In Continuum.

Finding the class alone was a confusing ordeal altogether, and I think the confusion got to the better of Helen. She must have realized that she walked into the wrong class halfway through, but then that's not exactly the point. The new lecturer came into the lecture theater almost as silently as a pin drop. He just sort of appeared at the front of the classroom without anybody really noticing him, and here we have a chinese man that looked more like a high school physics teacher somehow. Just picture a high school physics teacher, and you are probably not going to be far off from the mark for this guy. He was dressed in a crumpled blue polo t-shirt and a pair of pants that seemed way too high. Given, he was suffering from a serious jet lag, but then his hair desperately needed some fixing before he left the house today. Anyway, so there he stood in front of us and surveyed the crowd, kind of like a conductor checking out the audience before he begins his first movement. However, what came out from his mouth was no symphony at all. It sounded like a strange tribal music that needed subtitles, although it was in English, somewhat.

Supposedly, this man came from United States, and he is supposedly the head of the communications department over there. Yet, his thick accent prevented most of us from understanding a word he was saying, and you thought Baban Hasnat had a heavy accent. Now, Baban Hasnat had a cute accent, the kind of accent you hear in Bollywood movies, only without those irritating high-pitched singing and coconut trees. This guy is the kind of guy American students would make fun of. If you imagine the kind of stereotypical chinese man an American student would picture in his or her mind, it'd probably look and sound like this man. That is not a flattering thought, because I think the lot of us expected so much more. We have had Jan, so-so; Julie Bowker, awesome. Then this guy comes into town to ruin the potentially exciting module of ours, mass communication. It was tiring to listen to his words, although it must have been even more tiring on his part to thread the words together into a coherent sentence. Of course, not to mention the fact that he was battling a jet lag and a bad cough that never seemed to go away. His lesson wasn't fun at all, which was why Joyce and I started making a list of words that he made a mistake in pronouncing. He pronounced "election" as "erection", so enough said about that. 

The next lesson was persuasion, the last module to rescue our summer. I mean, it's bad enough that we don't have our summer breaks. If we are going to have four modules during the summer, we better get some good lecturers for the money that we have paid. So we entered the next class with an air tenseness lingering about our forehead, and we didn't know what to expect either. The lecturer came in, and we formed a line in front of him to sign the nominal roll. He repeated our names as we signed, and he looked like a male version of Jan - only more outspoken and talkative. He rambled on and on and on for the most part, and he had a strange habit of sticking his fingers into his breast pocket and then pull out nothing at all. He did this about ten times throughout the lecture, always teasing us with that strange gesture of putting his fingers into the pocket and then fishing out nothing at all. Maybe he was scratching his nipples, or maybe he had a toad inside his pocket, who knows. I kept wondering what he'd pull out from his magic pocket, but I still don't know what the hell it all meant. 

This lecturer is funny, and he talks funny. His last name is pronounced as "sex", and shouting "bullshit" in class doesn't seem to be a problem for him at all. But you know how it is with lecturers like that, the kind that jokes around you and then smiles at you whenever he looks you in the eyes. You never know when these people are going to explode, you never know when they are going to blow a fuse. It is kind of like how Jan completely lost her nerves and started imitating a black pastor giving a sermon, and how she started shouting "Amen!" in class with one leg on the table. She was either high on that day, or she was high. Either way, you never know with these kind of people, and the unpredictability can get a little scary at times. The unknown is filled with so much fear, and Jeremy and Felicia got a first hand experience today when they were told to keep quiet in his class. Oh, and Chelsea was asked to shut up, but that seemed to have been told in a joking way. See what I mean? You never know. 

He spoke about everything from getting lost in Orchard Road, Elvis Presley being alive, and he took almost two hours to finish the course overview. He spent the rest of the time ranting, like some kind of radio show host who just went on and on about some random topic. One thing led to another, and it's not like the students wanted to interrupt any of it. He was the kind of lecturer that took no nonsense at all, and you probably don't want to mess around with him very much, at least that is the feeling that I have right now. Stay on the border, don't push the envelope. Although it would have been fun if I was asked the question he directed at Shi Ting today. Apparently, Shi Ting was asked if she'd like to 'challenge' him - for some reason - and then he went on to tell the class that he'd only be mad for three times. Three times, what kind of a rule is that? If you have a limited amount of time to get pissed off because you have a blood pressure to control, then maybe it'd be wise to do yoga or be a buddhist, or something. If he asked me that question, I'd probably reply him "I'd challenge you, but I'd only make you mad - three times". So that I can claim all the credits for ticking him off, you know? 

But of course, I probably wouldn't want to try. If you can fail just by not attending class for four times and above, I don't suppose I want to piss him off three times. All and all, I think I am going to survive the class well enough, and he seems to be the kind of person to appreciate a few tricks up our sleeves. Compared to the china man, this man seems to god sent somehow. At least it is a great leap forward relatively, and a beggar can't really choose. The other half of the summer semester is probably going to turn out fine, with the new classes and the new challenges. Besides, I am having a three day week. Beat that.