Shit Happens.

Just had a interhall female table-tennis match with Suen Chi Sun Hall. Since this week is the reading week, some of our better players went back home. Only four of us to play 5 games.

The schedule sort of goes like this:
1) 1st Singles
2) 2nd Singles
3) 1st Doubles
4) 2nd Doubles
5) 3rd Singles

We were hoping to sapu it 3:0 in the beginning or at the very most 4:1. I going to play in the 1st doubles and 3rd singles (if needed). To cut the story short, we lost the 2nd singles and 1st doubles, thus forcing a rubber match – 3rd singles.

I was not really expecting to play the 5th match. And even during the practice, our coach didn’t really teach me how to play singles. All along it was only doubles practice for me. So right after the 1st Doubles match, the two male players from my hall team were like giving me intensive lessons. 15 minutes of having to absorb all the tricks on how to counter top and under-spin shots, how you should play in singles, how to serve, how to determine whether the ball served is top or under-spinning etc.

If it was the old me before I came to Hong Kong, I would have totally freaked out (even though I did) right there and then and puked my guts out. I AM that much of a nervous wreck. But I really did try my best to remember everything.

The whole match ended really quickly. I don’t really remember what was the exact score. All I know is the score for the first set was like 6:11 or something.

I had a chance of winning the second set. I was leading 8:10. But no, I let her catch up 10:10 and we had to deuce. Needless to say, I lost that set as well.

The third set was the ugliest of all. 2:11 or something like that. I even served twice in a row out of bounds.

I almost cried after it ended. I hate them all saying that it’s okay and stuff. I remember hearing them chanting ’steady’, ‘concentrate’ and stuff like that.

I finally realize something. All these while, everything I do, I do it to please others (well, mostly anyways). I get upset when others expect something of me and I don’t deliver and disappoint them (this applies for even my studies). I get most upset when I don’t meet the expectations of others. I want people to be happy and proud of me but… apparently most of the time I do the opposite.

I have nothing but to say that I am terribly sorry for not being good enough. I will try harder next time.

‘Grey’

That’s all I can say about today’s paper. MECH1009 Properties of Materials 1.

It’s Chemistry A Level trial paper all over again. See you guys back in Malaysia next year as I’d most probably have to stay back to repeat the paper this coming August.

Tomorrow – MECH1013 Engineering Mechanics. Sigh.

Things That I Just Found Out Today.

Two things:

1) Umbrellas are practically useless in this part of Hong Kong (hilly). Way too windy. I’ve broken like 2 umbrellas since I got here and I’m so not about to break another one. Therefore, I’ve decided to never bring an umbrella out anymore. I’ll buy a raincoat (and stand out like the weirdest freak ever in uni) or carry a waterproof bag with a change of clean dry clothes after I’ve drenched myself walking to campus in the rain. Ha ha.

2) My VJ Jeans are MISSING! I think I remember bringing it back over from KL. But I couldn’t find it anywhere in my room nor that laundry basket thingy up in the washing room for ‘anonymous’ clothes (I had run out of clean pants :p. Makes you wonder how long it’s been since I did my laundry eh? NOLAR! I do laundry every week, it’s just that since my ass has gotten so big, out of the 6 pairs only 3 would fit me). Weird. Who would want jeans which is overstretched at the butt part.

It’s the time of the semester to start studying, preparing for exams and finish off tons of assignments which apparently I’m procrastinating which explains why I’m here blogging again after going on a long hiatus.

Anyways, like I’ve said a gazillion times before, I’m doomed to infinity and beyond!

Apparently, It Can.

After they finished their labs, I contacted Iris. And found out where the mysterious HW LG-3 was. I had to take the lift down and walk down the stairs further. !@$!@#!@#

FINE.

I went back to my hall as you know from the previous post that I had a book due today. I wanted to have a little snack of honey flavoured cereal with milk which I bought fro Wellcome. I thought to myself ‘yay! I finally get to open that carton of milk!’ And when I peeled of the protective thingy and was about to pour it into my bowl of cereal, I noticed the expiry date tag – 17-12-2007. ARGH! SERIOUSLY! I was practically yelling in my room and luckily my roommate was not in.

Oh and that’s not all. I had no choice but to use my Vitasoy as a substitute. As I was squirting it into the bowl, I don’t know what happened and some of it kena my boots. Soyabean-milk-soiled boots. Does have a ring to it, NOT!

If any more crappy stuff happens to me, I’ll really start believing that someone has used some voodoo witch craft, laying a bloody evil curse on me.

There’s a limit to how much ‘positive’ thinking I can generate. I am only starting to get the hang of this ‘look at the cup half-full’ mindset or whatever.

Damn it.

The Worst Week EVER aka. Can It Get Any Worse?

Let’s see. How should I even begin? Maybe I’ll list them down like a f*cking schedule+summary.

Tuesday:
My parents left to fly back to KL. I went with Maryanne for grocery shopping at Wellcome in the evening. Since I was going to be gone out for long, I shut down my notebook. When I came back, pressed the Power On button, 3 f*cking beeps sounded (1 long 2 short) and the whole display screen was dead blank. I tried turning it off and on so many freaking times but still that same horrible sound and nothingness.

Catch: I had a freaking Autocad assignment due the next day, and a Logbook due today. They were in my HD. And I didn’t back up all my files because there was no symptoms of my notebook crashing. F*CK. However, no excuse for me not backing up.

The amount of panic and desperation, you can hardly imagine. I called up my brother in Melbourne to ask him how I should proceed. He suggested I take out the hard disk and connect it to an external hard disk casing which I so happen to have! I thought I was saved. But oh no, when a hallmate helped me take it out and was ready to put it in the external hard disk casing, turns out they aren’t compatible. My notebook’s hard drive is SATA and the external hard disk parallel ATA. F*CK!

There was nothing I could do but to do the assignment all over again. I ran over to another friend’s place to get the Autocad installation CD from him and then rush over to Maryanne’s hall (who was so kind to put up with me and lend me her laptop to install and do my work, coz the ME computer lab was only opened until 10.30pm or something like that), paid HKD31.30 to stay over in her room. However, that version of Autocad could only work on Windows 2000 or XP and Maryanne was using Vista. I decided to try a solution suggested on the internet – preheat (turn it on, leave it running for >30 minutes) my notebook and try restarting it. Miraculously, it worked! I backed up all my files into my external hard disk, but did not do so for my songs (15.5gb) because I had not enough space. *sob*

Wednesday:
Worked until 5.30a.m. before getting a little sleep. Woke up late for maths which was supposed to start at 9.30a.m. I thought that it was useless since I’d be sleeping in class anyways and decided to go back to my hall to print out my work.

When I reached my room, only did I realize it was Thursday and my roommate had classes and I forgot to bring take my key when I was rushing to Maryanne’s place. I had to pay another HKD5 to borrow the key from the lobby. F*CK. And when I was finally in my room ready to print out my work, my freaking notebook wouldn’t boot again. This time, preheating it did not work anymore. F*CK. So, I had to go back to the campus to see whether anyone had printing quota for me to borrow. But like me, everyone had used up theirs. Luckily, I called up my jongmate and she had some. Thank god.

Thursday:
Had classes. There was a guest speaker from ICAC during one of my lectures and followed by a quiz. Luckily, the quiz given by the guestspeaker was quite simple. Felt like ‘Dao De Jiao Yu’ all over again. Ethics. Anyways, finished class at 4p.m. rushed to Tsim Sha Tsui to look for the HP Service Centre with the invoice of the notebook which arrived in the morning (mum DHL-ed it over and it cost RM70.00. F*CK!). Finally found the place after 30 minutes of roaming around, trying to find Star House on Salisbury Road. The servicing had to take 3-5 working days. I’ve heard people saying in online forums that HP has very poor service. They usually drag on for weeks and stuff like that. But I hope that’s not the case here in Hong Kong, and that the people here are really what everyone thinks – efficient. *prays hard*

Went for dinner with Maryanne and Daphne, a ‘threesome’ outing for Valentine’s day. Haha. I was so worked up that I didn’t even care that I have an unfinished logbook. I really really wanted some oncoming bus to slam right into me whenever I was walking back and forth from my hall to the campus. We had all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ in Causeway Bay which we had to wait for like more than 30 or 40 minutes? I don’t really remember, because I was ‘with good company’ (quotes Maryanne). Anyways, when we finally had a table, they told us that we could only eat for a time limit of 1 hour and 15 minutes. F*CK. We rushed to get meat and side dishes. The food was plentiful and satisfying. But when the freaking bill came, it was HKD 144 per person instead of the displayed price HKD 118. Rupa-rupanya, V-day’s price was HKD 124 per person and there was another HKD 20 for tea money. Now, I know why my brother advised me to always read properly before signing anything in Hong Kong. Damn it.

When I was back at my hall and checked my receipt for the collection of my pants from G2000. It was ‘14/2/2008′. And I was ‘ …… ‘. If I had checked my receipt before that, I could have collected it straightaway before having that BBQ. ARGH!

Today:
I thought class started at 9.30a.m. and rushed over to campus. When I tiba-ed, the class looked weird. The lecturer was another person, and there wasn’t a single familiar face. I held the classroom door ajar for a moment, faces turned, and I quickly scrambled back out. I thought there was a switch in classrooms and I panicked again. I quickly called my class rep and rupa-rupanya I saw the timetable wrongly – classes was at 10.40a.m. F*CK!

And now, why am I sitting here narrating on my horrible past few days? It’s because I can’t freaking hell find where is HW LG-3 and my fellow lab partners are there which means that they can’t receive any reception on their mobile phones so I am unable to contact them to find out where the hell it is. I thought it was in HW 1-16 but rupa-rupanya, it was amended to HW LG-3. *screams*

Oh, and… I just found out I have a freaking book due today, and I’ll have to walk all the way back to my hall to get it and all the way back to campus. F*CK. And I was thinking of staying here to do my next Autocad assignment.  

If my day gets any worse, will someone please take a gun and shoot it right at my head. I really can’t take this anymore.

KILL ME.

These 2 Weeks.

Well, I landed on the 28th safely (took China Airlines, lol.). Anyways, too many things have happened since then, thus I’ll summarize these two weeks the best I can.

• Met my assigned buddy, Vera for the first time at my hall. Checked into the hall and walked to the campus to register myself.
• Bought daily necessities and stuff.
• Weather is sweltering hot. Waking up almost everyday sweating and at 7pm too (no matter what time I sleep).
• People in Hong Kong are freaking fast walkers. I wonder how they can walk that fast and not break a sweat too! *salutes* Janet and Wai Kuan should really come over here.
• Went for the faculty’s orientation and the orientation for international students. Met some friends which were really crucial to my future social life here at HKU. Seriously. Among them were Mani and the Malaysian people. Was really a loner and my classmates, most of them already knew each other and were divided into gangs plus it was really hard for me to click with them. Mani and her friends were really helpful and nice. (horror stories of HK people are to be disregarded!)
• Joined AIESEC and Music Club. I want to continue learning the guitar! Oh and speaking of guitars, I found out that I won’t be able to come back right after holidays start as I’ll have to stay behind for industrial training or workshop training or whatever you call it during my summer! I’ll only be having maybe one month of holiday instead of three. 1st year and 2nd year. Both. Thank god this is a 3 year course. T.T. HGT! /noo.
• Realized that going to a big and established university is a really totally different experience. You can set your own timetable and they offer you so much courses unrelated to your course. I am going to take up German as it was the only language which fit my timetable. HKD 2000 for 100 hours, around RM1000 for 100 hours which is actually cheaper than going for tuition in Kasturi or whatever right? 10 bucks per hour.
• Was finding Practical Chinese Language for Engineering Students really tough. The course was like taking chinese lessons back at Kuen Cheng High all over again. Got to learn those ‘wei yu, bing yu, zhu yu’ stuff, which characters have the same pronounciation, which characters were wrong etc. OMG! Just imagine the horror I felt. What’s even worse is that the notes were all in TRADITIONAL CHINESE CHARACTERS and the lecturer was conducting the lessons in Cantonese! We had to take a little test to see where our standard lay and throughout the whole thing I was chuckling to myself, tembaking along the way. LUCKILY, I found out from my coursemate who comes from India that he was exempted from taking it and he just had to take another language course. Thus, I went to look for Mr. Sze and he told me I just had to write a formal letter informing the faculty and I too could just take another language course too compensate that exemption. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! I’m planning to take Spanish for Beginners next year as I couldn’t find any language course which fits my timetable this year.
• Went for the basketball recruitment thingy. It was the uni-team selection. Within 20 mins, I sprained my knee. I fell and felt my left knee *krak krak* and when I got up it went *krak krak* again. Their training was really like back in KC, running full court BUT with the exception that there were just 12 of us and instead of the whole basketball club back in KC which consists of more than 60 or 70 people maybe? Sigh. Having not played for so many freaking months plus the 3 months of rotting at home didn’t do me any good. Now I can’t put any pressure on my knees and it feels loose without the knee support. And when I went to the University Health Service yesterday to have a doctor look into my knee, the nurse or whoever told me that the earliest appointment booking was on Tuesday (I sprained it Thursday night) and I was like WTF? It’s like they expect people to know when they’ll fall sick or get injured. What’s the point of even getting the service free if I would have gotten better by the time of the appointment? Very very weird. Anyways, I still booked an appointment. Just to make sure it’s okay. I don’t wanna be not able to play sports for the rest of my life. T.T
• Funny language. I noticed that when I talk to the locals in English, I naturally put on the Canto mode, as in I don’t talk Manglish no more. And when I talk to people from Mainland China, I have to put on that horribly fake China accent and that fake American accent talking to the English speaking students. If I don’t, they never understand me!
• Meals. Usually eat in the cafeteria or just cook instant noodles or those microwave-able rice, Ding Ding Fan! It’s super tasty though! I am going to venture cooking rice myself as soon as my knee gets a little better and I can go grocery shopping. Nyahahahhahaha!

Think that’s all for now. Gotta go cook myself some instant noodles and figure out how to add in carrots and vegetables in it.

I Miss Malaysia.

And everything I’m used to. It is so much easier to fit in when everyone speaks the same language – Manglish.

But I guess that’s one of the reasons why I left, to stop being so dependent and enjoying the easy life.

I’ll blog more once I’ve settled down nicely. A bit moodless now to do so.

p.s. Thank you Tarc gang for meeting up at MV before I left and Notti gang at the airport! *hugs all of you*

A Visit Back To UNiM.

Written on : 12th June 2007.

WARNING: Extremely LONG post. You guys don’t have to read this post because basically I’m recording this down so I would never ever forget this day.

This gang of friends I made in the University Nottingham in Malaysia is definitely making me regret my withdrawal from UNiM. I love them all!

Today classes was supposed to end at 1pm for them and so they said I could come kacau them at the BBQ last Saturday. Took the KTM train (Seremban line) from KL Sentral to Kajang station. Then, they came all the way from Semenyih to pick me up and drove all the way back to Broga for my (okay lar, EVERYONE’s) favourite Pan Mee! XD Jake, Vince and Jen Haw had already finished eating but waited for me to arrive and Chaw Yee and Khong waited for me to arrive to eat together.

Dry Pan Mee, Thick Noodles, Small, Add Egg. My usual order, topping it off with the usual ABC. Pan Mee was delicious as usual but ABC too little syrup. Uncle with a coin in his ear, NEXT TIME I WANT MORE SYRUP! XD Even the uncle and auntie at the stall were very friendly today and joined in while we were looking at the BBQ photos Jake was transferring from my new Western Digital external hard disk (birthday present from the TARC gang! =) ) to his laptop. Oh oh! And after eating! I even got to drive Jian Wen’s car back to the halls (which I drove in the beginning without releasing the handbrake! *FAINTS* And the whole time I was wondering why the car’s pick up was so damn slow! *DOUBLE FAINTS*)!

Went to Jian Wen’s room where we all dumped our bags there and then visited Jie Qiang’s new room (which later we found out might be termite infested cause of all the white ants on his table tennis bag). He has a piano in his room! Grabbed the Green Box photos from him, hanged out for a while and headed back to Jian Wen’s room to grab movies, more photos, computer games and copy Prison Break Season 1 of his laptop.

Poser Jake!

After we finished, we headed to the sports complex for….. TABLE TENNIS aka. PING PONG!! XD Played for quite a while from 3 something till 6 something in the evening! XD I was in jeans and t-shirt but thank god the table tennis room was air-conditioned! Bwahahhahahaha! Had lots of fun. Except for the part where…… Dr. Ng (my ex-tutor) passed by! According to Huey Jing, he was walking past by but suddenly braked and gostan-ed as he spotted me. (I withdrew w/o informing him *a lil guilty*). While I saw sitting and resting on the floor with Chaw Yee, I was chanting softly ‘Please don’t come near me… please don’t come near me… please don’t come near me…’ But in the end he still did. The usual questions and my usual one word answer ended the conversation as quickly as it started. Bwahahahhahaa. I sure hope my results don’t pass through his hands.

Later we met up again with Jake, Vince and Jen Haw (whom I think was at the library doing some work or something) for a little crazy basket-balling and taking pictures of the various spots around the campus. Jake was extremely hyper today, taking loads of narcissistic shots (maybe it has something to do with him being appointed as the new class rep. BWAHAHHAHAHAHA! XD)! Took photos at the bball court, SA, telephone booth, lake, front and back of the administration building etc.

All of us at the basketball court.

Yay!

Toopid boxer guy spoiling this nice photo of Khong!

STAR JUMP! XD

A crescendo Star Jump! I’m happy!

Xiong Gong Gong being narcissistic.

F8! LOL!

Chaw Yee kena bullied (normal already lar..). Bwahahahaha!

Tau Foo Far Chaw Yee shooting. Don’t play play, he’s Mitsui tau!

Jake driving Vince’s Satria.

JQ trying to hitch a ride!

Vince’s car!

Two of my favorite cars around Semenyih! =P Missing the Yellow Bug though! (Left: Jian Wen’s City. Right: Jingle’s infamous Waja with that paint scrapped off on the left.)

Me and the cutest picture of Hujan Man Khong! =D

Class rep and I.

Nottingham Van.

Corridor to the halls. Really nice lightings at night.

Notice: Jian Wen’s finger. *censored*

Poser Jake, again.

Wahahahaha! Control your laughter lar Gong Gong!

Now, this is more like it. BOO! =P

In front of SA building.

Don’t stare, it’s rude. (Love the look on JQ face!)

Admin Building.

Campus Map.

This class rep thingy is really giving him wayyyyyy too much confidence! Lol!

Jake says: Bow down to me! I’m the King of Bball! Muahahahahahaa!

Admin Building with the clock tower on top from the back.

Chilling.

What’s Harry doing in the bushes?!?!? *snickers* =P

Nice butt JQ!

The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.


Look at that narcissistic Jake! *faints*

Ah pose somemore lar Jake! Now catch you scratching your armpits on camera already! Bwahahahhaa!

Admin Building from the front. Looks like a 5-star hotel doesn’t it? =)

Random pic taken by Gramps.

Look to the right, you’ll see the silhouette of the Cursed Tau Foo Far of UNiM! LOL!

At the lake side taken without flash.

Taken with flash.

It was already 7 something. I promised my mum to be back by 8 or 9. So I kept chasing them to quickly go back to their room, take their shower and head to Kajang for satay and drop me off at the KTM station before I miss my train. By the time we found the place to eat, it was already close to 9pm! Oh well, . 6 of us ordered 45 ayam, 40 ikan, forgot how many rusa, how many arnabs and 3 lembu. Deer satay was DELICIOUS! Absolutely! Juicy! Rabbit was good too, however I kept thinking of that Rabbit ‘FUNland’ in Broga and imagining which tender part of the poor rabbit’s body I was eating… the thigh maybe?

He can make anything look like it tastes good. (For the record, the drinks at this place really sucked, BIG TIME!)

Satay not here yet. Waiting in anticipation.

Posing for Huey Jing. Very ‘gei mian’ that he posed with the peace sign already even though he wasn’t smiling at all. It’s understandable since that room is freakin warm and hot with all the satays. Poor guy.

By the time we finished eating and reached the KTM station, it was already 10 something. There was a train there when we reached. I SPRINTED ACROSS! As I reached out for my Touch N Go card, the train passed me by. Too late. T.T And the next train was going to come at 11.23pm which would be the last train. I had to wait at least for an hour because there was a train from Singapore coming up. Jian Wen, Xiong Gong Gong aka. Mr. Way-Too-Nice-Guy offered to send me home. HOME HOME! All the way from Kajang back to Seputeh. *TOUCHED* But I knew my mum would rather me wait there because she didn’t want to waste their time coming back and forth. Somehow, He who has The Magic Tongue managed to convince my mum that it wasn’t a problem at all to send me back. *SUPER TOUCHED* In the end, Jian Wen, Chaw Yee, Huey Jing and Jie Qiang altogether teman-ed me back home.

When I reached home, they all got down from the car to ‘tackle’ my parents. With all their sweet sweet tongues, they managed to leave with my parents being all happy and grateful to them instead of scolding me like hell for disturbing and troubling them. According to Jingle, the poor driver had ticks all over him from rubbing Max all over. Kesian. LOL!

As they were getting into their car and leaving, I got all teary-eyed and was really really happy. I don’t really know what came over me. But finally I realized that these are the people which make me happy all the time. Therefore, I’ve decided to be happy (meaning getting my appetite back ), emulate the happy-go-lucky attitude of them. Why do I want to make myself feel miserable because people who do not give a crap about me treat me like…. crap!

That’s just stupid, right?

I do not have anymore time and will not waste my time on people who I used to think cared that obviously do not care anymore now.

Yay!

Another long (maybe) post coming up on the gathering! Sorry!

First And LAST.

I ter-slept this morning at 1a.m and woke up at 6.15a.m. And I was only up till chapter 7 for IDM. Had until chapter 13.

Was still feeling really really exhausted. Called mum. Got the green light to skip today’s exam!!! XD This is the most relaxing exam I’ve ever had in my entire life! Apart from the frust at the beginning which now, has totally gone away!

HOWEVER.

Never will I let a thing like that EVER happen again when I’m in HKU. Not allowed. NOT ACCEPTABLE! This is the first and will be the last.

Screwed Up.

Funny. Was feeling tired and not really great yesterday (probably due to you-know-what). Anyhow, I got stuck on Tom Cross’s Chapter 5 of ELS until midnight. I still had Mutasim’s Chapter 5-9 which I totally hadn’t touched nor payed attention in his class before. But I still ‘napped’ hoping to absorb more at a quicker pace later.

Guess what? 3a.m. alarm rang.

Snooze.

Rang again.

Snooze.

Again.

Turn off.

Woke up at…. 8a.m.

(Quoting Jian Wen) SHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT!!!

Sigh. And I hadn’t even finished Chapter 5! So I decided to sacrifice those FOUR CHAPTERS and re-read Selvan’s and Dino’s. And thank god I did if not I would have passed up a booklet of blank pages just now. This exam was sad. Not as sad as my A-Level Chemistry trials paper though, on the bright side. At least I think I’ll be able to get more than 20(?) marks. Bwahahahahahaa!

Somehow, I always get really happy and high when I enter the exam hall unprepared. XD. It feels great! Totally the opposite of what I feel when I prepare a lot. It’s like coz I don’t wanna feel let down after all that effort and tend to pressure and worry myself to death. Oh well.

I have Fluid Mechanics paper tomorrow. And here I am, blogging. I just never really learn from my mistakes. Does anyone do actually? I wonder.

All I Need – Mat Kearney :
…..And if all we’ve got, is what no one can break, I know I love you, if that’s all we can take, the tears are coming down, they’re mixing with the rain, I know I love you, if that’s all we can take.
A pool is running for miles on the concrete ground, we’re eight feet deep and the rain is still coming down, the TV’s playing it all out of town, we’re grabbing at the fray for something that won’t drown…..

I am grabbing at the fray for something that will drown.