Monday

Oh hello there. It's been a while hasn't it? Are you sure you even remember how to do this?

Well, I guess you're right. But let's start slow.

Backwards? I suppose that's one way to do it.

I had a late supper(?) Monday night with my cousins. Sketchy memory ensures a complete failure to recall the name of the place, but we played a variant of pass-the-hot-potato. Only the potato in question was not the titular potato but instead a variety of pabulum, all of which had to be consumed (within seconds!) by each member of the party as its orbit crossed his atmospheric pull.

A basic knowledge of Indian cuisine is required to fully appreciate the comedy in the following exchange.

Joolee: Are we going to order now? So what kind of naans are there?
Jun Ian: Oh uhm, Catholic...
Yee Wei: Protestant...

So what's the difference between a round indian flatbread and a woman who lives in a monastery?

Definitely not the proNUNciation!

I do apologize for that awful bit of humor. As I mentioned to Caitlin - just seconds after I wrote it - polite society should adopt a system that allows bad jokes to be thrown off a bridge into a river or left in the wilderness to die just as the Spartans do to weak or unwanted offspring.

Earlier that afternoon, I paid a visit to Sri KDU. Remember, we are traveling backwards chronologically.

Commit this to memory: the security team at KDU can be a bitch.

The school's impregnable front entrance.

In a way, it was kinda my fault. When the guard asked for my IC, I thoughtlessly flipped it onto the desk in front of him. I guess his parents made him sit in the corner a whole lot as a kid, since he got really pissed off at my (unintentional) dismissive gesture. He started yelling at me about manners and threw my IC back at me, then forbade me to enter the school and told me to wait outside until my other friends were done visiting.

Wow, really? I didn't know security guards could do that. Anyway, there were about five or six guards hanging around the front desk at the time, so I wasn't going to argue.

Now, I wish I could show you where exactly the back entrance is on this map, but I'm not really familiar with the school's aerial layout. Here's a hint though: it's near the back.

After the episode with the guard, I pretty much had my mind set on getting into the school, so I strolled around the exterior a bit and came across this student waiting in the parking lot.

Jun Ian: So say I wanted to get into your school, without having to go past the guards in the front... how would I go about doing that?
Student: Oh... I don't know. I think there's another entrance around the side but it could be locked.

Well, following his directions I found the side entrance locked, but as I walked a little more I discovered the school's built really funny. Five or six guys hanging around guarding the front, and they leave the kitchen service entrance wide open.

Once inside, I ran into the guys I'd come with, who were all pretty surprised to see me. About half an hour was then spent pretending to be an alumnus of the school as the gang went around pressing their faces against classroom windows and making cryptic hand gestures to teachers.

Are you by any chance wondering how I got out of KDU?

I didn't go through the kitchens.

I was actually considering walking out the front gate just to see the look on the guard's face, but that probably would have gotten my new friends into trouble. You know.

So I came across this window.

Hey, it's not every day you piss off a security guard, sneak into a private school and jump out a window on the first floor.

All shenanigans aside, I wasn't supposed to be at KDU at all that day.

The reason for my unexpected detour would lie with the owners of this delightful vehicle, a HELP duo by the names of Kevin and Matt, both formerly of Sri KDU.

I had gotten into their car at HELP - already filled to capacity with five passengers in the backseat - with the understanding that I would be ferried to 1 Utama, where I was expected for lunch. As you already know, they had other ideas.

Interestingly, Matt already knew a few things about me, even before I'd ever gotten into his car.

Matt: OH MY GOD! You're the same Jun Ian [x] has a [x] [x] on!

Sorry guys, privacy reasons. If you really wanna know go ahead and ask me.

Kevin and Matt could best be described as accident pros - hardly a stretch of road went by without a sudden jerk of the wheel, the smell of burning rubber or a cheerful recollection of some previous mishap at the location.

The Saga was to be replaced the next day, and it celebrated its impending retirement by running a flat tyre just outside the college.

So I did end up learning a couple of tricks that day. Not how to jack off a car, but rather how to jack it up.

The difference is subtle but crucial.

I found three pairs of safety glasses in the trunk, next to a set of starter cables. Sometimes in life, there are questions we just don't need the answers to.

However, I had loads of fun riding with Matt and Kevin. At one memorable red light, Tze Chiang pulled up right next to us, and Kevin and Alex wound down their respective windows to play a game of catch with a scrunched up timetable between the two cars.

Moving earlier on into the morning, I managed to taste a sample of life in HELP when Dexter and Alex led me to a restaurant in a double-storey bungalow near the Wisma building. If you can't tell from the name alone that Jarrod & Rawlins isn't the type of eatery one might normally find college students, the fare we consumed (gourmet sausages and white wine) should be a dead giveaway as to the type of extravagant lifestyles Dexter and Jason have been leading since the semester began in January.

Over lunch we discussed high school and college life, the meanings of various sexual slang (pearl necklaces and Soulja Boy's hit single, anyone?) and probably the most disturbing of all, the existence of a female Ming Yi.