[ misc uses of a handphone ]

There was a blackout in the apartment last night. The emergency light had already been packed into a box and was thus unaccessible. So what do I do? I used my mum's Nokia 3315 as a torch to find candles. Finally, a good reason why the screen light is so damn bright!

Started work as a lab demo for the new semester today. Argh. I'm bonding with the students. I haven't got time to bond! My Honours project is in peril! Mwaaaaaaa... *cries*

[ ]

[ and i like that pair! ]

As happened to a friend, and relayed to me. She was at KLCC on Saturday, and went to the surau to pray Maghrib. Went in, prayed, went out, and lookie there — her shoes were gone. Maybe I'm more hopeful that I ought to be. Phones disappearing, yeah. Wallets, oh yeah. But it's no longer even safe to leave your frickin' shoes alone for a couple of minutes? -.-

[ ]

[ *bouncebouncebounce* ]

Played snooker for the first time today! Woohoo! BIG table! BIG sticks! And, of course, the superbig Uber Stick! Much fun was had by all. Team Evil lived up to its name, of course. Hani was evil, Tj was evil, and Fabian was faaaaaaabulously evil. Although, technically, Team Cute did win. And I got the last shot in I got the last shot in I got the last shot in! Nina took pictures, Hani got her coffee, Yu San was snuggly, Jan commanded the Uber Stick fear, Tj resisted the teapot kakus, Fabian flaunted his oh-so-cute butt and I got an expression of my own.

Chinchilla not happy. CHINCHILLA SMASH! Meep meep rowr!

Although on a downside, that cafe place we went to afterward wasn't all that impressive. But still, Korean food for lunch! Mmmm...

[ ]

[ lecturers with grudges ]

As a student, the office politics of teachers/lecturers are usually nothing more than interesting gossip to share admist friends. It's fun to talk about that sort of thing, because from a student's point of view lecturers are supposed to be professionals and all that, so to see them lower themselves to our petty standards is very amusing.

So anyway, I went to a seminar at UM recently. Met up with this really cool professor lady and we talked a bit. I asked for some of her advice because her speciality is related to what I'm interested in, and I got her card and email address for future correspondence. Then when I came back, my supervisor found out what happened, and told me up front not to talk to that professor lady, because she (my supervisor) wants "to have nothing to do with her". Okay, fine. My supervisor is still in charge of my whole world at the moment (bah!) and her word is law.

Still, it would have been nice if she had told me what had happened between them. I mean, now I'm curious, and I want more than ever to talk to that professor lady. My senior (who's also under the same supervisor I am) told me that she'd heard that the professor lady was really mean to our supervisor when they worked together. But I can't believe that completely, because my supervisor is a very strong, very capable woman whom I cannot believe would stand down from a fight. However, she also gets annoyed at very minute things, and can hold one helluva big grudge when things don't go her way. (And she's a slave driver. Hisssssss.)

It's times like these I wish I didn't have an overactive imagination. If only she'd just tell me what happened, then I'd be free to go on my merry way. Instead, now I have the professor lady's card in my hand, and am very very tempted to email her to ask her about it.

[ ]

[ *whimper* ]

After nicking my new roommate's copy, I've finally finished Order of the Phoenix.

I have just one question...

When will the hurting stop?!

*clutches at Lil pathetically*

[ ]

[ bored bored bored BORED ]

My housemates are watching that Malay telenovela, Romeo & Juliet (aka Romy & Juli?) and Diana is cooing at the telly like there's no tomorrow. But the only fascinating thing I can make out of the show is how the Juli girl looks like she can beat up her hubby Romy, no problem.

[ ]

[ tonight's episode of the amazing race ]

I love the clowns. Go clowns! Wait, that can't be right, I hate clowns. But but but, these clowns are different. They're different, I tell you!

The ang-moh tongue attacks once again. "Kota Kinaba-loooo." "Kota Kina...bula?" "We're going to Kota. Kota! We're going to Kota!" Aww, even Phil couldn't get the pronounciation right.

And the greeter at the pitstop sounds a lot like a my cousin, except that shouldn't be right because my cousin's a Johorian.

Man, I love this show. Hee.

[ ]

[ it's a conspiracy ]

Recently I managed to have a chat with an ex-schoolmate whom I hadn't heard from in a long time. And one of the immediate catching-up questions he had to ask was, "Are you still single?" followed by a quick, "Why are you still single?" Now, on its own I wouldn't have been annoyed, but just the day before I spent a very long phonecall trying to fend off my petsis who kept insisting that I get a boyfriend, she going on and on that I was "too picky". And then another ex-collegemate SMS-ed me not too long afterward, asking when I was going to get a boyfriend.

I'm not even going to start on my irritation of how people place such weight on coupledom, because that's just... bah.

So anyway. I am not a social butterfly. I rarely meet new people. I do not like going out to meet new people. It's not that I intend to live in a cave the rest of my life, but it's the long getting-to-know-you process that tires me. Which is why my new roommate and I are dancing on glass around each other, because she's wary of me, and I don't want to get to know her (but that's another story). And even then, you can't really tell.

Like, I have a girlfriend who's a real outgoing people-person, there's been loads of guys interested in her over the years, yet she's never had an actual boyfriend. Sure, you can say she's picky, but personally I don't think so. Basically, it's all about the self-censorship, which we both agree on. I just cannot let myself be interested in a guy with whom I don't feel totally comfortable with. I need to be me. I cannot be expected to hold back the giddy, ditzy and somewhat crazy part of me just because. And it seems that all the guys I am relaxed enough around, I can only look as friends.

Anyway, my new roommate. She's nice enough, I guess, but she has this really intense gaze, like she's slowly dissecting you piece by piece. I guess she's weighing me up to figure out the borders of our little roommate-hood, but it's a tad bit unnerving. But not in a totally bad way, because I can see she's done quite a bit of self-censorship herself. It's just that, well, I've been changing roommates too often lately to care enough to properly befriend her. *shrugs*

Ranting done, I just wanna say I love playing pool. I love that Korean restaurant quite a bit too, but not as much as pool. And I just wanna say that it's very very wrong that we were the only girls at the pool place, when there was quite a large crowd there. Where are all the female pool players?! *hiss*

[ ]

[ prolly a deathwish, but hey ]

I had a long rant in my head about the nature of conscious and subconscious expectations, but I got distracted momentarily by this revelation...

JEAN IS SO CUTE!

I am not at liberty to say why, but she is. A widdle cuddly wuddly Jeanie girl, yes she is, yes she is!

[ ]

[ hey, it's cool ]

I royally screwed up my presentation at UM. To make a long story short, I just panicked. Maybe it was the audience. It was my first time presenting to actual professors and doctors and I guess my subconscious just freaked. So I blubbed, and muttered, and got a really bad sore throat by the time I was through. But it's okay, because the way I figure, this is as bad as it'll ever get, so my next presentation can only get better. ^_^

But in my madness following the embarrassment of my screw up, I went and begged my fellow batchmates to watch T3: Rise of the Machines, my treat. I thought only one or two would say yes, but they all did. Guh. But I was proven that the more the merrier, and I was bouncy once again after the movie was over. And topped it all off with a nice big dinner of sushi. Yay!

[ ]

[ incurably lazy & geeky ]

I am at home. I actually have to attend a workshop at the university which started, oh, half an hour ago, but I overslept, and now I couldn't care less. Maybe I'll attend the afternoon lectures.

Did you know that DNA in its ionic form can conduct electricity and is currently being developed for usage in nanotechnology? I totally did not know that.

[ ]

[ things they never tell the asthmatics... ]

ARGH! I had an asthma attack this morning. >_< I'd been fighting it for the past week when my lungs were all acting up (weather, maybe?) but I guess I wasn't strong enough to fight it off. Bah.

It's not that I mind much being an asthmatic. Sure, there are plenty of rules to follow. No fur, no heavy carpets, no extensive playing with cats, no too hot or too cold conditions, no eating mangosteen or other sticky fruits, lots of vacuuming for my room and other stuff. That's okay. I can follow the rules, no biggee.

It's just that I prefer to avoid using my inhaler whenever possible, because I didn't stop my addiction to it for nothing. I hate having to take my inhaler. I hate using the nebulizer even more. And not only because it makes me shaky and dizzy.

I hate BEING WEAK.

[ ]

[ the yq forum thingee... ]

First off.

TJ ROCKS!

Go and worship her or something. She is awesome. She hath bewitched the bigwig dude with her blunt honesty.

As for me, I did my thing. Which means blinking dumbly and eating mentos and generally not having anything to say, because that is me, and I am one of the extreme few who actually DO fork out ridiculous amounts of money for the original stuff.

But here, in the relative safety of my own web-being, I speak. Official bigwigs are from Mars, the youngin consumers are from Venus. Finding middle ground? Don't hold your breath, Mr Tim Robbins Lookalike With a Girly Name. The consumer majority does not care for the big picture the bigwigs keep preaching about, and there will be no talking sense to the teenyboppers, as was proven by That Girl Behind Us Who Did Not Get It. Also, the consumer majority believes that the pirates are not their problem. They are faced with an alternate source of musical entertainment, why the hell should they care where it came from? It's a wee bit late to try drilling moral ethics, since we're all already wired like puppets. *shrugs*

I had to grab Tj so the photographer dude could take piccies of her. Although I found it rather amusing that he asked us to actually "jauh sikit". What, we looked too close for comfort? Hee.

And Tj is awesome. It was fun to be her sidekick for the day.

[ ]

[ suchness worry ]

Now previously, I'd only watched movies in TGV KLCC twice. The Mask of Zorro and The Cell, both on weekends, both times I didn't have that much trouble lining up for tickets. Yesterday, when I went with a girlfriend to watch Charlie's Angels, the crowd was mind-bogglingly huge! On a Wednesday! Afternoon! Where did all the people come from? Is it always like that now?

So basically we spent about forty minutes in line, munching on Mrs Field's brownies + nibblers. MRS FIELDS! BROWNIES! NIBBLERS! Yum.

And also, watched the ads on that screen thing outside the cinema. Got something of a shock when a trailer for a brand new animated movie came on. I thought it was Sinbad at first, but it turned out to be Mohammed the Last Prophet. Erm. Uh. WHAT? Why? But why? And why?

This preview of the mass response to the flick is exactly why I think it's a bad idea. Basically, a no-win situation.

[ ]