I'm back =)

Since November last year, the world wide web is literally right at my bedside, and I started to disappear from the memories of cybercafe operators. Ironically, I failed to blog even with the existence of internet facilities in my apartment. I’ve been reading, reading, and reading other people’s blogs- whether they are my friends, strangers or even some politicians (actually I did write some, but they ended up as some monalisas in my draft folder). Some are thought-provoking, some are relaxing and sweet. Addictive lar. =p

_

Alright, so I’m now back, typing on my new toy- Dell Inspiron 1420. Err, not that new actually as I got it from PC fair in December. It was quite a bargain, Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, 2GB RAM, with built-in webcam and three years Complete Cover, at just a few bucks over RM 3k._

Meet my dear, Ms. Inspiron.

In January, I was investigated regarding a mobile phone ‘suicide’ case in my apartment. Apparently, the police thought I purposely push my ex- a Sony Ericsson k750, down from my 13th floor balcony. Fortunately, final investigation shown that my ex was just being playful and wanted to try some thrilling sky-jumping.

Sayonara k750.

Just as February last year, we hosted a CNY party at our garden. Well, it was sorta a satay feast with colonel’s chicken barrels plus pizzas, attended by almost all the relatives. As expected, it was filled with classical questions, again. Haha.

In March, both of my parents moved to Shah Alam as daddy got transferred here. Finally, I’m now a local guy. Teehehe. You know, KL peeps are kinda ‘geographicist’; they won’t call you a local, even if you are a Malaysian. To qualify as a local, you must come from the capital or its nearby cities. Oh yea, and the best part of March- my naughty k750 was reborn as a k850 to serve her dear. =)

Morning rush hour- 6.50am, Federal Highway.

Not many of my coursemates are gonna continue studying advanced diploma. Our diploma final paper was on April 26th. Ironically, nothing seemed to be unusual on that day. All we did was wishing each other the usual plain vanilla goodbye. Yea and that was the ending of our whole entire two years of diploma. Pout.

Loneliness chills me.

P.S.: I just came back from my 3D/2N Cameron Highlands class trip. Though it wasn't attended by everyone, but I must say that it was pricelessly enjoyable. Do check out our happy moments here.

Long live 2DFI1. =)

Something I revisited...

I can't believe that I have to do Add. Maths again. People say Chinese are born with a calculator embedded in their brains. Well, I'm an exception. Due to my poor Add. Maths' foundation, I'm obligated to revisit my SPM texts for some practice on certain chapters- from ground zero! Darn.

I found my ex-school's test pad inside. Hm, what a nostalgic practice!

Last fortnight, we spent our day in Ipoh again after my third appointment with dermatologist at Fair Park. We had dimsum, and this time was at Ming Court (Not our usual, Yoke Fook Moon anymore). Gosh, the restaurant was as sardine as the Putra Lrt during peak hour! Just like others, we waited for our seats by standing there. Lol. I wonder why Ipoh folk never get bored with their dimsum.

At Leong Sin Nam Street, too.

I guess it's a taboo to order orange juice in a dimsum restaurant...

They need a point of sales system. Currently you can order 11 plates and might just end up paying for 2 plates. Embedded calculator isn't flawless.

Thanks to our high metabolism, we can eat a lot. We went on for their salted chicken somewhere near Gunung Rapat. It was quite yummy but the place was really hot. Hey, I know sweat is kinda salty, but they don't need it for their that lil soup, ryte? I conclude that their salted chicken was great for take-away, not dine-in.

So much Ayam Garam boxes, it was meant for take-away!

Again, Malaysia will be celebrating its Birthday. Our nation is gonna be 50 year-old, but many of our politicians are still racist and naive. I shall see who should I cast my very first vote to. Hm.

Anyway, Happy 50th National Day to all colour-blind Malaysians.

p.s.: I've watched some great movies/cartoons recently- Simpsons Movie, and Ratatouille. Both were awesome, but Ratatouille was the best and definitely not to be missed. :)

I heart Remy (and cheese)!
_

Suddenly I remember...

...that I've promised to post at least one posting a month. Okay, I'll blog a very very short, picture-less one, because I need a nap after this, plus the biggest reason- today is the dateline for my July posting. =p

It has been a pretty busy month for me and I seriously hope that the next would be a much relaxing one. I must say that I'm a lil frustrated with my team mates who didn't contribute for our group projects. Okay, I know I shouldn't elaborate but I dislike that kinda people. Aha, that's all for now. I need my nap. Really.

Very very short, indeed. *Pfft*

I wasn't even nominated...

I was anticipating the award of 'Best Procrastinating Blogger of the Year'. Unfortunately, I found that this is an unexpectedly competitive award as procrastinating is the norm for many bloggers that practice hibernation. Anyway, here goes the summary of the various things that I've wanted to (but didn't) blog. =p

A) Semester break

Aw, my recent semester break gotta be the longest break i've ever had. It was supposed to be a usual three weeks, but i had five. Thanks to my examination which ended a week earlier and the 'skip-able' first week of Semester 4 with my 'P' licence ('P' for 'ponteng').

Five weeks at home? For some, it might be darn boring, but not for me, especially the weekends. All of my weekends, except one, were spent in outstations. Being a patriot, I cuti-cuti locally. We have set foot on Penang, Ipoh and Ipoh, Cameron Highlands, KL and KL, again. Guess what, I was the one who drove for most of the journeys. The most enjoyable one was the route that leads all the way up to Cameron Highlands. :)

A great place to film 'Cameron' Drift.

As correctly pointed out by my friend who blogs at hiddenmcky, there isn't much 'oomph!' in Cameron Highlands. Nevertheless, it's always fun for me to revisit a place where I've been absent for years.

The Smoke House at Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands.

Cameron Highlands is more than just tea leaves, it also supplies fresh vegetables and fruits for the country. I especially like their unique pearl corns and strawberries. Unlike the strawberry farm which I visited in Paignton, the growers in Cameron Highlands use the hydroponics-way of planting, rather than growing them on earth. Besides that, it also grows flowers for overseas market, which made Malaysia one of the largest exporters of flowers. Hm, I guess these are all the 'oomph' of the highlands. Anymore? I guess no. Sigh, how pathetic. =p
_
B) Being a Cantonese Semi-illiterate
_
I've been watching Cantonese soap dramas since I was a small kid. So I expect myself to converse reasonably well in the dialect. Besides, mixing around with my KL friends has also improved my Cantonese vocabulary in some ways. I know 'Petpet' isn't merely a disposable diapers' brand. I also know that what's the meaning of 'tiu', though I've problem understanding what 'nia seng' means. Despite that, I still found my proficiency below the 'pre-beginner' level. Sigh, here are some of my embarrassing moments of being a Cantonese Semi-illiterate:

i) A few months ago, I thought of ordering a glass of soya bean milk in a food court near my college. Since he asked for order in Cantonese, so I answered "tao sui". He (apparently a foreign immigrant) said "mou!". Then my roomate corrected me that I should call it as "tau ziong". I thought "ziong" means "glue"... Anyway I was wrong. Cantonese is as complex as Mandarin.

ii) Recently, we were having dimsum as dinner in Ipoh, and I asked the waiter for a "zi kan (tissue)", and he gave me a spoon. I thought he was stupid, but he wasn't. I then realised that tissue and spoon have almost the same pronunciation. Maybe I as a Cantonese-stupid pronounced it misleadingly. tsk tsk tsk.

Dimsum at Leong Sin Nam Street.

_
C) May 23rd, the day I became a senior.
_

Time flies and it has been a year since I started my college on the same date, last year. College life has been fulfilling and fun. The things that I've learnt over here are possibly something that I wouldn't have learnt if I studied elsewhere - simply priceless and made me happy with the path that I've chosen.

On the May 23rd this year, I, together with other Course Committees hosted part of the Mass Call orientation programme for our juniors. The enrollment for my course, Finance & Investment, has increased from last year's 92 students to 120 students, but the number of juniors in the lecture hall during the 'Get-To-Know-You Session' that we hosted was far more than that as the students from the course of Banking & Finance were joining us too. The best part? We were the speakers!


The whole session went on pretty smoothly, except for the campus tour, which we were required by the organizer to bring hundreds of them for a tour around the darn huge 186-acre campus! Anyway, it's really sweet knowing that many of them will be reading the map and asking for directions to the lecture halls, tutorial rooms and so on in this transition period of theirs. =p

Lecturer gotta face this if his students couldn't locate the lecture hall.

He lectures alone. He listens alone.
_

Does blog hibernate?

Hibernate. Yea, I'm so sorry to say that my blog did that for quite some time. Lotsa things should be blogged. Nah, perhaps some selected things.

1. Courseworks

Two out of three subjects that I'm having this short semester required us to write our own research papers. I’m not gonna blog about my Finance coursework in order to avoid you from yawning another 3282218 times. For the Principles of Investment's coursework, we travelled around the city to get respondents for our survey on investment instruments. I prepared a 4-page questionnaire and photocopied 100 sets. 20 sets each team member. In order to make our report a little 'extraordinary', I decided to get some foreigners as our respondents. It wasn’t as easy as I’ve initially thought.

I spent one of my evenings in the city centre and only managed to get a handful of respondents. I attempted several tourists who were admiring the scenic KLCC Park. One of my targets, an Indian national, refused to respond to me. Then he said: ‘Sorry, I’m empty-handed. Perhaps you wanna ask from my daughter.’ I was like: Huh? Did I sound like a scammer? Sigh. Btw, I didn’t force him nor explain to him as he was quite unfriendly. That night, I only managed to get 4 respondents - 1 Dutch at KLCC Park, 1 Swedish at Bukit Bintang McDonald, 1 local Indian at monorail station, and 1 Malay barista at Coffee Bean. Yea, the forth respond costs an ice blended. =p

I found that many respondents were afraid of the word ‘investment’ printed on my questionnaire. They thought I was trying to cheat their money with some sorta doubtful investment instruments. So, what to do next? I realized that I have to target those frustrated people who stuck in the queue instead. Toll plaza perhaps?

Hm, I woke up in the next early morning and walked to the LRT station. Nah, I didn’t attempt those commuters who soon gonna be ‘sardinised’ in the crowded train. I headed to KLCC again. Like my previous visit, there were lotsa tourists queuing up for the Skybridge tickets. The queue looked like a long snake and it started some time ago. Apparently, the snake was sorta hungry, it swallowed me and I managed to travelled throughout its intestine, and came out (don’t ask me where) with 10 completed survey forms (2 British, 2 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Swedish, 1 Indian, 1 Venezuelan, 1 forgotten). Each of the questionnaires needs about 5 minutes to complete. The best part of the experience was I managed to chat with them. I respect them for their friendliness which was beyond my expectation. Many of them were retired engineers. There were also a doctor, banker, etc. Perhaps I was too naive to ask the Americans about their political affiliation- I’ve got 1 Republican and 1 political virgin with no affiliation. The samples were analysed and I was the one who wrote the chart-filled 1.2k words research paper, which scored us the highest in the whole course. :)
_

waiting in the peak hour...

_ train approaching... (Oh, btw, my apartment is on the right, isn't that near?)

_ waiting for the train to reach the platform...
_

and the door to open... and 'sardinisation'...

_

My target queuing up for skybridge tickets.
_

The Skybridge tickets allow them to stand here for ten minutes. Hm.
_Gosh, I posted the wrong picture. This is the correct one - The Skybridge. :)
_

2. Taiping

I went back to Taiping recently and I managed to snap some nice pictures of my hometown. It's a peaceful town without a single skyscraper and the shops close either at 5pm or 9pm. It has the country’s oldest fire station, golf turf, lake garden, market, etc. It’s a town that looks virtually the same from the past, without any spectacular changes.

Taiping Clock Tower. Despite being a tower, it is still dwarfed by a nearby small building. It was the country's first fire station.

The local-version of 7-Eleven in my housing area. The owners of this shop are 'Ah Kau' and 'Ah Zu'. Hm, what a matching names. :)

My kindergarten. Durian and Honey Dew were the names of my kindergarten classes. I still remember they gave us doughnuts/biscuits, and milk during break time. I was wondering: why not durian and honey dew juice instead?

My kindergarten's playground. I used to hide inside that. Yea, that blue one, but I never asked my teachers what's its name. Any idea?

In-coming Tesco. Anticipating a more British-like hometown. :)

Pictorial obligatory posting :)

There are lotsa things that I would like to blog about, but I have plenty of excuses for not doing so. Anyway, for the sake of my blog, I guess I have to post something here at least once a month in order to maintain its visitorship.

I’ve just started my second semester of college. Apparently, it’s quite a busy semester. Having no class on Friday is a little consolation for me as the rest of my weekdays are packed with lectures and tutorials. I’m having four core subjects – Quantitative Studies, Fundamentals of Accounting, Macroeconomics, Business Information Systems and Applications. Besides that, It’s compulsory for us to take languages in this semester. I have also enrolled myself in the Gym Workout to claim two credit hours for my co-curricular activity after being pissed off by the First Aid Unit in the first semester. Entering a new semester is something interesting. On the other side, being unable to spend my full time at home for months is something that started to make me feeling unexpectedly homesick. I started to envy my local friends in KL as most of them get to enjoy home-cooked meals and so.

Fortunately, the strong bonds that we have built between family members started to pay off in many ways. We reunite regularly whenever and wherever. Recently, we had a great time as we gathered in KL for several nights during the festive season. I’m now anticipating our family trip in Bangkok next month. :)

Alright, now let me share with you my very first gambling experience at Genting Highlands recently. Um, you don’t have to reread my previous sentence as I’m sure that you didn’t read wrongly. For the very first time, I as an underage entered both of the casinos at Genting Highlands. I’m not sure if I should say I was lucky on that day as I came out from both casinos with my wallet slightly lighter. Although I unintentionally generated some income to both casinos, I would still say it worth the experience that I’ve gained.

Again, something interesting happened unintentionally - I unintentionally attended the ending part of the MNG Fashion Show in KL Convention Centre recently and I saw Amber Chia and several top models in that event. On the same day, someone in the lrt approached me and told me about Iraqis dinar, he said if I invest RM 700+ in the dinar, I would get about RM 150,000 in few years time. If that was real, President Bush, PM Blair and their colleagues would definitely grabbed the deals. There’s no free lunch in this world, especially for man in the street like us. Furthermore, the dinar that he was saying isn’t in metal form or gold. Apparently, he’s a scammer.

Nowadays, reading newspaper could be defined as an action that leads to disappointment on the country. Among the things that I have learnt is that we must never be surprise if a gate-keeper becomes a millionaire locally because of you-know-how. tsk tsk.

I might upload some pictures for this posting soon. Fyi, I’m yawning now. -_-

_

Update: Here you are... I've posted some pictures over here, as an effort to reduce your frequency of yawning while reading my blog. Have some fun. :)

_

A crowd of 'sardines' at Wangsa Maju LRT Station, 7.48am on November 10th. I waited for about 15 minutes in order to squeeze myself into the crowded third train.

Garden landscaping at home.

See, I've added a slice of cheddar cheese into this inferior yet tasty noodle.

Um... just to prove to you that I, as an un-invited guest, really saw Amber Chia in the most recent MNG Fashion Show.

Uh-uh, the cat wasn't up for sale. Apparently, it was shopping for some groceries!

Blogging in college

Blogging in college is something unusual for me so I would like to give it a try and see how it feels like. Well, it's now 6.25pm, a non-peak period in my college and only 30% of the computers are currently being occupied by the students. The air conditioning here at the CIT is damn cold and I wonder how many times I have yawned up to now.

_

The Centre of Communication and Information Technology (CIT)

_

My semester examination is drawing nearer. I'm coping quite well in most of the subjects except for the Introduction to Accounting. There were two reference books listed in our accounting's reading list and our lecturer said the Betsy Li's text is meant for the very beginners so I opted for the another one- which is a more challenging British's text, so now I have to wait until 7pm in order to loan the currently sold-out Betsy Li's text overnight from the library's red-spot division because of you-know-why. Btw, I still reckon that I can cope with it because I'm currently staying with a very soon ACCA-holder and a bunch of senior coursemates.

_

Well, I remember that I did mention in my previous posting that I planned to cut down my reckless spending and drink less coffees. I guess I have to retract what I have mentioned. I'm not going to elaborate it or else my allowance would be cut. Economics taught me that it's not worth elaborating. *smile innocently*

_

Alright, it's time for me to include some patriotic thingy in my Merdeka-eve posting. I love Malaysia and I hope Malaysia loves me too. Again, racial equality and harmony are my Merdeka- wishes for this 31st of August. Happy 49th National Day to all Malaysians!

Updates: July 2006

I met some of my ex-schoolmates in town. We spent three hours chatting in a café. A lot of fun things happened in my alma mater. I'm not going to blog about it but I'm happy that most of my friends are enjoying their life in Lower Sixth Form. I paid a visit to my ex-school on my way back and burnt some extra petroleum by driving around my hometown. No significant change though (except a new 7-Eleven outlet and a rebranded popular cybercafé). I wonder why we got two cinemas in 1990s but none at the moment. Student rate of six bucks per ticket in KL during non-peak hours is so inexpensive. The demand here would be kinda overwhelming if there is a cinema.

_

I've completed my midterm test but another test is coming in two more weeks. I'm now in the process of cutting down my reckless spending (especially on coffees) and also the frequency of my 'metropolitan explorations'. I guess the best solution is to shut down the nearby LRT station (zero percent possibilities).

_

I'm loving my job as the Assistant Course Representative. I'm now trying hard to know all my coursemates because there were several occasions where I couldn't recognize them but they recognized me. LOL! I'm glad that my college has started to spend extravagantly. The management has replaced the old PCs with approximately 200 units of new IBM Pentium 4, all with LCD monitor! Keep it up!

_

That's all for now. I'm going back to KL tomorrow afternoon. Keep in touch.

_

p.s.: FYI, I love home-cooked food!

Introduction to my college life

It has been about 1 month since I started my college on May 23rd. I'm fitting into the new environment surprisingly well and I've learnt many things. Since it's the most populous college, no doubt I've made a lot of new friends. Currently, there are about 92 students in my course and I'm the voted Assistant Course Representative. I'm having four subjects this semester - Introduction to Accounting, Microeconomics, Business Statistics, Business Information Technology and Applications. Most of my lectures are conducted in the new lecture theatres near the student hostel, but it's quite far away from the my School of Business Studies (SBS). Now I realized that my college is really huge. That's why it's important for me to eat more in order to replace the calories burnt. :) I joined the First Aid Unit and I was involved in its fund raising campaign last few days (It's compulsory for us to join co-curricular programmes). It was fun and I also managed to make some new friends. Whee.

_

I'm feeling a little bit stressful right now because my midterm test is drawing nearer. I brought home my Microecons but I still haven't really started my reading. I have been indulging myself with the priceless comforts of home since yesternight. I woke up at noon today as I watched some World Cup matches in the early morning and the weather was really good. Due to my 'tight schedule', I only managed to contact some of my friends by phone, no gathering or something. I'm going back to KL tomorrow afternoon. That's all for now. Hopefully Germany will be the World Cup Champion this time. Will blog more.

Next page - a new chapter

Hey, I'm leaving my hometown really soon to start a brand new chapter of my life - college life. I optimistically reckon it would be as memorable as my previous chapters. Many thanks to people around me all these while. You've made my life much better-off. I appreciate our priceless bonds. Keep in touch. =>

Pfft. *packing my stuffs hurriedly*

Updates: April 2006

I didn't update my blogs recently though many things did happen. E.g. I'm 80 bucks richer this morning without any good reason, yadda yadda yadda. LOL!

Last week was quite mundane; except for Wednesday (19th of April) as it was the Sultan's Birthday. Royal celebrations!!! LOL! Actually I was in KL looking for some accommodation options together with my parents. I was 'equipped' with some printed classifieds from tarcrooms.com and a couple of contact numbers to complete my mission. tarcrooms.com? tsk.tsk. The listings were rather confusing (embarras de richesses!) Well, I’ll be staying in TAR Villa with a bunch of new friends (mostly my F&I seniors!). The brand-new 'villa' is situated just beside the Wangsa Maju LRT Station and that provides me a greater mobility in the metropolitan KL! It's also served by efficient feeder buses and just 15 minutes away from my college by walking. =>

I guess it's time for me to reactivate my mind and stop it from hibernating again. I swore to myself that I must do well in my college examinations. Plenty of encouragements needed right now. Please assist me turning all my starry-eyed dreams into wishes come true by sending me some inspiring quotes from time to time! LOL! Watch out for my following post(s)! Take care!

P.S.: I'm going to Singapore this weekend to observe its election campaigns. whee.

Higher Education

I was in the crucial juncture of my life for several months which I'd to decide on many paths that lead into my future. I applied for Finance and Investment at TARC, Foundation in Management at MMU (which leads to Financial Engineering), and was actually thought of applying for University Foundation Programme at Metropolitan College (which leads to RMIT's Economics and Finance). It's like whether to walk straight (Form 6) or to turn into other direction (private institutions). I tried my best to figure out what's best for me by weighing the pros and cons of every available option. I understand that it's important for me to choose a path that I'm most comfortable with. That way, my chances of excelling will be the highest. Finally, I've decided to major in Finance and Investment. It's kind of challenging but I'm comfortable with it. I’m happy that my parents also agreed to send me over to UK to obtain my Honours Degree once I've completed my Advanced Diploma here. I'd like to thanks all the people around me (especially my parents, my sisters, economist Allen, etc.) for contributing their two cents worth regarding my tertiary education.