Graduation

I'm a grad mother truckers!

After my short trip to Miri I set off to my next point of pilgrimage: Perth. This one was for my graduation. Looking back from my noob years as a fresh blood foundation kid to the day I finally got up that graduation stage, I've seriously come a long way.

What's next? As few more comrades fight on to fight the war, I'll be stepping out of it gracefully to wage another war that will ultimately decide the fate of the Motherland. I'll be waiting for you guys at the other side and will continue to believe that we can still revolutionize the country by hook or by crook.

I'd like to personally send my infinite thanks to Boss and Big Boss who were there for financial and moral support. My fellow comrades who were there with me during our fights on or off screen. My fellow kamchengz from 5008, 3666, Senadin, Vickery and the Lawson Street gangs who shared the same sheet different day with me. My S.O.B. familias especially the school of Management and Marketing. And finally Creator for providing spiritual solace and all the people I've mentioned earlier. *bows down* "domo arigato".

Still Kampua 4 Life

I'm still one tough son of a gun to be brought down

Okay so I've not updated K4L for over a month, I apologise to no one. Well a lot of things been going on during that gap and only now I managed to find a time to sit down and blog again. Here's my chronology:

Chapter 1: Death of a Comrade
My 4520 died in the line of duty during my critical moments of last assignments and finals. It was one fatal shopping trip when I was stocking up for winter and finals. 4520 fell out of the fattened-up and consequentially-unzipped bag. But the case of Mothers that fell out as well broke its fall and 4520 survived the fall with some flesh plastic wound. However upon my return home I noticed my bag was leaking; one of the Mother got a puny crack that spurted some lethal taurine onto 4520. Mother's 987Kj of energy may cause numb nuts and stoned-like effects to an average Asian, but it sent 4520 to Motherland for good.

Chapter 2: Last Tango, Perth
A series of unfortunate events began to unfold ever since, reminiscent of Summer 2008. Like what Jackie Chan said in the movie Little Big Soldier "You have to step on shit first, then good things will happen". True that, and I persisted. God, comrades and trance helped me out during my tough times until the end of my final finals. Some zombie-killing in-between also helped vent out some stress and rage I accumulated (cheers to all fellow Survivors and Infected alike).

Chapter 3: Welcome Back to the Sea
Thanks to Bowie for coming up with the title above as the first supportive comment 5 minutes after I broke up that 4°C night. 1 minute later me and the rest of the slightly-finals-free peeps in Perth enjoyed a blardy good Germany vs England match. Yup I'm back in the sea again and this time will remain single till I remember how it felt to be authentically in-love again. I'm happy to see fellow brothers who share the same predicament have moved on. M and V et al., remember my phrases I uttered with epic coolness in the winter "Find a wife, not a girlfriend. Let your successes attract the right ones, not you working hard to appease the wrong ones."

Chapter 4: ¡Viva la Gloria!
After weeks sobering up and enjoying my last moments in Perth the results were out that 0°C midnight. I found Gloria, and dude is she hot. She's my official degree graduate acknowledgment. I celebrated with a $30 (RM90) haircut and hours of Ganjaguru till the batteries were out. I flew back to Malaysia early July, back to the familiar hot and humid Sibu.

Chapter 5: For the Empire
I got an accidental faux hawk going on. If you diss my elongated sideburns that will compliment the faux, STFU and go trim your bush. Apart from that I've been busy traveling around learning the art of business to better myself for the future, hence the lack of time to do much update or play Facebook. And yes, wo xianzai zai xue zhongwen :)

Well that's all I could remember and summarise for now. I'll try to be back with the regular programs soon. Cheer cheers.

End of Semester 1, 2010

Time to chill, relax, and enjoy some good Jamaican reggae mon

All the best to those still having exams. And happy holidays to the rest ;) It's always a holiday when there's reggae

Finals Semester 1, 2010

It All Comes to This...

As K4L tradition dictates I shall post a "wish you all the best for finals" post, and here it is. This will be my last such post as it will be my final finals for the degree program. My last finals ain't going easy on me as well with double papers back-to-back on the same day as shown below:

I have already met Marketing of Services 311 last week as a take home exam. Now my second match will be with Retail Marketing and Distribution 311 at 3:30pm-5:40pm followed by the third and last match with Event Management 304 at 6:45pm - 8:55pm. With little time to recuperate, eat, empty bowels etc., add in the cold winter and the pain of sitting for hours and writing frantically till hand cramps, my final finals will be a harsh one.

All the best to all my comrades no matter where you are or what course you are taking. These dark hours shall be the glorious moments of our life. See you all at the end of it all! VICTORY IS OURS!

Haze in Perth(?)

*COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH* Nah just kidding, it's harmless, just smells...

What looks like a cool scenery of the campus in the morning actually smells like haze... smells like home... owh it's not morning its evening, I mostly have late evening classes...

Visibility still okay, hey I had worst in Sibu '98...

Wow I didn't expect Perth to experience haze as well. This seriously brings back memories of Miri campus where the air reeks of the smell of smoke. When asked about the source, the answer was not surprisingly our famous and close neighbor... didn't manage to catch the news to verify though, since I barely got time to do so this week.

However what makes this haze unique is that it is the opposite of Miri's hot, steamy and choking variant. The haze here do smell, but not to the point of choking one's lungs. And it's cool at 20°C. This is a nice change of experience ;)

My Very Own Weather in My Room

It's autumn, but it's summer at my desk and winter at my bed

It's mid autumn now(?) and everything is cooling down. It can be as high as 26°C in the morning (seriously there's sun but no heat) and a freezing 9°C at night. So to warm up we who were born naked wrap ourselves in thick clothing of other animals and/or synthetic material.

Today's forecast; sunny at the west with a chance to smell like ramen, and cold winds from the east.

Since I'm being optimistic I'm gonna say my room has a gifted curse/cursed gift. To help warm up a good simple heater can be turned on to give some warmth to your cold hands and feet. Sadly for my room the heat flow is limited as seen above.

My bed is exactly under the window and even when it's closed the coldness can still creep in. The heater is FAR FAR away and is blocked by a chunky towering wardrobe. The heat never reach my bed hence I'm forced to rolled up into a thick human sushi to avoid becoming a popsicle. To add insult to injury the heater only manages to heat up my ass and my back when I'm doing assignment, making me feel more stressful. Do you know how it feels like to have hot ears AND being stressed?!

I like coldness, but this is obviously not the Sibu cold and wet weather that I got used to. Thankfully the food here are all heavy and generates a lot of heat. Looking forward to the harsh and cold exam month of June.

ANZAC Day 2010

Remembering the Fallen. No, the holiday applies to Australia and New Zealand only, not Malaysia...

The night before was rough, with most of Unit 14 went out for the night for some Laser Tag fun at Joondalup. Sadly we lost. But hey no one slept, I think, and a few hours later we were all set up to go for the Dawn Service for ANZAC Day.

At 4:30am it was uber-freezing and the sprinklers were not helping. Thanks to Kelvin's advise I got 3-4 layers of clothing because it's going to be colder. We were met with a few other students who hopped onto the bus to King's Park, where the dawn service was held.

Held every 25th of April every year in both Australia and NZ, ANZAC (Australian New Zealand Army Corps.) Day is solemnly celebrated to remember the fallen ANZAC soldiers at Gallipoli during WWI in 25th April 1915, where the ill-fated 8th Battalion landed 1 mile off their intended beach and were met with fierce resistance from the Ottoman Turks causing more than 8,000 deaths for the ANZAC soldiers. The day is also celebrated to commemorate other ANZAC troops' sacrifice at other war theaters from there onwards.



The mood was obviously solemn for the Australians, but the noise of the DSLRs snapping and handphone cameras clicking were all from the Asians like me. I do feel outta place but I don't do anything too noisy to respect the event. After a while the breezy 15°C wind send me into the solemn mood as well, as the dawn service began with wreath laying and a speech. Despite not being an Australian I shared the feeling of loss and felt patriotic just by listening to the speech. It all ended with planes flying overhead and no applause were heard.

Strangely there were no 21 guns salute as expected or as blogged by others. Must be something to do with the traditions in Western Australia. It ended by 6:40am, and I skipped the parade that was held at 9am because I was dead sleepy. Hopefully these videos compensate my post on the latter events:

Natural Disasters in Oz; We're Okay in Perth

Earthquakes? Tsunami? Volcano? Hailstorm? Typhoons? No worries! We are still okay!

There has been increased rate of natural disasters worldwide, Australia not excluded. Just less than a week ago there's a 3.8 magnitude earthquake in Adelaide, and just recently there's a 5.0 in Kalgoorlie-Boulder (very close to Perth by geographical standard).



Nonetheless, those disasters would only distract my mind for a few minutes, then it's back to stressing about assignments and reports and presentations and midterms and quizzes and etc. However safety cannot be neglected. Since we Malaysians come from a country that's free from earthquake (from our memories anyways) that doesn't mean you won't experience it. Look at me now I'm in a earthquake zone and I'm Malaysian. Below are things to do in an earthquake:

If you are indoors:

• DROP to the ground; take COVER by getting under a sturdy table or other piece of furniture; and HOLD ON until the shaking stops. If there isn’t a table or desk near you, cover your face and head with your arms and crouch in an inside corner of the building.
• Stay away from glass, windows, outside doors and walls, and anything that could fall, such as lighting fixtures or furniture.
• Stay in bed if you are there when the earthquake strikes. Hold on and protect your head with a pillow, unless you are under a heavy light fixture, window or anything else that could fall. In that case, move to the nearest safe place (i.e. under a desk or in an inside corner).
• Use a doorway for shelter only if it is in close proximity to you and if you know it is a strongly supported, load-bearing doorway. Brace yourself on the side with the hinges to avoid the door swinging at you.
• Stay inside until shaking stops and it is safe to go outside. Research has shown that most injuries occur when people inside buildings attempt to move to a different location inside the building or try to leave.
• Be aware that the electricity may go out or the sprinkler systems or fire alarms may turn on.
• DO NOT use the elevators, even if they are working. There may be aftershocks.
• If you're in your hotel room, stay there. There are usually aftershocks, and sometimes they may be worse than the original earthquake. Under a sturdy desk or in an inside corner of your room is the safest place to be, even if you're on the 40th floor. If there's a heavy bookcase next to a match-stick desk, don't get under the desk.
• If you are in a restaurant, get under the table.

If you are outdoors:

• Stay there.
• Move away from buildings, streetlights, and utility wires.
• Once in the open, stay there until the shaking stops. The greatest danger exists directly outside buildings, at exits, and alongside exterior walls. Many of the 120 fatalities from the 1933 Long Beach earthquake occurred when people ran outside of buildings only to be killed by falling debris from collapsing walls. Ground movement during an earthquake is seldom the direct cause of death or injury. Most earthquake-related casualties result from collapsing walls, flying glass, and falling objects.

If you are in a vehicle:

• Pull over to the side of the road and stop as quickly as safety permits and stay in the vehicle. Avoid stopping near or under buildings, trees, overpasses, and utility wires. (Guide Note: an earthquake while you're driving feels like there's something wrong with your car. Don't stop in the middle of the freeway if traffic is still moving around you. Slow down and put on your turn signal to get to the side of the road. If everyone else is doing the same thing, it was most likely an earthquake.)
• Proceed cautiously once the earthquake has stopped. Avoid roads, bridges, or ramps that might have been damaged by the earthquake.

Source: Earthquake Safety n.d.

Be careful out there no matter where you are...

Great Storm of Perth

Source: http://www.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/w/WestAussie1/4.jpg

I was disgruntled at the weather forecast for saying there was going to be a storm on Monday (got me all the trouble of doing laundry and use the somewhat ineffective dryer). Then as of 10am it was sunny like usual and I was "WTF?". So I carried on with extra effort to dry my laundry and other tasks. Then at 4pm on my way to campus it was cloudy again and I thought it was going to be another fake, all dark and cloudy but no rain. But as of 5pm, everything went down.

The sight was awesome! The chaos, the lightnings, the razor winds, the hail the size of golf-balls, the flooding, tree pieces flying, the blackouts, the EMP shockwaves that severed telecommunications, owh man it was like the end of the world complete with idiots screaming "OMG WE'RE GONNA DROWN!" and occasional near-naked laughing dudes running around in the heavy rain and hail storm. And I can't believed I was told to evacuate the campus (I was taking shelter in the library with hundreds others trapped) with all those lightnings and flying debris.

I thought this was normal occurrence in Perth but it is not. They said this was the worst/best(?) hail storm ever for the past 15 years.

Source: http://www.watoday.com.au/photogallery/wa-news/hail-storm-hits-perth/

Too bad I didn't record anything because I didn't wish to be struck by lightning while filming. All the way from campus to my house I was thinking about saving my ass and avoiding trees. I won't upload much to save bandwidth, so below are some of the links you can read to see the severity of the hail storm. Owh you might be interested to join this facebook group:

FACEBOOK: I survived the Great Storm of Perth 22/3/2010
WAtoday: Perth wakes up to a $100m clean-up after storm of the year

Perth So Far

Me & my mates from Unit 14 (and a Wallaby at Caversham)

Well it's been a month, and everything seems to be going pretty well. I've done almost everything I wanted to do in Perth e.g. see and touch the natives such as the koalas, kangaroos and other Australians. Walked around town in different times to experience the foreign weather (the 20-16°C temperatures are just nice.... to sleep in...).

However after a while there are also unanswered questions left in my list e.g. why is the 2 dollar coin bigger than 1 dollar? or which way the toilets here spiral? (can't tell, the flush here is so aggressive and splashes every direction). Made a few connections with the locals, especially the food sector (fingers crossed can get discount :p).

I also have started to value the food here after not converting them with the 3x currency exchange rate, I mean 3 dozens or 18 eggs/carton for $4 is cheap! And the random item they put up for offer are always welcomed. $1.99 2 liter Pepsi? $0.99 Snickers? $2.99 for a large Cadbury caramello? (Well they are cheap because they are near expiry). Those are really sweet to fill in the gaps in between meals because I've been eating more since the weather cooled down. And no I'm not gaining weight because they get burned fast because I do 99% walking from my house to campus and the not so nearby shopping centers.

As for campus life, the fact about low class attendance was true after all. I remember stressing out a day before Week 1 because some of the classes I want and CAN enroll in have 0-1 vacant spots left. But as the week progresses (now entering Week 4), a full 32 pax seminar is now attended by only 15-20 people and the number is expected to decrease over time. I should've forced myself into already full classes so that I can have 2-3 days-only of classes per week. But never mind, the current timetable scheme of Mon-Thur class is okay by me.

The capped bandwidth here is a killer. After I reached the 500MB usage after 2 weeks (got the 1.5GB home use for 3 months) I became more apathetic of the bandwidth because 1.5GB for 3 months is seriously unfeasible. A round of case study, research and journals download can take up to 60MB per session. Looks like I have to top up soon to 5 or 10GB to survive the coming weeks. Gonna fork out the bank again. Haihz, the supplies expenditure is okay with $70 per week. But it is these external expenditures on services that contributes to stress and a lot of sighs. Like what a Bruneian comrade here said "money here is like water"... some of you should see how Irwin reacts when he receives the bill; like receiving results and delay opening the mail until tomorrow, and if possible never...

Speaking about cash, I've decided to pause my search for a part-time job because I no longer have a unit that requires me to (apparently I don't appear in the Perth's unit list, and the class was already full so I had to swap to another unit to graduate). Apart from that there's the distance issue and balancing time with studies. So what do I do now? Make my own laptop servicing and online web-designing to earn some cash from home. Some of the local laptops here are amazingly advance I dare not to cut them up to service them to avoid legality issues. I mean, have you seen a 22 inch screen, i7 processor with CUDA Dell? Hardware-wise is a no-no, and even software-wise I might think twice considering all the stuff here are authentic and non-lanun :p

Well I better get busy again, next week is Week 4 with a portfolio due and a midterm paper to score. After that it's 2 tuition free weeks with vague plans of doing some more sight seeing around Perth. Itadakimasu!

Perth!

Finally I got a stable line of my own to start blogging. Damn it took me more than a week to do so, but anywho, let's write them out before my memory depreciates.

It all began at the LCCT (yup I took AirAsia for both SBW-KUL and KUL-PER). Arrived at KUL at 4pm and got 6 hours to kill before the PER flight at 12am. Thankfully got Sitchin's 400 pages thick The Wars of Gods and Men to help me avoid turning into Tom Hanks in his movie The Terminal.

Then by midnite, regrouped with my mates who were on exchange program as well, and then we embarked on our 5 hours journey to Down Under. Gosh, the flight was no where close to the word "comfort". It's either my seat was nonadjustable, or maybe I'm noob and can't find the adjusting lever. So the whole flight I was trying to sleep at 30 degrees position, leaning behind the wall of the lavatory. How long did I sleep? 1 hour. Had a nice chat with a 2nd year UWA A&F girl seated beside me though, but that did not change the fact I did not get enough sleep.

Arrived at PER around 5:30am, ok la technically 6am because of the long immigration and custom checks. After those were done, got me a Vodafone simcard (BIG MISTAKE!) and got out of the airport.

Wah, the air in Perth is so fresh and cold, although it is not the chill-to-the-bone kinda cold. Got to a friend's aunt's place to chill before check in (thanks Khe Han's auntie!). At 2:30pm checked into Vickery in Bentley. The campus IS large, but it's kinda short walking distance from one point to the other. It's just the huge buildings that make the campus seem bigger. Owh and my house is "happening" with all dudes from Kenya, Mauritius to Malaysia. Reminds me of the good old days in Curtin Villa in Miri.

Within less than 2 days I met up with old comrades who were already in Perth from the time of old. As mentioned, it's a small town and it is peaceful. And closes at 5pm.

One thing I find it hard to find here is halal meat! Owh gosh the first week went on without a decent meat because I was still settling down. I managed to go through though, although people having misconceptions of what is kosher or halal made me more cautious of the food here (if the chicken is not slaughtered it not kosher dude!).

Well also, the rivalry of big companies here (along with their services) are reminiscent of those at homes. We have Telstra (TMNet) that arguably have poor service as mentioned by the locals (although it's better than TMNet's speed, I wonder how the Ozzies will feel like if they experience Streamyx). And there's this AUD29.00 reload that gives you AUD150.00 credit. Yea I was WTF at first but then I know how they played, hence the joy when I got my Vodafone number. It charges you more for SMS or calls so actually the rate is the same with normal reload value. And a LOT of comrades here uses Optus, so the charge is higher for both sides. Now I'm considering changing to Optus if my usage rate is highER than my tolerance level.

Haven't been to all parts of Perth. Just Swan Valley and Fremantle. Even so I can tell you buildings here don't exceed 3 stories. And to those who Word-of-Mouthed me about the fish and chips in Freo, you guys are spreading it blatantly man. Nothing special about the fish & chips there la, although it does make you full. But I will continue my personal sub-quest for the ultimate Fish & Chips in PER.

Well that's all for now. It's now the transition of summer into autumn with awesome 16°C nights. Semester has begun and from the looks of it, I can't get cocky here because now there are more predators in class with better skills.

Cheers~!