The rite of passage to a new world

It has been a week-long routine of waking up, Okami, HS, and the occasional hanging out, but otherwise they have been filling up my second final week of being in Malaysia with activities that aren’t particularly affecting or life-changing. I haven’t been blogging because I was busy with the aforementioned activities, plus they weren’t things blog-worthy anyway.

Last Sunday night on the 21st saw us at the mamak lorong of SS15 – and the only thing that I remembered out of this was us talking about making a bet who among the 10 of us in the extended family would get married first by putting RM50 yearly from each of us into a ‘fund’ and the winner of the bet would get all of the money; Jess working on her AIESEC work (I also learned what a ‘gun chart’ is); and generally shooting the breeze.

When SiS rang me up on Tuesday morning, informing me that the spare part for my phone’s keyboard had arrived (I had phoned them weeks ago wanting to send my phone for repair, something that I had wanted to do for ages but procrastinated for like 6 months now, they told me they don’t have anymore keyboard spare parts), I went to their service centre immediately at Glenmarie – it wasn’t as complicated as I thought it would be, and thanks to Google Maps, I did manage to arrive at the place without any complications. I borrowed Andy’s spare Nokia phone at night, and Heng’s Nokia charger as well.

Wednesday also saw me, Heng, Andy, Esther, and Adrian at Sunway Pyramid catching the premiere of Transformers 2 at 11.20am (long story of how Shawn wanted to watch in the morning but in the end he couldn’t come as his mum was admitted to the hospital) – Heng bought the tix the previous Saturday as this movie is insanely popular and you probably wouldn’t have any chance of getting the tix for the same day that you want to watch. It was a brilliant action film – loads of Transformers (too many, in fact, for me to keep track), Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, insanely cool transformation sequences, some humour – and stretches for 2 hours and 30 minutes to keep you entertained throughout the time.

When the movie ended at about 2pm, we walked around for a bit – window-shopping, more like – before we actually decided to look for lunch, and I was having some gastric pains by then. :/

We ate at Pasta Zanmai! Initially we did the lat game to determine where to eat by having each player to think of a place to eat and I won with my Manhattan Fish Market, but then we thought of eating at a restaurant where we hadn’t tried out yet. My dishes were a fairly delicious affair at RM22 for a set of two different dishes and a miso soup, but Andy’s Japanese curry dish was probably the tastiest among the ones we ordered.

Quite a cosy setting too.

After purchasing my RM50 two-in-one Polo belt (in the sense that I can switch between white and brown/black) and a string to tie up Suet’s South African souvenir of a hippo tooth (given to me years ago) after the PVC string thingy that Kenneth gave me snapped, we went back home at around 5pm.

I also went to the mamak on Friday night with Heng, Jess, and Ding at Tanjung – Jess brought back the Crumpler bag that was at a Singaporean Crumpler store for me (it was already paid for), and I’ve just tested it yesterday and it was just perfect. =D It has an aesthetically-pleasing combination of brown and orange, large enough to accommodate my camera equipment, but at the same time, weighs more or less the same as my previous camera bag that I had gotten for free when I just purchased my Canon EOS 450D.

I played badminton yesterday at about 10am – I’ve never actually played sports of any kind in the morning for the longest time, and it was cool ‘cause we only paid for an hour but we could use it for like an hour and 30 minutes. My dad also got me this RM9.90 laptop cooler – sure it’s just a piece of cheap plastic, but I’d like to think it somewhat works!

Yesterday night I met Alvin and his friends at Kota Kemuning (including Chi Ling or however her name is spelt who told me she’s Suet’s friend and that she remembered me at the Sell Out! event at Taylor’s) for an activity that involves driving around with a makeshift bottle and a lighter with the 6 of us squeezed in a single car, hanging out near the basketball court and do silly, silly things, before I zoomed back to Subang (also discovered that it takes only about 15 minutes to go from Subang to KK, and vice-versa) for a discussion on our upcoming PD trip at Jess’ house – Heng was already there, while Ding arrived even later than I did. We didn’t actually discuss much and I was feeling incredibly sleepy the entire time while Jess worked on editing her thousand of pics on her laptop.

---

Is it possible to feel a plethora of feelings all at once? 7 days left till my departure from Subang Jaya, the occasional mamak sessions that are becoming scarce and few to come by, friends and family, limau ais and maggi mi goreng, the stifling heat in my room that I’m getting used to, my Nintendo Wii, corrupted cops, dinners and drinking at my favourite bar Decanter Too, holidays by the beach and at our assorted islands, laughable political fodder, the Malaysian English slang/accent, and everything else that I’m so used to I didn’t even realise it exists. And I feel terrified, excited, in wonder – will I be one of them kids who’d return after a few months at a foreign land after being too horribly homesick, or will I triumph over this incredibly life-changing action?

I’ve this unshakeable feeling that I’d be depressed the first few days I’m there – it has happened before when I first landed in Laos for my backpacking trip, which was weird considering how excited I was about the entire thing before boarding my flight. And I can only hope that it won’t occur again – I suppose the reality of being far removed from the comforts of chained routines and home will sink in. The initial shock that everyone goes through after being thrown to a completely different place – like Heng being in laidback and backwards Labuan, Esther in foresty, pricey Miri – it’s almost like a rite of passage.

In time, it may take a few weeks or even months before I’d assimilate fully into a Melburnian life. With time, I might even get used to living in 5°C.