The One Before This Was 200 and I Didn't Even Celebrate

Okay so it's now early Friday morning. I missed the clubbing deadline, so I sincerely complimented my siblings on Facebook.

Wednesday was work. It was harder than usual because I was very hungry and very tired but I had cupcakes from Amanda to get me through the hunger bit and I took some naps during my breaks to get me through the sleepy bit.

I am very tired. I changed my passwords, for security. They were all the same and easy to crack, but now they are all different and difficult. They are so difficult, in fact, that I have forgotten most of them. That is why it took me so long to change all of them. It took me three hours.

I got distracted by my Gmail. Hannah came over and laughed. Jan came over and laughed a bit, too. Sue Yen from church used to like me. I guess online she goes by Emily Leong. She stopped liking me when I was blunt (and quite mean in an unthoughtful way) to her via email. Oh well, she isn't that good-looking anyway. I know that I'm shallow. I'm only 18, I'm allowed to be.

Hannah likes Kevin Tan, I think. She blushes when I say his name. She used to blush when I said Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the name of this guy from Indonesia, too. She didn't blush when I said Ruben Tan. Well, sometimes she did, but that's only because I was saying Ghrooben instead of his actual name.

I enjoy it when Zachary Bower and Rebecca Grootendorst are online. They are people I enjoy talking to. Amanda Gabriella is also pretty great, but I don't have her address for Windows Live Messenger.

I also enjoy the music of Katy Perry and The Eagles.

I'm tired. I can't make any promises about the clubbing thing. I'm free tomorrow (except for packing Amanda's stuff) so I guess I could do it then. Well, not tomorrow, today. It's Friday now. Dang, time moves fast.

On Thursday I woke up from the couch at twelve but I was still tired so I did my push-ups and then I took a shower and then I tried to go to bed but all I did was talk to my cat and then I woke up and then stuff happened and then I went out with Hannah to buy stuff and she spent all my money and then we got home and watched Glee (it is so great; Brittany is so great) and then I did not watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers and then I changed my passwords and then I read the funny old e-mails and then Rebecca came online and I like her but I'm not sure whether it's as a friend or as something else, I think it's as a friend. I'd like for it to be as a friend, otherwise it wouldn't work and I'd be sad. It's as a friend.

Ebony are you reading this? I know Hannah isn't and Milan only would if he ctrl+f'd his way here.

I want a dog when I move to my mansion that I will never have because probably I won't ever be rich to have one. Another childhood dream bites the dust.

Goodnight everyone. There are things left unblogged about here but I am too tired to give a damn.

Final thoughts: I enjoy songs by Katy Perry the person more than Katy Perry the persona. Also, after Faith dies I want to get a pair of kittens so I can name them Noun and Verb. The female will be Verb, of course.

Fourth Day of Training

It's 3:30am, Wednesday morning. I took a nap for too long on the floor. I'll get to now later, right now let's go back to Tuesday.

On Tuesday I woke up a few minutes before six after my alarm went off for the third or fourth time. I had let it snooze a bit because I didn't have to climb the stairs on Tuesday so I figured it would be fine.

I woke up and read my Bible and only fell asleep a little a bit. I was done at 6:15am, so I set my alarm for six forty and took a nap. When the alarm went off I tried to hit snooze and after that I can't remember what happened, but the next time I woke up it was seven thirty. If my mum hadn't woken me up I would have been late as hell.

I quickly took a shower and brushed my teeth and all that, and then I left for work. It was raining like mad, but I still managed to arrive in the training room around ten minutes late, and training hadn't started yet, either.

We were buddying up again, but since there were only two cables, we could only have two trainees buddying up at a time. I decided not to be in the first group and so I went to take a nap while waiting for my turn.

When my turn did come, I got to be buddied with this lady named Koshla (her floor name was Kay) who I would much prefer to Raj if I ever had to call customer service. My time with her started with her answering maybe eight wrong numbers (people calling about laptops or printers or workstations when this was actually the desktop number) before the actual people needing assistance came in. She handled the calls really well.

After the buddying was over, we registered fake customers and fake assets onto the fake customer service database for training. That took a while. We only broke for lunch at one fifteen, which is either forty-five or an hour and fifteen minutes later than usual, so I was really hungry.

I drove to McDonald's for lunch since earlier I had been browsing through the McDonald's websites of various different countries to see what they had that we didn't and vice versa. I am now jealous of the USA's breakfast options and aware that everyone but us has chicken selects. Also I have to enjoy McDonald's breakfasts as much as possible while I'm here, since they don't have 'em in the Netherlands.

After lunch I went back to 1 Tech Park and talked to the guys about religion and pepper spray (Eddie once used a bottle of the stuff to defend himself from four guys on the train who crowded around him and were trying to rob him. They only caught one of them, I think), and then I went up to see if the roof was open. It was. The roof is pretty cool.







After I was done with the roof I went down to to a different room where we were taught about some other stuff, and then we had to take an exam. There were two questions we had to get right to pass, and all but one of us got them wrong. Anyway, the passing mark was 80% and I got 83.33%. Jonathan got 91.67%. Everyone else didn't make the grade.

Hariz told us to be there by eight the next day because we might be talking to Edward, the business manager for HP.

I drove home and I'm not really sure what I did after that. I think I set up for a nap on the floor because I recently downloaded a whole big bunch of podcasts and I found the best way of listening to them was by lying on the floor next to my computer. I brought a couple of pillows and a blanket so it would be more comfortable, then I got called for dinner, which was fried chicken and rice. I just ate the chicken.

I turned on the podcast and lay down to listen to it, but I think I was asleep before the first segment even started. That couldn't've been later than eight, I think. Anyway, the next time I opened my eyes it was midnight. I nodded off a bit more after that and it was three in the morning.

So now it's almost four twenty so I'll have an hour's sleep left, probably less I've still got to do my exercise and take a shower. Man, my sleep schedule must be really messed up now.

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.

Quite Funny in a Boring Way

Friday. Let's see, I woke up to my alarm at 11am and went about my usual morning routine (which includes a shower now). For breakfast (or lunch, it was almost noon), we had pancakes. I ate two. They were delicious.

Ruben was going with his dad to see Inception. Jan was tagging along, I think. I was going to college. I'm kinda disappointed that I didn't get to watch Inception a sixth time.

It started raining, so I went on the computer while I waiting for the weather to return to drivable conditions. I had some bookmarks left over from last night. I read a discussion about whether legalized abortion had caused a drop in crime. Apparently it had, but not by as much as was originally supposed.

When the time came to leave, I left. When I reached the KPD I couldn't find the kitten, so I just went to class and started reading. I'm almost done with the Mole diaries. He's 20 now. Adrian Mole is very knowledgeable, but he's still quite stupid. I can see why I remind Jared of him.

Class started and we were handed our second quizzes back. I got 9.5 out of 10. I was not expecting 9.5 out of 10. It was a very pleasant surprise. Only one person in class scored full marks. Ms Belinda said that I lost my half mark over a careless mistake. I think that I gained a couple marks due to clever guessing.

During the break I found the kitten, and I also found the girls who were feeding him and his mother. I didn't speak to them, though. I managed to get really close to the kitten, but he didn't let me stroke him this time. Oh well, his loss.

After the break we handed in our assignments. The moment I put mine down, Ms Belinda started going through it and circling mistakes. I couldn't bear to look so I went back to my seat and waited for class to resume. The class ended late because we had to do some exercises on the board. The building's air-conditioning had been shut off for almost half an hour by the time we left.

When I got back home I found out that Ruben had thought Inception was only okay. He's the first person aside from my dad not to think the movie was awesome. I also found out that Ruben and Stefanie were leaving early to stay at their house, and they taking Hannah for a while, too. Apparently there was nothing left to do at our place. They were wrong, I hadn't even taken them up to the roof yet. Oh well, their loss.

I watched District 9 and ate a huge bowl of fresh carbonara. It was super-delicious at first, but it was merely yummy as I was finishing it. A loss in quality is to be expected when you consume a bowl of pasta in an air-conditioned room over the course of an hour, though.

A little later on I was chatting with some people on Windows Live Messenger when I noticed Juria sign in. I asked her if she had been to MTV World Stage, and we got talking from there. After a while I told her that I was still sorry for breaking a promise I had made to her in my second semester, which was my first apology to her since the day she confronted me about it. She said that it was all in the past and she had forgiven me, and I felt a lot better. We talked for a bit more about college and Jason Mraz and stuff, but then my internet connection started acting up so I couldn't chat any more.

I watched some TV with Jan and did my exercises, and then I took a shower and now I'm writing about a rather short day. Oh yeah, apparently the electric razor was Ian's, not Ruben's. Also, Ebony texted me to tell me that she read my blog sometimes and she thinks that it is "quite funny in a boring way", hence the title.

Back to Blogging

The internet's been down for the past few days. It got fixed on Saturday, though, so that was nice.

Recently I've been sleeping on the couch a lot more because I'm too lazy to get my exercises done at night. As a result I have to do my exercises and take my showers in the morning. It's not so bad.

Not much has happened. I've played more RuneScape, I guess. That game really sucks a person in. I also e-mailed out my part of the Psychology assignment.

I went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner to celebrate the first half of March 14th (International Steak and BJ day) and it ended up costing quite a lot. It was pretty dang tasty, though, so that was worthwhile.

Monday is the last day I'll be able to work on my Finite Mathematics assignment before I have to hand it in. I've got all the answers, now I just need the workings. I'm going to do them during my break with Amanda.

Also I had this dream where I was making out with this girl in an elevator and after it was over I spent the rest of the night trying to dream it again. It did not happen. That was disappointing.

Back to the Beat

I didn't post for the past few days because our internet connection's been spotty and I haven't been able to get online much recently.

I forgot to do my exercises during the weekend, so I'm going to have to do three times as much as usual before my shower later.

College started again today. I realized that our leadership camp is this weekend. Oh dear. It should be fun, though.

Also, I got my reflective writing results back for Psychology. I got 3.5/5, while Joanna got 4/5. I'll do better than her on midterms, though.

I watched ten episodes of Glee when I got home from college. It is an excellent show and I'm sad that I only have three episodes left to watch. Ah well.

This Post is About Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

So on Thursday I went to college. My first class was Psychology and that was okay. For lunch I ate McDonald's. After that I took a nap for a while, and then I had Finite Mathematics, which was also okay. I read more of The Lexus and The Olive Tree. I still can't tell if I've past where I stopped last time. I got a text from Mr Naj saying that he had an accident and couldn't make it to college, so there wouldn't be any Physics that day, so I got to go home early.

In the evening I think I either gambled some more or drove Hannah some place. Our internet connection was broken again, so we could only go on for a few minutes at a time before it stopped working. Therefore, instead of going online, I played Zero Hour. I managed to beat the level I was stuck on, and the two after that, and so I was done with the China campaign. That was nice. Now I'm working my way through the General challenges.

On Friday I woke up kinda late since I didn't have any classes. At 12:30 I went to Christian Fellowship, where we watched this movie about a drama class in a Malaysian school. It was okay.

Back at home I played more computer and drove Hannah around some more, since she had Ebony over. Hannah and Ebony bought some wax strips, and when they got back I watched Hannah wax her face, and I tried a couple of the strips out on my toes to see how much they hurt. They don't hurt that much.

That night I fell asleep on the couch because I was too lazy to take a shower. I wasn't too lazy to brush my teeth, though, so there's that. I woke up at 5am and moved to my bed, where I slept for another five hours. I took a shower before noon, though, so it all works out.

Today was okay. I finished the fourth Princess Diaries book, which Hannah let me read because I drove Ebony and her around, and then I played more Generals. For dinner I went out with Ian, Jan, and Joel and ate Subway. It was quite delicious, but they've got a three serving limit on the olives now, which makes me sad.

I should have spent today studying for the mid-terms next week, but I didn't. The only subject I'm worried about failing is Physics, though, so I'll just study that intensively on Sunday and maybe do some Psychology later on in the week.

My phone is getting worse. It's having troubles charging. I might have to replace it soon.

Delays

So the Ares rocket was launched yesterday at 11:30. I had been using our in-case-of-shitty-Streamyx Maxis wireless USB modem on my dad's computer since around eight thirty to work on my research paper, and every few minutes I would refresh Google news to check the updated launch times after each new delay. The last proposed launch time I remember seeing was 10:45, then I kind of gave up on it and went on to finish the definitions part of my paper, which is one third of the introduction or around 5% of the total paper. That puts my progress at 10%, with one week left and a survey that still needs more responses before I can compile and analyse the results. Let us not forget the icing on this cake of stress: because for some reason my computer cannot use the USB modem, I have to do all my work on other people's computers until the internet connection is fixed. Life sure is awesome.

Anyway, back to the rocket. When my paper was done I decided to log into Facebook for a while. After five minutes of pondering the implications of receiving only four notifications between then and when the internet died, I came to the conclusion that Facebook excels at two things: propagating retarded applications and showing the people who don't use those applications that they are sad, friendless losers anyway. It was at this point that I closed the tab and went to refresh Google news one last time before heading to bed.

After I refreshed the page, I only managed to glance through the words "launched", "onlookers", "parachutes", and "recovery" before I realized what I was looking at. I checked the time: 4 minutes ago. Because of Astro's satellite delay, 4 minutes is the exact amount of lag time between when news happens and when news reaches our TV screens. I realized that I could still probably watch the launch in somewhat real-time.

When I turned on CNN, however, they were just talking about sports. The BBC was reporting on the bombing in Pakistan and the attack on the guest house in Afghanistan. A few minutes later, CNN was reporting on the same thing. Neither channels were giving me any information on the rocket. I assumed that they had both broadcast it live and were now ignoring it until the start of the next hour.

The start of the next hour came and there was no mention of the rocket in the headlines. It was only before the first commercial break that CNN brought up the launch, and after the commercials were over they went live to a dude who had been waiting through more than a day of delays to cover that story. I didn't hear anything he said because they were playing the launch on loop in the background and I was discussing with my brother about how awesome it was ("very awesome", in case you were wondering).

After that I went to bed late then woke up early then fell asleep a few times during my daily Bible reading then got ready then went to college then attended class then arrived late for the second of my two back-to-back classes then stood in front of class to give an excuse as to why I was late (my excuse was totally valid, you guys) then corrected mistakes in the hard copy of my research paper for correction at a later time then made a PowerPoint presentation for Monday's class then found myself confronted with a dilemma. I could mention what it was, but that would rob me of an opportunity to practice being vague and mysterious about things that I do not to be vague and mysterious about.

I had two options: I could wait or I could go. Waiting would avoid the issue and change nothing. Going would mean taking the risk that things might still be very bad. It would also mean that if things were no longer very bad, then I would have the chance to make them better, or at least less worse. After stalling for quite a while, I decided to go. Just as I was going, I noticed that what I would have been waiting for was happening. This would have only been a good thing if I had been waiting, but since I was going it put me in a bit of an awkward spot. I did not foresee what was occurring. Since it was too far to turn back, I decided to see what would happen. Nothing bad happened. Things seemed to be better than I thought they were. Almost before I had the time to realize that, it was over. It was only later I realized that what happened could have also meant another thing: that things were not slightly good as they had seemed, but instead they were still as bad as they were or worse, and they just seemed good as part of their worse-ness.

That was a depressing realization, so I bought a doughnut from one of the marketing students to distract myself. It helped a little, but I needed more. I was hungry and one of my friends said she wanted to get the clear Coca-Cola contour glass from McDonald's, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and went up to get some money for some lunch and some lunch for a free cup.

I was in line to withdraw money for a quite while because a machine was acting suspicious so the whole queue was for just one ATM. I was in line for McDonald's even longer because everyone wanted a clear cup.

I still managed to get the cup to my friend before class started, though, but I had to eat in the classroom during the lecture. But even that turned out quite nice, except for the realization that they had short-changed in the french fry area of my meal.

So anyway that was a post about nothing in particular and now I want to nap.

Frustrated

I have a 2000 word research paper to write and only about a week to write it. Normally that would not be much of a problem, but this is not normal for two reasons: I just started my survey today and I've only got six or seven responses out of the twenty that I need, and the internet connection at my house is dead so I can't go online to do the research for the paper.

Because of the nature of my paper's thesis (Childhood phobias tend to be lost before adulthood), I can only distribute my survey among adults. The two biggest problems about this are approaching them and getting data I can use from their ages. The women and older dudes especially are reluctant to write down their exact age, so I've just resorted to asking them to round down to the nearest decade.

I've also got a moral paper due in two or three weeks, but I figure that can wait until my research paper is done. I also need a survey for that one, but I can distribute that one to students so it should be considerably easier.

So yeah, lack of internet at home and nearby deadlines have me in quite a lousy mood. It doesn't help that I haven't been sleeping much lately, either.

Also there's this rocket, which is the tallest in the world and called the the Ares-something-or-other, that NASA was going to launch yesterday, but it was delayed numerous times due to wind and clouds and a cargo ship, until finally they had to cancel the launch and reschedule it today. The new launch time is in about two hours. I'll try to catch that. I hope it's worth the wait.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I figured out that someone in my moral class did not have the name I thought she had. I'm going to have to go back and fix some blog posts next time I'm free.

A Rocky Start to the Second Semester

I woke up at 1pm today. Last night I stayed up late karaoke-ing and playing cards with my brother's friends while they waited for Mars to do something. In the end the cloud cover was too heavy but we had a good time anyway. The night ended for me at 2am, and so I got a sweet 11 hours of sleep. I'll miss that about semester break.

Anyway, the internet was still broken when I woke up. It had been down at my house for a day or so, and we were all just waiting for it to turn back on again. You see, the internet connection at my place is wonderfully shit. Every so often it will stop working. We can find nothing that causes it to die, it just dies. Then, a few days later, it will come back online for no reason. So it stops and starts without warning or cause and all we can do is endure it. Anyway, as of today I have been enduring it.

At around three o'clock I went to college to see if my results were out and to use the internet connection in the computer lab. I saw quite a few people in the hallway and met one of my friends who told me that the results were out. Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth I was sprinting down the hallway and hoping that I would see good things once I got to a computer.

When I sat down and logged in I saw that I got a Pass in Calculus, a High Distinction in Study Skill and Intermediate English, a Credit in Computing Principles, and a Credit in Malaysian Studies. I called my parents to tell them my results but I got voice mail both times. I also checked with some friends to see what results they got and what subjects and groups they were joining for the second semester.

I decided to postpone signing up for my subjects and groups until I knew what my friends were doing and what my dad wanted me to take. Just when I had navigated from my results to Facebook, my shoulder was smacked by a friend from last semester.

Joanna apparently thought that physical abuse was an appropriate way to greet a friend, so I ignored the hit and said hi. Then I noticed a few more friends around. We chatted for a bit, talked about our semester break and what we were going to do next semester, and then everyone had to go. Our first reunion was five minutes long, but it was okay.

My mum called me about my results and I told them to her, but she was talking to someone else and she did not sound suitably impressed so I am not sure if she heard me. I wonder if she knows that a High Distinction is better than a Credit. Eh, whatever.

I offered to drive Joanna home since I was always looking for excuses to practice my driving and I am hoping that all this nice guy cred I'm building up now will be useful at a later date if she is ever asked by other girls about me. =D

Anyway, I drove to a petrol station to fill up and then to KL Sentral to drop her off. On the way she was asking questions about a secret I was keeping, but I'm pretty sure that if you are only honestly answering yes/no questions then it is not breaking a promise to keep a secret. I hope so, at least. When that subject was dropped we talked about movies, and I discovered that she has a terrible taste in cinema. So now I know two pretty girls with almost identically shitty opinions on movies (Joanna, there is absolutely no way that GI Joe is a smarter movie than District 9, and I have no idea what would make you say that. Also, Pixar is amazing and their movies are not just for kids). I will have to do some asking around, maybe all attractive girls like crap films.

After I had dropped her off I got stuck in a jam for a while. Luckily I had bought a newspaper at the petrol station, so I read a bit about this statue in Senegal while I listened to the radio and waited for the cars to inch along. My suffering was finally ended when some traffic cops were deployed, and it was the first time I was happy to see those guys. I wrote a little poem for them actually. It took me about seven seconds, and it is terrible:

I am happy, happy as can be
Traffic police ended this dumb traffic jam for me

You actually have to sing it a little to make it work, but whatever. My point is the jam was over and that was nice.

When I got back home my dad called, and aside for some disappointment in the fact that I only just barely passed calculus instead of super-dominating in calculus and getting an über-distinction or something, he was really glad. I reminded him that he promised to reward me with either RM20 or RM50 for each High Distinction that I got, so I ended up RM100 richer. He said that I earned it. I love my dad. =D

Anyway the internet was still broken so after a nap I went downstairs to my friend's house to pay off a gambling debt and register for my subjects and groups. My dad said I could choose whatever subjects I wanted, so I signed up for Advanced English, Critical Thinking Skills, Economic Principles, and Engineering Mathematics Applications. My schedule is a mess, though, because everyone else had managed to sign up for all the good groups with wonderful class times thanks to their non-shit internet connections at home that totally worked. Lucky buggers.

So now all that's left to do is to go to college early tomorrow to see if I screwed anything up when I was registering and, after fixing whatever mistakes I made, pay the fees. When that's done I'll be all ready for the second semester. Should be fun.


Update: The night went on to be a lot of fun. I lost several hundred million (pretend) dollars in poker and generally had a great time. I also recently changed one of my electives from Economics Principles to Physics I. Physics is gonna be harder, but I'm also more interested in it and it pairs better with my Engineering. I just hope Physics isn't too hard, otherwise I might end up resitting next semester and costing my parents RM1400.

Also, what the heck is this?

MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia '09

(Originally written on the 16th of August, 2009)

So yesterday (and the first few hours of today) was pretty awesome. I started out waking up at 6am and getting ready for BB. Putting on my contact lenses (that I had got a few days ago specifically for this occasion) went quite quick. Once my uniform was in order and I had everything packed, I took my maid's Kancil and drove all the way to Cheras. BB was alright, although I got a little tired of explaining my sunburn to people who asked why I was so red.

After leaving early and skipping a planning meeting (what a tragedy, eh?), I drove myself all the way back to Bangsar to get ready for the concert. Took a shower, shaved, changed into some nice clothes, used the mouth wash I got for free from a McDonald's breakfast meal, packed some clothes for the afterparty, and put some gel in my hair (with my mum's help. Fashion is not my strong point). After that I had some brunch. Mmm, bacon and eggs. When that was done it was time to drive all the way to Sunway, but not before stopping by at college to get a hundred bucks spending money and a quick internet fix (the 'net at my house broke a couple days ago and none of us felt like going through the headache of fixing it), but the computer lab was closed on Saturdays so I had to just settle for the ATM money.

When I got to Sunway it was around one o'clock. I got myself some outdoor parking (of which there was plenty, surprisingly) and then proceeded to the nearest internet cafe. An hour later I went to check the line for the mosh pit tickets. Only one group of people was waiting and nobody was manning the counters, so I decided to go for a walk around. I wandered around the hotel to get a look at the concert area, had lunch at Popeyes (better than KFC, worse than Hartz Chicken Buffet), and tried to find some books at Popular and MPH (Neither have Watchmen OR the Zombie Survival Guide. For some reason the last book they had in stock for the latter was classified in the Junior Readers area of Popular). When all that was done I returned to the line and found Nadia and Effie, my friends from college, already had a place in the now-long line, and so I joined them. We chatted for a while and they went off to the toilet. While they were gone, the drummer from Boys Like Girls showed up with some people from MTV Korea. The crowd was pretty enthusiastic. I called the girls, but they came too late. They were around to see me get interviewed by MTV Korea, so that was nice. I hope that clip shows up on YouTube, even if I don't understand it.

We waited in line some more and made a new friend, Pajol. We were all wondering when the line would start to move because each of our letters had different opening times listed for the mosh pit registration. Nadia and Effie's letter said 4:30, mine said 4:00, and Pajol's ticket said 3:30. In the meanwhile we saw a senior from our college outside the line. I asked if she wanted to join us in our spot near-ish to the front, but she was okay where she was. Some other guy behind us claimed to be from HELP, too, but I didn't recognize any of the lecturers he named, so he stayed where he was. The line finally started moving at around 3:45 and I ran off quickly to get some drinks. Red Bull for the girls, Pepsi for myself. We reached the counter before we could finish the drinks and were forced to leave a can of Red Bull behind as no food or drinks were allowed. They gave us our wet weather wear, wrist band slash entry ticket, and a fan, and on we went.

On our way to the pit we met another friend from college, JiaYin. She had the red pass, though, so she was outside the pit in the main audience area. We managed to scream a bit of conversation back and forth for a bit before heading on into the pit. The whole surf pool in Sunway had been drained for the event, and the mosh pit was right at the start of the pool near the stage. It was pretty huge. The stage was separated from the pit by about a sidewalk's width, so there wasn't a chance of reaching out and touching the band. The whole front was filled with people up against the barrier anyway, so we decided to just hang back, take pictures, and enjoy the music videos from the bands that they were looping on the screens on either side of the stage. Michael Jackson got played a little, too, but aside from that the screen was only showing commercials and songs from the bands who would be performing later on. It started drizzling at one point, but I decided not to wear the wet weather wear because I had a spare change of clothes in the car and I look sexier wet anyway. A little before the show started we met my Study Skills lecturer, Miss Selena, and her boyfriend, who apparently had the connections to get them tickets to the mosh pit. Cool guy. We also met up with our senior from HELP again, and I recognized her as Ashley. I'm a bit surprised I didn't recognize her earlier, since she and Juria had been the ones to convince me to dance on Orientation Night at college. She'd also got me to join a dance competition. I also saw the guy from Fly.fm who had given me and Elo our mosh pit tickets and I made sure to thank him.

The show started right when I was taking Miss Selena to see JiaYin, so as far as I know those two didn't see each other that night. The opening act was this local guy who was without a backing band although he had some pretty sweet MJ-esque dance moves. When we pushed our way to the front we could see that the crowd was more focused on Boys Like Girls, who were standing backstage. When the opening act was over there was a long break of nothing as Nadia, Effie, Pajol and I tried to get closer to the front without much success and the crew prepared the stage for the bands. A DJ came out and got the crowd pumped with a mix that started with "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which I felt quite awesome for recognizing. Some more stuff happened with the VJs and stuff but I have either forgotten about it or I can't be arsed to write about it.

The first band up was a local band, Estranged. Their bassist wore a kimono and what could be described as a mime mask. That was pretty cool. It was loud, their songs were powerful enough to keep the crowd pumping. I managed to inch a wee bit closer to the front.

After some more VJ silliness and some T-shirt giveaways it was time for Boys Like Girls. The crowd was very excited when they came on stage, and their performance was great. They started off by graciously calling for the crowd to cheer for all the other bands. They were pretty smart about that, because so far Boys Like Girls seemed to be the only band on the crowd's mind, so it was nice of them to acknowledge that there were other bands there too. I liked how they played the intro to Move Along when they mentioned the All-American Rejects. That solidified their awesomeness to me. When they started playing their songs it was amazing. I had a great time pumping my arm in the air and attempting to jump around and such. The band was throwing guitar picks out like candy, and every time one landed the people nearest would try and go for it and the people near them would use the distraction to squeeze closer to the front. They also threw out their towels, water bottles, and water inside said bottles for the crowd to enjoy. I managed to grab a bottle cap when I had bent down to look for a thrown pick, so that was okay. The band closed their performance with The Great Escape, and they really saved the best for last. The lead singer climbed the scaffolding on the side of the stage to sing the chorus, and the lead guitarist climbed right down to the front of the mosh pit barrier to get up close with the audience. Nadia and Effie weren't quite close enough to touch him, but it was great anyway. The only downside was when someone at the back threw a fan forward and it hit me on the head. I don't care if it was made of paper, it still hurt. People kept throwing things forward the rest of the concert. Not really sure why, probably because they're idiots.

When Boys Like Girls left the stage they announced a short break. We went out and bought some overpriced drinks. We decided to sit down 'till the next performance as we were pretty tired out. The rain had stopped a while back, so we found a place on the right side of the mosh pit to spread out some wet weather gear to sit down on and chillaxed. I massaged the girls' backs and Pajol took a few more pictures while we waited. Next up was Raygun, a pretty awesome British band. I decided to stand up when I saw some actual moshing taking place. It was pretty mild, just a dozen or so dudes running into each other and doing some crazy dancing and having a great time, but it was still nice to see some moshing in the mosh pit instead of the normal concert stuff that everyone else was doing. Effie and I danced near them for a while, but we didn't join in. I was tempted to a couple of times, but ultimately I decided against it. Raygun's performance was a nice surprise. It was very energetic so I didn't have a hard time getting pumped up to dance to it.

After that was Pixie Lott and Hoobastank. Pixie Lott was okay, but I was seated for most of her time on stage. Effie went to the front during their performance, and we caught up with her during the break when the VJs were throwing out free stuff. We were quite close to the front again, even if we were a bit off-center. Hoobastank was really good. They got some great audience participation during their songs, and I guess I had the most fun during their time on stage. When it was about time for them to end, the lead singer told everyone that he was gonna "test how well you know your music". Since all the other bands had been saving up their most famous hits for last, everyone was ready for The Reason, so it was even more awesome when they surprised us with Ghostbusters. When that was done they had everyone join in together for The Reason.

When that was done it was time for the band that most of the people had come to see. The All-American Rejects made an impressive entrance with Dirty Little Secret. The lead singer wore a green singlet and he was covered in body glitter, which was just insane enough to be awesome. Once again, picks and water bottles were liberally distributed among the crowd. Their songs were incredible and everyone had a great time. They closed with Gives You Hell, and the lead singer climbed the scaffolding on the other side of the stage from the one that Boys Like Girls had climbed. The only strange thing was that they didn't play Move Along, which meant that anyone who went for that song had to be satisfied with what they got from Boys Like Girls, which I find a bit ironic.

After the All-American Rejects, most of the crowd left and the rest sat down. I can't imagine that Kasabian, the next band, were too happy about that. They played for a really long time, and then they came back for an encore. They were okay, I guess, but it was a bit upsetting that when I finally got to the front all I did was fan myself and lean against the barrier because of how unenthusiastic I was. The crowd was also getting rowdy, and some stuff got thrown on stage. Security moved in to the barrier between the stage and the crowd, which was kind of pointless because they were still cut off from both the musicians and the crowd. A couple of people managed to break the rules and crowd surf and the security was helpless to do anything except wave their flashlights in their general direction.

When the show was finally over, we headed up to see about going to the afterparty. The girls and Pajol went to 7-11 to top up their credit and I went to my car to get changed. After I was nice and fresh I met up with them and we went to wait in line. I told Nadia to give me ten minutes in line and if no significant progress had been made then I would give up and we could just go get something to eat. The ten minutes expired and I only moved a few steps in front. I pleaded for one more minute and got it. Sure enough, the line surged forward. At the new rate we would be at the front in ten minutes. Nadia reluctantly joined me. After a while of waiting I went to the front of the line to see if they were checking ID. Apparently it was just a quick pat-down and a check that you had the concert ticket/wristband thing. I got back in line and soon we were near the door. Just then someone at the counter asked for our invitations. I hadn't noticed that you needed to have an invitation from the sponsors before going in. We left the line and wandered about looking for something to eat before saying our goodbyes to Effie and Pajol.

I was driving Nadia home, so we walked to the car and tried to figure out how to leave the parking lot. I found the autopay machines, rejoiced at the low low ticket price of RM3, got back into the car, and reversed into another Kancil. Fortunately it was full of friendly dudes who assessed that no major damage had been done and I shouldn't worry about it. I was very very relieved and thanked them as I left. My pattern of only having car accidents at slow speeds when parking and leaving parking areas remained unbroken.

Nadia and I talked along the way back and got lost a few times, but eventually we made it to a McDonald's near her house. I was shafted with some half-hour old fries while she got a nice fresh batch. We lost our appetites somewhere near the end of the meal and made our way back to the car. I had forgotten to turn the lights off, but the battery still worked. We passed a police roadblock one the way to her house, but apparently I was too white to be checked and they let me pass without any hassle.

After I dropped Nadia off I tried to navigate my way back while singing off-key to myself. I ended up taking a five-ringgit shortcut through the empty KLCC parking lot and popping out in a totally unfamiliar part of town. After driving around a bit I was just about to admit I was totally lost when I looked to the right and saw the tallest buildings in the country staring me in the face. From there it wasn't too hard to find my way back.