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.