old blog (no longer in use)

2007-09-22T04:26:00.000-07:00

Hellooooooo everyone!!

Proud to say ... new blog up at last! :D
Forget the xanga one, I really don't know how to use xanga!

http://pungshalene.blogspot.com/

Ta-dahhh! :] Complete with a tagboard.

See y'all there!

2007-09-22T04:25:00.000-07:00

http://pungshalene.blogspot.com/

2007-09-16T01:21:00.000-07:00

Blog switch!

Please head on over to:

http://www.xanga.com/pungshalene

:]

Have a good week!

blogger screwed

2007-09-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

Blogger is screwed up! :/

I still don't know what's the deal with my blogger dashboard
and why all my tinkering buttons have disappeared

but anyway, i've been entertaining the idea of switching to xanga for sometime now.

I'll bet none of you knew I had a blog there as well. :]

http://www.xanga.com/pungshalene

There's actually nothing on there except 'testing testing'
but once I figure out how to work xanga, I'll prolly start blogging there.

and then maybe when I find my dream blogskin, I might switch back to blogspot.

HAHAHAHA wellllll if you knew me at all, you'd know how fickle-minded I am.

You know, once upon a time I had a xanga blog.
Wonder what happened to it.

Some people have a name for what I do to blogs:
"cyber-littering".

hah.

I've had about ten blogs in the ten years that I've been using the Internet
so ... sometimes I really, really wonder what happened to all of them.

hmmm.

anyway, sara and an nie are having a blast at sunway lagoon as I'm writing this
i really really hope they have a great time
i feel super bad for chickening out on them
but i really, really cannot bring myself to go on the rides!
sunway lagoon had a few accidents in the past, due to poor maintenance.
plus i watched Final Destination 3 the other day. :/
big mistake.

went to TGIF's with my parents today!
it was soooooooooooooooooooo super delicious
we had the 3-course meal (the RM39.90++ one)

plus the free sizzling fajita TGIF's graciously proffered to me
cos i filled up a ridiculously lengthy survey
the fajita filling was brilliant
but the tortilla wraps were too thick!
it costs like RM35++ usually, so i wouldnt recommend ordering that.

i recommend ribs (JD Glazed Ribs are the BEST!).
or the Friday's burger.

i also recommend to share,
because the portions are VAST.

went shopping at TESCO afterwards.
we've been going TESCO / The Curve like almost everyday.
Last week was 1U 1U 1U eh.

i love TESCO lah.
really really love it.

heheh.

tomorrow: lunch with grandparents, then maybe a barbie at a friend's place in the evening! :]

xoxo :]

Yellow Ribbon project

2007-09-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

Yellow Ribbon Project

Hello hello! :]

Blogger is a li'l bit effed-up right now, in the sense that I can't put colours or bold words or do anything remotely creative to the html ... but I'm going to blog anyway because I watched "One More Chance" (in Chinese: Three Good Guys) last night and I HAVE to spread the word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_a_Yellow_Ribbon_'Round_the_Ole_Oak_Tree

It was a brilliant movie, by the way. Another Singaporean production (courtesy of Jack Neo), along the genius lines of "I Not Stupid"... points out all the pulsing issues in society, frustrates you, pisses you off, melts your heart ... sigh.

You'll have to do your own homework on the Yellow Ribbon Project if you want to show support for it (please do!), but the bottom line that I'm just gonna come right out and say is that we have to give ex-offenders that second chance!

They could really want to be good people, useful citizens, support their families - they could really have learnt from their past mistakes. We can't discriminate. We have to be fair. We have to give that that chance.

Watch the movie, you'll understand my sudden compassion for ex-cons.

By the way, Singaporean prison cells looks nothing like the Prison Break ones. :/
Seems like the real world REALLY is nothing like how it is on TV.

OK, going to post this up now and hope that it makes a difference somewhere by making at least one other person understand that ex-offenders are still people.

**

What lah, fifteen minutes later, blogger still doesn't work properly. Still no fancy fonts or bold italics colours etc.. so bear with me for now!

But anyway!
Nothing can stop a woman on a mission eh! :b

I am now going to bore you with my book purchases and my plans for the week.

Yawns may now commence.

:b <-- I saw this in a book about texting. I didn't buy the book, but I basically read the whole thing while in the bookstore. :b Heheh! Thin, big-fonted (children's) books should not be priced at RM20.

Big Bookshop Warehouse is my literary haven. Seriously.

I bought RM 48 worth of books yesterday! :] Five books.

"America" by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for RM 15. Price attached was 15 pounds as in UK POUNDS but the Warehouse is letting it go for RM 15. I've read a couple of chapters, it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo funny!! You'd think Michael Moore is funny - but actually, Michael Moore is on about serious issues, so his productions are less funny. Jon Stewart is a comedian, so this book is REALLY REALLY funny. However, it uses really really bombastic words and demands a really scary breadth of knowledge that, well, makes me feel stupid. :/ But I'm learning a lot through the book! So it's all good eh! I'm only 18 after all. :]

"Mega Trends for Women" because it was selling at freakin' RM 1. I haven't read it yet. It looks pretty boring actually, but supposed to be all empowering for women. And has loads of research. Eye-opening, albeit dated, research. :]

"DK French Phrasebook" for RM 10. I now speak basic basic basic tourist French (when referring to the book). :D :D :D And it's not one of those shitty tourist books where you don't actually learn anything, because this one has pronounciation guides that are sooooo easy to follow, like how we read English words! :] I am one helluva happy consumer.

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte. A classic. A must-have. For RM 10. :] So happy. My parents lost their copies already. :/

"Freakonomics" for RM 12. It's bloody, bloody critically acclaimed. And for RM 12! A steal. Really. I was anticipating for the Book Sale Police to slap a pair of handcuffs on muh wrists.

I sigh happily now.
:]

Nothing big on for this week. Nothing big ever on actually hahaha.
But a barbecue on Saturday evening! :D And lunching everyday with Mum and Dad. :]
Very happy. :]

Ta! Have a good week, everyone!! :]

hello, birthday, and goodbye

2007-09-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hello, Birthday & Goodbye

After more than a month of not seeing An Nie, we finally got to go out for movie and - I want to say "a meal", but that would be a lie because we totally and utterly pigged out! Hahaha!! :P

When we got to 1U, we bought tickets for Ratatouille (hilarious show by the way! :] cartoon-lovers and slapstick-comedy fans should definitely catch this movie!) then went on a hunt for a place to lunch.

At which point, we found Italiannies!

I don't actually know how to spell the restaurant's name, so I'm just going to act like it's "Italiannies". :]

Then the weekend was a stay-at-home stint of R&R ...

And with Monday came movie and dinner with Tse Munny! :]

We watched "Knocked Up" - which can only be described as freaking funny!! :]

But don't bring your kids or little siblings to watch it ok! Not only will they ask a lot of questions, it's also a very adults-only flick. Funny funny funny!!

OHOHO and we got half-stopped because we looked too young!!!

I haven't felt so flattered about my age since I was eleven! :P

FINALLY a dude who doesn't think I'm twenty-flipping-five. :/

And this morning, I got up at 7am to head over to Carmen's to bid her farewell!

While Carmen did her stuff - pack and pray, mostly - pretty cool to watch! - we goofed around with her superduperzuper heavy heavy backpack.

Seriously, if you fall on your back with that bag, you WON'T BE ABLE TO GET BACK UP!!! :D

But of course, like the sword in the King Arthur fables...

only the true owner of the bag can carry it effortlessly.

I love my friends! :]

just for fun

2007-09-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

Just for fun!! :D

Which Sex and the City Character Are You?
	You are part Carrie. You know what you want out of a relationship and you're not afraid to keep moving until you get it. Wit and charm are your biggest turn-ons, and you like guys who appreciate you for your mind as much as your body. You have fun playing the dating game, but secretly you just can't wait to find the guy who sweeps you off your feet and carries you into the sunset.
	You are part Charlotte. Fairytales were made for you. You've had your share of heartbreak, but that doesn't stop you from opening your heart to others and searching for your happily-ever-after. To some, you may appear naive and your romantic ideals far-fetched, but you know that someday, your Prince will come.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which College Major Should You Be?
	Your major should be Biology. You work hard, and you're gonna keep working hard for many years to come. That's why you keep your work organized and your health in good shape.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Friends Character Are You?
	You are Ross. You're intelligent and adored by your parents. However, your lack of social skills causes you to talk too much and try too hard. While your friends pick on you for your nerdiness, they better watch out for your rage.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Disney Princess Are You?
	You are Jasmine. You are loyal and would visit the ends of the earth for what you believe. You would never let obstacles stand in the way of true love.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Harry Potter Character Are You?
	You are Hagrid. You're an outcast with a heart of gold. Despite your own problems, you always find time to help those in need.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

What City Should You Live In?
	You should live in Paris. The city of lights will appeal to your appreciation of beauty and romance. You are a lover and a poet by nature, and Paris' sensitive charms will be a perfect match for yours.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

What Kind of Guy Will You Fall For?
	You would fall for the geek. If you're looking for love, consider spending a little more time studying up in the library. To you, there's nothing more attractive than intelligence, shyness, and kindness; your future love may have four eyes and zero social skills, but he'll make up for it in brains and heart.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

You Are a Centaur

In general, you are a very cautious and reserved person.
However, you are also warm hearted, and you enjoy helping others in practical ways.
You are a great teacher, and you are really good at helping people get their lives in order.
You are very intuitive, and you go with your gut. You make good decisions easily.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

Your Superpower Should Be Manipulating Electricity

You're highly reactive, energetic, and super charged.
If the occasion calls for it, you can go from 0 to 60 in a split second.
But you don't harness your energy unless you truly need to.
And because of this, people are often surprised by what you are capable of.

Why you would be a good superhero: You have the stamina to fight enemies for days

Your biggest problem as a superhero: As with your normal life, people would continue to underestimate you

What Should Your Superpower Be?

holiday activities!

2007-09-06T06:35:00.000-07:00

Holiday Activities!

The three most important elements of a balanced human life:

1) Mind

2) Body

3) Soul

For the Mind ...

To start off with, I'm dipping into one of Michael Moore's bestsellers!

I really love his work! :]

For the Body ... exercise is the key!

Hence ...

SHOPPIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

To add some oomph! into the shopping experience, Midvalley Megamall even launched a new competition where the fastest cart to reach the finish line wins!

We managed to snap a photo of all the carts before the race began:

ONLY JOKING!!! :D :D :D

Above are the participants of my first 'exercise' spree!

We dined at Sushi King, watched Transformers (and laughed out buttocks off!!), and did remotely little shopping! :/

It was very very fun anyway! However, I was pretty exhausted after the 1st day out ...

But went out again the next day (Wednesday) anyway! :]

Japanese food again!! Hahahah!

It's a huge surprise for me because I'm never usually the Japanese food buff but the teppanyaki ramen in this Ramen-something restaurant in 1U was delicious!! :] A huuuge portion though, I could eat less than half and Sara helped. :]

And then today, Leila picked me up for lunch and a movie! :]

Had a great time - and Rush Hour 3 was hilariiiious!! :P

*Warning: Please do not bring young children to watch that show in the cinema! Full-frontal nudity involved! :] Bet more of you want to watch the movie now that I've said that ehh!

Look what I did to occupy my time while Leila was in the toilet! ;P

A girl is a girl ... is a girl. :]

And a camera, even when disguised as a cellphone ... is still a camera! :D :D

Hope you had some laughs! I thought I'd be getting my share of R&R at home tomorrow, but An just sprang a 'let's-go-out-tomorrow' on me! :]

So we're going to watch Ratatouille tomorrow instead of Saturday. Hehe!

Then some quiet for the weekend! :D

Then off to 1u on Monday with Tse Mun to celebrate her belated birthday :]

We're going to watch Knocked Up! Hehehe! Looks like a very funny show!! :]

And thirdly, don't forget a balanced reach-out for the Soul! :]

The summer holidays are always, always a good time to do some soul-searching! :]

For me, it's been about opening my mind to more things - trying different food, understanding different cultures, learning a new language perhaps (although my attempts at cracking the Mandarin mothertongue has been futile thus far!), or even just reading the newspapers/watching the news.

Remember to tend to the 3 elements, dear friends! :D

For more on the above outings, feel free to visit

http://www.jottingsofalawstudent.blogspot.com/

http://www.carmeneey.blogspot.com

http://www.paperhotel.blogspot.com

Have a good weekend, everyone! :]

final exams finally over!

2007-09-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

My final exams are finally over! :]

I don't really know what to say when my friends ask me 'So how were your exams?'

I wish I could say 'They were great! Could answer everything' or even 'Can pass lah'...

But unfortunately ... this was a very, very, very lazy year for me

And I made mistake after mistake ... after mistake ...

But I have definitely, definitely learned from those mistakes.

So no matter what my exam result is ...

At least I've learned. :]

But ANYWAY, enough talk about exams!

The summer holiday has arrived!! :D

Tomorrow: a KTM experience to Midvalley with uni gang!!

Wednesday: Carmeneyyy Day! Yeah got a Day named after you Carmeny :]

And many more days before you have to leave!! :(

Thursday or Friday: Tse Mun's birthday celebration! :D

Saturday: An Nie Day? Maybe! Hahahah.

And definitely more Days for ... hmm ... Leila, Vanessa (although she might be busy with medical school! Hahaha 'medical school' . sigh. we're growing up so fast!), some more of my uni gang ... :D

If De were here, there'd be 'De Days' too ... but sadly ...

Australia's the lucky country to have her right now!! Haha!

I miss you De! :]

Allllllllll right :] Time to kick back and enjoy the next 2 weeks.

To tell you the truth...

Exam week was hell.

Every night sleeping at 2am, every morning waking up at 6am.

Cramming cramming cramming.

Panicking panicking.

Worrying worrying.

Lost my appetite and ability to laugh.

I lost FOUR kilos in ONE week AND ruined my complexion.

Pimply and a pale green. :/

But now, the jolly ol' me is back!! :D

People, do not make the same mistake as I did!

I will never, ever, EVER slack again.

I promise myself! :]

Only good thing out of this: kick-started the weight-loss plan! Hehe!

Currently: 155 lbs.

Target: 119 lbs.

Must at least try la. Hahah.

The crazy thing is that the Malaysian-standard 'healthy' weight for someone who is 5'6" is like ... I dunno. Very very light I think!

My slim friends are about 100 pounds only ok! o_O

Hahahah this is what happens when we watch too much ANTM.

The models there are like ... 5'10" and 110 lbs!

Luckily for me, though, I just want to fit into clothes - not model! Haha!

I mean, this time last year, I was 180 lbs!

That's practically TWICE their weight!

So...

If I can make it this far, what is there to stop me from achieving the real goal? :]

Now you know that "200 pounds beauty" is unrealistic, eh?

200 pounds does not look like her 'before'.

Her 'before' is maybe, like, 300 pounds.

Hehe. But '300 pounds beauty' sounds scary.

Hence the title: 200 pounds.

Why la am I talking rubbish?

Haha. Just want to chill a bit.

Just finished exams today mar.

I had fun talking to An and Daddy on Skype just. :]

I miss my father. :]

He's so supportive of me.

He said that it's okay if I fail, as long as I learn from my mistakes -

because everybody makes mistakes.

OK I wanna go and read all the storybooks I've been itching to read all year!

Sharon Maas, OddOneOut, Letters from Iraq ... here comes Sha-Lene!

The (nearly) 200 pounds clumsy.

HAHAHA.

P.S: I have lost all feeling in my right thumb!! :/ It's quite annoying. I realised it right after my Criminal Law paper. My mum reckons I must have pressed the pen too hard when panicked for time. Aiya. It's been nearly a week. When will it stop being numb?

what lies in reading with a capital R

2007-08-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

What lies in Reading with a capital 'R'

The question is really what lies in England, or UK as a whole ...

But anyway ...

So many things (and people) lie in store in Reading/London/England.

I am incredibly excited to see the sights, meet the people, live the life!

And ladies, the dudes in Reading. Cuter than cute! :P

But yes lah, I'm going there to study, not to play.

Actually, who am I kidding?

I'm also going there to play. Hahahahahaha.

Exams are officially in TWO days' time.

I just want to PASS all my papers.

Pray hard, pray hard, pray hard.

By the way, people keep confusing 'free-thinkers' with agnostics and atheists.

We are neither of those!

Every free-thinker freely thinks something else.

Personally, I believe in God.

I also believe in certain elements of every religion.

I just don't follow any one particular one.

Have a nice week!

facebook

2007-08-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

facebook faces off with ... friendster?

After wondering 'what's the deal with this Facebook thing?' for the last ... seven, eight months?

I finally accepted one of the invitations a half hour ago and joined! :]

I guess it's a pretty neat thing - kinda like Friendster.

But while Friendster is incredibly popular here, in M'sia - and possibly the rest of Asia,

Facebook users seem to hail predominantly from the Western countries.

Especially England.

So ... if anyone of you are interested in joining ...

head on over to http://www.facebook.com/ and sign up!

You can also add me at pungshalene@hotmail.com.

I think that's how you add people.

I'm not sure. :]

Eh! I just noticed something new on my blogger toolbar!

Beside the 'add image' icon, there's now an 'add video' icon!

Cool! :D

OK lah I've gotta go.

My exams are in a few days.

:] Have a good weekend! :]

lucky

2007-08-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

Hello hello!

What does it look like we're doing here?

Whatever we were doing ...

It definitely made me laugh! :]

Have a good weekend, everyone! :]

hello hello

2007-08-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

a little thinking

Hey you.

I saw an episode of CSI this morning that really irked me.

It was about people with the Human Werewolf Syndrome.

And I realised this stuff happens in real life.

In a less dramatic way.

People, people ...

Why would you turn on someone,

just because of how they look?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis

In this day and age, we preach about not discriminating others.

And yet we are the same people who pay to see them in the circus.

Gil Grissom said that everyone would be thinking the same thing.

'I'm glad that isn't me.'

Well, he said it a little differently, but that's the gist of it.

So, just ... think about it, will you?

There was a woman in my grandmother's village

who had a little excess hair on her arms

and some people shunned her.

They feared they too would get as hairy.

Snort!

This is the same mentality that says, 'Don't look at him, he has sore eyes.'

You must be joking.

Have a good week, everyone.

Remember to do this every day: A.R.K.

Act of Random Kindesss.

That was my favourite part of 'Evan Almighty'. :]

By the way, there are Harry Potter spoilers in that movie.

So don't watch it before reading the book, if you don't want the story spoiled.

It was a very funny movie!

I can't say whether it was better than Bruce Almighty,

but it was certainly different.

But still funny!

Very easy to watch.

poem

2007-08-17T22:11:00.000-07:00

THE POEM TAG

Hey you,

I saw this tag that Soo Tian created (pure genius! ;D)

and knew at once that I just had to give it a try.

You can view his post (and poem) at:

http://www.xanga.com/silentsoliloquy

Yes, I know, he didn’t tag me

but I have proudly (and shamelessly)

taken it upon myself to complete the challenge! ;P

OK it took me 40 minutes to write this!

Enjoy :]

**

INSTRUCTIONS by Soo Tian:

The task of the "tagged" is to write a pseudo-poem using a similar format as above.

Only the first line of each stanza is standardized (e.g. "when i was five").

Each stanza has syllables equal to the "diagram" below:

(4-5-6-7-8-9-4-3)

(5-6-7-8-9-10-5-4)

As you can see, it goes up slowly

then drops down suddenly in the last two lines.

Write it, then if you like, tag five other people.

**

NB: Credit of idea, title and first line of every stanza goes to Soo Tian. :]

four stages of life

by sha-lene

i. peter and jane

At five I was
a child who had seen
so little of other
kids and could never complete
her work being fascinated
by the antics of playing children
and got sent out
and punished

ii. dj primary

At ten I was
the apple of my
teacher’s eye and kept as
pets thirty-two hamsters and
wrote vampire tales on recycled
paper in ball point pens because my
dad did not want
to spoil me

iii. dj secondary

At fifteen I was
climbing my way up the
editorial ladder
taking risks to write material
that both irked and pleased different sets
of readers and that was when I learnt not
to hold out for all
others to nod.

iv. taylor’s subang

At eighteen I am
a different person
than who I thought I’d be and
the world a darker place than i
thought possible and over the years
i came to realize that in so many
parts of life I have
thought wrong – and learned.

[August 17th 2007, 7.07 pm]

**

I can tag 5 people at this point, having completed the task!

However, it isn’t easy

(well, I personally found it a fun challenge!)

And I don’t want to oblige anyone to write.

But just out of fun, I’ll put down 5 tagging ‘suggestions’.

These are some people that I think

would find it fun to write the poem!

1. Cheryl

2. Mae

3. Carmen

4. Weiling

5. Shern Ren

But if the rest of you want to do it, by all means, do it!

Hahaha.

But you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.

And drop off your link on my tagboard

so that I can enjoy your poem too

(below this blog’s banner, there are four small words

– one of them is ‘Tag’).

:]

Go on, it’s a good sport of fun!

on a whim

2007-08-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

on a whim

Hey - An & Sara, remember when we walked to Parade? :]

Hahaha well this time we didn't walk there,

but we 'flintstoned' our way there in ...

Rachel's car! :D :D :D

Only joking, lads and lassies!

She drove us there in her cute li'l car.

Please don't ask me what make it was

Because some people did

And I didn't know the answer! :S

Only 2 weeks to our finals

and we were hanging out at a mall ...

Why, you ask?

The answer is this:-

Also known as the cheeeesy pizza

that Pizza Hut has been lavishing adverts on! :]

It was pretty good - almost comparable to Domino's!

We ordered the set for 2

so the 18-piece pizza came with

very tasty soup & Pepsi.

We also ordered extra soup + Pepsi.

Price: RM 40 ++

What we paid: RM 4.50 each

Why?

Pizza Hut made a mistake somewhere, somehow.

We were filled with glee. :D

Me and Cheryl!

We were also there to celebrate

the handing in of our assessed work ...

Writing Credit L1 + Crime Assessed!

Left to right:

Rachel (thank you for driving us there! :D),

Faan Jin, me, and Cheryl! :D

These are some of my best friends in class!!

I'm very happy to be going to

Reading Uni with them! :]

On a final note,

Carmeny (the 'y' is optional!) asked for photos of my new haircut!

That plus my newfound love for Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Ta-dahhh! :D :D :D

Forgive my self-indulgence ... XD

Have a good weekend, people! :]

petrified

2007-08-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

Hey, you ...

Do you remember that song 'I Will Survive'?

The lyrics go something like ...

'At first I was afraid

I was petrified ...

(blah blah blah)

I will survive!'

Yeah.

I'm petrified.

Horrified. Mortified.

Terrified.

But ...

Hopefully ...

I will survive!

Hahahahh.

My exams are coming up.

Yup.

By the way, a shout out to Leila!

Congratulations on your IELTS result!

potter-rific!

2007-07-22T01:32:00.001-07:00

potterific!

Hi everyone! :D

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released at 7.01am yesterday.

Saturday, 21st July 2007.

Which Potter fan will forget this date? :]

Where I bought my book: Borders Bookstore at The Curve.

For the first time, I joined my fellow Potter fans and pulled a crazy.

We got there at about 5.30 am.

And guess what?

There were already 20 to 30 people there!

Some people had stayed overnight! Hahaha! Cool!

Saw people in costumes ... saw the great Hogwarts flag ...

By 6.30 am, there were about a hundred people ! :D

It was an amazing experience, I really enjoyed myself!

Chatted with some other fans ... heheh ...

And then, the gates opened at 6.45 am and ...

there was a MAD MAD MAD rush to the front of the store!

People were literally crawling under the quarter-opened grill ...

Scrambling to be first in line in the new queue ...

You see ... hahaha ... the first 7 people would be given a FREE copy!

Thus ... the Malaysian mentality kicked in ...

So many arguments arose ...

I must say ... it was very entertaining!

An amusing experience!

But then ... the Borders grill went up and guess what ...

The people who were not in the queue just ran madly in!

You should have heard the shouting! Hahaha!

Anyway, while the want-to-get-free-book people went to the other counter,

my Dad & I went to the cashier and got the extra RM30 rebate! :D

First 20 (besides the free-book people) get the rebate.

Which means I pay RM 58 in total for my book! :D

Still pretty expensive, but it was totally worth it!

What I got that day :] [pic above]

A recyclable paper bag, a Hedwig beanie soft toy, and The Book!

You know, we suspected this:

Lots of people who showed up that day

Just wanted to get a free book

And weren't true Potter fans!

I felt sorry for the people who camped overnight

And got cut-queue by the people who weren't in the queue

And just wanted something 'FREE'.

:( Very what right!

Anyway ... the book was fantastic!

I read it from 9.36 am to 1.36 am on Saturday. :]

It was really good.

Don't spoil the story for other people!

When the book was released, the first few customers spoiled it!

Bunch of stupid girls turned to the last page

And shouted out the ending.

We were furious!

Anyway, the joy is still in reading the book! :]

an awakening

2007-07-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

wake up

I meant for the Harry Potter countdown to be the latest post until the book is released (that will be this Saturday!), but coming face-to-face with Malaysia's greatest human rights lawyers and activists is overwhelming.

I don't know how to say what I wish I knew to say.

Really.

I am no politican.

I am no festering encyclopedia for Malaysian constitutional rights.

I am not even one of those people who read newspapers every day.

I can only spread a word I now know must be spread.

Let me start you off with what other people (far wiser than me) have said:

http://www.jeffooi.com/

http://www.malaysiakini.com/

http://blog.limkitsiang.com/

http://jelas.info/

http://accin-badailies.org/

http://www.malikimtiaz.blogspot.com/

And last but not least ...

Free Nathaniel Tan!

Countdown to the legacy

2007-07-05T04:21:00.000-07:00

Countdown To The Legacy

July 21st, 2007

Saturday

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows

Get Your Countdown

the (other) memoirs of june & july

2007-07-05T03:12:00.000-07:00

the (other) memoirs of june & july

Owing the the significant size of my previous (photo-loaded) post, I thought I'd be better off splitting today's entry into two parts. Haha!

This is part 2.

My aunt's father (my father's brother's father-in-law) passed on a couple of weeks ago, so some of my family members went down to Malacca to pay their last respects. My condolences.

Which left the 'kids' in Selangor.

Which left the eldest grandchild (yours truly!) in the family to look after the titchy little ones.

And of course, this is Asia, where people do not ordinarily get paid for babysitting their cousins. So I had to endure an entire day of babysitting three little boys (ages 5, 7, and 8) ... free of charge! Hahaha!

In all fairness, I should be allowed to put my babysitting skills into my resume. It's a skill to be developed, I tell you! Hahah.

And on a less patience-stretching topic, I had lunch with the lovely Carmen the other day! :]I love Atria.

I know loads of people think it's awful and dead, but it's just so convenient for me to just walk over and do some window-shopping or buy things. Easy peasy. :]

Gosh, it's been months since I've used that phrase. My nickname on MSN has been 'easy peasy lemon squeasy' for a few years now, but the novelty's worn off since certain people started copying it. :[ Come up with your own nicknames, icky buggers!

Anyhow, it's high time I come up with a new (and improved) nickname/username. :]

Besides that ...

If you'll take a look at the collage of photos below: check out the top two pics first.

See the sumptious looking slabs of meat? :D I had that. A carnivore more than an omnivore, I tell you. Hahaha.

But that's not the weird part.

See the rice in front of Faan Jin? That came with the meat.

We may be the only ones in the history of the hawker centre to split a meal of rice and meat in two parts. Hahahahah!

Hence, Faan Jin thinks that we should dine together more often, because we eat different parts of dishes. Hahahahahahhahaha!

Explanation: I lay off the rice to cut down on carbs, while she ... doesn't like any meat (except seafood). :P Well, we may only ever battle over prawns, then! Haha!

Think we're strange eaters? Well, you know what they say ... birds of a feather ... :D :D :D

Woohoo! And now for the bottom half of the collage!

Happy Birthday to Cheryl Lim! :D

How does it feel to be nineteen at last?

Well, if you get any dreams about it ... you can always look it up in the present Faan Jin and I got for you ...

the Dream Dictionary!

Right-o! Tomorrow's the last day of university before Reading Week begins! :]

Have a good weekend, dear readers! :]

the memoirs of june & july

2007-07-05T01:27:00.000-07:00

the memoirs of june & july

Hello all! How have you been? :]

My, my. I haven't posted up a proper blog entry since June 14th.

But it's been a busy month -- hence, I have lots of photos to post up today! With an even busier couple of months coming up, I'm afraid I won't be blogging much (or at all). Rest assured, though, after my final exams end in September, I shall be back to liven up Res Ipsa Loquitur just as it was intended to be!

First up we have the 26th June class trip! :D

Compulsory snapshot with Bus Buddy for Class Trip #3 ... Cheryl Lim Shu Li! (Hey do you have a hyphen in your Chinese name?) My first bus buddy this year was the adorably funny Cheah Faan Jin to the Parliament, followed by Leila & Mei Chieng (car buddies haha) for the orphanage visit.

This is my 'lawyer' look, by the way. The face that a jury would believe! :D Only joking. I know there's no jury system in Malaysia. :P

Destination #1: Legal Aid Centre

There wasn't anything to see in terms of the view here (at Wisma Kraftangan beside the Masjid Jamek LRT station in KL), but we got to sit in for a simple but inspiring briefing by Stephanie, one of the Legal Aid volunteer lawyers. Wa wa wa.

I always thought I'd be one of those young lawyers who volunteered her hours for Legal Aid, but it really doesn't seem all that simple. A lot of heartache involved. :(

Furthermore, it's an uphill climb. I don't think I want to voluntarily put myself through hell. Like Stephanie said, 'When you don't have the money, it's really ... difficult to get a fair trial.'

Destination #2: Komplex Mahkamah Kuala Lumpur

We got to visit the spanking new courts in Jalan Duta. The one that most of you will remember as 'the new building that leaked'. Hahahahha. Of course, when we went inside it was glorious, no leaks whatsoever.

Inside the Court Complex -- we're all waiting outside the 'lawyers' room'. :] Only five people could go in at a time and no cameras allowed!

Not too big a shame, there was nothing inside anyway - the place is still new. Computers, tables, stuff like that only. Don't see what the big deal is! Or what the hush-hush was all about! Haha!

This is all of us in the Legal Aid Room (not everyone in class showed up for the class trip, though!) -- the three 'adults' sitting down (L-R) are a volunteer lawyer, another volunteer lawyer (I think) and our lecturer, Mr Joseph.

A final glimpse of the lower courts.

Destination #3: Putrajaya's Palace of Justice

This is going into the Lexicon next year, dudes! :D I hope, at least. Haha.

It actually makes me feel sad when I see where our tax money goes.

Putrajaya is freakin' beautiful. A lot of fanciful infrastructure that seems ... less than absolutely necessary for a developing country like ours.

Angelina and I beside the lake. Gorgeous scenery. I also feel dreadfully pinstriped in this photo. Haha! Doesn't the pattern on my shirt kind of remind you of an ironing board? It reminds me of it, anyway.

One of my favourite photos of the day! :] Faan Jin is reaffirming her 'peace and love' stand at the foot of the photograph. With a packet of Cheezels in her other hand. :P

A couple of 'Bloopers!' for your viewing pleasure, before moving on to more 'serious' destinations:

Besides posing for photos beside the lake, we also went to the Muzium Kehakiman and their magnificently massive Law Library. They have anything and everything a lawyer (or law student) could ever need (in their line of work/study -- not in life lah)!

In the Muzium Kehakiman:

Suddenly grouping up and sitting on the floor of a museum seemed so silly at the time. Hahaha. My idea was originally to sit ON the chairs themselves. But nooo. We weren't allowed to. :P

do something about it

2007-06-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

Do Something About It

We all complain about it.

The rising crime rate in Malaysia.

Here's our chance to make a difference.

Sign the petition NOW.

It closes this Sunday (June 24th).

click here

http://www.jbtalks.cc/petition/index.php

Now spread the word!

bring madeleine home

2007-06-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

Bring Madeleine Home!

[photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org]

A 3-year-old British girl, Madeleine McCann, was abducted from a holiday apartment in Algarve, Portugal on May 3rd, 2007.

Please CLICK HERE for the Wikipedia page on this or HERE for a more thorough search engine result.

Our prayers are with you.

merdeka specials

2007-06-16T02:10:00.000-07:00

50 Years, 50 Heroes

Hi all!

Just a quick announcement as a favour to one of my most entertaining friends & favourite debaters: Andrew Loh!

* * *

'DO you know of an unsung Malaysian hero between 12 and 29 years of age who has persevered against the odds to succeed or helped his community in unique ways that has not been previously highlighted?

If so, then take his picture and write about him.

TheCICAK, a socio-political Malaysian youth webzine, has launched a competition themed 50 Years, 50 Heroes: Young Malaysians You Need to Know in conjunction with Malaysia's 50th Merdeka Day.'

* * *

That's just a little bit of the info okay - for more, please click here - Andrew's making the full info the top post of his blog until the competition is over! :D

So okay! All you talented, undiscovered Malaysian writers out there, click on that link, get the info & start writing! :] I definitely would, if only I could think of someone between the ages of 12-29 who has done so much for the community in his/her own way! All the people I know who have done so much are definitely way, wayyy older. Hence I am not participating ... sorry Andrew! :(

The deadline is July 15th, by the way! So hurry up! :P

***

Ah ... with the serious business up and announced ... today was suuuuuch a splendid day! I went shopping with my mum and her friend at 1-Utama (which I haven't been shopping in for ages!) ... bought clothes, had lunch at Old Asia Cafe/White Asia Kopitiam Old Town (can't remember the name! I distinctly remember the word 'Asia' in it!), bought snacks ... went window-shopping ... had an awesome time. :D

Oh oh and I've got a lovely new formal blouse! :] We got it at Ms. Read - I'll definitely be wearing it for June 26th's class trip to the courts!

Tomorrow's Father's Day - yay! :D

Celebrate all the Daddies of the world, dear readers!

fast food high

2007-06-14T03:48:00.000-07:00

fast food high

13th June: This blog had its first Finnish visitor from Helsinki.
14th June: This blog had its first Japanese visitor from Urayasu.

Those are the recent stand-outs la, because there's only one from each of those countries -- the rest of this blog's visitors are from (1) Malaysia, (2)USA, (3) Australia, etc. Ooh actually I can put a printscreen image below -- I just figured out how! :]

Anywayyy, it's finally the end of this school week! Zeepadeedoodah! :P

Today was only a fairly productive school day, anyway - considering we only had one Contract Law lecture (Criminal Law lecture was cancelled - and I had no idea until this morning, haha, clearly my mind drifts like a pigs-in-a-blanket raft) and then one Contract Law tutorial in the afternoon.

The coolest three bits of the day were between, during and after lessons (haha so typical of a lazy bum student like me to say that!). After the Contract lecture, me and my bestest friends in class stayed in LT7 (i.e. Lecture Theatre 7) and ~~bummed around~~ prepared for our moot training at 11am and/or the afternoon's tutorial.

This is how frightfully productive we were! :D

And below is a photo of how we usually are, on normal days:-

And after our 1.5 hour break, we had our third moot training session! I'm beginning to really look forward to every session we have, they're amazingly enjoyable! Ms Angeline is great - she's witty and funny and charming and she's got all this moot and courtroom experience. Did I also mention that she used to be an actress? :D

Christina's right, why do I get so easily distracted from my point? Haha! As I was saying, the moot training today! [See Cheryl's blog for an objective weblog about the presentations! :D]

We only had an hour so we just took turns giving our presentations [yesterday's homework]. I used an excerpt from Shern Ren's glorious 'Why War?' essay [with his blessing, of course! :D]. I really had a good time presenting it. :P Hopefully the audience enjoyed it too. Haha!

Ms Angeline's comments included that it was really well-presented but that while the first third of it was fine for moots, the last two-thirds were slightly too debate-ey and philosophical. Oh, and my movements were still looking slightly planned and slowly need to become more natural. :] I'm still so pleased. And I've got such fabulous constructive criticism - stuff that I can really work on to polish my orating skills. I've never had such good advice before! :D The past few days of moot training sessions are teaching me more than I ever learnt in weeks of debates, years of choral-speaking and months of public-speaking competitions. Totally worth sacrificing my lunch breaks for! :D

Speaking of lunch breaks, now that I've talked about my 'between' and 'during' - time to dwell a little on the 'after' school specials! Guess who came to visit today? Anyone who frequents this blog can probably guess -- An Nie! :] Poor girl had to endure a 20-minute wait for me before lunch, though, because my Contract Law tutorial ended 20 minutes late. I was famished by then -- it was already nearly 2pm!

Sooooo... we catapulted straight to Burger King for Whoppers and onion rings. Yay! :] Then we proceeded to have chocolate sundaes at McDonald's. After all, kids, fast food high is good, clean high! Well -- cleaner than drugs, anyway. Hahaha.

As it's becoming somewhat of a weekly ritual, I walked to Atria when I got back home. Auntie Mary's curie cucumbers were finally in stock! [Yup, it's entirely possible - probable, in fact -- that all of you just went 'HUh?' at the aforementioned sentence.] After grocery shopping for mum, I went to do some window-shopping (would I even bother resisting?).

What did I buy, you may wonder [if you're bored out of your backside or just very kepo]? A new book for the week! :D It's a piece of pop fiction called 'Vince and Joy' by Lisa Jewell. Yumm!

AND I got a birthday present for Cheryl [whose b'day is actually next month - but when you see the right gift, you gotta get it!] :P -- Faan Jin and I are sharing it. It was fate that made me go to that store today and find 'it'! :]

I've already actually got An Nie's birthday present for this year, too! :D I saw it months ago and just knew at once that it was a great gift for her. Hehehehe!

Perhaps gift-getting comes naturally when you know the recipient well enough. You know what they like, what they don't like, any particular things they are fond of... :]

Okay, that's all for this weekend! :]

But before that, allow me to end this post with a rather amusing photo from a forward Denise/Carmen sent to me ... :D

some morrocan magic

2007-06-13T04:54:00.000-07:00

some morrocan magic

Today's title is due solely to the fact that I noticed my first Morrocan blog visitor from Casanova. Ooh-la-la. :P ExtremeTracker rocks la.

Anyway, today we had our second moot training session. One word: insightful.

Ms Angeline [who is virtually the coolest teacher I have ever had in all my 19 years] had all 12 of us [2 new additions today] read the dullest passage from a 'bundle of authorities' i.e. a tape-bound stack of cases used in a mooting argument. We each took our turn, and after each person's reading, everyone [including Ms Angline] would comment/critic on it.

Comments on my reading included:-

Senior Mei Yi said:
Very clear, not slurred, very easy on the ears.

Some other person said:
A bit too fast.

Ms Angeline said:
Not bad. Quite a good attempt considering she has never read the passage before. She actually articulates the words so it is very clear. You know exactly what she is saying.

Was it loud enough? Sufficiently loud for us to hear - about this distance that is fine but occassionally may want to 'up' the volume.

Was it too fast? A bit - bear in mind, while you are reading we don't have the text. Everyone will have to have such 100% concentration to hear you - and if they want to write comments, halfway writing comments you are already halfway somewhere in Timbuktu. So you have to go at a reasonable speed. Good, but too fast. Bear in mind in international competitions they have to get used to our accent. If speak too fast, difficult to follow.

Can you tell that she doesn't understand the contents of what she is reading? In this case it is perfectly understandable because she does not know this area of law and it's the first time she's reading this. But this illustrates that it shows if you're reading something for the first time. But in the actual moot - have a conviction of what you are saying.

Do you think more intonation would be helpful? Yes - to emphasise certain words. But for the first time, it's okay because you don't know where the point of emphasis is.

And at the end of it she cheerfully says, 'Not too bad, not too bad.'

* * *

Wheee~ :]

Everyone was really good. That's the most frightening essence of law school - anything that you were the best at previously, everyone is equally good or better. Anything that you previously stood out in -- everyone did, in their own respective schools/surroundings. I'm not just talking about speaking/reading skills -- everything applies. There's no such thing as 'I was the best so I'll always be the best' - there's always someone out there who's just as good or better.

Maybe it's because previously, we didn't hang out with people who had the exact same ambitions/goals as us -- now it's different. Now, everyone around you is after the same thing. And there's only so much of it to go around, be it pupillage positions or top marks.

However, while law school brings out the competitive streak in the mildest darlings, it brings people of common interests/goals/wavelengths together. That rocks. :] Everyone gets everyone. It's not Chandler and Joey, it's Chandler and Chandler or Joey and Joey. That kinda thing.

Peace to the world! :D

P.S: I'm only ending with such a hippie oomph! because for our mooting homework, we're supposed to familiarise ourselves with the super-dull passage from today + get/write a passage on any 'serious issue' to present tomorrow -- and my 'serious issue' is about wars and world peace. As if we don't have enough subjects that give us homework already. :(

let's just play pretend

2007-06-11T02:46:00.000-07:00

let's just play pretend

[that's the title of today's blog entry, by the way - I feel so annoyed that the titles are all so tiny on the top right corner that probably nobody sees them >:( ]

I have a classmate who skips lectures at the start of every week because 'he hates Mondays'. :P Isn't that hilarious? That reminds me so much of Garfield, it's endearing.

Oh, and I think my class is losing more members as I'm typing:-

One of the absolutely coolest dudes in class, Dhika [see, his name alone stands cool! haha] has gone M.I.A. after the holidays - he hasn't turned up for a single Semester 2 class ... soooo ... we're guessing he changed his mind about law. Pity, because he really cracked all of us up (remember the Bolam v. Friern Hospital Management Committee debate, classmates-who-are-reading-this?) + he's from Jakarta and could tell me lots of cool stories about jelangkungs, etc.. Ehehehe. Spine-chilling.

And I don't know if my Hakka friend who hails from Serdang [near my grandmother's house, what a coincidence yaa!], Ken Hou, is still staying in the course. It depends on his IELTS results. T_T I hope he gets to stay, he's a really funny + easygoing + good friend! Our fingers are crossed for 'em IELTS results! :]

Another guy, Teck Han -- possibly the quietest person in class! but he's a pretty awesome person :] -- is thinking about switching to a business course instead.

For another take on the ever-diminishing cohort, Cheryl has some really interesting [and philosophical] views on this on her blog. Click here to visit it.

Besides [more] tearful farewells, today was a significant day in terms of adding to my series of 'firsts' in life:-

(1) My first time bringing my notebook to university
After months of struggling to keep up with my Tort lecturer's blink-your-eye-and-the-slide-is-gone i.e. fast-paced lessons with conventional the pen and paper method; a couple of us decided, 'Heck, let's lug our laptops to school on Mondays'. Monday, being our only Tort day. :] It was great, too! Because my finger isn't blistered anymore and I have a complete set of today's lecture notes. :] Of course, I've lost all feeling in my left hand from having to carry my 2.4kg notebook around all day.

(2) My first moot training session
Mooting is an activity where you pretend like you're in a real courtroom [minus the onus of having someone else's fate resting on your hands]. It's even bigger than debates in the world of law students -- Taylor's University College even won 2nd place in the Hong Kong international moot competition, losing by a mere 2 points to the champions (the Hong Kong team, haha). 3rd place was snagged by UITM. :] Malaysia Boleh!

Anyway, my tort lecturer [Ms Angeline Low] is teacher advisor for the Taylor's Mooting Society and has kindly organised training sessions for students who are interested in learning how to moot! I think it was quite a disappointing turn-out for such a golden opportunity -- there were only 2 students from Year 2 and 8 students from Cohort 2 [my class].

Ms Angeline showed us a couple of videos of the 2005 Moot Finals in Taylor's and asked us to critic the two speakers: Nigel Ong and Jonathan Tan. Under the circumstances [what with a very I-just-wanna-goreng-you-today judge], I thought they were both really good. Imagine standing behind a rostrum [the box-like thing people stand behind when giving speeches] in the middle of a real-looking courtroom and having to have your whole speech in your head AND keep your cool while the judge(s) are grilling you and throwing you off course all the time.

If I were in their shoes today, I might've just thrown the paper aside and ran for my life out the big swing doors at the back of the moot court.

Which is why, my dearest readers, I need these training sessions. :] Not that I harbour secret desires to be a litigator like Karpal Singh, but I want to at least be able to perform decently in a courtroom. Of couse, at this highly amusing [not to mention helpless] point in time, I have a theory that the stay-cool mantra young litigators use in courtrooms goes something like this:

Don'tbescaredofthejudgedon'tbescaredofthejudgedon'tbescaredofthejudge.

Hahahahahhahahahahahahah!

Last but not least ...

Click here to read more about the outrageous US$ 67 million lawsuit between Judge Pearson and a Korean drycleaners'. Grr. It really pisses me off when people [a judge, especially] abuse the law like that.

may I ask why?

2007-06-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

May I ask why Paris Hilton keeps going in and out of jail?

And why she is all over the news?

And why the dudes who went to the UN wanted to talk about, of all things, Paris Hilton?

Now tell me the answer to those questions isn't the same as why she's got a place in the Guiness Book of World Records as the "world's most overrated celebrity".

But hang on. I think we all already know the answer. :]

just in

2007-06-09T02:25:00.000-07:00

Just in from my friend's blog -- at which point I hastily googled for more information.

JOSH GROBAN IS COMING TO MALAYSIA.

Yes he is! How much would his concert tickets cost? When are they being sold?

Il Divo tickets were sold for a whopping RM 1,000.

Idunnoidunnoidunnoidunno ...

Would I go? Would I even try to get a ticket?

October 18th is like, a long way to go, right?

But his concert tickets in America sold out in HALF AN HOUR.

T_T

I don't think I can handle this kind of pressure ...

BUT ... well ... if any of my friends are reading this and happened to get, perhaps, an extra free ticket or something ... you know who to call on ...

I'm talking about me, by the way -- I can't risk not getting my hint across. :P

This is heartbreaking la.

To be in the same country as your idol and not be able to go anywhere near him.

But in the first place, I don't think I'd have the courage to even try going anywhere near him!

Heehuhehuehheuhhh ...

a weekend twist of fate

2007-06-09T00:19:00.000-07:00

UN-believable.

I simply can't believe it myself.

Really. Truly.

Where do I even begin the story that exquisitely made my weekend?

I guess it really started a year or two ago when I read a book review in Newsweek about an author named Patrick Suskind (the 'u' has two dots above it) from Munich. He wrote a book called 'Das Parfum' and it was then translated into English -- into a book we know as 'Perfume'. The review included some acclaims, an excerpt or so ... and it immediately went up into my list of books-I-want-to-read, along with the prize-winning 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'-- which, by the way, if any of you see, please tell me!

And I did nothing about it - no active pursuit of the book whatsoever. With international bestsellers that are sold for ridiculously high prices in our local bookshops, I guess most of the joy is in looking forward to getting the book 'one day' - not getting your hands on it 'today'. Haha. That's my personal take on it, anyway.

But in this case, I was wrong.

After my Crime tutorial yesterday, I went for a browse at Big Bookshop (both the shop and the warehouse) in Atria. I'd been complaining to my mum all week about how I never get to buy books -- I was still wounded from going to MPH a week ago and not being able to buy any of the books there because even the thinnest book would cost over RM30.

But with Big Bookshop came a bookworm's paradise. They have a semi-permanent warehouse sale, you see. Books there cost anywhere from RM1 to RM80, but are mostly in the RM10 - RM 30 range. :]

And I was basically there on a hunt. I wanted to buy a book, but not just any book. A book that was really worth it -- not a common chick lit or dime-a-dozen light-hearted read. I have a college library with over fifty novels and parents with an entire library stored at home. The only books remaining that were truly worth buying were inspirational, motivational, self-help or pure genius (e.g. Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons). And those, dear friend, are the most why-don't-you-just-rob-a-bank expensive.

Unless Big Bookshop's warehouse just happens to stock them that week.

Which was ultimately the case this time. :D

Unless you've been there yourself, you have no idea at all how painful it is to try to look for a book in the warehouse -- there are no shelves, just three dozen or more tables. There is no system, just books stacked together. If you find the book you were looking for; it's pure, dumb luck.

And it was pure, dumb luck to find this particular book -- because I wasn't on the lookout for it; I was just browsing, looking for a book that was really worth buying -- and there it was, a small and considerably thin-looking book stacked on its side ... just one copy of it ... and on the side visible to me, I saw the words 'Perfume. Patrick Suskind'.

Needless to say, that really made my day. :D

Ladies and gents, friends and strangers, readers and photo-glimpsers ... I am now the proud owner of ...

And for a bargain RM12, too. Heck, I'd have paid a lot more for a book of this sort. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows is like, what, RM80++ [buy at Borders, 'tis the cheapest] and true fans do not stammer a blink i.e. hesitate.

Anyway, having spent eight paragraphs jabbering about how I obtained the book, I'm guessing those who know me would well guess that I put aside all other plans to read the book. And I did. I think it took me about eight hours or more to read it -- I was wide-eyed and breathlessly savouring every beautiful line the whole time, too.

Although 'Perfume' is essentially the 'story of a murderer': the birth, life and death of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is deeply twisted, disturbing, exhilarating and above all, oddly beautiful. And the way it was all written, wow, that was honestly the textbook illustration of 'beautifully-written'. I have never been so captivated by a storybook since the Harry Potter series first entered my life. And that's a lot to admit to, from where I stand.

Oho and I found out they even turned the book into a movie! I just saw the trailer at www.perfumemovie.com [really cool, check it out!] and I'm definitely looking forward to watching it. Although the actor who plays Grenouille is way, wayyyy better looking than the character depicted in the novel -- the real dude is supposed to be pockmarked, hunchbacked, limping, has horrible small pox scars on his cheeks and behind his ears ... but I'm glad they didn't hire an actor who was that gruesome-looking to star in the movie. :D

I end this post with a contented sigh. :]
Any story that occupies half of my weekend absolutely must be captured on my blog.
And any novel that is both inspiring and disturbing must be shared of its existence. :D

five things

2007-06-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

I got tagged by Mae!

5 things found in your bag
pink american eagle outfitters wallet from daddy
sony ericsson k510i cellphone
neutrogena lip moisturizer
compact mirror given by mum's friend
pen and paper (you never know ... haha ... got A.Samad Said's autograph thanks to this ...)

5 things found in your ~~purse~~/wallet
cold, hard cash (hahahaha more like limp, crumpled money notes)

probational driver's license! woohoo!

plasters (ehehe)

I.C. (MyKad)

Bonuslink Rewards card :]

5 favourite things in your room
AIR-COND

Laptop computer

the dozens of shelves, drawers and tiers
my mini-library :]

my posters of people I loove

5 things you're currently into
bon jovi's 'welcome to where ever you are'
law school (finally getting into the spirit of it!)
'unusual names'
blogging (on-again and off-again relationships are the hardest, haha!)

spray art

5 people you will tag
Denise (being tagged twice by me AND mae means she has to do this!)

An Nie
Vanessa!

Leila (please do this in English okay! Hehe!)
Lee Ting (if you read this ! Haha! And I will know if you read this!)

Okay darlings, I'm off to watch 'Mistress of Spices' on Astro - starring Dylan McDermott and Ashwarya Rai! :P

a dose of sunday humour

2007-06-03T03:06:00.000-07:00

Heeheehee.

Zangygraphics.com is a really cool place to find some of Internet's funniest ideas.

Here's a picture of An and Cheryl at Salmon Steak. My favourite dish is in the picture - the honey-lemon chicken. I order the same thing every time I go there, hahaha.

Ooh by the way, An's wearing 'our shirt'. Hehe Sara, An and I bought the same shirt (three different sizes of course, hahaha) from 'Deeper n Harder'.

And now we move on to other things which have absolutely nothing to do with me, but I'd like to blog about them anyway:-

#1: Paris Hilton is going to jail.

#2: I realise how much of a superman Jon Bon Jovi is (incidentally, he has a 'Superman' tattoo on his arm.. heehee). 'Welcome to Where Ever You Are', in my opinion, is one of the best songs in the history of non-classical music.

#3: Lina Joy a.k.a. Azlina Jailani lost her case. Sigh. No pioneering laws in this country this year, I guess. Below is a snapshot of Lina Joy and her lawyers. Which one is Lina, I don't know. Tell me. :]

#4: Miss Japan won Miss Universe. :] Yay for Asians!

#5: Miss Korea was drop-dead gorgeous, by the way. She made into the top 5.

#6: I don't know what to say about Miss Malaysia Universe, so I'll just post her pic up. :]

#7: Guess what I saw when I was walking my dog? :] Someone in my neighbourhood has a real-life Mini Cooper. It's not the BMW version, but still! Who are you, stranger?

the joys of shrek 3 & the sorrows of adieu

2007-06-02T02:04:00.000-07:00

Pardon me sideways.

It's a stormy Saturday evening, and I'm plagued by both smiling memories and tearful memoirs. This past few months have been filled to the brim with laughter, lessons, lawfulness, unlawfulness, hello's, new friends and ... goodbyes.

Like everything new, a new year in a new school (i.e. university) has a lot to do with meeting new people - classmates, schoolmates, lecturers, unfamiliar office staff. And after a while, you feel like you've known them for years. Six months seem unreal -- surely you've known them longer: Has it only been six months? Really?

The trouble that comes with saying that first 'hello' is certainly the inevitable 'goodbye' -- whether it's on his deathbed, her last day in the country, or a newfound friend's last day in your course -- there is always a goodbye. Some of them just come sooner than expected, that's all.

So ... before their faces begin to blur in my mind or I forget about the qualities they have that make me smile ... I have to take a cyber snapshot of the three girls leaving my class ...

First up is Nikki Yap Poh Lian. She's quitting the Reading twinning programme to pursue a law degree in Brickfield's Asia College instead. Nikki was the first new friend I made in law school. She's sweet, funny, caring and a blast to have in classes. :] And who can resist her smile? It totally reaches her eyes.

Next to leave: Eva Chow, who is leaving law school to pursue her dreams in the service industry at Taylor's Hospitality & Tourism. She's so incredibly young -- her alma mater being Sayfol International, she's a 1989 baby. Hehe. Eva's lovely, and inspiring -- she knows why I say this. :] You've made a difference in my life, Eva!

Last but not least, Leila Madadi -- who has grown to be one of my best friends in class. Funny how our friendship really started when I saw her sitting alone so I sat with her sometimes. She's leaving the class to study more English before returning to law school (or pursuing a different major altogether).

Below is a photograph of some of my closest friends in class (Rachel is taking the picture so she's only in the 2nd picture) -- and if you could do like a mental ANTM fading out, you'll realise the group dwindles down (what with Leila leaving).

But considering that at the end of the day, we will all probably go our separate ways anyway -- I feel incredibly lucky to have met these people in the first place. Every classmate, every teacher, every person in the law office ... they've all made a difference in my life. Definitely. I've learnt something from every one of them.

I love all of you! :]

And speaking of people I love, guess who called me up (sinfully early) this morning? Vanessa -- with free tickets for a Shrek 3 screening! Woohoo!! :] Needless to say the words "free" and "Shrek" got me up and out of bed faster than you can say "pardon me sideways". Within 30 minutes I was in her gold(-coloured) Myvi and we were zoom-zoom-zooming off to 1-Utama! :]

It was an absolutely BRILLIANT movie! The whole cinema was constantly erupting with laughter and Vanessa and I were still talking the show after we came out of the cinema and everything! Really, really funny! Stock up with popcorn and sit back, people! If there's a movie worth going to the cinema to watch, it's Shrek 3! I personally find it even better than Shrek & Shrek 2. My favourite scenes being the Pinnochio's lie-ducking one and where Artie's trying to persuade Merlin to help them. :]

Thank you Vanessa!!! :]

OK and to end on a light note -- here's a picture of An Nie with a couple of her classmates! Her class has 10 students and she's the only girl. Ehehehhehehe while that would be a paradise for some -- I think it's just too hard trying to learn anything in such a testosterone-charged environment. But that's just me. :P Computer whiz Stanley is in blue, An's in brown, and I dunno the name of the dude in the black shirt.

An is so adorably tiny next to them. Hehe SO CUTE lah.

On other news, I finally met up with Tse Mun again for a girl's day out during my term break! :] We went to The Curve for heavy-duty shopping. Heheheheh.

And An visited TCSJ on Thursday so we went out for lunch. Cheryl joined us -- I'm really pleased that An made a new friend. :]

With my days spent either in school, at home or out shopping with a best friend or my mum, time sure has flown. Term 2 has just started, but it's really ending quite soon.

But I must admit that the timetable is so much better: we finish at 11am on days that we don't have tutorials, and the latest ever the school day ends is 3pm (and that's only Monday -- other days range from 9.30am to 1.30pm). It's very much less taxing. :]

And good luck to Carmen and Nicholas and all other A-Levels sitters for their final exams!! :]

milestones and farewells

2007-05-29T03:52:00.000-07:00

milestones and farewells

Hey you!

The one thing we can count on to happen in every chapter in life: milestones. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

And one milestone in education: exams.

I just had my mock exam yesterday: a three-hour paper combining 3 subjects (Tort, Crime & Contract). It was ... an experience. Luckily it wasn't the final exam (that one is in late August/early September).

Besides recording yet another milestone into this blog, my law class has to bid goodbye to yet another classmate: the adorable Eva Chow. T_T

She is leaving the course to pursue her dreams in hospitality & tourism. All the best to you, Eva! :]

this is her now

2007-05-24T01:36:00.000-07:00

This is her now

Jordin Sparks.

Blew.

Me.

Away.

Especially with her rendition of 'This Is My Now'.

I adore Blake, but Jordin is definitely the better singer -- I'm so happy she won!! :]

the strangest things

2007-05-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

You know how it is, when you've grown your hair out and it's long - then you have an aching desire to ... get a haircut?

Well, I think that's a common understanding anyway. That ISN'T me, by the way. Hahaha.

You're supposed to be studying, but every little thing becomes a thousand times more obvious - like how long your fingernails are getting, or how loudly the clock is ticking ...

And if you read the previous article from MSN Health that I asked you all to check out, you would have read about how it isn't true that we only use 10% of our brain - we actually use all of it, as far as science can tell.

That just goes to show that ... this is as good as it gets.

The strangest things in life, huh? How we wake up in the morning and our dreams just felt so real, how we come up with things to say and suddenly lose our train of thought ...

And how we almost never think about these things.

Until, of course, we're supposed to be studying.

That's when all these things seem interesting enough to blog about. :]

Hilariously informative

2007-05-08T03:04:00.000-07:00

Must read this article! Hahaha!

http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100159952&page=1

too cute

2007-05-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

I was having my regular dose of humour at kennysia.com when I spotted another one of Asia's most popular blogs - Xiaxue's (http://www.xiaxue.com)! Most irresistable bit was the photos of the too-cute-to-be-true rabbit she got for her friend. Just look at the little rabbit! Aaaaaaahhhhh hahahha so cute! [Pic below is property of xiaxue.com ya -- I don't know how else I can acknowledge that!]

The other thing I wanted to mention: Happy Birthday to gorgeous girls Sara Liyana and Chua Sue-Mae!!! :]

Sara's in the middle of the following pic:-

But I don't have a photo of Mae Mae on this computer!! T_T So people either go to her blog (which you won't find out the address of if you don't already know it, heehehhe) or remember her in your head. :]

You two girls ROCK! :] Lots of love from yours truly! Now go out and celebrate your last year(s) of teenagerhood!!

introducing stretchy-la-la

2007-05-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

Mummy said we have too many pets so we can't get a hamster.

I got one anyway. :]

adopt your own virtual pet!

word of mouth alone??

2007-05-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

I finally collected my SPM certificate from my secondary school this morning. You know, like a year ago I called and asked when the cert was coming out, and the office said, "Oh don't worry we will call you and mail it to your house when it does".

What a load of rubbish!

Not only did they not inform us the cert was released, they also weren't going to bother mailing anything for anybody. When I went to the counter and asked for my cert, the office lady actually asked, "Which year?"

Oh my goodness they have years and YEARS of old (uncollected) SPM certs rotting away in their cupboards!

Office people can get so lazy. :(

And the only reason I found out the cert was even released in the first place was through Carmen (then later Mei Chieng told me) who found out through her sister (who is still studying in the school). So what about people who weren't told?

Besides relying absurdly heavily on the "word-of-mouth" method, there is absolutely no other way the news is being communicated. No school website (DJ Alumni is somewhere around but hardly anyone knows about it), no phone call, no e-mail. Nothing. Zilch. No effort at all.

One of the things I admire very much about Taylor's is how efficient the system of information communication is compared to the one at my old school. And we still ask why it is everybody flocks to private institutions. It's a downright rhetorical question now!

At the end of the day, I'm just so darn grateful to be able to go to university and only have to deal with the personnel at the law school office when I need anything -- they're the best, seriously: very efficient, very warm and very personable.

Thank goodness my secondary school days are over! Going back there, to that secondary school office, for less than ONE hour today was intolerable already. I don't know how I ever could tahan the office staff almost everyday just a couple of years ago. T_T

I'm counting my blessings, people. :]

And to those of you who haven't collected your SPM certs from DJ yet, go and collect it (bring your original IC). And tell your friends!

international students' party 2007

2007-05-01T02:06:00.000-07:00

So Leila invited me to the International Students' Party last night. :]

And ladies and gents, believe me when I tell you that it was an incredible experience.

In terms of performances (a Myanmar candle dance, a cello performance and a band), food (springrolls, mihun, fried rice, curry chicken, fruits) and games ("monkey" with a very dangerous-looking stick - reminded me of Mullins v. Richards I tell you! T_T) it was probably not the culturally extravagant entertainment I thought I'd be feasting on, BUT it was a very interesting encounter with a multi-purpose hall full of foreigners. :]

There was a bit of disco dancing but:-
(1) no disco-ball-flashing-lights (although I think they switched the fluorescent lights on and off for a bit) and;
(2) the international students were very M'sian in the sense that very very few of them actually went to the dance floor (being our MPH hahahahahahha!) to boogie their butts off.

Hohohoho.

But seriously-lah, it doesn't sound like a fun party when I put it that way but I really had a good time. :]

Last night was an amazing experience not because it fell into the norm of "they had great games and food" but because I was reminded of what life overseas is actually like. The people at the party -- they were not the usual Malaysian crowd at all -- nothing like that, they hailed from all over the world: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Oman, Africa, Arab Saudi, Korea, Japan, China ... supercool experience.

Of course, very little English was being spoken so I was basically "huh"-ing or grinning stupidly the whole night. I forgot the Persian word that Leila and Ehsan were calling me ... "gol-something-something" ... it means a person who always says "Huh?" Ha..ha..ha..ha... Very funny y'all. -_-

Okay okay enough of my rambling! Let pictures do the talking! :]

Gotta admit, at first I was quite excited at having the ticket stamped on my hand, but then now I'm just annoyed because three showers and sixteen hand washes later the bloody thing is still there. :[

Leila and yours truly. :] Iranian women are so beautiful ya? :]

On the left we have a pure Persian look, and on the right we have four generations of Chinese blood mixed with one little dollop of Persian genes. :[

My classmate, Fahmida, from Bangladesh! I learnt so many cool things about her during the party - like the fact that she speaks a gazillion languages (Hindi, Ur-something, etc). :] She looked gorgeous, too, all dolled up for the party. :]

L-R: Leila, me and Kevin (another classmate of mine from Kenya).
Interesting fact: He can marry up to 16 women! Hahahahah! Well in his culture can-lah, but maybe he can't because he's a Christian (note the cross).

Tan Tan from China! This was during disco dancing time. :] We were not disco dancing. She's studying Hospitality & Tourism at TCPJ, by the way, any of you know her? :] Sara?

Ehsan has very attractive friends. :]

One word does it: Sigh! :]

That's the International Office teacher-in-charge. :]

And this is the sum-up of the night's entertainment! :] Cello guy is way cool man, hope to get to know more international students in the future!

Have a wonderful holiday for those who have it!

Good luck in your exams for those who have it!

Have a nice day to the rest of you!! :]

mini cooper fantasies

2007-04-29T02:48:00.000-07:00

Yay! :]

I feel so gleeful that a handful of my friends (and loyal readers) have responded to yesterday's superbig blog entry! Heehee! And they even tagged without my having to ask! You guys ... you have no idea how much that means to me ... *sniffs joyfully* ...

News of the day is definitely my run-in with the subject of my dreams today. Where, you ask? Giant Kelana Jaya. I was just doing a spot of Sunday shopping with Mummy, when I ran into ...

BMW Mini Cooper yoooo!!!

I even got ~~his~~ its picture. :]

People, people, people - it's like one of those things where if you know a person well enough, you tend to just know things about them. What turns them off, any minor fetishes, what means the world to them, and most importantly: what makes them tick. :D

To be even remotely close to someone, you have got to know The Basics:
1 . Favourite food
2 . ~~Secret desires~~ Ambitions
3 . The "off" button
4 . The lightbulb factor
5. The "I-want-to-have-someday"s

(*Disclaimer: Please note that all the aforementioned and about-to-be-mentioned theories are completely unresearched and based purely on the nonsense I ~~frequently~~ occasionally come up with.)

To address the first item on our list - favourite food. Have you ever heard of the saying "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach"? Suffice to say that it works for all genders (assuming there are more than 2 in this era of modernization). That's why pregnant women crave stuff. It's when their true colours (regarding food) are unleashed. :] I'm not saying that the ideal Valentine's Day gift is a box of shuen mui or asam, but you get the drift. You can't possibly say you know a person well unless you know what they love to eat! Especially in Malaysia.

Nonetheless, the theory doesn't always prove itself true. Certainly if you spend more time with someone only then are you bound to find out! Unless they don't eat in public or something or never talk about food lah.

Next up we have our ~~secret desires~~ ambitions. This covers a wide aspect - not only answers to the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question, but other aspirations and dreams that you want to at least try to accomplish before your life ends. For example, Angelina Jolie's is to adopt as many children as she can. :]

Then there's the "off" button. What disgusts your companion? Be it flying cockroaches in mamak stalls, unshaved leg hair or chatter about abortion, there are always things that send alarm bells ringing. You know this, then you can avoid a lot of conflict! I think the trick is to observe -- something which I have failed to do. :[ But it's also cool when other people observe and then tell you about it. :]

And just like how when there's day there is night, we have the lightbulb factor. Anything that makes your friend light up - much akin to the clouds parting, bluebirds twittering and the sun shining through. For some people it's watching reruns of "The Godfather", for others it's listening to a favourite song on the radio or watching their little brother trip and fall. Whatever makes you happy. :]

Last but not least, knowing the "I-want-to-have-someday"s is a surefire way of getting birthday presents your friend will definitely like - which brings us back to the photos displayed brightly above. The black and yellow BMW Mini Cooper is one of my latest "I-want-to-have-someday"s. I even asked my dad about it.

"Daddy would you buy a Mini Cooper?"
"Ya sure! When I have one million dollars."

making up for lost time

2007-04-28T02:21:00.000-07:00

Warning: Massive photo blog alert!

Holidays are coming, holidays are coming, yay!

However, exams are coming, exams are coming ... T_T

My mock exams are on the day after the holidays (28th May) - 3 subjects in 3 hours (ONE EXAM!) with no breaks whatsoever in between. Well, yank my chain and call it ridiculous, but that's just the way it is.

To make up for the lost time that was meant to be captured on this blog, though, I've decided to sit myself down and do one gargantuan entry that encompasses all the colourful elements of the past month or so! :]

This stuff may or may not bore the socks off you, but anyway this blog is really for me to remember things I feel I should. :]

#1: March Outing with An Nie & Sara

This post is a whole month overdue! I was actually waiting for An to blog about it, but clearly she didn't so it's left up to me to capture the memories of our March get-together! This time we went to Sunway Pyramid (February's meeting was in 1-Utama) and ate at Manhattan Fish Market (although that didn't stop us from stopping at virtually every good stall to, err, "sample" the food).

Sara and I went to An's house in USJ first, so we got to see some of her relatives again - like Michelle (above) who we've already met before (she's a few years older than us and pretty cool!) and Michelle's brother, a superhottie! Tall, dark and handsome heheheheheheee. And no, this is not my weird taste acting up again, it's true this time!

Lookie here, Sara's in black and I'm in white! OK I know it looks like in almost every photo I seem to be wearing the same shirt, but it's only because it so happens that on the days my picture is taken, I'm wearing that shirt! Hahaha! (And okayy... I wear it a lot too. Hehe.)

It looks really, really, really GOOD. But not all of it tastes that great - and you've got to rethink the pricing (about RM50 for this alone, without any side orders). We shared this (3 people necessary to even remotely finish this huge dish!) -- the rice was blah!, the fish was quite good, the prawns were REALLY COOL (they lit a fire on them too!), chips were fabulous & the fried calamari bits were all right.

Missing from this picture: the oysters, which none of us wanted so we asked them to replace it with half a fish instead. But this dish may still have an edge over the Fish & Co similar platter. Really, really.

This looks like a really good commercial. :]

Dear Mr. Manhattan Fish Market, I would be only too happy to sell you this picture for a modest amount of money. But you have to pay my friends for their good acting.

One of the obscure little stalls near escalators. Must try! Really delicious balls of stuff. Ask for extra sauce.

They didn't let us take a picture of the shop. So we did it. :] One of those fascinating little "adult stores". But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, compared to Amsterdam's infamous Red Light District! :P

#2: Visit to "Precious Home Orphanage"

One of the incredibly enjoyable parts of making a class trip to an orphanage was shopping for it! At first I thought we'd go in small groups to buy the groceries etc the orphanage needed (they gave a list), but my class rep went and got everything one sunny day, so ... that wasn't necessary anymore. Hehe. But my mum and I went and got extra stuff, like 50 packets of crisps and snacks. Eating unhealthily is a luxury! :]

I took over 300 photos at the orphanage, so I suppose I'd better do a separate blog entry about that yeah! :]

#3: Cousin's TV appearance

My little toddler cousin, Ryan, got on TV! Woohoo! A kids' gameshow called "Breeze Padang Pintar" or something like that. On TV3. I'm so proud of him!

#4: Life in law school

Hey, De, if you look really hard you can see that I'm wearing the bracelet you gave me! :] Ken Hou in peach at the back and Mei Chieng with her trademark Pepsi bottle and ever-present cellphone. Tse Mun and Faan Jin probably know what I'm talking about! :D

Look! Parliament trip! That's me rummaging in my bag for the things they wanted us to take out and put into a black bag -- cellphone, etc.. Faan Jin in orange stripes in front of me, and Rachel directly behind me and furrowing her eyebrows at Soo Tian's camera (heehee). Behind us are some Year 1 Cohort 1 students. :]

This is me being goofy and Suubi tolerating me. Hehehe! I was actually trying to take a picture of her supercool new hairstyle but... look what happened. We were at the IDP office, I was teman-ing Leila to register for her IELTS exams. I saw their exam rooms, too ... I think IDP should provide better exam rooms. Especially for the written exams -- any noise could easily disrupt the candidates. And more privacy should be provided for the oral examinations! The doors are see-through and people walking about would pose a large distraction! Bottom line: very thankful that I don't need to take IELTS!

Sober in grey, Eva in orange stripes and Mei Chieng between them. They flocked to Soo Tian's camera. Hehehehhehe!

Leila looks so adorable in this picture! We were at Baker's Cottage. Her second time there: I felt obliged to capture the moment!

This is the view from the 3-point-something classrooms. Not bad huh? The 7.50-something in the morning view is a pretty good one. But is it really good enough a reason for us to wake up so early? Hmm.

This is in C3, we use this classroom on Tuesdays (other days devoted to LT7). Look how active and lively we are! We totally do not fall into the law student stereotype! I wonder who took this picture, Soo Tian's camera but he's sitting right there in front (in grey). I'm the one in the white shirt who is craning my neck and grinning for the camera.

There are so many small things that can bring a smile to our faces everyday - even things on library lockers. :]

Thanks to my direction and Teck Han's [in pic] labourious effort -- presenting our mahjong-inspired Tort tutorial table arrangement. The previous week, Ms Angeline made us push our tables together to create a more informal, interactive environment, BUT we ended up talking more about other things and were not able to see the tutor properly (imagine having to crane over the head of the person on your left/right to even see the teacher! so annoying).

So my new V-shaped table arrangement allows for the tutor to see us clearly and vice versa. :] I was so pleased with myself -- until my pen rolled off the table and dropped into the gap between the two rows. -_-"

Luckily Soo Tian managed to retrieve it for me. Thank God for taller guys!

Besides random photographs depicting my life in law school, we had our first set of presentations last week (24th April) and it was a pretty cool experience! My class was divided up into 4 groups, 7 people per group.

First up was Soo Tian's group, topic: Metrosexuals. Brilliant powerpoint slides! They also made it really interesting and lively. They didn't need any cue cards (a skill which I have failed to polish) and spoke pretty naturally. Bravo!

Next up was my own group, topic: Television - Can We Live Without It? I thought we gave it an excellent group effort, worked hard on it and had a lot of fun. :] The judge commented on our reliance on cue cards (Sigh! But Mr Tong always said "Don't try to be a hero, always have cue cards! I hate it when teachers contradict each other. It's a presentation, not a competition -- Ms Magdalene always said not to use cue cards in competitions). Good bit was that Mr Joseph (one of the judges) said he thought we presented very well and our topic was well-covered. Yay! :]

Third group, Joanne's group with their topic: Aliens - Do They Exist? It was very funny, especially when Cletus got to the part about a horse named "Lady" and pointed at the picture of a dead dog, and how he said "Come on, save me some dignity" when everybody burst out laughing. :]

Last but not least, Kevin's group with their topic: 9/11 - A Conspiracy? Suffice to say that by the end of his presentation, Kevin (he was the solo speaker) managed to convince me that the Pentagon was hit by missiles because the plane that hit it had no windows. He put forth such absurdly funny theories, it was so controversial and unbelievable and interesting! :P

On assignments, we've handed up a few already (plenty more to come though!) but we've got only got a couple back: Crime Non-Assessed Autumn Term Written Work (I completely bombed! But trying not to beat myself up over it, Non-Assessed after all...) and a GPL test (just an exercise).

I wrote about the flaws of the legislative procedure when it came to statutes and delegated legislation, and happily received a 59% (with compliments on my handwriting and structure :] Good enough for a superficial essay!).

It looks bad, doesn't it? Especially with all the 80+% we're all used to. But apparently in law school, you'd have to be a star student to even get a 70% (First Class). Ha... ha ... ha ... I think it's very disheartening!

I end this with a reminder of what lies in store for Potter fans on July 21st, 2007 ... :D

For my next post, I think I'll probably blog on the International Students' Party (it's coming up, this Monday night!) and/or the orphanage visit and/or a Bar Council meeting I had the pleasure of being a part of! And sometime in the future I should continue my story on my cousin's gameshow participation [complete with TV stills] and a talk I attended by Mr Idris Jala [pictures too]. Very inspiring.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! :]

precious home

2007-04-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

Today was Class Trip #2.

Destination:

Precious Home Orphanage!

It was an incredible, eye-opening experience! Most of the kids were really, really friendly -- and I think all my friends who went there had an awesome time. :]

I accidentally overdid the photo-taking and ended up with over THREE HUNDRED shots. HAHAHAH! It's all fun when you're TAKING the pictures -- but now, to send them to people is the big pain-in-the-ass. T_T

Virginia Tech massacre

2007-04-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

Think about all the lives that were lost.

Think about how sad their families must be feeling right now.

And I thought the Columbine High tragedy was the absolute worst school shooting -- especially after watching the movie "Dawn Anna". Haven't shed so many tears since Titanic. :(

Today is the day to show more empathy than you thought yourself capable of showing.

Parliamentary yawns

2007-03-27T04:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a pretty scary thought: Sit-ups bad for you?

Click here to read the full article.

Anyway, how have y'all been? I realised that I haven't been updating for about a whole fortnight now -- although my so-called "holidays" (actually a "reading week", it's quite upsetting, really, how I'm supposed to use the holidays to study) are in a couple more days.

The workload is starting to get crazy -- I wouldn't say it's as hectic as S.A.M. coursework, but this stuff is definitely tougher and demands far more prep than anything SAM could ever hurl at its students, what with its topical tests and end-of-topic presentations / common tests. Enjoy while you can, current SAM students! ;P

SO - we had Class Trip #1 on the 21st (a Wednesday -- you would THINK we would get to skip classes, but noOOOooo... we went in the afternoon because Parliament sittings only start at 2.30pm!) ... destination: Parlimen Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur!

I love this picture! Hehehe! It turned out too dark -- but then I found this awesome function on photoshop that could make photos look like cartoon cutouts! Hehehe! Look at Faan Jin's cutout, excited-about-Parliament trip self! :D

By the way, she is SO GOOD at computer designing picture stuff ... I saw some of her designs for Lexicon and wow! I loved those pictures! :] Like alternate-universe feminine versions of the cool computerized stuff Marcus and Raffick used to do for Nostalgia.

Yeahh..... I was excited too. :]

Faan Jin & me. Bus Buddies!! :]

2 of my classmates: Audrey (left) and Suubi (right). :]

'tis the season to be jolly

2007-03-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

There are really two things about my legal education that I thoroughly enjoy:
(1) Funny quotes, and
(2) Loopholes in the law.

There was a good one Ms Sunitha mentioned during my Contract lecture on Monday: "He who comes into a court of equity must come with clean hands."

HEHEHEHEHE.

Well, it does entertain me.

69 questions

2007-03-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

Ah, tags. The best way to waste precious time. :]
Found this interesting little thing on Li Shan's blog.

1. Are your parents married or divorced?
Married :]

2. Are you a vegetarian?
Absolutely not. More carnivorous than anything, ahahhahaha...

3. Do you believe in Heaven?
Definitely! Always necessary to have a little bit of unexplainable faith to stay positive in the world of today.

4. Have you ever come close to dying?
No -- but I did survive an earthquake last week in college. :] The Sumateran second wave hehehe. And I thought somebody was just kicking my chair.

5. What jewellery do you wear 24/7?
Earrings. :]

6. Favourite time of day?
Relax time i.e. meal time! Heheheheeee!

7. Do you eat the stems of broccoli?
Yeah! Really, now, how would the stems feel if you ate the rest of the broccoli but left out the stems? Hahaha.

8. Do you wear makeup?
Yup, occasionally. I used to wear eyeliner almost every school day last year, but then I've gotten into the habit of keeping things as simple as possible. Plus I don't want to reach a point where I can't leave the house without make-up!

9. Ever have plastic surgery?
No ... is that even an option in Malaysia, really?

10. Do you colour your hair?
I had some brown streaks done last year -- but (1) cannot see properly, (2) grown out already, I think! Might get some colour done again someday! :]

11. What do you wear to bed?
Pajamas la. My mum makes the best pajama bottoms too. Hehehe! :]

12. Have you ever done anything illegal?
I don't think so. :] Not much of a risk-taker. But I've probably littered in public? YEAH that's illegal you know! Something everybody has probably forgotten.

13. Can you roll your tongue?
Nope. :( Not something you can learn, either.

14. Do you tweeze your eyebrows?
Hahaha Li Shan answered this one well -- but I don't have anything funny to say here! I don't know how to tweeze my eyebrows, but I had them plucked a month back. :] SO FUN! Not painful at all, really.

15. What kind of sneakers?

I wear a pair of black and yellow Nike sneakers. Very light, very much worth it! :]

16. Do you believe in Abortions?
Yeah -- there's no reason why an unwanted child needs to be born into the world. Poor fella. :(

17. What is your Hair color?
Black, dark brown in the sun? This reminds me of how my Contract Law lecturer hates it when people answer a question with another question. HEHEHE.

18. Future child’s name?
Lisabelle and David. :] Bound to change my mind every few months wan.

19. Do you snore?
Maybe? Depends on how tired I am, I guess!

20. If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be?
JAPAN and PENANG. :] Love love LOVE.

21. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?
Sure, if instead of stuffed animals the question asked for "pillows". HAHAHA.

22. If you won the lottery, what would you do first?
Jump for joy! :]

23. Gold or silver?
What -- to wear or to invest in? Hahahaha. Wear silver, invest in gold.

24. Hamburger or hot dog?
Hamburger. :] I love the bread.

25. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Chicken pie. My mum's home-made chicken pie!

26. City, beach or country?
City. Adore the bustling activity.

27. What was the last thing you touched?
The mouse ... to scroll down the page? What a stupid question, haha.

28. Where did you eat last?
On my comfy yellow armchair. :]

29. When’s the last time you cried?
When I watched this movie on ASTRO (HBO or Starmovies) about a knight who actually started as a blacksmith/locksmith's son -- then when his father cried for joy when father and son reunited ... *sniffs* ... needless to say, I bawled along with the make-believe characters on TV, haha!

You have to watch it (if you're into romantic/action comedies) -- starring the dude from "10 Things I Hate About You"! It aired around 10pm-12am Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday night just this past week.

30. Do you read blogs?
Yup! A few close friends' blogs, and old friends' blogs once in a while.

31. Would you ever go out dressed like the opposite sex?
Eh? If I wear a T-shirt and jeans, does that mean I'm dressing like a boy? Is this question really meant for guys to answer? :S But I enjoy dressing like my own gender la, if that's what this question is asking for ...

32. Ever been involved with the police?
No, thank goodness. Hahahaha. My most-feared kind of police: TRAFFIC police. Hehehe!

33. What’s your favourite shampoo conditioner and soap?
Shampoo: DOVE! :] Smells so good.

Soap: Shokubutsu.

34. Do you talk in your sleep?
Once in a blue moon, perhaps? :]

35. Ocean or pool?
Pool = chlorine that slowly kills my skin ... so I have to say "ocean"! :]

36. So, who has the original missing questions?
How would I know? I don't even see any missing questions.

37. Who would you take on a ménage à trois for a dirty weekend?
Fancy word for "threesome"? Hohoho! I honestly don't know.

38. Window seat or aisle?
Aisle. Think convenience. :]

39. Ever met anyone famous?
Are Dato' Rafidah Aziz and Jaclyn Victor considered famous enough? OH WAIT I met our dearest Pak Lah before! He was my grandfather's friend and neighbour -- I was two, and I sang him the ABC's (to much applause). Heheheheheh!

40. Do you feel that you’ve had a truly successful life?
Goodness. I'm not even 19. But yeah, I'd like to think that I've accomplished my goals in the things I've undertaken. :]

41. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it?
I'm afraid I don't eat spaghetti. But if I did, I'd probably cut it. :] Otherwise, there'd be slippery sauce stains all over my face and clothes. HAHAHAH.

42. Ricki Lake or Oprah Winfrey?
Who's Ricki Lake? So my answer's probably Oprah! Haha.

43. Basketball or Football?
Watch football, play basketball. But I really do neither. Except when the World Cup comes round again -- which is when I support South Korea! :]

44. How long do your showers last?
10 minutes? Reasonably longer if I wash my hair.

Not as long as a certain somebody's (*cough* yennie bunny *cough*)...

45. Automatic or do you drive a stick?
Auto. With the latter, I might as well take the stick and plunge into all the other road users' hearts. Hahahaha.

46. Cake or ice cream?
Well, that depends on my mood. Hehe.

Cheescake versus vanilla ice-cream is a TOUGH CALL, people.

47. Are you self-conscious?
A little, sometimes.

48. Have you ever drank so much you threw up?
Nope. Hehe. I don't really drink any alcohol but Jolly Shandy.

49. Have you ever given money to a beggar?
Yup yup.

To the ones I'm reasonably sure are not BMW-driving conmen or exploited children.

50. Have you been in love?
Love? I'm in LOVE with Josh Groban! :]

51. Where do you wish you were?
Downstairs having dinner. :] But I might as well finish answering this first.

52. Are you wearing socks?
No ... I'm at home. Although some people really do wear socks at home -- protects their feet, quite a good habit actually. Especially if your soles are sensitive. Do try it! :]

53. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?
No, thank goodness. :]

54. Can you tango?
Well yeah surrrre... as long as I don't do it properly and in my own made-up manner.

55. Last gift you received?
De's Cambodia bracelet! :] Or "angpows" if they're gifts. Hehe.

56. Last sport you played?
I lifted my arm all the way from my side to the mouse and keyboard. :] Haha, no lah, kidding kidding. In 2003, I think I played a bit of handball? HAHAHAHHA.

57. Things you spend a lot of money on?
Stationery and costume jewellery. And photocopied books. Hehehe.

58. Where do you live?
In a very comfy part of Malaysia. :]

59. Where were you born?
Kuala Lumpur.

60. Last wedding attended?
In 2005! So long ago! Next one: 11 November 2007. Looking forward to it! My youngest uncle's wedding -- but that's the last one already! Huhuhu.

61. Spit or swallow?
Aiyer. Dirty question? Won't layan this with an answer.

62. Favorite position? [disregard sexual innuendo!]
Sitting cross-legged on a chair. :]

63. Most hated food(s)?
Kimchi. Blearghh.

~~64. What’s your least fav.?~~

65. Can you sing?
I love to! But not in public hahaha.

66. Last person you instant messaged?
Goodness, haven't been on messenger in months.

67. Last place you went on holiday?
A lovely tour of ... South Korea! :]

68. Favourite regular drink?
Water. Hehehe. MILO every morning! :]

That's the Malaysian household word for coco drink, right?

69. Current Song?
"Welcome to where ever you are" by Bon Jovi.

My new favourite song! I can really relate to it. Hehe.

reincarnation, anyone?

2007-03-09T06:51:00.000-08:00

HEHEHEHEE.
I found the most wicked thing on Mei Lin's funny-funny-funny blog.

Your past life diagnosis:
I don't know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Oceania around the year 900. Your profession was that of a monk (nun), bee-keeper or lone gunman.

Wouldn't that make sense that I'm an only child now? Hahaha - or it could just be my mind connecting the dots. Hehehe!

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Such people are always involved with all new. You have always loved changes, especially in art, music, cooking.

Hey I DO adore changes! :] My motto being "everything happens for a reason".

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
Your lesson is to learn discretion and moderation and then to teach others to do the same. Your life will be happier if you help those who lack reasoning.

YES I needed that lesson. Junkfood in moderation, woman!

Do you remember now?

Nope, sorry, doesn't ring any bells. Hehehe. But I can relate all that stuff to my present life -- it's pretty general, no? Hahaha. Mei Lin's reincarnation profile was funnier, check out her blog on my links list!

Go on -- you know you want to try yours too. :]
http://www.thebigview.com/pastlife/

nothing-better-to-do quizzes

2007-03-09T05:12:00.000-08:00

Your Dominant Intelligence is Interpersonal Intelligence

You shine in your ability to relate to and understand others.
Good at seeing others' points of view, you get how people think and feel.
You have an uncanny ability to sense true feelings, intentions, and motivations.
A natural born leader, you are great at teaching and mediating conflict.

You would make a good counselor, salesperson, politician, or business person.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

You Are a Phoenix

Driven and ambitious, you tend to acquire material success easily.
You have grand schemes - both for your own life and for changing the whole world.
You are a great leader, and you have no problem taking the reigns.
However, you aren't all business. You also have great talents for performing and visual arts.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

You Are 0% Homophobic

You're open minded, tolerant, and accepting.
And you're not homophobic in the least :-)

Are You Homophobic?

You Are 67% Open

You're a pretty open person - and you don't mind sharing the good, bad, and sometimes ugly.
Your openness is quite refreshing, and it encourages other people to be open with you!

How Open Are You?

Your Inner Eye Color Is Blue

You've got the personality of a blue eyed women
You're intense and expressive - and always on the go
You've also got a sweet, playful side - which draws men in

What's Your Inner Eye Color?

and i'll see you in court

2007-03-09T04:16:00.000-08:00

Goodness gracious.

I was all gung-ho about watching the debate all day today, and it was truly a heated debate that showcased the sharpest tongues of Taylor's Law School. Worth staying back a few hours for. :]

Both teams -- equally fantastic. Haha, but no, the result wasn't a tie -- congratulations to the new (and reigning) winners: Year 2 students Kan Ming Choi, Tang Qi Wen & Sharizal Mohd. Sidek!

Also another round of cyber-applause to Year 1 Cohort 1 debaters -- three ladies with wit of steel.

Here's an interesting point to note: they're going to be my classmates this October when both cohorts merge into Year 2. I can't help but look forward to getting to know them -- I can definitely learn a lot from them. :]

Ho yeah -- and today's blog title is "and I'll see you in court" because when the Cohort 1 girls were debating, I could actually SEE them in our courtrooms (in my mind's eye, of course, haha) -- giving their arguments to a judge and a jury (although we haven't got a jury system here -- but some of the courts in UK do).

Like when the third speaker was presenting, I felt like a juror on the bench -- especially when she said to think about loved ones we've lost... multiply that feeling by hundreds and thousands ... and then ... that is what war feels like. Wowww.

Oh YEAH the motion for today was: "The use of force to make peace is acceptable". Year 2 students were the proposition team and the Year 1, opposition.

Bravo, good show, well done! :] Very nice to watch, hehe.

the written word of farsi

2007-03-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling inspired.

This past week, I've been sitting next to Leila, who's from Iran, once known as Persia -- a country which, at the beginning of the week, I knew nothing about. This is exactly what I love so much about being able to spend quality time with international students -- I get to learn so much about their countries and cultures, that I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to delve into.

So this new experience began when I sat with my usual social circle in class -- my lovely ladies: Rachel (in pic below), Faan Jin, Mei Chieng & Cheryl -- and I spotted Leila Madadi sitting in the first row by herself. She usually sits with Suubi Audi (another awesome international student from Nigeria -- but get this: her family actually lives in China and they speak Mandarin! How cool is that!), but she wasn't that day; so I decided to sit next to her. I find that people really open up the most when they're alone -- not when they're with a bunch of friends or a big group.

Anyway, it was just the usual small talk until I saw her writing what looked like jawi into her lecture notes. Hehehe if you knew me well enough, you can imagine how that got my attention! I still remember how Shafidah used to teach me how to write simple jawi sentences in Standard 1. Wahahaha good times!

But it turns out I was wrong and she wasn't writing jawi -- she was writing farsi. WAH. EVEN COOLER. Please note that by "cool", I never actually mean sunglasses-wearing, motorcyle-riding, leather-jacket donning, sizzling hot bad boys -- I speak only as a language-loving, annoyingly bubbly enthusiast who persists on seeing the wow-factor in everything. To me, seeing the written word of farsi for the first time was very, very interesting.

By the way, farsi is what they call the Persian language, used in Iran, Afghanistan, etc.. My mum tells me that it's a really old language. Doesn't that just make it even more appealing? Hahaha -- ya ya, I know I'm supposed to learn Mandarin before thinking about other languages.

Do you want to know something about Leila that's so admirable? She only started learning English in late 2004, and she's using the language as a medium for her legal education already. Wow, that's just amazing. If you threw me into a Chinese-speaking education system three years from now, I can guarantee you that I would not last two hours.

In my opinion, the only kind of friend that's even better than the kind who makes you laugh, is the kind who makes you learn. :]

Haha, and within five days, I think I've learnt to speak more farsi than Mandarin. -_-"

Back to the point -- I had a great-grandmother who was mixed, very beautiful, and had blue eyes. Guess what her blood was mixed with? Chinese and PERSIAN! Wahahahahhaa.

Well, actually we're not sure if it's Persian or Turkish -- but geographically, Persia is closer to China. And they ruled so much of the world once, they probably have offspring all over the place. :]

LEILA, we could have the same ancestors! HAHAHAHAH!

Yes lah, I know there are no more physical characteristics to be inherited (you want blue eyes, can get coloured contacts!) since I'm 99.999999% Chinese. But it's so satisfying to know about your own lineage, and all the gorgeous history that comes with it. My great-grandparents (not the same as the blue-eyed one) were nyonya also what - but we (the modern generation of my family) don't wear sarong, call each other baba nyonya, or speak Malay all the time.

So, everyone, go and find out about your ancestors! :] Trust me, if you dig a little deeper, it's amazing how much you can uncover -- and how good it feels to know a bit more about how you came to be. :]

After all, there isn't a better place to start "finding yourself" than at the beginning.

And while you're at that, see if you can figure out how this skilled guy could remove the entire coconut husk in under a minute, while leaving the white part of the coconut intact!

all the saints are marching in

2007-03-01T18:13:00.000-08:00

Memorably enough, that was the very first song I learnt to play. :]

Ah, I must confess, I do miss the good ol' piano-learning days when my uncle used to pull my ponytail when I didn't concentrate during lessons. Haha. That's the problem when family members try to teach you something -- especially technical things.

But apart from that, I just discovered that my law class now has a blog! Hehehe! If you've got a couple of minutes to spare, do check out The Rule of Law! :]

All right, that's it for now! :] Have an excellent weekend, everyone!

P.S: An interesting point to note: my Contract law lecturer said that we should always be wary around people who "use adjectives lavishly". Hehehe. Don't believe everything advertised on TV, people! Especially the actual size of the KFC "variety bucket" hahahahahha! One small child said loudly in KFC Atria: "Eh Mummy, where's the rest?" when given his order.

what's your blogging personality?

2007-02-23T04:10:00.001-08:00

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You've got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don't care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

What's" Your Blogging Personality?

Wow, spot on! Well, about the 'perfectionist' bit anyway, hahaha.

Got the quiz off Junie's blog. :]

Nice one, cherry-pie!

first year law students

2007-02-22T04:25:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

A couple of snapshots I found on Blackboard, courtesy of Dr Martha-Marie Kleinhans (in far right of pic, wearing a red shawl) from the University of Reading. :]

Finally, a picture of my whole cohort (class)!

The photo above doesn't really show all my classmates, though. We had lots of people coming and leaving in the first couple of weeks, but there are 28 students in my class now.

And the new Taylor's University College sign. Hahaha. Yes, I'm still studying at the same campus as when I took SAM!

Hehe. Look on the bright side. Thank goodness, really, otherwise I'd have to struggle with finding my way around, on top of trying to keep up with schoolwork.

Alright, have a good weekend, my friends! :]

monthly reunion #1

2007-02-21T04:28:00.000-08:00

gong hei fatt choi

2007-02-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

The things I love most about Chinese New Year, every year:

#1: The big family reunions, like on the eve of CNY when my paternal grandmother will cook her best dishes and my close extended family will all get together for dinner.

#2: The SNACKS. Sadly, every year there seems to be less biscuits, cookies, tarts, etc... :(

#3: Wearing the most colourful clothes!

#4: Lion dances!

#5: Lou yee sang!

#6: Last but not least, the atmosphere of noisy & excited Chinese families :]

bye bye birdie

2007-02-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

Now imagine me reading this entire entry aloud in the most melancholic tone you can think of.

We had a small farewell party for Denise on Friday night at a quaint un-walled restaurant called 1920's at 1-Utama.

Food was great ...

Company was fantastic ...

But none of it changed the fact that one of my best friends is leaving for Adelaide tomorrow night (Wednesday). T_T

I'm going to miss your silly smile so much DE!!

Knock 'em socks off in Aussie!! ;P

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

2007-02-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

The holidays are here!

I just wanted to drop a quick note wishing all of you a happy belated Valentine's & a HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!

Enjoy yourselves to the fullest! :]

the peri-peri flavours of lively friendship

2007-02-09T11:14:00.000-08:00

the surprise party!

2007-02-05T01:54:00.000-08:00

So today Mei Chieng left uni early (thereby skipping GPL) out of "tiredness" a.k.a. laziness (no, seriously!) -- but little did she know, boy, did we have a surprise in store for her ;P ...

First, Tse Mun came to pick me up from my house after school (haha, ya, my uni is considered school because, well, law school) -- which I had to drive home from, no thanks to Mei Chieng -- but anyway, good lah, I get to practise my driving ... god knows I need all the practise I can get!

I think it's so awesome that two of my best friends (Mun & Besh) have the same type of car as me -- all hail the Perodua Myvi! :] One day I have got to try to get all three of our cars parked together in a row and take a photograph. Whoaaar! Hehehehe.

The inside of Tse Mun's car smells like 'yok kuon'. HAHAHHAHA. Serious!!

Anyway, so, Mun drove me & Jiayueh to Mei Chieng's house ... and ...

HAHAHAHA ... a surprise belated birthday party for Bumbleduck Minor Lee Mei Chieng! Ask me no questions about the Bumbleduck Minor thing and I shall tell you no lies. :]

Besides publicly announcing that one of my closest classmates in law school has finally turned 18 (only now are we of the same age!) -- here are some pictures of my classmates! Fahmida! She's from Bangladesh! How cool is that! :] Hahaha ...

Leila from Iran & Suubi from Nigeria! :] Yes, they all deserve exclamation marks. These are really interesting countries, people! I can't wait to learn all about their cultures and stuff.

PLUS I've never been to Bangladesh, Iran or Nigeria. Korean Air doesn't fly there, I think, hahahahaha!

Of course, I musn't forget about my good ol' local comrades either! :]

Far left is Faan Jin in white, cutesy little Eva in baby blue, the hilarious Audrey Victoria Samuel on her shoulder, Sober (actually his name is Wei Jie, but we've been asked to call him Sober instead... so... play along lah :]) in blood red, Ken Hou in blue at the back, yours truly in brown taking up way too much space in front & Fahmida from Bangladesh! Wooohooo! :]

And Joanne, our class rep, is taking the picture! I must do her justice for her noble I'll-take-the-picture-you-go-in! selflessness, so here's another picture, with her in it! :]

P.S: More pictures later when Sober sends me the rest. :]

pictures, not a thousand words

2007-02-03T03:57:00.000-08:00

CNY is drawing closer! :]

In a festive spirit, I shall post some photos that I've finally uploaded on to my computer. I also realised that I haven't been posting pictures for quite a while now, and I'm sure you're getting bored with words and more words. Hehehe!

Girls (left to right): Ee Ning, Mei Chieng, Faan Jin, Angelina.

Boys: Teck Han (in purple) & Dennis (in pink).

Ooh these two lovely ladies are half of my study group - the other half: me & Mei Chieng.

Faan Jin (Jin, for short :]) also took SAM last year! She took all the engineering subjects in SAM, hehe -- this is what people call "jump ship" from one stream to the other.

Rachel, on the other hand, took A-Levels in U TAR, and completed a semester of Australian law in KDU already -- she's a year older than me and Jin. So cool lah, how everyone in my class are of different ages, eventhough the wider majority of us are turning 19 this year.

On other news, I got a haircut! A far cry from the horror-movie, rebonded, eerily straight hair I had -- it is now much shorter & definitely more manageable. :P Denise and Carmen, got pic below -- happy now? :]

I have also discovered the joy of sunglasses. Hehehe. Yes, yes, I know I look like a cartoon. :/

And now, to end this blog entry with a display of my attempt at artistic photography (heheheheheh)... here you go ... my eyeball. HAHAHAHHAHAHAH.

Ok ok blog again soon. Take good care of yourselves, my friends! :]

my american idol

2007-02-01T04:10:00.000-08:00

Regardless of who wins the 'American Idol' competition this year, I've already found mine on today's episode -- from Birmingham, Alabama: a 64-year-old man with a lovely voice, who sang "You Belong To Me" in tribute to his wife, the love of his life for 20 years, who just passed away of cancer.

I hope his tale, and this song, touches you, too.

"You Belong To Me"

See The Pyramids

Along the Nile

Watch the sun rise

On a tropic isle

Just remember darling

All the while

You belong to me ...

See the market place

In old Algiers

Send me photographs

And souvenirs

Just remember

'Til your dream appears

You belong to me ....

I'll be so alone

Without you

Maybe You'll be lonesome, too

Maybe You'll be lonesome too

And blue

Fly the ocean

In a silver plane

See the jungle

When its wet with rain

Just remember

Till you're home again

Or until I come home to you

You belong to me ...

P.S: I found 2 versions of the song on Ares -- one by Lifehouse (alternative) and another by Patsy Cline (country). Do listen to either versions!

P.S: These past few days, I find myself missing the Malay language more and more. Hahaha! I know that most of my friends hate learning it, never use it & rejoice in not having to study it anymore -- but... I'm actually not conforming in this case. I miss it. Really. To date, I have spent 11 years learning the Malay language -- from age 7 to 18; and I loved every minute of it. Maybe I'm feeling the pangs because I took it as a subject in SAM, and now I'm not studying it anymore in my L.L.B. (Hons) course.

But -- good thing is, Malaysian lawyers use Malay as the official language in courtrooms. Yay. :]

chop chop!

2007-01-29T06:08:00.000-08:00

My classes only start at 1.30pm tomorrow. -_-

Wouldn't it be better if it started earlier in the day, thereby ending earlier & giving me the whole class the liberty to do as we please for the rest of the day?

Mmm... I think I'll share an interesting note here, while waiting for my Blackboard (virtual learning environment) pages to load.

During orientation, my Tort Law lecturer, Ms Angeline, asked everyone in class why they decided to study law. Almost everyone answered along the lines of money, glamour, because-got-no-maths, don't-want-to-take-science ...

(I gave some rubbish answer that's actually not worth mentioning & completely irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make, but if you want to know -- I said that I wanted to challenge myself or something. So not true! I find risks and challenges positively disdainful. Hahahahah.)

But, anyway, you know, I can't resist commenting about the 'glamour' bit, because before this I might've gone "Hmm. Maybe." -- but now that I've actually subjected myself to gobble up law texts day in and day out -- I can honestly say that it isn't quite the slice of apple pie people seem to think it is.

And Ms Angeline said that lawyers in Malaysia make no money. HAHAHA.

So, really, what accurately describes the study of law? Dusty, bookwormed, ratty?... synonymous with the description of any old library book, hahaha ...

It is, of course, nice to think that everyone who posted a message on my tagboard feels that I'm enjoying myself thoroughly in law school -- thanks for tagging, by the way! :] -- although it really is more of a mixture of agony & excitement, rather than just all fun and games.

But then again, it's the hard bits that make the good parts extra-good. :P

P.S: Oh yeah, the title is "chop chop!" because I got a bit of an extreme haircut today! Hahahaha! Rick from Sense Studio is an absolute darling -- my hair is about a good six inches shorter. :] So happy. Next time, I'll cut it even shorter. :P

prying open those eyelids

2007-01-26T22:32:00.000-08:00

I feel like I have been walking around with my eyes closed for the longest time.

Why, you ask?

Learning law is such an eye-opener.

Maybe most of the stuff I've been learning in the past two weeks is still pretty basic, but for me, I feel like I've just taken a leap into a whole new dimension of mumbo-jumbo Latin terms, past cases of significance, and ... well, how the world chugs on without chaos erupting over every inch of earth.

Think about how different, and how terrible life would be, if we lived in a lawless society. Whoaaar.

"The law is reason, free from passion." - Aristotle

2007-01-19T23:41:00.000-08:00

Even if the quote wasn't all that famous before, "Legally Blonde" sure made it so. ;P

I'm so thankful the weekend's finally here, my mere first week at law school has been both fascinating and awfully tiring.

Contrary to what was previously stipulated about the first year academic calender, it turns out my cohort (Cohort 2) does not complete first year within 6 months, followed by a 2-month holiday. Instead, we follow the usual academic calender -- whereby which we forfeit the 2-month holiday. All this is because we start First Year in January 2007 instead of October 2006, like Cohort 1.

In simpler terms: I study long time (8 or 9 months), then get very very short holiday, then straightaway continue to second year.

Okay, besides that, I thought I'd blog a brief update about the 2 groups of people soon to play larger roles in my university life:

1) Classmates in Cohort 2
2) Lecturers

In the case of my classmates, they're a bunch of friendly, enthusiastic & definitely well-read individuals. Of course, I don't know them well yet, but that's the Week 1 impression.

One of the interesting things about my cohort as a whole, is that the majority of them are not really local people. Out of 27 students (small cohort, I know) -- half a dozen are from Sarawak, and we've got some international students from Iran, Nigeria, Kenya, Jakarta, etc.. A pretty diverse group -- and only a couple of people from Subang, and the rest from Klang Valley or other parts of the peninsular. :]

Oh, and practically everybody speaks Mandarin. T_T

Well, now on to my lecturers.

For Criminal Law, we've got Mr Bala (sometimes Ms Sarah, the Head of the Law programme, fills in). Ms Sunitha teaches my class both Legal Skills & Contract Law, while Ms Angeline Low lectures Law of Tort. And last but not least, Mr Joseph Lai teaches us General Principles of Law (GPL). At the moment, this subject is by far the easiest to understand; especially compared to speedy Tort lectures and baffling Criminal classes.

Our textbooks are ridiculously thick (I'm talking thicker than the thickest Harry Potter books!) and absurdly expensive. Law school literally torches holes in your pockets, and I'm talking in terms of reading material alone.

I can't imagine how much money it would have cost my parents if I had decided to go overseas directly instead of taking up a twinning programme. o_O

That's all for now, have a good weekend! :]

carrying a tune in a leaking bucket

2007-01-13T05:49:00.000-08:00

Only 35 hours away from law school, I've been feeling inspired.

And when I feel inspired, I try to learn new things. In today's case, songs I've always loved but could never sing. And in case you don't know me all that well, I have to take the care to explain myself here:

I cannot carry a tune in a bucket. i.e.: I cannot sing.

And I'm not one of those modest but brilliant young talents who say, "Ah, gee, you're buttering me up -- I can't sing, really" -- when I say I can't sing, I kid you not!

I'm the kind of person who remembers a tune for about five minutes, and as soon as I do something else -- like watch a TV show, or pour a glass of water to drink -- and then try to sing it again, it's gone. Just like that. Tunes have a tendency to just throw themselves out of my nostrils or something.

So, back to the story, today I tried to learn up "You're So Vain" when I was watching "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days" -- just the first couple of verses, because I know that if I try to push it, nothing's going to stay in. So I jumped around the house all day singing :

You walked into the party

Like you were walking onto a yacht

Your hat strategically dipped below one eye

Your scarf it was apricot

You had one eye in the mirror

As you watched yourself gavotte

And all the girls dreamed that

they'd be your partner

They'd be your partner, and

You're so vain

You probably think this song is about you

You're so vain

I'll bet you think this song is about you

Don't you?

After I unleashed my vocal terrors while leaping over the fresh green garden grass, guess what happened?

Rain. Thunder, lightning, the works. :/

Besides being teased by the skies (goodness, the folks up there really DO listen -- sorry for the bad music!), I experienced one of the most painfully helpless mornings of my life today. I woke up, only to see that I had just lost RM 250.

HAHA no, no I didn't get robbed, mugged or conned -- and the Chinese way to look at it would be that "it was never mine to begin with" and the matured way would be to think "ah, you didn't earn it anyway"... but STILL ... I wish I woke up at 8am to see that SMS on time -- but I didn't. I woke up at 12pm and dearest Ting who gave me the opportunity to receive extra money in the first place, had already enrolled for Biomedical Sciences at Taylor's Uni, without taking advantage of the SGS (Student-get-Student) scheme.

T_T

So, nobody got the RM 500. Taylor's got to keep it.

Aaaaaaaargh. All because I didn't wake up before she enrolled.

Moral of the story: DON'T WAKE UP SO LATE! You never know what you could have missed out on!

I shouldn't have slept so late -- I planned on sleeping by 2am, at the very latest -- but then Midsomer Murders: Destroying Angel came on Hallmark, and I was captivated! Really good episode -- do catch it if you can! And ladies, keep an eye out for a certain cook named Tristan. Heehee.

Not sure if even his godlike good looks were worth two hundred and fifty ringgit, though. :/

P.S: Okay going to reply some tags here.

Chia Wen, I already tried replacing the URLs with the new banner link from imageshack into the template -- empty boxes appeared. I tried again and again, alas, to no avail! Haha do help me if you have time!

And Mr Pinkfrog, shoot my profile? Pardon? Like with pictures? ooh I bug you about that again in a few months ya! :] What is your real name anyway? So I can stop calling you Mr Pinkfrog or Pinkfrog. Hahahahahahahahah.

Joolia -- don't so hak hei can anot. Just because you come to my house doesn't mean you have to give me things! Aiya don't so old-fashioned can ah! Hehe but I still love you yennie bunny!

Mei Lin -- Mei Chieng's car is pimped up? HEHEHEHE I look forward to it! I swear all I saw was the vast family car filled with her mum, cousins + grandmother. Hehehe.

Thanks for tagging, everyone! :] You know I love it!

baby steps

2007-01-12T01:27:00.000-08:00

Words cannot possibly describe how bloody excited I am right now. I mean, law school officially starts in less than 60 hours. And these are my subjects for first year...

LSP 1: Legal Skills

LW 1A 01: Law of Contract

LW 1A 02: Criminal Law

LW 1A 03: General Principles of Law

LW 1A 04: Law of Tort

LW 1A 71: Writing Credit L1

And this is just the first step to all the things I will learn and experience in law school! :]

All these years of dreaming and waiting and working and praying ...

it's finally happening.

Law school.

Two words so beautiful that they sound almost atrocious.

More beautiful than say, "nasi lemak" or "prawn mee" or "egg tarts" or "chee cheong fun". Of course, that last one is made up of three words.

Law school. Delicious. :P

By the way, I found this guy's gorgeous blog that you should check out when you're free -- I have no idea how people take photos like those. Sigh! It's a Mr Pinkfrog's blog -- his pictures are so bloody good. I can't even put up an alternative banner on my blog without running crying to Mae and Chia.

T_T I'm so useless.

The other thing I wanted to blog about is how much I'm going to miss taking the bus. It's only for a few months, because Mei Chieng (I'm hopping on to her car instead of the bus) will probably be doing a 1+2 instead of the 2+1 I've set my mind to doing ... but by then, all my A-levels friends will have finished their course and won't take the bus anymore anyway. And the whole point of the "bus buddy experience" was seeing my A-Levels friends.

Good thing is, I don't have to take in wave after wave of poisonous carbon monoxide if we get the non-aircond bus, i.e. no aircond = open windows -- and I can carry extra things to university if I need to: you don't get nearly so much space on the bus.

A new year, a new experience, after all. :]

"The Last Sleepover"

2007-01-10T22:13:00.000-08:00

"The funniest thing about sleepovers
is that you actually get less sleep in
than you would on an ordinary night."

Vanessa has this theory that starting uni = the end of our lives,
so we had to have "The Last Sleepover".
Haha! I think the idea is absurd, starting university, in my opinion,
is the beginning of the rest of our lives. Really, now!

The sleepover was a blast to the future, of course, in terms of the feast we laid out that was enough to feed a family of six for a week -- Zinger Maxx, Domino's thin-crust pizza (extravaganza & tandoori chicken flavours), hot dog sandwiches, muruku, mango jelly with nata de coco, Jackers crisps, Twisties BBQ-flavoured, orange-flavoured Nutrigen, TESCO Cola (just as good as Coca-Cola! and loads cheaper, haha!), kaya puffs ...

Hungry yet? :]

Anyway, we only slept at 7am! We watched "John Tucker Must Die" (I laughed SO MUCH!), "Step Up" (aweeesome dance moves), "House of Flying Daggers" (unrealistic, and I still don't get what the hype was all about!), and "The Hot Chick" (wa wa wa so FUNNY!).

It was really a 34-hour sleepover, because the next day we were so engrossed in playing Mastermind (I lost), Scrabble (I lost again), and Monopoly (I came in 2nd... out of 2 players! hahaha) that she only left at about 8pm.

HOHOHO I enjoyed myself so much!!

By the way, does anyone know how to change the background image on my blog? I altered the banner using photoshop, and I've been trying to switch the images, but I can't... so someone help me! T_T

Pic above: what would have been my new blog banner, if I didn't have such absolutely cowdung techno skills.

reviewing 2006

2007-01-07T08:10:00.000-08:00

*Edit: By the way!! I forgot to update on a previous post -- yes, Mei Chieng is going to Reading/Taylor's Law School too!!!!! YAYY! And I signed the Student-get-Student scheme with her on Saturday, so we're both RM250 richer heheheh!*

I discovered this survey on Ting's foodfamily blog, and decided to do it -- adepao did say that it's useful to "recall moments in 2006" hehe ... so here goes ...

glad to see 2006 go?
in a way, because that means I finish college and get to go to LAW SCHOOL! woooot!

age turned in 2006?
eighteen! the age when everything, minus voting, becomes legal!

did u change ur hair in 2006? how?
straightened it & got a few highlights done by my dad :] save money mar!

the best part of year 2006?
the college experience, hands down. I definitely grew up a lot in '06.

the worst part of year 2006?
stressful assignments. eurgh. but i learnt a lot there too. guess we all need the hard times to appreciate the good, ey?

a new crush in year 2006? who?
heehee. who actually answers this question on the internet?

who will you never forget?
well, all the awesome friends i've made this year! :] you know who you are.

who do you wish you did not meet?
look at it this way: if i hadn't met the crap people, i wouldn't have been able to see the glorifying good in all the people who aren't made out of cowdung. ;P

did you have a boyfriend in year 2006?
nope... aihs. and this coming from someone who hopes to be married by 25.

did u fall in love in 2006?
if with KFC's zinger maxx, then yes!! :] and OMG prawn mee from restoran gembira...

did you catch someone in a lie in 2006?
hmm ... if i did, i can't remember. but i'm not seng mok enough to catch people lying, haha.

did you call them out?
i wouldn't, if i caught them... must jaga their muka mah... later they take parang and come and avenge their air muka then how??

did you get caught in a lie? what was it?
i hope not! hahah!

funniest moment of 2006?
goodness so bloody many funny moments -- if they were all taped up nicely then i could choose, but now i don't remember them already... T_T

most embarrasing moment in 2006?
i can remember the most embarassing moment of 2005 la... only Vanessa knows it, involving the incident outside a church & in front of CCTV cameras... *ROTFL* ... and for 2006, i suppose it would be either me brandishing a KOTEX pantyliner packet in front of people to pass to another girl, or walking down escalators in 1U too loudly that the whole JUSCO floor turns and stares at me. -_-" but it doesnt matter la, i have thicker skin than that! :]

did you take any vacations in 2006? where?
just the one -- korea! :]

any new hobbies of 2006?
exploring new places :]

did you get a new job in 2006?
hehe, i'm one of those lazy bums who don't believe in working before my time. i'm going to spend the rest of my life working, so why would i want to take time out of my precious youth to do it too?

did you lose a job in year 2006?
how la can i lose a job if i never got a job?

did you host a party in 2006?
yeahhh my birthday party hahahah. but damn, i really don't like hosting parties. too much running around and layan-ing people. i prefer going to other people's parties, hehehe! ooh ooh and I threw a little party for An Nie's birthday a couple of weeks ago. :] Starring Domino's delicious thin-crust pizza!

where did most of your money go?
one word: food. Hehehehe! Or photocopying things for college purposes. Yeah, probably that.

what song will always remind you of year 2006?
High School musical's "What I've Been Looking For" because a few of my classmates performed it for graduation, so they rehearsed it a lot in class!

what do you wish you'd done more of?
umm... studying... hhahahahah... but I'm already pretty happy with my exam results, so ... I'll bet even if I turned back time, I'd still dilly-dally with studying. Haha.

what do you wish you'd done less of?
less time watching TV. yups.

biggest achievement in 2006?
definitely my exam results. haven't done so well in exams since PMR! :]

biggest failure in 2006?
didn't attempt anything new, so what could I fail at? hahaha!

in 2006, did you lie to miss a day of work/school?
I didn't even miss a day of school, except for half a day when I went for my driving test! Hehe such a good girl.

did you move in 2006?
Nono. I moved in 2004. and even then, merely across the road. hehehe!

did you wish on a shooting star in 2006?
Malaysia can see shooting star wan meh??

what was your greatest musical discovery?
My own: I discovered I cannot carry a tune in a bucket.
Other people's: Lindsay Lohan and High School Musical.

what was the best book you read?
Gosh. I don't think I read any books this year besides schoolbooks.

what was your favourite movie of the year?
CLICK! who doesn't love adam sandler?

what did you want in 2006 and got?
TER above 96! :]

what did you want in 2006 and didn't get?
a personal assistant. i knew i should've placed an advert in The Star! HAHAHAHAH

did you get caught making out in public in 2006?
Do you know people can get thrown in jail for PDA in this country?? Hahaha!

what's the ringer on your cellphone?
the sony ericsson "bells" one. very christmassy. :]

who did you miss?
my friends who have gone to diff colleges/countries... and my dad, when he's working...

who was the best new person you met?
An Nie darliiiing. :] But of course, I loved meeting everyone!

did you drink too much in 2006?
I don't drink, haha.

your favourite commercial of 2006?
the astro "what you view will change your view of life" one where the schoolteacher says she learns from the kids, the one staged in my parents' old school, V.I.! :] And for movie commercials, I simply LOVED the simpsons' movie commercial! Really funny! I want to watch the movie!

something you couldn't leave home without in 2006?
wallet. yesh the absurdly pink one my daddy got me! no, i'm not one of those girls who like everything pink ... i'm okay with all colours. must be fair to them! hahaha!

how did you spend new year's 2006?
oh goodness i don't remember!

valentine's day 2006?
I think we had college that day. Well as usual everyone exchanged presents! So sweet la some of my college mates. :]

easter 2006?
I was supposed to go for this Easter play at PJEFC ... but I couldn't make it! Went out with my parents instead or something... hmm I forgot. Hahah.

halloween 2006?
this survey is beginning to make me feel like i haven't got an adequate party life. Ish. I didn't do anything! I hope I get to have some fun for this year's Halloween!

christmas 2006?
spent x'mas with family... didn't do anything special.

your birthday?
finally something i can give a substantial answer to! threw a massive party at my place, complete with catering & a hefty guest list! :] yay heheehehehe

how did you to usher in the new year?
rewatched my favourite DVDs in the comfort of home... ahh... :] hopefully can do something wild and fun for new year's 2008!

tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006?
work hard and be consistent in your work because you WILL reap the rewards, but take it easy and don't put too much pressure on yourself. :]

-end-

Hmm... not as good a survey as I initially thought it was. Bah, don't bother doing it unless you've got heaps of spare time on your hands. Or unless you want to alter and jazz it up a little. :]

Toooodles for now!

"Do Taller People Get Bigger Paychecks?"

2007-01-07T07:38:00.000-08:00

Haha I saw this on MSN Today, and people, you have got to check this article out!

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/custom/msn/careeradvice/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=910&SiteId=cbmsnsl4910&sc_extcmp=JS_910_spotlight&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=c9636819cf5a4d0eb0fbb1241b496e34-221480962-X2-2

If you're too damn lazy to read the whole article, I'll tell you what it's about: the writer basically said that tall people get bigger paychecks. Hahaha and if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll find this:

*Wondering how you stack up? According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the average height of American men is 5 feet, 9 inches, and the average height of American women is 5 feet, 4 inches.*

It's an American statistic, so by Asian standards we'd realistically have to knock a few inches off both figures... hence, don't hold anything by the article, hehe, it's just an interesting read.

By the way, hohoh, I'm 5 feet, 6inches, although that doesn't make me spectacularly tall enough to be more successful than anyone else... How about you? :]

old blog (no longer in use)

blogger screwed

Yellow Ribbon project

hello, birthday, and goodbye

just for fun

Which Sex and the City Character Are You?

Which College Major Should You Be?

Which Friends Character Are You?

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Which Harry Potter Character Are You?

What City Should You Live In?

What Kind of Guy Will You Fall For?

holiday activities!

final exams finally over!

what lies in reading with a capital R

facebook

lucky

hello hello

poem

on a whim

petrified

potter-rific!

an awakening

Countdown to the legacy

the (other) memoirs of june & july

the memoirs of june & july

do something about it

bring madeleine home

merdeka specials

fast food high

some morrocan magic

let's just play pretend

may I ask why?

just in

a weekend twist of fate

five things

a dose of sunday humour

the joys of shrek 3 & the sorrows of adieu

milestones and farewells

this is her now

the strangest things

Hilariously informative

too cute

introducing stretchy-la-la

word of mouth alone??

international students' party 2007

mini cooper fantasies

making up for lost time

precious home

Virginia Tech massacre

Parliamentary yawns

'tis the season to be jolly

69 questions

reincarnation, anyone?

nothing-better-to-do quizzes

and i'll see you in court

the written word of farsi

all the saints are marching in

what's your blogging personality?

first year law students

monthly reunion #1

gong hei fatt choi

bye bye birdie

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

the peri-peri flavours of lively friendship

the surprise party!

pictures, not a thousand words

my american idol

chop chop!

prying open those eyelids

"The law is reason, free from passion." - Aristotle

carrying a tune in a leaking bucket

baby steps

"The Last Sleepover"

reviewing 2006

"Do Taller People Get Bigger Paychecks?"