The 30 Days of Wuhan
I'm typing this from my grandparents' home in So Hour. My cousin got Streamyx into the house. I'm here because my father's youngest brother passed away and I don't think it'll be in good taste to go into detail about it until I get my thoughts into better order, so I'll just put up the Wuhan blogs first and you can go crazy trying to finish reading 'em. *grin*
And here we go:
[Saturday, June 2]
It is the fourth day, I think, since arriving in China. Or is it the third? I can never remember dates--I think I forgot my own birthday once. In any case it's been a very enjoyable time so far; the reunion has gone well, and as far as I can tell no great disputes have arisen. Or, at least, they have been somewhat amicably resolved, without resorting to the screams and floods of decibels that I've gotten used to during the stay with the Brats...
As expected, I cannot access Blogger, and so am forced to record everything on my mp3 player or thumbdrive. I shall have to take awhile to upload it all when I get back, but it'll be much swifter than, say, transcribing the whole lot from a notepad onto the computer. (Which is what I used to do.) I can't access Wikipedia either, so I'm effectively cut off from all my usual manga updates... rather annoying, but then again I didn't come here just to go online.
I'm typing in Fifth Hun, which is where the family has had to relocate to since my father changed his company again. Apparently he got headhunted--a sort of compliment, I guess--and now is based here, so the family has had to follow. It's been a bit hard for the two youngest to tear themselves away from the gweilo kids in the Big S, I think; I don't have that problem, since I'm not particularly close to them. For one thing I refuse to play almost all sports, and for another I'm not renowned for being the life of any social function. In any case it was a bit surprising to find Canal with a goatee and hair sprouting from the oddest places on his head.
(Which reminds me that my parents think shoulder-length hair is no good for me and want it cut within the next 24 hours.)
...the ancient Toshiba is sitting behind me, waiting for me to boot it up and decide whether it'll be usable for my course or not. I'm half-dreading it really... dreading to find that it does meet my requirements, and thus put all my hopes of getting a shiny new laptop to naught; but if it does work, it's a sort-of-blessing, since it'll allow me to start ripping all my siblings' songs onto it right away, instead of having to ask them to bring all those CDs to KL to rip there. Also it'll free up my mp3 player and thumbdrive for copying other songs... well, I'll turn it on tonight and see what I shall see.
But I'm still holding out hope for a new one. (The Empress is hoping for the Toshiba to be usable, so it'll get foisted off on me and she'll be guaranteed a new one. That's the problem with being the oldest kid, all the parents' hand-me-downs end up with you.)
Today's been a flurry of moving stuff around; the movers arrived this morning with 7 packrats' worth (it must be genetic) of assorted goods, both usable and unusable; and we've been arranging it ever since. 70-odd boxes of stuff does take awhile to transport and arrange... I'm afraid we caused a bit of inconvenience to the other residents of the block when we commandeered the only lift for the boxes. I distinctly heard muttering from the few people who came down the stairs... and just now I found a bunch of old ladies standing in the mini-garden outside, staring at my block, and darkly muttering about people who'd just moved in (us). In fact we haven't finished arranging all the stuff yet, but we're taking a bit of a break. Probably we'll continue that at night, when the fatigue has worn off a bit...
[Wednesday, June 6]
Darn it, the Net's down... and I've no idea why. The computer runs in Chinese and so I can't figure out how to fix something I can't read the instructions for very well... plus I'm not enough of a geek to know how to fix Error #678. I didn't know there were even 678 (or more) things that could go wrong with a connection... yes, I know I'm being too connected to the Net, but then again it's my only means of seeing anybody outside my own family that I can talk to. Family is all nice and well, but one does want friends after a while.
[Later]
It turns out the broadband only connects well when there's a LAN connection trying to get enabled at the same time. I do declare I shall never quite understand how computers work--if I were ever to attempt, they'd probably simply progress so fast that I'd get bogged down in neverending research.
Speaking of research... I've been reading some biotech research articles online, and I found some stuff about phytoremediation--using plants to soak up toxic wastes in the ground. It sounds like the ideal plan for the place... but we'll see. Nothing's certain. But it does sound very promising and I'm interested in the possibilities it offers. Don't I sound awfully professional already? but I can't help enjoying the idea of doing something to improve the view and the environment at one go.
In any case... well, today I and my sibs went bowling in a nearby hotel. It cost us about RM40 for a couple rounds, and it turns out I'm as lousy at bowling as I am at any other sport, notwithstanding the occasional stroke of genius when I get a spare or a strike... well, actually I only got one strike, so that makes it a 1/20 chance. Roughly, hmm, 5%. Not at all a nice thing, but at least it excuses me from having to take up a sport...
By the way, one of the bellboys at that hotel kept on trying to start Cantonese conversations with me. Apparently I look Cantonese... well, both the Teochew and Hakka people come from that area, so I guess the standard features have come out strongly in me. Still, I can't speak Cantonese and so he eventually gave up and looked disappointed. I really should pick up a dialect or something.
...The Coconut says she's worried and depressed and all kinds of other negative emotions... I didn't get to ask in detail about them because the time online for each ofthe 4 children in the house is limited, and I'd just reached my limit for the time being... but I think I'm getting worried in my turn. Because, after all, it's these exams that determine whether she's going to get into the polytech... and yes, she's going to Singapore for that. *grin* It's probably already obvious who I refer to here, and the Empress is certain to tell me off for being so terribly revealing, but I kinda like having it out in the slightly-more-open. But of course, nothing is certain. I must be catching a virus from those kids on my MSN contact list who keep on falling in love and putting that love-you-love-you-babe-i-love-you-tell-me-what-to-do line in their personal messages. The Pig used to sing some of those sickening love songs too, with their rhetorical questions. I always tried to put a hole in that bubble, but it didn't get him to stop it.
I do hope the tuition sessions did some good for her.
And as for Claus!... ohmygoodness. Well, this has got to be one of the more embarassing bits of my history. The week (I can't remember the exact day--probably Sunday) before last, during the last captain's-ball game I played, Claus and I were on opposing teams (as is often the case, I don't know why). I think I was especially clumsy that day since I recall various run-ins with other people, from both my team and the opposing one. At one point, I saw Claus running full tilt at me, possibly with or without the ball in his hands (more likely without... he is at least professional enough to avoid minor errors like walking), and frighteningly near, too.
I must've reacted on impulse, because if I were acting rationally I'd've dived out of the way and let him collide with whomsoever happened to be behind me. Instead I jumped--straight up, mind you, not on him--but he was certainly too close for comfort by then, because the next thing I recall is the impact of my entire right side (I must have twisted) against his entire front. We are, you see, very much nearly the same height. It didn't seem to hurt much, although he was, I think, winded...
At any rate he seemed perfectly fine on Tuesday night when he sent me off for the flight to the Big S. The aftereffects of that run-in only surfaced a few days ago, when D-Kun told me, over MSN, of my, er, inflicting grievous harm to Claus in, er, an extremely embarrassing spot of his anatomy. By the time I post this up, a month should have elapsed and hopefully the embarrassment doesn't linger on. Since then I've been probing for additional details, and the Empress tells me he's been given a quantity of pain-killers and advised to wait for the swelling to go down and told to avoid moving his lower body as much as he can (which grieves him terribly since he loves sports). He can, however, sit; although I haven't seen him online of late. I do hope he isn't angry at me or something. But I'm told he'll recover in a week or so.
Still, it's rather embarrassing.
Oh, and I've downloaded FF4 and FF5! Sure, they're more primitive than the FF6 I'm playing, but then FF7 might be a tad difficult to store on a thumbdrive if it's too large. I think FF7 was the one that had to be released in a set of 8 or 9 CDs because of the huge amount of graphics and stuff in it. In any case I still like the old SNES games. My laptop is going to be rather piled up with various games, I fear. Plus my kid brother introduced a new program to me--Pivot Stickfigures--and it's darn good fun.
[Thursday, June 7]
I'm reading the curriculum I'm expected to get through for the next four years while doing Bioengineering, and suddenly I'm scared stiff, just from reading the Math bits... apparently I'm going to have to get through something called "Mathematics for Engineers", and it looks scary. Stuff like first-order differentiation, partial differentiation, multiple integrals, Fourier series, and goodness knows what else... I hate integration and differentiation, didn't you know? They're so full of unknowns, and I absolutely dislike unknowns when trying to arrive at a conclusion.
At least the Anatomy/Physio bit doesn't look too worrying yet, but then again I bet I'll get plenty stressed when I get to that. Without meaning any disrespect, God went a tad overblown when He designed the human body with so many parts. Then again the body does have a lot to do, and I really shouldn't complain about something I have no way to improve, but still... so many names! (I believe I complained about this before.)
[Monday, June 11]
I and my other siblings went swimming today. I'm still rather surprised at the ease with which locals seem to strip off all their clothing and take showers in front of other people without any apparent embarrassment at all, no matter what their body shape might be. I've been carrying a sort of impression that in general, exhibitionists tend to be people who have something to exhibit--a notion which I've been summarily disabused of. The number of fat, unclothed people I've seen recently (not just in the changing room and shower--on the street too, although there they at least wear their pants) is sufficient proof of that.
Its being summer may have something to do with that, too.
In any case it was quite fun, although I got a backache for it. Gobble says it's common for people who never exercise to get various aches when they do exercise for the first time in ages, so I'm not worried. And in any case it's gone away... To get the full benefit of my father's membership at the pool, it looks like we'll have to go to the pool for a swim at least twice a week; at this rate, I'm going to end up with a lot of unwanted (I would almost say unneeded) muscle development that might convince Claus that I might be of use in the Copa di IBA--an opinion I am most strenuously opposed to.
I've just finished reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time ever. The first time I began it (years ago), I was convinced it was the Victorian version of a fluffy romance, and got rid of it immediately. Now... well, I must say I enjoyed the book very much, and in fact it's almost a diatribe against fluffy-romance-type ideas. The sarcasm sprinkled through it is entertaining, too. (And I must confess I rather aspire to being a sort of Mr. Darcy--if not rich and respectable, at least well-mannered and willing to do good.)
There seems to be a sort of competition going about now; I believe it's called ScriptFrenzy, and it requires participants to finish a 20,000-word drama (stage or screen) within the month of June. I and my kid brother spent this morning dreaming up a plot, but by this time we're both convinced that the plot is hopelessly aimless and lame beyond belief; yet neither of us is able to suggest a better. In addition to which I have realised my utter shortcoming as a writer--my style of speech, or rather that of my characters, is much too abnormal to even attempt to sound real. I find myself utterly unable to use a vocabulary other than my own; too many exclamation marks, or questions, or grammar mistakes, and I find myself despising the very character I attempt to make real. Yet if I use the words I would want, and make them quite perfect, the result is that every character sounds exactly the same.
It's depressing. And to cap it all off, Jogger seems to actually believe I can meet the deadline... even though I'm dreadfully under-target! (I have to average 1000 words a day to get there; today I only managed 460-odd before giving up in despair over the dialogue.) And of course I can't have my family always nearby while I attempt to write, just for their input on devising "normal" sentences...
[Sunday, June 17]
I shall never be able to finish the drama. I've been unable to get at the computer for at least two days this week alone already just because my other siblings downloaded a bunch of games from the Net and have been hooked on them ever since--they resist all attempts to remove them from the computer with great vehemence--and which also means that I, as the eldest, am expected to just let them have their way. It's rather irritating, but I never expected to get it done anyway in the first place.
Today was the third church meeting I've attended here. It's composed of quite intelligent people, it seems--doctors and dentists and teachers and people-going-to-do-doctorates all over the place--and yet the worship... it's almost charismatic. (Pardon me while I go off into an interdenominational rant.) Now, you should understand first of all that charismatic services, from my point of view, are generally rather unhelpful as far as appreciating God is concerned. I was in a charismatic church for the majority of the time that I was in Patience, and while the singing is very energetic and very enjoyable and fast-paced and all that sort of stuff... well, call me a snob, but I must say I wonder if the transition from hymns to "modern" songs hasn't involved a rather drastic drop in quality.
It all boils down to the purpose of the thing, though, no matter what. If the people involved are doing what God has told them to do, well, more power to them. But I still insist on my opinion that songs should be written by intelligent people who are so inclined. It'd get rid of a lot of the cliches in modern tunes: the same imagery keeps popping up here and there--kneeling, say; or being purified; or carrying one's cross--the imagery is good, yes, it comes from the Bible, yes, it's perfectly true, yes; but really, does one need to have a few hundred tunes to hammer four or five of the same ideas into one's head?
The older hymns (those that I know of, anyway) at least use rather more varied ideas and more interesting words to put it; they managed to write good poetry as well as beautiful tunes to sing it to. Most modern songs would probably get C's or D's--if I were to be merciless I'd say Z's--in grammar and sentence structure. It's really very hard to appreciate God and His wonders when one can't help seeing grammatical errors and bland repetition in song after song--and they don't even rhyme! Of course these also plague hymns, but thank heaven, time has managed to root out most of the bad ones and left only the better ones to remain in use.
I wonder, after a few centuries more (assuming the Earth is still in existence then and that music hasn't totally gone off-tangent the way painting has), what songs will Christians be singing? for Christians certainly will be singing, no doubt about that. For some reason God has been inspiring music for ever. Certainly "contemporary" music, if it wishes to still be heard in times after ours, needs a change. What sort of change, though, I don't know. Perhaps those who write the songs should inquire of God, whether He who made millions of species of beetles can only be properly praised by singing the same old phrases to different tunes. It also rather bothers me that a lot of the modern songs seem to focus a lot on our undying love/devotion/praise/whatever to God, and really... they make a lot of those promises that seem rather too similar to secular love songs.
I realise that the relationship between God and man is supposed to be a love relationship; but really, from the sort of promises made in so many modern songs, one would almost think that we were pursuing Him, and not the other way around. Also, promises of undying/unending love/devotion/whatever ring rather hollow in my ears. Enough of my friends have fallen in love or out of it, and I have seen enough movies of this sort, to know that these promises, when made by mortals, will eventually be broken. The best we can do is promise to try, and to ask forgiveness when we fail...
My other, much smaller, grouse is merely that charismatic Christians seem to feel that a song has been under-used if it is sung any less than 4 times, and that the best ending for any song is to repeat its chorus several more times, then to repeat the last line three times, and then to crash the cymbals, jump, shout several catchphrases (I still think that if the Hebrews were justified in using Hallelujah, then we ought to be using Praise God or something more intelligible to people around us), and then either to begin the next song or to let the bass guitar throw off a few complicated-sounding riffs before it squeals in protest at its amplifier being turned off.
At any rate they certainly don't have to do it every single song...
Oh, yeah. Today is Father's Day. My brothers taped together 9 sheets of A4 paper, drew happy emoticons on it, splashed Happy [my father's name]'s Day!!!! on it, and then decorated the papers until they very nearly resembled an original Picasso, then stuck it on the little staircase in front of the dining area so my dad wouldn't miss it. He didn't say whether he liked it or not.
[Tuesday, June 19]
We went shopping today. I have made a promise to myself that I shall not go on the next visit to a shopping mall, no matter how large or famous it might be, without a definite assurance that it will contain a bookstore stocked with English books. The alternative, which I experienced today, is too dreary to go through again. It was basically a huge place full of people and clothing outlets. My mom and my kid sister went skipping through the whole thing while I and my two brothers sat on the little soft chairs and wished for something to do.
It went on for, I believe, almost 4 hours, relieved only by half-an-hour in the arcade (which I also found rather boring--arcade games are simply not interesting enough to captivate me) and lunch, during which we were somewhat shortchanged by the chicken rice being mostly composed of bones covered in bits of skin and tendons; and a short time in the local excuse for a bookstore, whose only English items were some Learn-to-Speak-English tapes and the occasional bilingual classic.
In any case I didn't like it very much. And so far, I haven't seen a single thing I've wanted to buy... those 8GB or 16GB thumbdrives must be limited to the Big S, because nobody here has heard of them; one guy from RBS wants me to get him a cymbal, but--again--shops selling such things are scarce here; and as for the Pig, I'll just have to disappoint him with the unavoidable lack of rewritable DVDs or thumbdrives. Too bad.
My uncle and aunt haven't contacted the Empress about working for them. My reports of life with them have already convinced her not to accept the offer anyway... but I think the non-contact has more reasons that that. Perhaps now I may delve into a little more background detail...
The day before my flight to the Big S, I was tinkering with my phone. My handphone being of a later model than the Empress's, I generally offer her the use of it when I have to go without it for extended periods of time. (I.e. the RBS and now.) However, I have several passwords on it, for security reasons; one of which prevents the phone from being used with any SIM card other than my own, and one of which prevents the phone from turning on completely... anyway, I was deactivating all the passwords so the Empress could use it.
(She declined the offer, but that's just an extra detail.)
I came across some menu or other about the PIN number, which I don't know. My mom was the one who registered the thing (I'm not of age yet, you know), so I assumed it to be still the default number and entered that. It was wrong, and the PIN was locked and required the PUK to unlock; failing which the SIM card would be useless. This, since it occurred so near my departure, was no problem to me; but the Empress insisted on my being able to call her from the airport just prior to flight, and so exchanged SIM cards with me.
Thus her phone, at the time of typing, contains an inaccessible SIM card (mine), which will not be accessible again until she gets it sorted out somehow. And her SIM card, which should be accesible, is with me, where there is no coverage and therefore is also inaccessible. Both of these are our 016 supplementary numbers, and are likely the only ones available to my uncle and aunt; the Empress also has another number on a different provider, which I think they do not know; which effectively prevents them from contacting her with job offers--they can't call me, because I'm here (and they know it); they can't call her, because her number is off limits.
The Brats have been deprived of another victim, and I have no reason to be sorry about that.
I wonder how the current employees are coping with those three; I do not believe that the Brats will ever manage to be more polite than the average chimpanzee, nor more self-controlled, not without some harsh external force being applied to them; I do not believe that said force will ever be applied by their parents; so I don't think circumstances are much happier. I'll find out when I get back, of course. (Which reminds me that I'll have to disappoint another colleague there when I return without pumpkin seeds. Apparently pharmacies here don't deal in herbal remedies.)
[Sunday, 24th June]
Gobble went back to Singapore today, and my own departure is on this Friday. If all goes according to plan, I should have everything packed and ready by Thursday, and then spend the entire of Friday in airplanes or airports. It's not a thrilling prospect--the journey, I mean. Getting back to KL will mean a bit of excitement for me while I try to choose a laptop to purchase.
[Monday, 26th June]
I went shopping today, for a bunch of Lays chips for Mrs. Gorilla. It seems her request is the only one I'm going to be able to fulfil since pumpkin seeds, huge-storage thumbdrives, cheap rewritable DVDs, and pirated DVDs are all in short supply where I am. Perhaps if I were in the Big S, I might be able to do something about those requests; as it is, though, I have little or no contact going on with the ex-colleague who requested the seeds; or the Pig (who requested the electronic stuff); so it doesn't really matter.
I wonder how long it'll take the average person to finish reading this post? Considering I don't type every day, it'll be much less formidable than I'd thought it might be; still, it's a lot more text than usually gets posted.
My kid brother spent the morning looking for IQ tests. He's trying to get the same scholarship that Gobble got, so he's trying to brush up on possible questions that IQ tests might ask. Unfortunately he Googled and got a free one, which claims that his IQ is 126 and that he was some kind of genius on the same scale as Plato. I Googled his results and found about 23,900 other people who got exactly the same results... and best of all was one of the blogs that began wondering why people with IQs of 126 are expected to pay about USD16 for 16 pages' worth of how clever they are.
I found another free one that didn't ask for money, and came up with a score of 146. It made me feel pretty good about my wonderful brain until I realised that I'd signed in as my kid brother, who is 13. Which means I'm about as clever as a 13-year-old genius--or in other words, not too clever for my own age. It's a bit humbling, but I guess now it's sort of a relief to have an excuse for failing tests back. And I'm glad I didn't publicise those results around too much...
I've been forced to renew correspondence with my aunt; mainly because my parents have decided that circumstances do not permit them to return to KL this year, I now have to be the bearer of the cheque to reimburse my aunt and uncle for paying for my ticket here. In any case, I've totally forgotten about how much it cost, and so I had to send her an email inquiring into the price. I do hope I made it polite enough; but I did not make it warm... bitterness just might be one of my chief failings. But I have a feeling that I shall find it very difficult indeed to forgive the theft of my magnets.
I should make a to-do list before I start packing, or I'm sure to get hopelessly muddled and get bogged down in all sorts of details that didn't seem to be there a few minutes ago... But I think I'll find it slightly easier than before: lots of my clothes have pulled a Houdini and completely vanished somehow; then again, this time I do have five or six packs of chips to somehow transport across two flights without crushing into bits (which means they're going to fill up my carry-ons). I wonder what I'm going to do--carry two check-ins, maybe.
[Wednesday, 27th June]
It's annoying how information seems to be spread all over several websites instead of all being collected together. I suppose all the fuss about having to go to several hundred different links to find a little information irritates me; but why on earth can't they, say, make a list of what documents I should receive, and when; then include a series of instructions on how to fill out each one, explaining each field in detail; then put the whole thing on ONE single website and send its URL to everybody who might need it? And why can't they put all the financial information--fees and methods of payments and dates of payments expected and suchlike--somewhere more easily accessible?
As it is I have several different figures that I'm completely unsure of; a bunch of numbers that either have no meaning or are absolutely important for some reason or other; and a lot of To-Do lists involving forms that I don't know whether I should download, print, and fill out; or wait for them to be sent; or to collect them from some office upon arrival and fill out there and then. I suppose the method of greatest safety is to print every single thing possible, then discard if not needed; but it's one heckuva annoyance when the printer keeps screaming No Toner at me, while my father insists on my ignoring the thing and printing anyway until it gives up on screaming and just dutifully prints until it wheezes its last drop out. I have an idea that's how the kids are supposed to be too.
At any rate, I now have a bunch of To-Do lists that I can't make head or tail of until I know exactly what forms I already have and what forms I ought to download or obtain upon arrival in Spore; and as for all the annoying numbers, my father's giving me heck about them because he wants to pay 'em by cheque. I know I should be honoured that he wants to ensure minimal inconvenience in this regard, but really--information is not easy to squeeze out of the Internet. Some is, some isn't. On this subject, trust me, it isn't.
At any rate my preferred method of obtaining the information thus far has been to ask the forum (there's one, dedicated to helping freshies, run by seniors) or Herr Robson; but my parents insist on me emailing the office directly. Meh. I dislike dealing with all things official. There's just something about mounds and mounds of paperwork that repels me. Must've been the trauma while applying for the Stinky Purple Muck.
[Saturday, 30th June]
I'm now back in Malaysia. The flights weren't too bad, even if they were characterised by a sense of hunger caused by the tiny portions of in-flight food served and my own unwillingness to buy any extra; as well as a dread fear (after the second flight) that my check-in luggage hadn't made it through the transfer and had gotten stranded in the Big S.
(There are no direct flights from Fifth Hun to KL, so I had to fly first from Fifth Hun to the Big S, then from the Big S to KL.)
It's almost unfair, in my opinion, that a few hours' flight should cause a difference of only 5 degrees Celsius in the ambient temperature--and almost all of it between Fifth Hun and the Big S. The room temperature of Fifth Hun, as of today, is 35 Celsius (and the driver says it may go up to 42); in the Big S, 31; and in KL, 30. The flight duration between Fifth Hun and the Big S is one hour plus; between the Big S and KL, five hours. You see what I mean about unfair?
...or maybe I mean disproportionate.
Anyway, so far I've made some inquiries about the purchase of the laptop, and so far everything's pretty optimistic; it seems I can (if I want to) customise the entire thing, all the way down to its battery model, at (of course) accompanying change in costs; and the delivery is quite rapid. I now merely have to decide on my model (my father has issued a budget of about 3,000 and a decree that the screen must be 14.1 inches, and has left me with discretion in other matters) and then tell my parents about its particulars, then ask them to pay for it... apparently payment must be made by credit card, and I certainly don't have one.
Well, I merely have to get my inquiries done, then tell my parents and wait to see... hopefully I won't go too far over budget in my customisation. Then again, given my limited knowledge of computer parts, my customisations should be minimal...
Hm. I'll have to get started on what's left of the NTU paperwork soon. And I still have to arrange a time for my sister and I to meet my uncle and aunt. (The email correspondence has been discontinued by me, after I sent an email thanking her for sending the information and wishing her well in her work, and she sent me back an email singing the praises of her job, which she apparently finds rewarding in all sorts of ways.) I'm bringing my sister to act as a moderator in case emotions and vocabularies go out of control--and I can't mail the cheque now because my mom has given me various baubles to present to the Brats.
My bet is the baubles get broken before we part company.
And here we go:
[Saturday, June 2]
It is the fourth day, I think, since arriving in China. Or is it the third? I can never remember dates--I think I forgot my own birthday once. In any case it's been a very enjoyable time so far; the reunion has gone well, and as far as I can tell no great disputes have arisen. Or, at least, they have been somewhat amicably resolved, without resorting to the screams and floods of decibels that I've gotten used to during the stay with the Brats...
As expected, I cannot access Blogger, and so am forced to record everything on my mp3 player or thumbdrive. I shall have to take awhile to upload it all when I get back, but it'll be much swifter than, say, transcribing the whole lot from a notepad onto the computer. (Which is what I used to do.) I can't access Wikipedia either, so I'm effectively cut off from all my usual manga updates... rather annoying, but then again I didn't come here just to go online.
I'm typing in Fifth Hun, which is where the family has had to relocate to since my father changed his company again. Apparently he got headhunted--a sort of compliment, I guess--and now is based here, so the family has had to follow. It's been a bit hard for the two youngest to tear themselves away from the gweilo kids in the Big S, I think; I don't have that problem, since I'm not particularly close to them. For one thing I refuse to play almost all sports, and for another I'm not renowned for being the life of any social function. In any case it was a bit surprising to find Canal with a goatee and hair sprouting from the oddest places on his head.
(Which reminds me that my parents think shoulder-length hair is no good for me and want it cut within the next 24 hours.)
...the ancient Toshiba is sitting behind me, waiting for me to boot it up and decide whether it'll be usable for my course or not. I'm half-dreading it really... dreading to find that it does meet my requirements, and thus put all my hopes of getting a shiny new laptop to naught; but if it does work, it's a sort-of-blessing, since it'll allow me to start ripping all my siblings' songs onto it right away, instead of having to ask them to bring all those CDs to KL to rip there. Also it'll free up my mp3 player and thumbdrive for copying other songs... well, I'll turn it on tonight and see what I shall see.
But I'm still holding out hope for a new one. (The Empress is hoping for the Toshiba to be usable, so it'll get foisted off on me and she'll be guaranteed a new one. That's the problem with being the oldest kid, all the parents' hand-me-downs end up with you.)
Today's been a flurry of moving stuff around; the movers arrived this morning with 7 packrats' worth (it must be genetic) of assorted goods, both usable and unusable; and we've been arranging it ever since. 70-odd boxes of stuff does take awhile to transport and arrange... I'm afraid we caused a bit of inconvenience to the other residents of the block when we commandeered the only lift for the boxes. I distinctly heard muttering from the few people who came down the stairs... and just now I found a bunch of old ladies standing in the mini-garden outside, staring at my block, and darkly muttering about people who'd just moved in (us). In fact we haven't finished arranging all the stuff yet, but we're taking a bit of a break. Probably we'll continue that at night, when the fatigue has worn off a bit...
[Wednesday, June 6]
Darn it, the Net's down... and I've no idea why. The computer runs in Chinese and so I can't figure out how to fix something I can't read the instructions for very well... plus I'm not enough of a geek to know how to fix Error #678. I didn't know there were even 678 (or more) things that could go wrong with a connection... yes, I know I'm being too connected to the Net, but then again it's my only means of seeing anybody outside my own family that I can talk to. Family is all nice and well, but one does want friends after a while.
[Later]
It turns out the broadband only connects well when there's a LAN connection trying to get enabled at the same time. I do declare I shall never quite understand how computers work--if I were ever to attempt, they'd probably simply progress so fast that I'd get bogged down in neverending research.
Speaking of research... I've been reading some biotech research articles online, and I found some stuff about phytoremediation--using plants to soak up toxic wastes in the ground. It sounds like the ideal plan for the place... but we'll see. Nothing's certain. But it does sound very promising and I'm interested in the possibilities it offers. Don't I sound awfully professional already? but I can't help enjoying the idea of doing something to improve the view and the environment at one go.
In any case... well, today I and my sibs went bowling in a nearby hotel. It cost us about RM40 for a couple rounds, and it turns out I'm as lousy at bowling as I am at any other sport, notwithstanding the occasional stroke of genius when I get a spare or a strike... well, actually I only got one strike, so that makes it a 1/20 chance. Roughly, hmm, 5%. Not at all a nice thing, but at least it excuses me from having to take up a sport...
By the way, one of the bellboys at that hotel kept on trying to start Cantonese conversations with me. Apparently I look Cantonese... well, both the Teochew and Hakka people come from that area, so I guess the standard features have come out strongly in me. Still, I can't speak Cantonese and so he eventually gave up and looked disappointed. I really should pick up a dialect or something.
...The Coconut says she's worried and depressed and all kinds of other negative emotions... I didn't get to ask in detail about them because the time online for each ofthe 4 children in the house is limited, and I'd just reached my limit for the time being... but I think I'm getting worried in my turn. Because, after all, it's these exams that determine whether she's going to get into the polytech... and yes, she's going to Singapore for that. *grin* It's probably already obvious who I refer to here, and the Empress is certain to tell me off for being so terribly revealing, but I kinda like having it out in the slightly-more-open. But of course, nothing is certain. I must be catching a virus from those kids on my MSN contact list who keep on falling in love and putting that love-you-love-you-babe-i-love-you-tell-me-what-to-do line in their personal messages. The Pig used to sing some of those sickening love songs too, with their rhetorical questions. I always tried to put a hole in that bubble, but it didn't get him to stop it.
I do hope the tuition sessions did some good for her.
And as for Claus!... ohmygoodness. Well, this has got to be one of the more embarassing bits of my history. The week (I can't remember the exact day--probably Sunday) before last, during the last captain's-ball game I played, Claus and I were on opposing teams (as is often the case, I don't know why). I think I was especially clumsy that day since I recall various run-ins with other people, from both my team and the opposing one. At one point, I saw Claus running full tilt at me, possibly with or without the ball in his hands (more likely without... he is at least professional enough to avoid minor errors like walking), and frighteningly near, too.
I must've reacted on impulse, because if I were acting rationally I'd've dived out of the way and let him collide with whomsoever happened to be behind me. Instead I jumped--straight up, mind you, not on him--but he was certainly too close for comfort by then, because the next thing I recall is the impact of my entire right side (I must have twisted) against his entire front. We are, you see, very much nearly the same height. It didn't seem to hurt much, although he was, I think, winded...
At any rate he seemed perfectly fine on Tuesday night when he sent me off for the flight to the Big S. The aftereffects of that run-in only surfaced a few days ago, when D-Kun told me, over MSN, of my, er, inflicting grievous harm to Claus in, er, an extremely embarrassing spot of his anatomy. By the time I post this up, a month should have elapsed and hopefully the embarrassment doesn't linger on. Since then I've been probing for additional details, and the Empress tells me he's been given a quantity of pain-killers and advised to wait for the swelling to go down and told to avoid moving his lower body as much as he can (which grieves him terribly since he loves sports). He can, however, sit; although I haven't seen him online of late. I do hope he isn't angry at me or something. But I'm told he'll recover in a week or so.
Still, it's rather embarrassing.
Oh, and I've downloaded FF4 and FF5! Sure, they're more primitive than the FF6 I'm playing, but then FF7 might be a tad difficult to store on a thumbdrive if it's too large. I think FF7 was the one that had to be released in a set of 8 or 9 CDs because of the huge amount of graphics and stuff in it. In any case I still like the old SNES games. My laptop is going to be rather piled up with various games, I fear. Plus my kid brother introduced a new program to me--Pivot Stickfigures--and it's darn good fun.
[Thursday, June 7]
I'm reading the curriculum I'm expected to get through for the next four years while doing Bioengineering, and suddenly I'm scared stiff, just from reading the Math bits... apparently I'm going to have to get through something called "Mathematics for Engineers", and it looks scary. Stuff like first-order differentiation, partial differentiation, multiple integrals, Fourier series, and goodness knows what else... I hate integration and differentiation, didn't you know? They're so full of unknowns, and I absolutely dislike unknowns when trying to arrive at a conclusion.
At least the Anatomy/Physio bit doesn't look too worrying yet, but then again I bet I'll get plenty stressed when I get to that. Without meaning any disrespect, God went a tad overblown when He designed the human body with so many parts. Then again the body does have a lot to do, and I really shouldn't complain about something I have no way to improve, but still... so many names! (I believe I complained about this before.)
[Monday, June 11]
I and my other siblings went swimming today. I'm still rather surprised at the ease with which locals seem to strip off all their clothing and take showers in front of other people without any apparent embarrassment at all, no matter what their body shape might be. I've been carrying a sort of impression that in general, exhibitionists tend to be people who have something to exhibit--a notion which I've been summarily disabused of. The number of fat, unclothed people I've seen recently (not just in the changing room and shower--on the street too, although there they at least wear their pants) is sufficient proof of that.
Its being summer may have something to do with that, too.
In any case it was quite fun, although I got a backache for it. Gobble says it's common for people who never exercise to get various aches when they do exercise for the first time in ages, so I'm not worried. And in any case it's gone away... To get the full benefit of my father's membership at the pool, it looks like we'll have to go to the pool for a swim at least twice a week; at this rate, I'm going to end up with a lot of unwanted (I would almost say unneeded) muscle development that might convince Claus that I might be of use in the Copa di IBA--an opinion I am most strenuously opposed to.
I've just finished reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time ever. The first time I began it (years ago), I was convinced it was the Victorian version of a fluffy romance, and got rid of it immediately. Now... well, I must say I enjoyed the book very much, and in fact it's almost a diatribe against fluffy-romance-type ideas. The sarcasm sprinkled through it is entertaining, too. (And I must confess I rather aspire to being a sort of Mr. Darcy--if not rich and respectable, at least well-mannered and willing to do good.)
There seems to be a sort of competition going about now; I believe it's called ScriptFrenzy, and it requires participants to finish a 20,000-word drama (stage or screen) within the month of June. I and my kid brother spent this morning dreaming up a plot, but by this time we're both convinced that the plot is hopelessly aimless and lame beyond belief; yet neither of us is able to suggest a better. In addition to which I have realised my utter shortcoming as a writer--my style of speech, or rather that of my characters, is much too abnormal to even attempt to sound real. I find myself utterly unable to use a vocabulary other than my own; too many exclamation marks, or questions, or grammar mistakes, and I find myself despising the very character I attempt to make real. Yet if I use the words I would want, and make them quite perfect, the result is that every character sounds exactly the same.
It's depressing. And to cap it all off, Jogger seems to actually believe I can meet the deadline... even though I'm dreadfully under-target! (I have to average 1000 words a day to get there; today I only managed 460-odd before giving up in despair over the dialogue.) And of course I can't have my family always nearby while I attempt to write, just for their input on devising "normal" sentences...
[Sunday, June 17]
I shall never be able to finish the drama. I've been unable to get at the computer for at least two days this week alone already just because my other siblings downloaded a bunch of games from the Net and have been hooked on them ever since--they resist all attempts to remove them from the computer with great vehemence--and which also means that I, as the eldest, am expected to just let them have their way. It's rather irritating, but I never expected to get it done anyway in the first place.
Today was the third church meeting I've attended here. It's composed of quite intelligent people, it seems--doctors and dentists and teachers and people-going-to-do-doctorates all over the place--and yet the worship... it's almost charismatic. (Pardon me while I go off into an interdenominational rant.) Now, you should understand first of all that charismatic services, from my point of view, are generally rather unhelpful as far as appreciating God is concerned. I was in a charismatic church for the majority of the time that I was in Patience, and while the singing is very energetic and very enjoyable and fast-paced and all that sort of stuff... well, call me a snob, but I must say I wonder if the transition from hymns to "modern" songs hasn't involved a rather drastic drop in quality.
It all boils down to the purpose of the thing, though, no matter what. If the people involved are doing what God has told them to do, well, more power to them. But I still insist on my opinion that songs should be written by intelligent people who are so inclined. It'd get rid of a lot of the cliches in modern tunes: the same imagery keeps popping up here and there--kneeling, say; or being purified; or carrying one's cross--the imagery is good, yes, it comes from the Bible, yes, it's perfectly true, yes; but really, does one need to have a few hundred tunes to hammer four or five of the same ideas into one's head?
The older hymns (those that I know of, anyway) at least use rather more varied ideas and more interesting words to put it; they managed to write good poetry as well as beautiful tunes to sing it to. Most modern songs would probably get C's or D's--if I were to be merciless I'd say Z's--in grammar and sentence structure. It's really very hard to appreciate God and His wonders when one can't help seeing grammatical errors and bland repetition in song after song--and they don't even rhyme! Of course these also plague hymns, but thank heaven, time has managed to root out most of the bad ones and left only the better ones to remain in use.
I wonder, after a few centuries more (assuming the Earth is still in existence then and that music hasn't totally gone off-tangent the way painting has), what songs will Christians be singing? for Christians certainly will be singing, no doubt about that. For some reason God has been inspiring music for ever. Certainly "contemporary" music, if it wishes to still be heard in times after ours, needs a change. What sort of change, though, I don't know. Perhaps those who write the songs should inquire of God, whether He who made millions of species of beetles can only be properly praised by singing the same old phrases to different tunes. It also rather bothers me that a lot of the modern songs seem to focus a lot on our undying love/devotion/praise/whatever to God, and really... they make a lot of those promises that seem rather too similar to secular love songs.
I realise that the relationship between God and man is supposed to be a love relationship; but really, from the sort of promises made in so many modern songs, one would almost think that we were pursuing Him, and not the other way around. Also, promises of undying/unending love/devotion/whatever ring rather hollow in my ears. Enough of my friends have fallen in love or out of it, and I have seen enough movies of this sort, to know that these promises, when made by mortals, will eventually be broken. The best we can do is promise to try, and to ask forgiveness when we fail...
My other, much smaller, grouse is merely that charismatic Christians seem to feel that a song has been under-used if it is sung any less than 4 times, and that the best ending for any song is to repeat its chorus several more times, then to repeat the last line three times, and then to crash the cymbals, jump, shout several catchphrases (I still think that if the Hebrews were justified in using Hallelujah, then we ought to be using Praise God or something more intelligible to people around us), and then either to begin the next song or to let the bass guitar throw off a few complicated-sounding riffs before it squeals in protest at its amplifier being turned off.
At any rate they certainly don't have to do it every single song...
Oh, yeah. Today is Father's Day. My brothers taped together 9 sheets of A4 paper, drew happy emoticons on it, splashed Happy [my father's name]'s Day!!!! on it, and then decorated the papers until they very nearly resembled an original Picasso, then stuck it on the little staircase in front of the dining area so my dad wouldn't miss it. He didn't say whether he liked it or not.
[Tuesday, June 19]
We went shopping today. I have made a promise to myself that I shall not go on the next visit to a shopping mall, no matter how large or famous it might be, without a definite assurance that it will contain a bookstore stocked with English books. The alternative, which I experienced today, is too dreary to go through again. It was basically a huge place full of people and clothing outlets. My mom and my kid sister went skipping through the whole thing while I and my two brothers sat on the little soft chairs and wished for something to do.
It went on for, I believe, almost 4 hours, relieved only by half-an-hour in the arcade (which I also found rather boring--arcade games are simply not interesting enough to captivate me) and lunch, during which we were somewhat shortchanged by the chicken rice being mostly composed of bones covered in bits of skin and tendons; and a short time in the local excuse for a bookstore, whose only English items were some Learn-to-Speak-English tapes and the occasional bilingual classic.
In any case I didn't like it very much. And so far, I haven't seen a single thing I've wanted to buy... those 8GB or 16GB thumbdrives must be limited to the Big S, because nobody here has heard of them; one guy from RBS wants me to get him a cymbal, but--again--shops selling such things are scarce here; and as for the Pig, I'll just have to disappoint him with the unavoidable lack of rewritable DVDs or thumbdrives. Too bad.
My uncle and aunt haven't contacted the Empress about working for them. My reports of life with them have already convinced her not to accept the offer anyway... but I think the non-contact has more reasons that that. Perhaps now I may delve into a little more background detail...
The day before my flight to the Big S, I was tinkering with my phone. My handphone being of a later model than the Empress's, I generally offer her the use of it when I have to go without it for extended periods of time. (I.e. the RBS and now.) However, I have several passwords on it, for security reasons; one of which prevents the phone from being used with any SIM card other than my own, and one of which prevents the phone from turning on completely... anyway, I was deactivating all the passwords so the Empress could use it.
(She declined the offer, but that's just an extra detail.)
I came across some menu or other about the PIN number, which I don't know. My mom was the one who registered the thing (I'm not of age yet, you know), so I assumed it to be still the default number and entered that. It was wrong, and the PIN was locked and required the PUK to unlock; failing which the SIM card would be useless. This, since it occurred so near my departure, was no problem to me; but the Empress insisted on my being able to call her from the airport just prior to flight, and so exchanged SIM cards with me.
Thus her phone, at the time of typing, contains an inaccessible SIM card (mine), which will not be accessible again until she gets it sorted out somehow. And her SIM card, which should be accesible, is with me, where there is no coverage and therefore is also inaccessible. Both of these are our 016 supplementary numbers, and are likely the only ones available to my uncle and aunt; the Empress also has another number on a different provider, which I think they do not know; which effectively prevents them from contacting her with job offers--they can't call me, because I'm here (and they know it); they can't call her, because her number is off limits.
The Brats have been deprived of another victim, and I have no reason to be sorry about that.
I wonder how the current employees are coping with those three; I do not believe that the Brats will ever manage to be more polite than the average chimpanzee, nor more self-controlled, not without some harsh external force being applied to them; I do not believe that said force will ever be applied by their parents; so I don't think circumstances are much happier. I'll find out when I get back, of course. (Which reminds me that I'll have to disappoint another colleague there when I return without pumpkin seeds. Apparently pharmacies here don't deal in herbal remedies.)
[Sunday, 24th June]
Gobble went back to Singapore today, and my own departure is on this Friday. If all goes according to plan, I should have everything packed and ready by Thursday, and then spend the entire of Friday in airplanes or airports. It's not a thrilling prospect--the journey, I mean. Getting back to KL will mean a bit of excitement for me while I try to choose a laptop to purchase.
[Monday, 26th June]
I went shopping today, for a bunch of Lays chips for Mrs. Gorilla. It seems her request is the only one I'm going to be able to fulfil since pumpkin seeds, huge-storage thumbdrives, cheap rewritable DVDs, and pirated DVDs are all in short supply where I am. Perhaps if I were in the Big S, I might be able to do something about those requests; as it is, though, I have little or no contact going on with the ex-colleague who requested the seeds; or the Pig (who requested the electronic stuff); so it doesn't really matter.
I wonder how long it'll take the average person to finish reading this post? Considering I don't type every day, it'll be much less formidable than I'd thought it might be; still, it's a lot more text than usually gets posted.
My kid brother spent the morning looking for IQ tests. He's trying to get the same scholarship that Gobble got, so he's trying to brush up on possible questions that IQ tests might ask. Unfortunately he Googled and got a free one, which claims that his IQ is 126 and that he was some kind of genius on the same scale as Plato. I Googled his results and found about 23,900 other people who got exactly the same results... and best of all was one of the blogs that began wondering why people with IQs of 126 are expected to pay about USD16 for 16 pages' worth of how clever they are.
I found another free one that didn't ask for money, and came up with a score of 146. It made me feel pretty good about my wonderful brain until I realised that I'd signed in as my kid brother, who is 13. Which means I'm about as clever as a 13-year-old genius--or in other words, not too clever for my own age. It's a bit humbling, but I guess now it's sort of a relief to have an excuse for failing tests back. And I'm glad I didn't publicise those results around too much...
I've been forced to renew correspondence with my aunt; mainly because my parents have decided that circumstances do not permit them to return to KL this year, I now have to be the bearer of the cheque to reimburse my aunt and uncle for paying for my ticket here. In any case, I've totally forgotten about how much it cost, and so I had to send her an email inquiring into the price. I do hope I made it polite enough; but I did not make it warm... bitterness just might be one of my chief failings. But I have a feeling that I shall find it very difficult indeed to forgive the theft of my magnets.
I should make a to-do list before I start packing, or I'm sure to get hopelessly muddled and get bogged down in all sorts of details that didn't seem to be there a few minutes ago... But I think I'll find it slightly easier than before: lots of my clothes have pulled a Houdini and completely vanished somehow; then again, this time I do have five or six packs of chips to somehow transport across two flights without crushing into bits (which means they're going to fill up my carry-ons). I wonder what I'm going to do--carry two check-ins, maybe.
[Wednesday, 27th June]
It's annoying how information seems to be spread all over several websites instead of all being collected together. I suppose all the fuss about having to go to several hundred different links to find a little information irritates me; but why on earth can't they, say, make a list of what documents I should receive, and when; then include a series of instructions on how to fill out each one, explaining each field in detail; then put the whole thing on ONE single website and send its URL to everybody who might need it? And why can't they put all the financial information--fees and methods of payments and dates of payments expected and suchlike--somewhere more easily accessible?
As it is I have several different figures that I'm completely unsure of; a bunch of numbers that either have no meaning or are absolutely important for some reason or other; and a lot of To-Do lists involving forms that I don't know whether I should download, print, and fill out; or wait for them to be sent; or to collect them from some office upon arrival and fill out there and then. I suppose the method of greatest safety is to print every single thing possible, then discard if not needed; but it's one heckuva annoyance when the printer keeps screaming No Toner at me, while my father insists on my ignoring the thing and printing anyway until it gives up on screaming and just dutifully prints until it wheezes its last drop out. I have an idea that's how the kids are supposed to be too.
At any rate, I now have a bunch of To-Do lists that I can't make head or tail of until I know exactly what forms I already have and what forms I ought to download or obtain upon arrival in Spore; and as for all the annoying numbers, my father's giving me heck about them because he wants to pay 'em by cheque. I know I should be honoured that he wants to ensure minimal inconvenience in this regard, but really--information is not easy to squeeze out of the Internet. Some is, some isn't. On this subject, trust me, it isn't.
At any rate my preferred method of obtaining the information thus far has been to ask the forum (there's one, dedicated to helping freshies, run by seniors) or Herr Robson; but my parents insist on me emailing the office directly. Meh. I dislike dealing with all things official. There's just something about mounds and mounds of paperwork that repels me. Must've been the trauma while applying for the Stinky Purple Muck.
[Saturday, 30th June]
I'm now back in Malaysia. The flights weren't too bad, even if they were characterised by a sense of hunger caused by the tiny portions of in-flight food served and my own unwillingness to buy any extra; as well as a dread fear (after the second flight) that my check-in luggage hadn't made it through the transfer and had gotten stranded in the Big S.
(There are no direct flights from Fifth Hun to KL, so I had to fly first from Fifth Hun to the Big S, then from the Big S to KL.)
It's almost unfair, in my opinion, that a few hours' flight should cause a difference of only 5 degrees Celsius in the ambient temperature--and almost all of it between Fifth Hun and the Big S. The room temperature of Fifth Hun, as of today, is 35 Celsius (and the driver says it may go up to 42); in the Big S, 31; and in KL, 30. The flight duration between Fifth Hun and the Big S is one hour plus; between the Big S and KL, five hours. You see what I mean about unfair?
...or maybe I mean disproportionate.
Anyway, so far I've made some inquiries about the purchase of the laptop, and so far everything's pretty optimistic; it seems I can (if I want to) customise the entire thing, all the way down to its battery model, at (of course) accompanying change in costs; and the delivery is quite rapid. I now merely have to decide on my model (my father has issued a budget of about 3,000 and a decree that the screen must be 14.1 inches, and has left me with discretion in other matters) and then tell my parents about its particulars, then ask them to pay for it... apparently payment must be made by credit card, and I certainly don't have one.
Well, I merely have to get my inquiries done, then tell my parents and wait to see... hopefully I won't go too far over budget in my customisation. Then again, given my limited knowledge of computer parts, my customisations should be minimal...
Hm. I'll have to get started on what's left of the NTU paperwork soon. And I still have to arrange a time for my sister and I to meet my uncle and aunt. (The email correspondence has been discontinued by me, after I sent an email thanking her for sending the information and wishing her well in her work, and she sent me back an email singing the praises of her job, which she apparently finds rewarding in all sorts of ways.) I'm bringing my sister to act as a moderator in case emotions and vocabularies go out of control--and I can't mail the cheque now because my mom has given me various baubles to present to the Brats.
My bet is the baubles get broken before we part company.
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