What This Is For

Time and again I had to ask myself if it's still worth keeping this blog alive. And for many of you who still bother to visit, you'd be perfectly forgiven to think that I'm just too phlegmatic to make any real decisions, and thus should be hung in the gallows of uncertainty and indecision. But please read with me through this one last post first before you do so :)

Hands up everyone out there who thinks that blogs are nothing more than avenues to win prizes these days. You see, I've grown disenchanted with the idea of having a blog, because social marketers were too quick to catch on with the idea of being able to disseminate free publicity without so much as to type out the word 'Contest'. I could see that as Marketing went up, Intimacy went down. Intimacy in the sense that you've actually put thought into your posts, in the sense that you mean what you say, in the sense that you are saying what you mean.

Oops, hold back your scorn for me first if I had offended you within just the first two paragraphs. I understand that I have no right to criticize what others choose to do with their own blogs, and I just want to make it clear that I'm not trying to diss anyone here. I'm merely making an observation, and whatever meaning you choose to read from these few lines is your own discretion.

Now if your hands are still up, you can put them down. Like I said, I could not see anymore reason to want to continue keeping this blog in existence. I don't post anything substantial anymore anyway, I thought to myself. But then I also realized that I don't always have to move along with the herd. The reason I got so bogged down was that I tried to write what others would want to read, and that probably gnawed away at my own intrinsic motivation to update the blog over time. I pondered about what the blog could be used for, and felt that it can still provide me with a means of self-reflection in reading over my own posts. And this self-reflection is unique because others can share in it.

So this blog would stay. If you had been reading from time to time, then by all means you're more than welcome to continue doing so. I appreciate your comments, and if it still applies I wish you a blessed and merry Christmas along with the customary Happy New Year :)

Learning

Would people still bother to learn if there were no exams to work toward?

When you motivate a person with monetary or material rewards, what usually happens is that the intrinsic motivation would soon be lost. Artists who are paid to paint all the time might lose their natural inclinations in producing art pieces over time. Psychologists know this well, and suggest using non-material rewards such as praises to avoid corroding a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task.

And exams, if you ask me, totally kill our intrinsic motivation to learn.

Okaylah, that's me being overdramatic again, but looking at all the other students nerding in college today staring blankly at their notes (like me) trying to memorise some facts to prove that they know something (like me) kinda gives me the feeling that the real true value of learning is lost in the education system.

I count our ability to learn as the one of the most profound skills we have, mediated by a dazzling array of neurons and countless electro-chemical reactions within the little organ that we call the brain. But to spend all our neural computing power on memorising pseudo-facts (things scientists aren't even sure themselves) seem a little....illogical, to me. Learning is an amazing process. But I feel that learning in our real-world context falls a wee bit short of that ideal.

Yeap, we're not perfect all right.

Peace Where We Are

Standing next to my car sipping while sipping on a can of soya after filling in some gas at slightly past midnight, the quiet 'suasana malam' made a for a great opportunity to just stand back and enjoy the peace and quiet. Made for a great opportunity to be robbed too I'm sure, standing there at the petrol station in the middle of the night, haha. But I wasn't, thankfully.

Amidst the stillness, it is quite hard to imagine what life would be a little bit farther from home. I looked at the buildings around, thinking if they would suddenly be bombed. I glanced across the streets, worried if armed bandits would ride past and shoot me.

I continued drinking, and thoroughly soaked in the night scene. The peace we have that we don't realize...

And the picture? It's Peace, Where We Are :)

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

The less you know, the better :)

If you're thinking of something to watch at the cinema sometime soon, or not-so-soon, then here's a suggestion:

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs!

There, no unnecessary expectation build-ups, haha.

Hope you enjoy it.

How Little We Know

Every year brings with it new discoveries in our knowledge of the world.

A physicist figures out how to split new particles from presently split particles. A chemist concocts a brand new chemical with the most dazzling of effects. A biologist uncovers new swathes of genes responsible for causing obesity.

For the most part I feel that we're living in pretty modern times. Modern in the sense that we are in control of the world, we're grasping it bit by bit and we're bound to unravel all there is unravel. I mean, we have planes, rockets, cars and boats to traverse the landscape in all three dimensions. That's modern right? We have the Internet, Facebook. That's gotta be modern right? We're advancing so much that the polar ice caps are melting. Please tell me that's us being modern, not the polar bears.

But really, at the end of the day I can't help but to realize that everything we know about science and technology is only what we think we know. Our knowledge are no more than careful assumptions about how things work, tested through experiments and proven by logic. Which means we'll never be 100% sure of ourselves. At least these were some of the things that ran through my mind as I read Newsweek's recent article on cancer.

As much as we have progressed in the last few thousands of years, the living bodies in which we inhabit still prove to be the most challenging mystery yet to solve. Being alive is something that I believe we will never be able to fully comprehend. Words cannot explain it, pictures cannot illustrate it. Alive. Almost like magic, but far greater. How much do we really know then?


I am a living person. Can someone please tell me who designed me?

September

Ask me which month of the year is my favourite, and...well, you probably wouldn't ask me such a question in the first place because there's only really one answer :)

If you've ever wondered about the famous historical figures who were born in September, then here's a quick list of them: Justina Lee, Kee Ken Fong, Simon Sim, Kee Ken's Mum, Kat Tan and...the names just keep rolling.

Okay, so maybe I'm not that great a person yet to be considered famous and historical. But the rest of them would definitely be somebody in the future, trust me.

Sometimes I wonder if birthdays were just another convenient excuse for us to celebrate and buy something for one another. If you ask me, my birthday wasn't any different from the other days of the year. The moon came up as usual, the sun was still yellow, 24-hours still weren't enough for me....same ol' same ol'. But beyond that conventional consumerist thinking, I appreciate being that little bit more special for a day. I appreciate every gesture and present, every wall post and personal wish.

Alas, it is always harder to show genuine appreciation than to buy an expensive present for someone. So in case you're wondering, then yes, I appreciate it very much, thank you :)

What more could I ask for? It's Cyclops! Glowing eyes would've been uber-cool, but I guess I don't need a hole in my roof just yet.

An empty Baskin-Robbins cup! Well, it wasn't empty when I got it of course, but that 'problem' was easily rectified in 2 minutes ;)

And the picture at the top of this post? By their powers combined, THIS is what they materialize into, tada~. I didn't use the mug yet though, so I'll try again sometime. Thanks for all the presents and meals and wishes people! (^.^)v

For Simon

Don't know if they've released it in NZ yet, Mr. Sim, but here's a shot of the game that I just happily squandered two whole hours on xD

1:07

Amidst all the brouhaha of the blogs (the three blogs that I read) suddenly firing up again after an unexpected burst-forth-from-the-ground moment from Sim's Xanga page, I found myself in the middle of the blogging scene again. Funny how I literally 'think the world' of just these three people :)

Which is why it's 1 a.m. now, and I'm not asleep yet but instead in this blogspot post editor.

A lot of things that didn't make it to the posting page such as the travel-cations I had a month back probably never would I guess. Langkawi and Perhentian was great though, I certainly found the vacations to be a wonderful experience.

But I'm hoping that I would have more time to sit down and write some meatier stuff in the future. Not that I was any good a writer to begin with, but I think I can still come up with the occasional good post or two. Or at least I hope so :)

Bloom, ye dead blogs, bloom!

Kantoi...

....would be the word to describe my blog in its current state. Or perhaps even the blogging scene in general, since practically the whole world has stopped blogging of late ('whole world' being the four blogs that I always visit). It's bad when you have nothing to write about, but it probably says a lot about whether you should continue blogging when you can actually no longer remember why you started blogging in the first place.

"A penny for MY thoughts"???

Suddenly, even the blog name was beginning to sound awful. Lousy. Self-centred. Pompous. Nonsense, as I would say it.

And my layout...fuh! Drab. Boring. Same-ol same-ol. Nonsense, as I would say it.

Cbox's been dead since the last world war. The updates sidebar is becoming more and more pathetic.

Isn't it time to close this down, and just get on with life?

Hurm.............................

Hurm.........................................................

Nope. Not just yet :)

When in doubt, post lyrics...

Lately nothing I do ever seems to please you
And maybe turning my back would be that much easier
Cause hurtful words are all that we exchange
But I can't watch you walk away

Can I forget about the way it feels to touch you?
And all about the good times that we've been through
Could I wake up without you every day?
Would I let you walk away?

No, I can't learn to live without
And I can't give up on us now

[Chorus]
Oh, I know I could say we're through
And tell myself I'm over you
But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

Could I forget the look that tells me that you want me?
And all the reasons that make loving you so easy
The kiss that always makes it hard to breathe
The way you know just what I mean

No, I can't learn to live without
Ohh, so don't you give up on us now

Ohh, I know I could say we're through
And tell myself I'm over you
But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

Ohh, and I don't wanna try

Ohhhh, I know I could say we're through
And tell myself I'm over you
But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

I just can't live a lie

But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

Oh, I cant live a lie [x2]

It's nice to be little dramatic sometimes, haha. I really like the song though. Go Carrie!

And my blog is officially on life support now....

*grins*

I don't know about you guys, but of all the different Facebook invites I get (Save the Trees, Stop Pollution, Eat Less Meat, Etc Etc), THIS one definitely takes the cake for being the funniest xD

Glo Taiping: Of Peace and Mosquitoes

NOTE: I've always chosen to write about any holidays, trips or experiences based on the gists of the main ideas that I want to convey, and hardly would I take the trouble to write in the form of literal documentary-style accounts. But the purpose of this post is to give some publicity to Glo (Gospel Literature Outreach)'s training school in Taiping, so I tried to be as informative as possible in providing an introduction to those who have not heard of Glo or have absolutely no clues regarding what it is all about, like me. In case you're confused by my mix-up of past and present tenses, I purposely used a lot of present tenses in the descriptions, in order to avoid sounding like a diary entry. Finally, if you're used to my usual short, nondescript posts, then chances are you would label this as 'boring'. So there, read at your own discretion :)



To say that the Residential Bible School in Cameron Highlands, or more popularly known for its endearing acronym RBS is interesting would be an understatement in many ways. I honestly believe that RBS holds a permanent special place in the hearts of most, if not all the students who signed up for it, be it for the quirky friends made, the insurmountable challenges waded, or the surprising emotional breaches.

But what I didn't realize was that RBS wasn't the only avenue available to pursue spiritual growth. It's a great avenue, no doubt, but there are other options that I never thought of exploring before. One such option, which I faintly remember hearing about before, is the Glo school (there's something about three-letter acronyms...). Located in Taiping, an idyllic town about 2 and a half hour's drive from Subang, the Glo school in Taiping is basically RBS without the cold air, and also the time limitation. Classes take place the whole year round I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), and the different modules usually last a week, or maybe two sometimes.

The way the modules are conducted is through various speakers invited from all around the country, or from other countries even. It just so happened that one of the elders of my church was invited to teach for last week, and he invited me to come along and see for myself what Glo was all about. Together with Crissy, a fellow bummer at the moment, we set off for 5 days of 'studying' in Taiping.

Arriving there, the Glo 'school' is actually a church compound located next to a government school, and in the same compound there is a tadika called Tadika Marks. So yes, in the mornings there would be the principal's blabbering about discipline booming over the school's speakers AND chirpy kindergarten songs playing together at the same time. But it's a pretty spacious place, with a nice spot just for swings. For the children I guess. And for you to sit down and chat.



But the aural entertainment aside, the living quarters for students basically looks like this:



It's a wooden bungalow in the style of traditional malay houses, and it has four separate rooms for the guys and gals. Not bad actually; plus there's always that rustic charm about wooden abodes.

Mornings begin with personal devotion, and then group sharing of individual devotional insights and thoughts. After breakfast, classes would then commence. The classes are conducted in the church building's top room near the roof...or attic, I believe that's what it's called. Fairly comfortable setting, with the usual flip-table chairs and cozy air-conditioning. There's classes until lunch time, and depending on the teacher/lecturer, afternoon slots and night slots are available for additional classes as well. Otherwise, it would be free time to work on assignments.



Now I feel that special mention should be given to the unusually rabid mosquitoes that seem to have taken control of Taiping. I find them uncannily similar to thugs who would go the extra mile to harass you for protection money. In this case, they're trained specifically to rob you of your sleep. I didn't know better, so on the first night I just hit the bunks a la carte. Since I was the only one in the room (there were no other temporary male students last week), I chose a luxurious wall-side lower bunk (all the beds are double-decker). Washed my face, brushed my teeth, yada-yada and then I dived into the blanket to catch some Zs.

Only thing is, I never caught any.

The thing is, sometimes when even one stray mosquito slips into my room, I usually end up with very little sleep. On the first night in Taiping however, I killed at least 9 of them. 9!!!! And still the buzzing-in-the-ear didn't stop. By my calculations, the total of numbers of sleep I had on the first night was probably around -4 hours...

PLEASE ask about what you should do before sleeping, if you're planning to attend Glo for whatever reason.

The gripes about mosquitoes aside, I feel that Glo has something very different to offer, in terms of spiritual training, and buffing up your biblical knowledge. Comparing it with RBS (the only yardstick I can think of at the moment), Glo is....a different thing altogether. Whereas RBS is confined to specific times of the year, Glo simply goes on week after week and there is plenty of room for you to decide if you just want to check out a particular module or put on the headband of determination and sign up for a full year there.

Glo also doesn't enforce no-electronic-device rules, and you can bring laptops even. You have full responsibility for how you wish to make use of your gadgets. I guess you're treated more as an independent 'adult' compared to RBS. From conversations with the others who had been there before (and now comes back to Glo regularly as a sort of retreat), there's certainly no shortage of practical exercises and responsibilities to take up, from chairing the weekly Prayer Meetings, to helping out with the kindergarten's Chapel Service. And you need to know your Scriptures well, if you are to keep up with the more in-depth classes.

Though my trip there was cut short due to a sudden turn of events, Glo was truly and honestly eventful and meaningful to me. The company alone was already half the fun, and I was pretty thankful for the seemingly chance encounter. To be honest, it all seems like a lot of hard work, but I personally think that Glo presents a strikingly unique opportunity to take your faith seriously, and take it further.


A handy brochure that tells you more about Glo can be found at http://www.thelifechapel.org/media/GLO%20Leaflet%2009_final.pdf

Ownership

Just because you stuck your label on something, doesn't necessarily mean it's yours.

The oddest feeling it seems, is to realize that you actually didn't know yourself all that well.

Odder even, when you didn't realize you had stuck any sort of labels in the first place.

This shouldn't make sense to you. I certainly hope not :)

Hurm

We have blogs, and we have twitter. And perhaps, the next social-communication breakthrough is just around the corner. But I'd like to think that our most basic desire to have face-to-face communications will probably not ever diminish. Static texts on the computer screen don't tell us half the story that could otherwise be gleaned from things like tone of voice, facial expressions, body language and all the various non-verbal cues that allow us to say so little and yet mean so much.

Which would explain why the Tanjong Mamak Bistro near my house had been jam-packed full of people the last few times I went there.

Don't know why I'm posting about this though. Maybe it's because....I'm wishing there's someone who is intimately familiar with all my thoughts, all my wants, my hurts and needs and failures that I could just chat the night away with.

Nah, not a girlfriend.

Just sort of imagining God in person doing some pillow talk with me :)

What a random post.

Windows 7 for a Song!

Not exactly a song lah, but close xD

Windows 7 Home Premium is now (right now as in today, 26th June) available for only 50 USD as an upgrade!!! That's about err...only RM 175! I've been trying out the beta version for quite some time, and I love what they've done to it after how thousands and thousands of customers had relentlessly bashed Vista and all its shortcomings. For 200 bucks, I'd seriously consider going for the upgrade and join the other early adopters :D

Unfortunately the offer's only available in the US and some other countries for now....shipping it back to Malaysia would take extra time, and not to mention money. But the huge discount of 70 USD is almost too hard to pass up. Aih, how now.... :P

If you wanna check it out for yourself, simply head over to Amazon and see what the Home Premium version offers, as compared to the other version on offer also, Windows 7 Professional. Sure hope Windows 7 is worth the money this time :)

128 GB

If you haven't found out yet, not too long ago Kingston just announced their new line-up of USB drives sporting a new design and colour scheme. While they've been constantly doing this 'new look' thing for as long as there had been pen-drives on the market, this time around they've pushed the capacities all the way up to....err, (tapping at the calculator...) almost two-months' worth of non-stop music! Plug this into cars with USB playback audio systems and there's no need for the radio ever again, haha.

Picture above taken from hardwarecanucks.com.

Blogging

Blogging seems to have taken a backseat for the last month, which is usually indicative of a relatively boring day-to-day routine. Ironically though, the last month had actually been a period of many blog-worthy activities, from late-night Street Fighter gaming parties to driving a new car around the town and impressing my friends with it :)

Every day when I check back on my blog, I'd feel like updating but then pause for a moment and then in the end decide to do otherwise. Nothing to update? No, I've got plenty to write about. But just that I felt like not sharing what I had been doing, to kind of make those memories a little bit more valuable, instead of just public information available on the Web.

But if I keep this up, then I might as well shut the blog down, I thought.

So I tried to rationalize with myself, and mentally go over reasons to continue blogging. I was pretty blank for the most part. Then I tried to invoke more reasons to necessitate pulling the plug on this blog that I had spent several years on. Blank again, unfortunately.

And it's a tie, I thought.

Ever too often I get myself into the whole 'Why did I start blogging in the first place' dilemma that is never definitively answered and waste time thinking about blogging instead of doing some actual blogging. I'm a lazy person unfortunately when it comes to weighing pros and cons and all that jazz, so I've decided that I should stop thinking so much and going nowhere with the thoughts. And just keep the blog here and post whenever I want to.

Time for More

Quite a few things had taken hold of my time the last few days, but thankfully they're mostly positive.

Time-management had never been more intricate and nerve-wrecking for me, and I honestly had a lot of moments when I realized that I lost a lot of precious time doing nothing of benefit. I had to own up to the lost productivity and pay for all the times I slacked off, making the past few weeks a bit more tense and straining than usual.

But like I always say, "Oh well".

It's really funny then, that right now I suddenly have so many good things on my hands that I could blog about. Then again, I believe that I've always had a lot of good things to talk about. Just that I don't realise it. Life here on earth is way too distracting most of the time, and I had forgotten what it means to constantly see things from different perspectives. I got lazy over the years and lost touch with the flexibility in looking at life that I used to pride myself on. It's so much easier to just stick to one way of looking at things, I had to admit.

Instead of not having enough time to do what I wanted to, I never saw the lack of excess time allowance as a means of learning to make better use of what I do have. One hour can be spent doing nothing, or spent doing many things in one go. The lazy person in me would happily sit out and read newspapers whole day long, but there's so much more that can be accomplished when you find the correct way to focus on the tasks at hand.

For more than one reason, the next two weeks is gonna be an interesting one. Something really bad could happen. Catastrophic. Or I could also be having the time of my life. Ecstatic. Hurm....

Oh well.

Guess I'll just have to learn as I go along, no matter what happens :)

Streamyx Can Do Better

Currently paying about RM 80 every single month to the ONLY landline broadband provider around (I think), it is disappointing that I am stuck with a tricycle's equivalent of Internet speed almost every night..and afternoon, and evenings too. And sometimes mor....ah, sorry, I meant to say ALL THE TIME!!

I know many third-world countries don't have Internet access yet even. I know we are lucky to have such a kind Internet Service Provider who doesn't go after the pirates. I know we shouldn't compare, and instead count our bountiful telecommunication blessings, that we don't have to travel 10 miles to the nearest post office just to send a telegram (which is still being used, apparently).

But this is just sad.

What Streamyx is doing now is akin to trying to simultaneously water 5 different gardens all at once using just one thin pipe, so to speak. The end result is of course every garden getting only an IOTA (very very small amount) of water, and the plants are just happily wilting away. I know I'm wilting away here trying to download a perfectly legal file from overseas servers. Pretty sure I'd make better progress trying to figure out the secrets to time traveling...

Surely the behemoth of telecommunications in Malaysia can stretch its muscles a bit more and try to provide better service for us wanting citizens...personally, I'm just sick of big government-backed corporations like Telekom becoming overly complacent with itself, merrily lazing around and putting the nation's resources to waste.

At present, I get the impression that as customers who contribute to their war chests, we're being treated more like liabilities. It's almost as if we're being a burden to them. Oh poor Streamyx, it's internet lines are so congested by us free-loading good-for-nothing consumers. I hope they're not too exhausted from trying to provide decent Internet access to the lowlies and insignificants like us.

Come on Telekom, you can do better than this.

The Incessant Whiner

The phrase about pastures always being greener on other peoples' lawns has been ringing louder and louder lately.

This semester of my studies, I realized that I've been complaining about a hundred and one things. Oh wait, I actually think it would be more accurate to say a thousand and one things instead. When you yourself realize that you are being...err, snobbish, for example, then it usually means that you really are a snob, because the hardest person to evaluate is always yourself. So when I started noticing that I was constantly on WHINE mode, I discovered the unpleasant prospect of me having turned into the modern-day whine-addict who's never satisfied with what's going on in life.

I don't think I'd need to give any sort of examples here, since those of you who see me regularly would likely have heard about my long list of complaints some time in the last 3 or 4 months. Now that I think about it, I don't remember any recent conversations in which I made any efforts to refrain from whining. Not at all.

And funnily enough, I had initially wanted to post about my busy timetable, the deluge of assignments, the nonsensical happenings and all the other bla bla bla idontlikethisidontlikethat complaints that I had been sharing with everyone else. But I figure you guys already have enough negative stories to chew on in your own lives.

Not that I'll only be posting about happy-happy-I-won-the-lottery sort of things from now on, but I'd like to stop bathing in my own negativity and enjoy what I have right here, right now. And indeed I actually have plenty to be thankful for. Sure, the fan at my house is suddenly dead and the weather is so darned hot and all, but at the same time there's also tonnes of other things to smile about that often get lost in the eat-sleep-then-eat-again cycles that we have to plow through everyday.

The big events, the small gestures, they all count towards this life that I'm happy to live right now. Call me naive, but I love the fact that I am alive and well, imperfect as the world may be that we inhabit.

I'll end the post with a picture of this girl whose smile is so radiant, and so magical that most, if not all members of the male population would instantly be reduced to a melting pool of goo had they seen it for themselves :P

It's a What??

After an exhaustive list of answers from people who are in the arts field, the science field, the hospitality field and even the pre-U field, it's certainly interesting to take note of how people in different fields of study think. But that aside, I guess it's finally time to announce the winner of the 'Guess what the heck is this' contest. Congratulations to Mr. Low!

I know a fire extinguisher when I see one! :-D - Iishan Low

The Great Escapade: My Fun Travel with MAS!

When I was much younger, taking a flight used to seem like a really big affair. And a big hassle too, along with a big price tag. Sure it's a whole lot faster, but my dad wasn't in the money-printing business unfortunately. So I always settled for a bus ride, or if I'm lucky maybe I'd travel by car, between my hometown in Kuantan and visiting my cousins who are in Subang Jaya, Selangor. I always thought that it would be great if one day I could move down and stay in Subang Jaya too near my cousins, because Subang looked like a really nice place. More maju lah, I guess, compared to Kuantan, haha.

Years went by, and funnily enough my entire family did move down to Subang after all and here I am, a resident here in Selangor for more than 4 years already. Now it's the other way round, because I take bus or car rides back to Kuantan instead. But still, I can't fly home on a nice aeroplane. Fares had come down a lot since 'Low-cost-carrier' became a magic word of sorts for avid travellers, but the often-heard horror-stories of delayed flights and less-than-desirable service kept me from flying back home.

Just last week though, something interesting happened. I had been following on MAS's new promotions for a while and while surfing at college I bumped into the Grab-A-Deal section in their site, and out of curiosity I tried to look for a Kuantan-KL flight offer. The price was unbelievable, I had to admit. I was staring at the screen for quite some time...

...and after 15 minutes, I actually bought three tickets back to home! I've never been so impulsive, but I certainly didn't regret making that decision. The retreat back to Kuantan was definitely refreshing, and I had a great time catching up with relatives.



Thanks to MAS, I'm really happy to have had the chance to go back to my birthplace and relive the good ol' days. But even better was the equally affordable flight back to Subang, which I managed to snag under the Balik Kampung deal. Altogether our flight back home was certainly a lot cheaper than I what I imagined it to be. Coupled with the nice service and pretty good-spirited staff of the airline, the trip back to Kuantan was nothing short of a blast, to say the least.



The most memorable part was no doubt having the chance to savour all the good food that I've been missing and wanting all this while. My stomach had its share alright, and the bulge is testament to my quest in reclaiming all the gastronomic delights that have eluded me since I moved down to Subang :D

I really had fun. Really, really had a lot of fun. So much fun that I was in tears on the way back, haha. I'll miss the place...

But the best thing I've heard this year so far just came an hour ago. One of my friend who's studying in the UK now just popped an awesome surprise on me that I'm getting a sponsored flight to London for a mini-holiday with him!! Turns out the mother bought MHFlex tickets which allows her to bring along a companion for FREE and since the father happened to be busy, she graciously invited ME along! Yes!!! I've even started packing already, haha. London, here I come!!

And what can I say but Man, that was great - this truly is the time to travel!!

What Does This Look Like?

My long break from posting aside, I recently went back to my father's birthplace for the annual ancestral visit. Tucked away in the hills of Pahang, and a short drive away from Kuantan is a place called Sungai Lembing. If you think it's another dead-end town with nothing but old shops and old people, then you are...uh, correct, actually. But not entirely true also, because Sungai Lembing used to be a thriving and lively mining town with populations numbering close to 10,000. Here we have one of the deepest underground tin mines in the world, so it may be old but back then used to have lots of glory to bask in.

A visit to the museum there nabbed me plenty of shots of the various equipments and tools they used in those tin mine eras. To spruce up my viewership (which has been nothing more than 10 views a day) a little, I thought of posting this:


On display right outside the museum, this nifty little cannon of sorts is one of the equipments that survived the long boring years that passed since the last mines were closed down.

Take a shot and tell me what this is, and win an exciting 4-day trip to the next FormulaOne race in....ah well, you know the drill. *cough*smallpresent*cough* First to comment with the correct answer wins!

And only one answer per person! :D



This contest is open only for people who qualify at least as my 2nd-degree friend. The prize will be announced after the winner is found and details for delivery will be negotiated at a time after that. For details regarding degrees of friendship, please refer to Friendster.com.

Sometimes I Forget

I don't have the best of memory, and oftentimes I forget things that I thought were otherwise 'unforgettable', so to speak. I can blame it on college, genetics, environment and a plethora of other factors but ultimately, forgetting is forgetting.

Yesterday was the birthday of a friend who is now studying under the brilliant UK education system that we always talk and gush about. I'm not quite sure how I forgot about it, perhaps it was the new semester. Or the Easter practices. But oh well, never too late if I follow the Chinese calendar I guess.

Happy Chinese Calendar Birthday man :P

Help, MSN is Gonna Charge You Money.

Just today, I got this urgent-sounding email from Tara and John who are supposedly the directors of MSN. That made me feel somewhat important, and since this one was linked to a real piece of news in the BBC website, it's gotta be *cough* real *cough*, I thought. All the 4000+ similar emails I received in he past certainly sounded dubious in comparison to this one.

This is Tara and John, the directors of MSN. We would like to sincerely apologize for the interruption, but msn is closing down. We know many of these messages have been sent out lately, and that they wouldn't be true. However, this one is in fact true, and it will occur soon.

MSN will begin to charge you money soon. This is due to the fact that too many inconsiderate people are taking up all the names (ie. making up lots of different accounts for just one person). Therefore, we only have 578 names left. If you would like to close your account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. We would not reccommend this, because if in the future you'd like to use MSN, and you don't send this message on, you will be CHARGED to use MSN monthly. If you would like to keep your account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. As we said this before, this is no joke, and we will be shutting down the servers. Please send it on. We do not want to be receiving phone calls stating that your MSN will not open, or that you are being charged for using it - because this will be your fauly for not sending it on. The estimated cost for MSN monthly will be about ten dollars CAN.

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU
KNOW WHAT TO DO.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION. In case you believed this is yet another of those 'prank' MSN shut down emails, go to:

http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/business/ 1189119.stm

Once you've sent this message to at least 18 contacts, your msn icon will become blue.

Regards,
Tara and John
(Directors and Operators of MSN.com, Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail, etc)

A lot of nice emails get forwarded around, and I know some of you make it a point to read every single forwarded email so that you can share the great pictures, stories and jokes with others. But I've never been too fond of pointless emails like the one above. If this was meant as a joke, then kudos to those who started the chain for wasting people's time, money and electricity around the world.

Anyway, I better forwarding the email so that I can continue using MSN when Tara and John finally decide to begin charging us. Otherwise, my face might turn blue when I find out that my account's been closed :P

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

7 years ago before Shrek 2 and a host of other animations from the same animation company made their way to the cinemas, Dreamworks released an animation that went by the title of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

Now back then when I saw the promotional posters and videos, I thought it wasn't much of an animation. I remember how terrible Disney's Dinosours looked, so I cleverly avoided Spirit and watched other movies instead.

A few years down the road, sitting at home one night I was surprised to find Spirit showing on local tv. Curious to see what I had missed out on, I decided to give it a chance and see if it was as lousy as I thought it was.

For one, Spirit had no talking animals. No talking sidekicks, no talking ogres and talking what-nots. The show featured only horses that neighed on and on, and unless you spoke Bahasa Kuda, you would likely find it to either be weird or just downright annoying. Couple that with Dreamworks' decision to blend traditional hand-drawings with 3D instead of applying full CGI glory like it did with Shrek, it's not too hard to see why some reviewers happily laid waste to Spirit.

16 / Portland Oregonian / Shawn Levy

The animation is dull, the thought is fuzzy, the storytelling is vague and the music just plain stinks.

But at the end of the show, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Spirit was actually a pretty good movie. I don't know what was wrong with Shawn Levy, because I honestly thought that Spirit scored really well in many areas. Entertaining, exciting, riveting, and yet brilliantly contemplative all the way. In short, I liked it!

Problem is, I haven't yet heard of anyone else who's actually fond of the show. Which is why I thought of putting up this post, to see if there's anyone else out there who had seen the entire show and thinks it's a great piece of animation too. Anybody??

Or am I indeed one of the few oddballs in the world who actually found a liking to Spirit? :D

In Comparison

I remember how my dad always told us that when he was in his late teens, KFC was a sort of luxury eat-out place that was way way way more expensive than other normal restaurants. Back in those days, you wouldn't have gone to Kentucky just to get a free Chicky Meal toy or a fancy plastic container, unless you (or your father) owned a rubber plantation or two.

Of course, times have changed and now KFC is just another regular makan place offering the same tried-and-true wholesome family meals that we all grew up with. What's different now however, is that food in ordinary chap fan restaurants have steadily gotten more expensive, and interestingly enough it seems that right now it's most likely cheaper to have lunch at KFC than anywhere else outside.

This is taking into account all the promotions KFC had been churning out of late :


Don't look at Set D, Colonel Burger's only for small children and people with half a stomach xD But check out Set A instead.

Just this afternoon, I had lunch at SS 14. I ordered chap fan, with one piece of fried chicken and and an egg dish. That's all. *kaching* and I was RM 4.50 poorer. Sat down, ordered teh ais, *kaching* and I lost another RM 1.70. Total spent was actually RM 6.20 for lunch today. In a hot restaurant.

In comparison, if I ordered Set A at KFC instead, I would have had the same sort of food, had a drink, and have a nice air-con place to enjoy my food, all at only RM 6.00!

And even McD offers the same price for its value meals now.


I guess when the economic recession hits us in full force, we'll know which two places to go to for lunch :P

What I Wouldn't Mind Doing

It would've been too long to put as the title for this post, so I had to shorten it from the original "What I Wouldn't Mind Doing After I Graduate". This, of course pertains to the degree in Psychology that I hope to procure from Sunway in two years' time. A good number of people have left me either befuddled or confounded or both when they ask the inevitable "So what do you do one ah?" question. I'll admit the shoulder shrugs were honest because it's pretty hard to pick out some good contoh-contoh aktiviti at a moment's notice, but here's one pretty interesting example of what people in my field of study do for a living.

Taken from Newsweek, an article titled IN OUR NATURE described, among others, the work of environmental psychologist Peter Kahn in finding out how nature and high-definition digital representations of nature influence our levels of motivation.

In one of his experiments, the researchers used High-Definition Plasma TVs to act as digital 'windows' in workers' otherwise windowless rooms and spaces. Then they proceeded to monitor various psychological functions and measures. The result? Simply having digital views of the great mountain ranges and lush rolling plains, even though only in digital form, improved the workers' general mental well-being. Cool huh?

Then they went further on to compare HDTV nature and real mother nature. When given a small stress load, workers having HDTV windows reported no differences compared to those given a blank wall. But those who were given real, authentic windows with a natural setting reported a calming effect that helped to ease the stress load. Double coolness, I thought :D

The proposed theory by Marc Berman, another psychologist is that our brains engage in two forms of information processing.

One is the Focus Mode whereby we delegate a lot of thoughts and effort to analytical information processing, much like the kind of attention we need to solve a mathematical problem or figure out the tax-submission procedures. We can't stay on Focus Mode all the time however, and relaxing interactions with nature is one way to help our brain shift into Passive Mode to help the brain recover the energy used in Focus Mode and just basically recharge. How do we know if the theory works? He tested it of course.

Using difficult cognitive tests, Berman and his colleagues purposely exhausted all the attention and concentration abilities of a group of volunteers. Then they sent them out for a three-mile walk, but split into 2 groups: One group walked along the busy Huron Street, while another took a leisurely stroll along a secluded part of Ann Arbor. After the walk, they were tested again back in the lab for their focus and concentration. The result? Expectedly, the group that went for the quiter walk along Ann Arbor's natural surroundings performed significantly better in the tests.

To put it in one sentence, what these psychologists are saying is that using the science of psychology, they've discovered that interacting with the natural environment plays an important role in maintaing our psychological health and also in boosting our mental fitness levels.

Now that's way cool right? Right? :)

Saturday

What a dull day, I got up at nearly eleven after gunning down hundreds of zombies the night before in Left 4 Dead, the name that is now synonymous with the words 'zombie' and 'help me'. Hope I can get cracking on studying for the semester exam which is just around the corner, now that assignments have been settled and done with.

Bored and with a PC in front of me, I did what only guys like me could do. You know, guys like me who don't have much life beyond the squalid four walls of my home. Switched on my PC, took out a DVD and an hour later I was busy checking out all the eye-candy that was on my screen.


If you don't know what Windows 7 is, then by all means check it out at the Windows7 Official Site. But if that's too grandfatherly boring for you, then Windows 7 is the follow-up or sequel of sorts to Windows Vista which is the default version of Windows you would find in most new laptops and computers now. It's now available for public testing, so I just thought I should give it a spin.

Had been using it for the whole afternoon, looks and feels really nice. Faster than Vista, and should get better when they officially release it. For those of you who are sick of Vista holding you back, Windows 7 could possibly be the one to help make computing a better experience for us all. It's funny how it plays on my psychology so much, just playing a simple video gave me the impression it was nicer and crisper and more vibrant than watching it on Vista. Nonsensical I know, but it feels great anyway, hahaha.

Yes, I only did what a geek like me could do on a Saturday morning, install computer software. Boring huh? Maybe I should've asked someone to go out for lunch or something....oh well. Next week I guess.

Undeserving, But Grateful

In many ways, I would consider myself to be a terrible friend. Short of listing out all the negative aspects that I'm sure many of you can relate to, every now and then I really do feel that people like me don't deserve to have good, proper caring friends. But despite all the times when I let everyone down, I can still think of so many instances where special people turned up in special circumstances to lend a hand, lend an ear, lend a dollar and whatever else I had needed of.

And among these special people, a few would go the extra mile to be a bit more special even, and I just cannot imagine what I could have done to deserve to know them. Just thought that I should take a moment to properly thank all the awesome people who consider me important enough to befriend and be friends with.


Thank you.

Valentine's

Okay, if you were actually expecting to read something related to Valentine's then you have my apologies, because in true single-but-not-too-desperate geek fashion I spent the entire day at home doing work. Alone.

Oh well...

My apologies again if you have already given up on trying to wait for my posts, the past few weeks since I got my driving lessons from my grandfather in Kuantan hasn't been very good to me. It's the same old struggles that I always write about but never say about. I've even gotten tired of blogging about it, so in the end I always didn't know what to write about when I felt like updates are due. Sigh~

On the other hand, there are a lot of things to look forward to the next month. Semester exams aside, my sister would be coming back home from RBS after the graduation night on the 5th. That means I'd have to return the table (which I have colonised and grown to love) to her. And I'd have to fight for the bathroom with her again. And I can't have the speakers in the living hall pumping out my playlists anymore. But such is the joy of having siblings :) Really hope she enjoys herself and also gain all the experience she can from the remaining two weeks left in Camerons and also the three days during her mission trip to Nilai.

Can't wait for this short semester to be over, would definitely have more time to post a lil bit more often then.

To all the lovebirds around the globe who are splurging lots of love on one another today (and cash too, no doubt), enjoy yourselves and Happy Valentine's :D

Kuantan Happenings

Since I've taken so many photos and the neighbour's left the modem on for some reasons, I thought another post would only be all too appropriate.

Coming back here with a P license this time around, I suddenly found myself at the receiving end of the car keys to my grandfather's Grandpa-mobile, which is ironically a Red Proton Saga Aeroback too! A bit newer than my (my dad's) Red Proton Saga Aeroback, having done less than 100,000 kilometers compared to almost 300,000 on mine (my dad's) car.



I think grandfathers are the best person to spoil you, if anyone is. My granpa is err..pretty old this year already, and had gone through the usual sickness routines, having just had a major surgery not too long ago. He smokes like any good cigarette-toting veteran, but he's the only one that I'll never mind to see him smoking. Most other people who light up in front of me would get two immediate headshakes and a flurry of sighs...he used to be a mechanic, and his auto skills were somehow good enough to feed the huge family of twelve healthy kids. And yes, he's hard-of-hearing, just like how they portray old folks in cartoon strips.

When he found out that I could drive, he suggested that I should use the car whenever needed. He went out and got me the customary pair of P stickers to put up after I agreed, then took me to a stretch of quiet road and asked me to try driving the car. Sort of like taking driving lessons all over again..I got in, and after taking my time to get used to the clutch and steering, drove all the way back home. He just kept praising me all the way in his characteristic "No problem lah!" mannerisms and seemed pretty happy to report to my mum that I 'passed'. Few things can come close to having your driving skills validated by your ageing grandfather, and I was truly blessed, I thought, to have him around still. I mean, who else would come up to you and say things like "hey, I've already bought the morning papers for you; hey, take the car keys and go for breakfast; hey, I'll fill up the tank so that you can use it to go wherever you want." *grandfathers rock!*

Happenings today were basically breakfast (very important over here), doing some hectic Chinese New Year grocery shopping at Tunas Manja, the local supermaket and hopping over to the beach to get some breeze and sand. Don't know if I'm just ulu, but there's always a bunch of interesting people who ply their trade along the walkway at the beach.

Nasi Lemak and Teh-C Ping again!

Ox plush toys anyone?

One of the few reasons behind our inability to boycott US products xD

Another one of those roadside artists, but he's amazing. And only ten bucks!

Fancy some sand-art from Jordan?

Weapons store selling pretty good-looking err...weapons. Which happen to light cigarettes.

Not too bad a day I suppose ;)

Back In Time

It's only Friday, still a good several days away from Chinese New Year but already I've hot-footed it back to my hometown in Kuantan, Pahang. Fearing that I'd be too darned bored with only Mandarin-speaking relatives to keep me company, I did what I could and brought back my Battle-Station :D

Times like this I'm pretty glad I didn't buy a desktop instead.

But that aside, coming back all the way here has always been a relaxing retreat of sorts for me. The pace of life here is starkly different from that of Subang's. Slow isn't the word though, it's somewhat more like..steady. After two weeks of early-morning drives to college, it's pretty nice to not have to rush to avoid those Doomsday hours of morningtime, lunchtime and after-work-everyone-is-in-a-terrible-mood-time.

The best of course, is the food. Who doesn't like to rave about all the different kinds of awesome food found only in specific enclaves in their birthplace? :D For me though, it's the nostalgia that makes the food all the more tasty and uber-delicious. Breakfast has been, and always will be, a bomb!

Nasi lemak with Teh-C Ping as can only be found here ;D

This is where we used to eat years ago...a piece
of memory that's still intact.

The most surprising this time around though, is the fact that my grandparents' jiran decided to provide free unsecured wireless Internet access! (^.^) Doesn't get any better than coming back here and still remain connected, heheh. This means that I'll get to do some research for my assignments even at 400 kilometers away from home...uh, regardless of whether I actually get around to doing any lah :)


Happy Chinese New Year people!

Where we're at as a society

I've always had the impression that Singapore was a country that prided itself on its human capital. The education system and universities there are often much talked-about and garner considerable degrees of respect from around the world with respect to their quality.

And I still have that impression. I certainly wouldn't mind at all being associated with a classy college or university like the Raffles Junior College and the NTU. Just saying that you belong to NUS for example, already puts you on a higher social standing than your peers who might be studying in any of our local universities. I'm not saying that local graduates are inferior in any way of course since I'm studying here myself, but the general consensus seems to be that Singapore has a pretty solid education backbone propping up the country's main resource: its people.

Or do they?

In today's Star paper page N50, the columnist for INSIGHT DOWN SOUTH who writes about the goings-on in Singapore mentioned the inevitable skew in the mindset of Singaporean youths whose minds have been so deeply ingrained with the competitive nature of the Singaporean society that places too much emphasis on success and leaves too little room for failure.

Where are we now as a society and where are we headed? Why is it that we are so focused on churning out world-class academic wonderkids akin to a factory producing designer sports shoes? In terms of science the global society as a whole is making wave after waves of breakthroughs and discoveries and everyday we hear people telling us that our "quality of life" is getting better. But at what cost? I feel that people have become robots in how they are being pushed to fit a mould to serve in a particular manner. Never mind if you are a unique human individual with your own set of skills, talents and abilities. All that matters is success, and whether you make it big in life. The individual is overtaking the group in importance, and our society now is more accurately just an assembly of 'individual individuals who happen to share the same living place and happen to have to interact with one another but otherwise pursue only individual goals individually'. And here I am talking about all these things because...I too, am a part of this degenerate change in our societal values.

If you didn't have the time to read the article that I was talking about to the end, then here's something that I wish I would never say, whether out loud or in my heart:

A reporter recounted how her friend was shaken when her young daughter came home one day and mentioned in passing that poor people were "stupid, obviously."