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Quick post ‘cause I have a test tomorrow at 10am, and am skipping my 8am Financial Markets lecture because of it (after discussing our attendance with my college partner-in-crime Rebecca). Yeah, I know, I’m apt to blog right before my exam commences wtf.

Yesterday right after my Japanese class, went to the bazaar in front of Jon’s house to buy some drinks and food, tapau back to Ding’s house to eat (I had a murtabak ayam for RM2.50) for a while, then rushed out again ‘cause we only learned the news of Fangki departing from Malaysia from Wai Hong, then went to Shawn’s house to copy over some vids into my thumbdrive (WH’s infamous ‘Quiz of the Day’!), then went back to my house.

Shawn initially wanted to send off Fangki at the airport as well, but as he had to have dinner with his sisters and dad or something, so I took his place, filling up Jon’s car to exactly 5 people.

We went straight to the airport in Jon’s car (us being me, Jon, Wai Hong, Andy, Ding), made a ridiculous lie about not being able to send Fangki off but at the same time tried to discover where he was exactly, then met him at KFC with his family and his own college partner-in-crime.

Fangki, leaving to Leeds, England to continue his mechanical engineering studies.

Read on…

Last night, I was asked by Alvin if I’d like to drink since he was bored and he has a half bottle of his RM50 Langkawi-bought tequila to spare. The alcoholic in me didn’t want to pass up on such a chance, so I agreed, and he came over to my house as I was in the midst of watching The Amazing Race Asia Season 3 Episode 2 with the rest of my family in the living room.

Lemme digress a bit by saying, the teams in TARA 3 Episode 2 were in Ho Chi Minh City and I couldn’t help but interject each time I saw a place or a landmark that I’ve been before, and tell my mum exactly that, “I’ve been there before”. When the teams were visiting those familiar places completing various tasks, I was revisiting my own memories I had during the time I backpacked, projecting me and my backpacking partners, Gopi and Siew, there on the television screen – the memories of which I am unlikely to forget.

Anyway, Alvin and I went off to Shawn’s house to borrow the shot glasses from Yen as I thought Shawn wouldn’t be home that early from interning at Third Floor – but lo and behold when we got off from Alvin’s black Gen 2, and walked to the front gate of Shawn’s house, who should be there but Shawn arriving at exactly the same time as us in his car.

So I asked Shawn if he’d like to drink, coaxed him a bit when he said that he’s only a week away from his goal of not drinking for a month, and then he agreed and we went in. :D Andy who initially hesitated on drinking with both Alvin and me, came over, followed by Ding who needed much persuasion for some reason, and then Fangki. Yen joined us in the kitchen for a while, to cook and talk to us.

It was.. so completely spontaneous, because initially it was just going to be me and Alvin – but then it quickly expanded to 6 drinkers wtf. And so we took tequila shots mixed with 7-Up with salt and lime, and finished the remaining bottle of Bailey’s that Fangki brought, which for obvious reasons – because it’s a creamy liquor – I couldn’t consume.

The night went on with Alvin mostly telling us erm ‘bar stories’ hahahaha despite the fact he probably only met 2-3 of the rest for the first time (actually, I think it’s only Shawn) – even more hilarious when Yen earlier asked if Alvin’s my collegemate, and I answered, “No, Ding’s ex-collegemate” wtf. The notion that I was seeing Alvin more than Ding does was funny.

Anyway we wrapped it up at 2am, and left the place feeling slightly high as usual courtesy of the tequila.

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Ya know, I swear I am not destined to be a Maxis user. My port-out request under the MNP (Mobile Number Portability) from DiGi to Maxis has been failing me consistently that I am under the impression that I am meant to be a loyal DiGi customer after all. I am miffed, tired, frustrated, and disappointed – and lemme tell you the long tale why:

1. First went to the Maxis centre in Taipan two weeks ago, only to be told that I have to go to the Maxis centre in Pyramid to do the port-out. I did as I was told, and went to Pyramid’s Maxis when I happened to go there to collect and purchase my Across the Universe CD. On arriving there, I was told that they don’t do prepaid-to-postpaid porting yet, and that I have to wait till September 15th.

2. I went to the Maxis centre in Carrefour on September the 14th because my dad told me that it could be done there, when he enquired there the day before. It turned out to really be just a Maxis dealer, and the Chinese girl who was attending us was rude and told us false information that the MNP can be done there when in truth, it CANNOT until early October.

3. Went to Maxis Centre Pyramid on the 17th September, taking advantage of the fact that it was a public holiday in Selangor, thus my dad could come with me to do the porting, as I wanted to have a supplementary line under my dad, under the Family Plus plan. Submitted all our details etc.

4. Received two SMSes from DiGi and Maxis yesterday at about 11am, telling me that my port-out request has been unsuccessful. Went to Asia Cafe with Esther (we contacted each other via Plurk to meet up wtf, as neither of us could use our handphones to contact the other), bitched to her about my failed porting, then I called DiGi’s customer service (the lady on the other end was very polite) and then I was told that my name in the system doesn’t tally with what was requested by Maxis, as it was missing the letter ‘H’ in my name. The lady told me that I just needed to go to the nearest DiGi Centre and ask them to re-forward the request to port.

5. Went to DiGi Centre in Taipan to change my name in the system – Indian lady was slightly rude. I was then directed to Maxis Centre Pyramid to ‘forward the request’.

6. Then went all the way to Maxis Centre in Pyramid ONLY to be told I need to re-register all over again, thus I needed my dad with me (“according to my boss”). WTF. At this point, I was very, very pissed – but didn’t blast it on the poor Indian dude that was attending to me.

7. Went back to Maxis Centre at night with my dad to have it re-forwarded – and the weird part is, I didn’t have to re-register all over again as I was earlier told. What is this!! Then I was told that everything has been completed, the request had been forwarded, and my port-out should be completed by tomorrow (which is today, at the time of writing).

8. Received the similar “port-out is unsuccessful” SMSes at 4.29pm. Rang DiGi, who then told me to call Maxis, who then told me to wait as they’d call me back. They did, about 20-30 minutes later, and this patient Indian dude dealt with me as I told him the entire story again and he then said that he was pretty sure that my Maxis line is now active already as he could access my 016 number in his system. Which, when I tried to change my SIM card later.. I got a ‘SIM card error’ message. :/

And, oddly enough, my 016 number in Maxis is under my dad’s name, when it should be mine, which might’ve prompted the error SMSes. Which, would be the Maxis Centre Pyramid’s fault.

Next course of action: visit Maxis Centre again…......... for the millionth time. If this doesn’t work, screw porting to Maxis lah.

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I recently received a letter two days ago, a progress report of my sponsored child, Don, from Kapur, Thailand.

The cute little guy has grown up now. :) Attached with the report was a small drawing of a house with a Thailand flag on top of it, with his handwritten words: Please take care of yourself and your family. And I actually might put his photo on my shelf to serve as a pleasant reminder that I have a kid wtf.

It’s heart-warming to receive bits and pieces of news like this, like how his chores at home are cleaning, washing dishes, babysitting, watering plants, taking care of animals, and cooking, or how his GPA is between 1.00 – 1.99 wtf, and that he was being promoted to Grade 4 in his primary school.

My contribution isn’t much, but I sincerely hope it’ll actually make a difference in his life, even if I couldn’t be there physically to help him.

I returned from a mamak session yesterday at Tanjung feeling altogether sad, contemplative, and in a mish-mash of floating thoughts I didn’t know what to think. We met our old friend Fit, who was initially standing at the mamak waiting for his friends, but then he joined us for a long talk when we asked generic things like, “What are you doing now?”.

He talked for a long time, and for once, I noticed that we were all quiet and attentive and barely interrupted his grand emotive speech that came from his heart. His mother was mentioned a few times, but he didn’t look sad about it anymore – and he was thinner than before. Whatever that he said made me feel that we’re both so very similar that it’s almost scary – our flaws, our thoughts that I wouldn’t want to admit but he did – and it’s just that we ended up leading very different lives. Even as he mentioned about the good changes that he had only just begun to make in his life, I could already see it.

He later went off to join his friends, and came back later to continue his long tale that would have been suitable as an autobiography content in a book. Despite his usual cheerful demeanour, I couldn’t help but feel as if it was all a front – that he was trying to be cheerful to lift his own spirits and the people around him, but there’s a persistent aura of melancholy clinging to him tightly. His eyes looked tired, his eyebags large and noticeable.

When he told us he had to go, he shook hands with all 8 of us (Geok Leng, Sarah, Jon, Fang Chyuan, Andy, me, Shawn, Wai Hong), deliver the usual goodbyes, and he walked away. He walked a little ahead, then looked back and waved to us again, but none of us saw him did that except me, and I waved back, and he seemed to have missed seeing it. I don’t know why, but it was an incredibly sad scene for me – he told us he was learning to live life alone now, and I felt for him.

What he told us the entire night was incredibly mature and rational, and something that one could only say after one has been to hell and back. I wished I had said something encouraging back then, but I was at loss for words – all of us were. But I was a little glad too that he managed to find himself, that in this bleak world where everything seems to be heading towards its own doomsday, he is now the lone, mature wolf that I was trying to be.

Just returned from watching Mamma Mia! the movie with Yen – thanks for the free premiere tickets that she shared with me, I enjoyed every minute of it. :) Though the ‘premiere’ really isn’t anything special as we merely got to watch it earlier (legally) than the rest of the Malaysians, since this movie is a few months late here.

But anyhow! If you love listening to ABBA, you’ll find yourself singing to the brilliant golden oldies that sounded remarkably similar to the original – I know I did, I found my mouth lip-syncing to my favourite songs (which are a lot by the way) being presented in over-exaggerated dance sequences, which were all quite fun to watch and listen to.

Most of my favourite numbers were in it – tracklist include I Have a Dream; Mamma Mia (duh! and I love the scene accompanying this); Chiquitita; Super Trouper (my favourite song from ABBA actually :D); Money, Money, Money; Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man after Midnight); Lay All Your Love on Me; The Winner Takes It All; Dancing Queen (compulsory song I swear, I love the over-the-top scene for this song too); Voulez Vous; Waterloo; Thank You for the Music, and the list goes on. There were a couple of songs that weren’t familiar to me as it wasn’t in the ABBA Gold – Greatest Hits album that my parents bought nearly a decade ago for me, but they were nice to listen to. :)

I’m at loss as to what else to describe without revealing anything else – the plot was alright, and as it’s a musical, certainly seems a little unbelievable at many parts, but it was good all the same. Most of the songs managed to tie in nicely with the story, and this movie has many comical elements that I didn’t expect.

I have to compare this movie with Across the Universe, as it’s the only other musical that I’ve actually remembered watching (forgotten all about Moulin Rouge already, and I’m not too sure either if I’ve actually watched it from start to finish) – and I have to say, that I expected the songs in Mamma Mia to be revamped completely, because that’s what AtU had done. Mamma Mia however retained most of the original elements in their songs, which I wasn’t at all disappointed, and they all sounded absolutely melodious to listen to. Also watch out for the minor plot twist. :P

When the credits rolled with their final song, everyone started clapping (me included too wtf) – that should show you how we loved the movie. :P When the rest were standing up to prepare to leave, I thought it was an incredible experience to find so many people who like listening to ABBA gathered in a single place – they were singing/lip-syncing to the song too! I have to say this, and I’m afraid this is repeating what I had said in the past, but I’ve been teased and bullied for being an ABBA fan as a primary school kid, and it feels fantastic to be in a single room where nearly everyone else is a fan too. =) Screw trying to fit in wtf.

All I can offer is this – listening to ABBA’s songs again in this movie made me feel awfully nostalgic, there’s an air of familiarity with their hit singles that I feel happy listening to. The entire movie has been a fun thrilling ride, if you allow yourself to soak in with their songs, and I feel naively happy, hopeful, and simply excited when I watched most of the scenes with the songs. If you love ABBA, like watching musicals in general, or have a broad taste in music – you’ll enjoy this movie.

And Meryl Streep is such a good actress! And I thought Pierce Brosnan’s voice sounded a bit off singing the songs, but it could just be me.

I can’t wait for the actual musical that’s coming here to our shores this coming December, as reported by TheStar on its front page earlier yesterday (15th).

Seems like I’ve been listening to a lot of oldies lately – not that I’m complaining. :) Thanks to Jess who first rolled the ball when she first recommended Across the Universe (the movie) to me, that was partly because of Jim Sturgess who was in it wtf. And then it led me to being in love with the songs, and then made me explore The Beatles, which I wouldn’t have thought of doing before. And ahh now my love for ABBA has been rekindled. <3

And for a completely out of topic news, discovered yesterday that I got 27/30 for my Business Finance test. :))) That basically means 27% of my entire course – and hopefully I can score the finals next month.

As some of you may have glimpsed from my Plurk three days ago, I went to Wai Hong’s house on Friday night for his belated birthday party/potluck dinner. I walked over at nearly 8.30pm when WH told me on MSN that he just finished bathing and heard Shawn’s voice downstairs, and when I reached there, I found out there was only two of us guests lol. I thought Shawn would come together with the rest.

Anyway, we went upstairs to WH’s room and lepak for a while, then when Sarah and Esther arrived, we went to the kitchen to start.. feasting! We were quite hungry by then, and couldn’t wait anymore for these latecomers anymore.

(As usual, some pics below may be clickable to enlarge.)

Shawn and Sarah with Sarah’s 2 homemade pizzas (one of which was burnt lol). The non-burnt one was delicious (and a little spicy)!

Read on…

I had a Price Theory tutorial just a few hours ago, and halfway through it, our lecturer (who’s an Indian by the way) commented that the row of guys sitting behind are “truly Malaysians” as the Indian, Malay, and Chinese guys were sitting together (literally just the 3 of them). It’s not a one-off thing because they have been hanging out together with some other friends.

Long story short, when the lecturer brought this up, at one point, they poked jovially at one another, with the Indian guy pointing towards the Malay dude and shouted, “We’re immigrants!” and “Racists!”. Our entire class laughed – we were so at ease with having these harmless racial jokes (which would be a huge issue with the racial bigots), and I think that should be the way.

Our lecturer commented (way off-topic at this point, but what the heck, we could use a little bit of respite) that she considers herself to be a true Malaysian, because she thinks that she’s colour blind (not literally..) and does celebrate nearly every other festival with her friends – she commented that this Sunday would be the Mooncake/Tanglung Festival or something, and I’m embarrassed that I didn’t even know that. (At this point, the Indian guy asked, “So do you consider yourself as a Malay, Chinese, and Indian?”)

I feel as if there’s still hope in this country – even though it may be abysmally small – and I feel quite reassured. That despite everything that has happened, not everyone shares the same destructive views as Ahmad Ismail and certain quarters; and in youth, open-mindedness, and maturity, there is hope.

I was sitting alone on my own just now in my Quantitative Analysis lecture, the seat to the left of me vacant. I’ve never been one to be fully alert in the mornings, and was my usual sleepy self and placed my head on my outstretched arm on the table to take a short nap. When my lecturer arrived, I awoke again and saw that this Malay girl was looking towards my general direction (I was sitting to the bottom-left of her) and first addressed my name (I didn’t even know hers wtf), asked if anyone’s sitting next to me and if I’d mind if she sat there?

I mouthed and gestured sure, go ahead. For a while we didn’t talk whilst our lecturer continued teaching the topic of Financial Maths that was left hanging last week, and we copied down the projected notes vigorously. Occasionally we’d ask each other about certain mathematical questions, and that was all there was to talk between us.

But during the lecture evaluation period and a short break that was given, we got to know each other better – and I was finally putting my Malay to practice again (after having so many Malay best friends in my primary school days, and lower secondary), after its last proper usage was when I was in Laos and Thailand last December with Siew. Small talk was made, basic questions on our personal lives were asked (“You dulu belajar kat sekolah menengah yang mana ya?”) – I’m never big on socialising, but I was intrigued to want to know more about her. If there’s one thing about me about socialising that seems certain, it’s that if I perceive the other person to be not so intimidating, it’s easy to talk to said person nearly all the time.

So we talked. A lot. And I realised that this is my first time in years that I’m actually conversing with a peer of another race – a sad thought, innit, when we’re living in a purportedly multi-racial and multi-cultural country? My college is predominantly Chinese, and she was the only Malay girl in my class. I wanted to ask her if being in the minority makes her feel out of place, when quite a number of the students here converse in Mandarin, but I stopped short of asking that. I’m not too sure if it’s sensitive to ask, but common sense tells me that it isn’t a good question to ask when you’re getting to know someone for the first time.

She seemed nice, and fun to talk to actually – and she told me she was studying matrikulasi at this certain place (I forgot which it was already, and oh she’s 2 years older than me too) that was ‘ulu’ according to her. When her fellow students there found out that she’s from Subang, they were telling her, “Ohh orang sosial rupanyer” (I think ‘sosial’ is some slang of which I’m not too sure what it refers to exactly – haven’t been keeping myself up-to-date with Malay slangs), and whenever she seems a little too open-minded, they’d label her ‘sosial’. She laughed them off as being too ‘kampung’, but they’re very amusing to her.

All these while, no, I’ve yet to learn her name.

I wanted to ask her about the whole Ahmad Ismail fiasco and wondered what her thoughts were on the whole thumping of “Hidup Melayu!” hullabaloo in that Penang press conference. But I didn’t. I realised it was quite stupid to ask – it’s exactly the same thing isn’t it, if a Chinese leader were to cackle a fiery racial sentiment, and I’m asked what my thoughts are when I probably don’t share the same view?

Throughout history, men have been quarrelling, fighting, killing over race and religion. If “fucking idiotic” doesn’t quite describe it, I don’t know what else will. The very notion that the entire world is segregated and divided over the inherent and the unchangeable such as race (and I’ve not yet come to skin colour, religion, sexual preference, political affiliation, etc) is outright ridiculous.

Sigh. I resign to our fates. Humanity will continue to hate itself over its variations and individuality for time immemorial that I swear, one day we’d just bloody destroy ourselves with a single bomb of concentrated hatred – or with a ticking racial bomb. I don’t understand – I can never understand this.

But all I can understand is that there is a single truth: that bigots and hypocrites will continue to exist. And to that end, I am genuinely sad. Why do bigots exist, think the way that they do, say the things that they say?

But do you know what makes me happy? Looking at this:

A photo of a toy model of WALL-E looking outside the window, probably asking, “What’s beyond this world?”

I was actually intending to study last night, but I ended up spending most of my time exploring this amazing micro-blogging site called Plurk – where you let other people know what you’re doing, what you’re thinking/feeling, what you want to share, etc! (Sorta like those Facebook statuses, MSN personal messages etc, but waaay better I assure you.) I didn’t expect myself to be so completely drawn and addicted to it – there’s something about updating your life and checking others’ Plurks and responses real-time that’s so mesmerising.

Really, I wouldn’t have joined it if my other friends didn’t decide to jump onto the bandwagon as well when I told them about it. So far I managed to rope in Jon, Jess, Sarah, Tomoko, and Suet (peer pressure wtf). I know I was one of them skeptics, “Why waste my time over this?” wtf but it’s so addictive and fun when your own close friends (who are literally scattered everywhere) join in too. It’s like Twitter, if you’ve used it before, but light years better!

Click to enlarge! This is the amazing Timeline where you can scroll from left to right to view your friends’ (or fans’) Plurks. Plus you can even customise your own theme, and my current one was found on some free Plurk template group in Flickr. Even so, by default, their own template’s pretty nifty-looking, where you can customise its colours very easily.

You can even Plurk in other languages, or select specifically who you want your individual Plurks to be viewed, and much more! (No I’m not getting paid by Plurk for this.) I’m even more amazed when my friends are online at night, when the Plurk pace really picks up like mad and I ended up keying responses every few minutes there wtf. I was also going online earlier this evening through WiFi on my phone just to update my Plurk while I was in college.

My life now has further meaning wtf.

I realise now that we’re all getting very connected via the Web – there’s Facebook, and now there’s Plurk. There’s also MSN and Skype and god knows what other amazing inventions people are churning out these days. I think there’s no way I’m going to lose touch with my friends and family this way at all.

So yeah – if I know you, do join Plurk today! That link is a referral link that will earn me some semi-useless Karma, and you’re by all means not obligated to do so. Else, it’s cool to just follow what I’m doing and be a ‘fan’.

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And yeah, my Business Finance test I sat for earlier today was alright – the theory questions were undoubtedly tough, but the calculation parts were almost a breeze.

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I’ve been feeling pretty happy lately. Contented, or satisfied, would be the better word. Just listening to my Across the Universe album does that, or Plurk, or brushing up my Chinese and Japanese.

I’ve also discovered yesterday that the new HTC Touch Pro is now available locally! Amazing specs, 2.8” touch screen, built-in GPS & keyboard, accelerometer, cool iPhone-like interface – they’re what I’m really looking for in a phone, and Touch Pro fits the bill perfectly. (It used to be Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1, but they took too long to release it.) The price isn’t cheap, of course, but sigh – I’m not the type that changes his/her handphone every few months, but my current phone is already 1 year and 9 months old, and this phone is perfect enough to make me want to switch.

I write this feeling a little shitty (pun intended), with my arse a little sore having spent most of the day sitting on the toilet bowl expelling bowel contents, thanks to my diarrhoea that seemed to have been caused by eating Twisties at nearly 3am. (Yes, it does contain milk solids, which I’ve taken together with my Lactaid pill – but somehow I don’t know if that’s the cause of it as my diarrhoea felt pretty violent.)

Earlier in the afternoon at about 12pm plus, Shawn, Wai Hong, and I went to the new Pizza Uno shoplot still located at Taipan, but now three-storeys high. Looks pretty clean-cut, modern and all that, but somehow I prefer the old, cosy atmosphere that looked as if it has some classic Italian charm to it.

Fried mushrooms.

Read on…

I meant to blog yesterday, but my server had to be completely down for the entire day.. ah well.

I was also getting a little hypochondriac lately, worrying about things when I really.. shouldn’t. It’s really too easy to say things like “There’s nothing to worry about”, because believe me, I’ve tried telling myself that a million times but my mind kept wandering back to the same ol’ thing, and what would happen if that particular thing I was worrying about came true (choi wtf) and kept imagining myself in a dozen situations and much more and GOD I JUST WISH MY MIND WOULD STOP. Maybe I need a hypnosis session to bloody direct my mind to something else – and already right now, I’ve erected some mental barriers which I hope would bloody work.

But then!! Yesterday evening at about 4pm (when I was still in class) I received a phone call from the Fantasy music store in Pyramid, saying that my ordered CD had arrived! I was ecstatic. :D Happy :D Excited :D Gloriously high :D

The CD in question is: Read on…