i blame it on the full moon

Yesterday when the clock struck 12 I was seated at my desk poring over a bunch of equations that is supposed to make a satellite run. Yes, a satellite. I'd love to give my Control Systems lecturer the finger and tell him that I DID NOT SIGN UP for fancy shmancy stuff like satellite control because I am too dumb to know that, but all my life I have been brought up to swallow the shit our educators throw at us so yes there I was trying to work out a bunch of Greek symbols that will determine if that bloody satellite continues its orbit or crashes. 

I wonder if I could I write the equation so the satellite starts hurtling in the direction of TARC instead. With me safely tucked away in Penang, of course.

Anyway it was the Mooncake Festival and my neighbours were being the usual buffoons. My roommate just returned from a mooncake eating contest o_0 where he miraculously survived scarfing down two mooncakes without drinking any water at all, and managed to win the second place. I was amazed that he did not clog his esophagus and suffocate to death because contestants will be disqualified for drinking water. I have a newfound respect for his abilities. 

Besides his mooncake eating abilities, however, the roomie has a special talent for amassing large amounts of food when the occasion calls for it, and yesterday there was a nice spread of fishballs, chinese sausages and chilli chicken in our room and naturally, half the residents on my floor were stuffing their faces. I was annoyed at first because please, people! I am dictating the course of a theoretical multibillion dollar satellite, and who is to blame if a missing Greek symbol were to be the cause behind a manmade, mechanical, multibillion asteroid merrily making its way towards us? Theoretically, of course. They would never let me near any device that is worth even a fraction of the cost because my calculations are often plagued with careless mistakes and I have a fear of spanners, but still. 

Somehow they managed to not notice my death stares and murderous aura, because they would often thrust a greasy chicken wing at me and I would politely decline, with a hint of daggers in my tone of course. Then I would revert my attention back to my equations and try to work out the differences between a zeta and sigma before another thrusts a bunch of meatballs on a stick in my face. Rinse and repeat. When I return to my equations for the fourth time, world weariness caught up with me and suddenly the symbols that made so much sense five minutes ago seemed like, well, Greek to me. 

I looked up. "Are there still chicken wings left?" 

And the next thing I know I was outside my block, shirtless and a little drunk (roomie started pulling out bottles of beer from nowhere. I love him. Sniff), catcalling passing girls with the motley bunch of J Block residents and howling with chauvinistic laughter with every angry reply hurled back at us. Ah well, it's good to be a bum sometimes.

p/s. I don't know why, but "Xiao jie! Do you want to eat my mooncake?" has a certain sexual innuendo to it.