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.

Summary (18/11/10 - 10/12/10)

A few weekends ago we were in 1U and Corinna was sick. We ate Carl's Junior and it was pretty gross.

I applied for another job at Datacom and met some other people but then I changed my mind because my dad didn't want me working after my contract expired anyway. While waiting for my aptitude test, I met some people from HELP.

I got a new chair from Ikea. It's the same as the old chair, but not broken.

Angela was in Malaysia and she was bored. She came over to KL and her family was cool with me showing her around so I went and drove her and her cousin around KL. Well, basically I took them from some very-difficult-to-find house in Cheras to a place in town near Petaling Street, then we walked and took the LRT and walked around KLCC and took pictures and drove back to my house. I showed Angela the view and she said "hi" to Hannah but nothing else because Hannah was shy. Angela's cousin and Corinna could talk because they were both from Germany and new to Malaysia. Angela's cousin didn't speak much English anyway; just Chinese and German. I don't know her name. The four of us went for dinner with Angela's family. It was surprisingly good for Chinese food.

Also, I got a very bad haircut. I criticized the barber too much.

I lost RM200 from my savings so I left work early and I found it again. My boss got me to work eleven and a half hours on my last day to make up for it. It took him almost two weeks to pay me after the job was over.

I drove to see Rebecca and David's cat's kittens with Hannah. We're adopting one of them in January, but we don't know which yet.

I watched Tangled (actually, since we're in Malaysia, I watched "Rapunzel: A Tangled Tale") in 3D with Ian and Jan the day after my work finished. Later on that night I went back to the mall to watch The Social Network with Hannah. They were both excellent movies. I teared up a little during Tangled. I am very easily moved by movies. Hannah has a crush on the leads from The Social Network.

The next day I visited Amanda and Milan and Kaminie at Devi's and then I went to watch Tangled in 3D with Kaminie and Amanda and her four nieces and one nephew. I wanted to see the movie in 3D so I paid for the difference between the 2D and 3D pricing. We all enjoyed the movie except for one niece who fell asleep. It was totally worth it. Also, another niece kept accusing me of lying. Children are strange.

The day after that I went to get my new passport with Jan and my dad, and then I went to PetroSains with Corinna. We walked a lot and my feet hurt. I bought Joanna's birthday presents last-minute from the same bookstore where I found The Zombie Survival Guide and The Company. We also dined at Chili's for two hours and bought some polo shirts. The polo shirts were very expensive. The black one looks nice on me. PetroSains was fun until the last hour, which was a bit draggy.

Joanna's birthday was the next day, and it was nice. The theme was black and white and I think I looked okay, except for the haircut. It was Chinese food and I had a lot of peanuts. There was a dude there who was studying in Germany. He was attending the second-best university in the country and he was living above a peepshow in the red light district. I talked to him for a while. Also there was a video made by Amanda and Kaminie and there was a bit near the end where I embarrassed myself and it went on much longer than it should've. It was all in good fun, though, so that was all right. Joanna liked her presents, so that was good.

After the party we went to Joanna's house and I stepped in dog shit. I managed to get most of it off my shoes. We were supposed to go clubbing, but Milan had to go home early and I was kinda tired so I decided to go home, too.

The next day was Sunday, and that was okay.

After that I went to Singapore with Corinna and Jan and Hannah. We were helped out when we got there by Uncle Danny. He's a guy who knows my dad. We had some trouble at the hotel, but he paid for it. My dad paid him back later, presumably. The hotel was okay. I was in a room with Jan and directly under us were Corinna and Hannah. Jan is a surprisingly tolerable roommate.

We spent the first evening on Orchid Road, which was okay. I had some McDonald's. It's basically the same as the one we have here, except with McWings (which are good) and the McCafe (which is everywhere except Malaysia, apparently). The fries were only very subtly different, but in a good way. Also it was more expensive.

The day after that we went to the zoo, and we saw a lot of animals. The white tigers were great; one of them reminded Hannah and me of Faith. The baboons were fun, too. Jan loved them. During feeding time they were all riled up and they kept having crazy baboon sex. One of them was doing backflips. I thought that was pretty cool so I threw bananas at him and he caught most of them.

We went to the night safari and that was good, too. Hannah and Corinna really liked the otters. Corinna also liked the bats; Hannah was kinda terrified of them. She didn't get as scared as she does when frogs are around, though. I still don't know why she's scared of frogs.

On our last day we went to the Singapore Flyer, which is basically a really big ferris wheel. It was okay. They had a Subway there; that was really good. It had real bacon and ranch sauce but I only noticed that after I ordered my sandwich. It is my biggest regret of the trip.

We went back home and we were picked up by Ian, who had had a bad day. He was stuck in traffic for three hours. Later on that night I had to pick my dad up from the LRT station with Hannah. My dad bought us Twister Fries from McDonald's, though, so it was worth it.

The next day I drove my dad to the airport so he could go to Penang. Hannah also went to Penang, with Ebony. In the evening I had Outback Steakhouse with my mum and Corinna. There was a nice symmetry to that, since Corinna had gone to Outback Steakhouse with Ian and Jan and my dad when she first arrived here. I ate a little too much and ended up throwing up outside. It was probably my most expensive puke so far.

I woke up early the next morning to drive Corinna to the airport. Our goodbye was pretty pathetic. I said "bye" and she said "what?" and I said "I said bye" and she said "oh" and that was it. I listened to the Beatles on the way back. The drive seems to get shorter each time I make it. I must've driven to the airport at least a dozen times this year.

And now we're at today, I think. I went to town with Ian and my mum briefly, and then I had McDonald's for lunch. I'm thinking of maybe having McDonald's again for dinner. I want to try the Prosperity Burger. Amanda says it's really good. I know it isn't; it wasn't good the past five years when I tried it and it isn't going to be good this year, but I want to try it again just in case it is. Also the Twister Fries are really good.

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.

Copping Out with a List Post

So here's what happened:

- Lost is finished. I've been following it for six years and now it's over. I am both sad and happy. I enjoyed the finale.
- I'm in college for one last semester doing only one subject: Bahasa Kebangsaan. I was supposed to do Java Programming, too, but there was a scheduling clash. I was still being billed the resource fee for Java, but I got that sorted out.
- Bahasa Kebangsaan has been pretty easy so far. It's every Friday for three hours, so it's a bit long. On the plus side, I managed to get in the group with the prettiest girls for my assignments.
- I never actually went for karaoke. There were too many postponements and nobody could make it, so it was cancelled.
- I watched Toy Story 3 recently with Hannah. It was really, really good. One of Pixar's best, and that's saying something. I missed the end because I had drank three cokes and I really needed to go, but we managed to sneak into another theatre to watch it there. We also got to compare the 2D of that theatre to the 3D of ours. The difference is very subtle.
- Our whole family and Ebony went to Penang recently. Ian and Jan were there for Pesta, so we were there to support them. It was a fun vacation.
- Hannah, my dad, and I saw a dude doing a snake show by the pool. He kissed a cobra and a king cobra. It was pretty awesome.
- We had lunch at the Hard Rock cafe. It was pretty dang cool. Hannah told me to put my new sunglasses on this statue of Michael Jackson. It worked pretty well until they fell off and now the lenses are a little dinged up.
- I got some new sunglasses and the new Netherlands Jersey from the night market. It's missing some details, but it's still pretty cool. Altogether they cost me RM50.
- I watched the England - USA match with some England fans in the hotel. The fans were more entertaining than the match was.
- I got to take a warm bath.
- I had to drive back from Penang to Ipoh.
- Susanna wet herself in Ipoh and there was nobody home except for Ebony, Hannah, and me, so we had to clean her up.
- A few weeks before this I drove Audrey, Hannah, and my dad to FRIM to see Mama and Susanna, who were on a picnic.
- Along the way, a lorry smashed into the back of the car in a roundabout. He drove off before we could get his number.
- I noticed that the road to FRIM was at the intersection with a huge amount of cigarette butts that Joanna, Solo, and I had passed when we were lost during Davinia's surprise party.
- We saw a couple of really big fish in FRIM.
- The Tans visited for a day or something. Hannah and I picked Elselyn, Ruben, and Stefanie up from the LCCT. Jan might have been there, too. I have driven to the LCCT very many times.
- There are many kittens outside of where I have my Bahasa Kebangsaan classes. They are cute and don't mind getting close to people but they still won't let anyone touch them. I'm working on gaining their trust by feeding them chicken. They won't eat fish.
- I'm playing a lot more RuneScape now. I have a lot more in-game money than before because I met a dude who is really good a predicting the market. Lately we're riding a trend caused by a game change that will give us a 50% return on investment. Considering the usual ROI is around 15%, this is looking very good.
- Hannah let me sleep over in her room because she was scared of the dark or something. It was very cozy and comfortable but she told me a secret (which I already knew, and teased her about) and made me promise that I would do all sorts of stuff for her if I told anyone. So now I've gained nothing, but she can threaten me with all sorts of nonsense if she thinks I'm teasing her too much or whatever.
- I'm following the World Cup. I find that football in and of itself is pretty boring, but when you've got national pride and stuff added to the mix, it can get quite exciting. The Netherlands has done really well so far.
- I lost a whole lotta money gambling. My float's been reduced by RM250 back to what it was a few months ago. It used to be a whole lot more, but that didn't last for long.
- That is about it, I think.