Note: Don’t care about politics? Then don’t read on, you’d probably not be interested. Instead, take a look at my Photo Album! I’ve updated and added a couple of new folders!

Before I start…

I would NEVER do this to my car. No matter how much I support BN – if I ever do – I still wouldn’t do it.

First, it is ugly.

Second, when I remove it later the tape will stick and leave marks on my car.

Third, like… I wouldn’t even be able to see behind while driving! When I look into the rear mirror I’ll see nothing but two enormous, ghostly blue-faced leng chai, not even smiling – but staring at me!

I’d probably crash the car if I was driving at night alone on a deserted road.

Fourth, it is still very ugly.

**********

Last night, we stayed up until after 5am to check out the erection… I mean election results. (The ‘erection’ joke is not mine, it is one of our Minister’s. I dare not take the credit.)

Just a little recap – In the previous general election, BN had no problem securing their 2/3rd majority in parliament. In fact, they had a 90.4% majority in parliament in 2004.

The vote-counting started at 7pm. It was like a roller coaster ride!

At approximately 8pm – We read that Kelantan had fallen to PAS. (Expected!)

At approximately 9pm – Everyone was stunned when confirmation came that Penang had also fallen to the Opposition.

At approximately 10pm – We couldn’t believe our eyes when we found that Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu had actually lost his seat in parliament after more than 30 years being the Sungai Siput MP!

At approximately 11pm – None of us had actually expected to see Kedah being handed to the Opposition, but IT DID!

At approximately 12.30am – Good God, even Selangor went to the Opposition!

At approximately 2am – My own state – Perak – said goodbye to the BN goverment, and went, for the first time, again into the Opposition’s arms!

Five states – Ladies and Gentlemen – the Opposition officially claimed five states from BN… This is truly, truly unprecedented in Malaysian history!

Everyone in our house was really excited throughout the night, shouting updates from rooms and bustling around with laptops… This election was going to make history – we knew.

At approximately 3am – It was confirmed that BN had lost their long-standing 2/3rd majority in Parliament.

Some couldn’t stand the sleepiness and went to sleep, but a couple of us stayed awake. I was interested in finding out exactly how many seats the Opposition could get in Parliament – they got a mere, pathetic 9.6% in the last election!

It was like watching a super unstable company share’s price in the stock market – the percentage was rising and dropping every 15 minutes or so!

At approximately 4am – the drama of the night ended dramatically with 37% of parliamentary seats and 39% of state seats held by the Opposition!

If you have no idea what all these mean, let me tell you in simple words – Politics in Malaysia are going to be very different from now on!

*********

With such a staggering and never-before-happened loss to the Barisan goverment – we weren’t expecting it, but at the same time we wouldn’t be too surprised if some ‘incidents’ were to happen the next day.

Rumors and cautions of riots and other unpleasant incidents were everywhere (It happened in the 1969 election). People were urged to stay calm by political leaders and stay home – not to take to the streets. No parades, no nothing.

However, everyone was still talking about avoiding KL and other urban areas the next day – just in case.

Today, Alvin and a few friends went to Lowyat, and then around the Bukit Bintang area in downtown KL. Meanwhile, me, Jon and a couple of others went to the Curve, and around the Petaling Jaya area.

It was perfectly peaceful.

Perhaps I’ll say this – Malaysia is on its way to true Democracy and success. - On its way - but in my opinion, not quite there yet. This is a time of change for the country – for the better or for the worse, we’ll have to see.

**********

We went to Ikano Damansara today to witness the launching of the new Petster magazine!

There was also a pets exhibition! Jon wouldn’t have cared if there were racial riots in KL or Al-Qaeda bombing 1Utama – wherever there is stuff about pets, Jon wouldn’t miss it – not even his mid-term test on Tuesday could stop him!

The dogs were really cute and obedient! Have I mentioned before? Jon’s house has six dogs! A true doglover! I bet he was wetting his pants while watching the show! Haha….

Although mostly cats and dogs, there were some other pets as well!

Me and a ferret!

Yay! This was the first time I held a ferret!

Have you held one before?

It was our friend Khai’s birthday yesterday!

Last Friday, we went to Redbox – The Curve to have an early celebration for his license to no longer need to stand and wait outside the casinos in Genting – This guy is now officially 21!

Of all places, I think karaoke sessions will make the best place for Khai’s birthday celebration because he really likes singing… and he really does sing very well!

Whenever he holds the microphone, anyone else that sings together will probably be spoiling his voice. Everybody even agrees that his voice sounds remarkably like the Taiwanese singer – Lee Sheng Jie’s (李圣杰)!

Also being a subject of the celebration – was my housemate, Alvin!

Alvin’s birthday is still a couple of days away – on Tuesday. But I guess we were just stingy and wanted to cramp two names into one cake.

There were seven of us. The room booking was at 11pm, but our car had to stop by Sunway to reclaim my Redbox membership card, which I left there for servicing a month ago; plus a super, incredible Friday night traffic jam – we arrived at The Curve only at around midnight!

Fortunately, another friend, Jeff, arrived on time; so he was able to get the room before we were forfeited for being late!

It was like a talent show, everyone’s singing was so good! Usually, in karaoke with a group of people, only one or two people would be recognizable ‘good singers’; but that night, it was really a coincidence that so many people who can sing so well are together!

Jeff was snapping great photos with his huge and impressive DSLR; with him taking pictures all around us and powerful flashes lighting up the room continuously – it really looked like we were all professional singers surrounded by aggressive reporters!

Later, at around 2.30am, one of the Redbox staff came in with the birthday cake, and the birthday song interrupted our 3-page song list.

The Secret Recipe cake was really nice! Too bad it only had one candle on it…

Hmm… It may not look so nice in the photo but, trust me, it was way, way more delicious than it looks! Almost one of the best birthday cakes I’ve tasted! (Typical ones are usually too creamy or too ‘thick’, if you ask me…)

The staff didn’t stay to at least sing the birthday song with us… But here’s a picture of us singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Khai and Alvin!

After that, we continued singing until 4am.

Alvin’s car had broken down when we wanted to leave, the car battery had been uncooperative with the day’s good mood and gone dry. So Alvin had to leave the car there and return to get it the next day. Richard, very kindly, escorted Vivien home and sent the rest of us back!

Before going back, we had Dim Sum at PJ SS2, near Alvin’s sister’s house.

Everyone was so sleepy already! It was past 5am in the morning.

We reached Cyberjaya at almost 7am. Tired but happy. We’re planning something else for Alvin’s birthday this coming week, we’ll see what comes up!

**********

Just wanted to mention this before I end this entry..

Earlier that day, I went to UPM with Melvin, Sook Ching and Frederick to conduct a survey for one of our course subjects in university.

The UPM campus was really, really huge! Students had to either drive or take shuttle buses provided by the university just to navigate among faculties!

Another thing was this – there was a huge number of foreign students in UPM! I had used to think that public universities would have the least amount of foreign students, but I had been wrong!

We spent hours driving and walking around the campus – Melvin was driving – and completed our 150 survey papers at around 4pm…

We caught most of our poor survey ‘victims’ near the library area! Hehe!

I bet that most people had thought that we were selling insurance or something when we first approached them, so we had to stress on the words ‘for our assignment‘, ‘we are students from Multimedia University‘ and stuff like that…

Very tiring and hot… But great experience nonetheless!