For the Most Part, a Good Day

Today was great right up until our kitten stranded herself in the airwell on a ledge at the eighteenth floor. Now she's got three days to either gather up the guts to shimmy across a pipe to somewhere safe, give up hope and fall off, or die of thirst. I hope she doesn't do the last one. That would be pretty depressing, and also kinda smelly.

Anyway, I got to wear my suit again today. It was awesome. The jacket is still oversized, of course, but I had it slung over my shoulder most of the time anyway. It is a much cooler way to carry a jacket than just wearing it. The shoes are awesome. They make this real stylish noise on tiled floors. I almost got a blister, but it would have been worth it. The trousers and undershirt are amazingly comfortable, and the tie is great, too. I love that suit. I want more excuses to wear it.

My excuse today was two presentations: one for Advanced English about my research paper The Formation and Loss of Childhood Phobias, and another about dealing with my hypothetical uncle abusing my hypothetical cousin for Critical Thinking Skills. They both could have gone better, but considering the effort I put into the slides (not much) I think I did as well as I deserved.

I decided to ride my motorcycle to college as usual. The combination of my awesome suit, oversized jacket, and cute motorcycle turned quite a few heads. It felt good.

My first class was Engineering Mathematics. We had a quiz, and it was the easiest quiz so far, save for Physics quizzes. I might have a shot at a credit in this subject.

Advanced English was okay. I was the second guy in my group to overshoot the time limit. We had a maximum of seven minutes, I ended after almost eight. Proper use of allocated time was worth 10% of the score for the presentation, which was worth 5% of our continuous assessment, so I only lost a quarter of a mark. I don't think it's going to matter.

After that I went to have brunch with Alysha. We ate at Ali Maju's and we did not get exactly what we ordered, but we ate it anyway. When we got back to college a fire drill was going on. I met Annora and we talked a bit. I mourned the loss of my jacket to the imaginary flames. When the alarm stopped ringing, I was one of the first back into the hall. I thought about someone could have gained a lot of quick cash by looting everyone's bags during the drill. Luckily, no-one did, and my jacket and bag were fine.

Once I'd collected my stuff, I followed Aaron San to the DSA and we talked about chords and ping-pong-playing robots and such. I also discovered that they've got Risk, Monopoly, and Chess in the DSA. That's pretty awesome. Next time I have a four-and-a-half hour break, I'll try and get some people together to play a half-game of Monopoly or Risk.

At 12:30, the dudes at the DSA had to go to class, so I went down to the hall, found a comfortable position, and fell asleep using my jacket as a blanket. It was so incredibly comfortable. I was awoken twice: once when the girls in the table nearby started talking about boobs, and again when Carmeni decided to wake me up to tell me I was napping. I wonder why she felt I needed to know.

At 1:45 I went with Amanda to go get something to eat. Along our way to McDonald's, we came across this whole group of Coca-Cola people giving out free Cokes for this "Brrr!" advertising campaign. I accepted a can and we continued on our way to McD's.

Amanda was very very excited when we got to McDonald's because she saw that the Prosperity Burger was back. I told her about how every year I would give the Prosperity Burger a try and every year I would be let down. She said she loved the burger, and the fries. I agreed with her on the awesomeness of twister fries. She bought her meal and I bought my fries and we headed back for class. Along the way Amanda said that the feeling of food in your stomach when you were really really hungry was the best feeling ever, and I said that there was a better feeling. She said that she had never felt that feeling before but she'd get back to me with a comparison if she ever did. That led to a somewhat interesting conversation, but we were interrupted by more free Coke. It was a very refreshing interruption.

I ended up giving two of my free cokes to my classmates from CTS, and Amanda ended up giving a bite of her Prosperity Burger to Arun. I didn't really want the cokes, though. I just didn't want to turn down free stuff. Poor Amada was looking forward to eating the burger all on her own, though. She was still unsatisfied when I met her later. I hope she managed to eat her fill later on.

Anyway, Critical Thinking Skills was okay. Oliver thought his presentation was today and he was very relieved to find out he was wrong. Almas knew his presentation was today, but he didn't come prepared. I told him that he could still try to give the presentation without slides because he could still get 2 or 3 of the possible 10 points, but he said he'd give it a miss. Ah well, at least we got to finish early. My presentation went relatively well, except I was speaking a bit fast. After class, Ms Tay told me that I shouldn't spend so much effort helping some people, because they clearly didn't care and were already lost causes. Not everyone can be like me, she said. That was a compliment I almost felt bad for receiving.

After class I went to grab some more Coke. They recorded me saying "Brrr!" for their ad campaign, but I don't think I'm going to be in any videos. I realized later that the point was to shiver with your body, whereas I was just shaking my head real quick. Oh well, I still got free Coke.

When I got bored of hanging around the Coke people, I made my way to the post office to learn how to send a letter. While I was there, I met this French lady who was mailing some letters to her mother-in-law. She had been in Malaysia for the past year and a half because her husband was an electrical engineer doing telecommunications work with the company that's working with Maxis to do P1 Wimax. We talked about our educations and what we thought of Europe and Malaysia. She said I would appreciate Malaysia's heat a lot more if I ever visited Holland during the winter. Anyway, there is apparently a French School in Kuala Lumpur. It is called the Kuala Lumpur French School, and it's in Segambut. Both her daughters are students there. They're 9 and 13. From the way the lady looked, I was expecting them to be younger. Even though my expectations were one way, I was still hoping they would be older. I am not entirely sure why.

Anyway, it came my turn to go to the counter, and the lady behind the glass gave me an envelope and some stamps. It only cost RM1.80 to send a letter to the Netherlands. That's awesome. I left the post office to go online and find the address I was sending the letter to. When I was done, I saw Joanna in the lab. She asked me to follow her to wait for one of her parents to pick her up. We walked in one big loop to McDonald's to wait for her mum. I met her friend, Alan, in the McDonald's. He came to Malaysia from Zambia two years ago, and he said that that was the worst decision he's made in his life. After Jo's mum picked her up, we spent a while talking about how we ended up in HELP, souls, Moore's law, positioning mirrors and slowing light to see the past, the capacity of a brain, philosophy, and religion. Our conversation ended when I glanced over at the post office and saw it closing, which meant it was five o'clock. Alan had a Thanksgiving dinner to get to. It doesn't really make sense, because Thanksgiving is an entirely American holiday that has absolutely nothing to do with Malaysia and shouldn't logically be celebrated internationally (Unlike, say, Halloween), but his friends were there so it made sense for him to be there too. He's a cool dude, though. A real smart guy. I shoulda met him earlier on in the semester; we would've had a lot to talk about.

Anyway, when I got home I dropped the letter off in a mailbox in the lobby and came home. Hannah showed me that Calico had somehow ended up two stories below us on a ledge in the airwell. I climbed out a bit and took some pictures. Here is one. It is the first picture on my blog. I hope it will not be the last picture of Cali.



So yeah, we have a kitten stuck there. I don't know how we're going to get her back up.

A Second Chance

Today I learned of another secret that I can't let the lecturers know. This time I'm going to make sure I keep my mouth shut. It's nice that I was one of the first to know, though.

Anyway, we had Engineering Mathematics Applications class in Donut Empire today. I had five donuts, but Mr. Joel managed to pay for them somehow. Fortunately, mine weren't the only donuts he paid for. Adrian and Sue Ann also didn't have a chance to pay for their pastries, and neither did Sue Ann's boyfriend or his buddy. Mr. Joel told us to use the money we had saved to bless other people, since it is better to give than to receive. I'm not sure what I'll do with my RM6. If anyone's reading this and wants some fries or something, I guess this is your chance to get some for free.

In Physics today I learned about light and how you can bend and slow it. It's pretty awesome. With a high enough refractive index or a large enough distance (or a combination of both), you could set up a mirror in such a way that when you look into it, you will see the past. It would require seventy-five thousand kilometers of material with a refractive index of ten for a five-second delay, but still. Pretty awesome thought. Of course, you could achieve much the same result but just hooking up a camera to a monitor and setting a delay, but that's cheating somewhat, and it's probably already been done.

We had presentations in English. I was timekeeper. Alysha was absent because she was sick or something. I hope she still has a chance to present. I told her to text Mr. Dharminder and tell him he was sick, so hopefully he'll show some mercy.

Between classes I taunted Carmeni with my secret and helped her out with her group's presentation on HIV/AIDS for Moral Studies.

When I was done for the day I went to lunch with Denise. Well, that was the plan, anyway, but I got sidetracked for a while talking to Amanda and Davinia, and when I went back to find Denise she had already left to McDonald's. I managed to intercept her right at the table, but then I realized I wasn't in the mood for McD's so I asked where Jia Yin was having lunch and went off to find her.

When I got to Ali Maju's I sat next to Jia Yin and a bunch of people she had just befriended that day. I was also sitting next to two girls from another college, but I didn't know that yet. I asked them if they were taking Foundation in Science or Arts and they told me that they weren't in HELP. I asked them if they were with Jia Yin and her friends and they said they weren't, they were just sharing the table. After that we got to talking and I had a nice conversation with them about our parents and our colleges and our schedules and studies and the food in Pusat Bandar Damansara and stuff. When they left I was only able to remember one of their names, Joanne. If I see the other one I will be in quite an awkward spot. Also I'm pretty sure that's not how Joanne's name is spelt. Anyway, talking to strangers is fun and I highly recommend it.

After lunch I sat in for Elo and Carmeni's Moral Studies class to help them with their AIDS presentation. They ended up stopping only six minutes into what should have been a fifteen-minute presentation, but aside from that and some factual and explanatory errors on their part, it was pretty good. I think they'll get more than 7/10. I find it hard to believe that Elo didn't know what latex was, though. Has she never been in a 7/11 before or something? Also, Carmeni didn't know what sheep gut condoms were made from (Hint: It is exactly what it sounds like).

It was raining again when I rode home. Third Monday in a row.

When I got home I called Effie to see if she was free on Friday. She said that she was broke and she would have to check with her mom to make sure they wouldn't be out-of-town on vacation that day or something. I said okay, and then I took a nap. When I woke up it was late. I went on the computer to blog and stuff, and now it is later.

I have two presentations on Thursday I haven't prepared anything. I'm planning to do that tonight. I've also got to do the review exercises for three EMA programmes. I am going to either be up late tonight, or shit is going to get procrastinated.

Ten and a Half Hours; No Breaks

I'm tired, so here's my attempt at a short post.

1st class was EMA from 8 'til 9:30. Learned some cool new stuff, got a bunch of homework for some other day. Also got my quiz results. 22/40 compared to the other students' 40/40 and 37/40. I lost a shitload of marks due to careless mistakes and failure to check my work. It's still a really tough subject, though, so at least I know I've got a couple of geniuses to turn to if I need any help.

2nd class was CTS from 9:30 'til 11:00. Learned about fallacies and stuff. Was okay. Didn't drag. Projector wasn't working.

3rd class was Advanced English replacement for the one hour I missed yesterday. It was from 11:00 to 12:30, but I was leaving early. I made some new friends and listened to Mr. Dharminder talk about his experience at an Ali Maju the other day with Mr. Joel, my EMA (and formerly Calculus) lecturer, which involved them sitting across from a table of loud, vulgar students. Apparently all the vulgarity was coming from the girls. We had to explain how "the f word" had changed since his time as a student, and become a very versatile adjective instead of a swear word. That was fun.

4th class was Physics tutorial in one of the KPD labs scheduled to last from 12:00 to 2:00. It took me around ten minutes to get there. Fortunately, we managed to complete all six questions quite quickly and left with 20 minutes break.

I spent that break getting money to get my ticket from Roopa, who had booked a table for the ball. The ticket is pretty cool. Also when I was running to the ATM I figured out how to simulate drowning: get your heart rate up, then hold your breath and sprint. That was quite an interesting experience.

5th class was Advanced English from 2:00 to 3:30. I gave a presentation and was evaluated by the class. The presentation didn't count towards the continuous assessment mark, but it did help for the next class.

6th class was Moral Studies from 3:30 to 5:00. I had to give a presentation that was worth 10% of the total marks for the subject. I asked one of my classmates to help me out by asking questions so I could stretch my five slides of content to last for fifteen minutes. She agreed to help me out, so that was nice. I managed to get a bit of audience participation going on by way of a Q&A, and my presentation lasted 16 minutes. My classmate, Annora, actually lifted up a sheet of paper that said "14 MINUTES" at one point, so I knew when to start wrapping up. Yeah, that was nice. When my presentation was done there was another presentation by two dudes, the first half of which was presented quite well and the second half of which was pretty much a comedy routine. There are some funny dudes in HELP. I think they're gonna score pretty high. After class was over I got to see my score and I got 8.5/10, which was awesome. Annora's group got 7.5 but I'm pretty sure they did better than me, since their slides had visual aids and animations and stuff.

7th class was the Moral Studies Quiz, which I wasn't prepared for. I didn't understand what the questions were asking of me, so I was tempted to pull out my notes and cheat. I actually managed to get them from my bag to the desk before I realized that cheating during a Moral quiz, although deliciously ironic, wouldn't be worth the consequences of getting caught, so I put the notes away and reached into the recesses of my memory for the answers. I'm not sure if I answered correctly, but I passed a much more practical moral test that class.

When I was done with the quiz I talked to Davinia, who I apparently hadn't spoken to in ages. She asked me how things were with "Junita, or Julia or whatever" and was shocked to hear of my motorcycle accident last week. I said something along the lines of "Oh wow, it really must have been a while since we last talked. You don't know the name of the girl I can't shut up about, you don't know about my motorcycle accident, heck, I bet you haven't even heard about my dad's funeral." Her reaction to the last item on that list was worth the horrible fabrication. I forgot what we talked about next even though that was less than two hours ago. Again I will blame sleep deprivation.

After that I talked to Ms Usha because I wanted to tell her to call off the search since she still had not made any progress finding someone who I could ask to the ball. Apparently she had not told anyone that she was helping me, but somehow all the girls she asked knew she was talking about me when she told them about (her words) "a tall, fair, handsome guy" to ask to the ball. I told her of course they're gonna guess me if she uses the word "fair" in her description. With the exception of the international students, that word would only be used to describe two people, and although it could be argued that she is tall and handsome, Juria is most definitely not a guy. I guess that is the downside to a mixed heritage: you tend to stand out, even in three-word descriptions.

Ms Usha then said that her new plan was to get a column on the notice board for students to put up their phone numbers and descriptions of themselves and of what kind of person they would want to go to the ball with. I agreed to be among the first batch up on the board. Perhaps I should not have volunteered, though. It just seems a bit desperate.

While I was getting ready to go, this old dude with a terrible combover approached a group of students and asked how to delete text on a slide. When I started to answer him he grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to his computer so I could help him with it. I don't think I've met a bigger stereotype in my life before. This guy was a classic technologically illiterate elder. After attempting to help him get his presentation done for a while (he wouldn't tell me exactly what he was trying to do, just what he wanted me to do next, so all that ended up being changed was that the text in two slides were replaced by the text of two other slides that he didn't know where there, and one of those slides being moved up in the presentation), I gave up and set the alarm on my phone to a minute later, then picked it up and excused myself. Man, I hope I never get to the point where I'm pulling random college students into my cubicle to help me adjust the holoprojectors or reconfigure the teleporters or whatever.

I finally took my motorcycle home at 6:30. I wanted to take a nap, but my mum wants me to go to bed at 10pm so I don't end up staying late and getting only four or so hours of sleep like I did last night. Eh.

I figured today would be a lot harder than it was. I was riding on a sleep-deprived high for most of the day, and I only crashed when I got home. My mood's not too great right now, but I was pretty dang ecstatic for classes one through six. Ah well, that is the price you pay for not listening to your mother.

Anyway I'll end this here. I'm gonna go take a nap.

Edit: I didn't actually take a nap. I think I may actually go to bed at 10. I am really tired.