"...so I am a girl..."

I was on the way traveling back to Kampua Town in one of my usual 7 hours bus trip. This time I was amused by a statement a lil' girl gave to her mom...

So this girl was sitting in the row in front of me with her mom. For a 3-5 years old, she speaks English fluently and throughout the trip she keeps commenting on everything she sees. When it rained and a rainbow appear she sings the "How many color does a rainbow have... blue... red.. yellow etc"... then when she ate snacks she commented about it, when a random things pass edby the bus she also commented on it. And from time to time she climb up her seat, turned back and stared at me who was struggling to get some sleep after a long day yesterday... well I tried to put on a :) but the grogginess made me look more like a pedophile so... yeah I just tried to sleep here and then.

Now there's one statement she made that caught my attention:
"I got long hair so I am a girl"
"I wear dress, so I am a girl"
"Yada yada yada, so I am a girl" and so on for a few minutes.

I smirked for a while at the back, thinking about what the kindergartens, nursuries or schools are teaching kids nowadays. I mean, yeah those statements may apply well 2-3 decades ago, but time's change. Those statement can be so stereotypical (not all girls have long hair or wear dresses) and this kind of stereotyping implantation is worrying me about the future. Soon they'll grow up to continue the cycle of stereotyping the society, walking around with the ideas that "if you're a Muslim you MUST be Malay" or "if I don't vote for the government they'll know I didn't and they'll do something to me" or "you're Malaysian? So you're Malay?" or "you from Sarawak? You live on trees right?" or "hm... you have Muslim name... YOU MUST BE A TERRORIST!" will offend people around them.

Imagine those statements being said out loud to an Indian or Chinese Muslim? Won't they feel offended or don't you think they'll look at you as an ignorant bastard since the statement is staring at them in the eyes? At the airport those who have middle-eastern looks (Indians, Bangladeshi etc not spared somehow, North Americans tend to categorize them in the same category) will be labelled terrorist in the West. Then imagine me, a Chinese looking dude holding a muslim name at NY airport; big chance I'll get arrested for being a suspect North Korean Al-Qaeda agent (WTF) and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba (haha Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay replays in mind).

Well, my point is that I'm just worried about the stereotypingness in the society. Maybe when our generation takes over from the old baby boomers, we can bring a revolution to the education system, and change how the generation Z will grow up and see the world.

Masquerade Nite 2008

Also know as the Curtin's Ball, Prom Night etc. But since this year's theme is masquerade, it's called Masquerade Night of Elegance (yea, pretty long name, I wonder who spawned it XD).

The Longest Saturday this Semester...

Anyways this year's prom is no ordinary prom. It took me 2 semesters/5 months of planning, since this year's is going to be extra special. Why? Well, it's gonna be my last prom night with one of my kamcheng dude Irwin aka The Fool aka The D*** aka N00b aka ALalalala aka Oi! And then there's the JCLA orphanage visit on the same day itself which consumes most of the time that day (the Dean is coming along which makes it a 5 star top-priority event), and then there's my trip home on the next day which requires me to pack up, and then there's the need to coordinate my group member academically and/or otherwise about what to do for free week before I leave, and then there's (you get the idea)...

The Intricate Plan... and teh |=oo|_

Weeks prior to the big night, me and Irwin formed a joint venture to make the event a memorable one. Being non-Mirian dudes, and wheel-less, renting a car to get to the venue of the prom at Eastwood (halfway from where we are) sounds like a small matter. Or is it? Got a minor squabble on cost vs quality, and I was a quality type and money ain't comes second but I won in the end XD Those were just amongst a few conflict in the JV haha. Now that transportation settled, location of our dates rendezvous settled (easy just Google Earth), the next thing to do is wait for the day itself.

The Day, the Kids and the PWNage

I woke up around 7am just to get me well prepared for the 27th and 28th (going home). Sorted out and coordinated the Forties from h3666, obtained the ride, coordinated with good ol' Uncle Joseph for the transportation of the gifts to the orphanage, and then prep myself up for the last orphanage trip and finally prom continuous afterwards. Nothing fancy nothing too hot to handle. By 4.25pm me and Irwin rolled (he's following me as a volunteer for the Spread the Love Campaign closing) and to my shock the Dean called she was already there...

HoLy $#337 PWNage! And to think we invited the Dean and she arrived there way early before we did XD

The Emotions, the Farewell the Rendezvous

Owh well the Forties assembled and went to the orphanage and handed over the donation materials to the 14 lucky kids. Boy it sure was emotional moment, just ask Irwin T.T (can't explain it, must be because I've not seen a true pure innocence went all :D from receiving a donation from the pure charitable public hearts). Now that we've done our job me and Irwin got to go by 1730 hours as planned to make it to Eastwood in time before the prom starts. So we bade farewell to the kids (we'll be seeing them soon again), thanked the Dean for coming along, departed from the Forties and headed to our night.

We rendeszvoused with our partners at 1800 hours, as planned weeee. Then we headed to Eastwood and got there in time for the whole thing :D

The Mask, the Querade and the Masquerade

Ahhh... what a long day, finally can ease up a bit and what else could be better to do it than spending the evening in an elegant evening masquerade themed-prom nite. So here are some of the pics;

The stage, complete with foreign DJ at the lower left corner (excuse my 2 megapixels camera)

There's my lil' Voodoo Doll patched to my mask. He lost his hat after the prom :( but still smiling :)

Trivia: I didn't wear my glasses nor any contact lenses. Weee

The CV! gang table. Having one of those mou gaan dou moments

Tipsy XD nah didn't drink, just acting all high and tired from the day with Irwin

Ian; default

Ian; with the Queen of Samseng. Spot the difference?

QUEEN! LATER IF THE REAL IAN FLY IN FROM OZ TO BEAT THIS IAN LATER HOW?!

Poking is a traditional gesture of love and caring in CV! This shows May loving Kawaii's food. We're all about food aren't we?

More food. Here we have a Koala being spon-fed. Observe as how this delicate creature savagely accepts the human-food that is being fed to him.

Fork Union members unite! Poor Kawaii kacaued the group pic. But he provided adequate entertainment for us though :D

After 2 conferences and 3 bilateral talks, the FU member state leaders agreed to eat Kawaii anyways. Hey political leaders, dictators, tyrants and Jedi Master(?) need to eat as well ya know!

Without masks, and now I can see again wahaha note-to-self: get some contact lenses...

Owh yeah anything I touch experiences unexplainable zenith, as shown by Kawaii

Some more CV! gang members posing with the PVC

JCLA - Orphanage Visit

Months have passed after the JCLA Foundation Camp & the Curtin Carnival '08 where the Spread the Love Campaign was publicly initiated. Now after a month after the Carnival, with hundreds of donations that came in from the selfless public, we visited the orphans at both orphanages that we were working on; Peryatim & Methodist Chidren's Home. Both were held on 26th and 27th September respectively, from 4.30pm onwards.

Our mission was simple; give the orphans what they've asked for previously in their manila card "heart" cutouts when the campaign began a month ago. In the list we have robot toys, stationaries, books (lots of them and come in many varieties too), KFC, etc. Basically we're like Santa Claus coming over and giving presents to the orphans ^^ Giving out the donated stuffs marks the end of the Spread the Love Campaign. Gonna miss all the gun-runs involved during the campaign...

I wanted to post some pics, but sadly Forties' cameraman is kinda busy (understandable, since due dates haunt us after this free week) so will post 'em up somewhere sometime within this year. But here are the pics I got in my HP camera (forgot to snap a lot, got caught up by the fun and well, basically the kids :3 I mean they're just so innocent and cute :333). Next up will be Inspire Me! that will be held at campus somewhere mid-October. It's a workshop-ish event from 11am-4pm, and the idea is to inspire the orphans :) It's open, so anyone can come in and help us out to facilitate the event, give campus tour to them, become their big sis/bros etc. If you're interested you can drop your request to join Inspire Me! at the comments, or preferably give me a buzz (yea, I'm more fond of mano-e-mano talk on the phone). For more details on our charity work, drop by our blog (click here). Cheerios~

Th Dean herself joined us for the Methodist trip on 27th, Saturday. Dr. Gribbles being greeted by the orphanage caretakers, (background) a few Forties sorting out the gifts while the kids waited eagerly.

Some of the orphans checking out their new toys :) The kids age ranges from 4-15 years old, and here at Methodist we have 14 orphans aged mostly between 4-12 years old.

Would like to thank all the non-Forties volunteers who helped out with our campaign. You guys really made the campaign more meaningful. Hope to see you guys and gals at the Inspire Me! (yup, this is a personal free invitation from me :3)

This Acer Aspire 4520 is Hot!

So after roughly 7 months spending my time with the Aspire 4520, I started to get the usual trademark of Acer laptops; overheating. Yeah, it's one of those "so hot you can cook an egg on the laptop" hot. It started after 5 months of use, so it's either the hardware or the tweaking I imposed on the machine, and the cooler is certainly working its arse off 24/7. By then I tried to undervolt it and only managed to reduce the temperature from 70'C to 55-57'C minimum with RightMark CPU Clock Utility.

Then weeks later the overheating started to get to me, with the laptop BBQing my CDs alive. 100% of my game installation failed since the CDs are BBQed and expanded out of proportion due to the heat (to the point it misshapen and scratched the innards of the laptop). I considered using this sure-100%-working method to cool off the laptop, but I'm going to reserve it as a last option:



So I turned to SpeedFan that I stumbled upon coincidentally one fateful day. It's a software that allows the user to manipulate and configure the fan of the system and this should fix my machine that is in the heat, so I thought. Turns out the software doesn't apply to this Acer 4520, and I can't configure anything since certain interface is disabled as seen in the screenshot below:

Um yeah, take note of the core temperature: 72'C ftw XD

Damn it. I just uninstalled SpeedFan, and embarked on a never ending quest around Google and try to find something to cool of this hot 4520. The hunt continues!

Ants in My Shoes

Title: Ants in My Shoes (acoustic)
Artist: Ham
Album: Student Life; 2nd Yr 1st Sem

I woke up, to a gloomy day,
To a nippy day, it's another Tuesday

Freaking sleepy but I had to go,
It's an 12pm class bo, an obligation that I can't blow

Got prepped, suited up and I'm ready to go,
If not for one thing though;

I got,
Mother-dude ants in my shoes,
Big arse, black ants,
Nesting in my shoes,
I was like,
Holy s***, PWNed and beyond wattafak,
I got a whole Zerg colony,
Nesting in my shoes

W00t!

I was bashing 'em colonies real good,
Evicting the squatting fellas forcefully,
Why? Dawg it's my favorite shoes!

I really wondered whats up with these ants,
First colonized my mailbox and now my kicks too,

Was it the weather or some population boom,
Or was it a sign of things to come,
And that we're all doomed?

I got,
A whole colony under my foot,
Blue collars, royals and senior colonists,
Nesting in my shoes,
I was like,
Hey dudes git outta there,
Didn't you know it's a health hazard when you all,
Nesting in my shoes?

(20 minutes solo acoustic)

Good Luck Yogi!

(Ignore the mess, it's a bachelor's house)

Yogi aka DivineRapist; Clan's DotA Heavy Tanker & In-game Support & Mentor, Zero Hour's USA 4-star General, more tanker in other games that saved the clan's asses many-many-many times, a good comrade, and a good friend

Had a surprise party for strong clan member and fellow resident of h3666 who will be leaving to continue his studies in UK. Kept it small and meaningful and of course we imported a white chocolate cheese cake from Secret Recipe just to top it all off (hey when else can we have a legit reason to eat things from Secret Recipe?). All the best for your new chapter in UK Yogi!

September 16 Approaches

I don't know la, for the past few days only we have so many news that makes me wonder how deeper can this country sink. Not long ago we have this racist Akh-med Ismail calling Chinese as 'pendatang' and don't deserve equal rights (so much for the promoted 'Malaysia Truly Asia, all races live in harmony' bullshit). Then we have a component party Gerakan of BN severing ties with BN after Akh-med told them to get out just because they find his racial slur offensive. After that Raja Petra from Malaysia today got arrested because he was a 'threat' to national security for his website's content. And then yesterday we have Sin Chiew reporter Tan Hoon Cheng and DAP MP Teresa Kok arrested by the Internal Security Agency/I-Simply-Arrest (ISA) because they were touching 'sensitive' issues.

http://thestar.com.my

Tan was merely reporting about Akh-med and then she got arrested (reporter getting arrested but not the perpetrator, plus the perpetrator refused to apologize and had other UMNONO dudes apologize for him). And Teresa? She was accused of getting involved in a petition to tone down the azan, and she was merely handling the petition because she was the MP that handle the paperworks regarding the issue, so she HAVE TO be involved in the petition (plus the mosque authorities confirmed Teresa was not demanding them to tone down the call of prayers). The modus-operandi; ISA. Why of all the agency use ISA to take in these people. It's like using a STIHL chainsaw to cut a 3 years-old boy's birthday cake.

As if that's not enough, we have another deja vu of Hindraf that took place not so long ago. This time it involves the Orang Asli (Natives). They were peacefully and were reassured by the police they can march to the King to give the letter demanding equal rights. Alas like Hindraf it turned sour and here we go again.

http://nst.com.my/

Now looking back, I wonder where did this country took the wrong turn. For the time being I'm just gonna wait till 9/16 and see whether this big date will bring solution or bring this whole country down deeper into the dip sheet. Fingers crossed, we won;t get down to the level where sutdents like me are forced to take it to the streets to protest against the government like what the French kids did.

Midterm...

Ok so I have not give any update for days already, reason; midterm. Well my midterm ain't as hectic as having 2-3 midterm papers in one day or anything, it's just that I have a couple of assignments due within these few weeks before the 2nd free week in October.

To top it off, I have a few workshops, seminars and what not to attend to on weekends, just for experience. On Saturday, I attended the Act Tourism seminar held by the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia from 9-5pm. But half way from 11-12.30pm I have to a.f.k. for awhile to do the only paper I have for midterm; Business Statistics 101. And the night prior to this hectic day, I don't know what happened, but I slept at 1.30am (kinda early) and was so soundly asleep I missed sahur at 4am, woke up to find it's already 6am. Sienz but lol-able at the same time.

So anyways learnt a few things from the seminar/workshop. My bud Sam suddenly wanted to visit Oil Town all over again wahaha... seriously, after the promo video of Miri at the end of the seminar we were shown places we have never set foot before, even after all these years studying in this town XD Many thanks to Ms Ling Ling for all the info, hoping to see the pictures in Flickr soon :D

John Curtin Week Blood Donation 2008

Pump, pump pump it up! -Joe Boddens

Ala... Vimal malu la pulak...

Donated blood till sot

Feels like not so long ago we had a bood donation drive. Now we have another one for this semester. Again the quota was reached and around 40 students and staffs donated their blood to replenish the fresh blood supply in the blood bank. Well, Ham didn't donate since he's fasting and will need to optimize his energy to settle all the assignments that day, can't risk falling asleep throughout lectures after donating XD

p/s: Pleasure, really strange la your blood is not hot or suam, but cold... hm...

Ramadan 2008/1429

This is my power drink that I need to survive the month. Carefully brewed and formulated from previous Ramadans, this mish-mash of cereals, oat meals, Milo etc. allows me to feel no hunger from 4.50am to 4.00pm. Then the sounds come. Until the next few days the stomach will learn to behave, and then I need to discipline the other parts of me, namely my mind.

This is the third Ramadan and the third fasting month I had in Oil Town. Previous experience have helped me prep all the what not that I need to survive, especially since this Ramadan fell on midterm season. Using this month to prevent the belly to overflow, and of course reduce the profanities and extreme jokes (expect a lot of lame jokes from me this month). Happy fasting to all!

Hey WTF? Borneo Sank!

No it wasn't photoshopped. And yeah Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan (basically the whole freaking Borneo, the third largest island in the world) missing from the map. A misinformation from the Malaysian Tourism Board, or is this how the world perceived what Malaysia is like? (-___-). This was from a hotel in China. From ahyap.com