Dreams of the Day

Of the days of my life and dogs

2012-01-17T23:24:00.000-08:00

Today, I officially have nothing to blogabout. I tried conjuring up something to write but I realise it isn’t possiblewithout rehashing any of my previous blog ideas. You could even see the lack ofenthusiasm in my previous posts with the non-existent labels and picturecaption as well as the dwindling numbers of pictures I bother to even find.Right now, I have no idea what to do whilst writing this post like a doghandling a camera.

I have no clue what i'm doing

I find it a waste especially after giving myblog a pretty satisfying make over. Don’t you like it?

So, I’ve begun a conquest (yet again) toimprove my writing. I’ve read that a good command in English helps in writingespecially if one is writing in English. I’ve also read that staying awake willhelp reduce errors and typos. But more than that, I’ve read about metaphors.

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea

It is said that metaphors are like the coloursof the rainbow. Sometimes we see a rainbow with 3 colours, sometimes more. Butnothing beats a rainbow with all seven colours. Likewise, infusing metaphors inwriting may complete the set to make it a colourful experience.

Rainbows of the literature world

Thus, being a person willing to try new thingsout, I’m going to go for an eight coloured rainbow. He is a metaphor-filledessay based on pretty bad metaphors I’ve read before.

Itwas just another day, one that is not quite yesterday but just before tomorrow.The sun was shining like a brightly lit light bulb, only brighter. I wassipping a cup of coffee in a coffee shop that was empty like a coffee shop thatwasn’t open and all of a sudden, it started to rain.

Therain fell on the pavement hard like leaping maggots in a hot frying pan.Thunder rumbled like the sound of thin metal sheets being shaken at thebackstage of a play. Lightning flashed like a thousand fans taking pictures ofa Kpop star.

Rightthen, she entered the shop as fast as a fat kid in a buffet. She walked towardsme like a centipede with 98 legs missing, dripping wet like a post-bathedgolden retriever.

Shewas tall but not quite, like a 5 foot 5 tree. Her face was a perfect oval likea circle that is flattened at the sides. I’m sure we’ve never met before liketwo hummingbirds who have also never met before. Her hair glistened with rainlike nose hairs after a sneeze.

Thenshe spoke, with a voice like bells from a huge truck reversing. She was growingon my like a colony of E. coli on a piece of meat at room temperature. Everyminute with her was like 60 seconds. She asked if I had an umbrella whilethoughts tumbled in my head like clothes in a revolving dryer.

Ifumbled with my words like playing dodge ball with a wet bar of soap while myumbrella remained by my table like an inanimate object.

Icomposed myself like a musician composing a song but not quite. I told her,yes, she may take my umbrella but since she was already drenched, it would bepointless like a white crayon. She decided to wait for the rain to stop whilewe had a chat. We clicked like a computer mouse in a Starcraft II game.

Shespoke with the wisdom that could only come from experience like a person whowent blind from looking at the solar eclipse without one of those boxes with apinhole in it and now travels the country speaking at high schools about thedangers of looking at the solar eclipse without one of those boxes with apinhole in it.

Just another day

Thenthe rain stopped, like a shower faucet after turning off the tap. She thenwaved goodbye and she left like leaves before a leaf blower.

I’velost her like a grape that rolled under the fridge and I don’t know if I’llever see her again but I know even if I do, she will be like that grape thathas turned into a raisin and be as wrinkly as such.

Thusends the story of just an ordinary day like any other days of my life.

THE END

That said, with the recent SOPA and PIPA stuffgoing on, it may escalate to the extent that I may get into trouble forpiracy-ing these overused metaphors. But here’s to hoping that doesn’t happen.

By the way, SOPA and PIPA stand for some wordsthat include piracy issues. Look them up yourselves for I have no idea whatthey are on about and Wikipedia is down from midnight to midnight EST (05:00 UTC Wed to 05:00 UTC Thu).

Toodles.

Off Focus

2012-01-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

Recently, a friend of mine said that myblog was a fair bit depressing. So, guess what, I changed my blog layout. Nowit looks brighter and cheerier huh? Hopefully it will be able to compensate thelack of sunshine hiding deep within my posts.

First of all, credits to my friend, Ezrafor helping me out with the header of my blog. Visit his blog here.

After spending a significant amount oftime on my new blog look, I felt that all that effort deserves a new post in myblog’s new look. To be honest, about 80% of the time spent on my blog waschoosing the design, 10% was asking Ezra to help edit the header and 9% wasdrinking diet Coke while doing all that. The remaining 1% was copy-pasting thehtml code in Blogger.

Yes, I drank diet Vanilla Coke. Someonetold me that it tasted better than the less diet version and that the vanillataste was stronger and creamier and smoother and whatnot. He lied.

It is as the can says, deliciously lightand sugar free. Well, minus the word ‘delicious’ and we have a properdescription of the content. To my dismay, I realise that I paid an extra 30cents for the free sugar considering the original version was 30 cents cheaper.Thanks Coca Cola.

The only reason the drink wasn’t halfbad is because the weather now is horrid. It is so hot I think I can fry an eggin mid-air. Yes, mid-air.

Anyway, I should stop ranting lest myblog starts exuding the depressing vibe once again. To avoid that, I guess myblogging topics usually head in random directions. A friend suggested that myposts should have a little more focus and control. Tough.

So, I looked around for things thataffects focus and guess what I found. Nothing relevant to my situation at all.But I still found it interesting.

I read about a study done on 4-year oldkids to measure the effect watching TV has on one’s focus and self-control.Quite a few kids were divided into 3 groups.

Group 1 was subjected to 9 minutes ofdoodling and colouring with crayons.

Group 2 watched 9 minutes worth of apopular cartoon about a sponge living in the sea thought to beSpongebobSquarepants, though it wasn’t reported.

Group 3 watched 9 minutes of a realisticcartoon of a typical US preschool boy. Also not reported but thought to beCaillou.

For clarification, the 3 parameters werechosen to assess the TYPE of TV shows and how they affect kids’ focus andself-control. To those slightly bit confused ones; Spongebob is a fast pacedfanatical cartoon whereas Caillou is a pretty mild and ~~boring~~calmcartoon.

Needless to say, thekids watching Spongebob Squarepants scored the least be it in focus orself-control tests. There was barely any difference in results for the othertwo groups indicating that it wasn’t the act of watching TV that affected thekids capabilities but the type of shows they were watching.

Conclusive proof right there. Whatintrigued me was, since when was watching TV another form of teaching kids? Ialways considered TV as a rest after completing activities that were meant toteach me focus and self control: CHORES.

Now, parents start viewing the values ofthe kind of activities their kids take part in be it improving kids mentalabilities or otherwise. What happened to the value of laughing uncontrollablywhile clutching their sides till it hurts? How about being chased around by anolder sibling till they can’t run anymore? Probably, after those activities,the kids wouldn’t be able to complete any task that requires focus orself-control.

But these are the things we reminiscewhen we grow up. These are the things that make us kids. These are the thingsthat make me love the moments when I was a kid.

These are moments we should never forgetas we grow up. I for one would rather stay a kid if given a chance. Growing upis for old people.

Toodles.

Of a new year and an old post

2012-01-09T18:36:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Very belated wishes to you all. Loads of apologies forthe lack of updates this festive season. To those concerned about me, I amcurrently in Brisbane, Australia for my holidays and having a great timesight-seeing.

Nah, I kid. I’ve been in Brisbane for the past year andthe furthest place I went during the past few months were actually for work. Theclosest thing to ‘sight-seeing’ was Christmas lights on houses and the riverview from the balcony of my friend’s house. That said, it has been loads offun.

My lack of updates though, were not because of thesetrips to various places considering that I still had plenty of time to update.It was, however, credited to the lack of inspiration and energy. You see, themost common birthplace of my posts happen to be in the place where great mindswork, my lab office. Or more specifically, my office table.

Despite popular opinion, I still came to work during theholidays just like any usual day. But this time, there is a difference. While Iwas pretty hardworking during the holidays, the refectory beside my labdisagreed. They decided to celebrate the holidays like the rest of my labmates. Being alone in my office without and source of food, the creativeportion of my mind decided to rest too.

Life has been pretty interesting so far. I ushered in thenew year with a trip to the mountains. Yes, I climbed it. It wasn’t as labourintensive that I thought it would be, but definitely taxing to my mind. Yes,the mind where creative juices once use to flow despite disagreements fromseveral peers. I slept for a full 3 hours after getting home from climbing thatmountain.

We climbed Mount Ngungun. It wasn’t a difficult of aclimb but there are pretty scary moments especially if one is acrophobic. Iassume that word means a fear of heights, I’m way too lazy to Google themeaning right now.

Some of us rushed to the top with gusto, some took theirtime (probably due to fatigue) and some were just looking forward to aninteresting cave-like structure halfway to the peak and had no interest in therest of the climb. But at the peak, the view made all the effort worth it. Iliked the cave better though.

Our ‘climb’ down was pretty rushed as many of us werehungry and in need to answer nature’s call. I noticed that we missedappreciating several smaller wonders of Mount Ngungun. The flowers.

Every single step in our lives will always have adestination, be it the peak of Mount Ngungun, the cave somewhere in between oreven the restroom at the base of it. While it is good to have the drive toreach our aims as fast as possible, it is sometimes nice to take solace in thelittle steps that we take to our destination. Take time to look around andsmell the flowers during a stroll to school, or look around the countrysideduring a long drive, we might see beauty in this world that we may have missedotherwise.

That said, I slept in the car the whole journey back.

Toodles.

Of being an 'activist'

2011-12-07T17:32:00.001-08:00

*This post was initiated on the 2^nd ofDecember and continued again on a later date.

I just attended a lab meeting. It was interesting, scaryand tiring. It was tiring mainly because I didn’t have enough sleep last night.I had an energy drink earlier before the meeting, but somehow its effect ranout halfway during the meeting. Sleep is always the best energy drink. Exceptfor Red Bull, they taste so good.

Well, it is not like I stayed up till late for no goodreasons like games and movies or whatnot. That is only partially true. I camehome relatively late as I was out celebrating Brian’s very belated birthday aswell as Esther’s farewell. Yes, the same one, again. Some of you may bestarting to wonder about how many farewells have I been for her and how manytimes was she supposed to leave already. It’s like we can’t wait for her to go.

But that cannot be further from the truth. Esther is avery dear friend of mine, whom I knew of her existence one and a half yearsago, but actually only really talk to her earlier this year. Being so chattyand bubbly, I wonder why I didn’t notice her earlier. Well, I won’t say muchabout her because several of my previous posts have already featured her andher many ‘farewells’.

I’ll feature another person instead. My actual Angelthat, as previously stated, had me really wondering who he/she really is.Despite giving up and being frustrated for quite a while, I can proudly say, Icame to the right conclusion after all. I have, indeed, the best Angel ever.Sherlock prevails once again.

Now, to reveal the identity! Tadahhhh!

Sabrina!!

During the course of this game during the month ofNovember, I have, as stated, received many gifts, but isn’t all. I receivedmuch more, from Sabrina. That was probably one of the reasons she was out of mysuspicions. I thought that if she happens to be my angel, she would have giventhose gifts under the name of my Angel. Even before the Angel and Mortal gamebegan, she gave me an encouraging note with an orange. Her gifts were all customizedto help me survive my afternoons where I rarely had lunch. Sabrina, I feel soextremely blessed to have you as my Angel, and more so as my friend.

As of the evening of the 5^th of December, mybody is officially worn out. Well, I’m still feeling fine, but there aretell-tale signs that my movement will be thoroughly impaired tomorrow. Rightnow, my body doesn’t really ache that much, but I my arms aren’t reallyobedient. It is going all ‘hippie’ on me, feeling restless but refuse to workwhen I want it to.

So, you might be thinking, what in the world could thislab-infused science rat be doing to feel such fatigue? Farming.

This post has taken me an immensely long time to post dueto unexplained reasons. In fact, I have written much more than just this butdue to the gloomy setting I’ve entrenched myself upon, I’ll just post this bitjust to keep my blog ‘active’. ‘Active’ here is an overstatement, exaggerationeven.

Of Poodles are real cool, but I prefer Toodles

2011-11-30T22:25:00.001-08:00

It was an extremely tiring day Tuesday. Had pretty much afull day of work and attended a farewell gathering for Veon and Esther. Yesyes, I know, ‘that’ Esther again. Anyway, it was an exciting night andhopefully the 2 stars of the night enjoyed it.

As anyone would have noticed by now, this post won’t be acontinuation to the previous three, which I have to admit were an attempt toadapt to a different writing style. Obviously, I’m having a real hard timeescaping from this casual-blog-writing style. Writing with this style iscounter-productive in improving my writing skills that have been deterioratingfor a while now. It is so hard to change, it’s getting frustrating. That, andbeing a mystery novelist-wannabe is getting pretty boring. You can actuallyliterally see my boredom manifesting evidently with the lack of proper ending inthe previous post. There is a lack of proof-reading too. *Yawns*

Furthermore, despite wrenching and twisting my brain torecall every single detail of said events, I haven’t come even an inch closerto knowing who my angel is. Thankgoodness I’m not an investigator. If I was Sherlock Holmes, I would have thoughtWatson was the culprit. Elementary, my dear Watson.

Thanks, Sherlock

Anyway, to my angel, if you are reading this, though chancesare low, I would like to thank you sincerely for your gifts. I think I have thebest angel ever. The answer will be revealed soon. Yay!

Exam results are out! Most of my friends have attainedgood results. This is my first and probably ONLY semester in Brisbane that I actuallydidn’t worry about my results. Nonetheless, I think I did pretty well. Ireceived an email for my results and it shows Intelligent Person. You doubt?Check this out.

YeaaaaHAAAAA!!

With exam results, I guess it marks the end of thesemester. I’m halfway through my Honours and 11 out of 12 through for 2011.Just one more semester left for me, how time flies. I’ve been here for almostone and a half years, well, minus 3 months of summer holidays last year. Sofar, it has been a roller coaster ride and I don’t see this ride ending smooth.I still see a huge dip+corkscrew+upside-down+underwater portion of this ride.And I am excited. To add on, I have the sudden interest to go Bungee Jumping.

Yes, Bungee Jumping.

Yes, i just watched Running Man

Or better, laser tag. Yes, I want to go laser tag.Nothing beats shooting harmless lasers at each other. I’ll PewPew till you QQ.

On the topic of what I want, I want a dog. Yes, I haveone back in Malaysia, but since I’m not going back this summer, I am having petdog-withdrawal syndrome.

This type of dog doesn’t count.

But it fills the gap pretty well

And on the topic of what dogs I don’t really want,

Poodles.

Toodles.

Of Angels and Mysteries 3

2011-11-30T06:31:00.001-08:00

Thethird one

My humble balcony

I sat bythe balcony of my abode. Staring at the stars which is of beauty, my mind wasbefuddled with whirling thoughts. The previous incidents were still heavy in mythoughts and my inability to unravel the threads of this mystery struck down myconfidence. A ball of yarn, in which I have found the ends but still, I amunable to untangle. Every single time I tug them in attempt to gain the key answer,it only gets tighter.

So, I tryto unravel it, one thread at a time. For the next few days, my subconscious wasbusy rerunning the incidents with every single clue. I was determined not tolet anything slip. I was back to my calm self, poised to solve this mysteryonce and for all but what happened next shook me to my very core.

Onceagain, I received another plastic bag, this time, as I was quick to notice, isa white plastic bag that is hardly transparent. Similarly, the messenger was W.I made a mental note to interrogate her, but being anything but a novice inthis, she was able to elude me. What came as a shock was that the messenger wasthe only thing similar in this event.

Thistime, the urgency of the matter overwhelmed me. I threw caution to the wind.This was no longer a place or time to fear the eyes of people around me. Moreclues, I thought. Clues could only bring me closer to the answer. Boy, was I wrong.

I openedthe bag, it was filled with foodstuff. As I emptied it, the specific item I waslooking out for wasn’t present. The pear. Furthermore, the items found thistime were Apollo Pandan Cake, Glico Pocky and Hello Panda Chocolate flavoredsnacks. It struck me instantly that these items couldn’t be bought fromWoolworths, the place I originally relate my Angel with. The place where theseitems could be bought was known as Yuen’s Supermarket noted by the brand markon the plastic bag holding these items. This place is located in Sunnybank. Ofall the people I know that live and frequent Sunnybank, none were Malaysians.

Literally frogs flushed down the toilet
Note: Those are frogs, not excrements

All myprevious deductions were like frogs flushed down the toilet. My Angel was notonly good at covering tracks, but creating tracks leading to a differentdirection. Both tracks are very specific, my next step would be to uncover theright track. Uncovering the right track was hardly possible now.

I closedmy eyes and calmed myself down. As my palpitations faded, I wiped the sweat offmy brows. Eureka, I finally got it. Rather than decide which track to follow, Ishall follow both. Probably, this is known as the illusion of two paths.

Once, a farmer couldn’t locate his farm afterrunning an errand in another town. A flash flood has wiped off the path to hisfarm. Strangely, instead of that path, therein lies a divergence of the pathinto two. He sat there for a very long time, mulling over which path would leadto his farm. He sat and he sighed, for one whole day.

Then, a boy came to sit beside him. He heardhis dilemma and said, “Dear Sir, do you or do you not recall the direction ofyou humble abode? For if you do, to heck with the paths. Disregard the paths,for there is only one road. Follow the road.”

The both walked, disregarding the divergence ofthe path, only to find that both paths actually led to one road.

I forone, learned a valuable lesson from this story. I will combine the paths to getto the answer. You see, my Angel has to be one who has the mobility to obtainitems from different places in order to cover up his or her tracks. I alsonoted that everything I received was bought and safely I assumed that my Angelwas one who is too busy to cook, perhaps a student. The next gift would also bepurchased and this time, it will lead me to the answer. I anticipated the nextgift, for I am sure, it will no longer uncover the paths, but this time, theroad.

Thefourth one.

Onceagain, my deduction went awry. I received spaghetti Bolognese personally madeby my Angel, sent by a different messenger. This isn’t what I expected. I couldonly come to two conclusionz.

I giveup. And I Have The Best Angel Ever.

Thankyou!

Of Angels and Mysteries 2

2011-11-28T17:31:00.001-08:00

The second one

It has been awhile since the pear incident. I had notreached a conclusion yet but this matter has been persisting in my mind. Yetanother ‘whodunnit’ case. While I was constantly in a mind-turmoil trying topiece everything together, it happened again.

It was on a Sunday evening, with clear skies as Irecalled. There were many people around, each in their own clusters. I wasextracted from mine by someone. It was the same messenger again, whom I willinitial as W.

Just one sentence from her, “See my chair over there, thepackage is for you to bear.”

I was stunned for a moment. I didn’t even notice herdisappearing into the shadows of various people around. I glanced at the seatwhich held my gift. It was bare. No, that was my seat. I searched for the seatthat was once owned by W. Lo and behold, there it was. A suspicious set ofobjects wrapped in a thin layer of transparent material known as a plastic bag.

I stealthily inch towards that seat, smiling at peoplewho I brisk past in order not to gain unwanted attention as I near my gift.Questions flooded my mind. What could it be? Whom could it be from? Will therebe anything inside that will lead me to my Angel?

I stepped to the front of the seat trying to uncover thecontents of the bag with just my eyes. I hesitated to grab that bag being waryof eyes watching around me. I participated briefly in a conversation with agroup nearby and casually grabbed that bag and proceeded to place it beneath mychair. Despite my bursting curiosity, analysing its contents will have to wait.

Avoiding any suspicions, I quickly hid the contents intoanother bag and left the scene. At dinner I quickly analysed the contents ofthat plastic bag. At first glance, it was a book, a bowl of instantmicrowavable soup, a snack bar and there it is again, a pear. There is apattern, I'm sure of it. Once I unravel this pattern, everything will be clear.

Throughout dinner, I mulled over this. I scanned the souponce more and I discovered yet another clue. I almost missed it by coveringthat piece of evidence with my thumb. It was a green stamp-like design with thewords ‘staff purchased’ from Woolworths. The pear! It must have been fromWoolworths. My previous deduction was spot-on. With a certain revelation thatclues are hiding beneath every single corner I took out the book and scannedit. The book, based on its title and stature, I could guess that it waspurchased not from Australia, but from my home country, Malaysia. Growing up inMalaysia has allowed the ability to distinguish items originating from there tomanifest within me. That, and the price tag that was still adhered to the backof the book.

It was simple enough. All I had to do was snoop around tofind a person who is from Malaysia, works in Woolworths and has a certaintendency to eat pears. Finally, a proper lead.

Problem is, there is not a single person who fits thisdescription. However, that doesn’t matter, it wouldn’t be fun otherwise. Amouse who stole cheese would never leave cheese holes lying around. I look formysteries, not interpretive answers. The answer is rarely the answer. Nobodyever finds the answer, they only think they have. When that happens, they stopthinking. If we seek for mysteries, we will always be seeking. Seek mysteries,evoke mysteries, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom.

Of Angels and Mysteries

2011-11-27T18:56:00.001-08:00

The first one.

I received it. The very first one. It was the first ofmany that would come. It came in an unexpected fashion. As I was frolickingaround, basking in conversations, hopping between clusters of people, it wasthrust into my hands. A gift, with a note.

Yes, I Googled its scientific name

A little sniff at it along with observation of its colourand bell-like shape revealed the identity of this object. Plantae Rosales Rosaceae Pyrus communis or in laymen’s terms, a Packhampear. I looked to the one who passed this fruit to me, a girl who was just amessenger. Or so she claimed. She denied being the giver of the gift but was itreally true? With a series of questions bombarded at this messenger with theaim of exposing any anomaly in her answers that may lead to the solution tothis mystery, I came to no conclusion.

I had an uphill task of deducing this mystery. All I hadto work on was this piece of pip fruit. A Packham pear, sufficiently ripen andready for consumption. Pears are climacteric fruits which means that they areable to ripen even after being picked or harvested. Pears, specifically arepicked about a fortnight before ripening because during that stage, it isrelatively harder and has lesser tendency to bruise during shipping. A gentlesqueeze on my pear confirms that it is indeed ripe. This eliminates thepossibility of it coming from a farm nearby. Thus, it could only be from asupermarket. Coles, Woolworths, Fruity Capers or any convenience stores couldbe the origin of this gift. There are just too many possibilities, it isimpossible to deduce anything at this point. The giver is indeed a smart one atcovering their tracks.

I was stumped, but then it struck me. The note! Anotherimportant clue to solve this mystery. The handwriting was nothing I have seenbefore and the message probably didn’t give any indication to the writer. Butit was signed off with a diagram. This was intriguing.

Clue No.1

This was the identity the giver chose to represent them.This was vast progress in my mystery conquest. This information, coupled withthe words of the messenger, I can safely assume that this pear and note wasgiven by my Angel. It fits in with the fact that there was an ongoing eventknown as the Angel and Mortal Game.

Thus, it begins.

Disclaimer: This post may or may not be adequately accurate. Any characters appearing in this work may or may not be fictitious. Any resemblance be it people or occurence to anything in real life is intentional but it may be modified due to dramatizing reasons.

And yet another tag! Blue'sClues as a tribute to my favourite childhood mystery shows.

Of my dream girl and my nightmarish name

2011-11-13T22:08:00.001-08:00

Just a disclaimer, disregard the date of my last blogpost, I did post it on the 11.11.11. The date was decided by the Bloggerwebsite who/whom had no idea whatsoever where my location is at the moment. Itwas 11.11.11 in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, the 3 countries that I havestudied in. Thus, I DID post on the 11.11.11.

Since then, it has been 3 days. So far, no one hasnoticed nor commented on the anomaly on that post. I find that marginallyamazing. You see, after the paragraph which I mentioned the Kpop Music Festival(for those less-informed individuals, this is an event that showcases KoreanStars’ talents), I placed a few pictures to make my blog more colourful. Out ofthese 3 pictures, one of them is the odd one out. If you didn’t notice, checkout my last post again. Isn’t it obvious?

Definitely Kara’s Seungyeon. She is the only on withshort hair and a white top. She is also my favourite Kpop star. Duh~

Seungyeon <3

Awwww


Can you feel my heartbeat?

Why so serious?

I kid I kid. Seems like Esther fit in well with two ofthe greatest Kpop artists considering that no one has expressed their confusionor exasperation on my choice of pictures. The reason is either most of myreaders don’t follow Korean music news much or Esther is actually as pretty as….nevermind.I think most people here don’t know much about Kpop.

I’m being a little down under the weather these daysseeing that I let a chance to attend the Kpop Music Festival slip out of myfingers. Just a little bit more push and I would have flown there last week. Byebye KARA~

In all honesty, I don’t consider myself a Kpop maniac. Infact, I rarely follow Kpop nowadays. The only Korean show I watch now isRunning Man. Watch it, it is hilarious. But besides that, I don’t really watchshows solely featuring for Kpop stars anymore. I’m just an ordinary single guywho is looking for interesting shows. That said, I can remember and differentiateall members of Girl’s Generation, KARA, T-ARA, 4MINUTE, f(x) and Secret.

Speaking of names, I have been pondering about my namefor a while. As I was growing up, my name (for those extremely less-informedpeople, it is Bryan) is a fairly common name. In fact, the spelling seems to befairly common. But now, I find that most people are named ‘Brian’ instead of ‘Bryan’.It is to the extent of people assuming my name is ‘Brian’.

Things aren’t so bad, I don’t blame them. But if theymisspell my

name in an email or in Facebook, it is just weird. You see, to sendan email to me, or do anything to my Facebook, they would have to come acrossmy real name. Yes, BRYAN. However, after clicking through various links withthe word ‘BRYAN’, they still managed to refer to me as ‘Brian’. I mean, do youguys think I typo’d my account?

This is conspiracy, this is controversy, THIS IS ~~SPARTAAAA~~STEREOTYPING. I think the heat is getting to my head.

I like my name, it is a great name.

It's funny cause it's true

Strangely, my siblings have unique names that are rarelyfound around the world. None of them has ever met another friend who sharestheir name. I, on the other hand, have known 5 in primary school and secondaryschool, 3 during my polytechnic years and 3 in university. That is just those Ican remember at the top of my head. Sadly, my dad almost named me Tyson, afterthe boxer who bit someone else’s ear off. He is the cleverer version of VanGogh.

I am pretty happy I wasn’t named Tyson. I would have beenteased so much when that boxer bit off some other guy’s ear.

A toast to all the ordinary names in the world!

Cheers.

Of a special day and a special superstar

2011-11-10T22:16:00.001-08:00

11.11.11

A very unique date. It has been a huge phenomenon in theinternet world. Many people are boasting their birthday or setting theirwedding on this day. But how special is this day actually?

Today, is also remembrance day. It is a day to rememberthe soldier that went for war a long long time ago. More than that, it is tocommemorate the day hostilities formally ended. World War I formally ended.

A long long time ago, this happened

It is also a day where Ned Kelly was hanged. He is anAustralian bushranger. Bushrangers are like rebels or runaway convicts. Somewould consider Ned Kelly as one of the most notorious cop-killer. This day, 1880,he was hanged. Just earlier this year, anthropologist claims that they havefound his skeleton, but his skull is still at large.

Ooo, scary

Another significant point about today is that today marksthe end of a countdown to a festival. The Kpop Music Festival. In Sydney!KARA!! Hyunah!! KARA!!!!!!!!!!

Kara's Seungyeon

4minute's Hyunah

Brisbane's Esther

Anyway, I won’t be going. *frowny face*

Also, after today, there are 50 days left till the end ofthe year. But more importantly, after today, a friend of mine, Esther (middle picture) will bein Brisbane for only another 28 days. 7 days from now, it will be her farewellparty.

Well, some of those things aren’t relevant to the dateright?

Right, but they still make this a memorable day for me.

Fact is, every day is unique. We can list out a list ofinteresting thing every day, but in the end, what really matters is what we doon that day. Have we accomplished what we want to do? Are we happy with howthat day went?

It doesn’t really matter if some explorer found Hawaii 50years ago, what matters is right now.

Today is a special day. How special it is compared to thedays to come? I have no idea, but it is special to me nonetheless.

And last but not least, today is the day I end myhiatus!! As well as my 100th post in this blog. By the time the next 11.11.11 comes, this blog will be legendary

Toodles.

Of Poodles

2011-11-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

You know how we should never do things halfway? Like whenwe are telling a story to our friends, they would hate it if we just stoppedhalfway without finishing the story. That applies to our work or duties too.Nobody likes a quitter. Once we start something, we have to go through it tillthe end.

Yes, I understood what that means yesterday. Like I mentionedbefore, I am sick. So, I prescribed myself some medication, Panadol. Everysingle time I attempted to consume them, they got stuck at the back of mythroat. That, is how stopping halfway feels like. Suffocation, choking andbitterness.

The horror!

Now, I’m not a kid, I can actually swallow pillssuccessfully. But these failures to do so prompted me to think of the cause.With my awfully unique deduction skills and the slightly hurting sensation inmy throat, I postulated that my throat has swelled up and impeded theconsumption of my medicine.

I recalled the symptoms of my ailment. Fever, chills(that hiding under the blanket didn’t help), headaches, voice changes,difficulties swallowing (panadol much?) and ear pain. Well, my ears didn’texactly hurt, but I did have impaired hearing. Again, with my deduction skillsas well as the aid of my trusty sidekick, GOOGLE, I used these clues and cameto a conclusion.

*gasps* Tonsillitis *gasps*

Elementary, dear Watson. Nah, I was just scaring myself.When I’m sick, I blame everything and anything. Today could be my tonsils, andon another day, I would blame sushi. Especially those full-of-red-balls ones.

The fish roe sushi. The pieces of destruction.

I will annoy you!

I use to work in a sushi restaurant, where the king ofsushi lives. Yes, Sushi King.

Behold!

You see, I had to clean the tables once in a while and mostof the times, people who ate those pieces of destruction seems to havedestroyed their mouths and those fish eggs never fails to scatter on the table.Messiness is one thing, but fish roes are on a whole new level. Those thingsstick to the table like hair on a bar of soap. Remembering it is so frustratingis give me a headache.

Fish roes make me sick.

On another note, I think my blog will be on a hiatus for awhile until I am well again. Since I will get my writing fix another way.

RAWR means bye

Yes, I do like writing, which is why I’m blogging rightnow. My optimal preference in writing would be more novel-like since I likewriting stories when I was young. But blogging requires a different style. Afree-er style but not to my liking.

Anyhow, I’ll be back soon, hopefully.

I have the sudden urge to end things randomly.

Poodles.

Of being sick and sick of things

2011-11-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

I’m getting pretty peeved right now. All of a sudden, I’msick again. After yesterday’s late-night lab session, I felt strangely cold.Not as in emotionally cold, but physically cold. I felt the onset of fever. As Ithreaded home with a slight tremble, I was perplexed with my current condition.I should have already adapted to the changing of weather.

Perhaps those late nights in my lab finally managed topress me down. Or perhaps mental strain has dispersed into my physical body.Who knows?

Despite this, I can’t help myself from feeling relievedthat I have no exams now, or this ailment will be extremely troublesome. Don’tget me wrong, I hate being sick. I hate it so much, even more than drinkingorange juice after using mouthwash.

You know what else I’m starting to hate? Facebook. Well,not really but I have somehow gotten a glimpse on how Facebook is not actuallya social networking site. It is actually an anti-social networking site. Itgives people the impression that they are connected.

Facebook causes many things

In other words, communicating via Facebook is a shallowcommunication. Every day, we look at our screen and we like or comment on ourfriends’ statuses. Those statuses rarely contain much depth, are trivialalthough some can be considered witty. However, these interactions are rarelymemorable or life-changing. This is because Facebook is convenient. Well, convenience is good, but it comes with a cost.This convenience causes us to interact with our friends out of convenience, notbecause we want to. When we do something without the ‘want’, we often losetract on what we do. That applies here too. These convenient interactions willfail in every way to be memorable.

Because of this, Facebook becomes addictive. Why arenon-memorable interactions addictive, you ask? It is because Facebook gives usa false sense of socializing. Being active in Facebook gives us the sense of usfilling up our social bucket. But alas, it is just but a false fill. Like drinkingsalt water or digging a hole just to fill another hole. It gives a sense ofsatisfaction, but it leaves us ‘hungry’ afterwards. As we become more active,our social bucket becomes bigger and as it becomes bigger, we rely on Facebookto fill it up. Here, a vicious cycle is formed.

Addictive stuff

It is clear that Facebook activity could never replaceface to face interactions. When we have face to face interactions, we areaddressing an individual. Strange as it may seem, Facebook interactions aredifferent. You see, with Facebook, the ‘friends’ that we interact with losestheir individuality and becomes a collective.

When we post an update or a photo, who do we post it for?Which friend are we updating? Strangely, I felt that I wasn’t sharing it withanyone in particular, just with the collective community known as Facebook.When people ‘like’ our status, we have the false sense of achieving somethingbut in reality, it doesn’t really mean anything. Just think, what were the last5 things you ‘liked’ in Facebook? Can’t recall? The same thing happens to thosefriends who ‘likes’ your status. Similarly, an LOL isn’t really laughing outloud, a =) isn’t really a smile and a ***hugzzz*** isn’t really a hug.

Why would we need help connecting with people in our life?

We, or more specifically I, have become over-reliant onFacebook. It is my main method in contacting friends be it for important stuffor just to ask how are they. While there maybe genuine concern by me, my friends may not feel the same and I can’t blamethem considering how shallow Facebook has made our interactions.

All this ranting was caused by one factor. In my previouspost, I noted that I had forgotten a birthday of a good friend of mine. I realisedthat I actually had forgotten a few birthdays of theirs albeit being in a wholedifferent country. It dawned upon me how reliant I was on Facebook and how I knowthat even if I did remember their birthday, wishing them in Facebook didn’tmake much of a difference. What I really wanted to do was ask them how theyspent their birthdays and how they were getting on. A simple ‘HBD’ and a ‘like’in return wasn’t going to cut it.

So, as I continue dwelling in my sudden epiphany on mysocial life while bemused by how I’m suddenly sick, Toodles!

Of being a manly guy that trembles and cries

2011-11-01T04:03:00.000-07:00

MELBOURNE CUP!!!!!!!!

Yes, Melbourne Cup was on today. It is one of or thebiggest horse race in the world. Big as in real big, not as in the Kranji horseracing in Singapore. Great excitement was surrounding my lab especially afterthe photo finish. I was routing for Unusual Suspect just cause the name iscool. But meh.

Unusual Suspect!!

Where was I during this whole race? In the lab.

Now, with excitement and thumping of hearts all around,most of the people in my lab have gone to celebrate.

Where am I during the celebration? In the office.

Great life I have huh? Now I’m lab alone. Get it? A punfor ‘left alone’ with the ingenuity to allude to the popular movie hit ‘HomeAlone’.

Darn, people should get puns more.

So, as you can see, my life has been full of excitementrecently. Besides the fact that my previous post was a waste and I have beenrepeating my experiments for the past week, everything is going very smoothly.

That said, I’m getting pretty tired of doing so much workand not making any progress. So, as I took a stroll down UQ Lake, I took solacein the beauty of what I saw. Jacarandas. They are beautiful on the trees andthey even made the ground prettier as the petals cloak the green grass. I lovepurple by the way.

Purple beauty

Path of beauty

Emotional don’t actually mean ‘emo’ which is a popularword for teens these days. ‘Emo’ only consists of one part of being emotionalmainly specifying negative emotions. You see, emotional is defined as readilyaffected with or stirred by emotions. So, in my opinion, this trait is prettyclose to that of expressive. It means we are readily affected by our emotions.

I remember a good friend telling me that crying is not asign of weakness. Here is a video that my friend showed me.

And that, I do agree. It is a sign of being emotional. Aperson who is emotional can also be one who is easily sad, or easily laugh. Butthese aren’t limited to expression, it can also mean one may dwell on a problemor snigger at a joke much longer than those who are less emotional.

Now, anger is also an emotion.

Someone once said, when a person calls your full name,you can bet that that person is angry. Or more specifically, angry at you. Especiallyif it’s a girl. Here is an instance of that happening.

Noone knows what was coming

I shuddered. I trembled. Hard. What did I possibly do towarrant this? Fearful as I am, I pluck the lingering bits of courage I haveleft and replied. To my surprise, this was the answer.

What a relief~

Phewwwwwwwwww. As I breathe a sigh of relieve and wipedmy cold sweat from my forehead, I took solace that I know at least one personknows how to spell my full name.

I guess the full name thing wasn’t always true after all.Stereotyping is bad.

Toodles

p/s, I can't believe this, but I seem to have forgotten my good friend's birthday. I'm so very sorry.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAN ZHIQI!!!!!!!!!!

Of trying to help, but FAT chance

2011-10-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

It is Monday again! Happy Monday everyone. Somehow,things look a little gloomy on this happy Monday morning. The sky is cloudywith a chance of water and everyone is scurrying around taking their final lapof cramming this semester. Yup, no rainbows, sunshine or marshmallows today.

Like I have stressed a few times in my previous posts, I havenothing big on my plate at the moment. I do have some worrying and work piledup but they aren’t that big of a deal. Yet. So, it may not be rainbows,sunshine and lollipops, but it is pretty close. I have to be the most relaxedguy in Brisbane right now. Yes, that is an exaggeration.

For the most part of my life in Brisbane, I have beenplagued by assignments. Occasionally it would be exams, but mostly assignments.Having done my research proposal and research seminar recently, I was no longerriddled with any assignments anymore. Now, note the word ‘was’ on my previoussentence. I had been free, till yesterday.

Last night, things took a turn. A good friend of mine wasconcerned about me. She thought it would be hard for me to adapt to this suddenfreedom that I have acquired. So, she did what any friend would do. She gave mean assignment.

Well, this has failed to stress me out. Not even a singlebit. That is because this assignment won’t be graded. Well, not graded for meat least.

Now, her assignment, which I have to think of, is aboutchildhood obesity. I can’t, for the love of me, seem to remember what I was supposedto think about regarding this topic. Short term memory loss at its best here.But if I were to guess, it would be thinking of ways to overcome this problem.Knowing that she is in food science, the solution she wants should have somethingto do with food I guess. So, asking kids to exercise as their daily routine orincorporating ‘senaman’ every morning in school will be out of the list.

Regarding food and obesity in serving food for kids, hereare a few ground rules I can think of:-

1. Limit consumption of sodasand juices with added sugar.

2. Reduce serving foods thatcontain added sugars and fats

3. Encourage children to eatmore fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins.

4. Limit portions served tochildren.

5. Encourage children to drinkmore water.

6. Serve low-fat or non-fatdairy products.

7. Replace ice cream andchocolates with fruit shakes.

In summary, hire JamieOliver.

The complete package

The above is fine and dandy and all, but I have anotherapproach. Fighting poison with poison, fire with fire, into the frying pan, outof the fire type of approach.

Eat more fats.

Yes, you heard it right the first time.

I propose children’s diet to contain like 10% of carbs, 10%of protein and the rest on FAT.

Now now, don’t close this blog yet, hear me out first. I’mnot just spouting random crap and even if I did, you shouldn’t leave this blog.Life gives us crap sometimes, but that doesn’t mean we can just close the window,no?

Pardon me, I digressed. You see, the fuel for our body isglucose or fat. If our body gets used to using glucose and when we run out ofglucose, it will take protein either from food or our muscles and convert theminto glucose. What we want to do, is conditioning our body to be used to usingfat as energy source instead.

With a high fat diet, our body will recognise fat as themain source of energy. Thus, for energy, it will choose to use dietary fats orour body fats.

Furthermore, when we consume carbs or protein, anythingexcess will be converted into fat as storage. This is because the usage ofproteins and carbs as energy source leads to the increase in insulin which isresponsible for the storage of fat. Fat, on the other hand, gives your bodyenergy and it doesn’t cause the increase in insulin. Fat also makes you feelfuller compared to carbs or protein, thus it will less likely lead toovereating.

Perfect, no? Eat more fat to be less fat.

Sometimes, fat even comes for free!

If all else fail, throw all your food to your friendbeside you. Let your friend get fat instead of you.

That's what friends are for

Seems to work for Timon, huh?

Toodles~

Disclaimer: I hold no responsibility in the advice that Ihave given especially on the fatty food part.

P/s, Esther, I doubt this will help you much since I forgotwhat you asked me to do, so, maybe you could reiterate it to me. Laughed out loud.

Of being deep in thoughts and joining the emo trend

2011-10-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

Kitty in deep thoughts

Again, I had written an extremely long post that actuallyhas deep thoughts for once but my laptop overheated again. I wish Optimus Primewould go disturb other laptops. How about those Macs that everyone seems to betalking about? That post I have written was about to be one of my longest postin this blog. Seriously. Now, I am too lazy to regurgitate those thoughts I hadat that time. Inspiration only knocks once in a while. And when you lost it, itis gone, until you see it again, it is different. It is like dropping a grapeand it rolled under your refrigerator. 20 years later, when you move yourrefrigerator, you find a raisin and think, “Why is there a raisin here? I DON’Teat raisins, wait….”

I wish my ideas were this abundant

Yes, the grape is like my blog idea, but since I havelost it, even if I can still remember it, it is all dried up and I doubt anyonewould eat the raisin, huh? If you would eat it, I think you need to seesomeone.

It is exam season for everyone else and they all seemstressed. I have no exams coming and I sincerely thought stress wouldn’t bewith me this time. Boy, was I wrong! My project isn’t going as smoothly as I thoughtand things a failing. Bad. Well, it is not like this will decide if I fail orpass my Honours, so I shouldn’t be that bothered about it. Unlike those takingtheir make-or-break or GPA7-or-Super-High-Distinction-GPA9000 deciding exams, Ilook to be in a better position huh? So, I resolve not to show too much unhappinessabout my project.

Even my blog lacks the cheery feeling compared to the onebefore. Yes, to those who are slightly less observant, I changed my bloglayout. I don’t blame you for not noticing, it was, after all just a few subtlechanges. You see, I felt that the previous blog title has the word ‘childish’and despite disagreements by others, I don’t think that word fits me anymore.

That is mainly because recently, I have quite a number ofdeep thoughts. It is not like I rarely ‘think’, it is that my recent thoughtsare more grown up that my previous ones. Previously, my thoughts consists ofquestions like ‘are oranges named after the colour or is the colour orangenamed after the fruit’ or discovering that eggs are the chicken’s version ofmenses.

You'll never see this in the same way ever again

But now, I started thinking more about my future, many thanksto recent discussions that I had to sit in. It made me question various eventsin my past, of things that I should or shouldn’t have let go. With a flush of emotions,I realised that I may have yet to put down these burden of memories of my past,I just got too used to carrying them. Somehow, I felt that the only way thiscan be resolved only when I’m back in my home country about half a year fromnow.

So, in meantime, I should use my time in thinking aboutstuff that are actually useful to the rest of the world, like politics perhaps?

Calvin learnt things the hard way

Or preparing myself for the future?

Be prepared, really prepared

Gotta get some of those, soon.

So, for now, I’m changing my thoughts. Here is somethingto think about.

Below are the fossilized formsof some Old English words:-
Swim, Swam, Swum
Sing, Sang, Sung

Now imagine and figure out...
What the Present Continuous and alternative Past formof the word SHUT would be?

Toodles.

Of not typing this the way i want to

2011-10-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been posting in my blog recently. Some may haveguessed or assumed that I was on a hiatus due to the current season ofexamination. Wrong. I do not have any exam, HAH! But my lack of activity herewas due to another season, SUMMER.

Evidently, I did write up a post last week but because I hada couple of other engagements, I delayed in posting it up. So, how does itrelate to summer? You see, my laptop tends to overheat at times and to savevarious organs of it from melting, it shuts down. AUTOMATICALLY. It’s likeOptimus Prime saying, “Shut down, AUTOmatically.” This doesn’t happen toooften, but due to the crazy summer weather recently, my laptop gets hot easierthan per normal. *Insert frowny face here*

So there, my ~~excuse~~ reason for not being active here.

My original post was supposed to be an emotional one. Itis to continue the trend of emo postsfrom various blogs of other friends. But because of that mishap I mentionedabove, I feel appalled trying to regurgitate all those emo-filled memories.

Nonetheless, this post will be special too. Maybe notspecial to you, but to me.

Just a short update, I’m generally recovered of therecent plagued that has haunted me for a couple of weeks, I’ve done my researchproposal seminar albeit not as smoothly as I hoped and realised that despitethinking that bad things are happening to me recently, they aren’t as bad as I thoughtonce I actually sat down and think about them.

I think I better end this extremely short post as I havea feeling Optimus Prime is trying to contact my laptop again.

So, what is so special about this post, you say? I’m inmy lab now, lacking the memory to bring my keyboard to school. No, not themusic keyboard. My laptop has a defective keyboard, thus it requires temporarytransplantation of a new one. Since its prosthetic organ is absent today, I’musing another alternative.

Best thing ever~

An on-screen keyboard. Think, how hard was it to type outthis post, and be happy and amazed that I managed to actually write it. If you’renot amazed, try it. It is tough.

Toodles.

Of Decisions, Dilemmas and DOLPHINS

2011-09-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

Decisions decisions. Things I have to make too many timesin my life. I’m bad at making decisions. Very bad.

Thus, it explains why I am extremely troubled right now.I am in a dilemma. Deep dilemma.

A dilemma occurs when I have to make a decision betweenseveral choices, all of which isn’t exactly desirable. That, or I happen to bein a difficult and perplexing situation.

Now, it is the mid-term holidays. At least for most of myfriends. Which ultimately excludes me. You see, several of my friends were planningon a day trip on the Wednesday of the ‘holiday’ week. I heard the plan was togo to a strawberry farm. That is fine and dandy and all, until they decided toscrap that plan. Heck, they’ll go for the jugular and go feed dolphins instead.

This is where the problem arises. I easily stated myintentions of not attending the day trip when the plan was for the strawberryfarm. I had no particular interest in strawberries. I had my reasons for notgoing too, which I will state later. Anyway, strawberries, meh, Dolphins aredifferent.

Cuteness overload!!!

I like dolphins. They are like full of FUN. And cute too.Don’t you like dolphins? I think everyone should like dolphins. Cute andshark-defeating. They are like the dogs or the underwater world.

Anyway, now I really want to attend this day trip. Butsomehow, the day of the trip happens to be the day the report I have beenworking on for 10 weeks is due. Actually, I have been working on it for only 4weeks, but I was supposed to work onit for 10 weeks. But doing that wouldn’t be FUN huh?

You know what FUN is?

The current status of my report has its own problems too.See, my supervisor is currently holding my draft, impending me from completingit any faster that I want to. Well, my report is submission-ready as of now,but not good-marks-ready.

I highly doubt my supervisor can revise my draft beforethe dateline and I am contemplating if I should just get ready to submit mycurrent inferior report or continue to wait for my supervisor’s response. Icould however, go against my direct supervisor’s direction and send it to the ‘bigsupervisor’ for feedback and brace myself for an impending storm.

Anyway, enough updates on my life and back to the topicof dilemma.

I seriously can’t decide if I should get a Paul’s Just Natural: Iced Coffee or a Paul’s Just Natural: Chocolate Malt andHoney.

I hate dilemmas, don’t you?

Toodles.

Of language and the barriers it causes

2011-09-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

It is apparent that my whim of supporting my good friend,Esther by entertaining her through blog posts was pretty short-lived. There isa proverb in Malay that goes, “Hangat-hangat tahi ayam.” I am reluctant toexplain the meaning but I will anyway, since I want people to learn new thingsthrough my blog. The proverb directly translate to, “As hot as a chicken’sexcrement/discharge goes.”

Well, as some may or may not know, a chicken’s excrementtend to be very hot the moment it comes out of the chicken. But the heat won’tlast very long. So there, try to connect the meaning yourself. I refuse toliken my situation to chicken poop anymore.

It baffles me how people can think up of such proverbs. Granted,that example was a Malay proverb, but English isn’t so fine and dandy as youthink.

Disagree? Let’s see.

I’m sure most of you heard of Humpty Dumpty before. Whatis the first thing that comes to mind when you picture Mr. Dumpty?

Egg?

Egg??

C’mon, admit it, you always thought he was an egg. Now, let us see the rhyme again.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

See? There is nothing that says Mr. Dumpty was an egg.ENGLISH.

Irrelevant you say? This is nothing. This is just the tipof the iceberg.

I think is it over-interesting

I have much more where that came from. *Takes a deeeeeeepbreath*

See what i mean?

There is no egg in eggplant.

A pineapple ain't a pine nor is it an apple.

Quicksand actually works pretty slowly.

Boxing rings are not rings at all, they aresquare!

Even the animal namings are messed up. Bad.

Seen a Guinea Pig? It's not a pig nor does it comefrom Guinea. Its a rodent.

By right, the young of a kangaroo should be calleda rooster but they had to call it a Joey. The young of a rooster is called achick even though it is a male.

One goose, two geese. One moose? Two meese?

And chickens go,"Pork, pork."

Sometimes, English plays around with word thatconfuses people. For what reason, nobody knows? Just to torture us, maybe?

You see, in what language dopeople recite at a play and play at a recital?

Or ship by a truck and send cargo by a ship?

How about having noses that run and feet thatsmell?

Parking at driveways and driving at parkways?

Good Lord, the contradictions are stupendous.

A wise man and a wise guy have opposite meanings.

But a fat chance and a slim one have the exactsame meaning.

How can the weather be hot as hell one day andcold as hell on another?

The human race isn't really a race at all.

So, Esther, your Facebookfasting is about to be over. I hope this post can fulfil my aim of entertainingyou but if you read it after your fast is over, too bad.

Now, for one last Englishmess-up,

“When I wind up my watch, Istart it. But when I wind up this post, it ends.”

Which I will wind up right now.

Toodles.

Of zzzZZZzzz

2011-09-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

Some days are like other days

Last Friday has been a very weird day. I almost got hitby a rogue driver in the morning and I attended an extra special lab meetingthat isn’t out of the ordinary at all. You see, every Friday, my lab will havea lab meeting with one of the students/staffs giving a presentation on theirproject. We have all received an email stating that this lab meeting will beextra special. To our dismay, it was just the result of the presenter having asense of humour. I speak for a number of us when I say that we expected food.Or cake. I like cake.

Despite such interesting happenings, the most interestingthing that happened was me revisiting my lost memories. Well, they weren’texactly lost, but it just sounds much more dramatic that way. You see, a longlong time ago, before my dog was borne, I used to blog with Modblog. Yes, thatwas way before BlogSpot or wordpress. It is like hi5 to Facebook. Yes, I usedhi5 too. I feel very old. And yes, I listen to the Carpenters and Bee Gees.

Why do birds suddenly appear~

So, as I quickly searched several The Carpenters’ song inyoutube, I continued to reminisce in my past. I started reading my old blogpost. I found that I was a pretty angsty and emotional guy. And boy, was myEnglish just horrendous, if I was actually attempting to write in English.

But this gave me an opportunity to see what I was feelingback then. Yes, I do remember the happenings when I was younger, but I seem tohave forgotten how I felt back then. When I tell stories of my past, I tend toadd in emotions of anger and humour. What I failed to express in these storieswere sadness, which by the way those past posts were going, there was a lot ofsadness. So, in a sense, those were really lost memories. My personal visit tomy past.

Anyway, recently I’ve noticed another few friends disappearingfrom Facebook. I’m shocked and awed. More people are doing the feat that hasbeen troubling me. Now I feel even more inferior.

Being inferior and emotional, best day ever. Not tomention, at the time I am writing this post, the soccer team I support justlost. And I’m staying up to rush my report. What a way to welcome a whole newMonday.

Most of us look forward to Monday as much as a trip to the dentist
(unless if the dentist is Wei June or Sabrina)

I would like to write a whole lot more for this post, butI’m afraid it may go down the depressing lane. I like to convey my realemotions through my post but I would prefer them to be positive ones. So,rather than typing ‘LOL’ without laughing out loud, I’ll just end this posthere.

So, toodles (in a rather depressing tone).

And off I go into the land ofdoing-my-report-late-late-into-the-night~~~

ZzzzZ

Of Time and Ticking Away~

2011-09-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

So, once again, I was surfing the web while stalking ,kepoh-ing, showing concern to friends by reading their blogs, I stumbled uponthis post. The title tickled my fancy. But more so this quote:

“Two weeks Facebook fast”

I scoffed and may possibly have unintentionally spewedsome of my biscuit crumbs on the table while thinking, “Hur Hur, how is shegoing to do it when I couldn’t even accomplish 30 seconds of said task.”

No, not this kind of Facebook fast

However, my scoffing turns to gasping. Well, only in mymind, I wasn’t going to start gasping for air in public. Anyway, I was shockedbecause she had been Facebook fasting for like a few days. It is still earlydays for it to be two weeks, but still! What I couldn’t do in 30 seconds, shehad done for several days. And it is still going on. I felt strangely inferior,which is rare.

But rather than feel jealous about her feats, being thegood friend that I am, I will support her. Since her replacement for Facebookand I quote, is blogs,exams, assignments and blackboard, I will try my best toprovide those for her. I would gladly give her an assignment or an exam, but I highlydoubt she would be happy. Anyone giving me an extra assignment now will regretit. Blackboard is out of the picture as I have no idea where to get one sincewhiteboards are now officially the new black.

So, blogging is the way to go. Hopefully, in hersentence, the word ‘blogs’ mean reading blogs rather than writing one.Otherwise, I won’t be able to support her anymore.

So, if you think I’m going to randomly spew a bunch ofnonsense just so that she will have a lot to read, you are wrong. Well, somethinks that way about my posts thus far, but I would like to think it isn’t. My posts, while they might require minimalthinking to understand, are generally thoroughly thought up by me. In otherwords, my sweat and tears. Read it with joy, or a can of Kickapoo.

Requirements to understand this blog

That said, I’m bored out of skull and I’ve squeeze mybrain dry. I have nothing here. Nothing interesting happen to me at allrecently. Nada. This I rare, since when I start writing, it is hard to stop.Except for scientific reports.

Someone once told me that every day, interesting andfunny things will occur, you just have to notice. So, I start thinking. Thinking about funnythings that occur. Usually, things seem more amusing in my ‘thinking’ and it ishard to translate them into words. This time, even in my ‘thinking’, all thingsseem strangely boring. When your imagination turns stale, something is wrong. Iseem to have used up all my imaginations in my dreams, thus explaining thisdrought. So, for now, all I can do is translate my ‘thinking’ exactly intowords, and into this blog.

Sometimes, things are not where they are supposed to be

My ‘thinking’ is like a messy room. You know, the kindwhere you swore you know where you left your stuff, but it isn’t there anymore.It is still within the vicinity of your room though. It’s like looking for ablog topic in my mind. In this mess, clearly, I could see my to-do-list inwhich ‘Report’ was first on the list. But ignored it, I did. I didn’t evenbother with No. 2 on the list.

I wish my list looks like this

I continue on, with revelation of more things that I’msupposed to be doing. The stuff I need to do slowly increases and time ticksaway but here I am, still rummaging through the mess.

Time is running out

I searched deeper and now that I’m waist deep in mythoughts, I now knew, I had to complete this bane of a task, blogging. I haveto complete this; else I won’t sleep, much less completing my other task. As itcontinues to dawn upon me on how important this blog post is for me to continueon with my daily life, I gathered momentum in my efforts of gathering ideas.Ideas are coming, I can feel it. I’m slowly finding the pieces and piecing themtogether. A burst of inspiration, it is now obvious that nothing can stop mefrom completing this blog. It is like the process of expelling waste liquidfrom your body, once you start, there’s no way to stop. NOTHING CAN STOP ME NOW…..wait.

Gabriel is back with McD’s nuggets.

Toodles.

Of Midnight Dreams and Suns

2011-09-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

Recently, I’ve been having quite a number of dreams. Reoccurringdreams. At least they seem like reoccurring dreams. It’s so surreal, it’sweird. Usually, it is exciting to have continuation of your dreams. Likesequels. Somehow, at the rate of these dreams reoccurring, I’m starting to getbored. Yes, bored. Yawwwwn-type of bored. But I can’t yawn, nor can I sleep. I’malready sleeping remember? This isn’t inception, you know. Let’s see whathappens tonight.

From what I recall from the dream, there was a scenewhere it was night (well, supposed to be night), but the next moment, I wasblinded by the sun. It reminded me of a movie/story called Midnight Sun. Iremember watching that movie and I loved it. It starred one of my favourite Japanesesinger, YUI.

Awww~

Double Awww~

The movie was amazing as well as the songs. Watch it, itis pretty touching too.

Pardon me for the watermark

Then, after a few days/months/years (I can’t remember),when I started listening to K-pop, I found a musical on this particular story,starred by a member of Girl’s Generation.

Taeyeon!!!

Angsty face Taeyeon

Despite the pretty faces of the group, Taeyeon happens tobe one of the members who can actually sing. So, beautiful story, great songs,both in Korean and Japanese. What could go wrong?

Well, when I was searching for the songs, this is whatcame up. Yes, this could go wrong.

THE HORROR!!!!

Why? Why?! Why?!?!?!?

There goes my childhood memories. Now, when I recommendMidnight Sun to people, they will think of some pale anaemic-looking vampireguy who constantly looks like he is having constipation. I mean, I get the constipationpart since fibre isn’t any part of his blood-filled diet, but anaemic? Youwould think someone having blood for a majority of his meals should haveslightly more colour in his skin, no?

I digress, but before any twilighters (sounds like highlightersdoesn’t it?) light up their torches for my head, I have to clarify. I havenothing against the story as a whole as I’ve never actually read the book. But thefirst movie was terrible. Despite such a terribly orchestrated movie, manypeople loved it. The lines were clichéd, the romance was artificial, the guywas sick and vampire bites actually looked like my own bite. Maybe the secondmovie was decent, but well, first one scarred me already.

Before people actually start hunting me down, let me getback to the ‘Midnight Sun’ that I like. It is a heart breaking story about agirl who has a strange condition which prevents her from going out under thesun. She finds love and strives to become a singer. Watch it, seriously. It ispretty good. Not blockbuster in anysense, but makes much more sense than the first Twilight movie.

Anyway, I’m just currently in my casual romantic moviephase. Another movie I would recommend is Hello Stranger. It is a Thai movie thathas a unique storyline. I won’t spoil those who wants to watch it and I won’twaste the time of those who aren’t interested. So, no synopsis here. Just apicture.

Watch this too!

I realise since I have posted a few posts on movies, I shouldchange my normal-sounding label, the ‘movie reviews’. So, I’m changing it intoa more badass sounding name, TheReelReview. Get it? Reel as in a pun for Real.

My goal of successfully labelling all of my posts isn’tgoing that well. *Frowny Face*

Frowny face YUI

So, Toodles. <(")

Of Joy and the Drink of Joy

2011-09-09T07:19:00.000-07:00

I’m falling sick. I guess my updates in this blog will beless frequent for the duration of my illness. NOT. In fact, it might even bemore frequent since I’m in no condition to think much while this head ache ishaunting me, and my post generally requires minimal thinking. So, just anotherquick update.

My body is hurting much more than my previous post, whichhappens to be yesterday. You might think that after such strenuous exerciseover the weekend which have caused me to suffer for a few days, I would havelearned my lesson. But noooo, I went for a jog and some heavy exercisesyesterday night. And now, I have headache served on a platter with fever ontop. Perhaps the exercise isn’t involved in me falling sick, but when you arefeeling like me, I blame everything. I even blame last night’s dinner, which bythe way, was interesting.

Well, only one of the ingredients was interesting. Imarinated chicken with soda pop. Orange flavoured soda pop. The end result,juicy and tender chicken. Totally true. I’m going to try that again soon sinceI haven’t suffered from diarrhoea, yet. Yesterday I used Sunkist orange sodafor my fiasco, and since then, I have been thinking of what soda I should usenext. What flavour? Hmm. Only one thing came to mind.

Kickapoo!!

The Original

What flavour is that, you ask?

Look closer. The flavour of joy. It even has the wordrecipe, meaning it would be great for recipes. Perfect for me.

Flavour of Joy

All these years of drinking this interesting drink, I’venever identified the exact flavour of it. My parents weren’t exactly helpful.All they told me was to read the can. If it says joy, it IS joy. Well, I ain’ta kid anymore and if I’m tasting joy, I would know it.

It is a conspiracy, i tell you. In fact, I think there's a conspiracy with all these conspiracy theories. I'll reveal them sometime in the future.

But for now, toodles!

Of Blasting the night away with lasers

2011-09-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

It is the middle of the week once more. My eyes are closingbut that is the least of my worries. The main bulk of my worries stems upon myaching body which was the result of an action-packed weekend. Plus Fridaynight. Well, mainly Friday night. That night, we had a series of challenge,Mission Impossible style, except that it was possible. So, Mission Possible.

Then, the next morning, I was awoken extremely early just toparticipate in a walkathon. 10km walkathon. Nonetheless, I walked. After that,was soccer. And then there was the RiverFire. Yes, fire from the river. Ipromise epic pictures by the end of this post.

Back to Mission Possible. As I have said, we had a series ofchallenges, or missions. Yup, mission is a better word for it makes me lookmore badass. It was fun and exhilarating. It includes survival skills in enemy territory,decoding secret codes and response in times of panic. The latter required us,as a group to carry our injured comrade to safety. This particular event led tothe straining of my back and all other muscles on my body. Of course, being thestrong guy that I am, I didn’t feel it. Not even on the next day. But thestrain was there hiding in the corners of my muscles. Because during themarathon and soccer and even the period of standing during the RiverFire, thecruel strain came out to attack me. Thus, today I took double the time to walkto school.

I need a massage

I guess the RiverFire was the last straw. But not once did Iregret going. It was much better than the previous year mainly because they hadlasers. YES, pew pews all around going with the flow of the music. The lasershow was AWESOME on its own, but the fireworks just made it better. Though someof the hot debris kissed my cheeks and the pew pews did hit my eyes a fewtimes. Now I know how the goalkeepers felt when they got pew pewed during theAsian Suzuki Cup soccer tournament.

Yes, you heard it, LASERS

Pew pew = Lasers. In case you didn’t catch that.

Anywho, it was EPIC. I totally had a blast. Not literally. I’mstill on one piece, not blasted in anyway. I wonder why people use the word ‘blast’to imply that they have had a good time. In some less peaceful part of theworld, having a blast implies other implications. Usually negative. In otherwords, the only way I would actually feel ‘blasted’ during the RiverFire is if Iwas standing right at the spout in which the fireworks were coming out of. So,anyway, in a less literal sense and no offence to warring countries, I HAD ABLAST!!!!

Now, pictures for you to be amazed at. Jealous much?

This ain't the beginning yet

Cool huh?

But wait, that's not all

Wait for it~

YES, frikkin laser beams

Laser OVERLOAD

Disclaimer: Before any of you camera-people ask me aboutthose pictures, I didn’t take those pictures nor do I know what camera or filmor strap they used. I only have my trusty X6 with me and I was reluctant totake it out on Saturday night to take pictures because I felt inferior to theother cameras that were being used. Come on, their battery pack is already largerthan my Nokia X6.

By the way, remember my previous post where I introduced ourfriendly ‘smiley’ variation, the non-flying bird, Pingu the Penguin?Apparently, Facebook recognizes it and has an icon for it. Check it out. Try itif you don’t believe me. <(“). This time, I’ll give it a personality. I’mcalling it the socially awkward penguin. It is used when you have no idea whatto say to the person you’re talking too and express your awkwardness by waddlingyour feet and jerking your neck/head sideways.

So, toodles. <(“)

Of walking and UNIDUS

2011-09-06T06:33:00.000-07:00

Hello, this post will be one of the shortest posts in awhile. I am currently writing another post but felt that I had to post this upfirst. Before my inspiration (if it exists) runs out.

This post will be about UNIDUS.

For UNIDUS, we, at UQ8 has put in various efforts to see thecoming of UNIDUS.

We, brave men

F4 of UQ8

And women

Did things that requires courage..

Some interesting things..

Here, i assume singing

Some less interesting..

Woooow!!

As we walked,

Sometimes, the path may seem long and far..

I see no end

But when we are together, the road seems strangely smaller

The road ain't scary after all

Because, this is a path we all share..

Always keep in mind, UNIDUS is not just about the building, its about the people..

Great people

Just putting more pictures in my blog, because, and I quote,” since as humans we prefer pictures than words kan?”

Toodles..

Of cute little turtle dominating the title

2011-09-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, a warning was sent out to many about an incomingthunderstorm in Brisbane. The forecast was stormy with a chance of hail. Iwonder why I wasn’t directly warned.

Anyway, I’ve done something I said I woulddo a few post back, so everyone shout ‘Hurray!’ I finally disabled my Facebookaccount. And it lasted for about 30 seconds. If you were active on Facebookfrom about 1.06-1.07pm Brisbane time on the 1^st of September, youwould have missed me for about half a minute.

Why only 30 seconds? Well, I was determined for it, but somefactors made me reinstate Facebook back as my home. Five factors, in fact. Yousee, right before I deactivated my Facebook account, they asked me a verythought-provoking question.

“Are you sure you want to deactivate your account?” –Facebook

Then, right after that question, they had several statementsto deter me from this decision. 5 statements, in fact. These statements, whichwithin the long 30 seconds of me being away from Facebook, haunted my mind.

Oh, the pain of missing

During those 30 seconds, I thought first, “Aww, you guys,I’ll sooo miss you guys too” but then I thought, “What if they were missing meright now? Whatever would they do? Can we still be friends as close as before?”

I hesitated, but in the end, I logged back in to Facebookawaiting my glorious return. In real world sense, I pictured me running back tomy friends with smiles and wishes in a “WELCOME BACK” sort of fashion. As I wentback, I waited for the first greetings. After 5 minutes, nothing. 10 minutes,still nothing. Then it came, someone Facebook ‘chatted’ me. WOW, I thought,finally. To my dismal, this was what I received.

Where is the love?

I almost typed that ‘sad’ smiley but decided not to andcheerfully help him out with his important stuff. On a side note, why is a sadsmiley still called a smiley? It isn’t smiling anymore. In my opinion, this ishow it should be named.

=) Smiley

=( Frowny

;) Winky

=D Grinny

XD Laughy

=P Tongue sticky

<(“) Pingu thePenguin

There, that should be the way emoticons are named. Let eachand everyone have its own uniqueness.

One other thing that I’m perplexed about is the reason whysmileys are usually yellow. Except for the angry one, he is always red. But theothers, yellow. I suspect smileys were created by Esther Wong, my friend whofor some unknown reason, loves the colour yellow. Perhaps she is the reasoneveryone in Smiley Land happens to be yellow. Again, except for the angry one,maybe because she don’t get angry easily. I mean, it’s not like people who weresupposed to miss her suddenly forgets about her, no? Who knows?

Anywho, I’m not saying that I’m angry, but 30 seconds is along time. Hmph.

Jokes aside. The one thing I learned from this occurrence isof my reliance in social networking websites. I have a legit reason for activatingmy account again. To several of my friends, Facebook is the only way we couldcontact. Msn messenger is so yesterday. Don’t even talk about Friendster, it isso far behind, I think it is in front now. But well, due to the procrastinationnature that is haunting me now, I feel compelled to attempt this missionimpossible of deactivating my account again.

Hopefully the next time, I will manage 5 minutes. AndHOPEFULLY, some people would notice. Yes, those who Facebook says will miss me.

Until the day I overcome the bane of social networking,Toodles!

A post that requires no 'OF' but FOrgiveness

2011-08-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

Once in a while, there will be an advertisement that actually tugs our heartstrings. Some of the videos happen to be from Malaysia. Yaaay! But most of them were from the late Yasmin Ahmad. Oh, what a creative mind she had. I loved her festive seasons advertisements, all with lessons and a tinged of reality.

Amidst the recent talk about bad ads, this ad came at the right time. To ensure I end my post on the right note, I shall post the ‘bad ad’ first. Here you go:

I have no ‘beef’ against this ad, but rather, I saw the humour in it. I do see, however, where the critiques are coming from besides the intentional ‘blowing up’ of the matter by politicians. Let’s ignore those politicians now, shall we? Since everything they do is a well calculated move and generally have ulterior motives. Now, this ad has its own purpose, but I do think it is a tad bit insensitive. For the first scene, it was blatant over-exaggeration. The less ‘over-the-top’ scene would be the girl praising the seller for her delicious food. To me, that is something good and I am pretty sure the lady would like it if people actually think her food looks good.

The second and third scene was actually real. Although, most of my Muslim friends are okay with people eating in their presence. They said that it was their conviction to fast and their convictions aren’t about to be swayed by other people eating. The third scene is true for most parts. The fashion these days are borderline inappropriate. All in all, decent advertisement, funny but the message could be portrayed in a better fashion. No pun intended.

Now, for the highlight of this post, the Primo in Italian cuisine, the alpha male in the animal world, the Black Beauty of the horsing world and the Liverpool of the soccer world. Here you go:

Compare the two advertisements, both mentions about the bad things ‘we’ do. One highlights the act, the other highlights the redemption. The latter has a wider meaning but forgive me, I’m clutching at straws here. It is interesting how the things the people are sorry for aren’t all actions people have done. Most are just thoughts that would occasionally run in our minds once in a while.

What spoils the clip is the comments below. Some hates the 1Malaysia logo at the end. Some connects the video to some political propaganda. And I know, most of the ‘people’ in the video are actors and actresses making the video ‘fake’. Just take the video as it is, propaganda or not, the meaning is there. Grasp it.

It made me realise all of the things I have done or thought of that I would apologize for. But the crux of the video isn’t about apologies, it is forgiveness. In any other situation, these ‘people’ in the video are detestable because of their deeds, but did we feel that way when we watch this video? For someone who is truly sorry, forgiveness will really brighten their lives.

A very timely message as we approach this festive season. I’m just glad that quality advertising with heartfelt meanings and lessons didn't pass away along with the legendary Yasmin Ahmad.

I’ll end it with a quote from the video.

“Forgiveness doesn’t change the past, But it brightens the future”

Of sharing cultures and sharing curries

2011-08-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

An update on my life, I still have not disabled my Facebook as of yet. Things seemed much simpler in my mind.

Speaking about Facebook, recently there is a “Cook and Share a Pot of Curry” movement going on mainly for Singaporeans. I hope everyone reading this knows what curry is. For those who knows me but doesn’t know what curry is, you will be known as ‘katak di bawah tempurung’ in my country. That translates to ‘frog under a coconut’s shell’ which means you should get out more, or read more.

Rendang kambing (A type of mutton curry)

The event page is https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=254441147918239

If in any case you are reading this after the event has ended, it is encouraging everyone in Singapore who loves curry to show their love and share their culture with everyone else.

Japanese curry

Anyway, this event stems from the recent dispute between a foreign family living in Singapore and an Indian local Singaporean family. The foreign family couldn’t stand the smell of heavenly curry and complained to the authorities. Now, the Indian family are only allowed to cook curry when the foreign family is out. Now, Indian loves curry. A lot. Most of the curry we eat in Malaysia and Singapore are Indian curries. So, as per usual, problems associated with food will tend to escalate to unearthly proportions. At least for me, it does.

Read more about this case if you want with this link. http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110808-0000102/Number-of-neighbour-disputes-hit-high

Seafood curry

I won’t comment on it for it is none of my badassness. I mean business. But I will comment on the nation’s response to it. Usually when conflicts arises involving foreign immigrants in Singapore, the response of the public, usually adolescent groups will be hostile. Very hostile. By hostile I mean in words, not actions. Much expletives will be thrown around.

Although that may be true, this curry event has opened my eyes. At one glance, this event looks to irritate those foreign talents with whiffs of curry as payback for stealing the locals’ jobs and whatnot. Great idea, it is like selective genocide. Locals will love it, foreigners will hate it. But if we read the event description a little bit, it wasn’t the least bit hostile. Unless you sense sarcasm, that is. But text doesn’t translate sarcasm very well. Anywho, the main idea was to introduce the wonders of curry to the foreigners and also to suggest that they try to assimilate to the culture here. It is, after all better to try it out because they will be facing more culture shocks in the near and distant futures.

A curry made by a Singaporean friend in Australia

“This Curry Event was created to promote the "message" of Curry Cooking and let all natives and newly arrived immigrants understand the message of tolerance and appreciation of our beautiful multi-racial culture.” I quote directly from the event page.

Thai green curry

Now, on the purpose of this post. Yes, the REAL purpose. While the message behind this event was very meaningful, and hopefully the event was ‘eventful’ for some, I didn’t get to eat any curry. I know, I am in Australia at the moment but I have several Singaporean friends. I am considered a foreigner in Singapore and as I recall, the name of the event is ‘cook and SHARE a pot of curry’. So far, still no curry. Late entries are still acceptable, people. In fact, late entries are recommended.

Chicken curry

Writing this post and looking at pictures of beautiful curries, I am already hungry and have submitted myself to an early lunch. A post full of random curry pictures is tantalizing, no? Since nobody is ‘sharing’ their curry with me, I will be dejectedly eating my murtabak here on my own. *frowny face*

So, toodles!

Of friendship and tags

2011-08-11T06:42:00.000-07:00

Recently, I’ve been procrastinating about my work. Main culprit would be Facebook. Note, isn’t it weird that Facebook is a recognized word in Microsoft Words? I digress, so, because of this, I’ve decided to refrain from this bane of a website for a while since my work is beginning soon. I decided to start yesterday, but have since delayed it to tomorrow. Procrastination at its best.

Till today, I have 459 friends on Facebook. *Pats myself on my back for being popular* But somehow, I find that the number of friends in our account don’t reflect our popularity. It just shows how willing we are to add people regardless if we really do know them or not. I admit, a huge number of friends are those I do not contact at all. Nonetheless, I consider myself as a very friend-centred person.

If you have noticed, most of my posts in this blog mentions a little about friends from time to time. No, I am not saying I am a super friendly person who can make friends easily. In fact, I am an introvert by nature. Though that is true, I find that having friends is extremely important to me. I usually try my best to help friends out when they need me. That is also because I really do need my friends from time to time. Most of the time.

Many of us would have noticed, there are some people, although friends, we can ‘click’ with better than the others. By the general rule of thumb, we can ‘click’ better with people that are similar to us rather than those who are different by which comes the proverb ‘Birds of a feather flock together’. But for me, things are different. At times, I can’t stand people due to traits that are remotely similar to mine. In fact, if there is another me in my midst, I wouldn’t be able to stand him. Some of the traits that is mirrored will annoy me includes pragmatism, selfish, lazy, no-lose-attitude and full-of-crapism.

That said, I do honestly try my best to be selfless for my friends. Even if I have selfish tendencies, I still try. I didn’t say I was willingly selfless, I am usually reluctant. But give me credit for trying. What truly annoys me is the lack of tact. In other words, the lack of thought for what others are going through or the lack of putting-oneself-in-another’s-shoes. Hypocrisy is another factor. Doing stuff that you wouldn’t want be done on you. Or trumpeting your deeds to the whole world while cloaking your flaws. Like a said Korean proverb, “Words that have bones in them”. This means that there are unnatural motives behind the words said whether to hide real intentions or to boast about something.

But one trait that I have, and that I hope most of my friends have is magnanimity. Despite everyone that annoys me, I tend to forgive and forget. Well, mostly forgive, but less of forget. In my opinion of the 20 cents worth, if we forget things that annoy us, would we hate it more once we remember it? Thus, forgiving is more important. So, forgive me, if I tend to be annoying. Remember it, and use it back if I ever ever ever ask you, “Since when have I annoy you?” to break my no-lose-argument streak.

Never forget

Now, this ends my rant. Rarely do I utilize my blog for rants, but this is one of them. If you have noticed, I have been putting tags or labels on my post, so, this post will be the first of this tag-name I created. RantRantRevolution. Isn’t is cool?

Toodles.

Of superheroes and being one

2011-08-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Thus, last Saturday, I went out to play in the form of watching one of the most anticipated movies’ prelude. Captain America.

I didn’t know much about this superhero besides using him to defeat Iron Man and Spiderman in Marvel vs Capcom. I mean, who in the world is Captain America? How would I know him? Remember, my favourite superhero is Superman.

SuperB

So, being quite a ‘hot’ movie, I wasn’t really anticipating it. Fellowshipping with my friends mostly came first. But nonetheless, I can’t wait for The Avengers, thus watching this movie is a plus. At least now I know what Captain America’s powers are and how he got them.

Now, today’s post will be basically a movie review which I rarely do. I’ve done a brief review or recommendation of an anime series a few years ago, as well as two movie de-recommendation a few posts ago. Remember, Terabithia and What a Girl Wants. These are just my thoughts which are not meant to be professional opinions nor general public opinion. It is just my views on this said superhero, from another superhero, SuperB. *Look at picture above*

First off, this movie isn’t boring. I was quite sleepy before I watched that movie in the cinema, and I didn’t sleep during the movie. So, it managed to keep me awake at least. Though not boring, this movie didn’t fail to be extremely clichéd. Weak boy gets power, gets the girl and saves the world. That isn’t a bad thing, since it is a superhero movie after all.

The actor for Captain America isn’t really similar to the image painted in my head. To me, Captain America is usually the mature one, the leader of the pack. But Chris Evans (actor of Captain America) looks way too immature and childish for that role. The way he planned his infiltration wasn’t in the least bit done after great deliberation. Furthermore, looked more like Superman in the movie rather than an enhanced human. He was almost invincible. All this were borderline acceptable though.

He rea-ea-ea-ea-eally does have a red skull

Now for the antagonist. Another great cliché villain. I was almost expecting Red Skull to call people ‘Mr Anderson’. I didn’t know he was known as the Red Skull until someone told me. The word ‘Red Skull’ I think only appeared in the movie once and in a pretty ambiguous way. Red Skull received the same serum as Captain America, but apparently received more side effects. This was explained, as the serum will reflect the personality of the user. Captain America was a good guy, thus he became a ‘good’ human. Red Skull was a bad guy, thus he looked ugly and evil. Their looks reflect their heart. Their abilities though, were supposed to be the same. Here it is, Red Skull, with the superhuman abilities, possessing an army with matter-blasting weapons and high tech armour going against Captain America with a bunch of hooligan-like crew. And his shield of course. I mean, Red Skull losing to Captain America alone was understandable, but his high tech army losing to normal NS-men? Preposterous. His death was one of the most anti-climactic death this year. Rivalling it is the death of Voldemort.

Not just another pretty face

Despite all this, the theme at the beginning about a weak person wanting to do his part was inspiring. Even better, he didn’t really turn into a jerk after he got his powers. All the ‘flaws’ that I mentioned was mainly the fault of time. The movie was limited by time, which otherwise, would be much better.

The best part of this movie was tying it with The Avengers. As a standalone movie, it was mediocre at best, but being just a part of a bigger picture, it will make The Avengers even more Epic.

My friend once asked me about the word ‘Epic’. You know the word ‘best’? Epic is two stages higher than best. And you ask what is between Epic and best? Nothing. Nothing can be better than best, duh~

Anyways, this is just my 20 cents on this movie. You know, cause 20 cents in Malaysia isn’t worth much.

Toodles, and Good Morning America!!

Of BIRTHDAYS YO!!

2011-08-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

Today marks the n^th day I've been trying to go cold turkey on my coffee addiction. Now now, before you go all woohoos and hurrahs, note the word 'trying'. This also means I’ve failed a couple of days and succeeded in some days. With addiction, failing a couple of days concludes to failing overall. Big sigh on cue now.

Caffeine withdrawal is making me feel weird right now. I think I’m hallucinating. Somehow, I can see a blue bird hanging around in my blog. Wait, there IS a bird flying around to make it visible to you whenever you scroll around my blog. Don’t bother clicking on it, you won’t find anything. Click on it only if you are extremely bored. Even then, you will still be bored. In other words, besides decoration, that bird is pointless. Yes, it is as pointless as a Windows virus in Mac or responses in Yahoo!Answers that says ‘idk’ (I don’t know) or letting Windows repair your internet collection or the warning on a pack of cigarettes or a white colour pencil or the * button on a phone.

Speaking of pointless stuff, have you ever received a birthday greeting in a social networking site by people who don’t actually know you? Quite a while ago, a friend of mine changed her birthday date on Facebook and received numerous greetings, wishing her a glorious birthday and whatnot. Most of them are those who just knew her but some are practically strangers. Two weeks later, she changed her birthday again and the few of the same people who wished her earlier, wished her again. Of course, some of us closer friends showered her with tons of sarcasms stating how old she is now. You know how sensitive girls are about age, no?

Thanks!

These birthday wishes have not a single ounce of sincerity, which, to me, makes them pointless. That is, unless one is an attention whore who wants to show the world that you are popular. But besides that, they are as insincere as automated birthday greetings sent by big organisations to your mailbox on your birthday. But the only difference is, these wishes in Facebook are done my real people acting like machines. Looks like the rumours of machines taking over humanity is true.

Worse of all, those birthday greetings seems to be getting shorter and shorter. The most ‘happening’ greeting now is, “HBD!!” How can three letters be sincere? I have to admit, to closer friends, I do try to wish them in a more sincere way, but no matter how taxed I am at any moment, I would never resort to three letters.

Bottom line is, we should always let our wishes or words, not just birthday greetings, be filled with sincerity and heart. Let’s mean what we say, or type. Do it cause we want to, not making is merely an obligation. Add love to our wishes and greetings, not just weightless words.

On this topic of birthdays, today is my friend’s birthday! Wohooo! So, I’ll end it on this notion.

WEI JUNE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY YO!! *with loads of sincerity*

Yea, the one in the yellow circle is my buddy, Wei June

Toodles!

Of staying awake and simple math

2011-07-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

As I was searching for a topic to blog about, my friend suggested to me caffeine. Or more commonly known as coffee. Another blogger scoffs at this idea for the reason that he was also interested in blogging about this particular element afraid that I would wrench away the ingenuity factor of his blog. Thus, I was generally reluctant to blog about this mainly because I prefer my blog to be informative and more spontaneous. Being pretty much ignorant about caffeine and blogging about it requires much deliberation and research, I AM reluctant. Trust me, I am.

Somehow, I realise that my blogger friend would take an extremely long time before he actually blogs about this topic, giving him the leeway would be disadvantageous to me. So, I decided to actually take up this blogging topic. This decision is also due to extreme boredom and recent events in my life. Probably the other blog would be more informative about caffeine, but meh. Visit his blog in the near future and hopefully, he would have written that post by now. He can be found at www.jeffkenly.com.

You see, recently I've been sleeping early. But somehow, on Tuesday, half an hour into a talk given in my school, I was sleepy again. It could possibly be due to the speaker emitting sounds in random character also known as white noise which is recommended for sleeping. But I was leaning more to another factor, caffeine addiction. Ever since a few weeks ago, my school started selling Dare Ice Coffee at a discounted price. Being the Malaysian that I am, I felt inclined to purchase it. A lot. Mocha flavour tasted like chocolate milk, which I love by the way. So, regardless of whether I was feeling sleepy or not, I would go grab a bottle of refreshing Dare Ice Coffee. They should pay me for advertising their product. But anyway, when I'm sleepy, the drink did help me, a little. Caffeine works.

This is how caffeine works. You see, in our body, there are these guys called Dopamine or as I call them, Dope. So, Dope throws Adrenalin around in your body to give us energy. But there are also those whom we know as party-poopers called Adenosine who crashes the party and calls the parents of Dopes to cancel their adrenalin throwing party. This is where Caffeine comes in. Our good vigilante-criminal friend knocks out those tattle tale Adenosines to prevent them from reporting the Dopes party to their parents. Thus, more Adrenalin is thrown around and we go partying! Partying partying yeah!! Fun Fun Fun!!

Now, Adrenalin are like little midgets with vuvuzelas responsible for waking the cells of our bodies up. As more of these midgets go running around waking us up, our body recognises this event as a wake up call. If the next day there are less vuvuzelas around or if there are at the normal amount, our cells will not be woken up. Thus, more and more caffeine will be needed. And yes, vuvuzelas won't really help you in concentrating, they just keep you awake. Darn bee-like sounds.

Most annoying sound ever.

Caffeine isn't only found in coffee. Tea and colas are also main distributors of this amazing element. In fact, tea leaves has more caffeine than coffee beans. But do not worry yet, as a cup of tea generally contains less caffeine than a cup of coffee. Amazing stuff.

Coffee vs Tea

Now, caffeine isn't all that bad, is it? You see, caffeine is known as a stimulant. You know, things that stimulate you and gives you energy. Lets now look at alcohol. The after effects of alcohol includes fatigue, tiredness and sluggishness. In laymen's term, it is the HANGOVER.

The Hangover

I digress again. So, in other words, alcohol is like a depressant, sucking away all your energy. What better way to get back energy? Stimulants. Theoretically, caffeine would be the answer, no? It is a easy as negative one plus one equals to zero.

Think about it, and marvel at my geniusity. Yes, I just made up that word geniusity. It means my geniusness. Yes, I made up that word too. So, marvel, just marvel.

Toodles.

P/s, my theory on coffee + alcohol is not exactly proven. So, please don't try that at home. In fact, I think the imminent effect of those 2 combined could possibly be heart attack. No, not the game with poker cards, the REAL heart attack. So, don't try it. DON'T.

Disclaimer: I deny all responsibilities of people getting hurt due to my blog and blames it back at them for not reading to the end.

Wait, if they don't read it to the end, I doubt the disclaimer will be read anyway. MEHHHH.

Seriously, toodles. And don't try it at home.

Of looking towards the future...

2011-07-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Recently, 3 of my friends had their graduation ceremony! Last Friday in fact. Congratulations to Su Sheng Loong, Tee Lip Jian and Jeff Yeung Sam Wai Sip Tong Kenly. I attended their graduation ceremony with a little bit of a melancholic feeling. Don't get me wrong, I was happy for them. I just thought where would I be if I did not apply for the direct honours program. Would I be walking down the stage with my cornrowed hair? How would I be feeling, knowing I will be leaving my Brisbane family in a few more weeks? These disheartening feelings only linger for a little while as I’m not the sort to mull over this for long. I'll have plenty of time to be morose about this next year when I graduate.

By the way, Jason Lee has also just graduated but he decided not to attend his graduation ceremony. He is way too cool for it. How do I know that? He has an electric guitar. Everyone who owns an electric guitar is cool by default. Better still, he left it in Brisbane. How cool is that? Even better, it is currently in my possession which means that I am cool by default too. Yes, it does. True story.

In case anyone was wondering, I do not know how to play an electric guitar and the guitar doesn't have strings nor do I have the specialised expertise to lodge those strings onto the guitar.

It is not a guitar for Guitar Hero. It is a true blue electric guitar. Only white and black in colour.

But I do want to play Guitar Hero. Or Rock Band, that would be fine too. So,Veronica, ahem.

Anyway, here is my heartfelt congratulations to all those who graduated this semester. I wish all of you the best in your future endeavours.

Congratulations Lip Jian, Jeff and Sheng Loong

Congratulations Mr Cool Jason Lee

Congratulations Nanzi! (who had her graduation earlier that week)

So, as it seems, all of the aforementioned graduates are definitely leaving Brisbane, some have left, some are leaving in the near future. As I was there when a few of them left, I watched them leave without knowing if they'll ever come back to the land down under. I started thinking of what their thoughts could be. Are they happy to go home, or sad to leave this temporary home of theirs or is there a balance of both? You see, when I first came here to study, I've always looked forward to the day I complete my honours and eagerly fly back home to face my life as a working adult. But somehow, the thought that I may never come back to this place where I've called home for the past year kind of daunts me. Would it be worse of next year, when I've spent 2 years here? It is perplexing how ones thought would change this much.

"Sometimes, when people enter your lives, you wouldn’t know if they were going to be a big part of your lives. But when they leave, be it abruptly or in a slow transition, a big part of your life would be gone."

Of epiphanies on different paths

2011-07-19T17:56:00.001-07:00

Which path should i take~

After a series of relatively frequent updates in this blog, I found myself getting reluctant to blog once again. It is probably due to lack of ideas or ingenuity ever since I sacked my blogging teacher from the previous post. That and also lack of money. How saddening.

But still, I need a 'teacher' per say not only for blogging ideas, but for proofreading. After skimming through my previous posts in hope of an epiphany or just to gasp in awe of my inspirational blog posts. Rather than awing at them, it was more of a flabbergasted feeling. My grammar or Engrish portrayed was just horrifying. This just proves that writing a blog post when your mind barely sober is generally discouraged. However, the only time I feel compelled to blog would be when I am bored which usually equates to whenever I am sleepy but am in no position to sleep yet. I blame fatigue for bad grammar. True story.

Worst of all, similar to the situation in which I would find myself blogging, I only re-read my blog posts whenever I am feeling sluggish. Thus, in the event that I find some horrendous language blunder, I would rarely have the inclination to amend it. I would just stare at it and wonder how in this earth I made that mistake, hover my mouse cursor over the edit button, think twice and decides to leave it there. Maybe thinking thrice would be the solution, but remember, lazy time here.

Needless to say, at this point in time of me typing away on my keyboard, I am extremely sleepy. But laying my head to rest in a situation where my supervisor could pop in at any time isn't really commendable. Several students sitting in close proximity to me who are actually working really diligently somehow dissuades me from closing my eyes for more than 5 seconds. I do however, take some micronaps. Micronaps are the closure of eyes for a very very short period of time to rest my eyes while making it look like an extra long blink duration.

Being in my lab gets me thinking a lot. Yes, mostly thoughts related to my project but other stuffs occasionally comes in mind too. But lets portray the pseudo fact that I am only thinking of project related stuff during my time in my lab here, alright? I was thinking about my honours program. What exactly is the meaning of direct honours called Bachelor of Biotechnology? I actually found out that it is just a marketing scheme to coerce students to spend another year here in the university. Bad results would lead to the student spending four years here without getting an honours as opposed to a Bachelor of Science student leaving within 3 years without honours. What exactly is the benefit of doing a direct honours program? This question still baffles me. Unless you consider BBiotech sounding better than BSc an advantage, there are no advantages. The disadvantage is clear and mentioned in this paragraph.

In actuality, I stumbled onto this idea of how direct honours scheme is just a marketing ploy quite awhile ago. So, why did I start griping now?

That is because, just yesterday I discovered something mind-blasting. The fees for my honours year was way higher than I originally thought. What I originally thought was similar to what I was actually told. So, somebody lied to me. Maybe the office personnel were referring to Bachelor of Science instead. It is okay, I forgive them. This leads to another gripe of mine. If Bachelor of Science was apparently cheaper, why would anyone in this clear blue world take the Bachelor of Biotechnology? But well, since many will qualify for honours AND will be taking it anyway, it doesn't really make much of a difference. Except for the extra cost in school fees. Except for that. Waaaay extra if you ask me.

Bottom line is, don't get conned by things like direct honours thinking of it as a guaranteed path to honours. Don't choose the easy path nor the short path. Choose the correct path. Sometimes, we as humans tend to over-analyse our options, picking what seems to be the easiest, shortest or most advantageous choice that is available at that time. Fact is, what happens after our decision is generally unpredictable. Our journey is not dictated by us. The choices that we make, be it seemingly shorter or easier may not be the right one in the end.

To my defense, I wasn't cheated by this direct honours scheme. Rather, I was made to think that it was my only choice. I was recommended to apply for Bachelor of Biotechnology since I already had my Diploma of Biotechnology, unbeknowingly thrusted into the world of honours and resulting in me attending graduation this year as a guest rather than a graduate.

Oh well, one more year of draining money and spending time with great people in Brisbane. Things ain't as bad as it seems.

Goodnight. Oh, I mean Good afternoon. When I’m sleepy, everything becomes night.