[DON'T] get it started...

learning and going to class can be fun, to a certain extent.

definition: a certain extent, below the threshold or the limit.

a week has almost gone by, and the classes are getting crazier and crazier. other than my math class, my intro to engineering class and intro to computing systems class are becoming increasingly unfathomable.

but then again that's because i'm probably lagging behind in readings. which is where the 3-day labour day weekend comes in this week, 2 of which will be spent in chicago, and i guess that leaves me with the whole of monday to play catch up. how very fun.









+listening to: dani california by red hot chili peppers

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first day of class

the fall semester has official begun. and with it came the change of seasons. a perfectly sunny morning outside was a freezing 13 degrees C, and there i was walking to class with my ass frozen wearing a t-shirt and bermudas. smart choice.

the three-hour ECE110 lab got canceled much to my relief, so i had literally nothing to do till 2 pm. that was also when the fun started, with 2 highly entertaining lectures and then followed by a meet-n-greet/barbeque at the engineering quad.

by the time the barbeque concluded, it was 6.30 pm but that wasn't the end of the day yet. there was one more finale to the day: English 104 - introduction to film.

it was one of the electives which i desperately wanted to get into, and i'm really glad i got a spot in the class. today was also the inaugural weekly screening session, where we enjoyed the film north by northwest directed by alfred hitchcock. it was definitley a breath of fresh air from all the techincally challenging engineering and math courses and i can really see myself looking forward to every monday instead of dreading it.

i've been thinking about a challenge that someone's posted recently: go to bed every night feeling exhausted.

it's not about being tired all day and feeling sleepy. it's about having spent your day with a purpose, knowing that you have put your heart and soul into however short amount of time you have, going to bed knowing that you'll be fully recharged when you open your eyes again, and doing the same thing all over again.

and i dare say, today was one of those days that i spent with a purpose in mind, where i paid attention to every single word the lecturers had to say, and i opened my eyes and mind to everything around me and took it all in.

today i feel exhausted.


+listening to: bold as love by jimi hendrix

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it's not just about fun and games

today was both fun and enriching. the past few days has been an absolute blast of fun, fun and more fun.

there was the late-nighter at the union: basically a night of fun and games consisting of comedians, hypnosis shows, rock-climbing, deal or no deal, caricature drawing and movies. of course there's the incessant free pizzas, popcorn, hotdogs, drinks, freebies, ipod giveaways, you name it.

and today was the "welcome back" campus bloc party: it was just a cornucopia of (again) free food, really interesting sports-oriented games you usually see at amusement parks like reverse bungee, and a variety of sports, plus a dive-in movie at the outdoor pool.

a bunch of us freshmen from my floor got together and headed to the bloc party, probably thinking about scoring some freebies and having a hell of a time and nothing else - which we eventually did. there was the free t-shirts, free beads, free domino's pizza, free smoothies, and we got to go on all the really fun games like dodge ball on an inflated cushion, basketball shootouts, etc.

and then as we ventured through the activities and recreation center (arc in short, best in the states!), we arrived at one of the many basketball courts in the basement. and there was apparently the school wheelchair basketball teams training/openhouse. we were initally sort of just standing there drawn to their amazing skills, but after just a few minutes we were certain that we wanted to try it out.

to be honest, i've only seen people it on tv a couple of times, and i'm surprised at myself for wanting to give it a shot. i guess i just went with the flow. so as we each grabbed a wheelchair and tried to manuvre ourselves on the sidelines while making great conversations with the team members, something dawned on me: we were treating them like their disabilities were non-existent. there was no barrier, just one human being to another.

that was perhaps one of the most humbling moments in my life as far as i could remember. walking in someone else's shoes gave me a fresh perspective, perhaps one which i should have started out with in the first place. i have noticed people with disabilities before, but they were just around and not AROUND. i've seen them at corners of the street waiting to cross the road, i've seen them pass by me. but those were fleeting observations; trivial; at the back of my mind.

but when i played wheelchair basketball with them today, i saw it from their eye-level. how the normal basketball hoop just seemed that much taller; and literally how down-to-earth each and everyone of them are. and i think it's not just me who was humbled - me and the guys went around for a second round, and then a third round.

these men and women are also representatives of the fighting illini, a name that is perhaps more suited to them than their able-bodied counterparts in the various sports; they are no different than us, perhaps even more resilient. it was truly one of those really inspiring moments in life, and it leaves much to be savoured afterwards.


+listening to: tom sawyer by rush

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sweet 200

wow, this is my 200th post already. let's make it an eye candy =)

one of the many bookstores on campus

one of the many shops surrounding the union

diagonal pedestrian crossing, you don't have to cross twice!

this is the uh... i don't know what this is.

another one i don't know

sorority <3

kappa kappa... wha?

frat party... yall

the underground, undergrad libarary

agricultural something...

school of something

the picnic ground on campus

the cemetery, yep on campus too

soft-serve with tonnes of condiments, i could have nothing but this for lunch everyday O.O

i was really full, like REALLY FULL

there is always room for desert after dinner

i have no idea what these are

make your own taco!

salads i think

coffee or tea, or something else

what kinda cereal you want for breakfast?

random shot at the basement pantry of the undergrad library

+listening to: us and them by dream theater

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safe and sound... and kicking

finally had a breather since all the madness that ensued after the safe touch down on sunday, or monday if you are in the GMT +8 time zone. the flight and the bus ride was killer though, it's like right after a 15 hr flight and then straight to a 3 and a half hour bus ride to school. urgh.

first impressions are definitely a-okay, the food is awesome, but i suspect i'll get sick of it at some point. it's all about being bigger, faster, stronger and better over here. you see that in every facet of life.

b&j at the airport before i leave...

pizza by the slice at antonio's

random bus stop

my crib lookin in from the door

reverse angle

the view from my crib

+listening to: the sound of wind rushing through the window

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unexpected visitor

have you ever seen a real firefly upclose, like UPCLOSE?
neither have i... until yesterday.

so i walked into my room after dinner and i saw this phantom light thingy on my table and i freaked out. okay maybe not totally freaked out, but i thought maybe my dad had swapped my optical mouse (which had the typical red laser thingy on the bottom) for his (which had a green glow).


and so i turned on the light and saw that my mouse was still where it had been, and this little fellow was just sitting on my table motionless.


and so i used a pen and tried to poke it a little, and it just moved a few steps and settled down again. and so i got more bold and flipped it over. and voila!


omfgwtfbbq!!! i've never seen something so freakishly wicked in my life! two V shaped strips of fluorescent sweetness. at this juncture i thought about what a horde of these little creatures could be saying to me, maybe something like:

all your base are belong to us... muahaha

ok that's it for now. tonight those damn bokkes are going DOWN.



+listening to: going down by G3

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time to think

these couple of days have been absolute peace compared to the turbulent past couple of weeks, the frenzied shuttling from places to places, the incessant but never finished to-do lists, the endless shopping trips, and the annoying but necessary placement testings that needed to be done before school starts.

so i have had the luxury of really sitting down and doing nothing. and just think, about anything and everything there is. i wasn't thinking about anything in particular, but rather about the greater scheme of things.

where do we come from? why are we here?

i've been looking at this picture a lot since i came across it 2 days ago:


it is a photo (click for high res.) taken by the aging hubble telescope as it completed its recent 100,000th orbit. and somehow looking at it gave me a strange sense of serenity.

it's just that staring into the abyss makes me feel infinitely small, and i think i take comfort in knowing that no matter what i did in this life, no matter how it turns out in the end, it would be infinitely minuscule compared to the great beyond.

that doesn't mean that i would give up trying to do good things and being a good person, it just gives me that confidence to venture into whatever unfamiliar territories ahead. i would say dare to fail is the point of the whole realization/espisode or whatever you call it.

the peace before the storm somehow always seem the sweetest.


+listening to: neon by john mayer

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wth is wrong with my internet

okay posting this using the email blogging function, so i'm praying it works.

my internet's has suddenly decided that i'm not worthy. maybe it's because of the olympics and everyone watching the live streams online?

i wouldn't know, because i haven't watched much of the games, other than the dream team smashing china to bits (ouch!) and some swimming events, and oh fencing. it actually looked pretty exhilarating.

and now i shall go back to packing, 4 more days to go!

_________________________________________________________________
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the old bitch is the new bitch

damn, time runs like stink on shit.

it's time to start packing my bags again. which is one of my least favourite activities on this whole planet. and just after about a month since i last endured this soul-sucking activity.


to think that a week from now i'd be at the opposite end of the world (literally) is both mind boggling and scary. the new life would probably be both a joy and a bitch, but hopefully there will be a little bit more joy than bitch.

and today i learned about the ghastly fact that the engineering library on campus opens 24/7. i think that's also the only one to do so. it gave me much comfort in knowing that being an engineer would do wonders to my social life.

a typical undergrad's life would be something like:
classes, a bit of work, chill, sleep.

an engineering undergrad's life would be:
classes, more classes, work, more work.


i'm wondering if i've made the right choice? life's a bitch.


+listening to: temporary saint by gov't mule

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the olympics!!! (here we go again...)

an interesting phenomenon to note: shopping centers and just about everywhere else are closing early today so people could all flock home to watch the opening ceremony of the olympics.

this has never happened before. the last time all the shops closed before 10pm was probably when the japanese invaded during the second world war and took over the power stations.

anyways here's something funny while i was browsing casually through all the repetitive news headlines. it's a good thing that people still have a sense of humor (or maybe it was intended for real):


this probably happened after the french president nicolas sarkozy announced that he wouldn't be showing up at the opening ceremony over human rights issues.

oh by the way here's something even funnier:
http://thegidcumbs.com/dblog/archives/china-olympics-firing-squad-cartoon.jpg

but i don't really want to post it up here in fear of my blog being blacklisted by the government. it wouldn't be funny anymore if i can't even access my own blog. that would be the most embarrassing cop-out in history.


+listening to: masters of war by eddie vedder

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a sad sad day for league *sobs*

this has got to be the best piece of news all year: sonny bill williams has officially converted to rugby (union that is).

let me give you some analogies just to show you the magnitude of this unexpected piece of good news: sonny bill converting to union is akin to dan carter moving over to play league; or in the soccer world, it would be like cristiano ronaldo suddenly deciding he wanted to play futsal for a living.

now, a little rugby tidbit for those unknowing fools: the rugby universe exists as the rugby dichotomy. there's rugby union (the real deal) and then there's rugby league (or league in short, the not-so-real deal, ymmv).

if you must know more, here's a short lesson highlighting the main differences:


i never got how the league people think of themselves as THE only thing out there. they seem to think that rugby union doesn't exist. and somehow it is always okay for league to poach players from union, but the reverse is considered a taboo.

what the league fanatics don't realise is that besides the odd handful of them, no one really cares about rugby league, or have even heard of it. with rugby union being the international game it is, at least it has the potential to take on soccer, and crush league on the way to achieving that.

grow up, league lovers. go have a drink at your local pub and laugh yourselves silly at the six tackles rule. that's like calling your mommy when you can't win a fight fair and square. and what's with the stoppage every time a tackle is made? need to make sure you look goodie-two-shoes on tv?

now if you'll excuse me, i need to go play some rugby 08. oh i'm sorry, i totally forgot, it's union only.


+listening to: slow dancing in a burning room by john mayer

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le patriote

as i was casually scrolling through my playlist, the song patriot came up again.

I am a patriot, I love my country
Because my country is all I know
I wanna be with my family
People who understand me
I got no place else to go...
I am a patriot...

and i was thinking, i only just realised how close the olympics were to starting. because for the past couple of days i've been wandering the streets window shopping, and i see all these olympic merchandise being peddled everywhere.



and it struck me: one of the most watched sporting event is gonna be held in my country.

you see usually i don't give a flying hoot about olympics and whatnot. it has about the same overall aesthetic appeal to me as a giraffe's tongue. i'd rather be sitting on the couch on a fine saturday afternoon with a beer in one hand and the tv remote in the other enjoying a fine game of rugby being played out (okay save for the beer part).

i don't know what happened but something clicked inside and i did the only thing i know how to do best when feeling irrational: i went out and bought something, in this case a t-shirt:


there was also another version with a purely yellow/red colourway which reminded too much of the old chinese high chicken suit, so naturally i took a pass on that.

and for once, the made-in-china label seemed to be the logical choice - i wouldn't want to have it made anywhere else, in case some douchebag screws up the chinese characters or tries to put some hidden nazi message into the design.

so there you go. i guess that was my patriotic moment in a nutshell. now back to the olympics... what did i want to say again? argh i can't remember. bah.

oh and here's something funny related to nazis: behind the door of a toilet cubicle on a university campus, someone scribbled

"the Americans are the Nazis of the 20th century"

and below that someone else scribbled in red

"the Nazis are the Nazis of the 20th century you dumbf*ck"

+listening to: patriot by pearl jam

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battered and bruised

man i'm smashed. hammered. whatever u call it. i reek of alcohol, my piss smells like alcohol.

as you can probably see in the pic, at this juncture i wish someone would just shoot me in the head now. it feels like my skull has just shrunk 2 sizes and my brain is trying to bust out of it.

let me just do an overall summation before i completely lose my memory of today:

lunch
9 shots of 52% alcohol by volume chinese wine
2 bottles of beer

kbox
unfathomable number of pints of beer, between 5 people we downed 3 dozens

dinner
2 bottles of beer


this family reunion sure was fun, but it made me feel like crap physically. and it was noisy as HELL after all the gents (my 3 uncles, 3 cousins, 1 cousin in law, plus my dad) got piss drunk. and this is a whole new level of drunk from the chalet type of drunk. we're talking full grown men who love to drink here.

i was genuinely fearing for my life as i was forced to drink with them. it was also the first time i've actually seen my dad drunk, and he was acting like some INSANE shit.

i managed to take some pics at the kbox while the rest were parking (they were all driving under the influence after lunch, which is a miracle in itself that nobody totalled their car)

in case you can't read, it says budweiser, 160RMB for 2 dozens (pints). that's about 30 sing dollars.

drunkards trying to sing

i will so regret this tomorrow morning...


+listening to: my brain mashing against my skull

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