Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers

Hmm.

Ever heard of the word 'plagiarism'? Think along the lines of piracy, illegal copying and then you've gotten yourself the right idea.

Ok, I'm sure all of us (at least most of us) are culprits of plagiarism, be it photocopying illegal amounts of info... downloading free music from the internet... but surely you'd wish sometimes you had something original?

I am a guy who does his own things in class, without the substantial influence from my immediate peers, but rather from my lecturers, close friends and maybe the seniors. If I do have a question to ask, or problem I would like to discuss, I wouldn't have any qualms to ask you.

However, I am aware that not everyone is as direct, even slightly confrontational at times, as myself.

During my previous semester, I had come up with a design for a box to package my clay model. This design was derived from those handphone packagings which come with those nice, suave graphics printed on the outside. This infamous box provided me and Alvin about roughly a couple of hours during certain days to flex our 'goalkeeping' muscles. And of course, it was this box design which caused Zelda to quote her much more infamous 'My face is worth millions!!!'.

Right.

It came as a sort of inner pride to have come up with a good box design: it worked well, was sturdy, relatively easy to cut out and fold, and it was just so solid by itself without any glue.

Then came the moment of surprise.

This same box came as the ice-breaker for me and Sabrina. Previously, Sabrina had looked upon me the same way you'd look upon a soiled child who smelled like something funny. Apparently, this change in behaviour towards me had only one obvious goal: to learn from me how to make my marvelous box.

I'd have to say that Sabrina had some balls to speak with me as I wasn't particularly impressed with her classroom antics, which would often make me do a running commentary:

(Dream-like): 'Ladies and gentlemen, if you would look on your right, this is the orang-utan enclosure, yes, listen to that din! Isn't it amazing how powerful their vocal tracts are?'


So since she was very nice and courteous, of course I'd have to return the favour by being nice in return and then demanded what the hell she wanted from me. I had smelt a rat by then.

So after a few tries to explain to her how my box design worked, I eventually dissected my box and showed her the inner calculations etc. i was very careful to give her only very sketchy ideas.

At the end of the day, no matter how hard she tried, her box still looked like shite, even though she had borrowed the idea from me. I have to say it made my box look even better without trying.

Yesterday one of my other classmates tried to copy my latest box design. This box design was intended for Melissa and myself to use as a packaging for our stool model, and since Melissa had disppeared for two weeks in a row, I had already finished the mock-up, and so I worked on the packaging.

The end result was pretty spectacular: it was even more sturdy than my previous box design due to it having a seperate cover and base.

What galls me the most is that the bugger tried to copy my design, and then skulked away while trying to look innocent after discovering that i had designed it. If you think about it, Sabrina had more dignity, but lesser ego to ask me directly, and showing me that she had intended to copy my design.

With this lousy bugger, all he is showing me is his ability to sneak off with ideas and hopefully gain an advantage over others. However, when he did show the box to his senior, I casually mentioned that two groups using the same box design would be very boring. I suppose they heard the warning in my voice:

'Stay away from my box design or I will pull your bloddy arms out!'

Not to mention this was the same idiot who said no one liked my music, and then switched over to his mandarin pop. With the bugger singing over it intentionally out-of-tune.

Yes, i am a sucker for theatrics. but that does not mean I will stand by and allow somebody to pull the carpet from under my feet.

There is a saying: if the americans invent something, the russians will steal the plans before it is finally unveiled, and announce it as their own. the next day, the japanese will have announced their improved version of it.

So people, remain original, and if it ain't good enough... work harder.


Cheers,

Crawldaddy