Monday, October 11, 2004

Occassionally I like to play this game with myself, to see what's the shortest time I can take to get home right after school. But after 4 years, I've learnt to take things easy and stop this childish play. (More out of frustration actually. I'll explain.)

On a normal school day, the bell rings at 2.05pm. I take half a minute to sweep everything into my bag, and another one and a half to rush out of the school to the bus stop. Usually the bus stop is empty because I'm the first person out of the school, and I feel happy because I'm gonna break the record shortest time to get home (or so I thought). So I patiently wait for bus number 156 to come.

Then gradually, it starts to get noisy as more girls stream out of school to go home. I see my classmates sauntering down the bridge to the bus stop, they catch up with me and we chat. Then one by one their buses came, and as I waved goodbye, all I could do was watch them go. Even those who just came out of school, who ran and caught their buses, was on their way home, but I was still waiting. Imagine the frustration!

By 2.30, I've seen like, half a dozen 74s, several 170s, mutiple 174s, but no 156! My patience starts to run dry, and I clench my banana-yellow folder even tighter to prevent myself from exploding with frustration and desperation and annoyance and irritation and whatnots.

I try to rationalize: the bus is probably stuck in the lunch-hour jam (if there's such a thing), maybe the bus broke down half-way and had to wait for a substitute bus, or maybe the bus uncle had to settle some family problems before he went to work, everything I can think of!

Then it starts to get absurd: the bus uncle was queueing to buy 4D or Toto at a popular outlet, or maybe he had a rendezvous with his secret mistress before going to work. You can't blame me lah, people get irrational when put in extreme circumstances.

Then at 2.40 when I'm having thoughts about taking a taxi home, 156 finally, FINALLY, came crawling. I try to keep my calm and not to give the bus uncle my killer stares as I board the bus. (RAWRRR!)

The bus journey took less than 15 minutes. And the waiting time was obscenely 200% of the travelling time.

I reach home close to four. And I think I'd probably have taken a shorter time if I cycled.
So much for breaking records.

Bleah.

writing at 11:15 AM

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