One r.a. had ‘em all.

Knowing that getting hold of form 5A is the most mind-numbing and time-consuming step, I used to queue at least one hour before the enrolment will start. The fault was that our department has no single registration assistant compared to the other neighbor department.

It was only two days ago that DCS had its own registration assistants. Whoaah and I belonged to that pair!

No more lengthy lines. I enlisted in the desired class in an instant! I ‘enjoyed’ staying in an air-conditioned room while others waited the one-hour delayed registration outside. My batchmates entered and greeted me hello as they swabbed their sweat.

But refreshment was to end. They started to swarm. One can’t feel the coolness the room had before. More warm carbon dioxide diffused as the group chat.

One staff already yelled commanding the group to leave the room. Silence followed. Temporarily.

But the run is ‘generally peaceful’. We were so ‘damn efficient’ that we finished dispatching the batch to next registration steps before lunch.

I ate a complete meal – rice, a grilled fish, two barbeque on sticks, and lumpiang ubod on the side, and an ice cream treat from a friend afterwards. The food trip supplied me much energy for the afternoon.

Then back to the time that was promised to re-open, I saw the queue again. Round two!
The crowd was then meaner. They flocked inside the room even I hadn’t told them to. One. Two. I can’t take this. Then I shouted ‘Ang kulit nyo! Hindi kayo mapagsabihan!’. Finally, I got their attention and silence.

Some pals never identified me with such behavior and so to cheer me up one of those pals will blissfully approach me and ask ‘Is it my turn now?’. Of course, the common smile was once again pasted on my face. Then, I would repeat my infamous line ‘Ang kulit nyo! Hindi kayo mapagsabihan!’ in a comic way.

Everything was in order. After less than an hour, the post-advising and assessment lines diminished. We were so ‘damn efficient’. I am so ‘damn good’.

As they were paying their tuition fees far from the faculty room, they remembered that they encountered the guy who scolded them. But they don’t remember how we made their enrolment a less torture.

Don’t worry. Next semester, we will all meet again.

For now, I was still in wr.a.th (and perhaps I wasn’t alone). The single section I enlisted this summer, the same section that I was enlisted first, that section that is supposed to be the pay due to my work, is dissolved.
Go X1B! Wraaaaaath!