Busy Saturday

I had an eventful Saturday. Some university friends organised a karaoke session at Red Box, the Curve. There were seven of us and we booked the lunch slot, which offers off-peak rates. I didn’t know the rates are that low, which would probably explain why all the rooms were booked in advance and fully taken.

Well, I had fun. I am not a good singer; I was even laughed at. Yup, I sing like my best friend just died. No sense of tone or pitch whatsoever. But what the heck, it was all good-natured fun. We sang till 2pm, and then went for a cuppa at Starbucks.

The whole purpose I was around the Bandar Utama area was because I was supposed to meet up with my Mount Kinabalu hike teammates later. I don’t usually come here. Anyway, the meet up was to be held at someone’s house in SS23 and it was supposed to be a potluck dinner. As I had another four hours to kill, I asked a friend to come along for a movie. Of all the movies available, I had the unfortunate luck to have chosen The Eye 10. Let me tell you, it is the silliest film ever to be made by the Pang brothers, of The Eye fame. The movie was nonsensical, and there were hardly any scares. I just wished that all the characters would die swiftly; they were extremely lacking a lot of grey cells. All the main characters did die towards the end of the movie though. I should have known how silly the movie would be, when the audience were laughing within the first three minutes of a supposedly horror movie.

After the movie, I grabbed some sushi and waited for my friend to come pick me up to go to SS23. His name is Lex. He gives tuition classes on weekends, and he has a class from five to seven. So I hanged around in One Utama for about 45 minutes. Bumped into a friend who was with his girlfriend, and also two other friends from high school.

For the potluck, Lex and I decided to ta pau some fried rice and noodles. We spent about 10 minutes looking for the location of the house, even though I have the directions with me. Thanks to Lex, who ignored my directions and said it was easy to find the address.

In the house, there were five other people; four who are going for the hike and one who was there to tell us his experience of climbing Mount Kinabalu. They were all nice people. Especially the one who shared his experience, Stan. He happened to have just come back from KK and he brought back some brochures. The way he described his experience was funny and the tips he gave were useful, like bringing a helmet torch instead of a handheld one, how to pace ourselves and not to climb in haste (the objective is to reach the summit, not to be the fastest), how coming down was kinda scary because that’s when you realised how steep the mountain is, etc. Basically we were all excited and can’t wait till June. It was a relief also when Stan said that we don’t have to be really fit, just relatively fit will do. Which is good, though I am pretty sure I am better than relatively fit. Nevertheless, we still plan to do some stamina and endurance training starting next weekend.

That’s when something annoying happened. As Lex has tuition classes on weekend, I asked what time is his morning lesson. He said don’t worry, he can arrange his schedule. But he didn’t seem too happy that I asked. I didn’t give it a second thought then.

Later, when it was almost ten, I was feeling a bit tired as I had been out since morning. As such, I was thinking of going home. As he has tuition tomorrow morning, so I asked again what time is his morning tuition. I am sure that I asked in a soft tone, but the response I got was an angry one. He said don’t ask and he will tell in the car later. It was obvious that he was pissed.

Anyway, we made our move when it seemed that that was all for the meet up. In the car, he explained his reasons for his reactions earlier. Reason: I don’t want others to know about my personal life. I was like, huh? Since when did giving tuition become a personal thing. It’s not like I asked him how many siblings he has, or which school he attended, or even what’s his favourite food. Besides, I asked in a low tone and he could have whispered his answer back to me. I was really perplexed and felt like giving him a punch. Looking back, I wondered how I could have put up with his paranoia when we together. Actually, I didn’t, just that it was more bearable then. I am glad that we broke up when we did.

But that was not the end of it. He continued to complain about the age of the other climbers. Lex said that he expected younger people or people of our age. So what if they are at least 30? He accused me of knowing earlier and not warning him. He also asked that didn’t I know that he doesn’t meet people older than 30. This conversation (if it was a conversation) was beginning to get on my nerves. First of all, age is a non-issue to me. I didn’t know earlier how old they would be. Moreover they seemed like nice and friendly people and I had a feeling they would make good company for the hike. If he had wanted people of similar ages, then he should have organised his own hike. (For the hike, one of them arranged for everything, from the flight to accommodation. I just had to pay. Obviously, I am not complaining about this hassle-free arrangement.) Do you know what he said? He probably should. How inane can you get?

Anyway, I was not in the mood to continue this further, so I changed the subject. We moved to more pleasant topics. When we were nearing my house, he admitted he was being bitchy for now and he would still go for the hike. I was slightly disappointed that he did not pull out (just being mean here) and I made him promise to not bitch anymore, if he wanted to share a room with me. Which he did.

So that was how my Saturday went.