yukina-rei

Ryan Carter | Gravity Modulations

2011-04-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

Gravity Modulations

Have a listen to it, for a piece of contemporary classical music it's pretty nice to listen to and easy on the ears too. In fact, I'd say most of the pieces he composed were gorgeous.

I had the luck to come across a concert and go in for free when I was in Heidelberg, Germany. They performed 4 pieces in the concert - one from Beethoven, another from Mozart, while the other two were compositions from featured young composers in the whole music festival.

Honestly, I was a bit apprehensive before actually listening to the piece, as the 2nd performance, also modern classical music, was crap (to me). I mean, I know you can argue that the composer knows the piece best and everything, but who writes a piece of music and insists on playing the solo himself? Especially for a composer - don't you have to make sure that other people are able to understand and perform your piece? Most of our applause were just given out of politeness (compare the polite clapping with the enthusiastic cheers and whistles given to the others), and even so, I think most part of the applause belonged to the orchestra who worked so hard to play your piece, the concert master to the extent of breaking his E string. And after the concert, when someone praised your composition, you had the nerve to go and say 'Yeah, I know (it's good).' Well, these are just the thoughts (and rants) from my puny, insignificant self who's unable to appreciate 'too elite' contemporary music.

Now, Carter's piece is a different story all together. The people playing it, the Szymanowski Quartet, already looked happy when they were seated on stage, even before playing the piece. The piece itself has a nice ring to it. Although there's still heavy use of dissonance and high pitches, it doesn't hurt the ears as everything converges beautifully together in the end between the four instruments. And the guy wasn't such a show off too. He didn't blow flying kisses to the players nor fake humbleness.

Anyway, I'm just saying - don't blow your own trumpet and praise it.

Insensitivity

2011-03-14T15:36:00.000-07:00

http://thelintinmypocket.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/no-stupid-people1.jpg

A few days ago, the north-east of Japan was incapacitated by a monstrous calamity - a 8.9 magnitude earthquake that subsequently triggered giant waves (tsunami). After the incident, text messages were exchanged about the disaster.

Well, you'd expect the text messages to be about how serious the disaster was, how to help the Japanese and all those, but no.

They were jokes. Bad, tasteless jokes about the disaster. Sent by freaks who think that making jokes at someone's suffering and pain's expense is funny.

Two of the jokes I saw were something like these:

1...
'My Japanese girlfriend dumped me. I'm sad, but it's okay, there are still many more in the sea.'

2...
'The Japanese Olympics 2012 windsurfing team sure are enthusiastic. It's not even 2012 yet but they've already arrived on the shores of Dover'

One might argue that these jokes were harmless, just made for laughs with the opportunity of a subject. However, in truth it just shows the immaturity, insensitivity and incapability to empathise and sympathise of the sender. The people who came up with the jokes are the most to blame, but the senders too, have extremely bad taste.

Creating jokes out of something that brought death to thousands of people and massive destruction is just plain stupid. There's nothing to laugh about natural disasters. How would you feel if someone cracked a silly joke at your dad's funeral (putting aside cases where you don't love your own dad for any reason)?

Japan might be far away from England, but still, we are all people, we all live on the Earth, we all are humans. Is it too much to ask for, for one to show compassion and sympathy to another fellow human being who has done nothing wrong? Also, there are Japanese people in England too, how would they feel if their family or friends died in the tsunami, and they come across such a text?

If you have time to create and send stupid text messages, use the time to do something more worthwhile such as sending texts to ask people to donate money for the victims, or informing people about the magnitude of the disaster, or if you don't have the mental capacity to do that...

Just. Shut. Up.

Caledonia

2011-03-03T04:47:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you can see
The changes that have come over me
In these last few days I've been afraid
That I might drift away
So I've been telling old stories, singing songs
That make me think about where I've came from
And that's the reason why I seem
So far away today

Let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Caledonia you're calling me
And now I'm going home
But if I should become a stranger
You know that it would make me more than sad
Caledonia's been everything
I've ever had

Now I have moved and I've kept on moving
Proved the points that I needed proving
Lost the friends that I needed losing
Found others on the way
I have kissed the ladies and left them crying
Stolen dreams, yes there's no denying
I have travelled hard with coattails flying
Somewhere in the wind

Now I'm sitting here before the fire
The empty room, the forest choir
The flames that could not get any higher
They've withered now they've gone
But I'm steady thinking my way is clear
And I know what I will do tomorrow
When the hands are shaken and the kisses flow
Then I will disappear

***

I've had this song playing on loop on my laptop for a week now, and I never get tired of it. The original song was a Scottish folk ballad written by Dougie MacLean.

'Caledonia' as a song is really relaxing and calming to listen to - I particularly like the version by Celtic Woman simply because the lead singer has such a soothing voice, and the background singers do a great job of supporting the vocal too.

But what really drawn me to this song is the lyrics. They are romantic, yes, but they're not mushy and sweet like marshmallows. The lyrics are more like matured wine, to be savoured and enjoyed slowly no matter how many times you sip it.

'Caledonia', if you don't know, means 'Scotland' in Roman. However, I think that everyone will have their own Caledonia, which makes the lyrics more meaningful. Thinking about it, Caledonia can also be a person, but that's probably massacring the lyrics a little :p

I know what and who my Caledonia is...do you?

Weird Dreams

2011-02-13T13:19:00.001-08:00

People often say that dreams reflect something that might happen in reality. Some of us can remember our dreams quite well, some of us can't. I belong to the former category, since I could recount a number of dreams I've had for the past few days.

These few days, I've had several weird dreams, and for three days in a row, I dreamed about the same person. Let's just call the person...D.

Well, I see D almost every week, I don't know how to describe our relationship, we're probably friends I think, hopefully. Sometimes I can't help but wonder, since D and I come from quite different backgrounds, maybe D just sees me as a strange person. When we see each other, sometimes we greet each other and chat, sometimes we don't.

Well, I'd love to chat with D every time we meet, but I'm the sort of person who's too shy to initiate a conversation, well, unless I'm feeling hyper or tipsy or something. Usually, D will just go 'Hey, how are you?' or 'Hey, you all right?', which is a standard greeting here in the UK. And then we will chat for a bit.

However, recently, D seemed to be a little distant for some reason. Maybe I've done something to offend D, maybe D is just stressed out from life, studies, etc. And I feel like I haven't been myself in front of D, I'm usually more jumpy and quiet and nervous.

Why am I talking about all these? Let's move on to those weird dreams now...

Dream #1:
D was sitting on a windowsill, and I happened to go into the room. D saw me and said 'Hi', but D didn't smile, so I got annoyed and walked out of the room. The End.

Dream #2:
D, Alicia (my friend) and I were sitting in chairs in a room. We were casually chatting about various things, and suddenly I just talked about my assignment marks, which were quite high despite me doing them at the last minute. Suddenly, Alicia told D that 'she must have gotten quite high marks because she was looking at pictures of you while doing her assignments'. I choked on my drink, and D just laughed =.= The End.

Dream #3:
I went back to my secondary school, and D was somehow with me. We were in one classroom together, when I had to attend a function in the school hall, and D was left in the classroom with some of my friends. D borrowed one of my erasers to do something. I was then stuck in the function for two hours, and when I came out, D had already disappeared. However, D put my eraser in a big brown paper bag and passed it to my friends to return it to me. The End.

Now, how much weirder can dreams be? And how many times can the same person appear in a dream? :O

A Fruitful Day Indeed

2011-01-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

29 January 2011

I woke up feeling pretty nervous, as I was going to play in the Viola Day afternoon concert at St Gregory Centre at 2pm. The two songs I played were both Dvorak's, and the second one was a bit difficult (imagine alternating 4 and 7 flats and slides from 1st position to 5/6/7th).

Anyway, I think I did an okay job for both songs (at least I didn't screw up too much and sound like a banshee). My hands were shaking slightly when I was playing the first song - nerves got the better of me, but I settled down fairly quickly. And the second song, Dvorak's Quintet in E flat major was just fantastic (thanks to all the other 4 players of course).

I managed to get some pictures with my dear friends too!

And then, Alicia, Daniel and I went to town and we took more pictures (on Facebook).

After that, I went to Dyana's house and had bihun soup (rice vermicelli soup) with Ruzel, Teha, Hans, Mira and Seha. It was soooooo delicious and sooooo Malaysian~ We then went to ASDA and bought some groceries in preparation for Chinese New Year.

My arms then tired themselves out making a batch of cookies. They're called Melting Moments, as they supposedly melt in your mouth XD It's just cornflakes, raisins, sugar, butter and flour though :D

I'm gonna bake batches and batches of them and pack them in decorated containers for my friends before Wednesday!

Ruzel, Dyana and the gang baked a chocolate cheese cake too!

And I'm almost 50% done digitally painting a chrysanthemum for a virtual CNY card for my family and friends.

I'm surprised that I could do so much and feel so satisfied and fulfilled in a day.

All together, it was a really productive day indeed, and it makes me cherish my dear friends and family more as without them, I wouldn't have been able to do all these!

xxxx

Contemporary Music

2010-12-04T18:31:00.000-08:00

I went to the International Composer Pyramid Finals at St Gregory's Centre in CCCU today (it was a competition to showcase the compositions of 12 young composers)

but frankly,

I can't understand it at all.

To me, it sounds as though all the composers had the same teacher as the style of the music is almost the same -- firstly and obviously, the melody does not follow the normal classical music structure, the notes and harmony are randomly organised (yeah, oxymoron intended) and there are loads and loads and loads of harmonics, high notes and running notes and all those stuff that is (sorry) quite unpleasant to the ear. To add to that, out of nowhere comes strange noises which make you feel as though you are in a metal jungle. The rhythm is also extremely inconsistent. In fact, I feel like it's just a whole bunch of notes with no time bars and you just play it whenever you should. There's no melodious sense at all - everything is just a bombardment of notes and sounds united by the conductor.

To be fair, I have not studied composition, and I know nil about contemporary music other than it is the product of this century (compared to Baroque and Classical and Romantic), so I probably can't tell the difference between songs No.1 and No.2. Besides, I haven't played any myself too, and that's probably why I can't appreciate it. To use an analogy by Philip, my partner in orchestra, it's like listening to a beautiful poem in a totally foreign language. It only shows its full beauty to the people who understand the language.

Not all is lost this night though. The 8th song I've heard had a very creative touch where rock drums were incorporated at the very end, which came as a pleasant surprise to everybody. Besides, this was the first time I've seen sounds and noises made on the violin in so many places.

However, if I, a music player feels this way about contemporary music, I would imagine that the public will feel about the same way too. And I don't get why contemporary music insists on being different. Once you insist too much, it becomes a priority, and it is different mainly for the sake of being different. To me, that spoils the whole essence of music really, as music should be a pattern of sounds instead of a jumble of noise and sounds and goodness knows what. I can even relax listening to Rachmaninoff, but after listening to contemporary music, all my muscles just tense up, and I feel like I'm going to have a nightmare tonight ;/

But then, I digress. Contemporary music might be just one elite culture that I can't ever get.

100th Post!

2010-11-27T17:38:00.000-08:00

And My Heart Will Go On

and on, and on... :D

I Talk Too Much

2010-11-21T17:57:00.000-08:00

Or rather, Malaysians talk too much.

When we first arrived in England, our lecturers told us, 'Go ahead and make friends with the locals. Don't be discouraged if you find that they're not as friendly as you hope, because British people are generally reserved and take some time to open up.'

That's true in some cases.

However, the lecturers forgot to mention that compared to British people, Malaysians talk a lot. In fact, I think we talk too much. And maybe it scares them a little. Or a lot.

In my case, since I'm a Gemini (yeah well, blame it on the horoscope), my mind works a little bit differently and in a conversation, I veer off in many different crazy directions that I forget what the conversation was originally about. And sometimes, I get so engrossed in talking I just go blabbering on and on and on and on and on and on. I once recounted one of my conversations to my friend, and she said 'If I were the person, I'd have punched you in the face for talking too much.' {=_=}

Still, there are people whom I enjoy talking to and who enjoy talking to me. And those conversations have a tendency to be punctuated with lots of laughter, which is good. I still have to remember though, about 85% of conversations in England, or at least in Canterbury, start off with 'Hey, you all right?'

In general, maybe I should learn to control the amount of things I say (well, people's minds work differently, and most of the time they can't catch up, or can't see the link).

On the other hand, this is actually good practice, as I'm going to be a teacher, and I need to talk a lot anyway. ;)

Ciao!

~Culture Shock in the UK~

2010-11-09T17:05:00.000-08:00

It might seem a bit late for me to write about experiencing culture shock in the United Kingdoms now, since I've already been here for more than a month. However, it also means that I've already had enough time to settle down and observe the things here in Canterbury that's so different from what I'm used to in Malaysia.

1) Dry Toilets
All the toilets here are well-furnished with toilet papers and a good flushing system, but no WATER TAPS/HOSES!!! For us Malaysians who are *ahem* used to cleaning ourselves using our hands rather than the toilet paper, we had to take some time getting used to using the toilet paper (and slowly killing Mother Nature) instead.

2) Traffic and Rules
When the light flashes red in Canterbury, the drivers actually STOP. No, they don't see the yellow light and ram on their gas pedal to speed towards their destination. They slow down, and they stop for pedestrians to cross. Also, drivers give way at any zebra crossings if they see people waiting to cross the road. That's how courteous they are. In Malaysia, you are already risking your life by crossing even when the light is red, just because there will always be one or two motorists who can't wait for one single minute for their turn to move.

3) Recycling
The government, or rather the city council here places a lot of emphasis on recycling. All food packaging are labelled clearly whether they could be recycled, and the council sends workers to pick up recycled stuff once a fortnight. You can argue with me that Malaysia has the 3-coloured bins for recycling too, but frankly, we are still a long, long way behind.

4) Greetings
Somehow, I find the locals here a little 'on the surface'. Sure, they are friendly and everything, but somehow it doesn't go deeper than the surface. For example, when you meet them, they smile at you and say 'Hey, you all right?', but they do not actually wait for an answer. Somehow, I'm baffled as I always tend to answer the question. However, a little more than a month is too short of a time to gauge how friendly British people are, and things might change :D

5) Lack of Bolsters
Bolsters. Hugging pillows. Whatever you call them. No, I can't seem to find any in Canterbury. I miss having something long and soft to hug at night. Oh well, when I get a little richer, I'll try to get one from Ebay.

6) University Culture
Here, people address their lecturers by name, regardless of their position and qualifications. The lecturers treat us as mature adults, and there are not so many restrictions on whatever activities the students want to carry out. No paperwork, no invitation cards, none of the jiggly-wabbly-wasteoftimeandpaper-thingy all students have to go through when trying to organise anything in Malaysia. Now, this is what I call true democracy, and true support for learning.

Anyway, there's more, but these are the few main ones I can think of right now. Ciao!

~Happy Re-Birth Day, Me. 07.11.2010~

2010-11-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

It started off as a practical joke...I changed my birthday on Facebook to the 7th of November just to see how many people will go 'Happy Birthday' on my wall XD

Not surprisingly, I received a lot of birthday wishes, some even from the people who've wished me on my real birthday - 3rd of June. That's really funny, and it shows how much people depend on Facebook these days to remember their friends' birthdays...but there were some who remembered though <3 And I can't really blame those who just added me recently either, since they probably don't pay attention to or won't remember birthdays :P

However, after the joke progressed and I read through all the birthday wishes, I felt as though it was really my birthday. Firstly it's because I didn't do much on my real birthday as I was in a camp (BTN) and there were no cakes or stuff. Secondly, it seems like a long time since I've been in Canterbury, and lots of things have happened. Next, birthdays are fun =)

At the same time, I've finally sorted out my feelings and thoughts. It didn't happen gradually - it was more like a flash since I discovered the way out. Before this, I would be dwelling over trivial things, such as other people's selfishness, bad ways, stupidity and such. Those things range from irritating me to making me angry to making me stew in solitude or disturb my emotions in general. Also, I tend to get obsessed over things that I cannot have, at least, not in the near future.

However, now, I've figured out (at least I hope I have) a way to work around these negative emotions. The principles are:

-Smile (and everything will be all right)
-Don't do upon others what you don't want done upon yourself
-When someone does bad things to you, it's not necessary that you should act the same way back
-Go with the flow
-When you can't get/do something, you can always get/do something else to replace it
-Loss of things, as long as they are not lives and your loved ones, are replaceable
-Money hoarded is not happiness
-Remember that not everyone is born with the same strengths and weaknesses as yours
-Don't be jealous of other people, as they might envy some things you have that they don't too
-Forgive and don't hold grudges
-Help people as much as possible without expecting anything in return

So, the 7th of November, 2010 is going to be marked as my REBIRTH DAY.

Let me gain the strength to close the chapter of the old, calculative, sensitive, lazy me, and begin a new chapter of an optimistic, happy, helpful and better me.

Keep on Going~

2010-10-30T04:37:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter if people do not like your music.

It doesn't matter if people do not like your wallpapers.

It doesn't matter if people do not like the things you write.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/863421/

It doesn't matter if people do not like the things you say.

It doesn't matter if your first few attempts are rejected.

Coz' the important thing is -- you loved doing all those things. You feel happy. You're satisfied with what you've done. That's all that matters.

Ha. Hi. Hu. He. Ho. Manual.

2010-10-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

Haha. Hihi. Huhu. Hehe. Hoho. Ahaha. Ehehe. Ohoho.

In case you haven't guessed, these are the 'words' most of us young adults, teenagers and kids use very frequently while typing in chats, texts, messages and stuff. Of course, there are more evolved types of unvoiced laughter such as 'kahkahkah', 'kuikuikui', 'muahaha', and the list goes on and on. However, this post shall only focus on silent laughter that has the letter 'h' as the first or second alphabet. Besides, I will endeavour to classify the emotions of the speaker while using any kind of laughter and also name the people who usually use that kind of laughter.

Now, this is my attempt to decipher what another person means when he/she is laughing on a chat box. Feel free to feel differently, as this is just a result of my perception + my experience of the words.

I shall start off with laughter that begins with 'h'.

Haha - the most conventional laughter. Most people sound like that when they are laughing (which means if you want to be unique, don't use this one). Use it to show happiness, joy and a little surprise. Since it's the most conventional one, it does not belong to a specific group of people.

Hehe - More often people say 'hehe' to show a sense of pride and self-satisfaction. Of course, you can also use it to hint 'serves you right', 'yeah, I'm awesome', 'smirk' and similar things. 'E' is a common vowel across many languages, so it's not strange to find people of all origins using 'hehehehe' too.

Hoho - Most commonly associated with the white-bearded, red-cap-wearing old man, or else known as Santa Claus. As the 'ho' sound needs relatively more air and energy to emit, usually people use 'hoho' when they want to show that their mouths are in an 'O' shape. If not, stick to 'haha' and 'hehe'.

interesting image, isn't it?

Hihi - The mouth stretches wide into a 'eee' position and the teeth is more clearly seen with this laugh. Usually used by cute people, cutesy people and people who try to be cute or cutesy. If you think you fall into any of the categories above, go for 'hihihihihi' and add a wink ;) or a smiley :D

Huhu - Used to show embarrassment or uncertainty. However, it's most common among Malays, Indonesians and the sort. Use it on people from other parts of the world and they will think you are going 'huh?' instead.

******
Then, there are types where you start with the vowel instead of 'h', such as...

Ahahaha - To portray 'Ah, I see + laughter'. Used to show comprehension. More commonly used by Italians (I noticed).

Ehehehe - To show a little bit of embarrassment and shyness. More commonly used by Japanese and Italians.

Ohohoho - Try saying it. Yes. Ohohoho. That's just plain evil, foxy laughter. Use this to show that you are scheming something (but if you are really scheming something, why show it? :o)

******

THE END

P.S: All images (c) their owners.

More on BadaBimBumBand

2010-09-29T03:40:00.000-07:00

I can't start to explain why I like this band so much. Maybe it's because of the amazing choreography, maybe it's because of the creative way they strut their stuff, maybe it's the way they coordinate and cooperate to perform, maybe it's the way they arrange their music to be so vibrant and spirited, maybe it's the way they interact with the audience despite being able to speak little English, maybe it's the way they're all men in unitards dancing around in the streets...

:D

Anyway, I've found more videos in my camera on BadaBimBumBand (easier said than typed), so here goes -- just to share with my readers ~

P.S: All of them are around the Canterbury city centre, since I'm relatively new in Canterbury and only managed to figure out where 'Dane Johns Garden', the castle area and castles grounds after the whole affair xD

1.

2. Jumping and galloping around?

3. Marching through the town (I was stalking behind :P)

And lastly, a group photo I snapped ~

This is my new favourite band :D so I'm gonna keep an eye out for them whenever they have street shows in the future....for those interested, here's their facebook group page link:

BadaBimBumBand

Something Exciting in Canterbury (BadaBIMBUMBand?)

2010-09-24T16:26:00.001-07:00

I've been in Canterbury for so long, and yet I haven't found something really exciting to post in my blog about -- I mean, you wouldn't be interested to see photos of my room, my kitchen and the substandard food I've been cooking for myself...if you'd understand what I mean :D

Anyway...I've finally encountered something that was quite out of the ordinary while taking a seemingly eventless walk to town to set up an appointment with HSBC.

So it happens that it was the Eurofair in Canterbury from the 24th to the 26th of September (for more details about the Eurofair click here)

While walking around town in the afternoon, my friends and I did not notice the hubbub in town as something unusual since it was a Friday. I bought some strawberries, tried on some trench coats and boots and made an appointment with HSBC to set up a bank account.

Suddenly, I got drawn to music playing somewhere around the center of the city, and my friends and I made our way towards it. I was then surprised to see about a dozen men, all dressed in white jackets and pants and shades playing some brass instruments.

Upon close inspection, I noticed that they were all saxophonists with the exception of two guys on the drums. The music was indeed great - harmonious and clear, but what made it even more awesome was the fact that they were dancing while playing, and the arrangement was so nearly flawless that I could only hear a few blowing mistakes here and there.

They had a good way of interacting with the audience too. In one particularly mischievous song which was the one before the last, they spread out and tried to intimidate the audience by going as close as possible to them. Of course, ladies squealed and men chuckled as they tried to avoid being in the way of this marching street band. After deciding that they have scared the onlookers enough, they made their way back into a straight line and composed themselves for the next song. Amazing choereography and idea, I must say.

Anyway, after their show I had the luck to get a photo with a few of the band members before it started to rain. Here's the photo...

and the video...

Cheers!

P.S: I might write more about my daily life in Canterbury and the differences between it and M'sia if I suddenly decide that it's not too boring to read :D

Just a short post about dickless bastards.

2010-08-25T20:40:00.001-07:00

Image from Kenwooi.com

...about the inconsideration and selfishness of some individuals.

Place: KTM Kuala Lumpur Station
Date: 22nd August 2010
Time: Approximately 5pm

The KTM train recently launched a new system - they turned the middle coach into females-only coach.

So one fine day, after getting down from the bus, I went to the station to take the train back to KL Sentral so that I can go back to my college.

However, the first train that arrived was so crowded and many passengers were already waiting to board i.

Of course, there was a big scramble to get on the train first (imagine all the people in a Mega Sale with 80% off Burberry). I, being a female, made my way to the coach that says 'females only'.

The coach was tooooooooooooooo full to make way for my two bags. Okay, I can understand that. But, inside the coach, there were a few guys staring innocently outside, probably feeling an odd sense of satisfaction for being to get into the coach on time instead of having to wait for the next train. They even had the gall to smile indulgently at me when I had to hop out of the train to avoid being turned into minced meat by the sliding doors.

I just want to say...

Female-only coaches are FEMALE-ONLY coaches. Unless you suddenly sprouted a pair of boobs or got castrated or really had to hurry to take the expressway to hell or you are a lady disguised as a man...

You. Men. Are. Not. Supposed. To. Get. On. Female. Only. Coaches. You. Dickless. Bastards.

What does it mean to love your country?

2010-08-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

A story about a mouse, a cat, a dog

and not forgetting...

the bird? o.o

Disclaimer: This story is not original, I merely adapted, translated and renovated it from a Chinese article I read on Sin Chew's Daily today (>_<)

Once upon a time, there was an old, old lady who lived alone in a cottage on top of the mountain. She was a kind, gentle soul who always feeds half of her meals to the animals around her. Besides, she showered the animals with compassion and love, and hence, the animals came to love her in return.

Among the animals closest to her were Bow the dog, Mew the cat, Chit the bird and Tippy the mouse. Every day without fail, Bow, Mew and Chit would flock around the old lady, waiting for her to feed them. And when she did so, they would express their gratitude - Bow by wagging his tail energetically, Mew by rubbing itself against the old lady's legs and Chit by fluttering and twittering around her. However, Tippy did not accept food from the old lady. Instead, it burrowed into the ground, found some plants or grubs or whatever and fed itself. Only after it is full, it will curl up silently by the old lady, waiting for time to pass.

Days passed, and the animals found out that the old lady's birthday was almost approaching. Of course, the most excited among all the animals were none other than the four. Enthusiastically, they went into the forest and started collecting flowers. Bow found some blue bluebells, Mew found some yellow daffodils while Chit found some red hibiscuses. The only odd one out was Tippy, who was burrowing for his food as usual.

"What an ungrateful soul you are, Tippy!" Bow growled at the mouse. "Yeah, we are here, all busy preparing a birthday present for our lovely old lady, but you're just being selfish and minding your own business!" Chit chirped angrily. "I really feel sorry for her...how would she feel if she knew that you don't appreciate what she did for you all this while," Mew purred, smiling nastily at Tippy.

Tippy heard the insults from the three animals, and it paused in its process of food gathering.

"Well, I am different from all of you. Although now I am not preparing a birthday gift for her, that doesn't mean that I'm ungrateful and selfish. Think of yourselves...every day she has to sacrifice half of her meals to feed you, and hence she goes hungry most of the time. On the other hand, I don't depend on her for my food, instead I hunt for them myself. To me, that is the best way to repay her kindness instead of fully depending on her, and showing your gratitude once a year with a flashy, lavish birthday present."

~-~-~

So guys and girls, loving our country doesn't just mean waving or hanging enormous national flags, singing patriotic songs, etc. Sometimes, being independent and resourceful and self-sufficient is the best you can do for your country, as opposed to taking it for granted and just using all the advantages available here.

But of course, contributing to your country will be an added bonus :D just like negative, neutral and positive, get what I mean?

The rollercoaster journey to UK Visa

2010-08-11T05:37:00.001-07:00

So it happens that I'm going to CCCU soon, and so it happens that if I want to study in the UK for more than 6 months, I have to get a visa. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Then, I found out a visa is not just a visa - it's made up of various documents, forms, some trivial and not-so-trivial stuff to be collected, photocopied, filled in and whatnot.

Lemme describe the excruciating process of getting a visa together with the rest of Da Demotivated Retards (Alicia, Daniel, Yuges, Banu and yours truly)...

1st step: Forms, forms and more forms
One would have thought that in order to get a visa, you have to fill in just the visa application form.

WRONG!

There are a total of 4 forms for visa alone, and another form for the supporting documents...
- Visa online application form (VAF9)
- PBS Tier 4 Appendix 8 for General Students
- CAS (a checklist for all the documents)
- Student survey

Before doing our visa, we have to get a Certificate of Good Conduct from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so that's another form.

And we did the MAS Grads Card (which enables us to bring an extra 10kg luggage) too, making another form

2nd Step: Wasting paper, killing trees and destroying the environment
The forms are printed out. For all three applications, supporting documents are needed. Innocent papers are used to photocopy the originals and backup forms. That's all.

3rd Step: Journey around Kuala Lumpur
This was the most fun part. On the first day, we went to get our Grads Card and bank draft done. It was quite an easy process as we just needed to bring along RM 976 in cash to CIMB and some documents to the Enrich Centre. The whole process took about 3 hours and didn't cause any headaches at all.

It was a whole different story on the 2nd day. The schedule was to get a stamp and signature from a commissioner of oaths, then go to the MOFA to get our Cert. of Good Conduct. The commissioner was located in Damansara while MOFA was in Putrajaya. So, what did we do?

First, we woke up late, and gathered at 10am. Then, we took a taxi to Damansara and got our forms stamped. Had lunch at KFC while waiting for the uber-famous 'government lunch time' to pass and made a move to KL Sentral. From there, we took the ERL to Putrajaya Sentral and hopped on a bus towards MOFA. The whole trip took about 1 hour and when we arrived, we still had to wait for the doors to open at 2pm. The application process took another hour, and then we took the bus back to Putrajaya Sentral, and another bus back to KL Sentral. Except that we missed the stop and ended up in Pasar Seni, making an extra LRT station x) By the time we got back in IPBA, we were all so tired we could just curl up and sleep on the floor.

On the third day, we finally went to Ampang Park by LRT to submit our application at the UK visa centre at Wisma MCA. It wasn't so tiring as much as unnerving, as there were three security guards at the entrance, and we had to go through body scans and stuff. Comparatively, it was a simple process though, and took just a little more than an hour~

Step 4: Free for All
Yeah, after submitting the visa application, we are basically free to do anything we please. So then, see ya =)

False Alarm O-o (and I'm a No0B)

2010-08-04T00:13:00.000-07:00

My trustworthy Dell laptop (Inspiron 1420) has so far given me minimal problems after two years of using it. The only beefs I have about it is that it's too heavy, not fast-performing enough and the Window Explorer problem.

Today, I switched on the laptop as usual and left it on the table while I went and tinkered some on my piano <3>"Interactive logon process initialization has failed. Please consult the event log for more details."

The first thing that came into my head was 'How the heck am I supposed to consult the event log when YOU won't even let me look at my FRICKING desktop!' (Of course, I didn't say this out loud ^^)

Then I started to panic. I've heard things like this happening to other people, but never me. I think my laptop is clean enough (at least I've never had to send it for repair before) and I use an antivirus, don't surf suspicious websites and all those, so I don't think there would be any major problems with it.

Anyway, my initial reaction was to shut down the laptop forcibly (i.e. by switching off the power source and pulling out the battery). Now that I think about it, that was incredibly stupid. It's just like showering halfway and having no water while shampoo and soap bubbles are still all over you, or watching a movie and having a power outage just before your favourite scene, or...well, you get the idea xD My point is, this is an idiotic, thoughtless thing to do, even to a lifeless laptop.

So, I turned on the wireless Internet in my house and surfed the Internet using my phone (bless the Nokia Xpress music 5800) for any tips to solve this problem. First thing I saw, I wasn't the only one who experienced this on my laptop. So, I went and dug out all the manuals and backup discs that came with my laptop just in case they could be in handy.

I read through what the other users did - restored the system, ran the computer on the DVD, reboot, whatever, blah blah...and I went O_O Someone help me ! I'm absolutely clueless on how to do all these x_X

Still, I mustered all my courage to gave it a try. I rebooted my laptop, missed the time where I was supposed to press 'F12' to go into a system, and was brought to the screen where it asked me whether I wanted to start Windows normally or in Safe Mode (prolly because I shut down the laptop forcibly xD).

To be safe, I chose the safe mode :P

Miraculously, I saw my desktop materialise on the screen with the title 'windows in safe mode', without a wallpaper and with extremely ugly graphics. I was so happy I could have kissed the laptop. So then, I ran System Restore and reverted all the updates back to the last point I updated the laptop.

Hopefully this will solve all the problems --> coz' now my laptop is functioning normally, but I don't have the foggiest idea how it would turn out the next time I power it on again.

Till then, adieu~ >_<"

P.S: I know I'm being a little over-dramatic, but my laptop is my love :D

Hypocrites...

2010-07-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

-are those who say one thing and do another

-are those who say one thing and mean another

-are those who dresses like nuns yet behaves like prostitutes

-are those who preach religion yet commits heinous acts of sins

-are those who say 'never mind' yet indulge in back-stabbing their friends

-are those who say 'I'm sorry' and don't mean it

-are those who say 'Beauty is only skin deep' and spend hours on makeup

-are those who say their religion are the only true religion and their God the ultimate supreme whatever

-are those who say they believe in religion yet take part in all kinds of superstitions

-are those who pray only to absolve their sins

-are those who criticise others over things they secretly do themselves

-are those who advocate feminism yet gets offended when they're asked to do things guys do

-are those who advocate male chauvinism yet say 'ladies first' when confronted with things guys don't want to do

-are those attention-seekers who do things just to attract people's attention

-are those who wear headscarves yet do not cover their body parts they're supposed to

-are those who blindly imitate what their friends do just to 'fit in'

-are those who labels people with terms like 'nerd', 'geek', 'dumb blond' and so on

-are those who don't swear openly but curse non-stop in their mind for the sake of appearing 'civilised'

-are those who smile while plotting something evil

-are those who discriminate homosexuals just because they aren't one themselves

*and the list goes on forever So, I guess almost everyone is a hypocrite =)

And it's Canaan Online FTW!

2010-07-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, I started playing Canaan Online.

How did I know about the game?
Through an MMORPG site - I was searching for a browser-based game, which means that I don't need to download heavy clients with high requirements that takes up space in my laptop.

A brief overview
Canaan Online is a RPG (role-playing game) in which you assume a character and do quests, have pets, form teams, join guilds and go on adventures. There are four classes - priest (I'm one), ranger, warrior and mage to choose from, each with their advantages. Frankly speaking, I had doubts about the game when I first started playing, as compared to some other games, this one comes across as being pretty easy.

However, once you reach level 30, things start getting complicated. One interesting, but hard thing about this game is that you can forge your own equipment, and depending on the quality of the materials you use, the equipment will be stronger or weaker. Besides, mages and priests share the same type of materials, while warriors and rangers use another type, so it's always good to make friends and exchange materials. Also, the quests start to become harder and harder, so friends are important to help you finish them easier and quicker.

Besides, there are also pets, not to play with, but to help you in battles. Depending on your character class, different pets can either heal you, fight along your side, increase your stats or add to your hp. The pets variety is huge too - almost all the monsters you fight in this game can be captured as pets. Like equipments, pets are divided into classes too, from normal, smart, genius, supreme to ultimate (need I say which is the best?)

Last but not least, there are many small but interesting details in the game, such as dressing up the characters, joining guilds and going into mazes, and marriage (which brings along lots of benefits ^^). Also, I believe that furniture, mounts (vehicles) and houses are becoming available soon.

Plus points
+ Canaan Online is free to play
+ It runs in a browser
+ The controls are easy
+ The graphics...while I won't say dazzling, but they are above average
+ You can level up your character by paying (in-game coins) and leaving your browser open

Minus points
- Sometimes it takes a long while to load the game
- System gifts cannot be traded
- Moving around is slow (but fast with mounts)

So yeah, I have been playing Canaan Online with every spare time I have. My name-in-game is Reicorleone and I'm married to Justinn (which explains my strange status update in Facebook) XD

~C'est moire~

A Period of Mourning

2010-06-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

On 15th June 2010, Tuesday, 12.45 a.m., my grandmother from my father's side passed away because of intestinal cancer.

According to Chinese/Buddhist/Taoist (probably a mixture of all three) tradition, when an old person passes away, we have to mourn for either 5 or 7 days. During the period of mourning, all the close relatives are expected to wear white shirts and black pants, and pin on small pieces of cloth and/or burlap on their right arm as well as tie a white ribbon around the right wrist to indicate that they are mourning for the passing of someone in their family.

Usually, a funeral is supposed to be a sad affair, but in this case, I didn't feel too much sorrow, as my grandmother was already 88 years old, and she passed away peacefully and with minimal pain.

As a matter of fact, this funeral gave the whole family a chance for reunion, as most members of the family came back from all over Malaysia, and some even from China to pay their final respects to my grandmother at my uncle's house in Kuala Muda.

Alright, let's proceed with a brief description of the ritual process...

The body of the deceased is placed in a coffin, with the cover revealing the face through a glass. A wreath of white flowers are placed at the feet area, while joss sticks are burnt for the whole period and the children of the deceased stay up all night to ensure the main long one is never burnt out (i.e. replaced when it gets too short).

Day 1 to Day 4: The main family members just stay in the house and sometimes chant prayers from morning to afternoon. At night, a few monks will come and lead the chanting of some more complicated prayers from different 'sutras' which we follow. On the 4th night, the family members will burn offerings to the deceased, including a huge house made of paper for him/her to use in the afterlife.

Day 5 is the day for the body to be buried or cremated (in my grandmother's case, cremated). The family members arrive early in the morning and there are also other friends and distant family who came for the final farewell. Then, the coffin is brought out of the house and into the van where it is sent to the cremation site. The whole process is quite complicated as a series of 'rules' have to be followed, and what I did was just to follow what everyone else did.

One good thing that came out of these 5 days was that I realised that I actually have a number of cute kids under me -- my cousins, nephews and nieces.

My cousin ... i call her Chloe but actually it's just her Chinese name that sounds like it xD My youngest uncle's daughter

A moth or butterfly that hung around the house until unfortunately, it got stepped on and died by my eldest aunt's husband o_O

flowers from various people

the 'house' which was burnt as an offering

my nephew, the son of my cousin, Zi Yao. He kinda looks like Edison Chan, no? xD

and his sister

Joelle Chin, the youngest present during the funeral (2 years old). My cousin's only daughter

Qian Hui, another one of my nieces. Has a smart mouth, sometimes good, sometimes bad xD

As I probably mentioned before, I'm not a devote Buddhist. In fact, I don't believe in religion (note: that doesn't mean that I totally reject the existence of a god, but that would come later). To me, I follow all the rituals and do what I'm told as a sign of respect for my grandmother and elders who are there, that's all. Still, attending this funeral let me witness the power of religion and how it brings everyone together. That is something to be respected, and also feared when abused.

Personally, I still think that it's more important to take care of the living rather than lavishing rituals, riches and whatnot on the dead.

I also got some 'souvenirs' from this incident - a whole load of mosquito bites on my feet and legs =.=" I can actually see constellations on my left foot.

Warning: Chinese Wedding Dinners Might Cause Deafness

2010-05-23T23:25:00.000-07:00

NOPE, I'm kidding. The above is just a photo of a traditional Chinese wedding function. Just a note - until now I haven't been to any weddings in which couples dress that way :D

Going to any Chinese wedding dinners has always been an ordeal for me - never mind if the groom/bride is my closest relative or a stranger. The pattern is almost always the same: the amplifiers will blast the emcee's voice, music and stuff at full volume, while the guests do not dare to complain for fear of offending the newly-weds or their parents.

Last Saturday (22 May), I went to the wedding dinner of the daughter of a seafood restaurant's owner, who was a close friend of my father's family. I don't know the father or the daughter personally, but to 'bagi muka', I had to go too =.="

Anyway, when I reached there, I was appalled to see that the restaurant was crammed with people like sardine in cans, and a lot of guests actually had to sit OUTSIDE the restaurant. Then I started wondering:

1) What's the point of inviting so many friends and family over if the place you chose cannot accommodate all of them?
2) What's the point of sitting outside if you see what's happening on stage?

The food was just tolerable, some cooked to the point where I pity the animals who were slaughtered to produce the dish, which was just edible.

...

Back to the title of the post, that Chinese wedding dinners might cause deafness, the reasons are as follows. If you've gone to such a dinner before, whether it's at a hotel or restaurant, you might find that you've had similar experience.

1) The speakers and amplifiers are turned on at full volume.
2) The emcee, knowing that, cannot stop talking for fear that his salary might be cut.
3) He keeps on talking and talking and talking nonsense.
4) When he stops talking, the noise is replaced by music, still at full volume.
5) When he doesn't talk, he sings.
6) When he doesn't sing, he invites other guests to go up the stage and sing.
7) Most, if not all of the guests are not professional singers - they either sing out of tune or out of rhythm. This time, I was lucky that the singers did not screech or shout. I'm counting my blessings.
8) The amplifiers were only lowered during the 'yam seng' (cheers) session, where everyone lifts their glasses and toast the newly-weds at the top of their lungs. It's equally bad, by the way.

With all this, I'm thankful that both my ears are still functioning. Sometimes, I wonder why everything has to be so...loud. Probably, the point is to make it hard for guests to talk to each other so that they will focus their attention on the newly-weds instead of themselves.

All looking to the stage for the grand toast

My mom and I...yeah, we

a blurry shot taken with my phone of the bride and groom. The bride is the one in the purple dress...duh XD

~Happy Teacher's Day~

2010-05-16T02:05:00.000-07:00

THE CREATION OF THE TEACHER

The Good Lord was creating teachers. It was His sixth day of 'overtime' and He knew that this was a tremendous responsibility for teachers would touch the lives of so many impressionable young children. An angel appeared to Him and said, "You are taking a long time to figure this one out."

"Yes," said the Lord, " but have you read the specs on this order?"

TEACHER:

…must stand above all students, yet be on their level
... must be able to do 180 things not connected with the subject being taught
... must run on coffee, coke and leftovers,
... must communicate vital knowledge to all students daily and be right most of the time
... must have more time for others than for herself/himself
... must have a smile that can endure through pay cuts, problematic children, and worried parents
... must go on teaching when parents question every move and others are not supportive
... must have 6 pair of hands.

"Six pair of hands, " said the angel, "that's impossible"
"Well, " said the Lord, " it is not the hands that are the problem. It is the three pairs of eyes that are presenting the most difficulty!"

The angel looked incredulous, " Three pairs of eyes...on a standard model?"

The Lord nodded His head, " One pair can see a student for what he is and not what others have labeled him as. Another pair of eyes is in the back of the teacher's head to see what should not be seen, but what must be known. The eyes in the front are only to look at the child as he/she 'acts out' in order to reflect, " I understand and I still believe in you",
without so much as saying a word to the child."

"Lord, " said the angel, " this is a very large project and I think
you should work on it tomorrow".

"I can't," said the Lord, " for I have come very close to creating something much like Myself. I have one that comes to work when he/she is sick.....teaches a class of children that do not want to learn....has a special place in his/her heart for children who are not his/her own.....understands the struggles of those who have difficulty....never takes the students for granted..."

The angel looked closely at the model the Lord was creating.
"It is too soft-hearted, " said the angel.

"Yes," said the Lord, " but also tough, You can not imagine what this teacher can endure or do, if necessary".

"Can this teacher think?" asked the angel.

"Not only think," said the Lord,. "but reason and compromise."

The angel came closer to have a better look at the model and ran his finger
over the teacher's cheek.

"Well, Lord, " said the angel, your job looks fine but there is a leak. I told you that you were putting too much into this model.
You can not imagine the stress that will be placed upon the teacher."

The Lord moved in closer and lifted the drop of moisture from the teacher's cheek.
It shone and glistened in the light.

"It is not a leak," He said, "It is a tear."

"A tear? What is that?" asked the angel, "What is a tear for?"

The Lord replied with great thought, " It is for the joy and pride of seeing a child accomplish even the smallest task. It is for the loneliness of children who have a hard time to fit in and it is for compassion for the feelings of their parents. It comes from the pain of not being able to reach some children and the disappointment those children feel in themselves. It comes often when a teacher has been with a class for a year and must say good-bye to those students
and get ready to welcome a new class."

"My, " said the angel, " The tear thing is a great idea...You are a genius!!"
The Lord looked somber, "I didn't put it there."

*copied from http://www.songs4teachers.com/inspiration.htm*

~A very Happy Teacher's Day to educators all over the world~

Milkshake's Videos Up~ Finally

2010-05-15T02:58:00.000-07:00

Although it's not our best performance yet; in fact, it's our FIRST performance, I don't see any wrong in uploading the videos to Youtube. Comment, praise and criticise all you like :D That will help us improve =D

Milkshake - Intro of Canon in D Rock *simplified* and Seize the Day by Avenged Sevenfold

Milkshake - Silly Lily by Bunkface

Milkshake FTW!

2010-05-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

Yee ha! In my last post, I mentioned that my band, Milkshake will take part in the Rhythm of the Champions in my college, ne? So, here I am with updates of the results and details of the competition~ (It's kinda late, I know)

Anyway, the competition was held on the 29th of April 2010 at IPG KBA's auditorium, from 2.30pm to 5.00pm. Apart from joining the competition, I was also the organiser of the competition -- multitasking is my middle name.

Well, to cut the story short, Milkshake came in 3rd place in the competition. Some might laugh at the results, as there were only 5 bands in total competing, but still, it was a pleasant surprise to all 5 of us.

The 2 songs we played were 'Seize the Day' by Avenged Sevenfold and 'Silly Lily' by Bunkface. As for the intro, we extracted a small part from Canon in D Rock. As we were all beginners at the instruments we were playing except for Alif, who has been playing the guitar for quite some time, everyone said that we were taking a huge risk by playing all difficult songs. Especially me, the lead guitar, who has to play the solo for all 3 songs. And let me tell you this, it's not easy...

Anyway, all of us were quite nervous as we were the last band to perform on stage on that day. I myself was so unfocused that I forgot to adjust my guitar strap properly, resulting in me having problems playing the high notes on the guitar (LOL). For all 3 songs, our tempo was faster than how we usually played during practice, and that made it harder for me to play my solo xD Also, during 'Seize the Day', our vocalist Alif wasn't in his best condition, and he hit the high notes EVEN higher =.="

Silly Lily was a good performance though. Although we went a little too fast too, but we were very active on stage, moving and jumping, and the vocalist for this song, Akmal, did a great job too. Besides, the audience loved the song and was well entertained~

Anyway, for our performance, I would say...
'Better aim high and miss, than aim low and hit'

Our song choices might be difficult, but we pulled it off pretty well.

This is US. Not Susu Kocak, but MILKSHAKE (our tagline xD)

From top left:
Abang Long Safwan (Bassist)
Yukina-Rei (Lead)
Akmal Hazimin (Rhythm/Vocal)

Bottom left:
Alif Aguero Alias (Vocal/Rhythm)
Syed Adiey (Drummer)

P/S: I will upload the video soon, once I get my hands on it :P

Heaven and Hell Against You?

2010-04-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

For simplicity and to reduce annoyance, all references to people will be 'he' instead of 'he/she' or 'one' or so on. No gender specification - 'he' refers to humans in general =)

Self Pity - probably one of the most destructive emotions one could ever have.

According to the Collins Cobuild Dictionary 2006, self-pity is defined as a feeling of unhappiness that you have about yourself and your problems, especially when this is unnecessary or greatly exaggerated.

People come across problems all of the time. From kings to vagabonds, geniuses to dumb people, everyone encounters some obstacles at some point in their life. That is not a cause to whine and complain and expect sympathy from everyone else. This might sound selfish, but YOU are supposed to at least try to solve your problems before asking for help. That is why it's called YOUR problem, not MY problem or HIS problem or HER problem or THEIR problem.

Sure, acting like a damsel (or a male equivalent of that) in distress might seem cute initially. Still, after a while, most people get irritated and annoyed when you put on a sad, emo face and seek for comfort from them all the time. Do remember that some people will have their own problems, and they might not have the same tolerance other kind souls might show to you.

I'm sure everyone has their favourite activities and pastimes (hobbies, okay). So, compared to brooding and stewing and whining which get you nowhere, why not go indulge in something more beneficial for everyone?

Also, humans are individuals. Obviously, the choice of giving you sympathy and taking care of you is up to them - it is NEVER an obligation.

In brief- Do I look like I care, when I'm already burdened with so much of my own?

***

On a side note, my newly formed band Milkshake is going to enter a band competition at my college. I'm the *coughs* lead guitarist (who has been playing the guitar for only 3 months) o_O

Wow?

Buying A Violin...

2010-04-20T10:38:00.001-07:00

Buying a violin is like getting married.

First, you have to pick out your possible partner, i.e. the violin. You scout for it at certain shops. Then, you wait for one that shouts 'love at first sight'.

Once you've got an eye for the violin you want, you start to consider the possibilities for you to be together. The most pressing matter to consider is whether you can afford the violin and its maintenance, parallel to whether you can afford to lavish your money on your newly found 'girlfriend' or 'boyfriend'.

In the process, you try out your compatibility with your violin - how can it adapt to you, how good you feel being with it, how you 'click' together and how you pair together to produce beautiful music.

After everything's done and you have decided on your violin (the financial factor plays a great part too), you can propose to your violin, get married and bring it back home.

However, that is not the end of the story.

After marriage, you have more maintenance to do. Buying accessories for it (like the bow, casing, rosin, shoulder-rest and stuff), change some of its' 'clothes' (bridge, strings, knobs, chin-rest...) and taking good care of it (wiping it after use, polishing it and more). If you don't do all that, your violin will get angry with you after a while, and it won't serve you any more.

Also, if you decide to 'play three sticks' with it and place your attention on another violin instead, chances are, if you ignore your violin for too long, it will get spoilt after a while too.

The only thing that makes violins better than a husband/wife is that if you change your mind and want to divorce your violin for another, you can easily do so without much complications. Beware of your finances though - a new violin will suck your money faster~

*all these came to mind when I found out that, in order to replace my violin strings with the same brand, I need to fish out RM198. It's like buying a new guitar =.="*

New Gadget in my Blog, New Things in My Life

2010-04-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well, if you look to the right, you can see advertisements by Nuffnang on the gadgets bar. I didn't really place it there to earn money, just for decoration, but if you feel like clicking on it and help me earn some extra pocket money...well, I wouldn't say no ^^

Some brief updates in my life:

1) My sister's boyfriend - Eddie's eldest brother just passed away recently. Although I haven't met him before, I still felt sad for him and his family, especially for Eddie, who suddenly has to take on the responsibility of being the eldest son in the family. (This is particularly important in Chinese traditional families). May his brother's soul rest in peace, and may his family be strong enough to accept his fate.

2) I started to become addicted to Neopets once again. This, too, will come in another post - - note the word 'brief'.

This is my pet Wocky, with the funny name 'Foxy 211999'. Oh well, I adopted it when I was 13 years old ^_^"

3) I met my cousin Teng Hock last Wednesday afternoon. He treated me to Vietnamese food all the way in One Utama. I had the chance to sit in his white Honda Civic R-class, which he named 'Super White Rabbit' (LOL, you will know what I mean if you translate it to Chinese). To think of it, this was the first time I've met him in many months - I didn't even see him during Chinese New Year. However, it was quite a pleasant outing with him - it got me thinking, having relatives isn't so bad as I thought.

4) This is an effect from number 3 - I think it's time to get more acquainted with my relatives, especially those in my generation. At least, when we are grown up, we won't become estranged like what we see in family dramas.

***

By the way, a Polish plane to Russia crashed, bringing down the lives of Poland's President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other senior political figures. Whether it's a pure accident or it's a conspiracy (from what I've read from BBC, Kaczynski is rather well-known for his right-wing governance) is yet to be known. Add to that the fact that the plane crashed in Russia, where they were going to visit a World War II memorial place. I was just wondering though, talking about placing all your eggs in a single basket, why would they travel together on the same plane in the first place? It's kinda...dangerous. However, Poland has to be strong (yet again - it's always these few words when dealing with deaths) and refrain from creating chaos even though they lost *I don't know how many percent* of their government in that plane crash.

Oh well, these days, nobody is too young to deal with death. So, everyone might as well accept the fact that people are going to die, anytime, anywhere, anyhow. The deal is to live your lives as happily as possible ^^

There's No Way to Fully Please a Woman...

2010-04-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

A group of girlfriends is on vacation when they see a 5-story hotel with a sign that reads: "For Women Only." Since they are without their boyfriends and husbands, they decide to go in.

The bouncer, a very attractive guy, explains to them how it works. "We have 5 floors. Go up floor by floor, and once you find what you are looking for, you can stay there. It's easy to decide since each floor has a sign telling you what's inside."

So they start going up and on the first floor the sign reads: "All the men on this floor are short and plain." The friends laugh and without hesitation move on to the next floor.

The sign on the second floor reads: "All the men here are short and handsome." Still, this isn't good enough, so the friends continue on up.

They reach the third floor and the sign reads: "All the men here are tall and plain."

They still want to do better, and so, knowing there are still two floors left, they continued on up.

On the fourth floor, the sign is perfect: "All the men here are tall and handsome." The women get all excited and are going in when they realize that there is still one floor left. Wondering what they are missing, they head on up to the fifth floor.

There they find a sign that reads: "There are no men here. This floor was built only to prove that there is no way to please a woman."

I wonder how many of us womenfolk would walk up to the fifth floor? I know I would, just to satisfy my curiosity of whether it's the extreme handsome or extreme ugly waiting there :D

And yeah, there's no way to completely please a woman...that's what makes us women~

From http://www.helium.com/items/693485-jokes-blonde-jokes?page=4

Shocked. Seriously.

2010-04-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

It's not my style to post the everyday stuff I see or hear in my life, but this was really shocking. Probably to some of you, it's something normal (I'm not going into a long post about culture, communication and more) but in Malaysia, especially in a teacher's training college, I did not expect such language to be used in public, and what's even worse - it's not just spoken, but shouted at someone else.

The first thing to remember is that being a senior does not automatically grant you the right to do anything you like. In fact, the more senior you are, the more matured you should be, and I assume that being so old, one would know that it is extremely rude and inappropriate to call another person a bitch, especially when she has done nothing wrong.

The story goes like this: (M is the nickname of the senior)
At the block 4 common room, three groups of people were having their discussions. Two came from the PPISMP TESL group who were probably talking about their choral speaking and activities during their English Camp, which will be held next week. For my group, I was involved in the story telling during English week, which will be held the week after. Of course, having so many people in a small, closed space, we could hardly hear ourselves talking. Still, it's possible to move closer to each other in order to hear them speak.

Suddenly, in the midst of chastising us for being late (yeah, it's our fault for being late, but that's not the main point), M suddenly yelled 'Can all of you SHUT UP and do your discussion quietly?' Someone from the choral speaking group spoke up, albeit less loudly, 'You shut up too.'

Then M lost control and started shouting, 'You SHUT UP, BITCH!' That was the most shocking part of the whole incident. I mean, if you want to argue, fine, but if you start to degrade other people by calling names, you are just showing how low you are. I guess the rest of the juniors were just as equally surprised, as they kept quiet and whispered among them after that.

M then continued, 'I'm very angry now...so you all better keep quiet, blah blah' (the rest of my memory is blurred). And then I start to wonder.

1. The common room is a place for everyone to use, and unless you have officially booked it, everyone should be allowed to make noise or do whatever in it.

2. If you really require somewhere more conducive for a meeting, the logical thing to do would be for the smallest group to move somewhere else (we were the smallest group there) since it would be easier for us to find a place.

3. The junior was not wrong to ask you to shut up, since you started the rudeness, and she just gave an eye for an eye.

4. (As posted in my FB) 'bitch' not only means a woman who behaves in a very unpleasant way, but it also means 'female dog'. In this case, I think M fulfilled the criteria better, judging by the way she acted.

5. What's the point of the sentence 'I'm very angry...' Should other people even care that you are angry when you behave this way? And I place this statement under childishness, if one thinks that other people should comply with them just because they are angry. Besides, being angry does not give you the right to let someone else be the brunt of your anger.

6. It wouldn't have sounded so harsh if you spoke to her in a common tone. Did you really have to shout something so rude? I wouldn't have qualms using these words in a joking tone too.

Probably the words 'shut up' and 'bitch' are very commonly used overseas, and this M picked up the habit of using them. However, to cite a Malay idiom 'masuk kandang lembu menglembu, masuk kandang kambing mengembek' (it means one should learn to adapt to the culture wherever they go). If you want to behave so outspokenly and straightforward in a culture that accepts it, fine. But once you come back to Malaysia, it would do you well to remember 'budi bahasa budaya kita', that we want to encourage and nurture good manners and etiquette among the people we are teaching. No use being a hypocrite, acting all cute and good in front of the children; and throwing it all to the wind behind them.

And here, we are not talking about a positive culture such as a foreign accent, cleanliness, free thinking and stuff, we are talking about something offensive, which would be considered rude in a Malaysian context. Even on internet forums where nobody actually sees or hears you, I've been trained not to 'talk' that way. If that is what one brings back from overseas, then what is the point of going overseas?

I've ranted too much in this post. I just hope that this post will be a reminder for me to stay true to my roots and remember how to absorb good values and stay away from bad ones, since I will be going overseas in a few months time.

Till then, adios!

P.S: This post is not meant to be offensive to any party. I'm just recounting the events that happened and stating my point of view on them.

^_^

Just a Random Update

2010-03-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

ULTIMATE LAG!!!

This post is more for the sake of my friends at Animepaper, although I doubt if anyone from there reads my blog except for Misao-chan and Bo-chan, lol.

Anyway, upon logging in to AP, the first thing I noticed was that my last wallpaper was 6 months and 2 weeks ago ^_^" Actually, I still have a whole folder of WIPs (wallpapers in progress) which I work on...occasionally.

Then, I went to the main page and saw that my AP friends uploaded a load of awesome wallpapers, and also some of which scans are the same as those in my WIP folder. To be exact, my most recent 'Thumbelina' wallpaper was the only one I've made since I was promoted to the senior member status on AP...I should be demoted to community waller =.=" Of course, I tried to set deadlines and wanted to make wallpapers for Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day and the Chinese Valentine Day, which failed miserably xDD

To tell the truth, my life is not that busy to the extent that I don't have time to make wallpapers. Rather, I fill my free time doing other stuff now than sitting in front of my laptop with my tablet xD My newly found favorite activity is badminton, and when I'm in college, I usually go to the court on weekdays from 5pm, and 'lepak' there until around 8pm. After that, with a shower and dinner, it would already be around 9.30 pm. Sometimes, MUSICA has drum, guitar or piano classes at night from 9-10pm, and there goes another hour of my time. As for weekends, I'm usually busy trying to complete assignments at the last minute, so there you go. If not, I usually sleep and wake up late, either lurking around the Net or playing games on my laptop~

Anyway, this is one of my most recent WIPs which I managed to gather the energy to 'try to complete' this holidays. Everything is painted except for the girl who is vectored, and I will edit some parts of the ocean to make it look, well, more like an ocean. I will try to submit this in time for a friend's birthday on AP ^^

Any comments, anyone? And any ideas on how to motivate myself in completing more wallpapers from that junk of a folder I named WIP?

=p

What is a Blog?

2010-03-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

It's just something random that popped up in my mind.

Some people use their blogs as a place to rant, rave and express all their negative emotions (i.e. ke-tidakpuashati-an)...

Some people use their blogs as a diary, making known to the virtual world what they've done in the past few days.

Some people use their blogs to write about interesting stuff they have come across, and usually these posts are peppered with a lot of photos (either self-taken or copied from another website)

Also, there are 'otakus' (the term here is non-derogatory, in fact it's more of an admiring tone) who post reviews of anime, songs, movies, games and more so that people can read them and decide whether to get the CD/DVD they have been eyeing for some time~

Well, I don't have a tracking device that counts how many visitors who have visited my blog, nor do I know where my readers come from ^_^ The only way I can find out is when they leave a comment on my post or shout in my chatbox. Still, I try to keep my blog as non-offensive as possible, and I also try to make sure that it can be understood by people from all around the world --> it means using standardised English or providing translation for local slang we commonly use.

And if anyone has noticed one of my status updates in Facebook, it says:

It's 'DO you agree', not 'ARE you agree'. And it's 'MU might LOSE the match tonight ', not 'MU might LOOSE the match tonight'. 'YOU'RE sexy', not 'YOUR sexy'. =.="

Those are just some of the common errors in English that bug me ^^ That, and spelling errors too.

P.S: I'm currently reading 'The Lost Symbol' by Dan Brown. It's an addictive read, and I can't help but be fascinated by all the symbols, myths and legends contained in the story. For one, it proves that the writer respects his readers and makes the effort to research deep and seriously into what he's writing =)

P.S. 2: My blog would be a combination of those mentioned above, no?

Logo Making, Card Design and other Graphic Design Service Available

2010-03-09T07:23:00.002-08:00

As the title suggests, I'm currently offering my services for graphic design - if you need someone to create logos, wallpapers, photo frames, name cards, invitation cards, posters and such, you might wanna get in touch with me =) *actually, I'm just bored and don't know what to do with my spare time*

Some examples of my work:

Logos

PISMP Cohort 3 Logo Sample 1 (Done on request)

PISMP Cohort 3 Logo Sample 2 (This was chosen as the majority favourite)

PISMP Cohort 3 Logo Sample 3 (My personal favourite, but it's too complicated)

IPBA Futsal Club logo (Done on request, incorporated into name cards)

The 3 Missed Calls band logo (incorporated into name cards too)

Bookmarks

Bookmark for C2C3's The Merchant of Venice play fund raising

Couple bookmarks - can be separated or kept as one whole piece =)

Couple bookmarks - can be separated or kept as one whole piece

Simple floral-themed bookmark

Name Cards

MUSICA's official name card

IPBA FC name card

3 Missed Calls name card (Just for fun)

Photo frames and calendars

2010 Calendar (pocket size)

2010 Calendar (4R size)

Photo frame *integrated into photo* (just a random photo snapped after our performance)

The above are not all of my works yet. If you are interested, get into contact with me and I will show you the rest of my completed works or incomplete projects ^_^

By the way, if you are interested in my anime/manga graphic works (which uses images from copyrighted anime/manga - visit my Animepaper account at http://yukina-rei.animepaper.net

Stupidity and Childishness

2010-03-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

I felt remorse when I accidentally stepped on a caterpillar on my way back from Ali Cafe; but I won't feel any guilt if the moron committed suicide in front of me. Yes, that's how despicable the lecturer is.

MUSICA's launching on 4th March had been a great success despite the many obstacles we faced, including lack of equipment, time constraints and stuff. The time constraint is understandable, since the launching is combined with the Watikah Pelantikan MPP and the launching of the Citra Guru project. However, the lack of equipment should not happen.

First, the performances held by MUSICA consists of two songs from the choir 'Voices of MUSICA' and another song combining the choir and the band 3 Missed Calls. To put up a good show, we need a piano, decent amplifiers and a drum set. Well, we have small amplifiers and a drum set, so to give and take, we just requested for the Clavinova from the Tuan Syed a.k.a. the music lecturer holding the keys to the music room in the Administration Block. However, he was full with moronic, idiotic excuses.

Stupid excuse #1: You are not holding a concert - why should I lend you the instruments?
We are holding a concert dummy. It's held in the main hall, and we are performing. Though I doubt that even if we are holding a real concert you would lend us the instruments anyway.

Stupid excuse #2: You have your own piano, why should I lend you mine?
The one Musica has is called a KEYBOARD, not a PIANO. For choir, we are supposed to accompany the singing with a piano. And you call yourself a music lecturer.

Stupid excuse #3: I'm not the advisor for Musica, so go and ask Mdm Khalijah for the instruments.
We actually invited you to be the advisor for Musica, but you declined. Then, you fully well know that you are hogging the music room and won't let any other lecturers touch the instruments. Well, maybe young, pretty, female lecturers can, but not your rival music lecturer who is more popular with the students.

Having no choice, in the end we addressed a letter to Dr Sofi (the director of IPG KBA) himself, officially requesting to borrow the instruments from Tn Syed. It was nice to know that Dr Sofi approved the request straight away - at least it shows that he supports Musica. However, you wanna know what the idiot did?

He disappeared for the whole morning until the event was over. Since the idiot had no mobile phone, he was virtually unreachable, and even though the lecturers were searching for him all over the college, they couldn't find him. Coward.

In the end, we settled for the smaller and softer Yamaha keyboard, but at least it's better than the Casio keyboard with no touch volume function ^_^ And everyone praised the Musica performance too~

Let me end this with two rhetorical questions...

1.If we could achieve this level with substandard equipment, imagine what we can do with proper equipments?

2.Why does he monopolise the room when he doesn't own anything in it, and what right does he have to deny us the instruments when we already have approval from the director himself?

少年不识愁滋味，为赋新词强说愁...

2010-02-23T09:06:00.000-08:00

The title, literally translated, would be 'young people who don't know the real meaning of sorrow and pain, but they force themselves to be sorrowful and melancholy for the sake of creating new poetry'. In simpler words, it's phrase aimed to mock people, especially young ones who like to act sorrowful and depressed just because they think it's cool.

Being the normally happy-go-lucky person I am, sometimes with a serious 'I-don't-give-a-flying-****' attitude, I really can't bring myself to act depressed, melancholic and sad when I am not. No, not even if I want to create lyrics for a song.

For one, I believe that there are countless people who are suffering out there, with or without our knowledge. Think of people who are living in war-ridden areas, who don't know when they are going to die in cross-fire. Think of people who are so poor that they don't know when they are going to get their next bowl of rice. Think of children with no parents to care for them, or the elderly left lonely and abandoned in an old folks' home. Think of people who have lost their loved ones to natural disasters, diseases and other reasons.

Then, think of yourself. If you are young, healthy and alive, with a roof over your head and your friends and family are around you, what gives you the right to act as though tomorrow's the day you are dying. Even for optimistic people, if they know that they will die the next day, they will spend today doing everything they want to instead of moping around like a sick person.

What if you lost your mobile phone? What if you caught your boyfriend cheating on you? What if you can't afford the dress you have eyed for three months, and somebody else bought it? What if today, you confessed to your crush and got rejected? Things like these are just minor losses or disappointments in your life compared to what other people in this world might have to suffer. So, stop feeding yourself and other people that nonsense that you want to commit suicide just because you broke up with your girlfriend/boyfriend, or because he did not message you for three days, or something equally ridiculous.

People who do that either have a serious mental problem, or they are pure attention-seekers. Anyhow, they are useless morons.

Instead of whining and complaining and getting on the nerves of people around you, do something more beneficial with your time. Or, if you are really desperate to have someone listen to your 'sad stories', write it in lyrics and put it in a song, like Simple Plan, Greenday and a whole load of artists out there. A word of warning though - if it's not meaningful enough, people won't want to listen.

Happy Valentine's Day~~

2010-02-16T05:36:00.001-08:00

What We Are Capable Of...

2010-02-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it's in the face of obstacles, duties and adversity that you can see people's different capabilities. And when these different capabilities are utilised to their maximum, the outcome is just brilliant.

Yes, I'm talking about the monthly assembly/Madam Satinah's farewell ceremony in IPG KBA, hosted by B.Ed TESL Foundation Year 2, Cohort 2, Cycle 3.

Now, I won't kid everyone that the 52 members of C2C3 can get along or work together seamlessly all the time, but at least we took on jobs that we specialise in, like alip and I and our music, the fluent speakers (Ajesz and Alicia) for the poetry, another three speakers (Aliaa, Banu and Jia Ni) as the emcees, computer expert (Khalid) for the slide shows and multimedia, the techies (Hazwan) for the lights and more~

The best thing was, all of us were only notified last Thursday that we had to combine our assembly with a farewell ceremony for Madam Satinah, who is going to leave IPG KBA for her new position at the Ministry of Education as the Private Education Director. Then, we had to change all our preconceived plans to suit the occasion. So, somehow I was given the task to handle part of the performance.

At first, they wanted me to be the accompaniment to the poetry recital, which I denied straight because I've already done it in my first semester. Furthermore, Ustaz Zaradi had already told me to dedicate a song specially to Madam Satinah on the violin, and since that sounds more fun, I went for the latter =p

Oh yea, and there were some rude words and gestures exchanged on Saturday, when the lecturers insisted on repeating the rehearsal over and over just because they want everything to be perfect, not thinking that that's kinda impossible as we only had two days until then.

But today, it was really touching to see such a big crowd in the hall, both lecturers and students (although there were quite a number who did not attend), and that served to add to my nervousness. Indeed, I was rarely nervous when performing in IPG KBA, partly because this is not a music college, and even if I play mediocre, people usually pat me on the back and congratulate me. Maybe it's because I had to combine with the choir and Alif, not doing a solo performance that added to my worries? Still, I'm not saying that having a group performance is not good - if executed well, it is very awesome (borrowed trademark from Khalid)

The most satisfying part of the whole thing (and no, I'm not a sadist) was when Madam Satinah actually dropped a few tears when we went into the first few lines of 'You Raise Me Up'. I wonder if it was Alif's deep, serious voice or my violin that moved her to tears though.

And when the song 'You Raise Me Up' ended, the star of the day actually stood up and applauded us. As a performer, I feel that that is already the greatest appreciation I've ever had, not just because of her actions, but also the expression on her face, and later after the ceremony, she came over to the emcee and musician side and did the cheek-to-cheek thing...what's it called again? And also she said that the music was just so beautiful, and she loved it so much.

If you guys wanna see what we've achieved in 4 days of preparation (at least for my section of the performance), take a look at this video =)

Of Taxi Drivers...

2010-02-01T02:12:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of a saying that 'you can learn anything from anyone'. I believe that there's a Chinese proverb which has a slightly similar meaning to it - 三人行必有我师 which if loosely translated, means that in a group of three people, you will surely learn something from one of them.

Back to the topic on taxi drivers - when I travel on the routes of Penang-KL-Penang during long weekends, I usually will take the taxi to the bus station near the old KTM station. Normally, the taxi drivers on Fridays do not talk much, they are too occupied with traffic jams and stuff to pay attention to anything else. However, the same cannot be said for the journey from the bus station back to IPBA. Somehow, the taxi drivers are more communicative and share a lot of what they know, or it might be simply because they like to talk.

Among the conversations I still keep in mind:

Sometime last year...
Taxi driver 1: Awak nak jadi cikgu ke? Mana boleh...awak pandai senyum macam tu, nanti murid-murid semua tak takut pada you...(Are you going to become a teacher? How can you become one...you smile too much - the students will not be afraid of you.)
Me: Aiya, tak apa ma...I keluar nanti ajar sekolah menengah, bukan sekolah rendah...(Aiya, it's okay. I will teach in a secondary school when I come out, not a primary school)
TD 1: Aa..bukan macam tu. Tengok, even anak saya kecil, tahun satu saja, da tahu buli cikgu. Lagi tua lagi teruk budak-budak zaman ini. Nanti you masuk sekolah, senyum senyum lagi, mesti kena buli mia...(Aa...it's not like that. See, even my standard one kid already knows how to bully a teacher *LOL* the older they get, the worse they are. If you go smiling in schools, you will surely be bullied by your students...
Me:...

Maybe I should tape my facial muscles in the future when I'm teaching in schools...just to keep from smiling? =x

Sometime last year too...
Me: Saya nak pergi Stadium Hoki UM. (I want to go to the UM Hockey Stadium *the landmark for IPBA's hostel location)
TD2: Mana you nak pergi? (Where do you want to go?)
Me: Stadium Hoki UM...
TD2: (Impatiently) Nak pergi UM ke maktab? (Do you want to go to UM or the teachers training institute?)
Me: (intimidated) Maktab... >_<>(Next time, just say that 'I want to go to the Lembah Pantai Teachers Training Institute)
Me: Tapi selalu I cakap macam tu, taxi driver tak tahu kat mana...(But everytime I say that, the taxi drivers do not know where to go)
TD2: Diorang saja kot, tak nak ambil, cakaplah tak tahu kat mana...
Me: Owh...ye ke?
TD2: You nak jadi cikgu kan? Kalau orang tak tahu, you tak bagi tahu, macam mana orang nak tahu kelak? Kalau you cakap terus, Maktab Perguruan Lembah Pantai ini dekat dengan UM...macam salesman nak promote produk, pun kena bagi tahu orang lain, kebaikan produk ini, kena buat advertise semua itu kan? (he started talking about promoting and advertising...though I can't really see the connection)
Me: *Nods*
TD2: Satu lagi. Jadi cikgu ini, tak boleh cakap bohong...nanti anak-anak murid semua ikut. Betul tak? (One more thing, if you are going to become a teacher, you cannot tell lies, if not your students might follow your example. Am I right?)
Me: *Nods again, speechless* (What did I do???)

The conversation continued in this vein for the rest of the journey. Turns out that he's just giving a lecture, feeling that it's his duty as a citizen to talk some sense into future teachers. According to him, one of his best friends is also a teacher, and that's where he learned all these lecturing stuff xD

Earlier this year, I met a Sikh taxi driver that tried to persuade me to go to church =.="

Just now, I met another Indian taxi driver, who says that he's a vegetarian, and has to take care of his thinking, words and actions as a result. He commented on other taxi drivers that will not hesitate to charge exorbitant fees to get you to your destination, just because the economy is not faring so well currently. According to him, they are too selfish, as everyone has their own financial problems, and forcing someone else to share your burden is just...o_O

Ah, and he says that the world will become a better place if everyone is a vegetarian - 'we are supposed to protect the animals, not kill them for food.' At this rate, the world will end in ten years...

What happened to 2012?

Badminton LOLness

2010-01-26T09:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I began to play badminton more actively this semester, usually starting around 5-6pm at the gym. There's always a lot of people there when I go, and they play doubles in court (I'm not sure what the term is, but they use the net and follow the rules and everything). Being a beginner, I just play at the sides, helping the players to warm-up by hitting the shuttle to and fro. (By the way, does my use of the word 'shuttle' instead of 'ball' indicate anything? :D)

One fine day, after I finished playing 'hit the shuttle', I sat down and watched a doubles match between Dr Lawrence (a lecturer in IPG KBA) paired with a staff member, and Akmal (one of my seniors) paired with another staff member. Theirs was an intense match, but Dr Lawrence and his partner won in the end. ==Sometimes I wonder how a man of his age can still play so fervently and enthusiastically.

Anyway, after that, I thought I was going to walk back to the hostel, and it was already quite dark. Suddenly, Dr Lawrence saw me sitting at the sides, and his passion for badminton got the better of him despite reason. (Well, just look at me and you will know --I can't play singles well, so keep doubles out of the question ._.) I hesitated for a moment, and Dr Law pushed again. "Well, come on. You just stay in front and return the shuttle when needed. I will take care of the back."

Sounds easy? Wait till you read on xD By the way, that was the first time in my life I played as a double in badminton ... *inserts wow herself here* ...

Apparently, there are many rules in badminton that I don't know about. First, if another person was serving to your partner, you should not hit the shuttle out of kindness or reflex action or something else. Instead, even if the shuttle lands an inch apart from your racket, you move away and let your partner smack the damn thing.

..I lost a few points because I couldn't resist hitting the lovely shuttle in place of Dr Law...

Next, there's this thing about right and left, even and odd that I still can't understand. Apparently, when the score is even, the right serves to right and vice versa. However, the right won't always be right and vice versa again. And I can't seem to get my brains to keep count of the score anyway, especially not when I'm playing in the court and focussing on not to hit the shuttle when it's not served to me, how to hit the shuttle when I'm supposed to hit it, how to make sure the shuttle doesn't land outside the lines...and a number of other things.

Dr Lawrence and I played two sets against the two staff members, and we won both. --Of course, it's because of Dr Law, not me xD

P.S: I played badminton again today, for a short while. It involved hitting the shuttle to and fro (again) with Akmal the senior, and guess what? My racket strings broke. LOL.

Musica is Up and Running!

2010-01-09T04:03:00.000-08:00

Last year, a few of us petitioned for the establishment of a music society in my college, IPG KBA, to gather all music lovers together in a society where knowledge, enthusiasm and ideas can be shared and put to good use.

Hence, MUSICA was born, initially with 16 committee members forming the backbone of this society. Then, registration was carried out on the 4th of November 2009, where we received 53 new members in only two hours. Currently, we have about 70 members in the society.

On the 7th of January 2010, a meeting with all the members was held, where we discussed the plans for this semester. Not wanting to make things too complicated, we settled on an opening concert for Musica first, tentatively planned in February, where all Musica members will take part, either in choir, band, solo/group singing and maybe dancing.

That's it - this is just a short update on Musica - the first ever music society in IPG KBA where everybody, regardless of their musical background and knowledge, can join~

If I Die Before I Wake

2010-01-05T05:20:00.000-08:00

If I Die Before I Wake...The first time I came across this phrase was when I read a book of the same title by Francine Pascal. Sounds familiar? Yes, it's the author of the teenage book series Sweet Valley, which revolves mainly about the Wakefield twins Jessica and Elizabeth. Putting that aside, there are also songs and a movie with the same concept as this phrase. The second time I saw this phrase was in another book by Sidney Sheldon - "The Other Side of Midnight", where an ambitious French actress, who is the mistress to a Greek tycoon, and his hired pilot, who was the French actress' ex-lover, plotted to kill the pilot's wife so that they could be together. In the end, they were executed, for the Greek tycoon saw through their treachery and unfaithfulness, and employed a genius lawyer to ultimately lead them to their demise in court.

Now, for some background knowledge...

This phrase originated from a classic children's prayer from the 18th century (source: Wikipedia), and the whole thing sounds roughly like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
Should I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Being a non-believer, I'm not really sure where my soul would go after I die. And, being the 'scientific, logical' person I am, I think all bodies just decompose and become nutrients to the ground when people die, or turn into ashes when cremated, and nothing will be left.

Probably, some of you would be already wondering why a self-proclaimed free-thinker would be blogging about a classic prayer...I assure you, this post has nothing to do with religion or faith.

Now, to get to the point. I used to have a voice in my head that told me: I would die at the age of 18 - actual date unknown, causes untold. According to that voice, I would die at 18 because I made some sort of bargain with the devil, and I have no idea what that would be. In short, I have six months left before I find out whether I'm a prophet or I'm actually schizophrenic instead.

So, I'm trying my best to live out these six months and see what happens. If I survive, great - I can continue weaving the tale of my life. If I don't, well...I would say that there were no big regrets in my life, and I love each and every one of you who had crossed paths with me at some point in my life~

=D

1st day of school...

2010-01-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

How to put it? I've lost most of my enthusiasm in any activities concerning the college, be it classes, extra curricular activities, unfinished tasks from 2009 and so on. For example, I slept a whole lot of time last night, but I still managed to be half-asleep during LDV and slept the most of the one-hour free slot away before recess time. Social Studies was much better - after filling my stomach, I became slightly more energetic, and the topics were new and fresh and interesting.

The only bright side to this was meeting all of my old friends and chatting, gossiping and more with them again *ahem*

*still seriously lacking motivation for anything but to sleep*

Saying Goodbye to 2009...

2009-12-31T02:13:00.001-08:00

31st December 2009 doesn't mean much to me, except for the fact that it signifies the end of my glorious, relaxing, lovely holidays. And the fact that we are stepping into a new year, 2010. This number surely has a nice ring to it, ne? 2-0-1-0....two thousand and ten...twenty ten...two-oh-one-oh. Depends on what you want to call it~

In fact, 2010 might seem even better if I'm not constantly associating it with the movie which stipulates that a big percentage of the world population will be wiped out due to a series of natural disasters. Yes, I'm talking about 2012. Well, I wouldn't worry too much about dying if not for the fact that I would (if everything goes smoothly) be in Canterbury at that time, away from my family and friends. Still, anything might happen, so I would just prefer to live my life to the fullest, have fun and contribute whatever I can in the meantime. Just for the record, I don't really think that the world, or a big part of it, will end in 2012.

As for what I have done during these few weeks of holidays, I could add everything up and still hold it in my two palms -- which amounts to not much *snorts* I remember making some resolutions on what I plan to do, and except for resting, relaxing and hanging out with my friends and family, I did not seem to achieve the other aims.

I'm going back to KL on the 2nd of January. Despite having missed IPBA when the holidays first started, my mood now is...screw classes - holidays are so much better. Seriously.

Current status:

A Lesson I Have Yet to Learn...

2009-11-29T22:28:00.000-08:00

I'm not an aggressive person. Most of the time. What I mean is, I don't strike out and hurt people deliberately in most circumstances, preferring to avoid conflict and confrontations.

I thought that was good enough, until my father told me otherwise. In brief, I had an argument with my sister last Saturday, which involved some pretty harsh name-calling and words. When I went back to Penang on Sunday, he did not reprimand me straight, but asked me why I acted that way. When I told him that my sister started it with a rude message, he agreed that my sister was at fault.

Sounds okay? Wait..

Then, he said I was also at fault, although I wasn't the one who started the argument, because I replied in an equally rude manner. According to him, I should have just kept my cool and be forgiving.

The point here is, I'm the type of person who will pay someone back 100 times if and when I'm offended. For example, take Babi and I. I dislike anything and everything related to him, and I often talk bad about him in front of others - name calling, insulting, and so on until everyone now knows him as Babi. It might be cruel, but I feel that I'm just taking revenge on everything he did since Reaching for the Stars until now.

To put it simply, I can't help retaliating when someone does something bad to me, and I don't care about the consequences, focusing on how to hurt the offender as much as possible. The above is just one example out of many. Maybe my father is right, and I would be a better person if I do not hurt others like they have hurt me.

Anyhow, there's a Chinese proverb that says, do not upon others something you wouldn't want people to do to you. If I don't like what that person has done to me, I probably should not do the same thing back to that person.

However, to achieve this, I would certainly need a lot of patience, kindness and develop the ability to forgive - that's a long way to go, and I'm not sure whether I should go that way. In the meantime, Babi is still Babi, and I still hate him and his moronic attitude.

*evil smirk*

Holidays~~~

2009-11-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

Yeay~ At the time of writing this post, our holidays have officially begun =D

Now, five weeks doesn't seem like long, but it does make you feel like it's eternity when you are home. One thing for sure, my father is going to cook lots and lots of delicious food for me when I get home on Sunday, and there's a possibility, no, make that a high one, that I will become rounder when I get back from the holidays.

Oh, and as I've warned Uncle Aqmal, Daddy Alip and Daddy Syafiq just now, I might forget how to converse in BM and English for the first few days after classes start once more, just because at home, I'm exposed to a fully Chinese environment except for the movies I watch and books I read ^_^

Some of the 'homework' I need to work on during the holidays (in case I forget):
- The Voice of IPBA magazine...layout and some articles
- Use more of my dear tablet and produce more graphic works
- Finish watching at least two animes from my huge pile of to-watch...especially Fruits Basket and Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna
- Buy the Nokia 5730 ExpressMusic model I have been aiming for a long time
- Buy a new external hard drive
- Read some books...educational ones and novels
- ......

Hmm...I guess that's all for now~

Embrace our Differences? Or Forget Them?

2009-11-16T06:28:00.000-08:00

Living in Malaysia, a multiracial community with a diverse culture, I have always seen propaganda that encourages us to forget our differences. Until now, I have accepted those advertisements, books and advice as something to follow in order to achieve harmony, tolerance and peace among our community. For example, prior and after the Independence Day celebration, there would be advertisements by several governmental and non-governmental organisations that promote us to be 'colour blind' and forget that differences exist between various races such as Malay, Chinese, Indians, Punjabi, and many more aboriginal races in Malaysia.

I've always thought that the concept they were propagating - "Forget our Differences" is a good way to narrow the gaps between the different races in Malaysia, for if we were really 'colour blind', we won't see a person as a Chinese, Malay or Indian, but we would see each other as Malaysians.

Until I came across this site ---

http://www.embracingourdifferences.org/

Come to think of it, the idea of embracing our differences makes more sense than to forget our differences. For me, to embrace means to accept our differences as something unavoidable, but we do not just tolerate the differences, we EMBRACE it and we perceive it as normal, that no two humans are identical, and realise the fact that we are not the only race, only group of humans or only type of people to live on this earth, but there are millions and millions of others who share some characteristics and differ from us in certain ways. And this, to me, is a miracle bestowed by nature, for all of us mankind are categorised as humans, as homo sapiens. Still, like how cats, dogs, hamsters, rabbits and more have different breeds, how computers and mobile phones have different models, how a delicious serving of curry can have such diverse flavours that stimulate our taste buds to the maximum, this is how we HUMANS have different types - many cultures, races, colours, lifestyles, habits, nationalities and so on.

I do care if you are black, white, yellow, red or even gray for that matter. I do look at you as Malays, Chinese and Indians. I do know that as people of different races, there are things which one can or cannot do.

What I don't do is deliberately manipulate the factors above to my own benefit. I don't use it as a weapon to hurt, to attack others. I don't highlight the differences as something bad, something people must avoid from mentioning because they are something sensitive.

And what I do, is to acknowledge that every one of us are special in our own ways, and as individuals, we should not forget that everyone is different from one another. And when I want to highlight the differences between people, I try to appreciate and show the diversity that exists as a part of our history and tradition, that makes us humans, and not robots who are identical to each other.

Let's say we literally follow the "Colour blind" concept a.k.a "Forget our differences" concept. What would happen is, we will be less considerate to the differences that exist between us, and when we are colour blind, we might become more shallow, seeing people as what we want them to be, instead of what they really are. We might forget that certain people cannot do what we do every day, certain people can't eat what we eat, certain people can't say things we say. And when we start to forget, we might cease to respect the differences that we have from each other. And when we stop respecting, conflicts and arguments occur, and this means the beginning of a breakdown of the peace we have fought so hard to maintain.

Maybe this concept is usable to a certain extent - if and only if the nation has only one kind of citizens with different colours, for the only difference that exist is only colours and nothing else.

BUT, in the Malaysian context, where there are so many differences between the citizens, not just race, but also background, status, culture, religion and more, forgetting our differences seems less applicable when compared to embracing our differences.

To my fellow Malaysians - a fine example of the 'forget our differences' propaganda would be in any of our assignments or essays or other works, where a sentence close to 'do not touch on sensitive issues such as race, religion or governmental policies' will be stated at the end of the instructions. Before anything, let me explain an analogy - remember a joke about ostriches? When they see a threat or something they do not like, they bury their heads into the sand and think that everything's fine. This is exactly what we are doing now - not allowing people to address the differences, instead demanding that people keep quiet. Let me put forward another analogy - if an alarm rings, and you cover your ears with a headphones and pretend that you hear nothing, you might forget that the people around you can still hear the bell. Read between the lines --- ISA for instance.

What I'm trying to say is, even though you try to put a barrier between the differences and the people, hoping for the 'best' that people won't notice them, people have eyes, ears and most importantly, they have a brain. Sooner or later, they will see, hear and think, and they will realise that we are different after all. So, instead of trying to make us become 'colour blind', why not be 'colour conscious', but in a positive way where you embrace, accept and acknowledge the differences as something that makes us human, makes our culture rich and diverse and gives us our priceless identities.

Just for additional information: the 'embracing our differences' was established in Florida. Compared to the United States, a massive melting pot containing people from all around the world, Malaysia has way less diversity. Still, in a huge country like USA, most of them managed to overcome their differences and work their way to the success of the country. And personally, I think they have got it right, better than what we have done until now. Let's look at the 'One Malaysia' concept - again, it seems to lean more towards forgetting than embracing. I'm not saying that it's wholly unusable, but in a long term plan, maybe we should go for 'Malaysians - Our Diversity is Our Unity' and start to appreciate what we have instead of trying to stereotype Malaysians into just Malaysians.

Perhaps it's time to change our perception of differences in colours and such, for they are important in defining our identities as different people around the world. Instead, we should work on acknowledging it in a way that does not hurt or discriminate people, but portray the uniqueness of each and every one of us.

Finally, just to share a meaningful quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world"

So, my friends, if you agree with me, start by changing yourselves =D

Calling

2009-11-01T08:03:00.000-08:00

Abruptly, my body tensed, and my knuckles gripped the book I was reading so tightly that they turned white. It was as though time froze for a few seconds, which in turn seemed like eternity. Not even daring to breathe in case everything turned out to be a dream, I closed my eyes and listened again for the telltale sound which would mean that you have come, to me.

The hair on my neck prickled, I shivered despite my thick, woolen clothes and sat in my chair as still and straight as a rod. Every fiber in my being comes on full alert when you silently appeared behind me. Even without turning back, I could sense your presence immediately, for the atmosphere in the room took a dangerous, enticing air when you are around.

Slowly and deliberately, I put down my book, stood up and met your gaze. Without saying anything, I could understand you fully through looking into your dark, beautiful eyes. The depth of the swirling, raging emotions I saw there almost made my legs buckle underneath me, not because I fear them, but because I felt my own emotions rising to mirror yours.

There you stood, strong and tall as a warrior, clad in a long, black cloak which nevertheless could not shadow the burning want and desire etched clearly on your handsome face. The unspoken messages in your eyes made me shiver in anticipation and uncertainty despite myself.

I raised my hand timidly to touch your face, but being afraid of spoiling the moment, dropped my hand before it was halfway there. I wanted nothing else but to bury myself in your arms and pour out all my feelings for you after being separated from you for so long, but your unerring gaze made my stay where I was.

Time stood still, with neither of us moving an inch. I searched your face for answers, but got none other than the knowledge that you have suffered much physical hardship, while I suffered equal torment waiting for you. A longing stirred in me, and I took a step closer to you.

With a blink, I found myself in your embrace, my face buried in the warmth of your shoulders like how I wanted. At that moment, I knew that I wouldn't care nor mind, if the end of the earth arrived, or if time stopped forever. The sensation of having you close to me, near enough to touch and feel is more than enough.

The music from the clock that signified the arrival of dawn startled both of us. I wanted to scream, cry and die at the same time when I realised what was happening. Until now, I could still feel your gentle hand on my face, wiping away my tears.

"I'm yours, forever and always," were the last words I heard before you disappeared once again.

~*~*~

I sat in my living room, reading a book as always, though it was a different book than the one I read when I last met you. I'm gradually adjusting towards my life without you, but the pain of losing you never stopped gnawing at my heart. Every familiar object, scenery, smell or sight that reminds me of you makes my heart ache like it's going to break into a million pieces. I still remember the warmth of your lips upon mine, the firmness yet gentleness of your touch, and most of all, your dark, enchanting eyes that tell a thousand and one different stories.

The glass of water on the reading table seemed innocent enough, clear as crystal, never betraying the deadly poison it carries. Suddenly, a strong, freezing gust of wind blew into the room, knocking over the candlestick on the table, which in turn pushed the glass over the table, shattering it like how my heart was shattered. I paid no attention to the glass, nor the bleeding cuts on my hands from it, for there you were, in the doorway, looking just like how I remembered you.

"It's not time yet...don't give up so easily on life," you, or rather your apparition said, with a look so sorrowful that it tore at my battered soul. In an instant, the wind stopped, and you disappeared once again.

Then, I broke down and wept. Wept for all that was, and all that might be, if only you were here with me...

Genting Highlands One-Day Trip (19/10/09)

2009-10-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

The title pretty much says it all~ :D

This is a fairly late update, considering the date we went. I guess the main reason for the lateness is none other than assignments - we had to pass up Language Description and Numerical Literacy, all before Thursday. And as usual, I left everything until the last minute to complete~

Our trip:
Kerinchi - Gombak (Bus Station) - Genting - Gombak - Kerinchi - Hostel Sweet Hostel

And the 8 of us who went were Harris, Eizhar, Azham, Azam, Izyani, Mira, Shy and I

On our way to Kerinchi, we ran into the MTCP students, who coincidentally were going to Genting on the same day. They went on an earlier bus, but we met some of them and chatted for a short while ^^

Anyway, this could be said as the Genting trip I had most fun in throughout my whole life.
The reasons:

1) Firstly, this was the first time I went on such a vacation with my friends instead of my family.
2) 'Peer pressure' convinced me to go on the rides I normally wouldn't ride, such as Space Shot, Corkscrew and Sungai Rejang (Actually I have wanted to ride these every time, but it was either too long a queue or last-minute chicken out)
3) It was a Monday, so the crowd was not so big - makes queues shorter.
4) The fun fair

yukina is very sleepy right now...will update later...huhu

The Things We Do...

2009-10-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

On the 14th of October, 2009, 9pm, the 'CREW band' (Alif, Hengget and I + Shahril & Rahman) performed at the block 4's Pak Ngah Cafe. Our main repertoire (only practised on the previous night) consisted of 'When You Say Nothing at All' by Ronan Keating, '21 Guns' by Greenday and 'Belaian Jiwa'.

Also, thanks to Alif for his laptop, Khalid for his woofers, uncle Ijat for his microphone and Pak Ngah for lending us the place and electric :D

Anyway, some of you must be wondering, why put up a show at such a place? I mean, there's no stage, no proper sound system and stuff like that. Still, it's a good way to expose our friends to music in a relaxed environment - when they are eating, they can watch us playing and enjoy music at the same time. It's part of the Music Society's objective to spread the love and enthusiasm for music without considering the students' courses, background and musical knowledge.

And some of you might wonder, why put up this show in the first place? Answer: IPG-KBA's Music Society is trying to raise some funds so that we can afford to buy musical instruments for our members to play. For your information, although there is a music room in college equipped with all the instruments we need, the moronic music lecturer will not allow non Music Education students to touch his precious instruments he considers his 'wives' - not surprising really, considering that no woman wants him >_<

This is just plain stupid, isn't it? Have you ever heard of students having to buy their own drums when there is not only one, but TWO drum sets in the college?

If you say, those who are non-Music Education students cannot use the instruments, open your eyes, look at the pervert music lecturer and see how he 'diligently' trains ONLY FEMALE students, not from Music Ed, to play the caklempong.

If you say, non Music Education students might spoil the instruments because they don't know how to use it - puhleeeeez...I think most of us have been playing those instruments far longer than the Music Ed students had, and some of us are more adept than them too.

Still, the lecturer managed to find a way to block us out of the music room, and unless we want to get physical with him (and risk getting thrown out of college at the same time), we have to find other ways to get what we want. Next week is the M3P meeting, where Tn Haji Kamar and Mr Baseni have promised to bring up the matter of getting the instruments for our music society. Also, I heard from the lecturers that Dr Sofi, the director has actually agreed to let us use some of the instruments, but Madam Satinah was the one who refused to grant us permission. Quite a surprise, I must say :o

If everything fails, we still have fundraising concerts, grand ones and mini ones to look forward to ^_^

The things we do just for the sake of music society, to allow all students to play the musical instruments if they are passionate about it, regardless of whether they are from Music Ed or not, their gender and their relationship with the stupid lecturer. Although the instruments might be really costly, we will persevere and try our utmost best to raise enough money to get what we want, though it would be best if the outcome of the meeting next week is positive =)

Owh yea, if you wanna request or dedicate any songs during our next performance, tentatively scheduled on the Wednesday after next, just tell either Alif, Paan Hengget or I. Each song only costs RM1, and it's meaningful to help the music society and enjoy yourselves at the same time, isn't it? :D

Does this remind you of something?

2009-10-03T02:47:00.000-07:00

I can't say this for everyone, but some of the people (note the word 'SOME') I've met in my life do behave like that when something goes wrong. And no, I'm not referring to the teachers-students-parents relationship alone. The main point is, when something goes wrong, those people point their fingers at someone else first before considering who is actually at fault.

What is so difficult with being humble and admitting your flaws and the mistakes you have done? Even though it might seem humiliating, people will actually respect and admire you for having the courage to own up to something wrong you did. I for one, really like lecturers who can step down and say that they do not know the answer to a question instead of twisting and turning their words, speaking a lot of nonsense and end up wasting everyone's time instead of trying to answer our question. <--this is in the context of the lectures I've had in IPG-KBA...but I won't name the lecturers. If you are lucky, maybe you will meet the good ones, not the ones who act angry and defensive when the students point out their mistakes.

~*~*~

Yesterday, the MAEPA closing ceremony was held in IPG-KBA's auditorium. Being part of MPP, my duty yesterday along with Uncle Ijat was to stay outside the holding room and cater to our VVIP's needs, if any.

One thing I really don't understand, and I'm not sure whether it only happens in Malaysia or everywhere else in the world, is the pains we take to welcome 'VIPs and VVIPs'. Sure, they might have statuses like Prime Ministers, Presidents, Directors, Ambassadors and more, but still, they are humans, same like all of us - a pair of eyes, ears, hands and legs, and a nose and mouth. The only difference is the additional titles in front of their names - Tun, Dr., Your Excellency......

So, why order a big bunch of students to stand outside the entrance and look pretty, another bunch to be the ushers in the hall, all the lecturers to sit in the hall (and there goes our lectures)...and the list goes on and on (read between the lines: do idiotic work)? Not only it's wasting our time, people will think that people in IPG-KBA are a group of sucker-ups.

Which indeed, some people, though not to be named, are.

Would it be better if we don't know how to love?

2009-09-19T06:24:00.000-07:00

Its has been a long time since I updated my blog again...indeed, I would have forgotten totally about it if HizRyanz did not ask me something along the lines of 'what happened to your blog?' :p

After the Merdeka holidays in August, I was once again loaded with many assignments and miscellaneous stuff to do - the Merchant of Venice play, MPP, and I'm still fighting for the access to the music room or at least, the instruments for my Music Society.

Come to think of it, I am making a great effort for everything mentioned above. And why is that? Is it because I'm gifted with the capacity to love the things I love, and to be willing to sacrifice my time and energy, and sometimes emotions and feelings for the things I care about?

With the capacity for loving, there always exists the possibility to get hurt.

Take the MPP for an example. I respect Mr Tahir, the head of the Students Affair department. So, although I resigned from the previous batch, I finally agreed to take on the job once again as the Cultural and Arts Exco (Kebudayaan dan Kesenian), knowing that I will be loaded with a lot of work, and have to handle a lot of things. Besides, nowadays the tasks seem to come at the eleventh hour, like Malam Tautan Budaya for instance (just 5 days to prepare for a whole night's show), and now I'm supposed to handle a celebration combining Lantern Festival, Aidilfitri and also Deepavali - an evening similar to Malam Tautan Budaya.

Although the Malam Tautan Budaya was a great success, I still feel sad, especially when I encountered so many unexpected situations during the preparation for the show, like lecturers refusing to cooperate, conflicts within the committee, conflict from other people and also the usual people who like to grab credit for things they did not do, and those who love to complain about the amount of work they get, even though we are all burdened with the same responsibilities and commitments. Sometimes I just feel like saying, "Shut the fuck up already~!"

I considered resigning from MPP for the second time, but I can't quite bring myself to do it. Firstly, I owe Mr Tahir for trusting me enough to 'force' me on the position. Next, I have the responsibility towards my assistant, secretary and the committee members under me who are all so enthusiastic and ready to cooperate and support me in the events I handle. Also, I promised with Uncle Aqmal, the Sports exco to organise a Carnival Day before we finish our MPP term.

Besides, there are some people in the MPP team that I really enjoy being with - they are sporting, fun and easy to work with. Resigning might mean that I lose the chance to organise events and handle things together with them ^_^

Next is the Music Society. Goodness knows how long I've made an effort to get the society approved, and now we face the problem of the instruments. If the college expects us to perform during any functions, it should at least supply us with a place and instruments to practise. If we can't get at least this, next time the authorities ask for any instrumental or choir performances,

Go to the Babi Mangkok Haram Jadah music lecturer in the Administration Block and ask for his Music Students (who, according to him, are ready to perform any time they like)

If I'm the only one who wishes to use the music room and instruments, I'd have probably given up by now. Still, the music society represents the majority of IPG-KBA's students who are interested in music although they do not take music as a major or minor subject. The drummers, guitarists, keyboardists from various courses all wish that they can play the instruments during their leisure time - it's not like we have the mind to damage or steal the instruments, idiot.

We share the same passion for music, that is why I can't afford to give up and disappoint the people who are hoping for the chance to use the instruments someday. - This is love, too - and this is why I'm going to keep on pressing for at least the instruments, even if it means going to war with the moronic lecturer :x

If I don't love the people and things around me, I won't feel the pain of losing them. I won't even care about them so much as to fight for them, because I simply do not know how to love and cherish the things I should...

So, what choice should I make? Seal my heart close and avoid getting hurt, or to open my heart and learn to love, and risk getting hurt?

*****

Anyway, to a happier note: this is the melody to the waltz I composed for my cohort's Shakespearean play "The Merchant of Venice". I gave it the title 'Celebrazione di Matrimonio', which means Wedding Celebration, apt for the scene as it is played after Bassanio managed to win Portia's hand in marriage.

I've uploaded this in youtube and Facebook. So, just to do a little advertising to those who actually read my blog posts xD

Battle of the Sexes

2009-08-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

WHY MOUNTAIN BIKES ARE BETTER THAN MEN
-30 good reasons-

1. Mountain bikes don't screw around. Yup...that's an important trait xD
2. Mountain bikes don't care if it's that time of the month. And to talk about hygiene...
3. Mountain bikes don't have parents. Well, that's reassuring - no need to worry about fussy mothers-in-laws
4. Mountain bikes don't whine unless something is really wrong. Ah...spare my ears :p
5. Mountain bikes don't care about professional sports. Such as football, basketball, and the list goes on...
6. You can share your mountain bike with your friends. Because sharing is caring~
7. Mountain bikes don't care how many other mountain bikes you've ridden. Can't imagine sticking to a single mountain bike for the rest of your life, eh?
8. When riding, you and your mountain bike can arrive at the same
time. The key phrase - 'arrive at the same time' ROFL~
9. Mountain bikes don't care if other mountain bikes look at
you. Yup, that's another nice fact...
10. Mountain bikes don't care if you look at other mountain
bikes. Jealousy is a pain in the a**m whether it's directed FROM you or AT you ^_^"
11. If your mountain bike goes flat you can fix it.
12. If your mountain bike is too short you can heighten it. Yup, especially for people who are taller (like me *ahem*)
13. If your mountain bike is misaligned, you don't have
to discuss politics with it. Err =.=
14. You can have a black & white mountain bike and bring it home
to your parents. Yea...how do I wish that can happen one day ^_^
15. You don't have to be jealous of other women who covet your
mountain bike. Eh?? But I might be :o
16. If you say bad things to your mountain bike, you don't
have to apologize before you ride it again. Haha~~
17. Your mountain bike won't start going until you're ready. Means that I don't need to run to catch up with it :D
18. You can ride your mountain bike as long as you want
and it won't get exhausted. Anytime, anywhere, anyhow? Tahan lasak Ooo
19. Your mountain bike won't fall asleep after you ride it. Yea...save for future use O_O
20. Your parents won't remain in touch with your old
mountain bike after you dump it. Just throw the old mountain bike away lol
21. There is no limit to how long a mountain bike can keep going. As long as I want it to move :D
22. Mountain bikes don't mistrust you if you're an
experienced rider. huh?
23. Your mountain bike never wants a night out with the
other mountain bikes. Just stay at home ma
24. Mountain bikes don't care what you wear.
25. Mountain bikes don't feel their bikehood is threatened if you
insist on driving. To talk about ego...
26. If your mountain bike doesn't look good you can paint it
or get better parts. Yup, self-editing~
27. You can ride your mountain bike the first time you meet it, without
worrying about whether it will call you back the next day. Hurm...
28. You don't have to cover your mountain bike with rubber
when you ride it. Well, this IS something to consider~
29. You don't have to worry about where your mountain bike has
been before you met it. No worries about AIDS or other STDs...lol ;p
30. When in mixed company, you can talk about what a great ride you had the last time you were on your mountain bike. ~Talk openly and freely~

So, in conclusion, a mountain bike proves to be better than a man :p Of course, this is all a joke~

*Feel free to comment, rebuke or agree on the points above too*

Disillusioned

2009-08-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

Disillusioned

*courtesy of image from http://www.atpm.com/13.10/tim-allen/images/Steps%20of%20Despair.jpg
Please notify if you are the owner of this image and would like it to be removed*

When I was young, I thought that everything is perfect,
I keep on smiling, laughing, dreaming…
I trusted everyone, I looked at the world through rose-tinted glasses.
I grew up protected, simple, naïve…

Then I see, promises are broken, smiles are fake, truths are lies,
That polluted integrity, corrupted purity, tainted morality run untamed,
Filling the voids left by the destruction of humanity,
People stop caring, Faith is lost, we no longer believe in each other…

The rose glass shatters into pieces, I see them for who they really are,
The embodiment of sin, vice and evil hiding beneath human masks,
Launching war, killing innocents, spreading propaganda,
Undermining the power of nature and earth…

Dare we still expect kindness, compassion and understanding?
Can we keep on hoping that our children will know the meaning of love?

Still, as long as there is life,
There will be hope, a chance to restore faith and love,
Find the passion to keep on living,
Embark on a journey to search for the true values of humanity.

~*~*~

Heh...don't worry, I'm not turning emotional here ^_^ This is just a set of lyrics, or something like that, that I'm planning to compose a song to for my future band in Canterbury. So, any feedback, criticism or comment would be greatly appreciated. Go Cocuphy!

~MKI 2009~ from the eyes of a free thinker =)

2009-08-07T23:03:00.000-07:00

Last week, MKI was held in IPGM-KBA. For those who don't know it, MKI = Minggu Kesenian Islam (roughly translated into Islamic Culture/Arts Week). Among the activities held were Jejak Kembara (Treasure Hunt), Female and Male Naysid Competition (where Moslems sing songs dedicated to their God), all kinds of other competitions related to the religion and its interpretation, as well as the highlight of the week, a concert by the No.1 naysid group in Malaysia - Rabbani.

Among the activities I went to were the Treasure Hunt (I just helped Alif to take care of his station at the surau), the naysid competition for guys, and the Rabbani concert. Now, to share my thoughts on these activities:

Treasure Hunt: The race was supposed to start at 5.15 pm...but we kept waiting until around 5.40 before the whistle was blown. It was quite funny to watch the participants running around and doing the tasks assigned to them though. Some even mixed up the clues and ran to the wrong station..Pity them xD

~*~*~

Male Nasyid Competition: Honestly, I enjoyed it very much - the participants exhibited their talents that I wasn't aware of :D Out of the six groups participating, I was impressed by three groups in particular - the 2nd group (PISMP Cohort 3 - Faruq, Pejal as the leads, and 8 more as the backup), the 5th group (Uncle Ijat, Uncle Aqmal and some others from the same batch) and the last group (Eizhar, Azrul and 4 more juniors).

PISMP Cohort 3: The lead singers: Faruq (left) and Pejal (right)...backup from left: fazril, hengget, rahman, acap, awie, akmal, uzair, khifzan

My comments on the PISMP C3 group: the 1st song was quite boring - firstly, it had no background music to backup their voices, the song was too long and repetitive and they all sang in unison throughout the song. Besides, the lead actually forgot his lyrics halfway in the song. However, I was captivated by the 2nd song, which had a minus one. The arrangement was great - the blending of the lead and backup singers was done well, and Pejal's voice was earnest enough to portray the emotion of the song. Besides, the melody was good too, and Faruq has a nice voice to suit the song. The 4 on the left (from the audience's point of view) seems to be more confident, and hence did a better job as backup singers in my opinion =^-^= I don't know what went wrong in the judging process, as this group didn't manage to get into the top 3 =/

From left: Aqmal, Badi, Ijat, (idunnohisname), Acap and Eahsan

My 'uncles' group: They rock the whole show! Seriously! I had no idea that uncle Ijat has such a lovely voice - so do the other 5 in the group~ I couldn't tear my eyes off the stage for even one second - I was concentrating so hard on their performance, unwilling to miss a single detail of their show. Somewhere in the middle, there was a spoken message by Aqmal (I forgot the content), but it sure added a nice touch to their performance :D They deserved to be the champions, simply because all 6 of them are just that awesome~

Juniors (July 2009 intake): Leads - Eizhar (left) and Azrul (right)..I don't know the rest :D

The juniors' group: The two lead singers (Eizhar and Azrul) are really good - in fact, I consider them one of the best vocals in this competition. However, as a team, they are not really that outstanding, because the four backup at the back do not really contribute to the show - the limelight is on the two leads, and the two leads only ^_^" (i.e. I only heard the melody mostly from the two in front). They came in second...I think :p

~*~*~
As for the Rabbani concert, I attended it together with my room mate, Samantha :D We enjoyed the songs, especially the 3rd one "Inti Fana". Still, I expected something more interesting from the concert -- I was probably disappointed because the concert was interweaved with some kind of preaching from our own Ustaz Asri, talking about being a teacher, being a filial child and something else >_< Sorry to say this, but it really interrupted my enjoyment of the show :( As for Rabbani, their voices are really good, but I think they should use some live percussion together with their performance instead of just depending on the minus one of their songs ^_^

~*~*~

Some of you might ask, why do I attend these events even though I'm not a Muslim and not aiming to become one? The answer is pretty simple - I'm a free thinker (i.e. I don't have any religion, though I don't thoroughly deny the existence of God), and hence, I don't have any limitations imposed on me from my own religion. In case you are wondering, I'm listed as a Buddhist whenever I have to fill in forms ^^

Besides, these events are not limited to Muslims alone, and I just feel like supporting my friends who either organised or took part in these events, like the Treasure Hunt and male nasyid competition. So, I don't care what people might say :D

Third, I attend the nasyid and Rabbani concert, because I strongly and sincerely believe that music is universal and has no boundaries, and indeed, I picked up some new ideas for my own music playing after hearing those songs ^_^

~*~*~

And if you ask, where did I get these photos? The answer is: I'm the sub-editor for Voice of IPBA...I'm supposed to choose the photos to be included in the magazine, and my trustworthy cameraman, Daud, was the one who gave me these photos =p

Until then, see ya all~

All-in-one messiness :D

2009-08-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

Just thought that I would update my blog a little, since my last post was about one month ago ;_; To put it simply, I have less time for myself nowadays, as most of my days are packed full with stuff to do.

The most recent 'idiotic' task I took up was to agree to become the sub-editor of the Voice of IPBA...since Madam Ooi asked me so nicely, I found it hard to reject her ^_^" The Chief Editor, Angeline is a KPLI trainee, and she's currently doing her practicum, so I'm the one in charge...for now~ It's hard work assembling the editorial board, simply because people keep saying 'no', or some who list their names might pull out at the last minute. To talk about busyness, everyone has their own commitments and stuff, so it's not really an excuse to give :o

To lay the pavement for my proposal for Music Society, I went to Mr Mano with the idea of having a Music Corner - something similar to Speaker's Corner, but with music being the main focus instead. The kind fellow agreed to lend us this platform, so 4 of us from B.Ed TESL Cohort 2, Cycle 3, namely Alif, Syafiq, Daniel and I (the former three after much persuasion) became the pioneers for this event.

~The Colourful Black Parade~

Ahem...history was made on the 6th of August, 2009 in IPGM-KBA as the first ever Music Corner was held. We didn't do much promotion, so only those who were in the canteen had the good fortune to witness our performance :D Our classmates were really supportive - they even came up with a simple banner with our names on it, and all of them sat in the 'front rows' (if you can call canteen tables that)...I love you guys, really!

If nothing goes wrong, the Music Corner will be held again next Thursday, same venue, at 11.oo am. I've already found some juniors who can and are willing to sing, so be prepared for some entertainment along with your breakfast or brunch :D

The next project I have is Malam Kebudayaan, or else known as cultural night. I have a group of committee members dedicated to this project, but currently we are discussing whether to merge with the other two excos (Sukan and Kerjaya) and hold a bigger event similar to a Carnival Day instead :p Now, we already thought up a script, just to make it funnier so that the audience will not fall asleep ^^

Oh, and the Music Society is still on the way. Seems like the KJ for Social Science, Tn Haji Kamar has agreed to give his full support to my proposal, because the lecturers under him asked me to meet him next Monday with the working paper and explain it to him. Hopefully, next week will also be the M3P meeting so that this society can be approved as soon as possible. Weirdly, things like this take a long time to approve, probably because of Dr Sofi's motto of 'wait until the meeting to discuss this' >_<

~*~*~*~*~

Seems like the H1N1 flu is getting worse and worse. More people are dying because of the flu, and even more people are quarantined. In IPGM-KBA, there are no positive cases yet, but we have to wait until tomorrow to be sure :o Although I'm not a person of religion, let's pray together that a vaccine or cure for this disease can be found as soon as possible.

And just to share my thoughts with you - even if you are a senior, there's nothing wrong with smiling and greeting your juniors~ I do that all the time, and people give positive responses. However, I met one senior that has her head high up in the air every time she passes by - I wonder if she's think that she's too high-and-mighty, too beautiful (like, huh?), or simply just above the levels of us common people. I've heard her calling herself 'Diva' before, but frankly, the makcik who sapu sampah at tower block is better than her - at least she has the courtesy to return a smile and greeting. I even smile and nod at the Afghanistans who are on a course in my college, and despite the language barrier, they do respond.

To conclude, smiling is the fastest way to communicate effectively and positively. So, smile!

Of all the last minute work I can do...

2009-07-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

I didn't think that it was entirely impossible, but it seemed so last night.

IPGM-KBA's director, Dr Sofi's birthday falls on the 15th of July. I remembered celebrating it with the rest of my batch last year during our orientation week, so as one of the Student Council members, I thought I might do it again. That was 4 days ago.

Then, it turned out that on the 15th of July, Dr Sofi was away at a meeting, and I thought my plans had to be cancelled. After referring to my 'boss' Madjack, he advised me to carry my plans out during the closing ceremony of the July 2009 intake, whose orientation week just finished :) That was 2 days ago.

Yesterday, I met up with the lecturer in charge of the closing ceremony, Madam Norhazian, and my "deputy boss", Faruq had already told her the celebration plan. She asked me to make a special performance on the violin, and halfway throughout my performance, they will switch off the lights, and after which I will start playing the birthday song. That's an ingenious idea, as it provides a pleasant surprise in disguise~ So, I agreed.

The problem: No birthday cakes were included in her plan, neither were flowers and the rest.

So yesterday night, I suddenly remembered that we actually have to buy a cake in order to have one for the celebration. That was around 11pm - all the shops were already closed by then :x And the next morning would be the celebration...

...

hurm. And I had to practise the special performance with my guest guitarist, Awie, and brief him the details about the surprise and all...

After discussing the situation with Madjack again, we agreed to buy all the necessary stuff the next morning. Now, there's the problem with the money. In the end, we collected RM0.50 - RM1.00 from each of the new students for our funds. So, we went to the main hall, where the Muslim juniors just finished their religious activities, and collected their money right there. The whole activity ended at 2am, and I slept at 2.34 am Z.z

Today:
Woke up at 7.00 am, prepared all my stuff and went to the main hall at 8.05 am. Then, I received a text message telling me to bring along the money collected from the students. Headed back to the hostel.

8.15 am, reached the main hall for the second time, just right on time to explain my duties and functions as the exco for culture and arts. Did a really short speech, forgot to introduce my assistant and secretary =x

9.15 am, departed from college and went to Bangsar to search for the things we need.

9.30 am Found ready-made cakes at Berry's Cake House. Bought 2 cakes there, one for Dr Sofi and another for the juniors whose birthday falls on this week.

10.00 am Searched for flowers at the morning market in Bangsar. Found pretty roses in the 2nd stall we went to, 3 stalks of roses, 1 stalk of berries and 3 stalks of furries made a nice bouquet :D

10.15 am Bought the confetti and birthday card at the nearest available bookstore.

10.30 am Arrived back in college. Briefed the juniors in charge of bringing out the cake and handing over the flowers. Finished my brunch amidst several interruptions in the form of my duties of briefing those who had to handle these stuff.

11.00 am Start of the closing ceremony.

11.50 am Performed with Awie on stage with the pretext of welcoming the juniors to this institute.

11.52 am Lights off. Birthday song~

The rest that happened after that was history. I was glad to see the surprised smile on Dr Sofi's face when I started to play the birthday song though :D Being able to put a smile on someone's face is a really fun thing to do :)

To conclude everything, when there's a will, there's a way :p We were happy, Dr Sofi was happy. End of story~

Reminiscence

2009-07-10T22:43:00.000-07:00

Weird name for a post, I know :)

My friends said I've changed since some time around the end of last semester. According to them, I've become more particular about my appearance (like, since when have I actually cared whether my shirt matches my pants?) Before this, I used to wear any clothes that can cover my body, I mean, that's the main purpose of clothes, right?

Next, they say that I speak more Malay recently. Even from my own observations, I really speak more Malay now ^_^ When I first came into IPBA, I used to speak English with all the budak TESL, and a mixture of English and Malay with the others. Now, I speak Malay with almost everyone except for my Chinese friends.

I used to be an anime freak, self-labeled otaku, and I drool over anything related to anime or manga, even spending over RM150+ for an art book. Now, I care about anime and manga just for the sake of its art...as graphic designing is still my hobby, and I can get really good ideas from this form of Japanese art.

My friends who know me from secondary school will be shocked to know that I'm actually listening to songs in English, Malay and Chinese now. They used to tease me mercilessly that my songs folder contain 90% Japanese music, 8% classical music and 2% of songs in other languages. Now, I love music from Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Blink 182, Jay Chou, JJ Lim and more, a big difference from what I'm used to.

Sometimes I wonder, why have I changed?

Is it because I've grown up and become more mature?

or

Is it because I was influenced by other people around me?

Somehow, I feel that the answer is more to the latter...since handling a particular event last semester, I've realised that the world is not only limited to what I'm used to , but it is formed by different people with different backgrounds and different personalities. Having to work with other people, to ask for permission and to endure tyrannical behaviour from a particular lecturer forced me to learn that things do not always happen the way you want it to.

Still, I'm grateful for the experience...through the event, I got to know many musicians who are as spirited in music as I am. From chords to composing music to harmony to synchronisation, I've indeed gained a lot of knowledge. Also through this event, I managed to recruit two great guitarists for my future band in Canterbury, both with their specialties. In fact, I regularly exchange text messages with one of them, who managed to stump me with all the questions about music he asked me, and impressed me with his knowledge of music, especially when considering that he has not received formal music education before. Go Cocuphy!!! :p

One of my biggest faults was that I tend to develop a crush on someone very easily and quickly, and the feeling will disappear just as quickly. I'm not afraid to admit that I've done the same thing in college before, but I've already lost any romantic interest I might have had for that person. Now, I just hope that the person is not offended by all the stupid gossip, for it was my fault that I acted improperly, and I have the feeling that we are uncomfortable in each other's presence. Still, I need his help in the Merchant of Venice play and the Music Society, and I don't want to be like strangers when we once worked together and made an event a success. I have only myself to blame that I revealed my feelings to some of my friends, not knowing that one of them is the kind who wants just the guy that other people are interested in. Well, I don't need to continue the story ^_^"

At least, one positive thing about myself is that I will never be interested in people who are already unavailable, i.e. who have girlfriends or boyfriends at the moment; or those whose my friends are interested in >_<

------

Now, the idea to form a Music Society is going on quite okay...as opposed to really well or impossible :) I got the assurance from Madam Satinah (our deputy director), Tn Haji Kamar (the Head of the Social Studies department), Mr Baseni (Head of GERKO), Mr Baharudin (ex-head of GERKO) and Madam Khalijah (a music lecturer) that they will fully support this proposal. The only problem is with Tn Syed - as I'm worried that he might use his principle of 'girls only' for the usage of the music room :( Besides, I have to wait until the next meeting on the 27th of July for them to formally approve this proposal in a meeting, unless Mr Baseni has the power to allow us to operate before that by signing my letter of request to use the music room. My impatience is killing me...*facepalms*

Practice also has been going on every night for the Merchant of Venice. Since I'm in charge for the music section, I need to compose more songs and decide which to use for which scene. Now, I still need to come out with a nice waltz for one particular scene. Oh, and if anyone who knows them are reading this, extend my thanks to the 3 guitarists from 3 Missed Calls - hengget, awie and rahman for agreeing to help us out :D We really appreciate it~ I still need an extra musician...any volunteers? :p

Oh, and just for fun, this is the logo I designed for 3 Missed Calls~ I just hope that I can join in the show next time :D any comments or advice will be greatly appreciated~

P.S: If anyone wants me to design a logo for them, just drop me a note - I will do it for free if I know you...huhuh :p

Long time no see, my blog

2009-07-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

Well, to talk about my blog being one of my memorial storage (yes, I have a tendency to forget things that have happened, even if they were just a few weeks ago)...

So, to sum up what I did from 5th June (my last post) until now:

From the 15th to 19th of June, I went for a personal SBE (School Based Experience) kinda thing in SJK (C) Chong Cheng, Penang. Actually, the school was lacking in teachers, because a few of the KPLI students who were doing their practicum there had to attend a course for three weeks, so I went to replace one of them.

As for how I got the job, well, my mom is a teacher there. Does that explain everything? Of course, I don't work for free - within 5 days, I earned RM200, which is almost equivalent to half of my monthly allowance =D

In the school, I taught only one class in standard 2, taking the place of their homeroom teacher. That also means that I taught all subjects they have to learn except for Malay, English and Music. I'm surprised by the number of subjects these students have to learn though - the number seemed massive compared to my primary school years, which were just 6 years ago. No wonder all the students carried huge bags =( Other than the 3 subjects previously mentioned, I had to teach (and they had to learn) Mandarin, Science in Mandarin, Science in English, Maths in Mandarin, Maths in English, Arts and Physical Education. This school being a Chinese school had something to do with the number of subjects, since Maths and Science were doubled~

Anyway, it was a great experience teaching in primary school. Firstly, the kids are only 8 years old, and you don't need to think much to understand them. They are just as transparent as a piece of plastic~ Next, the kids are just absolutely cute < 3 And the subjects are easy to teach too~ The only downside of kids is their loud voices and tendency to tell you just about EVERYTHING they see, hear or feel. I couldn't get past 5 minutes without someone running out and telling me, "Teacher, he is not doing his homework!", "Teacher, she is drawing something on my book!", "Teacher, today is my sister's birthday!" and so on ^_^"

A photo of 1/5 of my class :D Check my facebook photos to see the rest of the class~

*~*~*

On the 21st of June, I came back to college in the morning with a bus, went to KLCC in the afternoon and attended a Student Council meeting at night. Yes, my life is busy =D At the meeting, all MPPs were informed that we had to handle the KPLI orientation for the whole week. It was kinda great news to me, because handling orientation = legally missing classes ^_^

The special characteristic of this KPLI group was that after they graduate in a year, they will be sent to the extremely rural areas of Sabah and Sarawak, and that means a lot. Anyway, the orientation week went by with few glitches, and I started going back to classes on Saturday. On Sunday, we received the Student Council representatives from IPGM KPM (Kampus Perempuan Melayu Melaka) or Malacca's Malay Girls Campus. They had a number of 36, a big number compared to our newly formed council of about 14 :D Managed to share my experience and ideas with their Cultural Exco though ^_^ and now I have a lot of plans...the only problem is to realise it~ For starters, ubi kayu + kelapa + gula + garam during the Merdeka celebration, anyone?

The last highlight of this post is my mock exam results...during the orientation week, all of my friends got to know their marks for all the subjects. For me, I just knew my Social Studies marks through Sam, as Madam Carol read out all the marks for the class to hear. I got 87, and it seemed like I was the top scorer in this subject~ Then, I was quite eager to know my English Studies (Literature) marks, mainly because this subject was a killer to all of us (hint: deathly unseen poem). However, nobody knew my marks, and they just told me that only one person in the whole cohort managed to score an A (more than 80 marks) for English Studies. That increased my anxiety all right ^_^"

The next week, I checked my marks with Miss Pat, who had the list of all our marks. Imagine my surprise and joy when I found out that I was the one who got an A for ES :p and this made me the only one in my cohort to achieve a 4 flat grade, as my marks are as follows:

English Studies: 82
Social Studies: 87
Language Development: 89
Language Description: 96

The last one was totally unexpected, as I finished the paper in about 30 minutes and was quite lazy to check my answers :3 Anyway, I consider myself lucky rather than intelligent to get these marks :D Hopefully being in the Student Council won't affect my marks too much~

Lastly, I'm now rallying to form a Music Society in IPBA, so that we can have legal reason to use the instruments in the music room - not just any music room, but TN SYED's MUSIC ROOM!!! :p Please support me, pals~

~My 18th B'day~

2009-06-05T03:17:00.001-07:00

Well, I didn't throw a party or do anything big for my 18th birthday...To tell the truth, I don't feel the '18' mark too much, as I've been with people who are one year older than I am since I was in standard 5 (blame it on PTS), and most of my friends turned 18 last year ;D So, I feel halfway between 18 and 19 now~

Anyway, had 'dim sum' (small Hong Kong dishes - either fried or steamed) in the morning with my family, except for my mother who had tuition ^_^"

Later in the afternoon, the four of us (excluding my mother, who was tired again) went to Queensbay for lunch at Nando's, followed by dessert at Haagen Daz, courtesy of my two lovely sisters :)

At Nando's, we ordered a whole chicken, with 'Hot' flavour...and boy, it was realllllllly HOT!!! Add the fact that I used some of their special garlic sauce + extra hot sauce...my whole tongue was almost burned off. Well, almost. :) Ordered 2 sides of Peri Potato Salad and Peri Chips - the potatos were delicious~

At Haagen Daz, my elder sister treated us to...I can't remember the name, but it had 2 scoops of ice-cream, brownies at the bottom and layered with chocolate sauce topping. Whatever the name was, it was simple superb <3

At night, had a sumptuous feast consisting of Jusco sushi, grilled salmon, vegetables and tea =)

And at 18, I had my first dollop of whiskey...doesn't taste as good as any brand of red wine or Heineken though =) My alcohol tolerance is quite high...I managed to stay up until about 12 am before dropping dead on my bed~ Now, Chivas Regal does sound royal, no?

*For more photos, head over to my friendster/facebook profile =)*

Anyway, I've made some resolutions for my 18th birthday...

1) Be more matured...(does that mean not shouting and arguing with lecturers? :D Maybe not)
2) Study more about music composition so that I can compose a few songs for my future band in UK (Wait for me, abg ashmirul and abg pidot~)
3) Choose who I fall in love with/have a crush on more carefully (that is, if I can actually choose who I fall in love with in the first place)
4) Be more caring...especially towards my family (I've never been much of a family person)
5) Be more feminine (well, where did THAT come from?)
6) Fix my hobby of scolding people 'Bodoh!' along with many other colourful words :p (on 2nd thought, nope)
7) Stop doing everything half-heartedly, a.k.a half-assedly...and that includes studying, mingling with friends, playing music, doing anything else...I never give my all...

The above is not all...just that I can't think of any more =D

My birthday wishes:
1) Buy an electric violin
2) Compose some new songs (pop punk, punk rock and pop genres)
3) A PS3?

I'm pretty satisfied with my life right now...it seems =)

Hurm...

2009-05-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

Well, if you have seen my latest post (which I have just deleted)...

...

I deleted it :D

Finally, I figured out that there's no point in mentioning the name of someone I don't like in my blog, as my blog should be a pure container of my happy and sad memories, but never my hatred. Somehow, I feel that it just spoils everything.

Besides, cussing and cursing is just not me. If I don't do it verbally, why should I do it in writing?

And I feel better after relating my experience to some seniors, as they had the same bad experience with that lecturer.

Anyway, I have a 3-week holiday starting from tomorrow...YAY~!

Angels and Demons + Liberation

2009-05-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was the last day of our mock exams...that means all B.Ed TESL Cohort 2, Cycle 3 people are officially free from hours and hours of non-stop writing, squeezing the brain juices until our brains dry up, sitting on hard chairs until our backbones become stiff... o_O No, I'm just exaggerating :D

Anyway, immediately after the exam yesterday, Almone, Jasmon, Nekomon and I went straight to Midvalley. We planned to have a nice lunch there, at Rasamas, with the promotion of various sets starting from RM 8.90. The illustration seemed to be very nice, with succulent chicken thighs laden with steaming mushroom gravy and golden, crispy fries as a side dish.

However, I can just say...don't be deceived by looks T_T The chicken and chips arrived soggy and cold...and the taste...let's just say it's not what I have expected. However, the day was saved by the mushroom soup we got for free when we filled up a survey form ^_^ So, all's well ends well :D

Later, we went for a movie we have anticipated highly for..."Angels and Demons", adapted from the novel of the same title by Dan Brown. Having watched the Da Vinci Code before, I was quite sure that this movie would be a blast, and indeed, it is :D

Call me shallow if you want, but I was delighted by the sheer number of handsome Italian men in the movie, starting from the man who escorted Robert Langdon to Vatican City, to the Il Camerlengo, to the members of the Swiss Guard...Hmm, definitely a lot of eye candies~

"Angels and Demons"...I will give it a rating of 7.5 out of 10...simply because they cut out an essential part of the story at the end, about why the Camerlengo killed the Pope and caused all those massacre to occur. Still, the story was redeemed by the beautiful scenery and the haunting music.

Then, I had dinner at Skuds again :D Ordered ayam kunyit with white rice...yummy~ Though the worker mixed up our orders, and I had to wait for 45 minutes for my dish to come >_< if you were there, you might have seen me naik mereng there...^_^

2nd Day of Exam - hurm...

2009-05-19T04:41:00.000-07:00

This exam feels so weird...I mean, I know that it's a mock, and the results will not really affect my going to UK...but still, I normally pay much more attention to any form of exams ^_^"

For this exam, I did not study at all the week before, as I was busy with the Reaching for the Stars event. Even during the weekends, I was hooked on the games I've installed on my computer, and I kept on playing, playing and playing D:

The only time I studied was an hour on Sunday night for Language Description. The questions were quite easy...except for the phrasal verbs part. Actually, I finished the whole paper in one hour, and spent the next hour daydreaming about various...things =)

Now, to share my exam experience. Well, for both days of exams, I've been wearing baju kurung (a type of Malay dress which covers the whole body from the wrists to the ankles). For a girl like me who is not ladylike at ALL, I just sat cross-legged on the chair, as though the exam hall is my hostel xD Good thing I was wearing baju kurung, as it covers the parts which would have been exposed if I was wearing a skirt. Same went for today, another pair of baju kurung, the same position, the same style *.*

Level 2 is so darn cold...and the fact that I'm sitting in front of the fan doesn't help either >_>

After the exam, I had lunch at block 4, Pak Lang's cafe...I don't know whether it's my disturbed emotions or the food, but I threw up a little immediately after the food settled in D= Maybe it's because of the flies everywhere...

Anyway, 2 more days until the exams are over...and you will see me with purple hair :D

Room of Horrors =D

2009-05-16T19:10:00.001-07:00

Last time, I posted a photo of my desk in the hostel...now, the whole room is infected with the sloppiness disease. I swear, if you come into my room, you will think that it has been modified from some sort of a garbage dump or something >_<

This is the slanted top view of my side of the room >3

The side view, including my oh-so-messy desk...

And the award of the day goes to the front view...check out the clothes strewn all over the bed, the shelves and the chair loaded with another pile of clothes :3 And in case you are wondering, yes, I sleep with my clothes at my feet xD

Yup, this is my room all right - cozy and comfortable ^.^ I dare say my room mate, Samantha's side of the room is much more tidier than mine =x

Oh, and here are the photos from Reaching for the Stars =3 Misao-chan~ You probably can recognise who I am now :D

~We are the CREW~

3 MisSed CaLL(s) =o From left: Kak Uzair, Rahman, Paan Henggek and Awie...and of course, me :D

I have ears on top of my head? :o

O_O Distortion

Yes, and we are all weirdoes :D

Reaching for the Stars

2009-05-15T04:13:00.000-07:00

Ah...finally Reaching for the Stars is over...with much headaches and blood-spurting incidents that spurn a very long story, which may or may not bore you ^_^ Anyway, this event wouldn't have been possible without the help of all the committee members a.k.a CREW :D A big thanks to all of you, *if any one of you are reading this* especially *ahem* the SU, Abang Rahman Idris (I think it's polite to add abang), who did the proposal paper, recruited most of the working committee and handled most of the event, also when I was away last week >_< *cackles evilly* that's why I said, although I'm a useless president, I'm still surrounded with many helpful and capable people :D

Anyway, I was one of the guest performers for this event...and my performance went horribly D: Thanks to lack of time and minimal practice, our synchronisation was not good enough...the song was 'Only One' by Yellowcard, and the starting was really messed up. Thankfully everything somehow got better during the chorus ^_^" The bassist, Alif almost lost his voice from screaming the chorus too xD But both of us swear to perform the song again in the future, with zero errors and me on the keyboard =p Hopefully the guitarist Paan and the drummer Rahman will want to join us next time :D

The results of this competition were quite surprising...considering the fact that a particular band got intensive and exclusive training and practice with the music lecturer who was also the advisor for this event, they still lost ^_^ The band I wanted to join, 3 Missed Calls managed to acquire the award for the best performance in the band category, though they came in second behind the band Mr. Paul...though I can't understand how Mr. Paul is better O_O

As for the solo singing category, I don't know too much...as they all seem to be almost of the same standard to me. Maybe the biggest factor that affected the results was their choice of song :p The champion and the best performer was the same person - Rafizin ^_^

Well, I will post the photos of this event next time ^_^ On Facebook and Friendster too...later~ Now it's time to study for my exams next week...*sigh*

Though I'm a free thinker, I will still say, "God bless the CREW" xD Especially when we have sacrificed so much of our time and energy in Reaching for the Stars, and all of us have our exams next week :D

Randomness

2009-04-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

I promised to show a shot of my desk in my hostel, and here it is xD Don't be surprised, and guys, there' s a tip for you if you want to marry neat, careful girls (and I certainly do not fit into that category) - ask for a candid shot of their desktops ^_^

Yay, I'm back in Penang for the weekend, after which TESL Cohort 2, Cycle 3 needs to go for the English Camp in IPSAH ^_^

Something I learned from half-organising the event Reaching for the Stars is that you need to choose your committee members very carefully - or maybe I trust my friends too much O_O If not for the other half of committee members chosen by my helpful co-president a.k.a secretary, the event would be a real disaster.

Ok, I'm an incapable president surrounded by extra-capable people who help me =D That's pretty lucky of me, ne?

Practical Things To Do With A Uni Essay‏ (Celaka betul XD )

2009-04-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Rotten Apple's page - sounds really nice to do =D I shall blog about my experience if I eventually do some of these things out of boredom or stress, haha. Copied and pasted from Soo Peng's blog =D There, I stated my source, no plagiarism ^_^

Type every word of your essay in a different font. Alternate really big fonts with really small fonts.(it's still easy to see, lol)
Support your thesis with quotes from your VCR manual.(It's still a secondary source, right? =D)
Write the entire assignment on Post-it notes; hand it in by sticking them all over the professor's door.(Well, I'm sure the professor will love this, especially if all 52 of us do it >3)
Write a paper discussing why Michelangelo got to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but Van Gogh didn't. Discuss whether Van Gogh would have used nunchakus or katanas.(no, he used poison darts)
Perfume the paper with catnip. Explain that it was to keep your dog from eating it.(cool-.-)
If assigned a paper in philosophy class, explain that you can't do the paper because you're not sure if the class really exists, or if it and the professor are just illusions created by your subconscious. If you do end up writing the paper, write about whether or not the paper actually exists.(think whether the professor exists too...)
If assigned a 2000-word essay, draw two pictures of what the paper was supposed to be about. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words, right?(Gonna do that for my Moral assignment - 1500 words - one and a half pictures)
Cite issues of Spiderman and Batman as resources in your bibliography.(especially why Batman wears his underwear over his head :o)
Hand in the essay by making paper airplanes out of the pages of the paper and attempting to fly them onto the professor's desk.(Hey sir, CATCH!)
The night before the paper is due, call the professor and explain that you can't turn your paper in because it contains sensitive military information and is only available on a "need to know" basis. Insist that General Schwarzkopf says you should get an 'A'.(-.- who is that? LOL)
Write your history paper on parchment, using a quill. Say that you were trying to get the feel for the period.(makes sense)
Hand in a letter you wrote to your cousin. When the teacher confronts you about it, say that you must have gotten the letter and the paper mixed up. Say that you'll turn the paper in as soon as you get it back, but your cousin lives in Siberia, so it might take a while. (This is a nifty way to get an extension.)(doesn't work - you will have a soft copy in your disk drive)
When writing an especially long paper, put a recipe for chocolate cake in the middle and see if the professor notices.(I might try that when I'm writing a thesis :p)
Tell the professor that you need an extension because one of your primary sources is an old wise man in Tibet and he won't see you until the next full moon.(Who?)
Paint a large white stripe down the front of your paper. Say that on the way to class, your dropped it in the street and it got run over by one of those trucks that paint lines on the road.(-.-)
Make a footprint on the back of one of the pages. When questioned by the professor, act like it's nothing unusual. After all, he did tell you to include footnotes.(YESH!)
Bring candles and incense to class. Before handing in the paper, perform an elaborate ceremony, entreating the gods to bless the paper and correct all your typos.(Please, somebody, do that :D)
Make a tape of you singing the contents of your paper, opera-style, and hand that in.(Lala-envi~~~ronment!!!)
Write your psychology essay on possible genetic anomalies that might cause a person to prefer anchovies.(hmm)
TTyyppee eevveerryy lleetttteerr ttwwiiccee..(easy~)
Get a large piece of paper or canvas. Smear paint all over it and hand it in as your paper. Explain that the topic was such an emotional one for you, and that mere words couldn't possibly express what you had to say.(Remember to wet the paper before handing in - say that it's your tears)
Refuse to do the paper on account of the fact that you are a member of Greenpeace and strongly object to the gratuitous slaughter of trees caused by the massive amount of paper used in writing assignments.(Do you hear that, Mr Moorthy?)
Put nonsense words down as quotes. Say that you are quoting the words of a well-known Zen master who was speaking in tongues at the time.(sdafjghowegcansguhwhaadksjusvnud)
Use a forklift to bring your paper to class, even if it's only a few pages. Explain that it involved some very heavy reading.(yes, think of how many encyclopedias and dictionaries we have to refer to)
Poke several holes in the paper. Say that you were mobbed by crows on the way to class.(*agrees with SP - porcupine la XD)
Print all the pages on one sheet of paper, with the text overlapping. Say that that was all the paper you had.(Will do that one day)
Make your assignment one long, neverending sentence that goes on for pages and pages and pages; use alot of semi-colons, commas, and other interesting, rarely-used punctuation marks [(for example), an interesting one: the colon_] but never ever end the sentence {[_-\|/??!]}.(LOL don'tputspaceinbetweenisevenbetter)
On the day the paper is due, skip into class, waving your essay and screaming, "I have a paper! I have a paper!". Run around the class a few times, then joyfully throw it out the window. Laugh and yell, "There's my paper!", then run outside to get it. Repeat this all through the period, or until the prof throws you out.(planning to do that too :D)
Come to class leading a horse or camel. When asked to turn in the paper, take it out of one of the saddlebags, then shoot the horse/camel/whatever away. Refuse to discuss it.(?)
Draw obscure connections between totally unrelated things. For example, claim that abnormal amounts of neutrino activity in Germany caused Hitler to invade France, or that the Roman empire collapsed because of a shortage of qualified botanists.(err...)
Refer to all prominant historical figures by nicknames. For example, call George Washington "Georgie". Call Ben Franklin "Sparky".(obama my babie XD - sam will love this ^^)
Pwetend you have a speech impediment and awways type w's whenevew you weawwy want to type r's ow l's.(D= this is harder than typing normally)
Ol, switch alound arr the l's and r's in youl papel, rike Monty Python did in Queen Erizabeth the Thild.(hard too)
When your prof asks for an outline of your paper, draw the outline of the piece of paper you typed it on and hand it in.(I Will DO THIS)
Spill a martini on your sociology paper. Say that you wrote it in a bar so that you could see "sociology in action".(smells of alcohol :3)

Tired

2009-04-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not supposed to be tired...particularly when I'm not burdened with any more assignments except for Moral. Still, assignments are not everything when one is in college. Sometimes, when you are not enthusiastic enough, these kind of activities simply seeps the life force out of you. Take English Camp, for example. Although it's going to be in two weeks' time, it has already affected our lives - some of us have to prepare for choral speaking (thankfully I withdrew from it), forum (too bad, I'm in) and public speaking. There's also skits, but since it's impromptu, it doesn't warrant any sweat over it just yet. People are starting to get stressed, yell at each other, put on long faces and walk around like zombies, mostly because of the preparation efforts >_>

What's more, the event I was supposed to be organising, i.e. Reaching for the Stars clashes with the English Camp, and I'm forced to go to the latter O_O Thankfully I got someone to replace my position *sighs*

On a positive note, I will be going back to Penang this weekend, have already bought the tickets and am looking forward to three days of bliss before the Kedah one-week torture. Prepare to receive me!!! Rotten Apple~~~!!! <3<3<3

Reflection

2009-04-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

Once something is done, it's impossible to undo it...the only thing I can do is to patch it, rectify it, but not make it disappear.

Once someone is wounded, you can put medicine on it, make it heal, but there will be scars.

Once you say something that hurts, even if you forget, the person still remembers...and there's a tiny rift that exists forever...

When you are hurt, remember that someone out there might be equally sad that they accidentally did something to hurt you.

When you are angry, remember that someone out there might be regretting at that very moment that their actions made you mad.

Whenever you do anything, please think of the consequences that it might bring, not only to yourself but also to the people around you...

When you are angry at someone because of what they did not or forgot to do, think of the things that they did willingly before...

Is it worth it to throw everything you have done together before, everything experience you had together, the fun, the joy, the sweats... all down the drain just because of one small incident?

I feel better after writing this...slightly, somehow :)

My Favourite Bus Company + Romance Novels

2009-04-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

Well, you might not see the connection between bus companies and romantic novels...that's because...they don't have anything to do with each other =D

Last Thursday, for the first time in my life, I tried riding a bus Konsortium Transport Berhad from Kuala Lumpur to Penang. Once I got down at the Sungai Nibong terminal, I swore never to ride any bus except for those from Plusliner or Nice any more. There are a few valid reasons for this.

Firstly, I went to the bus station with Diyana, from the French course. At the station, there are a lot of bus companies available, each with different departure times. We arrived there at 1.30, expecting to catch a bus immediately. However, the only bus available was destined at Butterworth, not Penang =( Kind Diyana agreed to wait for another bus which goes to both Penang AND Butterworth, which the ticket-seller promised will arrive at 2.45pm. We went to the nearest stall, grabbed something to eat and drink, and waited patiently. Once we saw a bus arriving at the terminal, we were quite ready to hop onto it, but nobody called for the passengers to Penang. At last, the guy came to me and said, 'Get on this bus, it's to Penang.' and we asked him, 'Isn't there a bus to both Penang and Butterworth?' and he just gave the negative >_>

That was just before we boarded the bus o_O Though I have to agree that the seats are really comfortable, the bus being a three-seater, and the air-conditioner is cold enough too. However, the bus went reeeeaaaally fast on the highway - I'm betting somewhere between 130 to 150 km/h. I'm normally not a paranoid person, but I found myself praying that the bus driver is sane and conscious about his surroundings when he's driving O_O What the ticket-seller didn't tell me was that the bus will also drop passengers in Ipoh, Butterworth and goodness knows how many places along the way. So, in Perak, the bus navigated out of the highway, wasting a lot of time. Worse still, the bus driver might have lost his way, because he went almost around the whole of Butterworth and Perai without stopping to drop any passengers >_> That was also why a journey which would have taken 4 1/2 hours with Plusliner became 5 1/4 hours with Konsortium.

Yeah, enough with the negative stuff ^_^" Now, I'm going to blog about romance novels. In case you are a *ahem* scientific person who does not believe in love and has never come near a five-mile radius of a romance novel before, I shall tell you that romance novels might be a huge turn-off for you, since the hero and the heroine invariably end up together through a series of complicated events =)

So far, I have identified a few authors whose novels I lap up like hungry dogs lapping up leftovers.

1) Nora Roberts: Until now, I cannot count how many novels I have read of hers. Usually, her novels are not that sugary-sweet romantic that you have indigestion reading it, but they depict hard-headed, strong heroines with an equally macho, stubborn man for the hero. And they take time to get together, but of course, you know that they will get together in the end. And I just love the 'In Death' series she wrote for Eve and Roarke, the former being an abused-orphan-turned-cop, and the latter being a pickpocket-cum-hacker-turned-multi-billionaire ^>^ Since they are married, there's nothing that resembles a frustrating love triangle in the books, and the plot is really good. (Actually, 'In Death' is more about solving mysteries, but the romance between Eve and Roarke is a nice touch)

Nora Roberts is good at writing fantasy-type romance too, especially when it has something to do with curses, legends, magic and stuff from Ireland. Just lovely.

2) Judith McNaught: People might complain her novels being a little too sweet and cliche, but she's quite a good read all the same. She deals well with stories from the 17th century in my opinion, with all the dukes, marquesses, barons and kings. I won't seek to buy her books, but I won't turn down the offer to read them either ^_^ I recommend 'Perfect', which is set in contemporary times, but not so honeyfied, and it might contain some tear-jerkers too~

3) Jude Deveraux: Now, she's another favourite author of mine, having a distinct style of writing. Like McNaught, she is good at writing about ancient romance, though she is equally good at contemporary romance too. Among the books that left a strong impression on me were Legend, The Taming, A Knight in Shining Armour and many more. Some of her books are so poignant that I felt really sad when the hero/heroine lost something dear to him/her.

Last but not least, I present Sidney Sheldon as a magnificent writer of all times. Of course, there's romance in his novels, *note the word his*, but they also deal with a mixture of genres such as mystery, thriller, revenge and all those stuff you see in America. Not only the types of characters are varied (i.e.: you don't see only handsome, macho men and beautiful, gentle women who faints over the sight of blood), but you see a complicated plot weaving all the characters together, normally in a web of deceit and manipulation. Also, not all his endings are happy endings, as opposed to the female writers mentioned above. In conclusion, Sheldon keeps his novel close to realism, focusing more on humans' true nature, while the other three usually concentrate on the good side of human nature, creating an illusion that love always prevails over evil, desires and all those along this line ^_^

Still, between a Nora Roberts book and a Sidney Sheldon one, it's kinda hard to decide =) Probably it depends on my mood - whether I'm looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses or I feel sceptical and cynical towards everyone and everything around me.

Oh, I forgot to mention that anything by Nora Roberts involving Ireland is a must-read, and after you read it, you will feel a strong urge to go to the country and experience all the bliss, beauty and peace there ^_^

Randomness

2009-04-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

Sports Day is finally over, or more accurately, was ^_^ I was in Red House, which got the 4th place out of 4 houses, lol. I don't really care anyway - I'm not really a sports person xD Anyway, I think we were almost 100 points behind Blue House, which came in third ^^ and Mr Azhar was busy laughing away despite his house losing to Green and Yellow >_<

Anyway, I remember one trip to MidValley, with Jasmon and Syahril (lolipedohentaiotaku), in which we ate Carl's Jr. Burger. OMG! The burger is sooooo big, fluffy and yummy that McDonald's simply can't compete. Warning though, you must have a great appetite if you are planning to order a set, or else you can't even finish your burger >3

The fries are fat, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and best of all, THEY SHOW SOME SKIN < 3333 And like Burger King, the drinks are refillable, although Carl's Jr has more variety, including iced tea and Arabic coffee in addition to all the carbonated drinks and Season's ice lemon tea.

Well, I ordered a medium set of Famous Star (or something along those lines), which cost me around RM19. I know, pretty expensive for a burger set, right? Still, I assure you that it's worth every penny, or rather, every cent. If you have watched 'Harold and Kumar go to White Castle', you would get what I mean =)

Oh yeah, I still owe Misao a photo of the desk at my hostel >3 This week's gonna be busy again:
- Preparation for English Camp's Forum - my topic is Preserving the environment: Law vs Education, and I'm speaking as a Forest Ranger
- Preparation for English Camp's public speaking - the theme is education, and I need to come out with my own script...any suggestions?
- Choral Speaking script, that is, if evilness does not take over ^_^

You might wonder why I list my tasks here...that's because I'm really scattered-brained sometimes, and I might be able to remember it better if I see it on my blog.

When I get back to the hostel tomorrow, and if there's a decent internet connection, I might blog about romance novels <3 Till then~

A Good Sleep Makes a Good Day

2009-03-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

Look at the title. It is 100%, at least in my context. Being a bear who needs at least 8 hours of sleep every day, I find my time on the bed very important. And, especially after I came to IPBA, my bed was seriously lacking in warmth - A flattened pillow, a thin blanket and a Shakugan no Shana small square pillow were the only things constituting the sparse decorations my bed has. After a while, I imported Mipple (Yes, the name's MIPPLE) from home, and it adds a little cheerfulness. But just a little.

Finally, yesterday, I took the big step - another pillow and a bolster. For those who don't know what bolsters are for, let me list some of the functions:
- slam people
- decorate your bed
- disguise as a sleeping person
- keep your bed warmer

But most importantly, a bolster is for you to hug. Scientists have proved that since infancy, the action of hugging and other physical contact between the mother and the baby is extremely essential. Not to mention that some people are still unwilling to part with the bolsters from their childhood *ahem* =D

And this is precisely why I could sleep better with a bolster, which cost me RM 13.90, while the new fluffy pillow was RM 10. All together, RM 23.90 is worth it for a year and a few months' worth of good sleep. The next day, although I ended up with a sore throat and a fever (probably because of the kfc), my mood remained quite hyper for the whole day.

With this, I rest my case. For those insomniac people, my advice is to get a big, soft, fluffy bolster, and you will find yourself craving for sleep every day =D

*More things in my never-ending to-do list*
- After mysterious circumstances, I find myself the assistant to Yusri, the organiser of the IPBA English Week Concert. It means more work, especially when I already have to run the Evening of Music.
- In that concert, I'm second-in-charge of the whole running, meaning if Yusri got kidnapped by aliens or fall down the stairs while strolling *touchwood*, I'm supposed to handle everything. Besides, I'm also in charge of the last item on the itinerary, which is sing-along sessions with a big group leading the singing on stage.
- I also agreed to be part of the committee for Voice of IPBA, our college's editorial board. Maybe I will just take the job of designing the layout and cover, since I don't think people around me are familiar with computer graphics...especially when the main population in the college studies Teaching English as a Second Language ^_^"

College life is really...fun. Er. Yes, I'm lying.

Sumomomo Momomo! <3

2009-03-25T02:33:00.000-07:00

*If you are planning to watch this anime, stop reading in case of spoilers*

This anime is superbly crazy, or crazily superb, depends on how you look at it. I mean, just look at the title - how hard it is to pronounce it xD

Well, here's a brief synopsis for starters:
Kuzuryuu Momoko of the Dragon clan is a girl, who trains really hard in martial arts so that she can be the strongest. However, her father told her that because she's a female, she cannot be the strongest martial artist. Then, the father told her to go and search for Inuzuka Koushi of the Dog clan, marry him and produce the strongest offspring together.

Actually, the Koushi and Momoko families are the leaders of the East and West branches of martial artists respectively. The two branches are always at odds with each other, and the fathers hope to solve this by marrying the two. However, there are other families, especially from the West, who oppose this decision, and sought to kill Koushi to prevent peace from prevailing D=

Oh, and I forgot to mention something - Koushi is totally hopeless at martial arts. In fact, he hates violence and wants to become a prosecutor in the future.

So, throw a small-sized but loud martial artist together with a cool, big-mouthed bookworm, then add some boisterous friends *hint: two girls who fell in love with Koushi*, another two guys *hint: who likes Momoko and one of the two girls respectively*, and you get an anime so hilarious that it keeps your jaw moving every minute.

In fact, the first episode was just pure hilarity, when Momoko just butted in between the Inuzuka father and son, and announced, "I am Kuzuryuu Momoko. I'm here to make babies with Koushi-dono.". The expression on his face was priceless.

Still, I personally advise that this anime be watched by older teenagers and above, for the implied ecchiness. Being someone with a single-tracked mind, Momoko won't hesitate to use any means to persuade Koushi to bed her, and that includes wrapping herself with only a towel, taking off her shirt in front of Koushi and other stuff. On the other hand, the other female martial artists are bestowed with a generous chest area, and it's kinda disturbing sometimes to see them shaking around.

Contrary to the impression you might have formed about this anime, it has its serious and touching parts too. The adoration and devotion Momoko has for Koushi (though it beats me why) is very potent, and she is always there to cheer him on even when he fails. Expect some really touching moments towards the last few episodes of the anime, where tears are abundant and words uttered are from the roots of their hearts.

The art is good too. The girls are cute, especially Momoko <3 *coughsDaddyWarrioractuallylikesIrohabetter* D= Koushi is handsome too, in a typical bishie sort of way. And the auras of the martial artists are just amazingly real. I love it the most when Momoko turns into super-deformed mode and hangs around Koushi ^_^

*End of review*

Just to add on to my list of things-to-do,
-Observe 3 days of NO SWEARING (although I broke the pledge once, thanks to a certain pangsAIpuri)
-Take care of the event "An Evening of Music: Reaching for the Stars".

Somehow, I'm still stuck as the organiser of the whole thing...I thought after the Student Council was disbanded and there was going to be another election, I won't be handling this project any more. However, the idiot who rallied so greatly for the reelection did not contest for the posts available, neither did his friends. So, until now, only 4 students contested for around 20 places. Oh well.

End of my glorious holidays =(

2009-03-24T03:20:00.000-07:00

I was going to post something in my blog during the holidays, but I was having too much fun to actually bother. Not that I did something spectacular like bungee jumping or murder someone - I was just being me, lazing around in pyjamas until afternoon and sleeping at any time of the day.

I miss my home. Really. Who wouldn't? Just compare life in IPBA and life in your house. First thing, the food in IPBA sucks full time (I'm sure the seniors who just came back from overseas will totally agree). I come from PENANG - the heaven for people who live to eat, the hell trap for dieters, the oriental pearl...and many other names people think of for it. To me though, Penang is just home sweet home. The home-cooked food, my sweet, cozy bed, my darling fluffy bolster, my dear piano and of course, my lovely parents ^_^ I miss them all...

Well, I should stop feeling sorry for myself, and stop wondering why I took this course. Even if I did that, it's not going to change the fact that I'm stuck in this TESL course, stuck in this college which does nothing but force us to do everything we don't want to, and stay in a hostel meant for prisoners.

Anyway, I'm here just to update my blog and keep a record of what I've been doing, and what I will do, for anyone who's interested to see =D

Things I have to do:
-My Social Studies assignment on environmental issues like soil erosion, river pollution, toxic landfills and deforestation
-My Moral assignment on social ills
-Another English Studies assignment - a fun portfolio <3
-Prepare for the mock UN conference (I'm representing Egypt)
-Finish another wallpaper for AP's VampirePrincessYuuki's birthday (Chris, to be exact)
-Think up a couple of characters for the Role Playing group in AP, together with their past, characteristics, powers, appearances and stuff
-Buy a bolster so that I can sleep better in the hotel, I mean, the hostel
-...

Oh yea, and Sumomomo Momomo rocks, full time! I finished the anime in, like, 3 days, which was a record break for me =D Everyone I've talked to know how slow I take to finish a series, but this 22 episodes is just a breeze for me. In fact, I hoped that they had made it longer, but oh well ^_^

Next time might be the review on this anime ^^

My 10 Wishes...etc

2009-03-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

Tagged by Bo-chan ^_^

1. Marry Rutherford at once
2. Migrate to Ireland
3. Publish some novels
4. Be a professional musician
5. Slim down as quick and as much as possible
6. Buy all the art books I've been drooling over
7. Buy all products related to Spiral and Record of a Fallen Vampire
8. Kill Mdm R. or at least force her retirement xD
9. Own a glossy, black grand piano
10. Go on a tour to Japan

^_^ So, that concludes my 10 wishes for now. I couldn't think of more if I wanted to - maybe that's a sign that I'm quite satisfied with my life right now? =D

On a side note, I'm enjoying my holidays to the max, so much that I'm ignoring my assignments. I know I will be sorry after a while ^_^"

And happy birthday to my online adopted daddy and mommy - Warrior and Angel-voice @ animepaper.net~ Their birthdays are wonders, really close together < 3

Breaking Conformity

2009-03-03T05:02:00.000-08:00

According to the Collins Cobuild Dictionary 2006, conformity means behaving in the same way as most other people. In some ways, it is good. Like how you might help a child who fell down, help your friend to carry some stuff if you think it's too heavy, queue up at the cashier while paying, etc etc.

However, in most cases that involve thinking, conformity is really dangerous. Imagine if all the people who lived before us conformed their minds to a certain set of rules. Galileo, for instance. If he did not dare to challenge the notion that the Earth was the centre of the universe, we will still be believing that until now. What about all the scientists who invented all those gadgets we are taking for granted today? From electric lamps to PDA phones, all of them are the brainchild of scientists who dared to challenge conformity, to think out of the box and ultimately, to come up with something new, different, useful and innovative.

Okay, I'm not claiming to be a scientist here, and I do not know how to invent things...yet. I just want to share with you some of the things I have done to break conformity - of course, nobody was harmed during this *ahem* production xD

#1: Holding the door open for other people.
Somehow, it has been a common practice for the man to hold the door open for a lady (although sadly the habit is not practised much in IPBA), but there's rarely, if not never, a case of a lady holding the door open for a man.

What I did: When I walked out of the library with a bunch of people, I held the door open for the guy behind me.

Result: Well, I was expecting a 'thank you', but it didn't come. And the guy behind him gave me a baffled look and asked, "Why did you hold the door for him? He's a guy!"

#2: Offers from others - sincere or not?
You know how when people offer you food, they expect you to say no instead of taking it. That's why I played this small joke, more for the sake of observing the reaction than having the food ^_^

What I did: I was at a meeting with one MPP guy named Rahman, and one of his pals was also there. He took out a packet of pickled mandarin orange skin, and offered it to me. I actually saw him draw his hand back a little when I stretched my hand out =D That shows that my hypothesis was true. Then, I took a small piece of the pickle, nibbled on it and watched the expression on his face, which changed from startled, perplexed to slightly amused.

Result: The guy said to me, "Orang Cina memang suka makan benda cam ni ya?" (Translation: You Chinese love to eat food like this, right?). Speechless, I just nodded.

#3: Relationship with lecturers
Well, there's also such a perception that lecturers must look strict all the time, the students must show deference and respect to the lecturers, etc which cannot really be applied to the world we are living in right now. With all the new technology for communication and stuff, I daresay that all our status are slowly becoming equal. Personally, I prefer lecturers who can joke around with us, care about our lives and such instead of a wooden block of a lecturer who just comes into the class, teach, and go away.

What I did: I joked around with most of the lecturers, except for those whose faces hang as long as water dripping out of a bucket. Well, some of the jokes are just normal ones, like at the lift, one French lecturer ask me where I was going, and I answered, "Somewhere~" He appreciated the joke, and asked, "Somewhere over the rainbow?" That's just one of many examples. Mostly I do it during class, when the lecturers ask some questions and I just give random answers, which are literally correct but does not answer the question =D Provided that I see that they are in a good mood, of course ^_^

Result: The lecturers are less reserved, at least, they seem to be so ^^ And classes are so much more fun >3

Some other less unconventional things include saying hi to the people I don't know, talking to some of them (the responsive ones), greeting the canteen 'pakcik' and stuff like that xDD I have to say, it's been a very satisfying change for me, and I'm gonna continue breaking the conformity of my life.

Of course, there are more serious types of conformity than all those mentioned above, but they are sensitive issues, and well, should not be discussed by someone under a government scholarship =D

I'm 84% Happy =D

2009-03-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged by Misao-chan >3

Rules:
1- Ask for it, at least you have been tagged.
2- No Tag-backs
3- Tag at least one person
4- Put an X on each one that you do.

Let's Begin!

[ ] You have a boyfriend/girlfriend.
[x] You have your own room.
[x] you have a cellphone.
[x] you own you own iPod, Mp3, Mp4, etc...
[x] Your parents are married.
[X] You have more than 2 best friends.
[ ] You have a pool.
T 0 T A L: 5

[x] You dress like your own style.
[x] You go out with your friends at least once a week.
[x] You have a computer in your room.
[ ] You've never been hurt
[x] You never cry more than two times a week.
[x] Your parents let you hear the music you like.
[ ] Your room is as big as you want, or more.
[ ] People don't use you.
[X] You have been to a concert.
T 0 T A L: 6

[x] You have at least 50 friends in Facebook/MySpace/Messenger
[x] Your parents let you use Facebook/MySpace/Messenger
[x] You collect something "Normal"
[x] You go/went to school
[x] You don't wanna be someone else
[ ] You are a little cocky
[ ] You are a Volleyball/Football/Golf, etc player.
[x] You do something out of school/college/work
T 0 T A L: 6

[ ] You own a car
[x] You don't use to fight with your family
[ ] You think you are cute/beautiful.
[x] You have friends
[x] You feel loved
T 0 T A L: 3

[x] You know about current events.
[x] You love many people
[x] You are happy with your life.
[x] You know more than one language
[x] You have a screen name.
[ ] You have a pet.
[x] You know the lyrics of at least 5 songs.
[x] You have enemies.
[x] You are a nice person.
TOTAL: 8

TOTAL: 28

28 x 3 = 84%

The score's quite accurate, although I don't see how having enemies make you a happy person =D And I'm not really anxious to own a car until I start working ^_^

I tag Banumon!

Mmm...pancakes <3

2009-02-27T22:39:00.000-08:00

The images are rather blurry - I took these with my handphone ^^

Yesterday, my friend and I went to MidValley to try out the restaurant 'Paddington House of Pancakes' (PHOP for short). Currently, the restaurant has a promotion named 'Round the World' - RM 13.80++ for a few selected dishes, inclusive of a drink and ice-cream of the day. The offer is only valid on weekdays, 12pm to 2pm.

Well, we finished class at 12.30, met up at 1.10 and waited for the taxi until 1.40 =.=" This is how hard it is to get a taxi in KL, especially on Fridays T_T We were squirming at the taxi stand, silently cursing all the taxis that either drove by us with passengers in them, or whizzed by us without passengers.

Anyway, we were lucky to meet an Indian girl, who had to go to MV to pick up something, I'm not sure for school or for work...she seemed pretty young ^^ Anyway, she told us that she could claim the taxi fare, so our trip there was free < 3

When we reached MV, it was 1.50pm. Fortunately. Both of us ordered the Tokyo Set, which was part of the promotion ^^ I'm quite satisfied with the dish - it has chicken ham, chicken breast, fresh vege wrapped in two pannkoeuks (It's spelled that way in the menu, for some reason =D), and a generous serving of mash potato < 3

Well, the chicken ham and breast was smothered in some kind of sauce, the one you can find in pasta. I must admit, I'm not quite familiar with the taste because I rarely go for Italian food, but it tastes really nice all the same. The chicken breast is soft enough, the mash potato smells and tastes great, while the pancakes are something I haven't tasted before, but it's somehow quite similar to Indian chapati xD

I cut the pannkoeuks, cut the chicken ham and breast, dipped everything in the sauce and nommed away =D

However, frankly, the highlight of the meal was the dessert - mini dollar pancakes served in sundae (look at the photo) with strawberry syrup and nuts on top. It was heaven - imagine sinking your teeth into soft, fluffy pancakes, while experiencing the coolness of vanilla ice-cream and the sweetness of strawberry syrup at the same time. Yup, both of us certainly had a blissful time eating the ice-cream, although my friend was less enthusiastic about the main dish, as she said that the portion of the chicken was too large.

I have no complaints though - if you have the time, go and have lunch at PHOP~ I would advise that you go for the promotion though, because the rest are costly - around RM 20 and above ^^ Whereas with promotion, I only spent RM 15.90 including tax.

One Movie You Should NEVER Watch in the Cinema

2009-02-25T06:17:00.000-08:00

Note that I said 'Cinema', meaning that if you can, god forbid for the piracy and copyright issue, obtain a downloaded version or *ahem* pirated CD which are so rampant in Malaysia of it, by all means, watch it, laugh yourself silly or cough blood, and curse the movie forever.

Now, what exactly is this movie I'm ranting, or it may seem to you, raving about? It's called 'Burn After Reading', a black comedy, starring Hollywood hotshots like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and a cast whose average age is above 40, I guess.

Now, if you are still planning to watch this movie, you might want to stop reading from here, because the following contains spoilers to the movie.

At first, we are exposed to Cox Osbourne, a former CIA agent who has been fired for some reasons. Dejected, he starts to write a memoir of himself, only to have the CD containing it fall into the hands of two gym employees who are desperate for some fast cash.

One of the gym employees who found the CD was a middle-aged woman (Linda Listze), overly concerned about her looks and pushing her employers to subsidise her costs for plastic surgery, claiming that it will 'enhance her self image and help her to deal with customers better, to improve the business of the company'. Unsurprisingly, her application was rejected by the higher-ups. Still, she was obsessive about her body, which 'has wrinkles, extra flab everywhere and sags a lot' and adamant to get the plastic surgery at all costs.

After the two gym employees, Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda found the CD, they opened the disc in their company computer, and Chad saw a lot of numbers and funny statements without realising that they were part of Osbourne's memoir. Enlisting the help of his friend, Chad managed to find out the owner of the CD, his job, his number and his address. Thinking that the CD contains classified CIA information, both of them decided to exhort Osbourne using the CD.

After that, the plot starts to spiral crazily. First, the CD does not contain any important information. However, the CIA was keeping a track on Osbourne because they want to make sure that he does not exact revenge upon the agency by revealing classified information. Then, there are the two idiots from the gym, wishing to exhort Osbourne on the basis that the CD contains top-secret info, and when Osbourne scoffs and tells them off, Linda and Chad brought the CD to the Russian embassy, wanting to sell it to them.

Things are further complicated as Osbourne's wife secretly plans to divorce him, having an affair with a married guy named, who also has an affair with Linda. Unknowingly, Harry's wife is also planning to divorce him for some reason, and the confusion goes on and one.

The highlight of the movie is probably when Brad Pitt died abruptly and shockingly. He broke into Osbourne's house, trying to find more 'CIA inside information' and has to hide in a closet when suddenly, Harry goes into the house after a rendezvous with Mrs Osbourne. When Harry went to get clothes from the closet, Chad gave him a big shock, the gun went off suddenly and...he died.

Ah, I forgot to mention another guy, Ted, who was the manager/owner of the gym Chad and Linda work in. He has a crush on Linda but is too afraid to make it clear. Out of love, he helped Linda look for Chad (she thought he was missing when he was dead), and even broke into the same house again. This time, he met Osbourne, who was drunk and agitated for his wife has already withdrawn all money from their bank accounts, leaving only 100 dollars. Osbourne shot Ted in the head and chopped him to death with an axe.

The greatest irony came in the end of the story, where the Russian embassy denied the usefulness of the CD while the CIA kept a close eye on all those involved in this case. At last, they apprehended Linda, one of the police shot Osbourne after seeing him kill Ted and wondered what actually happened. Linda actually had the guts to request for them to pay the bills of her surgery, and it got ACCEPTED!

Everything, deaths, conflicts and confusion over a stupid memoir which was worth nothing. Actually, everything here stems from Linda's selfish and one-tracked desire to make herself look prettier, forgetting that real beauty comes from the soul.

When the movie ended, my friends and I were extremely dissatisfied, and all of us had the 'WTF' look on our faces. The ending was too abrupt, the loose ends wasn't tied up properly and there was no real moral value to that story. Even one CIA chief was seen saying 'I don't know what happened. Let's learn something from this - never do this ever again.'

WTF??!!! The ratings in one newspaper is quite good though, 3.5 out of 5, although I personally won't give it even 1. Despite that, it all depends on personal taste.

Food - Cheap and Delicious etc...

2009-02-19T04:57:00.000-08:00

There are two cafeterias near my hostel. One is located at the base of Block 4, run by a man whom we addressed as 'Pak Lang', and sells fried rice, noodle, vermicelli, etc, and if you are lucky, you might get to eat economic rice, leftovers from lunch =.="

Then there is Skudz, somewhere near the hostel entrance, where there is no economic rice, instead they sell wonderful nasi lemak and equally appetising fried stuff. Oh, they also sell burgers too, just that I haven't tried them yet.

To be fair, the price of the food in 'Pak Lang's cafe' is slightly cheaper than the one in Skudz by some thirty to fifty cents, but the food portion is abysmally small, the kitchen is severely overstaffed and hygienic conditions are worrisome. If you look really carefully, you might see yesterday's leftovers on the utensils you are using. Talk about losing your appetite o_O Moreover, the cashier is inconsistent, i.e. he/she or whoever that is sitting at the counter will charge any amount they like for the economic food we students take.

In comparison, the kitchen at Skudz is open-air, people can see what is happening inside, the workers are friendly and efficient, and the food is worth every cent we paid ^.^ My personal favourites are nasi lemak and pattaya fried rice < 3 Mmmm...

This was my dinner last night - nasi lemak. RM 2, which I consider cheap looking at the amount of rice and the extra black thingy she gave me for being a faithful customer ^^

My friend ordered Pattaya fried rice, which looks nice too, but costs more. RM 3.80. The shape looks great =D

After dinner yesterday, we went to KLIA and sent off our seniors who were going to the University of Auckland, New Zealand to continue their TESL course there. I'm in the photo - just guess which one I am ^.^ I won't admit until you guess correctly in your first attempt though~

*sigh* the scene at the airport was really emotional, with parents having to say goodbye to their kids for 2 years o_O I wonder how would I be like next year, when I have to leave for CCCU in UK for 3 years?

Hunting the Elusive

2009-02-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

When I was googling the images for the art book 'The Jewel Box', I came across this fantastic blog - Hunting the Elusive. Not only this blog has fantastic content in it, the language used also aesthetically suits the content.

Hunting the Elusive has a massive collection of scans from beautiful art books. Some of those books are rare and few in number, hence the title of the blog. What that amazes me is that the quality of the scans are top-notch - icie spent considerable effort in guaranteeing us that. Next, all the scans are free to download, and for our convenience, the scans are usually packed into rar form. Besides, there are no annoying advertisements, nor pleas to ask you to donate.

The owner of the blog goes by the nickname icie - I can't really tell whether it's a male or female name. Reading a few posts by icie, I was amazed by the language (Yeah, I'm in TESL, hence I look at the language first). Compared to icie, my level of English proficiency can be rated mediocre at best, and I feel guilty calling myself a TESL undergraduate o_O

Still, reading the blog gives me the motivation to do better, and by analysing the diction, style and flair of the blog, hopefully I can improve on my own writing as well. The extra art book images acquired during this process does not hurt either =D

Out of 100 marks, I might give this blog 110. Really. It's just that good. (From the perspective of an anime/manga lover + TESL student)

P.S: If you visit that site, make sure you check out the 'What is Pireze' part, and also search for Onineko if you are interested in graphics *.*

Dangerous Buildings o_O

2009-02-14T22:20:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday (I know, I'm awfully late at blogging), we were having our Language Description (That's grammar for you) classes when we suddenly heard an awful male shriek/groan from nowhere. The class was held at the library, our surroundings were eerily dark and besides our lecturer and us, there was nobody else present. Everyone got a jolt from that sound, and someone recalled hearing a similar sound the day before at our lecture halls, albeit female. Then, Language Description class transformed into 'Horror stories sharing class' momentarily, when our lecturer, Madam Norhazian started telling us all the supposedly ghost sightings around our academic building and also *gasps* our hostel.

Actually, the ghost stories weren't so scary compared to the real story Madam Hazian told us. Apparently, there were two sky-high apartments in construction near hostel blocks 3 and 4. She said that she gets the shivers every time she looks at the construction site, primarily because the ground was steep, looked unstable and the buildings were very near our hostels - too near for comfort. Take a look at the photos up there to see what I mean. If there's another earthquake in Sumatra, the aftermath of the shakes might possibly reach Penang and judging from the state of the weak foundation, the apartments will just topple over and crush our hostels as well as Pantai Hospital, which is just next to it.

Putting aside the concern for my safety, I'm disappointed with whoever that gave this project the thumbs-up. Even non-experts like me could see the potential danger of having such tall buildings so near another building, and the fact that the ground is not properly flattened does not help either. What's the point of earning money from new tenants when the building might collapse and take thousands of lives with it? Think of the teacher in trainings living in the hostels, think of the patients at Pantai Hospital, think of the future tenants of the apartments - is any amount of profit worth it to endanger all those lives?

I might be overly dramatic here, but in this world, anything might happen, and the fact that there are corrupt politicians who approved this project, immoral developers who carried out this project and other people who supported this project makes them scarier than ghosts and spirits. This is also why I chose not to focus on the numerous ghost stories shared during Language Description, but rather on the potential danger.

A Heroic Expedition

2009-02-10T02:24:00.000-08:00

Gah, the internet in my hostel was down for the whole weekend, hence the sudden silence in my blog xD Anyway, last Saturday, I with another four friends went to the Jalan Imbi area, namely the Low Yat Plaza, Berjaya Times Square and Sungei Wang Plaza. The group was composed of three girls and two guys.

We started our expedition at 12.30pm sharp, took the LRT to KL Central and Monorail to Jalan Imbi. First, we went into Low Yat Plaza, where we scoured around for cheaper prices of Canon printers. One of the guys who bought a tablet at Low Yat before told me that the shop was at the 5th floor, so I didn't really pay attention towards tablets until I saw one box of it at Star Tec. Then, we inquired the price and found that it was much cheaper than what my friend got it for =D So, I bought the tablet there and then.

Next was the printer, and my friend was also looking for a headphone. We decided on a Canon Pixma ip1880 model at another shop, and she also bought one. The printer itself was kinda cheap, but the cartridge not bundled together was more than half of the printer's price =.=" Still, we had to buy another cartridge because the original cartridge provided was only half tank full and not refillable D=

You might be wondering why we bought the printer first instead of going to the other places. Well, there were two of us who wanted to buy printers, and there were two guys following us who will help us carry our printers xD The first guy had to go back before 4pm so that he can meet his girlfriend in MidValley. However, after we bought the printers, he said that he would go straight to MV by monorail, so we had to carry one of the printers. Another guy originally wanted to go back with him at the same time, but then he said that he had something to buy in Times Square.

So, this is how we formed the new culture - Printer Lolita, involving youngsters lugging printers around and shopping for clothes, shoes etc xD It was quite good though - the four that remained of us had lunch in Sushi King *yummy* and the guy, gentleman that he was *cough* did not complain about us going on detours and getting sidetracked by everything we see ^.^ I also bought some stuff out of my budget, resulting in me getting broke o_O

Photos of my power-up items:

Canon Pixma iP1880 - RM 115
No. 40 Black Ori Cartridge - RM 63
Kaze no Stigma Artbook - RM 29.90
Wacom Bamboofun Tablet - RM 334
Not in the photo (just for fun):
Sunsilk Hair Conditioner - RM 7.80
Transport - RM 7.40
McD Apple Pies - RM 3.15
Gardenia Wholemeal Bread - RM 3.00

Count the total yourselves xD

We arrived back in college at 9.30, which makes 9 hours of straight shopping O_O Our legs were so tired, they were about to fall off *.*

Another randomness:

These are the bookmarks I've made for my friends and myself. Just thought that they looked good in a row ^.^

Fancy joining me on my expedition next time, folks?

Steamboat < 3

2009-02-03T08:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I celebrated Chinese New Year a few days ago, and now, I'm already back in college ^_^ On 29th January, I went to a steamboat at my aunt's house. It was more of a housewarming celebration rather than a Chinese New Year celebration, though there were kids playing with firecrackers, the house was mainly decorated with red and people were all passing ang pows (red packets) to the kids.

If I have to be honest, the steamboat was just average. I mean, the food was more than enough for everyone, but it's more of a quality versus quantity thing xD As you can see, or you might not see because of the sucky photo quality, from the pictures above, those are the food we ate.

How do we eat steamboat:
1) The soup is prepared, normally by cooking chicken/pork bones to get the right flavour.
2) Then, the utensils which you put the ingredients in are heated up. In this case, we used the traditional way: coal and fire.
3) Then, you wait for the soup inside the pot to boil for a while before adding the ingredients.
4) You wait.
5) You wait.
6) You wait.
7) When you are about to lose your patience, somebody lifts the cover of the pot and announces that the ingredients are *finally* cooked.
8) So, what are you waiting for? You just take whatever you want from the pot and dig in =D

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, my aunt also invited a married couple from China. It turns out that they were related under the 'Choong' clan, and their ancestors were brothers (?) I think. At the round table, I was sitting between my father and my mother's brother (uncle, or jiu jiu). On my opposite was a lady related to my mom, her husband and three kids. In the middle of the dinner, the woman from China walked around, passing out ang pows to all the kids. Eventually, she dropped by my table, passed three ang pows to the three kids sitting opposite of me, and walked away.

She walked away! D= I didn't get my ang pow from her T_T Anyway, after thinking about it, I think she might be confused, since my uncle was sitting beside me, and he didn't bring his wife and kids. So, she probably thought I was married to my uncle or something =.=" *shakes fist at uncle*

Still, it turned out to be a good joke, and my parents and I laughed at it for quite some time after the steamboat dinner xD

The moral of this story is, choose carefully who you sit with at a table, especially during Chinese New Year =D

P.S: In the pictures above, I'm not in the photos, because I'm the one taking them ;)

2nd Month since I really used Blogger~

2009-02-01T05:41:00.000-08:00

Nothing much about the title, really, just an anniversary kind of thing ^_^

I saw in my shoutbox that Misao tagged me. Before that, I was at Queensbay Mall shopping my legs off and talking my head off with my friend. Yeah, we always do that during our holidays - meet up in a shopping mall, spend a long time eating, talking and shopping < 3

Back to the tag thing, I never had anyone tag me before, and I was like: "Huh? Do I have to run? My legs are really tired..." =.=" Still, it turns out to be this...

16 random facts/habits/goals in my life:
1. I love Eyes Rutherford.
2. I love Eyes Rutherford.
3. I love Eyes Rutherford...

Wait, this doesn't seem right =D *checks Misao's blog again* Oh, I don't think the 16 facts are supposed to be the same ^_^

Ok, here goes:
1. I love Eyes Rutherford more than any guy in the real world (He's from the manga/anime Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna, in case you don't know, and he's the guy in my avy and banner)
2. I love playing the violin and piano, and I can't say which I like more.
3. I rarely watch TV unless I'm watching anime, or The Nanny, lol.
4. Fall in and out of love really easily, quickly, painlessly and effortlessly, except when with Rutherford :3
5. I like cats more than dogs, though I only had a hamster before.
6. I prefer fish over chicken, unless it's McChicken Burger to Fish Fillet.
7. I like kids (more like infants) until they start to talk nonsense.
8. I don't mind working hard when I'm asked to do something, but when collaborating with someone else, I expect the other party to work equally hard as well. *That's why I'm known as the grinder O_O*
9. I love guys who will 'kiss first, ask later', rather than guys who go 'may I kiss you before kissing'. *note: not that I've tried it before.
10. I'm Buddhist on the outside, and half atheist at heart.
11. I'm not against cohabitation and premarital sex. Just go with the flow is my motto.
12. I wish to slim down =o
13. I want to do better on my assignments and improve my English so that I can write better stories/fanfics/novels.
14. I dislike people who don't think before opening their mouths, or typing something, as in the case on the Net.
15. I go for tall, dark (not skin dark, but expression dark), dangerous (also expression) and relatively aggressive men.
16. I'm generally seen as a cold, unfriendly, selfish, calculating person to everyone else except for my friends =D

DIRECTION: Once you've been tagged, you have to write a post with sixteen random things, habits or goals about you. At last, choose five people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them.

*Looks at pitifully short Bloggermates list*
I tag Popiah, because she's my dear little Bo-chan.
I will tag more people later once I get links to my friends' blogs x)

Randomness

2009-01-25T01:18:00.000-08:00

As promised, some screen shots I took while playing the Princess Maker game. From top: Having a conversation with the prince outside the castle, dancing with the prince during National Day celebration and having a Christmas dinner with the prince.

Also, I updated my shoutbox at the right there - feel free to spam anything in it =) I'm also in the process of designing some buttons and a banner for my blog, so please wait for it~

Oh ya, I just finished reading a book titled 'Memoirs of a Geisha'. I normally do not read books written from the first person point of view unless for academic purposes, because I simply do not like the word 'I', 'I', 'I' being constantly badgered around, and the revelations of their private emotions could be a little irritating if the author is not so skillful =.="

Still, this book fascinated me from the very moment I picked it up. First of all, the beautiful, almost surreal cover.

Besides, I have a passion for Japanese culture, and learning about geishas do not hurt, literally and figuratively. Some have the perception that a geisha is nothing better than a prostitute, but that's quite far away from the truth. From the first day of apprenticeship, they learn all the etiquette of a geisha, involving playing musical instruments, the arts serving tea, bowing, and a whole lot more.

What I really like about the book is the funny expressions the author uses in similes. To give you an idea: "as afraid of fire as sake must be of a thirsty old man", "as uncomfortable as the dog Taka must have felt when he swallowed a needle and Auntie and Grandma put their fingers in his throat to get the needle out", and lots more like that =D Besides, the author has a unique way of describing the things happening from Sayuri/Chiyo (the leading character)'s perspective which does not make people feel that he's forcing the details on us, but rather making us appreciate and imagine it vividly in our minds.

All in all, if you are looking for epic tales of romance, adventure or mystery, this book might not be your cup of tea. However, if like me, you appreciate a tale which contains historical facts, illustrates the lives of people during and before World War II in Japan, walks parallel to reality without being too dreary, then 'Memoirs of a Geisha' is definitely for you.

If you can't stand reading books (this book is really thick), you might opt to check out the movie adaptation of this book, which I didn't watch because Zhang ZiYi starred as Chiyo/Sayuri, and not a Japanese. Being one myself, I'm not prejudiced against Chinese though, I just think that a Japanese might be able to portray the culture and perspective better :)

By the way, I'm celebrating Chinese New Year, and today's New Year Eve~ If I'm up to it I will take some photos and post them in the next few posts. Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!

I love you, Saray!!!

2009-01-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

Remember my rant about not being able to see the words in Princess Maker 4? One friend of mine performed a miracle on my laptop, and suddenly all the words turned up perfectly =D

For those of you who are as clueless as I am, and if you are using Windows Vista Basic, go to Control Panel --> Regional and Language Options --> Administrative --> Change System Locale --> Choose the languages that you want. Now, I can even type in Chinese < 3

The friend who accomplished this is a teacher-in-training cum doujinshi artist. *advertising* You can see his site here. *CLICK*

After being able to understand the game, I played it immediately after classes yesterday for 6 hours straight, experimenting with all kinds of interaction, between my daughter and her friends, and the loveliest part of all is: I know which button to press to accept or reject the bishie's invitation for a date. And I got the marriage ending with the Demon Prince < 3 A rough translation of what he said when he first met my daughter was: "We were meant for each other since the day we were born"...and there's more, but I'm lazy to translate them.

My internet connection is retarded right now, and I can't upload the screenshots I took D= Next post, maybe ^^

Ah, and does anyone like Ayaka Hirahara? *hint: The person who sang the opening song for Saiunkoku Monogatari "Hajimari no Kaze"* I just love her voice - her vocals are so strong and moving, and you can hear her earnestness in every word. Well, I found a great site for downloading J-pop and anime soundtracks (there are more of the former though) and I downloaded her album "Path of Independence" < 3 If you like her voice, you should definitely go and download the album. Some of my favourites are...I can't really name them, because I love them all < 3

You can get her album, plus many other albums of various J-pop artists here

*shakes fist at retarded connection*

Wild Night

2009-01-15T03:13:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last post that my friends and I smuggled some shandy into the hostel, right? Well, I finally deigned to upload some pictures I snapped of the empty bottles and write about the event.

Let's start with looking at the photos:

We drank shandy to celebrate Chinese New Year. Yea, I know, we are really early xP But it's all about having fun, isn't it? So, we toasted each others' health, single status, wealth and prosperity, and friendship. It's a great experience, and makes me feel eager for Chinese New Year too =)

At the same time, I also took the picture of my room, which my room mate went crazy and decorated her side of the bed with posters. Lots of them. I wonder how she is going to take them all off when we have to clear the room during semester break ^_^"

That's all for now~

P.S: The faceless body you see in two photos above belongs to my room mate >3

Windows Vista Basic =.="

2009-01-13T22:56:00.000-08:00

I don't have anything special to write, so I will rant about my Windows Vista today >3

I'm currently using a Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop bought for RM 2599. It comes with 250 GB, 2 GB RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor and Windows Vista Basic. Only until today have I realised that I can't type in Chinese (Mandarin) with it, though I can read normal Chinese words on display. Still, sometimes, the characters will turn out funny for me - imagine a foreigner swearing at you in a foreign language, without using the symbols '!@#$%^'....Yea, it's something like that.

So it turns out that I just bought a game DVD, which is 'Princess Maker 4'. The game is essentially about you being a father (I know, I belong to the female species, but the game still sounds fun) to a daughter which seemingly comes to you because your ex-girlfriend/wife gave her to you for some reason (I will explain why I sound like a retard/person with Alzheimer's later). When the game starts, your daughter is already 10 years old, and your butler helps you to take care of her too. It's hard being a single parent, isn't it? You get to schedule your daughter's life - either you let her work, go for training, go on vacation or rest, either at home or in town. All the decisions you make will affect her stats either by increasing or decreasing them. And believe me, it's hard to increase the positive stats without decreasing some of them.

Now the problem comes: I can read Chinese, and the game is patched in Chinese. However, only a small portion of the words are displayed in Chinese, while the other essential ones (such as dialogue, people telling you how your daughter is progressing in her studies, are displayed in boxes. Yes, they are square boxes which only the computer and a genius can read. As I can't really understand Japanese (they speak in the language), I can only guess what is happening. I ran the game on my friend's laptop with Windows XP, and the characters show up perfectly 0_o Isn't that discrimination?

Then, I tried to download the Chinese language for my Vista, and the official website stated that it is not available for Vista Basic *shakes fist at whoever made that decision* and that means I still can't understand the game.

Even though all this happened, I still played the game a couple of times and had a different ending each time. Still, it was hard for me, especially when I have to make choices. I mean, how do you choose between the top and bottom choices when both say '00000' and '00000' (imagine the 0 are boxes).

Despite all these, the game is really nice to play. From what I gather from the pictures, you were a warrior in the past, and your ex-girlfriend or wife gave the baby to you because she was going to die soon or something, or maybe it was because you belong to different worlds. Then, some of the jobs available are really funny, like working on a farm, being a maid, working in a casino, being a private tutor and lots more. Somehow, I feel that I'm using my 'daughter' to earn money =.="

Apart from jobs, you can also send your daughter to classes. From fighting, etiquette and magic to dancing, it's kinda hard to decide what skills you want spend money on to develop in your daughter. I usually go for Magic though, it helps me get into the demon world easier.

Your daughter has a stat called 'Fatigue' - when you send her to classes or do errands, her fatigue will increase slowly. If you are not careful, she will fall sick and spend the whole week in bed. In Princess Maker 4, time is precious. Really precious. Still, letting her rest is the most fun part in the game. You can either let her lounge around in town, or bring her on a vacation. The former is free and you get to meet a lot of people (which means more job opportunities and more fame, another stats) while the vacation costs 30G per day, which is really costly unless you work your daughter to the bone to let her afford this vacation =D When your daughter reaches 14 years old, she will start to meet guys: from left - the demon prince, the old school human charming prince and the dragon prince < 3

On a positive note, I just downloaded the English patch for the game, and hopefully the whole game will be displayed in English for me next time =) If it does, I will post the screenshots on my blog.

By the way, yesterday my friends and I smuggled some shandy into our hostel. The word 'smuggle' is used because alcohol is not allowed in the hostel, together with all the stuff which are 'haram' (meaning something like illegal in the Muslim context). Not only that, I went and buy a J.D. Robbs/Nora Roberts book 'Creation in Death' for RM 19.90 too. I just love her books, and the couple Roarke and Eve Dallas is just my favourite in the fictional world < 3 Imagine the woman, marry Roarke but not taking his surname o_O And they lived happily ever after......I'm just kidding. They have had some disputes, mainly about their jobs, as Eve is a lieutanent while Roarke is the owner of a multinational security company, and he specialises at hacking. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the story is set in the futuristic world, somewhere in 2060 I guess.

Wish me luck in playing Princess Maker 4 - assignments have not been given out yet and I have a lot of free time on my hands =D

Starting Off

2009-01-11T05:56:00.000-08:00

Oh well, to be exact, this is not really my first post. When I first created this account, I had no idea what a blog is all about, so I posted my fan fictions in it >3 That was two years ago. After the second chapter, I kind of abandoned this account and gradually forgot about it.

Around December 2008, I was inspired by Eva's (chibimisao) to create a blog after viewing hers. I like the layout of her blog pretty much, and blogging seems to be a fun thing to do ^_^ After a while of memory-digging, I managed to remember the password to my account, and voila, I deleted my fan-fictions and now, I will start anew.

Nothing much has happened today though, so I will start off with a brief introduction about myself. My real name is Huijia, but I'm more known as Yukina on the Net, and I'm going to turn 18 in June. I'm currently in a TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) programme ini IPBA, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Ah, and the most important thing about me is: I love Eyes Rutherford to death < 3 For those of you who don't know him, he's a character from the anime/manga Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna. You might have guessed by now - one of my hobbies is watching anime/reading manga. I also love to play the piano, violin, read novels and work on computer graphics.

I'm normally a cheerful, friendly person when I feel like it. If you are one of my friends, I won't hesitate to help you when you are in need. Still, you should be warned that I'm highly obsessive, especially about Eyes Rutherford, and I won't think twice about murdering someone who tries to snatch him away. I'm just joking...or am I?

Lastly, I will list my new year's resolution for 2009 (so that I won't forget them xP):
1) Be more active in blogging
2) Complete my wallpapers and computer graphics in progress. (Link to my AP account)
3) Work on my stories "The Curse of the Phoenix" (I know the title is cliche, I will change it once I have an inspiration) and "Her Most Beautiful Smile"
4) Take a more active part in class activities and hopefully improve my presentation skills.
5) Save money to buy a Wacom Bamboofun tablet by June
6) Eat less and exercise more :3

Ah, I'm also part of the Student Council this year, although I can't imagine someone as lazy as I am becoming one xD

This is all for now. Hopefully, my next post will have some photos in them, and also more interesting content ^_^

yukina-rei

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