On sabbatical

I've used that to describe the first month or so of the past holidays where I did nothing but play games from 9-5. 9pm to 5am that is. Or maybe it was 9am to 5am. Whatever. But said religious journey of self abuse didn't quite end there. These past two months I've spent going on with almost zero gaming - not even flash or vba games (hdd broke and terrible internet here in africa, and reading visual novels don't count). I know this has sorely distressed our 9pm wargames club since it has unbalanced the asian team and given the viet team numerical superiority, but life just isn't fair sometimes.

So what had I been doing then? A whole bunch of things, but I guess the main activity was working. Yes, working. If you didn't know before, it wasn't because you weren't cool or anything, but just that since I didn't know what I was getting into either. Now that I've done it I can safely talk about it: doing odd jobs in the office of an accounting firm, E&Y to be exact if you care. Spent most of my time running odd jobs around the office like file this, email that and the odd coffee run too. There was a bit of audit too, but as much as I respect the guys who took me in I still can't say it's the most interesting work.

In my time there I did manage to earn the title of 'audit ninja', which I am quite proud of. The guy who gave it to me said that I 'came from nowhere, did the audit (pronounced ao-det), then dissappeared', and thus was worthy of the title Audit Ninja. I think I will put that on my resume. The rest of the time when I wasn't working was mostly spent playing golf, and as of writing I have a massive golf tan. If anyone is interested do let me know, I'm itching to go for a game sometime, though not until I master the stupid sandwedge-I still cannot chip properly with it. Not my fault internet sucks in Africa, though I've heard similar complaints back at home.

"Hate leap years. Means I have to spend an extra day being capped." - Billy

More recently I've been promoted to a bigwig role in one of the student societies that I've been a part of for a while and a mediumwig role in another for a shorter while. Needless to say it's a massive drainer on time, but at least we do get to deal with interesting problems like below:
Jacky was applying to be a finance Officer:

Hungy:"I have no idea what a finance officer does. I thought we had one already though."
Jacky:"He's probably the director or something...oh no! That mean's I have to report to someone! FML!"

Stuff I've done aside, this post is about growing up. That kind of sentimental BS I give people crap about. During the past two weeks I've probably experienced the widest range of emotions in my entire life that I never thought i'd feel, especially not at once. I have seen some things I wish I had never needed to go through, done some other things that that I wish I'd done ages ago. If you don't know what I'm referring to it probably isn't worth finding out, just regular quarter life crisis issues. Cheers to my cousin (that's not usually here-but she is still a defender of the greater good) and my brus (especially one of them) for getting me through this particularly difficult period. My sympathies go out to all those who are still suffering as a result of...well, shit happening.

What's done is done. I guess that's the one thing I've learnt from whole ordeal (sabbatical included) is that is that for the first time I think I'm starting to feel like I'm actually the one walking in my shoes, and the things are acutally happening to me and not someone else that i'm just watching from the inside. Shit has happened to me now, and things are about to get serious. The good thing is that there are things I've finally found on my own now...I guess this must what it feels to be alive? If you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest going out and doing stuff - say yes to all them opportunities. Life gets better when you're doing stuff.

Apologies for being all vague and cryptic about everything, but as this post will probably be the first and last thing people see for a while I don't want to leave anything too embarrassing for people to pick at. But I can say that when we grow up, there are things we have to give up and new things we find, voluntarily or not. I guess it has really reached the point in time where people all around me are growing up and I'm also running out of time so unfortunately this blog is one of the things i'm letting go. People are moving on: e.g. Bill is now a bona-fide medkid attending medschool:

"Going by how quick he was doing removals of skin carcinomas, I'd estimate his income at $500k+" - Bill

So this is goodbye to my old, younger-self; his time for games is up. This makes me pretty sad actually, as over the course of 4-5 years I've had alot of fun with this little sidequest. I do hope it was worth your time at least some of the time, dear reader, but really though, the honour was all mine. We've been through a lot together, through the joys and sorrows of highschool and the ensuing chaos that was first and second year uni; the predictably angsty teenage years. You can actually see the difference in the flavour of noobcake that I was over the past few years, and I wish I had the time to continue this-it would be quite the interesting experiment I think. Whatever, may this blog serve as a memory of these days for the rest of my life.

Just writing that last line of poetry with a legit reason was so worth wasting all this time maintaining this blog. But I feel I've already got too much sentimental blahblah here and I probably could go on for ages so I won't (waxing sentimental BS is surprisingly fun, I can kinda appreciate why people do it on their blogs now, but it still sucks so no). But in all honesty, my time has come. Farewell to all you brave souls out there who are still blogging, you've all been my inspiration over the past few years I wish you all the best. May you carry on the great struggle to assist the rest of us with procrastination during critical, pre-exam periods.

This sabbatical I'm on might take some time. Adieu mon amis.

Who knows though, maybe in the future I might find the time and inspiration (read: boredom) to start blogging anew. Please don't try and correct my French though. Non, c'est tout pres.

Greetings from across

The Indian Ocean. Yes unfortunately (or fortunately) I got shipped off to Africa yet again to live with my dad for a whiles. But first a commentary on the new years.
Jonhsan has written an excellent summary about new years solutions.
As for my New years resolutions since people seems  to fix it? Nah too lazy to care. As the brighter of you may have gathered from my last post, this is what I've spent my holiday so far doing:

Kegs:"DO SOMETHING!"
Hungy:"Like...play games?"
Kegs:"...with people."
Hungy:"Like...play games?"
Kegs:"...in person."
Hungy:"Are you thinking of...a Lan party?"

But sadly that is no more. I was meaning to before it happened but it seems that as usual my announcement that I have left the majority of you happened afterwards: I have ditched the baked weather of Melbourne for the far browner pastures of South Africa. Yes I did mention the same thing  about 20 lines before. So on the way something cool did happen, as it does when you spend 30 odd hours doing the same thing over and over again (went travelling, Melb - SG - Dubai - Johannesburg).

So on the last leg of the trip, I was watching Tron Legacy because I'd slept for the previous 10 hours and couldn't stay asleep, there was that awesome scene at the end where the hero and his girlfriend are posing for the poster shot, and the old guy kills the evil old guy/blows everything up in a massive explosion. Just as all of that happened the plane landed and it was all shakey so it felt like I was there. It was cool ok.

And yes, I flew Emirates, the only airline where they keep playing the movies until you get off the plane. Hail oil power!

A large list

What a year it has been. Due to the nature of our short term memories, I'm going to declare this one the most eventful one so far. Let's have a look at the list of achievements I've accomplished in the form of a list of firsts:

*Updated* Yes I forgot.

2011 was the first year that I...

• Went to Uni for the second time
• Turned 19, and finally got my P's
• Which i used to drive to the Grampians and went lumberjacking while I was at it
• Got a job of my own and learnt the various flavours of dishwashing liquids
• Failed miserably at a job interview
• Won a 'stack of the day' award at the snow, amongst other things
• Did not let studying for exams get in the way of my procrastination
• Built a new gaming computer, with help from friends
• Finished Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
• Won at Shogun total war 2
• Cleared portal 2 with Dehan
• Completed Dragon Age 2. Mostly.
• Achieve victory over the Germans in MoW:AS on hard mode.
• Prevail over the big bad in Skyrim

Achievements that I still need to do but probably won't get time to until I'm shipped off:

• Win at Deus Ex 3
• Find a copy of Zelda: Skyward sword and beat it
• Unlock everything in Battlefield
• Get to Diamond League legit in Starcraft 2

It's a shame really. Actually speaking of Skyrim, if you guys are looking for the source of NEET's being produced in the world, it would come as a very strong contender. Proof:
"Oh look it's 3am. Time for Skyrim."-Simon
And if you're wondering what the heck this Skyrim thing is, it's also the source of all of those horrible arrow in knee jokes that have been going around the internet, being posted by all the stay-at-home recluses that Skyrim has produced.

On another note, I did not do anything special for Christmas. Some kids are to blame for making me  blow up tanks and stuff with them starting Christmas eve all the way till Boxing day. Mum also did not go because she was lazy and couldn't be bothered fighting the crowd, so we all stayed home. Which is kinda lame because apparently I missed some hilarity happening, so I guess I'll have to take Jacky's word for it:

Jacky Sing:
*Today I got hit on by these two hot chicks.
*i must say
*this new shirt
*and new style
*is a definite success
*haha
*a man is defined by his shirt

You..what?! Sorry man, but I know I did say I wouldn't put up any of your potentially incriminating shit unless I absolutely had to but this was too good to pass up. Anyway this post is getting large so I'll put the rest of it up next time.

Defilbrilation attempt #2

Yes, this blog kinda died. Again. Not for the lack of motivation but rather the distinct lack of things to...update people on. I guess staying inside all the time and sitting in front of the computer doesn't lend much  to creativity. But anyway, I would like to report that this week alone I've been outside for a whopping two (2!) times! That's like twice as much as the two weeks before combined! Readers who are relatively normal will probably be scratching their heads right now but I assure you that it is a great achievement for me. If only I was as hard working all the time on the holiday.

Anyway today I went outside and to some night market thing down in St. Kilda, the first event
of its kind I'd been to in forever. There was food and it was ok but not super, except this isn't really a food blog (not yet). Thankfully the entertainment was better, comprising mainly of Jacky attempting and failing to hit on random ladies while wearing headphones that was being rented out by one of the stalls there, which is a pretty good idea for entertainment. I think they should do that for funs more often because it's superior in many ways to standard performances, such as playing with fire.

This is because unlike public performances, which lose their entertainment value should the performer mess up, screwups from impromptu improvs only increase the hilarity level of whatever performance is going on, and thus would make everyone better off.

Anyway after that I ran into the White kid and Panda Kevin (who's not a panda anymore) and Kylie and friend, and I told Karlgren and being all witty he was like

"Did it hurt?" - Kegs

Yeah. No. Hopefully I'll have gone outside more next time and have less dull things to report.

Speaking of Swotvac,

You know that week, and yes I only got one week, when you're supposed to be studying right before exams and not doing procrastination or anything interesting? Well often this results in extreme boredom and much physical upsizing, well I got bored of even attempting to attempt at making some semblance of an effort in hiding my complete apathy for exams. So here is a selection of my achievements during the whole exam preparation period; I hope you find them as amusing as I did when actually doing them:

• Evolved Larvitar into Tyrannitar (I EV trained him too!)
• Logged 12 hours of Battlefield 3, with OJ's help
• Spent an entire day trying to take over Japan in Shogun, failing then proceeding to uninstall the game from my computer. Twice.
• Watched many hours of people playing games on youtube in anticipation of all the free time I was going to have after exams.
• Marathon'd a 12 episode anime series in one day.
• On the morning of macro, woke up at 6am to see OJ off at the airport.

Ok technically that last one isn't in swotvac because Macro was my second exam, but what the hell I didn't do much study during exam period anyway. Personally while I would not try doing what I did again, I do encourage you to try not studying for exams one semester. It makes the panic experienced when sitting down at your exam, when you realize you actually don't know anything and should have been cramming instead of doing-things-you-can-brag-about-on-your-blog, much more memorable.

Just to prove that I'm not the only one trying this strategy:

"What I don't understand is...how do people manage to go to every class they have?"-Helene

Though I undoubtly still hold more achievements thanks to the fact that I don't actually need to know much about anything for commerce. Now that exams are over there seems to be no urgency required in my daily procrastinations which has seen a marked decrease in my procrastination efficiency. It takes alot more time to decide just how I should waste the day away. Thankfully though there are breaks to in staying in front of my monitor for 18 hours at a time (Happy birthday Wensi! The cake was good!).

Too much writing is probably another good indicator that I have too little to do. I better go fixed that.

This post

Pownsts. I just got that as one of those 'please type this to verify that you're not a nublet' kind of things and I think this word is pretty cool. I mean it's a portmanteau of Post and owns, so, ownage post, thus pownst. From henceforce I declare all good post to be pownsts.

Anyway to business: Exam time. Don't know if it's my lazyness, the sweatyness ('Sweatvac' - Joan), OJ rocking up at my place to play battlefield or some combination of whatever thereof, but I just can't seem to get into the panic mindset. Because I'm not capable of attempting to study without attempting to catch Pokemon unless its the eleventh hour. Did you guys know that Google's auto correct dictionary thinks Pokemon is a legit word? Actually that's not that much of a surprise considering that it can Do a barrel roll. (HTML 5 required)

So ok, now there's less than 24 hour to my next exam and i'm officially panicking, thus I will cut this short and present to you:

Hungy:"Have you seen everybody hates Chris?"

Annie:"You mean like everyone at our lunch table?"

Poor Man-Hin. Anyway time to get studying and apologies to Yunghan for being worse than him.

It's time

To bring out the defibrillator pads and resuscitate this dying blog once again: firstly because we're in the middle of exam time, aka WOTVAC, and secondly because I have my paddles once again since my pre-order on battlefield 3 came in the mail today, which means -50 hours lost in exam preparation time. Both of these add up to more time spent procrastinating, either shooting things or reviving things including this blog.

Anyway I just wanna share a little bit of what my life's been like since the last update. Disclaimer: the following conversation really did happen at the specified times, though has been cleaned up for everyone's enjoyment. Basic knowledge of calculus is still recommended to understanding the whole exchange.

Hungy (3:43 AM):"Hey man, still up?

Kevin (3:45 AM):"lol yeah. Vector calculus time?

Hungy (3:47 AM):"But of course, how's it going? Is q1 even doable.."

Kevin (3:47 AM):"You're meant to use green's theorem for the whole thing. I got -64/ 3 (b^3 - a^3)"

...

Hungy(4:06 AM):"hmm...i got 4/3 (b^3-a^3)"

Kevin(4:07 AM):"hm..."

...

Hungy(4:17 AM):"Maybe this was a bad idea, leaving it till now."

Kevin(4:17 AM):"Lawl."

...

Hungy (4:23 AM):"but the circle is a right annulus right..."

Kevin (4:23 AM):"The Jacobian is r either way."
Hungy (4:23 AM):"r is a/b though, so shouldn't matter."Kevin (4:24 AM):"Hm it is too lol."
Hungy (4:24 AM):"Man, we are so beached. And battlefield comes out today.."
...

Kevin (4:30 AM):"I just get 8 (b-a) now lol."

Hungy (4:31 AM):"What's your actual integral? I got (2rcos + 4r^3sin^3)r"

Kevin (4:32 AM):"Same."

Hungy (4:33 AM):"Ahaha massive fail."

...

Hungy (4:43 AM):"Wait how can you get only sine^3 in the 2nd term

Kevin (4:44 AM):"Integrate (2rcost+ 4r^3sin^3 t) right at the start..."

Hungy (4:45 AM):"Yeah...and if oyu integrate that..."

Kevin (4:45 AM):"Oh shit. flail."

Hungy (4:45 AM):...Kevin what are you doooiinnnnnggggg!"

Kevin (4:45 AM):"I diffed." <-This is going in for quote of the year nominations.

Yeah the assignment was due 11am the same day. And yes there were two questions.

So there you have it: maths at 5am. I do think this needs to be a blog feature at some stage provided I can be bothered actually doing any maths. In other news I finally quit my job, after months of pleading by my boss to keep working and months of me subtly hinting at the fact that I need a raise. In the meantime, not much has happened, but should hopefully have more time to...waste on other things. Uni and exams will have to wait.

This captures my attitude to swotvac study pretty well:
(╮°-°)╮┳━┳ ( ╯°□°)╯ ┻━┻

Don't really have an excuse for being awol this time, but you have been warned: you are now being quoted!