JLPT 3

My head is reeling in that strange lethargy as a result of having only 4 hours of sleep and a short 1 hour nap when I came back in the evening, reasons of which will be detailed below. So I’ll detail the past 7 days in point forms:

• On Tuesday night, Heng, Jess, Xin Min, Joe, and Shawn dropped by my house for a while as Jess wanted to copy my Kampar pics over while Shawn wanted to revise our Japanese together. We actually ended up chatting a lot, catching up as Joe came back from New Zealand the week before. We then headed out for a short yumcha session at Melur USJ17 at around midnight and squeezed in Heng’s blue small little Kancil.

• Wednesday at nearly 2.30pm, right after my piano class ended (my teacher spent an extra 15 minutes teaching me stuffs) I walked back home, only to find Kai Tzin already waiting in his car outside my house. We left, met up with the rest (that being Heng, Jess, Xin Min, April (if I got her name right?), and Joe), and watched.. Twilight at 4pm.

  You wouldn’t believe the ooh’s and ahh’s being sighed collectively in the cinema hall by mainly girls and the loud giggles from behind us when Edward Cullen appeared. =/ Not to mention the incredibly loud echoes of one guy behind me who kept echoing remarks that were being said on the screen as if he was learning English or something: “Pepper spray!” wtf (yeah you won’t understand this if you weren’t there). No offence to fans of Edward but I didn’t find him remotely attractive.. but I guess it’s just a matter of tastes wtf.

  Very interesting plot, but.. I dunno, this romance between a teenage girl and a vampire sounds very right up the alley of most girls’ ideas of romance lol. Was tempted to borrow some books of the series – maybe from Jess – to read but I can’t even finish a bloody short story collection I’ve just recently started (‘recent’ meaning probably two weeks ago): Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys by Will Self, a book I picked up in a second-hand bookstore in Bangkok about 6 months ago.. and I can’t bring myself to finish the first story yet lol.

  We ate at Sushi King (!! – exclamation marks ‘cause it’s been a while since I’ve tasted sushi or anything Japanese-related) and a waitress was asking questions to Heng like “Haven’t I seen you before?” and I had to tell him that it must be a pickup line hahahaha.

  We walked around for a bit, window-shopped, I bought my Nivea lipbalm (a much-needed item for my dry lips that have been around for ages), and then Kai fetched both Joe and I back.

• Woke up at 5am today. Crazy. At about 5.45am, Shawn was already at my doorstep and he fetched both me and Ding to UPM Serdang, where we took our JLPT 3 papers. We utilised our GPS as Shawn had already forgotten the way, and the settings that were already pre-set in my GPS beforehand (“do not avoid tolls, and reach destination at the fastest time”) led us to somewhere near the Serdang area fairly quickly in like 20-30 minutes – and that’s because it was at 6am where there were very few cars around and horror upon horror, I had to fork out a total of RM6 worth of 3 different tolls WTF.

  Sigh. We ate at a McD’s near the highway (we actually bypassed the road leading to it, but Shawn being incredible reversed a full 100 metres and attracted unwarranted attention by people in the car lmao), and encountered a troupe of people who were probably related to a wedding: the groom, a photographer, family and relatives..

  We reached UPM Serdang and went straight for the Fakulti Kebudayaan where our JLPT was held last year, but surprise surprise it was completely deserted. We were a bit lost and didn’t know what to do until we asked another guard again and we were pointed to the right direction to the Fakulti Kejuruteraan, and by golly was it completely beautiful and awesome! ..the scenery that is.

  Sadly I didn’t bring my camera, so had to snap photos with my HTC Touch Pro.

  
  A panorama look of the engineering faculty – there were already plenty of students gathered on the right side. Click to enlarge.

  
  Another look on the opposite side. Click to enlarge.

  
  Ding snapping a photo with his phone.

  
  The test ending in our Dewan Peperiksaan 1.

  
  Shawn in the hall.

  The JLPT 3 was surprisingly alright for me – I revised last minute about 3 past year papers from about 2pm when Shawn came to my house yesterday till 1am (Shawn went back at about 6.30pm). Took the extra effort of hunting for choukai (listening) section’s mp3 files of the past years on the Net and streamed a couple from eSnips.

  I thought the first paper (testing us on kanji and vocabulary) was easier than the past years that I’ve done, but the second paper (listening) was a little tough – my concentration wasn’t at its optimum and my heart was actually beating fast for some odd reason wtf. Was a little miffed too that I only realised what the answer for the last question was a full minute after I passed up my paper huhu. As for the last paper (reading & grammar), dunno if I’m doing it right or what, but I merely answered based on what I ‘feel’ whether the answers sounded right or not wtf. (Reminds me of English..)

  During the final paper, I had quite a bit of time left so I took a short nap, while also pondering whether I should continue with my Japanese studies. When I woke up again shortly after, there was this steel resolve in me that made me want to go for the JLPT 2 in the next 2 years – self-study or not.

  Keeping my fingers crossed that I’d pass this. Although to be honest, this proficiency test isn’t exactly relevant in the conversational aspects (in the sentences that were given), ‘cause you sure as heck wouldn’t say the Japanese equivalent of “Greetings and salutations to you, may I know where exactly is the bathroom?” (actually that’s highly exaggerated lol).

  Oh and we also saw an atuk in his 50s (complete with the white songkok on his head, not sure what it’s called exactly) and an angmoh woman in her 50s too in the same hall as us. 0_o I thought it was great that senior citizens are trying to upgrade themselves continuously, like that Chinese saying, 活到老，学到老 (live till you’re old, learn till you’re old). We also saw an angmoh dude shaven from below his nose outside our hall too before the exam began.

  
  There’s this bloody cool, probably World War II-era plane right next to the building of the engineering faculty.. so after the exams we snapped photos by it.

  
  Me and Shawn.

  
  Ding.

  We then used my GPS again (this time making sure that it’s avoiding tolls) and headed for the famous Leong Ya Restaurant nearby.. and this was when my GPS led us right in front of the residence of our ex-Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir (according to Shawn lah wtf) which was near a lake.. which explained the guard that was eyeballing us (we merely zoomed past him), and we joked that snipers and soldiers would be ready to shoot at us LOL.

  Shawn was skeptical that we would arrive at the aforementioned restaurant because the road we were on was a true ‘back lane’ in that sense, despite my GPS telling us that we would arrive in a kilometre.. but we persisted anyway and to our utter surprise, indeed found ourselves reaching the restaurant lol.

  We ate the scrumptious qi pao kai (the sauce was heavenly) and yong tao foo, which were the few things that Leong Ya Restaurant is famous for.

  Finally reached home at 4pm.

• This year is somewhat like a year of self-improvement. Apart from Mandarin and Japanese, in the past 3 weeks I’ve quite suddenly taken up French and piano.. although my Japanese class has already been cancelled as of now. There is this satisfaction of the nth degree when I succeed in playing a musical piece smoothly – albeit simple as heck right now, Jingle Bell for instance – and frustration when I kept making mistakes due to weak finger muscles and lack of proper eye-to-hand coordination.

  Adding together the fact that I’m consciously trying to be more sociable, so I took the elements of ‘The Game’ to practise recently on a couple of girls at MOS.

A friend recently made a baffling comment that it’s alright to be introverted and unsociable rather than trying to get out of our comfort zone and be someone else that we’re not, but I disagree.

• Friday night, went to Shawn’s house at nearly 12.30am and set in the kitchen with Yen and Shawn. ‘twas a little awkward when Shawn’s mum came back and scolded Shawn etc wtf, and then we discussed various ways on how to annoy my neighbour. Shawn’s mum was incredible with her logical and non-criminal suggestions.

  I drank two cans of Tiger’s that Shawn offered, ate some McD’s nuggets and nasi lemak that Andy tapau-ed for us when he came at about 2.30am. Was quite full by the time I downed the nasi lemak tak mao sambal specially prepared for me wtf. We only went back at about 3.30am.