Diary Entry for Today (If I Had a Diary)

From here.

Woke up at 5am so I would have time to get breakfast and give my old boss a ride to work before the shift starts at 7am. Had a magnificent breakfast at McDonald’s. It was extremely filling, which was good because I hadn’t eaten at all yesterday.

Drove to the station to wait for my old boss. Listened to music while walking up and down a divider practising my balance. Despite the sun not yet even having begun to rise, it was still pretty damn hot, so I returned to the car. Took a ghetto shower by applying hand sanitizer to the underarms. Continued listening to music and reclined the chair. 7 minutes before he was supposed to show, I texted asking for a bottle of water. Got no reply. At 6:30am, I gave him a call. No answer. Sent a text. No reply. At 6:43am I gave another call, no answer. Got a text saying he missed his alarm and that I should go ahead. Replied “Ok” and went ahead. Didn’t really mind; earned me some brownie points.

Arrived at work just in time. Arrived still listening and singing to music ‘cause it was Sunday and none of the other departments work Sundays so I wouldn’t’ve been disturbing anyone. Set up my desk and started calling. Got assigned a buddy to train. This is excellent because it means that for one hour he’ll do all the typing, and then for another hour after that he’ll do the calling, too, and all I have to do is listen and tell him how to do stuff better. He was a good learner with a bit of an accent and only a wee bit of BO, so it definitely could’ve been worse. Could’ve been better, too, though. He could’ve been a girl with no accent. Would’ve been better for me and the respondents.

Anyway, we got a very good amount of completes and I was able to teach him quite a bit. Had a good idea for an ask on Tumblr and an even better idea for work. Also went through my old texts to pass the time and realized that I suck at texting. Being half-Asian does not prevent the straight white boy curse, I guess.

Approached my old boss and temporary boss to see if I could speak to the guy in charge of the department tomorrow about coming in as an assistant team leader for my internship. Old boss says forget temporary, just come in as assistant team leader, and don’t mention the internship. Previous internship offers were RM500 from another company and RM1200 from my dad. Old boss says I can easily get RM2000. That’s slightly more than the average wage in Mexico. It’s more than my older brother is earning. It also means I’ll be my younger brother’s boss.

Take a break and sing some more in the smoking area. Again, it’s Sunday so nobody’s there and I’m free to belt out My Way and Your Love Is My Drug (it was on shuffle) before returning to work. Got a few more completes and then called up my brother and some friends to see if I could convince them to come in tomorrow to boost attendance and thus make a good impression.

Realize I need new clothes now. Realize I should probably talk to my dad about what’s gonna happen to my allowance. Plan a dinner; I’ll pay.

Come home. Meet younger brother. Ask him if he’s seen the new boss around the office. “What, the brown guy?” he says. I tell him no, this new guy is more Chinese. Kinda white, too. Really handsome. Very intelligent. Enormous penis. Plays a lot of DayZ. Has a younger brother who’s on DotA all the time, always yelling. He only figured it out on the last line.

Went to get a haircut and a shave with my brother. Found a newspaper at the barbershop reminding me that Obama is in town. Obama has aged significantly since he was inaugurated around six years ago. He got the white hair and wrinkles and stuff.

Exit the barbershop and realize it is flooding outside. It’s monsoon season; the papers said it’ll be raining like this every afternoon at around this time for the next three weeks or so. And yet we still have a water shortage. Weird world.

Brother runs in the rain to get the car, I wait for him. The perks of being a boss.

Get in the car relatively dry, come home, try to buy “Like a Boss” .mp3 from Amazon. “This service is only available in the US”. Fuck you, then. Torrent the song. Test it out, too quiet. Download from YouTube. Too quiet. Realize my iTunes volume slider was just really low. Turn it back up. Torrent song again. Realize it is the exact same as the YouTube rip except double the bitrate and read-only. Finagle with the file until it is editable. Rename it to fit my file system. Create 64kb/s version for phone. Put on phone.

Go to Tumblr. 5 nice asks from 2 rad people. Ask Bailey the thing I thought of in work. Save a copy of the text in case I wanna ask anyone else. Begin answering ask. Write diary entry for today. Move on to next question.

Edit from 2020: I ended up not getting the promotion and also wow, apparently I was quite an asshole about it. Yikes.

Staccato Roller-coaster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another Good Day

Work was good. Ian and I logged out early because completes had ceased coming in for about half an hour, so we were quitting while we were ahead. I spent some time researching the Virgin Mary. It says in the Bible that Jesus had four brothers (Simon, James, Joseph Jr, and Jude), but apparently according to Catholic and Lutheran doctrine (or dogma, I forget), Mary never lost her virginity to Joseph so these "brothers" were either children from Joseph's dead wife who was never mentioned (the Catholic explanation) or actually his cousins or close relatives (the Protestant explanation).

I went to dinner at Joanna's house. Kuberan, Milan, Amanda, and Geraldine were there, too. I asked them about it. Amanda said that she had been taught in some Catholic class that Mary had lost her virginity after she married Joseph, which I found weird because that is a progressive Protestant concept, not a Roman Catholic one. Kubes called his priest who confirmed that I was right and Catholics believe she was always a virgin. We never found out whether his priest subscribed to the dead wife or actually cousins explanation.

Anyway we had a delicious dinner and I found out that I have a lot in common with Joanna's dad. Next time I want to watch a movie and Jan and Hannah are too busy or poor to tag along, I'll go with him instead.

After that we did some karaoke for a few hours. Joanna's family has the exact same system as we do (Singstar). I was thus familiar with all the songs and managed to score perfectly on just slightly less songs than Joanna's mum, who was at one point an actual singing coach. That felt good. We had fun. I got to sing Tell Laura I Love Her and My Own Prison and Creep. Everyone seemed to enjoy watching me sing Creep for some reason. I scored 91 with that one, because I can identify with the lyrics.

As we left, Joanna's mum said to one of my friends that he should be more like me during karaoke, because apparently, whether I can or cannot sing, I always do it with gusto. That was the nicest backhanded compliment I've received in a while.

So yeah, even though we didn't get to swim or practice Salsa, I still had a good time.

Anyway I got back home and went on the Sims Social and Tumblr for far too long. I will need a long nap after work. Also I bought a new soundcard and headset for my computer, which means that I can finally use Skype, which is excellent for my social life.

This post is probably a one-off thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The drive to the club was uneventful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Money is great. I've already budgeted it.

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

Hannah made cookies today. They are really tasty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's Go Do Something We'll Regret

Yesterday was, um... Hang on.

Okay yesterday was Saturday. But it's only been Sunday for a little over half an hour.

Friday. Let's talk about Friday.

I woke up in the afternoon and after getting ready for the day, I took my motorcycle down to Devi's to meet Joanna and Amanda. Joanna and Amanda were on the phone when I arrived. I said "Hi" and Amanda asked "Is that your father?" and I said "What?" and then not much else happened.

I talked to Joanna while waiting for Amanda to get off the phone. While that happened, two attractive white girls walked in and talked about whether they were going to stay in Devi's and sit at the table in front of us or leave, never to be seen again. They decided to stay, so that was nice.

Also, it was my dad at the other table. He was at Devi's having lunch with my mum and I had no idea at the time that he was going to be there. Devi's is like some kind of event horizon for coincidental meetings. Every time we're there we have to see at least one person we already know. The food's still pretty lame, though.

This is a picture of my father. I'm not sure why I took it.

Anyway, when Amanda finished her conversation with her mother over the phone, I told Jo and her how I hot I thought the girls in front of us were ("very") and how badly I wanted to talk to them ("very"). I told them about how I had missed opportunities to talk to pretty girls at Pizza Hut on Ian's birthday and at the bowling alley at KLGCC and such, and how I really wanted to talk make sure this didn't end up being another thing I regretted not doing anything about.

Amanda and Joanna told me that I needed to get the perfect pick-up line or something before I approached them, which I thought was ridiculous. I told them I just needed some kind of motivation and then I'd do it. They told me that I couldn't just go up and talk to someone. I told them I could, and I got up and talked to this elderly stranger who was sitting alone at the other side of the restaurant to prove it.

When I got back Joanna and Amanda still thought I needed a pick-up line, but I told them I wasn't looking to pick anyone up. I just wanted to go talk to the girls so that I would not regret not talking to them. I asked Joanna and Amanda to give me some kind of motivation, but they couldn't come up with anything.

The girls at the other table were done with their meal and they were ready to go, so I knew I had to do something soon. Fortunately, Amanda told me that she would let me talk for 10 hours uninterrupted if I went to talk to the girls. That was all the motivation I needed. Before I got up to talk to the girls, I told Amanda that I would only talk for 30 minutes because 10 hours is a bit unrealistic.

I got up and walked over to the table in front. Joanna ran over to my old spot to get a better view. I stood for a few seconds to think of something to say before I finally leaned over and won 30 minutes of uninterrupted rambling.

"Excuse me; my friends over there were wondering how good they looked, and I was wondering if you could help."

Joanna and Amanda were not expecting that at all. When the girls asked which friends, I pointed out Joanna and Amanda for them, and Amanda and Joanna started frantically pointing at each other. When the girls asked which one, I said both. I asked for an objective rating on a scale of one to ten. They were reluctant to answer at first, but I told that my friends would probably never see them again so they wouldn't have to worry about hurting anyone's feelings. They finally settled on a rating of somewhere between seven and eight for both Amanda and Joanna. I thanked them and returned to my table.

I told Jo and Amanda what they had said and they accused the girls of being liars. Whatever, I think seven is a fair judgement for how they were looking that day.

I was very happy that I had talked to the girls since now I wouldn't have any regrets about it. Joanna said it didn't count because I didn't get their names and numbers, but that was never my objective in the first place. It's not like I'd have a chance with them anyway.

After that I rambled on for the 30 minutes that I had won and I enjoyed it. I said a lot of stupid shit, but I think I also said one or two really clever things as well. Overall I'm pleased with how it turned out. Joanna filmed it on her phone, but she hasn't uploaded it yet and I don't think she ever will [edit: she did, the links are in the next post, there are almost an equal amounts of dislikes as likes but somehow being hated by the YouTube community is one of the many, many things that affects my self-esteem]. Amanda and Joanna seemed quite bent on figuring out whether I was gay or not. Women arouse me far more then men do, so I'm gonna go ahead and say that I'm not.

When that was over I drove Joanna and Amanda to Sunway in Amanda's car. We talked about stuff and listened to music and played word association because Joanna and Amanda kept answering "both" or "neither" for This or That, and the game is no fun if people do that.

We dropped Joanna off at her house. Oh yeah, she had a dog. Here's a couple of pictures of it and me:

I look better in the dark and I don't like what that says about me.

After dropping off Joanna I drove back with Amanda, but she was too tired to provide great conversation. I didn't mind though. I let her take a nap while listening to Regina Spektor. The traffic jam was pretty bad. Wanna read something creepy? No? Okay then, because I was just about to say "there's something different about looking at a person when they're asleep. When they're awake you see all their defenses and mannerisms and expressions but when you're asleep you just see... them." Shit, that sounds like that queer vampire's inner monologue from when he was perving on Bella whatsherface as she slept in Twilight.

Amanda woke up and then we went to pick up Geraldine. We parked in an alley and talked about friends and siblings and how Imagine is not a sad song, and then we drove around for a bit. Geraldine got in the car and I let Amanda take the driver's seat, and then I got on my motorcycle and went home.

Ian and I went to the Outback Steakhouse after that.

I heard That's Amore and All Shook Up on the best radio station on Astro and then I went to bed.

I woke up on Saturday at 3:30am. My dad drove my mum to meet up with some people so she could go to Penang for a seminar, and then he drove me to work. We picked up some McDonald's along the way. I had ordered sausage McMuffin with egg meals. I paid for one of them and ate both of them. I talked with my dad and then I went to work.

At work I earned a just little less than RM100 doing this:

Around ten hours later work was over and I was napping outside waiting for Aunty Rosie to arrive and drive me home. I listened to a playlist I had made on my phone specifically for naps. It had taken me something like half an hour to create, but it was so worth it. Naps with music are the best naps.

Back at home I got changed into something less presentable and more comfortable and then I went to sleep. It was five o'clock or thereabouts. When I woke up again it was seven something.

Hannah thinks I have tickets to Paramore or something.

I ate barbecued pork ribs for dinner. Joanna dreamed about Amanda eating pork ribs earlier. It's a coincidence.

I'm tired.

I started a blog on Tumblr today. I have no more followers on my Twitter.

I need to get more space on my phone. I don't have any space left for all the Elvis and additional Jonathan Coulton I want to put on it.

I'm tired and I have to be awake in two and a half hours. Goodnight.

My desk

My contracts (Part-Time, Full-Time, Hannah)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Last Two Days in Under 30 Minutes (Hopefully)

On Monday I went to work early and I came home early, too. Daylight savings time had come into Australia and New Zealand, so from now on I am starting work earlier and ending work earlier, too.

I also got my roster. It said I had to be at work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, all at 6am. I asked my supervisor about this and he said that I could come at 7am on the weekdays, so that was nice.

Work was okay. About halfway through I started to get sleepy, but I made it to the end of the day and when I went home I was in bed fairly early. I just finished watching The Infidel (I had begun watching it in the morning) and then I went to bed at 10pm. I had done my exercises long before my shower. I should do that more often, it takes so much less time to go from doing things to being in bed when I'm on the computer.

Tuesday I woke up a bit late. Later on in the day I changed my alarm tone from "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" to the opening music from CSI: Miami (YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAH!). Anyway, I got to work at around 7am, but I had to wait outside the doors for fifteen minutes before somebody showed up who could tag me in.

I worked through the day. Halfway through my nine-and-a-half hours (right after lunch, I think), I felt really tired and my performance suffered. It also suffered because I got a lot of calls from people whose phones all had this same problem whereby I would hear everything I said a few seconds after I said it. Hannah was right, I am bloody annoying. I couldn't concentrate with me talking in my ears all the time. Some people got quite upset.

Also I answered a call from a French guy in France. I could not help but smile at his accent. It was so amazingly... French. And not the sexy French that Amanda would probably be thinking about, but the frog's-legs-and-surrender-and-cheese-and-w(h)ine-and-effeminate type of French. I'm sure he was a nice guy, it's just that his accent was too French for me to hold a straight face and it was also too strong for me to help him with his problem, so I stumbled through the French HP page until I found the number for the French call centre and directed him there. I'd like to think his call was picked up by a typical Indian call centre, except everyone there wore berets and pretentious moustaches and spoke wit ze... ow you say... eavy French ixaunt.

After work I got my contract. There are large chunks of it devoted to patents and inventions. At the end it says that the terms I agree to will survive the termination of my employment, which sounds pretty sinister.

I drove to Amanda's house and we went to Devi's with Milan. Our conversation was about penises and masturbation and a little about other things but right now those two things are the only topics I can remember. In two weeks' time, Milan and Amanda will be buying me ice-cream. October twelfth. Start saving, you two.

Milan went home and Amanda and I went to pick up Geraldine from tuition. She thought that Aunty Rosie's car was Amanda's car. When I clarified things for her, Amanda and she simultaneously asked why my maid had a car. My answer to them was "Why wouldn't my maid have a car?"

When we reached Amanda's house I took Walker on a walk so that she could pee because Amanda couldn't do it because she had to pee. After the walk we went inside and then we went out again so Amanda's mother could run some errands. Meanwhile, Amanda and I stayed in the car and talked about domestic abuse after hearing that one Eminem song on the radio.

When we got back I stole the remote control so that we could watch world news instead of E! News. I tried to educate Amanda's family on how Kim Jong Un is a more important figure than Ellen DeGeneres, but they were women so they didn't understand. They didn't care much for the latest news on the Israeli naval blockade, either. At least Geraldine took interest in the trapped Chilean miners, though. I thought it was quite fascinating that she had never even heard of the mine disaster before. It must be nice in her head. Very... Local.

Anyway, after world news we watched a program on Nat Geo Wild about cats in the womb. I knew most of the facts already, so I tried to say them all before the narrator could. I was hoping to impress someone with my knowledge, but I don't think I achieved any reaction from anyone aside from annoyance. I did learn something new about purring and roaring, though. Also, cheetahs are fast. Also also, Amanda and Geraldine are still grossed out by birth, even kitty birth. Good luck to their future midwives, I say.

After that I moved to the massage chair and watched a show called Desperately Seeking Sheila. I hope Georgia and that cowboy dude work out. They seemed nice.

After that, Amanda tried to watch Friends but the disc was not working, so she watched House instead. The start of the episode was very interesting, and I wanted to know more, but the moment I left Amanda's place I lost all interest. Here's my guess: it wasn't lupus.

I'll be dropping by Amanda's again on Wednesday to help her move stuff because we didn't actually move anything today. After that we're watching Cloverfield. Yay!

I met one of my neighbours in the lift. She walked in when I was singing Stacy's Mom to myself. We had a pleasant (if slightly brief and awkward) conversation.

I need to do my fake push-ups, and then I'm going to sleep. I will only be asleep for two and something hours. Oh dear.

Awesome Weekend: Clubbing, Movie, Karaoke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fifth Day of Training

So, Wednesday.

I didn't actually fall asleep after writing my last post. After my shower I kinda just climbed into bed and lay there for half an hour until my alarm went off, then I went about getting ready for the day and such.

Aunty Rosie needed the car for something so I couldn't take the car. Instead, I went with Aunty Rosie so she could drive it back and use it for whatever. We left at around seven fifteen. I ordered McDonald's for breakfast since I was early enough to finally have the time to do so. We used the drive through, so I didn't have enough time to perfectly optimize the pricing, but I ended up with an order of RM27 that included three hash browns, three ice milos, one sausage McMuffin for me and one sausage McMuffin with egg for Aunty Rosie, and also some hotcakes and an extra sausage patty. By right Aunty Rosie's portion should have cost RM5, but she paid RM10. I'll fill up her car a little more next time.

I stopped at 1 Tech Park so I could get out and put my stuff down to eat while Aunty Rosie got in the driver's seat and went back home. I managed to construct the following monstrosity from my order:
It's a bun, then a piece of hotcake with syrup, then a hash brown, then a patty, then a hash brown, then a patty, then a hash brown, then another piece of hotcake with more syrup. It was amazing. The syrup was the key.

After breakfast I went to the roof to enjoy the cool morning air and the nice view. I had my phone with me so I had music to enhance the atmosphere.

I arrived in the training room at eight. Hariz told us that he had bad news and good news. He delivered the bad news first: Since Jonathan and I had passed the test, we would be going live on the floor (taking calls, basically) that day. The good news was that the others could retake the test, so they wouldn't have to worry about failing the training or anything. I don't see how us going live on the floor was bad news, though. It was more like two pieces of good news.

Jonathan and I went out to buddy up while the rest of them retook the test. I was with Koshla again, which is good, because she's very professional. There were very few people on the floor so there were a lot of calls waiting and people were more frustrated than last time. There were less wrong numbers, though.

After that we went back in and learnt stuff, and then we had a lunch break. I spent half of it in front of the computer, and then I went upstairs to check out the empty floor. It was only when I arrived that I realized it was full that day because a mobile blood donation unit was there.

I was greeted on my way in by my department's business manager, Edward. He was on his way out. I walked in and filled in some forms, and then a nurse pricked my finger to get some blood to check my blood type. I'm type A. I was sent to the doctor, who asked if there was anything I wanted to ask before the donation started. I asked her if the nurse was correct when she said that it was okay for me to donate even though I had bipolar disorder. The doctor told me that it wasn't okay, because even though my blood was fit for use, bipolar disorder is caused by a chemical imbalance, which can be brought on by a loss of blood, which meant that I could never donate blood ever. This was disappointing, but I guess it was for my own good.

I went back to training and learnt some stuff for a while, and then we had a break. I took a nap. During the break, Jack came in and gave Sean some recruitment forms to fill because the ones we had filled after the interview were with Roy Morgan. Sean passed me mine when I woke up. After training I filled them in and gave them to Jack.

Aunty Rosie drove over with Susanna to pick me up. She told me that we were going to Bangsar Village to buy Susanna a movie because Hannah wouldn't download it for her. I told Aunty Rosie to just save the money because I'd download whatever movie she wanted. We went to pick up my contact lenses instead. When we got to the optometrist, I realized I had no money, so we went back and I got my money from my dad, then I drove over and got the lenses.

When I got home again I didn't do much before I was asleep on the floor again, this time in front of the TV. Nobody woke me up for dinner (again), so I had to reheat everything when I woke up around four hours later at 11pm. I ate my carbonara while watching Deadliest Warrior on Ian's computer. I had known from the list of weapons that the SEALs would win, even though I think the Israeli commandos are more awesome.

So I never ended up answering calls on Wednesday, but today (Thursday), I will. Chances are, in around five and a half hours I'll be on the phone providing people in Australia and New Zealand with the best support options for all their HP Desktop related problems. Yay!

Second Day of Training

So today (Thursday) I woke up really early because I wanted to eat breakfast at McDonald's. Unfortunately I was really tired so I took naps and let my alarm snooze and by the time I left in Aunty Rosie's car I did not have time to eat breakfast at McD's if I wanted to arrive at 7:45.

I met Ganesh and he told me that we actually had to show up at eight, so I was fifteen minutes early. I went to the third floor to get some juice and some pies from the cafe, and then I went to take pictures of the view while listening to my music. You can actually see Sri Wangsaria from 1 Tech Park, which means you can see 1 Tech Park from my parents' room's window, and perhaps also Hannah's room's window. Oh yeah, when I went to get my pies I found out that Kelly's name is Kelly, not Cali. Later on in the day I found out that Eddie's name is Eddie, not Eddy. I'm not going to bother changing previous blog posts. I'm too tired to bother with that.



At eight o'clock we were all waiting in the waiting room for Hariz to show up. Sukarno stopped by to tell us that Hariz would be late so we could go get something to eat if we wanted, so we did. We were only in the cafe for a little while before we got a call from Hariz saying that we should come downstairs soon since he was here. Anyway, here is a picture of the paintings in the living room that I was talking about in a recent post.

Training was engaging and interesting again. This time we had our work e-mail accounts and accounts that gave us system access. The computer I was using had Windows 7. It's a really cool OS and I'm pretty sure I'll upgrade to it the next time I get my computer updated.

Anyway, we read through the warranty and learned where to refer to in order to answer common customer questions.

After that we had lunch. I went to McDonald's for the drive-through. It's really close by. The fries, nuggets, and coke were all real good. My only regret is that I didn't have enough money to buy another packet of large fries.

When lunch was over we continued learning about the warranty, and then we got to go listen to some live calls. Eddie and I were the first to buddy up with someone taking calls. Eddie got one of the best senior agents, and I got Raj. I'm going to pass him Ghostbusters 2 the next time I see him. He taught me a few things about how to register stuff and I helped him point out a typo when he was recording a customer's address.

After everyone had a chance to listen to the calls, we went back to the training room and told Hariz how the calls went. He told us what our seniors had done right and what they had done wrong. When that was over, we could leave since all the training for the day was done, but we stayed on for a while longer.

Jack talked to Sean and me about Roy Morgan. He said that they didn't want us to feel overworked or anything, so I just told him how eager I was to do my job and I heard that that kind of enthusiasm is rare. Sean told him that he had a schedule clash so he couldn't do Roy Morgan, and Jack said that was fine.

When I got home I took a nap. Ian almost woke me up by hanging around in the living room for some reason, but he left and I went back to sleep. Jan and Hannah woke me up by talking about Cherie's sister. That may have been a dream, though. Jan started playing his music so I countered with some of my own. I love my new phone. I really need to thank Joanna again for that.

After I awoke, I went to Subway with Hannah and paid for her meal to earn some goodwill. We went to Bangsar Village so she could smell the collector's edition of Teenage Dream (it has a cotton candy scent) and buy herself a copy of Seventeen magazine.

Back at home, I watched Hannah play Theme Hospital and then I watched her watch the first episode of The Office. She laughed at the jelly stapler and at nothing else. She thought Dawn was annoying, for some reason. I hope she'll keep watching the series, it's really good.

We played with the piano for a bit. Neither of us could really play what we wanted.

I'm going to wake up late tomorrow.