Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Between Concerts and Classes

Three students were sitting in a university cafeteria around 8 am. The young man was slurping his noodle. The two young women were eating quietly. Another young man walked in.

“I was in the Hung Hom Coliseum talking to my friends after the concert until 2 am. If I went home, I would have to get up in a couple of hours to come back to the 8:30 am class. So I went to sit in a 24-hour fast food place for a while and then come here to meet you guys.”

They then started to discuss the registration of general education subjects for the next semester’s classes. Various subjects came up: Japanese, wine tasting, etc.

“Is this subject easy to get into?” “No, I got there several hours after the registration opened and I was successful.”

“How is the subject? Are the multiple choice questions extremely difficult?” “Nah, they are OK.”

“Wine tasting sounds good. You get to visit a winery.” “What winery? It is just a small shop next to the big supermarket in Harbour City.”

“Are you going to the Axxx Lxx concert in early January?” “My friend has a job collecting tickets and I am thinking of getting a similar job there so I can get to the concert.” “They only let you stand at the entrance! Is that what you want?”

“I had put down two florescent sticks wrapped in a piece of paper and wrote on it: ‘for tickets to the concert’ – to reserve a place in the line for tickets. The attendant there said I should go back today to attach a large piece of cardboard. That way no one will dare remove it.”

“Time for class. Let’s go”

They were polite to each other. None used any foul words. The two young women were particularly soft-spoken, and seemed kind. And they were attending the 8:30 am class, even leaving the cafeteria before 8:30 am. That’s more than what we can say about many of our students.

How would you feel if you were their parents?




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe their parents insisted they should go to university, and so they just showed up.

StephenC said...

These are not really "bad" kids. It is just that it seems they can do a lot more with their lives.

I believe increasingly it is not innate abilities that determine how a person turns out. But attitude and effort.

Anonymous said...

Nowadays, the young generation has different value than the old folks. With the Multi-media, things change very fast in all aspects. They just can't find their value. - ATS'73 柱

StephenC said...

Some are of the opinion that life is too easy for many of the young people nowadays. So there is little motivation to work hard. They probably would not agree.

Anonymous said...

For some, it may be our fault because we work too hard, plan too well and protect our children to the fullest so that they have nothing to worry about except getting a concert ticket.