There aint many uni frens that I get to meet up from my course. Mainly being they are all guys with families (too busy changing diapers and packing their children to sleep - doing what used to be a mother's role...lol), and two being that: for some others, I was no longer close to those whom used to be really close to for various reasons. I guess when the sense of common goals are gone (tutorial assignments Sharing/Coping, FYP completion and passing the exams) , the bonds that held us together had also withered with time.
Thinking back of those Uni days, those were the WORST freaking educational years I ever had. The fact that I had absolutely no interest nor prior computer knowledge in what I was majoring, adding that I knew it would never be my lifelong profession after the first 2 weeks, made those years felt like lifelong imprisonment.
If it wasnt through sheer luck that I had acute understanding capability, coupled with great smart classmates & tutors that took personal interest to help me, I prob would never had been able to graduate. Frankly too, I observed that being the few better looking gals in the course do have its perks in this case ( I swear this isnt intended to be self praise!). I discovered people are just more inclined to help better looking people, provided they are friendly too. Of course none of us deliberately flirted to get help (too stress to even think about things like that), but looking back, the guys were just naturally more helpful and less critical esp when they saw that you had tried hard but failed. Still rem the other bitchy poly gals didnt want to share at all seeing us JC gals as threats.... Yet being the genuine"damsels in distress" was like making the guys more protective. I suppose army trained them well to have the sense of "protective" instinct too? Till this day, I still think of them genuinely as my life saviours!!!
For all the hardships I had underwent, this is precisely why I hoped my nephews would never make the same mistakes which I had, going in the direction and taking up a course with no thoughts to the future job interest. Many people I knew failed the course and/or dropped out, it was only my fear, ego and pride, not to mention lack of financial funds, that made me determined to prove my naysayers wrong. The biggest joke I had heard was of course having some of the guys dissuading me not to change faculty, in their words "This faculty is pathetic enough with the gals we have, please dont go!" My fren had to remind me that night and I had to "thank him" profusely for the rarely heard compliment! hahaha!
Back to present, those that had been my great buddies, we still catch up in FB so recently one of the guys proposed a catching up session with another fellow uni mate. Why not?
We were talking about universal studio and MBS which I professed I had never been there yet, so it was decided promptly to dine there killing two birds with one stone.
Dinner venue was decided to be Pizza Mozza, which my fren really really liked. Since the other two of us had never tried it, so it was a good "adventure" to try someplace new.
The taxi driver dropped me off at the MBS lobby. I walked up to the concierge and asked for directions to Pizza Mozza. The MBS staff must have gold stuff in her mouth because she was so freaking stingy with her assistance words. She grabbed a piece of pre printed mini map and pointed "there, there." I asked her where the escalator was that she had refered to and she did that lame lazy "wave wave" with her hand, pointing to a vague direction. I asked her again "Do you mean just ahead?" She replied lazily "Yah, u will see it. It is just ahead" I almost wanted to tell her "If I know where it is, I wont need to ask u anything right stupid?"
As I walked ahead, it was definitely NOT JUST ahead. Does she know the meaning of "JUST AHEAD"?
It was a longer distance than I had expected but I was determined not to let bad service ruin my night. (incidentally when I shared this experience on FB, alot of my gfs replied that this fking irritating lazy "wave wave" hand gesture is super common for bo chap service staff who just couldnt care less. So thankfully I wasnt the only one who seem to see lack of service/ faults everywhere I go in Singapore)
Arriving promptly at 7.15pm, the pack was jammed pack. Obviously if you do not have prior reservations, you can dream about getting a seat during peak hour. Considering it was a weekday nite, and business is booming, I am assuming in good faith that food must at least be decent to others too.
Service was as typical "let-down" Singapore style service. The indian fellow was rushing us to place order. We decided to go with the mushroom pizza and the parma ham pizza. While deciding the starters, I enquired what was good. The indian waiter said "Everything is good." Fine, so we decided on Calamari. The waiter looked at me without much emotion and in a monotone replied "We have run out of Calamari." Great. So we decided on the next best appealing option, "Can we have the chicken wings then?" I asked. The waiter replied in his couldnt-give-a-shit-I-m-so-fking-bored voice, accompanied by a dead pan expression "We have run out of chicken wings."
So instinctively, the 3 of us said in unison "Then what exactly do you have for tonight then?" The waiter replied "Oh everything else on the menu." Really, it was such a "WTF" moment with such appalling service, which btw, is a complete contrast to the chirpy reception staffed by 2 foreigner-looking ladies (a Filippino and a Westerner). It is moment like this that I think Singaporeans should really pull up their socks in their attitude towards their job before lamenting that their jobs are stolen by other foreigners. Much that I do prefer to be served by locals and am all for jobs preservation for the locals, but if this is the sort of service I get from locals...then it does make me ponder if the locals deserve job protectionism in the first place. The job is not owe to you just because you own a pink IC. If u are wondering how I tell the Indian was local, let's pay tribute to our distinctive local accent regardless of race.
Anycase, being rather fedup, we decided against ordering any other starters and just stuck to our pizza order with a bottle of wine, which by the way, is the worst Italian Gewürztraminer I ever had to date.
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| A cook to order pizza worthy of the 40mins wait |
The pizza however was indeed a delight. The crust was thin and crispy with a generous serve of toppings. I wasnt too great a fan for the parma ham version but I was in love with the Fungi Mushroom pizza. It wasnt overly cheesy and the serving was reasonablely large with a relatively reasonable pricing too. Not that I have been to Pizza hut since 20years ago, but my fren told me the pricing isnt much more expensive than crappy Pizza hut. That is good news isnt it?
After the meal, we decided to head elsewhere for followup chat. So off to the MBS lounge we went. Service was completely staff by foreigners sounding like Filippinos but hey, at least they gave me a better vibe and attentiveness was way better.
They had finger food there but I was stuff, so I settled for tea though I wish they had hot chocolate and some decent cake options which they had none. Their dessert sounded let's just say "Unimaginatively Boring".
One of the guys was suppose to leave at 10.30pm so that he can relieve his parents from their shift of looking after his two young boys while he and his wife are out on "school reunion", but somehow the conversation of the uni days dragged on till 11pm. It was truly interesting to recollect those days esp versions that I hadnt known myself! hahaha!
Apparently a new story I had heard that night, I was told that in one of the lectures in our first year, the lecturer was asking the guys why did they leave such a big gap in between them from one end to another, and if there were "ghosts" between them. My best bud then of course started to laugh as he told the story and revealed that it was because Ms Piggy-Moi was laying comfortably across the lecture bench, snoozing away from the start of the lecture! So the chaps couldnt close in and they didnt tell on me either!! Since I was dead asleep, I didnt know that episode either! Hahaha!
Of course, he had to remind me another episode as to how panicky he was when we were once outside the library and I was kneeling down, crying over a joke he said, but with tears in my eyes (and soundless laugh while I bent over) , he was deemed "the monster" by all the other students walking past us, for making me cry! Then of course I would remind him what a "bad influence" he was too, copying all my lecture notes for some classes he completely skipped, getting me to cut some really boring lectures and headed to his hostel room, cooking those Taiwan Sausages with the mini oven in the room and then falling asleep until the next tutorial class. However, it was also mischief memories like these that had made uni life an interesting one.
We could go on forever but it was getting late so decided to finally call it a night. I guess it could be said to be a relatively good night!!
I had fun! Thank you guys!
