The Gift of a Friend.

I'm supposed to be in school right now, enrolling myself for the next semester, which will start on the 9th of November. (Yup, it's a Tuesday; and no, I don't know what's up with the crazy let's not have classes on Mondays and start the week on Tuesdays instead thing. Well actually I do, but that's not the point.) I didn't go to school today, or yesterday, because I'm sick. I've a cough, a cold, and a slight fever that cannot make up its mind whether to stay or leave. Seriously.

In my uni we have this computerized enlistment for our subjects. Every student has her own account through which they post our grades (because class cards are sooo last decade). Every scheduled date before the sem starts, we're supposed to enlist ourselves in the subjects we fancy. When the enlistment closes, the uni's computer processes all our accounts, granting classes in absolutely random order, or according to your priority status.

I was granted 16 units, which is 3 units short of the 19 I'm planning to take this sem. This means I still have to prerog - a manual enlistment, if you may. When you manually enlist, you go to the college where the subject you want is, fall in line, and wait for them to enlist your name in the subject. Usually this takes a really long time, and people are practically dieing over the limited slots (hey, they can't enlist a hundred students in one subject, y'know), because not everyone gets the subject they want.

I wasn't able to get the Econ 141 that my friends told me to get during the computerized enlistment, so I was pretty depressed about it. I was not going to go through the nasty lines just to get that subject OH NO. I've been sick since Wednesday evening, and I wasn't going to school on Thursday to prerog. It's just wrong; I might faint or something. I felt pretty bad I couldn't join them, though.

It was then that one of them, Hannah, told me over Facebook that she could do the prerog for me. I was very  surprised by the offer, of course; prerog is really, really no laughing matter! That she'd do it for me was very kind of her! I said "Oh, wow, really? Will you really do it for me? Isn't it too much trouble? Thank you!" or something to that effect. I sent her my form5a, which contains my class schedule (kind of an ID during the prerog. You're supposed to print it, then show it to the person behind the computer so he'd enlist your name).

Yesterday morning she was texting me how long the line for the prerog was. I couldn't do anything about that, so I just sent her text messages every now and then, checking on her and her progress and stuff. I wasn't hopeful; the subject I wanted had only two slots left. It'd be a miracle if I get one of those two.

At about 3 PM she texted me again, abusing the caps lock and raving about how she managed to get me the subject they wanted me to take. I could hardly believe it myself, but well, she pulled it off, and I could just message "Thank you x 1000000!!!" to her. One out of two slots? That's just crazy. Lucky crazy.

It was later that night that I received a message from Marie, another one of my friends and college-mates, telling me I should go today (Friday) to school, because she's holding my form5a. Apparently she went with Hannah during the prerog, which of course means she fell in line,too, for my sake.

When I signed into Facebook I thanked them again, barely able to imagine how much trouble they must have gone through the day for me. And then Hannah told me how much trouble exactly they went through. It was A LOT.

Apparently there were three of them who had to fall in line so I could get that subject. Hannah and Marie left the line at 9:30AM to prerog in a different college, for a Math subject. They left my form5a with Amel, another of one of our friends, who I'm guessing must have also been manually enlisting for a subject himself. Hannah and Marie came back at 1:30PM (gracious, four hours!), only to find that Amel was still in the line!

The details of the whole thing is still not clear to me at this point, but apparently the officer inside the computer lab took my form5a so I could enlist, but since I was not there, he rejected it. Amel, thank goodness for him, told the officer that I was out for some bit, but I'd come back, so I MUST HAVE THAT FRIKKIN' SLOT!

Once Hannah was back she claimed to be me, and asked the officer to give the slot to her (who is now me, and man this is confusing). The slot had supposedly been given to someone else already, but Hannah's persuasion worked, and the officer granted her (me) the slot.

When I heard the whole story I nearly cried, because I was so touched that they really went that far for me. Marie asked me to come today so I could pick up my form5a. Since I'm still sick (and a lazy arse), I asked Jazelle if she could do that for me, to which she said yes. I'm going to school on Monday for the final prerog in another college, where I'll meet up with Jazelle for my form5a.

I'm just so very thankful for my friends, and I thought I'd tell this fancy little story.