Angela 2013

I met Angela again today. The last time we hung out was quite a while ago. We bought some books and walked around KLCC and got stuck in traffic and talked a lot. When I dropped her back off at her hotel, she gave me some chocolates. So yeah, it was fun. I got to leave work early, too, so that was nice.

The only unfortunate thing is that she's a Redditor and she thinks Tumblr sucks. Tumblr's never given awards to paedophiles, though, so it's still the better site in my opinion. I'm just weird like that.

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.

The End of This Blog (Probably)

I should've stopped blogging ages ago. People let me in on so much more gossip now.

Anyway this'll be the last post in a long time (or ever), so I might as well sum up what's happening in my life now: First semester at SEGi for my Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering is almost over (finals at the end of the month), I'll be going for an interview at Datacom for the Roy Morgan position when my semester break starts (and I'll be shaving my rather pathetic attempt at facial hair right before that), all the shows I watch have begun airing their season finales so I will have to find something new to watch in the meanwhile, and I have not made (m)any new friends but that's okay because my old ones are still awesome.

Yeah, that's about it.

Possibly the Second-Last Wednesday I'll Have with this Job

Today I woke up, like normal, and I slept through my first two alarms, like normal, and I read my Bible, like normal, and then Hannah and my mum arrived home from the Netherlands, which isn't normal because it doesn't happen very often at all.

I said hi and I hugged my mum and I went to the kitchen to get some water. My mum had brought home loads of candy and biscuits and licorice in many bags of luggage. It was delightful. Hannah had brought back stories of the speed of the internet in the Netherlands. 800kb/s, she'd said. Five minutes to download an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Lucky Dutch.

I opened the least-best candy first (saving the best for last has always been kinda my thing). It was the Engelse Drop. I had some of that and it was nice. I can't wait to get to the other stuff.

My mum showed me pictures of the funeral, and also a picture of Oma a week before she died. Oma looked healthier than you'd expect from someone who was a week from death. She looked quite grey afterwards, though. I think it's a bit morbid to take pictures of the body at a funeral.

I'm glad that my grandmother had a good life and that she raised a good family. She's with her husband now and I guess that means she's glad, too.

Corinna was at home, which was unusual. I asked her why she wasn't at BLTC and she said that it was a public holiday. My mum said that BLTC was over for the year except for a party on Friday. Corinna would be around a lot more now. Today, she was meeting up with Grace from BLTC to go shopping for dresses or something in Mid Valley at 11. I told her I could drive her there on my way to work.

I went to do my exercises while Jan took a shower. He was going to Mid Valley to meet Cherie and her sister and Adriel and Gabriel. I told him that I could drive him there but he said it was at ten, which was a bit inconvenient.

I took a shower and went on the computer for a bit, but Tumblr kept dying. I asked Hannah if she knew what was up but she didn't. She wasn't on Tumblr in Holland; she was too busy hanging out with Stefanie. Anyway, Tumblr started working again and I answered a question and asked some questions and then I turned off my computer and got ready to go.

Corinna was on the phone with one of her friends from Germany or something. She didn't mind the bill, either because her parents were paying or because she had loads of money; I forget which.

We went to McDonald's for breakfast first. I had a lot to eat. Corinna had a milo. After we entered the restaurant we talked about Pepsi and Coke. Pepsi is cheaper in Germany, apparently, but everyone thinks Coke tastes better, even without the labels. We left the restaurant while talking about dreams. Corinna said she had a dream about me but she couldn't remember anything from it except that it involved Megamind somehow. I told Corinna that nobody is really interested in anyone's dreams unless they predicted the future somehow or they involved the person that the dreamer is talking to or they were about sex. Corinna said that everyone dreams about sex. I told her I don't. It's odd; I think about it all the time but even in my dreams I can't get laid.

I dropped Corinna off at Mid Valley and drove to work. I was late again. Yesterday I was late because I had spent too long on Skype talking to Sara. This time I was late because of the extra time it took me to eat a Sausage McMuffin I wasn't expecting to order.

I worked for a while and now it's late. After I'm done blogging about this I'm going to read another Machine of Death story and then I'm going to leave before the system locks me in again .

Driving, Gua Tempurung, Kuala Woh, and Cameron Highlands with Corinna

As of Tuesday the 16th of November, 2010, this post is incomplete. That's what happens when I procrastinate. It's not my fault that this is such a good, free book. Anyway:

My alarm went off at eight-ish on Sunday. I didn't wake up; I wanted to sleep more.

My dad came in at nine and told me that Corinna was waiting for me, so I woke up.

I showered and I think I may have read the Bible, but I definitely skipped my exercises. I do so little that it doesn't matter, anyway.

I packed some extra clothes and a couple of towels. I decided to put my laser in a bag, too, because why not? Also, I packed some sandals because I didn't want to ruin my shoes

I called Corinna. She had thought we would be leaving a lot earlier because I had told her at one point that I would be waking up at six. I had changed my mind the day before and I thought I told her that, but apparently I hadn't.

Before we got in the elevator I asked Corinna why she hadn't packed extra clothes. She said that she didn't mind getting wet in those clothes because they were old then Malaysian sun would dry them out pretty quick anyway.

We got in the car and I drove. We'd agreed beforehand that I would drive there and Corinna would drive back. I got to the toll for the North-South highway in less them then I thought it would take. After that we just drove and talked.

I spent a while the night before putting songs on my phone to listen to on the way there, but Corinna preferred the radio so we listened to that instead. Some good stuff came on, so I didn't mind.

We talked a bit about Mormons and Rastafarians and Jesus and the Catholic church and abortion and teen pregnancy and palm oil and contraceptives and sexual education. There was other stuff, but I forget.

We pulled into the Tapah rest stop for brunch at KFC. Corinna had never eaten KFC before. We each had a snack plate and large wedges and a box of popcorn chicken. Corinna was too full to finish the popcorn chicken, and she couldn't even look at the chicken leftovers so she just covered them with a cloth instead.

We talked about stuff. I asked Corinna when she wanted to have kids and her answer was a very specific 28, but she had no reasons behind it. I thought that was interesting.

We went to the rest of the rest stop so I could get some drinks and candy and so Corinna could try to find a toilet that wasn't a dirty hole in the ground. When we walked to the food court she almost recoiled from the smell. She said it was the worst smell she had ever smelled. It was just dried fish.

I bought a Red Bull and a Coke and some packets of Nano Nano and some Strepsils and a bunch of lollipops. I also got a razor and some glue. Corinna was gone, so I called her and told her to meet me at the car. Apparently the smell had been too much for her and she left.

I gave Corinna a Nano Nano in the car and her reaction was priceless. She reacted exactly the same way that most Malaysians do when I let them try licorice. She said it tasted like vegetables and vanilla. I didn't think it tasted like that at all. She declared it the most disgusting thing she had ever tasted. She still hasn't tried durian. Anyway, when we got back home I gave her a pack to share with her friends in Germany so she could enjoy their reactions like I enjoyed hers.

Gua Tempurung was easy to find. It's fortunate that I had a leadership camp in that area for college earlier this year.

The entrance for wet tours had ended at twelve and it was already twelve-forty, so unfortunately we couldn't go in. Well, Corinna felt pretty fortunate. She has a fear of confined spaces like submarines and space shuttles and tight crawlspaces in caves, so she was glad she wouldn't have to crawl through a subterranean river. I was a bit bummed. I had packed my boardshorts and everything.

We couldn't even go on the longest dry tour because we needed to have five people. I tried to convince three other people to come with us, but they didn't have enough time, so we ended up buying tickets for the 45 minute tour.

My dad called me right before we were supposed to go in at 1pm. I told him where we were and what we were about to do. He told me to drive safe.

The cave was pretty fun. It was quite cave-like, and I was really glad I had brought my laser. The best place for a laser is a cave, really. There were a lot of stairs and it was very humid and there were a lot of people, so we got pretty sweaty.

When we reached the end of the tour, I asked the guide if he could take us further. He said it was fine, but we'd of course have to pay the extra price as if we had gotten the ticket for the "Top of the World" dry tour. I was very pleased with this, because it meant we could stay for another hour and it would only cost three ringgit more each. A small group of other people decided to come with us, too.

The rest of the tour group started going back, but before they did I let a kid play with my laser. I figured I'd've wanted to play with a laser if I was a kid in a cave, so there was no reason to deprive him. Oh yeah, earlier on in the tour some chick asked if Corinna was my wife. I thought that was pretty funny. Corinna's exact reaction when I told her had been "What?".

Anyway, we continued to the tour to the "Top of the World". There was more walking and more stairs, but it got cooler deeper in the cave so it was alright. There was even a breeze at one point.

Eventually we came to this huge cavern that was the end point. It was, indeed, pretty high up. Previously when I had been there they turned off the lights, but the guide told me that they didn't do that any more. He could turn them off at the place with the breeze, though, so that was nice. In the meanwhile I sat with Corinna and tried to find Top of the World on my phone so I could play it and have everything be all appropriate and stuff, but I had deleted the song. I was pretty upset with myself for that.

We turned around and went to the tunnel with the breeze. I tried to talk to Corinna but she told me to be quiet because the total silence in the cave was really nice. I told her that we couldn't hear the silence even if I wasn't talking because the guys behind us always were. She pointed out that they stopped sometimes, but I didn't. She had a point, because after she said that they did for a few minutes and there was silence and it was nice.

The guide turned off the lights. My laser looked really cool in total darkness. I told Corinna to come check it out, but she didn't come.

Someone walked out of the rails to take a picture. I walked out of the rails because I wanted to walk out of the rails. Also, there was a big rock and I wanted to see if I could lift it. I couldn't. I smelled the dirt, but it smelt like the kind of dirt you get on the side of the walls in condominium basement car parks, so it was a bit disappointing.

We left the cave and we were very sweaty. Corinna still smelled nice, though. I asked her why and she said it was because of her Nivea body lotion or something. I asked her how much it was and if they made one for guys. She said yes to both, so now I know what I'm going to buy with my next pay (aside from polo shirts).

We got in the car. Our drinks were warm. We decided to go to a gas station and buy colder ones because we were still thirsty and also because we needed to refill a Touch 'N Go card so we could pay for the tolls. It cost more than RM20 to get from KL to where we were.

After we bought the stuff and I topped up my card, we got back in the car and drove to Cameron highlands. It was further down the highway than we remembered it being.

Okay, it's almost nine o'clock here at the office. I'll continue this post tomorrow.

Okay, it's tomorrow.

While driving up to Cameron Highlands, I spotted the Sufes campground, which brought back some memories of Writer's Camp many years ago and a BB camp less many years ago. A little ahead of that, I saw a sign for Kuala Woh, and I knew that that was where we had to go.

I missed the turning at first because it was on the wrong side of the road, but I found a place to turn around a little ways down. The road to Kuala Woh was not as well-maintained as the main road up to the Highlands, which made sense.

I sounded the horn as I approached a big turn in the road and explained to Corinna why. It was so that people on the other side would know I was coming so they'd slow down and stick to their side and there wouldn't be an accident.

We parked at Kuala Woh and I'm not sure how I got in my swimming pants. I think I asked Corinna to go wait by the river first.

Anyway, I went down and met her. She thought the water was dirty. I walked around in it for a bit until I found what I was looking for, and I called her over.

Hot springs are cool, especially ones along rivers because then you get the contrast of the cool river water rushing by but the hot spring water bubbling through the sand at your feet. I forgot what Corinna's reaction was but I think she was at least slightly impressed.

I put my shirt with my bag and tried to walk through the river to the other side, but I underestimated the current and was pushed a short way downstream. I hit a lot of rocks, but I didn't get seriously injured. When the water got deeper and calmer I found my footing and walked up to shore and started digging on the hot sand.

The spring water is hotter if you just dig for it because then it doesn't mix with the water from the river and get cooled down. I put a rock in the hole that I dug to heat it up. It got pretty hot pretty fast.

I talked to some Indian guys who asked where I was from and where Corinna was from. They were okay.

I waded across to the other side of the river and started digging again. I called Corinna over and got her to hold a hot rock that I had put in a hole. I think she dropped it and swore. That was funny.

I told her that I didn't want to leave until she had at least gotten her calves wet, because it was silly to come all the way out to the river and not swim in it. It took me a while to realize that she wasn't reluctant to get wet, she was reluctant to get dirty. I have to admit, the water did look kinda nasty.

I noticed a bridge over the river and how wobbly it was and I said we could leave if she went on that with me, but she didn't want to do that, either. Eventually she caved and went in the water. I took another refreshing dip and then told her that we could go, but first I wanted to shake the bridge. I ran up and shook the bridge. It was not as wobbly as it looked. It was hardly exciting.

I went back to Corinna and told her to wait by the bank for a bit while I got changed in the car. I said I'd miscall her when I was done.

She walked to the car before I miscalled her, but I already had my pants on. I asked her why she hadn't waited and she said that nobody takes that long to change. I told her the car was cramped and asked what if she saw me changing. She just did that thing where she blows air through her lips in exasperation. I dropped the subject.

We got back on the road and started driving again. Corinna told me about the dead fish she saw, and also about the dead cat she saw. Kuala Woh had quite a few dead things. Hannah and Jan and my mum went there once and there was a dead snake. Well, it was alive when they got there, but it crawled in the engine and so that's why the car makes a funny noise when it goes too fast.

And that is all I'll write about for today. I like this, pacing my blogging. I'm afraid that, by the time I get around to writing about the long conversation about sex that we had on the way back, I will have forgotten most of the details. The fact is, though, that I already have, and besides I told her that I wouldn't tell anyone until she left the country. If I do tell someone before she goes, she gets to tell everyone something that I'd rather not have everyone hear about that she knows.

I'll continue this after work tomorrow. Shit, after tomorrow there'll only be Friday. That's only two days to write about the next... five hours? Dang.

And it's after tomorrow again. Here we go.

So we were back on the road going up Cameron Highlands, and we were talking about stuff. It was a long road. It was very curvy. There were a lot of dogs on it. It was difficult to overtake people. On two occasions there were fallen branches blocking the road and I had to drive on the wrong lane to get past them. On one of the occasions I scratched the car against it pretty badly.

I can't remember what we talked about. I guess it's for the best. I've lost the inspiration to write this post. It was perhaps not the best idea to spread it over so many days. Oh well, might as well finish it for the sake of finishing it.

Um, at one point on the way to Batu Caves we talked about Corinna's friends and why her friend who slept with basically anyone would not sleep with Asians. I don't know why I remembered that or why I'm putting that here and up the story a few dozen paragraphs where it belongs, but there you go. Anyway, back to the part in the story where we're going up the curvy road.

We passed the cloudbank and kept going. It was quite high up. We rolled down the windows and the air was cool. That was nice. Eventually we saw a really big strawberry and we were in Cameron Highlands.

There was a town and we followed the road and we came across a big brownish-orange lake. Next to it was the Lakeview Hotel. It looked like Europe. We parked and got out and took pictures, then we went in to get a map from reception. Corinna went to use the toilet and I sat down in a very comfortable chair in front of a fire place and wished that I lived there. On our way out we saw someone taking scones and tea to a room. That hotel is now one of my favourite places in Malaysia. It even had a typewriter.

We checked the map and drove down the road to a tea house which overlooked a tea plantation. The tea plantation was vast and cool and beautiful. I ate some scones and had some strawberry tea while Corinna ate a slice of carrot cake and drank some plain tea. I thought it was a bit pointless to go all the way there to drink normal tea, but oh well.

I washed my hands and even the water felt like Europe. It was so cold and nice. I really like Cameron Highlands.

We went for a walk in the tea plantation. On our way in, two Dutch tourists passed us, so in addition to the trees, the smell, the temperature, and the air, for a brief moment it sounded like Holland, too. That was nice.

There was a sign that forbade people from plucking the tea leaves, so I plucked a sprig of pine or something instead. It was from I tree that I didn't see much elsewhere but it smelled very nice. I dropped it halfway through our walk and I was sad because it really did smell nice.

We talked about how I had told the girls I liked that I liked them. I think Corinna said that I shouldn't do that any more. I can't remember, though.

We took some pictures in the tea. I tried to climb up a hill but I didn't get very far. I got quite wet from all the dew and such on the leaves. It was quite drizzly.

After we got out of the tea plantation we drove back down to try and find a strawberry place, but they were closed. I pulled over across from the Lakeview Hotel and let Corinna drive.

On the way down we talked about sex. Midway through the conversation, Corinna told me that if I told anyone anything she'd said, she'd kill me. I told her that I wouldn't say anything until she left the country. She said that was alright. I told her something embarrassing about myself so if I betrayed her trust then she could betray mine.

I learned a lot about sex during that drive. I really wish I lived in Germany. Malaysia seems so boring. And the women are pretty sexually repressed here; Corinna was shocked to find that none of my friends had ever masturbated or experienced an orgasm and they all thought oral sex was gross. (I'm going to go ahead and assume that I'm allowed to talk about Corinna's reactions to what I said. That could lead to trouble. I should probably cut this short.)

The rain got worse and the sky got dark and our windows started to fog up. It was difficult to see out of them due to all the condensation, and we struggled with that for the rest of the drive. Corinna got pretty upset with the windshield for being so crap.

On the way down, I took out my laser and shined it out the window of the car and that was fun. I couldn't hit any of the nearby mountains with the beam, but I didn't mind.

We talked about vibrators and pornography and (loss of) virginity and Corinna's "type" and herpes and contraceptives and many many other things that nobody else would talk to me about so that was nice. I'd list more but I'm probably already to close to saying something I shouldn't, so I'll stop. Also I can't really remember much of the conversation.

We got back home and I said goodnight to Corinna and think I went on the computer for a bit and then I went to bed. I'm not sure. I know I felt quite depressed and lonely for some reason that night. That tends to happen after I spend a lot of time with people and then I suddenly stop being around them. The transition usually isn't so quick and it usually isn't after spending only one day with a person.

Oh well.

Hey, I'm done.

Actually, I'm not. We also went to Pizza Hut after we got back to the city but before we got home. Corinna was happy because she had been craving pizza all day. She'd never eaten in Pizza Hut before. We ordered too much food and I had a slice of pizza and it was good. I liked it. We didn't finish everything we ordered and Corinna wanted to pay for me, but I didn't want to let a girl pay for my meal so we split the bill. She ended up paying more but then again I did eat a lot less.

Okay now I think I'm done.

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

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

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

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

I don't have any more maternal grandparents.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need more money.

KLCC Park with Corinna, and Other Things

It's 4:32am. Wow.

Okay, wow. I'm tired. Um, this will be "short". It may even be short.

Milan, I'm still blogging.

World, I love you.

Hannah, it's good to know that you're still reading this. You can tell me how lame it still is later.

Let's do this with numbers because limits make things easier:

1) I saw a rat at Restaurant Emas. Corinna was the first person to spot it, but my mum and I couldn't see it so we told her that it was probably a squirrel since we've never seen a rat before. Mostly we just get cockroaches. Corinna hates cockroaches. They've been crawling in her shoes and such ever since she got here.

Anyway the rat came out again and it was indeed a rat. My mum called Mr Wong and he said that he was trapping and killing rats tonight. I asked my mum if she would let me keep a stray rat as a pet if I cleaned it up and immunized it first. She said wouldn't. She wouldn't let me have a snake, either. My mum can be a real buzzkill sometimes.

Corinna asked why I would want a rat. They are cute and intelligent and I could train one to sit on my shoulder when I'm at the computer. That would be great.

2) I'm always so lonely when I'm not with people. I want a girlfriend so badly (or is it bad? Which one means that the mechanism which allows me to want is broken? Whichever it is, I meant to type the other one. Or maybe I didn't. I don't know. I don't really care. I do really care. Gah). I just want a friend badly, actually.

3) I'm sitting in my room wearing an oversized jacket and a blanket over my legs. Why don't I just raise the temperature on the air-conditioner instead?

4) I went to KLCC park with Corinna. It was nice.

After dinner we talked for a bit, but then Mr Wong took our empty plates away and our drinks ran out and we had no reason left to be there, so I asked Corinna if she wanted to go to KLCC and take pictures and stuff. She said yes.

We went upstairs so that she could get her stuff and I could put on some jeans and shoes. I also got my laser pen and she kept that in her purse. I also got Ian's car keys. I asked him if he wanted to come but he didn't. I think it was because he had work today but it might also be because he was lazy.

I parked Ian's car in this parking lot near the Bangsar LRT station. Corinna thought it looked like a scary place. I would have agreed with her, but I knew that it wasn't.

I paid the dude in charge of the place three ringgits and he gave us a receipt or a ticket or something. I had exactly three ringgit in my wallet, but I paid him with my RM10 emergency note because I thought that the price was five ringgit. That's not anything you needed or wanted to know, but it's something I wanted to write down. Don't worry, I put another RM10 ringgit note in later.

We took the LRT to KLCC.

At KLCC, I bought a large passionfruit drink from Aunt Anne's (Or is it Annie's?) pretzels. Corinna bought a small. We talked about pretzels while waiting in line for our turn. They don't have Aunt(ie/y) Ann(e's/ei's) in Germany.

We went to the park and walked around. Corinna liked the soft paths they have there. It reminded me about that story I once heard of that one king (or emperor; I can't remember if it was a Western parable or an Oriental one) who wanted the roads paved with leather so it wouldn't hurt his feet when he had to travel. One of his servants suggested that he just get nicer shoes instead, so he did. I can't remember what the moral was, probably something like "Don't do awesome things that will benefit everyone when you can just do something that'll benefit only yourself." Anyway I told Corinna how they had rubber paths for the blind in Brickfields so they could tell by feeling where they were. She thought that was a neat idea.

We talked about our dads. We talked about our countries. We talked about the pollution. We talked about each other (a little). We talked about the path. I had a good time. She didn't hate it.

We went to the playground. I tried to swing but some uniformed bitch lady just trying to earn a living whistled at me to get off.

I found another swing further inside. I swung on it and Corinna sat around and took pictures, like this one:

After swinging, I went to the monkey bars and hung upside down on those for a while. Corinna took another picture of me.

I took a picture of her as well. Scroll back up and see if you can figure out which one it was.

I would have taken a picture of myself, but Corinna told me a guard was coming. It was actually just a concerned parent, but by the time I had found that out I was already off the monkey bars. A real guard showed up shortly afterwards to say that they were closing the park since it was ten o'clock.

Corinna and I went to the wading pool and took some pictures. It was loud in there, so we did not hear the whistling. The whistling was coming from a guard who wanted us to leave. Apparently their job is to make sure no fun occurs on park grounds.

There was a mosque in the park. We would've gone in but we weren't sure where we could put our shoes. We talked about religion and how each religion has its own crazy people and people who don't care too much and people in between. Corinna and I are in the second category. We changed the subject after three guards in motorcycles came by.

Since the park was closed, we walked back to the train station. Along the way I told Corinna about the time Jan had seen a homeless dude with a huge hole in his pants that everything was hanging out of. Corinna said Jan was probably staring. I hope Corinna thinks that Jan is gay. That would be amusing.

We took the LRT back. There was a Canadian couple next to us. The were visiting a friend in Bangkok and had stopped by Malaysia because it was close to Thailand and not as full of prostitutes of indeterminate gender. They had come to KL after spending some time relaxing and feeding eagles and rays in Langkawi. I told them about the time I had taken a picture with a large stingray while scuba diving in Redang. I also told them to visit the KL tower because of the view and because of the two-headed turtle. I showed them a picture of the two-headed turtle. Corinna told them about her time in Vancouver. They were nice. They had been to Cameron Highlands. I told them that that was where we were probably going the next day.

When I got to Bangsar station I took out the laser pointer and dicked around with it a bit. It was an awesome purchase.

We took the car back. There was nobody in the parking lot.

Back at home I told my dad that I wanted to go to Cameron Highlands. He said I might as well pick Jan and Hannah up from Ipoh. I said okay. He asked me whose car I was going to use, because he was using his. I told him I was going to use Ian's, but I'd need money for petrol. He said to forget about it. I suggested maybe doing it next Friday. He said that might be a better idea.

Corinna wanted to know what time we were going to Batu Caves. I said that I was waking up at ten-thirty, so one. She laughed.

I like Corinna. I'll miss her when she's gone.

5) Here are some things before I end this post:

a) Work is still work. The weeks pass faster than I thought they would. It's already payday.

b) I wish I was older. Then I could've had a slightly better chance with Effie, Elo, Amanda (Ha! Better by, like, 0.01¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰%), Juria, and I might even have started flirting with Corinna by now.

c) I spent an impressively nerdy amount of time getting that superscript just right, and I still probably fucked it up.

d) What did I do on Thursday? Nothing, unless sleeping at 4am and waking up at 5pm counts as something. Oh, I guess I played counterstrike against a bunch of bots with knives and shields. That was fun.

e) Oh yeah! Amanda called me on Tuesday and I met her and Milan at Devi's and we talked and then we went to eat ice cream. We talked about her boyfriend in Texas for a while and then I spent the next hour or so insulting her religion. I was a shitfaced dickhead (her words), but her religion sucks so I still feel justified. Sanctity of life is bullshit and arguing against contraception on the basis of that is even bullier shit. Or shittier bull. Whatever.

f) The perfect amount of people for a conversation is four. Two to do all the talking, and two to exchange knowing glances at what perfect arses the first two are making of themselves.

g) I got infatuated with a girl over the internet again. Fuck; I'm pathetic.

h) Okay I have to end this post soon. I want to Google pathos.

i) Oh my goodness it's six forty-eight in the morning.

j) Bugs are flying into the light of my screen. I'm going to eat one.

k) That tasted like hair, dust, and ick. I feel like a wimpy Bear Grylls.

l) I can still feel it in my throat. I think it's stuck. I'm going to go get a drink.

I'm Tired and I Want to Get This Out of The Way Before Bed

Ian quit his job and came to interview for mine on Wednesday. I went out on my lunch break to interrupt his interview.

Wednesday was also the day I got my pay. There had been a lot of delays leading up to that point.

I was quite happy that it had arrived. It would still take a while to clear, though. I went to deposit it but then I realized that I needed my account number on the back. It was a bit of a hassle to get that since I had changed my password for my Maybank2u and all that, but I got it eventually.

Money is great. I've already budgeted it.

RM50 is for gambling (poker only, so I can only lose as much as I've put in), RM500 is being saved, RM160 is being tithed, RM350 goes on celebrating it (I was going to buy Outback for my bosses tonight, but they took too long to get the cheque ready for me so it didn't clear in time for that. I'll be buying McDonald's for the whole department on Monday instead), RM300 goes on food for the month, and there are other expenses that I've budgeted for like movies and stuff that I can't remember at the moment.

Hannah made cookies today. They are really tasty.

While she made the cookies, I made some oobleck to play with. Oobleck is the funnest fluid.

Thursday and today are my off days. I woke up really late on Thursday, and I slept really early (in the morning. It was five A.M.). Today I woke up at ten because Susanna was playing her music too loud. At least she wasn't playing Barney songs this time. I hate that purple reptilian idiot and all his stupid friends.

I've downloaded a lot of Elvis to listen to recently. Elvis is great.

I've been on Tumblr too much recently. I love the "ask" feature. I get to know more about all these strangers (and some of my friends). Most of the time it's just silly this-or-that, but sometimes I'll ask something open-ended and I'll get a thoughtful and interesting reply. Also sometimes they ask me questions back. I enjoy answering those.

Hannah will have to give up her room next week because we have a daughter of one of my dad's friends' coming over to stay for a while. She's twenty years old (which sounded like a lot the first time I heard it but then I realized that that's only two years older than me and one year younger than Amanda and exactly the same age as Ian, which makes her seem less distant somehow) and she's from Germany. I'll end up referencing the war or the football rivalry and things will get awkward, I just know it. If I miraculously manage not to be a bumbling idiot, it should be pretty cool. The last time we had a guest from Europe was four years ago when our cousin and his friend came over during the 2006 World Cup. They went down to Singapore for the finale. They were cool. The guest room was frigid when they were staying over, though. They put the air conditioning on the lowest temperature and you could feel the cold as you walked past the door. Malaysian weather is not kind to those used to the more temperate northern climates.

I'm still waiting for my cheque to clear but my dad transferred RM700 to my bank account so I have money again and I don't have to starve at work. When the cheque clears I'm sending RM765 over to him (RM15 interest and RM50 from a previous loan).

I won RM7.50 from making silly bets with Jan this afternoon. It was too easy, so I let him win it all back. Hannah only made two bets and she managed to break even.

I thought I would spend more time playing RuneScape after getting a job, but that didn't happen.

Amanda went to Indonesia and came back and I didn't even notice because nobody told me. Joanna went to Greece and I only found out a few hours before she left. She didn't know what the isle of Lesbos was. I'm disappointed in her. I'm also jealous of her, she's going to be cruising around the Mediterranean for almost twelve days.

I've only got four days left before I have to buy Milan and Amanda some ice cream. Dang. Oh well, at least the first time after that is going to feel awesome.

Joanna's videos of me did not get enough hits for me to have to buy her McDonald's. I still owe her RM10 for uploading them on time, though.

My tooth hurts. I think it's because I've been clenching my jaw too tight.

I'm not sure if I'm desperate enough to date a fifteen-year-old. I hope I'm not. A man's got to have principles. Sixteen is the limit. Seventeen after my next birthday.

If Hannah starts dating a sixteen-year-old now I would feel that there was ass to be kicked. A fifteen-year-old would probably be risking the same fate unless he/she was awesome.

My parents watched An Idiot Abroad with me. It's great.

I love my one month of free premium at Conquer Club. I think I'll use some of my final pay cheque to buy a whole year. If I'm doing that then I'm also going to buy some Dinosaur Comic T-shirts. I want the Time Traveller's Essentials and the "Feelings are boring, kissing is awesome" one. I'll also donate a couple dozen dollars to JoCo as thanks for all the songs he let me steal.

I have more to say, but I think I'll end this so that I can go to bed sooner.

Oh yeah, my boss needed extra people to come in to work today but it's my day off so I told him that I was "kinda busy" today. I only went to Subway and I spent the rest of the day on the internet. Was I lying? I hope I wasn't lying.

A Lazy Sunday on the Job

I watched the 1950s version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers at work today (Sunday). It was great. I think the Pod People had a good thing going, though. I wouldn't really have minded becoming one of them. The movie reminded me of On The Third Day in some ways, too, so that made it all the more awesome. I still wouldn't want to catch the Sadness, though.

I got a call from someone who claimed he couldn't understand my accent. It was the first time I got that complaint. Usually they just say I'm going too fast. He asked me where I was located and when I told him that I was in Malaysia he got upset and started swearing. I was excited because if he said three swear words I could hang up on him and being allowed to hang up on a customer is such a great feeling. After his fourth swear I started to tell him that I was allowed to hang up on him for being too profane, but he hung up on me first. Oh well.

After that we didn't really get any more calls, so the rest of the team talked about our more "fun" callers and what they were like. Google and Facebook helped us learn what some of our callers looked like. I think it's against our contract to add them to our friends, though.

One of the T2 guys, Ismael, took me up to see the Microsoft floor, which was abandoned when the department was moved overseas. It was pretty awesome. There were two Xbox rooms with Halo wallpaper. I took some office supplies that were left behind. Now I have a new ruler.

While waiting for the Perth phone lines to close, I took a nap under my desk. I was supposed to wake up after an hour, but I only woke up when my dad called to say he had arrived fifteen minutes ago and had been waiting outside for me to arrive.

When I got home I went straight to bed while listening to music from my phone. It was a good sleep. My dad woke me up at one point to ask if I wanted dinner, but I told him no. To make sure I wasn't sleep-talking, he asked me what the square root of nine was. I answered correctly and went back to sleep.

Ian, Joel, and Jan woke me up around six hours later with the sounds of gambling and football. I went out to the living room and Hannah was reading my Tumblr. She didn't follow me, though. She said I was annoying her and started playing videos of me talking to make her leave.

It shouldn't be 3:30am now. I would be waking up to get ready for work at around this time. This is ridiculous. I wish Ian and Jan and Joel could have just gambled outside or watched football somewhere else or something. Gah. I'm going to be so tired at work later.

I downloaded a lot of Elvis songs and Mr Bean episodes recently. They're great.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Airport, Pictures, Hannah and Her Friends, Movies, and Other Things

So I said I would continue blogging, and I was not lying.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to a mall and I read a good book by a cool guy named Rhys Thomas. I know he is cool because I later read that he sent a free copy of the book I was reading to a girl who had posted a cool review of his other book on her blog. That is a thing only cool people do. Anyway, the book was called On The Third Day and it was about an epidemic that removed all the hopes from people and then killed them exactly three days later. They didn't mind because without hopes their lives were meaningless. Even though I only made it through a third of the book before I was interrupted, I very much enjoyed it. Hannah, Ebony, and Yii-Huei (H.E.Y. from now on for the sake of convenience and fun acronyms, but without the periods, because groups of girls are always better when periods aren't involved) had gone to watch Charlie St Cloud. Afterwards they told me it was okay. I told them the book was awesome. I hope this will make them start reading. It probably will not, though.

Hannah was upset with me for something that was actually her fault, but I bought her ice cream to cheer her up because I read somewhere that girls like ice cream. It didn't really work, so I tried initiating some gossip, because I read that girls like that, too. She felt a little better after that.

Well, it wasn't actually gossip. It was the platypus game. I've explained the name before, but I shall explain it again. The name has nothing to do with the game, Hannah just likes the way it sounds because she's a 13-year-old girl and they are allowed to be whimsical and silly like that. Basically the game is truth or dare without the truth. It was... enlightening. We also played it in the car that we took to the mall and in the sauna that we will encounter later on in this story.

Hannah promised we would go to the sauna. The sauna is something I enjoy but something I don't like to do alone. Yii-Huei and Ebony enjoy the sauna. Hannah enjoys doing things with her friends. Everyone wins.

The sauna was hot and there was a lot of steam, which is exactly what you would expect from a sauna but just because something is expected it does not mean it cannot be fun. We left six minutes earlier than we had planned because it got too hot. Next time we will last longer. There may not be a next time, though.

Hannah cried when Stefanie left. Hannah is currently quite upset with me. This paragraph could fit anywhere in this blog post, and there are probably better places for it, but this is the place that it was when I wrote it and I don't feel like moving it.

Today was Sunday. Church was church, but the sermon was more interesting than usual due to a guest speaker. I did not have gum to stay awake, so I looked through pictures on my phone and showed them to Jan and HEY. Jan thought this one was particularly hilarious:

Ebony was reading the fourth Harry Potter book next to me. I've never read any of the Harry Potter books or watched any of the movies, and this usually surprises people. Based what I saw on the pages I read over Ebony's shoulder (She is a slow reader, I had plenty of time to read her pages and look at pictures and also listen to the sermon a bit), I'm going to say that JK Rowling is a pretty good writer. I guess I wouldn't mind a Harry Potter box set for Christmas, but I'd still much rather have a Stephen King collection or The Zombie Survival Guide or anything by Max Barry or even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

After church, Yii-Huei went home with her family and I dropped Ebony off at her house and then I dropped Hannah off at Grace Assembly for a Royal Rangers 22nd anniversary. She likes a guy there, I think. I hope it isn't David Soh. I think it's another guy she says she hates. I followed her inside. The uniforms don't look that bad, especially when you compare them to the junior uniforms that BB has. Ugh, who thought those shorts were a good idea?

Anyway, as I left I met David's dad. I should have greeted him with "Old man, old man", but I did not. I did not say goodbye in that fashion either. Oh well, we all have regrets that we must live with.

I took a nap when I got home.

I watched Outsourced with Jan and Joel. They were both texting and talking and so everything was less funny than when I watched. People should give more things their undivided attention. That way there would be less collisions on the road, and also people would enjoy things more. It's not like the texts are going anywhere, anyway.

True Love is an objectively good song. Even if you were to ignore who was collaborating on it, it is a nice sounding song that most people would enjoy. Prove me wrong, Hannah.

After watching outsourced I may have taken a nap. I am not sure.

Stuff happened. I can't remember. It probably was not interesting. You know what is interesting, though? This.

Ian, Jan, and Joel were gambling. I strung some of Jan's bets and won around RM10 from Ian. Everyone was happy after the gambling was over, with the exception of Ian, whose gambling debts had recently reached three digits for the umpteenth time. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he probably has a gambling problem, but I will say that gambling probably gives him problems.

Hannah, my mother, and I went downstairs for dinner. Joel was waiting for us there. Do not fear, Joel is not omnipresent; time had passed and he had gone downstairs first. Dinner was tasty and somewhat expensive but that was fine because I paid with my winnings.

When I get my pay cheque I will tithe a tenth, save half (or thereabouts), and spent most of what's leftover on food. Everything else will either go to gambling, Hannah, or movies. This is an arrangement that I am happy with, but some people think it is a bad idea. I think some people are wrong sometimes. Actually, I think most people are wrong most times. That does not mean that I am not most people, but it does not mean that I am, either.

We talked about stuff over dinner. Politics, my grandfathers (They are awesome; did you know that? One sabotaged Nazi operations during the German invasion of the Netherlands a little over half a century ago, and the other killed communist terrorists for a while before moving on to spying on them and figuring out ways to destroy them from the inside), science and religion, my future, Hannah's future, relationships, and other stuff. It was fun. Hannah was on her iPod for half of it. Typical teenager. Typical Hannah, actually.

I need a best friend. I don't have one; I never have had one. Well, maybe I don't need one, but I want one. If she's a girl it's a plus. I would settle for an awkward loser, at least then we would have something in common. I would settle for a dog. I would settle for a cat. I already have a cat. I guess that'll do, then.

I still have to write about clubbing. I will get to that. Look, I'll make a deadline for myself. Something will happen to the clubbing post by Wednesday. Early Thursday morning latest. I'll find something to sincerely compliment my brothers about if I don't update the post. There, it's said. It'll happen now.

I also said I'd write about movies and something else. Jan and I went to see Resident Evil: Afterlife with El-Hanan a few days ago. It is the third movie I've seen more than once in cinemas. Inception was five times, the Dark Knight was two and a half times. Afterlife is undoubtedly the shittiest movie of the three, but it was worth watching for the 3D. Proper 3D is worth the eighteen ringgit. Do not bother with that post-production bullshit, or else I will think less of you as a person. I will do the same if you pay to watch shit like Epic Movie and Vampires Suck and all that other Friedberg and Seltzer bullshit.

That one 3D owl movie looked nice. I might watch it if I have someone to watch it with.

Oh yeah, I also had to write about going with friends to surprise Nicholas at the airport. Basically, after work I spent a whole lot of money going to KLIA to say goodbye to one of my friends' boyfriends. I went because I don't get out much and I would do pretty much anything as long as I knew my friends were there, too, and it didn't involve too much lawbreaking. I was told Amanda wasn't going to be there. "Oh well," I thought, "Joanna is pretty fun and there is much wisdom within the mind of Davinia that I can attempt to obtain. Also, I should probably say a proper goodbye to Nicholas since I was kinda drunk the last time I saw him. Also also, Carmeni is going to be sad afterwards and maybe there is something I can do."

In retrospect, there was nothing I could do except be there, really.

On the way there I stopped at this place along the highway and I got my Touch 'n Go credit moved from my inactive MyKad to a new Touch 'n Go card. I used RM40 of the credit that night alone. The road to KLIA is an expensive one. Parking's pretty bloody pricey, too. I've still got RM50 left or something, so that should last a while. Or so I hope.

I ate Burger King and was just about to take a nap in a booth when the girls found me. We hung out for a bit. Joanna and Carmeni stayed at one spot for a while while Davinia and I went to look at aeroplanes. You guys, aeroplanes are really big. It's awesome. Did you know they fly? They are huge and metal and they fly all over the place. Awesome.

We got back and took pictures. Then we got a call and Nicholas was in the airport. We surprised him. We went to McDonald's. Carmeni sat with her boyfriend and his family. Joanna, Davinia, and I sat at another table nearby. At the airport McDonald's is a bloody rip-off, too. Burger King offers the same menu and the same prices, but McDonald's doesn't care. McDonald's is like the country it represents; it's so large and ubiquitous that it thinks it can do whatever it wants and that it can get away with it. Right now it's right, but the times, they are a-changing.

Sometimes, even I'm aware of how crazy I sound.

After McDonald's, Davinia's phone rang. It was the kind of phone call that you can't discuss in front of a guy, so she went off with Joanna for some girl time and girl talk, whatever that is. Meanwhile, Nicholas' family was taking some final goodbye pictures. I ended up in the group photos but, because they were away, Joanna and Davinia did not. That's not really fair; they know Nicholas better than I do.

A few more pictures were taken, and then Nicholas left and Carmeni started crying. I am terrible at reading emotions because I thought she looked like she was handling the whole thing quite well up until then.

We hung out some more and then the girls went to the toilet and I went home.

Here are the pictures of the night that I took with my phone and one that I did not:



So yeah, that is the story of the time my friends and I showed up at KLIA to make sure that Nicholas Rodriguez could have a little more time with Carmeni before they had to say goodbye for a while.

I'm not sure what to put in this paragraph. I'm not sure what to put in most paragraphs. Usually I just type my thoughts and that turns out quite well. This is a transition paragraph that I feel should be a bit more solemn than usual.

This is also a transition paragraph. This one is about how I just recently learned that "swig" and "swing" are different words. Never again will I say "another swing of wine". Not that I ever said it before, but at least if I ever need the phrase in future I will be saying it right.

This is not a transition paragraph. This is me, blogging. I texted people almost out of nowhere recently. I asked my friends to recommend a best friend for me. Davinia gave me sound advice. Joanna also gave me good advice, but over Windows Live Messenger so that she wouldn't have to use credit or something. Amanda did not reply and I hope that it is because she was busy or out of credit but I guess it might also be because she did not want to. Saundra replied, but I'm not really sure why I sent it to Saundra.

I want a girlfriend. I won't settle for a cat on this one.

There, now I'm done blogging, and it's only twelve. All I have to do is upload all my recent pictures, tweak the HTML, add a few more thoughts, upload, and I'm done.

Oh, I joined Twitter. I wonder why I didn't mention that earlier. I've wanted to join ever since I found out that astronauts have Twitter accounts and they send tweets from space. Until then I had never realized how badly I have wanted to receive electronic communications from space.

Electronic communications... FROM SPACE.

You guys that is so awesome.

Anyway, I'm going to upload the rest of my photographs now. Well, I won't really be uploading them. They're already online, on Facebook. I'll just be attaching them to this post. If Zachary Bower is right and Facebook is just a fad, then when my children read this post there will be nothing here but a bunch of white squares with "x"s in them, assuming my children are reading this with an ancient (by future standards, of course) version of Internet Explorer, which is a silly thing to assume, since Google will probably own the internet by then. What's the Chrome icon for a dead image?

But yeah, pictures. Enjoy:




Okay I think that some explanation is required for some of those pictures. From the top down: Some owls Hannah drew in church last week, a few pictures I took for Hannah in church when she was trying to see what her braid looked like (it did not look nice, as you could see), Hipster Hannah in Cotton On, cats and kittens at Bukit Kiara, Hannah and Yii-Huei and their attempts to hide from the camera, and finally Mercy and her son being cats.

I enjoyed writing this post more than I usually enjoy writing blog posts. I think that may be because it is still so early in the night (it is not even 1am yet).

By the way, did you notice any errors in this post? Yes? Then you should tell me; I can't fix them unless I know where they are.

Oh yeah, Daylight Savings Time is in effect now, which means that work starts an hour earlier and ends an hour earlier, too. I don't mind waking up early, especially for what they're paying me.

I Am Still Blogging, Hannah

I haven't quit blogging, it's just that I haven't been on my computer since I started work on Monday and as such I haven't had much time to update this blog. But I'll get to it eventually. There isn't much to write about this week, my days have mostly gone like this:

1) Wake up
2) Get ready
3) Wake up again from a nap that was taken sometime between items 2 and 3, suddenly realize how late I am
4) Rush to work with my dad or Aunty Rosie or on my own
5) Work for a few hours; don't remember enough about any calls to blog substantial amounts about them
6) Costly lunch
7) Take a break, maybe sneak in some Conquer Club in between calls.
8) Work for a few more hours; maybe get one or two interesting calls
9) Go home
10) Hang out in Hannah's room/Do exactly one interesting thing/take a nap
11) Do exercise and take shower
12) Go to bed relatively early.

Well, on Wednesday night I went to watch a movie and on Thursday I went with friends to surprise Nicholas at the airport before he left, but that's about it. I'll blog more about those later, I guess.

I will definitely be updating the previous post with more information about my first time clubbing. This is a blog-commitment. It is, like, the closest I can get to making a promise without actually making a promise.

Gotta take Hannah and Yii-Huei and Ebony to malls now. Should be fun.

Before I go, here is one picture from Facebook for this post:

Awesome Weekend: Clubbing, Movie, Karaoke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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