IUC

IUC is here at last!! It used to be one of my favourite RC competitions, second only to Annual Parade. A series of events that include teamtest, first aid in (the) community, theory and marching that pushes the participants to the limit. It is even more demanding for the organisers of the competition, believe me.

This year's IUC wasn't as hyped up as in previous years. The atmosphere wasn't tensed. It could work in favour of those whom aren't able to perform under pressure. The teamtest scenario was about a place that was just hit by a tsunami. Another water scene.

Met up with the Old Crowd - Kuan Ming, Raymond, Chia Hao(Will I ever spell your name correctly?), Thina, Zhen Fei, Erwin, Eric and Marcus. Their juniors were too busy talking to girls (heaves a deep sigh). Seems like I'm the only one from my batch that's still around; LY's in Pennsylvania, Ben doesn't care and CK is (fortunately!) still in S'pore.

Congratulations to the guys from Unit 25 for retaining our trophy!

p.s. I was not made for pole dancing!

Ball hitter!

It's official. Tiger Woods has been voted "Athlete of the Decade". What a farce. How is it a womanising nut gets one billion dollars just for whacking balls. Golf isn't even a sport!

Think about it. You spend tons of cash just to get the right outfit. The gear cost a lot too. You take plenty of time to hit one stinking ball. And since it's a sport you go to the next ball... in a kart. So what about tag? Why isn't that a sport?

Mr Tiger is not any ordinary tiger... the famed ball hitter is paying the price for thinking with his own pair of balls.

Before the holidays are over I must check out Times Square. Chow

Running in circles

I just came back from KL, I'm exhausted. I've finally caught up with the recent happenings of the world. For some strange reason, I feel like someone is bitting off one of my fingers it's extremely uncomfortable.

New Moon was interesting. Because I had such low expectations of the movie, the movie surpassed them. Weird isn't it. You all prolly know what happened in the end. She has vampire kids before becoming one in the end.

Owen scored a hat-trick for United, Fabio should reinstate him into the England squad. My foot hurts from all the walking. I'm too tired to write anymore, Bye.

Anything new on the telly?

New Moon, as described by many was boring. Which is why I'm not sure if I want to catch it in the cinemas. Odds are that I wouldn't even watch the DVD, yet alone buy it. I don't think I'll ever watch it, not out of interest but because the reviews are somewhat discouraging.

I should have bought a keyboard protector from the PC fair.

England was drawn int Group C along with the USA, Algeria and Slovenia. Nice! Them French cheaters are drawn with Mexico, South Africa and Heaven knows who.

Easy for England, bad for South Africa.

The WC will be held in South Africa but more importantly it will be the first time that the World Cup will be held in Africa. Which is something they highlighted during the Draw. I suggest you watch it :D.

In BPL, Gary Neville limped off the pitch throwing his armband to Carrick. Carrick threw it to Giggs and wore it upside down. He wore it properly in the second half. Sounds trivial, but it's the only tiny negligible detail I know that you don't.

Not updated?

I don't have much to write about, which explains my idleness. Advent has started and Christmas Carols are being played everywhere you go. The Christmas Carol was nice. For two hours I thought Gary Oldman was Scrooge and wondered where was Jim Carrey... My pre-registration issue has been settled and I'm speaking perfectly good English again.

Oh, by the way, Chelski were eliminated from the League Cup.

I'm back

I think the title says it all. After blowing almost all of my cash on chocolates, McDonald's and Burger King in the space of five days, I'm back!

Axe-Amms

In a week, I would have finished my first semester on this desolated island. And to think that I have another 5 semesters to go... ahh whatever mate. It's like Shawn Michaels once said, "it's Hell getting Heaven". So here's a bit of an update of what's going on after such a long time :

1. Cristiano Ronaldo is injured - think you all know that.
2. I took off my foot support, but my foot isn't 100% yet.
3. There's still no water on campus
4. Two of my friends are so hopelessly close but are so hopeless at taking it to the next level.
5. I've ran out of food.
6. I'm considering setting up a Help service on campus to those with relationship issues.

My exams are on right now. I can't go back early because I have a drama presentation for Islamic and Asian Civ. These dungus were too lazy to take a quiz worth 10% so they wanted to do that instead. Whassamatter? "fraid I would all yer asses like in the Mid-term? Bragging over, Back to work.

Thought from out of the Blue

I'm finally reactivating this blog of mine. My sprained foot turned out to be fractured, so I'm out for a couple of weeks. Now, that I finally have the time to type stuff.

Please read this with an open mind, by the way.


You've heard of the Evangelists haven't you? Your bound to bump into one of them sometime in your life. No? Well their Christians that go around dancing and singing and chanting in the open, getting you to join their church and preach about why you should join them.

Basically their a bunch of aggressive recruiters. I'm sure there are people like this in every religion but I'm going to talk about it from my point of view.

Evangelists work in many ways. I've been approached by a few back home in Penang. The first rule of talking to one of them is to NEVER give yourself away. Those guys will never leave you alone if you let them in on your name and phone number.

Many of you know how they operate? They get you to join their church activities then eventually assimilate you into their denomination.

The way they do it irritates me.

When I was in Sabah, a group of Sabahans began approaching students one by one, speaking in Irish accents "Are you Christian brother?, Are you Buddhist brother?..." And then they began to give their own interpretation of the book Revelations and how their church has been in existence for so long and how they affect the community, yadda yadda. Classic Evangelistic script.


I must admit I wonder why didn't they have a go at me? I love it when they pointlessly try to persuade me to consider their offer.

Well it's much better than those self-rightous Christians who come to you and say "Join us and you will be saved"(The polite version of 'join us or go to hell'). Nobody can tell you if your saved or not. It's only up to the Big Man up there not you, not your Pastor, not the Pope, but GOD himself. Just be faithful, say your prayers and practice what is preached and wait till Judgement Day.


Christians worship the same God, we follow Jesus and we believe in the Holy Spirit. So why would you want to ask me to join your church when I'm happy as faithful as you guys are in the Catholic Church?


My Question - Why can't the Evangelists go after the atheists and leave us in peace?

Sprained Foot

I'm finally back. I never realised there's so much one can read about programming. Which is why I hate to read it up. Instead I just copy the programs and try to be creative...

I was playin futsal yesterday. I charged after this guy with the ball, hit him and I fell on my right foot. I couldn walk. I'm much better today. I'm not typing much because IE isn't working properly. I'm switching to GC.

Night At The Tower

Some seniors were having this "Movie Fiesta" for their 2nd/3rd year project. I didn't want to go because I've seen most of the movies that they were going to screen.

A few of our friends had to spend the night at the Tower because the last bus to their hostel was at 11. Guess I'm lucky to be within walking distance of the school, although their hostel does have water.

Their last movie ended at 2.30 and so the rest of us decided to spend the night/morning at the Tower to keep them company. Fancy three girls all alone in the lonely building with no-one until 8 in the morning. The place isn't haunted but still it can be pretty uncomfortable.

I'm no stranger to staying up all night long. It's 4.22 and I'm still fresh. Five fellas are fast asleep, and there are three others infront of me on their laptop.

I don't think I should take pictures of them and post them here. ~sigh~ why am I so good to them.

Sid out.

Home and Back again

After spending 1 heavenly week back in Penang, I'm once again wasting my time in Labuan. I've been doing a bit of studying here and there but it's at a really slow rate(try one or two pages per day). Least it's better than spending hours on the phone trying to negogiate a way off this rock. I'll pick up the pace soon enough. I want to get on the Dean's List, I hope I do.

One of the disadvantages of being a Penangite is that you will never enjoy better food anywhere else in the world. Seriously, for some strange reason I get refuted when I say I'll love the food in Australia every time I mention "Let me go to Australia! I won't miss Penang food."

After spending my first six weeks here I couldn't be bothered if fish and chips, pies and vegemite sandwiches will NEVER EVER be part of my diet. Let's face it, a return to OZ seems like it's never going to happen. So I've given up on trying to find a way back.

Anyway, if you can't live without Mamak food, Chinese food, Indian food this is the perfect place to go on a hunger strike. Nothing beats Penang food, NOTHING! Go to Mid-Valley in PJ and order a plate of Wan-tan mee and you will not enjoy it as much as you'll enjoy it back home. No offence to whosoever is the cook over there but it's the truth. Think I spent my first night in Sabah promoting Penang food. I spent my final afternoon in Sabah talking about Penang food with another Penangite(much to everyone's annoyance).

On the other hand, the beaches back home, with the exception of Monkey Beach, are filthier. But I hardly go to the beach here... seen it, been there, done that. A lot of people seem to love going to the beach often. By the way, riding the waves in a canoe is fun.

Just for the sake of bragging, my English lecturer thinks my essay map is brilliant but I think I got lucky. Can't blame me for gloating, I feel a little vindicated...

Speak now or forever hold your peas...

Barney loves kids...

In death MJ found peace from all those parents who had eyes that looked like dollar signs, claiming that Jacko molested their kids.

But I don't think he is a sicko.

Yeah he loved kids a lot but I doubt he would go into paedo-mode. He was married twice to start with. And if he was sick he would have done that years before, not when he was at his peak.

I was reading a post by Ian on FB- Barney is a paedophile... it got me thinking. If you still believe the Immortal King of Pop likes kiddies, I think you are all wrong!!

I'm going to leave Jacko alone and have a go at Barney, he/it was annoyed me when I was a kid. Here are three reasons to why I think Barney is not going after adult dinos.

It's only for laughs by the way, don't take it the wrong way will ya? I know it's only a kids show and it's not real...

1. At school when everyone is there, he is only a little doll. Once all the adults leave and only the kids are left, he just so happens to magically enlarge and laughs gleefully and is so exicited his prehistoric heart might burst. His a stalker.

2. He ends the show by professing his love for the kids and hugs them like their lovers.

3. He touches them a lot.

Now, I ain no sicko but let us face it. We'll be in jail if any of us did that.

It's a pretty short post. I've been busy so I've not much time to update the blog.

Cya

.

Axe-Ee-Dent

So I saw this accident some time ago. This car was trying to overtake another and the reckless driver lost control of the car and it swerved to the right and rolled(four times) down a slope and into a carpark. F***!. The boot door and the front headlamp flew off.

It was a nasty thing to see. The victims were(what a coincidence) from the Uni itself. The car appeared to have stopped rolling and was on it's right hand side when it slowly leaned back and fell on all four tyres.

I'd like to feel sorry for the victims but I've no love for the driver who was driving too fast and was so impatient that her actions got them into deep crap. Okay maybe I'll symphatise with the guy in the passenger seat. He knocked his head against the windscreen and was bleeding all over. Not sure about his current condition but he was in bad shape and that he was transported to Kota Kinabalu for futher treatment.

Do you know why I feel sorry for him...?

Because he was transported to KK by ferry.

How can something so serious sound so comedic, haih. I hate accidents. Sometimes the carelessness of others may turn accidents into manslaughter so BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU DRIVE.

This road safety message is dedicated to Ding Sheng who keeps smashing into things.

Enjoy the pictures.





Do NOT approach a car immediately after it crashes. Or in this case, rolled over.





Not a pretty sight.





Even the dumpster got thrashed.





The boot door flew away and so did the spare tyre.

Flu season

You don't get to see this back home... :S


I just got better from a cold that has been holding me down for the past three weeks. My cough has been going on for that amount of time. After(finally) seeing the doctor on Monday, I made a pretty quick recovery. Heck, even my cough is gone.

I got to hand it to them for curing my cough.

I was down with the cold twice this year and on both times my cough couldn't go away until May despite going to the doctor.

You know what I think.... the doctor back home is a nut.

By the way, some people have been quarintined today as a precaution with all the H1N1 commotion. I'm still alive!

Pick-up Lines

Alright, I won't pretend to be an expert on the subject. I don't do these things... after all I'm here to study and if I could, get another Cowboy hat! But I just couldn't resist not telling you guys about this guy who tried to pick up one of my friends. It's just, well out of the ordinary.

The guys and I were on the ferry to Labuan and we were all talking and joking around

And this happened

A psychotic nerd just shoves what looks like a PSP between me and my friend and quickly says to her in a low voice, 'this was a game made by one of the IT student, you see the graphic it resembled... yadda yadda... and the storyline is...yadda yadda..." He was getting more emotional and exicited. He sounded like he was reassuring her from the boogeyman that just scared the living daylights out of her.

Pardon the grammatical errors but that's how he speaks. No offence. No it's not word for word I can't remember these things 100%.

So we thought this guy was doing one of those ten-second demos about some video or something. The Love Guru was babbling away for more than ten minutes. So our friend was saved from further agony when my roomie asked her to go for a walk. That's what friends are for :)

She spent the rest of the trip sleeping in the corner hidden from everyone else. It was a peaceful ride after that. Didn't see LG anywhere after that.. wheew! Two hours of having the wind blowing in your face without a worry in the world.

Sid Out!

The Trip To Labuan

The view from my room in Sabah


I lose count on how many weeks it has been since I left Penang. I think it has been four weeks. That would make it my third week in Labuan. I'm still adjusting but I don't think I can ever understand what the people here are saying. It's not just their accent, but I never got the hang of spoken Malay.

After my orientation week in Kota Kinabalu, we were to leave for Labuan International Campus by ferry. The Internationls (a.k.a those from China) and a few other girls left in the morning, which would probrably mean they would have caught the mid-day ferry to Labuan.

We left for a place called Menumbuk at about 11am. 'This should be a short trip', I thought to myself. 'Menumbuk's probrably some place near the city, everything is'




UMS Stadium... hope I got the right picture.

Four Hours Later...
Turns out we're actually heading for the port that is closer to Labuan.



This is either the DBP or their 'Putrajaya' of Sabah as they call it.





Sabah is surrounded by islands like this. I thought every one of them was Labuan.


We arrived at Menumbuk only to learn that there has been a delay. 'The ship better not have ran out of fuel', I thought. Well whatever the reason for the delay, we had three hours for ourselves. Menumbuk is full of trees as is most of the state. There were only a few shops - two tiny food shops and a place where u can play console games(only PS2 games I'm afraid). There wasn't much to do so we headed inside the customs office



Inside the customs


There's nothing much to show you guys about the pier. Just another island in front of me. And this




Yeap, the water is BLACK.

Well the ferry finally arrived at 6. Problem was it took 1 hour to port. After porting in the wrong place, it spent 45 minutes back at sea completely stationary.

After the ship ported and the vechicles drove out, we quickly occupied the top deck. I couldn't take anymore pictures because it was too dark(7 o'clock here is 8 o'clock back home, despite the fact that it's only a half hour difference between here and the Peninsular). For the next two hours, it was nothing but islands and the wind blowing in my face. Don't know if the water was still black.

Destination : Labuan
Time Arrived : around 10.

The first thing that greeted us at Labuan was two duty free shops(this is what kept me from fighting to go Queensland in the first place... other than the course that I'm doing of course). I learnt that the shops here close at 9pm. I couldn't carry any more bags, so I had to wait a little while before I could blow my cash on chocolates...

Anyway, I went to the campus, ate, checked it, yadda yadda fell asleep.


That's pretty much it. Here are a few more pictures I took along the way

Error

Hey, sorry for all the typos in my previous posts. I'll try to cut down on the typos next time.

You must persevere

I had my first English class today. The course called Academic Reading & Writing. My lecturer was talking about her life which is pretty interesting. She's half Spanish(her dad's Spanish) and half Malay. She's married with 3 kids, though I could have swore she mentioned six.

She wanted to become an English teacher after school. She applied to study at UKM but she didn't get the university of her choice. Can't remember what did she do after that. Anyway, she got married and had THREE(yeah it's three) kids. After receiving her degree, she was offered a place at the University of Edinburgh. She did not expect that at all. Now she has her Masters and is about to do her PhD soon.

My lecturer told us a few important things. The first was when she wasn't accepted by UKM. 'Look at it as a blessing in disguise' she whispered...'AND IT WAS A BIG BLESSING IN DISGUISED!' she yelled.

The second - 'I know some of you got a course you don't like or want. But it doesn't matter! Whatever it is, you must work hard and be excellent in it! Just do it, if you want to do something else, you can do it after you graduate. Go on if you want to be a teacher(she's refering to a friend of mine who didn't do well in his interview to enter the Teaching College), finish your degree and get your diploma. Don't worry if your still studying while all your other friends are working, just go on.'

Well that more or less what she said, I apologise for not accurately quoting her every single word. But you get the message. And most of us can relate to her story.

We may not end up where we expected and we may not get the things we want. But that's not the end of the world. In her own words 'your still alive'. It's true, we live to fight another day though not in a situation we want to be in but it's how we make the best out of what we got that makes us succeed. If your driving and your car is stuck in the mud, do you call your parents and ask for a new car? Heck no, you find a way out. Persevere and you'll be suprised by what happens in the end. My lecturer never expected to end up in Edinburgh!

You may not be at your dream university/college. Nor are you living the sweet life you've been dreaming of, but you can't expect your fairytale to come through. I might consider myself lucky to have to endure only 3 years of this. And I'll be coming home every 5-8 weeks. So before I know it, I'll be back home playing on my Wii until 2-3 in the morning with a slice of pizza on the table... four more weeks! Charge 'em batteries because I'm Coming home soon!! Australia can wait, that dessert island isn't going to dissapear overnight ;).

As for the car in the mud... what I'm trying to say that if your stuck you got to stop calling for your parents to get you out of something you don't like(or want for that matter). A lot of people declined their offers from the Public Unis and enrolled in a private college because their in the same situation as I'm in(my CGPA was good enough for the course of my choice but I didn't get what I asked for).

My question to them is this - Why did you waste one and a half years of your life going through immense suffering(or purgatory as I would call Form 6) only to end up in a private college despite receiving an offer from one of the public universities?

Mark Webber wins at last

Mark Webber wins the 2009 German Grand Prix(my least favourite GP after Monaco). After 130 starts the Aussie takes his maiden GP win at the Nurburgring. It has taken him eight seasons but his finally done it. Mark made his debut at the Australian GP in 2002, finishing 5th in a underpowered, underfunded and unreliable Minardi. He later moved to Jaguar a team that scored points - occasionally with a front row start at Sepang being the highlight of his time at Jaguar. Many thought he would appear on the podium and even win a few races when he signed up for Williams in 2005. Williams was on the decline that year and he only had a 3rd place in Monte Carlo to his name. He is a quick and skillful driver but the one thing holding him back is a competitive car. After seven seasons in Formula 1, he finally has a competitive car designed by the famous Adrian Newey. After appearing regularly on the podium this season, Webber broke his duck by winning the German GP from pole position, despite receiving a penalty earlier in the race. His win now makes him a contender in the Driver's Championship with Jenson Button 22.5 points ahead of him(note that Webber has collected 26 points from a possible 30 in the last three races). I wish I could have watched the race, his not my favourite driver but he is a good one. What I need is a tv, an ASTRO decoder and a satelite dish.

University Blues

The two questions I've been asking myself over and over again for the past three weeks are...
1. Why am I being sent to the other side of the country far away from the city?
2. What am I studying again?

Ok, so I'm currently studying in one of the country's Federal Territories taking up a course called E-Commerce. I always imagined myself studying at a prestigous university like Cambridge or Oxford (oh come on, who doesn't?) but you can't always have everything in life so it looks like I'm going to be here for a while.

I was bummed for being sent here. I could have gone to Australia to take up a degree in Agricultural Science. At one point(prior to receiving my offer from Sabah) it was guranteed that I would be eating Vegemite again by the first week of August, that was until the end of June that I was living in that fairytale.

Well long story short, a lot of my friends and relatives have been telling me to complete my degree program here and then go to Australia or wherever it is I want to go after this. It's one of those things I'll never understand why, but no fret, I'm staying here. Bring on the duty free chocolates :).

Numero Uno

Hey hello there. Welcome to my blog! I was meaning to get one for ages. I use to have one a few years back though. Unfortunately I entered an ultra complicated password which I forgot in about... 2 weeks so Heaven knows what happened to it. Anyway, I better be off, the rain has stopped an I really need to get some sleep. Adious.