So, it looks like I will be staying at the YWCA in China town. Right next to the Y building, there is a Youth Vocational Training building which has flats that are furnished but with no stove for 1,000 ringgits a month. I'll have to buy some hotplates, which they have here, so I don't accidentally give myself gas poisoning in the middle of the night. Apparently they have internet service things here where its like a little thing that you plug into a USB (I think, otherwise I can't use it with my petit computer) so I can have internet and cooking abilities in my apartment within the next couple of days without having to search for the next couple of months and continue to be woken up every hour by buses outside and the security guard chatting with someone. I've reconciled myself with it especially since I won't be needing to walk into china town every night to get food and use the internet, I'll have a lot more daytime exploring time after work if I can come home around 8 and start writing/eating. I also may be able to volunteer every now and then to teach english to some underpriveleged girls at the center who get training there free of charge.

Otherwise not a lot is new. I bought a 'Everyday Malay' book that I am going to study to try to speak as much Malay as possible (because they kind of hate me when I speak english if they don't). I have found out that Malay food, in fact, is not very spicy, unless you put a lot a lot a lot of their spicy sauce on it, which is in fact delicious. A little disappointing. I haven't had much of an appetite since I arrived but it is starting to return as I get more comfortable.

 The IPPF grounds are very beautiful, in ambassador row I believe its called where, believe it or not, all the embassies and homes of ambassadors are. Very ritzy area. There are banana trees outside! Did you know that banana trees have really very strange looking flowers that are edible? Because I did not.

 Hopefully I will be able to go do something touristy this weekend like go to the Batu caves or something. Someone told me today that apparently at the top of the big stairs, there are monkeys that will steal things out of your bag if you don't close it properly. "Naughty monkeys," she said. I clearly can't wait.

The heat is getting to me a lot less than I thought. I get very sweaty but for some reason it is a lot less annoying than the humidity in Toronto. I have a mild cold already, runny nose, sore throat deal. Could be very much worse. Probably will be very much worse at some time in the future. If you can, you should check out the article that Katie posted on the comments of my last entry. This is the philosophy that I am also trying to employ. Some women last night were telling me horror stories of all these things happening to KL, but the things they said were happening happen everywhere. I think that it is exaggerated a little bit because crime has gotten much worse over the past 5 years so the Malays are not used to it.

 That is all. I have a blog assignment due on culture for the program, so if the next post is kind of weird, that's why.

 xoxoxo