Mood: Sedated (Ooooh! Happy Pills!)
Currently listening to: Megalomania - Incubus

Not feeling very eloquent as per usual so please bear with me.

Yes, yes, i'm still alive unfortunately... and feeling more than a little... sedated... yes, that's the word... Y'know - that slow easy look at the world kinda thing? Its like i just smoked weed... or something... yeah. :)

Nothing quite like being chased through the jungle, being shot at and saving the 'free' world (why did i bother?) twice to make you appreciate the simple creature comforts of home... ;p

Ok, no really, i've just been really busy this month what with work, preparations for uni, and cleaning up some of the issues left behind in Melbourne when i left. That and some other things which i don't care to discuss... On top of this i've managed to visit Singapore (If you're reading this it was nice to have met you again Zuyi! Will see you again soon[ish]) as well as hang out or meet with a lot of old, old friends who just happened to be down.

Time for a quick recap of the month i fear... general stuff first.

Finally finished working for CSA as a temp as of last Friday... all in all it was a pretty good experience, and the pay at the end of it was actually all right (by Malaysian standards anyhow) as i'll be walking off with about RM1500 for a month's work. The only other things i'll say in regards to this is that i now know Kajang and various outlying areas of KL/Selangor like the back of my hand, and that i'm just thankful to not step into any more 'Gargantua'-class server rooms anytime soon... on the bright side my network hardware identification/repair skills are a helluva lot better now! ;)

Went to the Monash here for my first day of uni - didn't have any classes (well, actually i did, i just couldn't access Allocate+ to find out when and where!) so i took care of the rest of my niggling administrative issues and got a tour of the facilities from Leonard (who's studying at the adjacent Sunway campus). Think i'll need some getting used to this new environment but it does give me a chance to finally compare the quality of teaching here with that of the home campuses in Melbourne - speaking of which they DO have a Monash Student Council here... dare i join? *maniacal laugh*

My classes seem to be spread out all over the place which may make finding a part-time job all that more difficult - i really need to save up if i'm going to visit Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in July! (btw, Tedy - when exactly is the conference taking place? Need to book tickets soon)

My brother's uni mate Richard and his sis came to stay with us for a bit which resulted in a few drinks, pirated VCDs and so forth (the man is a shopaholic! Four pairs of the same white shorts??? RM500 worth of VCDs???). Managed to catch Hero - man that's a pretty fucked up movie right there - won't go into any rants about it and the insane psychadelic colour schemes and character relationships (*groan*) they used in it... Anyways, they both went back last week so the house is a lot quieter now. Not to mention boring... :|

Been going to a few Alliance Francaise events recently - went to a piano recital a fortnight ago called 'Four Hands' at the National Art Gallery which featured some very famous Malaysian pianist paired with a French one (their names escape me at the moment - Mohammed something or the other... very good looking for a Malaysian though!) with both of them playing on the same piano... It was enjoyable (ok to be perfectly honest iw as tired form work and promptly fell asleep when they played their Schubert and Mozart pieces - urgh so long and dreary - but i thoroughly enjoyed the number of short pieces they played by two French composers (argh! Names again! Where did i put that programme!!??). Much more evocative and varied!

Last weekend i saw Frederic Herrera (who, as we were constantly reminded by the presenter, studied under Marcel Marceau) perform a pantomime at the Alliance Francaise building called Les voleurs de la perle. Basically it was about this fisherman (aka village idiot) who steals this beautiful pearl, gets hoodwinked by what looks like a... er... bitter and rather deformed old man/midget (he has a hand on his back!) who tries to give it to a beautiful mam'selle for a kiss (gotta love how he played her! Show her the pearl and she becomes putty in your hands!) which she refuses to give - i guess he's just that ugly... So, anyhow, she steals it from him while he sleeps and he drags her to court - which is presided over by a foppish noble - who chucks her in jail, kills the deformed man (ah, French comedy) and takes the pearl as his own. The fisherman/fool then comes along, rescues the damsel, steals back the pearl from the noble (by getting him drunk) and then returning it to its... er... oyster? Chest? It was kinda hard to tell... Anyways, that was the jist of it... all done without saying a word! And with your typical mime character stereotyping (which was hilarious most of the time - especially the damsel! Haha! Erm... best not to describe it though lest i be lynched by the opposite sex). Cool beans... this week is a poetry reading session as well as the beginning of their screening of French movies - all for free! :)

Vive la France! ;p

Did i mention that i also went down to Singapore with Leonard? He'll be writing the blog entry for that (hopefully) - here's a teaser: apparently i'm God's gift to transexuals and Phillipino singers... ;p

But the highlight of the month has to have been... Valentine's Day. And not for any good reason whatsoever. In fact it ranks up there as being one of the worst days in my life thus far. Read on... :(

It all started with me going to SS 2/63 in order to do the asset tagging and so forth for the Maybank there (yes, i work Saturdays). I arrived on time, went to what i believed to be the correct branch (there are two in the area) started tagging, realised it was the wrong branch, ripped off all the tags and then rushed over to the correct one - two hours late - which resulted in a tongue lashing by the manager there (they close at 11:30am on Sat) because he now had to stay back and wasn't able to see his wife/sweetheart/mistress/whatever. Then i discover that there is more equipment than i was first led to believe. Thus follows me skipping my lunch, tagging, lugging and putting back a shitload of equipment singlehandedly with this psychopathic bank manager leering over me. Not fun. By 2pm its finally done and that's when i received a call from the temp agency saying that i wouldn't be able to get double pay for working during Thaipusam in the previous week as well as informing me that my cheques were not ready for collection (at a time when i needed them most *argh*) followed by a call from the modelling agency saying that i didn't get the job (remember the one with me dancing to Timberlake? Yeah...) because i wasn't caucasian enough (no shit). Ah well... just one of those days. That's when i went back to the car only to realise that i had received a parking fine for not having bought a parking ticket (i was in a rush). RM100 down the drain. Doh.

Feeling a little bummed at this (that's like almost two days pay) and my day so far in general i shook my fist to the heavens, cursed the good Lord (to my utterances of 'Bring it on Biatch!') got in my car - which was like an oven mind you, i could barely hold onto my steering wheel - put down the brake, placed the gear on Drive, realised how sunny it was, put my STEEL FRAMED sunglasses on, yelped at the sudden intense burning pain around my temples from the glasses, inadvertedly lifted my foot off the brake, felt the car rolling forwards (note: it was a parallel parking), slammed my foot down on what i took to be the brake - but which was in actuality the accelerator - and proceeded to ram into the rear of the parked car in front of me at high speed. That's when i realised that the car's owner was standing right next to it.

Cue scene of hapless half French moron banging head repeatedly on steering wheel with aghast car owner looking on as her BRAND NEW PROTON WIRA's bumper is barely hanging on.

Cue sudden heavy rain while woman yells irritably 'WHY? WHY ME???' to the heavens and to half french moron who is at this moment wanting to curl up in bed and die.

Yup... and THAT's how i lost virtually all the money i worked for *sob*. Thankfully my trusty Peugeot took hardly any damage - just a broken headlight, nothing else, not even scratches - but the Proton Wira's rear bumper had to be replaced. So far its been RM300 for the light *gasp* and probably about RM500-600 for her bumper. Oh, and lets not forget about the parking fine. Yup, about RM1000 down the drain. Of course, this being Malaysia, no police report was lodged and she went to my mechanic (seems she knows my mother *argh*)...

*sigh*

That evening wasn't much better since i went out drinking with my brother and company as well as Sue Lyn and her (bitchy) friends. Oh, and Alvin/Kwong Heng got along well with one of the girls there (non-bitchy thank God) and he ain't single anymore. Come to think of it, everyone but me either had a girlfriend or hooked up that night (except for Richard but hey he's an Aussie... ;p). Yup, still single and RM1000 poorer... great Valentine's Day! :(

Whoa, realised how long this post is (not to mention the time) so i think i'll cut it short here... needless to say the rest of the month was spent either working or hanging out with the usual suspects - namely Joa, Leonard and Kwong Heng - for coffee and the Saturday night drinking sprees.

Happy pills wearing off. Need sleep now.