In the Dark

I gently pushed the door open, and was frightened by the creak it emitted. I quickly entered the dark room, trying my best not to awake its occupant, who was snoring away peacefully.

I tiptoed across the room, and looked around, plans running through my head. After making a quick decision, I began attempting to locate my target. Laptop... In the drawer. I proceeded stealthily towards the table...

Shash.

I froze, not even daring to breathe. I had just stepped on a plastic bag, previously lying crumpled on the floor, invisible in the dark. I turned my head, observing the silhouette of the figure lying on the bed, which twitched for a moment, but went still after that.

I let off a silent sigh of relief, and carefully removed my leg from the booby-trap.

I reached the drawer. Just inches away from all the information i needed!

Rats. The drawer was locked. I glanced around. Hitting the lock would be too noisy, so would it be if i tried to move the table. I needed something like...

A key. There was a bunch of keys on the bed beside the table. I picked it up as slowly as possible, trying my best not to betray any jinggling. I felt for the smallest key, and stuck it inside the lock. I tried to turn it, but it was stiff. I tried harder, sweat forming on my forehead. Come on...

Then the lights flickered on. There he was, the first occupant of the room, woken up, tousled hair, staring at me with a stern expression, hands folded, towering over me.

I raised both of my hands timidly, the keys left dangling on the lock.

A few seconds' pause, during which i shivered a lot, and his faced turned bright red with anger.

"P-p-please, I just..."

"For the last time, do not make any noise when i'm sleeping!"

"l-I know. I just need my computer."

He stared at me for a few seconds as i cowered. Then he went back to bed, breathing like an angry bull, muttering "how unfortunate to have you as my roommate."

"Sorry," was all i managed to mutter.

"And mind you to turn off the lights after you've finished, noob burglar."

The Magic Numbers of Life

People say that there are two magical ages of life. One blogger from the States, Jason Rappaport, just entered the first magical age upon reaching the age of 18.

According to him, now that he's 18, he can be sued, can be enlisted into the army, get a credit card, accumulate debt, get an unrestricted driver's license, play the lottery, and what not.

I wasn't as aware of the liberty I took into my hands upon waking up into my 18th birthday as he was. All I could remember was that the day was the only day I was fussy about my clothes.

One of my friends said, "Wenqi, be careful, if you commited crimes you won't be in juvenile court anymore."

THAT, I was aware of. I have to say, we're sort of a passimistic type.

Anyway, my 18th birthday was more than nine months away now. However, it was today that I did something that previously required the consent of a parent or guardian.

I left for school 2 hours before class starts (in fact, there's still 45 minutes to the class when I'm writing this), had a "light" breakfast (hearty would be something more appropriate), and marched up to the college hall.

Signs saying "MBDC" were put up. It was understandable that it meant "March Blood Donation Campaign".

This is it. I don't fancy having a fat syringe poked into my arm and having squeezed like a sponge to have my juice extracted, but this is probably my last semester in TARC (they have a blood donation drive every semester) and god knows how long will I have another chance to try it.

Three scales were placed in front of the entrance to the hall. A First Aid Unit (FAU) student escorted me to the top of the scales and read it. He read pretty slowly for my standards, but maybe that was because I had plenty of practice with my multimeter.

Then, I went to a table to fill up a form. They asked all sorts of questions, including whether you have had homosexual or bisexual sex before, whether you had HIV, Malaria, etc. There was even a question asking whether I've been to Europe between 1980 to 1987. Heck, I wasn't even born by then.

After successfully filling up the form (which actually felt more like taking a MCQ test), I went to have my blood type verified. This is good, considering the fact that I missed the opportunity to do it in secondary school. After mixing my blood with special types of protein, we waited for a moment for it to aggregrate (if it would). When nothing happened after about half a minute, she declared me an O and I left for the next counter.

The blood pressure is next. I couldn't really see what the metre said, having faced away from me, but the nurse said "normal" and I assumed everything was fine.

Then there was this "Detour". I could chicken out, or I could continue and register myself as a donor. I took the latter.

While waiting for the precedures to be completed, I saw a sign saying something like "Exit for Disqualified Donors". This was feeling more and more like an exam. I got my red book, along with three empty blood bags.

Then it was the real donation. A Gnomometer was used to squeeze my left upper arm until my hands felt numb. Then the nurse felt for the presence of a vein, and poked a needle in, injecting some sort of liquid into it. I stared with my eyes wide open as the needle wriggled around a little, and my skin moved exactly like the skin of an uncooked chicken. The part where she poked swelled, and she picked a syringe some 1.5mm in thickness into it.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Hell, why was it so slow? They only needed 450ml of my blood. I began to appreciate the wonder of nature, and how much activity could be done with such a slow flow of blood. After what seemed like 15 minutes, the bag fully filled up with thick, dark red strawberry syrup, I had the syringe removed (after the nurse took blood samples for tests) and the puncture plastered, collected my souvenirs, and went to have a bit of free breakfast.

I was full, but it was free, how could I resist? I took a packet of Julie's cookies and left.

There were medicines too. I don't remember any healthy person who needed to take medication. One was labelled folic acid, which I couldn't understand why I need it. The second one is understandable, as it says ferrous something. I'm sorry, I suck at chemistry, but I understand that Fe is needed for the production of hemogoblin. I mean, hemoglobin. I've been reading Spiderwick's Chronicles, sorry.

So for those who will soon get to the magical age, I suggest you look up the net on the loss of certain privileges and the gain of special liberty upon celebrating the 18th birthday.

PS - I read up a bit on Folic Acid on Wikipedia. It says that folic acid is needed for the maintenance and reproduction of new cells, especially when the division of sells occur in rapid rates, since folate is needed for the DNA. Hmmm... I don't think red blood cells have nuclei...

Sie: My Head is No Longer Naked

My desktop at home is somewhat pathetic. It couldn't even handle a simple game like Maplestory well. During the holidays, when I have my notebook computer at home, I prefer to work using my notebook, which I am more used to, and more snappy than the desktop.

However, I was quite involved in toying around with certain unexplored areas of my computer (read: Linux) that I didn't spare much time for gaming. It was one day before the start of the school that I decided to go for a Zakum run. If not, my notebook will be back to school and I would have to make do with my desktop.

I was ordered by the Zakum sessions' organiser to prepare two sessions' worth of potions. I flew all the way to Leafre and stocked up on 1.2k Mushroom Miso Ramen, along with some 500 Power Elixirs and 200 Elixirs I had with my stores.

The fight started at about 12.45pm. My guildmates were fantastic. So fantastic that their wide array of skills was making my notebook kind of laggy. With one particularly strong blast of Genesis from my guild's top Bishop, my screen hung for two seconds. When it flickered back, I was dead.

I was thankful that fourth job was available. The bishop resurrected me in no time, and I resumed the battle.

In 1.40pm, it was clear that I overloaded myself with potions. I used less than 300 that fight. When the last hit was made, Zakum went dead, and everything went silent. Not because the players weren't hitting anymore, but because its death froze my screen again. When the screen came back, the floor was clean of everything.

I sat upright, walking around, and spotted two helmets. I was so nervous that I only managed to grab one after three tries.


That fight, three guild members were helmed.


I went to the second session. But not long into the fight, Tenaga Nasional decided to reset the power for a fraction of a second. It's ok - I never remove my battery from my notebook. However, my DSL modem wasn't backed by a battery.

Dang it.

Anyway, thanks to kelly33, crazycute, xwinglingx, and everyone from BloodAngelz for my Zakum Helmet (1).