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?