Open Office finally working for my OS X Tiger

it's been bout 2 weeks since i downloaded open office on the G4. took me lots of internet surfing to figure out how to get it working... i'm still not used to using the mac... and somehow everything is delayed on this comp... like now while i'm typing, it takes a couple of seconds to see what i typed on the monitor... maybe there's not enough ram... anyway, after installing countless updates and some software called x11, i finally am able to use open office and also itunes. the open office interface needs a little getting used to... to me, it's like a basic microsoft office. the fonts look different though... haven't really started using it, so i don't know how user friendly it is.

im using adium as my instant messaging client. it's abit weird but the green bird is cute. no msn file sharing feature though...that's the sad part... i couldn't receive the family photos from my cousin!

so the past weeks have been pretty hectic. finals and all the usual panic attacks, depression and sleepless nights... then lab and all the failed PCR attempts. in fact, we're planning to stay at the antarctic lab tomorrow... and work all night. and oh yea, i volunteered to help out at nlds 07 in um. actually i didn't really help much because they wanted us to come at 6am every day and of course that's impossible for me... i don't drive! so i ended up coming for 2 out of 5 days... but anyway, when i was there i didn't have much to do because the oc's basically did everything and we were too under-informed to do anything major but become a runner...

christmas is coming! and CL is back for another few days... so we'll be going to ah yee's house more these few days.

Are university students actually environmentally concious?

i'm studying biochemistry. i have 70 plus course mates of which the majority of them are taking a course called environmental biochemistry. it's a third year course but in my opinion, it is a relatively easy (no... manageable) course. why do i say this? it's because the biochemistry part (which involves certain biogeochemical cycles and molecular structures of pollutants) of the course is just half of it. the other half is about how pollutants actually pollute the environment, ways we can remedy and prevent further damage (which for me is eye-opening and easy - because most of it is common sense) and also learning what 'biodegradable' really mean - how this term has been rampantly misused in commercial world. many of my course mates do not like this course because the lecturer is temperamental at times and will not bend to accommodate you. but aside from that, i would think it would be a very practical course to take as it relates directly to our lives, unlike many other biochemistry courses where the main focus is biochemical processes of a minute part of our body. yes it does relate to us but sometimes you can get a little lost in all the glucose transporters, second messenger systems and major histocompetibility complexes that you tend to forget that these stuffs are actually in every one of us humans and other living organisms.

anyway, all the ramblings above leads to the following scenario which i witnessed with my very own eyes. my friends and i were walking up the 'hill' to lecture halls complex and ahead of us were another bunch of our course mates. we were going to attend our last lecture on environmental biochemistry. we were drinking milo form those green paper boxes and i saw one of my course mates (from the group ahead of us) throw the milo box into the drain!
i know that our faculty doesn't have dustbins at every corner, but they do have 2 to 3 dustbins on every floor of all the buildings... would it mortally hurt you to hold your rubbish for a couple of paces more to a dustbin? i guess there's always a thrill of breaking the rules... but it's just so ironic that a university student that has just finished a course in which she learns exactly what can be biodegraded throws a cardboard box which has plastic lamination and bits of other plastic materials into the drain without casting a thought on how it would clog the drainage system and contribute to the already too-foul-to-breathe stench of the faculty of science! and this behaviour from one whom i've known since form 6 and she, a city slicker!

Evil Nut

isn't this the most ugliest, evil-est nut you've ever seen? it really is a NUT... picture it hanging from a plant!

limited free time should be used for sleep not blogging

gosh... i just cried myself silly watching the second last half of My Girl... although i've seen that movie so many times and it's probably more than 10 years old, it's still so sad to watch thomas j (macauley culkin) die... i must promise myself to never watch this movie with anyone around... i'd totally embarrass myself... since i'm not the crying-in-public kind of girl... in fact, if i were to be objective about myself, i think i'm really insensitive... not in-touch with my feelings and all that girly stuff... somehow, unwittingly i seem to have become some sort of "aunt agony" where people keep telling me their problems and their secrets and sometimes i don't feel like i have a right to know these secrets... i mean, i've always had an impression that when someone tells you a secret, you're supposed to tell them one of yours... but as i've said before, i'm not comfortable with telling people my secrets... and sometimes, i just can't think about any secrets that i have... which is totally bullshit because everyone has secrets... but yeah, back to the issue... i just wonder why some friends would trust me for a good advice when i myself am not living the perfect dream life... but nonetheless, it's touching to know that they value our friendship as much as i do... so ok, enough with all this talk of feelings...

just a random thought... some people think chewing gum looks cool... undoubtedly, some people look cool doing anything... but for the rest of us, trying to look cool may sometimes come off as appearing to imitate a cow in a grazing field... get the picture? constant chewing, got a certain rhythm going with the jaw movement... down, to the left, to the right and up etc... i don't have anything against gum chewing, in fact sometimes it's just refreshing after long hours of inactivity or after eating some onion-ey/garlic-ey foods... but i suddenly had this idea of comparing gum chewing with a cow pop into my head a few days ago... and i can't help suppressing a chuckle everytime i think about it... maybe i'm just going mental with all the immunology i'm supposed to be studying.


ooh... something funny happened today... actually, i think it's kind of sadistic for me to classify this as funny... anyway, on our way back home we nearly knocked down TWO mcdonald's delivery bikes. i'm sure they were from the ss2 branch... at first, delivery guy 1 swerved and abruptly cut in front of the car and as an automatic reflex dad swerved the car slightly in the opposite direction. split seconds later delivery guy 2 swerved from the other side... if dad had been travelling faster and turned his steering wheel a little bit further, that delivery guy would have stopped delivering! (get what i mean?)

Realisation or just killing time?

what am i to do? i was reading back my past posts (when i'm supposed to be studying for 3 tests next week) and i've realized that i really like writing (not 'tulisan' but 'penulisan')! although i must admit that more often than not, my posts have a tinge (or rather smothered) of sarcasm... it's shocking how sarcastic i've become... i used to think i didn't have that streak in me... but i guess its just genetics... just like that little depression/dimple some of my family members have on the base of the arch of our ears...

another thing i really enjoy doing is image editing and designing stuff... i could work on these things for more than 24 hours and still feel satisfaction... but give me 3 hours of mugging for a biochem exam exhausts me... with the exception of situations when i really delve myself into the subject and see the brighter side of what i've learned through the semester... i can say that i enjoyed studying pharmacology, DNA recombinant technology and plant biochemistry since i majored in biochem. although i must admit that i can't really remember what i studied if you were to ask me about it now...

are my interests a sign for my true calling? or are they just really strong affinities that i have for what would be an absorbing and fulfilling hobby?

Grrrhhh... go ahead make my day!

what can you do when you are just so bl***y sick and tired of a person but can't get away? the situation's boiling and i can just feel a fatal spark is about to ignite an inextinguishable fire. just itching for a big blow up... something must be very wrong with one who just has to have a self-pitying period which ends with a massive quarrel every 6 months or so. if you are such a sensitive person (and no one is allowed to hurt your feelings), then could you please take care of how you treat others? this world isn't about taking, taking and more taking... how can you expect to receive anything if you don't give? nowadays, i feel it's best not to dwell on things too deeply because it'll all just boil down to "life isn't rosy, in fact it's full of rattling skeletons". maybe it's just me, letting things get to me... other people seem to not give a rat's ass about these things. there's just so much sh** i can put up with... and it's just so sad to say that part of the problem has arised because of the internet and all the poison that it has to offer. new users are just so gullible and 'over their dead body' would they admit to that... and so they proceed in trying to spread their poisoned mindset to anyone who will listen. not to forget that they pity (not compassion) and condemn those who refuse to be poisoned. how can one condemn every person they encounter just because they are not of the same thinking/intelect? isn't that a clear sign that one is self-righteous and doesn't practice what he preaches? one has no right to pass a judgement on another and declare that his is the ultimate and absolute correct judgement. if one has that mindset, then that person is implying that he is greater than God. and to proclaim that one still believes in God (but still maintain that mindset), is just contradicting oneself. it is so sad to see how warped a person's mind can become... negativity, delusional and inferiority complex... i've seen this in many elderly people. i think it's something that you grow into as life takes its toll on a person. you don't realise you're turning into that person until its too late and you are totally immune to yourself and think that the world is out to get you... that every person you set your eyes on are scheming to ruin your little comfort bubble. i mean, if you actually think about it, you are just like a speck of dust in the population of the world... do you think that you are worth the effort and time of millions of people around the world to plan your downfall? my theory is if you don't bitch with people, more often than not they won't bitch with you! if you don't give a person reason to hate you, they will not hate you. again, it's about giving and receiving. you give others a hard time, they'll give you back a hard time.

i started this post feeling really pent up with anger over an incident. but thankfully now i feel better and the hatred has subsided. i guess i'm not one who can talk my problems out with a person. whenever i do that, i just get more aggravated... e.g. the YV'07 concert incidents... still get that "omg, i can't believe that could ever happen!" kind of feeling. i prefer just writing in riddles so i can prove my point without actually revealing my problem... and only i will be able to understand what's all this ramblings about.

Photos of Bali

Hotel restaurant view, Candidasa

Our Bali driver's son & his dog (we visited his home)

Our hotel in Nusa Dua

Hotel Majapahit, Surabaya

Our first view of Surabaya - housing area abandoned because of flood (a few years ago)

Mini lanes of the Furama villas, Ubud

'Santai-santai' hut and the pool in Furama, Ubud

Our messed up room in Furama, Ubud

Nice view in Candidasa

The cheapest hotel we lived in for this trip (in comparison with the others), Candidasa

Paddy field

'Sapi' not 'lembu'

Dolphin viewing at Lovina

Pura ... something

Vegetable market

Ijen Resort, Surabaya

View from Kawah Ijen

Sulfur lake at Kawah Ijen

At the foot of Kawah Ijen

3 of us holding a bunch of edelweiss

Peek >o<

the other day i heard a radio dj saying that he always starts his blog posts with an apology for his blog's inactivity... and i really identified with that! i dare not count how many times i've neglected this blog and feebly revived it with an opening line such as "my blog has died for the last 3 months..." etc. but honestly, nowadays i find myself having very little free time to blog let alone sleep... and when i do have the time, i won't have the mood to compose a post... so i have no choice but to let history repeat itself again and again... i'm sure this blog is already immune to the inconsistent activity of its author.

then what caused this streak of luck that i should blog today? it is because i'm stuck in uni with my laptop and 2 out of 3 classes canceled for the day... with nothing desirable to do, i resorted to this blog...

i can't recall what i wrote in my last post, but i'm guessing it's something about my industrial training in permulab. well, that has ended about 2 months ago with not too bad memories... i did learn alot albeit not biochemistry related (at all!)... learnt more about common lab practice there than i've ever learned in school... however i've also learned that professionalism only extends up to a certain extent, that sometimes it's best to ignore the tiny details and just get the job done. the work atmosphere at that company reminds me of LK' first job (of course his was very much worse) and makes me wonder whether the work ethics and workers' mentality differ in a larger organisation. lately, any sort of talk or thought about working sends "worry" impulses throughout my neural system. i hope that this is the common worry of final year students. however, most of my close coursemates are planning to further their studies... as for myself, i'm not sure whether i have the determination and drive to carry on studying.

pushing that aside, i went to bali right after my industrial training (right before uni started) with BY and her friend. it was quite good but we spent most of the time traveling in the car and most of our money went to transportation fees. however we managed to travel practically all around the island and stayed at 5-6 star hotels. we flew to surabaya and climbed mount ijen to see the volcanic sulfur lake. it really gave me a culture shock. i thought that surabaya was one of indonesia's largest cities and the route we took gave us an impression that it was a backward and wayward place. but on the last day when we traveled back to surabaya from bali, we managed to see the developed part of the city (perhaps it was the city centre since there were quite a few good hotels near our hotel majapahit). we even managed to visit their mall... it was not so different from what we have in malaysia. but one thing i noticed is that the indonesian chinese are usually found in the malls and there's quite a drastic class segregation between the 'have's and the 'have not's. and it took us almost forever to cross the road to our hotel... there were so many cars!!! and ever so many toyota vios cabs! i can't believe they use vios as cabs and here, it costs so darn expensive... thanks to our import taxes! so i guess, what we saw on our first day was the outskirts of surabaya... the villages and slum area.

then we took a ferry to bali and started our tour at lovina, the to ubud, candidasa, and finally to nusa dua, where we visited the nearby kuta. kuta is like what we imagined bali would be like. it definitely is a tourist hotspot and everything there is catered for tourists and not the locals. all the branded outlets were having sales... were they genuine labels? i don't know. we bought most of our souvenirs there because we could choose in peace without someone nagging us to buy their overpriced goods.

candidasa was pretty uneventful... the view was good but there was no beach for us to stroll on and the waves were quite savage especially at night. in ubud we stayed at the best hotel, furama villas and spa. we had our own private villa with a swimming pool and an outside hut to "santai-santai". the service was very good too! come to think of it, when we were at lovina we stayed in our private villa too. but the service there wasn't as good. the front desk lady was very beautiful but pretentious... both villas had outdoor shower areas (meaning that there are walls but no ceiling)! we managed to see jumping dolphins at lovina... however when we reached the shore, we were swamped by the local pedlars (most were small children) begging us to buy their nick-knacks... i felt very hassled in bali!

ubud was like petaling street just that they sell more souvenir stuff and the sellers either practically beg you to buy their stuff or start mocking you out loud and right at your face. i spotted many malaysians there. i think malaysians enjoy bargain hunts but i personally don't like it... perhaps it's due to my lack in the bargaining skills department. in fact, we got cheated on everything we bought at ubud! so the enjoyable part of ubud was the hotel... we also managed to catch an evening performance of a traditional dance/play. the storyline was one of the legend stories that we studied in 'komsas' (bm literature) in form 4 or 5... we also tried the famous 'bebek bengil' restaurant which was only mediocre, slightly expensive and where the cashier wanted to cheat us of our change. but i'll give them credit for their layout and deco/landscaping... pretty interesting with a mini paddy field, fish ponds and an open-air concept with dim lights and colourful cushions at the 'bersila' booths.

finding our way back from bali to surabaya was scary. we did not have enough money to hire a charter van to ferry us from the ferry jetty to our surabaya hotel (10 hrs ride) and our bali charter driver warned us that there are more bad people in surabaya than in bali. so we had to be careful... our only option left was to take the public bus at night. thank God we met a nice indonesian lady on the ferry who actually accompanied us in the old junk taxi van (with a very rough looking driver) to the bus station before going home. luckily we took the bus that did not stop anywhere along the way. we reached surabaya city early in the morning and were bullied into taking a taxi to our hotel. but praise the Lord that we actually arrived in one piece and safe at our hotel majapahit. so that was pretty much what i remembered from the trip (in brief).

so now it's back to classes and assignments in uni. i've started my final year project which is gene walking of pseudomonas pha synthase gene. my friend and i are on the same project and our lecturer supervisor handed us to her phd student. so this phd student is our mentor and she has been so patient with us. again, my project has nothing to do with biochemistry... it's more bout microbiology and genetics. our chemical shopping list is so expensive that both our rm500 allowances has been exhausted and we still have reagents to purchase... so far, we've done two rounds of polymerase chain reactions (pcr) and our gel electrophoresis results are terrible... we don't have enough bands! and it's so tiring for us to walk to the postgraduate studies centre to do our lab work! i hope the exercise will do good for my overall health! although i'll be stinking up the antartic lab everytime i go there...

New wheels!

we bought a new car. picked it up yesterday. its a white perodua myvvi! feel so weird... this is the first brand new car we've bought since i can remember... at first the colours we favoured were black, red or white.... then for practicality, we added in silver and gold (dirt not so easily seen)... we were so undecided! and we only decided on the colour on the day LK signed the contract agreement... it was a pretty fast decision from initially seriously deciding to get a car till the car delivery date... less than a month in total, i think.

It's all in the head

it's really ironic how all day i can think of so many things to blog about but when i'm actually sitting in front of the computer, all my thoughts are gone... so now, i'll just start with what i did today... hopefully it'll lead me to remember what i wanted to blog about initially.

i started the boron calibration last friday and it was so demotivating!!! the procedure involved evaporating the standard solutions on a steam bath (which took about 4 hours for 100ml standard solution), refluxing the dried standard in a muffle furnace at 550 degrees celcius for 1 hour, adding acid to dissolve the residue, centrifuging the resultant solution, adding 2 drops of concentrated HCl and 10ml concentrated sulfuric acid, waiting for the solution to cool down, adding the carmine reagent (which was practically concentrated sulfuric acid with red carmine powder) and waiting for 45 minutes for full colour development before taking its absorbance reading on the spectrophotometer. (see how long the method is!!!) on thursday after i'd finished the phosphorus calibration, i tried reading the SOP (standard operation procedure) for the boron calibration and half way through the procedures, i came across this phrase "... and triturate with a rubber policeman to dissolve." at first i couldn't believe my eyes, i thought i was seeing something wrong... what do policemen have to do with calibration methods? so i asked the lab technicians and they too didn't know what it was about... in fact, everyone had a good laugh over it! jokes were flying about non-stop till work ended! even the chemist didn't know what the phrase meant and wrote it off as a typo error. before i went back, i asked my supervisor what it meant (while trying very hard to stiffle a giggle) and turns out, it wasn't a typo error and simply means agitating the solution by blowing bubbles using a dropper (rubber policeman is the term used for the black rubber bulb)... i felt so stupid after that...

anyway back to my story, it took me the whole day to prepare the standards until the centrifuging part and i had to continue on friday morning. the results were totally and utterly out of the expected range! it was a total failure. i had to do the whole thing again (my supervisor suggested not diluting the stock solution this time). so i did everything again and had to stay till 6.15p.m. (overtime) to finish the calibration. again the results were as bad as the previous time... i think my supervisor kinda guessed i was getting abit fed up, so he asked me to redo it on monday minus the drying and centrifuging steps. it worked! and i'm so happy it's finally done and over with... whew!

ok, i'm starting to nod off... i've lost my train of thoughts. so i'll end here. i guess i didn't get to recall what i wanted to blog about.

My ignorance!

a couple of days ago i was reading the standard operation procedure for the ferrous iron calibration method and i came across this apparatus called Erlenmeyer flask. somehow i seem to remember hearing of such an apparatus before but couldn't put a picture to it in my mind. so, i set about asking the lab technicians what it was. and they were like, "what's that? should be a volumetric flask... but we don't have 125mL volumetric flasks... hmm..." and in the end they asked me to just ignore that and proceed to the next step. so that was that!

when i read another method for a different procedure, i came across this Erlenmeyer flask again. and to prevent myself from sounding really brainless, i refrained from asking my supervisor (who was right next to me) what it was... vowing to look it up on the net as soon as possible. after so many days of forgetting (when i was online) and remembering (when i was at work), i finally got down to checking it out on wikipedia just a few minutes ago... and after all the enigmatic thoughts, turns out it's just another name for CONICAL FLASKS!!! i can't believe i'm so silly!!! (to cover up these silly mistakes/discoveries, i'm keeping it from the knowledge of the chemist and my supervisor... after all, they'll be contributing 40% to my assessment!)

Scammers

last week or so, i read an article about the top internet scams/chain mail on yahoo and i was directed to a magazine article about this guy who was an american christian psychologist (or something to that effect) who was swindled by some africans via email scams. i've received some of these emails in my junk mail but rarely. today, i decided to open my alternative yahoo mail which i used for my form 6 editorial board stuffs and my inbox was filled with these similar emails!!! here's a sample (to the readers, please don't believe any of such emails, do not reply because they will call you and sound very convincing) :


MRS LILLIAN NDULOVU. Address 48 Venderbeek Edenvale South African. E-MAIL: mrs_lillianndlovu01@yahoo.com Tel:+27-76-32-67-690 PROPOSAL FOR URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE

Dear Friend

My name is Lillian Ndulovu , the wife of Mr. Daniel Ndulovu of Zimbabwe. This might be a surprise to you about where I got your contact address. I got your address from the South African Chamber of Commerce in Johannesburg, South Africa.

During the current war against the farmers in Zimbabwe from the supports of our President Robert Mugabe to claim all Opposition Party farms to his party members and his followers, he ordered all white farmers to surrender all their farms to his party members and his followers.

My Husband was among one of the best farmers in our country and because he did not support Mugabes ideas, Mugabes supporters invaded my Husbands farm and burnt everything in the farm, killed my Husband and made away with a lot of items in my Husbands farm.

Before the death of my Husband he deposited with one of the Security Company in Johannesburg, South Africa the sum of US$26 Million (Twenty Six Million United States Dollars). After the death of my Husband, we decided to move to the Republic of South Africa where he

had deposited the money in the Security Company as valuables.
So I and my son (Henry) decided to contact overseas firm and companies that will assist us to move this money out of South Africa because as asylum seekers we are not allowed to operate any bank account within South Africa. We have agreed to offer you 20% of the total sum for your assistance, 5% will be mapped out for any expenses that may be incurred in the course of this transaction and 75% will be for us and the family to invest in your country.

All I want you to do is to furnish me with your entire personal phone and fax numbers for easy communication, or you can contact my son(Henry) on this his telephone number +27-76-32-67-690 Note that this transaction is 100% risk-free and absolutely confidential.

Thanks and God bless. Regards, Mrs Lillian Ndulovu My personal email address: mrs_lillianndlovu01@yahoo.com

Industrial training

working has been really tiring... it's not really the work that tires me but more of the journey to and from work as well as sitting around trying to figure out what to do next. i'm doing my industrial training in Permulab and i've been placed in the water analysis lab. i've to admit that i didn't do my research thoroughly when i applied to this lab, so now i'm stuck doing chemistry lab work (which is not really related to biochemistry, but on the other hand will help very much in improving my lab skills)

from my experience in working at the kindergarten and this lab, i've found that there are good days and there are bad ones. i don't know what makes them good or bad, it just happens. in the kindergarten, the children could be devils one day and and angels the next. in this lab, things would go smoothly one day and terribly tiring the next day. perhaps it could be me... my mood or something... but somehow, i've never really experienced this in school or uni.

my first day was pretty good... my supervisor came in late, so i didn't get to speak to him until the end of the day. however one of the chemist taught me some stuff... basically i helped him to prepare stuff... not the real sample analysis. the next day, he was on leave so i really had almost nothing to do... sitting around wasting time... it was a bad day. i thought my third day would be the same but then my supervisor saw me with nothing to do and so he let me read up the manual on free chlorine testing and later try to do the spectrophotometer calibration. so that turned out to be quite a good day. my fourth day was so-so, i spent half a day pouring samples into plastic centrifugation tubes for the aforesaid chemist (who was back from his leave) and the other half calibrating the older spectrophotometer. the fifth day started out good with me calibrating the newer machine but after showing the results to my supervisor, i had to repeat some steps a couple of times. after which the results were still not satisfactory and i had to try calibrating on the older machine. i kind of felt like i was in the way of some of the lab technicians... my day ended by helping the chemist to pound some solid samples into powder form and helping him do some other miscelleneous stuff. (sometimes i get the feeling that the chemist is just using me to help him do stuff... but i guess that's what a trainee is for right? so i must abolish that thought!!!)

i have no idea what's in store for me this week... which starts tomorrow...

tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap

today was my 2nd day at work. it wasn't too bad but it wasn't too good either... the chemist who taught me yesterday was on leave today and so the lab technician had to teach me... i did pH, turbidity, colour, total suspended solid (TSS), total disolved solid (TDS) analysis today. however the latter 3 were practically demonstrations. so i had alot of time to shake leg... yesterday was better, i managed to do alot of sample digest and a couple of sulfate concentration analysis.

since i had alot of time today, i read some of the labels of the water samples and found that some were from dams etc and there were sewer water samples too... however they were pretty clear, not murky and shitty as i thought it'd be... perhaps it had already undergone treatment... i also noticed that reservoir water were around pH7... so if our tap water was acidic, i'm guessing it was contaminated while travelling through the underground piping...

ok i'm totally dropping off to sleep now... hopefully can type more tomorrow.

Idle

i'm amazed that my one week of pure holiday is almost over... i start my industrial training next monday! i hope i'll fit in alright and actually learn useful things. one problem i might face is language... i have a feeling most of the employees are chinese... another problem is i don't have enough pants to wear, since i can't wear jeans and skirts...

my last paper was biochemistry of food & nutrition... it was by far the worst paper for me! i thought it would be quite ok at first, but turns out that the lecturer asked questions that required 10% knowledge from his notes and the rest we have to have super duper general knowledge!!! i wasted so much time reading his notes! i've noticed that people who are clever at talking (glib) usually are really unreliable... you mustn't trust their words 100%... if you do, you'll end up like me... i just hope that i don't get any C's this semester... if i do, my CGPA might just drop to 3.00 or lower... that would be really bad for me...

so lately, as in the past few days... i've been busy designing stuff for a HP contest... i've noticed that my designs are so amateurish; it's due to my minimal knowledge of adobe photoshop and illustrator. so i've been trying to learn illustrator online for the last 2 days... i used to think photoshop was better than illustrator, but now i think the opposite! illustrator has so much potential, just that my capabilities are so pathetically insignificant... but i've learned how to create a brush and use it to design a very simple swirl... now i just have to figure out how to put stalks to the swirls so it looks more elegent. another thing is, i'm hooked on vector designing... it really gives that smooth modern feel to the artwork! as for the contest, i hope i can get by just by my ideas rather than the quality of the artwork... although i'm pretty certain that every aspect counts and have equal weightage.

while researching for tutorials i found a really good website http://www.bittbox.com for adobe photoshop, illustrator and flash. so far, i've only explored the illustrator section. it's just amazing what websites have evolved into... for instance, mika's website is so "cool" (i feel so cheesy for saying that word, but that sums it up!) http://www.mikasounds.com ... i love the leaves clearing away when you scroll your mouse over it and also the pidgeon releasing a good dose of bird dropping when you click him! from that website, i visited the web designer's site http://www.holler.co.uk and it was really sleek and high-tech (whoa... my vocab makes me sound like an 80 year-old spinster trying to be up-to-date). anyway, it really showed me how much you can actually do with flash! i really want to learn flash now!!! but everytime i open that program i just go blank with all the complicated features and it really doesn't help that i have no knowledge of programming... back to the story, i found out that this holler company designed a website for the 2005 mtv video music awards http://vma.mtv.co.uk and i was so "wow-ed"!!! i wonder how much they charged for that website... every page was really interesting... i think i'm a really backward person because i don't come across sites like these often...

ooh... i totally forgot for the moment... we're dog-sitting aunty chan's poodle pup LV... she's so adorable, cute, beary, delightful and mischevious.... she keeps bullying zack, trying to play with him but infinitely chasing him around and finally upstairs. i think she's just craving to nip at his stump of a tail... zack had an episode of low self-esteem when LV first arrived... he was sullen and kept to himself all day hiding upstairs and hiding behind the palm tree in the garden when LV was nearby. now, he's starting to open up but still is keeping the poodle pup at an arm's length.

Transposons!

a couple of minutes ago, i just found out that transposons are responsible for the multi-coloured corn kernels (black, yellow, red etc) on some corn cobs (especially indian corn)!!! for a biochemistry student, it's pretty sad that i only know this 2 days before my final exam... and this i found out on the web, not through my lecturer's notes (which induced a panic attack in me 2 days ago... i don't know why, but the more i read them the more confused i become)

anyway, i had my first finals paper yesterday (toxicology to be precise)... i thought i did ok till we started discussing the answers after the exam... and i'm pretty sure i've lost 30 marks or so... hopefully i can get better than C for this paper as i really did memorize alot (and actually enjoyed studying) for this subject... my problem was not reading the question properly and hastily answering it... i didn't have time to think my answers through... all my thoughts just went straight from my brain to my pen via action potentials transmitted through my neurons with nitric oxide as neurotransmitter in my brain synapse and acetylcholine as neurotransmitter in the neuromuscular junction. an action potential along the axon of the presynaptic neuron stimulates the influx of calcium ions which then causes the release of acetylcholine into the synapse and stimulates the nicotinic cholinergic ionic channel receptors which causes an EPSP and as a result muscle contraction occurs. probably half of that is inaccurate, but that's just a taste of what i had to come up with in my exam... the best part was that i started to memorize the lipid peroxidation pathway for linolenic acid at 9 a.m. and that question came out in our 11.30 a.m. paper! Thank God i memorized that! (and actually could remember it during the exam!) i need supplements for my brain... i think i'm extraordinarily "nyanyuk" (forgetful) for my age...

MYC!news article which i wrote... they've probably edited it...

Having Fun Helping the Needy

Saturday the 24th of March, 2007 marked the opening ceremony cum fund-raising concert of Young Visionaries 2007 (YV’07). This community-based project organized by AIESEC in University Malaya (UM) started in 2003 and has been successfully running for the 4th time in 5 years. This time around, YV’07 has adopted Trinity Home and Agathians Shelter for two months in which specially selected international trainees will facilitate weekly activities at these orphanages.

To get the ball rolling, a two-day carnival held at the car park area of Perdanasiswa, UM preceded the fund-raising concert. Participants of this carnival include NGOs and merchandisers.

The YV’07 fund-raising concert held at the Dewan Tunku Canselor, UM was officiated by Mr. Ambhihabathy Ratnam, Assistant Head Registrar of Student Affairs and Alumni in UM. This star-studded night hosted by Jules of Fly FM and Shamser Sidhu, started off by a stunning break dance performance by the children from Agathians Shelter. Next in line, fellow AIESEC member James Loh cooled down the excitement with his soothing ballads. Local band Borange then raised the tempo with their original numbers followed by a cute Indian dance by the children of Trinity Home. Marionexxes and Flirting with Sleep were next with their hardcore experimental music. The final band FasyLive “wow”-ed the crowd with guitar, drums and bass solos incorporated into their tight set of blues/rock songs.

As the saying goes ‘save the best for last’, the headliners of the night were Karen Kong and Juwita Suwito! Karen hooked us with her sugar sweet voice, singing “Juli Doremi” and “Cinta Hello Kitty” from her debut album “Mulakan”. After which Juwita Suwito mesmerized us with her version of Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” and two more songs from her current album “For Real” – “Teman Sejati” and “Walk Away”. The latter song she performed by popular demand from the crowd.

Other highlights of the night include lucky draw sessions sponsored by The Body Shop and bidding sessions for three 3 months memberships to California Fitness. The audience also received goodie bags sponsored by myc!news on their way in.

The funds raised from the carnival and concert will be used for the weekly activities to be held at the two orphanages. Any surplus would be donated back to the orphanages. Among the weekly activities planned are pot-planting, craftwork, puppet show, brunch sponsored by Paddington House of Pancakes, watching movie, tutoring, games/sports, scouting experience and an excursion to Gardenia.

Interested to know more about AIESEC or YV’07? Visit http://youngvisionaries.bravehost.com. Perhaps you’d like to volunteer, please contact Ms. LS (xxx-xxxxxxx) for further details. Donations in monetary or in kinds are most welcome (Please contact the abovesaid person). Let’s make this a Mission Possible!

YV'07 flyer!!!

this is the YV flyer that we managed to get printed. California Fitness printed it for us with thei advertisement on the back. negotiationg for this is another long winded story that i'll just let lie...

i had to redesign this countless times!!! but actually it's kind of simple la...

How hope crumbles!

first paper is next wednesday at API... where that is, i have no clue but i'm supposing it'll be the best looking building in um... since API stands for Akademi Pengajian Islam... hint hint

well, what's been happening for the past month? basically, YV'07!!! i've been designing and designing and designing publicity material for Young Visionaries 2007, half of which did not materialize in the end due to financial constraints... terrible... i just feel terrible... not about my designs but rather about the whole concert big hoo-haa thing... personally i think we bit off more than we could handle! the idea of the whole thing now seems absurd in hindsight. organising a full blown concert in 2 months and all of us green horns in that kind of events management? wttw had at least 6 months of preparation and their target was the exhibition and cultural night. we had 2 months to plan the carnival and charity concert and also take care of the weekly programs for the orphanages! personally i feel that we all lost the main focus of YV in all the hustle and bustle of planning this elaborate event...

i really can't believe that 70% of the time and our plans were dependent on the false hope of a sponsor (a major telecommunication company). time and time again i stressed on the development of a backup plan... but NOOO... we're still hoping on xxXxx to back us!!! and when desperate times called for desperate measures... still, they looked down on quite established local indie bands (which they the OCs might have never heard of... but believe me that these bands are leaps and bounds better than some of our performers!!!).

i know that i've never organized anything close to a concert let alone a stage performance, but i've heard so much from LK for more than 5 years about band performances and the equipments etc... hell, i even became roadie carrying guitars and effects pedals!!! and so i offered some advice like thinking of where to rent mics, mic stands, drums and guitar amps from and holding an audition to see the suitability of the band's materials... to the former, the response was "i'm sure that the musicians will bring their instruments" and the latter was just ignored... so to those who know the current situation of local indie bands, i rest my case.

time for promotion... ok, i admit that i did not approach many people in the faculties, but i did my fair share during the college roadshows... besides i am the one who stayed up till 5 a.m. everday just to rush the redesigning of our flyers etc!!! and to make my day, some "so-called-volunteers" start making snide remarks about how we run our roadshow!!! if you're so bloody clever, then why don't you get off your fat brown-nosing ass and actually help out like what volunteers are supposed to do! if not, just shut your gap and stop posing as a noble volunteer!!! honestly, i'd rather have no volunteers than have this kind of NATO idiot! but just for the record, there were really really sweet and helpful volunteers... in fact the rest were really great... Hari was so helpful and supportive!!! only about one or two posers strutting their stuff instead of helping out... and interestingly, i found an SMKS9 junior in AIESEC! i can't believe we were in choir together!!! such a sweeet cute girl! i think she's the only ex-SMKS9er that i've come across in UM!!! perhaps there are others... but i don't know them

so comes the big day! rush here rush there... ML and i carrying the heavy VIP armchairs (the ones with wood carving and padded upholstery) with FC and Jasper... volunteer A looking on and hollering "eh, where were you all har?", not lifting a hand! i really wanted to answer back, "we were riding in a next-to-condemned lorry rounding UM for the umpteenth time looking for the VIP furnitures! being sent back and forth between stores and rumah universiti... and then the 4 of us (2 guys and 2 girls) lugging the 4 darn chairs and 2 tables down a slippery flight of stairs and hoisting it into the lorry!" i really despise people who simply shoot their mouths without knowing the current situation! like Mr. JP used to say, "don't thought, think!" to people who make excuses like "i thought ar..."

the concert night... technical problems... again volunteer A was partly responsible for that... but of course the severity of the whole let down was also contributed by the dissappearing act of our dear OC member... and it is so dissappointing to state that some of our own OCs lacked committment on this night... the night where every helping hand was so important in its success... i really don't know how some people can promise the sky and not even deliver the earth/soil (whatever)... nothing, totally nothing... our opening ceremony power point presentation which was delegated to someone more than a month before... end up cutting and pasting my slides from the publicity materials (that i did in one night, mind you!)... so, unwittingly i have done someone else's job! How Grreat!

but by far, the worse part was seeing the audience flee the horrible performance by our very own UM band, Marionexxes!!! (Please voice out those words with over-exaggerated sarcasm!!!) because that's what they think of themselves (the best band in the woooooorrldddd!!!) GOODNESS, these people need a REALITY CHECK!!! i'm sorry but i have nothing but snide remarks when i think of them! they text us offering to play for free (to help the children yada yada yada...) and then after they chase away our crowd and eat up all our VIP food, they expect us to pay them RM100! do we need to spell it out for them (not like they'd even understand then...) C-H-A-R-I-T-Y concert!!! we started out with ZERO for capital and ALL our other performers (which are more established than them) Juwita Suwito, Karen Kong, FasyLive, Borange, Flirting with Sleep, James Loh... didn't require any payment! even our MCs Jules from fly fm and shamser sidhu did it for the sake of charity! these UM people try to be so arty farty by playing the chinese instrument erhu (which was more than not out of tune) and claiming to have a new zealand didgeridoo player (which turned out was a malay guy born in NZ)... Have they no cow sense? Do they not have any receptors for embarrasment? THIS really tops my list of UNBELIEVABLE events that's happened to me in my life so far! I'm still dumbfounded by all this... my brain can't accept that there is such imbecility in this world! and in an institute of higher learning... a place for supposedly intellectual thinking and appreciation of the power of knowledge!!! i hope that this is the only case of such detritus mindset in UM or any other universities in the world!

you know, i've vented this dumbfounded-totally-speechless feeling so many times to so many people but i still can't shake it off! I am totally undoubtedly spooked out with this experience! things just get worse and worse... i've never thought it possible... but seems like it is!

well, let me now dwell on the better part of the concert! Juwita Suwito was incredible... she was so sweet not to get upset because the band that shall not be named chased away her audience (she was the headliner and hence the last performer!)... she obliged us with an extra song too... joked with us, autographed our cds, bags, shirt etc. and she came for the sound check and actually did a sound check! (unlike the other ppl!) sheesh... i should've went for calvary church's fund-raising dinner for CCC... she performed there too...

karen kong was really cute and she sings well in live as in her cd! quite hard to find that quality in malaysian artists... even the veterens aren't as well prepared... to me, she was really sweet and CUTE! that epitomizes her!

i really liked FasyLive... they were really tight... timing and rhythm changes were all there and precise! albeit a little technical problem with the bass amp (which is our fault la)... their solos were really impressive! drummer had his double pedal and all... bass solo whoa!!! although they were quite loud, they had a tune goin! part of the reason they sounded good was because they brought their own sound engineer! i think that could've been their smartes move and i put my hats off to them for being so well prepared and just so.... chun!!!

Blogger.com bullying me la... hahaha

Sheesh... at first it was optional... now its mandatory!!! i didn't want to convert my blogger account into my google account because i have a system of categorizing important and less important accounts... less important ones would be like aiesec.net, friendster, neopets and blogger accounts where some time in the future i might consider sharing access to these accounts with other people. i consider my email accounts strictly private... but now, my blogger and google account has been combined... so "mah fan"... i do hope i can remember the username and password changes! i'm getting old and don't like changes!!!

signed,
old cow SM

I wake up and there's a car blocking my house entrance, this is a letter I'd like to (but didn't) leave on the offensive car windshield!

Dear car owner,

While trying to drive MY car out of MY house, I found that MY gate was blocked by YOUR car. Upon honking countless times, there seem to be no human being laying claim to the obstructive car. So now I'll proceed in helping you to understand your mistakes and point out possible solutions if this situation was to happen to you again in the future. Think of this letter as a community service.

Firstly, please don't flatter yourself that your car is big and long, because it isn't - it's just a marroon proton wira aeroback! not a humvee or limo, mind you! Plus there is plenty of space behind where you could easily park your car without blocking anybody's gate. A simple effort of reversing your car by a mere 2 feet would have avoided you from receiving this cordial insult! After all, how much petrol would you save from not reversing your car? I'm sure that a cow's flatulence would have made an even bigger effect on global warming than the exhaust fumes from your car (as a result of reversing it by 2 feet). So there's no reason for you to be environmentally defensive with me (although anyone would smell it out as just an alibi to get yourself off the hook).

If in any case you couldn't find a place to park without offending strangers, you could consider parking in front of your host's gate - after all, he/she is the one who invited you, NOT ME!!! So please refrain from torturing me with your presence.

I feel really sorry for your incorrigible driving skills. I blame the driving schools for not equiping you with the knowledge of reversing your car and also your kindergarten teacher who could not teach you morals and ethics. Perhaps you could remedy this by consuming cow dung as maybe that would give you a little bit of cow sense. Besides it's still new year, so maybe you should consider starting it as anything but a selfish halfwit.

Good luck in your future parking endeavours. I sincerely hope that you have seen (through this letter) my good intentions for the betterment of your mind and driving skills!

Have a good day and remember it's never too late to learn something new!

Signed,
A neighbour who's out to irradicate imbecility amongst Malaysians.

P.S: I do not think that this will offend you, as I have refrained from using any harsh or swear words in this letter. Enjoy!

Impromptu test 1

i just came from my impromptu speaking test 1, which is the first assessment i've had for the 'spoken english for professionals'!!! goodness, i hate any form of public speaking be it in a small group or in a stadium with audience as far as the eye can see!! sometimes i feel that having the mindset of "i'm gonna screw this up big time" actually serves as a good luck charm for me to perform better than i think i can... this is really weird as you know, everyone says that you have to be confident (although you may be crapping your way through the ordeal) to project confidence and confidence is what will bring you success! somehow this seem to be the opposite for me...

my topic (which i fished out of a brocade bag filled with stips of paper containing many different speech topics) was "mobile phones are a neccessity!" i admit it wasn' a very challenging topic, but thank God!!! He gave me one that i was not an absolute ass about! so i just scribbled whatever i could think of in the 1 minute preparation time that was given... the normal stuff... emergency situation, improve on social skills, international calls cheaper, GPRS tracking technology (with aunty L's lost in the jungle case in mind)... when i started, i was crapping away trying to prolong the time... then i remembered how mobile phones were in the past... like a portable brick (or pile of bricks... to be more precise). anyway, what i noticed was that i talk a hell of a lot more faster when i'm nervous... i hope i did not add in the 'umm's and 'ermm's... but at the end of it, i think that i did not do too bad (in fact i think i did better than what i was expecting)... so i guess i'm happy today!

The Long weekend

so last week was my birthday... it was on a friday and usually my fridays are free from classes and other uni activities, but somehow my 'speaking english for professionals' replacement class was scheduled on that particular friday... as everyone was working, i had to follow dad to pj in the morning and stay in uni till 5p.m. as mum was not free to pick me up earlier... my class was from 1 till 2.30p.m. ... luckily the night before, around midnight, YC and i made arrangements to go to midvalley megamall for an early lunch. after my class, BY invited me to her house... so we spent the afternoon watching tv and talking... mum came at 6p.m. and we got stuck in a massive jam on the federal highway. so that was my 22nd birthday!

i can't believe i'm 22 already! it's so surreal... time really does fly... it spirals into infinity and before you know it, you're old and done for. i think this is a trdition that i keep every time it comes to this time of the year... however i can't help noticing that i'm getting too numb/jaded for my age... that is, if the happy carefree disposition of my friends are really what they are or just a front...

Sometimes the idea of a nightmare is scarier than the actual thing.

yesterday was a shitty day... my plant biochemistry test was terrible and then i couldn't paint the bamboo leaves in my chinese water colour class (which i'm taking as my co-curricular course and so happens everyone speaks mandarin there... poor me!). i was feeling really down as everyone else seem to be able to paint the leaves... i think the problem was probably that my brush was too big... then to top it all, i had to follow mum and her friend (whom which time does not exist in her realm) to 1u when i had a major test the next day (today). there was so much to study although we've only had like 10 classes so far and the notes are pretty hard to digest at first reading. i was so mad because this was sprung unto me unexpectedly and if given a choice, i think staying in the library would have been a better choice... so when we finally got home (which was at about 8.30p.m.) i studied like mad till 3a.m. with a short break at 12a.m. for my dinner...

today was the hormone test and well, it was quite ok since i didn't have that lost feeling like i had during the plant biochem test! as for the results, that is another story... i really don't know how well i'll score...

Happy Birthday to my Blog!!!

my blog (this blog) is two years old today... and this is the nintieth post... not very much for 2 years huh? i wonder whether anyone actually visits my blog... maybe i should get one of those site visitor counters... but then i'm not sure how to integrate it into the webpage...

Post number eighty-nine.

i just noticed this when i logged onto blogger today... some people would say that my blog was in an auspicious state! hahaha... anyway, that's all... can't think of anything to say now...

A cause for paranoia

about a fortnight ago it was raining heavily in the wee hours of the morning (when LK was still on his leave) and we were up late watching tv and surfing the net, then suddenly we heard something like a metallic klinking sound in our backyard (and this was above the noise of the heavy rain! so it must've been really loud...). so LK went to check it out by going into the kitchen and peering through the kitchen louvres... he saw a guy standing behind our house in the back lane staring up at one of the upstairs windows (it was either LK's or the neighbour's room) in the heavy rain! then when mum asked him to turn on the backyard light, the guy disappeared!

that really got me spooked for many nights! what kind of person would stand in the heavy rain without any protection and just stare??? thank the Lord LK was there to scare that fella away! somehow lately there's been many cases like this happening around here! it seems at 3a.m. on thursday, there were a couple of indian boys chasing each other with sticks at the back lane again (but i was having a feverish sleep at that time for i was at the climax of my sickness!). this time papa even heard it.

talking about crime just outside your doorstep, quite sometime ago there was this brawl between an indian guy and an indonesian guy and they tumbled into our yard over our fencing! the former was hitting the latter on the head with a metal stick till the guy was bleeding... this carried on for maybe about 5 minutes or more and we were all shouting from within the house for them to stop. after yelling warnings that we'd call the police, they stopped and ran off... i'd actually had the polices' number at a press of a button away...

a few years ago, we were in the master bed room when we heard a woman's hysterical scream... when we looked out of the window we saw a pot-bellied indian guy on a motorbike grabbing at an indian lady's gold necklace while trying to chop her with a parang! the lady was trying to fight back and she had dropped her plastic bags of groceries. i can't remember whether the guy made it away with the necklace or not but it all ended in a split second (although when you're actually witnessing it, it seems like a long time).

things like this i don't see everyday and for me, it sounds more like something out from a television show or movie rather than real life. but the fact is that it does happen everyday in every country all over the world. we can see the evidence for that statement daily in our newspapers or news programs - and that is only what's been reported, what about the cases which aren't reported?? i thank God that He has protected me and my family in all circumstances and i pray that He will continue to do so. but what has happened to this world? man are behavinglike animals, in fact i think it more appropriate to say that man are behaving even beneath animals! whenever i think back about each of the incidents above, i have this feeling deep within that there's something really evil present at each of the incidents. somehow i have this perception that the devil actually possesses a person when he is doing something bad/evil. maybe this is just the result of having a too active imagination but this is how i feel about the matter.

A new year... but why does it feel the same?

i was too lazy to plan an outing for countdown (because more often than not it'll not work out!) so i was at home online while 2006 evolved into 2007. i was chatting with BY on msn and right after we entered the new year, my streamyx started giving us a hard time! just typical... but of course the earthquake damages should be taken into account, therefore the shittiness of the streamyx connection can be partially excused for these few days.

lately i've been having way too much chocolate and starbucks! we seem to be frequenting various starbucks outlets in every 2-3 days... and there's been so much chocolate (nutella and ferrero rocher) in the fridge that we're getting sick of it! but i found this new chocolate in cold storage supermarket (actually i've heard about them before but this is the first time i've seen them in malaysian market)... they're called peanut butter cups!!! and they're really to die for (if you like peanut butter, that is...). i hope they're not just stocking them for christmas. if they are, i'd better get my one year's supply!!!

ok, a new year's post is supposed to be about reflections of the past year and resolutions for the coming... but so far, this post has deviated from that... anyway, i guess my resolution for 2007 would be to study harder and plan out my time properly... less bumming around staring into infinity... that kind of stuff... and also to be able to start on the 5 CIMA certificate papers. i've been trying to read the study text for the economics paper, but there's quite alot of jargons that i'm not familiar with... i may need to have study sessions with BY...

i've run out of ideas for this post... and this the 1st post of 2007!!! my blog is very much visibly deteriorating!