More than meets the eye.

i don't remember the last time i stayed away from my house for more than 18 hours and still be on Brunei soil at the same time. even past events like certain church activities or my old job 2 years ago couldn't compare. such lengthy hours had hence taken its toll on me; i was unable to go to Shahbandar this morning 'cause i slept like a rock and a log at the same time. boo.

woke up early-ish on Friday morning to go to school for the last day of term (but definitely not for the last time). for the past 15 years, ever since kindy days, i've never missed the Last Day Of School day. it was tradition, like a separate event of its own; in my Primary school days, we would commemorate the last day of being in whatever Year (or Grade, as it was known back then) we were in by completely organizing and cleaning out our classroom, both for the showing of gratitude and heartfelt farewell to our teacher and for the warmhearted welcoming of the next class to occupy it. the story was more different in Secondary, of course, i.e. class parties and moping about. so even though i apparently have no reason left to be on the school premises (i beg to differ), why break the tradition (and the rather impressive streak) now?

apart from the final assembly, nothing much happened in the normal school day leading up to it. couldn't have expected much from it in the first place; it was just me, Shaun, and for some reason Harold bumming about. grabbed the CD full of Prom photos the 'real' photographer took from the office, killing two birds with one stone (i.e. convenience of obtaining the CD whilst in school and one method of curing boredom). sadly, i wasn't in most if not all the big group photos, but so what, i had better things to do. anyhoo, had some mi goreng at the kedai for the last time, then drove back to school for the final assembly. as typically boring as assemblies in general were, i'll miss them anyway, and furthermore, Manju and her group obviously louded things up a bit.

sped off straight to Gadong in Shaun's Vios, taking full advantage of his mother's one-week outstationedness, i.e. she's the bars and prison guards to his cell, hence you'd expect the regressions of freedom to be of quite the magnitude. and, hell, it was. just the usual with a little spice; pool, the Arcade, then pool some more, and after much hassle and wasted calls, decided to watch Transformers at the 9:45pm show.

without a doubt, Transformers is the best movie of 2007. screw all the previous movies, screw Die Hard, screw Harry Potboy, and yeah, screw even Bourne Ultimatum (sorry Mags). 2.5 hours of pure action, loud explosions, excellent graphics, appropriate comedy and sensible romance to boot. yeahp, really brings out the kids-at-heart in anyone and everyone. plus i've never seen a standing ovation in a movie theatre before. oh wait, scratch that, Transformers is the best movie i've ever seen.

while we're on the subject of useful things to do with your eyes, a worthy sight would be the Mall's interior at midnight. barren, dark-ish, still, echoey and if it weren't for the people of the night wanting to catch the midnight shows, it would be oh-so-quiet. not that i'm encouraging anyone to stay out at Gadong until past midnight or anything, but if you just happened to be there at 12 in the morning for some reason, try screaming into the Mall from the 3rd floor. i didn't, so let me know how it goes.

come Saturday, we had so much fun staying out all day the previous day, we decided to do it again, only without the movie and with my going to church in the middle. this time we added a new activity to our sarcastically awesome list of fun: playing bummy games at any one of the stupidly many internet cafés spread across Bandar's only real slum of fun, like a plague. oh wait, scratch that, spread across Brunei's only real slum of fun.

and that was that. like i said, no Shahbandar today simply because my bed convinced me to, well, stay in bed.

wahey, the blog's finished.