Thursday, October 26, 2006

Disposing the Distraction

That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Both my computer and the allure of the internet have forced me to resort to desperate measures to save myself from academic suicide. I shall unplug both my mouse and keyboard for the coming week. Expect me to return on the 3rd or 4th. Goodbye technology, hello luddism.

And hence I part, leaving a haiku (of the 5-7-5 persuasion):

The PC is one
Weapon of mass distraction
I shan't touch for now

Goodnight, folks.

Zhen was here at 2:07 am, 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

This needs no explanation

Zhen was here at 1:18 pm, 1 comment(s)

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Mug like crazy!

M-m-m-m-mug like (until?) crazy!

It's that time of the year again, boys and girls! When men and women alike race against their clocks ticking terrifyingly towards doomsday, when college students consume countless cups of coffee to careen the sleepless nights, when people pitifully ply past year papers with prayers for perfect performance, and when Zhen unnecessarily undertakes the uninspiringly dreadful duty of writing really irrational and annoyingly asinine alliterations!

Yes, people, the evil examinations are just around the corner. Once again, my room turns incredibly messy from the papers scattered about, and stationery lie everywhere.


As usual, public enemy number one is Accounting. I've been sleeping only four hours a day from working on that intensely disliked subject. I already have thoughts of upping the dosage of caffeine from the meek Nescafe to the mighty (but in my opinion overpriced) Red Bull. Tongkat Ali, anyone?


This is where the 'magic' happens (ape nak buat, awek takde). I like the ambience created by my table lamp but unfortunately the light reflects off the graphite from my pencils much too well for my liking. I also have iTunes running on my computer in the background there, probably playing some Beatles music; A Hard Day's Night would be so appropriate, don't you think?


Then there are moments when you get too sick of posting journal and ledger entries that you begin to get distracted. Which happens to me so often that I waste as much time as I spend studying... Still, heroes in a half-shell, TURTLE POWER, yeah!

However, as I take the current circumstances and conditions into consideration:
  1. Very messy room
  2. Very many long, sleepless nights
  3. Very little sleep
  4. Verily vilifies very vexing vocation (even more annoying alliterations, Batman!)
  5. Very easily distracted
Wait, don't these things already apply to me all the bloody time?

*Sigh*


I guess it's typical for people in university. In any case, I hope I don't get bitten by the bug to blog for the next two weeks, so hopefully this will be my last post until after the finals. To all of you taking exams in one form or another, good luck, aiiiiiiite? And to muh bruthahs and sistahs a Happy Deepavali and Aidilfitri to y'all. Peace out, yo. Woooord.

*Cue obnoxious rap music, like those on Darren's blog*

Zhen was here at 10:54 am, 10 comment(s)

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Sastera Melayu (dan Inggeris)

I really don't understand how - or why, for that matter - all this talk about our Form 4 and 5 Komponen Sastera Melayu started. First, someone posted a comment in the tagboard about Konserto Terakhir, followed by Sabor, then Puteri Gunung Ledang, and even The Necklace from our English Literature Component...

However, these taggers are obviously loyal readers (*Grin*), so I've prepared a gift for them weirdos:

Hang Tuah takes out his jambiah, intending to stab Mathilde Loisel
who became insane after Othman was killed in Bukit Kepong

I don't have a scanner, my camera sucks, and my Photoshop skills doubly so. Blame the quality of the drawing on these!

In any case, if you want the full transcript of the tags which led to this drawing, click on the comments section below this post. This is for posterity's sake, when all those tags get wiped out.

Even so, I'd really like to know why it amuses you guys so much, flooding my tagboard like that...

EDIT: Hang Tuah's back is supposed to be facing towards you... Testament of the mediocrity of my "art".

Zhen was here at 11:51 pm, 1 comment(s)

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Pictures of the Affair

Here's a few pictures taken during the Malaysian Affair concert thanks to Yin and her friends. The resolutions are pretty lousy, though.

(Some of) The jantans

The YKLS in all its glory, during the first half

Since I always forget to bring magazines to read,
this is what I do during the breaks between songs

Sometimes, we'd camwhore. Balqis here is a six footer! Leonard,
on the other hand, has eyes that glow green

Second half, singing our Bujang Lapok (Old Bachelors) song!
The three in front are the aforementioned bujangs.

To quote Johnny Bravo: "Who's that handsome guy?!"

The dancefloor at the cast party. This is
the only picture with me in it...

And I'm spent. Sadly, that's all the good pictures that I have. The rest are all super-blurry and have terrible lighting (no flash allowed), so I won't waste Blogger's bandwith with them. So there, people!

Zhen was here at 6:34 pm, 2 comment(s)

Monday, October 16, 2006

A short, Noiresque rant

I got up from an unfulfilling sleep, finding myself lying on a familiar bed in a familiar darkness. The only thing unfamiliar to me then was an annoying ringing in my head, like those you'd wish the construction boys next door would stop. I began massaging my temples with the hope that it'dd go away. It didn't.

With tired eyes I groped in the darkness for the clock on my study desk. 3AM.

Why am I even awake at such an ungodly hour?, I asked myself. I slept enough last night...

Then I remembered the bouts of lethargy I experience these days. Out of nowhere, slumber would suddenly stretch her arms out to enfold me; I had always obligingly let her caress me with her soft, reassuring touch. Always.

Still, sleeping is a nagging problem whenever I wake up and discover that there's work to be done.

I put the clock down and flipped the switch on a table lamp. Stupid thing to do; the sudden change from dark to light forced me to squint and drove the ringing to go up a few notches. With the dim brightness of the lamp, I inspected my study desk. A papery mess with an assortment of stationery strewn about, as well as a whole bunch of numbers staring back at me like I was an animal at the zoo.

Damn, I thought out loud, again. Accounting revision.

*********

A lot of people keep asking me why I bother with a subject I intensely dislike - hate is such a strong word - especially since I'm paying upwards of RM 2,500 for this subject. My answer, invariably, was that I had no bloody choice in this matter; it's a compulsory first year subject for Business students in Monash (I'm majoring Economics and most possibly Banking & Finance, by the way).

I've always hated intensely disliked accounting. I've no problems with numbers, though, so I think it may be attributed to the utter ennui of routine and tedium (read: BORING 2 DA MAXX) of transferring numbers from here to there and making sure that everything adds up together.

Adding to this intense dislike is the fact that Monash University indiscriminately forces you to purchase an accounting software called Quickbooks (Student Version, no less) that you must use to complete one assignment. And how much does it cost for a CD of this needless program (at least for non-accounting majors)?

A whopping RM 215!

Shiiiiiiiit. Multiply that with an annual intake of approximately 400 Business students, Intuit Inc. makes about RM 80,000 from poor kids like me every year. And that's just the Malaysian campus! I can already imagine Intuit's CEO grinning evilly in his office as he rakes in the cash from his company's profitable partnership with Monash, as well as numerous other colleges around the world.

"Two billion dollars!"

Incidentally, Intuit Inc. recorded USD 2.0985 billion in revenues for the fiscal year ended July 31 2005. Coincidence?

*~Dun-dun-dummmmm!~*

Yeah, actually it is...

EDIT (9:30 AM): I stayed up until 7:00, when my mom offered to make me breakfast. But I fell back to sleep before I could eat... Slumber is a fickle mistress.

Zhen was here at 3:51 am, 0 comment(s)

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Bitch and Moan...?

I think I'm turning into a woman.

*Cue gasps from readers*

Okay, that's a gross exaggeration. In any case, I've always had this tendency to bitch and moan about everything under the friggin sun. These days, though, I find myself doing a whole lot more of this. Exhibit A: Blogging three times in a week, when I used to update only once in three weeks (sometimes months).

But for this blog post, I think the bitching and moaning is justified... but of course, otherwise I wouldn't be wasting my time doing this in the first place. That, and because I'm utterly bored, I don't want to study, Chea Ean's not online, and I ran out of webcomics to read.

So here's the situation: Back in late July, I decided to join an storywriting contest sponsored by MPH. I've always thought of myself as a somewhat decent writer of stories, considering that back in secondary school - to put it simply - I was better than most. Of course, the delusion was immediately shattered when I went down to Singapore, where almost all the scholars' England very powderfuller than mine. But I decided to join the contest anyway, since a little bit of creativity - which I pride myself on - and luck might actually bag me a prize of some sort. After producing a piece - there's also a story behind this - that I was sufficiently happy with, I submitted it.

Flash forward to today. I went online to check the shortlisted stories:


I didn't see my name anywhere and became extremely disappointed as a result. Then I noticed the following...:


...and became pretty irritated. Two people got shortlisted twice?! Their stories had better be damn good. MPH has yet to display the stories online, so until they do, I have all the right in the world to hate these two authors who filled up four spots on the shortlist (which could've been mine!).

*Bitch bitch bitch moan moan moan*

I actually planned to go full gear into a PMS-like condition, but after letting someone give his unbiased criticism of my story, I came to realise that my writing was actually pretty lousy to begin with. And he was right; the plot and idea was good, but the style bored to tears.

Hence, there is now another item to add to my list of "Things which I am only marginally good at":
  1. Drawing
  2. Singing
  3. Writing (NEW!)
Of course, this list isn't exhaustive as there is a shitload of other things in which my proficiency is sorely unspectacular. But I won't. Let it be summarised that I am a - to use the highly clichéd expression - Jack of all trades, master of none.

Maybe more like Jackass of all trades. Sounds like an appropriate piece of information to place on my business cards. That is, if I ever have the need for business cards.

P.S.: Can someone please tell me how to get accented letters like the 'e's in cliche and Pokemon to work in Blogger?

Zhen was here at 11:16 pm, 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Thicker Than Water

I'm a pretty generous person, when it comes to blood. My first encounter with donation was in August two years ago, back when I was still a student in St. Andrew's Junior College. When the folks from Singapore Red Cross came a-knocking at our school, Alex (my ex-roommate) and I decided to donate*.

When the 'National Blood Transfusion Service' came to Monash last week, Darren (Peck Yun), Andrea (50% Filipino, 25% Indonesian, 25% Dutch, 100% sexy momma), and I (weirdo) felt generous.

Me, Andrea, and Darren's arm

We faced some difficulties at the registration booth, though. Andrea lived in the UK during the Mad Cow Disease (BSE to you Bio freaks) period of 1995 to 1996, and therefore was unable to donate. The nurses didn't tell us if she'll ever be allowed to, though.

They make you look at your own blood
as it is being drawn. How sadistic.


That's Dahlia and Andrea to my right,
looking concerned (Aww)

Now examine the last picture carefully. Notice that the needle did not pierce the middle of my forearm, but rather, through the side. It turned out that the nurse did a botched operation. She claimed that it was difficult to see my veins on my left arm, and as a result accidentally drew blood from my muscle tissue instead(?), which ran out pretty quickly. But since I was feeling especially nice that day (must be the weather), I let her poke me again... In my right arm.

I sure don't look too happy

Well, I can't really blame the nurses, it's not like they purposefully intended to cause me misery. This time around, though, the blood flowed smoothly; the 450ml bag was filled in less than 5 minutes. After that I had to rest for a while before they gave me some refreshments; bread and Milo, to be exact.

The Milo tasted like shit, though. Andrea postulated that it might've been due to the sweet kisses she gave me earlier.

*Cough*

No, this is what I meant:

One of the many reasons I miss
my girlfriend so much

For the record, she actually asked if I "would like some KissesTM". In any case, the sweet, chocolatey goodness of Hershey's KissablesTM must've overpowered the Milo to the extent that I could only taste the malt. Kinda disgusting, but beggars can't be choosers.

Anyway, it's five days on and I can't say that this encounter with the blood bank didn't have its consequences. For one, my body became quite weak after that, causing me to fall asleep in traffic jams while driving (it's dangerous, people!). Secondly, my arms now have bruise-like marks reminiscent of those often found on rape victims:

People ask me about this all the time

Well, that sort of wraps the story up. I was pretty damn free today, and thought that it might be interesting to put this thing up. One last word before signing off:

* In Singapore, the blood bank sends you well-wishing cards every few months or so after you've registered with them, especially on your birthdays. Alex received these cards more often than I do, though; his blood type was A negative which was very rare in Asians. Figures, huh?

So go out there and be generous with your blood, people!

Zhen was here at 6:24 pm, 1 comment(s)

Monday, October 09, 2006

Post Hell Week 2006

Hell Week is over, and I survived! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but a lot sure has happened in a short period of time. So, in order to make this post less taxing a read, I will be truncating a lot of pointless rubbish (like how we approached people to get them to vote) and talk only about interesting pointless rubbish (the drama!).


MUSA Elections Drama
Let me first begin by announcing that the MUSA Elections were chock-full with the kind of drama you might find in a TVB serial, mostly revolving around a certain individual named Daniel Tan, who was running for the post of President in the ACE party (for those who forgot, mine was SPEAK). Daniel made a racist comment on his blog about two months ago, in August, which was later spread round the campus by word-of-mouth and an apparent (I'm not sure about this) petition initiative by a group of students.

Although I am totally against racism and marginalisation, these matters usually do not concern me, especially since his comment wasn't extremely harsh or controversial. In fact, it was just a typical, uncreative racial slur (hey, if you're going to slander someone, at least do it in style). But on the day of the Presidential Debate, when SPEAK's Dahlia went up against ACE's Daniel, a member of the floor went up to the mic and asked the latter about the aforementioned comment.

Active SPEAK members. I hate the way people always
manage to take blurry pictures with my camera.

So we got Taha to take a picture with
his own camera instead.


Despite the hard evidence being circulated, as well as an on-site laptop accessing the incriminating blog post, in true politician fashion Daniel denied the allegations. Of course, elections of any sort will have their political manoeuvring, so his actions were not surprising. What incited the rage of the entire (by this I mean only the active members; there were asses who simply couldn't care less to help) SPEAK party as well as put us at loggerheads with the rest of ACE (where I have a couple of friends) was Daniel deleting that blog post and later lodging a complaint with the elections committee, accusing us of defamation.

Goodbye friendly competition, hello American politics.

Fortunately, a show cause meeting (whatever that means) with the committee proved fruitful thanks to the large amount of evidence supporting our case, leading to the eventual disqualification of Daniel from presidential candidacy (apparently due to dishonest conduct). Personally, I think that the matter would not have been blown out of proportion had he simply apologised for the comment during the debate. Sadly, he didn't, so I guess it's only right for him to pay for his actions.

Oh, and after that, there was a short period where SPEAK and ACE members were busy finding fault with the other party, complaining to the elections committee about any petty offence of the elections regulations, ranging from campaigning on MSN before campaigning period to buying a soya bean drink outside of campus grounds wearing a campaigning T-shirt. It's stupid and juvenile, but altogether hilariously amusing, really. The elections committee probably thought of us campaigners as no more than little children with fingers a-pointing, tattle-talers of the highest degree.

Considering that we're all university students, it's actually pretty embarassing.

In any case, as of today, Daniel had revamped his blog to remove all evidence (blog posts, visitor comments, etc.) that the entire elections debacle actually occured. Since he bore the brunt of the shit that had occured throughout the week, I guess his final manoeuvre was justified, after all.


YKLS Concert: A Malaysian Affair
Concert was a friggin blast! According to Axcess, as of Thursday we had only sold 57% of the tickets for Friday night and 46% for Thursday night, but Sunday afternoon was sold out (mostly due to the seats we gave out to charity). But when the final hour came, we discovered that the place was sold out completely! For all three shows! Imagine our elation when we came out to sing to people who had spent their hard earned money to sit on the stairs for our show!

Before this, I had thoughts of quitting YKLS next year (after only one semester with them) due to the obscene amounts of driving (or carpooling) required to get to the practice locations (more than 50km every night), but now I am sure that I'll return for another stint there. The experience was just so damn rewarding~

Balqis just had to spoil the shot

The cast party after that was pretty fun, too. It involved the handing out of awards (as voted by YKLS members) of which included categories such as Most Bootylicious, Last Virgin, and Most Jiggiest (I got nominated for this last one!). There were performances by some of the members too.

Needless to say, we created a lot of noise pollution for the innocent people trying to enjoy their meals at Chef & Brew that night. Even the workers there had to stay back late because of us selfish people.

After it was all over, we sang a final, riveting performance of Kenangan Lagenda (a piece from the concert) together before engaging in some dance floor antics. It was then that another member of the choir, who has a background in performance arts, told me that my moves were "Not bad".

*Beams with pride*

For the record, I can't actually dance for nuts, not even my own. My brother (who's really good at it) has especially scathing comments on this subject, so any compliment I receive will be trumpeted to no end.


*Cough*

Let's just say that I'm a pretty happy guy now, okay? And I might post more pictures if and when I get them from any of the other members who don't have shitty digicams.


Accounting Assignment
Gave me less headache than expected... Okay, I admit, I copied got friends' help for almost the entire thing, but I didn't really have much of a choice, what with the concert and elections taking up most of my time. Hey, I leave home at 7.00AM and don't return until 11.30PM, okay?

In any case, I'd like to thank all my Monash coursemates who aided me in the final hours prior to the submission of this assignment. You guys are the bomb!


Conclusion
Umm... Yeah, well, that's about it. Conclusion. Finish! Habis. Thanks for reading.

Zhen was here at 6:00 pm, 3 comment(s)

Sunday, October 08, 2006

I am innocent

Dear readers,

Whether you are here for the first time or you have been a loyal reader, I would like to clarify something.

If you don't know what is happening, please ignore this post.

If you do, You can come to me anytime you see me, look into my eyes, and I will tell you the same thing: "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I have never had an affair with her."

That is all I have to say. Thank you.

PS: Call this a low-blow or hitting a man when he is down or whatever but I couldn't help making this joke. Remember, it's a joke. So restrain those crazy-ass comments!

Zhen was here at 1:58 am, 0 comment(s)

Monday, October 02, 2006

Hell Week 2006

I am officially naming the next seven days of my life the Hell Week of 2006.

Throughout the course of your life, are there times when your workload, be it academic, occupational, or whatevermental, is so much to the extent that suicide (exaggeration here) seems like an attractive alternative to work? For most people, the answer's probably 'yes', and I bet that each one of you have your own definition for these kind of things. I call mine Hell Week. Or Day, or Month (if I ever experience a Hell Year, I won't be surprised if I seriously contemplate suicide).

In my case, at least, these periods are characterised by averaging three to four hours of erratic sleep each night and drastic increases in caffeine intake of up to five or six cups of coffee a day, just so I can squeeze every last bit of energy from my battered body to do whatever work needed completing.

It gets worse, though. Due to exhaustion and extreme boredom (the latter's usually from doing assignments), it takes much longer for my brain to process whatever it is that I am doing. So it's a vicious cycle of:

Some work -> Exhaustion -> Increased processing time -> More time needed to do work

...which is exactly why I'm blogging now; I got tired and bored and now I need to endure an additional hour of sleeplessness. I can hear my conscience screaming at me "OMG u fuking edeot!!" this very moment.

Yes, I do have a very flawed conscience.
"Go 2 hell!"
That's next week, brother.

Anyway, remember the list of commitments I mentioned sometime last month? Here's an updated list:

  1. The Young KL Singers: Concert this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (6th, 7th, and 8th, respectively... duh)
  2. Monash Nature Society: Thankfully nothing on right now... Except that I need to review the society's accounts before it's too late and unmanageable.
  3. Something I'm not supposed to publicise right now Monash University Student Association Elections: More on this later.
  4. Goddamn assignments!: One gigantic one to go, due this Wednesday.
  5. Girlfriend: We're still 15 hours apart...
  6. YDC: This is a new addition! It's not going to take too much of my time at the moment, so I won't talk about it yet.
Regarding No.3, yes people, that was the thing that I wasn't supposed to publicise, lest I break any one of the 21 prohibitions listed under Regulation 37: Prohibited Conduct of the Election Regulations. Yeah, the elections committee is real anal about these things. But now I'm free to appeal to any of you readers from Monash Malaysia to...

VOTE FOR SPEAK!

*Ahem*
I'm a candidate in the SPEAK party/ticket, running for the post of Business Faculty Representative (Male). There's actually no other candidate for that post (apparently there was something wrong with his forms, poor sod) so I got elected by default (yay).

In any case, though, Hell Week will still require my daily contribution to the rest of the party. At the same time (referring back to point No.1) the YKLS concert is this weekend (please come and support!), so I need to head for practices and dress-rehearsals everyday, too. And then there's that friggin' Accounting assignment that annoys me to no end (point No.4) that's due on Wednesday. These three could kill me already... But of course, let us not forget that there's a huge difference between homework/studying and assignmenting; that technically makes it Four Major Pains for my battered body to weather in the coming days.

I just hope I survive relatively unscathed (besides massive eyebags, splitting headaches, sleep deprivation, caffeine withdrawal symptoms, ...), but that's highly unlikely considering the third parties involved. Right now, the Four Major Pains are commitments with interests that, for the most part, clash with one another, e.g. my parents are against the concert and elections taking up so much of my time from academic work, my choir conductor's against the elections clashing meeting schedules and likewise, etc. For a graphical representation, observe the following diagram:

Note: DotA was added for comparison purposes

Examples of how to read the above diagraim: "My parents are against my commitment towards SPEAK", "The YKLS are against my commitment towards SPEAK", "I am against my commitment against DotA" (hint, hint).

Alright, I guess that's enough blabbering for tonight... Wasted a bit too much time for my liking already.

"Jackass!"

Until next time, may I not succumb to suicidal tendencies.

Zhen was here at 12:38 pm, 0 comment(s)