Workload

Darn it. I’ve got work pil­ing up on my desk faster than those pil­ing up on Pn.Hii’s desk. OK, I may not even have a desk of my own, and nobody else’s work­load could beat Pn.Hii’s, but really, I’ve got so much to do in such lit­tle time..

First, exams. That’s all you hear in my blog. And yes, you heard it again, ‘cos they’re start­ing next week. Yea, dammit, next week! Man, It feels like it was just last week when we had our first semes­ter exams, and now there’s another one to face.. The months just keep speed­ing by with­out mercy, with only just 3 months or so to SPM. Not to men­tion the mock exam we’re gonna face in Sep­tem­ber. And there’s noth­ing more wel­com­ing than hav­ing Biol­ogy and Chem­istry papers on the very first day of the com­ing two-week exam.

Sec­ond, it would be about our hope­less school mag­a­zine. Few weeks ago, En.James pre­sented us with his ‘bare’ ver­sion of the school mag­a­zine dur­ing our first meet­ing, com­plete with his self-designed fancy, watchy­our­ma­cal­lit bor­ders, frames, bevels and ugh, awful colours. And the cover, the cover! It was absolutely hor­ri­ble! Mem­bers of the sidang redaksi sat there, star­ing at the LCD pro­jec­tion, hold­ing back our puke.

Now, I saw all these as more work for me. You see, I was appointed the head of graph­ics for the mag­a­zine panel a few months ago and was actu­ally respon­si­ble for the graph­ics in the school mag­a­zine. But my usual ‘respon­si­ble’ old self had not even lay a fin­ger on any graphic work in the mag­a­zine. As a result, En.James resorted to design­ing every­thing all by him­self. You may think that he did so because I didn’t offer my help, but no, he was reluc­tant for me to edit or replace any of those mas­ter­pieces he had all over the mag even after I asked. But I thought about it, and as I flipped through the pre­vi­ous edi­tion of the school mag, I found this page where the sedang redaksi was intro­duced to the read­ers, com­plete with their pho­tos and titles just below it. And I found this guy who’s name I can’t remem­ber who was, at that time, the head of graph­ics and I remem­ber say­ing to myself, Gee, so this is how that guy who is respon­si­ble for the utter ugli­ness of our school mag looks like. Hey! Now I wouldn’t want any­one to say that to my photo when this year’s issue gets pub­lished now right? So, gah! I HAD to inter­vene. Because my name would still be pub­lished as the head of graph­ics in the mag­a­zine even though none of the work is actu­ally done by me. Just to make it clear once more, I wanted to inter­vene for the sake of my name, for I would care less about the well being of that publication.

So, me being a lit­tle more respon­si­ble than my usual self, insisted that I re-do the cover deisign and var­i­ous other parts of the school mag­a­zine. Sur­pris­ingly, En. James agreed to con­sider my pro­pos­als and told me work on a few and present them to him. Ah, there is hope! That is, if I had the time to work on any of those graphic work, which obvi­ously time is what I don’t have. And my, that Pn. Polin had to approach me every sin­gle bloody day of the past week to nag me on the progress of the graph­i­cal work. She even went to such lengths as to threaten me, sort of, per­haps a less neg­a­tive word should be used, say­ing some­thing that sounded like ‘We would only give cer­tifi­cates to mem­bers of the sedang redaksi who are really com­mit­ted and do their job well. If we find that you aren’t com­plet­ing your tasks, then no cook­ies for you.’ I replied that com­ment with a forced smile. Hey, I don’t need cer­tifi­cates or cook­ies so don’t tempt me with them. I may not have a cab­i­net full of cer­tifi­cates but I do have plenty of cook­ies in my kitchen. In fact, there’s a packet of Julie’s Vanilla Flavoured sit­ting right next to my key­board as I am typ­ing this.

With all due respect to my teacher, I promised that I would deliver. A promise that I am strug­gling to keep until now. With the approach­ing exams, there is sim­ply no time for me to sit down and brain­storm for ideas for designs. Even on the rare occa­sion where I do struck an idea dur­ing my rou­tine morn­ing bath, I would not have to time to pro­duce them in Pho­to­shop. Oh well, at least Pn. Polin extended the dead­line for the pro­pos­als to the week after them exam so I can worry less about that prob­lem now.

Well thirdly, I was approached by the pre­fec­to­r­ial board for yet another addi­tion to my stack of to-do-lists. I was asked to help in design­ing the invi­ta­tion card for the com­ing pre­fects’ night which where sup­posed to be a night of appre­ci­a­tion for us seniors. But oh well, I wouldn’t be picky on that. I accepted the job with­out think­ing twice. Now think­ing back, I regret­ted the fact that I actu­ally did accept that task with­out think­ing of my time prob­lems. Well since I had promised to deliver, I tried my best to squeeze out a few ideas for the invi­ta­tion card but to no avail. At last, I met the four-day dead­line with noth­ing to pro­pose. Luck­ily, Eddie being a bril­liant friend, under­stood my sit­u­a­tion and sug­gested that he would ask his own pre­fects to start work on the invi­ta­tion card on their own. But I felt sort of guilty for not deliv­er­ing and stated that I would still try my best to work out a few ideas but just in case I hadn’t got the time, the pre­fects would have to design the card them­selves. Phew. Now that would be one thing less to worry about right now.

Blimey, what a long post. To be really opti­mistic, I guess I should be grate­ful for the faith they have in me to deliver in terms of graph­i­cal work. Thanks, really, to all of you who think so. Well, guess I should just stop here. Oh, and wish me luck in the exams!