Poked

Some of the most memorable quotes that I heard in yesterday's talk on Faith and Baptism include:

God loves you even though you suck! Because you know, you do.

In my first few trips to church in UK, I entered the church and said, "My God, you are the only friend I have here!". But after knowing some people and have them wave to me to sit with them in the pews, man, that feeling is better than peeing after holding the pee in for a long time!

I am so blessed to be in a job that reminds me of death.

Honestly I don't recall anyone saying that last quote, ever. Not even on TV and that's saying something because the TV says a lot of things.

Yesterday, I donated blood for the second time in my life. Even though nothing interesting happened during my first time, this time the medical officer said that my vein is really small and she couldn't feel it.

So she patted my left arm, moved it up and down, exercised it a little and finally having decided on a spot, inserted the needle in. I had forgotten how big the needle actually is so I had a minor shock and had to turn my head away. A few minutes after she complained that my blood is flowing really slow into the sample bag. =(

But she went on with the whole procedure anyway, twisting (I am not kidding) the needle to constantly readjust the position until alas, my blood stopped flowing into the bag. =__="

So I had to change arm and got my right hand poked too. And she still said that my vein is small! Sedih. I think I miss the friendlier officer who handled me last year. :3

Aal iz well

Yesterday, I finally managed to catch a glimpse of the newspaper my housemates brought back. Old newspapers are always going missing in my unit. The cleaner takes it away whenever she comes to clear our waste baskets, depriving me of the yesterday's news and whoever that is having her period, a pad wrapper. And that's bad news for me because I hardly, if ever, read a newspaper on that same day. I'm always reading newspaper a day late. -.-"

Anyway, the headline of the day was concerning the recent earthquake in Christchurch, NZ. At the latter part of the newspaper was a caricature of a rabbit trembling with a quote saying "It wasn't me". The caption wrote (more or less): Rabbit year - political unrest, floods and earthquakes.

See how near the water is to the shore

Sure enough, nature's face is changing.

The sea has been polluted by BP's oil spill last year, the air has long been pumped with pollutants since the Industrial Revolution, the polar ice caps are melting and lately, even the faces of human institutions are changing.

Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruptions and people revolutions have all happened and taken lives. Sooner or later, global warming may not be our deepest fear.

Effects of global warming - retardedness

So maybe the Malthusian theory of population is right.

Another piece of article that caught my attention yesterday was one on the analysis of food growth. The author stated that by 2020, a large proportion of the world's population will face starvation due to the scarcity of food caused by the scarcity of land and erratic weather changes.

So much for our Vision 2020.

Today, another article wrote on the price inflation of foods in Malaysia due to sugar price hike. Not to be too concern about the price or even the changes in supply because I live in the city and have a monthly support just enough for a frugal living, it paints a larger picture that food is really, actually becoming scarcer.

There have been so many movies made about the apocalypse. Looking at the issues focused in the papers, it's either the world drowns first or we return to square one of civilisation where we have literally fight for food.

Mayhaps we start looking for a ship captain for insurance just in case the former happens, like in 2012.

And if the latter happens, we should probably start learning how to build a campfire and set up tents, that is, if tents are still attainable.

By the time the world reaches the brink of survival, houses and basic luxuries like refrigerator, fan, bed and oh, computers, would have to be utterly insignificant as we fight each other for food and water.

In which case, I suggest we should also learn wrestling.


We can of course, learn gardening and plant food in our own backyard but hah, who's gonna stop the thieves? You can't hide an entire garden so the incentives for actually planting something will be so little that no one will do it at all.

But if, and only if, there is a chance for a whole new civilisation to be built from scratch, like the scenario camp motivators like to give for team building - who are you going to bring to populate a new planet sort of questions - I just really wonder what lawyers are going to do.

Humour people with our big mouths?

Argue our way for food as though people care what you say when everyone is starving?



Quite frankly I think jobs like lawyers have little function in an undeveloped world. We can't provide for the people with food and veges, we can't build shelter, we can't sew clothing and we can't cure people from gashes and illnesses. Heck, we can't even be trusted! =.="

Of the three basic needs for human survival, I can give and produce none.

Leave me alone in a jungle for survival and unless I have a primal instinct inherited from my fellow cavemen and cavewomen ancestors, I shall barely survive.

The most I can probably do is produce a guitar and serenade traumatised and tired people to sleep at night.


Or maybe if things get really bad, try to perform euthanasia.

But I don't think I could ever get a night of peaceful rest rest after that even if someone else picks up a guitar and serenades me to sleep.



The truth is, even though I don't often think about the end of the world, I quite fear the reality that is happening at the other end of this Earth.

I fear not so much about dying but only the thought that if I stop thinking about disasters and other misfortunes, I subject myself to a state of oblivion and complacency that cuts me from the harsher realities.

I think, nah, earthquakes ain't gonna hit my home and my unit's tiled floor exploded at midnight.

I think, nah, global warming ain't gonna hurt in this generation and my dad's office had a fire.

I think, nah, floods... nah. And three cities in Queensland where Bol is headed to gets almost submerged.

So maybe things didn't really happen to me. But nevertheless, I think I need some kind of "heart preparation" if disasters were to happen *touch wood!!* in places where those I care are living in.


I wish the noodles of longevity really plays a part in affecting one's lifespan.

Did I mention my family was almost involved in the 2004 tsunami in Penang Island?

We were planning a vacation to Penang over Christmas (Tsunami was Boxing Day!) and by God's grace, my brother had the government summoning him for NS so we stayed back and waited for the official letter just in case he was to be in first batch.

And so, I don't really have a conclusion for such a blog post. But what I'm really going to do, hopefully by pure sincerity, is to clasp my hands together every morning and thank God for yet another day to live (with my basic needs intact).


And hopefully, some of the world's most beautiful scenes, like seeing the sunset will always be there to be shared with friends and remind us that Aal Iz Well.

Bond structures

Just to illustrate the ong-ness (redness) of our Chap Goh Mei celebration, here's a photo with the mobster in the house, Eric. I'm too lazy to find other pictures to put up so I shall just to stick to this one that I so randomly picked and hope you can envisage how everything turned out that night. :)

Things turned out good btw. :D


We brought down 8 cans of cookies and kuih kapits and came back with 4 cans of pineapple tarts, sesame peanuts, egg rolls and another sort of cookies whose name I know not. =) Gone was Yi Hui's diet plan for days. Although it's still relatively unsuccessful now. I hope she doesn't see this. Haha!

It was also partly because she made Lee Weei bring cookies down to P3 when she exercised! So now Lee Weei is tagging her with many many links of fat cartoons eating cookies. LOL!

On one of such photos,

Yeong Yeong: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LAUGH DIE ME LAUGH DIE ME HAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHAHA yihui this one your twin ah photostate one!!

Anyway, yesterday we had Chemistry lab and guess what we did! :D



We made bonds!!

We built bond models and here below is a tetrahedral shape! :D


And this is the shape of butane, built by Vee Vien and I. :)



And this below is our benzene ring which we are very proud of. See the alternate double bonds? :D:D


Just in case the whiter background above made you see stars and shadows. Haha. I had to secretly take these pictures because we were in a lab and I'm not sure if taking pictures is allowed. But since this isn't really an experiment (teacher said so) and we didn't need to wear our lab coat, I assumed it's okay. Ignorance is bliss. :P


Anyway the one below this is called a bent shaped molecule. And though the colour may not be right, it's the shape of our water molecule. =)


And just before the class ended, we rushed to finish our very last model of cyclohexane. :)


I think I really like Chemistry experiments like this that make me feel like a kid playing with lego rather than dangerous chemicals that might catch fire at any time.


And thus Chemistry ended. On a different note, I lost 4 marks in math quiz the other day. =(

At the risk of sounding kiasu (which I am not... not really.... I mean when compared to Amanda), I was quite bumped. :(


But I suppose the chem experiment kinda made up for it. Always look on the bright side of life! That's Yong Wei with his creation of a molecule that looks like a dog. =)

Nanta :D

Now that Chap Goh Mei is over, I can finally have the evenings to myself. :)

For the past week, my evenings have been filled with Nanta practices for the CNY Open House Celebration on Chap Goh Mei, a sort of event we AUSMAT scholars organised for racial integration. Personally I think it's amazing because nobody actually forced us to do it. We did it because we wanted to. Well, also because the Malays did it first last year for Hari Raya and then the Indians did it for Deepavali so this year, the Chinese have it for CNY too. :D

What is Nanta you ask? Simple translation from Chinese will have it mean "simply hit". We had to hit pails and basins whose initial purpose was to do laundry and wash vegetables. Keefe broke one basin because he hit it too hard. And Alexie broke 2 cough syrup glass bottles. Michelle broke one side of Alexie's chopsticks, handicapping it permanently for Alexie's future use and Eric had maybe hit the Milo container so hard, the Milo coagulated out of fear. Gotta stick together, you know.

The Milo, basin, glass bottles and chopsticks coincidentally all belonged to Alexie. Hahaha. Poor girl.

It was a mighty great night, really.

And I won another positive 15 on Friday from Monopoly Deal! :D Could have been positive 18 had not Olivia reminded me of a RM 3 debt from a lunch almost six months ago in 2010! Hahahaha. But I don't think I'll ever play the modified Monopoly Deal again. Far too much pressure, you know. I was shouting my head off when Eric had almost the all the money cards in the deck in his pile! And I had NONE.

But I won anyways! :D And Eric's large money pile worked against him. Muahahahaha. For once it's actually good to have no money so that there wasn't any difference. Heh! :D

I have also played Wii!!!!

Now that's pretty awesome.

That night was the first time this year I laughed so hard my sides ached. Because Kristen couldn't find the hole in which she was supposed to dump the soil so she was shouting:

WHAT HOLE!!?? WHAT HOLE!!!??

Then when she found the hole, she was going:

DON'T ATTACK ME!!! DON'T ATTACK MEE!!!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

The game lasted for barely 5 minutes but it threw me into deep fits of laughter. Whew~

I smile just thinking about it. But for now, I must go back to studying law and polish up my English so that I don't meet the STOP sign before I even manage to get my question or point across. Gah.

Post CNY break

It's only been the first day since I got back and I had already headed off to GSC Summit for another bout of movie watching. :) I watched I Love Hong Kong and it was hilarious. Lately there have been talks about possible relocation of our accommodation after June so that disturbed me for awhile.

If the news had come last year, I might have been ecstatic. But it's been six months and I've grown accustomed to my room (oh and the amount of things that I gotta move!) and the fungus on the side of the sink (we were gonna get rid of that, uh huh) and the RM 90 clothes hanging thing that takes up 40% of our living room, but most of all I think we've all got used to our housemates. Not to mention GSC Summit's RM 6 movies.

Yea, I think I shall miss this ol' place if we were to move. I just hope we don't because I hate thinking about packing.

Anyway, I'm back from CNY break and I have passed my driving test. :D

Now read back that sentence again and feel happy for me. :P

There were lots of new year visiting and card games and gossip sessions iduring CNY this year so CNY '11 is still very awesome. Too bad Amanda will be missing out on the next one. Something will be amiss when we head off to Madam Tan's next year and see no Amanda with her in-built camera lens sensors! But maybe she'll work really hard and fly back from the great white north. :)

Oh, I have also bought myself an early birthday present today. I had a silly grin stuck to my face all through English because I bought it over lunch time. I still have that silly grin on my face now. It looks a little like this :]

Anyway, yesterday during English Hetish saw a couple trying to make out outside our class. Our class is located on the rooftop you see, and our room didn't have any lights turned on because we were viewing the projector image so they must have thought they were having complete privacy. As it happened, we were just discussing about gender perceptions and teacher was asking what Chinese girls think of Chinese boys. So there were those who are conservative and then there are those who are like the guy outside trying to kiss his girlfriend (who was being absolutely indifferent btw, lol!)

We didn't have very big reactions, really. All of us just kinda ran to the window and laughed our hearts out while trying to get teacher to open the door and go "AHA!". No biggie.

And we talked about the origins and burden of names. Chinese normally like to call their children opposite of what they are to ward off the "evil eye". So they talked about older Chinese names that sounded a little like animals when Ashley burst out in sudden realisation:

"OMG! My uncle's name is Ah Tu!"

Yea, we got kinda speechless too.

Today, we talked about parties and teacher asked whether we drink wine. When she mentioned dinner and red wine, she looked at Raul and Hetish and specifically said that she will definitely not serve them wine in any dinner.

Teacher: You two, I'll serve you grape juice.

And Hetish's reply?

Hetish: We'll ferment it ourselves! Yeah!

Hahahahahahaha! Teacher later said she had no idea what he was going to ferment it with. Lol!

Some other group name....

Last year, Maryann created a secret group on Facebook called "Damai Dec '10" especially for us to discuss our year end trip to Damai and the plans

We added almost everybody so we didn't abolish the group even after Damai because it was really convenient for us to catch up with one another.

Anyway, several days ago, Kim requested that the name of the group be changed because it was really outdated.

So Maryann changed it to "some other group name...."

Kim said: Nice job, Mary. Lol.

And the subsequent comments went like this:


.
Lol.