Weary weekend

Tired to type more than a few lines. Am currently at a budget hotel in Sepang for a 1 and 1/2 day workshop. Struggling an presentation and written report due on Monday, where we had our first group meeting yesterday and will be having another group meeting at 4 tomorrow.

Which means I'll need to scrunge up some time between now and then in the midst of this workshop to finish up my part for the group meeting tomorrow, and then work on the written report by tomorrow night.

And right after that - another presentation on Wednesday and term paper due on Friday.

The next weekend couldn't come sooner.

Cost of carelesness

Sorry for not updating in a while. Been rather busy and distracted with work, assignments and other stuff. Deadlines were planted (and met, mostly), interviews were sprung last minute, and also meeting up with friends who're jetting off.

Anyway, in a bout of carelesness and bad luck, I happened to lose my ATM cards. Thankfully the account balance in the card were still the same. For the first card (Bank Islam), there was a notice that anyone who lost a card to contact the number given. Which I did, through SMS - and then somehow the other person was either being a paranoid or jerk by asking all sorts of stupid questions - "Kau ni melayu ke? Pelajar UKM ke? Betul ke kad ni kau yang hilang?...." For Pete's sake, all I asked was if we could meet up at a Bank Islam ATM machine for me to test if the card is mine. In the end, I just said thanks but no thanks. I'll just go make a missing card report.

So I reported the missing cards. CIMB was quite efficient, I got a new card without much hassle and a penalty of RM12 (inclusive RM8 for a new card). Bank Islam was quite the hassle, I had to get setem hasil for RM20(!) first from the post office. And then later I found out they further deduct another RM8 from my account for the cost of the new card (!!). What the hell - RM28 for a new ATM card! For a bank that claims to be compassionate and conservative, they sure are pretty cutthroat about these administration fees.

Updates, randomly as I deem fit:

1. Caught The Dark Knight last weekend. An excellent show, definitely lived up to its hype and my own anticipation as must-watch movie. Dark, twisted and not a boring moment in between - this is not just an action movie, it's an action movie with heart and mind. The sociopolitical undertones are very impactive; comparable to V for Vendetta. While the latter is more direct and surreal in its social and political undertones, the former is more subliminal and seamless.

2. Local politics seem to have gone into no-man's-land. Where I've totally lost interest many weeks ago and have stopped reading the papers for a while now.

3. It had been a busy week since last weekend. With a quiz just completed this morning, I can take a slight breather. In between preparing a progress report, studying for a quiz, working on a group assignment, and take some time off to train the juniors, life couldn't be more...

Fulfilling? Strange as it may sound, I've been in quite a positive mood a couple of weeks back since my I officially started my Masters. I don't feel as hollow or dreary just going about doing my work. I feel renewed, reaffirmed once again. Perhaps it's due to a sense that my life is now heading somewhere; in a direction which I could focus and pour my energy.

It tooke me a while to realise this, but we need aims in our life. Something that makes us willing to forsake sleep, turn down outings with friends and don't mind some self-isolation. I used to set really low goals, or none at all. Just doing my best as it's just the right thing to do. But after graduating and taking up a semi-job as an RA, it really is easy and tempting to fall into an easy and couldn't-care-less routine.

People generally thrive on deadlines, or specific time frames. If you give someone his/her ample time to do a job, chances are they'll take longer to produce a work which quality might not be necessarily better compared to if given a time frame. Which is why graduate studies is a different ballgame completely than undergraduate. During undergrad, you have specific classes per semester, specific deadlines for specific assignments, and specific dates for exams. In grad school, you mainly have to complete a research project within a typical period of around 2 years, possibly more. And the few classes mostly consist of lecturers giving general overviews of a topic, and then assignments of doing a term paper (short analysis) of related articles of your choice to be submitted within a month.

It is indeed extremely easy to get lost in the illusory freedom from the constant leash of exams, quizzes and activities back then during undergrad. Afterall, you have 3 or more semesters to do your project, what's the rush? *It's 4 pm in the lab, and running the next part of your experiment will take 1 and 1/2 hours. Should you do it? Well, typical working hours are till 5, never mind that you came in around 10.30 am for staying up late last night for a mamak session. Let's just call it a day, and do that next step tomorrow. Oh, it's noon, time for lunch break! Again, never mind that you came in only 2 hours before that. Yay, my lecturer's on leave. That means he/she won't call the lab today! Which means I can sneak out to Midvalley!

Anyway, back to serious self. Having a focus, once more, really helps to steel myself against the nagging voice of inferiority, especially when meeting up friends who (knowing or unknowingly) describes in long detail their new jobs and salaries, new gadgets they're eyeing, shopping plans, weekend plans, vacation plans etc. I just need to remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing, and that I'm to going to prove that this is not a dead-end path. I need to prove that for myself as much as for everyon else.


*For surprisingly accurate and hilarious peek into the life of a grad student, try checking out PhD comics.

Edit: Link has been fixed.

Meet the kids

A few months back, I volunteered to help adjudicate for a HELP College interschool debate. Which was when I found out that my old secondary school took part in it, though I didn't actually get to meet them.

I've been considering for a while on helping some secondary school kids on debating. It seems to be the 'in' thing these days for a *cough*washed-up*cough* debater to do. Sweeks' helping out his old school St. George, while Fea's helping with RMC. And I was thinking what better than my old school? Unfortunately I haven't seen the name LSPJ in some of the interschool debating tournament I've been to, and I didn't want to go through the hassle of starting an entirely new debate team, recruit students etc etc. So I was encouraged to find out that my old school actually sent a debate team for a tournament.

I got in touch with a formerly-Miss-now-Mrs. Sheela and told her about helping to train some students who are interested in debate. She agreed, and after working out a suitable time, I agreed to meet the kids for the very first time yesterday.

Where I was initially a little nervous about. People skills have never been my strong point, especially kids. Alright so they aren't technically "kiddie" kids, but still I'm known to be the most patient person around. So I turn to our resident mother-hen of the UKM team, Fea, for some advice. Which she tried to dispense as well as she could over the phone, and in the end admitting that she was also a little worried for me didn't really help my nerves much.

So then yesterday I left around 11 from Bangi, only to get stuck in traffic jam along the KL-Seremban highway (which later I found out was due to unnecessary police presence with the whole Anwar thing in KL). Luckily I managed to arrive in time, with a secret weapon in tow - Kenny Roger's muffins! Hopefully it'll be enough to bribe the kids to stay put for the entire duration*.

I met the-now-Mrs. Sheela at the porch, and the stepping into my old school again after a long time was a bit disconcerting. I asked her whether she recognised me, to which she said yes and that she had taught me before. I decided to save her the embarassment that no, she hadn't. Just that she had been one of the teacher advisors for Leo Club.

Anyway, my fears were quite unfounded. The kids seemed interested enough, and among them were those who went for the debate in HELP college. Their language proficiency were quite good, and they seemed willing to speak when asked to. I was worried earlier if I might need to use a crowbar to pry their mouths open.

As for myself, I was still a little nervous as I'm not exactly sure how to pullf off this whole mentoring thing. I didn't wanna get too technical with them on our first meet, so I just ran through some basics with them, and sort of did a mini-impromptu debate between them. All in all, I'd like to think my first meet with them turned out quite alright, and we've already made a tentative date for our next meet.


*The kid were ravenous for the muffins, and I didn't even get one as I didn't have the heart to take if from them.

Oil, oil...not a drop to waste

After 51 years, local politics has taken centrestage in the lives of most Malaysians. Ever since the 13th general election in March, suddenly the political arena is scrutinised so much more by everyday people, excited and wary of every by-the-minute development. Right now, the biggest thing on everyone's mouth is the Anwar fiasco.

But let's skip that for now, what I'm more interested on is the recent huge price increase of petrol, which initially triggered a wide panic by the people who tried to stock up as much as they can before midnight. Just like everyone else, I'm affected by it too. Now I need to fork up 40 bucks to get almost the amount of petrol I could get for 30 bucks. In other words, every 3 refills right now is just almost equivalent to 4 refills in the past.

Unlike most people, I'm somewhat glad by the price hike. Because suddenly, things never heard hitherto - how to save petrol, saving electricity, cutting costs - became nationwide obsession. Things which should've been everyday practices are now touted as the 'new-age' tips of surviving the current situation. We hate to admit it, but all of us are incentive-driven beings - with economic incentive being the strongest. We're only motivated to move our b**ts when our pockets are hit. And it's starting to show too - less jams along roads in KL and highways, and more people taking public transport.

Which in the whole big picture, is good for the environment. Especially with the latest piece of news on global warming. If we're really to go all-out to do our part for global warming, here's what I would suggest:

1. Increase prices of plastic - customers should be charged extra for take-aways using styrofoams and plastic bags. Shopping complexes too, should start charging customers for the number of plastic bags they hand out.

2. Compound garbage collection per weight - When throwing away more will cost you, people will attempt to throw less and recycle more. In fact this is widely practised in countries like Denmark (a recycling haven that should be adopted by every other country).

3. Further increase prices of petrol - but at the same time, improve public transport and provide welfare cushion for the lower income. In countries like Singapore and France, driving is actually more troublesome and takes longer than taking public transport.

Yeah, sure the oil price hike hurts everyone, especially the lower-income group. But with proper welfare structuring and good infrastructure planning, the oil hike in hindsight could be one of the best things to happen. Like the jolt that revolutionised our apathetic attitude to climate change.

New kid in town

I've never been a religious follower of reality TV, though I do enjoy regular doses of *cough* America's Next Top Model, and sporadic views of others like American Idol, Amazing Race, Hell's Kitchen and Project Runway. So anyway, a few weeks back I caught some of this season's American Idol (AI), and got a bit hooked. I've kinda lost track of AI, only briefly aware of the winners once it's all over.

Anyway, I was deeply interested in one of the participants - David Cook. Yup, the dude who went on to be crowned the Idol title last Thursday. I watched the grand finale this week between the two Davids - Cook and Archuleta. A nail-biting and grand contest between a boy wonder of crooning ballads and a mature rocker.

Frankly, I can't see the fuss over Archulete - he's a great singer, I grant him that. But he's just a really good pop/ballad teen prodigy. Compare this with D. Cook who proves himself beyond a rocker. I mean, c'mon, any guy who can pull off a brilliant cover of a Mariah Carey song gets top marks in my books. Check out his performance here:



I didn't watch the actual episode for the Mariah Carey week, but some information net-prowling revealed that apparently the girls had a tougher time. I can sorta understand, it's a tad tough to match the diva's legendary sixteen-octave range. Most girls (and guys too) chose her power ballads, and well D. Archuleta chose When You Believe. It was quite good, but predictable and boring; and doesn't hold a candle to D. Cook's performance. He was smart enough to realise he couldn't match Archuleta's vocals, so he picked one of MC's most pop-ish song, rearranged it and came up with something totally awesome. And as Simon said, being really brave about it too, as usually most people would pick songs that allow them to show off their long breaths and glass-breaking voices. Like in the finale, D. Archuleta performed 2 ballads, and for individual choice, chose to perform 'Imagine" which he did a few weeks back. D. Cook started off with a crowd-rousing pop-rock "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2, followed by a power rock song, and finally for individual choice; chose a totally new song and performed an acoustic version of it. His choice song was panned by Simon Cowell, but thankfully it did not influence the voters much.

And as to proof himself that he's not a flash-in-the-pan, check out D. Cook's rendition of a song from Phantom of the Opera. Not that I'm music expert, but I think he has excellent vocal control. He sounds breathier and craggy during the rocks songs, and yet can sound polished and soaring for musicals. Just compare the craggy screech he did for Always Be My Baby and the rich, soaring vocals reverberating in Music Of The Night. I find it refreshing to see a singing contestant who exercises control and not try to shatter eardrums at every chance.

A more than deserving winner of American Idol; with proven versatility and star quality beyond that of just a singer. And I'll be keeping an eye out for this dude in the future.


p/s: Try checking his other renditions of Billie Jean and Hello too.

New flash

Been a bit busy lately - research has been going well, so I've got some results and stuff to work on for a bit. And my college is also undergoing renovation, so I've to move back to my own place for the holidays at least. Which is kinda tiring, as I now have to drive to and fro everyday. Plus the extra burned cash on petrol and toll, not to mention the extra greenhousey-fumes. Not to mention it's a little more crampy, as I can't simply wake up a bit later - or do a quick dash to dinner or Midvalley for something.

And well, I'm also on a bit of a happy mood currently - working and playing with my BRAND NEW Dell laptop! I've been keeping an eye on this for quite some time, waiting patiently for a few weeks for the price to drop. I timed it with its estimated delivery time for about 3-5 weeks, as I need a laptop before I jet off to Spain for an initial discussion with my future attachment co-supervisor. So I placed an order last Tuesday, and lo and behold, it suddenly just turned up on my doorstep last Saturday.

This baby packs quite a punch, in my opinion, for a reasonable price - Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00 GHz, 3 GB RAM, and 160 GB hard disk space. And not t mention a dedicated graphics card - NVidia's GeForce 8400M with 128 MB. Woot! But of course, there's some things I need to get and do first before making this laptop fully-indispensable. Things like an external drive to transfer old files from my PC, partition the hard disk to run a Mac OS, and getting a pair of earphones.

Top view - mine's Midnight Blue skin.



Running on Windows Vista - takes a while to get used to. Some features are better than XP, some are a little worse.