holiday season

i just adore that yahoo! logo with the snowmen!!! they're so cute... looking up for snow... snowman making another snowman!! if only i could save them in my comp... but alas, i cant! speaking about christmas, the christmas decoration in midvalley megamall is just so lovely! a beautiful winter scene with a stage incoporated!

i woke up at 8.20a.m. today to register for semester 2. the registration opened at 9 a.m. and by approximately 9.10 a.m., all the geology classes were full! i couldn't believe it! i didn't get to register for it... so i had to make do with maths, and science & technology... and again i have 15 credit hours... max is 16 credit hours... i hope i've made the right choices... btw, my fridays are free (i.e. until they start having tutorials!)

i just read something so cute... during NLDS camp, the punisher (christopher) found a laptop adapter lying around... he was to punish the owner of the adapter, except that the owner didn't turn up... so i thought that was just that - a lost case... today when i checked the message group, i found this message from an lcum senior "Sob sob............. : ( Anybody see a Toshiba Laptop Adapter?" and it all came rushing back to me... hahahaha... oh no! i'm becoming saddistic... i wonder who kept that adapter... hope he gets it back... (my attempt to redeem myself for that saddistic thought! hehehe)

i watched aeon flux the other day and it was quite good... although the ratings were quite bad... maybe i just have bad taste? anyway, charlize theron was so beautiful and the lead guy (dunno what's his name) was quite "distinguished" looking... the other night, BY and i went to pyramid to watch narnia... and it was ok... something like lord of the rings and the never-ending story together with abit of hallmark fairy tale movies... maybe i didn't pay full attention to the movie...

my results for sem 1 finals are so bad... 2A, 2B+ and 1B so far... i haven't checked my TITAS and bio practical results...

i've been so crazed about jackets lately that i've bought a black and pink jackets in a period of one week... yesterday when mum and i were at megamall, mng was having a sale and we bought a white woolly cardigan and a army grey shirt... we found another dark green sheer blouse but some buttons were missing and it was rm75... so we decided not to buy it... although i thought it was really nice! i have got to stop buyin things!!! no more money!!!

True Colours?

i was just thinking back on some recent memories and found something puzzling... isn't it just plain weird that one can change one's character when a certain situation arises? it's like nothing else matters... everything that was painstakingly made (or what seemed to be, if i am not mistaken) is brushed aside... in the conquest of victory!?! and this "victory" is not one that can be measured with an award or something that is of substancial worth... with these actions, i have come to doubt how far does a friendship really go? what was the basis of the friendship when it was just formed? why the sudden change? could this new world that i have recently been admitted into be this shallow? this fake? this cunning?

ok, that was just a pile of bull shit (a.k.a. cow dung! hehehe)... sometimes i just get too caught up in the moment that i tend to overdramatize stuff... i guess that's the result of being a science student (as mrs. tan used to say) - we think too much... that WE are the ones that make the problem complicated when it could just be a simple problem that a 5-year-old could solve in a wink of an eye...

oh yea... i keep forgetting to put this weird bit on this blog... i feel like drinking my dish-washing detergent!!! (don't sound the alarms, i'm not suicidal...) it's just that it smells of apple and everytime i wash the dishes, it reminds me of apple juice... and i'd start craving for apple juice!!! but unfortunately, i haven't had a drop of anything that has got to do with apples... so far... so if you have nothing better to do but to crave drinking your dish-washing detergent, get a bottle of Glo apple dish-washing liquid!!! it really does smell goooood!!! (at least to me la)

another weird bit... seems like almost everyone but me and my family has seen me on channel [V]... this is so weird... i sat down and watched bid it for 3 times on thursday and i didn't get to see me!!! but some of my friends has already seen me a couple of times!!! this is NOT FAIR!!! i wanna see how geeky i am on tv!!! sheesh... i need to get a life!!! and i can't rub it into LK that i've been on tv more times than he has!!! although he's the performing one in the family...

NLDS 2005

i'm back from the 5 days NLDS 2005 camp in UKM, Bangi!!! we had a 2 days pre-camp before that to prepare some roll calls and square dance and also the little sketch... i'm feeling very lazy to regurgitate all the details now... so i think i'll just type whatever comes to mind...

pre camp preparations... sketch

some parts of the camp were pretty boring... some "lectures" in aiesec university... except sandy's communication class and christopher's presentation class... the rest were mediocre and sad to say the worst was stella's (probably because of her tone of voice and her slang...)

there were lots of square dancing... and this might be a little embarrasing to say, but UM people are really "syiok sendiri" people (me included... hahaha) coz everytime there's a square-dancing session, all the UM people will rush down to the stage and join in!!! our square dance was the new madonna song (that sounds very very 80's!!! err... yuck... but hey, it's catchy!). ours was the most "laid-back" dance, but at least its easier to dance!!! i really enjoyed watching the utm dance... some chinese song... their moves were real funny too... especially when this guy chee sheng did it (he's in the same mock lc as i am... this guy has lots of flamboyant ideas!!!)

the first night was the gala dinner night... and we were in the bus and we passed the ukm main dewan (dewan tun abdul razak, i think) and we thought "wow, what a grand reception" (there were some ppl in baju melayu waiting for VIP or something like that) but turns out, our dinner was in another hall (equivalent to komplex perdanasiswa or maybe ours is better... it was a badminton court of some sorts)... hahaha... anyway, as expected, the moment the VIP speech was done everyone rushed to get the "food"... i think i'll never really get to fathom why malaysians have to react that way to free stuff and food!!!

global village was on the 2nd day... we performed our sketch... i was the magical tree at the end of it... and when i emerged, sook yeng and ban yee started shouting my name... really caught me by surprise!!! haahaha... then we had to change into our traditional costumes... i wore baju kebaya... our booth, brazil, was quite pathetic...

we had this far and away game... we were split into 2 groups and my group was away (workers) and we had to stand in a line where there were 2 halves facing each other... we really tired our faci jessica by shooting her with all sorts of questions when all she could tell us was we couldn't do anything except to wait for instructions from far (thinkers)... things really heated up to a certain degree... and actually everything would've been fine if we just shut up and wait for instructions!!! but far finally came and we managed to solve the game...

we had simulation on day four... and i was in the issue-based project which comprised of me, fion and chee sheng... and we overplanned our project to the fine details... all the while we thought we weren't ready but actually we were well passed done!!! our issue was corporate responsibility and our topic was "are tobacco companies who do alot of charity work socially responsible?" and somehow we connected that with an anti smoking campaign named "No More Black Lungs!"... we planned an exhibition of smoker's damaged organs and free lungs consultations (is there such a thing???) and our endorser was cancerlink (i was only vaguely sure that it existed... no one could confirm it coz they'd never heard of it... but we went for it anyway... and turns out it does exist!) and well, we planned the TN's schedules and promo places and many other details... in the end, nothing quite came out of it... and we were getting really panicky and stressed out! hahaha... i got to see how people handle stress.

we had a halloween party too... i dressed as a hawaiian girl... didn't dare to wear the hula skirt so i lent it to li sum... wore the lei though, but it made me itch, so i took it off in the end... there was a cross-dressing thingy too... but only the guys did it... our 3 UM representatives wore japanese costumes to look like geishas... but we didn't win anything...

conclusion... xcapade was more intense and fun... but NLDS was good too... coz it's really hard to please everyone when the event is on such a large scale... delegates from UM, UPM, UKM,
UUM, USM, UTM, TBS, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia...

Mock LC Brazil a.k.a Erotica! (MNC delegates not included...)

violet people = UM people... me, yen chyng and poh yee

Feeling shitty...

today was my last paper... and it was quite easy... but i totally screwed it up!!! i couldn't remember what the mertonian norms were... CUDOS... how can i forget that?!? i'm just feeling really shitty about that... it was 5 marks out of 60 marks!!! and the other questions weren't too great either... so i really doubt i can even get a B for this paper... this is just so crappy... at the rate i'm going, i think i can forget about majoring in biochem and aim for lower... sometimes i even consider starting on a different course somewhere else... i guess i'm turning into a bum... lately i've been asking myself this question: is this really what i want to do? ... but i guess i should just stop thinking too much about it... since the last time i asked myself that question was during form 6 and that turned out quite good for me...

My Orange Candybar

i know i shouldn't be blogging now... i've still 2 exams to go... and i'll be "free" by 1.30p.m. on tuesday the 22nd of november!!!

so anyway, yesterday i collected my prize - sony ericsson w800i walkman phone... and well, i had to go to the channel v office which was in a building called new vision media or something like that... i guess its a production company cantracted by channel v to do their programs... and luckily it was in section 14, pj... so near to UM... i had to rush off after my biostatistics exam, get some lunch down in jaya and walk over to the office (which was previously the toyota showroom).

the reception area was really nice... with some people (presumably their staff) sitting around discussing (or maybe chatting...)... anyway, i went up to the balcony-like waiting area and vj joey g was there with the 1st week winner (he won the black ipod nano... so nice!!! would've bid for it if my registration got through... wasted 15 sen!!!)... had small talk... then the press people came ( i think they were from malay mail, galaxie and cosmo)... then they interviewed us... how we won, how many sms bids we sent (the other guy sent 66 sms for the 2 episodes... i said i sent about 10 sms... which later i remembered that i spent rm10, so that would make it 20 sms (opps!)... but then when i checked my sent msgs, i bid 7 times... so technically i told the truth, right?), what we feel about the pogram and the channel itself, what was the tie-breaker question (the other guy's was 'channel v bidit is for astro subscribers only?' and he thought it was a warning at first... mine was 'robbie williams is from take that?' and LK and i was debating whether it was a trick question... the "is" part should have technically been "was" - in the linguistic aspect at least), what you'd like to see on bid it in the future (both of us were blank), what we plan to put on our gadgets (i said a little bit of lisa loeb - i'm just so into her nowadays!!!, the darkness - later on the malay mail reporter show me the latest darkness cd, one way ticket to hell and back!!!, and strictly no pop...), bla... bla... bla... and they asked us do we watch mtv or channel v more? (and i being the stupid straight forward nerd i am said that i watched mtv more... which is true, but not the politically correct answer, since we're kind of part of a publicity stunt to promote channel v; the other guy was wiser... saying that there's a balance between the both)... so after the questions, there was a photo session (really really felt uncomfortable and i think i look geeky in the photos too, as always!) and we posed with ur prizes and also with joey g and he was sooooooo tall, i've no doubt that i looked like a midget right beside him... and after that we thought we could go off...

but the publicity guy (which looked very familiar... if he's chinese, then i dunno who he is... but if he's malay, i think he might've been the lead vocalist from the local band 'lied', which LK and i watched in starbucks, ikano a while ago) caught us in time before we went out the door... we had to do a short video recording... we had to state our name, location, how we feel and the secret to bid it is... the camera guy was desmond (who was the one who liased with me on the phone throughout the whole process... and well, voice and face do not match... hahahahaha)... the ipod guy went first (and although he was the chattier one between the two of us, he was abit tongue-tied) and when it was my turn (and i felt like i was back again at xcapade doing public speaking)... i managed to get it done in 2 and 1/4 (because i trip on the words sony ericsson...) cuts... not bad... though i'm very sure i sounded shakey (as usual) and well, rushing my words (like i do, everytime i have a presentation!!!)... then the other guy had to redo his recording and i quickly skipped off before they got any other funny ideas...

my old phone k500i (which now belongs to papa)...

my new phone w800i (yahoo!!!)...

I just won a Sony Ericsson W800i?

So... on saturday night, i registered for the channel [V] bid it contest via sms... and that took up quite alot of my credit because they didn't reply prompt enough and that resulted in me sending them an extra sms... started bidding for the sony ericsson w800i on sunday... first bid was rm4.27 and it was unique but not the lowest... then i followed LK's suggestion to bid at rm2.26... same result - unique but not the lowest... so i waited till about 5 p.m. and my itchy hands just couldn't resist sending another bid (btw, each time an sms is sent, they'll reply and that reply costs 50 cents and sometimes they reply in more than 1 sms!!!)... and that was disasterous... had to send another 3 bids and all was not unique and not the lowest... then in a last attempt to redeem myself (i panicked), i bid my last bid for rm2.27 (dared not cancel myself out with the rm2.26 bid) and it was unique but not the lowest... i decided to stop because i was running out of credit, plus i realised that i was sort of gambling... not a good sign... i think i might have the potential of being a gambler... i must one day sit down with myself and ruminate the matter (sounds like a cow... maybe i am. haha)... anyway i just left it as that... since i have never won these kinds of things... didn't even bother to check my status because my credit was only about rm1+

this morning, i was awaken by my phone's sms alert (probably around 10 a.m. or so) and surprise!!! congratulations ... your bid is lowest and unique... answer the question in the next sms... i answered it after calling LK for confirmation... the question was: robbie williams is from take that... and we were debating about whether the "is" is a trick... it should be "was", right? anyway i answered yes and i won the phone!!! but i still can't believe i won it... i mean its a phone which costs almost 2k!!! i wouldn't even dare to dream about getting one!!! but praise God!!! He never fails to amaze me!!!

so i went ont the net to look at the phone and and suddenly while i was staring at it, my phone rang and the channel [V] guy asked for my address and astro account no. ... they had to verify whether the account was still active... and after many hours of waiting (okla...i did some other stuff... read my TITAS book and made lunch... played around with the dog...)... at about 6p.m. i received another call and he said that they'd have to send the name list of winners to hong kong and that they'll contact me later to arrange the collection of my prize... so ends the exciting part of my day!!!

Julia Ormond day

yesterday when i was supposed to be studying, i ended up watching tv... and i saw 3 julia ormond movies... on astro...

first, it was Sabrina... wow, i'd forgotten how wonderful that movie was... just like cinderella but better!!! and although harrison ford looked pretty old, he was charming!!! and julia ormond was so adorable!!!

second, we watched Legends of the Fall... this movie is like an epic!!! and brad pitt!!! aidan quinn!!! anthony hopkins!!! and julia ormond again...

third, we watched First Knight... didn't really like this show but... richard gere!!! and julia ormond yet again!!!

is it just coinsidence or what?

Mamula Moon? Negaraku?

a week or two ago, LK was surfing the net on my laptop and his friend passed him this song called mamula moon... and at first we thought "what's this? why does it sound like some dean martin song... from that era or before that..." then it sounded so familiar... it was exactly like NEGARAKU!!! or should i say that negaraku sounds exactly like it? since it sounds like it came from a time even before our independence was achieved... its being talked about alot these days... i guess the conclusion of it all will be out one day and the truth will be revealed?

Burst bubbles

i was feeling swell today till... i read something so short but gave me a stab... perhaps i'm over-reacting... yes, that is the best way to put it... i will not divulge any explicit info about the message but for the record, i'll type my defence here...

we were given about a week to come up with designs (when there was no particular theme to measure ourselves against) and so we did... quite alot of weird designs were thought up... i think an accumulation of about 20... and that is not including the phantom member (which none of us have ever met or seen before and only god knows whether he did a single thing for our department or not) and another always absent member (but at least she does stuff...)... and after our meeting, the background colour was decidedly violet... personally, i think that's not such a good idea because it's hard to match and well, what about the guys? but that was that and we were supposed to make do with that... so we did... and as the 3 remaining of us were all photoshop-illiterates and had to produce a soft copy of the designs in a weeks time and there wasn't anywhere to turn to for help or constructive advice... so we just did our job (btw, to set the record straight, the designs weren't hand-picked by us) and sent it in... and i guess they weren't good enough! well, whatever... i have exams to study for... maybe next time we should put the designs under anonymous as that wouldn't be so humiliating...

well, this is part of life's experience... it's part and parcel of taking up a position with a responsibility... well that's all to it then... just needed a place to let go and be merry again!!! 'My Sharona" by the knacks really lifts a persons' spirit! at least it does now...

Finally a printer!

so, after so much lamentation about not having a printer, we finally got one... not a high end one of course, just something that would last us for the next 2 years (that's my prediction of its lifespan...)... it's a canon bubblejet printer...

on sunday when we got it, i printed out my 46-page geology assignment on global warming and climate change... such a relief... finishing this assignment was like lifting a heavy burden off my back... procrastination and getting sick are really a bad combination for doing a project... now i have slightly blood shot eyes... it's been getting better since sunday... i thought staring at the lcd screen of my laptop wouldn't be so taxing on my eyes... i guess i was grossly mistaken! on the brighter side, i'm so proud of my project... it looks so neat... can't really judge on the quality of its content though... i hope it covers all the important areas and have interesting snipets here and there...

another thing that i've been working on the past week is the aiesec t-shirt design for nlds... i'm afraid mine looks kind of crappy... it has lots of different eyes (some edited from pictures and the others, hand-drawn using the tablet and also with the help of photoshop...) and at the back is just a pair of eyes (hopefully it appears intense to other people...) with the question " Do you want to be just another face in the crowd?" and at the bottom, the aiesec tagline "It's up to you!". i think it's really ugly... but i don't think i want to spend more time on the design as i know i suck at these kind of things... i'd rather do page layouts for magazine, brochure etc. something with abit of text and pictures... like the SEATRU scrapbook i've been working on (for so long!!!) i helped yen chyng to put the pompom picture (which was so difficult to get because... well it's a long story... about inefficiency, procrastination and me waiting around, etc. ... shall not dwell on it...) on her design... it's quite nice too... colourful!!!

ok, i've lost interest in blogging at the moment... so this is it...

Pop! into my mind

to keep myself from over-elaborating stuff, i'll now just write whatever idea that comes into my mind in a paragraph... this is going to be one *#%% of a disjointed post!

today mum and i had a sumptious lunch at Italianni's! as usual we ordered a calamari ceaser's salad and classic carbonara... i know it sounds really rich and fattening but... it was just lovely, although the portion was abit too much, but simply lovely! the bill was REALLY LOVELY too!!! anyway, i just love the white and brown (i think it has rosemary in it) bread with their crisp crust and soft inside... dabbed in olive oil with dark vinegar!!! yum-my!!!

i single-handedly set up the streamyx connection on my laptop! it was super easy... and LK was saying it was pretty complicated! in fact that was one of our worries about our desktop because recently it was yearning for a dose of reformatting... in case i haven't mentioned this before but our desktop was infected with the hacktool.rootkit worm and we just beared with it till there were beeping sounds coming from the cpu... my friend said that it was a sign that the comp was going to die soon... but on friday, everything was fine... no sounds and not so many webpage-hijacking... maybe the worm went away... hahaha... like that's going to happen!!!

life without tv and internet can be quite vacant... i don't get to see tv in college because the tv sets are usually monopolized by soap opera addicts... no offence to anyone... i used to be one too but decided not to start on anymore series because then, i'd be tied down to it... speaking about internet, i'm not whether my wifi is working... i couldn't log on in science faculty on friday... was so pissed!!!

last night, i re-explored adobe photoshop... the last time i used it was on the mac g4 and it was super slow... kept hanging... to much stuff on the memory, i think. slept at 3+ am after designing the aiesec t-shirt using a tablet... it's quite handy...

What a day...

i'm starting to develop this problem of unconciously switching off my alarms in the morning... today was one close encounter... as usual i set my alarms for 6.30a.m. but somehow, i ended up sleeping till 7.15a.m.!!! i had to rush getting ready for lecture and gobbled down a couple of biscuits... and sometimes i amaze myself at how fast i can get ready to go out!

i wasn't late for my biostatistics lecture. in fact i met li sum and we walked together. i really don't get what ANOVA is... there's so many steps to memorize... i need to start using my zar book.

after class, we (mei lin, emily, junie, li sum and i) went swimming. we went to the uni's pool but it was closed... just our luck (like what adrian mole says...)... mind you, we were all syked up for a swim and had literally no money on us and just our matrics card for identification... but anyway, we went to the kelana jaya pool... rm3 per person... and luckily there weren't anyone there and it was ladies day... i didn't dare venture to the deep end because the pool didn't have the step at the sides like the shah alam club pool... so i tried teaching li su to swim and we lingered around the shallow end. i have very low stamina... maybe i should swim more often in the uni 's pool when they open...

then we went back to UM to change and take our money so we could go to midvalley to eat 'ikan bakar'... defeating the purpose of exercising? hehehe... anyway we ate at the oasis food court and the 'ikan bakar' was really good!!! and oily... hehehe... and i gulped down quite alot of 100plus... felt so bloated after that... and to top it all, we went to the california fitness club (because li sum wanted to sign up...) and we had a tour of the place... and well, it looked quite fine... although i must say that the way they conduct their business is pretty sleek and well... seems like you've walked into one of those american tv-shopping commercials... well-planned marketing strategy... anyway, all of us had our bmi tested... and i'm just in the acceptable category (25-30%)... i have 25% fat!!!... just need to reduce a couple of kg to be in the fitness level... but what the heck, i'm happy with where i am now and honestly, i just don't have the drive and determination to go to a fitness club 3 times a week to workout... plus it's so darn expensive... i do respect for some people, it is worth it... but for me, i'd rather spend that money on a couple of good books... i guess this all depends on individual preferences.

all of us came out vowing not to eat 'ikan bakar' and 'paandi's' anymore... but i can guarantee that i'll break that vow quicker than you can say "quick"... the sky looked very dark and moody the whole evening... i had to withdraw some money to buy a pendrive (from dataran prima) but turns out that they don't have stock... so they asked me to come back on monday after they contacted me...

ooh, yesterday we went to honey bee in ss2... their shop layout was quite different... they had a yellow vw in the middle and we sat at the reclining area... i ordered a 'roti bakar' (which was so small... and not as good as uncle lim's) and a grape-ice-blended-with-pop-pop-sprinkles-in-a-ala-"milk bottle"-glass (i can't remember its name...). it was quite fun because the pop pop was exploding in my mouth and eventually in my head! hahahaha... a bit pricey though...

Xcapade 2005!!! Long awaited update...

3rd September 2005

woke up early. Dad had to drop me back at college to pickup my converse shoes (which I had forgotten to bring home yesterday!) then he sent me, yen chyng and li sum to the kps carpark. We were right on time but as usual, by Malaysian timing, we were early…

bus came at about past 8a.m. I sat with yen chyng and we didn’t get a wink of sleep (unlike most of the others) throughout our journey… which was about maybe 2 hrs, give and take… we passed upm, sime hydroponics farm(which was interesting…) and lots of ‘has-been’ palm oil estates being mowed down for future development… it was pretty sad actually… seeing the barren slopes which somewhat resembles waste lands… ok, I got abit carried away there…

when we reached Marist Brothers Champagnat Youth Centre, Port Dickson we were “told” that the caretaker wasn’t in, so we had to wait outside… then ‘suddenly’ the hall doors flew open and the OCs, EBs, and facis who were hiding inside unbeknownst to us, shouted out their roll call to us… and we reciprocated with a roll call we learnt on the bus. Then we went to our quarters; girls’ dorm was a medium sized room packed with double decker beds to accommodate 20 or more girls… btw, we could see the sea from our place but a barbed-wire fence separated us from the sea… sad case… see no touch!

back in the hall, we had a brief opening ceremony of Xcapade 2005… rules and regulations laid down… and sticking up our “sugar cubes” – which consist of our individually decorated white envelopes which would serve as our mailbox for the next few days… lunch…

square-dancing… couldn’t follow the steps… but most of us were clueless too… hahaha. After tea, we split into our ‘countries’… mine was svalbard… but it was wrongly spelt on our name tags… szalvard… my group consist of me, goay imm, Gloria, poh yee, zaa, jan, mao, wai kwan and faci: shi lin and chung heng. we were given mahjong paper and a few pieces of newspaper and were supposed to use those things to demonstrate 1 of the 6 aiesec values… my group was activating leadeship. We drew the earth and pasted people pics all over the globe… writing stuff like ‘gender isn’t an issue in leadership’ etc.

we had a water crisis… there wasn’t enough water to go around for us to take a satisfactory bath… so we ended up soapily “tapping” the tap heads and waiting for the water to trickle out… we had dinner after that and then there was a really serious session where each newbie had to go up in front of everyone and say something with enough eloquence so that our self-confidence would shine through… and if the seniors didn’t clap, we’d have to try again until they were convinced that we were confident… as usual, scaredy-cat me was freaked out of my mind about this kind of stuff (public speaking)… and since there wasn’t any feasible way out of it, I said a little prayer and literally threw everything to the winds… stepped out and said “I believe all things are possible” and I meant it from the bottom of my cowardly heart… and they clapped! I was so……. relieved and tired after all the adrenaline rush… btw, I got that phrase from the praise and worship song “all things are possible”… when I’m weak You make me strong, when I’m poor I know I’m rich, for in the power of Your love, All thing are possible (4x)… so true!!!

When we were done, we got back into our countries and the next activity was impromptu speaking for 2 minutes… we could speak on any subject so I chose dogs… I had planned to touch on 3 topics : dogs in my life, dogs as the latest “must-have” fad and the bleak future of dogs in shah alam. However when it was my turn, I could only remember the 1st 2 topics… and when I reached my last 30 seconds, I was struggling to recall the last topic but it just wouldn’t come… so I repeated myself and didn’t have a proper ending… the comments I received was that they could see that my thoughts were coming too fast for me to grasp them… and that I tried finding my thoughts up there somewhere… in the ceiling? Hahaha… the others talked about summer in japan (mao), how to cook instant noodles (Gloria), pet cat (zaa), passion for French language (wai kwan), public speaking (jan), music (goay imm) and the beach (poh yee). After that we had a round up of the day’s activities and then we went to the land of Nod.

4th September 2005

wakey wakey at 7a.m. did some exercise and jogged to the gate and back again… those who were late had to do weird punishments… i.e. pushups in an explicit manner, walk butt-to-butt in pairs with hands clasped between knees… then we had breakfast and then we had a simulation session of setting up an exchange…making an appointment with HR manager via phone… and then meeting with HR manager… goay imm and I paired up and we chose sony corporation. Goay imm was the 1st to secure the appointment via “phone”… secretary: thency. We were the last pair to meet the “HR manager” in our group… HR manager: Alvin… and I totally screwed it up!!! I froze and well, there’s not much to say after that… I DO NOT want to relive those devastating moments!!! *having a dramatic fit* … hehehe… NO, it wasn’t that bad, but we got grilled by the nicest HR manager of the 4 “companies”… so go figure…

after that we had to feed lunch to a new friend… I chose wai kwan… I learnt that she’s actually a 3rd year student majoring in French and that she’s local (i.e. from klang valley). I guess the objective of this session was a success but (no offence to anyone… it’s just my paranoia taking over…) I almost puked when I was nearly done with lunch… my imagination was running wild; hence egging on my “saliva-phobic” paranoia… in fact, many a time I was on the verge of puking because of the cups used… gosh, I’ve got to stop thinking too much about tiny little matters…

later we had to create a language (at least for “hello”, “goodbye”, “I love you”), a religion, a national dance and a tribal chant for our respective countries. Then there’d be an “exchange” where one member of each country would be sent to another country… btw our “hello” was flapping both palms opened and raised to our ears; “goodbye” was one hand waving positioned at our butts; “I love you” was 2 slaps across the face; we worshiped the chair and would do a parade clockwise and anticlockwise around the chair; our dance was taking a deep breathe and while people were anticipating something spectacular, we’ start rolling on the ground one way then the other (this really got people’s attention…); and out tribal chant was sitting in a somewhat kneeling position with index fingers pointing to our temples while chanting rapidly and non-stop “money, money, money…” Interesting? I think we looked like total buffoons… anyway, lesson learned was that we’ll meet with different cultures and exchange is for us to learn other country’s culture and in turn educate our own people about it…

we were then given time to ruminate on our thoughts with the aid of biscuits… in other words, we had tea. Period. (the above is an example of me complicating simple matters…) a couple of alumni had came over to PD so we bullied them to do a roll call for us…

we changed into our lousy clothes to go play on the beach… our 1st game was @ “fear factor” where we would group into 4’s and we had to get a specific item out of buckets filled with ‘icky’ stuff in a given time frame… my group almost succeeded… well, truth be told, most of the groups nearly succeeded too… hehehe… 2nd game was like that nickelodeon game where you’d have to answer a question correctly or else you’d get dose of icky goo… for us, we’d get goo treatment if no one answered the question… conclusion is… I got goo-ed, as well as everyone in my round, because we didn’t know the answer to the question: ‘what is a village without a church called?’… answer turned out to be ‘hamlet’… 3rd game was water balloon war… the driest group at the end of the game was the winner… at first, we used our water balloons to bombard other countries but after our ammo finished, we split up and tried to stay as dry as possible… but alas, our endeavours were thwarted when one by one, all of us got ambushed by people with buckets of polluted sea water… I’m proud to say that I was one of the last to get wet…and it was just my left side… but then some seniors ambushed me, grabbing and carrying me (whilst I assumed a cooked prawn position), and then throwing me into the shallow end of the sea… that was when I really had a pain in the a**… and I mean it literally… pelvic bone was aching devilishly till the next day… oh yea, strangely… when I was in the process of being hurled into the sea, I caught someone shouting something to the effect of “ eh, her cap… take off first…”. Well anyway… that was sand and sea water for me… a couple of others (inc. li sum) experienced the same treatment too… and at the end of it all… nobody was dry…

when we got back, everyone clamoured to the toilets to have a “so-called-bath”. And then it was dinner time… surprise, we had to eat dinner blindfolded… it was to make us realize what the blind experienced everyday of their lives… ooh, my “devil” (whose “name” is ‘illusion’) gave me a can of zapple… and also previously a tube of grape mentos… we started corresponding late evening of the 1st day…

we were then shooed out of the hall and all the lights were turned off… candles were lit and we were ushered back into the hall. We were asked to sit in a large circle and told to close our eyes while listening to celtic and instrumental music which were very melancholic sounding. Then thency started speaking… the activity turned out to be similar to the sessions we used to have in smks9 with those “ulama”-looking people… about appreciating the people we love in our life (parents, family…) I think everyone was touched… but somehow, I wasn’t… maybe I’m just a hard person…I remember the first time I went through this in raja muda… my friends and I (goh, cindy, nisha…) were like… so “pantang” la these people, telling us “bayangkan kamu pulang dari sekolah dan nampak ada dua keranda di ruang tamu… dan di dalam keranda-keranda itu adalah ibu bapa kamu… apakah kamu akan rasa…” but somehow these sessions seem to work everytime it was conducted… ok, I think I am wasting too much time reminiscing.

after that session (last breath), we were given an hour break because almost everyone was overwhelmed… so we started our next activity quite late… around 10 something… in our itenary, it was listed as nightstalk… we were asked to take out our flashlights… again, we had to vacate the hall, all the lights were switched off and candles were the only sources of light… we were playing a live-version cluedo… then wei hoong came out and told us she was madam lau and she has been trying to solve this mystery for some time… then there were a couple of scenes (in which all the faci/OC/EB acted out the scenes) where we could only watch from the doorway of the hall… the story was about an Indian girl marrying a Chinese guy and his parents didn’t like it… then the bride gets murdered during the wedding dinner… so we were supposed to find out who the murderer was… snooping around the compound and finding clues… but there were many “extras” who acted as wandering ghosts… and they would ‘kacau’ us… soon we figured if we don’t bother with them they’d go away. The seniors really looked like psychotic ppl… one even stood so close to me and blew down my neck… but I ignored him and he went away… then suddenly he screamed shrilly right at the back of me… and I was momentarily deaf… at the end of it all, all the groups guessed wrongly… the murderer was the husband who found a suspicious note from his father to his wife and she in turn had also found a note from his gay best friend to him and her own lesbian best friend was in love with her and her cunning sister was trying to seduce her husband after her death… talk about complicated storyline!!! It is obvious that these people have been watching too many dramas…btw they also prepared a short drama movie for us… and from the background, I know they filmed in 1u…haha

stayed up late playing games…one was a drinking game… n at first it was cordial drinks but when that ran out, they started using milo… I could feel my stomach churning just looking at them guzzle down the milo as fast as they can… then we were allowed to retire for the night… but our bunch decided to stay and play some more games… which when it turned ‘dirty’, we excused ourselves… lots of misleading photos taken…

5th September 2005

woke up later because we stayed up late… had breakfast… then had a trust fall thing… where we were supposed to fall backwards off the table top into a human net of arms… and if we didn’t trust our friends below, their arms would hurt… and as usual… I got picked on because I looked “light”… and well, I did it… but I think I hurt the people who caught me… hehehe… at least I kept my arms from flailing and smacking someone in the face! Then they said there wasn’t enough time for everyone and so we went in to the hall and had a round-up session… get ready to go… and also we found out who our devil was… I really had no idea who it was because I didn’t know we had to try finding out their identity… so I took a wild guess… amy… and turns out that wild guess was actually true… was really surprised at the coincidence… we exchanged gifts… I gave her a box of ferrero rocher…

then we had to ‘gotong-royong’ clean the place… wash the drains, floors etc. after that we boarded our bus and headed back to um… and that was the end of the camp…

Reunion...

Had biostatistics in the morning… then I walked back to college… packed some stuff and waited for mum to come… she was supposed to come at around 3p.m. but I ended up falling asleep… only to awake at 3 past!!! Mum still hadn’t come yet… so I tried calling her but my handphone displayed “emergency calls only”… tried turning it off but then it couldn’t start back up… removed and replaced battery; then started back up but still couldn’t make calls… went down to use the public phone… contacted mum… she was in a traffic jam…she arrived at about 3.40p.m and immediately we set off to ss2. I reached the teapot café around 4p.m. CS, BY, SY, Belinda, JH, YL and YC were there already… ordered some food there as I hadn’t had my lunch yet… but the food was quite lousy… and expensive! We all had a short chat because some of them had to rush off… but anyway it was great to see them again! YL and SY have changed in the way they look… they look more matured now… :)

Went home and packed my bags for Xcapade camp (3-5 Sept. ’05)… found out that I had forgotten to bring back my Converse shoes… had to minimize the things I was packing because the hoard just couldn’t fit into my esprit shopping bag and momoe sling bag… but I must say that I’ve learned a lot about packing from our SEATRU trip… i.e. most of the stuff you pack will be redundant and you’ll probably end up improvising with the stuff you brought… at least that’s what I’ve experienced so far…

Human decoration?

We performed in front of the ASPIRE delegates… unfortunately they were saying goodbye to each other at the same time… so practically no one actually heard us… maybe more people paid attention when we started singing the staccato section of our “Sejahtera Malaysia” arrangement. But overall it was quite crappy… oh yea, I forgot to mention that only a fraction of the choir members turned up… I think it was less than 20 people altogether… in fact most of the “important” people went back home! So you can imagine what kind of moral support we had a.k.a NONE!!!

Choir blues

I hate coming back on Sunday nights because I’ll feel so rushed and well, a little depressed too. Unfortunately that was what I had to do yesterday… we kind of had an emergency choir meeting (orientation week choir) because we have to perform for the closing of the ASPIRE workshop… that means we have to sing in front of the foreigners!!! *the horror* ~ coz we kinda suck!?! So let me cut to the chase: we had to cancel our plan of eating seafood in that sungei way place and I had to eat takeout mcD’s in the car on the way to college… pathetic or what? Anyway, basically the meeting was about us singing 3 songs on Tuesday night (that means we have to forego our CC family plans of going to klcc to countdown the merdeka…) and that there’s going to be a 2nd audition for the festival seni choir and we are “urged” to go for a tryout… I don’t think I will because: 1) will I have time to juggle studies, assignments, aiesec and choir? 2) will I still be here next semester? (the festival is in January 2006) and 3) it’s just too scary to sing 2 songs (one in English and another in BM) alone in front of the seniors, Ledionne and Pei Chuen!

Note: I’m using my laptop with no internet connection to type this out now because I have nothing else important to do and well, just wanted to kill time and besides, my blog has been sadly neglected lately mainly because of the lack of time and mood to blog and also due to the horrible, lousy streamyx connection I have at home… (imagine we pay rm66 every month and we can only use the connection efficiently in the morning and afternoon… evening and night time are totally out of the question unless you’re asking for an aneurysm! Anyway, when I do get an internet connection (which should be able to be set up on the 5th of September onwards… wireless in um), I’ll copy and paste this and post it up. I also need to download msn messenger, winzip, adobe acrobat reader, update Norton antivirus…

So I had my 2nd Biology of Organisms test today… it was ok… much easier than I had expected… but surprise: I’ve already pinpoint a question which I’ve answered wrongly… typical me… well, what’s done is done… there’s no turning back so there’s no sense in crying over spilt milk. Anyway, Mei Lin, Junie, Li Sum and I went to Sri Paandi’s for lunch (don’t ask me which one it was though…). I can’t remember whether I’ve mentioned my 1st visit there before but their canvassing customers method was more aggressive today than the last time… one worker actually instructed us to go to the last shop (explanation: the last shop i.e. corner shop, has another lot right next to the other Paandi’s ~ the one we went to… so the shop we went to was actually sandwiched by their competitor… confusing? I don’t blame you…). Anyway both shops claim to be the original and they are pretty serious about it… calling their counterpart “cheaters”! Now, back to my story… we had banana rice and I’m so stuffed till now! I think the workers were like laughing at us (not in an insulting or offensive way though) because we were such a giggly bunch of happy people… I think we were very “lawak” (like mr jp used to say) to them… but the up part of it was they kept offering us more stuff to eat with a smiling face… anyway, my bill came up to rm9.10! the breakdown of it was: banana rice rm3.50, fried chicken rm4 and iced milo rm1.60… but when we paid, the counter guy gave us 50 sen discount! Hahaha…

I’m listening to Michael W. Smith’s worship cd… borrowed it from ah yee… I really like the songs and his singing too… but my laptop speakers are… erm… laptop speakers a.k.a lousy… I think I must invest in a pair of headphones since I don’t intend to get an mp3 player… another thing I must get is a pendrive… currently I’m using LK’s pendrive… it’s so small compared to the regular ones!!! Although slightly pricier…

Oh yea, I talked to CS yesterday afternoon for quite a long time… 99 minutes… we exchanged stories… upm has a golf course!!! And I think she’s having a great time there because there are lots of samadians there and well, she can speak mandarin (the golden key to socializing among the Chinese community in all local universities). And I think for all of us, living on campus has made us independent (if we want something done we have to do it ourselves… and most of our time is spent alone) and tv-deprived (going home means tv time!)

chili explosion

i've been staring at my streamyx dsl modem and the 3rd darn light has been blinking all night!!! then how was i able to post this? surprise... i'm using the old trusty jaring dial-up... btw i'm getting sick again... kept sneezing right before dinner... maybe i'm allergic to the dog...

so what's new? i'll start from the most recent interesting event to whenever i feel board of typing... friday - woke up at 7.30am (should have been walking by that time...), so practically ran/brisk-walked to dk teratai (which is so far away and situated on top of a small hill...)was panting like a dog when i reached the lecture hall! after biostatistics tutorial and geology discussion session - went to return the 1st library book i borrowed... saw that bong guy from aiesec (why do ppl have to bleach their whole head of hair???) anyway, when mom came to pick me from college, it was raining horribly... mom drove "into" block d... but still, i got wet... then we went to sungei way to eat seafood... and it was raining too... lots of water for an afternoon... well, thursday after bio practical - went to 1u with mom... bought duck rice for dinner... went back to hostel and had a cat nap for 15 minutes before bugging yen chyng to go for aiesec meeting... anyway we ended up waiting for some time for irving to fetch us... went to the aiesec episode... was just in time for a little square dancing... wauter and e.j from the netherlands presented about their country and also made us play a game where we had to get signatures from the people who matched the description of 10 prepared questions... i got only 7 out of 10... one of the questions was "who is wearing pink underwear?" (?!?) anyway, after the episode, we went back to college... decided to eat my duck rice... had a chili explosion... the little chili container was like a puff ball and when i lifted its lid slightly... "Pop"... there were so much tiny bubbles at the bottom... i wonder whether it was a result of bacterial activity or the chili sauce was extra-cooked by the heat from the soup (which smelled a bit suspicious too)... wednesday - after watching fragments of A.I (i love that show... esp the aliens!) for S&T, i went back home... btw, our S&T tutor quit... so our lecturer is going to conduct our tutorials! (oh no!) .

.. divergence from topic: i watched gattaca and the devil's advocate just now... i love those two shows too... great actors/actresses and good themes! ethan hawke, jude law and uma thurman for gattaca (we should have picked this show to discuss for S&T instead of star wars III!!!) and keanu reeves, charlize theron, al pacino for the devil'e advocate!!! although i've watched these shows so many times around... but i still love them... ;Þ

bought an ftec notebook on sunday from senQ in low yat plaza... it costed us rm3999 plus another rm300++ to extend the warranty to 4 yrs. it has a 12" wide screen... supposedly 1.9kg (seems heavier to me)... pentium m 740, 512mb ram, windows xp home edition, the usual specifications plus it came with a small mouse and a bag. however when i came back home and used it for the 2nd time around midnight, i found that 1 pixel wasn't working... LK confirmed it... so mom took me back to low yat on monday to check the problem... but the pixel was fine when then turned it on... but they promised to change the set... so we hung ard sungei wang waiting for the stock to come... but it didn't come... so had to come back the next day and the boss/person-in-charge was slightly insolent to us... but they changed it for us anyway...

so ok... i'll end here... feeling lethargic and sleepy now...

Haze Daze

this is how bad the haze is: i was waiting for the lift in my college when i tried reading a flyer on a pillar about 2 meters away and it was smokey! to top it all, my room's fan is not working and although we have made complaints, the technician hasn't come to fix it for a week now... so i've practically been living at home for this whole week... oh yea, i don't know why but many of us are having lots of tiny pimples... maybe its the water?

the haze in um has been just horrible especially for the past 2 days. and we have to walk to classes, plus most of the science faculty is open-air! but i really pity the graduates having their convocation this week... they're so happy but the weather's so crappy! imagine the pictures they take outdoors would be shrouded in smoke!!! however the good part of it is that there's like a carnival thing going on at the perdanasiswa complex... lots of food, drinks, clothes, and food... did i say food twice? yup... there's so much food! like a 'pasar malam'! and there's a fun fair near one of the colleges... with ferris wheel and all! but i didn't dare venture there because of the hazardous air... i bought a pau and some titbits-on-a-stick and had to gobble it down because we were late for the s&t tutorial.

hmm... i've lost the right mood to blog now so i'm going to have lunch now. btw i'm home for the weekends now... in fact i've been coming homw almost everyday this week... pampered??? ;Þ

Tests!

wow i haven't been here for a long time... i had a my biology practical test today... it was a written test on cell organelles, mitosis and meiosis - lots of electronmicrographs to identify and label!!! the worse part is... i remember seeing all of them when i was preparing my report (we had to draw all of them...my report was 35 pages of biological drawings... and the lecturer wrote "very nice!" on the last page of my report!) but i just can't quite remember what i wrote/labelled the drawings!!! so i think that's a definite disaster... need to buck up on the next test this tuesday... this time it's fungi, algae and bacteria

ooh... i haven't elaborated on my lecturers (i think)... let me start with biology practical... since it's the most interesting subject... the first lecturer was dr. saharuddin... he looks really young... as in like late 20's to early 30's! anyway he's very cute because he goes around talking to the students and he tries to speak english well but somehow there's always this malay accent lingering behind... but he's lenient to us... luckily!!! the second lecturer is dr. lee... he's also quite young... about 30 plus?! (pretty puzzling to see our lecturers looking not very much older than us!)... he looks quite square and always wears checkered shirts... but he let us compile our 3 reports to hand in next thursday... giving us quite alot of time to do it... oh yea, thanks to him now i know how a zooplankton looks like! our tutor is ms. lau... she a masters student...she's very cute too n some students even talk to her about personal stuff like not settling in properly etc... my biostatistics lecturer is quite nice... she's getting her phd this tuesday during the convocation... i think she's 30 something... although she lectures slower than the other biostats lecturer but she always tells us stories... hehehe... she's also the 2nd lecturer for proses kehidupan (btw last week, the ministry has given out orders for universities to conduct science and maths lectures in english!!! hurrah!!!) my 1st proses kehidupan lecturer was very boring! i know this may sound very nasty but she was like a dead piece of driftwood! my biological organisms lecturer is prof. pang siew moi... she has a lab in the post graduate department (i think)... she reminds me of mrs. tan; but maybe a less animated version?!? it's pretty obvious that she's quite passionate about her field... she told us about mycologists interpretation of certain biblical events... like manna was actually fungi and the sea turned to blood was actually red tide... the other day, i found a microbiology book in the library which has this info... my 'pengenalan kepada kajian sains dan teknologi' lecturer is mr. ng... he's also cute in a little boy way... and i suspect he can't verbally read english well... our tutor is cik wardah... she's really outspoken and a no-nonsense person... but very likeable... my "TITAS" lecturer is also quite young... i dont know her name... she's ok... but she just reads out the power point slides or from the text book... finally my geology class - "bumi dan manusia" lecturer... hmm... prof muhamad ali hassan... he's grouchy at times but i have a feeling he's also quite passionate about his field...

have i elaborated about my new found friends? there's li sum; she's from sri petaling and previously a V.I form-sixer... she's very "chun" and stylish... we have almost identicle timetables ... only 2 different classes... so we hang out and walk together everyday... and there's mei lin from putra heights who's an ex-assuntarian and BB form-sixer... she's really funny, bubbly and giggly... all three of us usually hang around together... there's also a couple of mei lin's friends like emily, jun nee (spelling?) etc and choir friends like goay imm (my cc family member), pei chuen, angeline, yuet mei, ei ling, ain etc. and my geology group friends like yuan lim, siang ling etc. i met some people the other day at the 1st aiesec meeting but i can't remember their names or even their faces! btw, aiesec sounds really interesting but i hope i won't chicken out before anything gets started... i'm planning to go for their leadership camp xcapade... it's on the 28th of august 2005...

i went to seemom's kindergarten concert at 5 p.m. just now... it was quite good for kiddies standard... but biggest disappointment was the sound guy (who turned out to be ms. toh's bf) cut our song short (red class) and it was right at the climax!!! we've been yelling our lungs out training the blurrrrrr kids to do the letter R-E-D formation using pompoms for the past few months and that crucial part was cut out!!! we were so mad!!! i told LK "what kind of a lousy sound engineer is this?" when it happened... imagine all our effort wasted... i really don't know what to think... can you imagine we made 20 crepe pompoms just for this formation and now its gone to the dumps!!! i was so pissing mad!!! i still am!!! it's really unfair... i really thought they'd give the kids a 2nd chance... i meanit's not their fault or ours... it's the technical guy's fault; in fact the whole blame should be on him... well WHATEVER!?! looks like its just not worth it to put up a spectacular performance next year then...

i went shopping in 1u on friday night... bought alot of stuff... a pair of shoes, an umbrella, a bag and 2 shoelaces... i think i spent about rm130+... i'm broke yet again... i want a laptop... but i don't know where to get one and which one's good... plus there's the issue of finance... lots of family negotiation will be in the works... ok i think i better sleep now... going to be drowsy tomorrow...

Lectures...

i'm sick... i have swollen tonsils and kept getting fever episodes since thursday night... i had an asthma attack just before my chinese society meeting on thursday evening... i used the inhaler once so i didn't dare take the ventolin tablet... so i prayed and tried to focus my mind and calm myself down... thank God that worked... by the time i went for the meeting it was over... by the way, i really think that eating mcD was the fuel to the whole flu thing...

anyway, i have signed up for 13 credit hours of classes. the maximum credit hours are 16. at first i had 15 but the science faculty people had to drop "kemahiran maklumat" so i ended up with only 13. my classes are:
biostatistik
proses kehidupan
biologi organisma
amali biologi
pengenalan kepada kajian sains dan teknologi
TITAS 1
i don't know whether i should take "prinsip-prinsip kimia" since i want to major in biochemistry... but the seniors say that chemistry courses are really hard and for the 1st year, our main priority is to get the highest possible cgpa...

so far the lecturers are ok... and surprisingly, the "pengenalan kepada kajian sain dan teknologi" class was quite interesting... something like a philosophy class... however, i'm not sure what language we'll be tested in since the lecturer speaks in bm but his power point slides are in english... btw, funny thing is... the lecturer(he's a chinese) can't express himself very well in english or bm. for most of the lectures, i think i might have to make my own notes because the notes given are really disorganised.

i received only rm6300 for my ptptn loan... i guess i shouldn't have put my parents' real salary... well anyway, it was such a bother getting the loan offer letter and all settled... i MUST say that the ptptn workers are inefficient! they're supposed to start procesing at 9 a.m. but they only arrive at around 9.20 a.m. and only open the counters after 9.35 a.m. luckily i had waited there early and was one of the first few. then they ask us to wait for their briefing... but most of us have classes at 10 a.m. so i just rushed off... in fact i went there the day before at around 4.50 p.m. but they had closed the counter already (when they had advertised their working hours as 9 a.m. - 5.30 p.m.)!!

First taste of life on campus...

on sunday the 3rd i went to UM, registered myself for the science course and checked-in to the 12th college (hostel). the room was surprisingly nice (better than what i had expected...). 12th college is the newest and biggest residential college in UM. they said that it can accomodate around 2000 or so students. it seems that many seniors are trying to get in too... and we must be active in the college activities in order to maintain our place there. if not, they'll kick us out. it kind of reminds me of smk section 9... so living there is like living in section 9 school... met up with some school mates and later on with yen chyng... we're on the same floor but in different blocks... and our balcony faces the courtyard so we can look out our windows to see whether the other is in or not. we saw mum's student kar sern (he's the good cute boy with a strange little lisp)... turns out his cousin from out of town was settling in there too... her name is june and she's doing science too but majoring in chemistry.

i don't really have the time to elaborate on each and every day of the orientation week, so here's just the gist of it... they made us sleep at 3a.m. and wake up at 5a.m. for our moral slot (which for me, was actually a gathering for chinese people where the chinese PM (pembantu mahasiswa) would talk to us about stuff concerning chinese people... and they spoke in mandarin! so i had to get someone to translate everytime...). we also had to attend many opening ceremonies and talks which made the majority of us freshies, nod our heads into dreamland. there was a time (our "aku janji" ceremony i think) in the dewan tunku canselor (DTC) where a guy was seriously so sleepy that he nearly fell of his chair a couple of times during the ceremony... and everytime it happened, i was trying so hard to stifle my laugh... i know... i'm becoming saddistic...

during our registration, we filled in a couple of forms and i was stupid enough to write down my section 9 choir experiences... this resulted in me being a part of the college's choir team... we had inter-college competitions all week and there was a choir competition on friday evening. however, joining the choir wasn't so bad... i met many new friends and PM Elena and PM Pao Yee... they helped us (science faculty people) to register our course in the secretariat room in our college instead of waiting for our "angka giliran"... mine was 999... so thankfully, i managed to register for all the classes of my choice... we were also exempted from a couple of activities in order to practise... but we missed out on 2 "suak" (cheering in unison) competitions in the DTC. we walked there every night to attend some function and then when the guests are gone we'd have "suak" sessions... although our college is the largest but we somehow didn't have the "semangat". after our 1st night in the DTC, while we were walking back... we challenged the 7th college but they declined us by hiding behind their umbrellas... and i saw irving was one of them!!! hahaha. every night PM Yan would try teaching us a new "suak"... the PMs would go crazy (in a lunatic way) when teaching us "suak"... i guess it brings out the inner-child of everyone... especially pm yan (which i found out leter that i'm actually older than him!!!...ooh... and i noticed that the non-malay matrics students are special/unique somehow... when you talk to them, you just can sense it... maybe it's just me... being paranoid again)... ok back to the choir... we had to wear the college's nasyid team baju kurung. they were quite nice but there wasn't enough of the same colour for the front row (where i stood... coz i'm short...) so another girl and i had to wear light pink sets. anyway, we sang "sejahtera malaysia" and there were 2 other colleges singing the same song... anyhow, we managed to bag the 1st place! so we had to sing in the DTC on saturday night at the "malam juara".

on our "malam juara", the band boboys (spelling?) was the "artis jemputan" and they screwed up at their 1st phrase... calling us UUM!!! so everyone started attacking them with "suak"... anyway they apologised and sang a couple of songs for us. although we (chinese people in the choir) didn't know a single song they played we just danced and had fun... by the way, 12th college won the most gold medals for sports. but in other areas, we didn't do too well. after we came back that night, the PMs made us run around the college taking care that the candle they gave us wouldn' t go out and then jump into the pond and get splashed there. while they were giving out their lengthy instructions i fell asleep and was awoken by rainwater from PM yan's umbrella ( it was raining heavily outside)... anyway, a couple of us experienced that... after that they made us run in the rain... and so i ran... but when we came to the pond, i tried asking PM che abdullah to hold my inhaler for me but they didn't let me go into the pond after that... there were a couple of girls who came out of the pond injured (or maybe sick) and they were so weak they couldn't walk... anyway we slept at 6a.m.

oh yea, someone's parents complained to some big person in um that the PMs weren't allowing us to have enough sleep and so the pengetua got so mad and he stormed out of the hall after confronting us all... he said that the PMs wewn't going to be responsible for us anymore and we can do whatever we want to... then the hall lights and air-cond were switched off and suddenly we had some sort of voice-out among us freshies... it was all abit awkward because (to me) it seemed a little bit staged... but i think others bought it... anyway... i got to eat now... hopefully i'll have time to type up an update on my 1st week of classes...

I'm waiting!

my friends have already recieved their offer letters in the mail! where's mine? as usual, i think the blame can be targetted at the lousy inefficiency of the postal service in my area... did i mention before that we recieved a christmas card and our december 2004 telephone bill in april 2005? i just hope that the letter will get safely to me by tomorrow... if not, i'd have to go to UM for it...

i met up with part of the hyperactive chatterboxers on sunday night at mcD in section 3 shah alam(and thank God we met up - talking with them really encourage and motivated me!). we had quite a night talking and exchanging "what's new in your life" stories... one thing that i really love about this bunch of friends is that we never run out of ideas of what to talk about so there isn't any awkwardness during our meetings! and they're a really positive thinking (thus spiritually encouraging) bunch of people!!! i guess we clique (spelling!?!) really well because we've known each other for a long time (some since kindergarten...) and spent lots of time together during our school days...

i had another meetup on monday night... but this time with my samad friends. i was so tired that day and came very late (they'd finished dinner then) because i had to have a nap first. when i reached pyramid, i was still in a daze... not yet quite out of my sleep mode... but after a little talking nonsense with ban yee... i was bright as a daisy!!! i found out that there were 4 people in our class who were offered UM but only yen chyng and i are taking up the offer... the other 2 are going to singapore... seems like a lot of people are going over there... (oh yeah xiang wen was offered the same course and hostel as i was but she's taking up an NTU offer... so i won't be seeing her in UM... so sad) anyway, belinda asked me to join the CF in UM... i hope i will... by the way, jia huey (medicine) and belinda are going to unimas, selina (medicine) to indonesia, ban yee, sook yeng, yan leng and bee chin to upm, jacyln to ums sabah, ming ching (medicine) to utm, yuen mun and qi bin to singapore. so as you can see, we're all going to be pretty scattered around very soon! but luckily there's still a handful of us in the klang valley... especially upm!!! not fair... they have so many friends there... i have yen chyng and some science 3 and 4 people (which i don't really know...) but thank God i got an offer... and so near home!!! (comparing with other uiversities...)

well, i'm feeling more positive now about university and my course... i pray that the Lord will continue to encourage me (like how He has sent so many angels to prepare my state of mind these past few days). thinking about prayers being answered, i've just realised that my prayers (the long term ones as well as the rash spur of the moment prayers) have been answered! (whether i like it or not...) so conclusion is... be thoughtful whenever you pray because our Lord is a prayer-answering God! but no matter what happens, He'll always pave a way... be it making a change in our environment or enabling us to have a character change.

Prayers answered lately:
1. STPM results
2. university placement
PRAISE GOD!!!

sick and lost

i've been sick for the past 2 days... i'm feeling very shitty now. guess what? the uni placements came out today... and so i sms-checked my application and after a couple of hours, they sent me a msg that i got into UM! but they gave me the B Sc course... it was my 3rd choice... at the time when i applied i wanted to do biotech but now... i'm not too sure... future seems abit bleek. i dunno what to do... because i can't appeal... and the more i read about this whole thing the more depressed i feel... i've to stay there too... for the 1st year. what should i do? or maybe this feeling that i'm havung now is just the effect of prospective change that'll happen very soon in my life... whatever it is, i pray that i'll make all the right moves and will enjoy my tertiery education.

Bloody rash hairdresser!

just came back from a hairdresser near my place. i was supposed to just get a trim for my fringe which was getting to be a little longer than comfortable and now my fringe is RUINED!!! and we had to pay for the destruction!!! now my fringe looks mangled... there's a bunch of too short hair right in the middle of my forehead! she bloody massacred my fringe... cutting so fast... dunno what the rush is since i was the only customer there... i shouldn't have listen to mum n paid a little extra for a proper hairdresser to do my fringe, instead of this half-past-six-can't-understand-a-single-thing hairdresser to cut my hair! i'm real pissed now... sorry for the rougher than usual language used in this post...

After a long break.

i have not been blogging for quite awhile! well... the latest news is... i'm working again at the kindergarten; but just for 1 more month. when my boss heard i'd be pretty much hanging around for the whole of june, she asked mum to ask me (i know it sounds so mind boggling) whether i'd like to work for another month... so i said ok.

it's the first week since school reopened. there's a new boy in my class... he has a very short cropped head of hair but otherwise, he could be a quite handsome boy (i think). he did alot of crying and clinging to his mum on the first day. btw, it seems the mum was a headmistress before she quit in order to take care of her kids. anyway, today was this kids' official 1st day at school (without his parents). he cried abit but later on, he coloured 4 pages when the other kids only coloured 1-2 pages!!! so hardworking!!! however, when we were just about to dismiss the kids, he gave us a shock by depositing a HUGE pile of solid waste and lots of liquid waste (if you get my drift... ;Þ). but luckily everything turned out fine.

i think the staff of the sun and surf cafe in sunway resort hotel must know me and mum by face very well... for the past few weeks we have been patronising their restaurant during the lunch buffet (4x counting today). 1st we went with the school's teachers. 2nd we went with aunty chan and gang whereas i was with ban yee and jia huey. 3rd we went with aunty stella, aunty lena and aunty florence. and 4th we went with aunty mary. the spread's been pretty much the same (boiled prawns and cray fish... or were they small lobsters?) with little variations. the reason why we go there so often now is: 1) citibank card is having a 50% off offer, and 2) our friends (different sets) want to try out the food/take advantage of the offer.

now, for the update on my reading list... (warning: to those who are currently or intending to read the left behind series, don't read this paragraph...there are serious spoilers below.) i finished the left behind book 11: armageddon two weeks ago. it was so sad... albie, chloe and TSION dies!!! i couldn't believe tsion, the spiritual leader for literally all the believers left, died by a freak shot (if i remember correctly...). but well, there's a greater cause at hand anyway. now i'm reading the last installation of the left behind series, book 12: glorious appearing (which i got only this sunday). in book 11, rayford and buck were seriously injured. well i just found out who died... and it was buck!!! so sad... that means kenny bruce is an orphan! (sorry for the spoilers...)

Did I happen to mention...

I think I forgot to mention that I saw many sea cucumbers while snorkelling... they were black with many spiney legs... and they were covered in some membranous muccus... Pei Chek let us touch one when we were seeing baby sharks...

Ooh, and praise God we all didn't see a single snake throughout the duration of our stay!!! I was praying fervently so that I won't see any snakes especially while taking a bath or in the toilet... because Chee Loong saw a snake in the bathroom and a dead one near the water's edge when he was there... he had the photo too... and praise God again, I came back without any wounds... just the lacerated arm and mosquito bites!!! So my packet of plasters is in mint condition as I type this! By the way, my mosquito bites are still itching... maybe they were sand flies!?!

Anyway, so many things have been happening in these last 2 weeks... I've been so busy and to top it all off, this streamyx thing has been giving me the hardest time whenever I want to send e-mails and stuff!!!

First of all, our refridgerator died a natural death (which caused our house to blackout while I was typing my UNSAVED previous post... so I had to retype it when the power was restored!) and so we went fridge hunting... it was pretty limited because the fridge had to fit into the space between our kitchen cabinet and in the end we got a panasonic fridge which is much smaller than our late fridge... so we have to learn to economize our space in the fridge!

Friday was my last day of work. Thursday was parents' day and I was stationed in the front porch... I managed to see most of the parents and well, some parents are so like their chiildren whereas others were like the day and the night! Not to mention that some were of the "british bulldog" material... but I have to say that most of them don't look that young... could it be stress? or maybe they are in fact "not so young" parents...
Anyway, we had sports day and later a class party on friday... we divided the goodies the kids brought and had an extremely fattening and chemical-steeped feast!!! But the kids loved it ...
After school, the teachers held a farewell party for me and Miss Dorothy Chan... she had to rush off to UTAR early... I took a couple of photos (which I'll post below). I gave Ms Toh and Evelyn a crystal bracelet each. The teachers collectively gave us, the leavers, an Esprit t-shirt each. And Evelyn gave me a very cute Pet Shop bag with two goddies pawing each other as the motif.
For teachers' day I got a china-mengkuang leave-decorative-hanging thing (from a taiwanese boy), a turkish candy bar (from a yellow class girl) and small famous amos chocolate gift basket (from Thong Thong).

.

I have been galavanting alot these days... midvalley megamall, 1 utama, sunway pyramid, jln. masjid india, subang parade, carrefour subang... bought lots of stuff too... especially shoes!!! and skirts too! I'm in the process of sewing sequins onto one of my new skirts... hehehe

I'm sort of losing interest in typing this post but I just wanted to mention that I'm reading the Left Behind book 11: Armageddon... and it's so sad... Albie dies so suddenly and Chloe gets caught by the GC!!! (padan muka, she shouldn't have been so nosey... she's always getting them into trouble!!!) Anyway, I flipped through the book and discovered that her name doesn't pop up anymore in the 2nd half of the book... so that means she dies! Quite shocking... as she is one of the core characters... but of course it was to be expected since it's abit unbelievable if all the Tribulation Force members survive till the Glorious Appearing...

I have survived!

I'm back from my 1 week of volunteer work for the Sea Turtles Research Unit (SEATRU) at Chagar Hutang on Redang Island. The following is a faithful narrative of what we (me, Jia Huey~JH, Sook Yeng~SY, Selina~SC, C Pearl~CP & Li Li~LL) did and also my random thoughts at the moment:

Saturday, 7th May ~ JH, SC, SY and I met up at the Tmn. Bahagia LRT station at around 8pm. We then proceeded to KL Central and then hopped on to the KTM commutor to the Putra stop. We met CP and LL near the PWTC bus station.Boarded the Transnasional bus to K.Terengganu. The journey was long and tiring. Everytime I seem to fall asleep I'd be woken up by something... people's snore, announcements of stops (we had 3 i think), etc.

Sunday, 8th May ~ We arrived at the K. Terengganu bus station (Tanjung) at around 5am. We were very blur and it took us quite some time to get our wits together and accept a van drivers' proposal to send us to KUSTEM for RM5 per head. So off we went in his rickety van passing right through the still sleeping town centre of KT.

The van driver didn't know exactly where we were going and he refused to read our map. He asked us to direct him to SEATRU House. So it was the case of the blind leading the blind since none of us had ever been to KUSTEM before! However, we arrived safely one road away from our destination (and after pissing the driver off by leading him to wrong place) at about 5.45am. Since it was so early (practically dark like night), we waited outside the Faculty of Food Science building till 8am. Sunday is a working day in Terengganu; so many people saw us there (looking like refugees sitting on the road) and asked us questions!

At around 8am, the SEATRU House was opened and so, naturally we headed there (after washing up in the staff toilet). There, a mandarin-speaking girl entertained us and gave us our volunteer t-shirts. This girl was our Research Assistant who goes by the name Pei Chek. Later, Pelf collected our fees and showed us the video documentary and power point presentation about the Chagar Hutang turtles. Meanwhile we watched Pei Chek make so many rounds on her motorcycle ferrying vegetables and other food stuff. We met Proff Chan and she talked to us for awhile. Then we helped some staff to load the boat into a lorry... it was a hard dirty work for 6 girls and 2 men.

At 11am, a van brought us, our RA (Pei Chek~PC), Morita san (a master student studying ant predation in CH) our luggage and our food supply to Merang Jetty. Our ferry from Laguna Resort arrived at 12.30pm. The 1 and 1/2 hours ferry ride was really rocky and noisy (the ang moh children la) but we all managed to get a few winks of sleep without getting seasick. There was some confusion when we reached Laguna Resort and as a result, CP lost her hand-carry bag... CP and the RA tried locating the lost bag but to no avail. So we got onto the SEATRU speed boat and had a choppy ride to CH. Our boat literally flew up and landed on the enormous waves numerous times; we were showered with cool salty sea water at intervals. Being naive, we thought that was normal (much later did we find out that we were actually in a dangerous situation!).

The staff in CH consists of Zul (who drives the speed boat and cooks for us), Nawi (who seems to be the head staff) and Nazri ( who's most friendly with us).

We reached CH late afternoon. We took baths, and had ginger chicken and cooked cucumber for dinner. Then we settled down for our night watch. We sat on the beach behind 2 logs which served as our hide-out/look-out place watching the horizon turn from day to the darkest of nights. It was difficult to adjust our eyes at first as there was no moon... however there were hundreds of stars to compensate. The stars seemed to continously appear with different intensities.

Finally, there were 2 turtle landings. Both were Green turtles, however only one of them nested (according to the staff, this turtle was the biggest so far; measuring 117cm x 96cm). Since the sky threatened to rain, we had to go back to our hut. SY, SC and I had rain coats, so we witnessed the turtle lay her eggs. That night we slept in our hut. JH and I were patrolled the beach with the RA at 2-4am.

Monday, 9th May ~ Woke up at around 7.30am. Breakfast was bread with jam or peanut butter. Then we tagged our first turtle nest (026) and later helped Mr. Morita dig small holes (preferably 80cm deep) at the edge of the jungle for his experiment (to kill the Yellow Crazy Ants which originated from Africa <check out the Christmas Island story> and to repel the native Army Ants). After that strainious activity, we helped him with his line transect plotting in the jungle. There were lots of ants and mosquitoes there... it was really uncomfortable.

CP bag has been found! It was all the way in another resort called Ayu Mayam (I think)!!! One of the guests took her bag mistakenly. We had sawi, fried chicken and vegetable soup for lunch. After which, SC and LL went snorkelling while JH and I went patrolling. Dinner consisited of fried rice and ginger chicken. Then we camped on the beach for our turtle watch. The sky was very dark and cloudy. One turtle landed close to our hide-out. She passed us and went on to do her body pitting, dig her egg chamber, lay her eggs and sand bathe (to cover her tracks). However, when it came to crawling back to sea, she made a U-turn towards our hut and took so many hours to get her bearings and head off to the sea. To add to her anguish, it was low tide and there were so many rocks for her to pass...

Tuesday, 10th May ~ Woke up on the beach feeling very damp (vapour from the sea? morning dew?)!!! Had yellow noodles tom yam for breakfast (cooked by PC). After our (JH and I) patrol shift at 9-11am, we all went snorkelling with one of the staff (Nazri taught JH and SY snorkelling with a tyre). It was so FUN!!! Although I haven't been swimming for the past few years and have never snorkelled before, it didn't take me long to adapt myself... although I did swallow a mouthful of salty sea water (later on I kept on drinking water... I guess to stabilise my body's osmotic pressure?)... I have learned that I must NEVER swim on my back WITH the snorkels' mouth piece on because it then serves as a very large straw!!! hahahaha Anyway, my legs became stripey as a result of a combination of the sun and wearing sandals. Plus, the life jacket lacerated my arm (near the arm pits)!!

We got back at about 12.30pm and had a lunch of curried chicken, long beans omelette and "sum" vegetables (complements to the cook, PC!). It rained in the evening. We whiled our afternoon away by playing cards, mainly "Big 2" (cho tai tee) with the staff. Then we had fried rice, fried yellow mee and baked beans with egg for dinner. There was so much leftover mee.

During our turtle watch, there were 2 landings but no nesting. While we were sleeping, 1 more Green turtle landed and nested. We had to sleep in our hut because it started to rain heavily. It was a cloudy night with the sea breeze (zephyr?) whistling in our ears. We discovered the hut was leaking in 3 places... so we placed pails to collect the rain water.

Wednesday, 11th May ~ Woke up at around 7.30am with lots of mosquitoes buzzing in my ears. Here, no matter how much repellant we put on, the insects just keep coming. And not to mention their mammoth sizes (compared to the domestic kinds we see back in KL) and their ferocity in getting a little blood.

SC made me a maggi mee with an egg for breakfast. Then JH and I went patrolling and discovered we had forgotten to bring out the patrol record book. Turns out that there were 5 crab holes in 5 different nests at 4 different directions!!! These crabs really want to test our memories!

We went snorkelling... FUN!!! We fed many colourful fish! We saw a tourist boat going ashore and we shouted at them from the sea, "jangan mendarat!"... I had a mild asthma attack, so I swam back with SC and LL (they were going to ward off the boat). I inhaled 2 Ventolin puffs and was much better, so I went back to snorkel. It turned out that the boat man wanted to borrow tools to fix his engine.

PC cooked us lunch, which was seaweed soup, french beans with carrot strips and sardines in tomato onion sauce. After lunch, PC gave us a comments/questionaire booklet. We spent the afternoon trying to fill it up... but we didn't finish it because we still had lots of things to experience! The staff killed 3 monitor lizards!!! They are equivalent to the scavenging dogs... and their bites are fatal not because it is poisonous but because it has so much bacteria in its saliva! Zul came back from his "kampung" and he cooked us a dinner of beef rendang, fried egg-coated egg plant and fried fish (grouper fish cought by Nawi and Nazri from the sea).

At around 8pm, 3 Green turtles landed and all 3 nested. Tonight for the first time we saw a crescent moon! It really acted like nature's spotlight! Since we weren't allowed (yet) to go near the turtles until they had finished laying eggs, we spent our time looking up at the night sky. I spotted the Orion's Belt, the Big Dipper and the Archer constellations. I also saw a shooting star for the first time!!! Praise God... it was so beautiful!!! The more I see of nature's wonders, the more awestruck I am of all our heavenly Father has created! We slept in the hut because the sky threatened to rain (but didn't in the end...heard and saw rats running about!). Patrol duties were at 2-4am... Zul didn't let us off the hook and we JH and I had to wake up at 2.15 am and patrol the 2nd time at 3.30am. The tide was very low when we patrolled.

Thursday, 12th May ~ Woke up at 7.30am with lower back and neck aches. Sleeping cramply on the hard plank floor of the hut or even the beach is very uncomfortable. Had breakfast of Digestives biscuits then went to tag the 3 turtle nests. after that we went to Marine Park by the speed boatwith PC, Nawi and Nazri. It was saturated with snorkelling tourists and the coral reef was dead and unvarying (not at all as spectacular as CH). Since the Marine Park had cell phone reception, I text messaged mom for the first time since I arrived to CH. After much persuasion, we went to see baby sharks in... (Pasir Panjang? Laguna Resort? not sure...) I saw the baby shark twice, parrot fish, grouper (polka dotted fish used to make sweet and sour fish) and trigger fish (who's reputed to be very territorial and its bite can rip through diving gear!) who kept heading in my direction with its mouth open!

Came back for lunch at 1.30pm. Was so starved. Lunch was beef rendang with potatoes, french beans with carrot, pickled vegetables (cabbage, onion, chilli, cucumber, carrot), and pumpkin something (look like dhal but tastes slightly sweet). Read "2 Viking Romances" book that I brought to pass away the evening. Saw a school of jumping fish and turtles surfacing the sea for air while we were chatting near the CH faded rock.

We had fried meehoon with chilli padi and sweet pineapple with pandan drink for dinner. There were no turtle landings tonight so we ended up gazing at the stars and moon and sleeping on the beach.

Friday, 13th May ~ Woke up on the beach at 7am. Breakfast consisted of Digestives biscuits and salmon spread on crackers. Today's schedulr is beach cleanup. So we were divided into groups and picked up all the foreign object stranded on the beach. It was very HOT! I think I burned my scalp while snorkelling... It's painful... and I'm very spotty due to insect bites... and I'm getting so.................. TAN! Anyway, we also helped Mr. Morita pull out grass near his experiment site.

We went snorkelling later (except CP). SC, LL and I saw a turtle swimming in the bluer part of the sea (sea bed is sand only). We tried to outswim it but failed miserably! hahaha The turtle swims so gracefully using its front flippers... and there was a smallfish lingering beside its flipper, eating off the turtle. We saw huge oysters with intricately patterned electric blue tongues which retractacted whenever there is movement nearby. I saw a few swordfish; they like swimming near the waters' surface. There are many sucker fish which look like the rock surfaces and I saw a trigger fish as I was entering the water! The coral reef looks like an under-water garden (although lacking in diversity of colours most of the time). Some of the structures look like the 'mushroom effect' of a nuclear bomb, gigantic potatoes with 'brain-like' surfaces, brocoflowers etc. The sea water varies in temperature too... near the shore it is cool, deeper waters above coral reef it is warmer but the waters where we saw the turtle was cold.

Later when we came back for lunch (PC cooked 'foo chuk' with glass noodles soup, french beans with baby corn,potatoes and chilli, and canned curried chicken), a blue and black butterfly kept landing on my swimsuit and sucking the sea water off it! You could say that I was hassled by a butterfly!

There's an addition to the current inhabitants of CH... his name is Jeremy and he's Proff Chan's son! (spy?!?) Anyway, we had fried rice, baked beans, fried eggs, fried fish and tomatoes with cucmbers for dinner. It kept on raining so we played cards till 8.30pm. Then we got news that a Hawksbill turtle had just landed near our hut sector... we had to block out our lights and wait till she was done laying her eggs (she's a shy species). I got sprayed sand while she was sand bathing. Hawksbills are very much smaller (width 80+cm)than Green turtles and the move much faster too. The staff relocated her nest and discovered there were 142 eggs! We got to hold a turtle egg... it was like a softer ping pong ball! The poor turtle slid into the stream while sand bathing and had to swim and crawl her way back to sea.

Altogether there were 5 landings and 3 nestings. 2 Green turtles made U-turns back to sea. One turtle went under the netting of a previous turtles' nest and had to be scared away. We managed to touch a Green turtle's egg too... it was still slimey and warm... its bigger than a Hawksbill's egg.

Slept in the hut because it was drizzling outside. Patrolled at 12-2am.

[Continuation here]