pelf-ism is contagious

One of my younger cousins was so lucky he got selected to undergo National Service. And he and a couple of friends were taken to the Merang basecamp this morning. He arrived in the afternoon, was allowed to make only ONE phonecall, and he called me instead of his Mum. He probably figured out there was nothing his Mum could do, hence he decided to call this cousin sister instead.

The National Service basecamp was located in the vicinity of the Merang Suria Holiday Camp.

The compound was clean, and the dormitories looked OK from the outside.

The canteen looked OK too, nothing too extreme, except for this laughable notice put up to advice trainees to separate the utensils after using them.

And this was where they got their respective pillow case and bedsheet from.

We were not allowed into the dormitory, not even J. So we chit-chatted with the trainers for a while. Apparently, the basecamp can accommodate as many as 400 trainees but there are usually fewer trainees in the 3rd series because students who were selected but also offered a place to further their studies (either Form Six or college) could be exempted.

Meanwhile, I’ll just cross my fingers and toes and pray that nothing untoward would happen during his 3-month tenure there. It is very terrifying to learn that kids do get killed in National Service camps.

By the way, the above pictures were taken with my new gadget

Remember how a couple of years ago, after the STPM results were announced, a lot of complaints were filed and some were lucky to have their complaints highlighted in the media, which subsequently landed them in the “prestigious” universities, with courses that they only dreamt of doing?

You don’t? I do..

Every year, there were cases where top scorers from Sam Tet who were not offered a place in UM to do Medicine. I cannot recall exactly which year it was, but there was once where about 15 top scorers were denied a place in the local universities and all of them appeared in the papers, expressing their disappointment in the government, bla bla bla..

After a week or two, the same top scorers again appeared in the papers, but this time, they were busy thanking the government for allocating them places to do Medicine/Engineering in the public universities. These students also promised that they would do very well in the university, and that they would certainly serve the government upon graduation, bla bla bla..

But wait a minute. Do you see a different trend this year?

There’s a top student who is offered to do Medicine in USM Kubang Kerian, but she prefers to do it in UM because she cannot bear to leave her depressive Mum in KL. Another top scorer expressed her disappointment for not being offered a place in UM but in UKM instead to do Medicine. So do I have something to say to these 2 girls? Yes.

Look, there are a lot of people who could not even get into university. So if you have been offered a place to do your dream course, does it really matter at which university you do it?! If your ambition is to become a doctor, does it really matter whether you graduated from UM or UKM?! And if everybody wants to go to UM, we might as well merge ALL universities in Malaysia - then everybody will graduate from UM la, good idea or not?! If you were NOT offered a place in UM, it could probably mean that there are a lot of people who did better than you in STPM, or it could also mean that you did not fill up the application form as cleverly as other people did. Period. Now go pack your luggage and toiletries and stationery and get ready to register yourself at the university!

And then there’s this boy who obtained 3As and 1B who was disappointed for not being offered a place to do Medicine. My advice? Just pack your luggage and do Biotech at UMS instead. UMS is a big and nice university and they have their own jetty too!!

And then there’s this student whose CGPA was 2.7 and she was grumbling that she was not offered a place to do Microbiology and Biology-related courses but a friend of hers whose CGPA was 2.5 was offered a place to do Microbiology. My advice? Get on with life, my dear. Things do not, and will not, always go according to our plans. Nothing is fair anyway, just look at your own fingers, they are NOT of the same length, are they?!

*sigh*

I cleaned the fridge *yucks*

But I did it because I had to. I realized the freezer cover could not be shut tightly due to the thick layer of ice that had formed in the freezer and the ice had already begun to form outwards.

Just like any other sane person in the world, I did the right thing by pressing the DEFROST button. Wrong.

Apparently, the tray that is supposed to collect melted ice at the bottom of the fridge was missing. And all liquid dripped onto the floor and messed my kitchen up. Like Jason, I too have housemates who tend to leave things in the fridge and then forget about them.

Before they went home in April for their 3 months holiday, I requested that they clear whatever edible stuff in the kitchen because for all they know, those stuff would be expired by the time they return to KT in July. They nodded their heads and headed to the kitchen and I thought they really understood me. Wrong. What they did instead was to rearrange the food stuff in a nice way, the Milo together with Nescafe and Ipoh Old Town 3-in-1 white coffee. The bottles of unopened Pringles and Ribena were nicely arranged at one corner.

So, back to the fridge.

I had to clean the entire kitchen floor that smelled like vomit and there were a few times I almost puked on the floor. Can you imagine it? Thinking about it now scares me.

I was sooo stressed. I was sweating. I was cleaning the floor with a piece of cloth because I didn’t know how to operate the high-tech-mop. I cleaned the floor soo many times with Dettol I thought those Dettol sipped into my hands was enough to kill all the germs and bacteria in my entire body. Then I used the Apple-flavoured floor cleaner.

I am sure my kitchen is now germ-free.