Fee hike.

Don’t raise my fees if you can’t justify it.

Don’t tell me rising costs of operations is the reason without telling me what are the costs that rose.

Don’t ask me to pay $180 more every year if you can’t tell me where this money is being channeled to.

Don’t suddenly drop me an email telling me that you are raising my fees and there is not a damn thing in the world I can do about it except paying up.

Don’t raise my fees because the economy is doing better so a fee hike is more swallowable. It’s not as if you lowered my fees when the economy was bad.

Don’t tell me costs of operations have increased when your financial statements didn’t seem to suggest so.

I still love NUS, but I love it for the friends I’ve made, the lessons I’ve learned in life, the NOC experience, but not the bureaucratic practices like these.

Give me answers. Give me explanations. Give me justifications.

Don’t raise my fees if you can’t justify it.

School.

I didn’t have any class today, but I was in school from 9 a.m. all the way till 10.30 p.m. Amazing.

Had a discussion for my Understanding Careers class presentation, which was interesting because for a first meeting, we achieved 50% attendance! While most of the talk was on the topic that we are going to present, we spent quite a bit of time having casual chats, which I think is useful because intra-group bonding is very important! Now that we know one another slightly better, working together for the presentation would be so much easier!

After lunch I went back to Computing to work on my E-Commerce B2C Applications assignment, and then went for my IT Marketing project discussion. After that, I was hanging around in school for almost 5 hours to wait for the SOC Bash committee meeting, which lasted all the way till 10.30. It definitely was a long day for me, and I didn’t even have any class on. That said, I still enjoyed myself very much today.

Was doing some pondering about life just now on my way back home. Thought about the bash, thought about my future career, thought about that someone in my life (whoever that might be, may I add), and then it just struck me – tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day! Of course it would have been nice if I have someone by my side, but that’s not critical because I know there are a lot of other people who are celebrating the day being single! Actually I would tend to think that if a couple is true to each other, stay loving and all that, then everyday is a Valentine’s Day. Besides, 14 Feb should not be a day only for the couples, but it’s also a day when the singles in the world declare in one voice “We survived another Valentine’s Day!”.

OK so maybe I’m being a little bit sore. Not a lot, just a little bit – but compared to a few years back when I refused to go to school on 14 Feb, I think I’ve improved a lot already. Maybe we singles should start a tradition of playing pranks on couples on this day. At least that would make things fun for us.

For example, we can smash Valentine Day cakes (those full of cream are definitely preferred) into the couples’ faces.

Or we can replace the roses that the couples send to each other with other flowers such as lilys, carnation, sunflower, or worse still, chrysanthemum.

Or we can put road blocks along the routes to the canteen, making every couple do something horrible before they are allowed to cross, such as making the guy kiss the girl at the toe, or making the girl carry the guy and walk for 20 steps.

Or we can put up posters around canteen saying that this guy and this girl got together but don’t have the courtesy to inform the rest of the world, so we’ll do them a favour.

Or we can pretend to be some guy and dedicate some silly love song to this guy who happens to have a girlfriend.

Or we can put up signs in study areas, libraries and canteen tables, declaring that all tables are for singles only.

Or we can make all the canteen vendors charge extra for couples when they buy their food. So a can of Coke which normally cost 70 cents will now cost $1 for couples, but 40 cents for singles.

Or we can make a hell lot of noise whenever we see a couple sitting together, such as getting a percussion team to play Dragostea Din Tei in front of them.

Or we can all march in a contingent and do a salute whenever we pass by a couple, for we feel so proud of them for sacrificing their singlehood for the greater cause. Some tears here may help too.

Or we can sit in a group and start to comment about every couple that walk past us.

Have a great Valentine’s Day.