21 and some of 2013

The night before the day of my 21st birthday was quite nice. I invited a bunch of people for dinner but 80% of them couldn't make it so in the end it was just Joanna and Amanda and me at Jake's. We ate a lot of good food and listened to a lot of good music. Well, I ate a lot of good food. The girls weren't as hungry. But yeah, the music was good.

I then drove us up to Genting and we arrived at the resort right as it turned midnight, so fortunately I did not have to turn 21 inside a car park. We had hot chocolate and I got a sexy card from Jo and some delicious repurposed Valentine's Day cupcakes from Geraldine via Amanda. I also got cookies and candy. It was a very edible batch of presents.

We went to the casino and I gave Jo my wallet so I wouldn't overspend. I went in with RM100 and won RM35, so that was nice, but I also lost RM135 so that was less nice. It was still really fun, though, and I was expecting to lose it all from the start so it all went according to plan.

We were supposed to go clubbing or for karaoke afterwards, but Jo and Amanda were tired so I just dropped them off at their houses and spent some time on the computer at home.

I didn't sleep so well because Jan kept opening the curtains to let the light and heat into the room. I woke up at 4pm and Papa gave me a lecture about expectations and dinner or something and he made it pretty clear that he didn't want to go out for dinner and that he'd rather eat in, so I decided to go get some McD's with Jan. Jan was busy with DotA 2 so I went to swim first. While I was downstairs, Papa sent me a text but he received no reply and got upset. When I came back he gave me a long talking-to because everyone was upset that we weren't going out to eat. After that we went for pizza. While everyone else was eating, I went out to get a Pepsi. When I came back, my classified chicken pizza was not there. Apparently the order was mixed up. I wanted to go out and get my own pizza but Papa demanded that I eat the pizza we had gotten so I stormed into the kitchen because I was upset at having to eat pizza that I didn't even want on my birthday. Mama tried to calm me down but she did so by invading my personal space with a pat on the shoulder. When I tried to swat her hand away, Jan came into the kitchen and told me not to "fucking hit mum" and attacked me. After things calmed down I left because I didn't want to be at home. Ian was there, too, and he kinda stank. I don't think he showers very much now that he's moved out.

I went to get ice cream with Jo and Amanda. Along the way they implied that I need to shower more. That was kinda tough to hear but I'm glad they were honest about it. Now I can take steps to improve. I'm still pissed that this country's so hot and humid that we need two showers a day here, though.

At Baskin-Robbins, the cashier lady tried to give me sass so Jo and Amanda resolved to get her fired. It wasn't really necessary, but it's nice to know that they care and I guess it's better for the world if ice-cream people in general are nicer so I suppose I support the firing of cretinous cashiers to make ice-cream eating a more pleasant experience for everyone. Joanna wrote a post about it.

Anyway we went to McDonald's 'cause I hadn't eaten anything all day aside from the ice-cream. I had maybe my last Prosperity Burger of this prosperity period, but I couldn't finish it. I only had about half, but it was a double, though, so I guess I had the equivalent of one burger so that's fine. Anyway Amanda saw someone she hadn't seen in a long time so she went off to talk to him while Jo and I talked.

Afterwards Amanda needed to get back home and Papa wanted me back so I drove the girls back. Amanda told us about how dangerous her neighbourhood was becoming, with a burglary down the road and an attempted burglary on her house when Geraldine and she were home.

Anyway the fourth was a lot better and the fifth so far has been okay. It's also Jan's birthday today so we'll be eating out. Papa is keen not to repeat the mistakes he made on my birthday.

Also unrelated to all that, I've made new friends at work. It's nice to have someone to talk to in between calls.

Also also, the Tans came over to visit near the end of December and start of January. We watched Les Misérables and it was very good. They also came over for dinner and karaoke. Aunty Rosie made some very nice dessert. We sang karaoke. Well, I sang karaoke and other people listened. Elselyn asked a few times why I kept choosing sad songs. Sad songs are easier to sing; the machine scores you higher for crooning compared to regular singing. Anyway hopefully that's the last time I ever see her; I prefer to deal with my problems by ignoring them. For example, there's a girl at work that I haven't spoken with since sometime in 2011. I don't think I have feelings for her anymore but I don't really care to find out.

Jan got drunk near the start of the new year and he kept wanting to fight me. His friends had to restrain him. Jan is an angry person. He yells in his sleep, mostly about DotA and football.

Friday Night Clubbing in Fragmented Thoughts (Also the Evening After)

Well I had thought this was going to be in fragmented thoughts, but that didn't really work out so well. It's still fragmented, but the style of this is still conventional enough that I didn't save much time at all. Oh well.

I have been procrastinating this post for too long. It's almost eight now, so I'll only have an hour to write this.

Clubbing on Friday was fun. Well, for the first four hours, anyway.

After I got home from work I took a quick shower and got changed and then I went with Corinna to Amanda's house. We waited and watched a National Geographic show about large crocodiles for a while.

Joanna, Amanda, and Kaminie showed up eventually with two of Amanda's cousins. One of them was named Jose. I don't know who the other guy was.

Everyone went in another car except Corinna and me, who stayed in our car as we went to pick up Milan. I drove over a bump too fast because the other car was in a big rush and we were following them.

The drive to the club was uneventful.

When I parked the car, we were approached by a jaga kereta fellow, so we paid him five bucks not to scratch our car. Corinna said that would never happen in Germany.

When we got to the club we got in for free because it was lady's night or we were on the guest list or something. The girls went to get free drinks and I decided I wasn't going to drink anything because everyone else was drinking and I didn't want Corinna to be the designated driver because I wanted to see her drunk.

I spent RM80 on drinks somehow anyway. The guys bought a beer tower and I pitched in, even though I didn't drink any. It was a Carlsberg anyway, so whatever. I also went up to the bar to get Corinna a refill but they made me pay for it because I was not a girl. I also bought a coke.

I encouraged Corinna to take advantage of the free drinks, so she ended up having fourteen of them. She had thirteen whiskeys-and-coke and a single vodka-and-lime, which she thought was disgusting. She let me have a sip of the latter and I liked it.

The whole club was pretty empty when we arrived. The dance floor was empty for quite a while. After a while two girls from the VIP section went up to dance. They had nice bodies but crap faces. That theme continued with the next group of people up on the dance floor. They went back down after a while. Something happened that made a whole big group go up, and then soon other people were going up, and then things started to get fun.

We danced. The first time the whole group of us except Corinna went up because she didn't feel like being watched by everyone or something, so after a while I went down to convince her to join us, but it took me a while to find her and when I finally did locate her everyone else had gotten off the floor. I told her that next time we went up she'd have to go, so she agreed.

Throughout the night Corinna told me how shit the club was compared to the ones she'd been to in Europe. I heard a lot about Ibiza. Later on she also gave me tips for when I was out with ladies, three of which I remember. The first was to get a polo shirt and pop the collar, because girls dig that for some reason. I know polo shirts are great. I told her I'd buy some with my next pay cheque. The second tip was to keep my hands out of my pockets because when girls see a guy with his hands in his pockets they think he's playing with himself. The third tip (actually, she said it was the "first rule") was to never ever do anything with an unconscious girl. I thought that last tip was a bit unnecessary since that's actually rape and I'm pretty sure I would never rape someone, but she stated it anyway. On Sunday I'd figure out why she was so insistent on that last tip.

Anyway, eventually we went up dancing a second time and that was fun. At one point we danced back-to-back and I thought she enjoyed that because we did it for quite a while, but every time after that for the rest of the night when I wanted to ask her if she liked it or not, I was always interrupted. In the end she asked me if I really liked it, and I said I was only doing it because I thought she really liked it, and then on the car drive back home when it was just the two of us she said that it was fun. I really actually did like it, though; dancing back-to-back with Corinna was the best part of my night. It might have been the best part of my week but then I had such a good time on Sunday. Actually, Sunday is the start of another week so I guess dancing back-to-back with Corinna really was the best part of my week.

I met my colleagues, Reena and someone else, at the club. They came in at one-something and when I asked them why they had come with only an hour or two before closing time, they informed me that the club was open until five in the morning that day, so I learned something there. Reena had been buddied up with me at work when she was nearing the end of her training. She still uses my computer in the mornings, I think. Anyway, her and her friend looked very very sexy on the dance floor. I enjoyed their dancing very much. They kept offering me drinks for a while but after I refused a few times they stopped. Well, actually, I had a few sips, but I didn't finish a glass of anything. I feel proud of myself for that.

Anyway the pattern of the night seemed to be that I would talk (yell, actually, since it was quite loud in there) to Corinna or Amanda for a bit, then the girls would go to the toilet or go off to get drinks and I'd stand in the alcove near the store room and rub two coins together while thinking, then when the girls came back I'd talk a bit more and then a nice song would come on and we'd go dance and then we'd come back when lousy songs came on and so it would repeat.

I asked Corinna which guy she'd want to dance with most in the whole club, and after the obligatory "Of course I'd want to dance with you, Shaun" line, she told me that there really wasn't anyone that handsome there. I told her to just pick the least ugly guy, but she couldn't find him either. Apparently Asians weren't her type. Too short for her.

At one point we went up to dance for a while with my colleagues instead of my friends from college, but they only seemed interested in each other so we let them be and moved down a bit, and then I turned around and noticed that Corinna was dancing with someone else, which I thought was odd, and when she didn't turn around I moved off to join my college friends and when I glanced over and saw that she was still dancing with the same guy, I got off the dance floor and went to sit down for a while and rub coins together.

Corinna came down after a while and I congratulated her on finding the least ugly guy in the club, but she told me that she wasn't dancing with him because he was the least ugly; she just thought he was a good dancer. She thought he was a weirdo, though, because he kept asking her to go low or something.

Anyway once I knew that he was a weirdo I felt pretty okay and I went back to talking and waiting and then going off to dance, but when we were back on the dance floor she was dancing with him again and then they were swapping numbers and I thought screw it and got off the floor again so I could go sulk in a corner or whatever.

Corinna and I talked at some point, probably earlier on, about how annoying it was that the emcees kept talking over the music. They didn't let the music play uninterrupted, someone always had to chip in and say something or other. At least they let Sweet Child O' Mine play to the chorus, though; last time we were there they ended it before the verse. Also, they played the theme from Outsourced. I'm not sure what the theme of this paragraph is.

Jose told me to go dance with Corinna because everyone could see how down I had gotten. I told him that I would and I did, but after that I kinda just sat around and waited for the night to end. I got pretty tired. At four fifteen-ish I decided that we could go, so I told everyone that we were going. Joanna wanted to do one last thing with someone. Milan was practically asleep for the last two hours or whatever so he had no problems with going, and the rest of them... I forget what happened with the rest of them but at four twenty-ish everyone seemed good to go, so I left. I said goodbye to Reena and her friend and I got a hug and was told to drive safe. That was nice.

When I exited the club I noticed that nobody was behind me, so I sat by the stairs and waited for them to come out. I texted them and said I was outside.

Amanda's other cousin had gone home in his own car so everyone (Joanna, Amanda, Jose, Kaminie) was going back in the car with Milan and Corinna and I. Also, we met Roshaan and Joshua at the club. That was earlier on but they left with us.

Everyone was out except for Jose, but then he went back in to say goodbye to someone. Everyone was quite drunk except for me (because I hadn't drank anything) and Kaminie (I don't know why) and Corinna (she's German; even after fourteen drinks she was barely buzzed). Milan walked down the stairs so I had to follow him to make sure he didn't hurt himself. Either Joshua or Kaminie came down as well, and then the rest joined us from the elevator eventually. I was quite annoyed to notice that the guy Corinna had been dancing with was there, too.

I could tell right away that he was going to be annoying. He kept asked me where I was from, so I told him Bangsar, and then he asked me where I was from "originally", so I told him Bangsar because my dad was Chinese and my mum was from the Netherlands, and then he asked me where I was from "originally" again, and then when I told him Bangsar the third time he gave up on trying to understand and just went back to bugging Corinna. Except she wasn't bothered, as I later found out. She just kinda tuned out of everything he said and she ended the night under the impression that he was a "nice guy". Ha!

I thought we were all headed to the car to go back the same, but Joanna and Kaminie broke off to go back somehow else. We were all meeting in Devi's, though, because Amanda wanted cheese naan. Amanda always wants cheese naan when she's drunk.

It was a bit tricky to get Milan and Jose to the car as they were both pretty well out from all the drinking, but Joshua helped us so we were grateful for that. Amanda sat between them and Corinna was up in shotgun, and I don't know why I'm mentioning seating arrangements but there you go.

Anyway, we got to Devi's and Amanda and Jose hobbled off to go order. Corinna and I stayed by the car while we watched Milan puke. Corinna pointed out how she could tell that he hadn't eaten anything because his vomit was entirely liquid. It meant that there wasn't any smell, though, so that was alright.

We got to Devi's and I sat down and then Kaminie and Joanna arrived with the dumbass that Corinna was dancing with and two other guys. The dumbass kept saying "trust me" after everything and he kept insisting that Corinna should try nasi lemak because she'd love it even though she'd already told him that she'd tried it and she hated it. He asked us what our favourite countries were and Corinna replied that she didn't have a favourite country, and then he said his favourite country was America and I knew he was full of it. I asked him how many states there were and his reply was "forty plus". Gah, I hate him. The worst bit was that he wasn't mean-spirited or anything, just so freaking oblivious and idiotic and obvious in his intentions.

I asked Joanna if she knew who the dumbass was, but she didn't. She didn't know the other two guys, either. I asked her why she decided to ride back with them if she didn't know who they were, and she said something about Kaminie.

Meanwhile Jose was threatening the dumbass' friend with a fork and the dumbass' friend was also being an obnoxious annoying dumbass. Kaminie looked miserable. Earlier on he had been leaning in near her and it was pretty obvious that he was trying to flirt with her or something but she was having none of it. Oh yeah, when Corinna had mentioned that she as from Germany, this guy's first reaction was to yell "Nazi!". Not as an accusation or anything, it's just that that was the only word in his thick empty skull that he associated with Germany, so he felt that blurting it out was an acceptable reaction. Idiot. Fortunately, Corinna was tuned out because of the other dumbass (Mr Trust Me) so she didn't hear it.

I finished my second limau ice and decided to go have McDonald's instead since they were serving the breakfast menu and the hash browns would be very fresh. I jogged over and there was a group of four girls talking about college or Form 5 or something, but they were the only other people on my side of the counter. Behind the counter it took the staff a minute to find someone to take my order. I didn't mind though, because it only cost RM10 and I got to eat from the breakfast menu for dinner.

After I finished my McMuffin and hash, I took my orange juice and walked back to Devi's. Along the way I was contemplating whether I should tell the dumbass about Corinna telling me on the way to the car from the club that she wasn't going to sleep with him or even text him back. I don't know why I decided against it, but I guess he wouldn't've understood no matter how clear I made it anyway.

When I got back, the dumbass was still talking to Corinna and she was still semi-ignoring him. She was responding to what he was saying, but I'm pretty sure her mind was elsewhere because there is no other explanation for her conclusion that he was a "nice guy". At one point he leaned over and whispered something in her ear and her response was "Okay, A) he's not my boyfriend, and B) he's not my best friend" so that was a thing.

I asked Amanda why she was eating nasi lemak instead of cheese naan and she said something but I didn't hear what. It sounded sad, though. Everyone was in a lousy mood except the two dumbasses, because they were the ones ruining everything, and Corinna, because she had zoned out or whatever. Even the dumbasses' cousin (or friend) looked like he was feeling lousy, probably because he realized at what shitty company he was keeping.

Finally everyone finished their food, so we got to leave two dumbasses and their cousin behind and go back. I asked why Joanna and Kaminie had even decided to ride with them anyway, and apparently it was because the dumbass that liked Kaminie had been so persistently annoying that they decided to ride with him just to shut him up. I thought that was phenomenally stupid because, I dunno, they might have just driven off someplace and raped them or whatever, but Joanna said that Kaminie apparently knew them from somewhere so it was okay.

Milan threw up a second time while I was waiting in the car. It was very convenient of him to only spew immediately before and after journeys. It kept the car nice and clean. Milan is a considerate dude, even when he's drunk.

In the car, Amanda got pissed at Kaminie for bringing them to Devi's, Joanna got pissed at Amanda when Amanda told her to stop defending the dumbasses (Joanna wasn't defending them, she just didn't want everyone yelling), and I was pissed at Corinna for giving that dumbass her number and not recognizing how stupid they were.

Apparently the dumbass that liked Kaminie had been punching her all night in some retarded form of flirting, and so Amanda said that she'd punch him if he hit her one more time, so he dared her to, so she slapped him, so he said that that wasn't a punch, so she said it was a "preview to a punch", and then he said if she could hit him then he could hit her, then Jose said not to touch his cousin, and then he said something to Amanda, and then the dumbass thought he was talking to him or something, and then Jose raised his fork and started threatening him, and then Mr Trust Me kept chiming in to try and impress Corinna who had stopped caring a long time ago, and then I left and went to McDonald's. So that's what was happening on that side of the table.

Anyway eventually everyone in the car agreed that the dumbasses were dumbasses, and then I dropped Milan off at his house and everyone else off at Amanda's. Joanna told me that we could maybe do it again on her birthday, which I wrongly guessed as being on the 31st of December. It was actually on the 30th of November.

On the way back home with Corinna, I told her about the "nazi!" dumbass and tried to convince her that it was stupid to give the other dumbass her phone number, and although she agreed that the other guy was really stupid she still stuck by her decision to trade numbers with the guy. I told her she'd regret it. I was wrong, though; the next day she hadn't received anything from him so I conceded that she was right and maybe it was okay to give out contact details to dumbasses.

We got home at six in the morning and the sky looked very nice. We said goodnight and I took a shower. Jan knocked on the door right when I started, because he had just woken up and needed to get ready for BB. I told him to just wait and then I brushed my teeth and told him and Ian about Corinna not being drunk after 14 drinks and about the dumbass she had danced with and then they left for BB and I went on Tumblr for a very short while and I went to sleep at seven.

I woke up at six and had pasta. Corinna joined me in the kitchen and we talked until my dad came home with Uncle Shark. The four of us talked about Aquaria for a while, then Corinna and I went out to the dining room to play checkers. The board I had bought was too big. It was 10X10 instead of 8X8. Corinna had never played before so it was doubly awkward. We didn't finish the game because it got too boring and we forgot whose turn it was.

Corinna told me about the headache she had when she woke up in the morning. Susanna had walked in twice just to stare at her and that didn't help. Anyway she said she eventually woke up to take a shower and go back to bed, and then a little later she went to the pool for a while but went to sleep afterwards anyway. So I had eleven hours of lovely sleep in my bed and she had ten and a half hours of sleep in her bed and also by the pool and such.

Jan stopped by and I told him that Corinna had complained to me the night before that I was the only one that talked to her. Jan felt pretty bad but Corinna said she wasn't complaining, she was just saying. Jan defended himself anyway by pointing out that I talk so much that it just seems like Hannah and Ian and he don't say much, but really they're talking a normal amount and my excessive talking is making them seem quiet by comparison. Then he left.

Corinna and I went through all the pictures on her camera and I took a bunch of them to upload later. They were the ones from Batu Caves with snakes and the big lizard and such, like these two:

After that, Corinna went on Facebook and she showed me a picture of the stripper clown from Ibiza with cock ring and the gigantic penis. After that she showed me pictures that her dad sent from the Middle East of the gun store and the lavish golden bathroom and the gold ATM and such. She also showed me pictures from some parties and her friends' profiles and her ex-boyfriend's car crash and her castle school. She told me loads of stuff about Germany and by the end of it all I was very jealous of where she lived.

We watched some videos from the Midnight Beast on YouTube and then we watched some of Tenacious D and some of my favourite music and her favourite music and soon enough four hours had passed and it was eleven o'clock, so Corinna went back to bed and I went to my computer.

I wanted to blog but I didn't. I think I just got kinda depressed for some reason and I didn't do much except e-mail Sara and delete a bunch of photos from my phone and put some more Taylor Swift on it while trying to figure out how to compress songs. I went to bed at five.

I woke up at nine and then Sunday began, but I'll write about that tomorrow.

On Sunday night I was also sitting at my computer for a while feeling depressed even though I had a really nice time. It's weird. I think it's because I start missing the fun times the moment they end, and that's not good for me.

Updating for Updating's Sake (and of Course this Grew into a Longer Post than Intended)

I have a lot of unread items on my Google Reader feed. I have three weeks of webcomics to catch up on. I have two weeks to blog about. I'll do that all later. Like, end of the month later or something.

I'm going clubbing tonight with Amanda and Milan and the rest. They said it's cool if I bring Corinna along, so I'm going to see if she wants to come.

Tomorrow we're going to Gua Tempurung, and then after that we're going to Cameron Highlands. We're using my mum's car because she's in the Netherlands with Hannah for my grandmother's funeral. I spoke to my Oma a week before she went. She sounded small and a little bit confused. She's with her husband now, I guess, so that's nice.

I don't have any more maternal grandparents.

Yesterday (technically, today), I was at the office for a long time. My shift ended at nine, I stayed on until ten watching the new Glee, and then I called Sara on Skype and talked to her for the next three hours. There was only one other person at the office. I moved all the abandoned chairs to my area of the cubicle farm. I felt like a furniture king. Anyway, I decided to hang up at 1:30am so I could go home and get some sleep, so I did. My card wouldn't work in tagging me out, so I had to get the other guy to let me out. I then realized that I had left my keys on my desk, so I had to yell from outside for him to let me back in. He was a patient dude, luckily.

When I got to the car, there was a dog napping underneath it. It had a hurt paw. It looked really cute. I took two pictures, but I can't upload them right now because I didn't bring my transfer cable to work.

When I got home I lost Ian's USB stick. I went back to the car to look for it, but it wasn't there. When I came back upstairs it was lying on the welcome mat. I felt a bit silly when I noticed that.

Jan was still awake, listening to the Ricky Gervais show. I took a shower and went to sleep at two-thirty.

The next morning I went through my morning routine, ate some sausages and bacon with Corinna and Aunty Rosie, and checked my e-mail. Then I went to work.

So far work has been okay. It took me a while to log in because of some technical hiccups, but it just meant that I didn't have to answer calls for the first twenty minutes. We were supposed to have some important clients visiting, so I wasn't on Tumblr or Conquer Club the whole day. For my break I went up to the roof and I saw that I had a text from Amanda asking if I wanted to go clubbing. I like getting drunk and seeing my friends get drunk, so I said I would.

When I got back I went up to the ops team to talk to them about something, and someone had left their phone on their desk. Nina (the nice lady in charge of approval for lunch and breaks) wanted to hide the phone. I asked if she wanted me to take it down to Sukarno (my boss) when I went back to my desk, since apparently it's his last day and it would be a nice (albeit short-lived) going-away present. She said she did, so I did. I'm not sure what he's done with it.

The fire escape in this building has "no smoking" signs on every floor, but even during an actual fire you're still more likely to die of smoke inhalation on the stairs than you are inside the actual floors. I guess illiteracy is like mouth cancer and coughing: just another side-effect of cigarettes. I'd pity smokers if they weren't all so stupid about their mortality.

I only really have to write about the weekends. I need to write about Halloween and Batu Caves and Megamind and Tropicana City Mall and that's pretty much it. Should be pretty simple. Work days are all the same anyway.

Oh. I also need to upload all the pictures of me with the snakes and the bearded dragon and Catholic Jesus up at Batu Caves. They're on Corinna's camera; I have to remember to get those from her sometime.

I don't know what my opinions are regarding Sara Elizabeth Madren. On the one hand I really really like talking to her, on the other hand I can never decide if I'm infatuated with her or not. I'm pretty sure I will be tonight, because I'll be drunk and I'm infatuated with every pretty girl when I'm drunk.

I'm running out of money. After tithing RM400 to Beacon Life Training Centre to help buy stuff to help the special needs kids, I think I'll only have, like, RM300 left. I'm probably going to spend RM200 tonight and maybe half that tomorrow (not counting petrol), so I'm going to have to starve a bit near the end of the month. Oh well.

Man, it's gonna suck to be unemployed again. It's gonna suck worse to be in university, but at least I'll be able to make new friends. It's the in-between period that'll get me. I'll be pretty bored. I should get a laptop and install all the awesome games of the past three years on it. That should tide me through.

I need more money.

Awesome Weekend: Clubbing, Movie, Karaoke

So I haven't blogged in a while because I kept falling asleep before I could do so. It's unfortunate, because I have so much to blog about. Let's start with Friday.

On Friday, I woke up when my dad walked in the room and asked what the music was about. I told him it was my alarm, and then I listened carefully and noticed that it was Should I Stay or Should I Go, which meant that it was already 7:15am, which meant, holy shit, I was super late.

My dad said he'd go down and get the car ready while I got prepared for the day as quickly as possible. I didn't have time to put in my contacts and I was only in the shower long enough to get myself wet and I don't think I used any soap, but that was fine since I had taken a proper shower only a few hours earlier before I went to bed. Also I had that mouthwash I bought at Guardian with Amanda, so that meant minty fresh breath and that was nice.

It was raining like mad while we were driving to work, but I still managed to arrive before eight. I got sat down at the same computer and I was set up and ready to go a lot sooner than on Thursday. I got a call from a lady who was willing to pay for support, but just before I was able to charge her, her problem fixed itself. I hope she gets the customer satisfaction survey, because she was very happy with the service. I was a bit miffed about missing out my RM10 commission, but right now I'm new to the job so happy customers are still worth more to me than commissions and a low AHT. That'll change eventually, I think.

I answered calls until two-ish, then I went for what I had hoped was going to be a quick lunch and a nice nap, but I got approached by someone representing Prudential, so I did a short survey, and then after I bought my pies and lunch a colleague engaged me in conversation so I was in the cafe for a while. The pies and conversation were good, though. The guy I was talking to was an overflow technician or something similar-sounding, which basically meant that although he was with the new Fujitsu department, he'd handle calls from the HP queue if all the other T2 guys were busy. He had actually got one of my customers and helped her fix her problem, which was cool.

Anyway it was a good thing I was talking to him because after lunch I forgot my bag and he reminded me about it. When I got back down I was still on my lunch break, so I went to talk to Kuberan and we talked about our jobs. After that I think I had a talk with my supervisor, then I went on break for fifteen minutes. During that time I traded some movies with Dinesh, who is a very experienced T1 guy who sits nearby and answers my less complicated questions when he's not on call.

After the break I handled some more calls. I had to process my first two DOAs on Friday, which drove up my AHT quite a bit, but now that I know how a DOA case works it should be a lot quicker next time. I also ended up inadvertently frustrating a customer by taking too long to register him and then forgetting to tell him about the support charges until quite some time had passed, so he demanded to speak to my supervisor. Fortunately I was told it might be a hardware issue, which was still under warranty, so I logged the rest of the problem details and he said he would call back later when he was more composed and ready to troubleshoot. I told him that since it was a hardware issue and since he still had a hardware warranty he could get to T2 free of charge. Anyway that is the closest a customer has come to crying and I hope I never screw up that bad again.

I did have a few victories that day, though. An old lady called and she ordered some recovery CDs, which were 66 AUD, so after Dinesh helped walk me through the process of charging a credit card for a purchase, I had earned HP the equivalent of two days of my salary. My AHT was quite high at the end of the day, but since I'm still quite new it's still fine. I should be hitting the six minute target within two weeks, apparently. But yeah, old people are my favourite customers. They don't care about having to pay for support and they're always so friendly and easy to deal with. It's the people with technical knowledge that are harder to deal with, since they usually want to get through T1 as quick as possible and over to T2, so they treat T1 people quite poorly. Oh well, I get paid either way so I can't care too much.

I texted Aunty Rosie to pick me up at five, since that was the exact time I was going to stop taking calls. A few seconds after 4:59, I got a call. It went on for about fifteen minutes. The lady at the other end was pleasant enough, though, so I didn't mind the extra time so much. Aunty Rosie might've, though.

When I got home I set my alarm for nine in the evening and then I took a nap. When I woke up I had a huge bowl of carbonara that I could almost finish (I've still got a few forkfuls of leftovers in the fridge from that dinner), and then I got Hannah to help me figure out what to wear. She picked out a nice shirt that was a bit large and I called it "garish". I wasn't quite sure what "garish" meant, but it sounded right. I looked it up later and that shirt was not at all garish.

Ian dropped me off at Amanda's house at 10:15. Amanda was still getting ready, so her mum let me in. She complimented my Puma shoes, which I thought was pretty funny because I had recently come home to find that my aunt wears the exact same shoes as me but two sizes smaller. We watched the Asian Food Channel while waiting for Davinia to arrive and for Amanda to get ready.

Davinia arrived and she looked nice. She had apparently been getting ready since six. I told her I had only been getting ready since nine. I like being a guy.

Davinia told me to tell Nick that she was going to wait with him while Amanda and I were going to pick up Milan and get some money from an ATM (I only had nine ringgit). I texted Nick the plan and he told me to withdraw loads of cash. Thousands, he specified. Maybe steal a credit card if I didn't have that much in my bank. Nick's a funny guy.

Amanda got done and she looked very nice as well. I told her that I thought her shawl was an especially nice touch, but then she told me that she was only going to wear that in the car and I was all like "oh".

Geraldine was going to leave somewhere with Amanda's mum's friends and then they were going to The Ship in town. I said hi to everyone involved with that previous sentence. There... there isn't much to say about that, but I remembered it so I figured I might as well put that in.

Davinia realized that I had not brought a car and that meant that she had to drive us to pick up Milan and head to the ATM, so Nick would have to wait on his own. So Davinia drove us to the Maybank in Bangsar and Amanda went to 7-Eleven while I withdrew some cash. I met up with Amanda in 7-Eleven while we waited for Davinia to circle around. Amanda had bought credit for Davinia's phone and also some mints for me. In the car I had told her she could get any flavour except purple, which was unfortunate because she had wanted to try purple. Anyway I didn't really have a good reason for not wanting purple, so I let her get it anyway. Turns we both had never tried the purple flavour before, which was why I didn't want it and why she did. So a packet of mints taught us that Amanda likes to try new things and I like familiarity. That was nice, I guess.

After that we picked up Milan from his house nearby and then we went to the Esso where Nick was waiting. Actually, we may have picked Milan up first and then gone on to get the mints and cash and stuff. Whatever. Anyway, we were at the Esso and I noticed that Nick was driving alone and so it was just going to be the five of us. Davi and Milan swapped places so Davi could eat while Milan followed Nicholas to Changkat.

Along the way, Davi lost her spoon so she had to use her hands to eat some food she had brought. When we stopped at a light near Dataran Merdeka, she opened the car door, leaned out, and washed her hands with some mineral water that was lying around. When we stopped at the next traffic light I told everyone about my worst nightmare ever, which I had had just a few hours prior while I was taking my nap. In it, I was at work, but then I screwed up on a call, and then my supervisor came and talked to me. It was terrifying.

When we got to Changkat we drove around for quite a bit looking for parking. The best word to describe the place would be seedy. Seedy with a lot of interesting-looking food places. Well, interesting to the rest of them, it was all oriental nonsense to me. There were a lot of guest houses which made me wonder if it was a really convenient place to stay for tourists or if (and I considered this less likely in my mind because real life is usually more boring than this) they were all fronts for brothels or something.

Anyway we found a place to park and then we walked down to find a club and then loads of interesting fun stuff happened.
Around five hours later Davinia dropped me off at home and I went to bed after doing my exercises (or not, I can't remember) and taking a nice warm shower.

When I woke up I did my exercises (or not, I can't remember) before my shower. I had woken up in the afternoon, too, so that was nice. It was Saturday and I didn't have anything to do, so when my aunt asked if I wanted to watch a movie I said yes. I asked Hannah if she wanted to come, but she was too lazy.

We decided to watch Devil because she screening time was convenient and there wasn't really anything else worth watching. When we got to Mid Valley we picked up the tickets, and then we stopped at one of those stalls that sell all sorts of trinkets so my aunt could get something engraved. While she was doing that, I met Mark Tan. He told me that Ian and Jan were still in a meeting in Cheras but he had left early to get his eyes checked and he was currently looking for something for his girlfriend. I would later be informed by one of my brothers that he was going to marry that girlfriend soon. I am always the last to find out these things. Anyway, after that we went to Popeyes for lunch. It was extremely tasty and I now love it more than KFC due to the delicious chicken fillets (I think they may be called tenders) and the lack of grease. The biscuits are great, too, but my aunt wasn't too fond of them. Oh well, it just meant more for me.

My aunt picked up the engraved thing while I got the popcorn, and then we went to watch the movie. We saw the trailers for Red and The Green Hornet, both of which looked awesome. After that was the movie itself, which was surprisingly good. I guess that may be because even though the story was from M Night Shymalan, he didn't actually write the screenplay or direct the movie. Anyway when it was over we agreed it was quite good. In my opinion it's better than Signs because it makes more sense, even if Signs might have been the more enjoyable movie experience.

We split up for a while after the movie was done. I went to MPH to read the first bit of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at my aunt's recommendation while she went to look for a handbag strap or something. The book was good, but she never found her strap.

When we got back home the house was pretty empty. Aunty Rosie said everyone had just left for dinner, so when I called and found out they were in Sin Kee, I told them to order me a chicken chop and I'd be there soon.

I drove over and we talked and ate dinner and then we went back. Jan wrote his name in the new sidewalk that had just been filled with wet cement, but then Hannah went and tried to write hers next to his and she got spotted by one of the workers who probably smoothed everything out when we left. Nice going, Hannah.

When we got home I went on the computer for a bit, and then I decided to take a nap on the couch for a while before I blogged and did my exercise and took a shower and went to bed. Unfortunately, I did not wake up from this nap until sunrise on Sunday.

Breakfast was okay. The newspaper was a bit more interesting than usual (there were articles about rape and affairs in the NST). Church was slightly better than average.

I watched Mission Impossible until 3:30, then I went to pick Hannah up from Royal Rangers. When I got there, she texted me and told me that I could wait until 4:20 before picking her up. I napped in the meantime.

When Hannah was done we drove home and I finished Mission Impossible and then I forgot what I did. I probably procrastinated writing this blog post, actually.

Oh wait now I remember, I went on the karaoke for about an hour and a half. Susanna and my aunt joined me. Apparently the machine cost RM1.2k. That... that is a lot. We'll have to use it more. It's fun. I only actually went on it because nobody else was at home so I could sing without offending the hearing of others. I love singing but I suck at it, it is my curse.

This post isn't a finished product. After work on Monday I'll come back and fill in all the details about Friday night. I've got a bit of paper with a list of stuff on it that I had written down before I went to bed that night. Here is exactly what's written on it:
"Main points for 1st time clubbing:
-Changkat, envie, nevermind, (it is lousy)
-Car to Palace with Nic, talk about prostitutes & politics
-Palace, too young, lenient bouncer, yay
-No cover charge, yay
-First round on Nic
-Felt socially obliged to purchase second round
-No Heineken, no Tiger
-Is Corola [sic] RM17? Yes. Later, nope, it's RM26. Had to collect RM10 from guys.
-Amanda wants to dance. Nevermind.
-Money seizure stuck in head. Said it, no real result
-Saw some video boobs, weren't that great
-Half songs good, half lame
-Sweet child o' potong steam
-Dance & talk
-Why no jump? Chest spill issue. - Amanda
-Go back before 3:30
-Milan wants to watch fight, is strong
-Drunken goodbyes
-Cheese Naan
-Drive back
-Amanda says I can talk about spillage on blog but nothing else
-Pretty 5.5 for a white guy
-To Devi's
-Explain over & over why Kierran [It's actually Kiran, I think] can't make it.
-Amanda fed by Da
-Amanda sleep
-Nevermind McD's
-Drop off Milan
-Went home
-What else?
-Will figure out later
-T-shirt (Hannah) did good.
-Amanda slurr
-Premarital sex advice from drunks
-Skin colour attraction
-Maybe/Definitely for Da/us"

So yeah, that's like a sneak preview of what's to come. Hopefully I'll have this updated on Monday.

Resident Evil: Afterlife and Nick's Farewell Party

Oh man I am so tired. This post is probably going to be riddled with errors, both factual and grammatical, which sucks because it's probably going to be one of the more popular ones that I've written recently. I'll try to keep it short. Here goes.

I woke up at 10:30 on Saturday, which I shall refer to as today throughout the rest of this post, if I do refer to the day at all. I started my day with the typical stuff: daily Bible reading, shower, etc, etc. I was on the computer until two, and then my dad lectured me and my brothers about spark plugs for some reason. I think he said it was because we are driving our own cars now so we need to know how they work so we know how to fix them. I suspect he was just preparing us so we could change his spark plugs tomorrow or something.

After that Hannah had Audrey and Ebony over for some reason. Ian wanted to go watch a movie. I thought that was a good idea. The girls wanted to go to 1 Utama instead of Mid Valley because they wanted to shop there or something. Jan wanted to come along, too.

We checked the screening times online, and both Step Up 3D and Resident Evil: Afterlife were showing within a reasonable amount of time. I wanted to watch one of them since they used proper stereoscopic 3D instead of that post-production bullshit that Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans tried to pull. I'd explain it, but I'm pretty sure I've explained it before and I'm also pretty sure I'd screw it up if I tried to explain it while I was this tired.

Ian said he was going to watch Afterlife with Jared that evening, so he'd prefer if we watched Step Up. I didn't feel like sitting through a crappy romance plot for awesome 3D dancing, so I convinced Jan to join me to sit through a crappy post-apocalyptic plot for awesome 3D zombie-and-faceless-goon killing action.

The plan was that Ian and I would take separate cars to 1 Utama, then after the movie he would drive the girls and Jan back home while I would go to Nick's farewell party. When we were walking down to the cars, I thought Jan was going to travel with Ian and the girls were going to come with me, since I would be driving the larger car, but Jan said he called shotgun for my car or some bullshit and Hannah didn't want to travel with Jan and also the girls didn't want to travel without Hannah so the girls ended up going with Ian and Jan ended up going with me.

I thought our first stop was going to be McDonald's because it was nearing the end of 2 o'clock and the lunch discount would soon be over so we'd better eat at the Bangsar McD's before we went to 1 Utama because we could eat cheap and also because I could stop by the optometrist's store to check if they were open so I could order my contact lenses. The opometrist was not open. Stupid Hari Raya holidays. Anyway, Jan and I went to McDonald's and I ordered myself a McNuggets meal with two additional packets of large fries because I had told the girls I would buy some fries for them to share and also because I was super hungry. Jan had a triple cheeseburger that I had to goad him into buying. The girls didn't show up because they went straight to 1 Utama because they don't know how to inform people about changes in plans and because they don't think logically and because bleh.

I called Ian to see what the deal was, and he told me they were eating in Burger King and the girls suddenly didn't want to watch a movie and neither did he so Jan and I shouldn't show up. I told him I'd call Jared and tell Jared to watch Step Up 3D with Ian in the evening so he could watch Afterlife with Jan and me while the girls shopped. Jared wasn't answering his phone, so I think I tried to call Hannah and Ian to update them on the situation but neither of them was picking up, so I called Audrey, but for as much as I enjoy her presence she is thick as fuck and did not relay a single word of what I said to Ian. I told her that Jan and I would be coming over to watch the movie and so they would have to stay so Jan could have transport back after the movie, but like I said Audrey is really vapid so Ian did not get any of what I said. It's my fault, really. Should have texted him; never trust a woman to do a few words' work.

After we finally finished our food and hearing a pretty awesome cover of Tik Tok on McD FM, Jan and I left for 1 Utama. This was around 3:30pm. We arrived at the parking place near the park (do you know where it is? Yes? No? I don't care.) and Jan spotted Ian's car. I wanted to leave a message on it, but I had no pens or paper, so we just plucked a bunch of flowers and dumped them on his windscreen. It was pretty funny at the time, and the time was then 4:00pm.

In the mall I went to TGV thinking it was GSC and that wasted five minutes, then we went over the escalator to GSC and we decided that I would look for an ATM while Jan stood in line for the tickets. I found an ATM quite quickly (I love 1U's touchscreen map thingy), and since there was a gift shop nearby I decided to pop in to find something for Nick. I took the risk-free route and got him a notebook.

I went up to GSC and saw Jan in the line. I wanted to call him up and then sneak up behind him while he was on the phone with me, but every time I dialled his number he tried to call me, so I couldn't get through to him. Eventually he spotted me, so I joined him in line. When we got to the counter there were, like, four tickets left for the 4:15pm showing of Afterlife since it was already 4:15, and all of them were shitty and separated. Jan and I both got tickets aisles apart in the same column (the furthest one to the right).

We ran to the cinema and arrived in the middle of maybe the first trailer. It was the really orange and blue one with Sigourney Weaver and Kristen Bell (She's the Kristen that isn't Bella, yeah?). We also saw the trailer to Devil, which Jan somehow thought looked like a decent film. Foolish boy. Anyway, I got the guy next to me to switch places with Jan, even though it turned out that he was previously sitting behind a group of friends. I bet those friends gave him hell afterwards for that, since I was a rather obnoxious moviegoer and I must've ruined their experience. I'd hate to sit next to me. Oh well, at least Jan and I were together.

During the trailers Jan got a call from Ian. Apparently he had already driven home with the girls because Audrey had told him nothing (stupid girl. Nice girl, fun to talk to, good friend to my sister, somewhat intelligent but very stubborn when wrong [and when right], charismatic, but still sometimes very, very stupid.) so Jan had to find his own way back. I told him that I'd drive him, because I guess it wouldn't be too bad if I was late to Nick's party, even though I had told him that I might be arriving early.

Resident Evil: Afterlife was fun. I won't call it a good movie, but I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the 3D (even if they did do some things wrong like mess with the clarity and set it in the dark) and I enjoyed the zombies and the action sequences, though highly derivative, were good mindless fun so I enjoyed them, too. It was RM17 well spent. Don't bother with the movie if you're not watching it in 3D, though. Also there's something after the credits, so stay around for that.

After the movie, we went back to the car so I could I drive Jan home. When we got to the car we found flowers all over our windscreen. Ian had gotten his revenge, somehow, but it wasn't over yet. Anyway, I removed the flowers and brought Jan back. Along the way I stopped at 7-Eleven to buy some Eclipse mints because my backpack is out of super effective mints. All I have are my emergency/celebratory orange tic-tacs, but I don't think I'm ever going to open those. Anyway I bought the Eclipse and that brought my total spending for the day up to RM60, somehow. They're still in the car. I need to get them before Hannah eats them all. She'll do it because when it comes to mints she is greedy and wasteful and to make it worse she does not even have bad breath except for morning breath so she doesn't even need them 90% of the time.

I had used Google Earth to find Nick's address, and the directions I had worked so well, but they all relied on me finding the right turn-in. I spent half an hour looking for that turn-in. I called Carmeni and she tried to direct me there, but in the end she got me in to Taman Ehsan, but the wrong part of it. I found a large field and called for directions again, and this time she passed me to Nick who guided me to his house which was closer than I thought.

Okay now for the bit that everyone has come here to read about. I'll mention all your names here so that you can find this easily with ctrl+F: Milan, Carmeni, Nicholas (Nic, Nick, Nicholas Rodriguez, etc), Amanda, Davinia. Was there anyone else? I hope not, because if there was then my memory is seriously terrible.

So I arrived at Nicholas' house. I parked nearby and walked over and said hi to Carmeni and Nick who were sitting outside. One of Nick's friends had arrived at the same time as me, and she was meeting Carmeni for the first time. I later told her that Carmeni's family still didn't know that she was dating Nick, so she should consider herself lucky to get an introduction, even if it was five years overdue. Anyway, Nick showed us around the house and introduced us to relatives and his mum and her brownies. The brownies were delicious. His mum was friendly. I don't remember his relatives and they won't remember me. I think I may have met his dad, but that might just have been one of his older relatives.

I talked with Nicholas and his friend who arrived at the same time as me for a while. Nick's mum brought out the food but nobody ate anything because the relatives were watching Man U thrash some other club and I did not want to be the first person to start eating. There was a lot of alcohol, too, but I was driving so I restrained myself from sampling the free booze. I could have slept in the car since my church was right nearby, but I had the large-capacity car so if I was sleeping in it the rest of my family would have no way of getting there the next morning. I drank orange cordial instead. There may have been Sprite in it, too, I couldn't really tell.

Amanda and Davinia and Milan arrived. I assumed they all took the same car. I think that Milan and Amanda were actually in one car while Davinia was in another. Anyway they all arrived at exactly the same time so they could've fooled me. I was not greeted with the enthusiasm I had imagined, but then again I wasn't too enthusiastic in my greeting, either.

Amanda was starving so she went straight for the food, which meant that everyone else could start eating, too. I put rice and vegetables on my plate and I got chided for not trying the curry. I said I would try the curry later. I don't like curry. It doesn't agree with my palate and it doesn't agree with my stomach. I like Carmeni and her boyfriend and his mother and her brownies, so I figured I'd avoid offending them (except the brownies; they can't be offended, obviously, since they're only delicious inanimate objects) by procrastinating with the curry and figuring out a diplomatic solution later. Oh yeah, some fried chicken showed up on the table and that was really really really good and I had loads of that since it was probably the tastiest thing I ate all day. Nick's mum really knows how to cook.

The atmosphere was like this: there were neighbours playing with fireworks and every time they'd go off, Davinia would flinch. I had my phone in my pocket and I had taken it out to show Nick's friend the World Happiness Index since she said that Netherlands was the happiest place on earth or something, but she wasn't around when I found the image so I showed it to Carmeni, and then after a while I showed Amanda and the rest that California Gurls and Tik Tok were the same song, and then after that I left it on random for pretty much the rest of the night. Also, Milan, Amanda, Davinia, Carmeni, and I stayed seated in mostly the same place with Nick stopping by occasionally to converse with us.

The conversation only really got interesting at around eleven, but that leaves a three hour gap since I arrived at eight (well, seven-forty but let's say eight) so I'm not really sure what we talked about before that. I know we started by talking about what happened last night and how everyone went out to go clubbing and they forgot to invite me. That last link feels like the appropriate soundtrack to that particular conversation, aside from that it had nothing to do with anything so feel free to ignore it (you've probably ignored the others, if you're even still reading. Don't worry, I don't mind). Anyway we also talked about the Bible for a bit. I gave a brief summary of Christianity to Davinia and Milan, but they didn't know enough about their own religions to explain theirs to me. I then went on to talk about sex in the Bible and my personal favourite 18+ Bible story. I got some details wrong but whatever. While I was explaining it, Amanda had an epiphany about some Catholic thing, so good for her. Was there anything else before I get to the good stuff? I can't remember.

Anyway after that, starting at around eleven, we talked about other people. Mostly we talked about other people at college. It was gossip, and it was all news to me. Apparently nobody ever gossiped with me for the whole year I was in college because they assumed I would either tell other people or put in on my blog. This was very likely a correct assumption. Still, it meant that the whole time everything I knew about everyone was only good stuff because nobody wanted so say anything bad about anyone else in front of me because they knew that the people they were talking about would find out through me and then drama would begin. So I never knew anything and I ended my Foundation in Science thinking that I was lucky enough to have friends who never talked behind the backs of others and all got along super well and stuff. Ignorance really was bliss. After eleven o'clock is when I got to hear all this stuff that had previously been kept secret from me. Unfortunately for those of you hoping I will continue to uphold my reputation as a person unable to keep anything private, I was told I couldn't tell anything from the conversations that night aside from the Bible story stuff to anyone. I forgot who made me promise. It was probably Davinia but I'm going to say Milan because then he'll arrive at this paragraph when he ctrl+Fs himself. Actually I'm not sure if I even did promise. I'm going to assume I didn't because I hate promises. But anyway there was a lot of stuff that came out, all sorts of drama and bad talk about people not present (and some who were, I guess) and Milan didn't know about most of it either. In the end we agreed that I was more naive than him, though.

It's no secret that people talk behind each others' backs, right? I'm under the impression right now that that was only a secret from me, and that was only because I never asked. I wouldn't've been told anyway. But yeah, I'm glad I heard what I heard but I'm frustrated that I can't talk about it here. I was going to write it and then encode it with a substitution cipher so that I (and people who I gave the keyword to and also people smart and bored enough to bruteforce it) could read it later, but I couldn't find a decent app for free at this hour. Maybe next post.

Carmeni, Da, Milan, 'Manda, Nick, hit me up on Facebook if I've said too much. I don't think I have but it's 4am so maybe I missed something.

"Hit me up"? Who even says that? Is that even a phrase? I need to sleep very very soon or who knows what nonsense I'll say next. Okay, let's finish the party.

Amanda went home with Milan a little before twelve and Davinia went back at around the same time. Carmeni had gone home a bit sooner with her uncle. Did I mention her sister was at the party? Her sister was at the party. I didn't say a word to her because I was unsure if Carmeni was joking when she said she was her sister and I spent the next few hours trying to figure out whether she was or not until I finally got my answer when she got in the car with Carmeni to leave.

I tried some wild boar with curry. It was delicious but so so so spicy. This was before the conversation, though. Oh yeah I also gave Nick his present. I'm not sure what he thought of it; I never saw him take it out of the bag. Back to people leaving:

I said goodbye to Nick's mum and complimented her fried chicken one last time (it really was really good), and then I said goodbye to Nick, and then I got in the car and drove back. On the second last traffic light before my house I saw an advertisement for an "Adult Sex Toy" hanging on a poll, so I went out and tried to remove it while waiting for the light. I managed to tear it in half, but it was the half that said "Adult". The light turned green and I gave it one final yank that removed the "Sex Toy" bit which I ran back to the car with before driving off. When I got home I put it on Ian's car's windscreen. When he finds it later on today (for it is already almost 4:15am on Sunday morning), he shall agree that I have won this one.

That's about it, really. After this post I'll do my exercises and take a shower and turn on the torrents and then I'll go to bed and then I'll have to wake up near the end of seven o'clock and get ready for church and then chew a lot of gum so I don't fall asleep during the sermon and then take a long nap.

What else can I write here to finish with? Audrey is a good person but when she does stupid things it really annoys me, so I like Ebony more. I learned a lot more about all my friends today, except for Amanda and Davinia. I only learned a little more about them, specifically that Amanda is still very fun when drunk and Davinia... wait never mind, I said I wouldn't say. It's a small thing anyway. I found out that my either friends either gossip or are not quite the same people that they seem to be around me. I much prefer the gossip thing. Oh yeah! I also found out why Jacob Black shaves and Edward Cullen does not. That... that's about as good a thing to end with as I'll get, I guess. Have a nice day, everyone.

P.S. I just remembered that Amanda told me (in the nicest, sincerest, best-meaning way possible), that sometimes I freak her out. This was after I suggested we go to that spooky abandoned place between HELP and the street to kill time before her curfew. Wait, was it freak her out? Maybe it was creep her out. Or scare. Or spook. Or a synonym to one of those words. Anyway if I'm going to learn something from today, it is going to be something from there. And on this note I will end unless I have something else to add.

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.

MTV World Stage 2010 & Amanda's Birthday

Nothing much happened on Friday. I went to my Bahasa Kebangsaan class, I found out that only one other member of my group had finished their bit of the assignment, I took a quiz and I think that I did quite well on the second half, and I finally managed to get another kitten to trust me.

Saturday is where the real fun was at. I woke up at around noontime, did my daily Bible reading, took a shower, put on some jeans and the MTV World Stage 2010 t-shirt that I had won, and packed some extra clothes into my bag. A little later I was ready to go. I woke Hannah up from a nap to tell her to get ready to go, and also to tell her to bring her iPod so we'd have something to do while waiting, but she said she didn't want to carry it around with her, so I told her that she could just borrow Jan's speakers and just use the iPod in the car, but she told me that the speakers were broken or something so I said fine, whatever, let's go. I made sure to remember to bring Amanda's presents to the car, but I almost forgot our concert tickets. The tickets said the doors would open for MTV World Stage at 4pm, but Hannah and I left at 1:30 so we could eat at McDonald's before the lunch discount was over.

We took Aunty Rosie's Kancil to Sunway Pyramid. Along the way Hannah got annoyed at my singing so she slapped me in the face. I got upset with her because she hit me in my sunglasses and she might have damaged them. I don't mind pain, but I spent a long time looking for mirrored sunglasses, and I would hate to pay RM20 to replace them. Also it's stupid to hit someone in the face just for singing. I tried to hit her back in her sunglasses, but I only ended up smacking her forehead, but she told me later that they were Ebony's sunglasses so maybe it was a good thing that I missed.

Anyway, when we arrived, the usual parking area was closed, so we had to park in some alternative lot. It looked completely full, but fortunately we were in a small car so we found a spot to squeeze into. Hannah got out to guide the car into an inch-perfect place. We left the sunglasses, presents, and bag in the car.

Along the way into the mall we saw the line, and it was very long. People were sitting down in groups all along the road. I figured that we'd just look for someone we know and slip in with them later.

Hannah and I made a lot of small, useless decisions along the way to McDonald's that didn't change anything. I had originally wanted to enter from a higher level, but Hannah insisted on a lower level, but after that we went up an escalator, but then we found out that McDonald's was on a lower floor and Hannah had been right all along, but whatever, we only wasted a minute or so. We also argued over whether to walk on the left or right side of the shops, but it didn't matter because either way we'd go to the same place. At least we had something to talk about, though.

The line at McDonald's was quite long, but I still managed to place my order around ten minutes before the lunch discount was over. I had a large McNuggets meal and I got Hannah a small coke. Our plan was to exploit McDonald's unlimited refills to ensure we did not get thirsty during the concert. I had originally wanted to drink around three cups of coke, but I only managed to refill once before I started to feel sick. Hannah only refilled once, too, and she suffered for it later.

Before we left the mall, we stopped off at a toilet. We both felt that that stop probably wasn't enough and that we were going to have to pee again once we got into the concert grounds.

When we got outside, the line had devolved into a massive crowd right outside the gates. Hannah and I managed to squeeze in quite close to the front. After a while I got bored of our spot, so I made a fake call to a fake friend who was further in front, and we politely squeezed through to get to him. We hit a point where we could no longer progress, so we hung up.

Somewhere around this time, I sent Amanda's sister, Geraldine, a text. I asked her where in the line she was, and she told me that she hadn't even left the house yet. I told her to hurry over soon since the doors were supposed to open at four.

After a while, the crowd got bored and started chanting "Buka pintu". Surprisingly, this worked, and only a few moments later the gates were opened. There was a lot of pushing, and a girl near us freaked out and started crying. Hannah held my hand, so I thought she might have been scared or something. I told her to stay close, to move forward whenever the rest of the crowd moved forward, and to protect her neck and chest if she fell and started getting trampled on. There was no trampling, though, and we were ushered down into a proper waiting area with fences and stuff to keep people in line.

We found a nice spot in a corner. There was a lot of space in the corner, so we could lean against the fence or sit if we wanted to. I met a Russian couple who were visiting Malaysia, and I had a nice chat with them. They were staying for three days, and tomorrow was their last day. They had planned to visit the Twin Towers, but I told them that the view from the Skybridge was pretty lame and that they would have a much better time at the Menara KL. They said that they'd consider it.

Hannah and I also saw a really hairy guy and a guy with freaky contact lenses. At one point I saw a girl in a Spongebob cap who looked like Geraldine, so I sent her a text asking if she was wearing a Spongebob cap. She replied that she had just arrived, and she wanted to know where the line was. I sent a few texts trying to guide her over, but after a while I decided to find her in person, so I told Hannah to stay put while I slipped out through a hole in the fence to go find Geraldine and her friends. This was already around 4:15, so the doors could have opened at any time, but the risk made it more exciting.

It didn't take me very long. I walked into the mall, stood around for a bit, received a text from Hannah asking if I had found Geraldine yet, started typing my reply, saw someone who looked like Amanda except smaller, said "Geraldine?", and just like that I had found her. I changed my reply to Hannah's text from "Nope" to "Yeah", then I showed Geraldine to the hole in the fence. I slipped through, Geraldine slipped through, but Geraldine's friend stood around for a while, so someone inside the line opened up the fence, which caught a guard's attention, so nobody else was allowed to slip into the fence. Geraldine's friends went around to the back of the line, I think.

Amanda's uncle had managed to get a pair of VIP tickets, but Geraldine had swapped them for X-Zone Passes, since they were closer to the front. The friends that she had arrived with had normal passes, though, so I offered to swap our normal passes with her so that she could be with her friends, but she was already meeting some friends in the X-Zone. Still, it was worth a shot.

Somehow another hole had opened up in the fence in front of me because a bar had come loose. I told a guard about it, but he told me not to worry. His boss came by to try and fix it, but he left without doing much. When they finally started letting people in, Hannah wanted to slip through to cut line. I let her and Geraldine go through first, then I followed them. Because of this, we were the first few in.

Hannah and I were let in before Geraldine, but since we were in different sections anyway so it didn't matter if we split up. Our tickets were processed, we got our arms stamped, we were given ponchos in case it rained and fans in case it didn't, and we were told that there was no re-entry, so once we were in we couldn't leave until it was over. Hannah was in a big rush to get to the line, but I knew that we were way ahead, so I wanted to take my time. I stopped to look at the tigers that they have at Sunway Lagoon. They were huge and awesome. I called Hannah over to look at them, but she only stopped for five seconds or something. I don't know why she was so bored by the tigers. They were so huge and awesome.

Anyway, we went down some escalators into the wet park. There were loads of security and event coordinator people telling us not to run, but Hannah ran anyway. I let her get ahead of me. Along our way to the surf beach I heard Self-Inflicted playing from some speakers that were set up presumably to promote the concert. I had hoped to hear that and Mannequin at the concert, so I was relieved that even I could say I heard at least one of them even if they didn't end up on the set list. I also got handed a stick of free gum by some promoters of the new Five gum. It was really good. Oh yeah, there was also a water fountain along the way, so I had a drink from there as well.

Hannah was standing in line to get into the surf beach. I told her that I'd hold the spot while she went to the toilet, and then when she got back I could hold the spot when she went to the toilet. She told me that she didn't need to pee, so I told her that I'd head off first and meet her inside. She yelled "I hate you" to me as I was walking away. Such a nice girl.

I passed Geraldine going the opposite way. I asked her if she had seen the tigers and she said she had. That was all I saw of her until the end of the concert. Nothing really notable happened at the toilet. Well, all the urinals were empty, so that was nice. Also there was barely any water from the taps, so I just lathered up my hands with the soap and walked over a water fountain to rinse off.

When I got to the surf beach I noticed that the stage was on the opposite side of where it was last year. Hannah had sent me a text saying she managed to get to the very front of the normal zone, and indeed she had. I met up with her and she was right up against the railing. We established a meeting by the port-a-potties, and then I felt a stomach ache and realized that I might have to use the toilet again, and this time not to pee. I told Hannah to keep a spot for me, and that I was going to look for a toilet. Hannah told me to use the port-a-potties, but I was sure I could find a normal loo with a sink and toilet paper and stuff if I looked hard enough.

I did managed to find some real toilets, but they were only for those with VIP passes. Fortunately, right nearby was a deluxe port-a-potty, which had a sink and soap and even toilet rolls. Unfortunately, the toilet paper was depleted. I found a snack counter and they let me have some tissues, but when I returned, the toilet was occupied. I had to use a lesser one next door. It had everything the other one had, but it was a bit more cramped and there was no soap dispenser by the sink. It did have plenty of toilet paper, though, so that was nice.

I was hoping for a false alarm, but alas, that was not the case. I was in there for what felt like an hour. I texted Hannah and said that I wouldn't be joining her for a while and that she should go make some friends or something. I was never really sure when I was done, I just waited to see if anything else was going to happen. After fifteen minutes of inactivity and a much more settled stomach, I assumed I was safe and cleaned up. Port-a-potties flush in different ways. It was interesting to watch.

When I finally exited, I was absolutely drenched in sweat. I was so soaked that my stamp was just an ink smear along my arm. The temperature in the toilet wasn't my concern any more, though. I had washed my hands, but there was only water there and I felt that it would have been terribly inconsiderate to enter a crowd after an experience like that without the assurance of soap-and-water levels of hygiene. I asked around to see if any of the staff knew where I could find a sink with soap, but they told me that there were none of those at the surf beach. One of the security guys said I could leave the surf beach to wash my hands because they would let me back in as long as I produced my tickets.

I left the surf beach, washed my hands twice in the toilet at the wet park, lathered up for a third time, realized there wasn't enough water, walked over to a water fountain to finish up, got offered two more sticks of free gum, accepted two more sticks of free gum, rinsed off in the fountain, and drank a little more. After that I ate the gum, and it was good. The fruity flavour is probably the best gum flavour that I have ever tasted. I wish I hadn't chewed it and the mint one at the same time. Oh well.

I got back to the concert grounds and met up with Hannah. I hadn't missed anything. Ads and music videos were playing on the two big screens that had been set up on either side of the stage. We watched those for a long while. The concert only started at seven or seven thirty, and it was only a little after five.

We stood around doing not much. For a while it was hot, so Hannah took the plastic cover off her fan to keep cool. I wanted mine pristine, so I left cover on. It wasn't really affecting its ability to cool me down, anyway. After a while, it started to rain. Hannah put on her poncho pretty early, but I decided to tough it out like I did last year. The only difference was that I was in the middle of the crowd last year, so the rain mostly fell on my head and I was kept warm by all the people around me. This year I was up against the railing, so my whole front was open and cold. Also the person behind me was being selfish and not snuggling close, so my back got wet and cold, too.

Before long I was wishing that I had worn the poncho, but by then the rain had picked up and was absolutely pouring down, so it was too late to turn back. The pool actually started filling up, but the water didn't reach much higher than most people's shoes. There was a metal step in front of the railing which we were standing on, so we were out of the water. That didn't stop my socks and shoes from becoming soaked through, though.

Eventually the rain died down to a drizzle, and guys in the X-Zone started taking off their shirts. I took off mine to give it a wring, which helped a lot more than I thought it was going to. There was a lot of water in that shirt. Anyway, the drizzle kept up for the next few hours. It stopped a little before the final set, I think.

The VJs came out to entertain people with freebies and stuff. They were dressed quite snazzily. VJ Utt (The guy who gave me my tickets after I danced at the road show) had a top hat. VJ Sean from Korea (the guy who interviewed me last year) was wearing a bowler hat. There were two other VJs, but they weren't as charismatic Shaun and Utt.

Finally, after a long while of waiting, the show began. There was a thirty second countdown, and by the time it hit twenty, everyone was counting down alongside it. The crowd was a second fast, though. That kind of impatience would become something of a theme for the night.

When the counting was over, Bunkface performed their set. It was energetic, it was loud, it was awesome. I did a lot of jumping and fist banging. There was one brilliant part where the video of animated rock fists on the LED screens behind the stage was moving in perfect sync with the rock fists of everyone in the crowd, mine included. During their set I noticed that Prom Queen borrows quite heavily from Fallout Boy's Dance Dance, especially the bass and drums. I sang along really loudly to Through My Window, and after the song Hannah asked me who it was originally by. She thought it was a cover because I knew all the lyrics. The truth is a bit more embarrassing; it's actually from a TM advertisement. I liked the commercial so much that I downloaded the song because of it. In my defence, it's a pretty awesome song.

After the set there was a long wait, there were more ads and music videos, more freebies from the VJs, then the next set was announced. It was Wonder Girls. I was a bit upset. I thought I had been waiting for Katy Perry all that while. Anyway, after I heard what the next set was, I managed to find room to sit. It was nice to sit. Earlier on we had laid some discarded ponchos on the ground so that we could stand on them which was a lot less painful for our feet than standing on the hard metal, and now we were sitting on them and it was even softer and nicer. I stood up when the screens started playing Waking Up in Vegas, but the video cut off halfway through.

I thought the next set was going to start right then, but instead we got a bunch more ads before the curtains finally opened on the Wonder Girls. They were all in cages, and they held poses for a while. When the lights fell on them, they danced for a bit, then stopped. After a while they all broke out of their cages and started dancing. Their dancing was pretty good, and they were pretty hot. There wasn't much in terms of audience participation, though. There wasn't anybody jumping about or throwing their arms in the air or anything. They didn't have a band or anything, either, and I think they might have been lip-syncing. When the time came to dance to Nobody (or the song before it), they picked up some prop guitars to dance with. At one point they shot fireworks out of the guitars. That was pretty cool. The went off stage halfway through the song, then returned in different costumes to finish.

There was a lot of waiting after that. Apparently some new VJ was chosen as part of the end of some reality TV show or web search or something, but I don't think anyone was really paying attention to that. People started getting bored. Some people started booing, but those people were idiots. Eventually it was announced that there were some technical difficulties, but Tokio Hotel would be on stage in fifteen minutes even if the difficulties weren't resolved. That was cool.

Tokio Hotel were pretty great. The lead singer was ridiculously gay, though. I'm not sure whether he actually dates dudes, but he sure looked like he did. He looked like a woman. He looked like an old lesbian. His hair was madness. His outfit was worse, but amazing in its own way. It was a spectacle, that's for sure. The songs were pretty great. I had a lot more fun during Automatic than I thought I would. I was jumping and singing along and stuff. There was one song where a huge motorcycle emerged from under the stage with him on it. Hannah said it looked like he was humping it. I don't blame him, it was an awesome-looking chopper. In between songs he talked to the crowd. His sounded as gay as he looked. It was hilarious. He had a lisp and a German accent and he talked about all the "special moments" that they had had "on zis stage, with zis crowd, on zis tour". Hannah and I mocked him for the rest of the set, but he's still an awesome performer. He's cool in his own crazy way, like Lady Gaga. Anyway, we spent a long time waiting for them to play World Behind My Walls, since we felt that would be the last song. They played something like five songs before getting to it. It was only when I saw the video on the LED screens behind the stage that I realized the song was about the Berlin Wall, and I felt a bit stupid. I sang along and had a good time, and then I got ready for them to leave and Katy Perry to come on. We had no such luck, though, because there were a few more songs left. There was one with a piano that had emerged from under the stage and replaced the chopper, and then, after another speech about special moments, one final song which ended in a shower of fireworks from the front of the stage that lasted way longer than I thought it would. It was awesome. Oh yeah, there were also loads of pyrotechnics during Dark Side of the Sun, and I thought I could feel the heat from where we were. That was cool, too.

After that there was more waiting. Everyone had gotten bored of the ads and music videos. I thought I had, too, but then I realized what Bunkface's Prom Queen video was about (Time goes in reverse for everyone that the girl touches), and that was nice. The VJs came out to say something, but their microphones stopped working halfway through so we never found out what it was that they were going to say. Oh yeah, some time during one of the previous freebie giveaways, a couple of lanyards made it to our part of the crowd. One was caught by the people directly behind us. Another landed just in front of the railing, where one of the staff picked it up and handed it into the crowd. It was caught by me and this other guy. I thought we could settle it with a game of rock-paper-scissors, but he didn't agree, so I just let him have it. While we're on the subject of semi-interesting things that happened in between sets, Hannah sent a tweet that ended up onscreen. It was a shout out to Katy Perry's cat, Kitty Purry. Hannah was pretty thrilled, so we high-fived. Also, earlier, I had tried to start a chant of "Ka-ty, Ka-ty, Ka-ty", but after three Katys, no-one else had joined in, so I stopped and hung my head in shame. I think it could've caught on if Hannah had backed me up.

While we were waiting for Katy Perry, some guy to the left of Hannah had elbowed his way to the railing. He was pushing everyone to the right to try and make more space for himself. Hannah kept complaining to me about him, so I finally agreed to swap places with her. Everyone on the right was annoyed with him, but he wouldn't move. I pushed back, and they helped me. Eventually the girl to his left stepped back from the railing, and there was more space for everyone. He probably ended up being the most hated dude at the concert, though.

Katy Perry's set finally arrived, and it was awesome. Her band was dressed in white tuxedos, and her back-up singers were wearing red and white striped dresses. Katy Perry herself was dressed in a glittery ballerina-type outfit, complete with a tutu/skirt type thing. She opened with California Gurls, during which she threw a huge prop cherry into the crowd. Hannah and I were really jealous of the X-Zone people at that point. After California Gurls she talked for a bit and dedicated the next song to "All the girls in the crowd who don't want to be one of the boys". Hannah and I were surprised to find that we seemed to be the only people who knew the lyrics to One of the Boys, but that just made us sing even louder. After that, I can't really remember the order of the rest of the songs. I'm going to assume Waking Up in Vegas came first. She dedicated it to her favourite place in the USA to party. When that was over, she sang her new single, Teenage Dream. Hannah seemed to be the only person in the audience who knew they lyrics, which made her feel quite happy. After performing Teenage Dream, Katy Perry talked about how three years ago she could never have imagined performing in front of 15,000 people, and then she said she was going to sing a song from her past. That song was Thinking of You, and it was awesome. It also gave us a chance to rest since that is not exactly a song to be jumping and fist-pumping to. The next song was, though. She left the stage for a while and when the music started again she was talking about rumours that had been going around about her kissing someone. "I kissed a WHAT?" she asked (I later learned this was a reference to the censored version of the song that we've all probably heard on Malaysian radio: "I kissed a ****". Probably the dumbest thing they've censored since "beer" and "glock") as she and a pair of oversized gingerbread lady props rose from the stage. We answered, and she told us to sing along. I Kissed a Girl was a really, really energetic song. I loved it. When it was over, she asked us if we were ready for a new song, and everyone said yes. She said it was about a bird, and a second later I realized which song she was going to sing so I yelled out "Peacock!", and I was proven right a few moments later. That made me feel pretty superior for a while. It was a fun song about dongs. Dong songs are great (The Meaning of Life has plenty of proof to support this point), so I was enjoyed it.

After Peacock was over, Katy Perry said that "they" had told her she had to leave, and that she had to take all the colour with her. She walked up to the screens behind the stage and put her hand on it, and all the colour of this beach scene that was up there got sucked into her hand, which was awesome. Then she started singing Hot N Cold, which was even more awesome. She started the first verse on a different key than normal, so the crowd couldn't sing along at first, so we got to pay even more attention. She tried to through a prop cupcake into the crowd, but she only ended up breaking off the tip. Her second attempt, with both hands, ended up a lot better. Hannah and I were once again jealous of all the people in the X-Zone. She also threw her skirt into the crowd, but it almost didn't make it to the railing. She climbed off the stage and leaned off the railing into the crowd, which was so awesome. Later on I found out that Geraldine got to touch her when she did that. Lucky girl. After that, Katy Perry climbed the scaffolding on the side of the stage like Tyson Ritter and Martin Johnson had done last year, which was also awesome. The whole song was non-stop awesomeness. Halfway through, these huge black-and-white balls that had been hanging from the side of the surf beach were cut free, and they were bouncing all over the crowd. It looked like so much fun. Unfortunately, they never made it to our section. The X-Zone got to handle six of the eight balls, though, so once again Hannah and I were super jealous of everyone there. When the song ended, a whole lot of fireworks were launched above the crowd as Katy Perry left the stage. Usually people would have left at that point, but the balls were still bouncing and people wanted a chance to touch the balls, so they stayed.

Someone came out and announced that the Wonder Girls would be performing a final song, so there was still something worth staying for. I thought that was pretty great, because then all those people who left after the Wonder Girls were done would be missing out. Did I mention that there were people who left once Wonder Girls and Tokio Hotel were done? Well there were, and all those people were fools.

The X-Zone was opened up to everyone so that it would look full for the cameras. I went with Hannah so we could touch the giant balls. Along the way we tried to find some fans in good condition, since mine had fallen behind the railing. Luck was on our side that day, and we found two fans identical to ours, still in their plastic. I tried to give Geraldine a call or send her a text to find out where she was, but the rain had messed up my phone and the screen was all white. It still is. By tilting it at an angle I managed to get enough colour to render it usable. I sent Amanda a text wishing her a happy birthday, and then I got a text from Geraldine saying that she had left already, so I told Hannah that we were going, and we left.

The was a huge crowd at the escalators. They were letting people go up in groups to keep things organized. Hannah and I slowly made our way forward. Along the way I noticed a huge snake in the reptile cages. That was cool. Also cool was the fact that they had gotten the down escalator to go up.

After the escalators, I went to go see the tigers again, but they weren't in their enclosure. They probably were sleeping in a separate indoor area. They also might have escaped. That would have been pretty cool, too.

Anyway, we left Sunway Lagoon and went into the mall to find Geraldine. Hannah was really thirsty and wanted a drink, but there was no place with cheap drinks. I found Geraldine the same way as I did last time: I went up to the most Amanda-like girl that I could see and said "Geraldine?" and it worked. Her friend was coming home with us, too.

As we walked to the car, we talked about last year's World Stage and how Geraldine had been there, too. She was in the back while I was in the Mosh Pit, so there had been a reversal of roles between 2009 and 2010. We also talked about other concerts that she had been to, and what her favourite set of the night was.

We got in the car and I told the girls in the back to buckle up, but they thought it was a silly idea. I don't understand why Amanda's family (and most of my friends) are so reluctant to buckle up. It's such a small thing and can save lives, plus it'll keep you from falling about during tight corners and from getting fined when the police are about. Anyway, when we left Sunway I pondered aloud whether I should take the u-turn and go back to KL via the way with a bunch of tolls, or go through the roundabout and back via the Federal Highway, which has no tolls. Geraldine told me to take a completely different route up the flyover that she said her mother always takes, so I did. We ended up taking a fifteen minute detour that ended up leading us right to where the u-turn would have. It could have been worse, though. We could have ended up in Shah Alam.

During the drive Geraldine talked to her friend, and Hannah talked to me. We talked about Katy Perry, and how her boobs weren't as big as they seemed her music videos. Her butt was awesome, though, and impossible not to notice every time she turned around in that outfit.

There was a police checkpoint on the way back that lead to a lot of congestion. I started giving the girls grief about getting me fined for the one time my passengers aren't wearing their seatbelts, so they reluctantly buckled up. They police waved us through, and the rest of the drive was smooth and clear.

At some point Hannah called me a creep, so I started singing the song. Geraldine recognized it and asked me who it was by, so I said Radiohead. Hannah dared me not to sing Push after, but I did not have the willpower. I only sang the chorus, though.

I dropped Geraldine and her friend at Amanda's house. There were still people there for the party. I drove back home to drop Hannah off and to take a shower. After my shower I went back to the car and drove over to the party.

Geraldine's friend had already left in the twenty minutes between when I dropped them off and when I came back. Geraldine was still awake, though. I said happy birthday to Amanda and gave her presents to her. She asked me if I had accidentally bought two books, and said no, I had bought two books on purpose. She turned to ask Marc to help her open the book. It was only then that I noticed that Marc was there, so I said hi. I also noticed that Amanda was pretty drunk.

Someone brought some whiskey and some of the guys took shots from World Cup glasses. I asked if they had a Netherlands glass, but they only had four. Oh well, I was driving back anyway.

While Marc was reading the book to Amanda, I went inside to go have some leftovers. Amanda's mum gave me a list of the options, but in the end I settled on cake. I went back outside and Amanda thought it was so great that I had chocolate on my face. I asked if she got my text, and she said she couldn't remember. I told her that I wanted to send one at exactly 12am, but I was a bit busy at the concert. She said it was so sweet that I was going to send a text at 12, and that it was so sweet that I came to her party. I reminded her that I told her I would have missed Katy Perry to go to her party if I had to, and I think I got an "Awww" for that.

A little later I went to sit next to Geraldine to finish my cake. She was texting someone. I asked her whether it was a guy or girl, and she asked me if I could tell her why she would be texting a girl at four in the morning. I told her it sounded like the kind of thing Hannah would do. After that I asked her if it was a guy friend or a boyfriend, and she said it was just someone who had been to World Stage, too, so they were talking about that. While I was sitting with Geraldine (this may have been later on in the night, I only remember where I was, not when I was), Amanda went outside to throw up. As she was walking inside I noticed that her shirt was wet, and I told Geraldine. "She puked on MY shirt?" she asked. "Well, I guess it's her shirt now," was my response. I should have said something witty about a birthday present, but I was pretty tired. At least I now know I'm not the only one among my friends who has thrown up on their birthday.

Afterwards we played Taboo. At first it was just me, Geraldine, and one of Amanda's relatives named Jose (I think it was Jose who was playing with us, it might have been someone else). Amanda also has a relative named Pedro. Neither Jose nor Pedro is a Mexican, as far as I know. Cool names, though.

After a while we decided that taking turns and keeping score was too complicated, so I was just handed a stack of cards while everyone else tried to guess. As the night went on a few more people arrived, and more people started playing Taboo either because they ran out of things to say to each other or because Taboo is fun.

Eventually the second most drunk person (Amanda was the first) at the party insisted we play something else instead, so we did. He just asked questions to which he didn't know the answer to, and whoever gave the most correct-sounding answer won. After a few questions, I went indoors to go see what Amanda was doing.

When Amanda saw me she told me how she couldn't believe that I had written that she had called Elo stupid in her blog. I said I hadn't, I had said that she said Elo might have been stupid, and that was different. She said that it was fine because she was used to being honest about people and having them not talk to her for the rest of the day or something. Girls, eh? She told us about this one time Joanna had ignored her for a whole week. Now Joanna knows her better, though, so whenever she says something that Joanna doesn't like Joanna will just tell her to shut the fuck up instead of giving her the silent treatment. Friendship is like that. Anyway, I told Amanda that I had posted what I had on my blog because I'm always upfront on it, like how I had posted about Ian's appreciation of her boobs when he was drunk on his birthday. She had not read that post yet, and she told me that that information was "disturbing". Maybe I should be a little less upfront.

Later on a guitar was taken outside, and Marc played Wonderwall and Hotel California. I had When You Say Nothing at All stuck in my head, but nobody could play it. Still, guitars are cool. Sometime during the party, Amanda had wanted to ride my motorcycle. I told her that that was probably not a good idea, and anyway I had driven over in a car. Also people kept talking about the cake and how good it was. Amanda's mum had baked it, but Amanda and Geraldine know the recipe.

After a while a lot of people started going home, and soon it was just Marc, Amanda, and me outside. Amanda wanted to go for a walk, but Geraldine came up to tell her that her omelette was ready, so Marc said she should eat first and walk later. He handed me the guitar to take downstairs, so I did.

When I got downstairs, Jose was eating the omelette, Geraldine was Facebooking and another of Amanda's relatives whose name I forget was playing the guitar. He didn't know how to play When You Say Nothing at All either. Jose was going to eat half of the omelette and save the other half for Amanda, but when I went back upstairs Marc and she weren't there, so he finished it. After that he played the guitar for a while.I asked about who had been at the party earlier, and apparently there had been loads of people. Joanna, Davinia, and Kaminie had been there. Marc had been there since it started at seven.

Marc and Amanda came back after a while, but they weren't interested in omelettes. Amanda went straight to bed. The other relative with the guitar went home, so Jose, Marc, and I were the only guests left. We talked for a bit while Geraldine was napping on the table. I found out that Mark Ker Kang from our building went to the same school as Geraldine, and that they have a very different opinion of his mum than we do. Apparently she doesn't scare them.

Marc went down to say goodnight to Amanda, and I followed. We went into Amanda's room to see if she was there. Marc thought he saw her on her bed, so he went over to give her a hug and say goodbye. It was only after his "Goodnight Amanda" was met with a "Amanda's not here" when he realised that we were looking at her mum.

Amanda was in another room. After Marc gave her his hug and goodbye, I gave her mine. I also wished her a happy birthday again. We went upstairs and left with Jose while Geraldine locked up. After telling each other to drive safe and have a good night, we all drove back to our respective homes.

I was really tired when I got back, so after taking out my contact lenses, brushing my teeth, and changing into my pyjamas, I went right to bed. I figured that I didn't need to do my exercises because of all the jumping about and fist-pumping in the concert. I also didn't feel as if I had gotten dirty enough at Amanda's party to warrant another shower.

The next day I had trouble waking up because I was right in the middle of the deepest stage of sleep or something. Eventually I got up, and then later on I had a chicken chop, which was delicious, and then later on I stayed awake through the whole church service, and then later on I took a six-hour nap, and then later on I spent way too long writing this blog post. Hannah only spent 20 minutes on hers. Lucky girl.

I have a meeting in college on Monday. Also I used up the last of my money on potato chips and a drink that I owed Hannah. I hope August's allowance is in my bank when I need it for lunch tomorrow. I also hope that my phone gets better.