~ Put a sock in it !

The finals are finally over and it's the holidays now. I am back in my hometown for 5 days and I am bored already. I have always dreaded coming back here. I always thought it was because I typically end up having a fight with my mom or dad. And then leave with more frustration in my heart than before I came. It gets tiring after a while, up to a point when you realize you have been doing most of the hearing and no talking at all. I don't blame shrinks for charging high fees to their patients at all. Believe me, they need that much because it is not easy listening to people's problems especially if it's recurring and they never heed to any of your advices or suggestions. So, basically they are always stuck in square one and whenever you are near them, they just drag you in as well. Don't they realize I am just a kid myself? I wish they would stop getting at each other's throats all the time. Maybe it's idealistic to think that as you grow old with someone, y...

I bought a box of green tea from Carrefour yesterday. Just thought I'll try it out, after hearing so many good stories about it. I am typically a coffee person but lately I've been getting rather bored with it. So I decided to try tea instead. So far, there are 3 types of teas that I know of i.e. black tea, green tea and red tea (I beg to differ). The differences between these teas are their processing methods. Green tea are not fermented and the least processed as they are simply steamed quickly. Black and red teas on the other hand are partially crushed, dried and fermented. The color of these teas as they are soaked in boiling water, are as their names suggest. There are of course a variety of teas under each of these genres. The classifications of the names of these teas usually reflect the region of their origin or even based the texture, body and taste of the tea. For example, Nilgiri , Assam and Darjeeling are types of black teas from India . Dian Hong is a...

I have my own way of taking stress off. My true roomates (sworn to the allegiance of the A1-0-2 sisterhood) might know of it. It can turn messy at times but it is really calms me down. At this point if some of you are getting a little nervous or uptight, let me assure you that it is something decent. What on earth is it, you might wonder? Why, it's rearranging stuff of course. Every box will be opened and inspected and rearranged; not a single one is spared. These boxes for books, magazines, shoes, bags, toiletries, and miscellaneous items, in turn, will be piled up accordingly. It's somewhat like a major spring cleaning with indexing and proper labeling. Well, at least it is not shopping! Ugh ...

This is what I detest about staying in the hostel: Water Shortage! How on earth is it even possible, when each wing has 2 huge water tanks? It's frustrating allright! When I was washing my clothes in the evening, the water supply was rapidly decreasing. An hour later as I was about to take my bath, there was no water in the bathroom except for the pantry. But of course, I can't very well bath in the pantry now can I? So I rushed to the other wing and thank goodness there was water there but you can tell it's running low. It's a good thing I took my bath then, because now the whole block is out of water. Everybody is going to the next block. It's just like the great Exodus, only this time, the multitudes are carrying pails, towels and soaps. Needless to say, I thought it would be wise to save up some water from the pantry. I have to prepare for the worst. It would probably take them the whole day to fix the problem and I do have an 8 o'clock class tomorrow mornin...

Well, I was doing my report (I started at around 3 p.m. and was still doing it until around 10 p.m.) today when I was interuppted by my roomate. "Hey it seems there are gonna have a spotcheck!" As soon as the words left her mouth, my mind started kicking into action. Off the computer, put everything into the cupboard, lock it and then go have a shower. Yea, wait it out in the toilet. The perfect plan. But wait! Don't get too excited ... confirm with someone if it is for real. So, I called my friend who was in another wing and asked her to contact me if anyone comes over to her room for a spotcheck. In the meantime, I started gathering my bathroom gears. As I was about to leave, I got a phone call. Yes, there is a spotcheck going on. Someone just came over to her room and did the routine search. Great! By the time I took my bath and washed my clothes, they would have already passed by my room. When I returned from my refreshing shower, I was informed that nothing happened....

It's week 9 now and I'm surprised that I still have my sanity intact. Projects hanging midways, midterms around the corner and mild insomnia. At this moment, my plans and thoughts are only for tomorrow and if I have the time, maybe the day after. We had the regular Monday meeting with our Marketing lecturer(codename: sidewinder) today. By the end of the meeting, he usually leaves us with a lot of things to work on. This time however, we finished our discussions in 15 minutes. Indeed, a very rare and precious moment. He even bestowed upon us 2 weeks to complete the whole website. I met up with the designer after that and got him to cut up the images for the website. I am actually pretty excited to finish this off as soon as possible. There's the debugging to look into as well but hey, that's another story. I never knew programming would actually be interesting.

I woke up at around 2 p.m. on Monday, feeling rather awful, having slept through my Multimedia Marketing class. It was a rejuvenating slumber though. Anyway, at around 6 in the evening, there was a knock on my room door. I was terrified! Can it be ... the long awaited hostel spot check? Maybe it is the warden, coming to warn me about the complaints she got of somebody singing "We are the champions" late into the night? How did they know it was me? I was about to open the door when I heard the key being inserted from the other side. The door opened to reveal .... MY NEW ROOMATE!!! I was shocked and she was stunned. After a moment of awkward silence, we regained our composure and introduced each other. I explained that it would be impossible for us to take in a third roomate because, as it is with just the 2 of us, the room is already congested. A third would be a catastrophe! A little bit dramatic perhaps but you would understand if you see my room. After listening to her s...

My heart is bleeding. My external hard drive is not working! Gone the 9.2 GB of mp3s, project backups and not to forget, other vital documents. Funny isn't it, that hard drive was suppose to be my backup! Argh! What happened? Well, I had this "window file delayed" ballon on my system tray. So I took out the USB cable and connected it back. That's when things went absolute cuckoo. I saw the blue screen of death! Then suddenly, that awful message "dumping physical memory .... 10%". The number kept increasing and I freaked. So I restarted my laptop again but that was probably not the best thing to do, because now it is not even reading it! WHY?!!!! I have never been so heart broken before! Oh yea, okay, I felt the same when I lost my 128 MB mp3 player+pen drive+FM radio with a 256 MB SD card inside. The loss of appetite, the intense depression .... Well, I am going to watch 'Harold & Kumar Go To The White Castle'. Hopefully that would take my mind o...

It is the College Festival in campus this week and the guest of honor is the Cyberjaya Fire Department. They had a demonstation yesterday afternoon, in front of some makeshift stalls. I must say, that they have no clue as to how to appeal to the crowd. All they had in their act was some dogs that helped sniff some people out as well as find some hidden items. I admit that the dogs were cute but I always had the impression that these work dogs are usually fierce and move only when commanded. The dogs I saw looked more like obedient house pets, playfully running around, with their tails wagging (almost comparable to the speed a rattle snake's tail, prior to an attack). Their next act (and the final one) was setting a pile of wood on fire and then extinguishing it. Quite lame if you ask me. I can pretty much do that in my backyard (if I had one) with some dry leaves and twigs. Personally, I felt that they could have won the favour of all present by pulling off a partially dangerous st...

They had a fire drill last night at around 1.30 a.m. The students were definately NOT pleased about it but the firemen sure were! I guess it was an opportunity to put all those practices into action. The silly thing is that only my block was involved; the other 3 escaped the whole unwanted drama. Crap! That's not a simulation of a real emergency. It's a controlled simulation and seriously, where is the danger in that? Anyway, as soon as the alarms went off, they switched off the power supply and turned on the emergency lights. Everyone was evasperated and started making their way out of the hostel. What did I do? Well, I decided to stay in the room. My roommate decided to follow in my lead. So, we sat in the dark, quiet as 2 mice. For the first 10 minutes, we could hear the the students thumping down the stairs. We closed the curtains and sat still on our beds. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. I motioned my roomate to be silent, my heart pounding faster, my mind assa...

I cannot believe this! Why does fate have to be so cruel? Why! The first time I took this subject, the coursework was as such: Test 1 – 15% Test 2 – 15% Project – 10% Final Exam – 60% I did moderately well for the first test but I flunked the second one. As for the project, I had this sadistic lecturer who failed me without any valid reason. I tried to reason with him but it was pointless. I was so fed up as he would not even listen to any sound reason. How am I to plead my case if I am not even given a chance defend myself or make my point audible? He was so sloppy while marking the project and just rushed off to the next person without even properly ending the current presentation. It was all so confusing as nobody knew if their project was accepted or rejected. My presentation was on the last day, so you could very well imagine the chaos. The second time I took this subject, ...

Have you heard about this new Malaysian pop star, Mawi? I never had the inconvenience of listening to any of his songs until today. I was on the Seri Indah bus, on my way to KL when the bus conductor decided to entertain us by putting a VCD on. The usual norm would be a P. Ramlee movie or some Hollywood flick. So I geared myself up hoping it would be “Labu-Labi” or maybe “Tiga Abdul”. I was quite fond of P. Ramlee movies, one of the few Malaysian movies that have both a witty script and talented actors. Unfortunately though, it was a Mawi concert recorded at the Astro studio. The first song left a little sharp pain in my head. The second made me wholeheartedly regret sitting close to the speaker. The third gave me the urge to smash the TV and the VCD player along with that monster of a VCD inside. I just could not understand the excitement of the audience. The ladies were giggling and singing along, and mind you most of them were probably over 30. The same applied t...

Finally, Pride and Prejudice on the big screen! My all time favorite Jane Austen novel. No doubt that there would have been older remakes, both movies and dramas but a newer version is always welcomed. They have been other Austen movies on the big screen as well, namely, Emma, Sense & Sensibility and Mansfield Park. Personally, Emma was adapted well into a screenplay but Sense & Sensibility was a flop. The book itself, to begin with, lacked some personality and that impeccable Austen humour evident in her other books. Pride and Prejudice has a set of well developed characters especially the two main characters Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. There was a mini series in 1995 if I am not mistaken, with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. He played the role superbly well, potraying Mr Darcy as a cold, insensitive and arrogant man. He is actually a pretty nice guy but only around his family and close friends. An encounter with Miss Bennet however, opened his eyes to the flaws ...

I initially hoped that this semester would be an easy ride; all I had to do was enjoy the view and the wind from the back seat. But things always do not go the way you planned them, do they?. Well, that is, when I am the one planning, there is without fail, a sharp turn offroad somewhere along the way. My first lecture, Multimedia Marketing, is a fine example to start off with. I went to class thinking it would be a simple management subject, with high possibilities of scoring an A. However, after the lecturer finished with the introduction, I started wondering if this is an elective that I can drop. It would be a dream subject had it not clashed with my hopes of lazing around this semester. There will be hard work from the beginning to the end. Sadly, there will be no spoon-feeding either. I have gotten quite used to that after being here for so long. The second in line is Media Law, a promising subject I should say. One with tonnes of reading and arguments, with the law as the guidel...

So, this is it ... my final semester. To commemorate these last remaining days of my University life, I have decided to start this blog. Why now? Well, that's possibly due to my uncontainable joy at the prospect of finally leaving University and moving on with life. *Please God, help me avoid any major screw-ups that would detain me for even a month longer here. And yes, you may freely express your opinions but please do so civilly.