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."