I suppose that most people must have read in the papers about the recent theft that happened at UM. I, myself did not actually read about it in the papers but I’ve heard about it from a few of my friends during the CNY gathering we had a week ago.

When I got back to the UM, I was amazed to see the guards at the both the KL and PJ gate finally working. For 4 years, they have occasionally carried out spot checks once in a blue moon, about less than the number of fingers I have on my hand. My first thought was that it was a good thing that I finally managed to get the car sticker before I left for my elective.

As they wanted to make sure no one slipped in without a sticker, they closed the gate partially, so that only 1 car could pass at a time. As it took them almost forever to squint at the windscreen to see if one had a sticker or not, the queue to enter the uni was obviously long. So the next day, they came up with a brilliant idea, which was to open up two lanes instead; one for those with the stickers and another for those without. The only problem with that idea was that the signboard they erected was so tiny and so near the gate, that no one could really read what was written on it until one is actually right in front of the signboard. Thus, no one was really sure which lane to take, causing a similar queue in the middle of both the lanes. Silly, ain’t it.

The last straw was when my poor roomie and a few others were on the way back from Midvalley in a taxi. At the gate, the taxi was stopped, and everyone was required to show their Matric Card. Only 1 of them had it with her at that time (we usually wear out cards as name tags, so we wouldn’t be carrying it everywhere). The other four had their Kad Makan (Dining Card) as well as their computer lab cards, but it wasn’t accepted. Hey, how would anyone have those cards if they weren’t a student of the university?

The guard then made them get out of taxi before letting it through with only the girl with the matric card. It was already 10 pm at night and they were all stranded outside the gate. The guard just laughed at them and said, “You’ll probably have to sleep here by the streets tonight.” In the end, they had to walk to the nearest LRT station to catch another taxi to the entrance of UH, so that they could get to our hostel through the hospital and the faculty.

Seriously.

I wonder how long they will keep this up. Perhaps in 2 months time, it’ll be back to the days of the past, where people just drove in and out at any time of the day, without the guard even batting an eyelid.