Happy New Year!!

It's eve and I'm sitting in Albert's room surfing the net. Downtown countdowns (rhyme not intended) have lost their appeal when the citizens of Miri decided that they each need two cars. Weather not permitting, most of us have come to the conclusion that staying home with the relatively stable Internet connection (for now) is perhaps the better way to spend the time reflecting on what we've done (or not done) for the past year.

The only natural thing to do, is to go back and see what your resolutions were and if you've done (any of) them. Here are mine from 30th Dec 2005:

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1) I'm not incredibly smart, but I have good brains and with a little work (ok, maybe not a little, more like MASSIVE), I could be as good as any genius.

2) I'm not the best-looking person but I'm not deformed. Besides, I guess I'm pretty cute ;) LOL. That's the first time I've said that. I mean, you realize that after people start comparing you to soft toys and squeeze your face for no apparent reason. Annie is of opinion that I should stay fat coz being slim would take away the cuteness. Har Har.

3) I could work on the weight problem like I did before. After all, I wasn't born fat and I wasn't always like this *Stops for a moment to think about the four guys who went after her at the same time*. LOL. Somebody slap me if I start stuffing myself. And no slacking from gym! Work that threadmill! Find a nice park if the gym gets sickening.

4) I'm gonna get myself involved in some extra co-curicular activities when the semester starts. This is a department where I've never felt inadequate. A few options : Choral Society (Try out some singing), Drama Society (Brush up those acting skills), Melbourne Uni Overseas Students Society committee (It'll be cool to be a student representative again). Somehow, these areas have always made me feel like I can actually accomplish something. Listen to "I Feel Good" - James Brown, you'll know what I mean ;)

5) Stop putting myself down. Now, this is a hard thing to do. Especially when we, as humans are vain creatures. And we have to look at the mirror everyday. Even without mirrors, we find windows very very interesting.

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Well waddya know? I think I've accomplished just about half of these. Some more than others. Achieving the best results I've had ever in the second semester and brushing up on my clarinet with CMG are what I have to show for this year. God I need to go to gym more consistently.

It's been a year of turmoil, excitement, disappointments and lessons learnt. Have I grown? I would like to think so. Now all there's to do on a night like this is to wish for another year filled with laughter, new adventures and rocky paths to make the whole concept of living your life a bit more interesting :)

Happy New Year!!!!

For the people who are deluded

Relationships can't work on pure love. Unless you're one of those people who display your sordid affairs in books, the screens or exist only within your own minds.

Without understanding or acceptance, there is no love.

Understanding + acceptance + ?? = love

But wait a minute. I guess this means that love does makes relationships work. Only trouble is, a lot of people have the wrong impression of what love is.

I have yet to find out what that last element is. It's probably not a fixed factor. So I guess that's made up of a special concoction, unique to the people who experience this "love". Haven't got it, therefore don't know what it is. I'm sure all you people in love and clue me in.



So what of understanding and acceptance?

Keep in mind. Understanding alone isn't enough. It is possible to understand but not accept. Say your girlfriend does something you do not like. You tell her about it, you reason with her, you request for a change. More often than none, the girl goes away thinking, 'Ok I'll do this" and then fails. So you get upset, 'She's not listening to me!', try tell her again. The girl being the girl that she is feels 'He doesn't like me anymore. He didn't have any complaints before!' and blows up.
1) "No matter what I say, she doesn't understand. That's the way she is"
2) "I thought he understood me, but apparently I'm wrong
3) "Can't she accept what I'm trying to say? It's only for her own good."
4) "He doesn't accept who I am. Have I changed? Or has he?"

Once you get all these questions. End of story. You know why? Most of us are too chicken to work things out.
Like I said,
end of story.

Men are from Mars, Women from Venus. I don't know about the validity of our so-called planet origins, but if we are truthful with ourselves, most of the time we're thinking "Geez.. we really do come from different planets." A thousand times we mutter, 'You must BE from another planet, you don't understand me at all."

Love doesn't have to be perfect. It can't be. Unless of course, and I reiterate, you're a fictional character or live in a world where everyone else doesn't know what their talking about but you. But it can be worked out. Many people fail in this though. Not just passionate relationships. The platonic kinds too. Friendship, family ties, etc. We like to see the negative qualities in each other. Even gossip circulation falls prey to nasty emotions. It's just a fact that we like to dwell on the bad stuff. However, I believe we can overcome this, if only we begin to understand how damaging it can be and take the necessary steps to remind ourselves of the good qualities of those around us. We have high expectations, the closer the person is to us, the more we want to see out of them. Why? We like to have hope.

If we can began to understand that there is in fact, no hope of surrounding ourselves with people we love without a bit of effort understand AND accept them, then maybe, there will be hope :)

Humility..

If there's one thing my alma mater has failed in, it is in teaching humility. The art of modesty. It has failed to teach its students respect in others. It has failed in this. That is why one of our biggest fears is to be afraid of failing.

Christmas

Christmas Christmas.. Merry Christmas..

Ok. I know it's Boxing Day, but what the heck :P This is gonna be my Christmas post.

Interesting Christmas it was. Has everyone been to the new Boulevard Restaurant? When it was in.. well.. the Boulevard area, we used to go there every once in a while. Good food, good place. No complaints. The new place? Hmph. Never ever have the unlimited lunch. We were headed there for dimsum that morning (I woke up at 11.45am, morning no? :P) but decided (big mistake) to try the unlimited.

It's
A
Scam!

Service is slow, rude managers, not all foods are available and the most annoying thing was that they never bothered to inform us. We were waiting for half an hour for the last three dishes to arrive. They never did! It was the first time the whole family blew up! And it was the first time I loved blowing up :D Argumentative captain who was 1) unapologetic (which was ok at first) and then he got 2) rude. Geez.. nobody invokes customers' rights here?

What pathetic excuse was "Oh, we don't have duck, fish or deer"?

And after two hours you couldn't tell us that?! The "unlimited lunch" was basically unlimited veges. -.-" The meat, had conveniently disappeared. Spending 18 ringgit each eating veges?! Might as well go home and plant some. Heh.. It was like a diet conspiracy at hand.

Phew. Blowing off that steam was fun. :) Now, fast forward to the evening.

Zhungyi'd invited me to a Christmas gathering at his place. Truth be told, I was reluctant to go at first. Why?
1) Didn't know anyone there
2) Self-conscious
3) Self-conscious
4) Self-conscious

You get the idea :P
I presented this problem to Fen. Oh boy.. "Fresh graduate, self-conscious?" I actually wrote social phobia in my msn personal msg box, but the words were essentially something like that. Sigh. When am I allowed to be human? Graduate or not graduate.

Well, in the end I thought I'd better go. After all, it'd be rude to excuse myself for such a lame reason. Not going because I was AFRAID was pathetic. I just thought I'd better get over it, suck it up and go before I let my fears run amok. If I let this happen once, it's bound to happen again and again. Before I know it, I'd really end up with social phobia.

And so I went. Got lost on the way. How in the whole wide watermelon world (it's just Pujut really, but the world sounds better) did I end up in Pujut 1C instead of Pujut 2C?
1) Poor light
2) Lousy navigation skills
3) Distorted memory
4) Total lameness etc

Finally got there after gathering my bearings. Woah.. the moment I stepped in. This here is Auntie A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. The only elders I remember from last night were Zhungyi's parents of course, Zhungyi's grandma, this colleague of my dad's named Whim Balen (sp?), their church's pastor (more about him in a sec) as well as Auntie Pictionary (she remembered my name and all I remember is her drawing skills and our somewhat telepathic connection).

I guess the main point was to meet Nicole, Zhungyi's girlfriend. And yeap, I finally met her. Can't say I gathered a lot about her personality, but as far as first impressions go - nice gal, a little quiet, looks like she could be wild (in a good way) at times, smart no doubt, soft-spoken and soft-hearted. What surprised me was her size. She looks smaller than I expected. But of course, touche :) I must've looked bigger than she imagined. LOL. Doesn't take a mind reader to detect that. Funny, I did not realize her siblings were her siblings until the end when they got into the same car. Did not even realize her parents were her parents. They all look very different!

Another unexpected bit. Other than me, Chaw Meng was the only other friend Zhungyi invited from outside church. Very surprised. Or maybe his other friends were not in Miri or they just couldn't come. Hmmm.. Some afterthoughts: I'm touched that he asked.

The night turned out to be interesting if not a little awkward at first. When I arrived, a group of people were playing scrabble. Under Zhungyi's orders to "Socialize!," I observed as they played. Interesting that they made up wacky stories as the words were formed. :) They must have lots of practice, these people were really good. In particular this guy named Terrence.

Then came the best part. The food. Just kidding :P But it WAS spectacular. The last time I'd seen a proper Christmas dinner was when we went to Rachel's Christmas Party. I think I was about 10. The table was laden with the works - turkey, ham, pasta, lamb, mash potatoes, salad, gravy, mushrooms, broccoli.

There I was, going for my first round (which turned out to be my only round) and the pastor (I feel like I should put 'P' in caps) started a pretty interesting conversation. It's my first time talking to a pastor. Don't know why, I felt like I had to behave. LOL! Of all things we started a discussion about self-esteem and self-acceptance. I know for a fact that generally (as far as the normal distribution allows) people who have some form of faith (not necessarily religious faith although the majority stands for it) have higher self-esteem. This is not surprising. Makes perfect sense doesn't it? But what is more interesting is, the fraction of people who don't have religion describe their source of self-esteem as a form of purpose. What is this purpose?

Measurement-wise, how do you measure self-esteem? It is based on how experimenters define self-esteem. But how about what people (general public) see as self-esteem? There's bound to be infinite definition. There's the question of dimensions too. I'm pretty sure most people fall in the middle of the line, and certainly, just as there are those who have very low self-esteem thus suicide, depression and the likes, there must also be those who have unwavering self-esteem. We know what feeds to low self-esteem, should we perhaps we exploring what makes high self-esteem and somehow put this piece of information to good use? Being proactive instead of preventive. I think that's important for psychology too.

The night ended with a game of pictionary. There was this little boy playing on the piano by rote. I think he was about 4 or 5. Then there was this not so little boy zonking out on the couch after a few glasses of wine.

Merry Christmas everyone!
It's time to think of New Year resolutions.

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Let's have a moment's silence in remembrance of the 2004 Tsunami victims and their families.

Graduation (15/12/2006)

It's the end of the first phase. Looking back, the best (but not only) way to describe it is a good three years of hard (with the occasional lazy spell) work. For myself personally, it has definitely been the single-most meaningful period of life in terms of working towards academic excellence. A very very trying time, what with travelling overseas and building a new environment in which I could feel at home. I have never known before this the true meaning and rewards of working for what I really want until this point, especially in academics. This short amount of time is, for me, confirmation that if you truly believe in what you do, it'll come to you. It's not been easy, everything takes perserverance, determination and of course a bit of luck. So, lucky me :D

To all who have just begun this journey, hang on because you're in for a bumpy ride but for which in the end hopefully you will find what you want. Unlike what most freshies think, it's not all fun and games and it's not about the late night or how many beers you can drink. But to all who take this on very seriously from the beginning, it's not just about the numbers and what you score. Ultimately, it is about learning and getting as much out of the great opportunity presented to us by the people who love us most, our parents.

To all who are finishing this phase of their lives, always look back and cherish the memories. I think this is the single-most nurturing period of our lives in terms of diversity and cultural richness. Cherish it, for I believe we will never again be amidst such different characters in such cultivated surroundings.

To those who are halfway through, I'm glad to have you guys to walk the path in pursuit of further knowledge and self-realization. Here's to another three (more or less) ahead! Cheers~

Home

I'm finally home after 10 months. Now it'll take me another month to get used to life around here. By then it'll be time to return to Melbourne again.

Have a couple of posts to put on later when I get my laptop set up. Couldn't access blogger at Coronode where we stayed. Something funny about the connection there. Hmm.. this one at home is quite a laugh too. Apologies if you see me popping in and out very frequently.

Heading off to Ah Hood's and Vera's birthday now. Hong Kong Duck House. Anyone interested?

Honours

It's beginning to feel a little daunting. I'll have to start research once I get back to Miri. There must be a good issue out there worth researching.

What am I to you?

I can only ask the same question, but never hope for the same answer. Because this question will only be heard by my own ears. I'm too afraid to clarify. But you tell me, am I being taken for granted? Is it so difficult? Does it have to be so complicated? I don't think it has to be.

So what are you afraid of? Why keep the distance?

I come up with the excuses for you and yet here I am, still trying to believe them. Maybe I'm just stupid and you know that. That's why you can do what you're doing to me. Because I let you. The day will come when I realize that I can't lie to myself any longer. And that will be the end of it.

I only wonder when will that be. Will it be too late? Because it seems like it's never going to end.

Thank you

Bittersweet.

Nothing is better than able to share your happy moments with the people around you. There have been some disappointments today though. You can't very well leap for joy (at least, not at the maximum height) when a comrade is unhappy. But that's what friends are for, to keep by you when you're down and that's what I'm grateful for today. Thank you my friends, I couldn't have pulled off this year and this incredible moment had I been alone in this journey.

You know who you are. Thank you all. Thank you.

Record! :D Broken.

Hi all!!

Final results are in:

H1, 82 - Industrial/Organizational Psychology
H1, 82 - Introduction to Psychological Disorders
H2A, 79 - Human Psychophysiology
H2A, 78 - Personality and Social Psychology

As you can probably tell from the tone of my "voice". I'm very very very very very pleased :)
Hope everyone is pleased with their results!
Cheers!

Damn Se-Ked

Results are out in a couple of hours. *Gulps*

A pair of Frees :)

First, today is World Aids Day. Every 6 seconds, someone in the world dies of Aids. So if you see Red Cans these few days, do donate. You are contributing to finding a cure for Aids.

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Guess what I bought today?
After an hour of bickering with, Annie, mom, the sales girl, I acquired a pair of Nike Frees :)

In what colour?
Of course blue lah :P

I wore them to Body Jam today. Light and comfy~~
Bought two books today, both by Nick Hornby "About a Boy" and oh my.. something else I can't remember the title but am too lazy to reach for it right now. Oh alright, *reaches over to the bed*, it's called "How to be Good".

Yes, I need lessons.

Here are some other pictures taken on the day after we finished exams and decided to indulge in much needed iron. Umm.. for them I mean. As if I need anything more in my body. I'm currently trying to work everything out. Thus, working out I guess. Ok sorry, that was a bad joke. So ya, Ha Ha.

Ok, not to waste anymore time. Here are the pics.

Post-exam Korean BBQ dinner

Our favourite past time: Killing Tsu Ann


The five of us.

Sabrina with whom I love to have intellectual conversations with and loves to giggle - manic we reckon :P

Hellen my dear twin - she's one tough woman who has been a tremendous friend during disappointing times :)

Yi Ying the artist who is always full of energy (like a bunny :P) and shares the same dislike for the corporate world

Tsu Ann who is every bit as extraverted as the rest although she denies and is a great friend through many hardships :)

Thank you gals! For making uni life so much more enjoyable and for the fun times in lectures - sleeping and laughing, and of course drooling over Jason :P Ok, maybe it was just me :P Hehe.. What would I do without the encouragement in between assignments and coffee, books and papers in Borders? :) Love y'all~~~~

Hellen, Yi Ying and I on Bourke Street

The lights above :) Hey waddya know? They're blue too! :D :P