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!

Boring days = Holidays

mr. hide and seek lizard has mysteriously disappeared. i wonder whether he got bored of me or he'd met his demise in some way which will never be known to me... i noticed his absence after getting back from genting...

so, genting was quite boring... we didn't know what to do so we spent the 1st day walking around the shopping area, which was redundant since kl/pj shops are in a whole other league above almost anywhere in malaysia. however, we did enter the casino... to get free hot milo!!! hahaha.. i think that must've sound so stupid... but none of us actually knew how to gamble... and we were of age to enter... although we did have to show our i.c. before entering, and one of the guards thought my friend was my mum... kakaka... after that she was like "do i look so old?" anyway, we ended the day by studying our respective books (YC-mina no nihonggo, BY-some JLPT level 4 book, and me-cima c4) in our room.

2nd day was better, although we woke up really late and only left the room after midday. we went bowling - where i really sucked at it and only striked like twice in 2 games... so malu-fying!!! then YC and BY went rock climbing... i didn't dare to because it looked scary and my arms were still hurting from lugging my luggage bag around the previous day. after that we played some arcade games and archery. archery was really tiring for my arms (since i don't really have much muscles and never exercise!!!) and since it was near closing time, the instructors/staff kept helping us out (so we could finish early and they could close up, i think). anyway, we ended the 2nd day by sitting in starbucks studying till 2am...

both days were raining and so it was really damp and cold whenever we went outside. we tried taking pictures in the misty night... this is one i took with my camera phone with a faint starbucks coffee sign in the background.


the journey home was such a misfortune. the cable car stopped for awhile when we were halfway on our journey down. then there were no available buses for us till 4pm, so we had to wait for more than 2 hours in the dingy bus station. our bus driver was a maniac racing down the winding roads making both my friends sick to the stomach. at kl sentral, putra lrt was down and so we were stranded there. after having a bite at secret recipe, we managed to take a train to taman jaya and from there everything was ok.

i managed to go for our church's christmas service in putra stadium. it was nice with lots of dancing. at night we had a family reunion dinner and LK and i followed a cousin to a catholic midnight mass in assumption church. we had to sit outside the overflow hall and so, had difficulty seeing the screen and hearing what was going on. plus this was the first time i've been to a midnight mass and so i have no idea what was going on and why we had to sit and stand numerous times. but it's very different from what i experience in my church. maybe next time i should go with someone who could actually explain to me what the rituals symbolises etc.

Hide and Seek lizard

apparently, i'm in a hide-and-seek game with a very tricky lizard. this little reptile has been popping his head out from under the 3-seater sofa all night since i started working on my comp. this is all the dog's fault... if we didn't have a spoilt mutt which only eats when he feels like it (so his dinner has to be kept out for him until we go to bed), we'd have our pests under control.

anyway, this sneaky lizard has tried to out-smart me by popping out at different points from under the sofa. he discovered this trick when he figured that i had learned his routine and could predict where and when was his next scheduled attack.

hmm... somehow i think this cunning scaley fiend is more interested on beating me by creeping out unnoticed (by me) than actually stealing the dog's food!!! he's been trying countless times without any success so far... although he had a few near misses where he managed to creep out full body rather than just his head. the more attempts he makes, the more bold he becomes and is not easily cowwed by a flick of my hand.

unfortunately for me, he'll be having the run of the house in less than an hour's time as i have to catch some shuteye now. so mr. lizard, you win this round!!! i have a feeling we'll get a rematch for this out-smarting hide-and-seek game in the near future!

p.s: come to think of it, this lizard could very well be a female (since it is said by SOME people that females are more cunning...). if that's the case, then it'll have to be addressed as ms. lizard!

Encounter of the turd kind...

lately, i've been having alot of shit problems. and when i say shit, i literally mean shit! it started off when i went for a uni friend's party after my exams and i must've ate something wrong there because the next morning (which was coincidentally sunday) i felt so horrible with indigestion and that kind of feeling where you need to go but you just can't!!! at lunch, i kept feeling like vomitting but i tried to get my mind of that idea because vomitting is such a traumatic experience for me (always has been... but thinking back, i think vomitting then would have saved me so much pain). later into the evening, with no sign of any shit i started running a fever and my body ached everywhere... my theory behind this is that my body was full of toxic stuff but since there was no outlet for it, the toxic manifested into fever and body aches (whether this is logical or even right, i really have no idea)... anyway, the shit started pouring in the wee hours of monday morning. i was quite relieved but i kept having to hop into the loo every few minutes because it just wouldn't stop... my stomach, or rather big intestines, kept churning out liquified faeces with lots of air pockets. i could actually feel my intestines contracting and the air bubbles of various volumes travelling upwards (vapour pressure and gravity...)... i felt like a water dispenser... the ones with an inverted plastic water container on top of a dispenser with a tap...

this kept on for almost 2 days with no sign of the shit consistency getting any thicker than water. it wasn't energy-draining like all the other times i've had food poisoning, but i was geting concerned since there wasn't much improvement happening. so i went to see a doctor and he didn't even examine me and prescribed oral rehydration salts and some small green pills. the problem was that everytime i sipped the rehydration salt drink, it would make my stomach churn... so i stopped taking it and took the green pill. i think it helped to partially solidify the s**t. anyway, everything returned to a reasonable normal state after a week.

my 2nd turd encounter was early wednesday morning just outside my house gates... some inconsiderate cat had emptied its bowels right in front of the gate and burried it in sand. not seeing the turd and rushing to mum's holiday class, i stepped on it unknowingly! i didn't know i'd stepped on it till we started smelling something that smelled like vomit in the car. at first we thought that one of the kids had vomitted or stepped on cat turd... but turns out i was the culprit!!! of course no one else except mum found out about this. when we reached the school, i had to lock myself in the toilet and scrape off the s**t from my shoe heel using a wad of tissue... i nearly vomitted myself, from seeing it, the smell and the idea of the whole thing! i hate cats!!!!

after my food poisoning incident, it seems like the whole family is getting diarrhoea in turns. first was dad, but his wasn't too serious... then a couple of weeks later LK got it... and he still has it... it sounds quite bad and he also has the fever thing. mum just had it early this week but she's on her way to recovery...

this makes me think that there's probably something that's causing this problem in my house... i'm thinking it's got something to do with the mouldy wooden chopstick in the kitchen... probably it's some kind of aspergillus which spores may have settled on some utensils and its toxicity is causing the fever and diarrhoea... so now whenever i want to eat/drink, i wash the utensils thoroughly first.