Why is there such a hype over the new Harry Potter book? Apparently people queued up as early as 6:15 a.m. outside Borders just to be the first to get their hands on the book. Why do they even bother? They can easily pre-order the book at a 40% discount just like I did. Although the book will only arrive at my doorstep a few days later, but so what? I can choose when to read the book once it is in my possession. This is just one of many incidents. A few years ago, there was the Hello Kitty hype, where people also queued overnight just to grab the limited edition collectibles. Is there really such a necessity to go to these extents?
I had first-hand experience on queuing overnight. It was during university years when undergraduates like myself were competing over the various subject combinations. To get the desired subjects, students really queued overnight just to be the first in the computer room to sign up for modules. That was the first time in my life when I actually wanted to be a bit more "kiasu".
So I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and took a cab all the way down to the old NIE campus at Bukit Timah (formerly the old campus of the University of Singapore, currently the SMU campus). I arrived about 4:45 a.m. and already the queue stretched from outside the computer room from one end of the building all the way to the main entrance around the middle part of the building. The computer room would be opened only at 9:00 a.m. in the morning, and only 5 were allowed in at one time.
When it was finally my turn to sign up for modules, it was already 10:15 a.m. Luckily I was still able to get the subject combinations I desired. But then, I do not think many would take the same subject combinations as I did, as they probably knew better than to commit academic suicide. Luckily after that, all subject modules could be signed up online at home, so I never had to go through that again.
Why must people queue up in the first place? No doubt it is for something you want, but is it really important? Afterall, people are queuing up for books (ok that is important, but I believe there should be enough to go round, so people did not even need to queue up in the first place), toys, dolls, 4D tickets, etc. All immaterial stuff. I wonder if people ever queue outside orphanages to adopt children, or outside the SPCA to adopt a pet, or outside old folks home to visit with the old folks. These seem like more meaningful things to queue up for.
I had first-hand experience on queuing overnight. It was during university years when undergraduates like myself were competing over the various subject combinations. To get the desired subjects, students really queued overnight just to be the first in the computer room to sign up for modules. That was the first time in my life when I actually wanted to be a bit more "kiasu".
So I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and took a cab all the way down to the old NIE campus at Bukit Timah (formerly the old campus of the University of Singapore, currently the SMU campus). I arrived about 4:45 a.m. and already the queue stretched from outside the computer room from one end of the building all the way to the main entrance around the middle part of the building. The computer room would be opened only at 9:00 a.m. in the morning, and only 5 were allowed in at one time.
When it was finally my turn to sign up for modules, it was already 10:15 a.m. Luckily I was still able to get the subject combinations I desired. But then, I do not think many would take the same subject combinations as I did, as they probably knew better than to commit academic suicide. Luckily after that, all subject modules could be signed up online at home, so I never had to go through that again.
Why must people queue up in the first place? No doubt it is for something you want, but is it really important? Afterall, people are queuing up for books (ok that is important, but I believe there should be enough to go round, so people did not even need to queue up in the first place), toys, dolls, 4D tickets, etc. All immaterial stuff. I wonder if people ever queue outside orphanages to adopt children, or outside the SPCA to adopt a pet, or outside old folks home to visit with the old folks. These seem like more meaningful things to queue up for.
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