Asian Film Fest

So one of the wardens has decided that he will film a foreign film every week. It must be of high artistic quality (a Cannes candidate if possible) and original and powerful in its mastery of cinematography. In other words there probably will not be a single Asian movie on the list, unless it's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (I never got the ending, just like I didn't get House of Flying Daggers, but don't get me wrong - I loved watching it!).

Being the protector of all things Asian in my hall, I'm coming up with my own list of movies.

So far my list includes:

1. Raise the Red Lantern
2. Hero (I liked it, ok!!!)
3. The Road Home
4. Devdas
5. Swades
6. Asoka
7. The Soong Sisters
8. Children of Heaven
9. Farewell my Concubine
10. The Wedding Banquet
11. Monsoon Wedding
12. Zatoichi
13. The Way Home
14. Salaam Bombay


And of course we have to have the all-too-popular Kungfu Hustle. I'm not too sure of its artistic quality, but it's one hell of a good laugh!

Any other suggestions? I know there aren't any Malaysian selections in the list, but how well received will Sepet or Puteri Gunung Ledang be here? I'm just asking.

Charlotte is a happy yellow ducky

Did I mention that regardless of my many nights of prayer for a puke-free landing, one of my freshers still had the audacity to vomit on my landing? Thankfully it was in his room and not the corridor, but still the stench of regurgitated salmon lingers on.

I'm cooking again and that makes me happy. (There are also only 4 days more before Lionel gets here, and that makes me even happier, but lets focus on the little things for now). I persuaded my freshers to let me cook claypot chicken rice for them because it's damn hard to cook something nice for just one person. I, hands-in-the-air, white-flag-raised, cannot do it! It seems a strange concept to persuade people to let me cook for them. It's usually the other way around.

I'll be off to Geneva on Thursday with Lionel and family. We're fearing the worst of the weather. Anyone who's been to Geneva has any tips? Nic Osman said I should go see the longest bench in the world. They're apparently big on bench construction in Geneva. Then I'll be off to Paris on Sunday where the Parisien ISE bunch (Hugo, Adam, Hai and Kunal) are. See, I kept my promise when I said I'd come visit you. I didn't think it'd be this soon either!

And then it'll be graduation day and everyone will be back and we'll sit on queens lawn, some in gowns, some not, and wonder how time rushed by us so fast. wonder if we'd have made it this far without each other. wonder where all of us will go from here.

Just in case you're wondering, the title to this post has absolutely no meaning at all. In the mean time, I'm going to get back to my cooking in the kitchen. Wheeee!!

Elegantly wasted

It's 5 in the morning.

There's a screaming in my head, possibly from the copious amount of wine I was made to down last night at the coming up dinner, an annual ritual we put freshers through that involves forcing them to dress up to the nines and party at a swanky hotel. Re-app pressure is not a good excuse to drink, but you do it anyway. You'd do anything to be a part of the team.

But strangely enough the alcohol has woken me up and I just can't go back to sleep. My mind and body are not synchronising and definitely pretty pissed off with each other. One's dead beat but the other is just refusing to give in to fatigue. Bah!

And my mother is probably not going to be very happy to find out that I partied in my newly tailored baju kebaya. Getting a tailored kebaya is like a rite of passage. It means I'm old enough to be trusted with dry-cleaning my own clothes and not spilling wine on the sari cloth my dad bought from India for me to make it. I didn't get any wine on it, and thanks to my mother's ingenious plans to make it a size too small for me, I also couldn't eat as much as I wanted to. My mother has crafty ways of keeping me slim. It's not fair, but it works.

It's about time I tried to get some sleep before daybreak. Damn the pounding in my head!

Let me grow old in peace...

I cannot keep up with this! What on earth possessed me to supervise barely 19 year olds who are testing their limits with every vice on earth? (God, if there is anything I want more - except for my aunty to be cured of cancer, and maybe for Lionel's PhD to be approved, oh and maybe for peace on earth... it would be for not a single fresher to empty his or her stomach contents onto any space of floor on my landing while I'm still the re-app in charge).

I was working behind the bar tonight, with Alex, and totally winning at Dai Dee. Sorry, Jason, if you ever read this - you so totally got owned! And really that's all I was doing, but I'm completely beat! Back in the glorious days of my first year, being on duty at the bar was soooo much fun. True there was actual alcohol in the bar back then and there was a lot more work to be done and not a moment to stand still and watch the world go by, but I never felt this tired and drained.

Now I'm conceding to the fact that I'm old, 4 years older than most of these kids. And I just want to get my subscription for a pair of new tortoise shell glasses and shuffle into my carpet slippers and grow old in peace...

(expect whiny, ranty posts from now on...)

Aku rindu...

Do you know what I miss?

Waking up in the morning and smelling nutella on onion bagels
or the sound of you tip-toeing out the door for lectures

Dancing on cold kitchen tiles as the kettle gently bubbles and becomes my morning cup of Milo

Dashing red-faced and breathless into the lecture theatre to find a seat waiting for me in a crowded room.

Gossiping in the labs and laughing till tears come streaming down and talking about love, life and dreams; some gone, some real, some floating in the stratosphere.

Sauntering into the JCR to find a ready table laid with Bridge and good company.

Shopping at Sainsbury's with an experimental recipe in my head.

Cooking.

Snuggling under a fleece blanket while CSI flickers on the telly.

Singing in the shower.

Climbing up to the attic in search of warmer duvets and better music (Buona Vista Social Club? why yes, please!) and falling asleep in the mean time.



the starkness of difference is hollow and silently screaming. but life changes and I chose to change it. why stop now?

Oversensitivities

I think (and I'd agree with you that I usually don't) that the world is becoming much too sensitive. I was on my way to Rome when the Pope came under fire from the Muslim world. I came back to London to find Badawi demanding an apology from Lee Kwan Yew on the marginalised Chinese community (not true meh?). And today the first thing I see on BBC.com is a heated debate on Jack Straw's views on the tudung.

We should all just bite our tongues from now on. Opinions are not welcome. It's enough to spark off another casual Monday morning bomb attack.

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The world and its affairs aside, I'm feeling particularly lazy. I really should be getting dressed and going to see the bank about not being able to change my address online. But these Thai fisherman pants my brother bought me are reeeeally comfortable, and I don't feel like changing out of the just yet.

My room is a big big mess. I have a pile of stuff. Just stuff. Because I have yet to find out what's in that pile. But no time to sort that out now. Final year projects to sort out first.

It's been meeting after meeting. Lecturer after lecturer. And a list of 180 projects. I've scaled mine down to just signal processing and control theory projects, and I'm refusing to even look at the computing selections because it'll just make it worse. I'm adamant about doing a proper engineering project this year. It may be my last chance to play with wifi's and visual imaging and 3G networks and sensors, before being sent home to deal with roadworks and water plants in my sponsor company. God forbid I end up in the IT helpdesk.

It's a boring life these days. Freshers are distracting when they only have to worry about having fun...

And she resurfaces

I'm back in good ol' rainy, smoggy, dusty, sainsbury London!

Granted I actually left Malaysia more than 2 weeks ago and I've been on a spiritually fulfilling journey which encompassed Lourdes, Florence (not so spiritually fulfilling) and Rome. And then the Linstead Hall wardens bundled all the re-apps (officially we are now to be called hall seniors) up and dumped us in the middle of the New Forest to camp in heated wigwams for a night.

But now I am back and firmly rooted on London soil, awaiting the chaotic arrival of freshers who will think I belong to the Jurassic period. We've painted the welcome signs, we've filled up their fresher's packs with goodies, and we're going to smile all day tomorrow. It really is going to be a lot more fun than I make it seem.

On the other hand its strange to be in this position, especially in my final year. London's become smaller now that so many have left. Lionel's feeding his bacteria and lab mice or whatever in Singapore. Nicole's fending for herself in Stanford. Tao's eating the whole of KL. CL's gone soul searching again back in his kampu-, I mean Kuantan.

And I'm here. Missing Malaysia, missing Singapore, missing Hong Kong. I swear one plate of real char kuay teow a year is an awful, awful punishment! I miss Hokkien mee so much, some nights I cry myself to sleep.

Life's going to be hard this year... if I don't make the most out of it.

Extension of the Wan Mohd. Aimran fan club...

Haha, just teasing. But you know I'm a big fan.

Stop beating the racial drum - by Imperial's resident Malaysian writer is just one of many of his brilliant pieces. And I have to thank him for being the voice that dares to speak while the rest of the rakyat grumble, yet are too chicken to swim against the tide. (I'm one of them because my mum says she won't visit me if I'm arrested for insinuating there's even the slightest bit of racial disharmony in Malaysia)

Kudos again, Wan!

Where the sun don't stop shining

I could kiss every palm oil tree that flanks the highway back from KLIA!

It's good to be home. Where the teh tarik is schweet, the banana leaves green, the air hazy, the police corrupt and where most motorists seem intent on meeting their maker before their appointed time. I don't know why I ever left this place. I'll probably remember after 2 weeks when I'm fed up with the weather and just want to hide in an air conditioned space.

Anyway, call me, email me, write me. I don't care where in the world you are.

What did I get myself into?

4th year is going to be a killer year.

My schedule for the year ahead looks set to be punishing. Linstead Re-app, Overseas students committee vice-chair and Electricl Engineer's Society Treasurer. It's Charlotte at her best, and trying to top herself.

Who said anything about studying?

Hmm...

My mum sms-ed me in the middle of the day, on Tuesday while I was rushing to prepare a presentation and was walking back and forth between the data resource table and my desk.

"Do u want your results?"

I'm not sure that my mum realises the inpact that one phrase has on me. All of a sudden, whatever work I was doing was absolutely insignificant when faced with this awful feeling of failure.

Anyway long story short. I got my first. Despite my mother complaining about my dismal marks in DSP and Operations Research ("You can sit for the paper yourself, Mum!") and surprisingly awful marks in Decision Analysis. What can I say. I was never able to make decisions. I can't care what the rest of my marks are... I'm just happy that I don't need to work so hard next year.

Total slacking, here I come!

In the meantime, I've got 4 weeks more to go in Hong Kong. And I'm surprisingly wishing it wasn't coming to an end so soon! Quick, come visit me while you can!!

On a day like today

Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming here. Distractions come easily when I start to think of the things happening back home. Lionel's sister getting married today. My cousin's baby celebrating it's full moon (I had no idea there was a new baby in the family, and until I figure out whether I have a niece or a nephew, it shall be an 'it').

As much as I love my life in Hong Kong, there comes a time when you think that 10 months away from home is when the cracks start to show.

Thai-erd

That says it all.

Will get back to you when I wake up.

(But I'm more likely to be at work)

One more thing - in my hurry to pack my entire wardrobe to Bangkok, I brought a camera without batteries. Go Charl!

More Memes

Name 20 people u can think of and then tag 5 more people to do the survey. Do not read the questions before you write.

1. Lionel
2. Sugania
3. Anushia
4. Charmaine
5. Sherene
6. Chien Liq
7. Wei Kiat
8. Yi Shan
9. Lu
10. Nicole
11. Ayish
12. Cheng Chun
13. Baa (Khim Nyang)
14. Bhai (Sachpal)
15. Ravi
16. Jere
17. Tao
18. Chris Tock
19. Hugo
20. Xiaokai

** Disclaimer **

I SWEAR the list isn't in order of preference or in ANY order at all... I just put down the names as and when they came to mind (and in the order that I was checking my msn list). If your name isn't here, that does not make you any less special to me!!!



1. How did u meet #14 (Bhai)?
Dammit! Why do you have to be #14, Bhai??!!

Bhai and I have had a love-hate relationship since the beginning of time. Bhai went to the same school as my first boyfriend and big surprise - he hated him and thus hated me, and Bhai has probably never agreed with any other boyfriend after that either. Getting rid of boyfriend #1 was just the beginning of a great friendship built on insults and sarcastic remarks (as well as almost identical Capricorn traits)... and in Bhai's words "The smartest thing you ever did, Charl". The only problem he has with my boyfriends now is that he thinks they are all Ah Bengs and they are never good enough for me.


2. What would u do if u hadn't met #1 (Lionel)?
Dated other guys.



Oh wait, I meant to say that I would never have found my soulmate, best friend, pillow-talk companion, adventurous travel buddy, consumer of everything I cook whether tasty or nasty, free compliment service, opener of container lids that are too tight, destroyer of bugs and cockroaches and rats that scare me, fetcher of my water, coffee, snacks, etc. when the kitchen seems too far away, supporter of all the ridiculous endeavours I come up with, sugar daddy of all my meals and soft toys, download centre for all my tv series, and provider of unlimited hugs and kisses.

I know it sounds like I can't do anything for myself. Lionel would agree.


3. What would u do if #20 (Xiaokai) and #9 (Lu) dated?
*wide-eyed look* Match made in heaven!! Here's how it'd go. They'd both meet on the World of Warcraft server and hit it off famously. They'd talk about gaming, their pure loathing of studying and small, fair, bespectacled girls. And then they'd try and meet IRL. And I'll be tearing from laughing too much. As I always do.


4. Would #6 (Chien Liq) and #10 (Nicole) make a good couple?
OH... MY...
HAHAHAHAHHAAHAHahahahAHAHAHAHHAhahahhaAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

No. Not unless you want a repeat of the Holocaust.


5. Describe #3 (Anu)
a. Cries before exams
b. Bites her fingernails
c. Adores Ronan Keating
d. Puts on her baby voice when she wants something
e. Calls me a pandi (pig) when she doesn't get her way
f. ...
Ah heck, this list will never be exhaustive enough. Anu's one of my bestest friends who'll one day be the skinniest doctor Melbourne has ever seen.


6. Do you think #8 (Yi Shan) is attractive?
No.

I'm sorry, that was too harsh. I don't think Yi Shan is attractive but I think that Yi Shan thinks he's cute.

7. Tell me something about #7 (Wei Kiat)
He likes to hurt people. Physically. He also likes guns. I mean the ones that shoot. I mean the ones that shoot fire. I mean... oh what the heck. He's also very apt at writing secret admirer letters to himself.

8. Do you know anything about #12 (Cheng Chun)'s family?
Has 2 sisters who have really swanky London/US apartments!

9. What is #1's (Lionel) favourite thing?
ME! and maybe his Nikon.

10. What would you do if #11 (Ayish) confesses that he/she likes you?
Aww... so flattering!

11. What languages does #15 (Ravi) speak?
Idiot-speak.

Oh and a smattering of English, Malay, Chinese swear-words, probably some Vietnamese too now...

12. Who is #9 (Lu) going out with?
His duvet

13. How old is #16 (Jere)?
Last time I checked... about 12. I mean so what if his I.C. says he's 22, the national registry has been known to make mistakes from time to time.

14. When was the last time you talked to #13 (Baa)?
When I was still in London, on MSN

15. Who is #2 (Sugania)'s favourite singer?
Madonna. This is easy.

16. Would you date #4 (Charmaine)?
Hell yeah! I mean who wouldn't? Charmie's hot and smart and funny and such a babe and we'd have a hell of a time, you know it!

17. Would you date #6 (Chien Liq)?
Are you kidding?? Oh, I'm sorry... that was about as harsh as saying Yi Shan's not attractive. Actually it might be fun... not as fun as dating Charmaine because CL isn't as hot and he whines all the time.

18. Is #15 (RAvi) single?
He shouldn't be single. Ravi's like the sweetest darling there is. Why aren't all the girls lining up for him. Oh wait, they probably are. Ravi, why are you being so fussy and pick one already!

19. What is #17 (Tao)'s last name?
Cheah! How many people have tried calling him Mr. Tao?

20. Would you consider being in a relationship with #19 (Hugo)?
Lol!!! This is seriously funnier than the idea of dating Charmaine or CL. Hugo wants me to be his trophy wife, to cook for him make his mum happy. I can have boyfriends but I'd be constantly worrying about Hugo stealing them away. He IS the better looking one.

21. What schools did #17 (Tao) go to?
Schools my mother doesn't approve of for Penangnites. Lol!!! Sri Inai and KTJ.

23. What is your favourite thing about #5 (Sherene)?
That she's absolutely CRAZZZEEEEE!!! She's such a babe and she's got the personality of a firecracker! You can never never never be bored with Sherene, and she's the bestest girlfriend you can have! And of course for the fact that was both LURVE Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black... especially when he's eating peanut butter.

24. What do you think about #13 (Baa)?
He's the greenest wooliest mammal there is. Baa's so clever and he tells the lamest jokes which is so funny!!! And of course he's a great friend who made dinners at THE Chinese High Boarding School so much more entertaining.

25. What do #4 (Charmaine) and # 18 (Chris Tock) have in common?
They both have names starting with "CH"? They don't like to study? They like to procrastinate academic work? You have to catch hold of both of them, sit them down and tie them to a chair to force them to study? And yet you can be sure their mind has wandered off to something else.

26. What special qualities does #5 (Sherene) hold in your life?
Sherene (and Charmaine too) were possibly the only girlfriends I had at that point of time in my life when I met them... and have remained my best girlfriends till now.

And I shall tag... EVERYBODY. I'm not fussy.

Guns in the Hands of Babes V

When will I stop harping about this? When my government grows more brains.

I hate how news reports are ever so slightly (oh why am I being diplomatic?) skewed in favour of gun training.

Just a question. Are we going to tighten gun laws now that 1 tenth of Malaysian 18 year olds will know how to fire an M16?

I am not a supporter of anti-gun societies. Give me a strong and valid reason for training our young ones to hold firearms and I'd support it, whole heartedly. Right now reason #1 "it will instill discipline and make them braver" and reason #2 "Singapore has implemented it" only makes me wonder WHY we bother to spend money educating Malaysians if they are going to take in such pure rubbish as valid substantiations. (I think I spelt that wrong... but I've been working over the weekend and I can't care to stare at my computer screen while I type).

A few weeks ago Lionel asked me if there was anything in our constitution regarding firearms. According to most war conventions, anyone who picks up a firearm is no longer considered a civillian, regardless of age, and is allowed to be shot during war because they are now considered soldiers. That's a rather interesting train of thought. Care to explain that to our youngsters who are so eager to hold guns?

In fact the naivety of their responses is worrying:

Trainee Sharifah Rabiatul said it was a privilege to learn to use an M16 because the opportunity was not given to everyone. “I think it will make me braver, tougher and stronger. I don’t think it will be dangerous at all,” said Sharifah, who was among the 350 trainees who left Bukit Jalil for Bandar Muadzam Shah, Pahang.

Yup, spending 2 days learning to fire a bullet will do that.

Of course it won't. The mental preparation for fire arm training does not start a day before holding your weapon. You want to know why they can do it in Singapore? It's because the mental preparation and discipline is instilled long before the first gun theory lesson. You want to make them tougher and stronger? Try waking up at 6am for a 2km jog every morning. You want to make them braver and independent? Try solo camping. I have a sneaky feeling that more teens would rather choose the cowardly option of firing a gun over setting up their own tent in the middle of the jungle and spending the night there. I dare say the jogging and camping would be far cheaper than spending more money on guns and ammunition. And a much healthier mental and physical exercise too.

All this talk about exercise and hx's comment on the odac blog about obese snails is reminding me of what a little pig i'm turning into. My mum has been reminding me over and over that walking cannot be my only form of exercise. After all the only reason I walk home from work is because I'm miserly trying to save on cab money. Everything has a hidden agenda. Even NS.

Guns in the Hands of Babes IV

Not sticking by their guns now are they? Well not completely.

What is the point of an exercise being implemented in a program meant to foster unity when you make it optional? You either train a reserve army or you encourage bonding amongst teenagers. You cannot do both.

As the ministry of defence tries to pull the wool over the nation's eyes... it's a rather feeble attempt.

“Using blanks at the shooting range is not appropriate. What is there to worry about if there is security?” says Najib.

There is everything to worry about.

Were the NS trainees given ample mental preparation? Were they given psychometric tests to weed out trainees with weak mental strength and not prepared for the repercussions of firing a gun? (You may think this is stupid when they're probably only going to fire one bullet, but it's a required procedure that army/policemen go through... and firing one bullet can shock you). Were they given full warning about the dangers of holding a gun that if loaded wrongly, not cleaned properly or misfired could results in deaths of not just the shooter but the people around?

Or as in the true Malaysian style, was nothing else but a short term goal to discipline our wayward Malaysian kids the only thing on the minds of the powers that be?

Dim Sum Girl

Only dim sum girls will be talking this summer.

Have a great one folks. Summer, not the dim sum girl!

One Guinness, please

We've got a new dog at home. My Malaysian home that is. In London we have a 'no pets' rule, after the disaster that was house training Yi Shan.

Anyway since I wasn't around, my brother decided to get the biggest, meanest (not to mention ugliest) dog he could find... and eventually settled for a German Shepherd Labrador mix. I wanted a jack russell, but when you're not on Malaysian ground you have no say, like all other things. At 3 months old he (the dog, not my brother) is bigger than Chelsea, my aging cocker spaniel, and is scaring the living daylights out of her. For the record though, Chelsea is scared of everything. Chelsea doesn't think she's a dog and I'm quite sure she isn't very happy having this young pup running circles around her. But she's growing too old to guard the house (or knock over pots which is her greater talent) so bring on Guinness - good dogs come to those who wait (and have dog treats)!

When my mother sms-ed to announce the arrival of the latest bundle of joy, I turned to Lionel and said "How much more tak halal can you make a dog in Malaysia?". My sister wants to change Chelsea's name to Carlsberg now, but my mother has stopped her from confusing the old girl even more.

I shall end abruptly here. I have to finish commenting code which seems to be taking longer than actually programming it.

The day they deported me from the UK

... was the day I didn't support England in the World Cup.


No, seriously... what is it with all of you and the fact that I don't support England? It'd make *some* sense to me if you accused me of not supporting a phenomenal team (sorry, but that's a term that only refers to Brazil). It'd make sense if you accused me of not supporting England's best players (Theo Walcott? Hello?? Has England no other strikers? Come on!! The kid's never even played in a first-team game for Arsenal before). It'd make even the slightest sense if you accused me of not supporting a team with a savvy manager (Sven-Goran isn't even British! And he's playing a team that's half unfit/injured... and one with a broken metatarsal, who claims the doctors don't really know anything because in reality he's just broken his foot! It's Swede swede revenge on the English... oh that was a bad pun, you know it!).

But no... what I get is a whole bunch of nonsense about "But you live in England, why aren't you supporting your home country's team??!!??" with a dollop of wide-eyed horror.

The world is full of idiots. I'm convinced!

Now if I did support my home country while I was living in Singapore, I doubt the sentiments would have been the same. No, they would have been far far different.

Oh the fights!

Newspaper headlines in Malaysia these days reek of a Korean soap drama. If we're not careful, we'll end up like the Taiwanese government (look out! *bitch slap*). I have great respect for Dr. Mahathir. After all as most commentaries put it, he's the only prime minister most Malaysians have known in their life time. But I'm also feeling really sympathetic towards Badawi. His wife just died and now the former premier is wagging his tongue towards the media and demanding answers - NOW!

But there's one thing preventing me from getting too obsessed over it.

Bring on the world cup! Hugo's trying very hard to prove his football knowledge (or lack of). I'm beating him at it. England and Paraguay start in a few hours. I've booked my seat in front of the TV

Guns in the Hands of Babes III

This is the scariest picture I've seen in awhile. 17/18 year olds learning to shoot M16s after 1 day's worth of theory, for what purpose? To instill discipline and make them more robust! (Click on picture for article). You know my stand on the use of firearms in Malaysian National Service (which mind you, is NOT in any way a reserve army in training ala Singapore). Sometimes my government does things which are so insane it makes me want to throw my passport away and cut up my MyKad into little tiny pieces.

They really ought to start listening to me.

Khidmat Negara = Serve thy country

Blessed are Daddy's girls

I've never been much of a daddy's girl. Instead I'm my mum's number one staunch supporter and blame her for everything I am. It's strange that way.

When I was 8, daddy taught me to draw still life orchids, ride a bike and wanted me to be a novelist. Mummy caned me for coming out 5th (out of 45!!!) in class. Draw your own conclusions.

Disjointed thoughts ahead.

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I live to impress my parents. But my dad isn't too concerned with the little things I deem successful. I took him for a tour around the top science college in the UK. He asked why the buildings were so modern and ugly. I wanted to show him our superb labs and plasma screen TVs in EEE. He spent more time carefully observing the ugly statue in the EEE foyer. I tried to persuade him to drive past all of London with the little time he had left. He just wanted to stroll down Bayswater Road so he could choose a painting for my room.

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The London my dad left 23 years ago hasn't changed at all for him. As we were walking down Bayswater Road, where the artists have displayed their wares in the sunshine...
"Daddy, don't we have that one at home?"
I whip around and find my dad saying to the artist, "Alex? How long have you been here! You remember my wife? She bought your paintings in the 70s. Yes, we still have 3 of yours hanging at home"

My dad has no trouble navigating through the little alleys of London town and very confidently navigated the Londoners to Katherine Docks and back again. My dad knows the entire stretch from St. John's Wood to Westminster like the back of his hand. I get lost walking from North End Road to Fulham Broadway.

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When you don't see your parents for really long spells, they always look older. Cancer added years to my dad. But 9 months away from home has deepened the wrinkles, and slowed his gait. Painful to watch? Almost heartbreaking to realise. My mother seems to be all skin and bones everytime I return home. But my parents are made of steel. How long more will I go on believing that?

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When you think 23 is much too old for you parents to embarass you...

... your dad walks right up to a convertible BMW with its young, lady driver still in it, and exclaims what a nice car it is to no one in particular...

... or while you're talking to a friend you've just bumped into, your dad is asking the folks enjoying the midday sun what shisha is and why they are smoking it. Is it the new pot?

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Totally unrelated:
I've finally got my bank to work and I just need to clean up some stuff and do some error checking. I've also got my satay chicken marinated and I just need to clean up some stuff and do some agar-agar checking.
Isn't life glorious when you have so many things to do?

and Charlotte does the bi-weekly update thing...

My daddy is in town. So apart from the two-hundred and fifty one things I have to get done, I also have to make sure daddy is spending enough quality time with daughter number one and not suffering too much from hayfever. AH-Choo!! So far, I've followed him to an official headquarters visit, taken him for lunch at Nonya (where Daddy pushed away my credit card) and brought him to my Godmother's for tea and noisy children. My Godma's granddaughters barely make up 5 years of age in total, so I had to excuse the barrage of stickers, whistles and tealeaves-cum-mud "potions" thrown at me the moment the door opened. The children of the world adore me. I wish the feeling was mutual.

I'm currently sitting in the attic, programming a bank. The bank isn't at all interesting, so don't ask. And you read that right. We have an attic. It just nicely fits Lionel's bed, half a tatami mat, a small bedside table, a chest of drawers and a tiny raised landing which Lionel uses as a desk. I'm currently taking up 30% of the space with my laptop. I can't use my room. It's cluttered with all my packing.

Anyway, I just wanted to make a tiny squeak in the blogosphere. It's back to work.

Posts that bore everyone to tears should be made a criminal offence

Strangely enough, I'd be guilty of it most of the time.

I'm multitasking avoiding reading up more on interest rates and oil/information pricing because it's starting to confuse me and blogging instead. Hugo suggested it anyway. The blogging I mean. I am really very bored right now. There isn't a single person in the lab that I have the liberty of disturbing and annoying the hell out of. Woe is me.

Ironically, everyone (not in Imperial) seems to think I'm very free an gallivanting around London and Europe. Even my mother seems to think so. The fact that I sms her everyday saying "No, I can't call home now. I'm doing project work in college" doesn't seem to register.

I'm making a desperate attempt to revive my dying dormant blog. But I don't have anything interesting to say. Except that any Friendster testimonials written by me on Wei Kiat or Chien Liq's profiles are completely fabricated and a result of stupidly leaving my account open on Wei Kiat's terminal. There, Wei Kiat! I just increased your Friendster traffic. Happy??

Moving on to current affairs:
1) Da Vinci Code was so dissapointing and even as a Catholic there were times I wanted to strangle Tom Hanks and scream "Enough with the politically correct bullshit!!!"... aah, that was nice to get off my chest.

2) X-Men 3 is a nice watch if you're not a loyal geek comic book fan. Wolverine basked in all 100 and 5 minutes of glorious adamantium screentime! Cyclops got a measly 5 minutes to look broody and drunk. That made Lionel sulk like a 2 year old. No one said he wasn't a loyal geek comic book fan.

End of current affairs.

Did you really think I was going to discuss the Java earthquake or Sarawak elections?

I'm tired. My comment box has been spammed with articles about racial discrimination in Malaysia and reading it makes me feel even more tired. There's no question about whether it exists or not. Of course it exists. We'd be living in denial not to notice it. And you know what? It exists everywhere. In all my years of living in different countries, I've been a minority and an outcast in all of them. But you deal with it, and move on IN SPITE of it. You don't (and NEVER) bow down to it. You find a way around it, and prove how ridiculous and needless racial discrimination really is. The question now is, when is the right time for Malaysia to deal with affirmative action and bumi rights, and how are they going to do it? Most would say the answer is NOW and IMMEDIATELY. I'm not sure. I'm not the one in charge. I'm not the one who will have rights and crutches taken away from me. Nor will I be the one who'll reap any outright short term benefits.

The Malaysian Higher Education minister came to Imperial last week. He's quite a nice guy. At least more sincere and honest than Najib was. He didn't have the air of a politician which is refreshing. I wish we had more people like him who said what they really felt and not what they think needs to be said to increase their polls. I do wish he had done his research before meeting with our Rector though. It clearly looks shoddy, stepping onto Imperial grounds and saying "Oh, but Imperial College students don't do business, right?" when you're standing in the foyer of Imperial's Tanaka Business School (ranked 8th in UK by the Financial Times and 47th in the world).

Lionel's FINALLY decided to pry himself away from his lab and his infected mice. Yay! I'm going home to cook rendang. Is anyone interested in a Satay party this Sunday?

No rest for the wicked

The 'end of exams' in no way equates to 'going home'. Please stop asking. It'll be an eternity and a month before I'll even get to kiss the 30 degrees sunny air back in KL.

Oh how I miss home. I wake up in cold sweat at night from dreams where I am denied char kuay teow and assam laksa! I want to sleep without a blanket, wake up to the smell of mee yoke, run to the nearest mamak in Teva's sandals and shorts for roti canai (with garlic cheese, please), lie on my bed with the latest Cleo magazine and listen to monsoon rains, drive my sister around, flip through the pages of The Star and listen to Light & Easy on 105.7fm.

But home is so far away, when you're spending 8 hours a day in labs, and the remaining hours at home brushing up on Java and getting up to speed on things like multi agent systems and robots and virtual timestamps. They are as foreign to me as they are to you.

The mice in my house seem to be having a better time than I am. They were even so kind to leave me a note after I made them chocolate oatmeal cookies.


Note to self... have to apologise to mice for lack of time to make more cookies.

A little bit of everything

My mother called just now while I was making a strawberry cheesecake.

"Why didn't you call in? Didn't you get my sms? Were you out?"
"When did you send it?"
"10 minutes ago!"
(my mother wholeheartedly believes I have my handphone sewn onto me and the moment a text message is sent, I should read it and reply)
"I was in the kitchen"
"What are you doing in the kitchen?"
"Is there a law against standing in my own kitchen? Making a cheesecake"
"So free ah?"
"No lah. I'm trying to finish up all the stuff in the kitchen so I won't have to pack it over summer."
"You sound like you're really trying to relax after exams"
"Is there a law against relaxing after exams?? No, mum. I'm trying to stress myself out even more Uhuh."
"So when are you going to help your sister with her t-shirt design? Your father is no help. All his designs are so old fashioned. She needs something modern and cute."

All of a sudden the strawberry cheesecake does seem like the greatest crime on earth. It's obviously not as important as using my precious free time to help my sister, and then my mother unleashes the final blow.

"You're so good at these kind of things. I know you can do it."

And before she launches into a tirade about God-given talents, and using it to help other people (other people always being my brother or sister), I say "Okay, okay..." and she passes the phone to my sister.

My sister is ever so cute to talk to. Last week I told her about the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ride at Alton Towers and she asked if I could bring back some of the chocolate for her.

"Will it make me smarter?"
"Erm, you're allergic to chocolate."
"Oh!"

Isn't she so cute?

So anyway, I did go to Alton Towers and I did go on the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ride.
It was a chance to get out of the rain (and an excuse for me not to go on Oblivion). The weather pretty much required umbrellas throughout the day. And cutesy OomPah Loompas do not make up for it.


Ok, so I went overboard with the Photoshop paintbrush. I was trying to recreate the magical childish fantasy of being inside a chocolate factory (as opposed to CL's sex fantasy no. 5: to be spray covered in chocolate, thanks for letting us know). I haven't photoshopped in a while. Give me a break.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself in terms of my Alton Towers story. The day started out like any other. With Wei Kiat failing to check the time of the train and thus having 5 very sleepy people yell at him for making us wake up at 6am to catch a train that was only at 8am.


Nevertheless, we let bygones be bygones and tried to look happy upon entering the place where they try to make "happily ever after" work, but it doesn't last on cold, gloomy (your basic English weather) days.


Following Wei Kiat's lead, we headed first for Rita Queen of Speed. I had already psyched myself up in order to get over my roller-coaster phobia, so I was in a kind of daze. It was probably a good thing that it was rainy and the queues were short. The longer the wait, the more frazzled my nerves get.



Big surprised, I survived it! And Chien Liq screams like a girl.

Anyway it was still raining. But we were still quite happy.


By 11.30am, I had 2 rollercoaster counts to Yi Shan and Wei Kiat's one. Go me! Soha had hit her ear and it was bleeding, but being the brave trooper that Soha is, she went on all the coasters in Xtreme park, while the lazy bums (CL, Su and me), sat in KFC polishing off a 10 piece pack. After such gluttony I didn't feel ready for more head spinning, and as a result this happened:
Now you know the real reason they brought me along. It wasn't so bad really. I just stood there preparing to snap a photo of their whizzing carriage, when I heard the unmistakeable girly scream bursting through the air. Yup, that's them. SNAP! Anyway, they managed to persuade me to go on the spinning whizzing pinball machine thing a second time round. I screamed my lungs out. It was therapeutic.

Anyway, despite the gloomy weather we still managed some pretty nice group shots.

And some pretty bad ones
And some where we just had no clue at all
In search of more rides (namely Nemesis and Air) we took a stroll through the woods
And even climbed a few trees
In the end we reached the Forbidden Valley, and I became bag carrier amah again while they went on Nemesis (the words "most intense roller coaster experience in the world" wasn't very comforting, even though Wei Kiat and CL tried to block the sign). But to my credit, I went on Air which was the most superb flying experience ever!
Then just to humour me, we rushed over to the river rapids (the only ride I initially consented to go on) to get royally wet! [I'll put up the group photo later... I'm getting lazy, in case you can't tell]

Finally it was the end of the day, and with just 10 minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave, Wei Kiat led us to the wrong park entrance - on the OPPOSITE end of the park! This led to an Amazing Race - worthy dash to the park entrance upon discovering our mistake (Non elimination! Non elimination!)

And on the bus we were pretty much like this:
Stuffy busrides make me more nauseous than any ride at Alton Towers ever could.

Ok I'm done for now. It's back to Facebook absorption - or to quote the name of a Facebook group: "Facebook is eating away my life, and MSN is polishing off the remains". How true!

Brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood canine

Lets go watch the Da Vinci code, guys! Pleeeeease? I'll walk all the way to UGC at Fulham to get tickets. Exams only just ended and already I'm bored out of my mind. I'm contemplating going back to Level 5 labs to do some background reading. You've GOT to stop me!

In the meantime, this is giving me the heeby-jeebies:


If you didn't know before, I'm a BIG wolverine fan (and some friends back home just won't let me forget that).

Nerding

While I'm waiting for Alton Towers photos (I have none because I was just too lazy to take my camera out, and besides everyone else had theirs ever ready to catch the most unfortunate photos of me...), let me entertain you with some trivial nonsense.

Exams ended with Control Engineering, after which instead of going home and sleeping or going out and partying, some of us actually sat in the level 5 comp labs preparing slides for the next day's career talk organised by the ever efficient Jia Hong. He probably regretted delegating the task to tired post-examinees. We had slides saying :

Introduction
1. Listen to Jia Hong
2. ATTENTIVELY
3. Hey, you over there! I know you're not paying attention. Look THIS way!

or

Resources
1. Careers office
2. Internet
3. For more information, take Chien Liq out to dinner
email: chienliqisthebomb@gmail.com


Anyway, I'm really glad exams are really and truly over. One, because I can finally clean the kitchen and bathroom (which I did), and two, because I want to stop looking like this:


Yeah, it's shocking isn't it?

I wear glasses with no power because the laptop screen hurts my eyes. It also makes me feel smarter. I become a whole different person, like Superman when he becomes Clark Kent.

Reason number 3 to be glad about the end of exams is so I can get all this coffee out of my system. Caffeine has been my best friend, and it was good while it lasted. But now the final drop has been drunk. Till next exam...

(I drink coffee from a chinese tea mug... I find that wrong in so many ways)

Writings before a last exam

Let me immortalise this moment.

Little Fujitsu is purring like a kitten. It sounds contented and full of milk, but it's more likely to be suffering from overload. I'm thinking I need to get the processor checked, but my left brain is asking "what's the observability matrix?". The glow of my table lamp is starting to hurt my eyes. I need to see an optician soon. Everything is becoming so blurry. My thoughts included. It's been a long journey, and my room is infested with paper. Like a white locust on my bed, my desk, my floor, my clothes, with queer markings of thetas and sigmas and alphas and omegas. Yes, alphas and omegas. Is the end finally nigh? I've travelled so far and yet I feel like I'm back where I started.

Knowing nothing.

EE in a closed loop

I think
I just disconnected myself
from reality
Life exists
in ' 1's and '0's
I draw myself
closer to infinity
in a locus
And stability is just a state
where oscillating dreams fade away
Press 1 to speak to an operator
(sum or product) chosen by an observability matrix
Press 0 to close the loop

If you haven't slept in 48 hours... how do you think you'll handle a Z transform?

It's back to an erratic sleeping schedule.

We finished off what Sandip calls the devil's signal processing (DSP) this morning, and what a relief.

Since Analogue in the first year, this is the first time I've gone into an exam room where my best effort would be to try not to fail. Turning the first page and realising that I could do 2 complete questions was pure, sweet relief. Who cares if I stumbled and flopped through the rest of the paper. The prospect of being able to pass Dr. Naylor's doomsday exam is nothing short of a miracle!

2 more papers. TWO MORE!

The rings around my eyes are growing darker by the day. It's a pity that my optimal study hours are between midnight and 5am in the morning. Sacrifices have to be made. And that includes resisting the urge to clean the kitchen.

2 more days. TWO MORE!

I can't wait to get my hands on a sponge and bleach.

Gifts for Singaporeans

I think I should get one for Lionel. Click on the image to get your own.

Biology 101

I'm not sure that I really like the serious atmosphere hanging around my blog these days, so I'm going to give an update. Xiaokai can call me a scum, I'm not gonna care.


6 papers have gone. 3 more to go. I crashed after the last paper on Thursday (comms systems, which apparently was a bloody massacre... I couldn't tell, I was doing the paper in a stupor) and slept all the way until Friday morning. I had huge, HUGE, sleep debts to pay. That's what I get for not starting my revision plans earlier and only discovering lecture notes on public switching telephone networks the day before the exam. I'm a brilliant last minute mugger. Nothing enters my head unless it's done in a panic stricken, last minute moment... with a caffeine IV drip on my arm. Clearly, I've never learnt my lesson since secondary school. I'm currently getting flashbacks of Anushia and Choo staring at me in bewilderment as they are about to begin their 2nd or 3rd round of History revision while my textbook remains untouched, un-underlined and un-highlighted.


I think I've been much too relaxed this weekend. This week's papers are a slaughterhouse of DSP, Databases and Control Engineering. But instead of mugging FIR filters, I've been tuned to American Idol and CSI. Oh! Oh! Joke of the week - so we're all gathered around the TV watching CSI New York, (the housemates and Lu's older sister), and some small eggs were found inside the victim's ear (I know... ewww), so the CSI's decide to incubate it to find out what laid them. Lionel, Lu and I were guessing spiders or roaches or such, when Lu's sister very seriously says maybe they'll hatch rats. *silence in the living room* After she leaves the room, Lionel the bio-chemist bursts out at the abomination and I say maybe she never studied biology. Lu just eyes the ceiling.

And the joke just seems to live on at every opportune moment (more so since the state of the kitchen is incredibly filthy, by my standards and Lionel's FYP which deals with infected rats):

"Why's the rice pot on the floor? Feeding Kitchen God, is it?"
"No lah, feeding the rats. After they hatch from the eggs"

"Oi! Look at this mess! You want to attract rats ar?"
"Yeah, after they hatch."

"So we're going to harvest the intestines from the rats to test for the nematods"
"Oh! Can I come into the labs to see the rats?"
"No! They have to be kept in the animal house... where they are hatched from eggs"



It's almost mid morning. And it's rainy. I guess I won't be going in to the level 5 labs today then. I'll just hide under my duvet and read up on non-linear control systems.

By the way, I've agreed to go to Alton Towers after the exams. Yes, my motion sickness and I have agreed to go. Well someone's got to carry their bags and popcorn and drinks while they're on Nemesis and Ripsaw, etc.

Memang tidak masuk akal...

Perlukah artikel seperti ini disebar di ruang bulletin Friendster?
Gubra yang sesat, lagi menyesatkan

Gubra itu sepatutnya sebuah filem tentang masyarakat kita, tetapi ada pula golongan masyarakat yang tidak menyedari mereka sedang memandang wajah diri sendiri dalam cermin. Sebaliknya mereka mencemarkan aksi-aksi yang digelar tidak bermoral - ciuman, pelukan dan pegangan tangan. Begitu rabun jauh kah masyarakat kita?

Malaysia is an Islamic state! If you don't like it, get out!

This is not a post. This is a plug.

For my country which is trying to control what people wear and how they act. For my country that deems hugging to be 'Un-Malaysian' and arrests couples for kissing and holding hands. For my country that gives unwarranted priveledges to a particular race and yet is not done spoon feeding them while the minority struggle on their own, and are abused when they try and speak up by a large 'playground bullying' mentality. For my country where racial unity is slowly becoming a ridiculous joke and a cover up. For my country that is still trying to define the term 'Islam Hadhiri' and maintains that it is an Islamic state.



Full English transcript here. Thanks to Advocate, Sang Harimau and The Cicak.

On a more personal note, it really hurts when they say things like that. I don't feel a venomous hatred towards them. I feel betrayed. I am a hundred thousand km away, trying to be a little ambassador for my country. We've worked hard in bringing Malaysians together in Imperial, we've all been beaten to the ground trying to show off the colourful melting pot that is our country. Have you seen the heartfelt warmth and sincerity of Imperial Malaysians toiling together to sell our batik and teh tarik during our annual Pasar Malam sales? Have you seen the incredible togetherness a meritocratic university environment brings out? It's amazing here, when you know for certain that a particular race cannot get extra marks on their exams just because they are the majority. When everyone is on a level playing field the harmony is sincere and not a force-fed 'muhibbah-ness'. And when I've tried at every opportunity to show how wonderful our little 3rd world nation is - to be told to get out of the country if we don't like the idea of an Islamic state (i.e. if we can't follow the rules they've set to govern OUR morality as non-muslims)... it hurts. It truly does.

Alright, let's get this show on the road!

The dreaded first paper begins with Finance and Financial Management tomorrow and ends with Control Engineering in 3 weeks time.

Till then, this blog is probably going to go into a comatose state.

Be nice to each other while I'm gone, ok?

Living in Translation

Everyone, please thank Charmaine for having too much time on her hands and providing a full English transcript of the Petronas CNY ad I posted earlier.

See, unlike Xiaokai, I actually care about the rest of my non-Hokkien speaking, non-Malay reading audience. (and if you reply to this with lrn2read one more time, I'm taking off the link to your blog!)

Reasons to spank me... ("oh no, she didn't!")

1. For playing way too much Pac Man. Pac man is EVIIILLL!!! Once you go Pac, you never go back!
2. For trying to watch American Idol while simultaneously attempting MCQ questions
3. For rewarding my 20 minutes of studying with a 40 minute surf-the-net break
4. For trying to act 'clever' and taking on too many 'clever' modules (clever = can soooo die!!!) when I could have done easy (albeit useless) modules like HCI. Nine freaking killer papers when I could have been doing 7 or 8!!!!
5. For not listening to my mother - who warned me about number 4 at the beginning of the year
6. For babysitting my downloading files - however pointless it may seem. Why is there this impulse to watch the 'number of bytes received' increase??
7. For blogging... too much.

And now we return to our normal programme - cursing at adaptive filters! We have to study these things called Wiener filters. Really clever things, but what an unfortunate name!

sleep is overrated

sleep is overrated
studying is for nought
eye bags, long days
the price you pay
for knowledge so highly sought

yet no joy it brings
no use it yields
the glory fades too soon
no priceless things
no strawberry fields
no dancing on the moon




... another deep sigh, and Charlotte resumes where she left off - picking apart the Cramer Rao Lower Bound theorem.

Sidetracking

Remember the original fat guy singing Numa Numa?

Has it really taken this long for the Chinese to catch on?

cringe-worthy

I'm not very sure how nu ma nu ma iei (don't want, don't want, don't take me) got translated into bu pa bu pa (don't scared, don't scared) but its highly entertaining.

Miya-hee
Miya-hoo
Miya-ho
Miya-haha

Hair today, gone tomorrow

[Warning label: Bimbo post ahead. Not to be ingested before breakfast.]

Since my last haircut at The Lab in Desa Sri Hartamas some 8 months ago (yes, shock, shock, horror... it's been THAT long), I've had the nicest layers in like forever! And I swear my new hairdressing guru, Eric, at The Lab* has a hairy thumb (as opposed to a green thumb) because he worked magic on my incredibly hard to tame hair.

See, most hairdressers cheat - by trying to straighten my hair with a ceramic iron thus making me feel Zhang Ziyi - gorgeouslicious for a day. Just ONE day! My hair with a mind of its own never fails to kink back into it's messy waviness the next day.

But Eric managed to pass all knots and kinks and hairy challenges thrown at him, and emerged victorious. I measure how successful a haircut is by how many guys notice it and how many guys (and girls) make a pass at me (this does not include the guy cleaning tables at the Kopitiam, random Spanish workmen outside my flat and the occasional black/arab/migrant worker who cat call at any passing woman under the age of 25) and Eric's work of art sure turned on alot of charms.

And just yesterday, a fat oaf by the name of Paul (who, to be fair, was under the pressure of sitting for an exam where I was to be the exam piece) at the Vidal Sassoon School of Hairdressing undid all of Eric's good, hard work.

I went from this to this:














Btw, I'm not posing in the picture on the left. That was me trying to get a good idea of how messy my hair really is. If you zoom in you'll see the dark eyebags and frown lines from the past 3 weeks of exam-related stress - and yet everyone's been messaging me on msn to tell me how nice my pic is. Exams are great beauty boosters. And yes, I am pouting on the right. I pout a lot. Lionel's learnt to put on an 'ignore-her' mechanism when I do that. Or else he pinches my cheeks and pats me on the head.

Anyway... back to the point. I don't even LOOK like I've had a haircut. All I got were my nice soft layers hacked and butchered. You should see the back of my head. I think Lu said he could have cut my hair (for free!). I don't know how I never thought of asking for a mirror to see the back of my head at Vidal. You just want to get out of there as soon as possible, especially when a Shrek-sized Ah Beng (with a blond dyed job, nonetheless) is wielding a scissors at your hair.

I guess after camwhoring a bit, (just a bit), I've gotten slightly used to the idea of looking like my teenage sister. All you psychotic paedophiles who've been oogling at her Friendster photos (i.e. YOU, cl) get a life. Or get hurt. She's got a black belt in Taekwondo.

* The Lab was reviewed by Kennysia. I would tag along and recommend it fervantly!

A rose by any other name...

You know those rather annoying forwarded emails you get which ask you to count the number of letters/vowels/animal sounds in your name and multiply it by 7, add 5 and then divide it by 172? In your head? You can even replace [name] with [date of birth] for a more varied approach or even [number of times a week you wear green]. And after such awful brain teasers, you are often required to match the result with a look-up table which tells you more about yourself and what fate has chosen for your future/partner/sex life all based on the above complex mathematical equations.

I never counted on fate knowing math before the evolution that was the internet.


Anyway, Michelle's blog had this little look-up table alphabet which apparently gives you the meaning of your name, which goes something like this:

A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
B : you are loved by alot of ppl
C : you're wild and crazy
D : You have trouble trusting people
E : You are always fun when it comes to meeting new people
F : People totally adore you
G : You are very friendly and undestanding
H : You have very good personality and looks
I : Love is something you deeply believe in
J : Everyone loves you
K : You like to try new things
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
M : You are beautiful, and sexy
N : Your sex is unforgetable
O : You love foreplay
P : You are very friendly and understanding
Q : You are a hypocrite
R : Someone loves you
S : People think you are so sexy
T : You are one of the best in bed
U : You are really a chilling material
V : You are not judgemental
W : You are very broad minded
X : You never let people tell you what to do
Y : you make every experience great
Z : You're Super cool

Apparently matching the letters in your name to the table provides a nice little portrait of a super-duper, ultra hot, oh so nice you!.

However, I couldn't help thinking, had my parents gotten my name wrong, I'd be this:

H : You have very good personality and looks
A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
R : Someone loves you
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
O : You love foreplay
T : You are one of the best in bed

Adding a C and an E just makes me wild and crazy and fun when meeting someone new... and still all of the above! Adding an extra T does not help at all...

And if they spelt it the way some people *cough*Malaysians*cough* think my name ought to be spelt:

S : People think you are so sexy
H : You have very good personality and looks
A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
O : You love foreplay
T : You are one of the best in bed

... I'd be one HELL of an Onion!!

Had my parents consulted the Internet before I was born, I might have been named something else.

On hindsight, you'd have thought any sane parent wouldn't give their child a name which has a female prostitute embedded in it!

He is risen!!!

To all you good folks out there - Happy Easter!

Christ is risen and He lives forevermore. 3 nails + 1 cross = 4 given. Go eat some chocolate eggs and bunnies.

and by the way, Tao's version of Easter goes something like this:

"Eh, so Jesus died yesterday on Good Friday right? And tomorrow He'll wake up and come out of the cave? So... why Easter Eggs? And why a bunny?"

[Later Edit]
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Did you know
That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered
Will soon deliver you

Kamikaze ala Bunny!

If you ever wondered how bunnies commit suicide, then check out bunny suicides. If you've never wondered, welcome to Charlotte's chronically warped mind.

This is my favourite bunny suicide:

Vishnu Easter?

As I am trying to ignore the hunger pangs of a Good Friday abstinence (which I do not cope with very well and thus I reeeally hope I'll be forgiven for making a cup of Milo so I will be able to make it through the long reading of the Passion during mass with some level of clarity) I want to wish all my Tamil brudders, sisters, machas.. and yes, you Bhai.. a Happy Vishnu, Puthandu Vazthukal, and may Sugania's search for a worthy Brahmin husband (minimum height requirement 5 feet 9, must speak English, must love dogs, and must be able to withstand very insensitive and crude remarks from her over protective friends) bear fruit. Please refer to Sugania's blog for a study text of the Tamil, Bengali and Malayalee New Year.

Happy Easter to the rest! Don't you just love how our multi-racial festivities so nicely clash, and yet its still not made a public holiday? One of the best things about being in Malaysia (for me) is how you can sit in a friend's house, drinking Jack Daniels in front of a big picture of Ganesha and call Bhai a Bhai and then insult everyone in Chinese and Malay with so much laughter and friendship.

I <3 Yasmin Ahmad

I was surfing around for advertisements directed by Yasmin Ahmad, when I came across this year's Petronas ad for Chinese New Year. (psst... I'm really sorry if you don't understand Hokkien and well, for some of you the Malay subtitles won't be of any use either. I'll explain it another time.)

I really, really like this ad. It reminds me of a grandmother I never had. It also reminds me of a whole part of my own heritage I am missing out on. You see, the only Hokkien part of me is my surname and the only other attachment I have to the dialect is that I was brought up by a Hokkien nanny who taught me to speak Cantonese. And I don't even speak it well!

The Cantonese immersion program has begun, with one episode of a Hong Kong series Lu probably downloaded by accident. I will have to submerge myself fully into it the moment exams end.

In other news, Virgin is having a superb sale and I now own 4 new DVDs. Brilliant timing. I got some soppy flicks which included Steel Magnolias and also The Choirboys. I've hidden them behind the stairs in an attempt to remove them from my line of sight.

MPH is also having a sale. I've put 4 books into my cart and thankfully they'll be delivered to my little house in PJ so I can't read them until I go home anyway.

I need to concentrate on my notes and stop singing to Starlight Express.

Why I don't seem to be studying

Three Days Ago
If you really want to impress a girl and you're feeling a bit generous, I'd thoroughly recommend you take her/drag her/carry her kicking and screaming into Maggiore's.

A few weeks ago, in a fit of desperation and an 'all is lost' moment, I cynically told Lionel that I'd take him out for an expensive meal if everything turned out alright in the end. And they did. So Lionel got a free lunch. And it was our anniversary anyway, but things like that don't really matter.

So we went into Maggiore's and had the best duck ever. I also had a rabbit's leg as a starter and tried not to think of poor legless rabbits watching their limbs being roasted and laid in balsamic vinegar, which was quite easy to forget once you dig into the sweet sweet meat! Rabbit tastes just like chicken. And how timely, seeing that bird flu just hit the UK.

The best part of the restaurant though has to be its awesomely romantic conservatory. I mean, check out the dining experience and click on view interior for a 360 degrees span. I'd go again, if I can earn enough money from tour guiding next year.



Two Days Ago

So, Hugo thought the best way to turn 23 (without resorting to drunken chaos) was to sit in a park surrounded by lots of food. Oh, and friends.

And there was ALOT of food, seriously!

Even my tiramisu cake made an appearance. With plenty of rum in it.

And here's proof that people actually like it. Even if it was made absent-mindedly while watching House and Grey's Anatomy. But I didn't mention that to most people.

The weather started out really nice, nice enough for cam-whoring.
That's Me, Vidu and Menaka.

And all sorts of fuzzy creatures started appearing, like this inquisitive squirrel and lovely yellow labrador that wanted pizza. I think even a maltese bounded by

One of Hugo's friends tried to catch the squirrel. Didn't work out, did it?

Then this tractor, that had been nonchalently trimming the grass around us
started circling us like a shark.

Anyway it was getting really chilly, so we packed up,
but not before Andy started a camera fight

And Vidu (the first Sri Lankan eskimo) nearly died of hypothermia

And with that, Hugo turned 23... and has an uncanny sense of knowing when a camera is pointed at him, at all times!!

Akan Datang...

Watch this space for:

1. Photos from Hugo's birthday picnic on a windy hillside, by a glassy lake, surrounded by hungry friendly canine and a tractor/grass cutter machine... in the middle of Hyde Park! (where do I upload the photos to anyway? Andy?)
2. My review on Maggiore's. Good for a meal if you've got the $$moolah$$.
3. Movies I'm only allowed to watch on condition that I finish studying some horrible communication systems
4. A rant on why I am clearly going to be an unhappy engineer and not some bare footed free spirit who can't afford to make rent.

Policing Malaysian Police

Following on from Wan Aimran's discussion on police force - paper faces on parade

(yes I know I really should be studying, but...)

"Judging from the vehement oppositions to the establishment of the Independent Police Misconduct and Complaint Commission (IPCMC) shown by both the members of the police force and several of the BN MPs, I think it is perfectly justified for us as Malaysians to be cynical towards the outlook of the country in the near future."

I think one could not ask for a clearer or bolder display of misguided superiority that the police force have towards an unyielding commitment to transparency, integrity and accountability - a notion which is quickly being reduced to nothing but a hollow catchphrase in the current Malaysian political landscape.

Cynical we can and have always been. However I really cannot entertain the soft approach we as Malaysians seem to take. Having been brought up according to the "spare the rod and spoil the child" rule of thumb, I believe wholly that when a child does something wrong you cannot have one parent scolding sampai meletup* and on the other hand have the other parent saying "Tak apalah**" and giving excuses that the child doesn't know any better and is really a good child most of the time... sometimes....

Here in Malaysia, we are always quick to defend. Much too quick. We have ministers and chief of police playing good parent against bad parent. After all aggressiveness isn't welcome in Malaysian politics (cut to all members of parliament trying to take Aunty Rafidah down) or Malaysian establishments. How then is a IPCMC ever going to work. We'll complain and they'll say, "but you never praise them for the good work they do, see like today got police sergeant honoured for bravery... so the situation is not so bad really..."

The latest 'excuse', (brought to my attention by the ever vigilent Singaporean, Lionel), has the Malaysian police claiming that CSI is helping Malaysian criminals become smarter. This came just days after the Royal Malaysian Police Force was pretty much told to buck up and stop producing shoddy investigations. After all at least 10 murder cases remained unsolved, with a few among them being rather high profile cases. What I can't understand is how CSI hasn't motivated our own police to think one step ahead? Instead of wasting time looking for kopi money.

Right, this is just a very on-the-surface, superficial comment, but have you ever noticed that those special ops police who are waiting around the corner to catch minor traffic offenders never just need one or two men, but almost a whole police motorcade? I mean, 6 or 7 police officers to catch you making an illegal turning at a traffic light? That free, huh?

What was really interesting about the CSI comment thought was that after doing a search on Google, I managed to pull it out from Yahoo, CNN, Malaysiakini and finally Bernama. But I couldn't find it on any of our usual Malaysian dailies. Am I not looking hard enough? Tell me if you find it. Also, take a look at this article in The New York Post. Seems the CSI complaint is quite a common one, and it was only a matter of time before Musa quoted it himself.

Looking at this article however, you wonder if our judiciary system needs abit of shaking up as well:
Inquests not held despite being required.

I'm not complaining about my country. I'm encouraging it on to think with a first class mentality as underlined in the 9th Malaysia Plan. I haven't had the time to read it thoroughly, no thanks to ongoing exam revision. Exciting things always happen around the time of my exams. Like Anwar being arrested sometime before PMR. Damn it.

*until erupted/burst
** Never mind lah

Useless Fact #69

You know that Aero advert on tv with the two women speaking with their mouths full? It kinda inspired Lionel to try it. Except that all we had at home was Cadbury Bubbly.
So we each popped a piece into our mouths and waited. About 10 seconds later mine started to, well not POP as in the Aero advert, but fizz.


"Ohh, de bubbers!" I mouthed
"Where got!!! I don't feel any popping!"
"Thwy anoder piefs and pwess id agains de woof of your mouf"
"Nope, nothing"
I swallowed my piece and said "Maybe it's a genetic trait?"

We're just gonna have to get the real deal and try it again. If the bubbles don't pop loudly can we sue for false advertising?

I haven't really got anything interesting to say

That's normal for me, and even more so during exam study periods.

I called up Vidal Sassoon's Academy out of desperation this morning. My hair has outgrown its former straight sleek self and is now resembling a shaggy carpet with split ends. My days of not knowing where my hair brush is, are over.

A bored drawl picked up the phone and I said, "Is this where I book an appointment for a haircut?".
"April 18th", answered the drawl.
"Erm, are you saying April 18th is the earliest date you've got?" (I get a little thrown off when people don't answer my questions directly).
"Yes. 1pm... no, 3pm"
"Alright so I'll take April 18th at 3pm" (Although it's not like they were giving me several choices to begin with!)
"Okaay. We'll see you then." *click*

This had better be worth all my 5 pounds and tube fare.

With regards to studying, things are coming along just peachy. I have (hopefully) stopped making so many mathematical faux pas and can now move on to the advanced stuff like proper engineering concepts because I now know that:

1) The square of root(-1) is NOT 1.
My proof to Lionel (the biochemist) that :

root(a) x root(b) = root(ab)
and therefore root(-1) x root(-1) = root(1) = 1

only held water for about 5 minutes. Moments later Lionel walked back into the room and showed me how the square of root(-1) really and truly is -1. I think we ought to swap degrees.

and

2) Always simplify partial fractions
When dealing with partial fractions, it helps to remember how to use the cover up rule and not blindly sub in numbers. In addition it is always best to look at the numerator and think about simplifying it further before proceeding to over create variables without enough simultaneous equations to solve them all!!

Now on to digital FIR filters. I shall pretend they make me happy.

Trippies

I've been hard at work.


Planning a family holiday to Lourdes that is. Lourdes (the good Catholic's Mecca or Ganges) hosts the largest number of hotels outside of France, which is a pain to search through. So if anyone has any travel tips, please pass them this way. We're also planning to run through Florence and Rome and possibly wave at the leaning tower of Pisa along the way. Hotel recommendations et al are most welcome.

Charme and Sherene, if you both come to London lets runaway to Venice! Or Munich to kidnap Baa! Or Amsterdam for brownies!

Now back to annoying z-transforms... DSP makes me cry...

On hiatus

Am studying.

Really, I am.

Well at least a few hours a day.

Alright, less than 3.

Will be back once I get the hang of Ackermann's formula. Don't ask.

Peace out.

(Oh man, why did I say that? I never say that!)