IELTS, Coffee Beans and Housemates

Hi all. Right now I'm at the Coffee Bean outlet at the British Council in KL, where I've just sat for my English speaking exam for my Aussie PR application. On Saturday morning I'd sat for the reading/listening/writing component, and for the most part it's been a piece of cake, if I may humbly say so, arf. I was required to write a letter apologising for not being able to make it to dinner, oy. And then I was asked to write on why zoos were more than just mere entertainment.

When I read the questions, my initial reaction was, "Okaaay..." I mean, I'd bought a preparation booklet for the exam, and it was filled with complicated graphs that needed interpreting, and long passages about world economics, and essay questions about the impact of, I don't know, migration or Adam Lambert on world population. So to realise I had to write about zoos was a bit of a relief/joke. I guess they scale the English level down to the national average of a country... which pretty much says it all, doesn't it? Oy.

In the meantime, the speaking test was a breeze, too. Examiner seemed strict initially but loosened up as we conversed, even smiled at some of the humorous stories I told her. She asked about - of all fortunate things - watching television and my TV-viewing habits, arf arf!! And then she asked about whether I travelled, and whether I was a good traveller (which anyone who knows me would know, I'm not. Nervous flyer, baby!). So that was that, and I think I did rather well. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. Results in early March.

In the meantime, there's the rest of the documentation for the PR application to be sorted out, including translations of various documents that are in Malay. And then later on there'll be health exams (oooer) and police background checks (eeeek) and all sorts of inconveniences, so... y'know... wish me luck, oy.

Oh yeah, yesterday I did a massive clean-up of the apartment in anticipation of my new housemate who's going to be moving in from March, in an effort to a) save him some time looking for a place, and b) save me some money. He's an old school friend of mine, and we've been keeping in touch and hanging out frequently over the years, and he was even Terry's and Debra's housemate in the early Noughties. Terry mentioned recently that Chan Ghee (that's him!) was going to come to KL for work and was going to start looking for a place. So, since the idea of renting out the spare room had been in my mind for a while now, I decided, what the heck! Let's do it! So yeah, housemate! Just like uni days, erk! It's going to be interesting, heheh. Wish me luck, oy.

With the apartment cleaning came the idea that I would move some furniture around, so I decided to experiment with the living room space. Now the couch is in a different position, and the exercise machine too, and the TV's at an odd angle (but good for viewing from the couch), and I'm kinda pleased with it since I think it really maximises the space of the apartment now. I haven't taken any pics yet, but as soon as I do, I'll post it up so you can see the changes, k?

Alrighty then, I'm gonna head off now. Contemplating if I should leave for work now (and try to get into the office by 11:30am), or just keep working from here until lunchtime and leave over the lunch break. I think the latter might be better, so save me stress. Like I said, right now I'm in Coffee Bean, having just had their 'Food for Thought' breakfast, which consisted of coffee, toast and half-boiled eggs, plus a rather incongruous side salad:

Diet is re-commencing tomorrow as I've put on a TONNE (quite literally?) over the Chinese New Year break, osh kosh b'gosh!!!! So I'm going to be ambitious and try to stick to it for the next four weeks (count 'em, four weeks, twenty-eight loooong days), to finish this round right in time for my birthday. Once again, folks... wish me luck, oy!

Till next time... :)