I believe I mentioned, quite briefly, some gibberish about a vacation in Kuala Lumpur in my last post. I feel that it would be necessary to elaborate slightly on this point, for this was not exactly an ordinary vacation.


The bulk and purpose of this untimely vacation at New Year's was to bring my older sister to Port Dickson, where she would begin her six-week-long Christian training course at Jeremiah School.


Let's take things one at a time. First of all, I'll tell you about Jeremiah School.


Here in Malaysia, we have a kind of exam called Sijil Pelajaran Menengah, or SPM for short. Roughly translated, it means that its an exam for secondary school studies. Other countries might have SATs or Oh-Levels in its place, but around here we call it SPM. Any student who completes their SPM is said to be a "school-leaver". At this point they can choose to continue on to high-school, or go straight to college, or to stop studying right there and jump straight into the world of commerce and whatnot. However, before any of the first two options can be put into action, one generally has to get their SPM results first. The exam takes place around the beginning of December, and the results don't get announced until some 5 months time. During that interval, several smaller options are available for these students. One of them is called Jeremiah School.


Quite certainly for Christians only, Jeremiah School, as I understand it, is like a kind of boot camp for the soul. Rather than taking on part time jobs, or going into National Service to become a soldier, young school-leaving Christians can choose to enroll into Jeremiah School. I'm not well-informed on every instance of what they will be doing during their six weeks there, but its supposed to be very life-transforming.


This year, Jeremiah School is being held in Port Dickson. WE, on the other hand, live in Taiping. Open up Google maps and work out the distance. My older sister is enrolling in Jeremiah School this year, and my parents sort of decided, well, since we're travelling that distance, might as well stop here and there on the way and relax.


Today is Monday, the initiation day of Jeremiah School. On Saturday, we left our little town of Taiping and made straight for Kuala Lumpur, Pearl of Malaysia. That's what I call it at any rate. It was thanks to our little stop there that we were able to watch the fireworks show that I described in my last update. Next afternoon, we continued our journey to Port Dickson. Nothing much of interest happened there, except that upon arriving, my baby sister's diapers overflowed when I was carrying her, and she wet my shirt. It was not pleasant, and I did not take a picture of it.


We stayed at Port Dickson on Sunday night, and the next day we dropped of my older sister at the Methodist Centre campsite where Jeremiah School takes place.


Then we came home, and I wrote this blog.


I'm only saying all this to emphasise that, well, contrary to my whiny indications last post about how I go on too many vacations, this wasn't exactly a vacation. It was more of a family matter. This makes me feel better about what I'll have to say when people ask me why I wasn't at church on Sunday, although most likely no one really cares.


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I have now been reunited with my home and all the lovely technology it contains, and it is notat all likely I'll be leaving again any time soon. Within an hour of this post, I'll have all my holiday photos up and running in their respective blog posts! Although most likely no one really cares. After all, its practically cliched that your neighbours will bring all their vacation pictures over to your house and proceed to give a boring yet detailed acount of the whole week they were there. This has never actually happened to me or any I know, but it happens a lot in TV and stuff.


I know what you're thinking, or at least I think I know what you're thinking. I think you're thinking, This is the New Year, the first day for the rest of your life, the time for making resolutions and trying again. And yet, for me, the carefree blogger, nothing has changed. Am I not embracing the New Year with the proper New Year spirit? The answer is, I'm not a school leaver. I'm a lazy, rustic, school-bound teenager. My new year starts when school does, as in this case, school doesn't start until Wednesday. That gives me more time to put in my final twenty-four hours of lazing before I'm forced to go back to my daily routines of waking up before the sun does, and all that.


But you mustn't take my complaints seriously. I'm actually looking forward to this year. We'll see how things really are on Wednesday.