Bite Size

For A Bowl Of Mee

2010-03-24T22:22:00.000+08:00

Last year, I would go to the city roughly once a week for a nice dinner. 'Fancy Dinner Night' is usually on Saturday evening, after church service. Usually Uncle Billy's. However, since church service was moved to Sunday morning, I have yet to have a good meal in the city!

Uncle Billy probably spent the past few weeks with sleepless nights wondering what he could have said or done wrong to scare away his best customers.

Tonight, a few of us decided to have dinner in the city, 'just for fun'. But we didn't go Uncle Billy's, though. Yau Shu brought us to Hawker's Cuisine, because "their kolo mee tastes quite good."

Let this be a reminder to all of you who are back home enjoying cheap and tasty food.

Holy crap. Can eat 9 bowls of kolo mee back home.

BE THANKFUL.

It tastes nothing like kolo mee, by the way. -_-

Side Order: I survived The Great Perth Storm of 22/03/2010! I might blog about it... We'll see!

Camera Shy Part 5

2010-01-20T12:23:00.000+08:00

Time for a filler post! Just some random photos from my one year in Perth =)

Laksa FAIL. This was our very first attempt at laksa. We bought the paste from a supermarket in Perth and then made the mistake of FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS. Lesson: When it comes to cooking spicy food in Australia, don't follow their instructions. Will make the food taste like butter chicken mee instead.

And the cat is a Shaolin Grand Master.

A whiteboard in UWA dedicated to Chuck Norris facts. Only in UWA.

Fact: Chuck Norris has already been to Mars. That's why there are no signs of life there.

New method of releasing exam stress: compete with your friend on how many grapes you can stuff into your mouth. Jim here managed THIRTY! ... Li-Jin forever named this game "Chubby Bunny". Such a cute name XD

How Tiny Thy Island

2010-01-10T12:49:00.001+08:00

So I didn't tell anyone about my New Year Eve trip to Singapore.

Sorry guys! The trip was mostly unplanned and totally last minute! Some of my Singaporean friends were in Kuching the week before and they were talking about how everyone should meet up in Singapore. That night, I checked and saw that the air tickets were cheap-ish. The next day, I confirmed my half-day leave on New Year's Eve, a place to stay in Singapore and then proceeded to book my tickets. Trip was on Thursday. Booked tickets on Tuesday. There. That was how last minute it was!

The trip itself was okay. I mean, there's not much one can do in three days! There was Vera's countdown party, Marcus & Dorcas' wedding ceremony and Faith's BBQ party. And then there were the moments of fascination at how advanced Singapore is compared to Malaysia.

Any Malaysian (at least, anyone who grew up in Kuching) would agree that the public transportation here pretty much sucks. The condition of the buses are so bad that it makes you wonder if the buses can safely reach their destinations or not. As a result, everyone drives in Kuching. Most people here don't even know the bus routes! Then again, most Kuchingites don't even know their way around the Petra Jaya area -_-"

All my Singaporean friends use their public transportation to go places. Granted, driving in Singapore is similar to walking and paying for parking is similar to a meal in a good restaurant, but at least the quality of the public transportation makes up for this! Heck, I think that the public transport in Singapore is of almost similar level to Perth's. And considering Perth has one of the best public transportation systems around, that's saying a lot.

As I mentioned earlier, there wasn't much time to do much...

1. Orchard Road! This is a must for anyone visiting Singapore. I was there on the night of New Year and man... Really people mountain, people sea! And electricity must be really cheap or something because the light decor in Orchard Road is CRAZY. The whole length of Orchard Road is lit up by lamps and neons. They even have a building covered in LEDs that changes color every few minutes or so.

2. The Esplanade. And the famous durian theatre ^^

3. Bread + Ice-cream. Not that uncommon la, really. But the Singaporeans were proud to tell me that this is "part of their street culture". So I tried it. And it's good. But messy!

4. Durian puff. Heavenly! The durian filling is warm, sweet and creamy. Arguably comparable to a freshly-opened durian! Found in Jurong Point.

5. Doraemon guitar. No kidding. Cuteness to the max. Any guitarist using it automatically earns the Cute title.

Merry Christmas 2009!

2009-12-25T00:00:00.002+08:00

Shake that booty!! Credits to Poh Sim.

What will you be doing on Christmas day?

Have a blessed Christmas, everyone!

Paranoia 2.0

2009-12-23T12:22:00.001+08:00

I realized that I have not written anything of even a slight intelligence in this blog in such a long time. So many filler posts, and many of them sourced from other places! ... Inspiration is really difficult to come by these days.

And I find it hard to admit this, but I find that the public nature of my posts is really getting to me. The ever scrutinizing eye of whoever-is-reading-this-blog is really laying on the pressure! I am really thinking more than three times whenever I feel like writing my heart out. What would people think? What would people say? How can I be sure that only those who should read the post will read the post? Although I still believe that my blog is my personal space and I get to do whatever the heck I want with it, a liar I would be if I say that I don't care about whatever I write and whatever consequences my words will have on people.

It comes to mind that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Ranting and bitching about a potentially sensitive issue isn't the best way to get a problem out of the way, after all! Imagine all the possible consequences, good and bad, that may come about when/if the person involved reads what you really feel about the issue! Especially when you said "I'm fine about it" but wrote a post obviously indicating that you weren't fine with it. It does not even matter if you truly felt okay with the whole thing when you said you were fine with it, but just needed some place to vent emotions that crept up as time passed by. Heck, sometimes the very reason you're venting is to make sure you can KEEP ON being fine about the whole thing! In light of this possibility, the blog loses its appeal as the ever-listening ear. So, suffer in silence then?

(Those of you who are now planning a 1000-word comment about how I should deal with such situations, you are missing the point. "Facing the problem head-on" and "confront the person and say what you really think" is noble and all, but the textbook methods are not always the right methods. There are situations when you CAN'T tell the truth! But hey, this really isn't the point of this post)

I wonder how long this blog will remain dry and empty? With (rare) posts but devoid of ME.

... Sometimes I wish this blog isn't that public. I considered making it private and only open to selected readers, but dismissed it as too much of a hassle. But I did take my link down from my Facebook page!

... Ironic. With (mostly) true freedom of speech on the Internet, I find my personal freedom of expression being strangled by personal ego and public scrutiny. Hello Web 2.0, hello freedom?

Psalm 23

2009-11-09T21:35:00.002+08:00

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not flunk

He keepeth me from lying down when I should be studying

He leadeth me beside the water cooler for a study break

He restores my faith in study guides

He leads me to better study habits

For my grades' sake
Yea, though I walk through the valley of borderline grades

I will not have a nervous breakdown

For thou art with me

My prayers and my friends, they comfort me

Thou givest me the answer in moments of blankness

Thou anointest my head with understanding

My test paper runneth over with questions I recognise

Surely passing grades and flying colours shall follow me

All the days of my examinations

And I shall not have to dwell in this exam hall forever

Adapted for these exam times! Mirrored from Passion@UWA.

All the best, everyone!

How's This For Nostalgia

2009-10-09T10:30:00.003+08:00

Stress has a way of making you dig up all those old nuggets from the past!

I loved Doraemon as a kid and I still do now. Back then, the appeal was in the gadgets drawn from Doraemon's amazingly deep pockets in every episode. And the various ways Nobita manages to misuse the gadgets, of course!

Today, all these things I still love (yea call me a kid who never grew up =P). And Doraemon has become a way to escape the hassles involved in growing up... Notice how carefree Nobita and friends always were? No worry or care for the day except the occassional run-in with the angry teacher or mum. Don't we all yearn to return to those simpler days? Seems like so long ago, don't they?

And if you have yet to watch/read the ending to Doraemon, you MUST.

I am in Nostalgic Mode.

This Jealous Heart

2009-10-06T22:33:00.005+08:00

Kick me
Kick me down
When I'm down
Kick me
Break me
When I get back up
Kick me down again
And still I thank you

One Co Thirteen Four has never been harder~

Side Order: Don't worry about it. Just needed somewhere to vent my emotions. Facebook is waaaay too public for something like this.

Can't Wait

2009-10-04T19:02:00.002+08:00

The end of the semester is not too far away now. I really really really can't wait for the semester to end! Then it'll be the final exams and then...

HOME!!

3 more weeks to the end of semester. About 1.5 months to Kuching!!

Side Order: Wanna go home now more than ever -_-

Why This Blog Seems Abandoned

2009-09-01T02:39:00.006+08:00

'Nuff said?

Viva la engineering!

Side Order: Selamat Belated Hari Merdeka! ...For Westies. My Merdeka was spent finishing my assignments (the one shown above -_-"). What did you do on National Day?

Betrayer

2009-07-17T22:42:00.000+08:00

I have crossed over to the other side!

*cue Imperial March*

Side Order: UWA's new semester starts on Monday. Curtin students start a week later! Hohoho.

In The Valley We Call Success

2009-06-28T23:37:00.003+08:00

I woke up on Friday morning to another seemingly ordinary day. I washed up and showered and then went to the living room to wait for Vee and Felicia. While waiting, I switched on the TV. Thought I might as well catch up on some news.

"Michael Jackson Dead."

The news shocked me because it was so sudden. Sure, it was no secret that MJ has been suffering from health problems for a while now. But it has never really occurred to me that his end will be so near. One never really think that way about legends, you know. In your head, legends are the personas you see on the TV screen. Many of us forget just how human they are.

I was never a huge fan of Michael Jackson, apart from liking some of his more famous hits. While the timing of his passing shocked me, it did not make a big impact on me. That is, until today.

During Sunday service, my pastor handed out a pamphlet on Michael Jackson. I read it and was extremely moved. I am gonna post up the full text here and I encourage all of you to read all the way to the end.

* * * * *

"Fri 26 June 2009... the King of Pop died. Michael Jackson died of a massive cardiac arrest. Stories now raise questions about his dependency on pain-killers (he admitted himself into rehab for drug dependency on pain-killers a few years ago); it will be at least a month until further test results of his cause of death are known. Even in death the media, world & fans cannot get enough of him. And his sudden passing away has seen sales of his album & songs sell out in Australia within hours of the shocking news."

"Five of Jackson's solo albums - Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous & HIStory - are among the top-sellers of all time. During his extraordinary career, he sold an estimated 750 million records worldwide, released 13 No. 1 singles & became one of a handful of artists to be inducted twice into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Guiness Book of World Records recognized Jackson as the "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time" & Thriller as the Biggest Selling Album of All Time. MJ won 13 Grammy Awards and received the American Music Award's Artist of the Centruy Award."

"Michael Jackson started in the music business at the age of 11 with his brothers as a member of the Jackson 5. In the early 1980s, he defined the art form of music video with such ground-breaking videos as Billie Jean, Beat It & the epic, Thriller. MJ's sound, style & dance moves inspired subsequent generations of pop, soul, R&B & hip-hop artists."

"Personally I am not a huge fan of MJ. His music, however, marked my awakening to pop music. It was Beat It that got me listening to the radio as a 13 y.o., & subsequently keeping track of the latest hits in the 80s. His hits bring back memories of my teenage years - carefree yet anxious & self-conscious."

"Rarely have I wept at the news of the passing away of a household name. Yet for MJ I could not hold back a few tears. Like I said, I am not a huge fan of his. So why did I cry? As I watched the constant stream of news reports about his life, it became painfully obvious that here was a human being who was trapped by success. Someone (a reporter from ET) made a most insightful coment. He said that although Thriller lauched MJ into super-stardom, it was also his downfall. Perhaps MJ - like many others - was not ready for the heavy price of public life that success & stardom generate. The cruel scrutiny of the media, draining demands of adoring fans, & crushing expectations of agents (& 'opportunists' in that industry)."

"As I watched his life unfold on screen, I observed a handsome, extremely gifted young boy who was ahead of his time in the days of Jackson Five. When interviewed after a performance, he answered with the confidence & maturity of someone years older. He was normal then - both in physical appearance & social - emotional stability. But as his fame grew & the years passed, he became reclusive & eccentric. He likened himself to Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, & even named his personal estate Neverland."

"So why did I cry over the death of MJ? It is because I see in him ...a very lonely man. Someone who had suffered & endured much pain at a very tender age (4 y.o.) for the sake of becoming successful ...only to find that success isolates & attracts the company of people who may only be interested in his wealth, or the ability to bring wealth."

"Perhaps that was why MJ trusted & loved Children. Children are innocent. They don't want to get to know you because of your money, to use you or abuse you. Unfortunately he went about loving people in a socially unacceptable way. His life was quite a contradiction. MJ was like a young boy trapped in the body of a grown man. In some ways his thoughts & values were naive & innocent; in other respects he demonstrated his intelligence. He was a musical, creative genius. He was that young boy caught in a time warp, who lost his childhood to hours of recording & concert tours, & woke up as a man who desperately wanted to regain what cannot be repeated."

"I cried for his soul. The lost, hurt, lonely, misunderstood soul of a superstar who did not know the joy & richness of human relationships. How could anyone every live life without a friend? Yet this is the picture being developed in my mind as news reports piece together MJ's life. Did he ever really live? Or did he escape reality? Building his own world of animals, amusement rides, collections of antiques, etc... & when these were not enough to mask the deep pain of his heart, there were the drugs. Initially taken to relieve the pain resulting from burns incurred at the filming of a Pepsi commercial, drugs could also provide a temporary relief from the pain of an empty soul. A soul so drained by constant demands & high pressure - whether self-imposed or to gain approval, love, acceptance. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? - Mark 8:36 [NLT]. MJ's tragic existence demonstrates that possessing fame & fortune is no cure for a wounded, empty soul."

"Did anyone ever share the love of a Saviour, One who can be completely trusted, with MJ? MJ referred to God in an interview with US 60 Minutes. But how well did he know God? Everyone needs a Saviour - to know forgiveness, that they're loved & lovable. MJ longed to be loved as he was. To be accepted as a human being, not some superstar. I pray that somehow he made peace with his Creator before he stepped into eternity."

"The world has lost the brilliance of a truly talented individual. But more importantly, I hope this man's soul has not been lost for eternity."

-Pastor Joyce Chen

* * * * *

It doesn't matter whether you're from a different denomination, an entirely different faith, a free thinker or an atheist. There is much to reflect on and learn from the above.

If you have read this far, I hope that something has stirred within you, whatever that 'something' is.

And MJ, rest in peace and enjoy your moonwalk with God. =)

Side Order: This winter, let us remember that God is in the rain. And I mean this in ways beyond V For Vendetta.

Side Order: I am still gathering material for my account of the journey Down South.. Patience!

The Author...

2009-06-21T20:38:00.003+08:00

... took his final paper almost a week ago. Since then, he has been free to post in his blog!

... is still looking for the inspiration and motivation to post. When you break a routine, it isn't so easy to get it back!

... will be away from 22 June (Monday) until 24 June (Wednesday). He will most probably be sugar high in some small town south of Perth.

... wishes everyone still busy with their final exams all the very best!

... needs to go pack now.

~~... promises to update his blog when he gets back.~~ Can't promise. =P

Hygiene

2009-06-04T22:37:00.004+08:00

Seems that that Wonder Girls song "Nobody" is all the rage lately. Well, at least it seems to be catching on in Australia. Always let Australia catch on the trends few months after all the rave has died down yea?

And recently there's the Swine Flu scare.

So combine them you get..? ~~Captain Planet~~

THIS.

I know you use finger.

Video credits to Yvonne.

Side Order: Exam season is here. Drop in posting frequency = studying!

Wonders of Invention

2009-05-24T15:14:00.003+08:00

The zebra crossing!

At both ends of the zebra crossing is a sensor that detects the presence of a pedestrian waiting to cross the road. When the sensor registers positive, it sends out a signal to nearby vehicles. This signal causes their brakes to engage and the accelerator to disengage. A network of timing circuits performs the necessary adjustments required for the vehicle to come to a gentle stop before the zebra crossing.

The zebra crossing then sends out another signal which stimulates the driver to beckon to the pedestrian to cross. After the pedestrian has crossed the road, the zebra crossing disengages the first signal and the vehicle is once again returned to the driver's control.

AMAZING!

I am quite proud to say that Malaysia is also using zebra crossings of the same model. However, it seems that we got f**ked on the deal.

Instead of braking, the signal causes vehicles to accelerate. And instead of beckoning the pedestrian to cross, the second signal causes the driver to wave only one finger and shout, "Oi! Che me aa? Ai si aa??!!"

It Isn't Hard, Just Tedious

2009-05-15T10:40:00.001+08:00

The guy who came up with all those engineering formulas have a sense of humor. For some hidden reason, engineering calculations lead you to the worst possible mathematical steps.

It is quite bad enough that some of the formulas are, when written down, longer than the length of your pen. Remember how you used to keep forgetting the formula for the area of a circle? You ain't seen nothing yet.

This is one of the shorter ones.

As I was saying. Going through all the calculation steps can take you through some super tedious mathematics.

To analyze a structure's behaviour when carrying a load, you first need to consider all the ways the structure can move, either through the rotation of a member, deflection or (usually) a combination of both.

A matrix comprising all the possible movement can then be generated, typically in the size range of 6x6 upwards.

This one is size 9x7.

Then, form a matrix that accounts for the stiffness of the structure, also typically in the size range of 6x6 upwards.

...and 9x9.

So now we have two matrices.

The next step of the calculation requires you to...

MULTIPLY THE MATRICES TOGETHER.

Multiply the first matrix to the product of the transpose of the first matrix and the second matrix = GG

Those who know how to do matrix multiplication are probably gasping now.

Of all the matrix operations like adding and subtracting, why did it have to be multiplication? -_-

And the next step is to find the inverse of the product of the matrices.

*peng*

Side Order: Thankfully, I brought my calculator that is capable of doing various matrix operations, including multiplication and finding the inverse. But I am not allowed to use that calculator in exam! Here's to hoping the final exam will not require us to solve the matrices by hand.

The Switch

2009-05-12T21:42:00.004+08:00

Switching over from Swinburne to UWA was an eye-opening experience. Firstly, there's the massive difference between the Malaysian and the Australian lifestyle. There's also the whole doing-everything-by-myself thing that, after almost four months, I am getting quite used to. And of course, there's the difference in the teaching.

In Swinburne, assignments are a major component of the final score. Usually, the final exam only make up about 60% of the overall marks. The other 40% is allocated to coursework, which could include topical tests, tutorials, lab reports, write-ups and the dreaded major assignments.

But arguing it that way puts Swinburne on the same level as UWA. UWA's final exam constitutes around 70% to the overall score. The other 30% goes to coursework, which also includes tutorials, assignments, etc. That would put it on equal footing with Swinburne, no?

No.

As a student who studied in Swinburne for three years, I dare claim that these things UWA call "assignments" are not worthy to be referred to as such!

Still got time to take picture

I remembered slaving away in the Swinburne library every night, trudging down that Assignment Tunnel with not a sign of the light at the end. The life-sapping assignments (like the infamous CEP) of Swinburne takes up most of the semester to be completed, unlike UWA's assignments that can be completed in one night.

Not that I am being ungrateful or am I asking for more assignments. I am just highlighting the difference.

It was a very different semester for me. Three years in Swinburne has made me accustomed to let the assignments "lead" me to the final exam. But now, with the absence of all that work, I am kinda struggling with finding a direction for my studies. Before, assignments played a major part in preparing me for finals. Now, I don't really know where to go/what to do to start preparing. And this is a very bad thing.

Coulomb Wedges. Fact: Drawing Wedges at night makes one think of KFC. KFC + Hungry = Torture.

This is what it is like to switch from Swinburne to UWA. I would love to see a UWA student go to Swinburne. How will they cope with the mountains of reports? Maybe they'll die from stress in the first two weeks. Hahaha!

Side Order: Now that everyone is on Facebook, I wonder if anyone still bothers to blog or read blogs...

Just Wanna Say...

2009-05-10T00:00:00.000+08:00

Happy Mother's Day! XD

I love you, mum.

Hope and the World

2009-05-07T12:27:00.000+08:00

Super deep, man.

Courtesy of xkcd.

Burn-E

2009-05-05T11:14:00.003+08:00

I'm sure you've all watched the fantastic 2008 animation film Wall-E.

The tale of two robots who were more human than some humans could ever be was received well when it was released. No surprise there - who could be so heartless to not love the film? It conveyed its messages well and managed to create characters you would adore and root for. What's even more amazing is that the main characters could only 'speak' mainly through gestures, beeps and boops and limited vocabulary!

Watched it again last Saturday night at Mark's place. Laughed and emoted together with the cell members. Hahaha...

Mark has the Blu-ray DVD for Wall-E and, inside, we found a short film that's a tie-in to Wall-E!

It's called Burn-E. Watch it till the very end, even after the credits! Really hillarious. And super adorable too!

Check out some of the expressions on the robot.

For those of you who have not watched Wall-E, go watch it! You will fully understand some of the events in Burn-E. Besides, Wall-E is a fantastic movie to watch ~~with your girlfriend~~.

And have you ever wondered why Pixar has a table lamp in its logo? Well, the lamp has a name: Luxo. Watch this video!

Vertical

2009-05-03T16:16:00.001+08:00

I know. I am small in size and I look very much like the nerd type. The type whose life is in books and thinks that outdoor activities are part of the "grand fiction". However, believe it or not, I actually enjoy sports! I have tried quite a number of sports although I was never good at any of them.

Jogging, swimming, basketball, soccer, ~~Starcraft,~~ volleyball, ping pong, crab football, ~~Counter-Strike,~~ captain's ball, badminton and even played tennis for a total of one time. And to add to the list, rock climbing.

You read that right. Rock climbing.

Twig arms like mine also can go rock climbing. So... Johnson, there's hope for you yet.

Of course, I didn't try climbing a full-scale vertical cliff la. That would be inviting death! And from the performance of the rock climbing session, I would probably be dead at least six times over.

It was an indoor rock climbing facility instead.

The walls were converted into 'rock cliffs'. Colored handholds were fixed to the walls for use in climbing. The aim is to scale a wall using only handholds of the same color. This creates multiple routes to scale the walls, each one with its own difficulty number (the higher the number, the more difficult the route).

Felicia on the Green 13

I'll admit this: rock climbing isn't easy! It takes quite a lot of strength and flexibility to scale some of the walls. Some of the handholds are sooo small that I had to hang on by just a few fingers.

Gearing up

Mark and I managed to do a Level 15 (or was it 16?) wall. And barely made it up the first few feet of a Level 17 one. Hahaha..

Bad pose. (Me)

Not looking much better (Mark) =P

Then Vee, the most experienced climber among us, tackled the wall. And he went up just like that *snap*.

Vee. Sempat posing somemore -_-"

You could almost hear the sssssshhhh sound of ego deflating.

Tips from the sifu!

For $15 entrance fee + $3 equipment fee, we get to stay in the facility as long as we like and climb as many times as we like. But after two hours or so, none of us can climb anymore. My fingers were twitching, forearms trembling and I couldn't clench my fist! Also must remember that I didn't do any warm-up stretches! Rasa terer la konon =P

And so we went to the bouldering section and camwhored instead. Excuse the less-than-mediocre quality of the photos. My camera doesn't work that well in low-light conditions.

Photographers Henry and...

...Wincy!

Mark's priceless expression. Hanging on for dear life!

Vee. Cool lagi tu.

Me!

Henry again.

Felicia. Check out the hair! Proves that we're really hanging upside down.

Henry again!

Side Order: Happy Belated Birthday Soon Eng!

Bronzed

2009-04-29T23:45:00.000+08:00

Statues on display in Hay Street Mall.

And then...

It's alive!

If they do this at night lots of people will get heart attacks lor.

Side Order: Having problems uploading photos from my phone to the PC. So bear with the stale posts for the moment!

Today's Run

2009-04-22T18:48:00.004+08:00

Total distance: Approximately 8km.
Time taken: About 80 minutes + 5 minutes break halfway through.

I know I took a long time. I'm not a marathon runner okay.

I have come to the conclusion that my legs are way too small to be considered legs. Do you know? If you compare the size of your neck to my legs, there's a very big chance that your neck is bigger.

Hopefully, jogs can do something about that!

I also plan to lose 1 kg of fat, bringing my fat total to 0 kg. XD

The Old Ride

2009-04-21T14:53:00.002+08:00

This is what it used to be like - back when we were staying in Morley and had to endure long commute times every day.

6am. The sun has only begun creeping over the horizon. The sky is dark. The air is cold.

The stand awaits.

The yellow glare of the sodium street lamps illuminate our spot. There is a bench, but we do not sit. The wood is warped to a weird angle, making it extremely uncomfortable to sit on.

We wait. At times, shivering.

The morning bus is usually quite punctual. Depending on the time, we take either Bus 49 or Bus 58. The journey from our house to the bus station takes around 10 minutes.

Morley Bus Station!

Stand A2. Here we await Circleroute 99 for the one hour journey to UWA.

This one goes to the city.

The morning 99. This was taken about halfway along the journey. By the time we get to UWA, it'll be totally packed with people.

Not many pictures during the bus ride. I usually pay a visit to the Sleeping God. Hehehe...

7.45am. UWA!

Now make the same trip twice a day, five days a week.

After moving, bus trips are now around 10 minutes long. Whew!

Virgin

2009-04-18T08:59:00.000+08:00

This news is old. But it's probably necessary.

Don't message/call my Malaysian number! That number is still in use, but by my mum! Any invite to supper/gossip/secret love confession you send me will be read by my mum instead! The same applies to calls. If you're dying to hear my voice, call my Australian number!

Oh, but don't delete my Malaysian number from your phonebook. I will still want to use my old number when I get back to Malaysia. I like that number. Hehe...

Here in Australia, I'm a Virgin. Well, I was a virgin back in Malaysia, but now I'm a Virgin virgin. Haha. Haha. Stale joke, I know.

Innuendos. How we love 'em.

I'm on Postpaid. Back home, I would have never even considered using postpaid. Prepaid was so much cheaper in Malaysia - especially with the crazy low SMS rates that keeps getting lower. Not that anyone is complaining, though.

That Little Red Book is full of sexual innuendos. Virgin is sex-crazed.

Here, things work a little differently. Australians don't generally SMS each other that much. So the SMS rates are WAY higher than what I'm used to. 30 cents (AUD) per SMS! In Malaysia, 15 cents (MYR) per SMS is already considered way too high.

On the flip side, the postpaid here is better. For $30 a month, I get $150 to spend on calls and SMSes. And 20 Mb of data for mobile browsing. There are other plans I can choose from. Obviously, cheaper plans offer less talktime.
This is starting to sound like an advertisement.

But the best thing about the mobile plans is...

FREE PHONES!

And I am not talking about free Nokia 3310's or phones so large you can mistake them for toasters or those phones you can use to smash a crab's shell with. They're giving away top of the line phones! I am talking about mobiles like Nokia N96, Samsung Omnia and even the fabled iPhone 3G! No kidding.

The only strings attached to such a deal is that you will be bonded to the number for 24 months. Which isn't much of a problem if you're not the person to change numbers like you change ~~girlfriends~~ shirts. And sometimes better phones require you to add in another $5 or so per month on top of your phone bill. After 24 months, it'll amount to about $120. Still pretty cheap if that's the price to pay for a Nokia N96!!

So have I convinced you all to come over here? =P

And me? I got myself a Samsung F480.

I decided to go for the gold one.

5.0 MP camera with autofocus and flash, 3G, HSDPA, touchscreen candy bar. Quite satisfied with it, although the user interface could be much more user-friendly. The touchscreen is responsive and the menus don't lag (most of the time), which is a plus compared to many touchscreen phones out there.

The camera flash isn't very useful - often causes discoloration of my snapshots! I usually leave it switched off. Flash aside, the camera works pretty well except in low light conditions and extreme close-ups. Still better than the 2.0 MP non-focus, non-flash camera on my K618i so I am not gonna complain too much!

Looks like I'll be retiring my Sony Ericsson then...

Normally

2009-04-05T11:23:00.000+08:00

Bear the mathematical jargon with me. There is a life lesson to be learnt at the very end.

The mathematical version of predicting the future involves assigning certain values (termed 'probabilities') to an event. In theory, the future is pretty much uncertain. Since the event we're predicting has yet to happen, there is theoretically an equal chance for that event to happen and for an altogether different event to occur.

For example, nothing has yet to happen in the next instance, so there is theoretically an infinite number of things that can happen. In the next minute, I can continue typing on this keyboard, or the computer can blow up in my face, or a meteor can strike down from the sky and smite me from the face of this Earth.

Remember: nothing has happened, so ANYTHING can happen.

I'll leave out most of the elaboration on this part since it will be bore the readers to death, if the post hasn't done so already. A slightly similar argument is the infamous Schrodinger's Cat.

Under this argument, there is theoretically an equal chance for anything to happen. So, to be fair, we allocate every event with the same probability of occurrence.

So now it is just as likely for me to get up and make a cup of coffee as there is for a Japanese samurai to materialize beside me, scream "Banzai!" and then proceed to offer me a slice of cheese cake.

Obviously, such generalization is totally pointless, since we are back to square one, with no useful model of predicting the occurrence of an event to any degree of certainty.

Therefore, it is more suitable to allocate higher probabilities to events that are more likely to occur and lower probabilities to rare-occurring events than to give them all similar values.

A very commonly used model is shown above, called a normal distribution (since this is a model that predicts events as they 'normally' occur). The 'average' event, or event that seems to occur the most, is allocated the highest probability, while more extreme events are given lower values.

This is a perfectly sound reasoning, as experience in life shows that things always happen around the 'popular' value. There are way more average-height people than there are very tall or very short people, for instance.

While not seemingly fair to have totally neglected the argument of "nothing has happened, so anything can happen", the normal distribution has proven to be representative of how life works.

So, what have we learnt?

1. It is quite pointless to be fair.
2. Normally, life doesn't try to be fair.

Sorry. This post popped up in my head from my musings on certain mathematical theories. Hehe.

This is such a filler post. In disguise. =p

Samurai

2009-04-01T10:05:00.003+08:00

Last Tuesday's lunch was in the city.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we have three hour breaks between classes. Usually, I spend the three hours sleeping or doing homework ~~and then sleep~~ in the library. Like back in Swinburne Library lar. Old habits die hard.

Andrew has been telling me of a place in the city that makes one of the best Japanese Curries around. Hearing the way he described the curry conjured images of food from Heaven in my head! I told him that he MUST bring me there and so we decided to take a bus to the city for lunch.

A short walk from the bus stop and...

Here it is!

Inside, I found out that the place is run by real Japanese. And that to work there, you must be able to speak Japanese! The girl who took our orders at the counter was clearly Japanese. Quite cute also.

I ordered Katsu Chicken Curry. It's $6.00, which is considered cheap in comparison to the insane prices charged at other Asian restaurants.

Here's my six-dollar Katsu Chicken Curry.

Hehe. Actually, it's just the waiting card for my dish. There are cute cute cartoons at the back of the card somemore.

Chicken cartoon for Katsu Chicken Curry and...

Piggy cartoon for Katsu Pork Curry!

Here's the REAL Katsu Chicken Curry.

Two minutes later:

Damn shiok la! I couldn't get enough of it. The deep fried chicken was juicy and tender to the bite and perfectly complemented by the gravy. While the gravy doesn't taste like Malaysian curry at all (expected lar), it has its own appeal. To our standards, it isn't the least spicy. It leans more towards sweet and salty.

The portion is considered 'just right' - neither too small or too large. None of that matters, though. One taste of the curry and you know that, no matter how big the portion is, you'll be craving for more!

Andrew's "Special-C". Chicken with rice and potatoes and salad. Inferior to the curry, he said.

And so a new eating place has been found. I'll be seeing you again soon, Mr. Samurai!

Side Order: Happy April's Fools! Hope you guys have fun pranking and/or being pranked on. We get half the day off.

Side Order: Happy Be-Early Birthday to Alvin Nichol! Really seems like there's a birthday greeting in every post!

Earth Hour

2009-03-28T23:01:00.005+08:00

Were you a part of it?

Your light switch is your vote.

I was!

Our house was probably the only participating one in the whole neighbourhood. But we had to 'cheat' a bit. Not everything was switched off! The rice was cooking so we left the rice cooker on. Ehe~

That's a battery-operated lamp. Had to make sure we were doing things right when we put the rice (and not something else) to cook!

Ended up spending the hour in the living room, chatting with my housemates in the dark.

The actual effect of Earth Hour has been heavily questioned throughout the Net, and many has labeled it as nothing more than a sort of publicity stunt. Many raised doubts regarding the impact of switching off lights for just one hour. Actually, if you think about it, Earth Hour will last 24 hours, as different time zones will arrive at 8.30pm at different times.

Their doubts have their merits, but I don't understand why they have to be so negative about it. I mean, it's not like they have to PAY to switch off their lights or whatever. Why do they need to shoot down a noble attempt at spreading global awareness? I believe that this Earth Hour thing's main aim was more towards spreading awareness than to have any actual impact on the bleak prospect of energy shortage. And I believe that if the world can really be realized to this fact, the long-term impact is bigger than any other solution science can come up with.

There's really not much point in taking pictures. Everything's dark!

If nothing else, Earth Hour has achieved this for me: it has provided a time when we can really get together and talk. Usually, we're all too busy on our own laptops to have any extended conversation with each other. A sad fact, but such is the price of the technology that surrounds us today. Just ask Cedric or Sam about what usually happens during UGS gatherings. Only in that hour, when all the gadgets and technological 'distractions' were taken away, did we really connect with each other.

So. Earth Hour.

Did you vote?

What did it do for you?

Food For Thought

2009-03-27T12:56:00.002+08:00

When you tell your friend of something that happened to you recently and then he rebukes you because he thinks that you were in the wrong...

Do you get pissed off because he isn't friend enough to lend you his support?

Or do you feel glad that he is friend enough to say out the hard words?

What is your answer?

The last time this happened to you, what was your response?

Side Order: Happy Belated Birthday, Aaron Zachary! Man.. lots of March babies.

The Best So Far

2009-03-24T09:24:00.000+08:00

Rendang Chicken! Tastes authentic too.

It's not much, and we kinda cheated (because we used a recipe base instead of preparing EVERYTHING from scratch), but I feel proud of accomplishing the feat.

I'll admit, this is my SECOND attempt at it. The first attempt was seriously messed up because we FOLLOWED INSTRUCTIONS.

Apparently, the angmo version of Rendang Chicken is really messed up. Instructions say two cans of coconut milk. But the whole thing turns out looking like anything but rendang chicken. Tastes funky too! So, attempt one FAILED!

In the second attempt, I put in only HALF can of coconut milk. Success!

Side Order: Happy Birthday Shirley! Hope you're reading this. Told you it's nothing too big, but I'm still proud of it. Haha...

Writing On The Wall

2009-03-22T00:12:00.000+08:00

Graffiti in Malaysia has very little variety. Any Malaysian can tell you that the writing on the wall (literally) doesn't deviate much from the likes of cibai and kimak kau. Or their equivalents in the other languages of Malaysia.

Some of the graffiti here has ingenuity behind them!

This is actually funny

Of course, this doesn't apply to all. If you look at them in general, things aren't too different. The mentions of your (or your mother's) private parts are ever present, accompanied by "self-advertising" - names accompanied by time and places to meet, supposedly for "recreation" purposes.

Guys can understand this. You're standing there, doing you're thing and the writing's in front of you. So what's that "joke" in your hands?

And then there are the DRAWINGS. Expect hand-drawn pornography and even drawings attempting to describe the shit that they just flushed down the hole.

...

Seriously, why the need to share with the world the look of your shit? If your shit of the day is purple in color, by all means, spread the news. If the stuff you leave in the hole looks like alphabet soup, go ahead and scrawl a whole paragraph describing it on them toilet walls. If a brown version of the Statue of Liberty came out of your crack, PLEASE! Take a picture!

But if you shit the exact same-o same-o like everybody else, dude, nobody gives a shit (pun intended) what your shit looks like.

WTF.

And then there are the "social activity" graffiti. What's a better word to describe this kind of graffiti? They would draw a box and then write something that goes like, "Stick your boogie (tahi hidung) in the box above." The sad thing is that people actually FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.

And what's worse? The boogies change everyday!

-_-"

Side Order: I'm back on the Internet! Oh and Happy Belated Birthday, Samantha Si! Can go get your Road Rage Licence _{burnoutburnoutburnout} liao! I mean... Driving Licence.

A Little Bit Of Home

2009-03-13T08:48:00.001+08:00

Ever since my arrival here, there have been voices and whispers reminding me of all the good food I left behind in Kuching.

There have been constant reminders of delicacies that are nowhere to be found here. Delicacies like char kueh tiaw, laksa, char sio rice, kolo mee, beef noodle, the various kuih-muih, etc. There's fried rice here but angmo-made fried rice is hovering a bare milimeter above the suck-so-much-you-can't-eat-it threshold.

But wait!

Look look! LOOK!

Prawns! Egg slices! Chicken slices! Soup in a pot! What could this possibly be?

What's this?

*insert angelic chorus*

Laksa! Ah, the world seems a brighter place now.

Much as I would like to claim it as my own cooking, I have to give credit to the genius cooking skills of Rachel Chia. And the hospitality of Jacqueline (something. I don't know her surname), for letting her house be the venue for gorging down laksa.

And it tastes really authentic, too ;)

Side Order: It's Friday the 13th!! OooOooOoo~!

Ticking

2009-03-11T14:55:00.003+08:00

Remember when you were young, you couldn't wait to grow up? The years seem to crawl by for you. You're always 'too young' for something. There's always something you wanted to do, but couldn't because of your age.

This is especially true when you're the youngest in the family. My brother is five years older than me and I am considered one of the youngest among my cousins. When we were younger, there would be times when they would not let me join their games because I am not yet a certain age. The specific age will always be 'coincidentally' one or two years older than my age at that time.

There were times when being the younger sibling automatically makes me the 3rd class citizen at home. I remember times when I wanted to go out for movies and my parents don't let me. I would say, "How come ah ko can go out and I cannot?" The answer was always the same: "He how old, you how old?" Of course, my parents meant well. They didn't want me to become one of those kids who never stay home from a young age. But at that time, I couldn't wait to be eighteen - supposedly the age of true freedom.

Eighteen was two years ago. They say when you cross the threshold of twenty years of age, you will be dreading every birthday that comes after.

Today, I am twenty years and a month.

And the dread is very real.

Side Order: Happy Be-Early Birthday, Jason!

Night In The City

2009-03-08T21:06:00.013+08:00

One Friday night, I went to the city to meet up with Sze Howe and Poh Sim for dinner. It was supposedly a 'drama reunion' of sorts. Long story. Sze Howe suggested Il Padrino's Pizza in Northbridge, citing it to be the best pizza joint in town. I have only been in Perth for almost a month so... I don't think I have the right to argue. What would I know about the good eating places here, right? I only know Broadway Fair and Chilliz. And Golden King BBQ in Morley... Haha!

So we agreed to meet outside the restaurant at 7.30pm. Because I have limited options of buses to take, I arrived early. So I decided to walk around the city and take some pictures.

Just so I can post them here and hopefully jumpstart this blog into a slightly higher level of activity. Hahaha. Nope, still no pictures of my housemates, Jacq.

And so my journey begins...

That's Morley Bus Station. You can think of it as the KL Sentral of the suburb I'm staying in. From my house, I take a bus to this bus station before taking a connecting bus to wherever I wanna go. Excuse the lousy angle from which this picture was taken. There's nowhere in the station that I can take a nice picture. At least none that will earn me a broken spine from me knocking into a bus.

One bus ride later.

City Busport! It's nowhere near the level of KL Sentral but hey, at least it's not insanely big to the point of being impractical.

I still got half an hour to 7.30 p.m. Half an hour seemed like a lot of time so I crossed the field outside Esplanade to take a photo of the city skyline. But the fields in Perth all punyalah gigantic! By the time I'm done crossing the field (with a few failed photo snaps in between), it's already 7.15 p.m! And the restaurant is on the other side of the city. Haha!

A few quick snaps and I'm off!

Absence of clouds in Perth

However, upon reaching there, I found out that I was the first to arrive. Sze Howe's message said he'll be there in five minutes, while Poh Sim said earlier that she'll be late because she's driving all the way down from Joondalup.

Northbridge. Not a good place to be at night. Lots of ~~strip clubs~~ ~~adult shops~~ drunks

Five minutes later, I caught Sze Howe almost walking in the wrong direction -_-" And then Poh Sim called, asking me for directions to the restaurant. Here's two people who have stayed in Perth for far longer than I have asking me for directions! Hahaha. This is a point of note that I HAD to bring up. Sorry guys! XD

And so with everyone there, dinner and crap talk began! We decided to each pick one dish to be shared. I opened the menu and... saw that everything was in Italian. So I random-jabbed my finger to a pizza and called that my choice. Haha! Other than the dough being a little too tough, it turned out quite good. Poh Sim ordered focacia and Sze Howe ordered lasagna. Both of them (the FOOD, not Sze Howe and Poh Sim) tasted good!

Being the glutton that we are, we forgot to take photos of the food. =P

However, we ordered a little bit too much. Couldn't finish the focacia and the pizza! Maybe it's partly due to the medicine students talking about handling human brains and feet with gangrene and whatnot -_-"

Yes, I am wearing striped long sleeves. Quick quick! Go buy 4D!

After dinner, we decided it was still a bit too early to get back. The last bus for Morley leaves at 9.15pm but Poh Sim offered to send me back (bestnyer got car) so everything's fine.

The suggestion for gelato came up. Poh Sim immediately lighted up and I immediately regretted finishing that last piece of lasagna! Hahaha. For those who don't know, the gelato in Northbridge is the best ever. Aldrin supports this claim!

After that, we walked Sze Howe to the train station before Poh Sim sent me home. I'll say it again.

Bestnyer got car.

Oh! Down Under!

2009-02-13T23:15:00.005+08:00

It has been a week since I started treading Perth soil.

I'll be honest. Perth has been great. I still love Kuching btw. The first thing I noticed was the difference in the climate here. It's currently the middle of summer, and temperatures are at their highest but... Well, the Perth version of 'hot' is really different from Malaysia's version. It's hot, but one rarely sweats. I guess this is due to the dryness of the air.

The air in Perth is dry. When I say dry, I mean REALLY dry. Keeping oneself hydrated is essential. I've been drinking water like crazy (way more than the recommended eight glasses a day) but my ~~luscious~~ lips are still cracking. Currently using petroleum jelly to prevent the cracking from getting any worse.

And then there's the wind. No air-cond in Swinburne can compare to the Perth Winds. On cooler days, the wind rattles the bones. At the beaches, the wind is strong enough to 'nudge' one to move in a certain direction. If I'm any lighter, I probably can parasail without the parachute! Hahaha. Why am I so skinny omg.

A lot of people have been asking me where I am staying in Perth. Answer:

VERY FAR!

It takes like an hour and a half to go from my place to university. In the mornings, I take about 15 minutes' walk to reach the nearest bus stand where I take a 10 minute bus ride to Morley Bus Station. I then take another bus to UWA, which takes about one hour. If you add in the waiting time and delays, it takes about two hours to get from my place to university. Because of this, we're really keen on moving to another place that's nearer to UWA.

A big shame, really. Morley (that's the suburb we're in) is a really nice place to stay in. It's a family-oriented neighborhood and is really peaceful. There's also a shopping center nearby that has got everything one needs to buy, so shopping for supplies isn't a problem. That's one of the good things about Perth, really. The suburbs are all self-sustaining. One can live their entire lives without ever seeing Perth City. Hmm.. Come to think of it, Kwang Yang and I have not been down to the city since we moved out! Maybe only once, but that was us trying out a new bus route.

Anyway, I'm going to end this post here. I'll write more next time. And hopefully with some pictures! Sorry, Jacq. No pictures of my housemates yet. Didn't know you're so interested. Haha.

Side Order: Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Remember, people. You don't need to wait till Valentine's Day to show your affection for someone. Every day can be Valentine's Day if you want it to be =)

Jetplanes Part Two

2009-02-04T00:39:00.005+08:00

The year 2005 ended together with my secondary school life. The chapter on St. Thomas ended and my Swinburne life began. The closing of that chapter goes hand-in-hand with the dispersion of The Gang. We still meet up whenever we can, but things just aren't really the same.

Everyone walk their own path. We all head the same way, but that doesn't mean we notice each other. Along the way, different paths may converge into a larger path. And so we meet and walk together, for a time, until the nature of the way dictates that the paths must diverge once more. We say our goodbyes, pledge to cherish the short time shared together and part ways.

And so we are separated once more. Walking down our own paths, but now aware of each other in the parallel paths. We still see each other making the same journey. But it isn't really the same as it was when we were walking together, is it?

Friends may be forever, but life goes on. And everyone move on, going through the winds and turns of their own journey.

2008 ended together with my Swinburne life. My three years in Swinburne are now in pages past, to be remembered fondly in cherished memories.

And so another chapter awaits.

It will begin with a plane ride.

Side Order: The bags are packed and ready. Most affairs have been settled. I THINK that I am quite prepared to head out. But... What's the feeling of having Thursday coming after today? Sad + Happy = Sappy?

Clearing Debts

2009-01-27T00:11:00.005+08:00

First order of the day: pay off my greeting debts.

1. All the best for your exams!
2. Happy end of exams!
3. Happy holidays!
4. Merry Christmas!
5. Happy New Year 2009!

And of course...

Happy Chinese New Year!

I have not blogged since *scrolls down to check* 31 October! Wonderful. There was laziness, there was industrial training and there was more laziness. Very plausible reasons, no? All of you have been through these penyakits* before, don't deny it!

It'll be a bit too long for me to summarize what has happened in the eternity of my absence. So I will leave that for another post ~~that will probably never appear~~.

It's Chinese New Year! What have you done so far?

I gave my car a thorough cleaning! After many months of neglecting its well-being, I finally gave it its long awaited cleaning. The exterior has been cleaned and waxed, rims polished and the interior vacuumed and buffed. It was hard work, but it was well worth it.

Check out my baby now.

This is a joke for those who know what car I drive. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Too bad I will only be driving it for another week or so. =(

The first day does not bear many stories to tell. As usual, it was a day reserved for visiting family friends and relatives. However, this year we only visited five houses. Very suntuk* lar.

In the evening, we went to Shirley's open house. She sent out a special invitation by SMS (da-da-dum!) so there was no way we could have rejected her. What with her cute hair and our kind hearts and all. And so we went over, filled our tummies with food - including the most delicious cheese cakes I've ever tasted - and got sugar high over too much soft drinks. This would be the second time I get a sugar rush.

So ends the first day. What holds for me in the second day? I will be out visiting with some friends. I heard that there will be like... 13 houses. o.O

Anyway, I guess I better end this post here. You may have noticed that the dryness is setting in. That's not dryness, I tell you.

It's LAZINESS.

*Oh Rojak!
1. penyakits n. afflictions; diseases; plural form for penyakit.
2. suntuk adj. lacking; inadequate; local lingo for describing a poor state. That company so ~ that they do not even have their own printing paper.

Side Order: Do you realize that it's next Thursday? Kinda too fast, isn't it? After that I'm gonna have to give up all things Kuching for almost a year. I love Kuching.

Simply Wicked

2008-10-31T17:52:00.008+08:00

I'll start by saying that children shouldn't read this book.

The rest of you MUST give it a read. It really is THAT good.

I bought this book at Borders sometime in July. I didn't buy it because it received fantastic reviews when it was released in 1995. Heck, I didn't even know there's such a book called Wicked back in 1995. How the heck did this part of the world miss out on such a book all those years ago? I bought this out of intuition and out of curiosity after reading that mini summary on the back cover.

I still can't stop thanking my intuition.

I finished the book after reading it for three nights in a row. I would finish my work for the night by midnight and decided to read 'one chapter or so' before retiring for the night. ... I slept at 3am+ in those three nights.

The book is so good, I just had to find time to write this review.

Okay, let's back up a little. What's Wicked all about? Well, any kid of the 80's or the 90's will recognize the name 'Wicked Witch of the West'. The arch-nemesis of Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz! The villain in the Land of Oz, the final boss in Dorothy's journey to return home. Remember how we used to root for Dorothy in that final battle? Yeah, me too.

However, think about this for a moment. Do you know of any rhyme or reason for you to hate the Witch? What did she do? Who was she? We don't even know who she really is. So maybe the only reason we think of the Witch as a villain is because we were told that she is one.

And so Gregory Maguire chose to tell the story of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the other side. Here's the version of Oz that was told from the eyes of the Wicked Witch. Here's the true story of the Land of Oz.

(no spoilers, don't worry)

The story opens with a prologue. Dorothy and pals (the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion) are on the Yellow Brick Road, on their way to the Emerald City. Unbeknown to them, the Wicked Witch of the West is spying on them and listening to their conversations. The gang discussed what little they have heard of the Witch. "She is the spurned lover of a married man," says one. "She is a married man," says another. Hearing these words, the Witch felt rage building up inside her. And she almost pounced on Dorothy when she saw that Dorothy's infamous ruby slippers are the same ones that belonged to her sister.

Gregory Maguire is smart. He knows that we all grew up hating the Witch. Our allegiance has always been to Dorothy. Kill the Witch, we thought. She deserves it. And so he begins the novel by bringing up those old feelings. We start reading the novel knowing that we have hatred for the Witch. And now with these old feelings upfront, Gregory Maguire works his magic.

So the novel begins.

The whole story is a wild ride through the Land of Oz. It starts with the Witch's birth, difficult childhood, school years and finally adult life. Each stage of the journey fleshes out the Witch as a person. As the story progresses, we are brought to understand the hardships that she went through as we come to understand how the Witch became who she is.

And each step of the way, we are brought on a tour of the Land of Oz. Portrayed here isn't the sunshine world of happiness and bliss as was seen by the oh-so-naive Dorothy. Here's Oz in all its glory and shadow. Here's a world we can relate to, a fantastic and yet plausible world. A far cry from the wonderland that we grew up believing it to be. And the best part? Gregory Maguire has managed to make this darker, more mature version of Oz so compatible to the original world envisioned by L. Frank Baum.

As I mentioned earlier, this isn't a book for children. This book makes no pretenses about this. There's (lots of) sex, murder, infidelity and various other stuff not suitable for younger readers. The descriptions doesn't hold back either. While some may consider these elements unnecessary, I personally believe that their inclusion was vital to fully fit Maguire's painting of Oz into the image he envisioned.

And at the end of it all, you will finish reading the book feeling for the Witch. When you have turned the last page, think. How do you feel about the Witch now? On Page One, you despised her. What about now, at the end? I certainly felt for her. I was moved. I even said out loud, "Cibai, Dorothy."

I will never look at the Land of Oz the same way again.

GG

2008-09-29T20:41:00.001+08:00

Side Order: Six assignments in my to-do list. None of them barely started. First deadline in three weeks. It's going to be an interesting time from now on. Ooh enthusiasm.

For The Sake Of An Update

2008-09-17T16:42:00.003+08:00

I have not logged in here for ages. And it seems that if I were to abandon it any longer, my legions of fans will burst their voice boxes clamoring for an update. And not long after that, people will start dying from lack of updates about THE Aldrin, or simply turn cannibalistic from waiting for the new post that never comes.

...

See what happens when the new semester sets in? The stress from studying gnaws away at that line that divides the sane from the insane.

Truth be told, there is only one reason why I abandoned my blog for such a long time.

~~I was testing to see how badly my fans NEED me.~~ I was busy. Really busy.

The current semester has been crazy so far. I am taking four subjects: Geomechanics, Fluid Mechanics, Design of Concrete Structures and Urban Water Resources. You may even notice that all four are technical studies. So excuse me a little if the updates are few and far apart this time around!

Oh, and have I mentioned how much badminton I am playing these days? I average at four times a week. I'm gonna break one of my limbs someday, I'm sure of it!

Snips

2008-08-07T20:58:00.002+08:00

Today, my phone line is kind enough to allow me to connect to the Internet!

So here's a video. I thought that it'd only be fitting to post such a video at the start of a new semester, when we will once again venture into hellish days of assignments, presentations, bla bla bla.

Enjoy!

Jetplanes

2008-07-20T22:59:00.006+08:00

Once, there was 'us'.

A little more than two and a half years ago, I was sixteen, student, fifth-former and thought little of the years to come. Back then, there weren't many things that can make a big impact in our lives. There was SPM and there were life's little problems, but the 'us' - friends, bruthas from anotha' mutha', whatever you wanna call it - was there so everything was good.

One of the last memories of school

Ravin, Simon, Alvin, Hershel, Raymond, Sze Howe I still listed your name here although you betrayed us by moving Down Under 'cos I am a kind and forgiving soul - they were the closest. Of course, there were others: Ian, Aaron, Carlson, Anthony, Jonathan, etc. etc. These are the people with whom I have gone through thick and thin with. The club meetings, camps, spot checks, machine gun sessions in class (by teachers), break-ins into the library only once actually and homework 'downloading' sessions early in the mornings. We've really gone through them all together.

Two and a half years ago, we were all together. And all was good.

But after SPM, everyone went their separate ways. Nothing to be done there. Life's like that! And now we're scattered all over. Ravin's going KL very soon. Simon and Anthony are doing Medicine in UM. Alvin's in UTM, Johor. Sze Howe has ran off to Perth and is possibly living the kangaroos right now. Aaron is on JPA scholarship and will be leaving for Europe soon. Hershel and Raymond and I are the few left in Kuching. Even I am most probably going overseas next year.

And so the cycle will repeat itself again. After SPM, I entered Swinburne. Didn't get any scholarships =( There, I have made close friends, too. And, come next year, I will probably have to say my goodbyes again.

Freshly permed hair (the GUYS, not the GIRLS) - Annual Gathering 2005

After we part, will we all be able to meet again? We may promise ourselves that yes, we will certainly make time for each other once again but life isn't all that simple. From here onwards, we will go down our own paths, make choices, set commitments and the like. In the future, life will not be as carefree as it was. There will be careers, personal lives, families to juggle.

Drama days - National Level Drama Competition Finals 2004

No. No longer will there be days when we can hang out all-day long, movie after movie in the cinema. And perhaps it won't be so easy to go Chinese New Year visiting in a group in few years time. And maybe soon I won't be able to easily confirm my attendance at the New Year's Eve party. Not even the Playstation 2 can do anything about it!

But the times won't ever be forgotten.

This post goes out to all my friends. Past, present and future. Life will be so much more of a drag if it weren't for you guys!

Side Order: I'm happy with my results! =) Oh and I will be leaving on a trip tomorrow morning. Will be back Saturday!

Reels

2008-07-17T14:41:00.004+08:00

Last night's movie marathon was a blast.

The original plan was for me, Ravin, Raymond, Kwang Yang and Keith to meet up to watch Hellboy 2. But after Ravin bought the tickets, Keith informed me that Eric will be joining us as well. Next time tell me earlier la. Luckily, they still managed to get a seat for Eric! I was fearing that he would have to sit somewhere up front and endure neck pains while the rest of us lounge at the back!

After meeting up with Kwang Yang, Keith and Eric at McDonald's for my dinner (the others have eaten beforehand), we went to Star and met up with Ravin and Raymond. There, Kwang Yang told us that Dark Knight will be opening at 10pm last night and not tonight as was originally presumed! A quick check with the ticket staff revealed that Dark Knight is showing RIGHT AFTER Hellboy and in the SAME CINEMA. So what's there to stop us from watching two movies, one after the other? ;) So we did.

First up, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army!

Running time: 2 hours.

The movie wasn't brilliant, but it was okay. The action scenes were quite fun to watch and the story is considered to be rather typical, as typical as fantasy yarns go. There's the long lost prince coming back for revenge, the super powerful ancient weapon that must never be unleashed, yada yada yada. You don't need to watch the first movie to understand the second one! I didn't watch the first one.

And the ending was a bit flat. I mean, after all the action from the beginning, one would expect a SPECTACULAR scene at the end to wrap things up. And there was promise of that. But just as things really heated up, the director threw in a wrench and everything ground to a halt. Totally unsatisfying!

What I do like is the art style. Hellboy 2 was directed by Guillermo del Torro, the same director of Pan's Labyrinth. Anyone who has watched Pan's Labyrinth will support my claim that this guy must be a little wrong in the head. It's hard to describe it. I mean, his vision of creatures of fantasy isn't in the least horrifying or scary of the likes of Aliens or Mimic. There's just a degree of wrongness in them, that little bit of morbidity in each and every one of them that conjures up images of forbiddingness. Despite this, there's a fascinating quality in them that makes me like them.

My score: 7/10

After the movie we went for a short toilet break. One can only hold it for so long.

And then it's back to Cinema 3 for The Dark Knight.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes (yeah, VERY long by today's standards)

What can I say? This movie is simply BRILLIANT. First off, this is a Batman movie, from the same director who directed Batman Begins. I must say that Christopher Nolan is one visionary director. He's managed to deviate from the superhero movie template of "all-powerful good guy beating up all-powerful bad guy and oh, shall we throw in some emotional crisis just to show that the hero's human too?" And he's made this movie so relevant to the context of the modern world. In fact, this movie is so different from the other superhero movies out there that you'll be forgiven to think that you're watching Mission Impossible, with Batman in it.

Meet The Joker. He's easily the vilest, cruelest, most no holds-barred and most psychotic incarnation of the Joker yet. In the Hall of Fame For Villains, he's probably way up there with the likes of Hannibal Lecter! Kudos to the late Heath Ledger for his brilliant acting! I won't bring in any spoilers of the Joker's deeds. You just gotta watch the movie and get blown away each time one comes along.

And the best thing about the movie? It keeps you on the edge of your seat at all times. And when you think that it's all over, the bad guy's down, the chick is safe, good triumphs over evil,the movie brings in yet another twist (another Joker card, if you will =P) and you're back on the edge again.

This movie's a masterpiece.

My score: 10/10

Side order: Results will be released tomorrow! Pressure pressure. Hahaha. I'm worried about certain subjects okay... The final exams weren't exactly a breeze~

'09

2008-07-10T16:00:00.005+08:00

Updated! Click here.

I just came back from an appointment with a representative of UWA. Lately, I've been making inquiries with many representatives from various Australian universities. Just wanna compare the offers of each university before I send in my applications for credit transfer.

So far, UWA has offered the best promises. After looking through my SPM, Foundation and Degree transcripts, she said that I may be entitled to FULL CREDIT TRANSFER! That means I may not need to take any extra semesters. She even said that I probably do not even need to take IELTS test - a test I was dreading, considering my English isn't what it once was. But she said my MUET results and my GCE 'O' Level English results are probably sufficient to fulfill the language requirements so everything's daisies and lilies.

However, the representative said that she can't be absolutely certain of these promises, as the final word belongs to UWA's Head of Engineering Faculty. As luck would have it, this guy will be in town tomorrow! So I've arranged a meet with this dude. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that all these are not blank promises.

Compared to my previously-first-choice Uni, Uni of Adelaide, UWA seems like the choice to take. Uni Adelaide said I probably won't get full credits and would probably only get one and a half years of credits, maximum.

Hmm. Looks like it will be a February in Perth then. Sze Howe and Poh Sim, red carpet aa =P

[Update!]
Met with Dr. Kamy just now. He decided to conduct a mini interview for me right then and there! No warning, no prior announcement so I could prepare myself mentally, nothing. Hahaha. Well, the good news is that he says there shouldn't be any problem for me getting full credits. Hurrah. The bad news is that there's a condition. I am only entitled for full credits if my results have nothing less than a Distinction. Thanks for the extra pressure -_-"

Side Order: Yesterday afternoon was great fun. There were stutters, speed of light speeches, case line surprises and feelings of rejection for having every POI turned down. But I understand that that was probably due to the fact that the stopwatches seemed to be running too fast yesterday! -_-" But in the end, I think everyone in the room learnt a great deal about themselves and about debate. And that's the main objective of the friendly match yesterday =)

Avatar

2008-07-07T16:41:00.004+08:00

About a month ago, I started watching Avatar.

Yes. That cartoon show on Nickelodeon.

Of course, it will be tiresome and damn potong stim to watch one episode a week. That would be the case if I follow the show on TV!

Ah! But there's the Internet. So why wait when you can... Download!

*insert maniacal laughter*

Anyways. Who would have thought that Avatar is such a great show? I mean, I've read articles praising it and heard of the awards that it has bagged, but I never would have thought that it is THIS good.

What's this Avatar crap? Well, the show is set in a universe where the art of controlling the elements, called the art of bending, exists. There are four distinct groups of people: Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, Air Nomads and Water Tribe. Each group has an affinity towards the element its name suggests. To keep the balance in the world, there exists an individual who is able to master all four elements. This individual is called the Avatar. One day, the Fire Nation decided to attack the other three nations. Conveniently, the Avatar chose to disappear at this time. 100 years into the war, the Fire Nation is on the brink of victory. It is at this time that the Avatar reappears, found hidden inside an iceberg by two Water Tribe members.

Don't let the show's cartoony look and feel fool you. This is definitely NOT a show meant just for kids. The character's world is a war-torn one, filled with people bearing sad histories of losing loved ones to the war. Here is a world where kids grow up without seeing much of their parents and unfortunate fathers having to bury their sons.

Most notable of the characters is Zuko. He is a prince of the Fire Nation, banished by his own father just for speaking out of turn. Initially, he seems to be a cruel, not-caring and selfish individual who would do anything to regain his honour. As the plot develops, he is revealed to be a confused teenager who just wants to gain the attention of his father and an individual torn between his loyalty to his country and doing what's right.

And then there's Iroh, the general who was branded a coward for withdrawing from an important battle after the loss of his only son. The Avatar universe is filled with such characters. Kudos go to the writers for coming up with interesting backgrounds for the characters instead of using the generic bad guy good guy set up!

Oh and the art style! The universe draws much from Chinese art, with pagodas and outfits taken straight out of kungfu flicks and the foggy mountains so loved by Chinese artists. And if you take a look at the giant Earth Kingdom cities, you will bow down in awe at the brilliance of it.

And looking at the names of the places and people, the show obviously caters to a Western audience. In this side of the world, we will be laughing at the redundancy of names like Senlin Forest and Heibai the Black and White Monster.

There's obviously too many things to praise about this show.

So my advice to you is this: forget what everyone is saying about how the cartoon is only meant for the younger audience and GO WATCH IT.

Side Order: Wednesday is tomorrow. Man I hope everything turns out fine! Getting a bit of the jitters. Hahaha.

Thus Begins...

2008-06-17T14:07:00.003+08:00

... Two Months of Holidays!

As I am writing this, some of my friends are in the exam room, facing Sashirekha's Engineering Mathematics 2. Hopefully, she is being Sashi the Merciful this time around. I still have nightmares of last semester's EM2, when the paper was apparently not meant for human eyes. I think we all remember the expressions in the exam room!

Something like that lar.

23 questions in 3 hours. That's TWENTY-THREE several-pages-long questions, mind you! Don't know about you, but I think that that's a feat bordering on the edge of superhuman?

Well, she taught me this semester, as well. Engineering Mathematics 3C. The exam wasn't EASY, but at least it was do-able! So I hope you guys are doing fine in that room right now =)

So what have I been doing since the holiday gear kicked in? First order of the day is, of course, SLEEP. It's funny - during the last few weeks to exam, I would study late nights and early mornings and can get by with just several hours of sleep. However, the moment the exams are over, three weeks' worth of lack of sleep sinks in and my body's energy tank drops well below 'Empty'.

Side tracking! Click Five's 'Empty'. Emo betul that lagu. But it's still strangely captivating. Maybe there's this side in all of us that yearns for periodic dosages of Emo-ness. Hmm hmm. But I wonder why MCR doesn't really have lasting fans? Maybe all their die hard fans have all committed suicide? Seriously lar. Their songs are all about deaths and drinking poison and slitting wrists. What happened to BUTTERFLIES and FLOWERS?? Hahaha.

Of course, there's also badminton. Who could live without badminton? But since the start of the holidays, I have only played badminton once. So many people are busy with this and that that it's hard to be able to get something together. And that one day I played badminton, I find that I've all rusted up! It's funny how much effect one or two weeks of not playing can make!

Lazy to rant liao.

More next time!

Side order: I'll be leaving for Miri next week. Road trip with some of the guys!

The Forever

2008-06-08T19:24:00.004+08:00

Warning! Not for those who might get sensitive about religious issues. Actually I don't think it's THAT bad lar, but I just don't wanna take any chances.

You know that your eternity might be bleak if...

You only go to church when you want to ask for something.
You purposely wake up late because you want to reach church the exact moment the sermon ends.
You're thinking about breakfast during intercession.
You're busy SMS-ing during the Bible readings.
70% of the time, you're making jokes on religion.
You sincerely hope with all your heart that God has a sense of humor. Because if He doesn't, then 70% of your jokes is going to get you into one HELL (literally!) of a trouble.
Two minutes after church service, you make jokes on religion.
Two minutes INTO church service, you make jokes on religion.
On his way to the podium for his sermon, the priest makes the sign of the cross when he walks by you.
During sermon, the priest coincidentally looks in your general direction whenever he says words like "sinners", "repent" and "eternal damnation".
You think that the highlight of church service is The Dismissal.
You have this constant dread during Communion for fear that the communion bread will burn your tongue right off.

And you know you're REALLY screwed if...

You have burn marks on your forehead, shoulders and chest. Holy water sizzles right off your skin!

This post goes out to you, buddy. You know who you are ;)

All the best in the final exams, everyone!

One Slice

2008-05-30T16:19:00.003+08:00

Of my thoughts.

... Just so that this blog doesn't look TOO dead.

Every three months or so, there's this period of time that we Swinburne students like to call the Pimple Weeks. This is the time when a portion of our lives transforms into a mini hell. Bubbling lakes of sweat, craggy mountains of work and vast oceans of stress become the landscape of our lives while erupting pimplic volcanoes dot the landscape of our faces.

Pimples must be sex maniacs. Any other reason why they seem to reproduce endlessly? No matter how powerful that facial wash or pimple cream is, they KEEP. COMING. BACK!!!

There's around two weeks left to the Pimple Weeks. I KNOW that I will be looking forward to the end of the assignments and tests and looming final exams. But first, I will have to trudge through this steaming *sizzle!* pile of thingamajigs Swinburne calls assignments. Here's my list of things to do for the coming week.

#1. Engineering Math 3C: MATLAB Workbook 2 (60% completed). Scripting program scripts. Submission date: 6 June 2008

#2. Engineering Math 3C: Test 2 on 4 June 2008. Two chapters to go.

#3. Combined Bending & Torsion Lab Report (50% completed). Stuck on the calculations so I couldn't proceed with it. Submission date: 6 June 2008

#4. Beam Deflection Report (70% completed). Discussions and conclusion to go. Submission date: 6 June 2008

#5-#11. Topographical Engineering. The mother of all submissions. There are 10 (TEN!) submissions for this one. 50% completed. Submission date: 4 June 2008

#12. AutoCAD Assignment 5: Commercial area and carpark drawing (0% completed). Really gotta get this one started! Submission date: 6 June 2008

#13: Excel Assignment. 95% completed. Submission date: 6 June 2008

...

So with this long list of things-to-do, I hope that the readers *coughSamcough* will see reason as to why this blog seems to be semi-lifeless.

The stress and tension is really getting to me. I have been in cranky mode for the past few weeks. It takes a LOT of willpower to keep myself from snapping. And yes, I know that sometimes I totally lose it. Sorry guys!

Next update... ~~Next year.~~ 'Soon'.

Education From Young

2008-05-09T21:18:00.002+08:00

No wonder kids are getting 'smarter' by the day.

Credits to Daniel Chong for showing me this video.

Gaming's End Part One

2008-05-03T15:26:00.005+08:00

I used to play games a hell lot.

From after breakfast until almost bedtime, my butt will be comfortably fitted on the computer chair, leaving only for meal times and when I take a bath, etc. Twelve hours a day, easy. Destroy two Zerg hives in the morning, assassinate the rival Don in the afternoon, unite Asia under the Japanese banner by sundown, and level-up my Barbarian twice before bedtime.

Gang war in Mafia

Two or three games completed per week. Longer games might take up the whole week, or, in some cases, the better part of the following week.

That was many years ago, when I didn't have an Internet connection, when my computer was still on top of the technological curve, and when Homework was only the size of a small speed bump. Also, that was when CDs didn't suffer from manufacturing problems like they do these days. Fuck you, Soulstorm.

These days, I consider myself having too much free time if I manage four hours a week.

But there's another problem that I find in the present Gaming Universe. At least, I am one of the only ones who sees it as a problem. The whole world seems to be enjoying it. I call it...

Liberatus Demandis Inflictus. Penyakit Minta-Terlalu-Banyak-Kebebasan.

It seems that gamers nowadays seem to think that the more open-ended a game is, the more fun it is. Loud is the clamor for games that never end; equally loud is the cry for games that allow for gamers to do whatever they want to do. The result? A flood of MMOs (for the uninformed, that's the acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online games) sweep through the games store racks. World of Warcraft, Everquest, Ragnarok Online. These are the titles taking the world by storm today. What's so special? "A living, breathing world for players to explore!", "Be a part of the continuation of the epic of the World of !" sometimes this isn't even featured, "Play with people from all over the world!", "With over customization options, no two players will be the same! Be unique in a unique world!".

These games used to be called Evercrack due to their life-sucking properties

Blah, I say.

What these claims did NOT point out is that:

1. There may be a living, breathing world to explore, the world never changes unless the developers will it to. Nothing you do makes a difference (probably the only exception is EVE Online, where the player governs the game itself). Kill a thousand goblins today and they reappear the instant you complete your quest. Burn down a tree and it'll still be there tomorrow. Playing an MMO is like creating an art masterpiece on a Magnet-o-matic board. You painstakingly produce your greatest drawing on it, and then someone comes along, give the board a shake and everything gets reset to its original form.

2. Continuation of an epic? More like doing random things (like collecting random trinkets, delivering random items and killing a random number of monsters) that has little or no impact on the story at all while waiting for the developers to release the next patch or expansion that moves the story along. And you do it for a monthly fee. I might as well do this on my personal copy of Diablo - also finding items, delivering items and killing monsters - and read the plot updates on Wikipedia.

3. "Play with people of the world"? It's more like "being in the same game with people of the world". Just because I happen to be in the supermarket at the same time as other people doesn't mean I am grocery shopping with them! And at most times, online multiplayer experiences are crap anyway. I'm better off going singleplayer or, if I feel like I need that human rival fix, go on LAN. It feels much better to play with a group of friends than duking it out with strangers.

4. Customization options. I just don't freaking care. I am just as unique a character when I play the singleplayer mode.

Think about this. With the advent of MMOs, what are we missing out on? Rich game plots. Unique characters with PERSONALITIES (looking different doesn't count!). Actually making a difference in the game worlds we involve ourselves in.

What is the purpose of games? To be interactive movies. To allow gamers to be the main characters. Games are NOT about having gamers become one among millions - to throw pebbles at an unmoving wall until the developers say, "it's time we let them in", just so that they can proceed inside and start throwing pebbles at yet another unmoving wall hidden just behind the first one.

Homeworld boasts one of the most moving stories around. A question of where home is.

It saddens me to see that with the current mindset gamers have, good-quality games are in the decline. Lately, developers can't seem to avoid the temptation of appending the word 'Online' to the names of their game titles. Warhammer Online. Fallout Online. Middle Earth Online. Oh God. MIDDLE EARTH Online! Next there's gonna be Harry Potter Online.

Believe it or not, this guy's name is 'Illidan'. He's a DEMON HUNTER. Not a SOULKEEPER.

My point is, games, especially MMOs, are becoming more pointless by the day. Games have now become a collection of tasks with no consequence. Get soaked in blood killing a horde of monsters only to have them haunt the village the very next day! How pointless is that? I miss the days when Homeworld required me to send my puny fighters in an all-out assault against three enemy Capital Ships bullying the defenseless installations carrying the last survivors of my dying race. And when I have managed to destroy the enemy bullies, I let out a breath of relief, for I know that I have saved thousands from death - and that I have made a difference.

A scene from Homeworld 2. Desperately saving my home planet from planetary bombardment

Gone are the days when my Level 76 Assassin is the single most-feared person in the gaming world and the person most-sought after in times when a hero is needed. No. In the game worlds of today, there are hundreds more Level 76 Assassins in the "You are our only hope" category during desperate times.

In the game worlds of today, everyone is special.

And therefore, nobody is.

I have more to say. But I'll save that for another post. Counter-strike and GTA. You're not spared yet. Oh no.

These are the rants of a gamer. This gamer stepped into the gaming world in the days of Doom. He bases these rants on his own preferences of games. He likes games with engaging plots and interesting characters. He also likes games for the Thinking Man. Among his game picks are Homeworld, Homeworld 2, Mafia, Warcraft 3 and Starcraft. He understands that everybody has different tastes and therefore understands that this post should not be taken too seriously.

Contradiction

2008-04-19T16:44:00.002+08:00

Once again, I contradict myself.

My previous post wrote on how I avoided last minute work by avoiding procrastination. But here I am, facing the prospect of a terribly busy and stressful next few days. There are the assignments due next week that I have not even begun, a weekend part-time job to juggle and upcoming meetings to think about. And yet I find time to sit here and have my fingers rant about this.

As I've said to many people who asked, "I am in deep shit."

But I won't complain or whine, nor will I snake my way out of this. I got myself into this schmess and I will get myself out of it somehow.

Doesn't this prove just how hypocritical I was in the previous post? ;) Is a smiley even appropriate ka?

(Yeah, so what if this is a filler post. At least I updated ba!)

Side Order: My handphone is screwed. It keeps shutting down by itself for no apparent reason. My (or rather, my bro's) laptop is showing its first death throes. Last night, my first two attempts to switch it on ended up with the laptop giving me the finger in the form of the infamous blue screen of death. Almost scared the hell out of me because all the documents related to my assignments are stored inside! Luckily, it powered up on the third attempt. I instantly made backups of all the important files!

Way To Go

2008-03-29T11:15:00.003+08:00

Yesterday, I handed in my AutoCAD assignment.

To be honest, this was the second most relaxed assignment I have ever had. The most relaxed one would be my MATLAB assignment which is due next Wednesday, but completed last Wednesday.

Of course, after going through CEP, every assignment feels relaxed.

Okay, seriously now. I think that it felt so relaxed was mainly because for once, I did not procrastinate in doing my work! I can hear the angels singing 'hallelujah' . Living at a place without TV or Internet sure have its payoffs.

No TV. No Internet. No buddies to chat with. What other things can I do?

#1. Stare at the wall.
#2. Stare at the kitchen sink.
#3. Stare at the wall behind the kitchen sink.
#4.-#1089. Stare at something else.
#1090. Do my homework.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be choosing option #1090.

So in the two weeks leading up to the deadline, I've been putting some time almost every night into finishing up my AutoCAD drawing. Nothing crazy like the seven-to-seven marathons that I pulled during CEP. Just one or two hours a night and I find that, hey! I actually have time to spare! The last minute adjustment to my linetype doesn't count, Wui Jie.

See, this is the way to go, guys. I wonder how long I can personally keep this up, though. Put some time and love into your work. Do a little bit everyday and you will have a smooth journey to the end. Don't go on WLM when you're working on the computer. If the Net distracts, don't go online at all. And if you can't resist going online, you're either: 1. toast. or 2. better off living in a place without TV or Internet.

This post is so hypocritical.

Take

2008-03-20T18:42:00.000+08:00

Photos are not fully uploaded yet. Check back soon.

Don't say I don't update lar.

It is now the fourth week into the semester. It is true that this semester feels different than the previous semesters. Maybe it is the fact that we are now Second Year Students, thus getting a Senior status among the younger students? Or is it the freak showers that keep happening at the oddest of times? Perhaps it is the slight metal tinge in the Swinburne air lately? I don't know.

But when the first math class of the semester begins by having your lecturer emphasizing to you the importance of the FIFTEEN-PAGE FORMULA ~~BOOK~~ SHEET, you know that this semester is unlike any other.

As my friends (here and here) have mentioned, things are picking up quickly. Classes are in full swing, assignments are being handed out like brochure-under-the-wipers, deadlines rushing towards me like a Mat Rempit on a roadkill session and quizzes/tests are looming around every dark corner, always trying to catch me with my pants down. I don't remember any semesters where things get busy so quickly.

That almost happened yesterday. There was a replacement class for Engineering Math 3C yesterday, and the teacher told us beforehand that there will be a quiz at the end of the class. She told us it would be an open book test so I didn't really prepare for it. I was busy with my town planning project the night before anyways. Kinda serves me right la 'cos when I got the quiz paper, I almost couldn't do it. I had to make THREE attempts before I got the final answer -_-" Pants down, indeed.

When was this taken? Looks like math class

Side tracking here. You know how we used to work hard on a question to get the answer? In more advanced math (it starts at Form 4), it usually works the other way around. The final answer is given, and you have to PROVE that 'something' equals to that answer. And when your fourth attempt still churns out the wrong answer and there's five minutes left to the end of the test, you KNOW that you are six feet under a pile of shit. For those of you who have just stepped into this new world, you WILL learn to fear the words 'prove' and 'show'.

And of course there are the other subjects to tend to. Topographical Engineering (fancy name for Surveying) has been fun. It teaches us surveying techniques - how, in conjunction with basic trigo knowledge, basic surveying equipment can be used to produce a map of an area. One funny thing. The lab where all the equipment is stored is equipped with state-of-the-art stuff: compression test machines, tensile test thingies, truss internal force readers, etc. However, in the entire high tech lab, there's only ONE HAMMER. Mesin besar pakai potong besi ada, tukul biasa sik ada??!

Sharing one hammer between three teams is very troublesome. So we went back to our roots. Back to lessons learnt from our ancient ancients.

Use a rock! Hehe...

As for Computer Aided Engineering, assignments are given out in twos. Currently, there's the housing estate planning thing, and the Matlab program to write. Special mention must go to that Matlab assignment. I made some amendments to my code yesterday, but the program did not work the way it was supposed to. I scanned all 100+ lines of code several times and after one hour plus of mata juling-ness... I found an extra letter 'n' in it -_-"

And Structural Mechanics? I've sort of neglected it since Week Two. Hahaha!

Did you realize? There's not much point to this post. I guess I am just trying to justify my not updating my blog for over a month =P

Slumber Times

2008-02-20T13:15:00.005+08:00

I've made several bad night calls lately.

Not THAT kind of night call, you pervert. You can get those at Satok - male, female and everything else in between.

I was talking about sleeping time.

Manchester United vs. Arsenal was on last Sunday morning. EARLY morning. Like 1.10am kinda early. And when it's a clash of the titans of these proportions, you can't afford to not watch it! It's the unspoken rule of football fan-ism.

So I decided to catch the game at Jalan Song. But seeing the unearthly hours of the game, I decided to find someone to teman me there. And I started messaging and issuing MSN hails. Sam said I must be kidding (hey, it doesn't hurt to ask =P). Abubu said he'll confirm with me later in the night. In the end, the most unexpected person called me up and volunteered to teman me.

It was Eric.

He doesn't even watch football. Hahaha.

One thing lead to another and soon it was decided to have a LAN Party at the condo ~~so that was his main intention <.<"~~ before heading off to the game. And that became the death of me.

Partied till 12.30am.
Footie till 3am plus. We trashed Arsenal 4-0. Hohohaha.

Wait why is the font so small. Let me try that again:

We trashed Arsenal 4-0. Aah. Much better.

Arsene Wenger's tulan face that night

Further partied till 5am.
Went to first service at 6.45am
Breakfast after church service till 9am.
Went home, washed the cars and did the chores.
Only managed to get my sleep at 12pm.
Died on the bed till 5pm.

When I was washing the cars, I could barely feel my joints. You know what's it like when you cross that limit of tiredness? The mind becomes a buzzing beehive, the body feels like its floating on a light breeze and every joint has a looseness in it. Every moment was an agony of being apart from that temptress of a mattress, every second was a longing for that pleasure of making sweet love to the bolster, every thought turned towards the craving for the ecstasy of forehead-nuzzling the pillow. How come this sounds strangely erotic.

But yea, I got through it. Hahaha.

My second bad call for sleeping time was Monday night. ~~More like Tuesday morning.~~

Sam recommended to me Nodame Cantabile - some Japanese drama she claims to be good. And it is. Almost too good, actually!

Kiyora (most left) is pretty to me

I couldn't stop watching when I started. Slept at 4.30am Tuesday morning.

And overslept the other day. Was supposed to teman Soon Eng to lunch the next day, but I was catatonic till he showed up at my front door. Sorry, Soon Eng! Blame Sam. Haha!

Side Order: Classes start next week. I am delighted that my timetable allows me to play badminton on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Really need to polish up! Yesterday's badminton session was like a sword fight - so many clanging metal sounds. Hit the racket frame 18 out of 20 times -_-"

19

2008-02-14T20:18:00.001+08:00

I am now 19 years old.

A year older, a year wiser. So people say.

To be honest, I am not convinced about myself getting any wiser. If anything, I am kinda disappointed in myself because it has already been 19 years, and I am still stuck the way I am.

I have always lived in the shadow of my brother. Yeah, I may have the nicer academic record to show, but he has always been the smarter one. Besides, public exams were not dumbed down back in my brother's time. He has always been the more talented one - sports, social skills, life skills, whatever. He's got a better grip on life, wiser, more mature and much better at handling all the dilemmas that life throws at him.

Don't get me wrong. I may be envious of my brother, but it is a positive envy. You know? The kind that makes you want to work harder to become better than whatever it is you are jealous about.

Wanting to surpass someone is one thing. Actually doing it is another. In the past two years, what have I achieved? Learned a bit of guitar, improved my Mandarin to what Kwang Yang described as Primary 1 Level (although I am still only able to read two characters out of a hundred), earn a measly RM25 per weekend, graduated from Foundation and sent my English down the shortcut to hell.

Despite that, I am still the same Aldrin: lacking confidence, openness, originality, maturity, etc. And some 'other' things also lar. Despite me wanting to become a better person, I am still stuck in the same, bland mould. The past two years was supposed to revamp me; to bring me to new heights - to increase the stock market price, if you will. But here I am, still the same. Which kinda puts all my previous achievements to pathetic shame.

But I will keep working on it. =)

Credits! Thanks, everyone for the wishes and greetings and presents and thoughts and belateds and actuals. Special thanks to my family, Ravindran, Raymond, Hershel, Simon, Alvin Nichol, Digi, Ms. Melinda, Ah Yieng, Keith Chong, Avery, Laura, Ben & Angel, Amanda Chang, Cassandra & Nicole, Sze Howe, Abubu, Joe, Johnson, Jacq, Eric, Samantha, Esther, Judieth, Jason, Soon Eng, and Mei Chen. Thanks for the Converse shoes, the Hush Puppies underwear, the Ibanez and glow-in-the-dark guitar picks and the 'Aldrin-on-a-string' keychain. Oh and also thanks Digi for the reload bonus! ;) If I accidentally left anyone out, sorry ya.

Side Order: Happy Valentine's Day! How did you spend this year's Valentine's? I spent mine at St. Thomas Debaters' Clubs' first meeting, watching a mock sparring session. After that, played badminton with some of my mum's friends. And then became the pengacau daun ('leaf disturber') for my parents when I joined them for dinner. Kinda pathetic, isn't it? Hahaha.

A Chance For Charity

2008-01-29T21:05:00.000+08:00

Recently, Avery posted in his blog a post about the situation in Africa. He calls it "Project Africa".

The videos he posted there were quite informative! Do you know?

80 percent of Africa's 700 million people live on less than $2 a day. That's equivalent to around RM 6.50. So.. A bowl of kolo mee and teh-o-peng for breakfast and dinner. No lunch.
One in three Africans are malnourished. That means that by average, every African family will have at least one (and usually more) who is prone to sickness and death.
Nearly 30 million people in Africa are infected with HIV.

(Wee 2008)

It saddens me to see that, in our modern world where kids as young as seven brandish about their brand new N95s and PDA Phones, there are still parts of the world where a child is envied by his peers to have a plastic doll, although the doll is missing a head and a leg.

It is distressing to see that many of us take for granted of the food we savor daily - sometimes even refusing to eat when the dish doesn't meet our expectations - when many families in the world consider themselves lucky to be able to get by with dry bread and cabbage soup.

And we whine about our hardships everyday when there are people in the world who live through days of famine and droughts and epidemics without a single complaint.

Yes, I admit that I also do all of the above. I, too, am often ignorant of the things I should be grateful for.

That's why the past few days, I've gone crazy about Freerice.com! Found out about it through Jonathan Lau.

What's Freerice.com all about? Well, it's a charity website that spends all of its profits in donating rice and contributing towards the global effort of alleviating world hunger. It works like this. There is a word game there for visitors, and for every correct answer that a visitor gets, advertisers will pay Freerice.com, and the money in turn is used to purchase the rice.

That's why, for the past few days, I've been playing the word game like mad. Because I want to help out the world too. =)

So, people! It's 20 grains per correct answer - a small amount, that - but it costs nothing to play, so what have you to lose, right? You probably spend most of your waking time on the Net anyway.

And what's more?

Your rewards will be in Heaven.

Sources:
Wee, A 2008, Project Africa, ahah, viewed 24 January 2008, http://averys-bullcrap.blogspot.com/2008/01/project-africa.html.

Cashy

2008-01-25T15:17:00.000+08:00

*edit!* Photos are now fully uploaded. Excuse the grainy photos, though. I had to make do with my budget camera phone. Don't even have flash or autofocus ba!

This is a very delayed post. So delayed that I decided to condense everything into this summary post! I mean, everything here has already expired for two weeks - what's the point of writing it like it happened yesterday?

Two weeks ago, I went to KL for a vacation.

Aaah. Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia's capital city and Malaysians' shopping central. I still prefer KL to Singapore. So sue me. By the way, anyone knows why it is named 'Kuala Lumpur'? I mean, literally translated, the name means 'mud gulf' or something like that. Although, I have to admit that the cleanliness of the place does not stray too far from its name...

Our trips to KL are usually all similar in terms of accommodation. For ease of shopping and transport, we usually opt to stay at Cititel Mid Valley - since it's situated on top of Mid Valley Megamall and is located right next to a KTM Station. However, for the a little change, we chose to stay in Royale Bintang Damansara (above the Curve) this time around.

The Curve Damansara

Royale Bintang Damansara

One thing that deserves a mention is the room! There are TWO bedrooms, television sets for each bedroom, a mini living area and a bathroom the size of my bedroom here in Kuching. I felt pampered! Haha!

Note the extra doorway to the other bedroom ;)

Our days in KL were mostly spent on shopping. I visited The Curve, Mid Valley, Pavillion, the Bukit Bintang malls, 1 Utama, the Sunway Pyramids, Times Square, Subang Parade etc. The usual must-visit places lar. But special mention must go to...

The Gardens.

Even the pedestrian walkway connecting The Gardens to Mid Valley Megamall is dripping with style

I must say, this place is the epitome of all things High Class. It puts the capital 'N' in Nobility. The shops sell nothing but super-branded stuff (usually tuxedos and the like) and instead of benches for tired feet, they have SOFAS. What's more, they have touch screen panels for directories and the toilet entrance fee is an unbelievable RM 5. There's probably a button in the toilet that, when pressed, extends a small tool that scratches the itchy spot on your butt.

SOFAS!!!

I grew up in small-town Kuching okay. There are no big shopping malls here, what more to say high class ones. The closest thing that comes to a KL-style mall is The Spring, and even that is puny compared to KL standards. So I guess I have the right to be sakai =P

And they hire people in suits to just stand around looking good. Apparently, their job is nothing other than to stop people from taking photos. You see, the place is so high class that they forbid any photography of the building. For security purposes, I think. I myself only managed two shots before they stopped me.

For the less-rich-but-still-capable kind of person, there's always Pavilion.

Side note. If any of you are planning on visiting KL, please be mindful of your possessions! My dad was the victim of a gang of pickpockets... It happened in a KTM station, and his wallet was gone before he even knew what hit him. Always keep a hand in your pockets and be wary of crowds that are extra pushy than normal.

On Awal Muharram, we met up with Clouded Pawn. That whole day, he brought us around.

He took us to the newly-renovated Sunway Pyramids. Damn, the place is huge. I visited the Sunway Resort Hotel next to it and felt so sakai once inside. The hotel feels like a palace!

We paid a visit to the Sunway Pyramid Arcade. Obviously, KL arcades are much bigger and better than the Kuching ones. But the arcade there got something different - their very own Dante. This guy plays the shooting games in such a cool way that everyone is crowding around just to watch him. He plays dual pistols and has so many actions that it feels like he's a videogame character himself. Think Devil May Cry and you got the idea. And his accuracy is 99%. O.o

Next, Clouded Pawn took us for dinner. We had the biggest pot of bak kut teh that I have ever seen.

Compare the claypot to the tea cup. The guy in the blue shirt is Mr. Clouded Pawn

Cineleisure Damansara had this life-size model of the new Proton Saga. The cool thing about this is that the Saga started off as nothing more than a basic chassis, and then parts are slowly installed on a day-to-day basis leading up to its launch date.

I managed to watch one of the part installation sessions. Nothing much lar. Everything is pretty much scripted. And they even shouted "Proton Boleh!" at the end of the session. -_-"

I guess that pretty much sums up everything. Nothing much to say because if I get into the details, it'll be seven or eight paragraphs accounting my shopping adventures. Hahaha.

Ikano Power Centre, taken from my room window

Heaven Cafe @ The Curve. Nice name ho? The best thing is that they have live performances every night. And the performers aren't too shabby.

Sushi! @ Sakae Sushi, The Curve

Part of the corridors at The Curve

The Street @ The Curve

I like this shop's interior decor concept =)

Giant Monopoly-esque board game by Mix.FM @ The Curve. Check out the giant dice ;)

Staying at The Curve for too long will certainly increase the tummy flab

Some pasar malam event at The Street @ The Curve

Side Order: Cloverfield is a good show. Just watched it last Wednesday. The funny thing is that although it is a relatively new show, there aren't many people watching it! Heck, the tickets are already in the Movie Day list. Give it a watch. Just don't be disappointed with the ending, though.

Side Order: It's that time of year again when friends are going away to further their studies. Well, life goes on. Anyways, all the best in NZ, Victoria =)

Side Order: Happy Be-early Birthdays to Bryan and Rachel!

White Paper

2008-01-17T14:50:00.000+08:00

Results were released three days ago. I think I am the last one to post this up! So sue me. Hahaha!

To be honest, I was kinda jittery about this time punya results. As was mentioned in my previous post, the effort I put into the final examination was not exactly what I would call 100% effort. Due to unforeseen circumstances, many subjects were left to the very last minute and many topics were neglected entirely.

So, I guess I have every right to be a bit shaky when I woke up to the morning of the results release day. Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that I expected failures. I just had a feeling that I wouldn't be satisfied with my results when it came out.

A side note here. Cut it out with the Tall Poppy Syndrome, people. Do you know? All that talk about "Aiya, you where got need to be scared one?" gets annoying after a while. Please respect everybody's personal standards okay. Just because I am voicing my doubts doesn't mean that I wanna look good when my results turn out better than expected.

And if I give a remark about your result being "not bad lah" or "quite good wad" doesn't mean you have to pull a "I know lah you HD HD one" on me ba. I'm supposed to just keep quiet when you tell me your result is it? Sheesh.

Another side note. The previous two paragraphs were not directed to anyone in particular.

Anyways. My results!

Civil Engineering Project - HD
Materials & Processes - HD
Electronic Systems - D
Engineering Math 2 - HD

MUCH better than expected. And I am happy ^.^

Lousy camera

Just a bit disappointed about the single D. That missing 'H' costs me my RM 1,500. It's a scholarship thing. This is the second time it's happened. Like the previous time, it was Electronics stuff that pulled me down.

DRATS!

But I am happy that I retained the 4.0 CGPA.

Side Order: There were some readers enquiring about the grade I got for the 3D Models I wrote about in previous posts. Well, those models were part of the subject called Civil Engineering Project. I don't know the exact marks, but I got a High Distinction for it =) So that's 85 and above. Hope that satisfied your curiosity.

Horizon

2008-01-13T01:56:00.000+08:00

Back from KL. Damn it felt good to be there, to be able to escape from the life and troubles here for a few days.

But that's a tale for another post. I am too tired to elaborate the 5-day trip now! ~~And too lazy also lar.~~

The main highlight for the time being is: results will be out on Monday! I know there's no point to worry about it now - it is already far too late - but the thought of it is not the least daunting! And Blackboard says that results will only be available after 5.30pm, adding to the suspense. Drats.

To be honest, I don't really know what to expect this time around. I didn't do especially well with any of the papers! I was not able to complete my Engineering Math paper on time, I was stumped on two or three questions in Electronic Systems and my CEP report was missing many crucial technical details. Details that I could have added in if only I had more time and a clearer mind. What the hell lar. Milk has been spilt and is soaking into the table already. No use crying over it now!

And Materials? Let's just say I didn't do half of the reports. And the other half that I actually did, I screwed them up. Blame it on me rushing things at the last second and not properly looking up the proper topics in books. Talk about doing things from the top of the heads.

Heck, the other day I dreamt about my results for Materials. I dreamt that Dr. Ha gave me a C. I then went to find him and asked him why did I get a "C". In my dream, I even asked him, "Was it because of my reports?". So cun again I asked that in my dream.

"No, your reports were fine," came his reply. "But I saw you shopping few hours before the final exam. That's just so last minute and irresponsible. That's why I gave you a C."

-_-"

I don't even know what to make of this dream.

But it seems that I wasn't the only one getting weird dreams. Avery dreamt that Kenny Sia gave Laura her results a week earlier. And he also dreamt that the Swinburne librarians told him that all his answers were wrong.

And he's been sending me SMSes counting down the days to the result publication day! Haha! Ah well. I guess everyone has their own fears for the day too.

*edit!* Here's something to cool off with while the dreaded hour ticks ever closer. Check it out! It's too cute to not to.

Camera Shy Part 4

2008-01-07T15:03:00.000+08:00

The latest collection of Camera Shy photos is finally here!

Sorry I took so long. Lately, there has been difficulty in finding photos worthy of Camera Shy...

Typical Kuching graffiti. This one probably has captions that read: "Perform instructions in order from left to right."

An innocent-looking shop in Crowne Plaza Parkson.

Upon closer inspection...

Kan-e-bo. In Hokkien, that's "fuck his/her wife". Yeah, this must be one of those Valentine Gift Shops. Or those Over 18s Only Shops.

"My nipples feel itchy." - Eric

What do engineers learn in math class?

That's the polar curve of one of the cosine families. Hmm. Nothing suggestive here.

Have a great 2008, people!

Side Order: I will in KL from Tuesday till the coming weekend. Been wanting to go KL for a while now! So expect me to return with holey pockets.

Holiday Frenzy

2007-12-29T21:03:00.000+08:00

I'm currently enjoying my semester break. The holiday switch was turned on a month or so ago and will only revert back to 'study mode' after Chinese New Year 2008. So that gives me, what, three months of holiday?

I must say, three months is a long time.

The rinse-and-repeat cycle of sleep eat sleep eat will surely get on my nerves after a while. So what is there for one to do during three months? Now, before you start on that four letter word that begins with 'W' and rhymes with 'perk', I've already ruled that out. No, no W*** for me this holidays!

So far, I've gone to badminton sessions, PS2 sessions, movies and the occasional gathering. However, the one place we like to visit the most is...

The Cyber Cafe.

Any gamer will agree with me: gaming at home is a totally different experience from gaming in Cybers. For all the AI improvements made over the years, the human player is still irreplaceable in terms of adaptiveness and sheer unpredictability.

Harbinger of death (in games!)

However, there is another thing that gamers all over will agree: playing in Cybers ain't cheap! A few hours in the Cyber (which feels like a few minutes) usually leaves one cut back by several bucks! That's one or two meals' worth of money.

And then the PC Fair came along. There, a few of us game kakis agreed to chip in some money to buy this:

A LAN hub! For the uninitiated, a LAN hub allows several computers to be linked together for games or any other network activities. This means that we no longer need to go to the Cybers for our daily headshot cravings! Yay!

Just the other day, Keith, Soon Eng and I had a slumber party at Keith's house.

Boys' style.

No nails polishing, no gossip-giggle sessions or whatever it is girls do during slumber parties. Just frags, ~~gay jokes,~~ frags and more frags!

Gamed till 4am. Would have gone on till later in the morning if it had not been for the fact that Soon Eng had to leave early!

Nevermind.

I foresee many more of these sessions in the near future ;)

Side Order: On the topic of games, I am sorta happy that I am finally on par with Sam in terms of Naruto! I still remember that the first time I played Naruto with her (2004!), she totally massacred me. Banyak berterima kasih to sifus Jason, Lin Shen, Eric, Keith and the others ;)

Merry Christmas 2007!

2007-12-25T13:47:00.000+08:00

May your dreams be merry and bright!

And may all your Christmases be white.

Or hot and humid and tacky. Since we're in Malaysia. But that's beside the point.

Have a blessed Christmas, everyone!

Side Order: Happy Belated Birthday, Angeline! You were born just one day too early ba~ =P And Happy Belated Birthday, Carlson!

Tangles

2007-12-18T12:18:00.000+08:00

Saw this video at Yiping's.

Couldn't resist posting it up! Take a look at it, guys!

I wonder if that guy got his fingers tangled up or not??!!

Twilight

2007-12-14T23:45:00.000+08:00

Yes, Sam has found yet another person to draw into the growing nest of people who have read this book. In fact, I recently found out that almost the whole UGS gang has read it, making me one of the last ones to do so. Drats.

And she (or rather, the book) has made a fan out of me.

I wonder if any of you (other than those who ~~were caught in Sam's honeyed webs~~ have read the book, of course) know of this book?

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. This happens to be her debut novel, by the way. Those of you who have been monitoring the landscape of book releases will undoubtedly have heard of news of this novel that took the world by storm.

The world simply loves her take on a well-trodden plot - about a vampire in love with a human. Pretty standard stuff: pretty girl moves into a gloomy town, meets a mysterious and handsome guy, falls hopelessly in love, finds out that he loves her back, trouble begins, yada yada yada.

However, the story doesn't bore simply because it is written in a very wonderful style! She sets the tone just right for every plot point, leaving the reader (me, anyway) always wanting to read just one more page, one more chapter. I was so caught up in it that I couldn't stop till I've finished it! These probably aren't the right words for it, but the best description I can give for the writing style is that is 'intriguingly seductive'. The novel went to the extremes of graphic descriptions, which undoubtedly induced many 'high' moments in the readers without ever crossing into obscene territory. ;)

And the characters. Don't even get me started on the characters in the novel.

Sam would probably put it in two words: "oh gawd". And Johnson's version, "Oh man!"

The characters introduced in the novel are simply breathtaking. In fact, one of them was so wonderful that Sam fell in love with him. Just this morning, Sam was confessing her feelings for Edward Cullen (the hero of the novel). From her side of the table, she turned towards me, eyes opened up wide, longing expression on her face. From her lips came out a slow drawl, carefully flavoring each syllable with affection.

"He's soooo hotttt~" There was extra emphasis on "hot". I'm so gonna get killed.

Anyways. Fan obsession aside, there is something that I did not like about the novel. The introductory part of the book was too long! It took up the first quarter of the whole book to detail Bella's slow adjustment to her new life and a whole first half of the book to reveal the fact that Edward is a vampire. Is that really necessary, when all this has already been revealed in the plot preview at the back cover of the book?

This early dragging part almost turned me off. To be honest, I stopped reading for around a week after struggling to get through this rut. However, last night I picked up the book again and continued from where I left off. And I reached the good part.

And I couldn't stop reading after that. Not till I've finished the book! Which I did, at around 3am this morning ;)

Conclusion: I'd recommend this book to anyone. Just be patient in getting through the early part of the book. Trust me, the good stuff later is well worth it!

Plus, you'll be contributing to increasing Malaysians' average read of two pages a year.

Malaysia boleh!

Side order: Happy Birthday, Cedric! Remember what I said: just because you're now of legal age don't mean that you should exercise all of your new-found 'rights'! =P

"It's Morphin' Time!"

2007-12-13T13:51:00.000+08:00

Let's see a show of hands.

Who here knows about the Power Rangers?

Those of you who did not raise up your hands, you must be either too shy to admit it, or that you have a sad, sad childhood.

Power Rangers. Who could forget them? Back when it was first shown (around 1996?), most of us were in that age when we dig shows portraying silly bad guys and super cool giant robots.

The idea of heroes clad in brightly-colored latex suits jumping around shouting "Aiya!", "Hia!" and other kungfu calls whilst beating up pea-brained dummies really appealed to us. Throw in the fact that there's a huge, uber-cool, uber-strong ~~and uber-slow~~ robot at the end of every episode, and the producers had our gullible minds captured and our gullible mouths salivating.

Not mentioning the fact that their boss was a huge distorted holographic head and their assistant boss was a robot that goes "Ai-yai-yai-yai-yai!" and a dorayaki for a head.

See the similarities? ;)

By the way, have you ever noticed some of the recurring things present in every episode?
1. The grey Putties (the underlings of the enemy) would always encircle the Rangers and take their turn in getting bashed up by the Rangers.
2. The monster of the episode usually has a ranged attack that it can fire from a certain part of its body. The cue to it using that attack is for it to cover that certain part of the body with its palms before firing that energy beam of death at the Rangers.
3. And it's not really an energy beam of death. It just causes lots of sparks to come out of the Ranger's chest. The Ranger then flies backward while screaming "Aaah!" before getting back up few minutes later, uniform still intact and without any serious injuries.
4. When the Rangers call for their Zords, the big-sized monster will let the Rangers finish the robot assembly process. It has never occurred to it that it can just stomp the Rangers to a squishy death.
5. The Megazord never uses its ultimate weapon until it has been beaten to the limit. Why can't it just take out its sword in the beginning of the fight and destroy the monster? That way, the show can move on to the following week's monster. Saves time!

Anyways. When it first started showing, it started a craze among the kids and headache among the kids' parents. Craze because the kids love it and headache because the kids keep urging their parents to buy the Power Rangers Action Figures.

I myself used to pester my parents a lot. Whenever the family goes to a shopping center, I would pull my mum to the Toys Section and point at the figure of the Megazord with all its detachable and transformable Zords. It was super cool at that time okay.

Which kid wouldn't be sucked in by this?

And every single time my parents would turn me down. :( It wasn't cheap, I know. But I was stupid at that time and didn't know the value of money.

* * * * * *

Two weeks ago, my mum brought back a whole box of odds and ends given to her by my uncle. My uncle is moving house, and in the process of cleaning up, found an old box containing many of my cousins' toys. He thought that it'd be a good idea to give those toys to my mum's colleague, whose young nephew simply loves these things.

Look what I found in the box:

The original Megazord. Missing the mammoth head shield and the sword

The Dragonzord. Missing the drill tail

Haha! Seeing the robot, my mum said that she wants to keep it! So, technically, my wish from many years ago came true many years later!

p/s: I've heard people tell me that God doesn't always answer prayers with a "Yes" or a "No". Sometimes the answer is a "Maybe" or a "Not yet". I guess this is kinda true for this case. So am I going to wake up at the age of 72 to find an Ibanez electric guitar beside me? =P

Side Order: I just watched "The Golden Compass", disregarding the many e-mails imploring people to not watch it, claiming it to be anti-Christianity. Well, I must say that this anti-Christianity thing is present in the movie, but the public is really playing things out of their proportions. Most people won't even notice those anti-Christianity elements to be there! In any case, the movie is still not worth the value of your money. In my opinion, it is nothing more than a movie trying to copy everyone else. There's even an "I am your father!" Star Wars moment in there. Bleh! Not worth my RM6. Go watch "Chuck & Larry" instead. At least the gay jokes are really hilarious.

Minute Miniatures Part 2

2007-12-04T17:56:00.000+08:00

WARNING! Long post ahead. Patient readers please read till the end.

Here's the promised Part 2 of my feature of our 3D Model! At least now you don't have to wait forever for me to update my post.

For Part 1, click here.

Well, let me first begin by saying that the design of our Botanical Garden was not what was originally planned. We went through many, many, MANY ammendments of the original design... before we tore everything up and redesigned everything from scratch in the final week. We're not crazy. We ran into some problems at the time.

Yeah. You read that correctly. Everything in the Botanical Garden - the concept, the features, the layout, everything - was done on the very week of our presentation. In fact, we conceptualized, sketched and finalized the design within 20 minutes of the Tuesday of the week (presentation was Saturday). Ok lar, 20 minutes may be exaggerating a bit. Make it 40 minutes, tops. No kidding.

This last-minute work was responsible for us losing sleep for that whole week. Took us the rest of the week to complete the garden!

Master Soon, real name Lim Ban Hua. Not to be confused with Eric Soon

At this point, the whole group was gathered together at Soon's place for the final long run to presentation day. Time was short. Presentation was only several days away and the Waterfront Riverbank was still not 100% completed. Many of the structures still have their final touches to be done, landscaping was almost non-existent and there's a whole Botanical Garden to build. In addition to that, Murtaza and I (the presenters) have our slides to prepare and presentation props to set up. If that's not bad enough, we are one member short and morale was very low due to internal problems. So, Jacq, I think you can see why we were depressed at that time la ho. So we had to adopt a different kind of approach to complete this project.

Firstly, we abandoned all other subjects for the duration of the week. No classes, no studying, no touching of homework. Also, all of us morphed into nocturnal beings: sleep becomes secondary, zombie appearances becomes a norm.

We adopted work 'shifts'. Two of us would be asleep at any one time, while the other four works. After grabbing around two hours or so of shut eye, the two would wake up and start working, while two of the workers will hit the bunk. Working hours are around the likes of 7am-5am. 0.o No kidding. It was a terrible time. Felt like working for Ting Pek Khing's 24-hour airport flyover project.

Work becomes more specialized. Soon became the 3D Model Project Leader as we all bow down to his prowess at modelling. The garden was split up into several mini themed gardens and each mini garden entrusted to a member. Certain members were given specific tasks to do. For example, Murtaza became Mr. Landscaping a.k.a Mr. Gardener, while Aizuddin spent lots of time building tiny gazebos for the garden.

Here's some of the stuff we included in our Botanical Garden!

The Conservatory. Check out the water effects ;)

This is our Conservatory Building. It's supposed to be a glass house equipped with climate control equipment to create environments suitable for plants from various parts of the world.

This is an enlarged model of the Conservatory. You can't see it here, but Soon even built in the interiors! Insane guy.

I don't have any shots of the interior, but it sports a thick glass floor with water flowing underneath it. Therefore, it becomes a structure with water under it, water flowing out of it, and water flowing through it!

Notice the open space?

Next is the amphitheater. Pretty standard stuff, really. A covered stage for performances, gigs, etc. Our only selling point is that it can be utilized for bigger events like the Sarawak Jazz Festival. To accommodate the crowds, we left an open space in front of it, which can also be used for private functions like wedding receptions.

This is our cafeteria/observation tower, named "The Lotus". Basically a tower with an observation deck for a roof and a glass-lined eatery on the third floor. The best thing about The Lotus is that the eatery is rotating, thus giving customers a visual tour of the garden whilst enjoying their meals.

And the themed gardens? There are three: Chinese Garden, Japanese Garden and Flower Garden. Actually, the idea of these themed gardens were formulated out of our need for a quick way out. As the saying goes, too many cooks spoil the broth so we couldn't have everyone laying their hands onto one single garden, while too little doing the garden will mean that we can't meet the deadline.

The garden right after painting the ground. If you look closely, you can see the platform for the Japanese Garden

So, Soon came up with this idea of making 'platforms' for certain parts of the garden and then having one person finish up one platform. Thus, the idea of these 'platformed gardens' was born.

The Japanese Garden. It is layered with real white sand, for texture. The sand used here is much finer than the one I used for Fort Margherita (read Part 1)

Flower Garden. Done by Murtaza. The area around the red gazebo is a reflexology path.

Chinese Garden. Notice the Chinese Tower and the Chinese Gazebo over the mini stream. If you look closely, you can see a stone arch bridge (like the kind in those old Chinese movies)

We finished all the main parts by Thursday morning. Very quick, eh? However, there was still much left to do! There was the painting and the touching up and the addition of little details like lamp posts, bushes, trees, benches and other, less important buildings.

A maze. A must-have for any decent garden. Why? Er.. People just seem to love mazes, I guess ;)

Can you spot the pumping station? It is responsible for being the heart of the garden's water circulatory system

They may seem like mundane tasks, but they really take up a lot of time! Well, I guess that all of us have our attention to detail to blame. For the trees, we mass-produced them by sticking wads of sponges onto split toothpicks. However, we painted each tree to the desired color and individually trimmed them to shape! It was the same for the bushes and lamp posts: each one was lovingly handcrafted! And if you look closely at the tiny benches, they have even tinier LEGS on them. Yeah, we're crazy about details.

Adjusting the bushes into place. Tedious!

And then there's the thing about props. As our model is way too small to be shown to the whole lecture hall during the presentation, we had to find a way to let them see the details on our models. Our original solution was to build another model, one of the bigger scale of 1:250. However, owing to certain problems, we had to scrap that idea. But certain models have already been constructed to the larger scale and we were left with several big-sized models. So an idea came up: why not build larger models for all our major features? And so we did.

The last thing we did was assembling the river itself. By then, it was already 3am Saturday morning! Presentation was only hours away and we're still slaving away at our 3D model. So anyways, how did we achieve the 'glazed' effect of our water?

Very simple, really. First, we sealed off all cracks, holes and fissures with candle wax. Easily done by holding a burning candle over the orifices. Then, we painted blue onto the polystyrene surface. For texture, a sponge block is recommended to be used in place of a normal paintbrush. And then comes the secret recipe: Office glue and UHU glue! Layer on a THICK (must be thick!) layer of office glue on the surface. Immediately after that, apply UHU glue on top of the office glue layer. Spread out the UHU glue evenly. Leave to dry, and voila! Uber water effects!

That day, I went home at around 4am and grabbed around two hours of sleep. Woke up at 6am, got dressed and went over to Soon's house to meet up with the others before leaving for Swinburne for our presentation.

Wah~ Shiny water~ *_*

So that's it about the Botanical Garden. Here are some shots of the finished model!

Lastly, I wanna mention that our model, along with models from other groups and from our seniors, will be on display during this coming Swinburne Open Day on 15 December!

Be there! ;)

Previously...
Part 1: Waterfront Riverbank

Interlude

2007-12-01T00:04:00.000+08:00

This post is dedicated to the two lives lost in the recent tragedy.

Although I do not know them personally, my condolences extend to the family and friends of the said individuals. May their souls find peace in Paradise with God.

This sudden event is yet another reminder to us that life is short. Yet, the hustle and bustle of daily life constantly drives us to race ourselves to the finish line. Slow down, stop to smell the roses. Appreciate what is in the present, for none can be certain of what's coming in the future.

Minute Miniatures Part 1

2007-11-28T21:40:00.002+08:00

WARNING! Long post ahead! Patient readers please read till the end!

Final exams are over! Actually it was over since last Thursday, but I was too lazy to update. So sue me. I must admit, it did not go too well. Let us leave it at that. I dare not guess my results, so I think I will leave that to the day of release of the results!

Anyways.

As many of you already know, I was involved in a semester-long project for the past 14 weeks. Although we were given 14 weeks to complete everything, we found it hard to do just that, considering that we had three other subjects to cope with and also other problems.

For the uninitiated, here's a short brief on what the project was all about.

The Civil Engineering Project (that's the name of the subject lar...) students were separated into groups of six or seven, and this became our project group for the whole semester.

Group Ingeniero. (L-R): Me, Myo Thaw, Johnson (team leader), Murtaza, Aizuddin, Soon (crouching) Not in picture: Stefanie.

And the task?

*deep breath*

We were given the Kuching Waterfront and the riverbank opposite it. With this two huge pieces of land, we have to plan out their development, which must include a Hotel Tower, Office Tower, Shopping Mall, Basement Parking, Botanical Garden, Musical Fountain (with laser display) and a Pedestrian Bridge to link up the two riverbanks.

The map we acquired. Its actual size is about the span of my bedroom's width

Besides PLANNING the development, we have to write a full report which includes Architectural Concept Development, Design Considerations and Engineering Details. But that's not all! We also had to prepare the Contract Documents for at least one of the items in our construction plan, and give a presentation to 'sell' our development plan to a panel of judges (which comprises of real life architects, engineers, other lecturers and seniors).

The two main judges. The one with 'less hair' turns out to be my uncle!

But the best part is...

3D Model!

Yeah, we were expected to construct a 3D Model of our development plan, the likes of the kind you see at Developer Roadshows.

Lots of fun, very little of sleep. Now do you see why I neglected my blog? -_-"

To start off, we had to have a base on which all our models will sit on. But to know how big the base is, we first need to decide on the scale. After much debate, the group settled on the 1:1000 scale. This means that everything we build will be 1000 times smaller than the actual thing. Here's a better way to get a sense of the scale: the Fort Margherita is only about 20mm tall and the Khatulistiwa Cafe is about 25mm tall.

Elevation drawing of Jade Point. (L-R): Office Tower, Shopping Mall, Hotel Tower

However, given the size of the area, 1:1000 seems to be the logical logistical choice. Even at such a tiny scale, our base is 200mm x 60mm in size! The base could barely fit into my Kelisa. Later, we found out that no other groups selected a scale this small. Some of them did models at 1:500 (twice of our size) and 1:300 (more than three times of ours). Just imagine the sheer size of their models.

Having acquired a proper base (a piece of wood lying in my backyard), we were set to set up our terrain. I managed to get my hands on a contour map of the whole area in the proper scale. And the best part, I got it for FREE! I heard that the others spent like RM40 just to acquire one. Thanks mum!

Tracing and cutting of the contours

We did our terrain in this way. First, we cut out polystyrene layers to fit the shape of each contour level. Then we layered them on top of each other according to their levels. For example, the 5m contour goes on top of the 0m contour, the 10m goes on top of the 5m and so on.

As you can see, the 'steps' dividing the layers looks very unnatural for a hilly terrain, so we had to find some way of smoothing out these layers. Fans of 'Art Attack!' will find out methods very familiar.

First, we mixed PVA glue (ring a bell?) with water. Then, we dipped kitchen roll in this glue mixture and then moulded the tissue mess into the terrain. It was a messy job ~~and the warm, sticky, white gooey mixture started to induce 'other' thoughts in our head~~s but it was great fun.

It took several days for all the glue to dry, including a whole night of me doing nothing but blowing it dry with my cousin's hair dryer.

After the terrain has been set up, we proceeded to construct our miniatures. Due to the fact that we chose to show the overall development area, we were faced with the daunting task of constructing all the existing structures of the Waterfront. If you have any idea how many structures are in the existing Waterfront, you will know how crazy this idea is.

Initially, we split up the areas that have to be built. Johnson (team leader) will construct the area of the Towers, while I will do the Pedestrian Bridge and help out with the Waterfront area. Myo Thaw (a member of our group, international student from Myanmar) was supposed to take charge of the Waterfront while the others were supposed to complete the Botanical Garden area. However, due to problems later into the project, Johnson and I took charge of the whole Waterfront riverbank, while the others did the Petra Jaya side.

I started off with the Pedestrian Bridge. Compared to the others, our bridge design is the simplest. In fact, the designs of all our structures are the simplest compared to the others. As this was my very first attempt at making models, it took me quite a while to finish just this one bridge. At first, I thought that I can finish it up in one night. I ended up spending three or four days just to prepare its basic shape!

The bridge at its bare-bones stage

Our helper, Fatimah Yong. Imported all the way from Indonesia. She helped us out a lot!

Later, I added details on the bridge, like benches, landscaping features, shades and, my most proud achievement, the hornbill statue on top of it.

The finished pedestrian bridge. Notice that the river hasn't been 'glazed'

The statue consists of an obelisk with a hornbill on top of it. However, the problem is that on our scale, the hornbill is only the size of HALF a grain of rice! If you leave it on the table, you can't even see it althought it is right in front of you.

Can you see the hornbill? It could have been a fly and nobody would be able to tell the difference

After the Pedestrian Bridge, I moved on to constructing the Waterfront existing structures. However, as a member of the opposing team has finished a very cute-looking Fort Margherita, I couldn't resist rising up to the challenge. So, I decided to build an EVEN cuter Fort Margherita! Here's mine:

Tada! Nice or not?

Like all my other latter models, I constructed this one with plain thick card. The base was made of cardboard (the kind used in postcards) with sand glued on for texture. However, I must admit that the sand I used was a little bit too coarse. But it was all I had at the time. The ridges at the top of the tower were painstakingly cut out one-by-one. And all the details were drawn on and colored by moi. At such a small scale, every cut and stroke has to be precise! It's not very difficult, just time-consuming, really.

See how small it is compared to a highlighter

The nights following the completion of Fort Margherita were taken up by the construction of the other miniatures. It took me around one and a half weeks to finish up the miniatures, before we moved the whole model project to Soon's house (before that, we were doing it at Johnson's place).

Some of the miniatures I built. I still prefer the Fort, though ;)

The Chinese Museum. To be honest, not my personal favorite

While I was doing the other Waterfront structures, Johnson was busy with his own part! He had to construct the Hotel Tower, Office Tower, Shopping Mall and the Basement Carpark. We call the whole thing 'Jade Point'. Simply because the green color reminds us of jade.

It took him a whole week just to finish those few structures, and another few days to finish up the Basement Carpark. He individually cut the windows for every floor and measured every dimension to perfection. For the window glass, he layered a green colored transparency over a piece of green tracing paper and then striped the transparency for texture.

If you look closely, there are mini poolside tables on top of the Shopping Mall. The tiny blue thing at the lower right corner is the parking booth. Also notice the street lights detail

As for the Basement Carpark, each floor was built individually and each parking space was hand-drawn. He even built a parking booth at the entrance to the underground parking! But sayang la, we forgot the exit booth.. Will add that in when we have time!

Basement Carpark, with cutaway layers to show each floor. Jade Point is placed on top of it and is detachable

Among other things on this side of the river are the musical fountains and a raised plaza behind the structures.

The raised plaza was a simple raised area that is supposed to serve as an extension to the Waterfront, as well as to become the link between the existing Waterfront with the new structures. The length of the plaza is a dedicated outdoor dining area where people can relax and unwind over some drinks while enjoying the view. Built this thing in around three hours. Quite simple, as its construction methods were rather similar to the pedestrian bridge.

Raised plaza, landscaping by Cynthia (another imported helper). Notice the river effects? ;)

As for the musical fountains with laser display, our group chose to renovate the existing fountains near the Waterfront Square Tower. The ring around the Square Tower is actually made up of 'screen fountains', whose purpose is to create a cylindrical water wall around the Square Tower onto which the laser show can be projected. The laser projectors are mounted on the Square Tower, which doubles as a control centre for the whole set-up. The four L-shaped fountains surrounding the Square Tower are the musical fountains.

If you look closely at the fountains, there are little streams of 'water' which illustrate the fountains in operation. Aizuddin did this by hanging UHU glue on a toothpick till half-dry before moving the gelatinous glue to the fountains. Genius.

Well, that concludes the City Centre Riverbank part of the model. Here are some shots of the finished model of the Waterfront.

Next time...

Minute Miniatures Part 2: The Botanical Garden!

Side order: The Business students may begin indulging in their freedom today. Congratulations! Meanwhile, we Engineering students have partied for almost a week already. =P Anyways, enjoy your holidays, people! As for those who are taking Summer Semester, well... Ehehe la.

Home Run

2007-11-17T14:49:00.000+08:00

It is the final stretch now.

Final examinations starts Monday. Engineering Math 2 and Electronic Systems on Monday and Materials & Processes on Thursday. It is Saturday today. Less than two days to study. Wish me all the best, dudes!

The past few weeks was sort of hell for me. There were many, many days and nights of little sleep just to finish all the assignments. Many of us no longer slept at night; we slept in the early mornings instead. On Thursday, I started typing at 7pm and stopped at Friday morning 7am! Then I slept for two and a half hours before continuing and finishing everything at 3pm.

The end result:
178 Pages
45,031 Words
231,556 Characters
2475 Paragraphs
6939 Lines

Longest report I've ever written! I feel so proud to be able to pull this off ba =P But from what I've heard, our group's report is the second shortest if compared to the others! -_-"

But by the time we get to school, the lecturer has already left. We called him up and he said that we can hand in on Monday afternoon. Drats! If we had known this earlier, I could have slept more.

Yep. It's a wonderful life we uni students have. But I'm glad that it's over!

I will post up some pictures of the outcome sometime soon. No worries, I won't be posting up shots of pages and pages of words! There are 'other things' besides thick thick reports! But you'll probably see it sooner over here.

Anyways, just wanna end this short update with two hilarious videos! You gotta watch them!

All the best in your final exams, everyone!

Camera Shy Part 3

2007-09-19T21:09:00.000+08:00

The continuation of my Camera Shy Mini~~skirt~~series! Ok lar, I know this is just a filler post. I don't want certain person or persons to keep saying that this is a dead blog.

For this time, there are only a few snapshots to show. Here goes..

First off, a gay picture.

Sorry man. I couldn't resist =P

Is it just me, or does this decoration remind me of a certain finger gesture? ,,,, Some welcome hotels are giving these days.

People would sleep anywhere these days.

Keychains were originally used by people to put a distinctive mark on their belongings so other people won't mistake it for their own. However, there are still cases where things get complicated when several people use identical keychains. Apparently, some people don't wanna take any chances on this.

Tak berat kah?

And here's the picture of the day. Underaged readers please turn away now.

This is what goes on behind the scenes when no human eyes are watching.

Behave yourselves now!