memories

Some photos I dug out from my comp, decided to upload them here, just for memories sake. In no particular order:George, my former housemate, valiantly attempting to blow up an inflatable mattress (the pump didn't work). He didn't succeed.

Today, outside my ghetto flats. I'm learning to appreciate of the works of the Creator.

Malacca Evangelical Free Church. Where I grew up in a loving family. Its been torn down to make way for a new church building =)

The Acts Church, the next closest thing to home.

Home sweet home.

Joel, Chern Zhi and Matthew. Eating nasi lemak with your buddies in church, there's nothing better than that.

Aunty Lay Choo and Lesley share a happy moment

The CF in St. David's High School today (well about 1 year ago). "Prayer Changes Things" says the words on the wall. I remember putting it up 5 years ago when we were in school. Some things don't change though.

A scenic scene in Universiti Malaysia Sabah, after our kinabalu trip.

Band of Brothers. We're all over the place now. Sigh.

Skiing in the frech alps, with dudes from cambridge.

Nothing more rewarding than the sight of sunrise when you're at the peak of Mt. Kinabalu.

Me and Wilbur making fun of John Boy at Laban Rata, halfway up Kinabalu.

Me invading somewhere in Trafalgar Square. Note the CCTV above the door.

The day we left for london. The whole 223y Subang gang with us at KLIA.
From left, Ian, Ernest, Me, Ding, Alvin, Kenneth, Jeremy, Marcus.

In Oxfordshire. Yuli charging across as we were taking a group picture.

Watching Arsenal Porto at the emirates stadium. An experience of a lifetime.

The lake district.

Me and alvin checking out the camera.

Getting a tan at the Collesseum in Rome.

Irene, Alvin and Carlyn having fun waiting for a DLR to come at the Canary Wharf station.

The turkey we tried to roast in the our first christmas here. It tasted weird.

Self portrait in Luxembourg.

Me, Ding and Alvin attempting a Happy Tree Friends pose in Bath.

Taking a picture with the legendary Tommy Emmanuel.

Memories.

Time to move on.

A picture paints a thousand words

Go figure.

Life is way too eventful

What a week. What a week man.

Let me say that again for extra emphasis. WHAT A WEEK!!!!!!!!!

Aaaanyways, classes started last monday. The first day was fine and good, cycling to uni, nearly getting run over by a truck (lies told to make the story more interesting).

And Tuesday came. Tuesday rocked my socks. And is still rocking. We had the fresher's fayre on that day for the Christian Union. So 845 i was at church with Toinpre carrying this 4 boxes of Gideons bibles. If I ever had a problem with bibles it was there and then. It was sooooo heavy (that even my 6"4' friend who can lift me up and throw me across the road with one arm
was suffering carrying it). Imagine me and my skinny ass dragging them all the way. No shit man. No shit. My arms told me that they did their quota of work for the week already.

But anyways back to tuesday, so we had a prayer in the stairwell, set up the stall, and OMG at the end of the day we had NEARLY 80 NAMES on the list. It was just such an amazing testimony for the both of us. Everything from the "strategic" position of the stall to the beautiful weather that day to all the people who just walked right up without us having to say anything, it was amazing. Incredibly amazing. But in between all that I had to go for a 3 hour class called survival models which was totally rape. The math that our professor threw at us was just mental. They were right in calling it survival models.

And when i got home that evening, i realized that i was coming down with the flu. But I had to soldier on. Like a man. Cause, OMGROFTLOLBBQ I had tickets to the Arsenal Porto Champions League match at the emirates stadium!!!

I've never been to a proper football match at the stadium before, so this was an exhilarating experience. When I got to the stadium my mouth was gaping wide open all the way till the game started. The WOW factor was just so there. The stadium was beautiful, the atmosphere was amazing, seeing the team i had supported (arsenal that is) for a decade in the flesh was totally out of this world. Never had I thought that one day I'd be siting in Arsenal's home stadium watching them play. And they won to make it a spendid night.

But then i came home. Sick with flu. Bleh.

Weds i went for my asset liability management class to see whether it was elective worth taking or not. The notes and all were very impressive, like the most complete and comprehensive indepth lecturer's notes i have ever seen, unfortunately i couldnt understand a single word the lecturer was saying due to his strong cypriot accent and soft voice. So it was a no go.

Thursday came and the flu got worse, and also 7 hours of lectures on that day. But later in the day we had our first CU meeting of the term, and it was amazing. Once again God's hand was evident there, loads of people came till we had to SHIFT rooms, and everybody felt at home, and the whole CU committee was very encouraged. Plus not to mention loads of people who said they couldn't make it for the first meeting but will be coming for future meetings. Praise GOD!!!

And after that on the way home i got caught in the rain -_-"

Anyways today the flu got worse, and my pensions class was very interesting, which leaves me in anawful dilemma on choosing what electives to take. I could go for the crazysuredienochanceofsurvival combination of Life Insurance, Pensions and General Insurance, or the more managable any combination of the two above plus a non actuarial science module. The whole problem is that I consider Life and GI pretty much "compulsory" electives (my personal opinion), but pensions is so interesting and i'll really enjoy learning it (for once - i think); but then if i take any combination of the two i dont know what othe module to take, or what module out of the three to drop for that matter.

Decisions decisions.

But the weekend is here, time to sort out some stuff, catch up on school work, practice some guitar, recover from the flu, and decide on my electives. TGIF!

When the going gets tough....

Alvin "SB" Choong showing his mettle

The tough get going, and the not so tough run away....RUNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

*composes self*

Anyways, it's been a hectic 2 weeks here in London, preparing for the new term, finishing the anime series Full Metal Alchemist in 4 days on YouTube (and now starting on 11.7GB of Futurama), planning CU stuff, getting myself a new bike, sorting out the mess in my room, and fretting over the disappearing act of my Final Year Project (FYP) supervisor, which at the moment leaves my FYP topic proposal pending approval with 2 weeks left to the deadline and supervisor nowhere in sight, meeting up with different people, and finding out today that they have moved the elective that I wanted to take to the next term. BLARGHH!

So now I'm in this dilemma of not chaging my module and keeping it for the next term, but which will mean 99% chance of death in the finals at the end (comparatively if i had taken it in the this term it would be a 95% chance of death in January exams), or I can change to other modules which I am not really keen on/had done enough research on it to make an informed choice.

Cycling to Uni so far has been really good, it takes only 15-20 mins to get to uni. 15 mins if i cycle like there's no tomorrow and don't get stuck behind a bus. But anyways its cool as long as IT DOESNT RAIN. But so far no incidences of getting caught in rain yet la... =D

So now i might have to take Asset-Liability Management instead of Investments as a module. Bah. Dammit.

On the bright side, I got myself a ticket to watch the champions league match between Arsenal and Porto this tueday night at Ashburton Grove. Hurrah!! And the odd jobs i did in Uni yesterday earned me 52 pounds which effectively paid for my match ticket with 20 pounds to spare.

But this week will be crazy with term starting on monday, freshers fayre/football match on tuesday, sandwich making(don't ask)/cell group on weds, CU meeting on thursday, and hunting down the whereabouts of my supervisor the whole week. And also my ongoing rock star wannabe project which requires me to put in at least 2 hours of practice a day (doesn't really happen as you will notice).

So now the tough gets going. I'll just need to get tough. Time to do the laundry.

AND ARSENAL BEAT MAN U!!!!!

*ahem*

Stuff stuff stuff

Part of my final year project topic, together with some still-not-very-widely-used-in-the-process-of-implementation branch of math called Tail-VaR. Why la why I go and make life difficult for myself.

I got more new stuff when I came home recently, notably more CDs. I finally managed to get my hands on Tommy Emmanuel's Endless Road album (see pic) and also Paul Gilbert's latest guitar instrumental album, Get Out of My Yard.

My 2 new CDs =D

Anyways, the Endless Road album is an awesome album. Anybody who listens to music will definately enjoy it. It's really really really good. I mean really. Especially if you want some inspiration to keep you going on the guitar.

I was trying the song Angelina last night (see previous posts), and I realized my fingerpicking skills are no longer existent. It's gonna be a while even before I get past the intro of the song.

And then there was this Get Out of My Yard album. All I can say that it's quite...erm. Weird? There's some fantastic guitar work on it, no doubt, but then it's no something that mortals like me would ever be able to play in 10 lifetimes. Alright alright, maybe 20. But that's besides the point. Well basically the album is just crazy, and I realized that as much I like to think that my musical tastes have further evolved into a higher plane, I still struggle to sit down and listen to a full blown guitar album. Cannot tahan. But maybe over time though. I did find some new cool YouTube videos of Paul Gilbert's stuff and I think they are absolutely the best. (heh.. many will disagree on this) But anyway here's a link to the song Individually Twisted on the album Alligator Farm. So if you have time, a decent broadband connection, a good set of speakers, crank it up baby!!

OK now it's time to devise a plan to con the lecturer into being my supervisor. Gotta pretend I know some stuff. Off to work then!!

Bah final year projects. What a pain.

OMG ITS AMAZING!!!

My new toy that I just got a few days ago. Sony Ericsson K800i, equipped with a 3.2 MP camera and lots of other geeky stuff that I don't know how to use. No matter.

Couple of days back, I got back to my new house in London, and OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMOMG you wouldn't believe the sight that greeted me.

When I first walked in, the house smelled different. Felt different. But more importantly, LOOKED different. And this is what I saw.

My new hallway. Notice its clean. Like spanking clean. Momma you'd be proud. Your son ain't no ghetto boy anymore.

A new toilet! New seat. New tiles. More importantly, nice smell and clean.

More happiness to follow. A brand new bathroom!! Totally remade.

And a BRAND NEW KITCHEN. This is the greatest thing ever. Especially after the kitchen flooding fiasco which I will tell one day. Soon.

Another view of the kitchen. We got a new washing machine too!! And its clean!! It's so cool to have girls in the house. (And no alvin no matter how long your hair grows you can't become alvina)

Unfortunately, my room is in this sorry state. All because everybody's tumpang-ed luggage was left here. And is still here. Blah.. -_-""

Ahh my beautiful new house. Now to get the room done.

While passing the time by

I finally got some of the CDs that i wanted, and they are:

The best of Fourplay
Mr Big: Greatest Hits
The Very best of Tommy Emmanuel
Joe Satriani: Strange Beautiful Music

I persuaded my dad to pay upfront for me 1st (which we all know that the likelyhood of me paying back is..erm..small.) But i did agree to bring him to the clark shoe shop to have the shoe of his choice when he comes to london next year.

But anyway, I was on watching Tommy Emmanuel on YouTube today... It's just so inspiring. And as such, with my long term rock star plans in mind, I've decided to work on 2 songs for the year (as mentioned by my crazy jazz pianist long lost brother that i need to set tangible goals to help me improve, and yes i know my tempo needs major work too). And they are....

Tommy Emmanuel's - Angelina
Mr Big's - Addicted to that Rush

Its gonna be a long long year of practice -_-"

So i'm leaving...on a jet plane...

I was watching THE chelsea barcelona game from 2 seasons ago, yes THAT game where the barca defence decided they liked to take a nap and conceded 3 goals in the first 20 mins, and the where Ronaldinho scored THE goal...yes THAT goal which I unfortunately missed cause my sis came over and changed channels... -_-"

But anyways... my head tells me that i should go practice more guitar and not slack, but my body decided that it wanted to do something else... ok that came out wrong. But you get the idea. Heck no, don't get any ideas.

This morning i woke up with the sudden realisation that i need bicycle to get to uni. It'll cut travel time to uni by half. So i defiantely be cycling this year. I can wake up later...hooray! no more 45 mins walk. Now all I ned to do is find the most ghetto-pariah-looking bike possible so people will look at it, feel pity for me and give me money. But the whole point is so that they won't steal my bike. So wish me luck in my hunt for a second hand bike guys. And pray too the a lorry doesn't run me down on my way to Uni. That's not the way to go man. Abosolutely not.

But anyways, flight is on sunday, my stuff are all packed (i think), so its adious malaysia for the year, i'll see you again soon.

Losing the will to live

This morning I woke up with a sudden realisation that I've lost the will to live. Before any of you panic, I'm not going to commit suicide or anything morbid like that, rather, just simply, I've lost the will to live. To live life. Or maybe I never had it in the first place. In fact if you think hard about it, you probably feel the same way too.

Back when I was busy and overworked with courseworks, assignments and exams, screaming "Lord take me home!!!" everyday, I thought once the exams were over, the holidays came, life would be good. Life would be something to look foward to. Waking up on a monday morning wouldnt be a dread.

Now that I've been on holiday for quite some time, the so envisioned bliss isn't really happening. It's been a while since I woke up in the morning with a spring to my step, something to look foward to. If its not the dread of woke, then its the aimless wandering around with no direction.

And most of the time when I think I have purpose, it's because I busy myself with so many things that I don't have time to sit down and reflect what am I really doing with my life, things like work, social outings, church, hobbies, this and that.

Its like I've lost purpose. And a zest for life.

Something is not right here. Something is missing. Life isn't meant to be like this. There's definately more than this. Much more. Am I'm going to find it.

Maybe google knows =p

Told you not to....

I did the worst thing I could have ever done today. I started playing and RPG. A trilogy series RPG.

While pretty much spells the end of my rock star ambitions, I must say that this is one hard hard difficult lots of patience required game together with cheats and walkthroughs. But its really well done. You get to pull of spectacular combos, you get really strong and poewrful opponents, who btw happen to kick my ass most of the time, you get nice blades and spikes all ready to dice through you. Pretty much following the revelutionary release of the 1st game. Oh i think i forgot to mention the title. It's Prince of Persia!! I wanted to upload a picture here but the internet connection is so bad so i think i'll just screw the idea.

I bought myself a new 40gb external HDD yesterday in a bid to reformat my comp and get it running properly again. Much to my dismay my laptop refused to cooperate and instructed the DVD drive not to work. As a result my auto recovery disk can't be read. And hence the %*!#!@ thing can't be reformatted. Blah!

I think I need to stop playing PS2 and DotA and start putting in more hours of practice on my guitar. My tempo (or lack of it) still haunts me (actually, not really). But point is, I should start doing more useful things. Bah and I'm leaving to London next week and havent read up crap yet on my FYP. I have this feeling thats it's gonna be another long long year ahead.

Today, is merdeka day. Looking outside my house, there doesn't seem to be much of a merdeka mood going around. Even last night on merdeka eve, i think the celebrations were reduced to a damp squib to the thunderstorm that came hurtling down. Can't really complain though...rain always brings a good night's sleep :D I half wanted to write a long long entry on merdeka day, but I think i'm just to sleepy to do it. Maybe next year, else i'll get more randomness than content.

I seem to be typing crap anyway.

Blah. I'm off to take a shower and eat dinner.

wait for me(part 2).....

At least this time the title is not totally irrelevant and depicts how i feel in some funny way...

Anyways, I got back from subang yesterday. I'm beginning to miss the people there already. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. So london here i come. Next sunday though.

And my phone had a collision with a kembara with totally killed its display. And my camera refuses to work too. Bummer man.

10 more days to go before i fly back, and I have a ton of things to do at the moment. Been clearing up my room and getting back my contact list the whole day, and about 3 games of DOTA where i was totally pawned. Man i'm so out of practice.

I actually had a hundred and one things to blog about but somehow for the life of me i can't really recall any of it now. Maybe its a sign that i need to go get more sleep.

And i'm lazy to go on so i guess i'll just leave it at here.

Wait for meeeeeee......

I love titles that are totally irrelevant to the article.

Anyways, I pretty much confirmed my return flight home already, which will be on the 10th of September, via Malaysian Airlines, 12pm from KLIA. So i'll be flying off together with Ding, Sze Chuen and Chia Wei, barring anymore threats of bombs or whatever. It's gonna be a pain as it is if they don't lift the "NO CABIN LUGGAGE OR ELECTRONIC DEVICES" restriction when I fly. I bet my laptop will never leave KLIA if i put it in the baggae compartment. Some idiot's bound to steal it. But then again, satistically, if everyone brought laptops and put their laptops in the check in baggage, that would mean the risk is pooled and each of us will have less chance of having our laptops stolen... But that's not the point. I want zero risk.

As it is, I've sort of confirmed my topic for my final year project. I'm planinng to do some reaserch on VaR and Tail-VaR, but the other day and I wrote to a potential project supervisor and asked whether he'd be interested in overseeing the project. All he said was "drop by my office and we'll talk about it", and although I pointed out that i couldn't do so because I am not in London at the moment, he then just told me to see him when I get back. So I get this feeling that my project is hanging in the balance waiting for some sort of approval. While in the meantime, do I go looking for another project or what? I hate uncertainty. And I'll hate it more if I have to go looking for another final year project to do 2 weeks before term begins. Somehow things like this always happen to me. Sigh. Third year looks like it's gonna stick a big big knife up my butt already.

A song that played in my head this morning when I woke up:

Fill my eyes, O my God
With the vision of the cross
Fill my heart, with love for Jesus
The Nazarene
Fill my mouth, with thy praise
Let me sing though endless days
Take my will, let my life,
Be wholly Thine.

I just hope I don't end up being another hypocrite. I probably already am one. Well I guess nobody ever said that life would be easy.

Moving on, time has really flown during my stay back here. In two weeks time I'll be leaving Subang and heading home to Melaka to spend time with my family for another fortnight, and then I'll be back to London for my final year of studies. But I must say it's been a really good time back here, meeting up with so many old friends, even though some of them have taken different paths, but nonetheless, its still great to know that at the end of the day we're still like brothers and sisters. And so many new friends! It has been really really great to meet and be freinds with so many awesome and wonderful people. Life's a lot better with them around.

I'm still wondering how best to spend my second last week in subang. Tomorrow night I'll be heading off to church after work to try out a song with Enoch (hopefully I don't screw it up again) and then on Weds going to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orhcestra to watch Fourplay (HURRAH!-note to self: do not forget to bring tickets). But I guess tonight would mean practicing till my fingers bleed (or I get the tempo thing sorted out, whichever comes first) so that everything will be smooth flowing tomorrow. Friday night would then be either futsal or meeting up with Kenneth Chan aka Lord of Madness or both, depending. Thursday night I might have to head of to One U to get that VaR book. And Saturday night is church, Sunday night has something on but I can't remember what. Looks like the week's quite well filled up.

Lat night I was watching a concert DVD that Enoch passed to me till about 2am, all japanese music. I'm only like 10% through it, but my goodness. I wanna be Japanese. I mean I wanna play music like they do. There were these two funk/jazz bands that were playing, Casiopea and The Square. Didn't manage to see much of Casiopea yet, but I caught about 20 mins of The Square, and the only thing that felt like a square was my head. They are soooooooooooooo good. Another CD added to my "must buy" list. Which probably brings the list to a grand total of 20 CDs or something like that. I smell something burning. And I think it's my debit card. But like Enoch said, you only live once. What the heck. Retail therapy is the new health for me.

And I'm still waiting for my paycheck from Bank Negara. It's like 15 days late. Sometimes people don't realise that when they don't do things properly they're tarnishing more than just their own image. I want my paaaayyyyy........so I get that cool jacket that I saw too. Which will set me back by another Rm180.

I think I've finally got over my addiction of FM2006. But I haven't deleted it of my comp yet, so that danger is still there. Blearghh! It's a love hate relationship I tell you.

Sometimes sitting here in the office with absolutely nothing to do makes me wonder what the heck am I doing here. But yet I justify it by saying this is the only way I'll get to spend my summer in KL with my friends. And at least there's some semblance of work. Else I'd really rot. To the point where I'd pick up a pen and think its a new apple product or something.

So here's to the last 2 weeks in subang for the year. *sigh*

Life at Work

Lazyness got the better of me , so I didn't blog for the past months.

Anyways that was a pretty lousy intro for a blog entry, but lets move on.

So here I am sitting in the office of Bank Negara Malaysia in the insurance supervision department. I found that as as intern in Bank Negara you are usually overpaid and underworked. So to keep myself from falling asleep, I shall spend time telling you all about life in the past month.

Lets start off with work. Working life is...well..cool? I dont't know. It definately has its pros and cons, but I think as far as this job is concerned, whatever pros that I foresaw as a student for a working person has been completely blown to bits. All because i buntut gatal and decided that I wanna study Actuarial Science and be an actuary. (And by the way, to that smart ass, no, actuarial science has NOTHING TO DO with botany. Unless of course one day some insurance company decides to insure your durian tree in your ah kong's dusun, but thats another story.)

Back to my point. Well you see, the main complain I had as a student is the endless amount of studying which I am supposed -but never did- to do... you know, like after you get home from Uni at 7pm, cook your dinner, then you gotta start reading about todays class material, assignments, etc. Thats a pain. Working life -I thought- would mean just getting up early in the morning, brave the rush hour, work till evening, brave the rush hour again, then you're home scott free for the rest of the evening. Well that still holds true for most professions. I mean, even if you're an auditor being overworked and underpaid in PWC no rest for 24 hours 7 days a week 6 months of the year, well heck....you don't need to do anything once you get home from work - I just realised my auditor anology is not going to work but I'm too lazy to think of another one - As for this field that I'm in, coming home would still mean bringing fat textbooks with you, studying, preparing for actuarial exams, understanding what other new mathematical/statistical methods geeks like you in the industry have come up with and so on and so forth. Where's the social life man??? Like I said, the auditor analogy doesnt work cos most of them take their CAP papers to become chartered accountants.

Well so much for working life. Its still fun though. I'm beggining to see all the math and stats that I've learnt in the past 2 years fall into application, and just somehow its gives a little bit more meaning to my life when I'll be sitting down in front of books reading theories and math that I don't really understand much about. So thats a little bit more motivation to study harder. Not.

I take the bus to work -yes, you heard me right. THE BUS- everyday. And I must say, the much maligned Malaysian public transport system isn't that bad after all. Well at least for the buses and the area I'm in, it's pretty decent. I've been living in SS13 subang Jaya for the past month, and taking the no 10 and 13 metrobus -talk about metro guys, we've got metro bus- to work. Well before this I was taking the KTM, and also the yellow mini buses to get to the KTM station. And heck they are good. So far everyday, every 5-10 minutes there'd be a metrobus coming along to take me to KL. So too for the yellow buses. Very good service. The KTM is pretty decent too, only that a train comes every 15 mins. If they improved the frequency of it or added some extra carriages it'd be much better.

I actually took the time to write an email to the KL Urban Transport Department, praising them for the existing bus service that I use -I'm sure almost all 26 million Malaysians out there would disagree with me- and also outlining some suggestions on how to further improve the existing system. I actually wrote it on a feedback page on their website, and the whole thing took me 45 mins to write. Unfortunately for me, when I clicked the "send" button, the next thing that appeared was an error screen. When I think of that even up to today, words still fail me. Here is this guy taking the trouble to PRAISE the authorities for the PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM and the blasted webpage gives me an error message. Talk about ungratefulness. But it's more likely that 26 million malaysians out there are spamming the site with hate messages and death threats (which would be the reason why it got stuck...so I guess I'll blame them instead. Heh.

In the headlines today it was announced that Malaysia Airlines, under its restructuring program, will increase its domestic airfares effective in 2 weeks time (which I assume would be somewhere mid August). First thing when my dad saw it in the news last night was to call me up and ask me to hurry up and get my plane ticket before the international fares went up too. Did my research first thing in the morning today.... and guess what I found.

Flights to London (one way, inc tax and fees):
MAS RM3100
Emirates RM2400 (transit at Dubai)
British Airways RM 5100 (transit at HK via Cathay Pacific)
Thai Airways RM 4098 (transit at Bangkok)
Qantas RM 2300 (from Changi)
SIA RM 2200 (from KLIA-transit at Changi S'pore)
SIA RM 3300 (from Changi)

Seems to me like SIA is doing some serious predatory pricing on MAS's ass here. Talk about friendly relations. If I were Singaporean I'd buy a plane ticket with SIA from Malaysia and fly to London from KLIA. Take a train or a coach up to KLIA. That way you'd still save at least RM500. And Thai Airways better be giving some Thai massage onboard to justify that price. BA can just fly home on their own.

I'd regard myself as slightly more patriotic that the average Malaysian citizen out there -heck the fact that I praised the transport system should make me the most patriotic one already by default - but paying RM 900 more isn't my idea of competiveness. MAS better get their pricing strategy right. Or sabotage SIA. Else someone's gonna need another bailout soon.

I'd like to stop blogging now but I'd have too much free time on my hands then an don't know what to do with it so I guess i'll just continue on with another couple of paragraphs.

Oh yeah, exams result came out like a month ago. I did pretty alright. In fact it was a miracle considering the marks that I got. All glory to God. He truly is faithful when I am faithless. All that desperation, sleepless nights, prayers, emotions, trauma... gosh. Seems like a lifetime ago. But i guess I'll be in for another round in my third year. Funny how exams can shape you so much. Now I won't have to go back early in august and resit. Don't think I'd be able to survive the resit if I had failed the first try.

Another thing that's been going through my mind not too long ago was concerning this too. There's plenty of folks out there like me, who by God's amazing grace, at the point of failure, went into an exam hall, came out with distinctions or marks that they can only dream of. But what about those who DID fail? I won't dispute the fact that God is gracious and He is sovereign, He knows and controls it all, and everything that happens is within His grand design if things, good or bad, that's a fact and truth that is infallible - well unless you don't believe God exist or you believe in a version of God that's quite different from mine, but that's besides the point- I mean, what do you say to these people? What can you possibly say to console them? This whole thing has caused me to be a bit skeptical about the whole go-up-in-front-and-share-your-testimony-about-your-exams-results thing. Sure, I rejoice with you when you do well, but what about that brother or sister in the same room who just failed the exams even after trying so hard, if not harder? But I believe in some things the "why" is not for us to know. But nonetheless I'm a bit careful nowadays with whom and how I tell news like this to. Just something to think about. Cos there are more serious issues in life than exams which will have similiar scenarios.

Well.... I think thats a nice blog entry that'll make up for all the laziness so far. Heh. Till later.

Heat, Humidity, MyTeam and TmNet

Yeah!! Finally I decided to update.

Been back in Malaysia since the 20th, left Heathrow on the 19th evening in a largely uneventful and routine flight. Before that was the trip to Newcastle to watch the jaw dropping Tommy Emmanuel concert, which of course a fantastic weekend. Then came the Champions League final where Arsenal lost to Barcelona, but what the heck...our one man team (which I just found out that his middle name is Daniel!!!) is staying put at Arsenal so its all good. After that was helping Magda (who probably will be my new housemate next year, yay!) move her stuff over to my place, which of course, was no joke since now there's hardly enough space to walk about in my room.

Anyways since I've got back I've been constantly complaining about how hot it is back home, but then at the end of the day I still love it here compared to London anyday. Except for the fact that I wake up at 9am every morning because it's too hot to continue sleeping. And the humidity!! GAH! I pretty upset about the fact that my 1 week old guitar strings are now all covered in rust and now I have to replace them again. And the tanglewood's G-string snapped. I blame the heat and rust too.

Apart from that issue, been catching up with friends for the pass 2 weeks, going out at night and just chilling, went to genting with my family last weekend, then over to my grandparents place in KL and Melaka. Life is good at the moment. This weekend I'll be off to Port Dickson for my family church camp, where they put me in charge of the games. And I'm gonna torture all the uncles and aunties with insane non stop running heart attack inducing games so that they'll never ask me to do games again. Shock therapy. *grin* (which reminds me of course that I have to actually start planning it)

And then next weekend off to Subang!! Whee! Cant wait for that. And Mr Limus is coming down on thursday (unless he FFK me) and maybe Uncle Nick too to Melaka and then we'll be going up together on saturday. (and those who know me well enough will know that it's actually my evil play to get them to help carry my stuff up to subang. mauahaha.) *Hey guys if u read that, come anyway and i bribe u with cendol and ikan bakar and satay celup and chicken rice ball. Good deal what...* =D

And also not forgetting the other 2 topics on my title, i'll start with TmNet 1st cos I have to complain about them. TmNet sucks laaa!!!! Ok got that out.
MyTeam..... I was cheering for them the whole way in the match against the Malaysian national team (except the part where I missed the 2nd half cause I went out for mamak). Aiyo but seriously watching Malaysia football is like watching a comedy la. And its quite a good comedy I must say. I'd like to hantam FAM but then it'd do no good. So forget it lah.

Still waiting for my internship replies. Quite stressful I tell you.Especially when you have to call Bank Negara. I think i'll prolly end up working in AsiaCafe la. Of maybe starbucks that took over Mee Yoke. hehee...not.

And now I must go off and sweep the floor before my mama kick my ass. And futsal tonight...yeah!! adios!

p.s. was thinking about posting up pictures of wonderful delicious Malaysian food (hint people in Uk who aren't back yet and wont be back for a long long time) but then the internet connection is so bad and its too hot and I have limited patience so I'll spare you guys this time. Just this time.

i told you he's gay

mralvin: mama you're coming here says:
come sit on my lap
mralvin: mama you're coming here says:
i offer guidance

ughhhhh.....

mralvin: mama you're coming here says:
why u attach negative connotations?
mralvin: mama you're coming here says:
to my sincere innocent gesture


I wonder what innocent gesture he's talking about

I've the Joy!

Something's changed. I feel a whole lot better. Happy. Joyful. Hopeful. Not afraid. But everything hasn't. In fact it's got worse. I still can't do contingencies in the time limit, (which i assure u is the least of my worries at the moment - getting half of them done right is the one i'm after), IM is nearer now than ever and i've only just finished reading the module and looking at past year exams i've no idea what the question wants even after doing my reading. So in other words it look tougher more than ever now. And not to mention I've forgotten half the stuff I studied from 2 weeks ago.

But a couple of days ago after that post of despair, I don't know. Many prayers have been said. Many complaints of despair to both daddy's, earthly dad and heavenly Dad. Friends from home have been there to listen and to encourage.

And today. Today i woke up with a sense of joy. Of peace inside. With that sudden realisation that, no matter what comes my way, no matter what happends in the end,

"Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strenghten you,
Yes I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
Isaiah 41:10

That's the promise. And countless more of them. I do not fear anymore.

Sigh. Funny how God uses mundane boring things like exams to bring you to your knees and closer to Him.

Time to not run with my strength anymore. It's time for battle.

i am scared

I am afraid. Truly I am.
My heart is gripped with fear like never before.

Never have i ever been in such a position before exams, the 1st paper is about a week away, and despite 3 weeks of studying 6 hours a day minimum, which subsequently went up to 10-12 hours in the last week, still render at the stage that if i were to take any paper now, I almost definately won't pass.

If only I have one more week. That would make a hell lot of difference.

But I don't. I am scared. My heart cannot deny the fear that grips me.

Fact is, humanly speaking, no matter how I prepare this last few days, there's no way I'm going to be able to scrape it this time. Knowing my abilites and my limitations, I know there's no way. And thoughts like this have been going through my mind even as I went to bed last night.

I woke up with the same thoughts this morning, but I was reminded of the song, which goes:

God will make a way,
When there seems to be no way.
He works in ways we cannot see,
He will make a way for me.
He will be my guide,
Hold me closely to His side.
With Love and Strength for each new day
He will make a way.

By a roadway in the wilderness,
He'll lead me.
And rivers in the desert will I see.
Heaven and earth shall fade,
But His Word will still remain,
He will do something new today.

His word will still remain. Times like these, when everything is beyond me, all I can do is hold on to the promises of God.

Psalm 25:1, 2, 15, 20

To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, I trust in You;
Let me not be ashamed...

My eyes are ever toward the LORD,
For He shall pluck my feet out of the net...

Keep my soul, and deliver me,
Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.

And this is the one that I want to be able to say with all my heart.

Psalm 27: 1, 3, 5, 7,9

The Lord is my light and salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?

Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I willbe confident.

For in the time of trouble,
He shall hide me in His pavillion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice!!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.

Psalm 28: 1, 2, 6, 7

To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock;
Do not be silent to me,
Lest, if You are silent to me,
I become like those who go down to the pit.
Hear the voice of my supplications
When I cry to You,
When I lift up my hands toward You holy sanctuary

Blessed be the LORD,
Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices
And with my song I will praise Him.

Psalm 27: 14

Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!

I will wait on You O my God. I need a miracle from You.

Random

It's been a long three months. Lots of work, capped of with a final marathon of exams needing to be done at sprint speed. 6 papers in 2 weeks!! No wonder people say 2nd year of Actuarial Science is the hardest. Third year what so hard? FYP only marrr... :P (i know that statement's gonna come bite me back in the ass...watch out for a post on it in about 6-8 months time)

Anyways, enough of exams and work. Who wants to listen to boring stuff like that. I'll always remember what a girl from church told me when I told her I had spent the weekend doing my assignments : "You're so booorrrriiing..." =_=" like i had a choice....hmmph!!

So i think i'll blog on something else. Like for example my guitar heroes....

Well I'm no fret flying rockstar of a guitarist, my housemates (and generally the entire block of apartments) will testify to the noise that they hear on a frequent basis. Hey, i know its bad, but thats why i practice maa...

Anyways, let's not digress. On to my guitar heroes:

Tommy Emmanuel


You won't hear him on the radio in our pop/hip-hop(dangdut??) music culture today, but heck, he's one of the maddest guitarist around. If you listen to his music, you'd think there's a whole band 3 guitars playing when there's actually only one. Totally superb. I don't really dig his style (but mainly because I won't be able to play like him even after 100 years of practice), and neither does my playing have much of his influence, but something very basic and simple that he said kept me going through the times when i felt like chucking my guitar out of the window (more like sell on ebay) when i was frustrated with non-existent progress, "Whatever you do, never give up." That sentence has kept me doggedly going all these while. *looks to housemates, sorry guys, blame uncle tommy*

Eric Clapton


I think he was my first ever guitar hero. Some people don't think he's that good, but this guy's guitar playing gives a whole new meaning to term emo-music. This one la real emo, not the rubbish called simple plan that 14 year old kids go crazy about. Aiyo he coming to london la this may, but one ticket now costs 145 pounds.... eeeeek!! If only i knew earlier.

Slash

Ok, so maybe he's not the best role model for kids out there, taking drugs, smoking ciggies onstage pulling of solos, but heck man, I think every guitarist at one point of their lives wanted/ still wants to play guitar GnR style. Very very influential. And I like that hat.

John Mayer


Ok Ok i confess I'm a fan. AND HE'S GOOD OK! Partly because I invested some money buying his Room For Squares CD out of impulse one day. And also the tab book. And many hours of practice. *smirks* By the way he has a new band now called John Mayer Trio, and they have pretty good stuff too. Blues rock style.

Zakk Wylde
His music is not for the faint hearted. Screaming guitars punctuated with pinch harmonics ever interval, mad solos. But anyways heard his playing from Ozzy's No More Tears album and liked it very much. I'll be singing Mama I'm Coming Home this May 19th. Nasi lemakkkkk!

And finally,

Paul Gilbert

If the romans worshipped guitarists, he'd be one of the gods. Probably zeus (although that is open for debate). He's one of those guys whose playing skills are on a totally different level from every one else. I've been listening to his stuff daily at least twice a day. Haha. Its mad la. He's mad. Whoever heard of using a power drill to play guitar? I mean, Hendrix used his teeth, but man, this guy uses a BLOODY DRILL. And he's got the coolest website ever. Plus usually when I hear these guys playing, i wanna give up straight. But his playing inspires me for some reason.

And i just realised i forgot to put Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi's gutiarist) and Mike Einzieger (Incubus) in. But I also malas want to type, and I doubt anybody made it this far down reading it anyways....

Oh well.

Time for pro evo before apu comes to take his controllers back.

[Edit: Oh shit we played to 6am in the morning. I hate myself for doing things like this... sigh]

this says its all

a conversation on skype with my housemate (which i shall not name) which got me quite worried.

[10:50:10 PM] choongchingyek says: well at least i'm not un-gay

I guess one can conclude that being un-something means that he is something.

I'm bolting the doors tonight.

Stupid blogspot

I was looking at my past archives when i noticed the header titled February 1990.

Wait a minute. I was only 6 years old in 1990. There was no internet at that time. There was no computer in our house. Internet not invented then too. Curious, i clicked on it.

SO THATS WHERE THE MISSING POST WENT!

stupid blogspot.

Investment Markets

Shit happens. Too often in the past few days.

This is probably the most painful piece of coursework i have ever done. More interestingly, it is also a group project which i managed to complete without meeting my group member. Interesting.

Yes it was hell for 4 days, no sleep, countless redoing due to initially misunderstanding and then later misinformation. What the heck. And when i handed it in yesterday i was so relieved thinking that this bitch of a coursework is finally over.

And when i woke up this morning, guess what i found? A page of the coursework that i left out. And its a saturday today so the office is closed and i cant take it in. Gotta wait till monday.

Oh yeah, did i mention that the deadline was yesterday?

Just when I thought it was clear to cross the road, a truck came right up and ran over me.

Sigh. Life, oh life.

Now to do that thing called stochastic modelling.

Tired

Dear God,

I'm tired
Tired of a life that I shouldn't be in
Tired of trying to do things that I can't
Tired of fighting in leagues I don't belong
Tired of failing to meet expectations
Tired of smiling when I don't feel happy
Tired of being bold
Tired of lagging behind
Tired of being frustrated all the time
Tired of fighting inferiority complexes,
When I truly am inferior
Tired of always not being good enough
Tired of dreaming big
Tired of trying to reach things beyond me
Tired of falling down,
And not having much strength left when each time I get up
Tired of trying
Tired of it all.

I need rest.
No, God. I need You.
I need to hear Your promise again.
I need to feel You near me.
I need to know that You are looking after me.
I need to know You're right beside me
I need to know that when I can't make it to the end
You will carry me there.
I need to see You.
I need You.
God I need You.

hahaha huh???

Its the time of the year again when the courseworks are piling up to no end, and the difficulty of this course is sticking its butt out real high. As of the "status update" post which i did a few weeks ago, the grand total of courseworks came up to 12 due in 5 weeks. This friday again there are 3 due. But at least after that it will be 6 out of 12 done.

Aiya, this is madness lah. Madness I tell you.

And i bet you exactly one year from now i'll be complaining about the same thing again.

Babi punya courseworks!

And really, the 2 guitars a proving to be the death of me. Electric by day and acoustic by night. Surf internet and chill out in between. Where got time to study? Wannabe rock star mah.....

Aiyah have to go face the courseworks.

*Cue scene from LOTR-The Two Towers where the King Theoden ...erm actually i can't remember what scence, but what the heck... anyways, all of the riders of rohan shout in a great voice*

TO DEATH AND GLORYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

I think there'll only be death and no glory in the case the courseworks.

Newspaper headlines near you soon.

22 YEAR OLD STUDENT DIES DUE TO EXCESSIVE COURSEWORK
Hot Rock Star Prospect(note: wannabe) Found Dead in Room Holding on to Guitars.




Wakakaka.

Hahaha.

Saw this post today on the star online.

"Your right to expect good service"

read the headline, in regard to the public transportation issue. I think someone should tell them

"Your responsibility to ensure good service"

Sigh.

The Malaysian Public Transport System

I should be studying, but what the heck. Anyways, i originally wanted to blog about arsenal's amazing week capped off with the win against liverpool today, but then reading the star online about malaysian public transport system made my mind turn to other things instead. Yes and turn away from studying mortality rates.

But anyways, i very very seldom put my country down, but our transport system, to put it very gently, needs some work. Some serious work. So much so that i even dare say that the government should consider nationalising the whole freaking system.

Basically, what should be done (in my opinion) is pretty expensive at the start, but in the long run should prove worthwhile IF THEY STICK WITH IT AND DO NOT LEPAK HALFWAY LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO!

Anyways if i was a rich guy with a few billion to spare (hint goverment with money from fuel increases) , this is what I'd do:

Firstly, unite the entire transport system under one company. These will prevent idiots from petty squabbling about profit margins on stupid issues like 5 or 10 sen profit from touch and go cards.

One company for the trains and LRT, and another one for buses.

Make (ie force, with the threat of RM5 million fines with failure to comply) the touch and go card be available to use on every public transport system in the capital (and of course PJ, subang, damansara or whatever parts of selangor. Heck just chuck the whole selangor in.). But then if everything was united under one company we wont need to force people right?

Make the KTM trains run more frequently. Especially during peak hours. There must be trains passing a station every 3 minutes during peak hours, not a 15 minute wait like it is at the moment.

The LRTs are working fine, as long as they sort out their touch and go card issue it'll be all cool.

And now the buses. The buses. Those damned buses.

Under the unified system, buses are made sure to run on schedule (ie not waiting at a crowded kota raya road for the bus to fill up first before moving). Every 5-8 minutes the bus should pass its designated bus stop. Inspectors must go round making sure bus drivers stick to the schedule (actually all they need is to periodically check the stop points). And fine the drivers if they stop and lepak for a limau ais at the nearby gerai.

Routes are to be set out clearly. And routes must not be too far and too long. Each bus stop must have a proper map of the buses stopping at the bus stop, and where they are going, how long are they expected to take.

Standardize the fares. It should be a flat rate for any bus trip. Point A to point B or point A to point C should be charged at the same rate. This helps streamline the fares and the use of the touch and go card. It should be the same for the LRTs and KTM too.

Divide up the capital into zones. Zone one should be the centre and most busy parts of KL, zone 2,3,4,...progressing outward from there. Flat rate within zones, and of course from zone 2 to zone one should cost more than within zone 1.

Have things like day travelcards, or monthly passes, for bus only, or for bus and train. This works in such a way in the case of a day bus pass, that the commuter pays a flat rate say, RM4, and can use as much of the bus as he wants on that day.

And what about funding? How does the government keep this up?

I suggest the use of congestion charging. Follow singapore or London's example. Charge people a rate of RM5(something like that lah) a day, when they enter into the capital. Then u can abolish the tolls within KL already. Use cameras, whatever needed to enforce it. But of course for this to work the public transport system needs to be working properly. Else there'll be riots. And of course, exempt commercial vehicles like lorrys and other goods transporting services from it. We don't want to completely hinder commerce now, don't we?

Another controversial move is to tax every 2nd/3rd car that a household has. Increase the road tax by another 100% or something on the extra car that the household has. Discourage people from buying so many cars (at this point i know if i ever run for PM i'll be shot dead at my campaining rounds). But then again this is a trade off in national interest as i believe we wanna promote proton and perodua. Heck then tax only if its not proton or perodua. Wahaha i'm a genius. Again not a popular move. But it'll work i'm sure.

Make sure ONLY BUSES USE BUS LANES. Fine the offenders to bits. Set up cameras everywhere and more importantly, make sure they are working (ie not only empty cameras with no film or whatever inside).

And of course, simple economics, peak and off peak pricing. Encourage the use of the LRT and KTM during off peak hours. Especially to school kids. Give them half price discounts, student rates or whatever for them to travel on the LRT. And make it cheaper to travel during off peak hours on the LRT and KTM.

And make full use of the current feeder buses. Not when the putra bus drivers stop at the Terminal Gombak and cram into their little cubicle and smoke while passengers wait frustratedly for the bus driver to finish his ciggie and teh tarik before he decides to drive the bus. If only the feeder buses worked then the LRT will be fully utilised.

Encourage companies to promote car pooling. Or a company bus or something. Give them incentives to do so. But of course insurance companies insuring that particular company will cry foul in the event of a tragedy when all the worker perish in an accident. Pokai straight the insurance firm. (That an actuarist thought for you).

OK la i got to read mortality rates liao. Its not a perfect solution above but i'm betting that its better than the one we have now. Why doesn't the goverment just send people over to study how successful public transport systems work and learn from them? And if any dungu fella opposes the move (worker's unions, ministers, politicians) make sure they don't get a car to themselves and ask them to take public transport to work. That'll teach them to complain.

Kesian all those people who have to take public transport in Malaysia. Heck if we had the power to do something about it. IF. But then those in charge supposed to do their job la. So its their responsibility. Not ours. We complain in our blogs in far far away lands like london. And when we come back we still drive our papa's car. wahaha.

Thoughts and suggestions welcomed (a implicit way of knowing how many people actually read this blog... *grin* . If u see 0 comments u know la....)

Status update

Death is in the air. I sense it. Near me.

Death not of physical form (although one can never be sure of that) , but death in the mind. Here's a reality check:

Assignments due in the near future:

Subject: Financial Economics
Type: Individual project
Due date: 7th March
Completion status: 75% (barring errors)
Difficulty level: OK

Subject: Prob and Stats
Type: Groupwork
Due date: 9th March
Completion status: 0%
Difficulty level: can die

Subject: Stochastic Models
Type: Solo project
Due date: 10th March
Completion status: 0%
Difficulty level: Sure die

Subject: Actuarial Planning and control
Type: Group work
Group meeting date: 3th March
Completion status: 10%
Difficulty level: Do-able

Subject: Finance and Financial Reporting
Type: Group work
Due date: 24th March
Completion status: Haven't even downloaded the coursework yet -25%
Difficulty level: Not assesed

Subject: Investment Markets
Type: Group work
Due date: 31st March
Completion status: 0%
Difficulty level: OK

Current health status:
Severe sleep deficit
At the brink of illness

Chance of survival: low

DIE LA DIE! the courseworks i mean. Not me.

----------------

Inexplicably we lost to blackburn. And they are above us in the league table now. BLACKBURN ABOVE ARSENAL??!!! Troubling times indeed. But anyways, through thick and thin man. Through thick and thin.Go gooners. GOOOOO!

----------------

This CU job is as tough as i expected it. But its great fun. It'll be all worth in the end.

----------------

And on friday night i ate on of the best meals ever since coming here - which of course does not really say much about my cooking skills - but anyways, we were at auntie Lilian's place, the kepala of Bank Negara in London. Wonderful lady. Inviting us over to her place. And we even got leftovers which we're goona cook with phall. Oh yeah baby yeah!

Time to eat. I hear the food calling.

Henry! Henry! Thierry Henry!!!!

HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!
HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!

oh by the way just in case you don't know, arsenal beat real madrid 1-0 at the barnebeu tonight. And guess who scored.

Truth is, next week they could come to highbury and rape our arses by 4 goals or something... but for now i shall enjoy the moment.

HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!

--------------------------------------------------
Blogspot is rubbish. Not too long a go i typed in a long entry with pictures and all about my new guitar, and then when i clicked the post button it all but dissappeared.

STUPID BLOGSPOT.

U administrators better do something about it before the world switches to xanga. then u die. u dieeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

-------------------------------------------------
Oh yeah i got my new guitar too!!

Ah my baby....

--------------------------------------
And today I found out that i have 6 courseworks due in 3 weeks. The first one is due this fri (contingencies - what can be better by starting of a glorious tuesday morning with the probability of someone dying??) , and i have yet to complete it. Not to mention that 6 page report i have to do for prob and stats. or stochastic modelling. Or FFR. Or investment markets. Or Financial economics.

And just one last time, all together now....


HENRY HENRY HENRY THIERRY HENRY!!!

A matter of Choice.

George, my housemate, trying hard to inflate an inflatable mattress without a pump. I know he plays a clarinet but this is pushing it.

Over the past few days i've been staring hard at the accumulating pile of work that sits on my table. Well, not that it all sits on my table -in fact not enough space - its just a figure of speech-lah! But anyway i continued staring hard at it for some time. Nothing happened. Dang. Was hoping it will magically go down.

Now to put some of the things i have to do into perspective:

1. Prepare for this friday's prob and stats test.
2. Prepare songs for tmr's CU meeting.
3. Read and research actuarial planning and control presentation.
4. Study contingencies.
5. Do contingencies corpsework.
   
6. Find out dateline of contingencies corpsework or be a corpse.
7. Do prob and stats 2 lab sheet 7 & 8.
8. Do prob and stats 2 corpsework
   
9. Look through mistakes made in previous prob and stats assignment.
10. Study financial reporting - corpsework come soon.
11. Study FFR - there should be another corpsework coming too.
12. Get some sleep.
13. Get that new guitar.
14. Get a life.

You see with the unending list - i bet there are more that i havent found out/remembered about - means that i'll perpetually be busy. When i complete all those there's bound to be more things that need to be done.

So i make a choice. I choose not to be busy. I'll make myself free to do the stuff I WANT TO do. Which of course in no way justifies that 6 hours spent in Apu's place playing PES5 and ending up missing church meeting at night.

But then hey. Back to work i guess.

busy people everywhere. haha....

Not observant enough..........

This is a picture taken during the ACTS games back in August/September. Volleyball competition I think. I was going round taking pictures of people, and I saw little Jonathan sitting alone. Tried very hard to get him to smile to take a picture but he refused to which I found all so puzzling. Only after the picture did I notice what he was pointing at and why he wasn't smiling....LOL. Silly me.


I think it hurts a bit ;P Just a little.

12pm

10am....
11am....
12pm....

I woke up from my 9 hour nap. Looked dark in the room. Lifted up my hand and pulled the curtain away a bit. Hmm, not too bright either. Stupid London weather. Sat up, checked the clock. 12:02pm. Laid back in my bed for a while. Thought through yesterdays events.

.......arsenal won 2-1 at cardiff.......my new cd came....eeeK! there was football yesterday??!! That meant yesterday was saturday. WHICH MEANS TODAY IS SUNDAY!!! WHICH ALSO MEANS THAT I OVERSLEPT AND MISSED CHURCH!!!!!!

And the world was dead silent for a moment.

Arghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BLRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupidstupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid

Sigh. The folly of me.

-------------------------------------

Woke up yesterday morning and greeted the sight of an amazon.co.uk package at my door. Yay! My CD is finally here. And it was:



Paul Gilbert's Live in Tokyo Acoustic Samurai album. Cost me 10.50 pounds. Including delivery and VAT. Which after an subconcious mental conversion of the currencies leads to the grand amount of RM70+/-. So it better be good.

And it was good. I actually heard one song of this album, his acoustic version of Abba's Dancing Queen. And man it rocked. Which was the reason that possessed me to go and buy the entire album. Even though I've not heard much of Paul Gilbert's stuff before, save for a few clips of his guitar clinics (which btw, is absolutely amazing).

This album seriously rocks. In an acoustic kind of way. A must have for guitarist I guess. Man who needs to play electric guitars when you can play acoustics like this guy.



Oh wait he's holding an electric guitar. So yeah we still need electrics for that maddening solos. Which is already maddening in itself but more maddening when he does it on acoustic guitar.

Speaking of acoustic guitars. There's been one which I have been contemplating for a long time. OK maybe not that long, but its been a couple of months now more or less. Weighing up reasons and different alternatives:

1. Buy now:

Cons:

• Financially not secure enough yet. Even if I used the taxpayer's money which has been given to me I'd prolly be able to buy it but there's no certainty that I won't starve to that before end May. Now we don't want to uncover no skeletons hugging on to a guitar 5 months from now in my room.
• Buying now means have to carry back home. Which leave's me with the problem of having 2 hands for 2 guitars in cases and not forgetting my luggage. Siao. And there's no guarantee that the wood is suited for tropical climate. Not to mention then after that I have to carry back two guitars to London.
  
• No time to play. Already have have electric guitar is like having one girl. Takes up most of your time. And even that when the courseworks were pouring in like the Malaysian monsoon rain it was neglected. Another guitar? Lu mai siao.
  

Pros:

• But then buying now means I get to hold it in my hands now. Feel it, play it, make some music/noise with it. Priceless. Something which makes the "buy now" alternative most appealing.
• I get to give Paul Gilbert's acoustic songs a go!! WHEE! (note I just said "give a go", not play like him :p )
  

2. Buy back home in Malaysia.

Pros:

• Definately cheaper than buying here. Buy RM 400 at least. And they can throw in freebies too. Like a guitar case. With cables. And a couple of picks. Which you are unlikely to get if you buy in London. And I have a car which I can put it in and not have to lug it back all the way in the bus instead.
  
• I have the time to play. Cos i'll be free in the summer and have nothing to do for 4 months but play Paul Gilbert's Dancing Queen. And i'll probably be able to play it properly then.
• I would be able to buy it without having the fear of starving to death. Mama cooking at home. No worries.

Cons:

• I might not have any money left to buy then. All spent eating ikan bakar at alai.
• Even if got money, probably can't get the model in Malaysia. Have to go to Singapore to find. Which in itself will sky rocket the cost to bits.
• My dad will think I'm too rich and not give me any pocket money.

Don't buy at all:

Pros:

• No need to worry about money, time and all that stuff above.

Cons:

• NO ACOUSTIC GUITAR!!!! booo hooo.

Anyway this is the baby I've been looking at:


Sigh. Decisions decisions.

What to do?

Anyways it's time for lunch.

And I blame Civilization IV for me forgetting today is Sunday. BLEH!

It's alive!!!!

Happy New Year folks! Peace to all of you!

Woohoo! Dust off the cobwebs, take out that vacumn, time to bring this blog back to life again. Laziness is the ultimate danger to a blog i tell you. Not flaming, not hacking, but laziness. But anyways it's time for an update.

First and foremost, belated seasons greetings. Super belated merry christmas and belated happy new year to everyone. 2006 is here, and its a new year, time to make your resolutions if you're a resolution making person. Funny thing as i spent some time thinking of what happened to 2005, you know, the annual review kind of thing, i realised: dang i can't remember the resolutions i made at the beginning of 2005. Bummer. Out of the window went the annual review.

But anyways looking back again on 2005, it has been a pretty good and happy year for me (of course you gotta forget about the forgotten resolutions).

I spent yesterday reading this guy's blog: http://kennysia.com/ If you haven't read it yet, go read it, i bet you'll laugh your teeth out. But then again one man's meat is another man's poison. BUT WAIT! Don't go till you finish reading this. I'll make it worth your while. (I'll lie to get people to read my ramblings....muahahhaha)

I seem to have forgotten what I want to say.

Anyways, i went skiing in france just before Christmas, and it was one of the best holidays ever. Skiing's the thing. If any of you have the opportunity to try it out, go do it. And here's a great site to get you relatively cheap skiing. I recommend them. 2 thumbs up. The place is great, the food is great, the instructors are mad, and the cost is very affordable even for students (studying in UK on taxpayer's money, that is). It's a non profit organisation btw.

And anyway here is some of the pictures:

Posing for the camera on the last day of skiing. This place was La Flegere, 1894m above sea level, plenty lots of beautiful snow. And also killer cliffs. Awesome. From left to right: Kuok How, Rubin, Me, Alvin, Muz, Chia Wei

Sunset in the alps, while we were waiting for the cable car to bring us back down.

And this was up in La Flegere, while we were chilling out eating lunch in the snow.

The sun shining down on the town of Argentiere. A frozen river.

The sight which greeted us when we opened our room window. Pretty pretty.

So that was the ski trip in pictures for you. (say thanks to the malaysian taxpayers) Unfortunately I could not get any shots of us actually skiing cause none of us were good enough skiiers or cameramen to take pictures of other skiing at the same time without crashing into someone or something.

Funny how you meet people. When we were there, we bumped into a huge group of malaysians from cambridge. Like 20 of them. A lot. A freaking lot. Malaysians were taking over the place. It was mad. Haha. And by some freak accident, we met another BNM Scholar (short form for using-malaysian-taxpayer's-money-to-go-skiing-scholar). Rubin. Also known as Robin Hood to the ski instructors. Real funny guy. I got this theory that most BNM scholars are mad. Either mad scholars ( that is those who study real hard) or mad mental (ie bonkers). I think Rubin falls into the latter. And I think I'm in it too.

Anyways i think thats all for now. I wanted to blog a bit more but I can't get blogger's pictures to come out where I want them to when I upload them, and then it involves a lot of cutting and pasting which is too much trouble and not worth it. Anyone has a better way of uploading pics, let me know.

Have fun!

I is 21

Today, or yesterday rather, i celebrated my 21st birthday. A joyous and momentous occasion, which the first few hours was spent rushing to settle my probability and stats 2 coursework. Hard life aint it?

But anyways, coursework was duly and promptly settled, and after a long day of class till 6pm, i went home, took a bath and waited for alvin to blow dry his hair before we set off again to chia wei's place. Anyways we had a nice meal there, lots of tembaking of each other, especially chia wei(poor boy got shot to bits). But anyways the delightful surprise of the night for me was the birthday present which i got from the whole lot of them. Really nice of them.

And now here i am, 21 years of age, deciding wearing my new arsenal home kit, sitting in front of the computer blogging about stuff.

And they just rushed up saying its time for dota.

So i guess i'll stop here now, show san loo i can pawn him but i give chance, and more importantly just have some fun....lol.