Entry 31: New Year with Strangers..

It's finally 2010, and how do I feel? It feels just like any other year. Any new year's resolutions? Hmm... didn't make any, because I'm not at Balin with a balloon and marker pen, counting down to the new year... That was a year ago..

Had new year's eve dinner with 2 complete strangers whom my dad met on the plane on the way back from Brisbane to Brunei to KK. Long story short, while driving down the road, my dad saw them, then decided to invite them for dinner. This was all spontaneous by the way. My uncle and auntie and cousin came for dinner, then was surprised by the 2 caucasions sitting at the dining table, because my mom didn't tell them. Sometimes people just do random things...

Blond hair = Angela, the other is Ronda ( I think.. can't remember..) They're both psychologist..

There's supposed to be a third one, named Lisa, but she got sick because she drank too much wine in the afternoon, so she stayed in the hotel.

Dinner was nice, cheese chicken and olio. Then after that we went out with friends, chatted until 2010, then came back home. What to do, getting old already.. 18 la! My friend was saying he felt old, because soon we would be getting our degrees (God willing), then we are truly old (in the eyes of teens). But as long as we remain young at heart, I'm sure it's fine. :)

This year, all my friends are going their separate ways, when I come back for the holiday's they won't be here. But I'll probably still come back anyway, nothing beats home. Maybe a 6-star hotel but that's out of the question.. xD

I seem to be losing my blogging interest, maybe when something interesting crops up, for now, it's plain ol' life and I'm enjoying every moment of it! A creature of habit? Maybe so... Oh well, happy new year to all of you who are reading this! Hope you fulfilled 09's resolutions and may you fulfill your 10's resolutions!

Entry 30: Ugghh, so hot.. :(

Hello mates! I'm currently in Brisbane, Australia. And you wanna know what I think? IT IS HOT! It's summer now in OZ, that means that the weather is hot and dry. To top it all off, there's no AC in my apartment. T-T So it's fans and more fans, except in the malls. Which is why we spend most of our time at shopping malls.. for now.

So far, the holiday is pretty much gastronomically orientated. However, food is also very expensive.. I haven't bought anything non-edible yet... again... Haha...

Still a long way to go till my brother's graduation, then after that maybe we'll go to some other part of Down-Under. Right now, it's Brisbane, which is pretty much okay, I guess...

Ernty 29: Lsat wkee wsa aewwwsommmeee!!?

From the 22nd to the 29th of November, 20 people from our class in high school participated in what we call our "Class Trip". Basically, its just us shopping and hanging out together. Why you may ask? Well, next year, since most of them have already graduated from high school, they'll be going their seperate ways whether it may be university or foundation or equivalent. So this is like the last time the MAJORITY of us get to hang out TOGETHER.

First up, we stayed at KL plaza, which just so happens to be across the street from Pavilion. I arrived there differently from the rest of my ex-classmates because I was already in KL. So, I had late lunch (3pm-ish) at Pavilion then met up with them outside KL plaza at 4pm plus. We unloaded, then headed back to Pavilion again, but to shop! Not eat! I didn't buy anything though..

Another thing, there are 20 of us renting 1 apartment, and only 6 are allowed per apartment, so we had to go up in "waves" so that we don't get caught. Which meant that we also had to leave in "waves". There was also only 1 key, so it was of course given to the people who wanted to retire the earliest for the day. It was a wee-bit troublesome but otherwise still manageable.

They already had their Christmas decorations out! :O Somehow some people manage to want to go Pavilion for every night we were staying in KL Plaza. :S Even after visiting KLCC, Midvalley etc..

After a few hours of shopping, I was tired. So me and a few friends decided to go back and start bathing. That's when one of the most major problems started to show. Question: "If there were 20 of us, and 1 bathroom..." and you get the rest. I think it takes around 3 hours for all of us to finish bathing. Okay, maybe 2. But don't forget that girls take longer time to shower, and in between people need to use the toilet for "small business".

The first night was Ng San Teck's (a.k.a Monk), so it was time for a little celebration. ;) He is 18 already! He's hidden in the photo, but I'll point him out later.

Our little celebration, so different from the ones in KY and KR (according to YK).

Next up is Genting Highlands! If I'm not mistaken we woke up at 4.30am because it takes a freaaaaakkkiiinnnggg long time for everyone to get ready. We wanted to catch the 8am bus from KL Central to Genting so we can spend more time at the theme park. We left a bit late and hence could not make it in time to catch the 8am bus, and the next one is 9am. So we took a cab from KL plaza to Pudu and managed to grab the 8.30am bus to Genting. It was a lucky day, because we managed to buy the last 20 tickets for the 8.30am bus. :D

After arriving, we took the super-duper long cable car (approx. 15 mins), arrived on top, checked in, had lunch, then it was off to the theme park! The first thing we saw was these 2 taking what I presume to be their wedding photos or whatever you call them..

Awwww....

It was also very very very foggy that day, which meant it was nice and cool albeit humid. The worst of the fog limiting vision to 10 feet.

Not the worst of the fog. But you get the idea..

I was quite afraid of roller coasters and that sort, but my friends convinced me to ride it. And I did. First up was the CorkScrew! No pictures sorry, and boy was it adrenaline pumping! It was a 1 hour wait, but at least I had some fun!

Next up is the RocketShip or something along that line. This is worse! A lot more worse-er! Free fall anyone?

*Please recite in a high pitched, shrilled and very scared voice*
Stage 1: *Looks down* OH S**T, IT'S SO HIGH! DUDE!! LOOK DOWN!!

Stage 2: *Looks into the distance and back down again* HOLY S**T!! NOT YET STOP YET! HOOOOLLLYYY S**T!! (Friend's screaming as well)

Stage 3: *Still looking down* OII! S**T MAN! NOT YET STOP MAN!! S******T!!

Stage 4: OH S**T! STOPPED ALREADY! (Someone shouts start the countdown, because once it reached the top, 10 seconds later it will fall) OH S**T OH S**T OH S**T OH S**T (too scared to look at my watch) OH S**T SHH*****TTT SH*********T SHHHHHHH*************** (to be continued..)

The transition from stage 4 to 5 is when the thing falls.

Stage 5: (..continueing) ***************TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! (No more voice from screaming too much)

My opinion? EXHILIRATING! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!

For your reference. :)

There are a lot of things to do there, eg archery, rock climbing, arcade etc. I particularly wanted to try the wind tunnel but nobody else wanted to try because you had to pay $. :(

Archery anyone? I didn't play though, I was at another place when my other friends played. :(

Next up was bumper, wait for it... boats! Yes! Boats on water! This is by-far the longest wait for any one ride we had to experience. 1.5 hours of waiting for 10 minutes of evil bumping and gang-banging.

Our objective? Bang Monk into a corner using the bumper boats. It was what.. 9 against 1? >:D Controlling the boats isn't easy though, I was stuck at one corner for awhile.. D:

Target area.

Target.

And the outcome? Mission accomplished! Not only did we manage to bang him into that specific corner, I also got him wet! Hahaha! Somehow one of my many collisions resulted in a directional splash towards him. >:D

After that, we went back to the hotel for dinner. Along the walkway to our hotel room, we could see this. Too bad it was foggy..

Petronas Twin Tower and KL Tower.

A close up.

That night, it was under-21 activity at the... ARCADE! The casino is only for those 21 and above. :( My friends managed to master the machine and managed to win sooo many tickets. The largest streak was 4 jackpots in a row! We carried the coupons around like it was a huge wad of cash. Hahaha!

Catch of the day! I think that is 2k+ coupons..

We played awhile more the next day before we returned back to KL. We exchanged the coupons for gifts later, which was key chains and slinky springs. Which we misused later as you will see.

Eat faster! =x We're on a tigh schedule here! (The bus leaves in 30 minutes..)

The tally.

Someone joked about winning the game until the coupon chain is long enough to be fed directly from the machine into the ticket eater. Jackpot = 300 tickets, it comes out 1 at a time so you can still win the 2nd jackpot before it finishes the 300 countdown from the first win, which then stacks up on the previous count. LOL!

From here, across the walkway, blocking everyone, to here.
(Machine) -------------------------------------------------------------(Ticket eater)

coupons stretching the entire way

Okay, back to our misuse of the slinky spring(S). Someone had a crazy idea of attaching it to the fan in the apartment, and so we did.

Still haven't bought anything non-edible at this point..

It rotated around the vertical line whilst the fan was turning, and remained constant at the horizontal. Which allowed my friend to stay his head with relative safety.

Then, another friend says: Hey! Let's attach 3! And so we did...

3 slinky springs coming right up!

Spin baby spin!

And... it got tangled up...

Talk about a bad hair day.. What a mess.. Such a waste of money to play the machine to get the tickets to change for gifts.. =x

And the rest of the time? It was hanging out, chatting, shopping, getting tipsy =x, so there isn't any point in taking pictures. I'm sure anybody will get bored reading a minute by minute report of the trip. Still haven't bought anything at this point.. Okay, maybe I can exclude shopping..

I didn't manage to buy anything that was non-edible until the last 3 days. End result? 1 t-shirt, and 2 collared t-shirts. Splashed a lot on food, a lot...

I'd like to say thanks to all those involved in pre-planning the trip. I know it wasn't easy and there were small kinks here and there, but it was overall a very very enjoyable week. Thanks yeah! :D

Entry 28: A Little Update

So far so good, I guess.. There were and still are a bit of kinks here and there, but otherwise everything can be said to be pretty smooth. I'll elaborate on the kinks later. Staying in KL Plaza puts us directly across the street from Pavillion, not the cheapest place to shop, or eat. But at least there's a shopping mall across street!

Food in Bukit Bintang sure isn't cheap, even for road side stalls. A plate of ochien for 2 ppl costs RM12, a glass of water 80sens, a plate of hokkien mee for 1 person RM7. That's the hawker's food price in Starhill.

As for Genting, it gets worse. It's so @&#^&* expensive! Luckily we have enough money to feed ourselves. The rides at the theme park were pretty adrenaline pumping. I'll elaborate on that later. Had lots of fun there too. *Jackpot!*

Pictures? After I get back. Hehehe... :D

Entry 27: A Bashing Week!

Hooray, its finally the holidays. After waiting 4 months (Yes, I started counting down since the previous holiday ended), the long awaited 7 weeks is finally starting. However, the last week of college was a blast. I enjoyed the last week thoroughly.

First up there was Battle of the Bands on Tuesday. It was reasonably enjoyable, although I almost fell asleep half way through despite the blasting music because I was quite tired. Then on Wednesday night there was the Semester Dinner. They had murtabak! If I had found out sooner I wouldn't have filled myself with the other dishes.

Then directly after Semester Dinner, we celebrated Chong Yi Xue's (a.k.a Chong) and Ian's Birthday. S_ _ _ _ _ Chong wanted to go back early and ruined our surprise for him, who always wants to sleep by 10pm. We made him go back up the staircase and walk down again later with Ian.

Prior to that, we had planned to bash Chong in such a way it was clean for us but not for him, but the plan went awry. I won't go into detail here, but Shen acted on his own accord by pushing Chong's face into a half eaten chocolate cake. Okay, you may be thinking: What a waste of cake. But we just had our Semester Dinner, we were already very full, and there were 2 cakes.

From there on chaos emerged. Bits of cake flew here and there, some finding their intended targets but some finding empty space. Screams and shouts cut through the night. Chong was too eager for revenge he no longer cared, he chased those he could, but alas, he phailed. We later subdued him and tried to tie his arms and legs together, but he rubbed our string (raffia, if that's how you spell it) against the rough pillar and it broke. We couldn't tie him properly because the cake made the string and his arm slippery..

Ian's birthday was 2 days later, but we did it that night anyway. Somehow Ian got caught in the bashing and he got soaked from head to toe. Then there was more running and escaping because he wanted revenge. Which is worse because he can outrun a lot of people including me. Midway through the ordeal, the guard came and forced us to cease whatever we were doing and clean up the mess we made. There was cake all over the walkway. We cleaned it up and that was that.

Then on Thursday night there was the Christmas Party! Caregroup a.k.a CF was the organiser. There were many things, including games, caroling and present exchanges. Luckily just before the event I managed to borrow Teh's keyboard to practise for the choir performance.

See the laptop? It's there because at the last minute Tiffany wanted to perform a new song. But since I didn't have a printer, I had to read of the screen to practise. It's hard to read off the screen because the notes are either too big, which means I have to constantly scroll down, or too small, in which I couldn't see the notes. After 2 days of practising, the day finally arrived.

We put up a small board so that people can write their wishes and stick it on the board.

While scanning through the many wishes, I saw this. Lol?

Amongst the many activities held that night, there was a snowman making game. Here's a half-done product. What do you think it looks like? :P

And here's a finished product. I'm not sure if it's the same group though..

What's this? A snowman? Or a..?

There was also a gingerbread man decorating game. Where you get to decorate your gingerbread man then eat him. Poor guy, this time he couldn't run away and chant:" Run, run as fast as you can etc..." Tasted quite good though, hehe..

Just a random shot.

Overall it was a fun night. Towards the end we sang a lot of Christmas carols that it felt like it was Christmas already. Oh well, still one more month to go! I'd like to thank Shawn, Kaiye, Evin and any other non-Christians who helped to facilitate the event (I think it's only the 3 of them, but just in case there are others). We greatly appreciate your help!

Then on Friday, there was Dan's birthday... bash again. By this time I was running out of clothes to wear. I was contemplating not participating in the bash because of this. But who cares, it's the last night! So we ended up bashing him. Bringing the last night of college for the year to a close. It was nasty by the way.. Dirt and mud, a mixture of chicken, curry, egg, noodles, water, and who-knows-what..

Then on Saturday morning, I got my MQA cert. Malaysian Studies C, then Islamic Studies B. Spot anything weird? No, I didn't take Islamic Studies. So I returned the certificate and got a new one within 10 minutes because I took a picture of the error, and the lady was afraid this would drag the image of the college down with it. She later requested me to delete the photo in a subtle yet threatening way.. I should have taken a picture when I wasn't in front of them! She originally said to give a the new error-free certificate next semester, but I guess she was afraid that the picture of the typo will somehow kill the college off. I would have kept the certificate if given the choice.

So, what's the plan for the next 7 weeks? The answer, relax! I'm going for a class trip today (wow, it's Sunday already), and will only be going home next weekend. Hopefully it will be enjoyable because it will be the last time so many of us will be together.

PS: Happy holidays y'all!