Asylum

Two weeks of madness and the dust has finally settled. I'm battered and weary from constant battle, but I've survived to tell the bloody tale. I've spent so much time in queues that I'm considering changing my name to Don Queueote. From a distance the University of Johannesburg Auckland Park, Kingsway campus looks like a serene place inhabited by sane people when in actuality it's a disorganized mad house run by scholars who have absolutely no practical intelligence. Being sent from pillar to post and back to pillar again is about as much fun as having your tooth pulled out with pliers. Amazingly enough this time around it wasn't even my fault for being indecisive about the subjects I want to take for the year. I stood in a queue for hours registering my subjects only to be told that my major subject, Linguistics & Literary Theory, can't be registered because there's an exam clash with Latin. This didn't surprise me at all, it happens to me every year and so I told the guy to register it anyway because the Latin Department will have to let me write their exam on another date. He then proceeded to give me a lengthy lecture about how he does things by the book and that I'll have to go to the Department of Humanities to sort my self out. A few days later I discovered that this injustice was not committed against me alone but against a few hundred others as well. Armed with a very sharp pen and a Humanities Department form I was ready to tackle the Herculean tasks that lay ahead. By my side was the funniest and craziest companion anyone can ask for under such conditions, a girl everyone ends up calling Danny, who thought up the most gruesome ways that we should go about 'disposing' of certain staff members of the Humanities Department. Another bonus was that she lives on campus and was willing to run off and buy us drinks and grab some food from her room. During her periodic absence I seduced first year girls in the queue by poking them and acting as an ambassador for the university whose task it was to welcome new students by giving them hugs. A few minutes later Danny and I decided to bid our new queue friends adieu because we thought ourselves too cool for queues. Luckily enough we spotted a friend of mine, Super Sleuth, in front of the queue and we managed to get ourselves front row 'stands' by bribing people with candy. After a few minutes of poking strangers and sticking our tongues out at the poor saps we were told that we don't need to be in the queue because “we'll sort you guys out by Friday”. I wanted to scream “redrum, redrum!” and run around stabbing people with my pen.

Now here I am on a Monday morning all rested up and good to go at it again. Wish me luck. The queue at the bookshop looks horrendous....