Anatomy Of A Stupid.

I need RM68,582. Anybody?

That’s one damn long acronym blog post title by the way.

Anywho, last year it was one week before Bon Odori and this time around it’s one week after. Today the final decisions of the 2006/2007 SMK Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Interact Club Board of Directors have been released and here’s how it stands so far, but first we start with a recap of the present Board of Directors.

For 2005/2006, in italic are the outgoing members.

President
Leong Yeu Song

Vice President
Nur Syaheera Zainal

Secretary
Jaya Rekha Yalan Gopal

Assistant Secretary
Hawa ‘Alima Abdul Latiff

Treasurer
Choo Dzu Yi

Finance Director
Adrian Yong Say Kooi

I.U. Director
Izzat Afandi Azmi

Community Service Director
Anisa Mohamed Noor

Club Service Director
Franklin Yeep Yew Ming

Sergeant-At-Arms
Thilairaja

For 2006/2007, in italic are the incoming members. A new post has been introduced to accomodate Aysha Akbar Khan, potentially next year’s Vice President as the current President and Vice President for 2006/7 are Form 4.

President
Nur Syaheera Zainal

Vice President
Mohammad Irfan

Next Generenation President (VP #2)
Aysha Akbar Khan

Secretary
Hawa ‘Alima Abdul Latiff

Assistant Secretary
Wan Nur Fatin

Treasurer
Sara Nina

Finance Director
Yee Jun Hou

I.U. Director
Shaza Lina

Community Service Director
Kavitha

Club Service Director
Thilairaja

Sergeant-At-Arms
Divanesh

I hope there won’t be too much trouble for next year, we already had a flame war in the meeting room regarding the post assignments and all. But hopefully like I said in the meeting they will do a better job than the current BOD, and won’t repeat our mistakes (including the I.U. day, newspapers and me and Adrian’s hair during the meeting). You showed what you got, and now you’re in level 2. Good luck.

(secretaries still rock, syaheera still batu, finance directors are the coolest, i.u. directors talk too much, and community service directors are always beyond cun)

There goes my damn culinary course and part time job.

Here’s what the updated page looks like, being more straightforward and official.

Some notes about the people who have begun "congratulating" me.

1. This is for Siri 4 only.

2. There are still other batches to go, so don’t think you’re out of the water yet.

3. If you don’t want to go, you better pray to god you get chosen because I did otherwise and here you are reading this post.

Overall, it’s about time I started thinking positive since most people say the PLKN is fun, and I don’t disagree with that but it’s just a waste of time to do it during immediately after SPM or for some people after college starts.

The @#!?!$*%s at the JLKN made a mistake, Siri 4 actually meant the 4th year NS is running. Who didn’t get selected, you’re free to roam.

I’m sure I’m not the first to flip through my early school yearbooks everytime I bump into something that recalls the past. But looking at my 2003 yearbook and comparing things to now really fascinates me, a lot. I mean, it’s not the cosmetic changes. It’s just that when you flip through old things, you reminisce of the old times.

First picture

Back in 2003 when I was Form 2, I was also an evening session prefect. I know how at some schools like Chung Hwa or other renowned schools, to be a prefect you have to be an A star student and be very active in curriculum activites. But here in SMKSSAAS, all is but that actually. I still remember being pursuaded to be a prefect in Form 1 by a friend. We thought it was going to be like in primary school where they make us do push ups, medical checks and whatnot to be a prefect. Well whaddya know t’was actually as easy as signing up for a McDonalds Kids Club membership..

Second picture

Fill in a form, answer some dumb questions and you’re set. [as long as you have the greens to buy your own uniform that is]

Ergo, it was kinda fun. The prefect experience made me feel like a cop for a day. No I don’t mean busting law offending students, just the fact that you have the power to let people who brought cellphones and knives and porno CDs go without even a slap on the wrist. It has always been like that, we’re all really really corrupted people here and only a few prevail to be holy of corruption. That aside, the best memory from being a prefect was at the camping when me and tentmates wouldn’t give up this certain tent spot to some seniors and we ended up having two tents on one spot and later at night a tree came tumbling down and it landed just behind our tents. I still remember coming out using the back way (because there was too many feets at the front) and asked [in BM] "hey where did this bush come from??"

There’s a lot of people that I know now that used to be a prefect, and there’s a lot of people that I know now that used to be a prefect and I didn’t know it.

One of them was Raja Shafiq [Chulan], the present paintball club president and head honcho for the paintball team. I swear I never saw him anywhere during working hours. I think he may have resigned later that year, since in Form 3 I frequently saw him wearing his white uniform. He’s a useless prefect anyway, if a girl brought firearms to school and she looked hot he wouldn’t bother. Haha! just kidding lah, the guy’s married now, please.

I also didn’t know my current form mate and friend Izzat [second picture, top, 8th from right] used to be a prefect. The guy is like a head of a cute gang now and he used to be someone who enforced the law. Nice. I didn’t know junior Siti Khausar aka cow [first picture, third row, first from left] was a prefect. I didn’t know Hema [first picture, third row, 3rd from right] and Syalina [first picture, third row, first from right] were prefects either. But I don’t recall any memory at ALL of Nurul Amal [first picture, third row, 5th from left] being a prefect. I know she said she knew me from being a prefect but it didn’t cross my mind also that she was a prefect herself. Not to mention how I knew Umyra first in Form 2 but her during Form 4.

Back in 2003 until 2005, we had this lady, Puan Normah as our headmistress. She had a son in the school, Iqmal. I won’t talk about him. She however, was a very sporting and cool person. She isn’t as strict as curren t HM Puan Nafsiah (if I got her name right). Schools need rules, but not to the extent where you suffocate the students like now allowing them to come to school without official purpose, not allowing morning bikes to be parked during afternoons and evenings (wtf?), and extending all penalties to breakneck levels like a confiscated cellphone will be kept until the year’s end. I honestly don’t recall the ministry saying anything about this, but this dude seems to take things into her own hands all the time. Well, Puan Normah didn’t make too much negative noise, she always cheered with us rather than giving a plastic smile all the time. She had to retire.

This is Miss Loh [centre]. Many people knew her from the fact that she’s not yet married but she’s 40 plus years old at the time. Of course at this age you start to get the idea that she isn’t interested in marriage (unlike me =P)  and that she leads an already busy life. She was my English teacher then, and in Form 4 she was the PKBM advisor. I can say and some will agree that she was the best teacher overall bar none, because of her energy and commitment, period.

Everyone, even my parents, have their memory of a ’sot’ or crazy teacher. Say hello to Mr. Lim, the 4 month substitue teacher that gave us hell in a nutshell. He subbed my maths teacher at the time because she was pregnant, and from the first time he tought us maths I knew he’s going to be a pain in the balls.. His most common word? "Semua" (all). Everytime he stepped in the class, he’d teach at a pace faster than my current add maths teacher and end it with a request. Request for us to do exercise 2.1…… ALL, exercise 2.2……….. ALL!, exercise 2.3…………………. ALL!!!

Damn, I knew worse teachers that were more forgiving than him in giving homework. Me and classmate Bernard would always say ’semua’ just as he finished reading the exercise number.

Speaking of which, here’s the dude. He just recently moved to Kota Kemuning and he eventually forgot all of us here at SMKSSAAS. What to do, got new rich friends what, right?.. Moving on. There was this one faithful afternoon when an English Language Society committee member came to me asking me do I know how to.. ‘the bed’? Yes I know, what the fuck right? but wait give me a second to explain myself first.

I didn’t know what the hell was a debate during then, frankly. Nor was I brave enough to step up with these bunch of (laser mouthed) geniuses and talk infront of public with a cause. So I just skipped it for then, and stuck to public speaking. But now I see, apparently last time the debate team reigned winners in the league that we just recently won at zone levels. The team consisted of regular faces like Ezra and Megat; last year’s LOSER! Haha! I’m just kidding, I don’t actually know what happened to Megat, Alia and Adel. They were supposed to be the cream of the crop, but they just lost I guess.

One of the many interesting things you can find in a yearbook is the customized class pages made by the students themselves. This was 5 Science Iltizam 2003’s page, and it wasn’t just sketched on the back of an exam pad, it was as a matter of fact professionally made by Mohd. Amin Zakri, the only student then competent of using Photoshop to this level.

He was also recognized for winning multiple design competitons. He is now in MMU, I presume taking something related to graphic design or arts.

Alright, I saved the best for last. You know how we all looked different 5 years ago than we do now? Perhaps a bit chubbier, skinnier, fairer, etc and what have you. Well, I took a look at some of the most distinct differences in my friends today compared to then and the results are very much surprising indeed. But let’s start with the ones that look the same first.

Choo Dzu Yi. She looks virtually the same? No major difference at all. It’s like she never grows or something. Probably needs to pick up some hormones at the pharmacy or something, badly.

That’s Anisa on the left, she’s the chunnest girl I know today, and she is the girl all the boys want to dance with (LOL!) She looks the same too really, except today she grew a lot, and I mean GREW; A LOT hahahahahaha! Okay okay, and she now wears weirder looking glasses and has braces which have rubber bands made out of used condoms ties around the braces.

Stop laughing. Well yeah, what can I say, I was slightly… "round" then, and Amar looks so innocent, and Jimmy… just looks different 100% compared to now. Infact I believe he has the most rapidly changing face in the school. He might look like Jay Chou next year or something. As for me, I know I still haven’t dropped that bisexual hairstyle yet til’ today, but at least I slimmed down. Toned down at least. At least.

You be the judge.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for, I present to you, virtually ‘THE’ club that you had to be in to be cool, it is the AV CLUB BADMINTON CLUB!

I mean, round of applause ‘lah, please! Leng chai’s ahoy, just pick which ones you want and it’s 10 bucks for two, yo!

But yes, it is sad, but..

I’ve been friends with an asian Elton John all along.

Haha! it’s been fun writing this extra long and special entry, would like to dedicate it to all my friends past, present and future. Til’ then, this is me, signing off!

I’ve got this bad premonition that the uniform body I just retired from, the PKBM(L) may be coming to it’s end after 8 intakes. With several plausible reasons too, unless an uncontrollable surge of Form 4’s join next year due to the fact that (mutually claimed) the 75% girls ration is all good looking. That wouldn’t help much either really, but it’s just a (mutual) thought.

Intake 1 back in 1998 started off with the first teacher, Miss Loh. She moved to SMK USJ 4, Subang Jaya early this year leaving us, Intake 7 in the midst of our retirement. Nobody blames her for it, she does stay in Subang so she prolly needs a break being a 42 year old single lady. I don’t actually know who was in Intake 1 really, it never really hit me to ask Miss Loh about it anyway. We’ve had lots of supervision from Intake 2 and 3 cadets and we’re also the first one to win the annual marching competition since Intake 5.

But things weren’t bad during the starting of our year, although there still wasn’t enough to form a platoon, we still made it with around 34 cadets plus a couple of our late retiring seniors who stayed with us for some reason I don’t know of. However Intake 8 only got a miserable 14 head count and it’s not getting any better. Strange how it started off with 39 people and eventually only 14 came, no? If that’s not bad enough, we had to skip the sailing (which we’re supposed to do, being in the NAVY cadet), shooting and national levels camp this year due to poor response and poor strength in the platoon. Aw hell what platoon am I talking about, more like 1 fifth of a platoon.

Something tells me the new teacher, Pn. Azrieta isn’t really having fun with us compared to the last time when she was with the police cadets. Either that or she’s a really sucky teacher advisor compared to Miss Loh. Miss Loh not only was dedicated, she always had proper execution of activities, she made sure everything went right, ironed out all the problems with ease. Sometimes it makes me think about is she the real spirit in the uniform body? Some people agree 100% that she was the heart and soul because she knew what to do and when to do it - simply because she is a trained young lieutenant commander of the Navy and she took the course solely because of the PKBM(L).

But I don’t know, I mean she’s still a cool person to talk to. No racism intended but the chinese kids got along best with her. Not to mention how in Intake 6 a majority of the cadets were chinese and how we (Intake 7) actually joined only because of them. Trust me, we knew jack shit about the PKBM(L) back then. In Form 2, we thought it was some ultra elite body of super cool rich people and you had to fill in an I-94 form to enter. Then came the Interact Club. Almost everyone knows the fact that 90% of the people in the PKBM(L) back then were Interact Club members. So you can say we joined out of chance, really.

But now it’s totally changed. My intake started to get shitty. You could see it from the level of disrespect from a minority of the platoon towards the seniors. We even had a big arguement, stopped talking to each other even out of the line and ended up with a confession/resolution session to resolve our problems that ended up in flame wars. This year, no question the same repeated itself. Only difference is I don’t see the ‘resolution’ part of it. Earlier this year there’s been gossip that juniors are mocking seniors, seniors ragging or talking rudely to juniors too much, etc. Nothing much to say, but we had to pay back for that lost phone, too, when it wasn’t our fault to begin with but we’re cool with it.

That’s just my negative thoughts for today. Maybe I’m asking for too much too. Oh well..

Ohayo gozaimas, konnichiwa, konbanwa and oyasumi. Sorry to admit it to you, but yes that was last year’s greeting and yes it is based on Jim Carrey’s ‘.. and incase I don’t see ya; good afternoon, good evening and good night!’.

I gotta be honest with ya, every year’s Bon festival is the same ole’ thing. You come, you get a fan, you eat expensive food, you drink ’super dry’ beer, you dance to weird (but happy) music and you see lots and lots of chicks and I don’t mean the one of the bird kind! This year was no exception. Walking into Matsushita sports centre felt just like the first time going to a Bon Odori.

What can I say, the place was filled with perv guys and girls wearing extra skimpy outfits, even Farah wouldn’t be able to stand it. Most people see the festival as, or rather they associate it way too much to the Japanese culture itself when in actual fact it’s just a cultural event based on the Japanese’s culture. Like a topic in chapter, rather than the chapter itself. I see it however as a medium to indirectly make friends with strangers for a short while, enjoy the dances and just hang out with people you don’t get to see every day.

Can’t even get a good shot.

This year I think the crowd has at least doubled for sure, the lines were even longer at the Jusco stalls, and the ice cream stall ran out of stocks way before the event even ended. Sad story but even when I first reached the cocoa mona macha (not to be mistakened with dey apa la lu macha) ice cream was already sold out. But aside from all the usual stalls which were in the exact same position as last year, there was a new stall near the Yakult stall and it looked darn familiar.

No wonder, it’s Beard Papa. I only got to try one of these babies early this year at their sole branch in Mid Valley on the way home (’some’ people call it a detour or lencongan) from going to the AIDS council to pick up some stuff. Kinda bought it by chance since I was waiting for my friends who were shopping, so of course I as a shop-worthy person had to go shopping also la right? Saw this weird santa like mascot for a little corner shop and had lots of burger looking puffs stacked. A closer inspection and I found out they sell really really expensive cream puffs at RM4.00 per 3 inch puff but it still looked interesting so I bought one anyway, and that was my very first cream puff from BP.

So since I enjoyed the last one, I bought one at the Bon and so did Adrian. Of course we had more than compliments for it since it really is good. These golden puffs are just half the story, the filling is a rich and creamy custard that’s served cold and it just blends really well with the warm puff. Beard Papa is Japanese bourne and was brought in by Kiseiki International just over a year ago and they’ll be opening a second branch soon in One Utama. At the Bon festival, they were selling them for RM18.00 per box of 5 pieces at first. This is expensive compared to the retail RM16.50, but would you believe it at the end of the festival they sold it for RM10.00 per box. I actually already bought one at a discounted RM15.00 but felt so depressed about the price that I with regret bought another box. Conclusion, cream puffs ruined my childhood. Did I mention I visited Mid the next day and shamelessly bought another box? From the same counter dude?

Adrian and Edmond bought a kind of Teriyaki Toki which is a teriyaki chicken satay with teriyaki sauce but it came with a slice of grilled white cuttlefish on the side for RM6.00 and I tell you it tasted like heaven! If I can recall correctly they got it from the Jusco booth so it should be available at most Juscos nationwide. Sorry no pictures, we were rushing to catch the dance so we gobbled down everything in a tick.

The ice cream stall

Since we were all on a (n uncontrolled) budget, we told ourselves to make sure we *only* bought something either rare or can only be found in Japan to avoid any wastage and set the maximum spending limit to RM15.00. I broke mine when I bought the puffs, but that was for a good cause. Really. After the dance Edmond was making lots and lots of noise about getting some damn beer, so we quit half way on the last dance and went to the Asahi stall. Funny the lady didn’t bother to ask for our age. I actually hinted to her that we’re underage for drinking but she didn’t seem to care. Even asked me if I wanted to buy one. This should be a good sign, might not have to use my fake IC anymore haha!

I don’t know if it’s intentional or not la, but Edmond threw some trash into my bag of stuff and he didn’t even know it. Could be the side effects of drinking kicking in =P Aaanyways! As usual we danced to the shirashi, kimigayo and tsuwano. Again, there is just something too weird yet addictive about dancing with a bunch of strangers at Bons, really.

Stage

Nothing much more to say. We came, we saw, and we left I guess.. Saw some really really weird items on sale too, such as…

At first me and Edmond thought it’s some kind of Japanese dude’s sweat  fountain of youth thingamajigger canned and commercialized. But in actual fact it’s just as isotonic drink (but it’s still salty though, way too salty to be used together with the word sweat in the brand name). Also, there was the popular Doraemon ‘kuih’ which is actually a dorayaki ‘lah, but I’m just trying to make things interesting. There was one that looked normal but they had a chocolate coated one and sorta put a picture of the big blue Dorae-mamu next to it just so that people get the picture and that you’re cool if you eat dorayakis. Chocolate ones. Like Doraemon.

There was people from the JSKL like always, and I thought of asking them why the hell aren’t they replying the email that says we want to visit their school for a community service project, but oh well.. Not like I can speak Japanese right? Yeah yeah. Well that’s all that I have to say about this year’s Bon. Until next year, sayonara.

Tonight’s the usual annual Bon Odori night, some of the people (this year’s special preview will be Yeu Song and his girlfriend hahahaha) have already arrived at Mat’s stadium but me, Jimmy, Adrian and Edmond will be leaving for it at 7.30pm.  ETA 8.00pm and regroup within an hour’s time. Should be a bummer if we arrive late and the food’s all sold out and miss the dances. Infact, we were lucky to catch that weird hullabaloo jingle around "Bon" dance (the last one) and got to see the JSKL students. Tokyo Drifts and pun not intended, the Japanese like to sleep early, so be there before 9, or be square!

Well, who would have thought it has been a year already since the last Bon Odori, on the 16th Of July 2005. So has my previous blog, it looks so immature. Here’s the post, nostalgia has possesed me from reading it.. For the general public to know, I actually first met Adrian, his little brother Andy, Edmond, etc all the regular faces that I see everyday today. According to the post it was also the day after I passed my CDL, the L test for my B2 motorcycle license, where I almost failed. Other than that, it also strangely includes the incoming BOD for the Interact club’s details. Funniest sentence there is ‘Interact Club Of SMKSSAAS’s International Understanding Day has been
postponed yet again to September because the seniors couldn’t deal with
the catering and say we may not be able to keep up with the
performances that we need to do.’

Haha! Talk about serious nostalgia! Man, there’s talk about PKBM, Syaheera and Hawa (not to mention how I - just like anybody else - didn’t know Amal is her sister), Pn. Noraini and her add maths homework that she gave me, Yi Hong liking Syaheera (as if we don’t know), Siao Yen’s driving, that ice cream that I bought for a ‘gila-babi’ discount when actually the store attendant just forgot I took it, my 0.0002 cent attempt at translating Japanese. Good old days. This allows for digging up of the old yearbooks. Not that I like since I still look like a really ripe tomato in pictures in there, argh! Wise.. square..

Writeup by tomorrow day after tomorrow.

First off, I’d like to make a public announcement to my fellow schoolmates that asked me about the Form 3/4 diagnostic test. I was just joking when I said it’s similar to a medical checkup, so stop making a big deal out of it!

Second, here’s the new tax rates from the National Automotive Policy (aka the DON) from Paul Tan

That’s for CBUs by the way. Long story short, a Gixxer 1000 now will cost you 6 digits, luxury cars and MPVs cost you 6 and a half - maybe even 7 digits, so you get the idea. I love my government.

Warning. This special episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive contains graphical text that may lead to discomforting imaginations or severe diarrhea. Reader discretion is advised.

‘Tis a run of the mill Wednesday morning when Form 5 student Izzat was headed out to run his errands. Little did he know that today, the jaws of death will be in his sight with every move he makes after one bad incident.

Izzat, a 17 year old living in the north west of Shah Alam reaches school every morning at 7.20am (relatively late for you), but today, he has to leave at 8.00am to take his driver’s test. It seemed almost normal until the first signs of danger and boredom struck just after he arrives at the driving school. He arrives at the driving school. He gets out of the car but feels a strange presence behind him. It’s the MBSA, they’re issuing summons to cars who don’t pay their parking tickets..

"I was just about to lock my car when I felt this… eerie sense.. like I was in a ghost house…. only twice as eerie!"

All was alright, he just had to head to the ticketing machine, get a ticket and return to his car. However, as he reached the machine, it had a clear OUT OF ORDER tape stretched across it. He started to panic. He looked around for another ticket machine but couldn’t find one. His body was losing metabolisme fast, and he had to make a decision before the officials unleash their wrath on his car (and wallet).

Luckily, as he is an avid generalknowledgephilosophian, he remembers what he sees from a fellow GKP, he cunningly moves his car to the white zone, where the officials couldn’t summon him for not paying his parking fees for.

"All I could remember then was just making sure I get back to my car in time, and moving my car to a safe spot, and I’d be okay.."

Again all went back on track for Izzat, the clock showed 8.35am, and he knew he was late as he promised the teacher to be there by 8.30am. Yet another close call to death was about to appear right infront of him in the next few minutes. He arrives at the door of the office only to find it locked. He panics again, thinking he may have missed the van there may have to reschedule for the test again. Fortunately this time he manages to keep his cool, and take a seat at a nearby minimarket bench. Ironically however, a crazy indonesian dude comes out with a broom charging towards him in an orderly fashion and he is forced to leave..

"I wasn’t doing anything. When this semi-looking lady came out, all I could think of was.. bloody hell."

Fast forward to 8.45am, the office lady arrives, she apparently just got up from bed and didn’t want any trouble (you know how cranky senior citizenettes are when they wake up, don’t you?) so he proceeds to just following her upstairs to the office together with another man and lady, claiming that they are also taking their tests today. Waiting to leave in the office, Izzat gets a clue at his next death toll.

"Out of nowhere, this big.. man just appeared at the front door, all sweating and smelly like his 5 o’clock shift at the yard just ended and it’s 8.45 in the morning! I was very worried indeed."

At first he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it, but as the signal came to leave, the unidentified man also got up, apparently leaving together. Izzat rushed down in a frantic state, hoping to get a seat at least next to the window in the worst case scenario. Too late, there’s yet another man similar to the other already in the vehicle. Ironically, today the company sent the van in for service and has to use the test vehicle, the Perodua Kancil to transport students to the test centre.

It struck Izzat for a while that maybe, just maybe he’d have to sit next to one of the men in the miniscule car. Well whaddya know he gets in the car and next thing he sees is one man on each side of the door. He was about to get sandwiched in between two people to his close death. At this point, doctor’s believe he has broken a finger bone from pressing on the seat to make sure he makes no contact with the deadly venom.

"The road.. oh my god, it was just horrible, the driver just had to take using the long cut just because of a morning traffic jam and he took corners like he was Mark Webber on steroids. It was just horrid, just horrid."

Arriving at the test centre, Izzat is lucky to still be alive. He has been diagnosed for a severe haematoma at his right and left elbows and multiple muscle spasms at the hamstring from straining his left and right wing to evade unnessecary contact and poisonous burns. He is told to get a number at the counter.

"I was still alright, I could feel my heart rate and it was still fine. I was told to get a number at that counter and I saw it. I saw the counter, and I saw the line, but I didn’t see the starting of the line! Hell was about to break loose again."

He was frightened like a little infant. He still had that haematoma and muscle spasm left over from the journey and now he had to que up in a line as long as two Eiffel towers put together end to end, just to get a number. His day wasn’t going any better. All he could do now was wait, control his pain and be patient. Many times he (inside his heart) screamed to the intense pain, it was unimagineable for the average joe.

2 hours has past, finally it’s his turn to take a number. His voice was so dry, the counter lady thought he was about to pass out. She issues him a number, to his surprise, the number reads 13. He had spirit once more, he thought he may have just survived the longest que by luck, but actually it was worst than that. He is told to go to booth A and wait for his turn to drive. The first car pulls up, and the JPJ official comes out and calls a number, he hoped that this number was close to 13, but..

"I was stunned. The big poomba came out and yelled 261! I was so shocked my mouth was hanging and I almost drooled! This day wasn’t going any better for me"

Izzat remembers a survival technique he learns from a cheap 2 dollar quiz he took on the internet, he sneaks under a shaded part of the booth and keeps shelter awaiting his low albeit far number to be called out. The hours passed, and his number still didn’t get a call. The pain he was suffering was getting worst, a distinct odour from the earlier journey snuck it’s way up his sleeve and now is displacing itself into the atmosphere, and everyone was giving a weird stare that spelt "Who farted now?" all over their faces.

The haematoma was getting really bad now, he could see the spots on his elbows and a slight move will land him in serious pain. The clock struck 12.30pm and to his deaf luck, a representitive comes to the booth and says that the testers are on a lunch break and will be back at 1pm.

"See, in my mind this was bad because I saw the sky and there were siaoniaos everywhere and the dark clouds was closing in signalling a rain is about to arrive"

Thankfully, his cries for help is eventually answered to when everyone left for lunch thinking that the testers are on their break, and all of the sudden many started to come to the booth to call out for numbers. Number after number people were absent, things were looking up for once. Or so he thought. Finally a loud "TIGA BELAS! CALON TIGA BELAS!" sounded and he got up in joy and fought the pain all the way to the test car.

He arrives in the car, does as per what he’s practiced which is to start by adjusting his seat, the side mirrors, rear mirrors, testing the turn signals and wipers. Everything was well so far, he proceeded to fasten his seat belt. However, there’s a slight twitch in the seat belt mechanism, the buckle is stuck to the seat. Frantic, he tries at yanking the buckle hoping that it would come free from the seat. The tester was slightly cheebyed
at this point. He already told Izzat to move, but he couldn’t due to the buckle getting stuck and the tester is not impressed.

"I pulled, but it just didn’t want to come out. I knew if I didn’t get it out quick, I was going to be extremely dead soon. The pain in the elbow was agonizing, but I was beyond my boiling point from the wait and just gave it a hard pull with all my might, and my elbow swung out left right into the tester’s face. This is bad."

Knowing that he is in a sticky situation, Izzat just roughly apologizes to the tester and proceeds to move on without asking more questions. He shifts it into first gear, and slowly lets go of the clutch to know the car’s clutch action range. To his surprise, the car gave a hard jerk when he popped the clutch full. Still not impressed, the tester has a bad face this time, like he just bought a pair of wrong sized underwear and had to wear it because he tore up his last one in a bad accident at the loo. Back to the topic at hand, Izzat goes through the course and arrives back at the centre, hoping to get good results.

"I was nervous. I really hoped I didn’t do anything wrong because it will be my head if I had to repeat this, and he didn’t seemed satisfied at all with my driving."

Still with the half-past-six face, the tester gets up and marks Izzat’s paper. All the time, Izzat is sweating upon seeing him marking each box, either with a passing / or the forbidden X. He spots the first X, it’s marked next to the "Use of proper gearing to match speeds". Anxiously looking on, he spots the next X - marked at the "Proper usage of hand and foot brakes". Strike two, and more than two more and his day will end in defeat. Third X, he could not identify what it was for due to the anxiety. Palms sweating, hands shaking, the fourth X is marked. At this point, he knows if another X is marked, then, well, you know..

The paper is handed to him by the tester. Upon immediate inspection he is lucky to find no more X’s after the fourth one. He survives the epic, and passes the test. Today, Izzat is driving his car around legally with a license and still lives to tell the scary tale of him taking his driver’s test.

Fellow pasta eaters, Ducatisti, Schumi & Ferrari fans, Vale, Aprillians and Capirex; for Italy is now the World Cup Champions!

Boo to France, especially Zidane for his immature behaviour, they deserved it.

UPDATE

Zinedine Zidane won the golden ball for being the best player as voted by media members. Just a few votes behind is Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro and following him is fellow team mate Andrea Pirlo.