Wednesday, December 17, 2008
First up, a few birthday wishes.
12/12- Happy Birthday Debbie. Sorry I didn't get to tell you on the day itself. I just finished my semester and was busy moving to a new house. Not to mention that house got robbed on the first night -.-. Best wishes!
15/12- Happy Birthday Cindy. Haven't seen you in like a month. Geez. Missing you a lot. Best wishes, and God bless. And you owe me a date when you're free!
17/12- Happy Birthday Miki. You're still one immature brat, but a good friend overall. Best wishes, and please make up your damn mind for everything you do -.-.
Okay, now that's settled. Updates! I've been a little lazy to update lately. Well, on Friday, I passed up my storybook at last. I did not sleep a wink at all on Thursday to finish it. Not even one second's worth of sleep. I'm quite pleased with it, and was quite amazed I could do it to that quality, when I thought it would be much worse. My cover for the printed version however, wasn't that nice, so oh well. We also had our painting test later on. For some reason, I actually had a mood to do it, despite it being the last day, 'cause usually I'd be moodless to draw and paint on the last day. However, I did quite well, and its my best painting I've done all semester, to the point it got quite a few people's attention. Yay! But why couldn't I paint at this level for all the previous weeks -.-. Nevermind... pleased I really did my best and was proud of it. Feel like showing my semester's artwork here too, but not with this connection. Maybe when I visit Singapore. Hmmm?
My weekend had Pastor Rob Buckingham (gotta love his surname), who preached about the relevance of the gospel, and it was really good. The title may sound simple, but it was really in depth. I attended the Sunday service though, 'cause I was moving stuff on Saturday to my new house in Cheras.
Okay, I guess I should clear up some things for some people who might be a little confused. When I said I moved to KL, I didn't move to KL per se. KL is the main city, considered a municipality by itself, so its like a state itself. I actually lived in Subang, a suburb which is part of the state of Selangor, which pretty much surrounds KL but not part of KL. There are other suburbs too, such as Petaling Jaya, Kelana Jaya (actually, I lived in Subang Jaya. Any other Jaya's?) Puchong and a lot more I'm lazy to say. Cheras is also another area, but it's actually within KL itself. So now I officially live in KL, and not "near" KL like last time. Many people here are very particular about KL, 'cause when you say KL, they take it as the city itself, and not the area around it. I'm too lazy to be bothered (heck, my church up here is City Harvest Church KL even though its in Sunway area, which is almost synonymous with Subang) and even though Kuala Lumpurians and Subangians and whatever-Jayans correct me, I still say the same thing: I don't give a damn.
Right. Anyhoo, on my first night in Cheras, I went to Miki's house to do some owed assignments and went home at 4am. I slept around 5am, and woke up at 7am for the service (chronology error, I know, shoot me). When I woke up and Issey had arrived to pick me up though, I couldn't find my shoes! I looked around and around but they were nowhere to be found. Then I realized that the front and back doors were opened, and the house keys weren't at the usual place. I woke up my mom asking if she had seen my shoes, and later we realized they had been stolen. Yeah, stolen. They didn't steal the TV, the boombox, or even the car (we found the car keys thrown on the lawn), but they stole my shoes, uncle Ben's shoes, Zoe's slippers, and a pen plus some change left on the table. Morons! Why my new shoes?! Okay, I'm thankful to God at the same time. They didn't steal anything major (especially the car, when they had taken the car keys). Whew! We found the evidence of how they broke in though. We found a long stick, with a hook at the end. They must've used it and hooked the keys off, 'cause since it was the first night there were no spare keys and we left it in the living room so we could use it if we needed.
Now we've all got our own keys we keep in the room, and we lock the doors (every single thing) shut when we go in or out of the house. It made some funny laughs though. I had to wear slippers since my shoes were gone, and the cellgroup members called various people to borrow size 10 shoes. Unfortunately, no one has that size, and the closest I could get was 9. Still fitted well though. It felt stupid though, 'cause I purposely dressed nice for the day, and I ended up wearing white Adidas sports shoes with my attire, geez!
Anyway, I was online and I found some interesting news. Firstly, the world's friendliest countries.
The top three are Canada, Germany and Australia, in order. Woots!
The study surveyed 2,155 expats in 48 countries, spanning four continents, between February and April 2008. Respondents rated their country in four categories: ability to befriend locals, number that joined a community group, number that learned the language and percentage that bought property.
Canada is the most welcoming; almost 95% of respondents to HSBC Bank International's Expat Exploreer Survey, released today, said they have made friends with locals. In Germany, 92% were so lucky and in Australia 91% befriended those living there. The United Arab Emirates was found to be the most difficult for expats; only 54% of those surveyed said they'd made friends with locals.
China, India and United Arab Emirates scored low overall.This is from Forbes (yeah... THE Forbes) so you know its true. I did some more research and it seems that nearly all the Arab countries are low on friendliness (why am I not surprised, when owning a Bible is enough reason to execute you, in nearly all their countries). Traditional, conservative Asians don't fare much better either, although those significantly developed are not bad. Western countries come out on top compared to the rest of the world, and Canadians are first. Yeah man!
It's no wonder they likely find Canada so welcoming. It has an accessible language, diverse culture and low levels of government corruption, says Patricia Linderman, editor of Tales from a Small Planet, an online newsletter for expats.
It also has other expats. This is important, Linderman says, since even the most gracious locals already have busy, established lives and can be unwilling to put in the effort to befriend someone they know could leave within several years.Okay... I typed quite a bit. And since typing is communicating, I thought I'd add in one more bit of info I found about communication.
You know thousands of words. Jane Austen uses more than 6,000 different words in Pride and Prejudice, and you can read them all without the slightest problem. In fact, your passive reading vocabulary probably exceeds 10,000 words. On the other hand, your active vocabulary -- the words you use in everyday speech -- is much more limited. On an average day you'll probably get by on a few hundred words. And those words say a lot about you: your sex, age, and social class.
These are the top three fingerprint words in women's conversation by academic researchers: she, her, said. And the three words most characteristic of man-to-man conversation: f***ing, er (uh, eh), the.LOL!
Chronicled
11:30 AM
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Thursday, December 11, 2008
I'm too wild for church, but too holy for the world.
Being so well balanced sucks sometimes.
Chronicled
2:37 PM
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Two things woke me up today. MSN, and a nightmare (as usual).
Aiks... yesterday was my final presentation for design2, and my group finally presented everything! Well, in case you've been wondering, here's my fairy that I did.
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The Dark Fairy, personification of death.
For the dark fairy, otherwise known as the Fairy of Death, it represents death and sorrow. Life has many aspects, and each of the fairies is meant to represent a particular aspect, be it passion or wealth, or nature. However, there is something in life that happens all the time, and that is death. Death happens to all living creatures, yet in a figurative way it can be applied to almost anything we know, making it even more common than we assume. There can be the death of a friendship, death of an interest, or perhaps even the death of a dream. The dark fairy is meant to represent all this, because, as much as we’d like to deny it, death is a part of everyday normal life, and no one can escape it.
Death may be a common part of life, often viewed negatively, but it is required, and can be viewed positively. Without death, things could not grow. Bacteria feed on dead things to decompose the natural world around us and allow for other things to grow. Worms feed on soil and to a lesser extent, dead matter to allow trees to grow with the nutrients they provide. Several species mate while killing and this continues the natural life cycle. Also, without death, the world would be seriously overpopulated, but death keeps things in check, in the complex web of life. This even includes the death of stars and planets, which the remaining matter eventually form new stars, new solar systems, and new things for us to see the beauty of in earth.
There may be passion among humans, and wealth, but for the dark fairy, its biggest aspect, death, is universal to all things. Death encompasses everything we know. There must be an end to everything, for that is what makes life worth living, and all the more interesting. Happiness is only true happiness because it ends when we end, and things only have value when we treasure it. For people who are dying, they tend to treasure life much more than the rest of us. Therefore does death not make everything valuable?
Death is extremely common, but it is often the most feared. Death isn't evil, but it is often misunderstood as such. Death is what keeps the world going, as much as love. And life.
Also, the scythe blade is made out glass. What is unique about glass is that although it is transparent and you can see through it, you can also see a reflection on the glass at the same time. Death is very similar, with our responses. When we are about to die, we often reflect on our lives, what we've done, and how we've lived it, with regrets or none. Also, while reflecting on our lives, we also see death as a window into another world, another life. Therefore the glass represents what death is like, and how it makes us reminisce. Heh... that's my rationale for the death fairy. Took me about 10 minutes to type that out, and like 3 minutes to come up with it. My group each contributed a fairy, with Ryan and Chun How doing other stuff and we combined it into a chandelier kinda thing. Quite cool. My group also got highest! Along with Shawn's group. 18/20. Mainly 'cause my group is insane. Gavin and Zhi Ling are the top artists in the class. Wai Kwan is insane in her own right, and Ryan and Chun How are pretty good in their arts too. I'm like PWNED by all of them -.-.
Anyhoo, we slacked after class and Miki, Ruz, Gavin and Shawn and I chatted a lot about a lot of things, since it was the 2nd last day we'd be in the same class before majoring. Good to just reminisce about everything.
Actually, the reality of the majoring never really hit till Tuesday, when most of the class ate at a buffet organized by Chong Sern. After eating huge portions (and spamming the ice cream like a psyko) we took pictures, mostly in our own groups though. In case you're wondering, the class can be easily divided into 4 main groups, or cliques. My group, called Essenism (based on the word essence, from some joke), then there's Kongkamness (based upon Kar Leong's nickname), there's SEYCY (based on the first letter of a name they use), and then there's Gavin's group, which don't name themselves. Everyone's pretty much in each of the four groups. With the exception of one or two.
This is Essenism. We coined the name from a joke about a person's essence in the library, and voila! It stuck.
This is Kongkamness, with the exception of the 2 guys on the left. All I know is that Kar Leong started using the word, and his group eventually used it for themselves.
This is the SEYCY group. I had to look at their blog posts to really understand what that meant. It stands for Stupidboy, Evil, Yaw, Chris and Yau, each name belonging to one guy in the group.
And then there's Gavin's group, who don't name themselves and don't really take pictures among themselves. But mainly, these four groups make up the class.
Even though we mostly hang out with our own groups, we do hang out with each other from time to time, and it's a pretty enjoyable class. Compared to what I've heard from other classes, it seems that my class is like the perfect mix. You can leave your PSP hanging around and you will find it in the same place. No one here steals, or is a total moron (the only moron we had failed everything and was retained in the 1st semester), and everyone can be easily trusted with no strings attached.
CD085-3 will cease after tomorrow. So, all the best everyone, in your majors.
Chronicled
1:24 AM
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Saturday, December 6, 2008
Aye, my first real break in 3 weeks!
Heck... I'm super tired now. You might be wondering, the last three weeks have three weekends (Sunday only, for me), so shouldn't I get at least a day of rest each week? Screw that man, no!
Let's see, three weeks ago was the funeral stuff. My mom woke me up damn early to tell me my grandmother had passed away, so yeah. Didn't sleep much after that. Two weeks ago was the finale of Asia Conference, and sleep was pretty much forsaken during that power packed week. Just last week was the final preparations for the history costume, where I had to wake up early. Yeesh.
The school days are obviously tiring, and today, since my painting lessons were shifted forward to yesterday this week, Saturday was off! I could finally get a break on Saturday (after God knows how long)! But guess what? My group (another subject, not history) needed to meet and do the project together, which was called line sculpture. Basically its use any form to create a live sculpture of anything you want. So for my group, we did fairies on some kinda chandelier thing with lights. 4 of us would make fairies, and the other 2 would help in other parts. Well, I guess typical of me, I made mine black and death-like. In fact, my "fairy" ended up being a grim reaper -.-. Okay... fine, but it looks nice alright! I'd upload the picture, but for some reason Wai Kwan isn't online and she's the only one with the pictures! Aye -.-.
Okay, it was dead exhausting to wake up early to do the line sculpture. But it was fun, having the antics and chatter with everyone there. Also went for service, and David preached about the Secret Agents of God's Redemption. Pretty cool message, very powerful. Oh yeah, CHCKL does something quite special every Christmas, called Christmas in a Box. Every cellgroup gets an empty box, then all the members buy things and fill the box to the brim with gifts, toys, clothes and all, then all the boxes will be given to orphanages. Very nice!
Oh yeah, I realized I've been saying I'd upload pictures in my posts another time for quite a few number of posts now. Gee, sorry!
Okay, so I'll upload a picture then, for now.
Cute right? It's a real thumbdrive! The teddy bear head detaches and there's a thumbdrive inside the plush. Heh!
Chronicled
11:17 AM
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Thursday, December 4, 2008
Yeesh, I've fallen sick. Who infected me?!
Be lucky its not the same infection as in Quarantine. Zzz.
Oh yes, lately I've been getting annoyed at some very retarded questions. I mean seriously! You wouldn't believe the barrage of retardedness I'm getting from certain people. Pfft.
Chronicled
12:08 PM
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Hello to the one or two of you still reading my blog. Yeah, I know it's been a while since my last update. Assignments are slowly ending but I've got all the finals and stuff this and next week, so please excuse the lack of updates.
Aye, on Monday we finally completed the damn history costume. The weekends were tiring though, 'cause we had painting on Saturday, followed by service, and fellowship, and later on I went to watch Quarantine with Issey and Dennis. Great movie! I seriously recommend it, unless you're a coward or don't like "shaky camera" kind of films. The film is very creepy and it literally sucks you into the atmosphere. The audience in my theatre was pretty active too. When a zombie was killed they'd clap and shout! Lmao! Super engaging, and it made the movie all the more enjoyable. I'd definitely watch it again with no qualms. It's that good.
Next day my group met up again at Kok Kin's house to settle the masks and cloak of the costume Licia would wear. I'll upload the pictures once I get them! And on Monday, we finally had the presentation of the costume. Well, what can I say? Several groups had a lot of criticism from Daniel, and we realized that all of them would have a story behind the costume, followed by the normal presentation, which was unlike ours, which had a drama telling the story instead, followed by the normal presentation. We went through with it anyway, and thankfully, Daniel liked it! Woots! Except for our cloak not minimalist enough, and out front mask not surrealistic enough, he was pretty happy with the overall, and he said that everyone in the class was safe (from failing). Wootsa!
Oh yes, I also defeated Time Crisis 3 with just 2 credits, which is an achievement. I played solo, and managed to get through without getting hit once, but I got killed at the final boss, that bearded guy with the sword, and used my second token. Killed him after that. Then today Ruz and I tried Time Crisis 4, and with 2 tokens, I made it to the 2nd stage boss, but died. Craps. Not too bad, considering it's like the 2nd time I've played in my life.
Oh yeah, after our history presentation on Monday, the models who were in their costumes stayed in their costumes and walked around Sunway Pyramid. Lmao! Damn funny, seeing the public's reaction. Plus, at one point Wai Yern, who was like some undead girl, led the way and we all acted like zombies behind her, making those zombie-moaning sounds. HA! We're art students, can't blame us for expressing ourselves =p.
*Moans*
*Brains~~~*
*Knocks your head*
*You have no brains~~~*
Chronicled
11:36 AM
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.jpg)
The Dark Fairy, personification of death.
This is Essenism. We coined the name from a joke about a person's essence in the library, and voila! It stuck.
This is Kongkamness, with the exception of the 2 guys on the left. All I know is that Kar Leong started using the word, and his group eventually used it for themselves.
This is the SEYCY group. I had to look at their blog posts to really understand what that meant. It stands for Stupidboy, Evil, Yaw, Chris and Yau, each name belonging to one guy in the group.
Cute right? It's a real thumbdrive! The teddy bear head detaches and there's a thumbdrive inside the plush. Heh!