Today the dad received a letter from my school. It had to come on the day that he was home for lunch to pick up the kiddies from school, otherwise I would have taken it and hid it. It turns out it was a letter informing my dad about their concern over my 'absenteeism' for Malaysian Studies. Honestly. It was only four absences, and more than half of those dates were days where there were only presentations and no lesson at all so I skipped to do something more useful with my time. No reason for the school to be all 'concerned' and run off to my parents.

Apparently the person who sent this notice must be some complete fool and a half for sending it two weeks after I sat for my Malaysian Studies final (and the only reason they send these letters is to warn you that if you skip any more you can get barred from the exam). Whoever it was got me in a spot of trouble for nothing.

I didn't get into that much trouble actually, but it was pretty scary because it totally caught me off guard. When the dad questioned me about it all I said was that it was only about three absences and that that class was a complete waste of my time and I skipped to work on the school paper. I was let off the hook once I told him that I was getting an A for the class.

God I hope I get an A. If I don't my parents are going to throw this letter in my face.

On the bright side, I'm not so goody-goody after all! First I get fined six bucks for returning library books that were a week overdue (and I was given a receipt as a souvenir too), and now this absenteeism warning letter? Oh wow. REBEL!

I just hope I'll get all A's this semester.

This is my first week as a non-college student, and quite honestly I haven't gotten down to doing anything I had planned for myself. So far all I've been doing is staying indoors watching episodes of Jem on youtube. It hasn't been all that uneventful though because last weekend I went to Penang, last last Wednesday after my last paper I slept over a friend's and stayed up till 5am watching that Chelsea-Barcelona match (fine fine I didn't have a choice what with the two football fans), and two weeks ago right before finals I went on a day trip to Malacca and visited all the historical sites.

But right now things have really slowed down, well okay not really, but it's beginning to and I'm worried about the day when things really really slow down, when all the planned outings have been done and I have nothing else to do but get on with THE BIG PLAN. Driving. It's so scary. I need someone to force me to do it. I need someone to tell me that they won't love me anymore if I don't get off my ass and register. Or better yet, someone needs to tie me up and drag me kicking and screaming to that registration place just outside my house (yes, all this time it's been staring me in the face only I chose to ignore it). For special cases like me, I think threats and violence is the best way to get me to go through with it. So come on and beat me up.

On a cheerier and less disturbing note, yesterday the hat guy and I went out to watch two movies, Wolverine and Star Trek. I thought both were really cool but Wolverine earned more points because you get to see flashes of Hugh Jackman's naked bum. It made me all giggly. And I liked Star Trek because it was nice to see all of them so young. I especially liked Mr. Spock as a kid because he looked so adorable.

There's this place at Pyramid that sells Japanese ice cream and I love their chocolate and green tea flavoured ones. Yesterday I thought I'd try out something completely new and ordered their black sesame ice cream. The hat guy doesn't like weird ice cream flavours so instead of sharing with me I had to get him his own chocolate ice cream. His was all nice and chocolatey. Mine was grey and uh....dull-looking. I was wondering why it looked so different, until I realised that the guy didn't put the ice cream in the machine and make it all swirly. It was just flat ice cream in a cup. I wish I had said something to the guy!!!

this is how it's supposed to look like. Only taller and uneaten.

It didn't taste that bad actually, but I didn't find it worth my 5 bucks. The hat guy, on the other hand, LOVED his (well of course he did, I paid for it. hehehe). And when he was done with his and saw that I still wasn't done with mine, he said "Are you done with your cup of ash yet?"

Oh how very amusing (not). I did manage to finish it off though, only I didn't wipe the cup clean like the hat guy did with his. On the bright side, we recycled our cups and spoons because the nearest bin was a recycle bin. That made me feel a lot better. But then I checked out my teeth in the mirror and saw that it had bits of sesame seed everywhere. Honestly. I am never going to have that ice cream again!

Having written this, I realise that I am still not satisfied with my Yokomon (that's the name of the shop) experience yesterday, because the ice cream wasn't swirly. I wish someone could take me back there so that I could have another one and this time I wouldn't order the black sesame. Oh and it would be swirly too.

Too bad I'd have to go all the way to Pyramid to get that satisfaction (15 minutes by car or an hour by train). Hmm... I wish I drove.

You know sometimes people who usually smell really sweet can stink too. We're all humans and humans can have stinky farts, burps, poos, hoo-hoos and even stinky arm pits too. These things happen and it's nothing to feel ashamed about. I tell myself this to stop from cringing every time I think about last Saturday and how I think I smelled really really bad the whole day. In PUBLIC!

It wasn't my fault. How should I have known that the t-shirt I was wearing was one of those t-shirts that when mixed with sweat creates this horrible arm pit smell? It was a Reebok tee. I wore it in the spirit of sports because Reebok is a sports brand and what better occasion to wear it than when at your school sports day? How should I have known that it would be really really hot at the park?

Actually I take full responsibility for not thinking to bring an extra t-shirt with me, along with some deodorant. I was going to, but then when I told the scientist that I had packed a face towel with me to wipe off my sweat, the scientist said something that implied that I was being overly semangat or eager, so I decided against it and left my t-shirt in my room but packed the towel. Instead I had packed along my makeup bag which had three different kinds of lip gloss, a brush, two different kinds of eye liner, a lip stick and a miniature bottle of perfume. I bring this makeup bag everywhere as an emergency kit, but obviously it needs to be improved to avoid a stink-alert crisis. I slathered almost my entire upper body with that little bottle of perfume I had, and it helped a bit, only I started smelling really strongly of perfume after that, mixed with sweat. Oh gosh. I wonder if there is such thing as miniature deodorant?

After we did our little thing and lost (we took part in our school's version of Amazing Race. We got second last. Hahaha.), all of us hung around a bit at the park watching people play for a few hours. When we wanted to leave and got to the car, it turns out everyone except me had brought an extra t-shirt. The hat guy even brought his deodorant spray. And a hand sanitiser. I was miffed. I go through so much trouble every day carrying things for emergency situations, and on the day where the emergency arises, I don't bring anything except for my stupid make up bag. It was all very twisted and cruel. I wanted to hit the hat guy a million times!

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the hat guy had talked me into going to an OAG concert later in the afternoon, right after the games. He had told me about it before, and if it was a planned thing believe me I would have brought an extra t-shirt and maybe even pants and undies too, but the scientist said I couldn't go, so, thinking I wasn't going to go anywhere afterwards, I didn't pack any clothes. Only later while we were at the park the hat guy told me to ask the scientist again over the phone, and finally she let me go. You see I wasn't so worried about being stinky and sweaty, because the hat guy said he was just going to go in his clothes too, so we'd both be stinky and sweaty. "Besides," he said. "We're going to be all sweaty at the concert anyway."

I should have known his pants were on fire! When we got to the car he sprayed himself and changed into another t-shirt! And so did the other guys. He did offer me some of his deodorant, only I didn't want to smell like a dude. I can be unbelievably choosy even when things are desperate.

So the hat guy, Shaz (he is also a guy in a hat) and stinky drenched-in-Burberry me rode the train to KL to Istana Budaya where the concert would be. The guys were really nice, I mean they didn't like cover their noses or anything while sitting next to me on the train. Even the hat guy didn't cover his nose when I sat next to him during the show (it was a sitting down show. So much for having everyone else be sweaty), and he has a really crazy sense of smell. So maybe I wasn't miss stinky stinkerson of stinkingshire, but just stinky.

You know how I always like to look nice? Well the one time I don't look nice, the one time my hair is all greasy from sweat, the one time I'm all gross and non-fresh looking, the hat guy bumps into a lot of his old friends (okay just one old best friend, one jamming buddy and one dude from OAG who looked like he was from Weezer, but still a lot to meet at one place!) I spoke and shook hands with a lot of new people looking like crap. Although I did still manage to smile a lot, and genuinely too, because even though I smelled and looked like crap, I really had a good time. I also made the hat guy's old friend laugh. So hopefully that portrayed me as a fun, outdoorsy (because of my outfit), naturally pretty (hahaha) girl.

Oh and I enjoyed the show. Except for the first band that played, Dance to the Radio. Honestly they sounded like a bunch of angry cats. It was a long line of never ending screeches, and that was just the instruments! I couldn't even tell if the guy was singing in Malay or English because he was completely drowned out by the music, but that wasn't such a bad thing because he didn't have a good voice.

The second opening act, Auburn were so much better. I thought it was cute that they had roadies and a lot of guitars. Oh they sounded good too. And I really like the singer because he's the hat guy's friend and when I was introduced to him he said that he's heard a lot about me from the hat guy. That was really nice. Haha. It's always nice to hear something like that.

I really liked OAG too. When they played 60's TV it almost made me cry, and my skin was all goose pimply! Radhi was really funny on stage, and he even spoke to the stuffed animals on the stage. I like people who create stories about their stuffed animals.

It's funny how a lot of things can happen when you're in a state of smelliness. I'm just thankful I didn't catch anyone covering their nose. I mean that would've been horrible! And at least now I can say, "Hey, I am spontaneous too. I went to a concert right after sports day!"

By the way, when I got home and took a shower, my arms were as red as a lobster. It turns out I got sunburned while doing the Amazing Race. I didn't know you could get it at the park. I always associated it with being at the beach. The burning and redness have died now, and now my arms are a sort of crisp golden brown colour, like McD's chicken nuggets. They don't match my legs though, which are still very pasty and corpse-like.

At 8.30 last night we switched off all our lights at home. I was in an incredibly bad mood, because it was all dark and I couldn't see a thing, and the dad went all crazy and had the sudden urge to be 'green' by banning the usage of candles, because, according to him they would "release heat and contribute to global warming."

This came from the guy who laughed at my "stop taking plastic bags if you don't need it!" speech I made at home a while ago, saying that by the time the Earth would be at its worst, we'd all be dead. Oh how very amusing.

So, because of the darkness last night, I couldn't read a book, nor was I allowed to use my laptop, because the dad kept saying "you are ruining Earth Hour," even after I told him a million times that it was running on its batteries. I eventually had to end my game of Word Challenge and shut it down. I looked out my bedroom window at the building across from mine, there were quite a few houses with their lights on brightly, shining proud as if to say, "hahahaha!"
 
I didn't want to hang out in my room alone, because it was dark and the streetlights outside were creating shadows in my room which kind of freaked me out because a few weeks ago the hat guy and I watched this tres scary French film about incredibly disturbing nightmarish things and one of the stories was of this guy rummaging around in a dark cabin, with only a lantern as his source of light and you couldn't see what was going on in the dark but you knew someone was following him because later reflected through the mirror you could see this really scary looking woman in a kimono...

Anyway, the short of it is that I didn't want to hang out in my room so I brought my iPod along with me and hung out in the living room where the dad was asleep on the couch. For about 45 minutes I just sat there listening to Tristan Prettyman (who, on top of having a really nice voice has a really nice bum. Enough to give mine a run for its money. hahaha.). Eventually my eyes started to close and since I was listening to one of her live sessions, I started thinking about my acoustic session fantasy and pictured myself having Prettyman's voice and singing her songs (which, in my fantasy, would be MINE). I decided to update the fantasy.

List of changes to my acoustic set fantasy:
1. On top of having a voice like that girl from the Cardigans, I would also have a voice like Prettyman's.
2. The hat guy will not be around for the whole set, he will only be around for one or two songs, and we would have a duet. Before he reveals himself, I would say "For this next performance I would like to introduce you to this really good friend of mine. Hat guy where are you?" to which he would come out with his guitar and we would chat for a bit before we start singing.
3. This set would take place at a coffee house. It would be very low key.
4. I wouldn't have a band. It would just be me, because I'm still new in the music scene (hahahaha).

May I remind you that this is a FANTASY, and I've accepted the fact that it's never ever going to happen because one, I can't sing or have a voice even close to Prettyman's; two, I don't play guitar; and three, I am not cool enough to entertain a crowd for an hour or so.

By the time I was done, it was already five minutes until the lights went on again. By 9.30 sharp, the dad had the kiddies turn on all the lights. I said, "So what that's it? You don't even want to wait like five minutes before turning them on again?" But I was ignored.

So that concluded my Earth Hour. It felt like a blackout with no candles and the fan on.

No, No, No (in Simon Cowell accent)

To take my mind off things I've started re-reading the Georgia Nicolson books again, it saves me from having to sit in front of my computer the whole day fixing other people's articles and wondering why on Earth do I care in the first place, especially when I won't really be getting any credit for the drastic changes I make; oh no all the credit would go to the author. This horrible experience has made me realise that sub editors don't really get enough credit for doing what they do. Of course, newspaper sub editors don't really have to deal with awful writing, because, except for the interns who come in, most of the reporters write well. And when I say write well, I mean be able to string sentences together that make sense instantly. No one cares about creative crap, just write something people can understand! Sadly, I cannot say the same for writers of a student-run newspaper.

Speaking of which, last night I had the misfortune of  reading an article written by someone who was trying to sound creative and fun, only the person failed horribly because he or she was like a piece of plain old cardboard trying to disguise his or herself as fancy wrapping paper (i.e. very obvious that the person is trying to sound fun and interesting), and in the end the person just ended up sounding stupid. It actually gave me an upset stomach.

I don't get it -- if people don't know how to write something, why can't they just refer to other articles and use them as a template for writing their own? I do it ALL THE TIME. Surely people can't be that stupid to not think of that?

And it's not copying, it's merely taking notes and practising through another person's work to create something of your own. Bill Gates did it, and look at where he is now. If everyone on the team did this I wouldn't have had that upset stomach last night. I would have had a happy, quiet stomach.

I don't mean to sound rude or imply that I have the best writing in the world (far from it. Lately I've been really hating the kind of articles I've written, so much so that I took some time to think about what other field I could venture into since writing couldn't really be called my 'best asset.' I couldn't think of anything else though), but I really don't know why some people don't strive to do better, nor have any shame in submitting half-hearted work.

I mean at theSun last time I used to get scolded by my editors for submitting my stories in late, the reason being that I was always looking for ways to improve it because I didn't want to submit something bad. And every time when a story of mine got published and it was heavily edited, I used to feel really embarrassed that I was given a byline for it, because I felt that I didn't deserve it. But still, what I did was I read the edited version and compared it with my own and learned from there.

I don't get why some people can't do this and end up repeating the same mistake again and again. In fact I don't get how some of them made it through their internships with writing like that.

This time I am putting my foot down though. I am just going to let badly-written articles through with only minor editing. Let them deal with the fussy lecturer-in-charge, because I've had it. I just want to pass the class (This is not as dramatic as it seems coming out from someone like me, because it is a pass/fail class).

Last night I told the hat guy that for the next issue I didn't want to be any sort of editor anymore, but just a normal reporter. He laughed and said "Don't you wish you were dumb and ignorant?"

My answer was no, but he had a point. If I were stupid then I didn't have to worry about other stupid people, because I wouldn't notice their stupidity as stupidity would be normal to me. It is all very Veronica Decides to Die-ish.
Not that I want to be stupid. God, no.