Author: Michelle Teoh

After two weeks (and probably more) of T-shirt-and-shorts wardrobe combinations, sleepless late nights and overall suffocating torture that could only mean the starting of mock exams week, on the last day of exams, ten of us went out for a much-needed necessary trip to KL to replenish our dried up souls and spirits. And indeed, it was a day/night to remember.

The last paper on Friday was Pure Maths 1, and as soon as it ended at 11AM, all thoughts of exams and chemical equations and mathematical formulae were temporarily thrown out of the metaphorical window to jumpstart this celebration I reckoned I properly deserved after all the shitty weeks I’ve been through for exams.

There were many different tangents to the curve of this post-exams celebration, but ours went like this: Danny’s house, shopping at KL, Jogoya and then whatever comes after that. So with Harris as our esteemed driver, we went to Danny’s house first, where we ordered pizza delivery service (care was taken not to fill up our stomachs too much to brace ourselves for the royal feast that was Jogoya later that night) and basically just chilled. And then around 2PM we left because Harris, Guinevere, Danny and Gerald had a movie to catch at Pavilion at 2.30PM and we were already running quite late.

At KL, the four of them rushed for the movie while Bellyn, Taliza, Irfan, Chok and I went (window) shopping around Sungei Wang Plaza, H&M (where I got a mesh shirt for a photoshoot the next day), Lot 10 and KLCC (where I spent RM100 book vouchers on David Levithan books hahahahahaha). And then it was 5.30PM and we had to walk the arduously long walkway back to Pavilion and then to Starhill where we met up with everyone else who had gone off on different tangents (Austin and Ian, and the movie bunch).

As soon as I entered Jogoya, the surrealism of the night started to set in. Besides the grandeur that is Jogoya, just being there with all my favourite people having a royal Japanese buffet right into the night felt otherworldly and ethereal. As if we were just sitting for our P1 paper that morning! And it was exactly this sudden overwhelm of emotions that set me off a little, as I dived into a hazy stupor and tried to keep myself from bursting into an explosion of tears or laughter; anything at all to release the overwhelmingness of it all. That would just be weird, so I kept it under check the entire time. The accumulated exhaustion throughout the week also decided to smack me right in the face at the same time so that helped a little.

After dinner, not surprisingly, we had mini dance parties on the escalators and elevators of Starhill, everyone on an apparent high that I couldn’t deny I didn’t see coming. We wandered around Pavilion for a while, and then the outside streets of KL until we decided to just chill at Tous Les Jours where everyone went off on different talking tangents again. And that’s all we did well into the night: talking. And it felt, well, exactly like that overrated term coined by Stephen Chbosky in The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Infinite.

And then it was almost midnight and I was so close to dozing off, that kind of exhaustion tinged with nausea and not knowing exactly where you are. So everyone said their goodbyes (“see you next week!”s) and Gerald, Irfan, Bellyn and I climbed into the Austin mobile, and the entire ride home was just…splendid. Bellyn was the DJ and the KL nighttime landscape was the brilliant view and I’d say the ride home itself was comparable to the fun of the entire day itself.

Back at SMR, after parting ways with Bellyn at the elevator, I found myself caught in the in-between of fatigue and restlessness (such an unbelievable paradox but believe me it exists) and it pretty much went on throughout the entire night, leading to only three hours of restless sleep that night, as my brain continuously and involuntarily replayed the night’s surreal events in my brain over and over again, overwhelmed. But grateful. Grateful for all these people in my life whom I trust not only to have fun with but the not-so-fun parts as well. And that, is my greatest gratitude and fortune of all.

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When someone (I don’t remember who) suggested we play futsal on Friday (me, Bellyn and Taliza invited as well because usually it was just the guys who played), I was pretty reluctant because a) I don’t go well with sports and b) I didn’t want to make a fool of myself and cause my team (whichever team it was) to lose. But in the end I gave in to peer pressure and went to college dressed in sports attire.

Before futsal at 3PM, most of us went to have lunch at SS15 at this place which serves apparently “the best nasi lemak in the world” and to be fair, it was my first proper meal in weeks so I actually didn’t doubt the marketing slogan. It was pretty good.

And then futsal started and needless to say, I sucked pretty royally at it in terms of stamina (couldn’t run across the field without feeling exhausted), hand-eye coordination (the amount of times my foot has missed contact with the ball would make you howl with laughter; or cry a river if you were on my team) and general nervousness (didn’t dare go after anyone with the ball so what’s the point of me playing, really?) But I had fun and everyone was such great teammates and played really well and I think that was enough to make me like sports again. (For those not in the know: I used to be an athlete in primary school WHAT A SHOCKER I KNOW AHAHHAHAHA)

Of course, sudden exertion after lacking some in ages means that I woke up this morning with very sore limbs and the reluctance to do anything else. And thus, this Saturday, just like most Saturdays previously, was spent not doing anything remarkably productive.

PS. Thus far, I have been described as a Malaysian version of Zoella and Lydia Martin, and really, those are great confidence boosters to encourage me to live up to these flattering comparisons. I’m not there yet, but I’m still trying to believe in myself (truly, in all the cheesiness of that phrase).

I have not written in here for so long. Many apologies. The only incentive for me to open my laptop to write this blogpost is the reminder that today is the last day of February and I once made a promise to myself that I would at least publish a post a month. So here I am. And thankfully, for this last post of the month, I get to write about legitimate, solid happenings instead of trying to rack my brain for something interesting to write because today has been very eventful indeed, as you can probably guess from the title.

Friday lessons were always pretty fun because it was the end of the week and everyone had that glint of anticipation in their eyes, even in class. We didn’t have Econs class today as Miss Cherilyn had a training course so we even had an extra hour of break spent researching on music videos to get inspiration to make our own music video. It was also the Udon gang’s self-proclaimed Hat Day so I turned up to school in a white beanie, Bellyn in a snapback, Taliza in a black beanie, Irfan in a red beanie, Harris in his dad’s civil war cap (which is so cool oh my god), Karu in an adorable spirithood and Austin in a snapback as well.

And then, after class was when we put on all our adventure hats to set out on our adventures.

“Sanuki Udon” was where we got our group name from and it was how it was formed: Karu telling us that there was this udon restaurant near his house at Kota Kemuning that had really good udon and finally, after weeks, we did the thing. We did the udon thing. And we weren’t disappointed in the least bit.

After lunch, we walked around the area like a motley hipster crew taking photos.

We dropped Karu off at his house (it wasn’t mentioned- Harris was our esteemed chauffeur for the day) and then Irfan and Taliza at college before the remainder of us- me, Bellyn and Harris headed for a coffee joint at 1st Subang Mall at SS15 where we spent about three hours chilling, talking and playing Scrabble. I hadn’t played Scrabble since I was about 8 or 9 and it was a pleasant surprise to find out that I still had my inner Scrabble nerd alive and breathing within myself.

The next stop was Sunway Pyramid where we picked up Ian’s Vans and Harris’ necessities from Watsons, and then proceeded to scheme about crashing a certain college event which we thought was held at Sunway Convention Centre- but when we got there, imagine our utter surprise when we were greeted by an overwhelming crowd of men in football jerseys. Curious, we entered anyway but when the doors opened, I started feeling scared because fun time is up- we’d better leave. But Bellyn urged us to go in anyway and we relented under peer pressure- to find ourselves in Toyota’s Thank You Dinner event. We sat down at a table for a while before my fear really kicked in and I started to get pretty fidgety because getting kicked out of a dinner event was not something I was looking forward to so we left after taking a few photos and after we exited the place, we couldn’t stop laughing at what we just did. I couldn’t believe what I did. If it even happened at all. It was one of those rare moments where I was completely enveloped in the present because everything was actually happening and that left little room to think of anything else.

Harris sent both of us back to SMR after that with Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second by STRFKR playing on the car radio and all in all, it was the best day I’ve had in weeks.

I sometimes forget that the best things that happen in life are often unplanned, but rather stumbled upon head-on, spontaneous and without warning.

As far as Februarys go, this was the roughest but I’m glad I ended the month with a high note.