Frustrated

These days my patience is running very thin on two very important things – the reception of my mobile phone service provider and the speed of the internet in uni. I can’t pick an either or, they both make me do this:

As a loyal Maxis customer, is too hard to expect good reception in my room? Every time the phone rings, I’ll need to get out of my room to the corridor but that solution is temporary. After say 3 minutes, the connection lapses and I will be forced to move which eventually leads me to going out of my block. It is no fun you know. I would really love the convenience of being able to have conversation without 50% of it being this:

Me: Hello

Caller: Hello. Hello. Heellooo…. I can’t hear you. Are you there?

Me: But I can hear you. Helloooo. Can you hear me? Heellooo

Caller: Oh, there you are. So, how’s things *bzzz**cracks*crackles*bzzzz*? *Mumbles jumbles rambles further*

Me: Huh, sorry I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?

Caller: Hellooo… Elllooo…. Yellow. If you’re there, *bzzz**cracks*crackles*bzzzz* you.

So you see it sucks when I can’t carry out a decent conversation. Half the time will be spent on saying “Hello”, “I can’t hear you”, “Could you please repeat that”. I have developed the skill of guessing what people say to me during all the buzzing and lost in transmission lapses. These skills only go so far. I have guessed wrongly in the past which led to hilarious conversations. Pretty much like A asking B, “So, where did you go today?” and B responding by saying “Oh you heard too. Yeah, my uncle’s grandfather’s sister-in-law’s nephew’s neighbor’s daughter passed away 2 days ago”.

Without my phone dearest, I’ll be as good as living under a coconut shell. It is the life line to my social existence, the outside world, far away from Cowboy Town Uni and of course of home. I do feel bad for those who call me for the agony of not being able to hear me. And I feel bad for those who feel bad for me every time I ask them to hang on while I get out of my hostel. But I don’t think I have much of a choice at the risk of not having a life beyond the perimeters of my campus. Because the alternative of stubbornly sitting in my room, getting text messages from Maxis listing down my missed calls and not be in touch with the outside world is unacceptable. So yes, when the phone vibrates its happy tone, I briskly walk out, down the staircase to the corridor walkway to answer the call with a smile on my face.

The internet brings upon a different but equally frustrating story. It is pretty stable except when you really need it to be working. Then it becomes an a**olic b***h. I remember how the first 5 weekends in uni were spent internet-less. I felt so lost without it. Every time I want to Google something, I go all the way to clicking IE, waiting *fingers tapping* and then when it says “Page Can Not Be Found” before I bang my head realizing that there is NO internet again!

The lack of good connection really saps out all the joy in blogging. There are so many things I would like to post but they are just too time consuming that I eventually change my mind. Just look at my Vaisakhi post, I wanted to upload about 8 pics but only ended up with 3. You want to know why? I took me 2 freaking hours uploading them onto Photobucket before I could generate the html codes to include them here! 2 hours=3 pictures=productive time gone to waste on waiting.

I know I should be thankful that I do have internet and what can barely be called a phone reception. Not everyone in other parts of the world (or even in some uni’s in this country) have the privilege of such facilities. However, I do feel I hold certain leverage against Cowboy Town Uni simply because it claims to be a uni of international standards and world standing. How could a university of this prestige not be able to secure its scholars and students a consistently good, fast and stable internet connection? I don’t think that it’s a demand too big to fulfill.

As my mother puts it, this is only for 2 more months. Indeed.