“Without struggle, there is no progress.” - Frederick Douglass
I don’t usually write out my thoughts but since today was a horrible day, I couldn’t resist. I’m one of those people who follow rules. If something says in a rule book, for instance, “no littering, no parking, no talking..”, I’d follow it all the way. My loved ones at times told me that following the rules isn’t always going to get you somewhere, you have to break it to get there. I guess it applies in countries like in America or Canada but in Pakistan.. Since I moved here, I’ve been following rules and it hasn’t been any good as I was expecting of. As someone said to me, “If you follow the rules, you’ll be left behind while the others who break the rules are ahead of you.” I didn’t really understand what that meant at the time but sure as heck I know what it means now.
Unfortunately, I had to be sick. Still recovering from a 102.2 F fever and attending classes the next morning, I was looking forward to my day’s routine. While I was walking to school, I saw one of my classmates walking out and I asked him that if he is skipping class or not and he said that the schedule for tomorrow is today’s and only few students are attending it. I went anyway. Though, I went to the student administrator’s office first to get a voucher for my tuition fees, it wasn’t available. (Yesterday, I got a call that it was ready and available to pick it up.. lie!) So I said I will be back in an hour and the guy at the desk #1 said, “okay.” An hour later, it’s still not available. Man, this is irritating. I finally had it after 3 hours and said, “I need my voucher now! I have exams next month and if I don’t get to take those exams, it’ll be you’re fault! (Then I said something in Urdu..)” Finally, the guy from desk #2 printed out and gave it to me. When I bashed out the door, I heard my name and it was the Vice Principal giving me this weird look as if I committed a crime.
He asked, “So (my name), you got the voucher?” I replied, “Yes sir. Finally.” He said, “Good. We need the extra late fees anyway. We’re poor.” I was so furious from how my day was going and on top of that how sick I was but went to school anyway, I said back, “Well sir, I don’t think you need extra money when all the students are paying 15k dollars each year and in your new batch, it’s 18k.” Then it became an argument and I noticed a few seconds later, a professor who had her first teaching day today as a clinical lecturer about hirsutism, stood by and started to listen. The VP started complaining on how our school’s reputation has no reputation and that money for us is nothing and we should give it all as much as we can. I usually don’t argue ‘cause I respect them and pretend to think that they know what they’re talking about but I was really pissed. So pissed that I ended up talking back and nearly, in the end when I said, “You aren’t working hard enough for this school to run and have a reputation, all you care about how money you should get while working for nothing.” He was silent for a second and then said, “Go away. I don’t want to see your face right now.”
I should regret of what I said to him ‘cause he is my future forensic science professor. But whatever. I’ve had it with “follow the leader”. I don’t even know if this story was about following rules or not, but I just had to rant. #afml
