The Chronicles of Tolerance Tested

Foreword
I hereby officially declare that there are two people I cannot stand.

Over the years in college, I've met many kinds of people. Good ones. Nice ones. Friendly ones. Parasitic ones. It's only my natural response to stay far, far away from the latter crowd. I have had some classmates asking me to my face for my full reports and full assignments to "look through", when in fact I know they would copy my ideas and points, rephrase and pass them as their own, find new points and add them to their assignment but no they don't share that new information with you. When the smug smile comes when they get higher marks, don't you feel like b#!@% slapping them?

I wouldn't have minded if it was symbiotic.. I give you, you give me, we SHARE SHARE, catch my drift? Not you take take take and never give anything back. I wouldn't have minded either if they just wanted to see how I answered one or two questions. But a WHOLE BLOODY assignment which I placed so much thought and worked so hard on? Dammit, what do you take me as? A complete idiot?

Anyway, those are rather tame and easily handled. Not gonna yak about them. The ones I cannot tolerate the most? Nasty ones. And a fair share of hypocrites. I have two stories for each one. My two "main characters" in this post, of course, shall remain anonymous in this post, lest I get scolded and sued by the institution and/or parties involved allegedly for defamation. I mean, your blog is your journal isn't it? And you should be able to write whatever you want right? And we can't complain? What if all we're writing are just our point of view (which is what it normally is) = harmless?

Aha! Let’s use pseudonyms! Haha. Fortunately the two are one female and one male, which make it easier. Somewhat. They shall be known as Affected Amelie and Egoistical Eugene respectively henceforth.

Ladies first, shall we?


Part 1: The Mask of Affected Amelie

I had the greatest misfortune and displeasure of working under/with Affected Amelie a little under a year ago. To begin our story, we started off on the wrong foot, big wrong foot, i.e. with a misunderstanding. I often wonder what did I do or did I not do to deserve the kind of cold, sarcastic treatment Affected Amelie gives. You see, the date and day of our first discussion in the e-mail she sent was mistyped. And naturally, how do you expect us to be there at the right place at the right time when we got the right place at the WRONG time?

I did double-check and even triple-check the date and day. Naturally when the date and day are not synchronized, you would take the date as the correct one right? It's still a mystery how my two other groupmates managed to make it to the discussion though. Sheesh man, they must have their own calendar with different months which I don't know about.

For weeks, I was asked incessantly and unnecessarily if I was really, really, REALLY interested in the project. Brains man. If I was not, you think I’d waste my time and paid thousands of bucks for it har? Oh yeah, they say I look disinterested. I felt as though from the very first day I was being judged as someone who’s not serious about the project and pointless as a group member. Every move was scrutinized. They say I don’t look excited or serious in what I do. Well, I look like that all the time when I'm doing my own work or doing some thinking or analyzing in my head. Expressionless. Poker-faced. Whatever you wanna call it.

When we chat, she gives the kind of look (Why? Scientists can't have social life??). When we laugh and joke with others, she gives another kind of look (Why? Scientist can't have fun and humour??) although they both send identical message. It just injects the uncomfortable feeling right into the core of your heart. Every now and then the sides of her mouth curl up into a displeased *cough* ugly *cough* expression.

If I may, I am one who in every best way that I can try not to unnecessarily worry or stress myself. Even if I should be stressed, I usually calm myself down, because being stressed and freaked out ain’t gonna help much either. Except to hasten your wrinkles and migraine attacks. (Hmm, maybe that's why she looks a lot older than she really is..) From experience, I can guarantee you 100% that migraines are excruciating and you would be crazy to not take measures to prevent another attack! Ask my friends. You know, real friends who take REAL effort to know me. They all know this is just how I am. Not those who has pre-conceived impression buried in the corner of the brain, and just say hi and bye.

Why Affected Amelie? When I was revising GRE, I came across this word affected. And I just couldn't think of anyone else that fits this adjective so perfectly. To quote from the textbook, affected means artificial, pretended or assumed in order to impress. I know Affected Amelie doesn't like the idea of talking to me if she could help it. But in front of people and strangers, she is so exceptionally sweet, polite and friendly that it scares me even more than the sight of Sadako crawling out of my TV would. At the very least, Sadako does not pretend to be unvengeful and cute.

The irony is that Affected Amelie often describes and, if I may, prides herself as being very friendly and approachable. She does look the part from a distance. But once you begin dealing with her everyday, man, true colours burst out bright and trust me, it's such an eyesore. She is not very friendly. She is not straightforward. She can get pretty nasty. She is rather talented at rolling her eyes. Definitely not altruistic. As far as asking her about something, she is OK but wouldn’t quite fit the approachable tag.

And she’s not as smart as she seems either. I mean this is one lady who once said that C-H bond is a hydrogen bond. ..... Even my brother (recent high school graduate) knows that is poo.


Part 2: Egoistical Eugene... next time.