When the snowflakes turn purple....

The disappointing mountains

2010-05-09T22:45:00.016+08:00

Blue Mountains is such a famous thing. Everyone talks about it, and it seems to be a must-go-tourist-spot, obviously for all tourists, and of course, including me.

I didn't have time for it since I came to Aussie, and we missed the chance to join the 2 days 1 night tour group with the Unimates. So we had to come out with our own plans and route.

Me, Steph and Tony went there on Saturday. Woke up damn early in the morning, got on the train around 8-ish, fell asleep in the train, and guess what, dannnngggggg, we missed the stop to get off. The next thing we knew when we woke up, was almost everyone got off the train, and there's no turning back. This is not HK, where you can just go to the opposite rail and wait for the train to get back. Here, you have to wait for some 40-50 minutes for the next train.

Haha. So we wondered around this small lil town, we have no freaking idea where we were at. Luckily, we managed to find a stop to catch a bus back to our original stop. Wasted another 2 dollars plus I guess. Haha... and definitely a lot of time.

Anyway, we made our way to the Blue Mountains. Bought tickets for the steep rail, cableway, skyway, and hop-on-and-off trolley ride. Went around the main area of the Blue Mountains (forgot what they call that...), expected to see some cool falls during the Skyway, but what we saw was just not what we expected. It was mini, and it looked like water coming out from the shower. Anyway, then spent time on the Gordon Falls, expecting to see another grand falls (like what we saw on the advert photo), and once again, got disappointed=.= OMG, what happened? No one could explain. Anyway, we then went walking along the trails in the mountains, took some photos...and got lost not long after that. Lost as in people told us we have to walk another 4km to reach to the next stop. Panicked for awhile, but luckily, we met a really cool man with a 4WD who was so kind to bring us to a landmark with MORE PEOPLE. Saw a little bit of sunset on the other side.

And then, it was fish n chips + some other fried seafood for dinner. Train back after that. Fell asleep again. But those Cantonese and perhaps South East Asians were talking and laughing so loudly that we couldn't concentrate sleeping....

Anyway, we were so tired. But at least, now we know what Blue Mountains is like. The mountain is definitely not blue, no falls maybe only some showers, and lotsa trees all around. Nothing special aight? Haha....

Missing the gym

2010-05-03T20:56:00.010+08:00

Happy 20th Birthday BodyStep!! =)

I attended Lesmills quarterly Ultimate Super Workshop in Sydney.

It was spectacular.

And I really enjoyed it.

It made me think of those days I used to work in FF Penang. Those days of being a full time receptionist, part time receptionist, regular stepper, and eventually a BodyStep instructor. (Well, although I am not yet fully certified=.=) I miss those days, where I spend so much time gossiping about everything (hey, that's every girls' favorite ok..), where I attend Step classes so regularly, where I worked so hard to be good in BodyStep, and made all the effort to be cleared to instruct as a BS instructor.

I would say that I did not quite get 'there' before I left FF, and the gym life in Penang. I knew that I could do better, but I just didn't have enough time. If only I were a guy, maybe I could be better (you know males are always more favored everywhere, seriously =.=). It took me a lot of effort to make the class an enjoyable one, one that people will feel so happy and satisfied after attending it. Well, or I should say I didn't really succeed in figuring out the best method. It was just so hard, to please everyone in the class.

Nevertheless, I will never forget how I love BodyStep. I still do love it, and I enjoyed doing the MasterClass with the DVD presenters in the quarterly. I wanna keep myself involved in this world of GX instructors, although I know it'll be hard to do that in Hong Kong. But teaching is just a lot of fun (though stressful at times).....maybe Brandon kinda inspired me, too. Haha.

By the way, I learned a lot from the quarterly. It has been awhile since I made myself jump up and down like that for more than 5 hours in a day. It was painful too...haha...the push ups, the load on my triceps (which are tremendously weak =[ ) I'm so goinna get so much pain after this workout. But it made me realize that, my passion for fitness is still there, and it has always been there. I enjoyed quite a lot of the master classes, love the songs for BodyAttack and BodyBalance. Well, if I had more time, and perhaps more opportunities in Hong Kong, I would go for training in BB and BodyVive.

Haha, will see how it goes then.

Well Alan, I do admire you at times. Have fun BA+BS+BJ-ing yeah~~ You are one great instructor XD, I knew it even before you started any trainings.

Bye, April.

2010-04-30T22:47:00.008+08:00

Owh May is coming. I'm getting so excited. Cz I'm going to Gold Coast, and I'll watch Mayday's concert. It'll be the last month having disastrous Mondays till Wednesdays non-stop classes. Life is all of a sudden....better.

Anyway, I had a really laid back week. Too much laying back I think this time. Owh, am I slowly turning into an Aussie?? Hell no...it was just a week I felt like doing nothing. Well, it makes sense right? You had a nice weekend, and there was this nice public holiday no school on Monday thingy, and then you are excited and you keep waiting everyday for the interview, and you got so frustrated and depressed when you lost your room key, but luckily an angel found it and you got it back.....stuff like that. Sounds tiring, didn't it?

We had this great and extremely filling Taiwanese dinner at this crepe shop. Yeah, it was good, a nice reward in fact. And we girls had some long chat together for about I guess 2-3 hours.

It was a nice way to end April, and I'm really looking forward to a great great month of May!! =)

Anzac Day

2010-04-25T14:47:00.001+08:00

It is a day ....

"Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries."

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_Day

I woke up at like 6.30am on that day to watch the parade. So can't believe that. Cz I've never been up so early to watch even Merdeka Day Parade for over erm, 19 years? Owh maybe there was one year where I was involved in the parade myself. Haha XP

The reason I woke up so early is because it was stated in the internet that the dawn service starts at 4am, and the whole place will be crowded with people from well maybe 3.45am. And I thought if I really wana see the parade I shouldn't make my suffer by tip-toeing throughout the whole parade just because I couldn't get a good view=.=

BUT....there was barely much cars or people on the streets when I left home at 7.30am. Hmmm? I was wondering what happened. Maybe because it drizzled a little in the morning...?

Anyway, I just walked around and I found myself a good spot to watch the parade, opposite Town Hall, where I can take some good photos with good background. Owh yea, they were giving out free Australia flag too...haha.

The parade did start on time. A lot of taxis at first (I really don't know why...) then followed by armies, bands, old people especially in the parade. It was interesting at first I would say....but since I do not know that much about it, and it was kinda repetitive, so I left before the end of the parade. I had enough pictures of it anyway....and I was really sleepy.

Well, good thing I had a no school tomorrow because of this celebration!! Yippee~~~

The Orchestra and Alice in the Wonderland

2010-04-24T15:11:00.023+08:00

Well, not that I watched the orchestra playing Alice in the Wonderland songs...haha.
It just happened on a same day.

The grand grand opera house

I was looking forward to enjoy a nice show at the Opera House, doesn't really matter what show it is. Drama, musical etc.
And Unimates actually arranged us for this romantic afternoon event, featuring "VIVA ESPANA - Spanish flair, Spanish rhythm and the elegant passion of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez." http://www.sydneysymphony.com/seasons/2010/productions/2397-2010-Viva-Espana/details/
It was a really nice orchestra performance. And I felt so attached to music after not being in any similar performances for years. Ah....Dewan Sri Pinang, that's what I recall first when it comes to orchestra performances. And we only have to pay like RM5 or RM10 for night performances? Haha...well guess what, it was AUD30 (discounted price) for the VIVA ESPANA afternoon performance! But anyway, I really do miss music.

After that, we went to walk around The Rocks - Sydney. Well, before being any closer to this place, I seriously thought that this is a place with...erm, lotsa ROCKS. But well, it's actually a lil town, selling lotsa Australian specialities, some handmade crafts, and some nice retaurants, cafes and bars to chill. Anyway, we didn't have much time to walk around the market, which sells all those cute stuff as they end their business at 5pm SHARP. But we did manage to see some really nice necklaces (OWH, they are sooooo unique AND EXTREMELY expensive!!), had a stick of chocolate coated strawberries, tasted some sweet sweet Australian honey and had a AUD2 grilled butter corn (AUD3 off original price cause they're closing). It was cool, and we enjoyed it a lot. Planning to come back again sometime before we leave Aussie, and buy the necklace if we still have some cash left by the end of the exchange!! Haha.

Then we headed to Pancakes at the Rocks for dinner. This 24-hour restaurant was so freaking famous, and there is almost always a line of people waiting outside of its door. Luckily, we were there early and we managed to secure our seats pretty easily. The menu looked good. But that made me thought of Paddington Pancakes at Queensbay, which had a even fancier and larger variety of food choice compared to this. And so we ordered some dessert pancakes (both chocolate and butter milk pancakes) with some ice cream and fruits around. Overall, I would say it was yummy, but personally I think it's pretty overrated. Paddington could be so much better than this, and the price was much more competitive back there too. But, okay, no complains. Unless I'm willing to fly back home immediately for a pancake? Haha.

Our last stop for the day was Darling Harbour IMAX Theatre. That is the one with the largest IMAX screen in the world. So we scheduled ourselves for Alice in the Wonderland at 9.15pm. We were lucky enough to catch another cool musical fireworks display about 45minutes before the show. Don't really know what was that for, but presumably, Anzac Day which falls on the following day. And so we bought our tickets and ligned up to get into the cinema! OMG, this is the first time ever we actually have to lign up to watch a show. And we haven't got into the room until like 9.35pm? Haha. OZ experience.
The screen was good, 3D was kinda fun, Jack Sparrow was better in Pirates, and the story was predictable. Well, again, it was a nice experience.

And so, we ended this super tiring day. But yeah, I did have fun as promised right? =) Cheers!

About programming and auditing

2010-04-23T22:46:00.000+08:00

I never tell you guys anything about the courses I am taking over here.

Programming is the one I enjoy most, next would be auditing, not because the lecture or the topic is interesting , but I just love my tutor a lot.

My Programming class~

I love dealing with high tech stuff, well of course when I can understand it.

I always see lotsa job ads talking about some additional requirements to apply for those technical or IT jobs. Something about java, C++, and the list goes on. Can't believe I have the chance to learn it over here during my exchange. My instructor and the coordinator course as well as my tutor is this super young guy (he just looks like a student!!). He's from HK but I think he can't speak canto well (that's what people say). But he's a really good instructor. He deliver very clear and good lectures, and he is good in helping us to understand the materials. It could be frustrating at times, not being able to solve the java code just because of some tiny miney error. But, it made me feel so happy and successful when I am able to do the work by myself. I really learned something out of his class, and I enjoy lab sessions too....

As for the auditing course, my instructor was pretty boring. Although there is no doubt that she has very deep knowledge in the topic. On the other hand, I have this super coooool and cute tutor (owh she's female, don't get "cute" the wrong way, haha) But her 1 hour tute every week just makes my school week end sooo much better. The way she explains auditing is just so interesting, and she's so good at cracking jokes, even very simple ones. Yeah, I really like her a lot. And I'm really glad that I changed my tute to her class.

Well you may wanna ask.....how about your other classes? Hmm, not worth mentioning them at the moment I guess...most of the time? Not interesting.

Sudden Decision. Gold Coast

2010-04-22T21:38:00.000+08:00

We went crazy all of a sudden at one day.

Tiger Airways was doing this great sale great promotion thing. Getting you to fly across Australia. It costs as low as AUD19 one way to fly from Sydney to Gold Coast (normal price around AUD60 I guess).

So my housemate was like asking me, do you wanna go to Gold Coast for a weekend?

And I couldn't believe myself eventually agreeing to it.

And so we made our decision in only about two days.

Skip class? (Not me though) Quizzes or assignments or essays around the corner?

Who cares.

We came here for exchange. For the better OZ experience.

So, Gold Coast here we come.

Even if it's only the three of us.

Flying is fun. Taking 1000 photos in 4 days will be fun. Taking more jumping photos would be fun. Spending lotsa tiring yet crazy time together is fun. Especially when we only have less than 10 weeks together in this weird slow country.

Cheers Shiney and Stephy.

We'll have tonnes of fun together.

Easter Show

2010-04-21T20:09:00.009+08:00

Backdated: 9th April 2010, Friday...

If you've seen photos from my Facebook, you would have known that it was a huge and interesting event.

Me and some exchange buddies went to the Easter Show a day after we came back from the Melbourne trip.

That was a major annual event for Sydney. And it was huge. There were so many things happening in the event. And once again I would say that I didn't have enough time to get around the shows, the exhibitions, and the fun and thrill rides. Other than that, yeah, it costs a lot too. The entrance fee itself costs AUD26 with student concession.

We spent most of our time with the farm animals. Seen sheep shearing, and milked the cows. We pat a lot of sheep, goats, cows, and even chickens in the nursery. Saw some beautiful horses too. Not to miss, the dog show, but we were there pretty late, and sadly, I missed most of my favorite animal, the dogs! We reached the showcase after the opening hours =( Other than that, we saw a grand parade, which to me was not so much of an interesting parade, it was just full of people bringing out farm animals and walking in circles. Haha. And then we missed the pig race, which was extremely exciting and interesting cause we felt the atmosphere through peeking outside the race area.

As mentioned there were some thrilling rides too. But it was way too expensive, some of the fun rides cost a minimum of 8AUD. Ya, 8AUD for like 5 minutes? Ahh...that's too much. But me and my friend tried playing at one of the game stalls, trying to win a huge huski toy!!! The HUSKI was soooo cute. But of course, guys are perhaps better in winning these games, as we saw quite a lot of guys wondering around with huge soft toys....argh~ But anyway, we got ourselves a very cute showbag, a brand which was never heard before, but it's mascot is pretty cute, as a reward.

摩天輪，那好像是回憶裏的幸福~

I had kebab as dinner. And we head to the main arena for some fun night show. There was the girl's stunt show, toyota XX stunt show, and the motorcycle stunt show. Haha, all of them were cool! And then there was this robosaurus which I was not so interested in. The night ended with the spectacular musical fireworks!!!

很燦爛的煙花~

We were extremely exhausted by the end of the day. Imagine being out and walking non-stop from 9.30am till 11pm. Not to mention my half-broken camera.

But I'm glad that I came here. Without any doubts, it was indeed a wonderful day.

Last 10 days. Randomness.

2010-04-20T23:27:00.001+08:00

It's down to the last 10 days of April.

This dog is sooooo cute. I wished I could smile like him...Random~

Well, I can't believe time flew that fast.

A lot of things happened in the first three weeks. There was this 10 day holiday, and there were tonnes of exams, homework and essays due after the holidays.

My exchange life was pretty different from what I expected, and what perhaps other people expected as well. Exchange was supposed to be full of traveling around here and there, and activities everyday if not every week. That's what I heard before going on exchange, and people even told me that exchange was the best part of their lives.

WOW.

Can I assume that it is because I kinda came to the wrong country?

Anyway, from the above, you can read that I am not having a SUPER GOOD exchange life. I thought that feeling will only last for the first 2 weeks or maybe a month...BUT, It has been really exhausting for the past week or so. My mood just wasn't right to do all those stuff, those stuff like midterms, textbooks, writings etc. I wanted to do well so badly in all courses over here, but that is just taking too much out of me.

Hmm, I KO-ed a midterm last Monday, another midterm last Saturday, sprained my ankle badly on the same day, stayed up wide awake on Sunday to complete my 10% database online quiz and 30% 2000-word law essay. What a good week huh. And another midterm is coming up this Friday. Luckily, this one doesn't require that much strenuous reading.

I am starting to wonder a LOT about life. The more I grow up, the more complicated it gets.

I wanna go to Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley and Port Stephens. I wanna have more good food of this country which might only be well known for Fish n Chips. I wanna take more nice photos. I wanna earn this currency which is currently doing very well, at least earn back the freaking expensive student visa application fee. I wanna get a good exchange transcript. But it doesn't seem to be possible to achieve all in the next 2 months right?

Time is flying. And I kept repeating this. I kept telling people around me that we're ending this exchange so soon. It's true right? See....you do some essays, you take some exams, you cook at home everyday, you receive the drafted exam timetable, you take more rest after not resting to meet some datelines, then you get a shock as the finalized exam timetable is so different from the drafted one (ya, I really don't understand the purpose of having so many versions of tt-s), you go marketing every Sunday evening for cheap one dollar stuff, you top up your expensive prepaid sim card, you pay rental, and you pay rental again, you start studying, you start to think about disposing some big items that you got for this 4 months plus exchange, you start packing, you went in for the exam, you either came out smiling from the exam because you don't care or you really did very well, you add a few more friends on facebook, you keep checking facebook, you keep uploading photos on facebook, you start eating a lot of junk food because without them you can't concentrate studying, you finish all exams, and you start thinking: does this feel like a third home to me?

Maybe not.

Well, I'm goinna try to have more fun this coming week okay? I promise?

At the same time, I'll ensure that I really work hard for what I am studying.

Good luck and chill!

Owh ya, I wanna tell you guys about Easter Show! Will do that soon ya...=)

Whooosh. Half of April is gone.

2010-04-13T23:47:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm still hanging in here. A lot of things happening and a lot of things to do lately. I wanna blog. But I just heaps (The Australian word, it means lots!) of things coming up non-stop that makes blogging something that has to be on the waiting list.

So, a quick quick quick update.

I started Easter Holidays the day after April Fool. I had one day rest on the first day of hols, and started all the fun the day after. I went to the Hoopla Festival on 3rd April, left Sydney for Melbourne on 4th April and stayed there till early Thursday morning, came back home like a deadly tired person on 8th April, went to Easter Show on 9th April, and became a good student on the last 2 days of my hols, just because I have a midterm on the day school resumes, which is 12th of April.

Why is my break sooooooo short la?

A photo I took during my Melbourne trip. I love this a lot. Randomness....haha.

Okay, I'll tell you guys more in detailed. Erm, when I finish these 2 crazy weeks of exams and essays and assignments.....

Cheers!

Easter is coming.....

2010-03-30T22:52:00.001+08:00

Easter is coming coming coming.....

I never thought Easter could be such a big thing, in Hong Kong as well as in Australia. We have a week long holiday in Hong Kong, and 10 days holiday including Good Friday in Australia. We call that Easter Break, or Easter Holiday.

I never really noticed what Easter is like in Hong Kong. But in Australia, there's a lot happening during Easter. First of all, there has been a lot of sales regarding Easter. All supermarkets sell a variety of chocolate, some a lot in the rabbit shape, and others in the huge egg shape. They are sooooo cute, and definitely tempting. Owh, and some sell rabbit fluffy toys as well....

Other than that, there are a lot of events happening throughout Easter. I shall update you guys when I attend those events.

The Unimates Students Association had their coffee and cakes session themed as "Pre-Easter Coffee & Cakes". It was a fun session with some cute food serving a lot of people. Too bad, I didn't have enough time to spend there making more friends as I only had my 10 minutes break of lecture for this....

Another tutor of mine gave us eggy chocolates during tutorials too. How sweet is that!!

given by my tutor ^.^

So, yeah, it seems like a huge celebration that I've never experienced before....Happy Easter everyone!!

And a lil update over here, I will be spending time at Melbourne for 4 days 4 nights this Easter! =)

The football game

2010-03-28T23:37:00.005+08:00

We have a lot scheduled for today.

Isn't the rabbit very cute? =)

First, a local town festival. There were a number of stalls selling and promoting stuff. There are farm animals and creatures on display too. Locals bought themselves a cup of coffee, sat back, and enjoy the music and performances from some bands.

Next, the Thai Festival. This is a bigger one, at Tumbalong Park, near Darling Harbour. Well, I think most people in the festival are Thai. Haha...there were some thai products on sale, and of course a lot of yummy Thai food. Well, yea, they look indeed very yummy, but too expensive. There were some Thai performances on stage too. As usual, people sitting on the grass, enjoying their bottle of beer or wine.

Then, we went to meet a HK star at Paddy's Market =.= Haha, yea, you heard me correctly, HK star, Joey Yung, she's goinna have a tour in Sydney tomorrow. Well, I think if I were the star, I would be disappointed with the crowd on a Saturday afternoon, well despite the fact that this is not a Chinese country. But she looked way too thin to me. Hmm, like people who hasn't been having enough food for some time.

Then we walked to Central station, for the highlight of our day. The football game!! Well, this is definitely my first time watching a football game live in a stadium, and I can't believe I gave it to an Australian football game. It is the Swans (Sydney) against the Saints (Melbourne). I think it's pretty fun, it got excited at some time, and it got kinda funny when supporters of different teams sit close by to each other. Well, I said this because there was a group of people supporting the opposite team, and a lady in that group shouted like hell throughout the game. =.= Haha, and the funniest thing is that she acts as though she's the coach or something, trying to get the players do what she think it's right to do...funny funny. Overall, I think it was a good experience, although we had to sit there from around 7pm to almost 10pm. Anyway, the Swannies did not win the game, we heard that the Saints used to be a strong team, and they made it to the finals last year.

What a hot and tiring Saturday. =)

Owh, week 4 of studies is over already!!!!!

The Malaysians Meet-up

2010-03-26T22:07:00.002+08:00

When you're at a foreign country, it's always glad to meet with people from your own country~

I remember myself getting really excited to know the Malaysians when I first reached Hong Kong, and we are like a small lil community. It's always comfortable hanging around with people who will make you feel like home.

When I came to Australia about 6 week ago, I was excited about meeting Malaysians too. (As I heard that there are a lot of Malaysians around here) Perhaps, I got too excited. During Orientation Week of my uni, I went to a booth called SUAMS (Sydney University Association of Malaysian Students), and when they asked if I were a Malaysian, I "excitedly" answered "Yeah, yeah!". But all I got back was just some "Owh kay, would you like to join our association then? We have a lot of Malaysians here......" And from that kinda reaction, I just realized that, well, it's really not something unusual to see people from your own country. And when it's not something unusual, it won't be exciting anymore. A little disappointing at first, but I got used to it not long after. Now I realized that Hong Kong is so much less diversified compared to AUS. They have tonnes of Europeans, Americans, Africans and Asians (including Japanese....I'm saying this because there are ZERO Japanese in HK) in one uni (excluding faculty and staff). We have? 40 Malaysians, growing to 50 or 60 maybe, 30 Europeans, no Americans, 10 Africans....err. Well you get the picture. Perhaps it's because my university is still too young, and HK does not use English as their first language, hence not much people will opt HK for tertiary education.

Nevertheless, I managed to contact some friends from Penang, who are doing full time in Sydney. The funny thing as we only heard of each other during high school (diff high school somemore =.=), and we never get to know each other. This time, we got introduced by another friend whom I'm not any close to either. Haha.

I was glad to be invited to his place for dinner. It feels.......sooooo much more like HOME. Cause they cooked CURRY CHICKEN! =) And we can speak Hokkien, and most important of all, Malaysian Chinese!! Hahaha... I had a great time in their beautiful unit, and thanks for the hospitality. Thanks Sheng Yu!

I still do hope that I could meet Malaysians who are excited to meet other Malaysians though. Haha ~~

Career Fair

2010-03-24T21:33:00.001+08:00

I accidentally noticed that there is Career Fair in USYD yesterday. In their advertisement, there are 7 big prizes to be given away, and one of them is a 1TB HARD DISK! Haha, so craving for all the prizes, I tried attending the fair despite having full day classes~

As I was in a rush, I forgot to bring my student ID there during my first visit.

And ya, the weird thing about a huge career fair is, it only starts at 12pm, and ends at 4pm. ONLY 4 HOURS.

But anyway, I managed to get in the second time. There were quite a lot of companies recruiting, mostly business related, and quite a lot of people too. I had a lot of fun getting lotsa free gifts from different companies, pens, notepads, chocolates, even a shampoo!! And I realized that a lot of them give out stress balls, so I guess Australian people have stress too? Hahaha.

Anyway, back to careers in Australia. Well, Big4 firms only hire people who graduated from local uni-s. As for the rest, they'll require you to have Australian Permanent residency before you apply for the grad job. Hmm....so it seems not possible for me to work here at all? But the salary package here is so attractive!!! One of the positions offered, a trader, earns you AUD100,000 per year!! Another job that I was really interested in was the Management Trainee like position by Qantas Airways. It is a two-year program and I really think that it will be fun. But still, the condition applies. I have to be a PR before being eligible to apply for it. Aih~~

And so, these are the freebies that I got from the fair. Haha....Owh, but I missed the free cup of coffee given by Deloitte (or 1 of the Big4 firms...)~

Emergencies Everyday

2010-03-23T22:59:00.000+08:00

Something REALLY extraordinary here!!

You will hear emergency sirens all around the place every single day, especially during night time. This means accidents or perhaps fire happen here everyday. Well, no wonder people think that this is not a safe city, or a safe country. But to be honest, I don't really know what kinda accidents are those. But the sirens just made me feel so uncomfortable. Police cars, fire brigade, and ambulances. It's just so weird to see them around everyday. =.= Haha.

And today, it happened in my uni. The fire alarm rang in the building after I finished my tutorial class. Luckily it was AFTER the tutorial class because I seriously hate interruptions. But I just walked out slowly as though nothing is going on as I thought it was just another false alarm, or perhaps fire emergency practice? Apparently, most people vacated from the building. And the THREE fire brigades came =.= But, I still don't see any fire or smoke or any scenario that seems to need help from them. Oh, this is weird.

Haha, but anyway, just to tell you more about life here.

Cross Ocean AGM

2010-03-22T22:34:00.009+08:00

Well, that was truly an experience. I definitely wouldn't say that it was fun (because my ear aches badly throughout the 5-6 hours), but it really made me feel that I miss these people so much. It feels like, home, a lil. OMG, I can't believe I'm saying that HK is like my 2nd home now.
You should know how badly I hope that I could be there. People are so funny around, and I can laugh even by just some super random chats with all of them.

Overall, I think I just got less than 50% of the full AGM. I heard a lot of stupid stuff, and I really thank my dear jong members for helping me to answer quite a lot of stupid questions. Well, now that I have been a year of exco member, and gone through all those jong matters, I kinda understand more they wanna make it this way. BUT still, I do think that it doesn't really help much. Evaluations should be held, just not in AGMs. Now what, we don't have a P, IVP and the EVP anymore. So the society is stuck there?

This is just not right. But too bad, I am not the one who can change all these. I just hoped that people do realize one day.

The point is, I do want to be there, with those familiar faces that I miss a lot. Well, only a quarter of year to go, it should be pretty quick right? =)

Spit to Manly

2010-03-20T23:53:00.000+08:00

Manly is just another beach.

I actually can't believe that have been going to all these beaches since I arrive. 3 different beaches in a month? Wulala....I don't even go to the beach near where I stay back in Penang that often, although it's just within walking distance, unless, hmm, maybe on some special occasion. To be honest, I'm not that much of a day beach person, meaning that I prefer going to the beach during evenings or perhaps night time. Not that HOT marr....and well, Penang beaches are so not comfortable to swim in =.= unlike what it is here in Sydney. People swim, surf, play balls in the sea, even bringing their tripods to take photos in the sea. So you can imagine how clear and clean the sea is over here.

This is another activity organized by Unimates. We were supposed to gather at Wynyard station at 9am = SOO early on a Saturday morning. And then we took a bus to North Sydney and started our walk to Manly Beach. It is supposed to be a 3-4 hour walk, and mentally I was definitely not prepared to do this as my mind was still sleeping at 10am. Haha. But still, I wanted to do this. Exchange is meant to be tiring, and it's definitely not just about sleeping till 12pm everyday.

Anyway, it was sultry hot!! I heard people saying that it was about 35 degrees Celcius on that day. Imagine that, walking under such hot weather for 4 hours? Ya, and the result is, the super tanned me again =.= Ahh....an extremely sad thing. But I don't regret joining this trip though. We walked pass a few nice beaches, and a lot of super nice and huge bungalows on our way. Really really cool bungalows indeed, they have huge swimming pools in it, and all of them have seaview!! Other than that, I really felt the life of Australian people extremely relaxing~~Everyone is just having so much fun with their family during the weekends, it just makes me smile =)

See? Relax~~~

Compared to the previous 2 beaches that I have been to, Manly is the most crowded one. The whole beach is almost full, be it on the sand or in the allowed swimming area in the sea. It was still very HOT!! And people are enjoying themselves sun bathing. But amazingly, the water was really cool, and we had fun walking on the shore, as the sand were sooooo smooth!!! Owh ya, there were few emergency sirens while we were there, sharks were cited! Too bad I didn't get to see them...haha.

It was a tiring day. And we even had a sort of Japanese Night invited by a Japanese friend after that. Oowh, I supposed this is good exchange experience? =)

Week 3 @USYD

2010-03-19T12:24:00.000+08:00

Things are getting tensed up. I am currently settled down with 6 course, 36 credits, while normal people only takes 4 courses with 24 credits. I managed to arrange my timetable and am currently enjoying a 4 day long weekend. Yippee.. However, I do have 2 clashes in such a timetable, and I will listen to the recordings of those classes that clashes. One more thing, I don't really have any lunch time for schooling days from Mondays to Wednesdays. This means....STARVE! Yeah I'll only be having breakfast, and then dinner 9 hours later.

I have been interviewed by the Starbucks manager and he likes me and he said that he's goinna give me a reply by today or Monday (either to work at his store or other stores, but amazingly, in this huge NSW, there're only 9 Starbucks in total =.=). I have tried making sushi at a Korean-run Japanese Sushi place in Broadway Shopping Centre, one place across the street from where I stay. I would have to say that making sushi is definitely fun but.....making sushi at a korean place just doesn't sound right, owh ya, and the pay is freaking low.

Other than that, I just got accepted into the Internship Program for Study Abroad and Exchange students of the uni, which means that I MIGHT end up with 7 courses (because the internship is credit based), and that will kill me, and people thought that I am insane. It's an internship working with Sydney Observatory - a project on planning a holiday program for kids. Well, it definitely has nothing to do with my future career, but I supposed it will be a good experience for me, working with people that are extremely laid back? I haven't decided, as I'm kinda stuck with the number of courses I am allowed to be enrolled into. This is pretty much what happened throughout the week I guess?
One more thing, I have been really trying to study these few days, but I guess all my attempts weren't that successful. Oh gosh, can someone just gimme some suggestions on how to be more diligent? And how to extend my concentration span?
Being too busy during exchange definitely isn't good. I need some free time to hang out with people, to visit more places that I am supposed to, and to explore as much as I could. Hmm, how am I goinna achieve that?
I'll have a busy weekend again I think. Well, I guess this is what an exchange is supposed to be like.....there's never ending stuff waiting for you to do!!

In case you are wondering what the hell is the photo doing in the middle of my blog, this is one of my meals that I made here. It is a sort of instant food, and it took me around 105 minutes to prepare it. It only costs....I guess AUD1.50 the most? Haha, a great way for poor people to save money huh~~

People here

2010-03-18T22:08:00.000+08:00

I am goinng briefly talk about the people here.

Well you've heard of them being laid back, and to me that's a huge issue!!!

Things normally get delayed for 1-2 weeks, such as....

1) My scholarship!! - I have submitted all relevant details by 22nd Feb, and finally I just got the money yesterday. It took them almost a month. And within that period, they keep telling things such as "I have already done this and that, and it should be there by XXX". Owh, it was pretty frustrating.

2) Internship! - I applied for the Study Abroad and Exchange credit-based internship 2 weeks after I came here as I was not sure whether I get to enrol into the courses that I really want to. I got a reply for a meeting with them in one sunny day, and when I emailed them regarding my free time to meet up, there was no reply until after the day was over, I then only got a reply from them the day after, after I EMAILED them AGAIN. Ok. They still met up with me anyway, and we discussed about the internships that I might be interested in. Then I was told that they will be keeping in touch with me soon. And so I waited and the add course period was over last Friday and I have yet to hear from then, and poop all of a sudden, this Monday, I was sent an email regarding the first training we are supposed to attend for this internship course. The whole thing was weird. I did attend the training which was extremely boring, and after the traning when I asked about the internship, their best answer they could give is just wait, because they haven't receive a reply from the employer yet. In my mind I was thinking, can't you inform me that you have already sent my application to the employer and we are awaiting for their decision soon after you have done so? I was about to forget about this whole internship thingy as I managed to enrol into the courses I wanted to and out of the blue, I am involved in it again. And so I waited for the employer's reply. The coordinator called me today, and told me the "good news" that I am accepted by the employer. But I'm in deep trouble. I am now enrolled into 7 courses, while I am supposed to be in at most 5 courses. She asked me to drop my other courses, which I really don't want to. And she told me she'll be sending the details of the internship to me immediately after we hang up on the phone, and I have not received any reply up till now. What a thing =.=

3) My courses! - This was quite some time ago, when I just arrived and start dealing with my enrolment. I was supposed to get someone to approve me for taking higher level courses. I was referred by my advisor to go to the Student Information Office of the School of Business and Economics. And so I went there and the lady asked me to see/email the ACCT UG coordinator in charge. I went to his office and he was not there. His colleagues doesn't even know when he will be coming back. And so I emailed him, and there wasn't any reply. And so I contacted the SIO again, and she said that I could refer to the professor teaching the course I wanted to enrol in. I emailed the professor and he said that I should be going back to SIO to start the application of approval process all over again. And meanwhile I still haven't got back any reply from the SIO guy. And so it dragged on and it frustrates me a lot. People in HKUST at least replies in 1 day the latest for such urgent matters. But people here, they just push you around, as they don't really care what other people is supposed to do, they just do what they are supposed to do.

I guess I have much more stories about them being extremely slow, not responsive and definitely inefficient. Most Asian people including some Americans have the same complaints too. I guess this is the culture shock that I am experiencing. Haha. In conclusion, this might not be a good place if I wanna live a rapid and efficient life. I will just be kek ki all the time...haha.

The nothing-much-to-do Sunday - White Valentines

2010-03-14T08:28:00.005+08:00

We were supposed to go to the zoo today.

But, everyone was too tired. Tired of the not-supposed-to-be-tiring beach activities yesterday, and tired of schoolwork perhaps, tired of spending too much $$ in a weekend?

And so we decided to just sit back and relax at home, and finish whatever we have to to prepare for the next week.

I wasn't that obedient to stay at home though.

There were so many things happening outside and I really want to get myself out of my room and check them out. There was a food fest at Centennial Park, and a Wine Fest at Hyde Park. But all requires head charge to test the food or the wine. Well, I decided to go get some photos. I didn't go to Centennial Park though because it was a little far away, by foot.

It was just another weekend, shopping at Paddy's Market, wondering around the city to check if there're any other employment opportunities and photo taking. I did tell you that I'm desperate for a job right?

Owh ya, and it's White Valentines too, a day where guys are supposed to give back girls chocolate, if the girl gave the guy chocolate on 214 Valentines Day.

Well, honestly, I just found out that this day is originated by the Japanese, reflecting their unique culture of 「お返し」--giving back. http://www.tanutech.com/japan/valentine.html -- this explains a lil more if you're interested.

Second beach

2010-03-13T22:01:00.023+08:00

Sydney, or perhaps Australia, is really famous for its beaches.

We have been to one, the Bondi Beach before school starts, and we decided to explore our second one, Coogee Beach.

Our initial plan was to spend our afternoon there; swimming, walking around, and perhaps playing some card games until we see sunset.

We reached there around 2.45pm. There were so many people at the beach, sun tanning, and swimming in the sea. Yeah, it was a sunny day, I guess it's a good day to go to the beach. There were almost 10 of us I remember, and only 4 of us can swim....hmm. So we went into the sea and started our battle with the waves. I'll have to admit that it was really hard, really really hard as the waves were extremely strong that day! Anyway, it is kinda my first time swimming in a real sea (I don't really feel that those in Batu Ferringhi can be named "beaches" and "sea"), and I had fun. Although I was really tired spending time understanding the ways to tackle the waves (Of course, I didn't go far enough, I wasn't that brave this time)

This time around, we played some other childish stuff, bury someone into the sand =.=

Haha...well some photos were taken and well, I think it is still fun to do such funny stuff with a bunch of friends occassionally.

And then....all of a sudden, the weather changed. =.=

It rained cats and dogs, and we hid at the lifeguards' shelter for awhile. It was around 4.30pm, and so we had end the beach day. We ended yet again with another meal of Fish n Chips, this time with two bonus calamari rings!! =)

And the exciting part of this trip is that.....we saw a HUGE RAINBOW!! It is huge...~~~ Everyone got so excited about it~~

And when we got back to the city, it was soooooo windy and cold. All of us can't wait to rush back home. Haha.

Well, all of us are goinna have a nice rest today!

Changes

2010-03-12T23:06:00.000+08:00

Things got better in my 2nd week of lectures. I'm settling down with classes. I am not attending random lectures anymore. I am starting to plan for a perfect timetable, perfect as in having a 4-day weekend. I am maximizing the opportunity of taking courses here and transferring it back to HKUST, taking 6 courses, 4 of them are my core courses.

It was still a busy week for me. Some of my classes are scattered around the day. One at 9am, and the other one at 3pm. So I tried really hard to swap and play around my schedule. It was a really tough process, as people here generally do not know clearly what they are doing, and what they are supposed to do. I nearly gave up by the end of the week.

Again, I realized that I will go broke again towards the upcoming week, as that will be the time for me to pay my fortnightly rental. And my scholarship money is NOT HERE yet.....!! Awh. This is definitely bad as

1) I won't have money to eat

2) I can't go out and enjoy

3) I might have to borrow money from people who have just known me for a few weeks?

4) I just can't do anything without money!

And so....this week, I was desperately looking for a part time job as well. The bad thing is, most places either do not want to hire international students on a student visa (max working hours per week=20), or they will not want someone who will only stay here for a few months, OR they want someone who can speak Japanese (because I tried several Japanese restaurants).....

Ahh....so finding casual employment is definitely not an easy thing to do. I'm still trying hard, hoping that perhaps Starbucks will hire me.

What else happened this week?

Owh ya, and books here!

Well, one thing that suits me here is that most lecturers encourage a lot of institutional reading.

BUT, most of them require textbooks, and textbooks are EXPENSIVE over here. Most of the new ones are sold at AUD120 and above. Second hand ones will still cost AUD50 and above. Mahalnya =.=

And the worst part is, most of the textbooks selected are the latest editions. They don't put any copies in the libraries (although there are like 8 libraries here?), or even if they do, a lot of copies are stolen.

YEAH, you heard me correctly, stolen =.= The librarian even told me, accounting books are quite slippery over here....ahh. So they knew the problem.

Evening! Fisher Library =)

So I guess that's pretty much about uni this week?

I gotta study real hard next week onwards!

The Amazing Race

2010-03-07T21:01:00.002+08:00

It was not so much a race actually. An event organized by Unimates, a student run organization, mainly for international students, for USYD.

After dealing with all the crap the night before, we were actually very tired to wake up and to run around the city. But then, we didn't want to waste our first Sunday after school reopened sitting at home.

By the way, we meaning me and my roomates - Shinetin and Stephanie.

The marching band-They look as though they're just in middle school or something~

We gathered at the Harry Potter building at 11am. There was some school band playing some songs in full uniform. Don't really know what happened though. But the amazing this was, they have 18 snare drums in a small band!! Haha.

Me looking super idiotic in the air =.=

Then the whole thing started at around 1130. The reason I said it was not so much of a race is because there was no competition or any incentive to make us run faster, or complete all tasks sooner. We just have to solve the clues and that's it!

Our first few stops were pretty close to uni, places that we have been there before. Glebe Market, Wentworth Park and Fish Market. Owh, and I bought myself a AUD10.50 seafood platter again. Yummy.

Then the real thing starts. 1st destination was to Darling Harbour, OMG I have been visiting this place too often, and I really don't wanna get sick of it so soon...haha. Then Chinatown, Oh this is even worse.....and it made me think of giving up and just go back home to sleep. You know how sleepy I was....but then, because we were already in a small group, it feels kinda bad to just leave like that. So I stayed on.

We had 7 destinations in total.The next one was Queen Victoria Building, then Town Hall, Hyde Park, St Mary's, Art Museum and Rose Garden. Luckily, I haven't been to any of the last 3, so it made my day better. Those places were really really nice. The Rose Garden is such a romantic place for people to get married. Haha.

Then the race ended without any "closing ceremony" or some "words from the organizer"....We then walked to Sydney Opera House...and we saw the bridge across the sea. Spectacular view, and I believe that will be so much nicer during night time.

It was a nice day, we thought, and it would be so much better if that homeless idiot did not join the race. And one more thing, perhaps I would not be that sleepy if there were some cute guys for me to chat with in our group. Hahaha =)

The Aquarium!!

2010-03-06T23:30:00.001+08:00

We wanted to go to the Taronga Zoo at first, but then, the weather forecast said that there will be showers throughout the weekend or something. And so...we changed our plan to see the fishes and marine creatures instead.

The Aquarium is located at Darling Harbour. 11 of us gathered there sometime after lunch. Yeah, there were ELEVEN of us, because we wanted to purchase the group ticket (28% off normal rates), but the bad news was, the group discount does not apply for student rates. Hmph~ Anyway, we paid AUD22.50 per person as entrance fee. Pretty expensive huh~

PENGUINSSS!!!!

There were many types of nice marine animals there. I love the huge turtles and dugongs, and I enjoy watching the penguins most!! Owh you just can't imagine how cute are they!

There were also quite a lot of dangerous and apparently scary ones, like the huge stingray, sharks, and jelly fish. But sometimes, I still do think that they look cute. Haha.

The whole tour took us around 2 hours.

Most of us thought that the aquarium should be a HUGE one. Well, I wouldn't say it is small, but everything's pretty much below our expectations. But we did have a good time together.

And owh by the way, it was so sunny on that day. The weather forecast is so unreliable.

1st few lectures

2010-03-04T22:10:00.000+08:00

Everything is pretty new to me.

Getting lost on my way searching for lecture rooms, meeting lecturers coming from different parts of the world, being in a fully diversed class up to a size of 400+ people and some sitting on the walkway, having a hard time trying to keep myself awake for the 2-hour lecture.....

This is something funny that the Professor posted within his lecture slides~~I dunno whether you guys can read it....

It was fun I would say. At least I'm not the one sitting on the floor. Haha.

I will be comparing what I have over here to what I had in HKUST.

One of the lecture theatres

Well I'll talk about the good things here.

Lecturers and instructors generally speak good English. Those I had in Psychology and Sociology classes are pretty humorous. They conduct very enjoyable lectures.

I prefer how they have 2 hours lecture and 1 hour tutorial here. As I believe that tutorials are definitely important in the learning process (ya, I'm a tutorial person...haha). But perhaps, the 2 hour lecture should be split into 2 sessions, cause I have extremely bad and short attention span. Owh ya, the part that I like MOST! It's absolute grading!! They have your marks printed on your transcript, so everything is very transparent~

And the bad things?

Hmm. I would say that they have way too many people in a lecture. Some of mine fits more than 400 people, and the whole course actually gets 2000+ students enrolled!! Amazing figure. Other than that, lecturers here prepare notes in a pre-set 3 slide or 6 slide pdf files, which I don't like as I'm unable to customize it for printing to save printing cost as well as paper. One other thing that I noticed here is that, quite a number of my lecturer are not PHD holders! (Hmm, how could that be....) And another issue that I notice might be there are 6 teaching staff (means you'll have 6 lecturers just for one course, taking turns to teach) and a few more tutors for a course~ This is so different from HKUST, well I guess this practice has its good and bad. Hmm, well instructors here like to get their students to purchase latest edition texbooks pretty much too! Well you know how much do they cost? Around 120-180 each!! Classes here are dispersed all around the whole freaking huge uni! And most classes dismiss at the hour and leaves you with no time to move on to your immediate next class (even worse, when you have to walk 10 minutes to another building for your class) And some of the lecture theatres are pretty old school with weird sittings and stuffy environment too =.=

From here, I noticed that HKUST is indeed a research university. My lecturers are all PHD holders, and they perform a lot of research (that's why most of their teachings are very boring!!!) I guess this made me realize the most suitable method for me to learn. I won't conclude now though...haha. I really wanna enjoy myself learning here, and to find back my momentum for studying.

Owh, one more thing!! There are like 85% Asians in the Economics and Business Faculty. And I hear people speaking Mandarin (Putonghua) all the time =.= This makes me wonder whether I'm in the right continent. Haha....

Well, I shall settle down with my courses soon. It's good news! I'm goinna get all the courses that I wanted to transfer! Yippee~~~

Exploration around the city

2010-02-28T22:06:00.002+08:00

Have been busy with course transfers, bank, accommodation settling down these few days.

At last we managed to arrange some weekend activities!!

Bondi Beach is the first beach I'd been to since arriving this slow paced city. No doubt it is an extremely beautiful beach. So huge and the water is so clear. Everything's just perfect. Except for the weather forecast was not too reliable, and I did not bring my swimming costume from Malaysia.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself. It has been awhile since I made a sand castle with my friends. Those were the days.

The next afternoon, me and my housemates went to the Sydney Fish Market. It is a famous place for seafood, cheap and fresh, that's what we heard from people around. It took us about 25 minutes to walk there, plus some time looking at the map....haha. And there were a lot of people, definitely a lot of seafood too. But erm, it's not cheap actually. We still reward ourselves with a Seafood Platter, well, some good food before school starts...haha. And it was tremendously tasty!!! I love Calamari Rings the most! Owh, and I also bought a packet of Teriyaki Salmon for lunch the next day.

After Fish Market, we headed to the Casino. Well, it's nothing special to be honest, after I've been to Macau's casinos several times. Owh ya, and they don't serve free drinks!

That night, we went to see the Mardi Gras Parade. It is the largest annual parade they have in Sydney. People have been queuing up around the streets since noon to witness it. We went there pretty late, hence, we didn't really get to see the moving parade, instead we just went around the place they queue up. It was a crazy night, and well, I think perhaps I'll watch the parade online, Youtube maybe. Haha.

And we took a long rest on Sunday. Almost all day staying at home, even for meals.

To be honest, I can't wait to go back to study, and see what studying is like in Sydney!!

Updates in a glance

2010-02-22T20:15:00.002+08:00

I think I HAVE grown fat~

I guess I have not been good in the past few months. It has been ages again since I updated my blog. I have promised to kinda tell stories about everything after I finish my final exams in HKUST, but it didn’t happen. And since then, I have been to Chongqing, Wuhan (just for a night), back to Hong Kong, done some winter courses, back to Malaysia, had my reunion “lunch”, boarded the cheap airflight to Changi Airport, and arrived in Brisbane for a few hours, and then Sydney Australia.

Well it has been a long long time.

(Haha, actually, I had this time because I don’t have internet access at the moment~~haha~)

This is the extremely beautiful campus of Sydney Uni

After being here for 8 days, I would say I really did not have a good start. Well firstly, coming from a HOT country, I would definitely not want to go to another place which is also HOT for the period I would be there. Yea, it has been sultry hot for the past week except for the first day I arrived where it rained cats and dogs. HOT-34 degree Celsius-sweat-sun burn….and what else. At some moments, I do feel stupid leaving Hong Kong with the weather at an average of 8-12 degree Celcius everyday? Haha.

I have yet to find anything that I would say is CHEAP here.

$$$EXPENSIVE$$$

This is so much like a No-Money-Don’t-Come-Continent. It’s not that I have not been here (Aus) before….but, you will just feel that our currency is so much undervalued after seeing the price of EVERYTHING over here. And yea, it definitely feels even worse when you know you’re goinna stay here for a semester. All meals on average AU$7-10 and bottled drinks (500ml) are at AU$2, well you should know that I am most sensitive about the prices of FOOD. Haha. Other than that, transportation cost kills you. To travel for like a less than 1km ride, it costs AU$1.60 by bus. For trains, most return day journey tickets cost about AU$4 for a 30 minutes ride. For raw food and fruits? Definitely expensive. AU$1.60 (I’m not sure whether it’s even 300gms) for a few pieces of vege, AU$4.50 for a kilo of red apples? Owh ya, the definitely not to be missed ONE…TELEPHONE COSTS!-it will cost you AU$0.20 per minute, but there is this CONNECTION FEE (they call it flagfall) of AU$0.25 once the line is connected. So imagine this, even if it goes to voice mail for 1 sec, you’ll still have to pay $0.45 for it!!!

It got so much harder for me to settle down here as compared to Hong Kong. Although there are probably the same amount of Asians and non-Asian students here, but I felt like I was the minority, and things are seriously out of my comfortable zone. You can definitely see a lot of stores operated by Chinese and there’s even a Chinatown near where I stay, but the atmosphere is definitely different. Even a stick of HK curry fish balls costs you AU$3!! (That is HKD21—in Hong Kong, it’s around HKD per stick!) – whoops, I am back to “FOOD” again.

Well, overall, I don’t feel that I am settled down yet after so many days. It’s not that Aussies are not accommodating, but it’s the style people do things here and in Hong Kong is so different. I guess efficiency explains it all.

Am I experiencing a culture shock? Maybe. Haha….but I will definitely take this as a good experience of getting to know how can people actually survive in “such” a place….hmm.

More updates coming up.

After 18th Dec

2009-12-24T00:18:00.000+08:00

At last. I finished a presentation, a homework, 2 final reports, and 5 final exams in 2 weeks.

It all ended at 1100hours, 18th December.

I would say that I was really relieved after that, and I can't wait to rush out from the university and get some fresh air, or just do something that will make me feel happy.

I guess I really had a lot of relaxing times after exams.

Snoopy exhibition. Shopping at Flower Market. Dinner with Shih Yi and family. Mahjong session with Malaysians. KPMG aptitude test. Self wondering around Quarry Bay and Shau Kei Wan. Choo Char dinner with Malaysians. Tong Shui for Chelly's belated birthday. Cooked weird claypot rice dinner. Had great pizza dinner and nice winter solstice with fellow Malaysians. Another mahjong session. Watched Avater 3D at Langham Place. Had Japanese food. Squeezed with the crowd at Wongkok Center. Cooked nice curry chicken and chap choi dinner.

Slept alot. Watched a lot of PPStream. Played some childish games @ Facebook. Surfed the net for nothing.

Worried about the future. Worried about the coming year. Worried about tomorrow.

Was I happy after the final exams? It is so hard to tell.

Yeah I could be.

And yeah I could be not.

Perhaps, it will be better if I just had a day off after the exams, or maybe two.

This is a pic a took 4 months ago at Midvalley. Aliens. Sometimes I wish I could be like one of them....

I was being too free. And I think I gave myself too much time for myself, to think about myself.

*This isn't really a good thing I guess =.=*

Anyway. I will tell you stories about each of those events, with photos, in separate entries.

Thanks for coming back.

Merry X'mas.

Toot. Notice Posted.

2009-12-08T18:15:00.000+08:00

Exam period.
Would really love to continue blogging.
But would really not want to fail in my exams.

So
Toot.
Out of the internet.
Will be back after Dec 18th.

Stay tuned.

Campus Development Kickoff

2009-11-26T14:48:00.000+08:00

17th November 2009.

One day to remember, for our university.

This is to kickoff the construction and development of our campus towards year 2020.

[Sounds like the Malaysian vision 2020 =.=]

Anyway, it's a super grand day. A lot of VIPs were invited, and even the first President of HKUST, Prof Chia-Wei Woo attended the event.

I guess there's no other similar events where all these important people (Presidents, VPs, Deans...) come together on stage at the same time.

So what has this thing gotta do with me?

Yaya, representing Malaysia, I am escotting one of the VIPs, sadly, he's one person that I do not know and I have 0 info about him, the Dean of School of Engineering. =.=

Anyway, about 2 months ago, when I agreed to help out in this thing, I didn't know that it's THAT huge.

Until about one week before the event, when tonnes of event information were sent to me, and emails from the Office of University Development and Public Affairs were received by the university community.

I wore the baju kebaya (hmm, first time in my life perhaps?=.= and I can't believe this first time happened in HK) lended from the Malaysia Tourism Board. Only one layer of silk, and nothing else. And it was around 10 degree celcius outside. Probably the coolest week ever in a November of HK.

Me looking stupid on stage~~

The stage used for the graduation was also used for this event. Decorations on the stage and surrounding atrium was pretty cool. Great audio and visual system were setup. And there are around 20 other international students doing the same thing as me, representing different countries, and they are sooooooooo beautiful. (and their costumes are so much nicer than mine =.=)

Wohoo....the beautiful costumes, and ladies~

Africa!!

I really liked their costume!!

Well, I had a quick task, escot the VIP up on stage, put on the Malaysian flag on to the sphere thing, shout out "Great Vision for New Era", leave the stage, and I'm almost done. There were then speeches, opening ceremony, the 75 meters long dragon dance (led by out President), and some performances by the socities. And it's FOOOOOOD time. Four booths were setup, namely Asia, America, Europe, Africa. There were some great snacks served, super long queue too~~ I was also responsible for giving out candies to the people, candies from all around the world.....and it's kinda fun seeing people enjoying these free stuff. Owh ya, while I gave out some candies, one of the random came to take a photo with me....*wink*

The 75-meter long thingy~

So the day and all the fun ended around 6.30pm. And I guess I got sick because of this, as I "ate too much cold wind"~~ =.=
Haha, they should compensate me for this!!!!
Anyway, enjoy the photos~~
(There are more....but I'm just too lazy to upload everything...hehe)

Me with the basket of candies~

Greenday@UST

2009-11-25T14:43:00.002+08:00

While I was sick, a lot of events were actually happening around me...

One of it is the Greenday@UST, an event organized by me and my fellow Green Ambassadors~

It was a fun day actually. But too bad, I was not feeling well, during preparation and the day.

Nevertheless, I am glad that I did not skip the event which was held last Saturday, at least I took a lot of photos of our activities and the hyper active kids.

Their puzzled looks while watching some video clips about carbon footprint

Well, it's always fun being primary school students. They raise up their hands to answer questions to get prizes, they shout out their opinion, they do whatever they like, and they just enjoy themselves, with no worries.

A mini game that we arranged - Pick up the right bins!

The reusable bag drawing session~

And they enjoyed it a lot!! =)

And the big group photo!~

This kinda reminds me of how my primary school life was. Of course, chances to get out of school for such fun activities are minimal, and perhaps, come to think of it, there was none. No youtube at that time, and Microsoft Office was just gradually building their recognition and gaining popularity in the public.

But still, we had fun. And I think I enjoyed most being a primary school kid. Haha, and I really missed Chen Lao Shi, for who I am today is pretty much influenced by her during the 6 years of schooling life in Hun Bin.

Sick notice

2009-11-24T18:11:00.000+08:00

Well. I'm supposed to have a hell lot of things to post.

But................things went very wrong since last Wednesday.

I wasn't feeling too well after the yum cha session. I first thought there were just some "temporary" butterflies in my stomach. And I thought going to the toilet once, could perhaps solve the problem.

It ended up, toilet-ing, and no food-ing, for about 5-6 days O.O

This is the first ever most suffering diarrhea I'd ever had.

And so, there are a hell lot of things that I can't do.

I can't do my assignments, I can't think properly, I can't attend project meetings, I can't sit in front of the computer, I can't attend classes, I can't walk, eat nor sleep properly.

And I vomited....for like 4 times?

Scary experience.

Glad that I "think" I am feeling much better now.

Owh ya, one more thing. Doctors in HK aren't helpful.

That's why I never go to see a doctor.

Update soon!~

Congregration Week

2009-11-13T16:20:00.001+08:00

It was the annual congregation of HKUST last week.

Because of this huge event.......

1) We can't access to the escalators from Atrium to LG1 Canteen for a month

2) We had to go all around the stairs and lifts of UST to discover the right path to reach Academic Concourse, Sundial and Canteens for 3 afternoons

3) There are never enough ladies toilets for use around Atrium

4) People with graduation robes are all around campus taking photos with friends and their family members, even inside the library and in front of Professor's room~~

5) Flowers and graduation bears are all around...the bears are sooooo cute!!

There should be more......hmm.

6) I had free mini dinner for 2 (supposed to be 3) days sponsored by the uni to all guests and graduates (ya, I actually do not fall into these 2 categories....hehe)

Our atrium, full of graduates

Entrance, photo taking everywhere before the ceremony

Well, it made me think what will it be when I graduate two years from now.

Will I be able to even attend graduation? My parents will definitely be here, how about her? Will I have Xiaoqin or any other friends here too? How many bouquet of flowers will I receive? And which bear bear will I get?

Okay, thinking too much......

What class will I be in? Where will I be working by then?
Owh....still thinking.

Me and CK with Ghee Leng, why is CK smiling while sleeping ahh~

Mathematicians~ Aun and Kae

I managed to take some photos with a few Malaysian seniors. All the smart people. One even got his name carved (or whatever you call it) on a "yeng" board in the Academic Councourse in front of LTA stated "President's Cup" winner of 2009.

Took some photos with my fencing seniors too.

My sheung sheung jong Benny!

It is a week with full of happiness and enjoyment. Reunion with some of your long-time-no-see friends, being in a graduation robe for the first time ever, receiving your first ever undergraduate degree after all the at least 3 years stress and tension life, thanking the professors you like for the fun lectures and knowledge taught, finally get to leave the life of stress and tension but perhaps starting another life of boredom?

Haha....okay, again, thinking too much.

Well, congratulations to the graduates of The 17th Congregation of HKUST!!

Bloomberg

2009-11-05T19:55:00.001+08:00

SBM arranged a company visit for the students to Bloomberg, Hong Kong.

I went there on a Thursday, skipped one of my LANG class for it. But it is definitely a worthwhile visit.

The building, too tall to be taken a photo of....

The company is located at Cheung Kong Building (You know, the one owned by Lee Ka Shing), at 3X floor if I've not mistaken. The office is soooooo cool.

Once you come out from the lift, it's the office's pantry, and guess what, I really loved the design of the pantry, and to me it's more like a mini bar.All sorts of snacks (healthy ones and junk food) and drinks available. They even a cool coffee maker. And guess what, everything there is for free!!

A presentation was then given by one of the HR staff from Bloomberg, andit was pretty interesting. I didn't know that Bloomberg is THIS great.
I like the tour around the office session, everything is really transparent in Bloomberg, and there is also a shooting area for news reporting etc. Each staff has at least 3 monitors in front them...wohoo, imagine how busy their work could be.
We then had some time to explore the Bloomberg system. Wow, according to Angel (the staff), you can't finish exploring even you've worked there for 10 years, coz new applications keep coming out!! Well, as a beginner, of course we just simply click here and there, and amaze ourselves. Everything else about the system is really powerful, but there's just one little thing I don't like about it, it uses the font and theme similar to the old DOS system, or more like Lotus 123!! haha.......

Well, we're not supposed to take any pictures of the office.This was taken....err, secretly~~

Anyway, it made me feel like working in this company. Hope I can have the chance though, even it's just a 1 month internship~~

Nick's Miracle

2009-11-04T21:35:00.006+08:00

He is a miracle.

I first saw his video on Youtube around a year ago. It was so inspiring.

And today, I saw him, live in Hong Kong.

Even more fascinating.

He placed a lot of motivating thoughts and stories together, and made everything sounded so real and so possible.

Touched, I would say.

And what's even better is, I got this HKD150 worth event ticket for free!

I am actually surprised with the crowd attending this event. A few thousands of people in the auditorium I guess. And he had a translator for him. There's no doubt that the translator is really enthusiastic, but the funny part was, a lot of stuff was wrongly translated. =.=

Nick's parents nearly gave him up when he was born without limbs. And he nearly gave himself up at the age of 10. Love was what made him stay, and love will keep him strong in facing future live challenges.

"Love, unconditional love can heal a broken heart. Love goes on a long way...." Nick Vujicic.
"The greatest way to heal your heart is to be an instrument to heal other people's heart"

He told us about how he started school, entered university and graduated with a double degree in Accounting and Financial Planning, and how he started his journey on becoming a speaker. It was simply, amazing.

"If you can't see hope, it doesn't mean hope is not there..." Nick Vujicic.

The whole auditorium paid full attention to every single word he says. And we were lucky to have the opportunity to listen to him playing the electronic drumset instrument. He was soooooo cool. Too bad we were not allowed to take any photos or videos.

"I will never be you, and you will never be me; that's the most beautiful thing about life." Nick Vujicic.

We always claim "I give up!" whenever we meet with obstacles, or failures. We just easily, give up.

I have shouted that I wanna give up this and that for XX times last month. I remembered how I always wanted to avoid the problems, from just giving up........

"Keep trying. You do not fail until you give up..." Nick Vujicic.

I'm glad that I made my way to listen to his talk, of course, at the same time I would like to thank Dragon Foundation for the free ticket. It was definitely a memorable experience.

For all of you who would like to know more about Nick, just google his full name or search for his videos in Youtube. You will definitely be touched with what you see. Also, do visit the foundation found by him @ http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/

Halloween@HK

2009-10-31T20:36:00.032+08:00

Halloween is never a big thing in Malaysia.

But, in Hong Kong, it's the total opposite.

I guess in other western countries too~~

More than a month ago, Halloween decorations and related events could be found at some big merchant stores and franchises around Hong Kong.

And the two most famous theme parks in Hong Kong, i.e. Ocean Park and Disneyland actually make huge profit out of the celebration of Halloween.

Ocean Park has its tailor made and exclusive Halloween attractions, about 8 scary rides and ghost houses to visit, and of course more scary "stuff" wondering around the park. The tickets just for the Halloween attractions (entrance after 5.30pm) will cost you as high as HKD495!! Their website for Halloween is cool though http://www.halloweenbash.com.hk/en/ ...haha, and they made several crazy advertisement videos which can be viewed through youtube.
As for Disneyland, they do have some decorations and a few ghost rides, but they are not exclusive though. Which means buying the normal park ticket will also entitle you to the Halloween attractions at night. And Disneyland has much lesser scary stuff, well I guess it's because afterall, Mickey and Donald can't be really scary no matter how awful they are dressed up It's still a magical land. Even Jack Skellington looks kinda cute to me, haha.
http://park.hongkongdisneyland.com/hkdl/html/Halloween/en_US/

I wanted to visit the Ocean Park one this year. But too bad, midterms are all around during this Halloween season. =( Sob, so I guess I'll try again next year?

--Ghost Mansion@HKUST--

Nevertheless, I still do get "some" Halloween feel within campus. Students are pretty crazy about the Halloween celebration. Different societies organize different events, where most of them created their very own Halloween attraction. There were quite a lot of decorations at student halls, and there is a HKUST Ghost Mansion at one of our common rooms.

Well, just to get a taste of the quality of the Ghost Mansion, I gave it a try last night. It costs me HKD10. Well I guess it's pretty worthwhile paying the price. They did put in a lot of effort and I think it was quite fun =) I did "bullied" some of the ghosts though...haha. They even gave out some sponsored colored drinks after that. And I guess I'll be more scared and it'll be even crazier if more people came along in a gang~ Haha....Great job, Drama Society~~

A comparison of the leaflet of Halloween@Ocean Park and Halloween@HKUST...hehe~

So, Happy Halloween Everyone!!

Orphan - The Movie

2009-10-28T20:55:00.001+08:00

Have any of you guys seen this?

I watched it on Sunday, after the Bak Kut Teh session.

It's not some horror movie, but it's kinda scary.

I thought this kinda movie ends in like 1.5 hours. But it lasted for around 2 hours. OMG.

The story is actually not typical and unexpected.

But it has a pretty sad ending I would say.

The moral I got from the movie is: Don't ever adopt child you do not know, it might harm and cause danger to your family.

=.=

Not kidding la. The orphan uses all sorts of geli stuff. Knife, I mean a real sharp one, gun, and what else.....

Haha, do watch it if you would like to challenge your guts in watching those stuff wondering around all places~~

It's a Bak Kut Teh day.

2009-10-26T20:30:00.000+08:00

I served 18 people including myself with Bak Kut Teh today!!

Well I guess if rental rates in Hong Kong are not that high, I should've rented a shoplot and start up my own restaurant by now.

Black black eh Bak Kut Teh....

It was a fun day, although really tiring in the end. Imagine for almost 12 hours, stuck with Bak Kut Teh-s....haha. Preparing, cooking, eating, clearing up, re-cooking, eating again, clearing again.

At first, it was just supposed to be day where we celebrate one of our jongmates birthday. In the end, I figured that I should take this opportunity to also treat some of my hall Malaysian friends. Then, I realized that we bought too much food. And so, I once again became the evening cook and served some of my Malaysian juniors.

Hope that everyone liked it. I think it'll be nice to taste some Malaysian some outside of Malaysia, although of course, it couldn't be as nice as those you eat in Malaysia. Hehe....

Cheers, perhaps I'll come up with curry chicken or rendang next time? Hahahaha....

Big Wall Poster.大字報。

2009-10-24T15:06:00.000+08:00

This is a place for the students to voice out their opinion. About whatever (well I guess mostly complaints). Complaints about major selection, about a particular tutor, about a department etc.

Some hot hot news lately.

無聊in some other sense.

Have a look.

It's some complain about the insufficient place for local students in our student halls.

It ended up becoming a written forum. People drawing arrows and commenting on different points.

Haha.民主。

What's the crowd about~

2009-10-24T04:27:00.000+08:00

Woah, unbelievable~~

It actually costs around HKD22 and above to enjoy a McValue Meal in HK.

For ala carte, most of them are around HKD13 and it can go as high as HKD20 per burger.

Well, sometimes, they do have the HKD9 burger including the bacon egg burger and McChicken. And those are the ones I will take. Hehe.

Two days ago, unbelievably I realized that they have this buy 1 free 1 thing for different types of burgers. Walaoeh~ it costs as cheap as HKD8.30 for 2 burgers!

So of course, the line for the McD is as long as you can imagine. I bet their kitchen is busy burger-ing like hell.

Of course, for a freaking stingy person like me, I won't miss this chance. HKD13 for one meal? What a good deal.

Haha, how I wish this lasts forever. And then there'll be more obesed people in Hong Kong =.=

Anyway, that 's one factor that make Malaysians fat =.=

In Malaysia, during special seasons, such as Hari Raya or some special promotion period, [at least when I went back during summer], each McValue Meal only costs as low as RM5.95 (that's equivalent to approx HKD13!), and this is valid during 12-3pm, and 6-9pm.

Hmm, how good it is if I can live on the Malaysian Standard in HK.

Sleeping hours.

2009-10-22T08:59:00.002+08:00

*rise and shine @ HKUST*

Experts say that we should have at least 7-8 hours sleep everyday.

But it'll be weird if you really have that much sleep everyday as a err..I would say teenager or adult in the 21st century.

Even my mum does not sleep that much I guess.

I have been longing for this 8 hours sleep!~

Finally....I GOT it ^.^

Hahaha, it's not that my life went more easy going or something, it's just that I don't feel like waking up even my alarm has been ringing for 2 hours ago, and I have the excuse not to wake up so early.

No 9am class, no homework to submit, no midterm for me to be worried of for the day, no meetings, no..............

But I do have a mini presentation to prepare though...haha. But I have been so hea about it cause it's a Putonghua presentation =.= Not that I can really really do that well, cause I am still not a native speaker.

Great, sleeping feels good. And I know I can continue sleeping if I still don't feeling like getting up and away from my comfortable comforter, snoopy-s, and pillows....

Now, the question is, when will be the next time?

Good sleep everyone!

Toilet issue.

2009-10-20T15:17:00.002+08:00

Parents will tell their kids (for girls only, guys, erm, you might not need guidance on how to pee =.=) on how to use the public toilet when they're young.

"Stand on the toilet bowl, it's very dirty one ah..."

Indeed, it IS VERY dirty, for toilet bowls in Malaysia.

WHY?

Well I guess we will have to trace this back a few decades to get the answer.

Squat toilets in Malaysia are very common, and mum always prefer us to use the squat toilet. Because, comparatively, squatting toilets are cleaner than sitting toilets.

But this is not the case in Hong Kong. At least so far, I never see any squat toilets around any public areas. And so I got used to the sitting toilets.

And comparatively, HK toilets are much much much much cleaner than Malaysian toilets. And all HK toilets are well equipped with toilet papers.

WHY?

Who knows. But this has proven that sitting toilets (with toilet bowls) CAN be clean.

BUT.......

There's always a "but" behind all good stuff.

Some people, I never know who it is, could never know "how" to use toilets the proper way. People are just not civilized enough to use the toilet the user-friendly way.

Erm, toilet papers could be everywhere, i.e. on the floor, on the bowl...un-flushed toilets, uncleaned-after-use-toilets, and the list goes on.

[I really don't feel like contaminating my own blog, so....save the details, use your imagination]

Who can actually solve this problem?

Education maybe? Should there be like a session talking about the proper usage of toilets during Moral Education classes when we are young?

But will that really work? Since the world is moving into globalization, and different places use different types on toilets?

It just feels very )(**&%$#@$)((_"":>?"_(^# when you enter into a damn yucky toilet. How can these people just not look back at whatever private stuff or behavior they just left in the toilet for the next user to see.......

Speechless....

Apparently...this is a toilet house O.O

Sunday

2009-10-19T00:40:00.000+08:00

I have just gone through 4 midterms in a week!

[What a cool thing huh....]

Back to my hall after the last one last night (Ya, exams on Saturday night!), had some snacks with my course mates and jong mates, took a midnight shower, and started to wonder in front of my laptop.

Youtube, emails, auctions....

and yea, I started renovating my blog. Just some very minor changes. And I hope that I could come back here more frequently in the future.

Had a nice day at Sheung Wan, at the University of Hong Kong, at Xiaoqin's.

Had a not too nice late-lunch, and visited Starbucks for some tasty looking pastries. I always complain: Why don't we have Starbucks in my uni too, with 30% of for students??

Chatting and gossiping is the best medicine.

Haha, especially when it's with a well known friend.

Her studio is great, her friends are pretty cool and her work is super nice.

I just wished I didn't have this headache since this morning, and I wished I just don't have to think of going back to my hall, and start the engine with all the never ending work again.

Walked around Jordon, Yaumatei, and Mongkok area after that.

And accidentally spent, err, quite a lot of money.

Guess that equals to ---> No HKD20 for a meal a day for the next 3 days?

More than half of October is gone.

What's coming up next?

A past profile.

2009-10-18T12:09:00.003+08:00

Since I decided to change my profile and my brief description, and I feel sorry to just delete away my old description, I'll just copy and paste it here.

Haha.

Libra @ Langham Place~~

***

Just a lil explanation. I like purple. Not in particular. But I'll name it when I'm asked for my favorite color. I’d never seen snow. So I kinda look forward to experience snow~ Who knows when will I have the chance to witness it?:D Besides, my Chinese middle name~~Snow*** There was once when I came across this saying(in chinese) "Blue symbolizes kerinduan(okay, I don't think there's a translation in English), Purple symbolizes secret" How true could this saying be, I just kinda like it since then. So, I guess this is the spot where the purple side of the snowflakes drop? Okay, I know I'm crapping. Enjoy reading everyone^.^

***

Black and White

2009-10-17T16:49:00.011+08:00

When you get something, you will lose something on the other hand.
This is life.

Well, I just received notification that I will be getting the scholarship of AUD5,000 to go to University of Sydney for exchange. That is like a super good news I have been waiting for months.

On the other hand, I realized that my performance in the Management Accounting midterm that night isn't as smooth as I expected. I don't know what will be my score, and what will be my position compared to my classmates. But I am just so stressed up after the exam.

Life is full of give and take.

When should I actually give, and when should I take?

I need only the "take" part. At least at this moment.
Would that be possible?

I am starting to have more and more questions about "Life" lately. And I'm wondering that there are so much that I can't do to control my life, or just live a better life.

Ahh....lately.

Would I not have these worries, if I bring myself back to be who I am 15 years ago?

Or will I still bare these worries when I launch my career or after I enter into the "Adult" world 5 years later? Forever?

This is soooo not. Comforting.

But I just could do. Nothing about it.

Feel so much like going to wonderland....

Miss blogging. I.

2009-10-15T01:23:00.009+08:00

*Owh, is it how I will look like of I choose to jump off the mushroom one day, if yes, I think I'll leave the world super cutely. Haha. Cheers to M.Schulz*

Ah, I miss blogging. And just felt like coming up here all of a sudden. Just crap a little, and then leave.
Ah, so random. I guess it will be like at least weeks past or perhaps months when someone realizes this post.
I do hope that I can revive this small lil area.

So what should I do?
Hmm... Just don't log on to Messenger till I post something up here every 4 days to a week? Maybe... That's not a bad option. . .

Things have been, err, not too smooth lately.
Lost MP4, never ending scary midterms, assignments, group projects, homework, vacation...? (yea yea maybe)
I havta "save" this situation. Or else, I might try to jump off the mushroom someday=.=

I might go and see white dolphins beginning of next month!! Yahoo.....I have been such an avid dolphin fan~~~How I feel like riding on them someday.

Anyway, I had a busy semester, a real busy start. And at times, I felt like breaking down, or I just felt like running away from HK, or perhaps just the university. But technology makes that impossible, cause with the internet, you can still be connected to anywhere no matter where you are.
And so, I guess I'm goinna continue "enjoying" this busy life....and I'm goinna have good plans for my winter break...YEAH~

Halloween is coming soon. I might need to find some "ghosts" and "creatures" to release stress. Ocean Park!!

A New Year. 20 09

2009-01-25T19:49:00.007+08:00

Finally I'm back to Penang.

And it's so hooootttt back here.

Didn't notice much changes around, just the extended Gurney Plaza and the always opening soon Penang Times Square. Some buildings were demolished too.

Still, there are a lot of vehicles around.

Traffic jam. Especially when it's close to Chinese New Year.

I was back in Malaysia on 9th. Was in KL helping my university for the education fair and school visits until 13th. Went down to Ipoh for 5 more school visits on 14th. And back to KL on 16th, Herbalife Spectacular and 3rd Anniversary during the weekends and back to the island on 19th.

Stayed in Traders KLCC during the trip*wink*

And my flight to KL and back to HK will be on 31st.

And it's Chinese New Year's Eve now.

Haven't done much in Penang. 4 consecutive days to Georgetown area Prangin Mall. Not in purpose of course. It all started because of the hair cut!

Owh ya, my hair is SHORT now!! (Wow....1st time since 2004) I ...like it? don't like it? Hmm...well, it's out of my expectation. I'll get used to it, hopefully.

Went shopping at the new Sunshine Farlim. A double storey building with the concept of Tesco Hypermarket. More parking space. More shops and outlets all around. More cashiers. Less long queues. Overall, this new building is quite good. We were there for about 2.5hours. Spent close to RM300 on CNY groceries and my stuff to bring back to Hong Kong. O.O

On our way back, I saw Kek Lok Si, lighten up in the dark. I think it has been a long time since I've seen this. Beautiful.

Watched Australia at GSC, had a dissatisfying karaoke session at Redbox.

Had twice my favorite Char Pui too......^.^

And I just finished our usual reunion dinner, steamboat bbq. Mum's cooking is still the best.

It seems that I don't have much time to hang out and sembang with my friends. Soon, it'll be back to stress and tension days.

Winter session is about to end. And I guess I did learn something from the China trip, as well as the education trip in KL and Ipoh. Nevertheless, opportunity cost is still very high.

Better planning in the future perhaps?=D

Disaster. Over?

2008-12-17T12:45:00.004+08:00

One hour passed since I came out from the Sports Hall.

Where I had my final exams.

Final Paper.

Maths006.

Finally, this semester is over. I only had 3 final papers which lasted for less than a week. Well, couldn't say that I didn't have enough time to study.

Still, things turned out, BAD.

Kind of a disaster.

Ah....

My first paper was Accounting on last Friday. Once again, I was kinda fooled by what our Professor said. As far as I could remember, he mentioned that cash flow statement will be hard. And it turned out the other way round. Cash flow was peanuts and the managerial accounting section was dead hard, dead long. For me at least.

I couldn't finish the paper. And I wonder how much was left not-properly answered.

Second paper. The one I'm afraid of most. Business Statistics. The paper which the Professor claimed that it's good enough if you can score a C.

That was on Monday. The paper was relatively easy compared to what we had for our mid-term. Everyone came our from the lecture hall with a huge smile, "Ok ah..." or even, "So easy....". As for me, I do agree that it's easy. BUT, there are still some doubts and questions which I'm not confident in answering.

Last one. A few hours ago. This is supposed to be the least-worried paper.

Wohooooooooo....

And I think this is one of the worst maths exams I'd ever had.

Exams.

It's over. Not forever though.

Only 3 papers and I screwed them all up. What happens the next semester, and the next next semester, and the next next next next .................

Can't imagine.

And I have friends facing 5 exams in 5 consecutive days.

Pui fuk.

HP Pavilion dv4

2008-12-09T09:36:00.004+08:00

Hmm...this is what I'm currently using..

Pretty cool features, enterntainment PC, Windows Vista Premium.......

Well, I bought this from the HKUST Notebook Ownership Program, at a very reasonable price. About 2000HKD discounted from original price? and I had to wait for about 21days after ordering it.

It is a pretty efficient laptop I could say, faast speed, huge RAM, Nvidia graphics card blah blah blah.....but the thing about computers are, problems happen very soon~~~~

About after a week of arrival, the sound card could not function. Well it was okay after I restarted it, but still, weird. Besides, when I make a video call from MSN, the mic and sound is not detected, which till now is still, unsolved.

A month later, the startup grew slower and slower. I guess that's because of the expiring Norton Anti Virus. Hmph, I wonder why don't these computers come with a proper anti-virus software. So I had to uninstall norton ad bring AVG freeware in.

A month plus later, the system stopped at 0126hours. Without reason=.= As in when I woke up at 8am, it's still 0126hours!! Ah....this means I have to press the stupid switch for 10seconds to shut down my laptop improperly, which I HATE aloot.

Last month, this happened again.

Well, this laptop is just about 2 months plus old leh.....

So the conclusion is.....the laptop/HP is not good enough? Aih......

Anyway, this is something I NEED, to survive.

Hehe, Can't imagine myself not switching on my computer and logging on to MSN though.

So who cares about those problems...as long as I still have the basic basic functions....

End of November

2008-11-27T18:05:00.012+08:00

Time flies.

And I really didn't expect myself to leave this place blank for like....3+ months?
Hmm....sorrylah Alan, Eng Hwa and those who had paid frequent visit to this long isolated blog as I've been disappointing you guys whenever you click on to this link.

Well, so you can guess how busy is my life here. It's near to end of November now. Mid-terms has passed, tonnes of assignments has been due, most presentations over, now down with one final presentation, final recommendation report and FINAL EXAMSsss....

Oouch, sounds kinda sad.

UST Campus~~ Streets in Mongkok
I guess I'm supposed to describe life in Hong Kong. And how have I been so far.
To be frank, I don't feel that there has been any major changes to the hyper active Sherlyn, BUT, many of my friends here said that I looked more and more fatigue day by day, as though I haven't sleep for weeks or even a month? Haha, well don't worry, bet you guys can still recognize me when I come back. Hehe.
Night view from the peak(blurred)
Hong Kong is all about fighting for more time. You just don't feel that there is 24 hours in a day.
Time is just not enough. Imagine having 4 assignments on-going at a time, a final exam, a presentation, a campaign and the list never stops. Owh, and your engine is expected not to stop too. Haha. Busy, busy, busy. There's only one more week of classes ahead and it's back to study study study time. After a successful group presentation ^ ^
Okay, I should say something positive ; )
It was pretty fun in the orientation week back in end of August. We have 10 Malaysian freshies in HKUST(My Uni-The Hong Kong University of Stress and Tension, whoops, Science and Technology), which there are 2 from the island, 3 from Butterworth, and the rest from the other states. Owh, one thing to note, my flight was delayed for 2 days because of the No.8 Typhoon Signal and I missed the best typhoon which will seldom happens in HK!! And I was stuck in KL with no one, no money, no extra clothing and no phone! Hahaha....you can't imagine how miserable those two days were. After reaching the campus, I managed to meet all Malaysians in the first few days and we bond pretty well.

Orientation@ Repulse Bay~The Malaysian Girls

The International and Mainland Students Program Office organized a series of orientation activities for all the international students which includes visits to some famous tourist spots in Hong Kong(of which most I've been there before), some interesting talks, as well as a free dinner at Jumbo Floating Restaurant! Malaysians Say Cheese!~ At the Jumbo Floating Restaurant
After a week, school term starts. At first, we still manage to arrange time for some sports games e.g. badminton, ping pong and swimming. I think that lasted for the first 3 weeks? And I guess you know what happened next...hehe. I'm registered to 5 subjects, Accounts, Business Statistics, Business Case Analysis, Calculus and Organizational Behavior. And NONE of these subjects are EASY to score.=(( Grading system here is totally different from what I use to have in TARC. They'll grade you according to the mean of the group's score. Which means, scoring 85 doesn't guarantee you an A and scoring 65 doesn't mean you will have zero chance of getting an A. Confusing? Haha. it's Normal Distribution. Feeling kinda lazy to explain all these here, nudge me at MSN if you wanna know more.

Studying here wasn't really enjoyable at first. That should be caused by the difference of culture.

[Gotta leave at the moment, busy schedule=.=]
[update later]

Okay, continue updating.

I have locals, taiwanese, chinese and english as my lecturers. Bermacam-macam.
Who's the best? I guess it's my accounts professor, the Taiwanese.
He's quite humorous and his lectures are pretty interesting as he taught quite alot real life cases which I find useful learning.
For the rest, sadly, I could say that they're slightly below my expectations. Well, maybe this is just the first semester of my first year and things are just getting started so I'll still need some time to meet with "geng" professors. That's what the seniors say.
Diversity: Internationals, Locals, Mainland BBQ at the UST BBQ pit~Cold Night
I've met with people from different regions different continents of the globe. But still, I'm closer with most Malaysians. Haha. Anyway, locals are quite friendly and they have SUPER DUPER high spending power. However, when it comes to academics, only a portion of them will make you feel satisfied with their work. As for the mainland students, I guess 95% of them are SUPER DUPER diligent. Library is like their second home. Studying is their life. Some of them are friendly too, such as the one I had in one of my group assignment and business case competition. A few of them are super "kia-su-s". I MEAN SUPER. And as for international students, most of the westerners enjoy university life, beer, parties, Tsim-Sa-Tsui and Lam Kwai Fong .....
Mid Autumn Festival Steamboat Happy Birthday to ME^ ^
Me? I managed to keep my uni life busy(Yaya, we all know), balanced friendship between diversity, and not enough sleep for many many many days! So far, there are activities that I'm happy to be involved in. Being in the Rotaract Club and being part of the sub-committees in organizing a Science Day for the underprivileged kids was really meaningful. As I never had chance to be individually involved in such larger scale community service, I really learnt a lot from this experience. To see the kids smile, to see them listening to what you actually say, to see them bringing back their "science products", to see their eyes telling you that "we had a nice day" is really memorable. Wine appreciation
MadLab Science Day for Children
Besides, I also registered myself to the International Service Trip which aims to help in reconstruction work of schools in the mountainous areas of YunNam. In conjunction of this trip, we had a fund raising event which lasted for 3 days in campus. It was also a good experience as we were to asked to raise HKD10 donations for a pen to be given to those children. At first I thought this will be quite a tough task as most UST-ers are busy and are neither interested nor responsive towards any booth-set-up activities, but in the end, it ran smoothly. The response was really positive and satisfying and we managed to achieve our target~~Yay, all prepared for the trip!

What worth mentioning about me studying here is the huge difference of tertiery education life in UST and in Malaysia. Within these 3++ months, I've been involved in numerous self development talks, from the CEOs, from theatre artists, from career development center, from company executives and the list goes on. The opportunity of self enrichment and learning additional non-academic skills are never ending. I've even learnt wine tasting, negotiation skills, and even forex, metals and futures tradings. Owh ya. a stimulation was even prepared for us for this trading activity. I also managed to secure a place for the preliminary round for International Student Trader's Trophy and the 2 hours session was really enjoyable. There was also chances for mock interviews where challenging interview questions will be addressed and instant feedback will be given to your performance. So far, I'd also attended 2 company visits which includes Cathay Pacific and Firm Town Gas. Cathay Pacific's Building is SUPER COOL!~~~~and i had a HKD160 buffet luncheon at the top of the CX tower with some of the CX executives. Wooohooooo....Although super expensive, but the experience is worthwhile.

One more interesting activity I'm involved in--Air Cadet! Hoho! I've been to Saikung for hiking once, and lately a 2 days-1 night camping with fellow cadet officer trainees(that's what we call ourselves!) First time sleeping in a Mongolian tent, and camping at a place between the mountains near the ocean with no water and electric supply, only TORCHlight~~~Other than that, we were taught basic aviation knowledge, and some radio telecommunication skills. Who knows, I might have a chance to fly my own private plane or helicopter in the future! Hahaha.....
Hiking Trip at Saikung
Well, weather has changed from summer, to autumn till now, between 13-18 degree celcius? A lot has happened for the whole semester, and this blog is just a summary for it. I hope this gave you a picture of what has happened to me here?

Hehe, exams lining up in mid-dec! Wish me luck guys!!!
Owh ya, I MISS PENANG FOOD! and all the people there too!!!

Faces Steak Garden

2008-08-06T23:38:00.002+08:00

Haven't been to this place for a long long time.

The first time, which is a few years back, I went there with my whole family. Knowing that they have not bad and not expensive food as well as not bad environment, I know I'll come back next time.

Well, I'm not really a regular customer of that place. But I visited this place most often last year. Haha, to be more precise, I'm more to a half-worker of the place. I used to sing with a partner there.

It's quite a good experience actually. Some people do listen to you, and some people will just make noise behind. Some will make dedications, and some will request for some really hard to play songs. Sometimes, we'll be the ones bringing a little joy who came to celebrate birthdays at that little place.

About a quarter of a year, I've been singing there. I enjoyed most of the time being there. When we're able to sing what customers requested for, and when we just sing like nobody's business. Haha.....But the boss was, pretty yim chim(stingy) I could say. And from the top, we could see that the customer service is pretty, unacceptable,most of them are foreign workers, without proper training. Anyway, it's not under our scope to care so much accept when the boss starts to violate employees' rights. Our pay is given after every half of the month. And when there's 5 weeks in a month, they'll only give you the pay of 4 weeks!! Ridiculous and unacceptable. That's why we stopped singing.

Haha.

So I still drop by when there's some occasions or some gatherings with friends. And nothing has ever improved. Till a day, they changed their menu. Food choice less, and food prices increased. It's kinda bad, and I heard they change their management. So since then, faces became a no no visit place to me.

After a few months, there I am again. Just to see how the singers are and how is business going on.

It turned out to be me, eating lotz of french fries and a whole huge glass of erm...what do you call that? Arnold schwarzenegger? Or Christina Arguilera? Haha.....can't really recall, a just know that it's a mixture of 4 fruits. There was only 1 guitarist that night, not much customers, and all workers are Chinese. Hmm....the singer was not bad la, at least.

Maybe I'll still come next time, Maybe.

Step class today.

2008-07-21T15:11:00.002+08:00

Gloomy............... But the sun is actually shining behind.

Morning BodyStep classes are moving into the worst period ever.

Only 1 member or even none on Thursdays 7am, 2 or less on Mondays 915am. What happened.

Some say it's because of the summer holidays and most of the members are on vacation. But I just don't think so. It just felt kinda weird, and a little sad too, seeing the classes....'die'.

Sometimes I do wonder whether it's because of me, the newbie? The one who only cues when I do the moves not before I do the moves. There're always complain, when you're new. That's just, unavoidable. Hmph.....

But what I'd heard was Fridays crowd has decreased dramatically too.....Argh. What's wrong. Members got injured at their knee after they do step and they're afraid to do it again? How could we actually solve this problem? Hard right.....correct them on the techniques?
Argh.

I miss those days, when Kim is the soul of BodyStep every Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And I know it's really hard to bring it back.......

Sunday, Family Day

2008-07-20T23:34:00.002+08:00

It has been quite some time since me and family went to Butterworth to my cousin sis's place. As I still have my graduation photo taken by so called professional photographer not collected, we decided to go to Butterworth and to visit cousin sis and family.

Reached Penang Jetty and there were a lot of cars. And it started raining heavily. It was pretty cloudy in the morning and it started pouring as we get close to the port. The lining up took quite some time and there we go on board. We noticed leaking in the roof of the ferry. Several leaking spots and the floor is wet. It looks as though it's raining in the ferry.

*There's a lil river in the ferry!*

Then we reached Butterworth Jetty and it was still raining non-stop. Went to the photo studio first and I found that the frame and the wordings that I paid extra for is not what I expected. The wordings are not directly printed into our photos but is attached with the frame of the photo. That means it's the same for everyone. With no name of person, no course of study and no grade of graduation. Pretty disappointing as compared to what UTAR offers sis. One 4R photo of the slide on the day was taken loop sided as well. Overall, I could actually choose not to take the frame. After all, it's just diploma right....Haha.

And then we head to cousin sis's house. She cooked holiao as our lunch. Holiao as in fish, soup, duck, vegetables and pork leg! Haha...and to families had lunch together. It all tasted pretty good and I got quite full after lunch. And we started the chit-chat session with lotsa laughter. I felt kinda sleepy after all the nice food but havta do quite a lot of talking which kept me awake. Talked about some of my products and I'm pretty glad that she's willing to use it. Haha so some business done before we left butterworth.

Dad decided to take the ferry back to Penang. And the queue was really long at Butterworth jetty. It took us almost 1.5 hours to cross back to Penang. Reason? Not enough ferries? More and more consumers started using ferries to go across mainland after the huge price rise? Well, actually one of the reason is one of the ports broke down. Haha, don't really how to put it in words but, haih, it's pretty sad to see this happen. And it's pretty frustrating to wait in the car doing nothing for 1.5 hours. Why can't the government just develop properly something which is profitable? I just don't get it.

So it was near to 7pm when we reach the island. Went to Red Garden for dinner, food was expensive and proportion was too little. Inflation!

*Cham peng at RM1.50!! Like I'm in KL mamak stalls...*

Haha....so I ended my day. It felt pretty good spending with my family, and good food! Even though we had some time wasted in between.

A Post

2008-07-17T02:01:00.005+08:00

I know I'm being really quiet, nowadays. Maybe I just need a little rest?

I guess I'm supposed to post something here.

Whatever it is, just something.

Have been out of touch for more than a week.
Felt guilty to those people who...erm.stop by quite often to check out for updates?

Haha. Have been a little busy with some random stuff lately. Just a little actually.
Follow up on stuff regarding my studies in Hong Kong, movies catching, friends meeting, classes replacing...blah blah.
Very random. And yea, working at FF.
Owh and one more thing, I got hooked up with this not really famous online game-Highstreet5. It's a game similar to Audition. Haha. Quite fun actually, and the songs there are updated. Enjoyable, although I'm still a beginner at level 2.

There are some changes going on in my life, here and there.
And I really feel that I'm really goinna leave this place in like just a month plus few more days.
Feels weird. Though I'm not packing up anything yet.

A little announcement.
To those who don't really know what I'm talking about.
I'm leaving for Hong Kong to study in The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Leaving particularly in August 21st. Penang International Airport.
So I'll see you in the airport 1.30pm if you're free? Hehe....

Okay, told ya I don't know what to say. I'm crapping.
I'll update more often kay...I promise. Just to let you guys know that I'm still alive.
Hoho.

Cheers!

It's a bad bad day

2008-07-07T19:18:00.006+08:00

I was in the ferry. Saw this bird. Not a crow. It could still walk and fly, but I realized after a moment that it has lost the claws of one of his leg, only the other leg supporting him...~~Spirit of living~~

Caught with flue a few days ago. I thought it was not serious.

Appointed last minute to replace classes again.
And I thought I'm fine with it.

I didn't want what happened last week to reoccur, I asked Sam to inform the members that I'll be replacing the class.

Was working 7 and 9 hours last weekend. A bit sad that I didn't get to go to the annual MATTA Fair in PISA. Although I know that I won't have chance to go for any vacation this year.

I woke up early this morning. Prepared and revised my choreo. But my stomach is telling me something is wrong. Argh...I know I'm not feeling well.
But so what, class has to be continued right?
Too bad I missed the chance to go for McD breakfast with Maylin and Jeanni before class starts.

Bibi's Yoga ended 0916hours. Which is, 11 minutes later than scheduled? So my class did not start on time. Which I think, will cause me into trouble with those Pilates aunties.

As I expected not much people came, but I didn't really prepare for this few. Starting to think of whether I actually made this mess?
Owh, and before I start the class, I rushed to the loo once again to,....ahem ahem. Oh gosh, how am I goinna teach.
It's tired needing to explain why am I teaching instead of somebody else. Anyway, class started at 0925hrs.

The first 2 tracks were pretty good. But not for track 3, everyone still seemed pretty confused. Argh.....I wonder how could I make them do it correctly.... I just don't want them to give up. But when you can't follow you'll automatically stop right? Track 4 was fine. But my running nose got bad after that, and to make it even worse, there is no tissue paper for me to sneeze it off. Okay, bare with it till track 5, where the mic kong-ed off. Track 6, I'm starting to run out of energy. There was even moments where I felt I can't breathe and I'm fainting.=.= Sweat huh....I started talking less and lesser till track 10. Lucky that I did not faint till the end. And class ended 1025hrs. Kitty came in and placed her belongings directly on top of the sound system without waiting for me to clear up. But I was too tired and flu is not doing his good job to stop making me feel unwell. Argh....I'm like even walk properly after the class. Dizzy dizzy dizzy. Janice served me with some Vico and I slowly recover.

It was not a satisfying class, at all. And I'm pretty disappointed with myself.

Had to shower and settle the rest of my list of things to do. And my locker key is LOST!! Argh...searching high and low up n down, where could I put it. As I was not as conscious as I'm supposed to when I came out from class, I thought I left it in the studio. Sneaked in to the studio in the middle of pilates and it was not around the sound system area. Not in the lost and found area and not anywhere in the changing room. Oh god oh god how could this happen. Wasted quite a lot of time searching and at last after Kitty finishes her class I found my key understage area where all the dusts and power points are for the sound system. How could it end up there? Well, would not like to elaborate. Just feel thankful that it's still there.

Went to get some of my stock and went to the jetty to go to butterworth to buy train ticket. Randomly parked my car as usual. As I don't have enough cash I had to search for an ATM machine first. And surprisingly there's not even a single ATM machine all around the bus terminal and train station. So I had to walk a distance to Maybank. And it was 1300hrs. Sultry HOT.
The purchasing of train ticket was smooth, except for the lady on duty was sleeping when I arrive. Malaysians at work...you know la. So when I was about to walk back to the jetty, I saw the next ferry has arrived. So I rushed to exchange money. I brought out RM1 for coins exchange. He gave me 2 50cents. I have another 50cents in my wallet. So I gave him back a 50cents to exchange for smaller value coins. But he said it's not enough and blah blah blah and asked me to bring out another RM1 for exchange. What the......okay by the time all the blah come and go, they closed the entrance gate. The ferry was still there, just that I couldn't enter!

Gotta wait for another one and I really hate when this happens!!

Back to Penang. 1400hrs. Look as though it's goinna rain. And a few minutes later it did. Traffic was congested. Some buses were driving recklessly. Lunch hour, school dismiss hour. Everywhere seemed to be busy. Got a little frustrated when Jeanni told me she didn't tell Logan about me goinna meet him. Argh...never mind. I couldn't make it on time anyway. And the most important thing is....I'M REALLY HUNGRY! I need some FOOD!

Okay, went to Nyonya for my brunch. 1430hrs. Didn't expect Maylin, Jeanni and Sam to come over too. Hehe.

Then, I received a call from a KL number. Wondering who is it, I answered and I found out that it's Kelvin. Hmm...he asked me for a favour. Not hard to do if I'm in a good mood. But at that point of time, I just wanna say no. It could be troublesome. I don't like dealing with banks and I hate dealing with TARC. But still, I have no reason to reject him. And that makes my face even darker than before. I'm so so so so not in good mood, and I need to SLEEP!

So after brunch, I went back too FF for the talk. Big boss was busy so I just dealt with Jaafar. Things got sorted out. Nothing much to be argued. God knows who's right and wrong. Unless I get a time machine to witness what actually happened on that night. I do hope that this won't end up like what I expected it to be, a trap, a shitty trap. So I went off after that. To the bank.

There were so MANY people in queue. Which made me even more.....*?!?!*

Two things to do, get back my refund for the graduation gown, and buy Kelvin's bank draft. 5 more numbers before it's my turn. And I'm losing my patience.

Never mind. What pissed me is when the personnel said that I'll be charged RM2 for the refund of the bank draft. When I asked why, she said because you're cancelling the bank draft. ARGH? Why are banks like dai yi longs? RM2 is not much but what for?? It just doesn't make sense. Haven't you guys already collected RM5 buta-buta commission when we first bought the bank draft? Then now? CHARGE AGAIN? What the hell. Imagine that just to attend my convocation I have to buy 2 seperate bank drafts, each charged RM5 commission, which makes it RM10. And after the return of the gown I'm supposed to drive back to that bank and be charged another RM2 just to get back the money that originally belongs to me? So RM300(The bank draft amount) actually became RM 288 in like what? 2 weeks??? Damn.

After getting Kelvin's bank draft, I drove to TARC. Not much people at this hour. 1610hrs.
Bursary office is still open thank lord. After signing and everything, the lady told me that RM10 late payment will be charged to this bill. **^^%#$#^_*+)(&)%@?? But I don't have my wallet with me!!! My job is just to walk to the freaking office and hand in the bank draft and get the damn receipt and LEAVE! Not to pay any MONEY!! But the lady insisted. Saying that if I don't pay, the bill won't be processed and Kelvin's name will be cancelled off from the school. After much argument and investigation on why the students doesn't even know that they have to settle the bills and late payment imposed after whichever date, I had to DESPERATELY walk back to my car which is parked freaking far under HOT HOT sun to get a freaking RM10 for late payment CHARGE!! Owh, and after going back with the SO IMPORTANT MONEY, the lady told me that the system has already been closed and she can't produce me the bill anymore. WHATTTTT? It's written there office closed 4.30pm and you tell me that your system is closed 3.30pm??? What is this? And you tell me that you guys need to close account? Will the supermarket open until 10pm but tell the customers that the Point of Sales system is closed at 9pm because they need an hour to count money and close accounts for the day and you can only window shop some groceries after 9pm????

THIS IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS!

I need to get some sleep dude. Dah la not feeling well, some more let me face all these shit. Yea I really wanna rush into the toilet and grab whichever bunch of shit that comes to my eyes and throw it to all these non-sense making people!

Okay, it's my bad day. Finished grumbling about it.

What's wrong with me? Aih.......

At last something good.
Happened before I call it a day.

I own a Diploma...

2008-06-28T22:45:00.002+08:00

Hoho...not that it's really a BIG THING...

But this is kind of the day that I've been waiting for since I started this course.

So what could I say about TARC is....

A safe environment to study?

Yea, the campus could be considered big as compared to other colleges in Penang, the lecturers are....ahem, not badly qualified? The papers are pretty standard and not that hard to fail? And you can resit for what ever times you wish to if you do not pass? (Haha.) The campus is located in some place not congested with traffic but a little hard to get large variety of food. What else? They have most of the basic facilities a college is supposed to have. They have cheap canteen food. They have good and really affordable bus service.

As they say, quality and affordable education.

Good slogan.

To be honest, I enjoy my first semester of college life pretty much. Having to cycle to college and cycle back home to take a nap whenever I want, and having pretty experienced lecturers in the lecture halls and tutorials. But things started to change during the second change, just a slight change. There's some problem with our accounts lecture. Hmph...it's almost like, self study. When it comes to the third semester, things got a little lazy as we only have 2 subjects where 1 is 100% coursework and only another to study. And I started my full time job as a part time job seeker. Anyway, greatest satisfaction from my 1st year of study in TARC, my CGPA of 4.0.

Second year, 4th semester. I relaxed myself on the subjects. We had 6 subjects, everything goes harder. But still, manageable. And there comes the twist and there begins my little hatred for TARC. They changed the grading system after our examinations and before the results come out. Without notification. Oh god, how can you actually do that? It's so unfair when students aren't even aware about the new system when they're preparing and sitting for the exams! Yea, that affected my mood, a LOT. And so I began to lost my full interest studying in TARC. All I'm thinking is finish it soon finish the course faster. I just can't wait to end it. Lecturers are not up to what I expect, a lot of things have been going crazy and blah blah blah....And so my results for the 5th sem dropped like hell. As though I almost lost everything. Yeah, if you know me you would know that results are important issues in my life. I did not ACE. And I did way worse than just not ACE-ing. Hmph, that made me wanna complete the course even sooner and faster. All my interest was focused on leaving the campus, and not stepping back again. Sounds pretty sad huh....

Well, let me just tell a bit about the bad-ness of TARC. THE STAFF!

I don't mean the lecturers. I mean the non-lecturers. Those people sitting in the office.

They are really really really....ahem. Are like people selling stuff at the pasar malam or people selling hawker food. Or even worse.

They work as though they are their own boss. They have stone made mouths, maybe movable, but totally not smile-able. They treat students like....treating 2nd grade naughty boys and girls running around the playground. They talk to you like you owe them a million thousand dollars and a piece of 1000 hectare land. In short, no working ethics, no customer service, no manners.

I'm really really really particular about this. Cause I work in a customer service line and these people are like a decade elder than me and they can't treat people properly like how I could?

Oh ya, something special about them, they could actually laugh loudly and chit chat happily like teenagers with their own colleagues.

Wouldn't really wanna elaborate more, but I had total not so good experience when I was studying and TOTAL BAD experience one day before my graduation day with the staff. How I wish I could transform transparent and get a rotan to whip on whichever part of them I love for like maybe 10 times would be great? Or maybe transform into Harry Potter and use magic on them?

God, they are from jungle! Oh one more thing, some of them actually own a Master qualification? With attitude like UPSR students.

Based on this, well I'm so freaking glad that I have graduated from there.

A place which provides quality and affordable education.

So true, nothing mentioned about friendly staff, maybe they are just affordable staff.

Okay, let's talk about my big day.

Hoho.....1st time wearing the whole suit. L size somemore. It didn't take for me to wait till it's my turn to get up on stage for my scroll. Pretty glad. I graduated with distinction.

So the most important thing about these events is the photo taking session.

There are a hell lot of people around the whole college. 2000 people or more than that?

So I walked and walked around. Cameras clicked and clicked. This is quite memorable. Everyone is happy. My dad, mum and sis came too. Go to my spaces to view the photos.

2 years passed since I finished SPM. So fast. And I'm goinna move on.

Guess I'll meet better people and greater experiences these coming 3 years?

Wish me luck.

Oh ya, I own a diploma which qualifies me to apply for jobs which requires a diploma!=.=

Dinner Time!

2008-06-28T02:15:00.003+08:00

Haha...I'm pretty used to having dinner at like...

this hour?

Well, it's not that I don't want to have dinner at proper hours. But with me working part time and uncertainly, and with my job with times I don't even get to enjoy a moment of break, dinner is almost impossible. Especially, when I mean mum's cooking as dinner.

I kinda miss the times when me and sis are still schooling. The times where mum cooks every night and the whole family enjoys dinner together. The times where me and sis will compete on who eats faster so that we don't need to wash everyones plates. Haha.....kids.

And there was a period of time when mum seldom cooks. Reason? Cause sis's not around, I'm working and mum eats little and dad eats lotsa rice but little dishes so it's pretty hard for mum to estimate the amount to cook and here it goes, outside food. Almost everyday. Until the uncles and aunties of the hawker stalls know us.

So we began to feel sick about outside food. Moreover, it's not healthy.

And I began to miss mum's cooking.

Hahahaha.....

So mum went back to her kitchen about a many months later.

And yea...her cooking is undoubtedly, still nice.

I appreciate how she can cook for us, even if I only get to taste it as my dipper(dinner+supper)?Hahahahaha...

And ya, as I'm goinna leave very soon, I'm sure goinna miss those nice dishes.

Yumm Yumm...still dinner time:D

Fast Food @ Sunrise Tower

2008-06-25T23:58:00.002+08:00

The beautiful Sunrise Tower in Gurney Drive, where these 2 fast fodd restaurants are located.

I had lunch at Pizza Hut Sunrise Tower with some secondary school schoolmates. Well the gathering was pretty great as I haven't meet them for quite some time, and this is definitely the time for some updates.

We chose Pizza Hut just because we can't really find any other good and affordable but not McD food inside Gurney Plaza. And Pizza Hut has the value meal thing which is pretty much satisfying and not too expensive. So we walked to Pizza Hut for lunch.
And.........the service in that restaurant was....

really BAD!

Aih. At first, no one actually attend to us when we walked up to the dining area, we had to find tables and seats by ourselves. Fine, since business was quite good and they looked quite busy.

There were no clean tables which could fit in 5 people at that time. So we sat down at an uncleared table and we need to ask the waitress to clear things up. Fine, they are busy.

There were 5 of us. And the waitress only brought us ONE set of menu. Owh I guess the menus are too heavy. Fine, we could share afterall.

We took quite some time to decide what to order. That's not a problem. The problem lies in we seemed to be invisible to any of the staff there. No one came to us for our order for like 15 minutes? Then we waved and called and even lightly shouted at them? Only they kam luan(willing) serve us.

Walao.....this is first class service.

We were really really hungry by then. The waitress wasn't really polite when she took our order anyway, but who cares, I just want my food. If you've been to Sunrise Pizza Hut, you'll know who are those people working there.

It didn't take too long till our food arrive. The new flavors for the Sensasi Delight meal wasn't really nice. I've tasted all of them and I really prefer the original recipe.

Hmm, I ate 4 pieces of personal pan pizza and stuff crust, a bowl of mushroom soup with a few pieces of garlic bread, plus some lagsana which my friend couldn't finish and in the end another extra piece of pizza! Owh ya and I nearly ommitted the my drink. Poof... Totally loaded.

For a person like me, I'll make sure that everything on the table is cleared before we leave. So I finished up all the food and felt so uncomfortable after I reach home. Aih.....=.=

The last complain about the service, the can't even smile a little when we were about to settle our bill.

Slow Slow Slow. That's the normal pace they work.

This is not the first time I'm experiencing this. It's just getting more and more disappointing.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Now we move to the fast food outlet just beside Pizza Hut Sunrise Tower, McDonalds.

So what's wrong with them? I did not dine in at that day. But I was pissed off some time ago with their service too.

I used to fancy this outlet of McDonalds when I was much younger(I mean when I was a kid). Simply because it looks bigger than other in-shopping-mall outlets and it has a playground at the second floor. Haha.

One day, roughly 3 months ago, I was on my way to the bus station at night and was pretty hungry so I decided to take away some McDonalds to eat in my car. The queue was long that night, as expected, it's Friday night. So I lined up. The service was, I could say not fast. But still I waited patiently till it's my turn. They had some sort of coupon promotion that time where you can get a free a la carte listed when you purchase any large McValue Meal. So I used the voucher along with the Kids Club Card (where you get a free fries or sundae for every RM5 purchase). The first waiter did not say anything and went to prepare my food after my order. Suddenly another person came to attend to me saying that if I were to use the promotion voucher I can't use the Kids Club Card anymore. I stunned and I told them I have been using this in other outlets, both Gurney Plaza and Prangin Mall which seems to be accepting this, and they gave me a lame reason saying that the rules have changed. *!!*

Then I requested a drink change. Instead of Coca Cola I wanted F&N Orange. As I was in the rush I didn't have time to check my bill and when I got back to my car, I discovered that there was an extra charge for the orange! Instead of the soft drink orange they gave me orange juice which is not what I wanted!

First class service.

A day before the promotion for the coupon ended, I went to Gurney Sunrise again to use it for Breakfast Meal. It was 1055hrs and they say breakfast time is over. Fine then, I asked for a comment form to write about what happened before and the lady told me they don't have such thing as a comment form. *????* Then what the heck is the comment box and notice for? Argh...a notice asking for feedback and comments was really posted up there! Okay fine. Then I saw another notice outside the glass door stating that due to the high demand of McMuffins they are currently out of stock and to apologize for the inconvenience, they will extend the voucher promotion till 15th May(Originally 30th April). Guess what, when I asked my colleague to buy me the McD breakfast on the morning of 12th May, the staff said that the promotion has already ended!!

Oh dear, this is how the fast food restaurants work.

No one really cares actually, cause business is so far so good. Right?

Redbox

2008-06-23T20:59:00.002+08:00

Yay...have been wanting to have a singing session with my singing pals long time ago...
Finally, we managed to set a time suitable for everyone.
Well, it was nearly cancelled for some reason at first.

So I called to book for a room at 1pm, asking whether we're still entitled for the K-Lunch package. Surprisingly the person told me no more and when I argued that it was stated in the website that K-Lunch is available from 11am to 2pm, she said that I could come at 1245hrs and we can get the package. Fine then. Feeling pretty excited, I informed my friends to meet up at 1245hrs.

I actually reached there about 1250hrs. And to my surprise again, the person told me that we can't get the K-Lunch package anymore. I asked them why and their explanation was the last call for lunch is 1215hrs. Isn't that just ridiculous? I argued that the person who made the booking for me asked me to come before 1300hrs and I could still enjoy the lunch. But they insisted on not giving. Argh.....you know why we need to fight for it? Because lunch is RM9++ per person WITH LUNCH and the non-lunch thing is a tea-time package which will cost RM14++ per person with ONLY 2 DRINKS! Okay, and none of us had lunch before we came here=.=
So what, you know how did they counter back when I say that it is stated in the website that K-Lunch is from 11am till 2pm? "Owh....that's not the correct one!" 0.O??
BRAVO! 1st class service I'll call this.
http://www.redbox.com.my/redbox/eng/comp_service1d.asp. Just refer to this address!!

So since we're already here, we had no choice but to continue with our original plan.
Anyway, the singing session was pretty fun. I found out that I haven't been updating myself with new songs lately. Couldn't even tick out 10 songs that I can sing from the new songs list. Haha, sad nia.
So in the end, we had 3 hours of singing, a few minutes of watching Michael Jackson's "Thriller" MV, which was taken more than a decade back, 2 glasses of student drinks without any food, a few toilet trips, and 3 hours of starvation.=.=
Well, we enjoyed spending time with each other in that big room which could fit in more than 10 people they assign to us. When the bill came, I saw our check in time which was 1259hours. HAHA. I could still complain them for not giving us the lunch package when its not even 1300hrs yet....
HOHOHOHO....evil me.

We rushed out from Gurney for food after that. Had some hawker food, had a little chit chat, had a little emotions, and we head back home.
Everyone will be leaving each other soon. Very soon. 1 going to Singapore NTU, 1 going to KL UTAR, 1 going to HKUST, another one, still striving her way to future. Actually that's when the emotions came in.

I had a lot of thoughts after that.
A lot.....things are changing. Everyone is changing in their own way.
Everyone is....growing up.

Why la Neway is not opening a branch in Penang.

VS

Updates?

2008-06-21T01:34:00.008+08:00

I don't have much to do nowadays.

No more 4 jobs in a day, no classes to teach, no classes to attend.
Basically I'll just wonder around. At home, or somewhere out there.

But since petrol is RM2.70 per litre(!), I'm restricted to areas around Island Plaza, or maybe furthest 1-stop. Don't feel like travelling since June 5th. No mood actually.

In fact, there are pretty much tasks lining up for me.

Like learning BS72 and past releases choreo, gain some extra knowledge, survey on some electronic gadgets, play some music, earn some extra cash(Yea, I kinda need this~)??

But things are going really really slow.

Maybe I should blame the internet connection at home. When things get stuck here and there, I just don't feel like continuing whatever I'm doing.

Maybe I should also blame the freaking hot weather. When I'm sweating for no reason, I just feel like locking myself into my air-con room and sleep.

Well, ya. I've been lazing around since I came back from KL.

Waking up everyday morning to drop my mum to school and go back to my bed to sleep until it's over the time I'm supposed to be awake is my routine. And what is meant by the time I'm supposed to be awake is 0900hrs? Yeah, and I took my own sweet time till almost half of a day is over.

I'm too lazy to move around. Ahh....just go away lazy bugs.

What am I waiting for?

Yeah, to study I think.

Or simply just to keep myself busy.

Not having more than 3 jobs at a time made me feel uneasy. O.0?

Haha....true enough. I'd rather keep myself hooked up with schedules of work, rather than sleeping too much everyday.

Yea, you've not mistaken. I've been sleeping too much nowadays. And the more I sleep, the more attached I am to my bed.
It sounds so un-Sherlyn.

I seriously gotta start my engine. Doing something really productive. Instead of falling asleep even when I'm halfway writing a blog...=.=

Haha. Good luck aights....

Gotta find the correct pair of keys to get my engine working....

A little change

2008-06-20T00:08:00.000+08:00

I'm not really the kind of person who cares sooo much about my appearance.
I mean as compared to most of the girls my age. People tend to care more about beauty, fashion, facial and the list goes on.
That's simply because I'm always and predicted forever pretty busy caught up with work and activities all around leaving me with no time to even choose the best suited facial foam to use.

As I'm quite free nowadays. I chose to indulge myself a lil bit.

Made an appointment with Slimming Sanctuary on Wednesday. Not for a slimming session of course, hehe. Went for a facial session. As usual, the staff there loves giving lecture and hard selling before starting the session. Before that, I went for a jacuzzi session. Hoho, it was quite fun actually. First time sinking myself into a tub of goat milk water for massage.....It feels quite good. So I was thinking if I could have this set of machine at home too=.= In the future la...
Then the facial session. The staff was quite good. But as usual, it's so freaking painful when she clears the blackheads. Argh...what to do. They have been deep in there for months.

The next day. I went for a hair cut. It has been nearly 10 months since I got my last haircut. That was rebonding actually. Hmm....
But I didn't know which salon to go too...aih. Great headache. I'd never have a permanent place for my hair cut. Have always been trying out here and there. Trial and error.
Went to ask around some of the salons in Prima Tanjung, and the Extreme opposite PCGPS. Who knows Extreme has been closed for renovation pulak...=.= In the end, I decided to go to Hair Impression in Komtar.
Well, for the sake of $, I chose the juniors for my haircut. Originally it was a quite good-looking guy looked quite confident attended to me. Manatau he handed over me to another younger guy, who really has those typical junior looks.=.= Kek ki nia... Nevermind lo, since this is what I will get for what I pay.
He tried to be confident. Started a little chit chat, with the hair wash, and he asked what I want. I wanted a better looking hairstyle, a little shorter than the length I had, a hairstyle which looks good even I don't tie it up. When his senior came to ask me, I told him to give me a hairstyle that suits me. So the senior started teaching the junior what are the methods to cut my hair. Well, that makes me feel a little, just a little uneasy.
From time to time, the senior will come back and check his 'work'. After the first layer, he did not consult his senior on how to continue and continued cutting the same way. Till his senior came and say "You cut it already?..."=.= "Yea, I thought don't want to let her wait too long..." =.=|| That's his reply.
So I knew that I won't get the hairstyle the senior wanted to do.
Aiks. So just pray that it won't turn out too bad?
Well, there's not much difference actually. Except for the shorter length. That's not what I really want. I wanted something that looks different from the front view. But they said that if they cut my fringe, my hair will curl up, and yea I know it will look even worse. Aih, so I've just gotta accept this.
Who ask me to be so stingy. So that's the quality of haircut I get.
Why la on earth do I need to have such such such such freaking thick hair...pong pong like that. Yer....

Haha, so this was the last two things I did for a change. Will go and have an album photo shoot sis bought me as last year's birthday present next week. Hoho....looking forward to it.

It's Hot!

2008-06-18T13:16:00.004+08:00

Global warming?

I guess so.

It has been days .... so HOT~MELTING~~

Can't believe myself sweating when I'm writing a blog or doing whatever in front of the computer. At 11pm.

Where are all those clouds....

Even sleeping does not solve the problem. I can even sweat when I sleep.

I need an air-con in the air. (Which is, something not good to our environment....)

But it's just too hot!

Can't imagine myself being in a country with four seasons. No, I should say with summer!

Woo-hoo....the temperature will be like 40 degree celcius?

Burning...burning....I'd rather die.

Being in my car is like a disaster too. For those who know what car I'm driving, I guess you know why.

Besides driving you around, it functions as a microwave oven too! You can simply get free sauna for how ever long period you like...Cool huh....

The conclusion is, I need some huge clouds to just cover the sun a little. Maybe a little will more or less help. It would be even better if those are dark clouds...

I just can't stand this temperature!

Father's Day

2008-06-15T22:47:00.006+08:00

It was supposed to be Chili's.

But apparently we need to wait another hour just to get a table.
Haha, so Dome we head to.

This is sort of the first time I'm taking Dome's Food? Dad told me I had once before in Island Plaza when I was really young. Well, who remembers that?

So I guess the photos will speak for it :D

The gravy was quite nice, the portion is a little too little, but well, I'm satisfied.

Ther's hell lotta vege in this tuna wrap!! Haha....great for vege lovers~

The soup was not bad, but I prefer the one from Ingolf's Kneipe

This is quite tasty too....Hoho. Creamy.....

Yumm....yumm.

Cheers Dad! Happie Joy Daddy's DaY!

This drink is quite nice...But aren't we supposed to order coffee in Dome? Haha...

Yay! I love celebrations...cause it always comes with good FOOD. Hoho....Love ya Daddy!

Problematic Connection

2008-06-10T23:09:00.007+08:00

I just don't know what's wrong with my internet connection.

I can't log on to any websites related to MSN, which means Hotmail, Spaces and Messenger. I can't log on to AirAsia's website, which is currently kinda important to me, and sometimes I can't even log on to search engines like Yahoo.

Potong stim.=.=|||

It has been days....Since I came back from KL. Let me count it.

Thursday itself, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

It recovered on Monday. Yippee yeah yeah for me!

And who expects it to come back again.

Sigh.....

Sigh....

I really hate being unable to log in to MSN or go to pages that I really need to browse.

Argh.Oh ya....and troubleshooting is practically USELESS when it comes to this problem...

Streamyx's fault? Or my computer itself?

Anyone experienced this before?

Solutions anyone?

Okay let me bring in some shoots for a better picture....

This is the 'perfect look' of AirAsia's website....cool huh....browsing and still browsing after 30 minutes... It took me to Ask.com for my spaces....cool as well! How many times do I have to see this???
Why can't Internet Explorer just display the freaking webpage???

Great class!!!

2008-06-10T21:58:00.003+08:00

Had a few things lining up for me today.

Met some people, and received a call from Clark Hatch.

There's a class replacement for me, today, 1800hrs.

Woah....so instant. Anyway, luckily I'm free, it's just that I have to sacrifice Brandon's Pump class to earn the extra ringgits.

Yup, I said yes.

So after having lunch, I went back to prepare the tracks that I will be teaching. Not being really serious actually, as I can't figure out why I feel so sleepy.

So it's time to leave for my 1st class off Fitness First. Kinda nervous.

I reached there ngam ngam on time. With quite a lot of ladies waiting for me. They were chit-chatting, and they were in the studio without a step board.

A huge question mark popped out in my mind. Aren't I teaching BodyStep? Or are they aware that they're going to attend a replacement class of BodyStep? Or they're just here coincidently to attend a group exercise class without knowing what is it? Does this gym even has step boards??

Weird. Very weird.

The manager did not bring me around and expected me to know how to operate the whole sound system, and everything. The sad thing is, I couldn't get it to response and cooperate with my MP4. After much struggling, I asked the class to take a step board each and I ran down to the reception to ask for help. That is when I heard some lady saying "Harr....we're goinna use the step board?" *Bingo*!

After getting the sound system work(do you know how many switches they actually have=.=), I realized that they don't have a mic!! Holy god......what a great news.

Without further ado, I continued my class. I introduced myself and get the music started. And yup, as I expected, they're not used to BodyStep at all. Maybe what they usually do is FunStep, or what I heard after class AeroStep, something not as confusing as what I taught. Aiks, this may be though, and it may not. (Cause they won't know if I do any mistakes>.<) Well, some of them could follow, but most of them not, as they don't really understand my cues. And people standing further behind might not be able to hear what I'm staying. I had to shout throughout the whole class. It was quite humid in the studio too, which makes me wonder if I'm the person in responsible to switch on the aircon?

Too much questions....too many things to concentrate on. I sweat like hell after 2 tracks. And I skipped 2 tracks too.....Aights, naughty me. But the class looked really really tired and I know I had to do lots of low options and simple moves, and cutting down tracks seemed to be a good choice. :P To my surprise, there were quite a lot of people in the classes, some of them even walked in after warm up track. But more than a quarter left when I was about to finish the class.=.=

It was okay I guess. At least I don't feel that pressured.

After that, I had to rush back to FF. Before I leave, I saw the purple girl--Natasha! Yea, we had a lil chit chat and I just have to go....It has been a long time since we met each other, and she still loves purple! Haha....she said she missed jam and the people there back in FF too!

So I reached FF near to 1920hrs. Just in time, got my step board, changed and it's time to enjoy the class!

And you know what, this is what I meant by a GREAT class~

Brandon started with BS50, which has a really nice track 1 *One Day In Your Life*, and did the full class really really well. With all those powerful tracks, great music, interesting couaching and all....

I enjoyed his class. After so long not attending other's step class, I really feel glad that I did not miss this.(Well, I nearly missed it because I felt my leg aching after teaching in Clark Hatch). It was an energetic and good one, and it had me learnt a lot. I bet everyone in the class enjoyed it too.

And yea, my mood got much better after attending the class. Step makes me feel ALIVE! hoho....

So this is the great class I wanted to blog about, not the one I taught in Clark Hatch la(although I talked about that more)...hehe

One day, well, one day......I wanna have my own great class:D

The weekend

2008-05-31T23:59:00.011+08:00

I had a real tiring Saturday.

At first, I had quite a nice sleep, that should be a good thing.

Then I left the house with Kim at about 12 something. She dropped me at 1-utama to catch Rapid KL to go to KLCC. It seems that there are no direct bus from here to KLCC and I had to switch buses in KL Central. Fine then.
But the first bus I'm taking is travelling from one end to another, meaning 1st stop 1-utama and last stop KL Central. Which means it will be a one hour plus journey.

Sien nia......

Okay, so I was half scenery-looking and half book reading. And wondering how good will it be if I have my own car or even just a motor to transport myself around! There are so many shops that I would like to drop by, or maybe just some window shopping.
I reached KL Central around 1345hrs. And stood there waiting for the next bus.

The weird thing about a bus stand is there's no seats at ALL! How pathetic could that be.....well, although I'm not carrying anything heavy but still, sitting while I wait is definitely much more comfortable than standing. Without knowing what is the frequency of the bus, I just waited blindly. One by one buses passed by, some of the bus numbers even repeated twice or thrice! But patheticly, not the bus I wanted to take.

Till its about 1415hours, I just couldn't wait and I decided to take the LRT. Who expects to see the bus pass by when I was on my way up the escalator. Argh....quickly I rush my way down back to the waiting line, and thank god I got in to the bus. Well, most of the people must have wondered why not I just take the LRT since it's going the same way? here is the stupid answer, I'd rather forgo my time for cheaper fares, which means if I take the bus it'll only cost me RM2 to and fro, whereas if I take the LRT the cost will be doubled up. Stupid me huh....

Okay so I reached KLCC at a few minutes pass 3. Much much much later than the time I expected. And guess what, I took freaking 3 hours to go from Damansara to KLCC! Yay...just equivalent to the journey from KL to Bukit Merah maybe....=.=

When I entered the mall, I could hear pretty clearly voices of people screaming. Just like you're on the roller coaster. Weird. So as I approached nearer to the center hall, I saw loads of people around the stage at the Canon Camera Exhibition Corner. So there must be some celebrity visit. Wondering who is it, I hopped up and down. As if I could see anything with my height=.= Haha....so I managed to hear something from their conversation with the emcees. So its Farenheit, so called 4 entau ba-s from Taiwan. Just for fun, I tried taking photos of them. But as I said, with my height, its pointless. A lot of people actually asked the Canon worker who was stading at a higher platform to take a photo for them. Haha....and I did that too.

See those cameras trying to take a shot of them? Beh tong nia....

So I'm not any big fan of them, no point waiting and squeezing there, with no outcome. Moreover I guess I'm too old to catch up with these activities. I went down to RotiBoy to buy my brunch. Two RotiBoys for RM3.60. Not cheap. Anyway, it was hot and nice. When I came up, the crowd was still there and the celebrities are about to leave. They left through the escalator and bravo...with all the girls trying to touch them or whatsoever, the side mirror of the escalator broke down. Aih....kesian nia.....

I moved on to the exhibition. There were more people today as compared to last Wednesday. And I got myself pretty much cheap books. Well, all of the books are on at least 20% discount. And you even have some of the cool books under hot promotion at only prices below RM20. I walked around, browsing through section by section in detail. In the end, the bill totalled up to nearly RM170(that's only for the chinese books section). O.O Fuyohhh.....got myself a shock too...

That's not all. I got myself some stationery, some stamps and bottles of perfume too.....haha.

hoho....my books..........

Some screen shots of the exhibition...not taken by me though....I was too concentrating on the books

Was eager to buy the collectibles and merchandise of Beijing Olympics 2008. But it was too expensive. Aih, i just love the adorable mascots, but too bad I had to give it up.

Hahahaa...don't they just look adorable?

There were even some packet food and drinks(like green tea and wong lou kat?) on sale. A lot of idea gifts at huge discounts too....$$..$$ No money la....

And I don't really have enough time to look through every single booth and section. Too bad. Before I could move on to the English Section, it's already 2000hrs. I had to leave or else I might reach home by, midnight?

Okay, headache comes again. How should I go back? Will it be another 3 hour journey? I hope not....aights.

Wanted to take the bus. Didn't know where to wait and the guard asked me why not just take the LRT. Well, true. I don't have much time to waste. So I went to buy the LRT ticket, and it cost my RM1.60. Stupid me, why didn't I just take the LRT this afternoon since it is cheaper and faster?

Then I took a bus and it dropped me at the road junction to the curve. Which is like 10 mins driving distance from Kim's house? And unfortunately they are not around that area which means I need to walk back home? And that was already 2130hrs? Oh, tiring. And I had lots of books in hand!

What to do.....wanted to ask for a taxi. But it seemed they're all reluctant to go into Damansara Perdana. And when I asked how much they charge to go to the nearest LRT station, to my amaze, RM30!

Hell of a fortune.

I walked. With all the weights. This should be good training huh....I reached home, sweaty. 2210hours.

Okay, had to contact Kim. No choice but I need to trouble them to get to the LRT or else I'll miss the last LRT.

Did I mention why I had to go to the LRT? Yeah, because if I overnight at Kim's place I would have to wake up 5am or probably earlier the next morning to go to KLCC as my first class starts at 8am. So I'd rather go back to Taman Melati where there's direct LRT to KLCC.

0020hrs. The next morning. I haven't had dinner.

Amazing huh.....

It's a real real real tiring day, I even got frustrated at times. Trust me. Living in KL without your own vehicle ain't fun.

I gotta sleep. Workshop tomorrow!!!

2nd Class in MML

2008-05-30T23:38:00.001+08:00

Went to college but not to lecture. Just to use the internet and blog a lil.

After lunch, my friend dropped my to KLCC and I took the LRT to head to Bangsar LRT station, again.

There were really a lot of people behind the ticket machine, and the counter. You could actually see the whole hall of people lining up for tickets. So that means I have no choice but to do the same thing too. Since I don't have small change, I had to queue up at the main counter line. It took me at least around.....20 minutes? to get my ticket. Phew, and I forgot to mention that I was carrying quite a heavy luggage with me. The ticket cost me RM2.

Well, that's not big deal. After I reached Bangsar LRT station, since I have enough time from my class, I walked opposite and tried waiting for the bus to Damansara Heights again. I managed to catch up with the correct bus number, but the driver said that I need to walk opposite to get a bus to KL central before I can get another bus to Damansara Heights.

What??? That was the first word which came into my mind after getting the instructions.

Sigh, and feeling a lil tired, I walked back opposite with my bag and everything to catch a bus to KL Central.

Yup, and to make things better, it was raining cats and dogs at that time.

The distance between Bangsar and KL Central was not too far. And the waiting time for the next bus was thankfully not too long. But....there's still a but, the bus driver this time was really rude. As though he can't speak nor smile, he just stared and nod when I asked him questions. The worse part is when he used he hands to block me when he saw me walking pass the back door of his bus thinking that I'm going to get up from there. "!!" What kind of attitude is this.....

With such a person, I know I had to stay alert throughout the journey in the bus as I will never know when will I reach Damansara Heights. When I saw quite a lot of high-rise office towers, I panicked and asked the passenger beside me whether we're already at Damansara Heights. And when he say Yes, I quickly pressed the stop button and got off the bus. The buildings are all on the opposite side of the road. When I saw the word MenaraManulife RHB, I almost fainted. It seemed to be quite far from where I am now. And yea, I don't have an umbrella!!

So I did A LOT...and I mean REALLY A LOT of walking. Under the rain, and with a luggage and a laptop in my backpack. What a great idea huh.....After that much walking and when I reached MML, I saw the same bus I took passing by just right in front of the building. "SHOOT ME!" I was ALL wet by then......

After I dry up myself, I began revising my choreo. I was at the member's lounge, and all of a sudden a very weird big sized with messy beard guy approached me. He does not look appealing at all, in fact I could use the term, scary. He initiated a conversation by asking whether I'm still studying(that's because I had some script in front of me), and when I said no he just continued asking more questions. Like....erm then what are you doing, you still look very young, where will you be studying in the future, why do you choose to go there, isn't local institutions good enough....Blah blah blah there it goes....I had no choice but to turn off my MP3. He got so excited till he brought himself to his old time stories..his experience going to China, how are the people here and there...and blah blah....I can't even be bothered! I just wonder how nodding could make him feel that I'm interested in whateva crap he's saying! I'm not even giving any other response! Argh....and there goes more...he loves food, what food does he take in the mornings, what does he likes about Malaysia.............
OkAY! Enough is enough...I need to keep on staring at my watch to indicate that I'm in a rush to prepare for my class! At last, I managed to get RID of him. Oh ya, and before I step away from the table, he asked again, "So what's my name..?" Oh dear....thank goodness his name is easy enough to remember! Damn....he just spoilt the beauty of the name, Jaffrey(or whichever way you spell it). I need to stress that he looked even worse than Osama??

Yeah, trust me. So I escaped and had some time in the changing room instead, listening to the songs. Hopefully I could do well in class later.

It's time. I introduced myself and there was a member further behind asking where is Kim. After I explained she just nodded and gave me the facial expression of dissatisfaction. I'm goinna be stressed out....!
It was supposed to be okay, until the members felt bored on the way I coach? Aiks....I don't really know how to explain. One by one walked out until there was only down to 4 members in the class. That is totally BAD. Oh ya and did I mention that the freaky guy entered the class as well? And walked out after Track 8 announcing to the whole class that he's tired and he needs a break? Should I feel thankful or what? He made some weird noise throughout the class and clapped when he feels like it. And if you think things were not worse enough, my MP3 kong-ed off in the middle of party track. BAD. I didn't realize that the adapter wasn't really plugged on and there it goes. Embarrassing moment. Ah.....
Well, I should be glad that there are still "survivors" I call when I did the cool down track.
Sob Sob Sob......
So I did communicate with the members after I finish the class. They were quite friendly actually. I don't mean those who walked out from the class la of course....So I shall work harder I suppose.

So the freaky guy was still sitting at the member's lounge after the class. That means I should avoid getting close to that area or to even get a drink. Fine then, I went straight to shower.
Who expects him to still be THERE when I came out from the changing room??? Bad day.....
And he wanted to talk to me again! Ah....okay okay...I'm leaving I'm leaving and I gotta go...Just have to be mean. When things are not in the correct place.

Good thing is, I can actually online in MML! Say yeah! But I had to leave not long after I log on as Kim was there to pick me up. So we went for dinner and head back to the office. It was Jerrican's birthday yesterday and Kim bought him a pandan cake and all of us sang birthday song to him after he ended his class, 2200hrs. A surprise for him! After sharing out the cakes, we went back home.

Long long day.....what am I goinna do tomorrow? Hopefully I can indulge myself with some better activities?
Hopefully.

Free day~

2008-05-29T23:45:00.000+08:00

Thursday.

Again, we stayed at home until it's time for lecture. 1330hrs. And again, I didn't have any proper lunch before I leave. Hopefully I can stand it.

Lecture was pretty boring, with the lecturer trying to joke and be funny, and with the same topics that we'd learnt before during diploma. Aih, and we don't have any notes nor manuals. There were not enough seats in the lecture hall, so most of us had to share seats. Felt sleepy after awhile. Tried to online but there was no connection in the hall. Boringgg........and I'm starting to feel hungry.
Luckily, lecture ended before 1530hrs.

Tried to find my way to the canteen. It was raining by then. A lot of people were there. Most of them packing food for dinner. The economic rice could be considered very cheap, 3 dishes with rice for RM1.90 and 4 dishes with rice for RM2.20. They had quite a huge choice of dishes to choose from too. The other stalls sell pretty affordable food, fried rice or noodles, and even western food.

So after late lunch, I headed to the library. I heard it has 6 storeys. Wow.......
There was a hot-spot area for students to go online, either with our own laptops or their desktop. However, you can't log on to MSN with their desktop. I could detect the network, but didn't manage to connect to it. Wierd......got frustrated after trying for quite awhile, gave up and used the public computer instead.

1700hrs. My friend finished class and brought me back home. Another condominium. Same developer as the first one I'd been to, just that this was built earlier. Same design, same land area. We chat and updated each other on some latest issues. It has been a long time since we had such a talk. Till its dinner time.
We went to Carrefour, and had dinner in Mr Teppanyaki. The food was not bad, quite big portion too....After I bought myself a pair of new sandals and some grocery shopping, I went to my previous home, PV10 and move to this condo, PV5.
Thanks to my friends and ex-classmates for bringing me around these 3 days.:D

Ok, sleep time!
I have a class to teach tomorrow!