A New Beginning

Wow. I'm blogging. I've swept and mopped my room twice. I've wiped all the shelves and drawers. I bathe like 3 times a day. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. I did my quiet time before anything else. I did 50 pushups after that. I've neatly organized my clothes and articles. I'm drinking 8 glasses of water per day. I just did a full gym workout. I made my bed in the morning.

What's going on, you ask? (Or maybe you didn't, but I'm gonna tell you anyway)

I'm in a monast- err... seminary.

Seminari Theoloji Malaysia (STM), to be exact. Although we don't speak Bahasa Melayu here, so I dunno what's with the official Malay spelling and all. Anyway.


Yesterday was action packed. I set off for Seremban after teary goodbyes after church service, with my shoulders damp with many a female tear (not really). I got to my room and unpacked and settled in. Then I look outside my window and lo and behold, there's a big blue Volvo parked below it with a shiny KL Wesley car sticker on the windshield, and a map to Seremban peering up from the driver's seat. Nice try, William.

After I went out to explore the place (my dad crashed on my bed to verify and deem it fit for the pursuit of somnaiac festivities), I discovered William and Jon. Surprise surprise! William has a couple of pics of the room and the compound, so go look if you're interested: http://pigies.multiply.com/photos/album/51

After they went off (both parents and frienthers - friends and brothers, geddit?), I went hunting for a broom and mop and pulled a Sus-... umm... I mean, I cleaned the place really well. My roomie is probably a senior, and he won't be in until orientation is over (next Monday), so we'll see who he is then, and if he has any qualms about me and the way I live or vice versa.

We then went out for dinner at a foodcourt - chicken rice @ RM 3.50.... took about 20 minutes to come though. Guess they catch 'em live here. Then we went to Giant to buy stuff we needed. Ended up buying stuff like mozzie spray, mozzie zapper (can you spot the common denominator?), extension, new HUGE alarm clock, laundry basket, etc. etc. The bill came up to about a hundred and twenty bucks. Heh.

Today we went through a couple more briefings... Mainly going through the student handbook and stuff. No guy and girl can be alone together in any one place. Drats. There goes my chances with that lonely looking aunty. Oh well. I'll console myself with the fact that I HAVE INTERNET ACCESS IN MY OWN ROOM OMGWTFBBQROFFLECOPTER!!!111oneone. It cuts off at 12 midnight and starts again at 6 in the morning though. That's apparently a new rule, 'cause of abuse (?) from seniors. Oh well, at least I'll have less reasons to stay up late, and maybe get the sleep I need.

During the briefing they had 3 geeks come up (yes, it takes one to know one). They were the.... *Drum roll* Cyber Team! *Trumpet fanfare* .... *Wipes tears* They're basically your knights in shining firewalls - they help you with any IT related problems you may have. Actually, it's quite a good idea, plus I really salute them for actually going through with it. I know what it's like to be reasonably IT savvy and have billions of people ask for your help - not that those people are a nuisance, but mainly 'cause it really takes a lot of extra time and oodles of patience to help 'em out. These guys are willing to actually announce that they can solve their IT problems. The older folks were gazing at them like they were Jesus on wheels. I don't mean that literally though. But those folks were sure getting dewey-eyed.

On a related note, they have this student community forum thing, and the English was... how do I put this delicately... the English was interesting. Anyway, I volunteered my services as English editor (I don't wanna sound snobby about it but they really need one for the sake of the international students) and they seem eager for more help. So maybe this is the first of more ministries.

Oh speaking of languages... I'm getting a real headache from all the translating between English and Mandarin and vice versa. The majority of the students are taking their studies in Chinese, so sometimes it feels like us bananas, brownies, and international students are left in the lurch when they get carried away elaborating when they're on the Chinese translation bit. And it was real difficult for us to know when to switch off and on. There's this really nice Cambodian guy whose English isn't impeccable either, and he ended up missing out stuff 'cause he didn't know when to start listening... They translated their own stuff seamlessly. It was like, "Neemen hen pentan, nee kei wo siau, so you should follow the Student Handbook carefully."

But apart from those minor hiccups, all the people here are very nice. I'm not the youngest! The youngest is an Indian dude named Samuel, age 22, who happens to be the one I'm closest to currently. The Chinese dept. students are probably gonna form their own clique, so I'm mainly left with the Indians, foreigners, East Malaysians, and English speaking Chinese uncles... But they're all very nice. I've realized I'm not as shy as I used to be, and everything's pretty groovy right now. I know the work load is probably gonna be crushing in the future, but I'm pretty optimistic about life here at the moment.

Praise the Lord for His grooviness.

And uhh... I gotta go wear some clothes and go down for steamboat dinner, hehe.

'til next time...

- Shearn