW: "I can speak Tamil! My friend taught me one sentence! (Insert Tamil-sounding string here.)"

Me: "And what does that mean?"

HW: "Er..."

Me: "It means something bad, right? Obviously. Like you would ever pick up something otherwise."

HW: "Yah, it means 'you are a stupid pig.'"

T-T-T-Typical.

We'll see what else he manages to master in Bahasa Indonesia during the course of this sem.