Girlfriend!? Pssh...
Now Playing: Youth Group - Forever Young
If there is one thing I cannot stand about people's girlfriends, it is how annoying they can get. My friend's (and housemate) girlfriend had been ringing the our house's landline like few times a day, EVERYDAY until recently when they made up. From what I saw, my friend was avoiding his girlfriend. I do not know why, it is really none of my business. Yesterday, all of a sudden she was knocking on my door. I do not know how on earth she got in the house hence I did not expect to open my room door to see her. She straight out asked me if I saw my friend that entire day or if he came home. All I said was I was in _my_ own room the entire day and would not have known if he was around. I really felt like telling her off. These series of events were not the only annoying thing she has ever done. She is very loud in most things she does. I can often hear her making whiny noises like a spoilt little girl would make when she wanted something she could not have. She also walks around the apartment dragging her feet and stomping on stairs, which is pretty much audible from the whole apartment even with my door closed. She also likes to close doors rather hard. She is a girl. I assume that girls would be gentler and more graceful in things that they do. About the walking heavily on stairs, I'll be honest. She's not slim, however I would think I am way fatter and/or heavier than her but yet I still manage to walk around the house and on the stairs rather silently.

Guys, make sure the girl you go after are mature to a certain level. You might think that a girl acting all cute and immature might be enjoyable at the courting stage but believe me, its there to stay and you will be stuck with it.

* * * * *

Speaking of girl issues, a person from the past emerged again. She was somebody I did not really like for many level of reasons. She messaged me stating that it has been a long while since we communicated. I retorted by wondering why. She then suggested that we put our past behind us. I replied with 'ok'. That is exactly what I did.

I do not know if I can be labelled as a bitter person. The thing is, these people that I do not like to associate with, have this impression that I am angry with them like I hold a grudge or a spiteful feeling towards them. In truth I just do not want to know them or be known to deal with them not because I am angry/grudging/spiteful. It is because I just do not see any point interacting with these people that are of no significance to me. It is just like when a guy goes into a lavatory. He sees one guy at one end of a row of urinals. So he goes to the opposite far end of that row of urinals. He does not do it because he hates the guy who is already there. He does it because it is only natural that we would appreciate our own space.

You know what I hate though? People who want to make amends with me when I sense there are ulterior motives behind it. The motive I really hate the most is so that person can have less enemies. Less people that do not hate them. They will come up to me and go like "hey, lets forget what happened between us". Oh but I have, in fact I did better! I had forgotten all about you! Until you showed up. You know what is worse than that? People who want you to not hate them, so they can feel better about themselves especially if they use religion as their excuse. They want you to forgive them, in hopes their god would be pleased with them. Now I am not saying that it is a bad thing. However they way they ask is like asking people to sign autographs on their book, the more they autographs they get, the more popular they will be. They do not really care or give any thoughts to the people who sign it. All they know is the more they get, the more they will look impressive. This is exactly how those people that try to make amends with people that hate them are to me. They do not really care about what they did to me, nor what I feel. They just want me to forgive them and not hate them so they can feel holier about themselves.

If any of you reading this are like what I wrote, do yourself a favor and not consider me your 'friend' anymore. I take the meaning of a friend very seriously. If you say you have many friends, like friends whom some people have tens of thousands in places like friendster.com, I would like to see if those people actually be there for you when you are in deep trouble.

Good Thinking?
Well... I just read an article on The Star newspaper website about TM Nut (laugh?) having some promotional event trying to get _more_ yes thats right, I said MORE people to sign up for broadband by showing them all the wonders you could do with fast internet connection. They said they were going to use music as one of their methods of persuasion.

Seriously? There are actually people in Malaysia who have not already heard or read a bit about broadband capabilities? Not even parents from their kids?

Well what I am really agitated by this is that it is not as though we do not have enough people using TM Nut's broadband, clogging up with their hardcore downloading, but to bring more of these people in? Come on! Fix the problems of clogged up bandwidth first, THEN think about getting more people. Like getting a bigger ship before bringing in more passengers?

The article also stated that there are currently approximately 500,000 broadband suscribers in Malaysia. I can guarantee you most the users from these subscription would be the younger generation. I think that more ISP companies should exist in order to have competition in order to make these competitors strive to be the best. Malaysians have been introduced broadband; Streamyx and so far it is the only Internet Service Provider that gives really reasonable prices making them the only realistic option for average home users thus somewhat having no real competitors. When Streamyx goes down, due to some technical issues, most of us would be screwed. I'm not surprised if some of these users would have withdrawal symptoms and go crazy without fast internet access.

Let us have more choices of good competitive ISPs please!

* * * * *

I was watching television over dinner last night, at around 12am. See my friend offered to buy back nasi lemak for me from near where he studies. I was in my room, wondering when the heck he would return home until around 12am, he knocked on my room door and ask me why I was not hungry yet. That guy came home and I did not even realize it. See that is one of the problems living in a double storey apartment. So I actually was in my room from evening till 12am thinking of when he would actually come back. So yeah I had my dinner at 12am and while eating I was watching the television. There was this old man playing his guitar bossanova style which really caught my attention, because I love bossanova and still dying, trying to learn how to master it. He performed quite well. His name is Earl Okin. I did some googling on him and found out that he took some modern day songs and turned them into bossanova style as well and they were quite entertaining although not properly fitted I must admit. However it was still great altogether.

FFS
Mood:  irritated
Words cannot even begin to describe the anger that I feel right now.

I just received an email from the subject convenor of one of my subjects; Media Theory, DVD & Compositing. Her name is Pippa Wischer. She has real short hair and for some strange reason her body is huge and out of proportion to her head. My friend said she looked like a dyke. Well a little history first to explain why I am angry after reading the email I received.

During my presentations for Multimedia Project 1 and 2, she was one of the examiners. Both these times, she only had bad things to say about our work. In the first presentation, she said that the logo on the website (which we were working on) was ugly. What she did not know was that the logo was our client's logo and not ours and that we were not asked to change the logo in anyway. The second presentation she said that my design for the website, which basically was chrome-like, like those expensive hi-fi sets were more suited for men aged 40 and above. The website we were working on was for a radio club. Excuse me but my team members were the ones who did our research and based on the research this was what we came up with. Had I known that our hard work of research did not mean shit compared ot what she had to say on the day of presentation, I would have gone right up to her and asked her what she would like.

I failed a subject which she was incharge of last semester as well. It was called Interactive Multimedia. It was one of the many 'first ever' subjects to be unleashed upon us unknowing students. The reason why it sounds bad was because the system they had for 'teaching' us was horrible. There was a time during that semester I emailed her asking her about my marks and what they meant, because there was not any details. The reply I got from her was stupid and also somewhat rude/arrogant. I was asking if my marks that I had meant that I passed or failed. Her reply was something in the lines of "you got X marks, means you got X marks."

I've read her replies to other students on the forums and to me, she was not really nice. She had some attitude in all her replies. She also is not very clear or specific when she says things which causes alot of students to ask more questions. To her we're retarded or something. I don't know.

So anyway, since I failed the subject last semester, I had to retake it but since that subject is only offered every second half of each year, I had to take some other subject of equal value which in this case is Media Theory, DVD & Compositing. Guess what!? She's the convenor of it too! It is also a 'first ever' subject! Why do they keep having all these new subjects I will never know.

So anyways about this email, it was a feedback for my storyboard, shotlist and script. We're suppose to create a short film and had to submit those three, along with our raw footage. I assumed that we had to submit the raw footage in because they wanted to see what we were doing. However, through the feedback I got, obviously she did not go through my raw footage and her judging was based purely on my documents.

This is what she wrote

"Script – not in proper format.

Shot list – in scene order, not shooting order. Could be reorganized into a more useable grid. Information is good though.

Storyboard – why didn’t you use the templates from week 2? It would be much easier to see what is happening in your storyboards if you had. The drawings are very poor and need to be much more careful and contain much more detail. The written explanation of things more difficult to show graphically should be underneath the drawings of each of the frames, so the explanation works with the graphic interpretation of the shot. Action within the frame, camera movement, lighting, etc. should be shown graphically within each shot/frame. And definitely not enough shots to tell the story well. All are midshots or wide angles, which keep the audience at a distance. Did you want the audience to engage with the character or not? Why are you shooting so far away from the action of the scene?

Story – cyclic stories can be a good way of intriguing your audience. However, while the basic hook is good, the audience will want to know more about it. There is no character development here, and as such, the audience isn’t likely to care if the character is committing suicide every 5 minutes. So let your audience into the character, and the cycle of life/death will be much more scary and involving.

You could set this up a number of ways; when he awakes, go through the confusion of waking up when he didn’t expect to. Have him read the letter which explains it, or do a flashback to show the reason for his despondency. You need to let the audience into the story somehow, and if it isn’t through the thoughts and actions of the main character, you have a problem."

5/8 for Script
2/10 for Storyboard
5/5 for Shotlist

She said my drawing was poor. I'm sorry that my drawing sucks. I do not deny that. So I guess people who cannot draw nicely to her liking will get low marks. I also guess that it is my fault for not being able to visualize the details in each frame exactly the way it would appear on screen. She commented heavily on the storyboard. Which now leads me to question why did she insist that we hand in our raw footage as well? It did not serve any purpose. I assumed it was to help her understand better what we were trying to do but I guess not. I may sound a defensive here but hey I believe I am entitled to justify myself and not let people step all over me like I have no self worth.

I hate design subjects, whatever you do, it will always be disliked by the one who assess your work. This happened to me in other subjects as well. I definitely do not want a career in what I have studied.

Word of advice, do not ever go to Swinburne University of Technology, and study any Multimedia related subjects.

Easter Sunday
Well... its 25 minutes past midnight so I guess it's post-easter Sunday.

I just came from the television room, which also is the dining room. I put the television room where we can watch it from the dining table.

So anyways, I was watching Passion of the Christ. They aired it on public television here! Isn't that great!? There were no censored parts and also no commercials. Which was kind of a problem because I had to make a trip to the bathroom at one point.

I have not watched this movie before because admittedly I was afraid to watch it especially after hearing news of some lady who had a heart attack while watching the film and of people who were so emotional watching the film, like crying and stuff. Yeah well today I finally faced my fears and sat down and actually watched it. It was rather gory for my taste. Note, violent is something different. Bugs Bunny cartoons are violent. This is gory, where details caused by violent acts are clearly visible which cause feelings of disgust. Surprisingly it is not the worst I have seen and well although I did winced when the main actor got tortured. You know like how all males feel the psychological pain when they see a fellow brother get hit where the sun don't shine? I don't know... To me it was just another movie. I am not trying to belittle the story, just the movie. I acknowledge that what happened in the movie are similar to what happened in the Bible but it does not mean that I have to cry and/or dwell in what happened over two thousand years ago. If its anything it reminded me of the the price that was paid for all of us and our sins which I am forever grateful.

Good Friday 2006!
Now Playing: Petra Haden & Bill Friselll - Yellow
Well its Good Friday again and it rains again!
I do not know about other parts of the world, but in my entire life's experience, it always rains on Good Friday. My mom told me that when Jesus died on the cross, it rained as well. Well so far in Malaysia and in Australia, it has been raining every Good Friday. So... I don't know.

I'm on holiday but then I have an assignment to do; editing the video I recorded. I do not wish to go into details about it as I am certain no matter what I do, the subject convenor will never be pleased. It has happened before with other subjects.

I have been playing an online game called Lineage 2. Some of you would know that is quite an old game. However I have long been trying to play on a private server and it had not been achieved until recently.
I decided to go with a fake identity; pretending to be a girl in game in hopes that I could get guys to buy me stuff. Hey it worked. Alot! Until...

I met this girl in game. At first impressions she was this nice person who was so generous and kind and just fun to be with. The more I spent time with her in game the more I was attracted to her personality. One fine day, she showed her pictures which was what launched everything off. I had some feelings for her.

Two days ago I could not take it anymore. I could not go on any longer with this fake identity being dishonest to her. So I told her the truth of who I was and all. I had a pretty good feeling she would have gone mad over this and never would have spoken to me again but hey it was totally the opposite of what I anticipated and deserved. She was all cool about it and even wanted to get to know the real me. Ironically we became even better friends.

Today she suggested that I should write a song about her. Which I did. It tooke me around half an hour to come up with the song. I admit not much time was put into it but I don't know. I did it anyway. Although not one of my proudest efforts, she said that she liked it which made me happy.

She has a boyfriend though, which kind of makes things a whole lot difficult for me. As if living on the other side of Earth was not bad enough for me. I do not want to give up though. I'll just take a number and get in line I guess.

See lyrics for Mr. Big - To Be With You. Better yet, go listen to it if you can.

Jack Johnson - Sitting Waiting Wishing
Now Playing: Black
What a long day it has been today. After my classes, which ended at 4:00pm, I caught a train up to the city to buy a DV tape for recording my intended shoot tomorrow for the assignment from one of my subjects. I have to make a short film ranging from within 30 seconds to 3 minutes. I hope it all goes well tomorrow.

Oh yeah while I was in the city, I also bought me a new bed sheet with matching pillow cases. They are black! Yes! It is not very often you get to find bedsheets and matching pillow cases that are just plain black! My room looks even better now. I have a black desk, black computer casing, black monitor, black speaks, black external harddisk casing, black keyboard and now a black bed. The bed sheet is fitted type too! No longer will I wake myself up in the middle of the night to tuck in the bed sheets back under the mattress. That always disrupts my rest and makes me very tired when I have to wake up in the day. Hopefully now I get better rest with this!

Wooo... beer...
Now Playing: Howie Day - She Says
So like I just drank a bottle of Corona Extra. It is a lager beer thingy. They even drink it in The O.C. Speaking of The O.C. ... Yes for some of you who know me, I was totally against this series called The O.C. It stands for The Orange County; a place in California. At first impressions, I thought it was some show about rich messed up teens doing stupid stuff like Beverly Hills 90210. I knew a thing or two about Beverly Hills 90210 because my sister used to hog the television and watched that every week and back in those days, the television was our family's source of entertainment. What can I say, we're not rich people. So yeah I thought it would be a new version of that old series but to my experience it is nothing like that at all. I sometimes catch a few episodes while having dinner. The television is situated where it could be viewed from my dining table. So while eating, I like to watch something. So a few times already I've caught some of their episodes and to my surprise it was not what I assumed it would be. In fact it was interesting. I realized the only really messed up teen in that show is one particular character. Not all of them. Furthermore, the show is not focused entirely on the teenagers. It focus on their parents (the adults) as well. Two things I noticed about the series that their script is quite well done as in the witty dialogues. The other is that all their episodes seem to mold together as though it was thoroughly plan that way. Imagine your fingers are each episode, and you lock both hands together by the fingers. That is the best way I can explain at the moment. Yes you can call me a hypocrite but at least I sat down and watched it and then I changed my point of view rather than deny its deserved credits.

Well Autumn came on April Fools Day. All of a sudden, *boom* it became cold. Also, today was the day daylight savings ended (or has it begun?) I cannot remember but now, Victoria has only two hours difference with Malaysia. So yeah! Summer is gone! The heat is gone! Now I will have difficulties waking up in the morning to go for classes T-T

Some Stuff On My Mind
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Jem - Wish I
It's that time again where I make a post after a long period of time of inactive blogging. You guys should know by now that I do not post something unless there are stuff which I think would be worth sharing with people. I mean, come on. Nobody wants to hear about trivial matters like 'Oh university has started again' and all that whinging. I am sure most of you already have enough of those whilst reading your other friends' posts about their miserable dramatic lives. Unapologetic, I find that most people that I once knew whom I have decided to disassociate myself from are like that. They are mainly the people who are attention-deprived and most of the time make things to seem like the world revolves around them. Some unsurprisingly imply to get sympathy from their readers. You know I speak the truth.

Anyhow yes for those of you who were wondering, yes I made last minute plans to return to Malaysia to visit my family and friends during the Chinese New Year period. I arrived in Malaysia at 5:45am in the morning on the 29th of January which was a Sunday. I am writing this in detail so that incase I forget, I can always refer haha. Nothing much happened back home in Malaysia much to my disappointment. All my friends were either busy working or studying and most of them I only got to hang out like once or twice.

You would be surprise how nearly two years can change your friends when you have not been in touch with them in real life. I guess I understand now how some people whom never kept in touch with each other would be able to lose track and eventually just forget about them altogether, as if they were only memories. Normally I would like to think its sad, but trying to look at a different perspective, it might be actually good for if these friends were actually close in the first place, they would make the effort to always keep in touch with each other. I do not care if it was e-mail or even snail mail. It still would count as an effort!

I weighed myself before returning to Malaysia, and found that I was 100kg. Yes it may seem heavy to you typical asian people but then again, I am no typical asian. So bleh. What I was trying to say was, that I have been weighing a 100kg for a few years now and somewhat glad that my weight did not increase. I was busy boasting about it until I came back to Melbourne and weighed myself and found that I had put on 5kg. I think probably due to the food back home in Malaysia which I missed so much and overindulged. Especially since I did not really have much to do back home except sit around the whole day having very minimal movements.

However, I have been weighing myself pretty frequent nowadays and have found my weight slowly decreasing again. You see, the reason for this is because I only eat whenever I feel hungry. Which would be at most, twice a day. Being in front of the computer can do this to you. Your mind is so focused on the activities on the computer that it does not have time to tell you that you are hungry. Most people think that I am torturing myself by starving. The truth is, I do not feel any gastric pains or anything like that. Whereas when I was in Malaysia, I ate 3 times a day... and not move around much. Yes! I ate even when I was not hungry.

Initially I had alot to write on my discoveries or enlightenment as I wish to call it but at the moment I cannot seem to recall most of them except for this somewhat unimportant information. You know how in Malaysia they always advertise face cream/lotions/wash whatever it is that ladies apply on their face to try to enhance their looks. Well in Malaysia there are all of these products to make your skin fairer (seem whiter; for you people with very limited vocabulary). In Malaysia its all about being fairer and the more dead you looked, the better you think you were. I just saw a commercial on television where they were advertising this Johnsons & Johnsons body and face lotion (respectively) where it gradually tans your skin the more often you use it.

To asians, fairer seems more feminine or something, I do not know. To western people, being tan is more attractive. I guess maybe it is because being tan is like evidence that you've been in the sun presumably being active and everything. There is also the old fact where we black haired asians try to color our hair all other shades of color like the caucasian people originally have and they in turn would want to have black hair. The grass is truly greener on the other side.

Most people are surprised that I do not find living in a foreign country enjoyable. They always assume just because its supposedly better in another country , makes all the reason for me to want to live there. I do not deny that Melbourne is a great city to live in. It does not mean anything at all if you have nobody to hang out with, and no family to turn to. Oh and the fact that they can never have authentic Malaysian food in their authentic environment, where rats and cockroaches thrive hahaha. Everything here closes too early for us Malaysians' liking.

Those people that actually do not intend to go home to where they came from, are probably deprived of freedom their whole lives by their parents. I am not one of them. I have had freedom all my life. My parents treated me maturely and like an adult all my life. I guess that is probably why my growing up phase was not really enjoyable but hey instead of getting messed up and hanging with the wrong crowd or getting into trouble, I used that, learnt from that and became a better person than most people I know. Do not mistake this for being arrogant. I am merely proud of what I have come to be despite my less than pleasurable history.

And for you out there who wonder why things do not happen the way you hope it would. It is because they were not meant to happen. I am not saying that our future is predestined or 'fated' as some of you believe.

The word 'fate' is misused by people who do not want to be responsible of their own lives and the consequences they face. They say it is 'fate' and imply in one way or another that there is nothing they could have done about it. I would like to make it clear that nothing in life is 'fated'. Sure some things are not suppose to happen and some do. However there are reasons for these things to happen and its not just simply 'fated' to do so.

One good example. If the world was scientifically 'fated' to exist and all its living things existed for the sole purpose of existing, or rather surviving, why are there so many variety and differnt designs in everything? If a bee was to look after its own existence, or reproduce, why then does it pollenate? How does it know that there are flowers for it to do so? Also, how would the flower know that there is a bee out there?

Do you know why we call things, 'creations'? Because they are created. Think about it.

The Amazing Race
What a busy today.
I just got home and exhausted like hell.

Today's mission was to:
a. get a Confirmation of Enrolment code

but in order to do that, I had to

b. renew my Medibank account; Overseas Students Health Care insurance nonsense which I never used ever.
c. get some written letter from my course administrator, who is so difficult.

First of, I though I could save time by going to Medibank's branch in Camberwell (2 train stops away from mine Hawthorn) and renewing my account. The guy there said that he needed my CoE and a visa in order to be eligible to renew my account. It was so full of crap, he wasted like lots of minutes just to tell me that. One problem was that my visa was an e-visa so there were no paper proof that I had it. Hence, I had to go home, and print the email which indicated that I had an e-visa.

Second stop was to the International Students' Unit. Where I asked in specific what were the procedures needed to take in order to get my blasted CoE code. The lady there said that I would need, check this, a medibank renewal, a letter from my course administrator indicating that I am in fact studying in my university for one more semester. FINE! I told her I went to medibank earlier on, and they asked me for a damn CoE. She just said "oh just show them this form and they will do it for you."

Next of, I went to see the 'beloved' course administrator who conveniently was not around. I had to leave a message at the 'helpful' reception and they said that I could get the letter by Monday. But wait! Monday I would be in Malaysia! So I asked them if they could fax it over to the ISU and they said no problem.

Return to Medibank!
This time I got everything down to be able to renew my account. Suddenly the guy there said "oh you have not renewed your account since middle of last year, and you have to pay for those months as well."
I was thinking to myself "what the ****? You're going to charge me for the months I did not update my card even when I did not use any of your services!?"
*Sigh* load of nonsense. Not to waste time I just paid up what I had to pay in order to get my account renewed. Currently the amount left in my bank is around AUD100. Yep that is right. I am not ashamed to say it. I am poor. Life sucks.

After I got my receipt I rushed back to the ISU and got everything done. Explaining to them that my course adminisrator would be sending the lousy letter to them and that they had to email me the CoE code because I would not be around to receive it in person.

Finally, after all that was done, it rained. I am not saying it was a bad thing. The opposite in fact. It has been a personal experience to me, that whenever it rain at times when you know for a fact that it should not be raining, it means that God has either heard my prayers or showing me that He is handling things for me.

Now I can only hope that the Swinburne staff do not slack and get me my much needed CoE code sometime next week.

By the way, I bought a 2 hour public transport ticket but was travelling around for more than 3 hours. Serve them right for hiking up the price each year.

Australia Day
Now Playing: Crystal Method - The Name of the Game
Yesterday, my new keyboard and mouse arrived in the morning and I was estatic, especially over the keyboard because I was waiting for it since last year. It took long enough for it to be released. It is the Logitech G15 Keyboard. First of its kind that was designed with extra programmable buttons which you could assign various tasks to it. Tasks such as being able to open certain programs, or even program macros on them! Macros are preset actions that you bind together for easy usage in the future. Example, I program one of the buttons to type "Hello! How are you". When I press that button, it would type out just that.

Couple of days ago, I have booked a flight back home to Malaysia. I would be leaving Melbourne on Saturday night and reaching Kuala Lumpur early Sunday morning.

Today is Australia day. My assumption of it would be Australia'a National day? I am still not sure about it. In yesterday's news, a professor named Ian Frazer was awarded an Australian of the Year award for discovering a vaccine to prevent cervical cancers. Rightfully deserved if you ask me. Australian Prime Minster John Howard said that they would do what they can to make the vaccine available to the public as soon as possible.

Just moments ago, my housemate Irwin had a battle with yet another spider in his room. For some strange reason, spiders are always attracted to his room and they are not ordinary spiders, they are huge spiders. I am starting to wonder what he has in his room which always attracts them. This has been so even in his previous accomodations. We are living on the top floor of the building with no sign of trees anywhere and yet the spider manages to enter his room. Interesting wouldn't you say?

Seeing that it is Australia today, I am sure my university would not be open. I hope they would be opened tomorrow because I really need to get my Confirmation of Enrolment code and also a renewal on my Medibank account (health insurance nonsense) if I am to renew my visa. I wish to get it done before I fly home, so that I would have them when I apply for a new visa back home in Malaysia. The reason why I hope to do it back home is that it is easier to travel around back home to the hospitals and stuff to get medical check ups and cheaper too! Compared to doing it here, I would have to travel far into the city maybe several times to do the same things and pay in Australian Dollars.

I shall not be bringing back my computer back home with me this time because I fear for its safety. I seem to have unfortunance whenever I bring my computer around by air. So I guess I will be really really bored back home with no computer. Oh well, maybe exciting stuff would happen for me, I hope.