I had a new scooter, then I traded it for my brother's car ...

Well, it's been a while since I last updated this blog ... Let's just say that nothing much is going on in my life, even though I very much wish that something was going on, at least in the love department, ever since I turned 40 earlier this year ... I really want something good to happen, and I'm working on something ... Don't want to reveal it just yet ... When it becomes a reality, God-willing, then I shall reveal it ... For now, it'll just be one big mystery *with a wink and a smile* ...

Anyway, as the title of the entry suggests, I got myself a new scooter ... What happened to my MZ Moskito, you might ask ... Even though I only had the scooter for two years, ever since I got my license sometime in July 2013, I hadn't had that many issues with it, at least not in the beginning ... When I quit my job in May 2014, and had the difficulty of getting a new one, thanks to my latest psychotic break, I didn't have that much reason to ride the Moskito that often ... I did travel back and forth between my mother's place and my eldest brother's place in Rawang after the second relapse, and eventually I settled at my mother's place when I got myself a new job sometime in September 2014 ... I only lasted at that job for two months ... Just put it down to the fact that I didn't like my immediate boss ... To be fair, she wasn't a bad boss, but she wanted us to put in the hours like she did .... I heard from some of my then colleagues there that sometimes she would stay back so late at night, like, 11pm-ish late ... Another thing about the job I didn't like was the fact that I had to call up people, and I don't like to call up people and talk to them about the events we were managing ( the company was involved in event management, among others) ... I thought I was just there to write the brochures ... When I first applied for the job, the description wasn't clear enough, though that lady boss did explain what my job entailed at the interview ... Only a few weeks into the job, and I thought I had enough, because there was one time, I had to call up people in the US and Canada, so that meant me staying up at 11pm local time and using my home's landline to make the calls ...

Alright, alright, so I've digressed so far from what this entry is supposed to be about, which is about what happened to my MZ Moskito and how I got my new scooter, which is a Yamaha EGO S ... Well, after I quit my job at that event management company, I was out of work for quite a while ... As a result, I didn't see the need to ride the Moskito that often ... I used it to go to work to that event management company, and I didn't have any issues then ... Anyway, after I quit that particular job, the bike would be parked for several days at one time or another ... One day, the bike wouldn't start ... The battery was fine, 'coz when I pressed the starter, the bike made a whirring sound, as if it wanted to start, but wouldn't ... So, I went to this bike shop I always go to and asked for this mechanic I always ask for whenever I had bike issues ... He picked up my bike and took it to the shop ... As it turned out there was something wrong with the "coil" ... I'm not sure what this "coil" does, but the mechanic said that that was the problem why the bike wouldn't start ... So, the "coil" was changed and the bike started just fine ... But, after that incident, I would make sure that I would ride the bike at least every other day ...

Then, in April 2015, I got myself another job, thank God ... I was beginning to think that I wouldn't be able to get a new job, and I was worried about this stupid government debt I had to pay ... Anyway, this job was even much further away than the job at that event management company ... It would only take about 15 to 20 minutes to get to that event management's place, but for my new job, I have to take the MRR2 and ride all the way until it branches off into Sungai Buloh ... On a bike, it would take about 30 to 40 minutes to get to my new job ... When my now boss offered the job on the spot to me, I was rather reluctant, thinking of the distance I had to travel on my bike ... It wasn't just the distance, it was the fact that I would be exposed to the elements, and yes, there had been times when I got caught in the rain while riding to and fro my new workplace ... But. I didn't turn down the job, because of this stupid government debt I had to pay, and today I can safely say that the reason I'm sticking to this job is because of that humongous debt I'm riddled with ... I'm not at all excited about working at this e-commerce start-up ... For one, I have to do copywriting, and as much as I like writing, copywriting is a whole new ballgame I'm not used to, and as creative as I can get, I find it difficult to be creative when it comes to copywriting ... Another thing about my job is that I have to do other things on an ad-hoc basis ... In other words, I have to multi-task, and I'm not much of a multi-tasker ...

Okay, okay, so we've veered off way from the subject of this entry, which is WHAT THE BLOODY HELL HAPPENED TO MY MZ MOSKITO? ... Anyway, one day after work, I stopped at a petrol station to pray, and after that, when I wanted to start the bike, it won't start at all ... Remember about how I was able to hear the battery start the last time the bike stalled? Well, this time, no sound came out when I pushed the starter ... Forget about the kickstarter ... I hadn't had to use the kickstarter in the two years when I owned it, and apparently, my second brother, who I bought the bike from, didn't see the need either when he owned the bike ... So, the kickstarter was kind of jammed ... Again, I had to call that mechanic and asked him to drive all the way to the petrol station, which was along the MRR2 and quite a distance away from where I live ... As it turned out, he was able to start the bike using the kickstarter ... So, I told him that it was because he was a guy, and I was a girl ... I know, very unfeminist, but the kickstarter was quite jammed up ... The issue with the bike this time was the battery, and it cost me a pretty penny to get it changed ... Oh yeah, what happened when I found myself stranded at the petrol station when the bike wouldn't start? ... I had to call my mother to pick me up, who in turn called up my second brother to drive to the place as it was night and my mother wasn't sure how to get to the petrol station ...

Well, after this incident, my mother said I should just get a new bike ... I was reluctant ... After all, I just started at my new job and didn't have much money ... So, my mother agreed to lend me the money to get the bike ... As for the MZ Moskito ... I sold it off for RM 500 ... I know, very cheap, right? ... Just hours after I posted my ad on Mudah.my, I got people calling me, interested in the bike ... One guy was very interested, but it was a rather fishy affair when it came to the part where we wanted to change ownership on the title ... He insisted that I used the fingerprinting method of changing ownership, where the new owner would have at least five days to change the title under his/her name ... I don't know, he was making a lot of excuses, like having to go to overseas and whatnot, instead of coming together with me to JPJ (or DMV for those not in the know) to do business ... He kept insisting on using another name when I had to change the title's ownership via fingerprinting ...  My mother said that was because he wanted to sell the bike at a higher price to a third party, and I had to agree with her ... Because when the title was changed, I saw two new names on the title (which that guy took a photo of and emailed me) ... One was his name, another was a name of a person whom I suspect he sold the bike to ... Anyway, that was the end of my relationship with the MZ Moskito ... It served me well in the two years I had it ... It was rather big, so I had problems manoeuvring it, but other than that, the bike had been good to me ... Of course, the odometer had stopped working, and so was the fuel gauge, and so on ... After all, I was the third owner, and I kind of pity the new owner of the bike 'coz he would really have to take care of it to make sure that it won't breakdown the way it had when I owned it ...

Goodbye, my trusty MZ Moskito ... At least I kept a virtual representation of you ...

Anyway, like I said, my mother lent me money to buy a new bike, and so on recommendation of my trusted mechanic, I went and bought myself a Yamaha EGO S ... I got it right before Eid Al Mubarak of this year ...

The bike had slow pick-up in the beginning ... But over time, the pick-up got better and better ... It wasn't the fastest scooter there was ... Other bikes kept overtaking me whenever I was on the road ... But it had really good suspension, unlike the MZ Moskito, which bounced me up a lot whenever I ran over a pothole or something like that ... I tried to avoid these potholes as much as I could, but with cars whizzing past you left and right, you couldn't really make a sudden swerve to the right or left, could you? ...

Mine is the blue one ...

So, I had this new bike for almost four months ... and in the four months, there had been several times when I got myself wet because I was exposed to the rain ... Coupled with the fact that work ends at 7pm (another thing I didn't like working at the e-commerce start-up), I almost always get home at around eight ... It was just over a couple of months ago that my mother decided that I could drive her car to work when she wasn't using it, and let me tell you, despite the traffic jams, I much prefer driving to work when the workplace is quite a distance away from home ... There was one time when it started raining so heavily that one couldn't see the road, and I was thanking God over and over that I was in a car at the time ... If I was on the bike and rain like that fell, I would have ended up soaking to the bones once I reached home ...

So, it was serendipitous indeed when a couple of weeks ago that my sister-in-law said that they had finished paying off for one of their many cars (apart from this car, which is a Naza Suria, they have a Toyota Vellfire, a vintage Volkswagen Beetle, an old Perodua Kancil and a Perodua Myvi) and my sister-in-law said that I could have it ... I didn't know what to make of it at the time ... I think it took me a while to process the fact, but I was finally having my own car, Alhamdulillah ... So, I traded my EGO S, which my niece took over, for the Naza Suria ... It's a good trade-off, I think, 'coz now I don't have to worry about getting wet, and I am not as tired when I reach home after work ...