More than a month now since I last blogged—a possible travesty considering a wealth of photos and entries documenting my daily life in this almost public journal of the trips I’ve been to, or my ramblings and soliloquies of love found and discovered, have not been published. To be honest, while I don’t feel an enormous pit of sorrow welling up inside me, I do regret the fact that I didn’t write as much, as it has been my passion.

Right now I will not talk about the Cameron Highlands trip that I’ve been to that ended in considerable disaster in the form of a non-functioning car that required thousands of ringgit to repair, or the foresty stay at Sekeping Serendah, or to Genting with Esther and Tony, or to the countless of Meeples sessions with my friends (mostly with Jerm, PY, and co. who were there nearly all the time), or the RoM with Tomoko and Ben and the after party, or the movies and dinners and co-operative gaming sessions with you.

Instead, I will talk about the upcoming Laos trip and how it both excites me and depresses me at the same time, as it signifies that your time here with me is drawing to an end. I remembered how excitingly agitated I became the night before your arrival, and now, I might be agitated again for all the wrong reasons.

Spending every waking hour with someone you love, while it’s the best possible thing to have happened to anyone, could turn into an emotional rollercoaster when this hazy, mystical summer draws to an end. You spend what seemed like an entire lifetime learning about your partner’s little quirky habits, like how you’ll use a fork while eating as opposed to a spoon, only to be torn away for another good year or so while your physical presence is spirited away.

But if we’ve done a whole year of non-physical communication before, surely we can do this again.

Next stop: Laos. In 3 days time now.

Tomoko, Jeremy, and Siew Kiat invited me to join them at a European board game cafe called Meeples last Thursday night, and so intrigued I was at the idea (notwithstanding the fact that I have an Organisational Behaviour final exam the following week) that I decided to participate.

And it was a pretty awesome decision, as you can see from the pictures I took on Friday night:

The quaint little place located on top of Face-to-Face SS15.

Playing the funky European strategy board game called “Smallworld”.

Jeremy reading the rule sheet with Amanda (one of the staff) helping us to sort out the pieces and explain the rules (which is really what their task entails!).

Jin was there too briefly, although he didn’t get to play as we were in the middle of a game.

One of my favourite games, Dixit, as it’s pretty simple too play and merely requires your imagination.

Meeples is possibly one of the most original ideas for a business, at least in Malaysia. Their vast array of European board games is definitely staggering (they even have World of Warcraft and Starcraft board games), and I think in the three consecutive nights that I was there (on Saturday night, I was with Poh Yuen, Tomoko and Jeremy), we only played like four different games. “Bang!” was also a pretty fun game (ala Murder in the Dark, but done and improved further with cards), and I had even contemplated purchasing either that or Dixit, which isn’t exactly cheap (around the range of RM150 and above).

At the moment, Meeples (the name possibly derived from their flagship board game, whose name escaped me now) has a launch promotion whereby purchasing an hour nets you an extra free hour. RM5 for two hours sounds pretty reasonable, but I doubt I’d be going as often as I did before when it reverts to the original RM5/hour.

Can’t wait to hang out there with the extended family and Matt in less than 2 weeks time. =D

My finals begin tomorrow.

I haven’t had the spirit to blog lately ever since my PS3 came into my life and I found myself trying to obtain trophy after trophy, never mind the fact that trophies are bragging rights that are essentially worthless.

This final semester of mine can be summed up in several phrases: degenerating college caused by integrative changes made by our new management that caused much uproar among students and lecturers alike; only 3 subjects this semester; the misfortune that I (or rather my Organisational Behaviour teammates and I) had of having the worst teammate that could’ve ever existed by turning into an uncontactable hermit by not picking up our phone calls, not responding to our SMSes, not replying to our e-mails, and not turning up for meetings immediately after our mid-semester break.

And even on the day we were passing up our group assignment, Mr. Uncontactable Hermit did not appear and so we had to pass up our assignment without his student number or his signature which was required. But no worries, as we’ve lodged a complaint against him to our lecturer and she promised to file a report to RMIT Melbourne to ensure equitable justice to our group.

Tomorrow marks my first final paper, that would mark the start of my week of exams—three papers stretched across four weeks, as opposed to my horrible experience in Melbourne that a student should never have to experience, when I had three intensely difficult papers in two days. I partially blame that atrocious scheduling for my less-than-satisfactory grades I acquired.

So after delaying my New Zealand travel posts indefinitely, I think it’s about time that I seize my journal once more (not a Moleskin, but an AUD$10 book with empty lined pages that I purchased at Borders after watching a free movie in the suburbs of Melbourne) and actually write about it. I took a peek at my Kiwi pictures a few minutes ago, and the first picture (that would’ve come after the last Day 3 entry I wrote) made my heart skip a beat and I caught my breath. I forgot the adrenaline, excitement, and the euphoria assaulting me on a daily basis whilst backpacking alone (mangled with the occasional depression) for the first time in my life, and it struck me.. how these feelings washed away just as quick. And just how pristine and beautiful New Zealand’s South Island is.

Pics would come soon, I swear, to those who are still reading this blog. In exactly two posts from now.

Last Saturday’s Video Games Live has been an anchor of ecstasy and of much musical orgasm to Malaysian video game enthusiasts. I booked the tickets nearly a month in advance—for me, Jon, Ee Leen, Wai Hong, my bro, Chris—the very day I discovered that the tickets have actually gone live, and quickly snapped up the seats. Veritably some of the best ones were taken, but nevertheless we took the 2nd cheapest tickets (RM103) and they were surprisingly good, as we could see the stage quite clearly.

Our tickets.