Will the real Man Utd please stand up?

Thank God the AC Milan-Man Utd Champions League semi-final was not played on Wednesday early morning. Otherwise, I probably would not have been able to take my last examination later that afternoon.

The 1pm Wednesday exam, for my level-2 economic sociology class, was horrible; but watching Liverpool putting Chelsea out earlier that day was the perfect mental tonic that prepped me up for it.

But make no mistakes about it. The Wednesday paper was bad -- as were my other 2 exams this time round as well.

I couldn't exactly explain in precise economic terms, the Asian financial crisis. It was really akin to reliving my A-level economics nightmare when I eventually got an E-grade for.

Watching Man Utd capitulate the way they did against AC Milan at the San Siro would have probably made things worse. Why on earth did Ronaldo, Rooney and Co. not appear on arguably the biggest club football stage, is an eternal question that probably would never be fully answered.

But it also goes to show my original point about the current Man Utd team. They might be good and top of the league now, but there is a huge part of that equation that involves Chelsea losing it.

Man Utd needs to strengthen their midfield. No matter what they say, especially after how Gattuso and Ambrosini destroyed the Red Devils, Scholes and Carrick would never do the same job as somebody like Keano or the two Milan defensive midfield destroyers.

I can only hope my results for this semester would be better than Man Utd's catastrophic meltdown last night.

By the time I roused myself to the task of studying for the examinations this time round, I was running short of time and had a biosemiotics essay, which was worth 30% for a non-examinable module, due last Saturday.

This was right smacked in between my first examination for my sociology of deviance class last Wednesday and my contemporary social theory class this past Monday, which also happened to be my 25th birthday.

It was so bad that I had a recurring nightmare, of me getting an F-grade for my sociology of deviance class because I didn't write my university matriculation number as clearly as I used to do on my answer booklet for the exam.

And to top the whole irony of the situation, I dreamt that I was accessing my results from the same computer terminal at the same internet cafe in Bangkok when I got news of my straight-A's semester last year, this time round as well -- which in reality would probably happen because I am going to be staying at the same place also.

In the nightmare, I remembered myself screaming in disgust because the F-grade probably meant I would not be able to proceed with my honours thesis, which would be why I am going to be in Bangkok later this month to do preliminary research for.

My sister said I am so paranoid this time round because I am unprepared for the examination. Even though it would really take a disaster for me to dip below the minimum-required score to work on a thesis in my final year, I am still bracing myself up for that massive blow.

I can only just hope and pray for favour from my professors marking my scripts and keep my fingers crossed. Sigh.