This is the first time I made sushi, and my housemate commented it look like rubbish especially after I dumped all those vegetables around it.

Oh ya, why housemate, one might ask. In my last post, I'm still with my family, but now, I've already entered college, and shifted out, thus explains the existence of housemates. The last post was 26 of December 2007... Obviously my ability to procrastinate has improved...

So... 7 months had passed... Some of my wishes in my wish list (points to the left) had been fulfilled, some (to my dismay) had not. I manage to get an apartment to stay with my friends (which means I don't need to stay under the college hostel, which means I save a lot on the rental and most importantly means I don't need to attempt to adapt living with a group of strangers...). I had also switched from the science stream to the arts stream, but there is still English and Maths.

English, to my horror, is one of the most boring subjects, a stark contrast to secondary school English. Everything that we put in ink on paper is tightly regulated, no room for personal opinions (fine, there is, but one risk getting marks deducted if one don't phrase these personal opinions carefully), almost 90% of whatever we wrote must be quoted, paraphrased etc, which makes one seriously consider not writing one's name on the frontpage, after all, what is written is merely other's opinion. But then again, I know this type of dry English is the language we're going to use for the next few years, and the poor teacher's attempt to drill all these 'Harvard referencing' thingy is a kind effort to prepare us for our university years...

I have to stop my piano, and six months later, I found that I'm losing touch with it. And the most frustrating thing: I'm stagnant in grade 6. So much for the effort I put into it over the last 8 years...

Staying out and being a few hundred kilometres away from family has given much freedom, but during the first few months, homesickness is a big problem. Being homesick had pretty much shut down approximately 40% of my senses to whatever that's happening around me. Only recently I'm acting less of a zombie and more of a human.

Freedom, means I am no longer regulated by family rules. I'm allowed to (once in a while) sit on the balcony, come home long after the sun has set, make a mess of the kitchen, and perhaps go nocturnal for the sake of the exams.

And the severe lack of resources during the first few weeks after moving into the apartment made me realize that the rice cooker is actually a multipurpose pot! It's primary purpose is to cook rice, but it can also be used to cook and fry food. In fact, our first steamboat is done by using the rice cooker! That was a fairly interesting experiance, but our steamboat was not exactly healthy, our soup do not have enough stock, so we had to dump in alot of MSG just to get the taste...

The second steamboat, was eaten outside. RM 18.80 per head, and we can take as much food as we want. But we took too much of the seafood and fishballs, and we attempted to put it back (wastage of food warrants a heavy fine). We're caught by the CCTV (yes, to our amazement, there are CCTV) and the waiter sent the food back!!! In the end, we tortured ourselves by finishing the food, because we poor outstation students are too poor to pay the fine... (But to a certain extent we deserved it, because we don't know our limits)

We took train back to our hometown during our March holidays, and it would be an understatement to say that the journey to the station was 'rushing'. We got up kind of late (the train departs around 8) but managed to call a taxi. At the station, while we're crossing the bridge to get to our platform, the train to KL Central (where we're going to catch our train back home) arrived. Imagine our horror, we're scared we cannot catch it, and my housemate's luggage is giving her problems (she kicked the poor bag out of frustration, I think). Luckily we managed to get into the train before the doors closed, although I must say our entrance is a bit noisy, and some passengers were smiling out of amusement (I won't go into so much details regarding our embaressing boarding, leaving space for you people's imagination to roam). We managed to board the train leaving for our hometown and found the journey fairly long, but pleasent. We passed by alot of countryside and are allowed to walk up and down the train. The food sold in the train's cafeteria was not appetizing, and it's ridiculously expensive. Kind of reminds one about food sold on economic airlines, isn't it? The most interesting thing on the train: to cross from one carriage to the next, the middle portion that connects two cabins was very jerky, and one can actually see the stones outside...

But before the March holidays, the college held something called SAM Fiesta, also known as disco night. The girls in college seems to put in alot of effort preparing for it (such as buying new clothes and wearing makeup). I saw some of the makeup tools (if that's what they're called), and it looks scary, especially that eyeliner thingy. Me and my housemates went, and came back with a big headache (my accounts homework didn't balance after that). The lighting was really nice, but the way the music went boom boom boom was a bit too stressful on my nerves. Most of the people there looked high, they enjoyed dancing. But me ideally described as being a big block of wood, can only stand and watch people dance. The most interesting event: when the teachers started dancing. I cannot imagine teachers dancing this well. They really can twist despite er... their much bulkier body shape.

But it seems that I'm not exactly hopeless at dancing, because later part of the year, during an outing with my housemates, they suddenly decided to go to the arcade, and of all games, they played the dancing machine!! I used to play puzzles or that drum or maybe that game that looks like table tennis, but not dancing machine! However, curiosity is the nature of men, so I played it as well, and turned out to be not as lousy as I thought (I thought I might get perhaps 0?)! Quite happy about that!! My coordination is not bad after all!

I shall stop here... I've left out much that has happened over these half year, hopefully I can remember it and post it from time to time? But for the time being, I shall rest (my housemate came in and got a shock that I'm not asleep yet)(Haiz...)