they're trying to break us like horses

"Vivian Lau?"

I woke up from my snooze with a start. It was the first day of classes and already, I had fallen asleep twice. I tried to look alert and stared at the stately moustached man at the front of the lecture theatre. My class held their breaths for me as I struggled to gain composure.

"Vivian Lau," he repeated, "How many Salmonella bacterium does a person have to ingest before they get sick?"

He was our new Bacteriology prof. It was the first day of classes for pete's sake! How the heck did he know my name? My FULL name? No time for that now. Must think! Must think!

"Um . . . a hundred . . . thousand?" I answered back feebly.

He didn't say anything. I began sweating in my seat.
Luckily, smelly kid was sitting behind me and bailed me out. "A million," he said.

Our prof finally spoke. "Yes. Both Vivian and [Smelly kid] are right. It's anywhere ranging from a hundred thousand to a million bacterium that are required for salmenellosis."

I slumped in my seat with relief and I felt the rest of the class sigh with me. We weren't off the hook though.

The rest of the lecture was spent with everyone sitting on the edge of their seats. If he could pick on Vivian, who else could he pick on? No one was spared. Lisa, Leslie, Chris, Rob, Josh and Mark. The list went on and on. We figured out by the end that he had somehow got a hold of our class list and pictures and had memorised it. Sick prof.

"And try not to skip class. I WILL KNOW."

We all didn't doubt him for a second.

Of course, being the only oriental in the class and having a relatively memorable name, it was like I was waving an ivisible flag above my head going "pick me! pick me!"

Oh that my parents had named me !Xobile.

Not as bad as physiology though. At least our bacteriology prof was friendly. Our phsyiology prof seems to want to personally embarass all of us and he gave us a serious warning this morning when me and five other people stumbled in precisely one minute late. "If any of of you are late on Thursday, you will have to stand at the front of the classroom in the glare of the overhead projector light and state your name and number!"

He was dead serious.

This may not scare most of you punctual people, but if you know me at all, you'll know that tardiness runs in the family. It's in my blood. No matter how hard I try!!!!

As my classmate Novaley put it today at lunch, "If I'm late for physiology, I'm just not going to show up at all."

Everyone at the lunch table nodded their heads in agreement.

Then we headed to pathology. This is the class where we look at dead/sick animals and slice and dice em to figure out what went wrong. Slide after slide of pustules, necrotic tumours, dogs with rotting skin, cats with a chest full of yellow pus, and animals with oral warts spilling out of their mouths and onto their cheeks greeted us.

My Mott's apple treat wasn't sitting so well with me and I could see that the girl beside me who had been busily munching on a bag of mixed nuts also stopped mid-handful.

Suddenly, the prof switched on all the lights and pointed at the centre of the classroom right behind me.

"YOU!"

Everyone looked up in surprise and roused themselves from their naps.

"YOU IN THE CENTER OF THE ROOM! TOO MUCH PARTYING LAST NIGHT? NOT ENOUGH SLEEP?"

Everyone sat ram-rod straight in their seats and looked around at the poor guy who had fallen asleep behind me.

"I DIDN'T SLEEP EITHER LAST NIGHT. I SPENT 15 HOURS ON THIS LECTURE!"

No one dared even to put their heads on their desk for the rest of the class.

And that was my first day back at school. Looks like it's going to be a looooooooooong semmester.

At least from now on, I'll never ever forget how many salmonella bacterium it takes to innoculate someone.

And did I mention that our first exam is next week? They're testing us on all the phsyiology and biochemistry we learned last year. ALL OF IT. A WHOLE YEAR'S WORTH. Wheeeeeeeee.