Feeling: serene yet worried
Listening to : Drop It Like Its Hot - Snoop Dogg

Sorrryyyy for the long hiatus. The last coupla of weeks have been absolutely fuckin mental....

First off, there's the whole X-raya thing. After some delegation and stuff, i managed to pass control of caroling and raya songs to people who knew their shit, and i just had to take care of the script and the actors. After numerous rewrites, mental blocks and actor mods, the script is finally kinda solid, and just in time for X-Raya tonight. Hope all that shit goes down well.....

Week 9 and 10's gonna be beaatching as well. Got a coupla major courseworks due week 10, and a test on monday of that week itself. Seeing how time is juuust slipping through my fingers, and how notts games is gonna telan a whole saturday, i'm gonna seriously start workin like a mo'fucker. Oh yeah there's gonna be the last soul nation of term this friday as well. ...buwahaha.

Raya was just freakin surreal. I was soo geared up for raya to be on Sunday, so it was really really weird to find out on saturday morning itself that raya WAS on saturday .You'd think after 3 years here i'd learn. Didn't exactly rush either. After the odd distraction here and there, ended up in London late evening, at casa de Pinky for dinner.

The chaos isnt over yet - supposedly the raya makan at Malaysia hall was at 12.00 noon, as was stated at their website and their announcement to all UK msian societies. But then some people started saying that it was at 9.00am, then later said yeah it was at 12.00. When we got there at 12.00 most of the people i bumped into were already on the way back. Soooo saayang. Sigh. At least got some quite nice food. Later had a quick bite at Momo at selfridges with the Pinky household and scrambled off to join nadia back on an earlier train.... later that day also went to one of the posgrad students' open house on campus.

Yeah like i said last couple of weeks passing by like a blur......haha.....been missing fencing cos of x-raya rehearsals, so got no stress release, but definitely having fun otherwise. ( scratches neck in mirror) . Hope i really don't die of exhaustion by the end of week 10....Photos most probably to follow, and even maybe a long overdue rant or two once i manage to sit down and spout some crap.......till then, stay tuuuned!

Psych!!

Just the other day i was expressing my opinion that seeing the minute hand of an analog watch drawing near to the 12 had a more pressing sense of urgency than the numbers on a digital watch when it comes to being late for something. I guess the powers that be decided to have a little laugh with me based on that statement -

I had a lab at 11.00 am, so , like, i set my alarms for 10.30 in the morning. After going to sleep around 6-ish (okay didn't get THAT much work done) i woke up later, picked up a watch in a blur haze and saw that it was a quarter to. Not missing a beat i jumped outta bed, brushed my teeth and flew off to the lab - luckily they took attendance early on - suddenly i wasnt on the list for that slot, checked that i WAS on the 11.00 on my schedule, only THEN to finally look properly at my watch(analog , of course) and see that the little hour hand was at 9. Whoop-fuckin-eee.

About last week? I malas already la - dah semangat writeup ( okay, co-wrote) quite a hefty post covering all the crap that happened since my last post in detail, some error in mozilla took out everything. So here's a lazy-ass bullet point recap :
- Soul Nation , 2 fridays ago. Good
- Juinn's Halloween party the next day. Fun
- Lots of time wasting over the next week, including MSA stuff and really really random roaming about and a lot of staying up late for sahur, and staying up period.

Strangely short on boredom, free time as well. ( no, no one's complaining) AMazing how fast time is flying. Oh yeah - working at the Learning Grid is sweet! - nothing beats doing coursework on your laptop hooked up to a 42" plasma....(grunt grunt grunt) .

Hockay gotta run back for that lab now. Yes i double checked the clock.

Listening to : Josh Groban - Starry Starry Night
Feeling : Nostalgic, actual physical pain

I was just enjoying a quiet night in today after workin till 6am the day before on something i didn't even have to submit ( and because i cant really move much anyway after today's fencing) , when i decided to clean up my 250 gigger. I also updated my photo backups - and flipped through a couple albums. Hahaha - suddenly missed all you crazy Linstead people again - sigh . Thought of putting up some of those classic ones, but there were just too freakin many. (louder sigh)

Had our first proper MSA commitee meeting today. Apparently to warm up my bootsies for MNite i'm in charge alone of the Raya/Xmas celebration thing in 4 weeks - a quick 15 min skit, and the odd performance . Hope i can make sense of the random ideas in my head for the skit.

Another overdue update.....

Last week has been kinda busy, interesting AnD fun! Lets see...where to start -ooh how about a little rant to warm up. Jac, for the duration of the next rant you are a SINGAPOREAN, aight!

Freaking Hongkeys!!

Good god in heaven - what the fUcKiNG HELL is wrong with those people!!! All the hongkeys i've ever met through Oundle, Imperial and Warwick are outright utter abberations of human nature!! Seriously - they go all out to stand out - from fuckin annoying fake accents, dressing to the point where even vivienne westwood would even say " oh puh-lease dahling", dragonball hairstyles and whatnot. They are of course bitterly clannish, refuse to speak english unless its a life-or death thing and talk like they got loudhailers for nostrils and ALWAYS sit on the outer empty seat on buses and trains.

There are quite a few Warwick blogs ( all students are encourage to keep blogs on campus servers) that condemn their unwillingness to conform and the quality of their english, and a few of my M'sian friends have also noted icy 'cari pasal' stares of death from said hongkeys whenever they are seen with some of the pretty-ish hong-kong girls. They are also soo short on social graces - they chew like open wood mulchers, have halitosis that can melt a biohazard suit and they have no concept of what a queue is. wAArrgh - instead of spending their money on their oh-so tacky digs and LV and Gucci they should hire a whole army of finishing school instructors to whip them into passable humans. Jeez

Aaaah that felt good. Now we return to our regularly scheduled blogging... ( okay jac you can start reading again)

A Week In Words

Thursday - Pretty much relaxed day. Caught up with some Management and Manufacturing reading, and went to the International Society's HEAT event that night - arabic, salsa, greek, bhangra etc. Wasnt as fun as the last HeAT during orientation, but that was party because despite intense badgering, the only person Nadia and i could get to go was Taib. All the others bloody didnt come or FFK.

Friday - A helluva long day - was out from 1100 to 2300. Started out with another CAD lab, then lectures from 2-6 with one break in between. Then Taib and i had to go straight to meet up with the other fencers for the fencing social - all you can eat chinese in coventry. Pretty darned good for 12 pounds. Got back stupidly stuffed.

Saturday - Slept in, then lepak in Coventry with taib - he went to get a haircut, but ended up hair-cutless but with a new pair of shoes- hahaha. I just checked out the asian market there and got some stuff to cook dinner and instant noodles. Rained the whole bloody there tho. That night made thai sweet basil beef, sayur campur and rice for dinner - Wave, kiok sin, nadia and cheryl joined. Plans to meet up with some other jokers for drinks later didnt work out due to some ' communication ' problems - hee hee hee. Tesco was closed to so no one drank. Sadness.

Sunday - Woke up late the next day - just in time to get some 'work' done, and then went to the gym with Nadia. Suey like kok - the minute i left the hall it started raning like mad, and the second i got there it stopped. Ahh....forgot how shiok it was to bukak puasa with a nice swig of water when you're dying on the treadmill.....Cooked again that night ( baked pandan chicken - no oil - not nearly as pandan-ish) for the same party sans Kiok.

Monday - Kinda panicked when we all learnt that the Aesthetics of design coursework was due that day. Sommore couldn't finish it before 12 because of the Warwick MSA AGM. Luckily many ppl had problems with the online submission so i hope they'll be lenient with it. Finally - my knowledge of artists and designer products came in handy.

Also learnt about the AGM at the very last minute - went there just to see how it went. Had absolutely no intention of running for anything - until i saw that there was a post specially for running Mnite and their other cultural events the cultural officer. So on the spot i cooked up a bloody cock speech ( actually used only half of it) and i got the post! yay! I'm not gonna let the fact that it was 3 ppl running for 2 spots take away the glory but there - haha at least the other winner was last year's one who ran again. At least got someone to clean up after me! Semangatness!!!

Tuesday - normal-ish - got my new epee from leon paul(sweeeeet). Normal lectures, normal work . Can't wait to christen my epee tonight with some serious bruising!!!

Thats it for now.....the next week should also be fairly interesting, what with the first commitee meeting and Soul Nation on friday...yay

Feeling - tired but full
Listening to - Khia - Lick It Good

LUummpHAAR my procrastination is kicking in again - leaving behind some maths to the very last minute for my tutorial tomorrow. Oh well - at least its pretty doable calculus. And some stupid Excel skills thing i finished in a half hour. Supposed to start after my chinese takeaway and an episode of Samurai 7 but now i guess its after i finish blogging- hee hee hee...

The weekend was quite alright - made it to casa Pinky around 10-ish ( which was strangely overrun with slugs outside) . Aside from the normal silliness we just watched Zatoichi and White Chicks with a BK break in between.

The next day i amazingly managed to do all my essential shopping before noon - picked up the odd stationary and chocs at Selfridges ( gave the Mens dept a pass) and got some schweet new kit at Leon Paul - a pair of proper fencing shoes and a ganas Podznyakov saber( jealous ar jac?:)). Caught up with Darren, Fong May and her sis for lunch( didn't eat, of course) and then raided Harrods for some krispy kreme just in time for breaking my fast. Rounded off the day with a sweet japanese dinner with them too ( fINAlly ate at that hidden place at Picadilly Circus) .

Actually managed to leave early-ish the next day. Met up with (introducing)Nadia at Euston to catch a train back - would have left a little earlier if sOMeONe kept her wallet herself hmnn? Too shacked to do any work by the time i got back.

Normal boring monday. Normal boring TopB. Supposed to come early for the fencing session today for team tryouts for an away match on Weds , but because of the IMechE talk we had to go to i was kinda late and they'd already picked the sabre team by then. Wasnt a total loss though - out of the three they picked i beat two, and somehow i managed to give the third a cut under his glove. They'd better bloody well consider me for the next match then.....

And that pretty much sums up the last coupla of days. Too tired and too lacking time to be particularly funny or rant-ty. BtW guys if its rants you want, do check out marcus and roger's co-blog - haha wickedly bitchy for a site just ran by two guys!! ( no i'm not simply putting up the add - sure mati one...hahaha) . Till my next post.... i'll just leave you with the mental image of Tao singing the song i was listening to....

My back, my neck.....

Bleurgh - obviously, a whole day in the cold cold rain at Alton Towers yesterday didn't do much good. Woke up with headaches and a bitch of a sore throat - obviously felt fookin 'orrible. To top it off, my wisdom teeth have picked this moment to come out - praying like hell its gonna be pain and problem free.

Speaking of waking up, i was so dead tired after the day out and fencing too, that i slept through both my alarms. Luckily, i happened to open my eyes as the clock was at 8.55 - i had a 9.00 lab. Clocked a new record - from bed to lab in just about 6 minutes....... just threw on some random clothes and ran like fuck...luckily it was only a solidworks CAD lab, and i was wayy ahead on that particular assignment......

I guess i'll be coming down to London Friday night cos Leon Paul closes early on saturdays, and thats the main reason i'm coming down this time.....hmn....who to crash with ar?

Feelin - aching in places i never knew could ache ( body wise, not any syrupy wishy-washy emotional aches)
Listening to - Kanye West - Jesus Walks ( bum - bum - bum bumbumbum)

Hockay i have a lot of catching up to do again, so bear with me as i do this in my lazy-ass reverse chronological style again...



Adrenaline Overdose

Skipped a tutorial today ( yes i told my tutor in advance and YEs i did all the work) to go for the Warwick Msoc's day trip to Alton Towers. Schweet amusement park - mostly it was pants but they had some good roller coasters alongside all the normal fair-ish crap. Noteworthy mentions -

- The haunted house , where some pillock thought it'll be cool to convert into this laser tag-ish thingy - its like a normal rail ride through a haunted house, except you're busy shooting laser taggers at lights all over the place which is kinda stupid because you don't even notice any of the typical haunted house pop-ups and shit - like they'd actually scare you anyway. And you get points.
- Hex, where you sorta tour part of the old castle 'under restoration' , watch cheesy dramatization of the legend behind the 'curse' on the family who lived there, and end up in a room where they spin the seats and the whole ROOM in a tumble dryer style so that is seems like you're doing complete turns around the room.
- Air and Nemesis - vicious roller coasters - the first straps you in in a crawling position so its like you're flying, and the latter leaves your feet dangling, and its bloody fast and violent. We rode both twice.
- Oblivion - another roller coaster that only has one drop...but its a long vertical one....yeeks.

Despite it raining pretty much the whole damn day, we also got on a load of other rides and had oodles of fun.....

Got back just in time to go off for the fencing session. Beat the team's tresurer and drew with the captain at saber - go me! Need to get a new saber now tho - my blade's got more kinks and bends than a talmuddic jew's sideburns...which means..ANOTHER LONDON RUN!

On top of my game, so far!

Getting a little more into work this week. Had an actual workshop lab, and some math and concepts( mostly the physics and mechanics) work. Totally pimping at the CAD solidworks lab, and doin sweet on the circuit simulators as well. And i'm soo gonna own at the aesthetics of design module i'm taking - its basically the basics of a-level art again with a skosh of engineering considerations- i'll be needing some pretty specific art stuff which i cant find in bloody coventry, which is another excuse for a LONDON RUN!! Just hope i can keep this semangat-ness up. Ganbate!!!



Campus Nightlife?

After the first week, you pretty much know what to expect of the union, and realized that only like, its only worth going like once a week on certain nights, or sometimes two. If nothing else you can always chill at other peoples rooms.....or join hallmates and the fencing team drinking. Man i've got seriously crazy people in my hall....haha the last two drinking games i missed, when i got back one feller was crawling half naked on the floor and one feller was totally passed out in the common room. But they're quite a bit nicer than most of our Linsteadian hallmates.....

Alrighty i better go get some freakin sleep - bloody 9 am lab tomorrow. Night y'all - probably see you all again this weekend hmmn?

The vertical drop at Oblivion - this shot doesn't quite show you how long it really drops! 

Part of the happy M'sian crew at Alton Towers - Darren you'd love em - all but one are from Taylors! 

Feeling : Happy-ish, but dead tired
Listening to : Anuar Zain - Semua Untukmu

God I love that song - don't really know whether its the lyrics or the melody but i've been listening to it loads over the past couple of months. Funnily enough, i remember someone telling me that i looked kinda like him ( ages ago, before he presumably stopped cutting his hair and sold all his razors to raise money to make his recent album) . aaAAnd thats the bit of random Amar rambling for today..

Just got back from London and finally finished unloading and unpacking all my worldly posessions on this side of the world. Sorting and tidying up is an adventure for another day i say. Got into London around Saturday evening ( damned coventry buses and london tubes) , and took the 2200-ish train back Sunday. Lu and Yi Shan were nice enough to help out carrying the last shipment of my effects from Gloucester to Euston station.

Quick summary of the fun-fun adventures over the weekend :
- Hiccuped right through from friday morning until sunday afternoon. Whoever put that bloody curse on me better own up - i have my eye on you Naruto fans....
- Got ushered into the kitchen to help cook dinner as soon as i arrived at Casa de Pinky. Hospitality.
- Scared Vivian by leaping out of the closet in their room. Fuckin classic.
- Sibuk-sibuk a bit at IC's international fresher's lunch-thing. Didn't actually eat lunch though.
- Had lunch with the big D and the F to the M at Ikkyusan, Chinatown.
- Had dinner with Lionel, Charl, Yi Shan and Lu at Nandos while the others went to Four Seasons

Feeling : overly smug with myself
Listening to : Terror Squad - Lean back

I guess i should be living in fear right now. Had such a good time at Soul Nation on friday night i'm bound to have some major bad luck coming my way if my karma is still how it is. Waay better than the orientation thingy last week. Music was not as good, but its alll in the company innit?;) Tried to get drunk again. Still failed after a snakebite, a smirnoff, tequila, 2 aftershocks and a coupla other random drinks. Oh well - i have more fun dancing sober anyway aiiii?

First week here wasnt so bad. Being the repentant little boy i went to every single lecture and seminar no matter how boring or irrelevant it was. Got a little headstart on the reading and assignments too. Still no course material covered in the lectures yet though. Think i'm gonna like how the course is laid out.

Of course, my parents also wont bloody quit about telling me to mix with the locals too, so i did. Buwahahaha showed 'em a thing or two - had really fun drinking games Monday night. Gotta teach you this one game called '21' . Some really nice, fun people in my hall. Feeling less and less devoted to the idea of moving out.

Sides that also attended the teams fencing session. Bole la....but my legs hurt like fuckin hell after that - serves me right to leave them on the freakin couch over the whole of summer. They still hurt today, but i somehow made do at the union. No doubt they'll still protest when i haul them off to london Saturday for a final stuff run. Hahaha i'm counting on you guys to kick me out by saturday night....pleasse?

Well thassit i guess. Sorry for the curt, short update. Its almost 4 am and i AM fuckin tired. See y'all later...

LuMphAAARR!!

MAN my run of bad luck never ends. Just today when i was getting my uni card done - getting my photo taken and the card printed on the spot - the whole school network went down just as i got my photo taken. A freakin hour of waiting for nothing. Gotta go again to the panorama room tomorrow lor...

The delay in my student number also extended to a delay in processing me thru on the engineering department - my name wasnt on the list yet, and i'm still waiting for my timetable and tutorial group. After i went to the UG office to check it out, they were also about to enter me on the records when the network went down.

Seriously - this is getting a bit too far maaan.....did i step over someone's grave or something?

Man its gonna take me a while to get freakin used to freakin westwood. Its freakin far, and everytime i come back a different way i get lost within the westwood campus itself. Oh well - fingers crossed on that transfer.

aaAalrighty then ...

I meant to post last thursday because i was in SUCH a good mood - explanation to follow - but then a chain of events started, further extending my ridiculously good run of bad luck . Here's a quick breakdown of what happened

Saturday - flew into London with my dad
Monday - Stayed over at Coventry
Tuesday - Signed up for the orientation program, dad buggered off to london for meetings
Weds, Thurs - fun fun fun on the orientation program
Friday - went down to London - met up with Darren, Fong May,Lim, Lu and Jac. Stayed over.
Saturday - Still in London. Stayed over again
Sunday - Made it back to campus

Now to fill in the gaps....

Of course, being in close proximity to my father for extended periods of time, especially travel, can be highly stressful- nuff said about the first coupla days then. When i got to the orientation registration, i still didn't have a student number because the UCAS clearing info hasn't gone through yet. I was given keys to Claycroft, a nice hall near the center campus, and i was told it was gonna be a permanent fix but the paperwork comes later because i wasn't on the system officially yet. I later found out that i'd get my student number the next day, so i can enrol online in time to make the actual enrolment friday ( you had to enter your details online first) .

soooo i proceeded to participate in the orientation program. Malaysian # 1 - a cempakan junior who somehow recognized me - shivers. Malaysian # 2 - a random postgrad. Then it picked up - a whole whack of people from Taylors and many others too. Of course, there were the international students too. A buttload of exchange students from Eastern Europe and Germany especially, and India Indians who spoke better english than the local indians. Amusing reminder of IC - a bruneian called Lu ( Lutfi) and another German Kristina.

The programme basically consists of meals around campus, tours , speeches and parties at night in a massive marquis with performances like salsa, african drums and the like. There was also a tour of Stratford-on-Avon ( Couldn't get on the Oxford one cause it was overbooked and i was late because i forgot my ticket) . The really fun bit was the International Society's clubbing do at the union on thursday - loads of great music ( well by my account anyway) - arabic, bhangra, latin american etc etc. Let's just say i made up for the last few months of really bad clubbing aaaAAiiii! Haha some people thought i actually had dance training. Kembang giler!!

After my legs cannot tahan anymore i wernt back la - i was just about to blog after checking my mail when i got an email confirming that the accoms office had made a mistake - i was actually in another hall - catered with horrible food and the furthest from the main campus. cOCKS. So the next day i had to move out to the other hall -

Problem 1 - i had already stocked up on food for the next week
Problem 2 - the accoms office couldn't get me any transport that day

After a couple of hours of suffering i finally managed to shuttle everything over and i joined a couple of the guys in Coventry before bouncing off to London to see the jokers up there and pick up some of my stuff. I was ready to crash for the night - got a quick overnight bag but i ended up staying till sunday because of rail works on the Euston -Coventry route. At least i didn't have to come back again Sunday cos only then we could get access to Ee wen's place.

After repacking and resorting my stuff i got on the train back carrying bout 70-80 kg of my stuff. Needless to say, i was in pain by the time i got back to Westwood. Furthermore, i missed some little orientation things on the weekend, and also a hall meeting earlier today - haven't met too many of my hallmates as most of them came over the weekend. Got some major socializing to catch up on.

Amar's Bad Luck Checklist

Lets see what hit me in the last couple of weeks -
1. The whole visa fracas
2. The major fuckup by the Warwick accoms office
3. Despite informing the bank in advance of my address change, my bank card still got swallowed
4. had to go mangy for the weekend because of the totally random railworks.
5. umm.........cannot remember.....
6. I seriously swear there were 6.....just a bit tired to remember now.

There had better be a whole fuckload of good karma coming my way. If i semangat i post some photos soon from the orientation. Till then i'll just brace myself for the next wave of bad luck.

Bonjour mes amis, comment ca va?

Its been a mildly interesting week. Boring ass weekend though. Most of the outings we planned for friday and the weekend never happened to i was stuck with my parents again. arrRRGh.

Saturday - a boring boring blur

Sunday - foolishly remarked about my not playing golf for a long time in the prescence of my dad. Got hauled off to RSGC - luckily it has been raining like, every other afternoon so we were stuck at the driving range. 300 balls and a square metre of divots later i was sooooo bored. Despite slicing , topping and hooking half my shots i still outdrove my dad. yay. Food at the club worse than ever.

Monday - dinner out with parents, followed by more freakin dota later.

Tuesday - the real fun begins. Went to VFS to check up on my still pending visa after a week. Couldnt call because the lines were seriously impenetrable, and the high commision didnt take calls on visa matters. Waited for 3 hours to find out thats its still pending, no other explanation. Fired off emails to VFS and the high commission .

Wednesday - got a reply from someone at the high comm. Apparently they told VFS on monday to contact me and ask for my original unconditional offer. Funnily enough, the officer i dealt with last week said that the copy was fine and they didnt want my original. Yet when i went on tuesday they didnt say anything about that. Obviously i was rather pissed. A few assertive phone calls and emails later and the high comm agreed to let me bypass VFS and deal with them directly. Went down to the high comm and dropped off my offer letter.

Man i swear British immigration must have some personal vendetta against me. I hope some guy goes postal at the tiny VFS office and hoots the fucktard officer who handled my case. If they don't get this done by friday, there's no point in even just picking up my passport to make the flight because they dont issue student visas in the UK anymore - you cant even apply at the immigration place in east croydon like i did last year ( 12 hours, 250 pounds and the bitch gave me just one year) . Judging by my current luck i better write in advance to the bank so the don't swallow my bank card when i use it after 3 months of silence like last year.....

On another note, after reading charl's account of the IC freshers thingy, i suddenly remembered again how much i'm gonna miss all you crazy hall people. I'll be definitely swinging by london now and then to catch up - I'm sure going down from warwick to london will be a helluva lot easier than going down from KL-singapore with my frickin parents watching my back.

For now, i guess i'll just scream at more paper-pushing syncophants over the phone and get a head start on my packing. Fingers crossed on my visa!

ps. - will somebody help me get that freakin Franz Ferdinand 'matinee' song outta my head?

Lo and behold, i have returned!

Where have i been for the past month or so? Well pretty much in and out of home. Whenever i get online it isnt for much except to do mail and read comics so i never bother to turn on MSN either - what more to sit down and blog. Apologies to you, my loyal readers/really bored people. Still kinda on hermit mode when it comes to checkin up on friends who arent in town - sorry IC people!

Lotsa little things to recap over the last month - so lets start with the important ones first:


The big stuff..

After goin through a messy coupla of weeks sniffing out places for clearing, i managed to get a place doing Mech Eng in Warwick. I got offers from Kings and Queens in London, but after ages of weighing the pros, cons and merits of each decision i settled on Warwick . Man...i'm gonna miss soo many things in London, especially you crazy IC people - don't worry though i AM gonna swing by every now and then. As for the status of my scholarship , its pretty much a " keep in view" case over the next year - corporate talk for "see how first". I'm flying off on the 18th to catch the orientation programme.

Well thats pretty much the ONLY important thing.......

A month, in bullet points

- Too much Dota. Dota Dota Dota. Seriously guys is there nothing else?

- Darren, Lionel and Fong May came down for a coupla days. Lotsa fun. Haha FM you didn't think i'd forget about your quote of the day hmnn?

" I didn't come today with a sign that says 'poke me'"

Don't ask....

- Cooked dinner twice for the dota gang back home - an arabic dinner ( lamb tagine, grilled chicken on hummous, briyani-ish rice and tabbouleh salad) and a crap spanish dinner ( soggy Paella, bad gazpacho and tortilla y fritatas- NO it wasnt telor goreng with potatoes) . Apparently Adrian was the only casualty after some "results" from the paella.

- Caught AvP. Great for a typical summer flick - thumbs up on the viscera but hideous plot and character development. The silliest part has gotta be when.... SPOILER......the only human survivor casually teams up with the predator. At the moment, cant remember what other movies i've seen...

- Made to play secretary to my dad for a coupla days. Since i had to tag along to settle my bank account, flight ticket and Warwick stuff with MABECS here he made me do a whole shitload of other admin stuff for him too.More on this in the section to come..

- Applied for my student visa the other day at the new UK visa center at Wisma MCA. Tiny place, bad service - people were being turned away for little things like not cutting off the borders on their photos and stuff. I myself had to get my photo redone and come back later as they stricly needed photos with a white background.

- Of course, more Dota. A pox on you , Blizzard!

Back to good 'ol ranting and the like...

A particularly stressful period was when my dad made me follow him around running errands. Long term exposure to his habit of narrating everything and saying redundant things can be bad for your blood pressure along with his insistence of doing everything his own convoluted, archaic way. Among my oh-so interesting jobs was syncing up stuff from his secretary's computer with his computer. For some reason, while i was away he got a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with a 128 meg GeForce and a gig of ram, an ultraportable Fujitsu Lifebook and an HP iPaq PDA. All were pretty much in mint condition except for being taken out of the box and moved around. Big, pretty paperweights. RrARRRgh. At least i might "commandeer" the iPaQ after he forgets about it. Eeexcellent.

I'm sure at least a coupla of ya have heard of Jojo - an upcoming 13 year old (!!!!) R&B songstress. Not only is her voice quite the powerful but she's pretty...ermm...developed for a 13 year old. Short of sounding like a freakin pedo ( FiNE Alex, at least Emma Watson's almost legal) she could really be worth watchin out for in the next coupla years.....

Aside from sharing laughs with my mother over evil, inappropiate things, and my aunty still going "pray pray pray" like a broken record, i pretty much can't wait to get away from home again. Once i get back to some quality online time i'll get with updating my photos page and spiffin up this page - probably gonna play around more with the colours and formatting on the entries. Till the next time i actually blog, keep it tight, homies!

13? You gotta be kidding..... 

Thar he blows - off the starboard yarn! Arrr!!

Sor-or-or-heee for being off radar for like, almost a month. ( Whoa, randomness - serious deja vu). Well i was away for quite a coupla days off to my other hometown, but i've been languishing away at home most of the time besides the cybercafe trips(gettin really boring) and the odd movie. Saw I, Robot ( not too bad at all) House of Flying Daggers ( typical kung fu flick ) , Mean Girls( hilarious), King Arthur( mediocre) .

Not having too much fun on nights out due to a random 12pm curfew by my parents ( thanks to the Darren Kang case and some other random shit) . Otherwise i've been reorganizing pretty much anything in the house i can lay my hands on. Strangely reticent to go online, much less start up MSN or even blog. Why you ask?

Like a ton of bricks, one by one on the ballss

Yup its my results. Even after expecting the worst it kinda hit me hard. In a nutshell, managed to scrounge a clean pass score-wise, but failed programming hideously, and logic too. Could have sworn i did better on at least a few of the theory papers. Funny thing is, programming is the only thing you cant fail or retake. Needless to say i definitely wont be going to second year computingat IC. As of press time, im still trying to smooth over a course change and also deal with Petronas about it. Possibility of staying in IC's kinda grim at present, so i'm also liasing with some other unis with possibilty of another place.

Needless to say all this is taking a heavy toll on my stress , sanity and ...well everything. Luckily all the drama in my house was confined to just a few days - my father himself failed his medics a coupla times ( ended up with an agric. degree) but my mom's another story. All the emailing and waiting aside, i havent been sleeping well at all and my eating patterns are totally off whack. If it werent for the odd hours out with friends i would have totally gone mental.

Thats about it. Lets not talk anymore about that - anyone who raises this issue to my face will lose a kidney or two sooner than he or she can say "hey at least then its lucky that you havent signed any lease contracts yet". Obviously this covers any sanctimonious "i told you so's" , any sentiments of pity or any patronizing. I'm already lost enough hair( brushes more off his keyboard) thinking about what went wrong, post mortems and shit. I will get through this. I will redeem my honor. ( amar ululates) .

On the flipside, lookin forward to see you guys from down south this weekend! I'll see if i can get my curfew revoked for a while....

Of Sneezes and Saffron, part II

The minute my dad and i arrived Wednesday afternoon i was put to work by my aunty - joined my cousins who were running around like drones waitering and helping out in the kitchen. Never ending flow of relatives and well-wishers coming in all day - most of which hardly missed a beat to pay their respects to go straight to the food. Imagine waiting on hordes and hordes of seriously kampong people, dressed all in black when its 40+ celcius outside.To top it off, not many of them spoke english OR malay.. This went on through the night and until lunch the next day.

After lunch and another barrage of ceremonies the next day, our entourage brought her to the temple for final prayers at the crematorium. FInally had some rest after that. THe next morning at the temple when we picked up the ashes we had a lunch for the immediate family at the temple. Just as luck would have it, that was some special monthly day or of worship where people come over to the temple and offer food to the priests for blessings. Needless to say there were lots of random kampong moochers at our lunch in the main temple dining hall - some of them even packed our food to go. Started the drive home around 3-ish - parents made me drive. Boring ass-4 hour drive on the highway.

Idle hands are the devil's workshop

Next couple of days were pre-tty boring asides from a coupla friends coming over and the odd cybercafe/supper sessions- and of course the odd 1-meal a day binges- i don't think i'll be eating Nandos again for a while after scarfing a whole Peri Platter ( 1 chicken, 3 sides and a salad) all by myself at lunch with my parents Saturday. My capacity for gorging has fully returned, but then i'll be full for the next day or so...

Some of the more notable acts of boredom include:
-Sharpening everything with a blade in the house
-Spear-fishing( with a sharpened broomstick) for rats behind the house at dusk - caught one!
-Reorganizing all upstairs bookshelves.
-Putting sharpened sickles and parangs to use - some cosmetic gardenwork

Time for another overdue update between sleeping and Blogger being down...

Part 1 : Of Sneezes and Saffron

The four of us drove down to my grandma's place on friday ( 2 July) . Quite a few of my aunts and uncles were already there. Not only was it sERRIOUSly hot, there was no water in that area of the state as well - and as expected, hardcore sneeze attacks came along pretty soon cos of all the dust and mangy dirty cats around the place. Unpleasant. Boring too as none of my cousins were there yet. At least caught up on some proper Thai food.

1 day short of being completely bedbound and semi-comatose for an entire year, my maternal grandmother passed away around 1.30 am sunday morning. Almost everyone stayed up well into the next day helping with the planning for the numerous ceremonies to come. By noon busloads more of relatives, a small procession stage, tents and monks in many many shades of orange had appeared. After some last rites/blessings thingy ran by a coupla priests and a "specialist" involving most of the family she was put into a coffin and put up under the shade outside in a typical lying-in state arrangement after being injected with formaldehyde. THe formaldehyde will probably come in handy as the numerologists later decided that she would be cremated the coming Thursday after a 3 day wake and a couple more ceremonies.

Hence, in an uncharacteristically merciful act my mom let my dad and i fly home sunday night so we wouldn't get in the way of all the arrangements and rituals aANd because the house was kinda packed too. We'd be flying back in wednesday afternoon for another ceremony before the cremation and another bunch of ceremonies. Hopefully driving back friday.

A merciful release for my grandmother - she had been suffering from crippling athritis, rheumatism and the like for the last 11 years to the point of near total incapacitation.

Part 2 : Banana Leaf Madness

On monday, managed to meet up with charlotte, lionel and soha. Started with the first two dropping by my house to wait for soha to finish teaching at BBBS. Ended up with them staying for 2 hours-ish and laughing at my old photos. Poppycock. Later picked up Soha and at at a banana leaf place somewhere near UM. Went mental to the point of being full for the next 24 hours. Nasty, nasty things must have went on in my stomach. After that we just dropped soha off and chilled at casa de kinky until they were nice enough to agree to a drink at 1 Utama so i could scamper off later and meet my dad for a 9.30 show that he preemptively booked me for almost a week ago- Spider Man 2. It was quite okay...about as good as the first.

Part 3: C'mon, something other than Warcraft?

Spent the better part of the morning clearing out my room of junk , reorganizing the upstairs bookshelves and redoing the mess of wiring in my room. Later had dinner at 1 utama with zkerng and we joined the guys ( more like got there first) at silver surfer for a much missed cybercafe warcraft marathon. There was like..10 of us - total all out swearing, cursing madnesssss. Got slighty less hectic with the pussy hero map. Played like , from 10 to 2 and then had our customary post-mortem discussion at the mamak followed by cocktalking and reminiscing. Nobody was really eager to drive back cos it was raining like cock. Oh yeah - speaking of driving - first time i drove out of BU since LAST summer. Didn't bang anything or get lost in the rain- go me!

Still waiting with baited breath for the e-mail or snail mail that'll say that i either need to resit a paper or two, or god forbid, completely failed my bitch of a course. Those were supposed to be passed out from the 2nd onwards - well its already the 7th, so i'm still keepin my fingers crossed. If i don't get it next week i'm calling anyway to make sure they didn't screw up my address....haha i'd be completely over the moon if i don't hear anything from them till the end of the month which means i passed clean.....i can only hope....

Ahh.. realized how i missed my mother's dulcet voice when she issues orders and imperatives( 99% when she opens her mouth) to my father and i. bleurgh.

The next whole weekend hangus - got dragged back to visit my bed-ridden grandmother - she has been bed -ridden for the last like, 4 years. God forbid that she actually passes away anytime soon, then i'd have to stay even longer - thai funeral rites are apparently rather long. Sorry if that sounds insensitive. I just don't like how my mother drops her orders - yes i KnooWWW all mothers are like that, but i'd probably have both sides of the family behind me if i say that she's more than a little pushy. Hope i don't miss too much lepak/gambling/eating/clubbing time. It is after all MY holiday, dammit.

Speaking of clubbing, a coupla of us checked out the new Zouk in kl. We went on thursday, which was " Ghetto Heaven" and also ladies night. NOt only was there far more quantity than quality, there were also LOaaDDS of mat kampong and mat motors and other random mats trying to show off their rather dubious "moves". Dance floor was packed as hell, but the music was good and the drinks were not too expensive.

Played badminton the other day too. Amazingly played a bit better than on the odd occasion i did back in London. Must be the weather or something. Still feeling the pain today - aching grip and leg pains - those 'clicks' and 'clacks' in my legs during the game can't have been beneficial...

Anyways, hope the weekend rolls over with no incident( if anyone sees the Reaper, try and invite him to yum cha or something). Lookin forward to good ol' gambling sessions and all the cursing over cybercafe Warcraft....