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.

Staccato Roller-coaster

Friday certainly had its ups and downs. I woke up and was on the computer for a bit, and I enjoyed myself because of Tumblr and the Sims Social and also because T-Kun was online so I could talk to her for a very brief while.

I was doing my sit-ups when Hannah and Mama went out to take Ringo to the vet. I decided to stop before I was done so I could go say goodbye to him for the same reason I like to make sure I hug my parents and let them know I love them before I head out for a drive: there's always a chance, no matter how small, that that might be my last moment with them and I want to make sure it's a good one.

After the stairs and a shower, I rushed off to work. I had a stress-free day at work because I stopped worrying about the amount of completes I was going to get and just focused on the calls at hand. I also had some tea, which was nice. In between calls, I browsed Wikipedia. I went from MyKad, to Eddies, to Billabongs, to Waltzing Matilda, to the All-Black's Haka, and then back to Waltzing Matilda. I also ended up reading about the Mechanical Turk and a bit of the bombing of Dresden in between all that. I learn quite a lot in-between calls at work.

Near the end of the day, I lost a complete because the fire alarm went off. I followed the instructions pinned to my desk, but apparently we're not supposed to do that. Next time the alarm goes off and we're almost done, we're supposed to finish up unless the manager gets a call from the alarm company confirming that there's a real fire. That seems quite absurd to me, but I'll roll with it.

I asked Kelly a few questions after work and learned things. I like it when Kelly's around because then I can actually "Refer to [my] supervisor IMMEDIATELY on ANY issues" like the whiteboard near my desk says.

On Saturday, Lutfi will be in, so I won't be able to do that any more because when I ask questions from him it reflects badly on his position as a trainer, so I'll just keep schtum. As Uncle Shark(Shak? Chak? I need to ask him how to spell his name sometime) says, the boss is always right.

Anyway, I stayed back for an extra hour to finish my tabs and to memorize Waltzing Matilda. It is an incredibly catchy song. It ends in hobo-suicide, though, so make of that what you will.

The whole ride home I had the radio off while I sang the unofficial anthem of Australia. When I got home my happiness was promptly murdered when my mother told me that Ringo had died while he was undergoing an operation at the vet to remove a fluid build-up in his lungs. He had been misdiagnosed earlier in the week and so the medicine that I was forcing down his throat to try and make him better weren't actually helping. I'm glad that at least my last memory with him was giving him a goodbye stroke before he went off to the vet instead of fighting with him to get him to swallow pointless pills.

Despite all that, I still had a craving for karaoke that I had let build up all throughout the time I was at work, so I took the set and plugged it in Susanna's TV and we sang together for a while until it was time for dinner and mature grown-up conversation with Uncle Shark, Papa, and Mama.

I left at one point to check my computer, and I found the Secret Recipe website, so I gave the local branch a call to make sure they were still open. I then drove down to pick up some chocolate indulgence for Hannah, because chocolate cake is my default response to sadness among women. When I got home, I put it on a plate with a tiny spoon and then I brought Mercy and a glass of cold water over to Hannah's room. Mercy ran off and Hannah told me that she didn't like cake. She ate half of it anyway, though, and I got to have the other half. I gave her Faith to replace Mercy as role of comforter-in-chief for the next week. Until the ninth of September, 2011, he is her cat.

I then went and had a wee bit of wine and some conversation with my parents and their friend. I have learned from past experience that nobody tells me anything if I blog about everything they say, so this paragraph will be intentionally left vague.

Anyway after that I went on my computer for way too long. I was on Tumblr for a long while and then I read this and then I made a long blog post. I guess after that I'll take a shower and go to bed for a short while before waking up early for the weekend shift, where I will earn a lot of money for a lot of work, and after that it will be Geraldine's birthday party and I will be bringing the karaoke. It looks like it will be a difficult, then very fun day for me.

But yeah, rest in peace, Ringo. Even though you couldn't possibly find a better owner than Hannah in your next eight lives, hopefully you'll at least last a bit longer on your next few times around. Go make some friends your age who will actually want to play with you, and never ever lose your questioning meows. Those are adorable.

So this is my life now

New Year's Eve was fun. Amanda and Joanna came over. Geraldine showed up with her friends and we all played taboo.

Chinese New Year was good. I got a lot of money since it was also my birthday. Ian got me a slice of cake. Jan bought me McDonald's. I gave him RM20 for his birthday. Hannah got me No Country for Old Men.

I read Hannah's present at SEGi, which is where I'm doing my Bachelor's in Civil Engineering. It's a four-year course, so I'll be there for a while. Most of my classmates are from the middle East, which is interesting. One of the subjects I'm doing is Engineering Mathematics, which should go smoothly because I already did that at HELP.

Aron visited. Hannah forgot to return Ruben's hat to him.

We got a package full of licorice from Corinna. When I thanked her on Facebook, she replied that it had been sent on Christmas, which meant that it took more than a month to get to us. Anyway, the licorice was pretty great.

I've been playing Minecraft a lot. It's a very good game. Recently I made a giant mob trap in the sky and a big pit in the ground and a very large staircase into that pit. Also, Ian found some 3D glasses that came with his graphics card, so I can play the game in 3D anaglyph mode and that is pretty great.

My dad's letting me get a car and he's given me a budget. I plan on getting something small and cheap. Jan's learning to drive now, so I guess he'll be sharing it with me.

That's about it, I guess.

Oh, I also went with Amanda to drop Walker off at a shelter. After all her puppies died she started barking all the time and the neighbours started complaining. It was quite sad to let her go.

Also, Hannah got a kitten from her friend, Rebecca. His name is Ringo and he is extremely cute. The other cats don't get along with him so well, but most of the time they keep their distance. The only downside to the kitten is that sometimes he really stinks. Hopefully that'll stop when we castrate him.

So Redang Was Nice

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

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

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

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


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



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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Inception for the Fifth Time and Saving Ten Cents

My sleep kept getting interrupted by Faith. He wanted me to wake up and give him some attention so he was pawing at me and scratching and biting and basically making himself a nuisance. I covered my whole body in my blanket and after walking around my perimeter failing to find exposed flesh, he gave up and went to sleep.

At around twelve o'clock Jared came over so Ian and he could go to Mid Valley to watch Inception and Salt. Their commotion woke Faith up, and he started trying to wake me again. Luckily, Ian removed him from my bed so I could get another hour or so of sleep before waking.

When I did wake up, my Bible reading for the day was the beatitudes. There were eight of them. I wonder if Carmeni thinks they're in the same order as I do. After that Hannah asked where Ian and Jared were and I told her they had left already. She was upset because she thought she was going with them. She was busy at Susanna's birthday party and so she wasn't around when they left. I told Hannah that I could take her to see Inception.

Jan woke up when I was getting ready for the day. I had just finished brushing my teeth and putting in my contacts, so I went to go get a towel and some clothes. Jan took that as an opportunity to enter the bathroom, lock the door, and take a shower before me. Sneaky bugger.

Jan was taking a while, so I contemplated skipping a shower altogether, but I had already been taking two showers a day for the past week and I didn't want to break the streak. I think it's become a habit. Now I'll be losing a little more of my day each day for the rest of my life. I blame Elo and Carmeni for this. Oh well, at least I'll be cleaner.

Anyway, Jan eventually finished doing whatever he was doing, so it was my turn. The water was a lot less cold than it was the past few days. Either I'm getting used to it, or it's just warmer in the afternoon. I hope it's the latter.

After I was nice and fresh I started downloading Let the Right One In on Ian's computer, since I read that Chloe Grace-Moretz was going to be starring in an American adaptation and I wanted to watch the original Swedish version, since apparently it's one of the best vampire movies out there. Also I loaded The Money Song on YouTube so I could hear that since it was stuck in my head.

But yeah, after I had done all that we were ready to leave. Unfortunately there were no cars available, so we decided to walk. We made it to the end of our building's compound before realizing we could just have Aunty Rosie drop us off. We called her, but she told us traffic was too heavy on the way back, so we'd have to take a taxi if we didn't want to hoof it. Right after the call ended a taxi came by, so I hailed it down and we got in.

We decided to split the fare three-ways, and it was decided that if the amount wasn't divisible by three, I'd pay the difference. It was RM5.60, and since I was at the front I paid first. I was going to claim back the money from Hannah and Jan, but I forgot.

Our first stop was an ATM. I withdrew my last fifty of the month. I had hit my float, and with so few days left in the month I was determined not to let it drop any lower.

Jan didn't feel like watching Inception again, because he is a fool. I told him that if he watched Inception and Sorcerer's Apprentice with me, I'd pay for his dinner. Hannah wanted to know what she would do if she didn't want to watch Sorcerer's Apprentice. I told her I didn't know, so she might as well join us.

Since I paid for the fare and the other two didn't want to pay me back, they decided they were going to be nice and stand in line for the tickets while I had lunch at McDonald's. I got a call from Hannah saying that she was going to get the tickets soon because they had just joined a new line exclusively for people who wanted to buy tickets for The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Inception, but a little later I heard an announcement that said the line they had joined was exclusively for people who wanted to buy tickets for any movie EXCEPT The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Inception. I called Hannah to tell her this, but she told me she had just heard and was going to join the proper line.

Anyway, my lunch was pretty delicious (especially by McDonald's standards) and I ended up finishing it pretty quickly. While I was eating I was thinking about how much money I had left and I decided I couldn't afford to watch any movies, so when I was finished I went downstairs to tell Jan not to buy any tickets for me. When I got downstairs I saw that I was too late. He already had three tickets to Inception because he cut in front of the line. Fortunately, he had forgotten about The Sorcerer's Apprentice, so through that loophole I avoided having to pay for Jan's dinner.

After Jan and Hannah finished their lunch, we went to watch Inception. It was Jan's second time, Hannah's third time, and my fifth time. Jan and I managed to pee before the movie, but Hannah thought she could survive without emptying her bladder beforehand. Surprisingly, she was right. Anyway, the movie was still awesome. I was reciting the lines throughout the movie, which annoyed Jan, but fortunately there was nobody to my right so I could ignore him and keep doing it anyway. I did get a little quieter, though, since a group of people came in around fifteen minutes late to occupy the row directly in front of us. Hannah spent most of the movie texting, stopping every once in a while to blush and grin every time Joseph Gordon-Levitt showed up on screen. Jan kept looking around the cinema to see other people's reactions to the movie, so there were still a lot of things he didn't understand one it was over. At the end of the movie Jan and Hannah tried to instigate an applause, but it didn't spread. Instead we sat around until the end of the credits, listening to the score and looking for names that stood out. At the end they played Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien", which slowed down and morphed into a different part of the soundtrack before ending. It was pretty awesome.

Jan and Hannah were mad at me for getting them to stay until the credits were over, but I thought it was worth it. We went to get a cab, but right when Jan was asking the driver if he could take us to Bangsar, I remembered about Amanda's birthday present, so we went back in the mall. Jan and Hannah didn't want to accompany me to MPH. Jan was mad that I chided him for not understanding the movie, and Hannah was just too lazy to walk. I told her that I'd tell her more about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, and she relented. Jan came along, too, because he is a little baby and he's too scared to be alone.

While I was looking for Murphy's Law, I told Hannah how Arthur's real romantic interest in that movie wasn't Ariadne, but Eames. I'm not sure if she believed me or not, but I managed to find the book. I took two copies to the middle of the store; one to read and another to buy. Hannah and Jan got bored of waiting for me to finish the book, so they went home without me.

When I was done reading the book I realized that maybe it might not be Amanda's thing, so I called her to ask if she had any books she particularly wanted to read. She told me about this Louise Rennison book that she wanted to read. She said she had Confessions of Georgia Nicholson series except for books 5 and 7, so I told her I'd try and find the fifth one. I went to the information desk to try and find it, but they were sold out all over the country. I called Amanda to give her the bad news, but I told her that they did have 14 copies of another Louise Rennison book in stock called "Withering Tights" and I asked her if she wanted to get that. Amanda misheard and thought I said "Wuthering Heights", which was a book she wanted to read. I told her that it was a different book, but I'd get Wuthering Heights for her if there was nothing else she wanted. She told me to see if they had a book called "Icarus".

They did not have any copies of Icarus in stock, so I sent Amanda a text. It read: "Icarus is sold out, too. So: Wuthering Heights (classic book; referenced in Twilight) or Murphy's Law (awesome book; cops, thugs, and diamonds)?" I was hoping Amanda would ask for Wuthering Heights, because apparently there was a version that was only RM9.90, whereas Murphy's Law was RM45.90. Amanda replied with "Hahaha... Okie", so I sent back "Wait, aren't you going to choose? Or should I toss a coin?", so she said "Withering heights", so I went to get a copy of Wuthering Heights while I typed out a reply.

There first copy of Wuthering Heights that I found helped me establish the author's name, but it was twenty-something ringgit, so I brought it to the information counter and asked what the difference was between that and the RM9.90 one. The lady behind the counter brought back the RM9.90 version and apparently it came with bonus features, which meant the cheaper one had more content, so that was nice. After paying for the book, I sent Amanda a reply that read "Haha, it's Wuthering Heights. Withering is the one with the Tights. =P".

As I was leaving MPH, Amanda texted me saying "Hahaha... Actually.. Get me tht one la. It sounds so funny...", so I turned around, went back in, and asked the lady to help me find a copy of Withering Tights, too. The moment I read the synopsis I knew I had done the right thing by not buying Murphy's Law. Withering Tights sounded like exactly the kind of thing people like Hannah and Amanda (girls, basically) would want to read. Anyway, Withering Tights was RM35.90, so my total came up to RM45.80, which meant I had spent 10 cents less than I would've if I would have bought Murphy's Law, so that was nice, too.

I called my mum to pick me up so I wouldn't have to pay for a cab fare. As I was nearing the exit of the mall, I was approached by a perfume salesperson. Since I had time to kill, I agreed to try on some cologne. The lady sprayed my arm with one bottle, then told me to hang on a moment while she got another bottle for comparison. She then sprayed that on the exact same place. When I pointed it out to her, she apologized and tried again on my other arm. This time I could smell them. One was citrus-y and nice, and the other was kinda generic. She then told me that the first bottle was something like RM160, and the second one was RM250. I told her that she was maybe marketing to the wrong guy, since I was just a student and I don't even had a job, but I told her I'd tell my dad since I didn't want her to feel like I'd wasted her time.

When she was out of earshot, I mumbled "Two hundred and fifty dollars for a scent..." to myself, and then after a few moments I laughed out loud at the involuntary pun. Everyone looked at me strange, and I was suddenly very glad that I was near the exit.

My mum arrived, we went home, I blogged about the day. I'll wake up early and study for my quiz tomorrow. I'm not sure when I'll ever get to write that other blog post about all the things I'd forgotten to mention. I guess forgetting to write a post about stuff I had forgotten about would be pretty appropriate, or ironic, or whatever.

Ian's Birthday vs Hannah's Birthday

Hannah's birthday is today, but we celebrated on Saturday, so that is the day I will be blogging about. Ian's birthday was on the 13th, I think. Here is how they went down:

On the day of Ian's birthday I went out with Hannah and Jan to buy presents for Ian. I bought RM75 worth of video games for him at Mid Valley, which meant I had spent RM15 more on Ian's presents than on Hannah's presents (I had gotten her a pretty dress earlier on in the month that she really enjoyed, but she wasn't allowed to wear it until her birthday), so I decided to even things out by getting her a skirt from Cotton On. It soon became apparent that I would not have enough money for the rest of the month. Anyway, we went back home and played some Wii before being interrupted by our dad, who told us we had to come up with something special to give our grandmother for her birthday. We ended up making a photo album/scrapbook type thingy, but that was a few days later and not really related to Ian's birthday.

On the day of Hannah's birthday party, I woke up to my alarm, which was supposed to remind me to pick Jan up from something at nine. I turned it off and went back to bed. When I woke up again it was much later and most of Hannah's friends were already at our house.

In the evening before Ian's party, Ian drove Hannah and me to get some alcohol, some snacks, and some dinner. We ended up buying some vodka and some rum, a whole bunch of crisps and marshmallows. We also ate dinner at Pizza Hut. There were some pretty girls from an international school in the booth behind us, and after a while they started giggling when we talked and mocking our conversation. I should have introduced myself to them. They seemed nice.

In the morning before Hannah's party, I wandered around the house in my glasses and pyjamas asking Hannah, Audrey and Ebony if they were done getting ready because we had to go pick up Jan soon. They told me they would be done in five minutes. Five minutes later I went into Hannah's room in my contacts and going-out clothes, and they still weren't ready. I was told that five minutes in girl time is half an hour of real time. Women scare and confuse me.

Ian's birthday party started with Indian Poker, which moved on to the characters game from Inglorious Basterds, which moved on to a drinking game. The characters game was fun. I had "Winnie the Pooh" stuck on my face, and my first few questions were "Am I the largest among my friends?", "Am I a black guy?", "Do I enjoy alcohol?", "Am I successful with the ladies?", and "Am I Papa Smurf". Joel was Dora the Explorer, and he never guessed his. It took Jared ages to guess that he was Barbie, too. There were maybe ten people during the characters game, but when the time came for the drinking game, only Jared, Jan, Ian, and I were left.

Hannah's birthday party started with Ian driving Audrey, Ebony, Saundra, Hannah, and me over to FGA to pick up Jan from Sri Sempurna's speech day, since 10th KL was doing some band thing there and Jan was on the drums. The car was very noisy on the way there and back.

On Ian's birthday we played King's Cup and Jared and Jan used every rule card they drew to try and get each other drunk. In the end, Ian downed the King's Cup (Contents: Milk, vodka, rum, orange juice, coke, and a single marshmallow) and got very drunk very fast. I only drank a little and felt mildly tipsy, while Hannah only had one sip of alcohol so she could stay sober to observe our drunken antics.

After we picked Jan up, we all went to Mid Valley to get tickets to see Inception. It would be my fourth time and Hannah's second time. The line was ridiculously long and everyone abandoned me to go eat Burger King. I asked Hannah if she would get me a drink so I wouldn't be so thirsty in line. She said she would. She never did.

After Ian, Jan, and Jared were nice and drunk, we ate some Lays and played some Wii. Ian's friend Daniel came over for a short while and Jared tried not to make a bad impression. I think he failed. Daniel left soon after. Jan became fixated with the Lays and so the packet of crisps would follow us for the rest of the night.

When I finally reached the ticketing counter I had to make a decision on my own because Ian, Jan, Hannah, Audrey, Ebony, and Saundra all weren't picking up their phones. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was the next good movie that was showing, but the seats were all over the place, so I got the 5:45 Inception tickets and got a row of five seats right in the centre of the cinema and all the way up front, since the front row was all that was left. I hoped that I had chosen wisely.

When we got bored with the Wii, I had a brilliant idea. We should go downstairs and roam the building. Ian objected, because he's boring and responsible, but we convinced him to go anyway. He expressed continual protest in the form of elevator flatulence. I'm not gonna lie to you guys, it was pretty terrible. We managed to survive, though, and so we stumbled onwards to the playground.

When I arrived a Burger King I was pretty upset that nobody had answered their phones, but then they showed me that there was no reception down in Burger King, so I couldn't get mad about that. Instead, I got mad with Hannah for not bringing the drink she promised me. She gave me five ringgit and told me to buy a drink with that, so I stopped being angry. We then took some pictures. I don't think they're on Facebook yet.

When we got to the playground, I went straight for the swings with Hannah. Jared fell off the slide, and Jan pretended to dump some crisps off the side of the building. I'm not sure if he actually did, but I wouldn't put it past him. I forgot what Ian was doing, but it was probably something equally stupid. Eventually a guard came over and told us that the playground was closed and we would have to keep quiet so that nobody complained. This was a minor obstacle, but I soon discovered that it wasn't that hard to manage the volume level of three drunken idiots.

Everyone ditched me again to go to the Mac store, so I went off on my own to get a sausage croissant for my hunger and a huge Aunty Anne's passion fruit drink for my thirst. They were heaps great. I went upstairs to meet the guys at the Mac store, but nobody was there, so instead I went to the centre of the mall to listen to a surprisingly talented band called Qings and Queens play some surprisingly awesome songs in the middle of some sort of Apple convention. Everything was smooth and round and shiny. It was like walking into the future (if the future had a kick-ass contemporary soundtrack).

Our first stop after the playground was the tennis courts. Ian was reluctant to go down the stairs to them, and he made a fuss. Somehow I managed to get him down the stairs, where he hung around with Jan for a bit. Jan lay down on a bench and declared that he was going to sleep. Hannah looked on in amusement. I issued a challenge to drunk Jared: prove he was smarter than sober Jared by walking around the perimeter of the tennis court without saying anything. Jan wanted to prove something, too, so he came along while Hannah stayed behind to manage Ian. Jan lasted for about five seconds before forgetting what he was doing and releasing a stream of noisy nonsense from his lips, so I had to shush him down every so often only for him to forget again and repeat the process. Jared, on the other hand, stumbled along in relative silence, only opening his mouth when he looked over the edge of the wall at a sheer two-storey drop into the jungle. When he saw what lay below, he turned to me and said "Shaun, if I die, my dad will kill me." It took him a while to figure out why I was laughing.

After a few songs I called up the group and asked where they were, and they told me that they were at another IT store very nearby because Ian wanted to buy an iPod accessory or something for Hannah. I met up with them and soon after we went downstairs to check out the Apple convention to see if they had any iPod accessories there, since there was nothing up where we were.

After making it around the perimeter of the tennis court in relative silence, I congratulated Jared on his accomplishment. Ian grabbed Jared and they talked about how they totally should've invited some hot chicks to the party, because right now they could be getting so laid. I think it was at this point when Hannah and I realized how truly wasted they were. Anyway, they wouldn't shut up about the subject, so I told Jared it was a good thing there were no hot chicks, since if things got too heated none of us would be sober enough to drive down to the 7-Eleven for condoms, but the drunken sexy times would have gone ahead anyway and might have even led to pregnancies, so it was actually a very fortunate thing that there were no hot chicks. Jared looked at me like I had unleashed some great ancient wisdom on him and declared me a genius. Meanwhile, Jan went back to his bench and dozed off for a bit.

Down at the convention Jan got to play with an iPad, but he had to give it back before I could have my turn. Ian found his present for Hannah, and everyone else did girl things and talked about girl stuff (Or so I assume. I wasn't really paying attention, because the iPad was very shiny). A Hitz.fm DJ got on stage and said he was giving away iPod Nanos, an Audrey asked Jan to go win her one. Jan said no, since he wanted to go home and sleep or something. Anyway, we got in the car and went home and I went to sleep for a long while while the girls did girl things and Ian played poker and Jan... I forget what Jan did. Ah, it isn't important anyway; he's only Jan.

We climbed up the stairs from the tennis courts and Jared told me he had to pee, so I took him to the toilets under the playground. Ian objected to this, saying that the restaurant toilets were closer, which was true, but the toilets under the playground were cooler (Davinia and Amanda can attest to this). I told Jared that he might want to sit if his aim was affected, but he told me that it wasn't and to listen up. Sure enough, there was only the sound of liquid on liquid. He probably didn't even get a drop on the porcelain. I think it's some kind of super power. We washed our hands and exited the toilet and I asked if he wanted to see the lady's bathroom (It is an inverse of the men's, and I was hoping it would blow his drunken mind), but he got distracted by a bunch of ants on the floor and decided to assault them instead. His method of attack was a flying kick, which went over as well as you would expect it to. I collected him off the ground and hobbled him over to the restaurant where the rest were waiting. Along the way he asked me if I remembered the time him and I had a crush on the same girl, or the time that he lost a ball and I went to get it, or something else that I forgot. Jared gets nostalgic when he's drunk.

Ian woke me up at five o'clock. I got ready quickly and herded the girls into the car so that we wouldn't be late. Along the way to the mall we played The Platypus Game, which is basically truth or dare without the dares. Don't ask me why it's called that; Hannah named it. Anyway, I learned quite a bit about the girls from that, but they didn't learn much from me.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Jan was asleep on a table. Jared and I sat down and pretended to be cannibals. I found the idea of rump steak a little too funny. Jared, meanwhile, momentarily forgot that we were pretending and tried to take a bite out of Jan, who woke up in a daze and murmured "That's going to hurt tomorrow." Ian was still in the bathroom and Hannah was outside, probably fearing for the worst (Pee everywhere).

We managed to find a parking space under Mid Valley, which was pretty great. We went to the nearest elevator, but it was all the way on the third floor so we took the stairs instead. We were behind the walls of the shopping mall, and it felt pretty cool and backstage, and when I say cool and behind-the-scenes I mean "dark" and "wafting with the odours of the urine of various unsavoury characters". The girls thought I was lost, but I ended up leading us to right outside the cinema, which proved once again that women have no sense of direction and it's a good thing that us guys are here for them to follow.

Fortunately for Hannah, there was no mess to clean up when Ian exited the toilet. However, he was getting pretty tired of being downstairs and wanted to go home. Jared wanted to keep exploring, so I told Hannah to take Ian and Jan upstairs while I took care of Jared, but she wanted to stay and watch Jared, so in the end we all stayed downstairs to wander around the building.

The screen wasn't open when we arrived, so we waited around. Saundra wanted to continue The Platypus Game, so Hannah helped her corner me and she asked me the question she had been formulating since we parked: "When was the last time you jerked off?" Without hesitation I answered "Yesterday." After a few moments I added "Actually, maybe not. I can't remember. But I know that I definitely did the day before." Hannah later informed me that her original question was going to be whether I even masturbated at all, which told me that Saundra knows a lot less about guys than she thinks she does.

Wandering the path along the back of the building didn't yield much excitement. At one point Jan lay down to look at the stars and Jared joined him. Jared turned to Jan and asked him why the stars were all green. If Jan hadn't dozed off again he probably would have told Jared that that was because they were under a tree. As Jan was standing up again he found a leaf, which he put inside the bag of crisps. Hannah asked him why he did that, and he said it was to "trick someone". After that we climbed around to the road inside the front of condominium's compound. Jan and Jared had some trouble getting up the steep road, so I told Ian to wait while I got the others. Ian sat down on a wall, so I told him to just "Stay put, Humpty-Dumpty", which he found hilarious.

The screen opened and we were all ready to go watch, but Audrey wasn't with us. Hannah spotter her and the snack line and we called her to us. She arrived with her arms full of popcorn and drinks. I should have warned her against that. Anyway, I told everyone to go pee before the movie because it is two and a half hours long and if you miss even five seconds of it you have the potential to be lost for the rest of the movie. Saundra and Audrey did not pee because they "Didn't need to go". Foolish girls.

When I got the others to summit the steep slope, Hannah joined up with Ian because he was already stumbling off into the distance. Jan hung around being inconsequential, and Jared walked over to a nearby guardhouse to steal some shoes. The guard was not happy with this, of course, so after getting Jared to put the shoes back I apologized to the guard for my drunk friend and promised I would get him home quietly. We stumbled back up the road for a bit, but Jan stopped midway to look at the stars, and Jared joined him. "Whoa," said Jan, "it's like I'm flying."

Our seating arrangement was supposed to be Ebony-Hannah-Saundra-Me-Audrey, so that Hannah could be between two of her friends and so that Saundra and Audrey could direct their questions at me instead of bothering Hannah and so that Saundra and Audrey wouldn't be talking to each other throughout the movie, but Audrey refused to sit next to me for some reason so everyone just moved one seat down and we ended up being Audrey-Ebony-Hannah-Saundra-Me. The pre-movie advertising was not in the order I remembered them, which kinda disappointed me because I was hoping I could say "Yeah, I've watched the movie so many times that I've memorized the order of the bloody commercials". A few minutes before the movie started, a guy sat next to me and started laughing at something stupid. I was terrified that I might have to face the prospect of sitting through the movie with another laugher. Right before I could articulate this terror to Hannah, Saundra whipped open her phone and started texting. Stuck between a texter and a laugher. Oh, the horror.

I got Jared and Jan off the ground and stumbled them a bit closer to home. Ian had left without us, but I told him we would be back shortly after him so there were no worries there. Hannah stayed with us. I pointed out a red beacon on the roof of our building and told Jared it was a red star. He believed me. I took him into some greenery behind the fence that goes around our building and told him to grab the bars and look out into freedom. He tried, but he was blocked by a sign. He seemed disappointed. His sadness didn't last for long, though, because Jan had started drumming on a sign under Hannah's supervision, and Jared was eager to have a go. I dragged them away before they could wake anyone up.

Fortunately, the guy next to me only laughed at the jokes, instead of at everything, so he was tolerable. Saundra, however, continued to text throughout the movie. Eerily enough, she ended up texting through some of the exact same parts as Amanda. Ebony and Audrey were occasionally texting, too. Hannah told me that Audrey was actually texting Saundra at one point. Women: I simply do not understand them.

Our final stop before going upstairs was the parking garage. I told Jared that he could ride my motorcycle for a bit. He got on the wrong motorcycle, peered at a verse from the Koran on the speedometer, and asked why there was "funny writing" on the motorcycle. I managed to remove him from the stranger's bike and get him to my own. He got on, made some vroom vroom noises, and when he got off he was deliriously happy. Meanwhile Jan mistook the a staircase's handrail for a slide and had himself a jolly good time. We all took a turn on the handrail slide. It was fun.

When the movie was over, people a few rows above us started applauding. That was cool. I thought of joining them, but the rows that were clapping were too far away and I felt kinda foolish. Instead I rounded up the ladyfolk and led us out of the cinema. Ebony's first exclamation when the movie was over was "Someone please explain this to meeee!". Saundra said it was her favourite movie, and Audrey said that she wasn't going to see it again because she didn't believe in watching movies twice, which is one of the most retarded things I've ever heard, and, as you'll soon discover after reading the paragraph below, that's saying something.

Jared needed to pee again, so I took him to another toilet. Once again, there was only the sound of perfect accuracy. Jared washed his hands in the sink, then dunked his face in it. "I could breathe in there!" he told me. Not possible, I told him. "My face is wet," he continued. That is what tends to happen when you dunk your face in a sink of water, I told him. He then picked up a mop and walked over to where Jan was lying on the floor and tried to put the mop in his face. I think he said it would give Jan awesome hair or something. Jan did not agree, so I wrestled the mop off of Jared and put it back in its place. When I came back Jared was telling Jan how his sister was in love with Jan but if Jan ever did anything to Saundra he would kill him. Jan said not to worry because he liked Cherie and was not at all interested in Saundra. Jared said that he liked Trisha. Hannah and I didn't know who Trisha was, but after that we were determined to find out.

Because Audrey and Saundra had ignored my advice at the start of the movie, and also because Audrey had bought those huge drinks, the girls needed to go to the toilet again. We went down to the second floor to avoid the crowd, but apparently all the stalls were still full, so we went down to the first floor, where I got to wait outside the toilet looking like some kind of creep.

We quizzed drunk Jared about Trisha, but all we really found out was that she was a little nice to him and a lot not nice, and that her boobs were just okay and not the reason he was attracted to her. Jared got distracted by a sign in the car park, and walked over to try and remove an arrow from the wall. Jan followed behind and was all "Hey, let's make this car make the noise!" right before attempting to set off an alarm. We stopped him, but a little later we turned around and saw him trying to wrangle the hood ornament off of a Mercedes Benz. We convinced him to quit messing around with luxury automobiles and headed home. As we were heading upstairs, Jan stepped on some kind of moth-like bug. Jared took it off of him and declared that he was going to "kill this at Ian". I did now know what that meant, but I did know that I wanted to be there when it happened.

After waiting for an uncomfortably long time outside the toilets, I finally saw the girls emerge. I took us back through the stairs and urine-stained corridors, and we ended up right nearby the car. At this point Audrey decided to take charge, and declared that the car was this way. I told her no, the car is on that side, so let's go back through where we came. Audrey said that we could just walk around, but I ignored her and went back through the doors, out the other side, and straight to the car, which was right where I remembered it being, because I am a man with a superior sense of directions and I will not be led astray by womenfolk and their faulty interior compasses.

We got home and took some pictures and videos in the elevator. When we came through the house Jan deposited his heels by the door (Did I mention that Jan went downstairs in my mother's heels and that they were with him the whole time? Well Jan went downstairs in my mother's heels and they were with him the whole time), and he went into the room with the rest of us. Ian was lying on the couch, and Jared remembered his bug and got ready to kill it at Ian.

Along the way back home Hannah and I cleared up some misconceptions about Inception for the benefit of the rest of the group, and then we continued The Platypus Game. Well actually I clarified some stuff about masturbation to Saundra and Audrey, because Saundra was not aware how many guys did it (pretty much all of us) and how frequently we did it (one to five times a week, maybe?), while Audrey was convinced it was unhealthy. I told her that studies had shown that it was healthy, and I had online sources that I could cite to back it up. All she had was some book. But yeah, after that we played some more Platypus game as we drove back to drop off Aunty Rosie's Kancil so she could go to church.

Killing the bug at Ian was pretty funny. Jared threw it on Ian's face, Ian threw it off of him, it landed on Jan, who threw it back to Jared, and they tossed it around for a bit until it disappeared into some forgotten corner where it is probably still decomposing in today. After that I managed to convince Jan and Jared to finish off whatever drinks were still in the cups we had been using for King's Cup, then took all the breakable glass objects out of the room and cleaned up all the spills. After that I helped Ian and Jan take off their contact lenses. I also fetched some water for the guys to prevent hangovers. Jared kept going to the toilet, and I kept reminding him to wash his hands. One time he exited the toilet and said he had made a "smiley face". Some time later he came out with a bunch of toilet cleaner and squirted it all over the room of our floor, creating another spill that I had to wipe up. Another time he went in the toilet wearing the very expensive blazer that my dad had bought me for HMC's annual ball. He called it his "toilet jacket". Hannah tried to stop him, but he was too quick for her. I managed to get it off him, but I've been to scared to check it for stains since them. I'll just get it dry-cleaned next time I need it or something. Eventually Jan got bored of Jared having all the fun, so he picked up a Guitar Hero disc and threw it across the room in a rather spectacular fashion. It wasn't fun cleaning up the bits of plastic after that, but it was fun seeing Jan get so angry at an inanimate object. "Let's see it not work on my computer NOW!" he said. I wonder what Saundra sees in him.

As soon as we arrived home we swapped Aunty Rosie's car keys for my mum's. Hannah asked my parents for some pizza money so she could get some Domino's to bring back home and eat. I said that was silly and we should eat in Pizza Hut, because Domino's is only popular for its 30-minutes-or-it's-free promise, and Pizza Hut has better seating for eating in. Hannah and her entourage disagreed vehemently, so I relented and took us to Domino's. I was secretly disappointed because ordering take-away meant less time to play The Platypus Game, but it was Hannah's birthday and dinner was her decision to make.

Jared found some breath spray and thought it was eye-wash. I managed to snatch it off him right before he maced himself. After a while he started to lose steam, but he kept asking for his phone and car keys because he thought parents would be expecting him home and he wanted to drive back soon. He was still drunk enough to get himself killed on the road, so I gave Hannah his keys and told her to hide them, while I kept his phone. While I was holding his phone, he told me to send Trisha a text. He dictated what I should write, and I copied it down verbatim. I think it was something like "I like you because you are pretty and nice but you don't bucket me back. I am drunk." He had meant to say "like me back", but he looked at a bucket and got distracted. I sent the text to Trisha and also to Saundra, because that seemed like a funny thing to do at the time. Once Jared's phone was gone, I tried to get the guys to go to sleep so that they could sleep off their drunken states. I even set my alarm so I would receive a fake phone call from Jared's dad, and I told him that his son was asleep and would be going home at 3am. Jared thanked me for covering for him, and then he asked Ian who had the best boobs.

Hannah and her friends spent a real long time in Domino's getting their pizzas, so I went to a nearby cafe and had some soft drinks and lamb chops. The lamb chops were really, really good. After a while the girls caught up with me and we continued The Platypus Game. I responded to a question of how much someone would have to pay me to kiss Jared with RM30. Jan was worth RM45, and Hannah was RM20. I then asked the girls how much someone would have to take them before they touched each others' boobs, and they said that they would do it for free and proceeded to demonstrate. Girls are so gay.

Ian's response to Jared's question was some movie actress. Jared responded with another movie actress. I don't think I knew who either of them were. I tried to test how drunk the guys were by saying that I thought Kiera Knightley had pretty good boobs, but they didn't get it. After a few moments of silence Ian exclaimed "SHAUN! YOUR FRIEND FROM NEW YEAR'S EVE! AMANDA! SHE HAD AWESOME BOOBS! AWESOME BOOBS! THEY WERE SO AWESOME!" I told him I would be sure to relay the message.

After I was done with my dinner we all got in the car and drove home. Nobody else could come up with any questions, so they deferred them all to me. One of my questions was something along the lines of "On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the foremost expert in the field, nine is someone who's spent all their life dedicated to the subject, eight is someone who has spent decades studying and making a career out of the subject, seven was someone whose primary hobby is learning about the subject, and so on, where would you rate your knowledge of sex and sexual acts?" I said that I was probably a six, and Ebony said that she thought she was a six, too, but everyone disagreed, and eventually we bargained her down to a two or three. After that I drove around in a few pointless loops to see if the girls would notice, and they did. They were hungry and wanted to get home and eat pizza, so they continued to complain to me even when I got us back on the road home.

I tried to quieten down the guys by turning off the lights, but a few moments after flicking the switch I heard glass shatter, so I scrambled for the lights and when they came back on we found out that Jan had broke a McDonald's glass. Again. And it was a blue one, too. That was the best colour. It was hidden under the couch for some reason, but Jan found it anyway and smashed it with his foot. That boy has a knack for breaking McDonald's Coca-Cola glasses when he's drunk. Anyway, I moaned at him for the repeat of New Year's Eve while I tried to collect all the bits of broken glass and dispose of them. It took a while, but when it was over I double-checked for any remaining cups, glasses or bottles. Once I was satisfied with my search I checked Jan for injuries. He only had a tiny little cut from a tiny little splinter of glass, but he kinda deserved so he got no sympathy from me.

Once we got home the girls ate their pizza and drank their coke. Hannah complained to my dad about me disturbing them, so I got a short lecture about giving her space since she was a teenager now and that even though she appreciated me she didn't want me hanging around all the time. I told my dad that I don't really think she appreciates me, but that I would give her some space. I think after that I either went to take nap or went on the computer.

I finally got the guys to quieten down by telling them a story. I tried to make it as boring as possible, but they kept interrupting me and asking questions and they never did really fall asleep. It was about a guy named Leslie who bought a house and painted it a different colour and refurbished the insides so he could sell it for more than he bought it for. Also he had a best friend who was a teddy bear and they found a rainbow staircase to the basement that led to a box made of chocolate with chocolate treasures inside and a dragon that breathed chocolate. I guess in hindsight it wasn't such a boring story after all.

At nine o'clock Hannah woke me up because I had to drop Audrey and Saundra off at their houses. I can't remember the journey. I remember that when I stopped at Audrey's house the girls spent what seems like ages hugging and saying goodbye and that they'd miss each other so much and all that. Girls are so gay.

Sometime during the story Hannah slipped out to go take a shower. My alarm went off at 3am and I got another pretend phone call from Jared's dad, but Jared saw through the ruse and asked for his phone back. Jared insisted that he was seriously sober enough to go home, so I called Hannah and discussed it for a bit. Jared's voice had gone back from his drunk voice to his sober voice (his pitch goes higher when he's drunk. It's great), and he was able to catch keys and stuff so his reflexes were probably okay. Still, we asked him to drink some more water and then go pee one more time to get the remaining alcohol out of his system. In between the water and the peeing, the three of us reminisced about the night. Jared had so many holes in his memory that we had to fill. We thought it was pretty funny that he had drunk to the point of memory loss. Also he told us about how much Saundra was in love with Jan and how she had come back from school one day with Jan's name written on her hand and stuff. I don't know what she sees in him.

I dropped Saundra off at home and there were more hugs and stuff. Wait no. There were no hugs at Audrey's place. We never went to Audrey's place. Why do I remember that? Audrey's parents were at Saundra's house, so I just had to drop them off at the same place. Well, whatever. There were still loads of hugs and goodbyes and nonsense like that. Girls are still so gay.

Jared left our house and Hannah went to bed. I did my exercises, took a shower, made a final inspection of the room for spills and glass and messes like that, but it was spotless, so I went to sleep. All in all it was a nice night.

The next day Ebony came to church with Hannah and the rest of us. I dropped her off at home later on in the evening. On Hannah's actual birthday (Monday, which was today when I started this post but is now technically tomorrow), we went for dinner at Chili's. We didn't have a cake, though, because Hannah doesn't like cake. Silly girl. All in all it was still a nice three days, though.