Short, Boring, Good

Today I didn't leave the house. I just stayed indoors, printed my résumé, ate some pancakes, started studying for my Bahasa Kebangsaan, and read stuff online. I'm writing this post early because I don't think anything interesting will happen in the evening, so I might as well get today's blog entry out of the way so that I'll have one less thing to do before my early bedtime (sometime between ten and twelve, hopefully).

I woke up at eleven so I got around nine hours of sleep. I wanted nine hours because yesterday I got eight hours and I still had to take a nap. I thought the extra hour would mean I wouldn't want to nap, but I still have the napping urge so I slept in for nothing, and now I'll have to figure out some way to kill the urge to nap or else I won't be tired enough for an early bedtime. I need to sleep early because I plan on waking up early so I can show up at 1 Tech Park for a walk-in interview and typing test and such.

Anyway, after I post this I'm going to do my exercises, and then I might re-install C&C Generals: Zero Hour or watch a movie or even play RuneScape if the internet connection holds out (it's been quite good today). That should keep me from falling asleep prematurely.

So yeah, nothing much to write about today, and it's actually quite nice.

Productive Day

So. Monday.

I woke up at ten-ish, got ready for the day, did a hundred sit-ups because I had forgotten to do them last night (I had remembered the push-ups, though, so I didn't have to do those). Took a shower, put on some nice clothes, went out with Hannah for McDonald's breakfast.

I parked in almost the shittiest way that it was possible to park while still allowing for traffic to continue flowing past. Hannah sprinted out to get to the counter before 11am rolled around and the lunch menu began. I didn't repark the car. This was a mistake.

The menus had been spun over even though it was technically 10:58am and thus still breakfast time. Anyway, we couldn't see what we were ordering so we screwed up our order. I paid for everything and Hannah took two ringgits off of me. She said that she had given me RM10 and wanted change, but I told her she hadn't. She kept arguing and insisting that I was lying until I finally convinced her to check her wallet and sure enough, there was the RM10 she hadn't given me for her meal. She's a weird kid.

Our food took a while to prepare. There were only two hash browns because we had fucked up the order. Ian and Jan showed up a while later. Jan ate from the lunch menu and Ian had two half-cups of hot milo and two sausage McMuffins with egg. Ideally we would have had a different order, but it's late and you don't care what we would have ordered so I'm not going to bother explaining it so I can go to bed sooner.

After breakfast we went back to our cars. The one Hannah and I were using had a summons on it for RM100 for parking illegally. None of the other cars parked around had one. I was pissed off.

When we arrived home, I called my dad and told him about the summons. He told me not to worry about it since it was from DBKL so he could get it settled for just RM10. He told me to be downstairs in ten minutes.

Hannah was kind enough to let me use her laptop to take my CC turns. She said I was so lame and nerdy but it was worth it; I've almost won one of them. Victory feels good. Anyway, I was in the lift right when my dad wanted me to be downstairs, but some guys were moving stuff down a floor and so I got a bit held up.

I met my dad downstairs and we drove to pick up lunch for him, then we went to 1 Tech Park for my walk-in interview. I gave Elo a call to ask which floor I was supposed to go to. She told me that it was the third, so I went to the third. A little later she texted me and told me that it was the second, but I had found someone on the third who could help anyway, so that was nice. Unfortunately I arrived right when everyone was having lunch. The lady I met (Shamini?) told me about the job and that I should come back on Wednesday with a proper résumé for the interview. She also told me that there would be a typing test and an English test, but I got HDs for both English subjects and I just scored 66 WPM (They want at least 25) on this test I found earlier, so I think I'll be fine.

After the interview we went to the Citibank near-ish to Ikea so my dad could pick up some cash, then we drove into the city to find the traffic police headquarters to pay for my first summons. It was non-negotiable, but I could pay with my ATM card, so that was convenient. After I paid, my dad reimbursed me for most of the fine, which I didn't think was fair but it is impolite to refuse a gift, so I accepted.

When we got home I had Hannah take some pictures of me so I could use one in my résumé, then I lazed about the house for a while, and then we left again so my dad could go to a meeting at four o'clock. I got Hannah to come along for company by promising her some chicken tenders from Burger King. While waiting for the lift I asked her if she had her wallet or her phone, and she said that she didn't because her phone wasn't charged. I told her to just run over and plug it in quickly for a few seconds so there would be enough juice for the short trip, but she didn't want to. Silly girl.

After we dropped my dad off for his meeting, I let Hannah buy the chicken tenders. I gave her RM10 and told her to get as much of the stuff as she could with the cash she had. I drove a few rounds without seeing her. She should have brought her phone, that way I could have called her and known where she was and known that she knew where Burger King was. Anyway, she got the tenders and gave me the change, which was only two ringgits. I couldn't believe that Burger King would charge so much for just six pieces of chicken, so I sent Hannah out to get the receipt. It really was RM7. You can get a meal for RM9. I asked Hannah why she didn't and she said she wasn't sure. She should have brought her phone, then she could've asked and we would have had fries and a drink, too. Silly girl.

After eating, we waited around for my dad and played the Platypus game. Hannah was being quite unimaginative so she got me to ask all the questions, but everything I could come up with was awkward and inappropriate. Anyway, I told her that I wouldn't reveal anything she said to anyone else or else she could slap me anywhere, any time, so I won't say anything here. It's not like I found out anything interesting anyway.

When we got back home, I hung out in Hannah's room for a while. She had promised to upload the pictures she had taken to Facebook at nine so I could get my résumé ready while my dad was still awake to help me, but she only got the pictures up at ten and the internet died shortly after that, so my dad said I could make the résumé tomorrow. I wanted to set aside tomorrow as the day when I started studying for my Bahasa Kebangsaan final, which is on Saturday, but now I guess I'll have to do that and my résumé. Oh well.

We had tasty fluffy pancakes for dinner, so that was nice. I had five of them or something, and each one was delicious. I also did my exercises quite early which means I can head straight for the shower after I'm done with this. Yay!

Huh, the connection died right when I tried to post this and all my tags were lost. Bad things seem to be happening to me with perfect timing lately. Oh well, at least I still had delicious pancakes.

I Was Supposed to Be Asleep Two Hours Ago

So I was supposed to sleep at 11 o'clock because my parents want me to get enough rest and apparently midnight is still too late, but then my dad changed his mind and said it was okay so long as I got enough rest. I plan to sleep at one-ish and I've set my alarm for ten.

Sunday was okay. My dad tried to wake me up early, but he failed, so I only woke up forty minute later. I had five minutes to get ready, but I managed. Had to go without my morning shower and shave, but I did get my lenses in, deodorant on, and lenses in, so that was okay.

We had dim sum for breakfast. I ate a lot of prawns. They were yummy.

The praise and worship slides were full of typos. Hannah and I had a good (or bad, depending on whether you were us or everyone else) laugh about that. Our mum later told us that the guy who made the slides was literally retarded, in the learning disability sort of way. I used to think it was okay to talk mean about him behind his back because he was just a normal dude who did stupid things, but now that I know he's actual got a reason for acting like he acts, it's a lot more depressing and I can't do that any more. Oh well, at least I've still got Jan.

I didn't have any gum, so I kept awake through the sermon by going through all the funny/interesting pictures that I have saved on my phone. I showed some to Ian, we had some laughs. Hannah, meanwhile, was blogging on her iPod. I bet I heard more of the sermon than she did. It was about apostasy. Throughout the sermon the children of the guy giving it kept staring at Hannah and I. There were nine of them. I pity their mum's hips. When we first arrived at church I pointed them out to Jan and he laughed because they were Indians and Jan is racist.

After service I sat at the top of the stairs and listened to music on my phone. I wish I would have bought it from Joanna earlier. It makes church so much more bearable. If I didn't have it I'd have to go socialize with people from the congregation and everyone at my church is pretty boring, except for maybe Clement and Evangeline, but Clement is usually talking about DotA or football and Eva is in Canada or something.

Anyway, after the tea break we went down for our Alpha Course. We got some new books which were quite okay except they tried too hard to appease the teen market. I would have preferred the normal version of the books; the youth versions are a little condescending. Anyway we watched another video lecture, and it was interesting and funny and good. Ian and I enjoyed it but Hannah hated it for some reason. She's a weird kid. Anyway, after that we had a discussion and then we went for lunch, and then we went home.

At home I used the internet and watched episodes of The Office that I had downloaded and hung out in Hannah's room. My dad made dinner. I heard he was making steaks, so I got all excited, but they turned out to be pork steaks. He wanted to know why Hannah and I looked so disappointed since he thought we didn't appreciate his meal, so we told him that the food was very good, it was just that we had been expecting beef steak, which is usually even better. It's like expecting gold and getting silver. You're still more glad than before, but not as glad as you could've been.

Anyway after that (or before it, I dunno) I showed Ian, Jan, and El-Hanan this infomercial to give them context for this parody, which made all of us laugh pretty hard. I got Hannah to watch them, too, but she didn't think they were funny. She's a weird kid.

Ian, Jan, and Hanan went to the gym at the KL Golf and Country Club and my parents went out somewhere for a while, so Hannah and I were left with the task of taking care of Susanna. Fortunately I had just pasted Aladdin and Hercules along with The Office and Mike Basset on the laptop that Jan was using (His computer was broken. He breaks a lot of things. The fan still isn't fixed, but Hannah had one in her room so we stole that to use instead.), so we let her watch the former while Hannah kept an eye on her and I took a nap in front of the TV. When I woke up, River Cottage was on. I would've called my dad, but I thought he was out.

Cracked updates at nine, so I got up and tried to use the internet. It wasn't working, so I got Ian to disable his, then I disabled mine, then I went to get Hannah to disable her but she kicked me and started yelling at me because even though her internet connection wasn't working she didn't want to turn it off so ours would work because... I can't actually remember. It was some shitty selfish reason that made no sense. She told me to turn of Jan's laptop instead.

I went to do that and found that it was already off, so I went to tell her. I knocked on her door but she had it locked, so I told her that Jan's laptop was already off. I assumed she had her headphones on so I had to raise my voice to make sure she heard. That's when my dad came by and started yelling at me for shouting, and forty minutes later Hannah had become embroiled in his lecture, which had branched out into all sorts of varied topics with me in centre before he finally ended by getting Hannah to disable her internet connection.

After she did that I went and checked and my internet connection was working, so I told my dad and Hannah that my plan had worked and we could all use our internet connection again. Hannah could have chosen to listen to me straight away and endure half a minute of a disabled internet connection that she wasn't even using anyway because it was broken, but instead she chose to yell at me and kick me and get lectured for forty minutes before finally doing what I told her to. She's a weird kid.

I started the torrents for Titanic (Amanda's recommendation) and Teenage Dream (Hannah's recommendation), and then I used Google to figure out where 1 Tech Park was so I could go for a walk-in interview on Monday.

I went on MSN to confirm with Elo that a picture I found was indeed the place with the call centre, and she replied in the affirmative. Then I noticed that an interesting guy was online, so I chatted with him for a while, then something lead to me looking up his sister online (I think he said something that I took as a challenge). She's pretty cool; cooler than him, probably.She writes a whole buttload of slash fic, though, and if you don't know what that is then you probably don't want to be browsing around that link too much.

After that I wrote this and after this I hope to do my exercises, take a shower, and be in bed before 2am.

So Redang Was Nice

I had a good holiday. It was really good timing; took my mind of the summonses and now I don't care that I had such a terrible day that day.

I'll try not to include too many descriptions and opinions in this post because firstly I don't want to spend all day on this and secondly because I want there to be stuff left to tell when people who read this blog (Ebony? Hannah?) ask me how the holiday was. Here goes:

We were supposed to leave at 2am on Tuesday, but we ended up driving off at 2:30am because we were tired and sluggish or something. We were taking two cars to get to Terrenganu: my dad's and my mum's. My dad's car had Hannah, my dad, and me; everyone else was in the other car. My dad drove most of the way. I started off by taking a nap while the Inception soundtrack played on my phone, then I woke up for a while and engaged my dad in conversation to keep him awake, then I took over for him for a while while he took a break, then we took a wrong turn which added an hour an a half to our journey because the signs were confusing, then I pulled over because Hannah's contact lens fell out of her eye because she was sleeping with it in, then I helped her get it safe, I drove while my dad napped (even though I still didn't have my license), then we swapped places again and I read some Greek mythology from a book we had brought along, then I napped again, then I woke up and we were at the docks at 8:45 and the boat was apparently leaving at nine.

I was going to rush to get ready for the boat trip, but my dad told me that he was mistaken and the boat was actually leaving at nine thirty, so I was able to take my time. While I was putting in my contact lenses, a kitten approached me and started bugging me. Just my luck that the only time I don't want to approach a new cat, it approaches me. I told Ian to restrain it, but he failed, and it knocked the lens out of my hand and onto its head. I retrieved the lens, rinsed it off, and carried on. After that I changed out of my shoes and long pants into shorts and sandals. I tried to approach the cat again, but when it noticed that I was interested, it decided to avoid me. Typical cat. I did my daily Bible reading instead. When I was done, I managed to get the kitten to stay put, and I gave it the attention it wanted when I was putting in my contacts. It reminded me of Cali.


Anyway, the boat arrived, so we gave the people our stuff and got on board. It was a fun ride over. I sat next to Hannah and shared the music from my phone with her. I also took some pictures.



When we arrived on Redang, we took our stuff to our rooms, then we went snorkelling around a very very large rock (or a rather small peninsula). We saw some tiny sharks and a turtle.

After that we had lunch. They had fresh, non-boiled vegetables, which I thought was great. The always-full bucket of delicious biscuits was still there, and so I helped myself to those. I also had some fried crab thingies that were tastier than I thought they would be. It was a nice lunch. Also there were these three kittens that hung around the canteen. They were all white and they had a white dad who was raising them. It was pretty cute.


When lunch was over, we had some time to kill before our first dive, so I turned on my music and took a nap in the shade. My parents told me that napping in the shade would still get me a tan. I was doubtful, but I went with it. They were telling the truth. Unfortunately, I hadn't put lotion on my legs, so they got a bit burned. Also I slept on my side for a while, so I ended up with a bit of an uneven tan.

Ian and I went on our first dive after that. It was a shore dive next to the rock where we had gone snorkelling around after we arrived. The preparation was a bit embarrassing, because even though we were certified divers, we hadn't dived in three years so we didn't know what went where or how to put anything on, so Stephen, the guy who was guiding us on the dive, had to help us out while making only the shallowest efforts to mask his annoyance.

The dive was nice. Ian and Stephen saw a very large trigger fish, which is quite a dangerous fish, apparently. I looked where they were pointing, but I didn't see it. We probably saw other interesting things, but I've forgotten. My dive log for that dive was "Had to re-learn how to wear equipment, had a good, trouble free dive. Saw lots of parrotfish, slugs, and anenomes [sic]. Everyone else saw a trigger fish but I didn't. Good, relaxed dive."

After that we swam around and played with the inflatable rafts or something. I can't really remember. I think I hung out with Hannah. We stopped when we got bored of the sea and said we were going to shower and have dinner.

I took a proper shower with soap and stuff (as opposed to just showers with freshwater so I'm not all salty and itchy after being in the sea), but while I was halfway through my dad said that there were some really big waves out that everyone was going to play in. I told him that I had already showered so they could go ahead without me, so they did. When my shower was done I went to watch them from a deck chair, then I fell asleep. When I woke up, they were all gone, so I went looking for them for a bit.

I found them and we had dinner. Every two days, the resort does a barbecue. The lamb was really, really good. The sweet potato was a little less so. I didn't eat enough lamb as I should have. Everyone else said the chicken was good, but I was too busy with the lamb to try any.

After dinner we went back to our rooms. Ian and I took turns using the computer to access the internet. I had the first turn, which I used to take my Conquer Club turns, then I let Ian have the computer while I napped, then I used the computer again to finish watching Sphere. It is a pretty awful film, which is a shame because the book is great. Anyway, after the movie I went to sleep. I slept well, even though the room was quite cold (the air conditioning was very effective and the sheets were tucked in very tight, so I didn't have slack which meant there was always space for the air to get under the covers).

The next day (Wednesday), I woke up, did my daily Bible reading, ate breakfast (Sausages and French toast; so delicious!), and then we went for a dive. This time it wasn't just Stephen, Ian, and I, though. There was also a European guy who had lived in Australia for a while and been on around one hundred fifty dives. That's a lot of dives. This time we took the boat out. The water was very choppy, so it was a fun ride. When we dived down, the first thing we saw was an eel. After that there were turtles. Then I realized I had fifty bars of air, so Stephen had me use his other regulator while we finished the dive and did the safety stop. I felt very incompetent. My entry for that dive was "Saw at least 3 turtles, an eel, some large fish and large slugs. Ran out of air early, had to use Stephen's air. Need to control breathing next time. Also saw a school of small barracudas".

After that we took the boat back, had a break of a little more than an hour, and then we were back on the boat for another dive. I ended it with 75 bars left in my tank, which is twenty-five over the minimum and more than Ian had left. The entry for that dive was "Managed to control breathing. Saw lots of anenomes [sic], two types of clownfish (orange & grey), felt strong current, had a generally calm and peaceful time."

When we got back we had lunch. I don't think there was much great food for lunch, so I just ate a lot of vegetables and biscuits. We filled in our logs and filled in our logs, and then it was time for another dive.

We had been to this particular dive site three years ago, and according to my log I had seen some barracudas before I had to surface early. This time around was a lot more interesting. I thought I saw a weird donut-shaped coral, but it turned out to be a tire. I tried to carry it out, but something pricked my finger. I wanted to see if it was something venomous or just a cut, so I squeezed my finger and green stuff came out. I showed it to Ian, but he didn't care. I later found out that blood is green underwater. That's pretty cool. Anyway, after that we saw a bunch of rays. Here's the log: "Saw 3 rays. 1 tail, one in some sand but very visible, one orange & purple & small. Saw large school of medium sized fish. Very, very, big waves. Also saw someone hold a starfish." The waves were indeed very big. I was checking my gauges during the safety stop, and every time a wave would pass overhead, it would go from registering 5 metres of depth to 6 metres of depth. Stephen joked that we may have to cancel dives the next day.

After getting back and storing my equipment, I went to the pier with Hannah, Ian, Jan, and my mum. The pier was new. It floated on the surface instead of being built on stilts or something, so it was unstable and very fun to walk on. We tried jumping into waves as they passed, with limited success. We also tried testing our balance on the edges. It was a good time.

When that was over, we went to play in the waves. The rest of the family was already there, actually, but Jan and I had stayed for longer on the pier, so we were the last to arrive. Along the way to the part of the beach with the biggest waves, I passed an attractive tourist who looked like she was around my age. She was building a sand castle. I wanted to talk to her, but everyone was waiting for me at the waves, so I joined them for that. When I got bored with the waves, I tried swimming over to where she was. Just as I was leaving the water to go strike up a conversation, she ran off into the sea to play in the waves with her parents, so I went back to join my own family. The waves were big and fun, but they broke my watch strap. Oh well, I fixed it (kinda) a few hours ago.

After the waves, I took a proper shower. It was nice. After the shower I went to check what was for dinner, but there was nothing outstanding, so we went to a restaurant nearby to eat instead. I had a grilled lamb chop, which in hindsight was not such a great choice since there was going to be limitless lamb the next night. Half of the lamb I got was overdone and not that tasty, too. The fries were great, though. I should have had the fish and chips, probably.

When dinner was over we got some ice cream, and then Ian went to the room to use the internet while Jan and I dug some holes under Hannah's supervision. Hannah eventually left, but we kept digging. Jan's hole ended up going halfway up his thighs. Mine was a lot wider, but it only went up to my knees. We built a wall around Jan's hole so it would look deeper, and then I added a ramp, and then I noticed that it kind of looked like the front end of a sperm, so we added a wriggly tail and soon it was done and it looked really great. My dad came by with a torchlight which meant that we could take some pictures. We were quite sweaty from all the digging, so we needed another shower afterwards. It was worth it, though, the sand-sperm looked great. Jan lost his spade, though.


After showering, I used the computer to read a bunch of Cracked articles and take my Conquer Club turns, and then I went to bed.

When I woke up it was Thursday and we had another diving trip to go on. Jan and Hannah had done enough of their course that they were ready to go on a boat dive, and my mum and dad were done with their shore dives and wanted to do a boat dive, so we all went together after breakfast and stuff.

We didn't see anything really interesting on the dive. We had rented an underwater camera, though, so Ian and my dad took some pictures. Ian kept swimming off without me, which was not cool since he was my buddy and buddies are supposed to stick together. Also, he was supposed to stick with Jan and Hannah's diving instructor, Chris, since she was the one who would know what to do if something went wrong. Anyway, our dive finished when Jan and Hannah dipped under the 50 bar limit. My entry for the dive was "First dive with family. My buddy kept straying. Didn't see anything interesting aside from angel fish and big rocks."

After that we had a break, and then another dive. This second dive was much better. Hannah was my buddy this time, so I didn't have to worry when Ian went swimming off on his own. I saw loads of gross worm-like things on corals and pointed them out at Jan so he could share my disgust. At one point I swam above Hannah and watched as she looked around for me for a few panicky moments before I finally descended with my face right in front of hers. That was funny. We also saw a huge stingray. I was behind it, so I got real close to its tail so some nice pictures could be taken. Apparently it was the same type of sting ray that killed Steve Irwin. Huh. Anyway, here's what my log said: "Saw lots of nice coral, lots of worm-type things on a volcano shaped coral, saw and got close to big-ish stingray, saw small blue-spotted ray, (orange & purple), Had wee bit of buoyancy trouble throughout dive. Second dive with family."


After that I took a shower, then I had lunch, then I went into the sun to get a tan. My plan was to listen to the soundtrack of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog while I tanned my back, and then when that was over I'd flip over and listen to random songs while I tanned my front. When I was ten minutes from completion, my dad told me that I would burn and that I should join him on the pier to feed some fish. I told him that I had put plenty of lotion on so I'd be fine, and even if I did join him on the dock it's just as sunny there so I'd get just as burned. He finally left me, but then I realized that he was the one paying for the vacation so I might as well do what he says, so I went to join him on the pier. I aired my grievances and he let me finish my tan, so I did. When the last song on the soundtrack was forty-five seconds from finishing, Ian came by and tried to tell me something, but I told him to just wait for another half-minute or so. When I was done I looked around, but he was gone.

I found Ian and asked him what he wanted to tell me and he said that everyone was going snorkelling around the big rock/small peninsula. I told him that I'd just climb along the side and watch them, since I was getting bored of the sea. Right around then my dad came by and said that we were going to build a bonfire that night so we had to go with him to get some sticks. He said it would only take twenty minutes.

Ian, Jan, and I went with my dad to go get some firewood. We saw a pretty big monitor lizard along the way. I took a few pictures of it. It looked quite prehistoric; it was pretty awesome. Anyway, we brought back the sticks and our twenty minutes were up, so we wanted to go to the rock, but my dad said we had to dig a pit and break up the sticks and stuff. Once that was done someone from the resort came by and told us that we weren't allowed to burn stuff on the beach, so we had just wasted three quarters of an hour.


We finally got to go around the rock. I climbed around the side while the rest of the family (except my dad) snorkelled. Eventually I reached a point where I couldn't keep going, so I just jumped in the water and swam. A little while after I got in the sea, I saw a huge school of fish jumping through the water towards me. They stopped jumping before I could get close, though.

I met up with the others and helped push Susanna back to shore on her inflatable mattress. While I was doing that I saw a stunt plane doing stunts. It was pretty dang awesome. I kept imagining it crashing even though I didn't want it to. Fortunately, it didn't.

When we got to shore, Hannah told me about all the small reef sharks she had seen earlier (six at once!) so I told her that I'd go get my snorkel and join her to just look at the sharks. I did and we did until the sun set. In addition to seeing loads of little sharks (The most I saw at once was three), we also saw a tiny eel, and a bigger shark that was just a bit smaller than Susanna.

While the sun was setting, I took another shower. I had dinner in the resort's canteen since it was barbecue night. I had a lot of lamb. It was all delicious. I also tried some chicken. It was also delicious. After dinner we went to the restaurant for some fries to snack on. They were also delicious.

When we got back to our rooms I did a bit of packing, read a bit of Cracked, took some Conquer Club turns, and then I went to sleep. I had a nice sleep. While the rest of us were sleeping, my dad went out and lit the bonfire. Fortunately he didn't end up burning the resort down, so everything was fine.

I woke up at around seven on Friday. My dad had gone with Hannah to snorkel with the sharks. I had breakfast and did my daily Bible reading, finished up with my packing, and then went to try and finish tanning my front. Unfortunately, the sun was behind a cloud for the whole half hour that I was trying to get tanned. It was practically the only cloud in the sky, too. Oh well.

We went back with a different boat than the one we had arrived in. It was a lot more comfortable, but it wasn't as open as the other one so I couldn't take as cool pictures. Anyway, I listened to my music and before I knew it we were back on the mainland.


The contact lens kitten, Sammy Jenkins (Hannah and I first named him Lenny because of the contact lens that fell on his head, then we called him Lenny Jenkins because Jenkins is a good last name for someone named Lenny, then we called him Sammy Jenkins because Sammy is a better first name for someone name Jenkins), was still there. I gave him some more attention, and then we had to leave.

On the drive back, I took some naps and finished the book of Greek myths. We made a few stops and bought some snacks. Hannah's contact lens fell out again, but this time she just let it dry out because she didn't care. We pulled up at the McDonald's near Genting for lunch. We placed our order just a few minutes before the lunch discount expired. I almost finished the Adrian Mole book I was reading, but I had to stop with just a few pages left. When we were almost home, we dropped by Lucky Gardens to pick up my new license. It's a full license and it'll last for the next five years. Nice.

I didn't have time to unpack when I got home because my dad had a meeting to go to and I had to drive him there. I gathered up that day's newspaper, the Adrian Mole book that I was almost done with, and all the Star Two newspapers from Tuesday to Friday so I could read them while waiting for my dad.

I finished reading the Adrian Mole book. He's less of a twat in 1992 than when he began. I also learned from the newspaper that Malaysia had done something to rile up some Indonesians and now they were throwing faeces at the embassy in Jakarta. That was amusing. My dad's meeting finished and he took the papers as I drove him back.

When I got back home, I unpacked and then went on the computer. I spent a long time on it since there was a lot to catch up on.

My dad wanted to go for dinner because he was suffering from pork withdrawal. Jan, he, and I went to Sin Kee's for dinner. It was a bit of a hassle to find parking because of how busy the road was, but we managed. The chicken chop was yummy, as expected.

Back home I went on the computer for a long while, then I watched the TV and did my exercises for a while, then I took a nap, then I took a shower, then I went to bed at around 2:30am. I couldn't sleep because of how hot it was because the fan was still broken, so eventually I went outside and slept on the couch under the ceiling fan. I woke up at seven and went back into my room to sleep since the air-conditioning had cooled it down a bit.

Aunty Rosie came in and turned everything off and so I woke up an hour later because it was too hot. Then I tried to see if Hannah loves Audrey more than Stefanie and Saundra, but she proved that she cares for them an equal amount, and that amount is more than the amount she cares for abused children in Thailand and stuff.

Anyway, I spent the rest of today catching up on my friends' blog posts and writing this blog post. It only took me three hours to write this. I am pleased. Hannah, tell me my typos and stuff once you're done reading this.

Oh yeah, it was my mum's birthday yesterday, so to celebrate we're having breakfast for dinner today. All that bacon ought to satisfy my dad's pork cravings.

Jan Broke the Fan so I Cleaned Up My Desk

After writing yesterday's post, I went to see what the girls were doing. They had started watching Cloverfield, which was good, and also Hannah had waxed her legs, which was good. That meant that Hannah had finally done what she said she would and so I wouldn't be asking her to pay for half of the first summons, which was good because I didn't want to anger her by taking her money. Anyway, they said my mum said we could eat downstairs at Restaurant Emas for dinner, so I went with them.

At the restaurant, I ordered some deep-fried squid. It was one of the first foods to arrive, but there weren't many squids left so I only got a half-portion. Mr Wong, the restaurant owner, said that I was allowed to eat it for free on the condition that I didn't share it with anyone. When he left the table everyone wanted to have a piece. I told them no, because I want free squids. Since the squids were free, I ordered some fries.

My dad came downstairs and lectured us for what seemed like an hour. He didn't really have a point, he just covered as much ground as he could on topics as diverse as food wastage, electricity bills, and domestic felicity. It was only when we told him that Ruben and Stefanie hadn't done anything to deserve a lecture and they only had an hour left with us before they left for good that he allowed us to go.

I took Ruben and Jan to the roof since Ruben had missed his chance to go last time. Jan was initially reluctant to go to the roof, but since he had nothing else to offer Ruben in their remaining hour together, he came along anyway. While Ruben was climbing up the second ladder to the very top of the building, Stefanie and Hannah showed up under the first ladder wanting to join us. I knew then that there was no way they were going to finish Cloverfield before Stefanie left, but whatever. I told them to go get a rope for the hatch before they came up.

I climbed up after Ruben, and then it was Jan's turn. As Jan was climbing down, some kind of generator nearby turned on and the hum scared me. When Jan was done, Stefanie wanted to climb next, but I was opposed to the idea. I didn't want girls climbing up because I was scared they'd get scared and get hurt. Even Amanda only went halfway. Stef and Hannah climbed anyway, and they got down fine.

Ruben was the last person to get back in the building, so it was up to him to close the hatch. It took him a while to figure out the right technique with the rope, but he got it to come down eventually, and when he did it was very loud.

I went back on the computer and after a while Stefanie came up from behind and asked for a hug since she was going. I gave her a hug and said goodbye to her and Ruben, and then I went back to reading about 6 Movie Heroes Who Actually Made Things Worse.

After a while I guess I went to bed or something, and then I was woken up by my dad half an hour before my alarm was set to go off. He turned off the air-conditioning and the fan, so I got up, unset the alarm, and went to do my daily Bible reading. When I was done with that I took a nap until ten-ish. When I woke up again, I went to walk up the stairs, then I took a shower and got ready for the day, then I went with Ian to get some stuff done.

Our first stop was Lucky Gardens to get some new photos taken for my license, and then a short walk away to drop off the photos, some money, and the license for renewal. As I was getting my picture taken I was wishing I would have gotten my hair cut first, but it didn't turn out terrible so whatever. Ian ate breakfast while I went to get RM200 for my license and some spending money. I figure the best way not to get worked up about RM600 in summonses is to stop caring about money altogether, so it really doesn't matter if I exceed my float since by the end of this my float's only going to be RM150. Well, RM100 now. Anyway I turned in all the stuff necessary for license renewal and the lady said that my license would be ready in two to three days.

After we were done in Lucky Gardens, we went to Pusat Bandar Damansara to pick up my transcripts from HELP, and also to eat lunch at McDonald's. Ian was impressed by my 5.54 GPA until he figured out that it was out of seven, not out of four. I average a credit. That's disappointing. McDonald's was less disappointing. I had a large McNuggets meal with rather lousy nuggets but two large packs of really large fries. Also Ian wanted a sundae, so I got him a lime one and when it turned out that he wanted chocolate instead because he thinks lime tastes like hand soap, I got to keep it. I still had to pay for it, though.

When we got home, the fan was broken. I asked Jan if he broke it but he said that even though nobody but him was in the room (not even the cats), he was not the one who broke it. I was unaware we had poltergeists in our room. Anyway, I got him to give me the small fan that he had been using to cool his computer. His computer was broken, anyway, so the fan wasn't doing it any good.

I started clearing space on my desk to fit the fan, but once I started tidying up I couldn't stop until I had done a proper job, and before I knew it I had cleaned up the mess that had been on my desk since the day after it was assembled many years ago. I managed to move all my miscellaneous papers and stuff out of one of my drawers and into a box I found outside. I used the now-empty drawer to move all my papers from my time in HELP into. There was a lot to move.

After that I watched Hercules, which was really good. I liked it more than Aladdin. Hannah accused me of being so lame because I cried twice during Hercules, but it wasn't real crying, it was just tearing up during the happiest bits. She's one to talk, anyway. She was having a full-blown sob attack last night after Stefanie and Ruben left. She still has Ruben's hat.

When I was fifteen minutes away from finishing Hercules, my dad called me out to go for a hair cut. We originally went to Bangsar Village, but the hair dresser there cost RM15 for a cut and he didn't have a picture of the style I wanted. My dad told me to go drive the car around and pick him up while he bought some stuff. Fortunately, I did not get a third summons, so I was okay.

We went to the Lucky Gardens barber and I got a nice hair cut. I also got a complimentary massage from this bulky massage machine they have. Sometimes I'll get that when I go for a hair cut, sometimes I won't. It's weird. Oh well.

When I got back home, I watched five more minutes of Hercules before being called away by my maid to help my dad and Hannah patch up some inflatable boats (Rafts? Dinghies? One of them is a floating mattress) that we've had for over a decade. After the boats were inflated I had dinner, which was yummy, and then I finished Hercules while Hannah and Jan went swimming to test the hull integrity of our watercraft.

I started packing. Thanks to the recent reorganization of my desk, I was able to swiftly locate the bits of PADI equipment that I'd need (Dive planner, instruction booklet for dive planner, and my dive log). My dive log lacked a picture, so I took one of the copies from this morning and went to Hannah to borrow some glue.

After sticking on the picture, I read through the dive log for Hannah. I've made five dives so far and clocked a total of three and a half hours underwater. The entries for the five dives were quite short: "Saw some rubbish: Tyre, pipe, box. Saw some clownfish and a blue ring angel" was the first entry, made on June 20th, 2007. I told Hannah that I had probably meant to say I saw a angel fish and not an actual angel, but who knows. The second entry was "Saw great barracuda, surfaced early due to air wastage caused by overworking arms." The third entry was "Jenking ray, blue spotted sting ray, lionfish, puffer fish all were seen. Also of school of baby barracudas." I remember being told after the dive that the Jenking Ray was the same type of ray that had killed Steve Irwin. One of the guys on our dive had grabbed it by its tail and dragged it out from under its hiding spot to show us how big it was. It was really big. Anyway, the third entry read "Saw stingray tail, had a little difficulty staying neutrally bouyant [sic]." I had to explain to Hannah what neutrally buoyant meant. The fifth and final entry was "Saw porcupine fish, GIANT sea cucumber". Hannah wanted to know why I emphasized the "giant", and I told her that it was probably because it was a really, really big sea cucumber. I don't remember it, though, so it can't have been that big.

I then finished my personal packing and I had back on the computer for a while when Ian told me that him and Jan were moving stuff down to the car, so I tried to help them. I found that there was still space in my luggage, so I picked up one of my dad's bags to fit in so we'd have one less thing to carry. As I was entering the room, the door hit Jan, who told me to "watch it." I overreacted by yelling at him that I had no way of knowing that he was on the other side of the door, and he overreacted by kicking me repeatedly. I get really pissed off when people hit me for no good reason (the only good reason, I think, is if I've hit them first, which is the one thing I don't do. I'll yell at people for little to no reason, I'll get angry over things that happened months ago, I'll stubbornly cling to an argument long after another person's lost interest, but I'll never hit a person unless they've hit me first), and so I got very very upset with Jan very, very quickly. I lost my temper and we got in a fight, so my mum woke up and intervened. I probably would have won if she hadn't; I was about to grapple Jan into a chair.

Moments after my mum calmed things down, Hannah and my dad got home. My mum made us sit around the table and we all got lectured for what felt like an hour, and in the end it was decided that my new bedtime is midnight or earlier because sleep is important. Fine.

After that I wrote this, and after I post this I'm going to do my exercise and take a nap because we're leaving for Terrenganu at 2am. At least my expired license means I don't have to drive.

Saturday Was Shit for Jan, Sunday Was Worse for Me

Yesterday was Awards Day. It reminded me why I quit BB. I'm still glad I did, and I still wish I would have left earlier. There is no point to it if I have no friends. I was the only regularly attending person in my age group for, like, three years. There still aren't any 18-year-olds in 10th KL.

Anyway, we (my mum, Hannah, and me) started off by having breakfast in McDonald's, which was nice. After that we picked up El-Hanan and Joel, then we drove over to FGA. Along the way my mother revealed that she was a racist (or at the very least, a bit of a bigot. I thought the Dutch were supposed to be tolerant) and that she thought Obama was a Muslim. Her proof was that she had friends who knew people in America with "inside sources" in the White House. Mmhmm. She also says that he was raised in Indonesia, which is a Muslim country, therefore he's Muslim. Isn't Malaysia a Muslim country? Does that make me a Muslim? Whatever, she's my mum and thus I love and respect her despite her ignorance.

Awards Day itself was pretty boring. I slept through the Junior Section awards. The performances were lousy to mediocre, except for the dancing which was quite good but they weren't on the stage so only the people in the front row could see what was going on in full. Ian got promoted to an officer, and Jan got nothing. Now he knows how I felt. At least nobody less worthy than him got promoted, though. I watched Victor get promoted to corporal over me last year. I encouraged Jan to quit, but he's probably going to stay as long as Cherie's still in 10th KL.

I drove Hannah back home. I still had my sunglasses. They were gone the next day.

I watched a movie on my computer. Maybe not. Whatever, I was either napping or watching TV or on the computer until six, then we went for McDonald's. I spent the last of my money (except for RM10 so I could afford my RM5 tithes for the next two Sundays) on my meal. Hannah said she would pay for half of my meal, but she changed her mind and only gave me RM3. It was good enough for a lime sundae.

When we got home Hannah said she'd watch one of my movies if I watched Peacock, so I did, but she didn't. Peacock had Ellen Page and Cillian Murphy and I don't even know why I'm still listing names. It's a habit I'll break by watching a movie without any Inception actors next. Hope that works.

Anyway I got annoyed with her and decided to bug her, but she grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threatened to stab me, so I dropped the subject and took a nap. When I woke up, it was 2am. I watched the first episode of The Office (UK). It's great. Martin Freeman's in it. He's Watson in Sherlock. That's great, too.

I went to bed at 4:45.

Aunty Rosie tried to wake us up the next morning, but we weren't going to church since we had to pick up the Tans so we told her we didn't need to wake up. She turned off the air conditioning anyway.

At 10am Hannah came in and told us we had one hour to get ready before we had to go pick up the Tans. I told her that I didn't want to drive so Ian would have to take them. I told Ian that he had to wake up but he didn't listen, so I got out of bed and got ready to drive. Ian and Jan took their showers while I was reading the Bible, and Ian was still in the shower when I was done, so I went on the computer for a bit.

When Ian was done with the bathroom, I took my shower and put in my contacts and shaved and deodorized and such, and soon I was done and ready to go. I told Hannah and Jan, but they were taking their time in the living room or something, so I transferred some songs from my computer onto my phone. Hannah started panicking because she thought we were going to be late, so I finished up and went downstairs with them. It was 11:30 and the Tans were supposed to land at 12:30.

When we were in the lift I realized that I didn't have my sunglasses, so I went up to look for them but they weren't on their usual place on my desk. Hannah gave me a call while I was looking around for them. She was insisting that we didn't have time and we were in a rush and stuff, so I decided not to look for them any more and went downstairs. I was hoping to find them in the car, but they weren't there.

Along the way to the LCCT, I asked Jan and Hannah why they came along if they were just going to listen to music and ignore me anyway. I told them they should've just stayed at home so there would be more space for Uncle Elisha and stuff. They said that Ruben and Stefanie were their friends so of course they wanted to come. I told them that if that they should have just driven and left me at home. Hannah and Jan said they couldn't drive, and I said that I couldn't either since my driving license had expired at midnight, twelve hours ago. I told them that I'd probably encounter a police roadblock or something and get fined since I've never been pulled over before and I was bound to get pulled over the one day that I was using an expired license since life is shit like that. Hannah didn't hear anything I said because she was too busy listening to her music, but Jan heard me.

Anyway, I told Hannah and Jan that I'd take the fast lane there since Hannah was insisting that we were in such a rush. I told Jan that his job was to check behind us to make sure that nobody wanted to overtake us. I got a random text from Audrey for no reason and I asked Jan to read it. It just said "Hi". Then Jan started telling us about a dream he had where I took a turn too fast and killed everyone in the car. While he was recalling this dream to us, we were approaching a speed trap, but I didn't notice the cop with a radar gun until it was too late to slow down. I saw a flash which meant that a picture was taken and now my dad was going to get a summons for his car and I was going to have to pay it. I blamed Hannah for rushing me and Jan for distracting me with his dream.

I kept asking Hannah to call Stefanie to check if they had landed yet, but she wasn't getting any reply. When we were getting close to the LCCT there were a whole bunch of traffic lights that were all red, so any time we saved speeding was wasted at the lights, so we could have not sped and arrived at the exact same time and not received a summons. Stupid.

The traffic light right in front of the LCCT had a broken green light, so I was waiting at the junction for a long while before I figured out that I could go forward when all the lights were off. It was the opposite problem that the traffic lights outside Bangsar Shopping centre had, where the red light was broken and so you had to stay put when all the lights were off. The first time I encountered that I assumed off meant go and my motorcycle and me were almost destroyed by oncoming traffic with that mistake.

Anyway, we pulled up in front of the arrivals area, but there was no sign of the Tans. I called my dad and told him about the speed trap and he said that I could split the fine with Hannah. We waited for half an hour before we got a call from them. I got more and more annoyed for every minute that passed because it made my prior speeding more and more pointless and the summons more and more aggravating. Anyway, when they finally called it took them ages to figure out where we were even though they were right in front of us and I was sounding the horn to try and get them to look in our direction.

When Stefanie and Ruben got in the car we found out that Uncle Elisha wasn't even coming since he had a friend who was going to pick him up, so the whole drive over was pointless because they could have just gone with Uncle Elisha's friend back to Puchong and have us pick them up from there later. That way we could have saved petrol, slept in, and avoided the bloody summons.

On the way back we had Ikea hot dogs. This time there were onions, at least, so that was nice.

When we were coming back home from lunch, there was a police checkpoint near the golf and country club where I had never seen a police checkpoint. Of course Ruben and Stefanie weren't wearing their seatbelts. Nobody ever does. I don't understand it. It's such a simple bloody thing to do and it saves lives and prevents fines and it just takes five seconds but nobody in this bloody country bloody bothers. Anyway it didn't matter because I was being pulled over for speeding.

The officer asked for my license and pointed out to me that it had expired last night. He asked me how fast I was going and I told him I didn't know since I didn't know where they had measured my speed and if I had been keeping my eye on the speedometer I wouldn't be in that mess in the first place. The only reason my eye wasn't on the speedometer was because Stefanie was going on about Vampires Suck and I was getting upset that people were actually watching that bloody idiotic piece of cinematic excrement. It's a shit excuse for speeding, though, so when the officer asked if I was going to pay I told him that I was. I asked him how much it was and he said RM300. I asked him where I could pay and he said that they have offices all over the place. I asked him what the deadline was and he said I had one month. I asked him how fast I was going and where they had caught me and he said that I was going 108km/h in either a 60km/h or 80km/h zone, and also they had their speed trap under the overpass from the Golf and Country Club. All throughout my conversation he kept asking me if I was going to pay for the summons or not. I think he was implying that I had a choice (bribery), but I didn't bribe him because I don't want to contribute to this country's corruption problem, and more importantly because I didn't have enough money on my person for a decent bribe.

When I got back in the car, Jan asked me why I didn't just drive off when they asked me to pull over, which really goes to show what kind of a person Jan is (a rather stupid, morally bankrupt one).

I stopped by Lucky Gardens to drop off my license at the driving centre so I could get it renewed. It was closed, so I gave the lady who ran it a call, and she said that I should drop by with RM160 and an appropriate photograph so that I could get my full license and I wouldn't have to renew it for another five years.

I went back home and complained to my dad about everything that happened. Ian came in and told me that everything was my fault, which was true, but it wasn't helpful. My dad took me for a drive to try to calm me down. He asked me to imagine the worst-case scenario, which was that Hannah wouldn't want to split the first summons, so I'd have to pay RM300 for that on top of the RM300 for the second license, and also that my dad wouldn't pay for the license renewal so I'd be out RM760, which was RM10 more than I had in my bank account. My dad said that he would pay for the license, so at the very least I'd still have RM150 left in my bank. He also told me that my mum got in an accident a while back that cost him RM2000, which put things in perspective for me and that got me to calm down a bit. He also told me that Hannah was even worse off than me financially and that his suggestion that we split the fine was just that, a suggestion, so I couldn't count on it happening.

He dropped me off at home and went to go play some golf. I told Hannah that she wouldn't have to pay for her half of the fine as long as she finally did the things she had said she was going to do anyway, which was basically to watch Cloverfield and a bunch of other movies and also to use up a box of wax strips that we had lying around. The reasons why she had agreed to do that in the first place didn't really matter to me, it was more the fact that she had said to me that she would do those things but never did, even though I did everything she asked me to do and stuff. So she's supposed to watch Cloverfield after she goes swimming, but I think she'll find some excuse not to and she'll still get away with not paying for the fine. If she doesn't do that, then I'll be pleasantly surprised. If she does, then I won't do anything for her any more, especially things that involve driving. My license is expired anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to HELP to get my transcripts, then I'm going upstairs to Pusat Bandar Damansara to get some correctly-sized photographs for my license, then I'm going to the driving centre to drop off my license, the photos, and my dad's money, then when we get back from Redang I'm going to collect my license, then I'm going to the JPJ to settle the two summonses, then a week after that I'm going to call about my new IC, then when that's ready I'm going to go collect it, integrate my driver's license and ATM card into it, and finally I'm going to activate its Touch 'n Go and get some credit in it.

This post in a nutshell: Last year I didn't get promoted because I probably didn't deserve it even though someone who deserved it less got promoted over me, so I quit; this year Jan didn't get promoted because of some bullshit because he deserved it but at least he knows how I felt, but he's not quitting because his girlfriend is still in; also I got two summonses today because it didn't occur to Ruben and Stefanie that they could've carpooled with their dad and so I'm going to be RM600 poorer; also I've got to face a lot of bureaucracy in the next two weeks.

Tugasan

Today I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 8:15, but by then it was too late to do what I wanted to do so I turned it off and went back to sleep. It had gone off six times and I had slept through the first five. I think it's time to retire "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" as my alarm. Back to "I Feel Fantastic", I guess.

I woke up for real at eleven. I did my daily Bible reading, climbed the stairs, communicated with some people on Facebook, and took a shower. I left for class early so that I could study for my Tugasan.

I arrived at two o'clock and tasked myself with memorizing a bunch of words. Once that was done, I read some more Adrian Mole. He's 24 now and a real twat. I've pretty much lost sympathy for the guy. Still it's a funny, well-written book, but now I see that maybe Jared was insulting me when he said I reminded him of Mole.

Anyway, class started and we learned some stuff, then we had a break and we did our Tugasan. I was hoping for a 7/10 but I think I'll end up with a 6.5.

There was a huge jam along the way back. Turns out the traffic lights in the junction outside Bangsar Shopping Centre weren't working. There weren't any traffic cops when I got there either. I didn't want to risk crossing through the traffic alone, so I followed behind another car that moved in for the turn when a bunch of pedestrians started crossing and forced the cars on the other side to slow down. I hope they get those lights fixed soon.

When I got home, Aunty Rosie was cooking fish and chips. Dinner was delicious. I love it when Aunty Rosie cooks Western food.

I told Hannah I'd watch 10 Things I Hate About You if she watched the trailers for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. She did, so I did. 10 Things I Hate About You is a great movie. I would list the actors' names and the other movies they've been in and how all the movies I've been watching lately seem to be connected, but that's going to get old after a while. Whatever. It had Juno's stepmother, Arthur, and The Joker in it. Also I recognized the dad from somewhere but I can't remember where. Also the soundtrack was fantastic. Great movie.

Tomorrow is Ian and Jan's Awards Day. I'm glad I'm not in BB any more. So much responsibilities avoided. It's just work and stress and wasted time for no reward, anyway.

Naps and a Goodbye

I had planned to study on Thursday but I only really need to memorize a few words so I guess I'll wait 'till Friday morning for that.

Aunty Rosie woke me this morning. I was lying on the couch in my day clothes. I realized that I had never actually woken up from my nap last night, so I still had exercises to do and a shower to take. I decided to nap some more.

After a while the room got too hot because someone had turned off the air conditioning and fans, so I went outside and slept on the couch there. I slept for a long while, and then I finally woke up to start my day by reading the Bible.

When I was done with that, I went on the computer for a while to check if my movies had downloaded. They had, and so now I had Batman Begins and Sphere on my computer. Hannah was on the couch reading my old blog posts and she kept finding typos, so I used my computer to go fix them. Once that was over I was about to start watching one of my recently downloaded movies when my dad called me out and told me he had another meeting, so I was going to have to drive him around again.

I had a time limit now, so I quickly did the exercises I had neglected to do the night before, and then I took a shower and got ready. After that I drove my dad to his meeting, and then I went to Ikea to pick up some more hot dogs. The hot dogs were okay, but they didn't have any onions, so I was back to eating them plain. I only had fifteen minutes to get everything done since I had parked in a temporary spot, but I still had a couple minutes after I was done eating, which I used to get an ice cream, which I ate on the way back to my dad's meeting.

There was still plenty of time left, so I listened to some songs on my phone while waiting. At one point my dad walked out of the building and tried to call me, and when I picked up I told him to look to his left, but he still didn't see me. He finally noticed when I sounded the horn, and he told me there was about ten minutes left, so I just listened to more music while browsing through the massive collection of funny and interesting pictures I had saved to my computer from the internet and from there transferred them from my computer to my phone.

After my dad's meeting was done we went home and I watched Batman Begins. Ken Watanabe was in it, as was Cillian Murphy as the main bad guy. Michael Caine is in it, and also The Dark Knight and Inception. Liam Neeson was in it but he's not in Inception, he's just awesome. Anyway it was a really good movie and I'm glad I watched it for the second time.

When the movie was half a minute from finishing, Hannah came in the room and started to annoy me. I ignored her but she did not notice that I was ignoring her on purpose, so she came and started tapping my shoulder. I told her that there was just half a minute left and I brought up the information bar to prove it, but when the movie was over and I turned around, she was gone. She has terrible timing.

I found Hannah in her room and I asked her for her 8GB thumb drive so that I could transfer some movies to her and have her transfer some movies to me (Hard Candy with Ellen Page and Peacock with Cillian Murphy), but she had lost it. I asked around for it but when I tried looking for it where I had last seen it, my dad started yelling at me for yelling so I had to sit down and endure the lecture until it was over. He gave me a 4GB thumb drive to keep so I made do with that.

I transferred the files and went on my computer, but the internet wasn't working and I was feeling sleepy so I turned it off and took a nap. When I woke up it was very close to nine, so I moved to my room so I could hear my alarm when it went off. I had set my alarm for nine so I would remember to go to Sentral to say goodbye to Elo, since at ten she was supposed to be meeting with a bunch of friends and me before she went back to Sarawak. Anyway, the alarm went off at nine but I was still tired so I set it for nine thirty and went back to sleep. I woke up a few minutes before it went off and went to wet my contact lenses freshen up and change my shirt, since all the naps had dried out my lenses and also made me kinda sweaty.

Hannah walked in when I was wetting my lenses and screamed because there weren't any lights on in the room, which made me scream because I didn't hear her come in. While I was explaining what I was doing, Ian, Jan, and El-Hanan walked in and we both screamed. It was kinda funny.

Anyway my alarm went off after that, so I borrowed Ian's car keys and drove over to Sentral. I was trying to find a place to park, but every place I saw all had signs warning of clamping and towing and fines, and since my dad had just gotten a ticket for parking at Sentral the other day I decided to just park in a legitimate parking garage. The hourly fee was bloody high though, four times what Ikea was charging.

I texted Elo to find out where the meeting spot was and she said it was the departures area. Elo spotted me when I arrived at departures and introduced me to her aunts and cousins who were waiting with her. Apparently they had been expecting Elo's other Shaun. I was able to clarify that I was KL Shaun before they left, since they had already been waiting an hour and were eager to go. I asked Elo why she hadn't just told us to meet at nine and she said that she only found out recently due to arriving early and bus schedules and other valid reasons that I have forgotten about.

Elo got a phone call from one of her siblings asking about a Liverpool t-shirt or something. Elo had been unable to find one and the person on the other end got upset while Elo was trying to explain and hung up. At least Hannah's never hung up on me before; sounds like something Jan might do, though. Anyway, I asked where Nirai was and Elo said she wasn't coming. Arun was running late, too. According to Elo, her bus left at 10:30, so they would have to hurry to arrive on time. While Elo was showing me her itinerary, she spotted Zac (I am so tempted to spell his name Zach but everyone types it Zac so I'll type it Zac) and a friend (I think his name was David or Daniel or something. Let's go with Daniel). She asked him why he was there and he said it was because he wanted to say goodbye to a friend. I thought that was quite a coincidence until he explained that the friend he wanted to say goodbye to was Elo. I think someone said "aww" at that point.

A little after Zac showed up, Elo spotted two of her other friends who she was giving a piece of luggage to since they were going back soon, too. I forgot their names but it was a chick and her boyfriend, who also looked like a chick. They were nice people. They were there for a few minutes when Arun showed up with Roshaan and Milan and maybe one or two other people. It had only been eight minutes since I had arrived, but we were running out of time to get dinner.

The new arrivals only stayed for a while before going outside for a smoke. Milan was the only one left behind since he didn't smoke. Zac and Daniel went outside, too, I think, even though they had already been out for a smoke since arriving. It's quite an inconvenient habit. Elo spoke to the friends who were taking her luggage, and she asked if Milan understood what they had said. He said he hadn't and I asked him why not since his BM must be up to snuff because he didn't have to sit for Bahasa Kebangsaan. I was told that it was because they were talking some kind of special Malay. I think they meant a dialect, but I prefer to think they were speaking in some secret Sarawakian code.

Anyway, after the guys came back from their smoke break, I ran to Burger King to get some fries and onion rings since I was hungry and Elo's bus was due to leave soon. When I got back, Milan and Arun had already taken the bags down to the bus and were waiting there. Elo got a call from them, so we all went to near the bus stop to say goodbye. Along the way, Elo mentioned that her phone's battery was low, so I offered to swap batteries with her since we had the exact same model phone, but she declined since she said she could recharge the phone there. I do kind of remember a multi-charger point at the airport when I went to pick up the Tans.

Above the bus stop, we stood around waiting for the goodbyes to begin. We were delayed when one of us mistook a stranger's luggage for the one that Elo was giving to her friends, but the person who made that mistake wasn't me so it was funny. Anyway, Elo said goodbye to Zac and Roshaan and her two luggage buddies. She was going to say goodbye to me, too, but I told her that I was going to have to pay for a full hour when I left so I might as well stay for a full hour. Elo said that she wanted to spend some time alone with Arun before she left, so I said I would leave when Milan left.

We went down to look for Elo's bus, but the taxi people had said that the last bus to the LCCT was supposed to leave at 10:00. The bus had obviously left late enough that Elo's bags were on it, but not late enough for her to be on it. We tried to think up other ways to get to the airport before her bags (train, taxi, another bus) and I offered to drive her, but she said that she didn't need to hurry since the bus people would sort things out since that was what they were paid to do. Elo has a lot more trust in the system than I do.

Elo spotted Arun and tried to call to him, but he was too far away to hear her. I was hoping that she would try running to him while calling his name and then he'd turn around in slow motion and they'd run into each other's arms as triumphant music played, but reality is not that dramatic so instead she called him with her phone and told him to turn around.

When he caught up to her he said that the bus driver had agreed to go one round with the bags so he would be stopping by again, which was very good news for Elo since she could take the bus ride she had paid for. I asked where Milan was and Arun said that he was already gone, which meant it was time for me to go, too. Elo gave me a hug and we said goodbye and she said she'd see me again in a short while, but for her a short while was three years. "I think I can wait" was my reply. I wonder if I could have come up with some better parting words.

I rode the escalator back up and saw a Dutch family struggling to get their luggage in the lift. I walked in and held the doors for them while they got everything inside. I thought it would have been weird to walk out of the lift at that point, so I just rode it down with them. On the way down the lady asked if I knew where the bus to KLIA was. I had seen it earlier when I was looking for Elo's bus, but I didn't remember seeing it when the lady asked me, so I wasn't much help. The taxi people were saying all the buses had left already so she would have to take a taxi, and for some reason I believed them. I listed the other ways she could have gotten to the airport (train, bus to LCCT and then shuttle, taxi if you're okay with getting ripped off), but then she spotted the bus to the KLIA and I felt very foolish. She thanked me anyway and so I said "Tot ziens" and she said "Tot ziens" back, and so I felt less foolish.

The whole time that was happening, Elo and Arun were a few feet away since the lift was right next to where their bus had arrived. I figured that we already said everything that we wanted to say and any more goodbyes would be awkward (like what happened with the Tans), so I just got in the lift and left without acknowledging their presence. Maybe if I was really, really lucky, they didn't notice me.

I felt kinda lonely on my drive home since Carmeni had left and Elo had left and now my only good friend left was Amanda. I had forgotten about Joanna for some reason. I wish I would have remembered her, it would have made things feel a little less lonely.

Anyway, when I got home I had already made up my mind to procrastinate my studying for my Tugasan until the morning. I asked Ian where the rest of the rum that I had paid for for his birthday was, and he told me my dad had drank it. That was my rum. Oh well, at least I know where all the rum had gone.

My phone was still playing music on random, and at one point it started playing Eye of the Tiger which got me really pumped and and I managed to do twelve real push-ups. I'm usually only able to do four. I shouldn't really be surprised that that song has great motivating powers. Anyway I did the rest of my exercises and took a shower and wrote this and now I'm tired and almost ready for bed.

I wonder how many mistakes Hannah will find in this post.

Driving, Reading, Driving, Reading, Driving, Watching Movies

Yesterday was mostly spent driving my dad around because he had bought a whole bunch of stuff for me on Sunday and I felt guilty for being responsible for the loss of so much cash, so I wanted to help him work. Also I didn't want to get bored at home, even though I had plenty of books to read.

I drove him to his first meeting, and he said that I could go get some hot dogs from Ikea while I was waiting for it to finish. I had actually been to Ikea last week with Hannah and Ebony after taking them to 1 Utama, so I was craving another hot dog, which is why I had mentioned Ikea hot dogs as a possible option for lunch on Sunday, which is why my dad was telling me to buy them for lunch on Tuesday. Anyway, at Ikea I called our house and asked what everyone wanted on their hot dogs. Hannah said she would have two curry puffs instead. I ended up ordering nine hot dogs, two curry puffs, and a drink. It was only when I was about to pay that I realized I had left the money in the car, so I apologized to the guy at the counter and ran off for a while to get the cash. When I got back, the hot dogs were ready, so I added way too much onions to my two (Structurally, not gastronomically. The hot dog could have been tastier, but the bun could not support the amount of onions I had loaded it with and so it was literally falling apart.) and ate them. After that I put ketchup on Jan's, everything on my dad's, and everything but chili sauce on Ian's. There was one hot dog left over, so I left that one plain.

I called my dad and asked him whether I should go pick him up or go home with the food. He told me to go home, so I did. The hot dogs were distributed. They looked quite sloppy, so I explained that hot dog garnishing is a subtle art, and I am neither an artist nor very subtle. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food anyway.

My dad called and said that he was going to Plaza Damas to continue the meeting, so I should be there by two o'clock. Hannah let me use her laptop to check where it was using Google Maps. She kept switching tabs to Tumblr, so it took a while, but she did help me out and for that I am grateful. Anyway after that I set my alarm and I plopped into a chair to read some more of Sphere by Michael Crichton. I had found it on our shelves recently and remembered reading the Wikipedia synopsis. Since I had enjoyed all of the other Michael Crichton books I had read, I thought I would be a good thing to bring along to keep myself occupied while waiting for meetings to finish. I was correct. It was really interesting and exciting, even though I vaguely knew what would happen next, I still couldn't remember how it would end, so there was still some suspense left.

After a few chapters, my alarm rang. I went to the car and drove to Plaza Damas. Along the way I passed the Backyard Pub where Carmeni's birthday was celebrated. The grassy bit outside seemed a lot larger when I was passed out on it. Anyway, I got to the mall at Plaza Damas and gave my dad a call. I could see him, but the way into the mall was blocked by taxis. I waited behind one for a while, but it wasn't moving. Finally I gave my dad a call and asked him if he'd just run over. He told me to go forward a bit and come to him. Apparently there was another lane into the mall in front of the taxi that I couldn't see. My dad got a little annoyed with me for not seeing that.

Anyway, I drove him to his next meeting, then I found a spot to park and read a few more chapters of Sphere. His meeting ended very early, though, because the guy he was meeting with had another emergency meeting come up so he had to leave. I picked my dad up and we went to fill up the car.

Once the car was filled up, my dad didn't have any more meetings to go to, so he decided to see about renewing my driver's license at the JPN, which was very nearby. There wasn't any line or much waiting to be had. I was told that I couldn't renew my license since it was a P, even though it was only four days from expiring. I would have to come back later with my full license to get it integrated into my MyKad. After that I went to have my picture taken for my new MyKad because I was getting it updated or something. The lady said that it would be ready in two weeks and I should call to confirm and then drop by to pick it up.

On the way to the car my dad said I could get my full driver's license from the driving centre, which seemed like a good idea. I'll hand my P in a few days from now, and then when my new MyKad is ready I'll integrate my full license into that, for convenience.

Our next stop was HELP, because I had found out recently that I couldn't access my results on MyPride because my resource fee still wasn't settled. I had thought that was sorted out, but apparently it wasn't, so I was going with my dad to see if things could be resolved. The lady at the counter was very helpful and she said she would get it done, and my dad was pleased. I was, too. In the end my dad didn't even have to do anything. At his request, though, I filled in a form to request for a pair of transcripts so I could start applying at other universities. It should be ready by next Monday.

After that we were headed to Bangsar Village so my dad could go pick up a new microwave to replace the old one that had died mysteriously a few nights ago after heating up my carbonara. Along the way I noticed my dad reading Sphere. I said to him that it was a really good book, and he agreed. I told him I was going to finish it that day. He said I wasn't, and I told him that I had read larger books before in one day. He clarified that I wasn't going to finish reading Sphere that day because he was going to finish reading Sphere that day. My father, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, I had the chance to read the book while waiting for him to get the microwave, so I did. After a while my dad left the mall with a component for our breadmaker, but no microwave. I wasn't even aware our breadmaker was broken. Oh well.

When that was all done we went home. My dad read Sphere, and I probably watched a movie or something. In the evening my dad told me that he suddenly had a meeting at KL Sentral and I was driving him there. I didn't mind because it meant I could continue reading Sphere while I waited.

We went to the station, my dad went to his meeting, and I read the book. I was about halfway through when my dad said it was over. I picked him up and he handed me some Burger King as a reward for driving him around all day.

When we got home my Burger King meal became a lot less of a great reward because I saw that Aunty Rosie had made chicken and chips for dinner. My fries were redundant, but at least the chicken tenders were still tasty. I gave one to Hannah, and I let Ian have my coke because somebody drank his. I shouldn't've given my BK coke away because the bottle I had in the fridge was flat. Oh well. Dinner was nice anyway.

After that I watched The Illusionist. I wanted to watch The Prestige, but I figured I might as well watch the lousier of the period magician movies from 2006 first. Save the best for last, y'know? Anyway it was an okay movie and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't so tired, but the truth is there's so many more good movies on my hard drive that I could have watched, so it felt a bit like a waste of time. But yeah, I went to bed late after a shower and exercise and stuff.

The next day I let my 8:45 alarm ring and ring and ring. After ringing for a minute, the phone will snooze for the next nine. I ended up only waking up at nine fifty-five. Perhaps "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" isn't annoying enough to be an effective alarm, but I just can't resist the Inception reference. It does unfortunately mean that every time I wake up I have to mutter either "Asshole! How could you screw up the carpet?" or "No, it's too soon", but I enjoy it so what the hell, eh?

I was supposed to go see Inception with Elo after she finished shopping with her friend, but her friend never decided whether they were going to Mid Valley or Times Square, so I ended up arranging to meet Elo before she leaves at KL Sentral on Thursday night with a bunch of the others. I didn't have anything to do after that, but my dad was finished with Sphere so I picked up where I left off.

While I was reading, my dad told me that he had another meeting at KL Sentral, so I drove him there again. A guard chased me away from the drop-off point, but I found a better spot anyway. I finished the book (It was really good. I want to lend it to my Psychology lecturer.) and then I took a nap. I woke up to a call from my dad at six. During the drive back I realized how easy the drive to and from Sentral had become ever since they finished building the flyover and changed the flow of traffic in Brickfields (or is it near Brickfields? Whatever).

Back at home I watched the Dark Knight. Cillian Murphy was in it. I'm seeing Inception everywhere. Extradition between France and the United States was in Catch Me if You Can, as was DiCaprio, obviously. Ellen Page, also rather obviously, was in Juno. Jennifer Garner was in both, but she wasn't in Inception. Cillian Murphy and Ellen Page are in Peacock, which Hannah should be giving to me soon. I forgot what the point of this paragraph was. Whatever.

Anyway that's the story of what's happened in my life recently. Later on in my life I'll be going to Redang with my family so Jan and Hannah can learn how to scuba dive. Even later on than that I'll be going to continue my studies, but I have to pass my Bahasa Kebangsaan first. I used to think I was going to do Civil Engineering, but my dad doesn't want that for me. He said something about always working underneath other people. He'd rather I become a programmer, but that really doesn't sound appealing to me. He's cool with me being a structural engineer, though, so I'm going to meet one of his structural engineer friends sometime.

Unrelated to that, I was reading my old blog posts a few nights ago. You know how you usually read stuff that you wrote in the past and you can't believe that you would say something like that and you notice how much you've changed and stuff? Yeah, it was the exact opposite of that. I thought the posts were great and they helped me vividly recall the days I was writing about. They were also funny and well-written except for being too long.

I guess this means I'm not a modest person, but who needs modesty when you're this awesome?

Movies (Also Some of Last Week)

I watched The Expendables today with Ian, Jan, and El-Hanan. It was awesome. Jan and Hanan thought the dialogue was really shitty, but I thought it was good enough for the type of movie that it was. The action and explosions and gore and one-liners were so great. I haven't had that much fun in a movie in a while.

I also had a lot of fun when I went to see Salt with Joanna on Wednesday. It was a lot smarter and a little more fun than I thought it was going to be. I was pleased that it surprised me. This is the benefit of having low expectations. The only bad bit was that a couple walked into the movie an hour and a half in, right during the twist at the climax in the war room. Who comes in to a movie fifteen minutes before it ends? Fools. Also the movie was very blue and orange, and now that I've started noticing that trend I cannot un-notice it. Oh yeah, we also saw the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs The World and now I want to watch it even though it'll be coming out many months after the American release and they're probably going to censor out the ex-girlfriend character.

Before I watched Salt with Joanna I bought her phone for RM250. My dad paid for RM150 of it. It is an awesome phone. It can store an unlimited amount of texts, which is the main reason I got it (My old one only held 100 texts for some arbitrary reason), but it also has a music player and a working camera and 2 gigabytes of space which I have almost filled with music and funny pictures.

After I watched Salt, I met up with Elo and Arun in McDonald's to give Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and an episode of Batman: The Bold and the Brave to Elo. She didn't have her laptop, so she borrowed the pen drive and gave it back to me the next day. Also I discovered that Elo has the same phone as me, which is pretty cool since Arun has one like my old one. Anyway, when I went to pick the pen drive up the next day, I saw a motorcycle that was the same model as mine. It looked cooler, though. I took pictures with my new phone.

While on the subject of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, apparently Ian brought the pen drive to some singing practice for BB and they watched the first two acts there. Something interrupted them and then they had to go home and now they will never finish it. Poor BB people.

Also during this week I got Marks and Spencer's underwear and socks. My dad took us to The Gardens to get clothes. I spent most of our time there coming up with CSI Miami-esque puns. Also before that we ate at McDonald's breakfast and that was delicious. Anyway the socks are super comfortable and the underwear will last a long time, so that's nice.

I downloaded a whole bunch of movies, maybe fifteen gigs' worth. Most of them are Disney. Aladdin is my new favourite. Jafaar is a great villain, but still like Scar more. Also The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh are funny and nostalgic and awesome. Also piglet is in 12 Angry Men. But yeah, I got a lot of movies.

I found out that I can't access my college results on MyPride until my resource fee is dealt with. I'm going to fix it with my dad tomorrow, hopefully.

Hm. Oh yeah, I showed Hannah some Twilight Zone episodes and now she is a fan. Also she is even more in love with Joseph Gordon-Levitt after discovering hitRECord. Good for her.

I have more to say, but I can't remember what, so I'll end now. Going to bed soon, yay.

Edit: Oh yeah did I also mention that I talked to Juria a few days ago and when I brought up my broken promise she said that it was all in the past and she forgave me? Well that happened, and I feel so much better now. There is at least 80% less guilt in my life now. Also she's started writing short stories again, so go check out her blog in the sidebar because she's got talent.

Also I had my Ujian Lisan on Saturday and I think I did pretty okay. I went second, gave my speech which I had written up the night before (Probably the latest I've ever completed an assignment) stumbled a bit but covered all the points, and my only slip into English was when I started a few paragraphs with "So...". Also I got to talking to my classmate and I gave her a back massage and told her about my family and stuff, and after class I wanted to see if she wanted to go for McDonald's or something (I didn't have much money but I wouldn't mind being poorer if it meant I could go on a sorta-date). I asked her if she had a boyfriend, and she said yes, and I said I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised because she was pretty and smart and of course someone would want to make her his girlfriend, but I was also not surprised because she was pretty and smart and of course she would have a boyfriend because life kinda sucks sometimes and any girl like that is bound to be unavailable. Meh.

Sorry (Not Really)

I was going to write a post today about the past week since today's finally been a day when I've had no work to do or anything, but nah. I don't want to. It's late and I'd rather do other stuff like watch one of the many, many movies I've downloaded recently or perhaps load more songs into my new phone or something like that. I'll probably write a post tomorrow, since I can't do one on Tuesday since I'll be spending the whole day with my dad driving him to and from meetings.

I don't have any more projects or assignments or any other homework-type things, so I'll be pretty free. Yay.

Long Sunday, Part Two

I'm not so interested in having a perfect record of the day any more, so I guess I can save a lot of time now. Here's the shorter version of the second half of Sunday (the longer version could probably fill a small book):

We got home from church. I took a shower because I was sweaty. Hannah and Stefanie put on their make-up in my parents' bathroom. Stefanie put eye liner on me. Facial hair looked silly with it, so I borrowed my dad's electric razor and my mum's tweezers and ended up looking a lot more presentable. I also cleaned up both instruments afterwards because otherwise ew. Also I spiked up my hair with some product I had found. I looked like the lead singer of Tokio Hotel, by which I mean I looked like some sort of old lesbian.

I realized that my hair made me look like a douchebag when matched with my sunglasses. I wanted to see how far I could take the look, so I tried finding a pink buttoned shirt, but we didn't have any pink shirts so I settled for a white one. I left the top buttons undone and the shirt untucked. I also popped the collar, of course. Also I put on a tie but left it loose. The whole look was pretty convincing. I felt douche-ier already.

I found Hannah and Stefanie in Hannah's room. We drew on some more fake tattoos, then we took some pictures in Hannah's room. Hannah was concerned that she looked stupid, but I told her that that was the entire point. I liked the result. Also it was fun acting and posing like a douche.


After that we went to Mid Valley so that Stefanie could pick up something for her laptop. During the drive I kept removing my sunglasses to show my eye liner face for every gay-sounding song and putting my sunglasses back on for every douchebag-sounding song that came on the radio. It was pretty incredible how one accessory could change my look so much. Anyway, after Mid Valley we went to Ebony's apartment to pick her up. While waiting for her to come downstairs I left the car to use a tap to get some water to make my hair spiky again (It was getting soft and you totes got to maintain the image, bro). After a while, Ebony got downstairs, hugs were exchanged, and then everyone got in the car and we left.

Our next stop was Amanda's house. I had texted her about my makeover and she said that she was at home and that she wanted to have a look. Hannah didn't want to visit; she was being very moody. Ebony and Stef did, though, so when they went, Hannah went. We stood outside for a while, admiring Walker, until Amanda unlocked her door and opened the gate for us. We talked for a bit and she used some Indian make up thing (Kohl?) to make my eye liner thicker. It didn't hurt as much as when Hannah and Stefanie had took turns on my eyes earlier. I looked a whole bunch more like a gay guy when it was over. The girls thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, Amanda, Geraldine, and her mum had to leave to go to Mid Valley, so we said goodbye and went to get some ice cream.

The girls wanted Baskin Robbins, so I took them to Baskin Robbins. I double parked nearby and took a nap in the car. I listened to the bottom half of the Malaysian top English top 10 and had a nice nap. The music was a lot better than I expected, too. It reminded me that I needed to get some more Zee Avi songs. Anyway, the girls finished their ice cream and photography and joined me in the car, and we went home.

I used the computer for a while, and then it was time for the Tans to go home. Hannah and the rest were still downstairs taking pictures in the playground, so I called them and told them to hurry up so we could beat traffic. They came upstairs and Stef managed to pack pretty quick. I asked her if she had forgotten anything, and she said she was pretty sure she hadn't. I said "What about the-" and then I mumbled a few quiet nonsense syllables since I knew that she had to have forgotten something but I wasn't sure what. She asked me again and I repeated myself. Anyway we later found out it was her Blackberry charger.

We almost beat traffic, but we were a little late. Everyone hugged everyone except Jan and we all said goodbye. It was kind of pointless, though, since we found out we could stay longer, so we did. Hannah, Stefanie, and Ebony looked through pictures and made a slideshow, Jan and I took naps. My nap was longer 'cause I started it first.

When we woke up the Tans were about to be going for their last dinner in Malaysia. We thought that this was goodbye, so we hugged (again) and Stef showed me the slide show. It was nice (The slide show, that is, not the hug. Well, the hug was nice too). I thought we were going to Chili's because I heard Mexican food mentioned. I think I drove Ruben and Jan to IOI mall, and the girls went with Stef's dad. Stefanie texted me and I thought she said that she was meeting us outside the entrance of TGI Friday's, but she actually said that she was meeting us at the outside entrance of TGI Friday's. That was because TGI Friday's wasn't the meeting place, it was where we were having dinner. There was no Chili's in IOI, and it was never part of the plan to eat Chili's. I had misunderstood.

I looked at the menu and told Stef that it was way to expensive. We had an argument over where to eat. She said if I didn't want TGI's I could go eat somewhere else, but I said I had to stay there because Jan and Hannah didn't bring their wallets (Fools!) so they couldn't pay for themselves. In the end I decided that I wasn't going to order anything, but I would go get the money so I could pay for Jan and Hannah.

As I walked through the mall I felt pretty confident. The eye liner had smudged during the nap, so I looked a lot more threatening than before. I looked in a mirror and I saw a mentally unhinged, possible violent junkie staring back at me. It's amazing what some clothes and a little bit of make up can do for a person's image. People were apologizing to me when they brushed past and stuff. They might have been scared. If I saw someone who looked like me I would be intimidated too, but then I'd laugh at him behind his back. Anyway, I went to the ATM in Jusco (I knew the location from when I had lunch that time I was training to work for my dad's company), and I withdrew RM150.

I was hungry and craving KFC. I didn't want to show up to the counter looking like I did, so I tucked in my shirt, unpopped my collar, buttoned up the rest of my shirt, and fixed my tie. I then went into a bathroom and spent fifteen minutes trying to remove eye liner. There was still loads left over. Make up removal is a pain in the ass. I didn't look like a drug addict any more, though, so I went to buy my dinner.

I got a snack box with crispy chicken strips. They were not very crispy, but the box offered a more generous portion than what one would usually consider a snack, so I guess it evened out. It was pretty cheap, too. After I was done with that I went back to TGI's.

We talked until the bill came. Between them, Jan, Ebony, and Hannah owed me RM70. Ruben and Stefanie had to pay the remaining RM100. We did the math a few times over. Stefanie didn't believe that she and Ruben had spent so much until I told her to factor in the government and service tax, and that made the numbers work. Jan was surprised at how much his meal cost. I told them that I had told them it was expensive and that's why I didn't want to eat there, but they ignored the fact that they had ignored me. Whatever.

Anyway, after paying, we left the restaurant. The girls wanted to go underwear shopping for forty minutes, but there wasn't much for us guys to do. Ruben went to chat up the ladies working at the TGI Friday's (he's real smooth for a 13-year-old, I can see why Hannah likes him so much), meanwhile I went to a nearby jewellery store to see if I could talk my way into handling expensive shiny things. I told the lady that I was looking for a gift on behalf of my dad for my mother's birthday. She asked what my budget was, and she believed me when I told her that it was virtually unlimited. I think the tie and nice shirt helped. Jan sat next to me while I was looking at the necklaces and stuff, and he thought that I was actually looking for my mum's birthday present. He's pretty dumb. I told him to bugger off so that he wouldn't ruin my lie and my fun. He didn't get the hint, but he did stay quiet after that, so things were okay. I ended up getting to touch a RM1,700 heart-shaped gold pendant with a cool blue sapphire in it, so that was nice. The lady gave me a card so I could contact her if my dad liked what I told him. I feel I should repay them for being so helpful, and since I doubt I'll be buying anything I'll just give them free advertising instead. The store is Sim's Jewellery in IOI mall and they also have a lot of reasonably priced stuff. You should go check it out.

So after that I hung out in TGI's and talked to the staff. I was about to be introduced to a fellow HELP student when I got three urgent texts from Stefanie within three seconds. Apparently she wanted Ruben at the pharmacy nearby to lend her money. We went over and gave her the cash to buy pads or something. Women and their menstrual emergencies.

After that I abandoned Ruben and Jan and went to look around. I found a really cool sports jacket that matched my shoes and looked great with my shirt and tie, but it was very expensive (We're talking the equivalent of two dozen McDonald's lunches), so I had to leave it in the store. Next I went to Ace Hardware. I thought about buying Jan an RM1.70 piece of pipe as a present to show him how much I think he's worth, but that was a bit cruel plus he might like the pipe. Instead I bought a cushioned footstool that was going for RM10.90. At the checkout it registered as only RM7.90. I mentioned to the cashier how awesome it was that something like that could be sold for only eight bucks, but she just smiled at me.

I went back to TGI's and watched Ruben humiliate the servers. I had a nice chat with one of the staff about Inception and Donnie Darko. When I got a text from the girls saying they were done shopping, I told the guys that we had to go. As we left the girl I was talking to said I was crazy for watching Inception five times. Whatever. She wanted to watch Prince of Persia five times, now that's crazy.

Jan and Ruben didn't know where the girls were, so I told them they were in Jusco. They didn't know where Jusco was, so I told them to follow me. They didn't, for some reason. Probably because they're stupid. Anyway I went off on my own and I found the girls among the bras in Jusco.

Hannah wanted me to lend her RM15 to pay for bras for Ebony and her. Stefanie wanted to buy a negligée to wear on future sleepovers, but I told her to try it on first. She wore it and said that it made her look like a grandmother. I said that was good because then at least Jan wouldn't be thinking inappropriate thoughts if he saw her in it. She still didn't like the idea of looking like an old lady, so she just dropped it off in a random pile. I told her that was irresponsible and that she should put it back where she found it, but she didn't want to so I wandered to the ladies' undergarments section to try and find its place, but I couldn't locate it. Instead, I passed it off to Jan and left before he could give it back and left. He chased me through the store with it until he gave up and through it in another random pile. I told Hannah that I wouldn't lend her the money until the negligée was back in its spot, so Stef finally gave in and put it in its place. I gave Hannah the money to pay for her rainbow bras and then we left.

When I was paying for the parking ticket, the ladies behind the counter started talking to me in BM. They asked one of my parents was Malay, and I said that my dad was actually Chinese. It was a nice chat. I think those Bahasa Kebangsaan classes might be worth it. One of the ladies called me handsome as I left. That was nice.

The moving walkways to the car park were powered down, but everyone was still going down the "down" one. Since the "up" one was clear of people, I put the footstool on it and rolled it down. It picked up speed as I ran alongside it. When it was halfway down, this little kid stopped in front of the walkway to gawk at it. I yelled at him to move since if he continued his idiotic stance he would have been really badly hurt. He got out of the way and the stool slammed into the wall behind him. It survived undamaged. That was cool.

I sat on it and waited for the rest of them. My sunglasses fell out of my shirt pocket and a lens popped out. I fixed it, though, and soon everyone was here and we went to the car. Along the way we got hit by a chain that we were trying to walk over. I still have a gash on my shin.

We dropped off the Tans and again more goodbye hugs were exchanged. These ones were final, though. After that we drove back to KL. Ebony's mum called and asked me if I could pick up Ebony's sister, Chloe, since I was going to be in Bangsar anyway. I said I could. Ebony was upset. Ebony's mum called a little later and said I didn't have to pick up Chloe. So that was nice. After that we went home and Ebony picked up some stuff, then we got back in the car and dropped her off at her place.

Also at some point I told Jan about how long Stefanie's hugs were and how I had probably spent more time in one hug with her than in all my other hugs with girls combined. She is a real long hugger. It's awkward and nice. It's nawkward.

Anyway I hung out in Hannah's room and annoyed her into watching the first act of Dr. Horrible. She thought it was only okay. Strange girl.

After that I spent a long time on the computer and I did my exercises and took a shower and I went to bed at 5am. So yeah, it really was a long day.