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04/09/09 - Met up with my extended family this past Sunday (see Photography), and learnt lots of interesting news. Firstly, my aunt, Sonja, knows the mother of Marcus, from the latest Big Brother UK series; my cousin, Harry, was featured in a giant poster and magazine cover of him swimming for a local gym; and my other aunt, Jenny, and her partner are going to Sri Lanka for two weeks at the same time that I'm going to Malaysia. I've wanted to properly visit Sri Lanka for a while, since my six hour transit tour two years ago, so this will be a good opportunity that I shouldn't miss.

On Wednesday I had to help out on trolleys late in the evening, and whilst trying to push several big trolleys at once into a small gap, I hit the corner of an advertising board, which cracked the whole sheet of glass. Only a bit of glass from the corner shattered on the floor, but the managers had to break the rest of it off, and it's now covered in a blue sheet. I'm personally quite shocked at myself, I didn't know I had it in me.

And finally, after my 22 month old shoulder bag finally gave out on me a couple of weeks ago, I bought a new one from Tesco. I'm happy to have a shoulder bag with lots of small pockets again, which the other one lacked, though this current one only has one side outer pocket; I used to put a water bottle in one and an umbrella in the other with my old bag. Also, Malaysia's National/Independence Day was on Sunday; I've still never been to Malaysia during the months of July and August...

11/09/09 - I saw a hilarious news article this week that McDonalds were unsuccessful in getting a small Malaysian restaurant called McCurry to change its name (link). What I find most hilarious is the fact that I know exactly where this Malaysian 'McCurry' restaurant is, as I pass it on the bus every time I go from KL to Taman Wahyu Church or Jinjang.

I had been following some of the life of McCurry the past four years, from when the restaurant was several lots further up Jalan Ipoh, to when it was briefly called 'M Curry' (probably to please McDonalds at the time), to when it reopened further down the road with its new logo. The location of the old restaurant was for some reason bulldozed and is now a small car park.

This is quite a big victory and makes a worldwide example that a small, local restaurant can take on the likes of an international franchise. It's also reassuring that McDonalds aren't entitled to own everything 'Mc' in this world, so I guess we won't be seeing the McCurry in McDonalds restaurants. But still, I don't get how the 'Mc' in McCurry stands for 'Malaysian Chicken'; shouldn't it be MC Curry, or does MC Hammer have a problem with that?

18/09/09 - On Sunday, I went for a posh Sunday lunch with the family to celebrate my parent's wedding anniversary, and my brother's engagement to his girlfriend, Karen. And after having a haircut last week, for the first time since I started working at Tesco, I used a razor for the first time this past week, and had my first proper shave, and only cut myself once (on my neck). These changes in my appearance were mainly to please my department manager at work...

Having been feeling particularly great this week, I've been missing Malaysia quite a bit; Victoria and Anita will be going for five days of prayer in Chennai, India, next week. I think what's been getting me down most is that despite having been at Tesco almost a year, I still haven't made any friends outside. I do have close relationships with various colleagues, who I chat with quite a lot, but there's no one for company outside. I'll just have to keep trying and praying...

25/09/09 - I've been doing quite a bit of spending this past week; firstly I've booked my flights for my sixth trip to Malaysia for November 20th, I've booked a second set of flights to go to Colombo for a few days, and I also bought myself a camera lens for my camera from ebay, which should hopefully make it look and work more professionally. Talking of ebay, I sold my first item from there, as I'm now trying to get rid of all my old Chelsea memorabilia...

Along with spending lots of money, and making some small change, I've also been trying to get some volunteer work in teaching, though with not much success so far. I've tried getting a placement with South Kent College on their ESOL course, but when I contact them they seem to think I just want to apply for a course, not help out on one. I also contacted a local volunteers centre, but didn't have much luck with them either, as they said they didn't have many contacts in the field I was looking to help with...