Sunday, April 27, 2008
I'm annoyed
I'm annoyed that I have a class test and a presentation due this Wednesday.I'm annoyed that I have an assignment due this Friday.
I'm annoyed that because of the choir trip to Singapore, I will have to finish my assignment by Wednesday; the day of my class test and presentation.
I'm annoyed that none of my friends in Singapore bothered to reply me if they're free to meet up while I'm down there.
I'm annoyed that I busted my ass off to start an a capella group, had my hopes raised during the auditions, spent another 10 hours over the weekend practicing only to be rejected because we were deemed inappropriate for a Battle of the Bands.
I'm annoyed that the poster merely said "Monash Street Carnival auditions" and nothing about bands.
I'm annoyed that if I had been contacted on Saturday morning like I was promised rather than Monday morning like what actually happened, I would have saved the aforementioned 10 hours of my (our) time.
I'm annoyed that the 20 hours or so I spent forming and practicing with the a capella group could have been used to prepare for said assignment, class test and presentation.
I'm annoyed that after busting my ass off and having my hopes dashed, I discovered that there was in fact a separate category for non-band performances at the Street Carnival yesterday that almost nobody was informed of.
I'm annoyed that I couldn't draw up enough courage to confront that person who rejected us because I sort of consider him a friend.
I'm annoyed that I couldn't draw up enough courage to confront another different person that for some weird, inexplicable and unknown reason consider me a friend.
I'm annoyed that because of said assignment, class test and presentation, I'm missing two choir practices today, and possibly the one tomorrow.
I'm annoyed that my brother had to shower just when I wanted to, and that my dad had to shower just after my brother finished.
I'm annoyed that I have this bloody painful headache dogging me since I woke up this morning.
I'm annoyed that the bloody painful headache is slowing my assignment, class test and presentation work.
I'm annoyed that I'm annoyed enough by the bloody painful headache to blog about these annoyances.
So, thank fucking goodness for Ben's Bitches, crazy friends,
Pointless Fact of the Day:
I'm annoyed that I'm not any good at eating contests. Also, I promise that my next post won't be as annoying as this.
Zhen was here at 9:15 pm,
4 comment(s)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Where there's lots of things to do
20th April 2008 - MNSM Zoo Negara Volunteer Trip
As a departure from the usual "Let's visit somewhere and get dirty and have mindless fun" (no I'm not referring to sex), MNSM organised a volunteer trip to Zoo Negara last weekend. 45 of our members could be spotted cleaning up the zoo compound, performing activities which ranged from washing cages, raking leaves and waxing (really!) turtle's shells (turtleshells?). I wish I was helping out at the Reptile section, though, because chelonians are cool.
45 volunteers! One of the few times where everyone turned up.
Getting briefed before everything began.
Instead, I was posted to the big cats section. We had to brush the insides of the cages and everything, as well as rake leaves from the roaming compounds. Boring stuff of which descriptions do not make for good blogging material ("We purposefully piled the leaves with rakes, following up with skillful manipulation of straw baskets to get rid of them methodically"?), so I'll fall back to using good old photos; once again taken by our club photographer, Izuan.
As a departure from the usual "Let's visit somewhere and get dirty and have mindless fun" (no I'm not referring to sex), MNSM organised a volunteer trip to Zoo Negara last weekend. 45 of our members could be spotted cleaning up the zoo compound, performing activities which ranged from washing cages, raking leaves and waxing (really!) turtle's shells (turtleshells?). I wish I was helping out at the Reptile section, though, because chelonians are cool.
45 volunteers! One of the few times where everyone turned up.
Getting briefed before everything began.Instead, I was posted to the big cats section. We had to brush the insides of the cages and everything, as well as rake leaves from the roaming compounds. Boring stuff of which descriptions do not make for good blogging material ("We purposefully piled the leaves with rakes, following up with skillful manipulation of straw baskets to get rid of them methodically"?), so I'll fall back to using good old photos; once again taken by our club photographer, Izuan.
The roaming compound for the tigers. You can't see them because they're crouching. 
Photographic evidence that I did my share of the work...
...and so did other people. Such camwhores, aren't they?
This tiger was really friendly; not a single roar the whole time we were there. But when the other tigers did roar, it sounded like we were in Jurassic Park, what with the booming noise reverberating within the cages and all.
Izuan took this photo when he was at the veterinary section. This is the tail (or lack thereof) of a lioness who accidentally bit it off in a squabble with another lioness.After several hours of volunteer work (nothing too taxing, really), we were allowed to roam the zoo. Just a couple more interesting photos:
Flamingos! The silliest looking bird in the world which automatically makes them one of the coolest in my books.
Tapirs can also be found on the Malaysian Nature Society logo. Seems like environmental NGOs have a predilection towards black-and-white animals as mascots, e.g. WWF with its panda.
Giraffes, aka the animal which gives amateur artists splitting headaches when drawing them in weird angles.
Try drawing this without a picture aid.
Elephants can't jump, y'know.
Striped hyenas look nothing like the spotted ones you see in The Lion King. They're much larger than I thought they would be, too.
Check out this hyena pup! Awww... Soooo cuuuuuute...And finally, a picture of a gaur to bid you adieu.
"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?"If you got that reference, I'll give you a virtual cookie.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
I wanted to write about blue flamingos, but then they are as real as red herrings.
I don't know which is more distracting.Red herrings are rather useful to distract and mislead people, especially in the first Monkey Island game. For those of you who didn't play the game (you should!), here's a couple of screenshots:
Guybrush steals a fish from a seagull (which has already flown away).
A troll blocks Guybrush from crossing a bridge...
...which can be appeased by paying it its toll.The first time I played the game (I remember it well, I was still in Singapore and just a week or two away from leaving my hostel for good), I got stuck at this puzzle for almost two hours. Fear the fiery fish.
I actually went back to play the game just to get those screenshots. Not that I mind, though, Monkey Island is a classic. Anyone who wants the game (I have Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle, too), just bring your thumbdrive and ask me for it. It can even fit in an e-mail; it's less than 5 megs in size! That's the pros of playing a game released in 1990.
Isn't it interesting how I went from flamingos to Monkey Island? It's the work of the herring, I tells ya!
Zhen was here at 1:51 am,
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
"Oh well"
"Oh well." I've gotten used to saying that quite often these days. Whenever the tiniest little thing goes wrong, or when shit hits the fan, a lot of times I find myself exclaiming, "Oh well."
When I lost my pencil box at the Monash Ball last year along with my thumbdrive and the half-completed assignment in it; "Oh well."
When I drove my car into the back side of a truck, denting the MyVi's red hood; "Oh well."
When the ex sent me a Dear John-ish e-mail from California; "Oh well."
Yesterday, two more came my way. First, I was told that the a capella group I had just recently formed for this weekend's Monash Street Carnival was deemed inappropriate for the carnival's Battle of the Bands, despite the posters merely saying "Monash Street Carnival auditions". I wonder what happened to the dance group that auditioned before us. Although I had invested somewhere around 15 to 20 hours in this project, from acquiring scores to transcribing songs with my non-existent musical training, this turn of events elicited only an "Oh well" from me.
Secondly, the results of the Film Studies assignment I was speaking of were returned to me. Normally, I'd be overjoyed with the High Distinction, but knowing that there were three people who got 98/100 made me a little unsatisfied; I did an obscene amount of research for a simple assignment, and while some have told me not to be so kiasu about it, it was difficult to lay this issue to rest until I've seen the papers that received almost perfect marks.
But then I said my "Oh well"s and all was fine with the world again. You see, to me "Oh well" marks the middle ground between optimism and pessimism. You know how people who set their expectations too high often become disappointed when things don't go their way? You're not ensnared by that trap with an "Oh well". It also stops me from being a morbidly morose moron moping my days away because of an insignificant pothole in the highway of life (dig that metaphor, suckers!).
Thus, the "Oh well" is the ultimate (as far as I know) ambivalent stance anyone can adopt. It's equidistant from both the positive "Hell yeah!" and negative "Bloody hell!", and sure beats the apathetic "I don't care" any time.
Until next time... Oh well.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Just two little announcements here today. The Monash Street Carnival is going to run from 12pm to 12am this Saturday. There will be carnival and water games, inflatables (not dolls) and even a bull-riding machine! The afternoon will be filled with performances by in-house Monash bands, while at night Ben's Bitches (whoooo!), DragonRed and Bus Company will be working the crowd. It's going to be huge, so be there and join in the fun!
Take not of the phrase "Free Entrance "Larh"". "Larh" is what happens when you let international students spell Malaysian slang. I found it highly amusing.
Second announcement: I'm going down to Singapore from the 1st to 4th of May. I'm not sure if any of the friends I made in Singapore still read my blog, but I'm free on the night of Saturday the 3rd. Anybody wanna meet up?
Well, I know this isn't that much of a PFotD entry, but oh well.
When I lost my pencil box at the Monash Ball last year along with my thumbdrive and the half-completed assignment in it; "Oh well."
When I drove my car into the back side of a truck, denting the MyVi's red hood; "Oh well."
When the ex sent me a Dear John-ish e-mail from California; "Oh well."
Yesterday, two more came my way. First, I was told that the a capella group I had just recently formed for this weekend's Monash Street Carnival was deemed inappropriate for the carnival's Battle of the Bands, despite the posters merely saying "Monash Street Carnival auditions". I wonder what happened to the dance group that auditioned before us. Although I had invested somewhere around 15 to 20 hours in this project, from acquiring scores to transcribing songs with my non-existent musical training, this turn of events elicited only an "Oh well" from me.
Secondly, the results of the Film Studies assignment I was speaking of were returned to me. Normally, I'd be overjoyed with the High Distinction, but knowing that there were three people who got 98/100 made me a little unsatisfied; I did an obscene amount of research for a simple assignment, and while some have told me not to be so kiasu about it, it was difficult to lay this issue to rest until I've seen the papers that received almost perfect marks.
But then I said my "Oh well"s and all was fine with the world again. You see, to me "Oh well" marks the middle ground between optimism and pessimism. You know how people who set their expectations too high often become disappointed when things don't go their way? You're not ensnared by that trap with an "Oh well". It also stops me from being a morbidly morose moron moping my days away because of an insignificant pothole in the highway of life (dig that metaphor, suckers!).
Thus, the "Oh well" is the ultimate (as far as I know) ambivalent stance anyone can adopt. It's equidistant from both the positive "Hell yeah!" and negative "Bloody hell!", and sure beats the apathetic "I don't care" any time.
Until next time... Oh well.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Just two little announcements here today. The Monash Street Carnival is going to run from 12pm to 12am this Saturday. There will be carnival and water games, inflatables (not dolls) and even a bull-riding machine! The afternoon will be filled with performances by in-house Monash bands, while at night Ben's Bitches (whoooo!), DragonRed and Bus Company will be working the crowd. It's going to be huge, so be there and join in the fun!
Take not of the phrase "Free Entrance "Larh"". "Larh" is what happens when you let international students spell Malaysian slang. I found it highly amusing.Second announcement: I'm going down to Singapore from the 1st to 4th of May. I'm not sure if any of the friends I made in Singapore still read my blog, but I'm free on the night of Saturday the 3rd. Anybody wanna meet up?
Well, I know this isn't that much of a PFotD entry, but oh well.
Zhen was here at 9:51 am,
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Monday, April 14, 2008
If you're bored... Part Deux
If you're bored... Here's a really good webcomic for you, Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida. According to the good people over at Wikipedia:
I hope I didn't need permission to link all that. Anyway, Ishida's been updating almost daily since 2000, so if you're really bored you can spend around five hours reading all 2,777 (as of today) strips.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Proton cars are more well-known than you thought. Well, they used to be, at least in the UK. In the Mr. Bean episode "Tee Off Mr. Bean", the eponymous Bean hit a golf ball up the exhaust pipe of a Proton Saga, or MPi as the Brits called them. Oh, you gotta love them silly Brits.
That's our good friend Bean in the back there, if you haven't realised.
The subject matter of Sinfest is often human nature, with particular attention paid to sexuality and religion. Less frequently, the strip will parody popular culture or indulge in political commentary. There are some recurring types of strip, such as "You Had to Be There" (where the reader is not told what the characters are discussing), "Japanese Calligraphy" (where one of the characters transforms over four panels into a kanjiideograph, usually related to the strip in some way.), "Porn Script Readings" (where Monique and Slick read porn star dialogue in deadpan style, except for once where they used flash cards for a Silent Film reading) and "Ninja Theatre" (where the characters take on the roles of heroes and villains in a martial arts movie). Though there is little in the way of overarching story in Sinfest, the central characters do undergo continual development.Among characters such as Monique, Slick, God, Jesus, the Devil, and Buddha, there's a cat-and-dog pair named Pooch and Percy who are just too damn cute. They're especially cute in the following strips, resulting in my sudden urge to show it to everyone.
I hope I didn't need permission to link all that. Anyway, Ishida's been updating almost daily since 2000, so if you're really bored you can spend around five hours reading all 2,777 (as of today) strips.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Proton cars are more well-known than you thought. Well, they used to be, at least in the UK. In the Mr. Bean episode "Tee Off Mr. Bean", the eponymous Bean hit a golf ball up the exhaust pipe of a Proton Saga, or MPi as the Brits called them. Oh, you gotta love them silly Brits.
That's our good friend Bean in the back there, if you haven't realised.Zhen was here at 7:32 am,
1 comment(s)
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
April showers bring May flowers...not
March and April showers bring much annoyance to one and all; I've lost count the number of times I stayed back in Monash until 8pm just because it rained too damn heavily at my usual leaving time of 5pm. That's what you get for living in this part of Malaysia, I guess. On the bright side, it isn't as hot here compared to the rest of the country (like Melaka, which I returned to last weekend for Cheng Beng).
Anyway, I've already finished two major assignments that were due last week, thank goodness. Hopefully good grades will come my way, especially for the Film Studies one I wrote on Napoleon Dynamite. It'll be slightly lighter this week with no major activities coming up this weekend.
Speaking of activities:
22nd March 2008 - MNSM Dark Cave Trip
The Dark Cave is this cave that's one of the Batu Caves, and MNSM had a trip over to that place. There was a lot of walking, quite a bit of wiggling through crawlspaces barely a feet high and a hell lot more waiting around because we had a group of 40 people. Of course, after doing some spelunking, it's a crime not to get dirty. Time for some photos (courtesy of Su Ying)!
Anyway, I've already finished two major assignments that were due last week, thank goodness. Hopefully good grades will come my way, especially for the Film Studies one I wrote on Napoleon Dynamite. It'll be slightly lighter this week with no major activities coming up this weekend.
Speaking of activities:
22nd March 2008 - MNSM Dark Cave Trip
The Dark Cave is this cave that's one of the Batu Caves, and MNSM had a trip over to that place. There was a lot of walking, quite a bit of wiggling through crawlspaces barely a feet high and a hell lot more waiting around because we had a group of 40 people. Of course, after doing some spelunking, it's a crime not to get dirty. Time for some photos (courtesy of Su Ying)!
Top-down view of the entrance.
[Drama]Right at the gates of the dark pits[/Drama]
The ubiquitous Batu Caves monkeys feeling all patriotic.
Into the abyss... You see the hole in this picture? Don't let it fool you; about four metres into the passage we had to crawl through an ultra-claustrophobic tunnel that hugs you on all corners. People have gotten stuck there before, according to our guide.
Because 40 people had to take turns going into that tunnel, we spent a considerable amount of time waiting.
Who the man?
This is a photo taken at the other end of the crawlspace while I was still waiting for my turn to go in.
Cave cockroaches! They eat bat crap.Finally, before I stop talking about the Dark Cave, before and after shots taken by Izuan:
Sebelum.
Selepas.And I'm spent.
4th April 2008 - Monash Cultural Night
I don't have much to say about the Cultural Night, actually. The highlights were the spectacular array of costumes that people came in and a couple of notable performances. Oh, and because I dragged the girl along, too.
I never realised that Elaine was taller than Carrie. Or maybe it's just the angle and the pose...Speaking of the girl, as of yesterday, we've been together for half a year. I know it doesn't sound much to most people but considering that both of us are kinda new to this relationship thing, I must say we're making rather good progress. Here's to many more six months to come, sweetheart.
I gove my lirl.Note: I tried my best to tone done the mushiness. I hope it worked.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
I came across this rather interesting case study in my International Economics textbook (Pugel, 2007) as I was doing research for my assignment. Anyway, do you know what a tariff is? It's a tax imposed on imports coming into a country aka the reason why imported cars are so bloody expensive in Malaysia.
Most countries apply tariffs to certain groups of products, for example, fruits and veggies as opposed to apples and broccoli (mmm... broccoli). Thus, sometimes items are classified really strangely in order to escape tariffs:
- Carrots are considered fruits in the European Union, allowing Portugal to sell carrot jam (I didn't know there was such a thing!) throughout Western Europe without high duties.
- Also, land snails (French escargots) are considered fish in the EU. Friggin' flippin' fish! Because of that, snail farmers get to collect fish farm subsidies.
- In the US, toys that depict humans are known as dolls and are subject to 12% import tariffs. However, in 2003 a judge ruled that although most action figures are dolls, the X-Men (among others) depict nonhuman mutants and thus are subject to the 7% import tariffs imposed on 'normal' toys!
Ah... The stuff you learn as an economics student. It's the silly little things like these that keep me alive in my degree.