A Pretty Good Day

Shortly after Obama was re-elected, I met my Calculus and EMA lecturer, Joel Charles, in college during lunchtime. He's got two children now that he didn't have when I was in my first semester. They are adorable. He's also no longer doing the whole lecturer thing; he's a pastor instead but he swings by HELP every once in a while for one-on-one math tutoring.

Anyway after that I managed to complete and submit an assignment with just three hours left. I've only got one piece of work left to submit this week, then I'm off to Genting with Hannah and her friends. The whole of next week is a big holiday for Diwali, so it should be way less hectic.

I also got paid today and I celebrated by eating a big sandwich at Subway. It was delicious. I'm going back to work next week to earn more money for more sandwiches and stuff.

I'm happy.

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.

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.

Finished! Finally! Also, Doggies

I finished my Foundation in Science today. The test was pretty okay and I'm quite confident that I passed. Soon I'll finally be able to claim my certificate and start applying at different universities to get an engineering degree or something. You know what sucks? If I had failed a subject during my Foundation I would have finished sooner than now because I would have joined the new semester and done my Bahasa Kebangsaan then, and that semester finished about a month ago. It would have also meant that I could still hang out with Elo and Carmeni and that lot. Oh well, at least I saved my dad the cost of me resitting.

Yesterday was my last class, and it ended early. Two hours early, actually. I spent that time rescuing a pair of dogs that showed up as I was asking people what their overall score was (mine was 33/50, the highest was 42.5, the average seemed to be around 35). I will try to blog about the doggie rescue tomorrow, but I am tired tonight so here is a thread I started about it that you can read in the meanwhile.

I had a delicious breakfast this morning. I spent way more money than I should've on it, but our lecturer told us that we must eat before the test because hungry students can't focus, so I'll just consider it my last assignment. Easily the most delicious assignment I've ever had.

That's a hash brown sandwiched between two sausage patties sandwiched between two toasty McMuffin buns sitting on top of two soft, fluffy, delicious hotcakes. I also have two drinks to wash all that down. Oh yeah, there's also a another hash brown off to the side.
I finished everything and it was all good. I was still kinda hungry afterwards. Maybe I'll have a couple more extra hash browns next time.

I saw a poster for the dogs before my test. I took a picture of it; see if you can spot me in the background.



Hannah wanted to watch Shaun of the Dead today. I had told her that if she watched that movie I would buy a large packet of Lays, a bowl of M&Ms, and a bottle of coke to share with her and whichever friend she decided to watch it with. I was hoping she'd pick Ebony because Ebony is quiet so Hannah wouldn't be distracted so she could catch all the little jokes and repeated lines and such, but Hannah picked Audrey who is a louder person and therefore not as good to watch movies with, especially one as detail-heavy and layered as Shaun of the Dead.

Anyway aside from ending up with a more boisterous viewing partner than I had anticipated, there were other things that went wrong, too. There were no Lays to be found anywhere, or any decent-quality potato chips, for that matter. They had all been snatched up when "Balik Kampung" started. All the convenience stores and hypermarkets had bare shelves and it was very unnerving, like everyone had been stocking up for the apocalypse and now there was nothing left except the shittiest flavours that nobody wanted, like seaweed and curry. Also, we were interrupted halfway when some contractors came through to fix Hannah's air conditioner. We ended up moving to the living room. Also right at the bit when they were stuck in the cellar, Hannah skipped to the end accidentally and killed all the tension. Nice going. Anyway, it was still Shaun of the Dead so it was still awesome, I'm just disappointed that it wasn't as awesome as it could've been.

Before the movie Audrey had told me that all zombie movies were alike, and so after the movie I asked her which zombie films she'd seen. She said I Am Legend. In fact, that was the only movie she listed. I told her those were vampires, but she insisted I was wrong, as if there was some way I of all people wouldn't know the difference between a zombie and a vampire. I tried to explain to her how I Am Legend was actually a pretty terrible adaptation of the book because it had changed the monsters so much and the Hollywood ending they gave it basically pissed all over the legacy of the book, but she wouldn't let me. The Omega Man did a much better job of adapting the book. The only things I Am Legend got right was casting an excellent lead and getting a real good atmosphere for the city.

I'm pretty sure Audrey does not know how genres work. She thinks Hot Tub Time Machine was a porno. Firstly, nobody's said porno since the eighties, and secondly, there's nothing in there except tits. Tits were all over the place in the seventies. They were in, like, every movie. It was like some kind of unwritten law. They're still all over the place in Europe. God forbid Audrey ever visit a Dutch beach; she'd probably think she stumbled across a orgy, what with all the raw boobage on display and such.

Oh yeah I also learned that the only zombie movies Hannah has seen are Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. I'll have to show her the Dawn of the Dead remake and the original Night of the Living Dead, and maybe RotLD if she's up for it.

Anyway, I drove Audrey back home and picked up her sister along the way. She conceded in the car that I Am Legend was not a zombie movie. We still argued about other stuff, though. When Hannah and I were driving back, I got a text from Audrey saying that Hannah's phone was still at Audrey's house. We went back to get it and I told Hannah about yesterday and how I helped rescue the doggies. Audrey texted me and apologized for arguing. I told her there was nothing wrong with arguing and if anyone should be apologizing it was me for getting so upset with her for not paying enough attention to the movie. Then we came home and I took a nap from 8 until 10. When I woke up I saw that I got a text from Audrey asking if we were cool. I replied that we were. I hope she doesn't misinterpret the 2-hour delay as some sort of passive-aggressive thing. I don't do that kind of stuff, I just leave it to the experts (women).

Hm. This post was longer than I expected it to be. I wanted to go to bed early because I only got three hours of sleep yesterday. I still have to do my exercises and take a shower. Bleh.

My First Interview and Two Half Days

So the second half of Tuesday was quite okay. I hung out in Hannah's room for a while, and something weird was going on. Hannah was being nice to me. I wanted to see what would make her tell me to leave her room, so I asked her to do or let me do increasingly bizarre things. She even let me touch her laptop (she usually hates it when people touch her laptop). Also at one point I told her that I thought it was impossible to wear underclothes over normal clothes, but she proved me wrong and looked ridiculous while doing so. I should have taken a picture for blackmail, since she has a video of me dancing that is absolutely cringe-worthy. Anyway I stayed in her room until she had finished cleaning it up and it looked nice and tidy, then I left.

I had planned to go to bed early, but I ended up playing RuneScape and reading Cracked until a little after midnight, so I was only in bed by 12:45. Oh well.

The next day was Wednesday. I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 7:45am. I did my daily Bible reading and climbed the stairs. I still felt a bit sleepy, so I set my alarm for 8:40am and got ready for another quick nap. Before I did that, though, I read the newspaper and realized that Tuesday had been Merdeka Day. I hadn't realized. Oh well. Happy belated 53rd to Malaysia, I guess.

The nap was very brief but very, very helpful. When my alarm woke me up, I took a shower and freshened up by shaving and deodorizing teeth-brushing and such, and then I changed into some professional-looking clothes and I was ready to go. I grabbed my phone and my wallet and my transcript and my resume which I had printed the day before, and then I borrowed Ian's keys, put my stuff down to tie my shoes, and left.

It was only 9:15am so I had plenty of time before I was supposed to arrive at 10am. I decided to stop by a petrol station to get some petrol and mints for Ian's car. A little after making that decision I realized that I had left my résumé and transcript on the coffee table at home, so I had to turn around and get those.

By skipping the stop for fuel and mints, I managed to arrive at 1 Tech Park just a couple of minutes after 10am. I went to the second floor for the interview, but I found that access required a key card. I went upstairs to the third floor and I was told to sign in and go back downstairs and knock.

So I went back to the second floor and knocked. Sure enough, someone showed up to open the door for me. I asked if Jack was in, and I was told that he was. I introduced myself to him and told him I was there for the interview, so he showed me in to the interview room.

He asked me some questions and I tried to answer them. I didn't do too well, but fortunately for me Jack is a cool guy, so he told me what I had done wrong and how to interview better next time. He told me to avoid speaking too casually, he told me that I should go for a part-time position (I hadn't realized that there were differences aside from work hours between full-time and part-time), and he told me that I should always, always have a pen.

After that, he gave me a quick brief on what I would be doing if I got the job. The company I'd be working for is called Datacom. Basically, Datacom provides IT solutions. To quote their company mission, they are "Passionate people providing creative quality solutions." Recently, they'd also started running call centres (or contact centres, to quote their site). These call centres do work outsourced from other companies. The one I'd be working in would be doing work for Roy Morgan, which is this big research company. My job would be to make calls to New Zealand and ask random people to take a forty-question survey.

Once the brief was done, I was handed a bunch of forms to fill in. There was stuff about my education background and personal details and such like that, and there was also a place to fill in my answers to an English test which I was also given.

While I was filling the stuff in, someone else was being interviewed. He was even less prepared than me, though, so that made me feel a bit better. After a while, Jack left, which was unfortunate because I had a few questions about some of the stuff that I needed to fill in, and I didn't know who to ask.

I decided to fill in what I could and then take the test. The test was easy for three reasons. Firstly, relative to most applicants, my English is really good. That's probably due to all the books and articles on the internet I read, and also due to it being practically the only language I speak. Anyway, the second reason is that the test is relatively pretty easy, too. I'm pretty sure that my first semester English quizzes were more difficult. The final reason that the test didn't worry me was because despite clear instructions not to, someone had written their answers on the test paper. I know I could have passed even without the answers, though. Besides, the person who had written on the test kinda sucked at English (not surprising considering they failed to comprehend the basic instructions), so they got a few answers wrong. But yeah, unless I made a careless mistake somewhere, I'm pretty sure I got everything right.

After that I had a bit of a struggle coming up with who to use as a reference. I remembered working in a store that belonged to the son of the reverend at my church, but that was a long while ago. I gave the reverend a call, and he gave me his son's number. However, he failed to tell me his son, Eusoffe, was in Cambodia. After what was probably a very expensive phone call, I managed to get the number of the store and the guy who was currently running the store, Arthur. I called the store but nobody remembered me, which I had anticipate, so I called Arthur and was pleasantly surprised to find out that he still remembered me. He told me that he was currently driving and would call me when he reached his destination.

While I was waiting for Arthur to call me back, the lady who helped me out from my last visit (Shamini? I'm gonna go with Shamini for now and when I know for sure I might come back and fix these posts) passed by. She came in and answered my questions about the forms and helped me fill almost in everything that I was unsure of. She told me that since I was a student, I could use a lecturer as my reference instead of a previous boss. I thanked her for her help as she left, and then I called Mr Joel to ask if he was okay with me citing him as a reference. He was, so I had everything I needed to fill out the forms, or at least enough to show them to Jack.

I brought them to Jack and told him that I had filled in everything except the bit for previous and expected salary. He told me not to worry about it, so I didn't. He then told me that I'd have to take a typing test.

The test was pretty simple. Applicants would have two minutes to type out as much of a given text as they could, and then their speed, in words per minute (WPM), would be calculated. The goal was to get at least 30 WPM. Jack told me to take as many tries as I needed and to call him when I got at least 30 WPM. Elo had posted in her blog that when she went to interview, the standard was 25 WPM and Arun (and maybe Milan, too) had to have multiple tries before he finally got the required speed. I got 70 WPM and 100% accuracy on my second try. I would have passed on my first try, too, but I made some mistakes half a minute in which would have landed me with 62 WPM or something, so I just cancelled and started over. Anyway I guess that's why those guys have girlfriends and all I've got is a blog.

I went to tell Jack, but he was busy, so I went back into the room. I considered retaking the test and trying to beat my score, but I decided against it since 70 is a nice number and I didn't want Jack walking in while I was in the middle of a test. Instead, I texted Arthur and told him that I had already found a reference, but thanks anyway. He had tried to call me ten minutes earlier, but I hadn't noticed because my phone was on silent mode because my ringtone is not very professional at all. It's a mash-up of California Gurls and Tik Tok with the timing altered so the song has a swing beat. So... Yeah.

After a while, Jack came in to check my score. He asked me why it was so fast. I think he may have thought that I had cheated or that there was some kind of computer error. Anyway, I just told him that it was because I got a lot of practice.

Jack told me that everything seemed good so far, so they would be calling me back for an aptitude test. I asked him what that was and he told me that it was basically another interview, but with other applicants and role-playing and stuff to see how well we'd react in the type of situations we were likely to face. He said that since there were almost enough applicants, it might be possible to have the aptitude test right that day, so I had a seat while he went to check.

It was a comfy seat, and the room it was in was nice. I wish more of my waits were in places that nice and comfy. I didn't mind that wait at all.

Jack returned with my transcript and told me that the aptitude test couldn't be held that day, but he would call me and tell me when it was. He told me to bring a photocopy of my transcript and my IC next time. I thanked him for the interview and left. The whole thing had taken around an hour and half.

As I was pulling out of the parking spot, I got a call from a withheld number. It was Jack, and he was calling to tell me that the aptitude test would be on Monday and they expected me at 10:15am.

I drove over to Pusat Bandar Damansara to get my stuff photocopied at WN and also to get a tasty lunch. Along the way I texted Elo to thank her for her help getting me the job. When I reached PBD, the traffic was terrible and there was nowhere to park, legal or otherwise. I gave Jan a call and asked him if he wanted to join me for Subway. He did, so I told him to be downstairs in ten minutes.

After collecting Jan, I told him the plan: we'd find somewhere illegal to park, then he would wait in the car while I got my transcript and IC photocopied, then he'd order Subway which we could eat in the car. There were no parking spaces to be found, though, so we ended up parking at HELP and walking to where we needed to be. Before we left the car park I realized I had left my transcript in the car, so I went back for it for the second time that day.

As we were walking through HELP, I met Tanuj. He had been in Calculus with me during my first semester. I asked him how he was and what he was doing. He told me he was working on the second year of his psychology degree. I told him that I had just finished an interview. We wished each other well and went about our day.

I took Jan through HELP's corridor and told him stuff about the college. He told me he couldn't wait to go to college himself. He also told me he thought that people were looking at him because he was so unusually handsome. He's quite vain, but judging from his recent success with girls, he probably had the right to be.

Anyway, we went to WN and I got my stuff photocopied. I also bought a pen, since you should never be without a pen in the professional world.

After WN we went to Subway and I had probably my best sandwich ever. It had plenty of meat, its bread was liberally doused in olive oil before toasting so it ended up being golden-brown and crunchy, it had so many onions and enough olives to be delicious, and the black pepper went on the meat and not the vegetables (you would be surprised how many times I've had people put pepper on my vegetables). Its only flaw was that it wasn't a footlong. I guess I'll save that for when I pass the aptitude test.

When I had finished eating my sandwich, I glanced over at my photocopied IC and remembered that my new IC should be done by now. I checked my wallet for the receipt that I had gotten from the JPN, but I got distracted by the fact that my IC was missing. I realized I must've left it at WN, so Jan and I went over to get it back. Fortunately it was in the care of the lady there and not her perpetually-grumpy partner, so we were okay.

When we were walking back into HELP I noticed that the entrance to the level that lay between HELP and the street was open. Jan and I went in to explore. It was a long corridor of abandoned shops that had been closed for a long while. It was dim and creepy but at least it explained where all of the college's cockroaches and the occasional rat came from. I had thought we could exit from the fire door at the other end, but all the exits were locked and barricaded. I wondered whether it was because they were trying to keep something out or keep something in and which would be scarier, but then I realized that we don't live in a horror movie so I stopped caring.

We left the way we came in and walked back into college. The first person we saw when we got back down was Nadiah. She had gone with Effie and me to MTV World Stage last year. I had driven her back home afterwards, actually. Anyway, we said hi and asked each other what we were doing with our lives. She was taking a break for a while. She asked if Jan was my brother, and I said yes, and she said that he was so cute. And also small. Jan was haunted by those comments for the rest of the day, trying to figure out what they meant.

I also met Sam from my Physics classes. He was playing Fallout 3 with all sorts of mods and add-ons. He told me that he was currently doing his degree in Psychology, but in-game he had just started an evil character and was killing raiders in the metro. Nearby, Shaun Joel was playing Just Cause 2. I felt like watching that game, but I don't know the guy well enough to justify watching his laptop instead of Sam's. Besides, his name freaked Jan out.

As I left I was greeted by someone I recognized. He was one of the more well-known guys of the January intake, and he may or may not have won best dressed at the annual ball. He also knew my name. I didn't know his, though, so I just said hey and walked away with Jan.

I drove back and went on my computer for a bit, then I hung out in Hannah's room as I read through all my Bahasa Kebangsaan material. I then decided that I wanted to sleep early, so I told Hannah I wouldn't be making a blog post that day.

I went to my room and watched a program on the History Channel about the Al-Ma'unah arms heist. I did my exercises during the commercial breaks. It was a pretty damn interesting documentary and I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it earlier, especially since it happened in Malaysia only ten years ago.

Anyway, after that I took a shower and I was in bed by 10:45. I woke up almost twelve hours later and I haven't really done anything all day except write this blog post. I'm supposed to do my hardcore studying of Bahasa Kebangsaan today since my final exam is on Saturday, so I guess I'll do that sometime after this.

Jan Broke the Fan so I Cleaned Up My Desk

After writing yesterday's post, I went to see what the girls were doing. They had started watching Cloverfield, which was good, and also Hannah had waxed her legs, which was good. That meant that Hannah had finally done what she said she would and so I wouldn't be asking her to pay for half of the first summons, which was good because I didn't want to anger her by taking her money. Anyway, they said my mum said we could eat downstairs at Restaurant Emas for dinner, so I went with them.

At the restaurant, I ordered some deep-fried squid. It was one of the first foods to arrive, but there weren't many squids left so I only got a half-portion. Mr Wong, the restaurant owner, said that I was allowed to eat it for free on the condition that I didn't share it with anyone. When he left the table everyone wanted to have a piece. I told them no, because I want free squids. Since the squids were free, I ordered some fries.

My dad came downstairs and lectured us for what seemed like an hour. He didn't really have a point, he just covered as much ground as he could on topics as diverse as food wastage, electricity bills, and domestic felicity. It was only when we told him that Ruben and Stefanie hadn't done anything to deserve a lecture and they only had an hour left with us before they left for good that he allowed us to go.

I took Ruben and Jan to the roof since Ruben had missed his chance to go last time. Jan was initially reluctant to go to the roof, but since he had nothing else to offer Ruben in their remaining hour together, he came along anyway. While Ruben was climbing up the second ladder to the very top of the building, Stefanie and Hannah showed up under the first ladder wanting to join us. I knew then that there was no way they were going to finish Cloverfield before Stefanie left, but whatever. I told them to go get a rope for the hatch before they came up.

I climbed up after Ruben, and then it was Jan's turn. As Jan was climbing down, some kind of generator nearby turned on and the hum scared me. When Jan was done, Stefanie wanted to climb next, but I was opposed to the idea. I didn't want girls climbing up because I was scared they'd get scared and get hurt. Even Amanda only went halfway. Stef and Hannah climbed anyway, and they got down fine.

Ruben was the last person to get back in the building, so it was up to him to close the hatch. It took him a while to figure out the right technique with the rope, but he got it to come down eventually, and when he did it was very loud.

I went back on the computer and after a while Stefanie came up from behind and asked for a hug since she was going. I gave her a hug and said goodbye to her and Ruben, and then I went back to reading about 6 Movie Heroes Who Actually Made Things Worse.

After a while I guess I went to bed or something, and then I was woken up by my dad half an hour before my alarm was set to go off. He turned off the air-conditioning and the fan, so I got up, unset the alarm, and went to do my daily Bible reading. When I was done with that I took a nap until ten-ish. When I woke up again, I went to walk up the stairs, then I took a shower and got ready for the day, then I went with Ian to get some stuff done.

Our first stop was Lucky Gardens to get some new photos taken for my license, and then a short walk away to drop off the photos, some money, and the license for renewal. As I was getting my picture taken I was wishing I would have gotten my hair cut first, but it didn't turn out terrible so whatever. Ian ate breakfast while I went to get RM200 for my license and some spending money. I figure the best way not to get worked up about RM600 in summonses is to stop caring about money altogether, so it really doesn't matter if I exceed my float since by the end of this my float's only going to be RM150. Well, RM100 now. Anyway I turned in all the stuff necessary for license renewal and the lady said that my license would be ready in two to three days.

After we were done in Lucky Gardens, we went to Pusat Bandar Damansara to pick up my transcripts from HELP, and also to eat lunch at McDonald's. Ian was impressed by my 5.54 GPA until he figured out that it was out of seven, not out of four. I average a credit. That's disappointing. McDonald's was less disappointing. I had a large McNuggets meal with rather lousy nuggets but two large packs of really large fries. Also Ian wanted a sundae, so I got him a lime one and when it turned out that he wanted chocolate instead because he thinks lime tastes like hand soap, I got to keep it. I still had to pay for it, though.

When we got home, the fan was broken. I asked Jan if he broke it but he said that even though nobody but him was in the room (not even the cats), he was not the one who broke it. I was unaware we had poltergeists in our room. Anyway, I got him to give me the small fan that he had been using to cool his computer. His computer was broken, anyway, so the fan wasn't doing it any good.

I started clearing space on my desk to fit the fan, but once I started tidying up I couldn't stop until I had done a proper job, and before I knew it I had cleaned up the mess that had been on my desk since the day after it was assembled many years ago. I managed to move all my miscellaneous papers and stuff out of one of my drawers and into a box I found outside. I used the now-empty drawer to move all my papers from my time in HELP into. There was a lot to move.

After that I watched Hercules, which was really good. I liked it more than Aladdin. Hannah accused me of being so lame because I cried twice during Hercules, but it wasn't real crying, it was just tearing up during the happiest bits. She's one to talk, anyway. She was having a full-blown sob attack last night after Stefanie and Ruben left. She still has Ruben's hat.

When I was fifteen minutes away from finishing Hercules, my dad called me out to go for a hair cut. We originally went to Bangsar Village, but the hair dresser there cost RM15 for a cut and he didn't have a picture of the style I wanted. My dad told me to go drive the car around and pick him up while he bought some stuff. Fortunately, I did not get a third summons, so I was okay.

We went to the Lucky Gardens barber and I got a nice hair cut. I also got a complimentary massage from this bulky massage machine they have. Sometimes I'll get that when I go for a hair cut, sometimes I won't. It's weird. Oh well.

When I got back home, I watched five more minutes of Hercules before being called away by my maid to help my dad and Hannah patch up some inflatable boats (Rafts? Dinghies? One of them is a floating mattress) that we've had for over a decade. After the boats were inflated I had dinner, which was yummy, and then I finished Hercules while Hannah and Jan went swimming to test the hull integrity of our watercraft.

I started packing. Thanks to the recent reorganization of my desk, I was able to swiftly locate the bits of PADI equipment that I'd need (Dive planner, instruction booklet for dive planner, and my dive log). My dive log lacked a picture, so I took one of the copies from this morning and went to Hannah to borrow some glue.

After sticking on the picture, I read through the dive log for Hannah. I've made five dives so far and clocked a total of three and a half hours underwater. The entries for the five dives were quite short: "Saw some rubbish: Tyre, pipe, box. Saw some clownfish and a blue ring angel" was the first entry, made on June 20th, 2007. I told Hannah that I had probably meant to say I saw a angel fish and not an actual angel, but who knows. The second entry was "Saw great barracuda, surfaced early due to air wastage caused by overworking arms." The third entry was "Jenking ray, blue spotted sting ray, lionfish, puffer fish all were seen. Also of school of baby barracudas." I remember being told after the dive that the Jenking Ray was the same type of ray that had killed Steve Irwin. One of the guys on our dive had grabbed it by its tail and dragged it out from under its hiding spot to show us how big it was. It was really big. Anyway, the third entry read "Saw stingray tail, had a little difficulty staying neutrally bouyant [sic]." I had to explain to Hannah what neutrally buoyant meant. The fifth and final entry was "Saw porcupine fish, GIANT sea cucumber". Hannah wanted to know why I emphasized the "giant", and I told her that it was probably because it was a really, really big sea cucumber. I don't remember it, though, so it can't have been that big.

I then finished my personal packing and I had back on the computer for a while when Ian told me that him and Jan were moving stuff down to the car, so I tried to help them. I found that there was still space in my luggage, so I picked up one of my dad's bags to fit in so we'd have one less thing to carry. As I was entering the room, the door hit Jan, who told me to "watch it." I overreacted by yelling at him that I had no way of knowing that he was on the other side of the door, and he overreacted by kicking me repeatedly. I get really pissed off when people hit me for no good reason (the only good reason, I think, is if I've hit them first, which is the one thing I don't do. I'll yell at people for little to no reason, I'll get angry over things that happened months ago, I'll stubbornly cling to an argument long after another person's lost interest, but I'll never hit a person unless they've hit me first), and so I got very very upset with Jan very, very quickly. I lost my temper and we got in a fight, so my mum woke up and intervened. I probably would have won if she hadn't; I was about to grapple Jan into a chair.

Moments after my mum calmed things down, Hannah and my dad got home. My mum made us sit around the table and we all got lectured for what felt like an hour, and in the end it was decided that my new bedtime is midnight or earlier because sleep is important. Fine.

After that I wrote this, and after I post this I'm going to do my exercise and take a nap because we're leaving for Terrenganu at 2am. At least my expired license means I don't have to drive.

Driving, Reading, Driving, Reading, Driving, Watching Movies

Yesterday was mostly spent driving my dad around because he had bought a whole bunch of stuff for me on Sunday and I felt guilty for being responsible for the loss of so much cash, so I wanted to help him work. Also I didn't want to get bored at home, even though I had plenty of books to read.

I drove him to his first meeting, and he said that I could go get some hot dogs from Ikea while I was waiting for it to finish. I had actually been to Ikea last week with Hannah and Ebony after taking them to 1 Utama, so I was craving another hot dog, which is why I had mentioned Ikea hot dogs as a possible option for lunch on Sunday, which is why my dad was telling me to buy them for lunch on Tuesday. Anyway, at Ikea I called our house and asked what everyone wanted on their hot dogs. Hannah said she would have two curry puffs instead. I ended up ordering nine hot dogs, two curry puffs, and a drink. It was only when I was about to pay that I realized I had left the money in the car, so I apologized to the guy at the counter and ran off for a while to get the cash. When I got back, the hot dogs were ready, so I added way too much onions to my two (Structurally, not gastronomically. The hot dog could have been tastier, but the bun could not support the amount of onions I had loaded it with and so it was literally falling apart.) and ate them. After that I put ketchup on Jan's, everything on my dad's, and everything but chili sauce on Ian's. There was one hot dog left over, so I left that one plain.

I called my dad and asked him whether I should go pick him up or go home with the food. He told me to go home, so I did. The hot dogs were distributed. They looked quite sloppy, so I explained that hot dog garnishing is a subtle art, and I am neither an artist nor very subtle. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food anyway.

My dad called and said that he was going to Plaza Damas to continue the meeting, so I should be there by two o'clock. Hannah let me use her laptop to check where it was using Google Maps. She kept switching tabs to Tumblr, so it took a while, but she did help me out and for that I am grateful. Anyway after that I set my alarm and I plopped into a chair to read some more of Sphere by Michael Crichton. I had found it on our shelves recently and remembered reading the Wikipedia synopsis. Since I had enjoyed all of the other Michael Crichton books I had read, I thought I would be a good thing to bring along to keep myself occupied while waiting for meetings to finish. I was correct. It was really interesting and exciting, even though I vaguely knew what would happen next, I still couldn't remember how it would end, so there was still some suspense left.

After a few chapters, my alarm rang. I went to the car and drove to Plaza Damas. Along the way I passed the Backyard Pub where Carmeni's birthday was celebrated. The grassy bit outside seemed a lot larger when I was passed out on it. Anyway, I got to the mall at Plaza Damas and gave my dad a call. I could see him, but the way into the mall was blocked by taxis. I waited behind one for a while, but it wasn't moving. Finally I gave my dad a call and asked him if he'd just run over. He told me to go forward a bit and come to him. Apparently there was another lane into the mall in front of the taxi that I couldn't see. My dad got a little annoyed with me for not seeing that.

Anyway, I drove him to his next meeting, then I found a spot to park and read a few more chapters of Sphere. His meeting ended very early, though, because the guy he was meeting with had another emergency meeting come up so he had to leave. I picked my dad up and we went to fill up the car.

Once the car was filled up, my dad didn't have any more meetings to go to, so he decided to see about renewing my driver's license at the JPN, which was very nearby. There wasn't any line or much waiting to be had. I was told that I couldn't renew my license since it was a P, even though it was only four days from expiring. I would have to come back later with my full license to get it integrated into my MyKad. After that I went to have my picture taken for my new MyKad because I was getting it updated or something. The lady said that it would be ready in two weeks and I should call to confirm and then drop by to pick it up.

On the way to the car my dad said I could get my full driver's license from the driving centre, which seemed like a good idea. I'll hand my P in a few days from now, and then when my new MyKad is ready I'll integrate my full license into that, for convenience.

Our next stop was HELP, because I had found out recently that I couldn't access my results on MyPride because my resource fee still wasn't settled. I had thought that was sorted out, but apparently it wasn't, so I was going with my dad to see if things could be resolved. The lady at the counter was very helpful and she said she would get it done, and my dad was pleased. I was, too. In the end my dad didn't even have to do anything. At his request, though, I filled in a form to request for a pair of transcripts so I could start applying at other universities. It should be ready by next Monday.

After that we were headed to Bangsar Village so my dad could go pick up a new microwave to replace the old one that had died mysteriously a few nights ago after heating up my carbonara. Along the way I noticed my dad reading Sphere. I said to him that it was a really good book, and he agreed. I told him I was going to finish it that day. He said I wasn't, and I told him that I had read larger books before in one day. He clarified that I wasn't going to finish reading Sphere that day because he was going to finish reading Sphere that day. My father, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, I had the chance to read the book while waiting for him to get the microwave, so I did. After a while my dad left the mall with a component for our breadmaker, but no microwave. I wasn't even aware our breadmaker was broken. Oh well.

When that was all done we went home. My dad read Sphere, and I probably watched a movie or something. In the evening my dad told me that he suddenly had a meeting at KL Sentral and I was driving him there. I didn't mind because it meant I could continue reading Sphere while I waited.

We went to the station, my dad went to his meeting, and I read the book. I was about halfway through when my dad said it was over. I picked him up and he handed me some Burger King as a reward for driving him around all day.

When we got home my Burger King meal became a lot less of a great reward because I saw that Aunty Rosie had made chicken and chips for dinner. My fries were redundant, but at least the chicken tenders were still tasty. I gave one to Hannah, and I let Ian have my coke because somebody drank his. I shouldn't've given my BK coke away because the bottle I had in the fridge was flat. Oh well. Dinner was nice anyway.

After that I watched The Illusionist. I wanted to watch The Prestige, but I figured I might as well watch the lousier of the period magician movies from 2006 first. Save the best for last, y'know? Anyway it was an okay movie and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't so tired, but the truth is there's so many more good movies on my hard drive that I could have watched, so it felt a bit like a waste of time. But yeah, I went to bed late after a shower and exercise and stuff.

The next day I let my 8:45 alarm ring and ring and ring. After ringing for a minute, the phone will snooze for the next nine. I ended up only waking up at nine fifty-five. Perhaps "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" isn't annoying enough to be an effective alarm, but I just can't resist the Inception reference. It does unfortunately mean that every time I wake up I have to mutter either "Asshole! How could you screw up the carpet?" or "No, it's too soon", but I enjoy it so what the hell, eh?

I was supposed to go see Inception with Elo after she finished shopping with her friend, but her friend never decided whether they were going to Mid Valley or Times Square, so I ended up arranging to meet Elo before she leaves at KL Sentral on Thursday night with a bunch of the others. I didn't have anything to do after that, but my dad was finished with Sphere so I picked up where I left off.

While I was reading, my dad told me that he had another meeting at KL Sentral, so I drove him there again. A guard chased me away from the drop-off point, but I found a better spot anyway. I finished the book (It was really good. I want to lend it to my Psychology lecturer.) and then I took a nap. I woke up to a call from my dad at six. During the drive back I realized how easy the drive to and from Sentral had become ever since they finished building the flyover and changed the flow of traffic in Brickfields (or is it near Brickfields? Whatever).

Back at home I watched the Dark Knight. Cillian Murphy was in it. I'm seeing Inception everywhere. Extradition between France and the United States was in Catch Me if You Can, as was DiCaprio, obviously. Ellen Page, also rather obviously, was in Juno. Jennifer Garner was in both, but she wasn't in Inception. Cillian Murphy and Ellen Page are in Peacock, which Hannah should be giving to me soon. I forgot what the point of this paragraph was. Whatever.

Anyway that's the story of what's happened in my life recently. Later on in my life I'll be going to Redang with my family so Jan and Hannah can learn how to scuba dive. Even later on than that I'll be going to continue my studies, but I have to pass my Bahasa Kebangsaan first. I used to think I was going to do Civil Engineering, but my dad doesn't want that for me. He said something about always working underneath other people. He'd rather I become a programmer, but that really doesn't sound appealing to me. He's cool with me being a structural engineer, though, so I'm going to meet one of his structural engineer friends sometime.

Unrelated to that, I was reading my old blog posts a few nights ago. You know how you usually read stuff that you wrote in the past and you can't believe that you would say something like that and you notice how much you've changed and stuff? Yeah, it was the exact opposite of that. I thought the posts were great and they helped me vividly recall the days I was writing about. They were also funny and well-written except for being too long.

I guess this means I'm not a modest person, but who needs modesty when you're this awesome?

Quite Funny in a Boring Way

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'd Go for the Slightest Reason

So the past two days I've gone to HELP. Yesterday I went for a meeting, and today I went to help Elo with some homework. The meeting ended up lasting less than five minutes, and I knew less about Elo's homework than she did, so I wasn't much help. Still, I had fun.

Yesterday started with me waking up at six, putting my alarm on snooze for ten minutes, waking up again, turning off the alarm for good, falling asleep on the couch, falling asleep during my Bible reading, falling asleep after my Bible reading, then finally waking up at around eleven to actually start the day.

I think I started with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The peanut butter was crunchy because smooth is boring, and the jelly was actually jam because nobody calls it jelly. Actually, the sandwich might have happened on another day, but I've made mistakes due to memory before on this blog and I'm hardly going to go back and correct them. Anyway, after the sandwich I climbed the stairs, then I took a shower, then I got dressed, then I grabbed my bag and left. Jared had given me a couple of Adrian Mole books to read because he said that my blog reminded him of them, so I had those in my bag along with The World is Flat, which was a book by Thomas L. Friedman that I've been slowly re-reading over the past few months.

When I got to college, I had a very brief chat with Elo and a bunch of other people. They were watching a gay black guy answer questions and dis Airplanes. I like Airplanes. Anyway after my very brief conversation I went to my meeting, since it was scheduled for twelve thirty and it was already twelve twenty-something. While I was walking to the meeting I wondered why the gayest gays always seemed to be black. I don't have anything against either of those groups, I was just wondering why the gayness got so much more potent when you combined them. Oh well, I guess it's just one of those things.

None of the people I was supposed to be meeting were at the DSA, so I made a few calls and tried texting them for a second time (I had texted them once before I left). I could only reach Mun Lee, and she that said she was on the way. In the meantime I decided to sit down and read Jared's books.

I found a place next to Roshaan and Deborah. They were working on Roshaan's reflective writing assignment for his Psychology, which was due that day. A bit last minute, but it turned out okay in the end. I offered my comments every once in a while. I'd like to think I helped.

The book was quite good. It was like The Princess Diaries, but more masculine, and more 80s, and more British. Actually the only element it had in common was that it was also a diary. Whatever, it was good.

Lee Kening told me that she was on her way home already since she hadn't known about the meeting, so I told her not to worry and that things would be fine so long as I got Roy's and her parts of the assignment before Wednesday. Mun Lee showed up and gave me her bit of the assignment. After the files were on my thumb drive, there wasn't much left to do, so she left.

I spent a bit more time reading, and I left when Roshaan left. As I was walking back, Carmeni spotted me, and we walked and talked for a short while. I told her that I had been waiting for her when I arrived, and she said that she had been free from 12:30 to 2:00, which was unfortunate since two o'clock had just arrived. Before she went to class I tried to make plans to see Inception after finals. She said that as long as I notified her three days beforehand she should be free to watch.

I rode home and didn't do much. I watched Man on Wire, which is highest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes after Toy Story 2. It was indeed quite good. I also listened to a bunch of podcasts and played some RuneScape. Oh yeah, also I drove Hannah out to get some Five gum because she said that my blog post had made them sound so good. She got the fruity flavour and let me have two pieces for RM1. It was delicious.

I stayed up late and watched So You Think You Can Dance. I did my exercises during the commercial breaks. I started watching just after Jeanine's couple performance, and the rain killed the signal right before her trio performance. Her solo was quite nice, though. After TV I took a shower, then I went to bed. It was a really nice rest.

Earlier on the night I had been chatting with Elo online. She said that she was having trouble writing her Physics report, so I suggested she take a nap to help clear her head and get her more relaxed and focused. She did, and it kinda worked. I told her that I'd come by the next morning to see how I could help her out.

The next morning I was up at nine. I read my Bible and took a nap while Aunty Rosie fried up some pork sausages. I had been really hungry the whole of yesterday, so I asked my dad if we could have the imported sausages for breakfast today, and he said yes. Unfortunately this meant that I had to turn down Elo's offer of breakfast before homework, but I guess that just means I saved some money. The sausages weren't the kind I was expecting. They weren't the sweet, super-tasty sizzlers; they were just better-than-normal pork sausages. We should have saved them for a barbecue.

After breakfast I took a shower. Sometimes the morning showers are shockingly cold, sometimes they are tolerable. I wish they would stay consistent. Morning showers are the second good habit I've picked up from my college friends. I do my 100 push-ups and sit-ups every night because a while ago Amanda told me how she had done push-ups every day for months and ended up with a rock-hard stomach, which I was envious. I think my stomach's gotten harder, but I can hardly go back for reference, so I guess we'll never know.

Anyway, once I got to HELP I found Elo and the rest (Nirai and Li Ying and Kaminie, if I remember correctly, which I probably don't) at their usual spot. I squeezed in through some wires and sat next to Elo. She tried to explain her report to me, but it was about circuits and I sucked at circuits, so I just sat dumbly and offered vague advice. I'd like to think that my presence was a morale boost, but I think my ignorance of the subject just worried Elo even more.

After a while, Kaminie and Elo decided to go to McDonald's, so I followed. Along the way I talked about MTV World Stage. I found out that even Li Ying had read my blog, but Elo hadn't. I'm surprised at the amount of people who do read this. Everything is so long.

Elo and I didn't order anything at McDonald's. It was the worst time for McDonald's, anyway; that dreadful period between eleven o'clock and twelve o'clock where you can't order breakfast any more but there's still no discount from the lunch menu. Kaminie got a meal, and after a while she decided to share her fries with us, so that was nice.

We stopped off at the post office on the way back. Elo wanted to ask a question about mailing some stuff back home instead of taking it with her on the plane, but there was a line and stuff and she felt she didn't have enough time, so we left. If it wasn't for the line I might have also seen about getting my license renewed.

I found out that the girls both had classes at the KPD, so they were going to take the bus. I asked why they didn't just bring their bags with them to McDonald's, since it would have saved them half a trip, and the answer was that they hadn't thought of it. Oh well, it was a short walk anyway. We got our stuff and went to the bus stop. The bus was already there, so our conversation was cut short. Even though it was only twelve hours ago, I've already forgotten what it was about.

Anyway, I said goodbye and got on my motorcycle. Kaminie waved to me from the bus window, so I acknowledged her. The rest of the ride was like hundreds (have I ridden back from HELP more than a hundred times? Probably. Wow) before it, so there's nothing much to say there.

When I got back, Ferris Bueller's Day Off had finished downloading, so I watched that. When I was half an hour in, I saw a bit in a scene that allowed me to get a reference that I had read a long while ago. I like it when that kind of thing happens. Shortly afterwards, Hannah came inside to get me to drive her to pick up Audrey so they could go watch Salt. I told her to wait a moment, so she did, and then after a moment was over we got our stuff and we left.

Aunty Rosie told us her car was out of fuel, so I called my dad to confirm that Ian was with him on the way to Ipoh. When I found out that he was, I took Ian's keys so we could use his Spectra instead. When we got to the car, we found that it was also empty. Oh well, at least it was a nicer car than a Kancil.

Our first stop was an Esso. Since Hannah was the one who wanted to go out, she was the one who paid for the petrol. We only got RM10 worth. The needle barely moved. When I was walking back to the pump after paying, I noticed that the car had a nasty scratch on its side. I hope Ian was the one who was using the car when that happened. I don't remember scraping against anything on the way to the petrol station anyway.

From the station we took what would have been a short cut, except that an ill-placed sign led us into a cul-de-sac, so we were delayed a bit. We got to Audrey's house eventually, though, and it wasn't hard to get to 1 Utama from there.

As I was driving back after dropping the girls off, I noticed that it was almost two o'clock, so the Kaminie and Elo's classes would just be finishing. I was right near the KPD, so I called them to see if they wanted a ride back. Kaminie was still working on an assignment, but Elo was up for it. The flow of traffic had changed a few months ago for the area, so I struggled for a bit to figure out how to get to where I needed to be, but I got there eventually. I pulled up outside the bus stop right as Teenage Dream finished playing on the radio. I was hoping I would arrive in time for Elo to hear it since it tied in with the World Stage conversation from earlier, but it was not to be. Oh well. We talked about her report during the very short drive to the main block. Elo said that Mr Naj had clarified some things, so she would be able to finish it in time to hand it in tomorrow, so that was nice.

After dropping Elo off, I drove back home. It felt like my first time driving into and out of HELP's parking lot in a car, but I've just remembered New Year's Eve so it was actually the second time. First time on a school day, though.

When I got back home I finished Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was a good movie. I started watching the second episode of Sherlock (A new BBC series about Sherlock Holmes in the modern day. It's awesome), but I felt like a nap halfway through. When I woke up again it was six o'clock. I watched a bit more Sherlock, but I got a call from Hannah. I told her to buy some fries for me because I'd be there soon to pick her up.

Traffic is terrible in the city at six o'clock, so it took me longer than I thought it would. I figured Hannah and Audrey would have started snacking on my fries, and was mentally preparing myself for a half-empty fry packet when I arrived. I pulled up the mall right as Teenage Dream finished playing on the radio. I was hoping I would arrive in time for Hannah to hear it since it would be her first time ever hearing it on the radio, but it was not to be.

I wanted to head straight home to have dinner before dropping Audrey off later in the night when traffic got better, but Audrey said that she had to be home at seven for dinner. We were stuck in traffic for a long time. Audrey told me we could have avoided it all if I had taken a left instead of a right, so I asked her why she didn't tell me so earlier when I was merging into the right lane in preparation for a right turn. She said she thought I knew of a shorter way to her house. Silly girl. Anyway, while in the jam she showed me a video of Hannah eating a burger. She hyped it up a lot, but in the end it was just Hannah eating a burger (and some fries). I still thought it was funny, though.

After a lot of traffic we finally ended up at Audrey's house. We dropped her off and drove home. We were using my mum's car since it actually had fuel in it, but she needed it back. Along the way home I told Hannah a secret the same way she told me secrets: I made her promise not to tell anyone with threats of unequal retribution of she did, then told her I was going to tell her, then I changed my mind at the last moment, and right when she decided that she didn't want to hear it anyway because the consequences of letting it slip were too grave, I told her. The only difference is that when Hannah tells me a secret it's always something minor that I already know, but Hannah was surprised by mine. Whatever, it's nothing major.

When we got home I went down to the restaurant to give my mum her keys. She had some leftover carbonara on the table, so I ate that. It was still warm and really delicious. As we were walking upstairs my mum told me that the restaurant where the carbonara came from would be closing soon. I decided to visit it sometime soon for one last bowl of carbonara. I love carbonara.

Back at home Hannah showed me all the new underwear that she had bought. I also noticed that she hadn't been wearing a bra the whole day because there was no way to hide the straps with the new shirt that she had been wearing. Jan joined the conversation, which soon became about how Hannah was growing up too fast and how she was too young for everything. It was funny.

After dinner I finished watching Sherlock, then I compiled a bunch of Bahasa Kebangsaan stuff which I'll be printing on Wednesday, then I pasted some movies on what I had previously thought was a broken thumb drive, then I wrote this post and it didn't take half as long as I thought it would, so that was nice.

Tuesday Defeated Me, but I'm Back

I wanted to do some homework and make a few blog posts on Tuesday, but I took a shower too early and my body figured that was the end of the day and so I was lifeless for the rest of the evening. However! Today was different (It is still Wednesday when I'm writing this, but it'll be Thursday in three minutes).

Today I woke up to an alarm, did my Bible reading, climbed the stairs, took a shower, got ready for the day at my own leisure, rode to college, and hung out with people. It's exactly what I did on Monday and Tuesday, too, except for the stairs bit (I only do the stairs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) and the ready at my leisure bit. Anyway, let's start with Monday and work our way back here.

I woke up at six on Monday because I wanted to get to college early so I could talk to whoever was there (I was expecting Carmeni) until their classes began, then meet more of my friends and have more conversations until six o'clock rolled around and I could teach Amanda how to ride my motorcycle in the HELP parking lot. I was going to teach her on Sunday, but it rained, so I had to postpone it. Also I wanted to pass along The Runaways to Carmeni and Indiana Jones and Wall-E to Elo, so I had that to do, too. Also also, I had a Bahasa Kebangsaan meeting at one o'clock.

Anyway, when I arrived there was no-one I knew in the corridor except Shannon, so I talked to him. I forgot what we talked about. We talked for about half an hour before I showed him The Runaways. Elo and Arun arrived right when we started watching. I got Shannon to skip to the Dakota Fanning/Kristen Stewart kiss to see Elo's reaction, but I forgot what it was. Can't have been anything too great, then. Shannon loved it, though. But he had to leave for class. I gave Elo her Indiana Jones & Wall-E CD, and then we talked. Again, I forget what we talked about. I think we may have compared accents. Elo gave me maybe one phrase in her New Zealand accent, and I responded with a few sentences in what I hoped was a South African accent, but ended up devolving into Scottish for some reason. Anyway, Elo left for class at 9:30, so I talked to Arun for a while before he went somewhere.

Since nobody was left in the corridor, I went to go get some breakfast. On Sunday I had talked to Yii Huei on Windows Live about McDonald's breakfast and constructing the perfect McMuffin (Buy five Sausage McMuffin value meals, construct a McMuffin with 5 patties and 3 hash browns, use leftover buns and complimentary jam to make 4 jam sandwiches, eat remaining 2 hash browns on their own, and wash everything down with your five ice Milos), so I headed to McD's to satisfy my cravings. Unfortunately my budget did not allow for any indulgences that day, so I opted for a single value meal instead.

When I entered the McDonald's, I spotted Denise and Alysha at a table. The invited me over while I was waiting for my order. I was told about Denise's friend, Meel, and how he always seemed to end up dating crazy ladies (except for Denise, of course). There was this one time he dated a girl online for six months. He only knew what she looked like via her Facebook pictures, and he only knew what she sounded like from the occasional phone call. They'd had a few webcam chats, but they were always one-sided because she was having a bad day or she had just got out of the shower or whatever. You can probably see where this one is going. Anyway, one day he gets a call from a friend to go pick up something from a mall. He heads over, and as he's walking through the Coffee Bean he hears a familiar voice. He turns to look and there is his girlfriend's voice coming out of the mouth of this fat, ugly Chinese girl. Turns out, she had taken her Facebook photographs from some Taiwanese model. All her Facebook friends were fake, too; she had made dozens of dummy accounts to make her account look more authentic. Anyway, Meel broke up with her before she could abduct him and lock him in her basement and do whatever it is that crazy people do to their unsuspecting victims once they're helpless and alone.

After McDonald's we walked back to college and Alysha talked about how she was actually royalty since she had a sultan somewhere down her ancestral lineage. Her grandfather gets a special sticker that he can put on his car to prove that he's royalty I thought it was pretty cool, but she said it's mostly a bore because you have to go to all the official state dinners and learn how to bow and speak with respect and stuff like that.

Anyway, the girls went to the lab so I went back to my spot. There were more people there, but I can't really remember who they were. I'm gonna take a guess and say Carmeni and Arun. Anyway, Arun said that he didn't believe Alysha's claims to royalty, since anyone could claim they were royalty. Also there was a guy near his house that sold the royalty stickers that Alysha's grandfather had on his car. Apparently they go for around RM30 each. Meh, I still believe her.

I gave Carmeni her CD, and then I showed her how to play Snake on YouTube (I had previously shown Shannon, too. I forgot to mention that) a bunch of funny/interesting videos on YouTube. I think I showed her the Kung-Fu Bear, the Ninja Cat, and MRI Sex. Oh yeah, I also showed her Jason and Jeanine's dance, but I've linked that here before. Elo came by since her class was over. At some point I told Carmeni and her that I had decided to see what all this two-showers-a-day business was about, so I had taken a shower that morning and now I felt fresh and nice. The girls said that they already knew, because they could somehow tell from how fresh I looked or something. Girls are scary. I showed her Katy Perry's 2001 interview. Carmeni must've been somewhere else or been doing something else, but anyway Elo showed her the video and she didn't see what was so spooky about it, so I loaded up Ur So Gay for comparison. Soon it was one o'clock and I went to the DSA for my meeting.

The meeting went well. At first it was just me and Mun Lee, so we discussed how to divide the work and when we should compile and stuff and when our next meetings would be and such. Eventually Lee Kening and Roy showed up, so we divided the work, clarified the deadlines, and five minutes later we were done.

I went back to the guys and we hung out and talked some more. I forget the specifics, but I remember informing the group that there's a part of the fetus that will eventually develop into either the penis or the clitoris, depending on the chromosomes it gets, which means that women have as much sensitivity concentrated in a small area right near the front as guys do all over, which is great for women if they know how to work it. We also talked about how frequently guys masturbate. I stuck with my one-to-five-times-a-week estimate, but Arun said it was more like one to five times a day. I said that was only accurate if you were using porn instead of mental images to get off. We also found out that Elo didn't know what a hymen or a clitoris even was. Also we may or may not have talked about South African anti-rape devices and the Ganges, or that may have been Tuesday's conversation.

After a while everyone ended up going home or to class, so I decided that instead of waiting in college until six I'd just go home and come back later. While I was walking to my motorcycle, I got a text from Amanda saying she couldn't make it because of an assignment or something, so I just went straight home instead. Well, not straight home. Due to a misunderstanding I went on a little loop, stopping at McDonald's only to find out that I had misunderstood something. Then I went back.

Once I was back home I started blogging about Hannah's and Ian's birthdays, and that took a really long time. I was interrupted halfway because we were going to Chili's for dinner because it was Hannah's birthday, but that was a welcome interruption. I finished the blog post and then I hung out in Hannah's room for a while. It was then when I discovered how deep her love for Joseph Gordon-Levitt was (hint: she cannot talk about him without blushing and grinning like an idiot).

So anyway I did my exercises and took a shower and went to bed, and I slept very well for quite a long time. After a while I was in college again. I had a thumb drive with five movies on it for Carmeni, but I was willing to share them with anyone who wanted them. I had Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Monty Python's Meaning of Life, Monty Python's Life of Brian, and The Princess Bride.

I don't really remember what happened in the college corridors on Tuesday. I know I shared my movies with loads of people on loads of laptops, except Elo's because she hadn't brought hers. I know I watched The Meaning of Life with Arun and had a tough time with it because how low the laptop's volume was and how loud the corridor was. I think I may have had a conversation with girls about geography and some girl said that Egypt was near "Arab" and Elo said she used to think Africa was a country and she still couldn't identify where in Europe Portugal was. Also the girl who thought "Arab" was a country tried to guess where my mum was from and said "Russia". That was funny. Actually, this whole conversation might have taken place on Monday. Whatever.

I know I met Amanda in the hall at some point, and we talked about this video for a while. Amanda said that girls have an invisible standard that they feel they have to live up to, and if they fall below that standard, even if no-one else will notice or care, they'll still point out how they fell short (eg. "My hair is so shit today" if they didn't have enough time to work on it even though it still looks fine) just to prevent people from pointing it out first. She made a lot of sense and now I feel like I understand girls a bit more.

I spent a lot of time reading Jennifer Government. I had borrowed the book ages ago from a friend after she finished reading it for a school assignment, and she went to Australia before I could return it, so it's been sitting on my shelf for years. I was reading it for the third time on Tuesday. It was still really, really good, and I wanted to lend it to someone so they could appreciate it, too.I had shown it to Arun, and he liked it, but he's not the reading type, so I told Amanda that I'd lend it to her instead.

Eventually everyone once again left for classes or for their homes. I saw Carmeni for the first time that day on her way out of the college, and I asked her if she had her laptop so that I could pass her the movies. She said that her laptop was in the car, but I could follow her there if I wanted, and I did, so I did. Nicholas was in the car, sleeping. He had been there the whole time Carmeni was in college. He had spent all night studying and so he was getting some much needed rest. I asked him if it was worth it and he told me that it wasn't and that I should never do law. I said that he could eventually become a lawyer and put people in prison, but he told me that he would rather be a housewife. I pasted the movies onto Carmeni's laptop and then told her to work hard so that she could support her housewife husband with her psychologist's pay.

I decided to wait until six o'clock by reading the rest of Jennifer Government in the DSA. I pulled some chairs together and got comfortable, but around an hour later I got a call from Amanda asking what type of motorcycle I had brought to college. She was disappointed when I said I only had the one-seater, so she was just going to walk home instead. Apparently her class had ended early or something, so I told her that I'd be outside her house shortly. I finished a few more chapters, then I got up to leave the college.

Along the way out I spotted Joanna and I just had to share my movies with her, so I did. While we were watching The Meaning of Life, a girl came by with some surveys about gambling. We said we could help her out by filling them in, so we did. When the girl came back to collect the surveys, we were informed that we had actually been deceived. The survey was not actually to find out about our attitudes towards gambling, but to find out what we thought other people's attitudes towards gambling were. The deception was necessary to make sure we didn't subconsciously bias the results. I thought that was pretty cool.

After the survey I got a call from Amanda, and I told her that I would be there in fifteen minutes. Around five minutes later, I was outside her house. See, if you're late what you want to do is tell people you'll be arriving even later than you will, so that when you do arrive they'll note your recent earliness and forgive you for your relatively distant lateness.

Anyway, I arrived right when Amanda was getting back from a walk with Walker. After parking my motorcycle I went over to see if Walker still remembered me, but she didn't. She cowering away from me until I extended my hand and triggered her memory via scent or something. But yeah, after reacquainting myself with the dog, I dumped my backpack on the bar and then went outside with Amanda to teach her how to ride a motorcycle.

The terrain outside wasn't ideal. The street outside Amanda's house is sloped, so we would need to move further up to a flatter piece of road before we could actually do anything. But before we even did that, Amanda had to start the motorcycle. She had some trouble with it, but after I gave her a demonstration she managed to figure it out. Either that or she got lucky. Anyway, the motorcycle was started, so after that we moved up the hill in third gear.

Third gear wasn't a very good idea. There was still too much torque for a beginner, and Amanda almost fell over at one point. Fortunately, I had my hands on the bike for most of the training, so she didn't. After kicking it into fourth things were a lot simpler. Less torque meant slower acceleration and a much more manageable motorcycle.

After Amanda got the hang of using the brake, I was ready to let her try riding for a longer stretch without stopping. I asked her if she ever rode a bicycle before, and she said she hadn't. I said that maybe we should have started with that, since learning to ride a motorcycle before learning to ride a bicycle was like learning to run before learning to walk. Anyway, I told her to accelerate and keep a steady speed, and once I was sure she was stable and the path ahead was clear, I let go. She was still doing fine, so I told her that she was riding on her own. This was a mistake.

The moment she heard that my hands were off the bike, she started panicking. Fortunately I was right alongside her, so I grabbed hold again and told her to slow to a stop, so she stopped. She then told me never to take my hands off again, or at least not to tell her if I ever did.

We drove back and forth a bit more, but eventually we were too tired to continue so we went inside. I had some water and went to wash my hands, but it was very difficult to find soap in Amanda's house. There were many bottles in the bathroom, but none of them seemed to have anything inside. Eventually I resorted to borrowing a bar from the shower.

We were going to go back out again so that Amanda could drive on her own, but then it started raining. I went out to bring my motorcycle under some shelter, and I saw a monkey. Amanda pointed it out. I wish there were more monkeys in my life.

Anyway, when the motorcycle was in a drier place, we sat down to watch a movie. I picked The Meaning of Life, because Every Sperm Is Sacred was stuck in my head and I wanted to watch that scene again. Amanda's laptop was really quiet, too, so it was not as great a viewing experience as it could have been. Also I suspect Amanda is not a Monty Python person, but I guess there are worse things for a friendship than finding out the other person does not enjoy British humour, even if I can't think of any at the moment.

We kept getting interrupted, too. First it was six o'clock and Walker needed to be walked. While we were walking her we met one of Amanda's neighbours. I think his name was DJ. He asked if I was Amanda's cousin, and I said that I was actually her friend from college. He said told Amanda that his first impression of me was that I was just some random guy driving by whom Amanda begged to teach her how to ride. I thought that was funny. Amanda denied that she would do something like that, but after a moment's thought she took it back.

I asked if DJ's dogs were friends with Walker, and Amanda told me about the time one of them got into her house when DJ was out of town and she had to call him to ask him what to do because his dog was "raping her dog". Hahaha.

Anyway, Walker found a place nearby to relieve herself, so we turned around and headed back. Along the way I told Amanda about how Elo didn't know what a hymen was. I said that at least it meant that Elo and Arun were chaste, but Amanda said that Elo might just be really stupid instead. I wondered how stupid you'd have to be not to notice all that pain and blood and not wonder where it came from, but Amanda said there wasn't always blood, so I learned something new that day.

We watched a bit more but then Amanda's mother came home and needed a TV moved into her car, so I helped. It was a wide screen CRT, so it was heavy. It was also hard to grip. Somehow we managed to wrangle it into the back seat. After the TV was in we moved this cool wooden cabinet (or drawers. What's the difference again?) into the back. It only occurred to me after we loaded it that we could have taken some bits out and brought it in piece-by-piece. It would have taken a little longer, but it would have been a lot faster. Oh well, it was done.

We finally reached the Every Sperm Is Sacred scene, but Amanda's mum was still around. I'm not sure if that made it harder or easier to laugh. A little later on, Amanda's dad came home. We stopped watching right before Part III: Fighting Each Other. Amanda had to go pick up her sister, so I went home.

Back at home I was super hungry because I hadn't eaten anything the whole day, so I crammed a huge bowl of spaghetti carbonara into the microwave and set the timer for five minutes. In the meantime I did my exercises so I could take my shower because I was all sweaty from holding up the motorcycle for Amanda. When I was done with my shower, my carbonara was ready and at the perfect temperature. I poured myself a glass of ice-cold water and had the best meal I've eaten in a long while. Amanda was right about what she said that time we went to McDonald's when the prosperity burger was most recently re-released: the best feeling you can feel is when, after a long while of starving, that first mouthful of a decent meal hits your stomach and everything becomes better.

I got comfortable and finished Jennifer Government so I could lend it to Amanda the next day. Hannah kept coming out of her room to troubleshoot our internet connection. Every time she emerged she was surprised that I was still reading. Whatever Hannah, it's a good book.

I had told myself I was going to write two blog posts on Tuesday: one about recent events, and one about all the stuff I had forgotten the between when I stopped blogging for a while and when I started again. I also had told myself that I was going to at least get started on my Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment. However, when I sat down at the computer and tried to type, nothing would come out. I couldn't even get the title done. I just felt lifeless and uninspired.

I soon realized that a shower is usually the last thing I do before bed each day. By taking a shower at eight in the evening, I had basically ended the day as far as my body was concerned. So I brushed my teeth and went to bed early.

The next day was today (or yesterday, since it's been, holy crap, three hours since I started writing this). I already described the start of today. Well, after arriving at college, I sat down and gave Elo the movies. Also this is when the geography conversation might have occurred.

Wow, it's late. Wow, I'm tired. How can I not be sure which of three days a conversation occurred in? I wonder how many mistakes, grammatical or otherwise, I've made in this post. Whatever. Let's just finish this so I can take a shower and go to bed.

There was some talking, then I went with Elo and Arun to get ice cream. Along the way we stopped to talk to some of Arun's classmates who were working on their Psychology assignment. They had missed out on a lot of stuff and were in a lot of trouble. I was glad I was not them.

We arrived in McDonald's for the ice creams, but the machine was broken. I ordered a lunch meal and shared my coke with Elo. We sat next to Roshaan and Deborah (That probably isn't how her name is spelt. I am so tired). Deborah and Arun compared accents. Deborah won because she sounded exactly like a white lady, whereas Arun just said a bunch of nonsense and threw in the word "Mate" whenever he could. We also talked about how girls can get away with saying and doing things to each other that would be considered so gay if guys did them, for example complimenting each other's butts and going to the toilet together.

After lunch Arun and Elo went to class or something, but I found Carmeni and I followed her to get some stuff printed. She was working on a group project with Denise and this fellow named Eugene and two other people I know but whose names I have no hope of recalling in this state. Anyway, while Eugene was getting the stuff printed, I saw a CD by a band called Sodom (or perhaps the CD was called Sodom and the band was called something else). Anyway, I said how gay it was, literally, and Carmeni didn't get it. I explained to her that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for many sins, but mostly for being gay, hence the term sodomy. "Didn't you ever read the Bible?" I asked her. She said she didn't have as much time as me. I told her that I only needed the first five minutes of my day to read three chapters daily, and by now I had read it three times over. She quizzed me on whether I knew all the beatitudes, so I tried to recite them, but I had forgotten. She had learned them a long while ago, too, and forgotten them.

As we were leaving the printing place I asked her if she remembered the Ten Commandments. She said that she was sure she could. She got the first one right: "Thou shalt have no other gods".
Her second guess was "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain", which was wrong. I tried to give her hints by mentioning reality TV, and voting, and Carrie Underwood and Lee DeWyze, but she still couldn't guess that it was the one about not making any idols. When I finally told her she said that wasn't what she learned, and Eugene backed her up. Clearly there was some sort of strange Catholic conspiracy going on, so when we reached the DSA I asked Denise what the second commandment was, and she agreed with me that it was the one about idols.

Fortunately, someone in the group had an iPhone, so I got on Wikipedia and found that apparently the Jews, the Catholics, and the Protestants have different ways of numbering the Ten Commandments. The Catholics include the no idols bit with the no other gods bit, and to make up for it they split up coveting into two parts: your neighbour's wife and your neighbour's stuff. That's silly. What if you're a woman and you're coveting your neighbour's husband?

Anyway, I wondered if the Catholics had any extra books in their Bible or anything, so I looked it up. Apparently they do. Whatever, everyone knows that watching the Director's Cut is better than getting the Deleted Scenes.

After a while of staying to help (or hinder, depending on who you ask) Denise and Carmeni's project, I decided to leave. This was motivated mainly by Carmeni leaving, but also because I had to get my part of the assignment e-mailed to my friends that evening. So I followed Carmeni to her car again, and she graciously offered to drive me to my motorcycle. In return, I moved some cones out of her way so she could get to the exit faster.

I went home and faffed about on the internet. Eventually I tried working on my assignment, but I was stuck. Also the internet wasn't working. So I called up Amanda and asked if I could come over for her help and also to lend her the book and give her her socks back (I had borrowed her socks to go home in because I didn't have time to put on shoes when we were moving the TV into the car and my socks got all soggy and dirty). She said that I could come over and stay until her mum arrived.

As I was driving to Amanda's house I passed Amanda and Walker, so I waited outside the gates for them to arrive. This time, Walker remembered me, so that was nice. Amanda lent me her Malay-English dictionary, which was a godsend. I also found the inspiration I needed to start writing. Amanda's house is cool like that. Also her friend came over to play guitar and he helped a bit. I forgot his name. It might have been Adrian.

At around six o'clock I felt ready to go home and finish on my own, but Amanda was in the shower so I read a magazine about the World Cup while I waited. The Netherlands' odds of winning were given at 1/12.

Eventually Amanda came up looking more fresh (maybe there was something to what Elo and Carmeni were saying on Monday) while wearing similar but different clothes. I wonder if she did that just to see if we'd notice. She probably didn't.

Anyway, I thanked her for the dictionary and the inspiration and I went home. I tried to take a quick nap on the couch, but Jan and Hannah wanted to make Samuel L Jackson on the Wii and they would not let me nap. Eventually they swapped to Mario Kart and I was able to tune them out and start dreaming a little, but then my alarm rang so I woke up. Also it was dinnertime. Dinner was kinda lame, it was dry breaded chicken fillets, but I liked the vegetables. They were boiled and savoury. Typically I don't like boiled vegetables, but as I said, these were savoury.

I am so close to finishing this I can almost taste the sleep.

Anyway, I got on the computer and worked on my assignment for a long time. At eleven o'clock I was done. It took me four hours, but I was done. I sent a text to Amanda thanking her once again for the inspiration and the dictionary, and then I started blogging.

Oh yeah also Jared was at our house for a while and he dropped off some books to read but right now I am done with blogging and I am done with my assignment so I'm going to save these tabs I have open for tomorrow, then I'm going to exercise, then I'm going to take a shower, then I'm going to go to sleep, then I'm going to wake up sometime in the afternoon, then I'm going to go buy a birthday present, then I'm going to study for a quiz that we'll be having on Friday, then I dunno.

But yeah, that's the end for now. Also Carmeni, four is in the afternoon.

Back to Blogging with a Long One

A long while ago (but shortly after my last post), I drove my dad down to Kluang for a business meeting. While he was working, I had his car and the freedom to do whatever I wanted in Kluang. That would have been great except that there is nothing to do in Kluang. There was a KFC that I could've eaten in, but I decided instead to try and park the car and listen to the radio. I only managed to get a solid parking spot fifteen minutes before the end of my dad's two-hour meeting. I also found that the parking lot was right on the spot where one of the radio station's broadcast range ended. It was kinda fun nudging the car forward and backwards to hear the songs go to static and back. Anyway, on the drive back I listened to the CD of The Beatles that my dad has in his car. It has now replaced the John Denver disc as the thing we switch to when there's nothing on the radio.

More recently, my dad had me do training for working in Devices World (his company) with iSCADA, which is one of the products they sell. Training was two days. The first day hadn't had much sleep, so I stayed awake by browsing the Most Expensive Journal, which was a blog I found that day about the most expensive stuff in the world. We ate Nando's for lunch and I got to know my fellow trainees better. It was also the best Nando's I have ever eaten. After the break there was a few more hours' worth of stuff to learn, but I had exhausted all the good articles on the blog, so I nodded off a few times. I think I still caught everything I needed to catch, though, because I made it through the second day okay.

The next day was more training. This time it was all hands-on stuff, and most of it was actually exciting, so I didn't need any help staying awake. I got to remotely turn on lights and set off alarms and play with graphs and stuff. It was fun. Nerdy fun, yes, but still fun.

Have I mentioned that there are these incredibly adorable kittens that I see every week when I go to the KPD to do my Bahasa Kebangsaan? Well, there are these incredibly adorable kittens that I see every week when I go to the KPD to do my Bahasa Kebangsaan. Up until recently I haven't been able to touch them, despite my attempts to lure them in with fish and chicken. I have made them a bit fatter with all those treats, though. Anyway, I did manage to stroke one during my last lesson. He was the neglected one of the litter, and I don't think he's going to make it to the end of this year. He's covered in fleas, he's missing patches of fur, and he doesn't have much energy left in him. I approached him when he was napping and treated him like Faith, but gentler because Faith is not terminally ill. Still, it was nice to hear the kitten purr. Later on I had a nightmare that I'm pretty sure was inspired by a species of disgusting aquatic parasite, a dog I know, and the fleas on the kitten, but that's stretching this subject so let's move on.

The next day was a Saturday. Our family was supposed to head up to Ipoh that weekend for my grandmother's eightieth birthday. It was also the day that I had planned to get tickets from the MTV World Stage road show at Sunway Pyramid, so I had set my alarm early so I could beat the crowd. My efforts with the alarm were soon rendered pointless when I fell asleep after my morning Bible reading and only woke up two hours later. By that time, Hannah had gotten back from her horse riding so we could go together to get the tickets.

My mum let me use her car, and she also gave me her credit card so we could fill up the car for the trip to Ipoh. We ate McDonald's for breakfast, and it was delicious. The car was filled without a hitch. On the way to Sunway Pyramid, Hannah noticed that the Fly.fm cruisers were behind us, which meant that the event hadn't started yet and we were perfectly punctual. I dropped Hannah off at the mall and went to find a parking space, which was a lot easier to do in Sunway Pyramid than at Megamall because the second level of the parking lot was empty and because there were lights above each parking space that showed whether they were full or not. All malls should invest in that kind of technology.

The road show was easy enough to find. Hannah and I managed to squeeze our way to the front of the crowd. We found out that it was supposed to last from noon to six, but it was 12:30 and there were no signs of it starting, so I went out to get some mints. I did a loop of the mall and found some of the new Wrigley's gum with the cool packaging at Jusco's. I also picked up some Eclipse mints. The total purchase came up to RM9, which I thought was quite a bit for mints and gum, but whatever. I met up with Hannah and shared some Eclipse with her.

After a bit more standing around, Hannah left to go to the bathroom. A few minutes after she was gone, VJ Utt arrived and kicked off the show by introducing the first act, Bittersweet. Hannah came back during their second song and told me she couldn't get her belt off so she still needed to use the bathroom. The whole time Bittersweet was on stage we tried to figure out what language they were singing in. We never came to a concrete conclusion, but since their song titles were English we just assumed the songs were English, too.

When the band had left the stage, VJ Utt and a dude from Fly.fm got on stage to give out tickets and prizes to the crowd. Their selections were random, but they came mostly from the front row and they tended to be the loudest. One of the people who had managed to get picked was a girl right in front of Hannah and I, so when she went up on stage we managed to get to the front row. The questions that the lucky audience members were asked were easy enough, so nobody left the stage without winning something. Unfortunately for a few, some of the prizes didn't include tickets. I especially felt sorry for a girl who had showed up with a big Tokio Hotel sign and face paint and everything because she ended up leaving with a t-shirt from a sponsoring bank.

The hosts felt that the audience wasn't being enthusiastic enough, and that when the people on stage shouted "MTV rocks!", the audience should shout "MTV rocks!", too. The moment after they said this, I shouted "MTV rocks!". VJ Utt singled me out for my zeal and called me on stage. Six other people were chosen. We were told that there were only five tickets to be given out, so who got tickets and who went back empty-handed was to be determined by a dance-off. This was brilliant. I loved this idea. Hannah's face lit up when she heard that the winners would be chosen by dance. I was glad that I already had the audience on my side and that that meant this was probably going to be the second time that my dancing won me tickets to MTV World Stage.

The first guy to dance was a tall dude in a Star Wars shirt. His dancing was okay, but after the music was stopped, he complained that he had had to dance to Katy Perry instead of Wonder Girls, which won him a bunch of boos from the crowd and meant I was that much more likely to win the tickets. The next person to dance was a transsexual who challenged the audience with a sensual mock-striptease. I was just glad that I only had to watch from behind. Hannah is still trying to forget what she saw that day. Anyway, after that was a girl who tried to emulate the tranny's success with another sensual dance, and I guess she did okay.

When my turn came to dance, the song was changed from "Hot 'N Cold" to "I Kissed a Girl". This was bad for two reasons: one, Hot 'N Cold is a much easier song to dance to, and two, I was caught off-guard by the change in music and I didn't even recognize what song was being played until five of my twenty seconds were up. Nonetheless, I did the best with what I had left, and there was enough applause afterwards that I felt pretty safe.

Next up was a girl in a Green Day t-shirt who lacked enthusiasm and energy. After her was a girl who was slightly better, but still not great. The last performance happened to be the best one. The dude who was dancing was extremely entertaining and actually skilled at dancing, unlike the rest of us. I was impressed. Hannah was impressed, too, but she thought he was gay.

To give the audience one last chance to decide who they liked best, we were all called to dance at the same time. I danced a bit with the best guy and the girl who danced before me, and that was fun. When it came time to choose the two people to send off, the Star Wars guy and the Green Day girl were picked. The rest of us got an MTV World Stage poster, an MTV World Stage t-shirt, and most importantly, two tickets to MTV World Stage on the 31st of July. When I joined Hannah back in the crowd, it was announced that there would be a break for an hour before more tickets were given out, so Hannah went to the toilet and then we went home.

Right when Hannah and I got home we had to leave again, because Ian was napping and Jan had to be picked up from BB. Along the way I forgot where I was heading and ended up in Brickfields. This wasn't much of a problem, though, because I knew a way to Cheras from Brickfields. All it would mean is that we would be a little later. Unfortunately, the route was blocked by construction, so I had to improvise. I ended up lost in a graveyard on a shitty road that lead to a cement factory and a Buddhist temple. After turning around we found ourselves in front of The Alice Smith School, which was not where I expected it to be at all. Near the school was a gigantic pothole that I failed to avoid. A little later I managed to figure out where we were, and soon we were back on track for Cheras. When we picked up a bit of speed, I realized that there was weird noise coming from our car. Hannah said it was probably the mud flap. When we reached Sri Sempurna, I got out to check, and it turned out that the mud flap had been ripped to shit by the pothole and was banging against the body of the car.

Anyway, we picked up Jan and drove home, and then we went to get the car fixed so we wouldn't be annoyed by the noise all the way to Ipoh. The aunty at the repair shop got one of her people to cut off the mud flap as a temporary solution, and so we were good to go.

A little after that Ian, Joel, Hannah, Jan, and I went to Mid Valley to watch Inception. When we got to the ticket counter we found out that all the screens were booked full except for the 11pm showing. I was the only one willing to stay that long. The guy behind the counter told us we could wait five minutes for the reservations to expire so we could claim those seats, so we did. When the five minutes were up, some fat cow of a woman cut in front of us to organize half a dozen tickets for the next showing of Eclipse for her and her family or something. She took ten minutes to figure out that the next showing of Eclipse was absolutely irrevocably totally booked. After her we finally went to claim our Inception tickets, but the dude's manager told him that they couldn't give away the reserved seats. Ian booked four tickets for Despicable Me instead, and then let me book my 11pm ticket. I was just about to do just that, but then I saw that a guy at the counter next to me had claimed a ticket for the Inception showing we were waiting for, so I told our counter guy and he agreed to check for me. I got the last ticket to the show that way.

For dinner I ran down to Burger King. It was at that point that I realized I would have to withdraw more money, which would mean I was going under my float. That realization kinda sucked.

Inception was awesome. On my way to the bathroom after the film I decided that it was the best movie I'd ever seen. I joined the line to the ticket counter to try and get tickets for the next showing. Ian wasn't interested, though, so I decided against it because I didn't want to have to take a cab back. Despicable Me finished short after, and I joined the rest of the guys to go home.

At home I used Ian's computer while Jan and he played poker outside. When Ian lost, he kicked me off, so I went outside to watch the game. After the game I watched TV until Ian fell asleep, then I used his computer to read about Inception until 4am.

The next day I woke up at six AM to the sound of my alarm. I climbed out of bed, turned it off, and went right back to sleep. A few seconds after closing my eyes, Hannah was in the room, the curtains were open, and the sun was streaming in. It was now eight AM, and I had managed to sleep for two hours in what felt like a few seconds. Anyway, I rushed to get packed and ready, and then we went to Ipoh.

The majority of the car ride there was filled with the best music I have ever heard being played from Hitz.fm. They didn't play a single annoying song. I enjoyed it greatly. 150km or so out of KL, we reached the end of Hitz.fm's broadcast range, so I went to sleep.

At my grandparent's place we spent a lot of time napping. Hannah and I watched The Runaways together. The movie itself is an hour and forty-five minutes long, but it took us almost two and a half hours to watch because Hannah kept pausing it every other minute to shoo Susanna out of the room or go check her Tumblr. In the end it was a pretty boring movie, but it was totally worth watching for the scene where Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning have lesbian sex. I cannot wait to hear about Carmeni's reaction after she watches that.

After the movie we went to KFC with Ian and Susanna for a snack and I got served the stalest popcorn chicken I've eaten in ages. When we got back to the house I took a nap and then the whole family left for my grandmother's birthday dinner.

The dinner took a real long time. There was something like seven courses, so I had plenty of time to converse with family while stuffing my face. Good times.

When we got home our aunt showed us funny YouTube videos and we showed her some funny YouTube videos in return. I read some more about Inception before taking a shower, watching an Animal Channel program about the star-nosed mole, and then going to bed.

The next day we packed up, ate breakfast, and drove home. After a bit of packing we left to drive back to KL. I was driving my dad back in his car while my mum drove everyone else in her car. I soon realized that the radio was broken and prepared myself for a very boring trip, but my dad managed to fix it. I guess his engineering degree does come in handy sometimes. Anyway, the drive back was uneventful except for a police checkpoint, but I didn't get pulled over so we got home uninterrupted.

The moment I got back I decided to visit HELP to kill time before I went to Mid Valley with Hannah and Audrey so that they could watch Eclipse. When I got to college, Elo was on Omegle and Carmeni was working on her business assignment. I spent half an hour or so helping Elo find someone else who knew the muffin man before a bunch of the guys showed up and we talked about movies and stuff. I highly recommended Inception. I also told Carmeni that Hannah was going to burn The Runaways onto a DVD so I could give it to her later.

Joanna arrived and I asked her if she'd seen Eclipse, and she said no, so we high-fived, then she said she hated Twilight, so we high-fived again, then we simultaneously asked each other if we had seen Inception, and after that we wouldn't shut up about the movie until everyone else had to go to class. Joanna and I were leaving via the same route, so we walked and talked for a bit. Joanna stopped to buy some chocolate from a statistics student who she sympathized with. She got them to deliver a glittery chocolate that read "The language of friendship is not words, but meanings" to me. Joanna's a good friend. =D

I took my motorcycle home and showed Joanna's chocolate to Hannah. I tried to convince Hannah to do some fake sit-ups so she would have a flat, hard stomach in six months (the difference between real sit-ups and fake ones is that you don't need your arms behind your head or your legs together in fake ones. Also real ones take more effort and therefore will get you in shape much faster) but she was either too later or of the opinion that six months was too long. Whatever, it's her body and her loss.

Audrey arrived and we went to Mid Valley. I spent the drive there trying to convince them to watch Inception instead of or after Eclipse, but they wouldn't hear it. At least Hannah was just watching Eclipse to mock it. I bought two tickets to Eclipse and five tickets to Inception for later that night when Ian, Jan, Hannah, Jared, and I were supposed to watch it. After giving Hannah and Audrey their tickets, I went to MPH to read Murphy's Law, which is now probably my favourite book.

After the movie was over we bought some DVDs so Hannah could burn The Runaways. Hannah and Audrey tried to tell me that Bella was a slut, but I told them she couldn't be a slut because she was still a virgin, and that she was a cocktease instead. Anyway, we went back home to drop off the DVD's and my mum's credit card, and then we left to drop Audrey off at her house.

When we got back home again, Ian told us that Jared had cancelled on us and none of his friends could watch Inception. I sent a text to Jo and asked if she wanted to go, but she was at prayers so I called up Amanda, but she was sleeping in preparation for mid-terms. We ended up inviting our dad to come with us.

Jan, Hannah, and Ian loved Inception. Since they couldn't name any movies that were better, I'm going to go ahead and say on their behalves that Inception was the best movie they've ever seen. My dad thought it was okay.

When we got home we talked about the movie for a bit before turning on the TV and watching So You Think You Can Dance. It was only the second episode I'd ever seen, but I did manage to catch the best dance I've ever seen in my life, so that was nice.

That was yesterday. Today I got Hannah to burn The Runaways onto a DVD, which she accidentally named Inception, but we managed to fix that. After that Hannah gave me all of Katy Perry's songs for me to listen to while I did the 100 taxi fares that I needed for 100% completion in Vice City. It took me two and a half hours, but I finally managed to get 100% completion for a second time. I don't think I ever want to do it again. I've done it now without failing a mission or getting wasted or busted, the only way to go from here is to do it without ever failing a side-mission, which I am not up for at all. After that I started this blog post, and now it is three hours later and I am quite exhausted.

Anyway, tomorrow is the day I finally do some work on my Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment which is due in a couple of weeks. I have to find an editorial in BM, then I have to look up all the words I'm unfamiliar with, then I have to write a draft critiquing it in BM, then I have to find another article about current events in BM and find a way to make a five-minute speech in BM about it. Bleh.

I think I'll write about Ian's birthday some other time. Alcohol was involved.