had meant to blog about this but have been kept busy by my production work, and my plain laziness. 
You know how all hostels, schools, offices etc are equiped with fire alarms to help keep us safe by reminding us to run faster ’cause there’s a burning inferno right behind us?
You know how nobody ever really cares about the fire drills (if the management actually conducts one in the first place) and just sits on their asses whenever there’s one, and reluctantly haul themselves out of the place 5 minutes later, happily puffing on cigarettes at the same time (probably to give a more realistic sense of the situation — suffocating in smoke) ?
You know how these alarms somehow always seem to go off for no stupid reason and irritates the hell out of you as you sit there wondering if there’s really a fire or just another false trigger?
On Friday night/Saturday morning, I was rudely shocked out of my skin when the dumb alarm right outside my door went off in an annoying siren at about 2am. Wasn’t asleep yet, but was equally annoyed. Stuck my head out and realized that people were actually moving out of the building!! At 2AM! In the cold!
Realizing that people here do give a damn about fire alarms, I put on my coat and went out to freeze in the snow. Well, you can never be too cautious, right?
All the time I was grumbling about it likely being a false alarm, then when I was out, the campus security patrol cars were parked right outside, like something really did happen. I was like: “o0okay…”
But then, few minutes later, the campus security people were like, “It’s okay guys. You can all go back now.”
50 disgruntled bleary-eyed people shuffled back into the building, mumbling and cursing.
1 hour later, the stupid alarm went off, again!
50 disgruntled bleary-eyed people got more disgruntled and shuffled out of the building. The cursing increased in intensity. All the while, I was marinating in more cigarette smoke.
Heard from a bunch of guys up on third floor that there really was smoke when they opened their door.
me thinking: “Crap. Please don’t tell me this is for real. It’s too cold outside.”
This went on for another ten minutes till the campus security patrol showed up again to check the situation out for us.
We stood outside and froze for a while more before they came out.
And asked: “Alright, which asshole played with the fire extinguisher?”
gargh! 
Morons!
No one cared.
Someone: “whoever did that is probably too drunk and still stuck inside the building.”
Many other people: “$*&@#(*^%$#*!!!”
50 cold and pissed-off people went back in, and thankfully, did not have to run out again. The alarm stayed silent, and that’s the way it should be. (unless there’s a real fire, of course, but that’s different).
March 27th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
I hate it when fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night. When I was staying in the hall, there used to be like 3-4 fire alarms every week, and sometimes twice or even 3X a night! Argh.. how annoying. It was even worse in winter nights. Damn those drunken devils!
March 28th, 2005 at 2:55 am
It is same here, sometimes the alarm is faulty, so it rang by itself and no one give a damn. Just open the room door and looked out of, then they went back in to continue their work.
There is one time, it was fire drill. I was the floor representative, so I was notified earlier that at this time, the alarm will ring, electricity will be off. There was indeed a real fire made up in girls block which is next to us and few. So, it really looked like real fire and evacuation. And my job is to draw people’s attention as there was a real fire and ask them to evacuate the hostel. Hohoho So, pity those in the bath room having shower, they have to leave with towel only. Some even carry their PC out, blanket and a big bag. After them they were all cursing there showing the middle finger and so on.
But the fire brigade really come and have some demonstration on how to extinguish fire with the fire extinguisher. I think the next time this thing happen, people won’t give a damn. But, this is bad if the fire really happen.
March 28th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
Eileen: yeah, standing in the cold isn’t fun. Not to mention I forgot my shoes n went out in my slippers the first time round. :s
surfnux: wah karangan panjang here haha…
Really pity u lah andi.. it’s tough being floor representative (or any other type of representatives for student hostels, heh). ppl give u the look: “c’mon, do we hav to do this?” when u really have no say anyway.
damn. it seems fire alarm is an essential feature in university hall life huh?
March 29th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
hohoho but it was fun being the floor representative. I inform my friends 1st, then tell them later u guys pretend ya like got real fire. haha and they all follow run away too like real. Kinda fun, but scared kena wack by some.