First blogpost from cold cold Melbourne!

Am typing this now at Gillian's place in Lygon St. Arrived early this morning around 9.15am. Sigh..hitches and glitches were the order of yesterday and today (flight).

Oyah, before I forget, wanna thank those who sent me off yesterday!

First the scanner couldn't properly scan my new passport - twice. Then when I reached the announced gate C4, the guard told me it was changed to another gate at the other end. So backtracking had to be done. Troublesome only because I was travelling alone. Then the flight to Spore, originally delayed for 20minutes, was delayed another half hour. By the time I boarded the plane, it was 10.40pm. Connecting flight to Melb was to depart at 11.45pm! Once we reached Changi, the few of us had to rush to catch that flight, which was already *last call* status. Specifically requested for a window seat cos wanted to witness sunrise. Was given what I wanted BUT unfortunately it was one of the seats where theres no window at all, cos it was almost at midsection of the plane. My advice would be - avoid window seats at row 45. Unfortunate soul as I was, still managed to catch a bare glimpse of the slowly rising sun by reclining my seat all the way back and straining my eyes. Indeed, glorious sunrise it was, though I hardly had any view of it..

Next - Melbourne. No hitches at immigration & customs. Didn't declare anythig and was not requested to have my bags checked. Within less than an hour was out of the airport and on the way to Gillian's place. First impression from the air is that Melb land seems rather flat, with mountains only in the distance. Drivers here are civilised people hehhhe. Noticed most used signals etc, proper driving le, unlike the maniacs KL seems to specialise in. From what I saw, the city was built with proper planning, with neat grid alignments at some spots..? After all, I only got occasional glimpses of the city..

Cold it is here - 8degrees in the morning. Now I get to experience what they mean when they tell me it gets really cold when the wind blows. Luckily brought along scarf and gloves when I was out today. Yups Gillian brought me around, went into many shops but didn't get anything.

One thing I'm really not used to is how quickly it gets dark over here. By 4plus pm, conditions outside resembled 7pm in KL. We had our dinner at this chinese shop off an alley near/at chinatown. Seriously Melb ain't that big when out of 4 tables taken, I recognised 3 people. (Danicya, one was your ex housemate last yr if I'm not mistaken!) By 6.30pm, I kept thinking it was 11pm at night. Too bad I don't have a digicam, else I'll post some shots of what I experienced today.. Walked back from city to Lygon, which I'd never ever do in KL..

Football and a little more..

First things first - Spain out. Italy out. England out. And today - France out too. Euro 2004 has sure turned up some surprises. Greece in the semis?? hehhe thats why football is fun!

Have been busy meeting up with friends before I leave. This week so far only managed to watch England v Portugal on the little box. I overslept that day and by the time I grabbed the remote, it was already 70plus minutes gone. Thought it'd be a short contest but you never know.. FYI the match went into extra time, then into penalties. England seems to have no luck whatsoever when it comes to getting results from penalties.. Shall be watching the Netherlands match v Sweden later in the morning if I can stay up..Hmm I wonder if they'd be showing the finals on public tv in Melb?? Sobb I'll certainly be missing my weekly supply of live EPL matches...

Hmm my "will miss" list is pretty short actually. Won't be missing our haze. This whole week has been very hazy (I can actually smell the smoke from my living room) thanks to all the smog swept over by the wind from Sumatra/Kalimantan plus our own peat fires. Wondering when are they ever gonna do something about it since its becoming an almost-annual affair to have haze. I will miss my handsome dog though..

This'll be my last post while I'm still in KL. Haven't actually finished packing yet and I don't exactly fancy staying up the whole night to get it done..better get offline and start figuring out what I can leave out. On a serious note, I'm rather attached to my books but there's no way I can bring them over le..

Oh, one thing I'll miss - road trips. Waiting for year end when we can go off again? (I don't care where to, as long as somewhere!!) =)

Mad mad people

We are mad. Yups thats the bunch of us (SiowPing Lorraine Joe LiKai Chris Sam plus me) I'm talking about..Here's my little tale..

Heehe Thursday I finished my finals. Barely set foot in my hse when the phone rang. Off it was to Teapot Cafe. TEA at nearly 6pm! Though not all could make it.

Then - we had an idea. Why not go find Sam in Cyber?? But first, we had to go home and spend a placid 3 hours or so at home. Reached cyber nearing midnight. Its actually my first time there, yes, I'm ulu abit I know.. But seriously that area's pretty quiet. HSBC etc looked pretty impressive though. We ended up heading to Kajang for satay. Oh man again my first time on those roads (not me driving) and the highways seemed to go on and on and on and on..We were wondering in likai's car whether joe+lorraine were going *is he lost???* =P hahha not that likai has gotten lost before (at least never before during our trips).. Restoran Malaysia - the one opposite the balai polis, was already closing by the time we reached. So we ended up at a nearby place offering satay *arnab/ikan/perut* etc plus the usual..but arnab? ewwwww not for me, can't help but think of those cute 'lil bunnies in petswonderland..

Next we went back to cyber and bummed at Sam's place. Had a rather saddening attempt at singing a birthday song for Likai at 2 plus (it was prematurely abandoned due to unforeseen circumstances - we can't sing properly hahahha sorry likai!) The cake, or to be precise, unrecognisable cake. I shall post pics soon on that (when available)..

To get to the point of my post. Why are we mad? Because siowping had a flight to catch in the early hours of the morning! and the rest had to deal with work (eh Friday isn't a weekend yet). Ended up at home around 4. So I suppose siowping had a lil time to freshen up and leave for KLIA..

But on a serious note, I'm glad to know these ppl. It seems true, someone said "...The older we get, the smaller the circle of friends we have.." One may have a lot of acquaintances, but how many are true friends?

Animal Farm

Popped into Screenshots just now. There was an excerpt from one of my favourite books - Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Click The Literature Network to read this classic.

An Introduction to Animal Farm:
The novel brought together important themes—politics, truth, and class conflict—that had concerned Orwell for much of his life. Using allegory—the weapon used by political satirists of the past, including Voltaire and Swift—Orwell made his political statement in a twentieth-century fable that could be read as an entertaining story about animals or, on a deeper level, a savage attack on the misuse of political power. While Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a pointed criticism of Stalinist Russia, reviews of the book on the fiftieth-anniversary of its publication declared its message to be still relevant. In a play on the famous line from the book, "Some animals are more equal than others," an Economist reviewer wrote, "Some classics are more equal than others," and as proof he noted that Animal Farm has never been out of print since it was first published and continues to sell well year after year.

Excerpts:
"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself."

"But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Some other interesting stuff:
*Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887. 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men'

*The difference between socialism and communism: communism calls for a revolution followed by a dictatorship which will magically give way to an egalitarian utopia without government; socialism advocates working democratically to change the system and acknowledges that an egalitarian utopia without government would be sweet indeed. Obviously, socialism (a democratic ideology) cannot have the view that communism (by nature totalitarian) is okay under any circumstances.

I really recommend reading this book, plus its famous other - 1984. Maybe I'll add exceprts to 1984 soon. Animal Farm's quite short, so it can be finished in prob one go..

A quick update..

TOMORROW - To freedom and beyond!

Excuse me being abit melodramatic here. Tomorrow is an extremely special day. Its my last paper tomorrow! ahahahhahahhahhahhhhahah after 13 odd weeks of toiling in uni and staring endlessly at script, it will be great to be able to read when I want, what I want (def not acc/fin management/modelling etc). Not that business stuff ain't that good (I happen to like FEER, Paul Krugman's writing etc). Just what I have to read isn't what I enjoy reading. Sounds complicated?

Haven't been doing much lately but have been going yamcha as usual. Last week SiowPing brought Sam and me to this shop in Section 17, at the ground floor of the flats next to Sri Damai school. Opens at night only (?) can't recall what this place is called. Specializes in western food and you can prob recognize the place by the crowd. Tables are decked on the walkway (typical le) and food's not bad. Worth a try..at least you don't have to worry bout parking just to get decent food..

Soon. Next week will be busy. I've only booked my flight, with no confirmation of temporary accomodation whatsoever. Done my check up. Oh, this has to be mentioned. The checkup took an amazingly short time - less than 3 minutes. So if anyone wants to get it done fast, give me a ring.. Hopefully will have no probs with visa then off I'll go into the unknown...

Murni etc..

Some ramblings..

*Was at Murni yesterday..amazingly the fella recognizes me. Not the boss, its another fella who also collects the money..hahhah..not that I've been going there that often le. Murni's business of late is really good, every night crowded to the max.. Yesterday he asked *mana kawan laki?* so maybe its us people who are loud in mamak =)

*Finished two extremely tiring papers yesterday..why tiring? well, being in the exam hall for more than 6 hours has taken a toll on my poor hand. By the end of the 2nd paper I could hardly write properly..sigh I hope they decipher my answers. 2051 was a terrible paper.

*Spent almost an hour in the queue for Harry Potter tickets today. Sobb the lines were SO long, even longer than the queues for LOTR last year. And today was a WEEKDAY. Sigh, Msian madness..most shows were full, even teen flicks, the pontianak film, shrek, troy..you name it..It wasn't even 1pm and Harry Potter was sold out till the 9.30pm show. Madness this is called, and I was a willing participant..

busy Di

busy. exam period. financial modelling + money and capital markets + 8 June = headache

I wonder, why do I take things so seriously?

Such a blah day.

Cameron pictures..

Siow Ping has posted some on her blog, click here.

I'll probably scan mine (Cameron pics) later ("if-and-when") since its so near exams now. We can all forget about looking at LiKai's pics. Its all gone. Sobb..

People comment I look stressed. Maybe I am, but not over impending exams. Fretting over accomodation. It really is such a hassle going in mid year. =(