Yee ‘O Lost Souls

365 posts and 212 comments later, I am officially retiring this blog. Maybe it’s the flashing ads, maybe it’s just crappy friendster, but whatever it is, I am leaving!

My account will still be active, just no more blog. I’ll miss it. Probably. But it’s time to grow up and get a real blog.

In comes The Oblong Corner! This will be the blog replacing Yee ‘O Lost Souls. So update your bookmarks eh?

12 Habits is still on going. And will be for a while longer. There’s currently no plans to retire that blog. It’s doing pretty well.

So see you guys at The Oblong Corner!  And thank you for following my blog up till now. I hope you share the same dedication towards The Oblong Corner hahaha!

Good bye and see you soon!

I’m contemplating migrating blogs. Friendster had served its purpose but it’s not ‘mine’ and there’s little I can do about it.

Mr. Leaf showed me the stats of my 12 Habits blog and guess what? we have 106 unique hits! That’s more than enough for me to join nuffnang.

Of course, the 106 unique hits is stats for all three pages of pandadiary. Though admittedly 2/3 of the hits are mine. (his word, not mine).

But no matter how popular my blog gets, it’ll always be Friendster’s. I thought I’d stick around at least until I used up all my allotted disk space.

Have a look at my account overview.

I’ve used up 70%. If I post up more pictures I’ll fill it up pretty quickly.

What I like about this blog is that it sends out notifications whenever there’s an update. Though it reminds people to come check it out, people have to log in to comment and I can’t place ads of my own if I want to. It doesn’t belong to me :/.

At first this suits me fine, but now I believe it’s probably time to really migrate. I’ve grown out of Friendster.

It will be the same blog, Yee ‘O Lost Souls, but with a new look and a different location. Perhaps blogspot.

Or…

It’s probably time to take up blogging more seriously and get my own site. I mean, RM100 a year for 10 gig of space is pretty good.

www.yeeolostsouls.com anyone?

Nah, I’ll stick with blogspot for now.

Ta’ra XD.

I went on my first ever apartment hunt today. No, it’s not for me. It’s for other people.

Anyway, I went to this place called Koi Tropika, a new apartment in Puchong. It was so beautiful, it would put a resort to shame.

Just check out the pool.

Complete with a gazebo, a small bridge/island and stools in the water along the gazebo.

There’s even a little water slide at the kiddie pool.

A friend of mine is currently renting at that apartment and he was the one who reccomended it. I personally was very impressed by it. Then and there I asked him if he could help me find units.

In the next hour he already set up several unit viewing appointments for the coming week :D.

I could seriously live there because it’s actually closer to my college.

After that we went to view this new apartment also in Puchong. It’s currently under construction and will finish next year. But even with all the work going on, it too looked like a resort.

The only problem would be that the bus doesn’t stop close enough and there’s only one bus that goes through it.

So you’d need to have your own transport.

Either way, I noticed a trend in properties. You can have the same offer of floor space, bedrooms and bathrooms, but the price at any apartment in Puchong will always be below 900 while in Sunway it would be at least 1,100. And most of the time the apartments on offer at Sunway would be very dense, packed with people and in a very old building.

People should shed the negative image they have on Puchong because the new apartments are, that good. They rival Sunway apartments in all aspects, and more.

After we were done with Puchong we went to Pyramid for lunch. My friend drove this very, very old Mitsubishi he bought from his friend. His car was so rickety, it made the busses in Kuching look like luxury cars.

We had lunch at this sexy Indian/Arab/Asian cuisine restaurant called Mantra.

The ambiance was…mangnificent.

There’s even water sliding down glass panels behind us.

Yeah, it was awesome…

I had tghe tandoori platter, briyani rice and cheese naan. The cheese naan tasted like salty roti canai but the briyani and tandoori are heavenly.

I shall bring my dad to that place again.

After that, I asked my friend to drive his rickety old car we nicknamed Mit-chan to check out some Sunway apartments since we were in the area.

We went to only one, and it was a complete turn off. He said, and we could notice that easily that there are no apartments that match up to Koi Tropika in the area. Most of the apartments there are packed with students and the ‘good’ ones are way too expensive.

After that he dropped us off at the bus station opposite Pyramid and we went home.

Was a tiring day, but quite entertaining. I especially liked the food.

Tomorrow I shall spend the time studying. My soreness is easing up and I can finally exercise too hehehe. Yeah, vigorous exercise can do that to ya, but it’s all good.

Ta’ra!

Due to curiosity, bordering on boredom/stupidity/plain lazyness, I followed the U69 bus all the way to the end of the line.

That’s right, all the way to Putra Perdana, which I suppose is somewhere between Puchong and Putrajaya.

I always saw the caption on the bus, but I always thought it was some new township further up from Puchong.

While I’m right about new, I wasn’t prepared at how new and desolated that place was!!

I wanted to go explore, but was afraid I’d be left behind by the next bus leaving, so I stuck around. The driver only came back after about an hour or so.

It was another long trip back, as I went full circle.

By the time I got back I was tired and hungry and badly needed to pee.

But it was all good. I saw a bus going to Taman Desa, and am thinking of going exploring.

One of these days.

Tomorrow I have to catch up on a series hehehe.

Previously I gave you my Dua Kupang Worth on college life. From now on that segment is going to be known as my Dua Kupang Worth :D.

Ta’ra!

p/s, Habit 3 is up!

I don’t like routine, but routine is good. It’s useful. It tells you what to do and when to do it. And it ensures everything that should be taken care of is taken care of.

How much easier my life would be if I had succumbed to routine earlier.

But no, I am not a good candidate for a ‘perfect housewife’. It’s not good for my image. Though on the other hand, being house-proud is good for my pride.

And I am one who prioritizes pride over image. Because my pride is my image XD.

Anyway.

Yesterday, despite not having any classes, I had to go to college in the morning to update my student file. It was a completely waste of time, as my paperwork is in order from the beginning. Never trust them when they didn’t ask you for something like your SPM results because at the end of the day, they will look for it.

On my own initiative, I wrote a letter of exemption, and made extra copies of all essential certificates and documents. It paid off. And I would appreciate it if people would staop asking me why am I not taking this or that subject for next semester.

Am I the only one who didn’t fail my previous papers and joining this degree program from year 1 sem 1?

These diploma students are just making things difficult for themselves.

And although A-Levels and Foundation are esentially pre-university courses, they not the same, thank you.

We did a presentation last Monday, as I had mentioned before. If you want my honest opinion, my group’s slides looked the most professional.

I mean really, you do not use a Jokerman font as texts, especially when it’s yellow on a black background. And never blame your audiences when they can’t see your presentation well. It’s your job as the presenter to make it work, not your audiences.

Amatuers.

And please, please, please, please! Just use the automatic font colors of your respective slide template! The templates’ colour combination were made so they work well together! Unless you’re a genius (which these people obviously are not), DO NOT CHANGE THE COLOR!

HUFF HUFF HUFF…

And if you’re in doubt, just use, or start, with a plain white background and black text. And pictures are more interesting than colorful background.

Personally, I like white background and plain black texts. The point is to make it look profesional, not like a highschooler who had just discovered powerpoint for the first time.

My group’s slides were made by yours truly, and I believe there’s a certain art to doing it. Like, if you know you are going to have lots of information on, use plain texts and background. Cut them into sections, and add pictures. I like to use the simple white templates or one with a soft background color. The point is that you want your slides to stand out, for people to easily read your stuff. I will take it upon myself if my slides are messy and unreadable.

More people should take pride in their work if you ask me.

And of course, although the lecturer didn’t say it out loud, in his heart of hearts I could tell he thinks our group was the best. That’s because he kept saying how complete our information was, and how well everything was laid out *ego masturbates*.

I am content, considering about half of the slides were only done one hour prior.

Honestly, I’m glad to be the one who’s able to pull off something like this, in the last minute as elegantly as it did, but I could really do without the stress.

When in doubt, sleep. Let your mind defrags and prepares for the coming seemingly unsurmountable tasks ahead.

I have class. Need to shower. Ta’ra!

Finally! I flew in last Saturday and had been busy doing stuffs ever since! After our psychology presentation today I finally have some time out to blog!

Anyway, here are some delayed pictures I said before. I haven’t posted up any pictures of myself in a loooong time so forgive me for all the excessive face shots! Personally face shots scare me so I will keep them to a minimum.

Let’s go through this one by one, aye?

Raya Second Day

Totchi and I only take pictures together during raya these days :D. I had a very small turn out *glares at those that didn’t come*. But no matter. There are other times to deal with them.

West was here this year so it was fun picking on him. But he had turned a new leaf some sort and is no longer as crazy as he was before. Still, he’s no less entertaining hehehehe.

Gary and Wee Lun came and they enjoyed each other’s company very much.

Wee Lun probably admires Gary’s non-existent muscles. Or he’s just checking him out to see how fast Gary would succumb to his black belt moves.

Either way, I’m sure Totchi would still have fun watching it. If the showdown do happen I’ll be in KL and would miss out on the action. Bummer.

Raya Third Day

I held an extra open house on this day for my friends. Because after that day I’ll be out and about and the only way to visit me is by appointment only. Anyway, Me came with her friends!

It was fun to finally meet her gang. They are a friendly bunch. We had fun hanging out and they stayed for a while.

Yeah I know, I stick out like a sore thumb. But Me looks like theThe Ring girl.

It’s little wonder how  she cosplays Sunako Nakahara well.

Though, prior to this cosplay she had no bangs.

I didn’t have a lot of pictures when I’m with them because they are the ones who took the most pictures. I figured I’d just ask it from them. But for the purpose of this blog I used whatever pictures Sasarai has, and yeah, I haven’t gotten their pictures yet so sue me :P.

Sarah kept watching Trine, so I told her to take pics with them.

There she goes, behaving like a good girl. And man, she does look very Chinese doesn’t she? (I double-checked the picture. Yes, her eyes are open). When she’s with my mom, people must have thought she was adopted! Hahahaha.

Especially when my mom looks like this.

She has big eyes and all.

Anyway.

Moving on, I don’t have pictures of raya fourth day because taking pictures of people is mafan. Though I don’t pictures of people, I do have pictures of something else.

Raya Fourth Day!

I finally got my Swinburne jersey! I visit my friend in the middle of the night, who is the self-proclaimed Captain of Swinburne FC whom I had ordered a jersey during raya last year.

Behold!

The initial HY is for HYDE and 66 is Hyde’s favorite number of 666, but only got two digits in there.

Behold the logo.

And look at the brand. It’s Giordano XD.

Hehehehe. And the back.

This is the girl’s shirt. They guys’ are black, with yellow text and looked less appealing than the girl’s. The captain admitted it himself heh.

His initials was ‘AH’. I asked him if it’s not funny to have only two-word initials like that. He said it’s cool. So I asked about the others.

Other than AH, there’s also AM and AW, among other names.

Yeah, sweet. I know.

Raya Fifth Day

On the fifth day I went ‘visiting’ at Bing (Totchi ditched me T_T…)and after that went to the arcade at Satok. Me and gang really like Para Para Paradise. They are pretty much experts at it already.

That’s because Me has the machine back home in Norway…

You can even see Me’s cousin walking in the background. She was moving out of the way while my intention was to snap her in the picture as well.

Me’s cousin has got to be one of the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t care what people say about her or descriminate or whatever.

She’s nice and that’s that. Nothing else matters. Screw the critics.

Later that night I went to my cousin’s house and finally checked out her cats. She has 9 of them.

This is one of two double storey cages she has at home. I didn’t take pictures of the other one. I forgot. Sorry.

This cage houses 5 cats. All in their adolescents. The outside cage is for adult cats. Her one ‘dominant’ cat doesn’t stay in the cage. He’s special. He sleeps in a strawberry-shaped basket.

Raya Seventh Day - Cultural Village Trip and Everything else.

What better ways to spend the last day of raya than to prance around like a tourist at the Cultural Village eh?

Karoline trying the blowpipe. Actually, Me is taking her photo from the other end. Lucky she didn’t actually shoot eh?

We spent some time at this Penan hut talking to that guy in the sexy costume. There, they learned how to say ‘butt’ in the local language. Good fun.

Yeah, you can see my friend there, with the girls. Don’t mistken him as one of them.

Hehehehehe.

Big elf and small elf.

And here, while the rest of us are looking at the show houses, Me is getting close and personal with the local wildlife.

And during that whole afternoon, her eyes turned purple.

Caucasian eyes scare me.

Next, we went to Camp Permai.

Trine (Teh-Ree-Nei) looks like a water nymph.

Raya 8th Day

Didn’t go anywhere special, except meeting them at the Coffee Bean and then eating at Tun Jugah.

At Tun Jugah, there was this annoying bunch of high school boys sitting in the next table oggling at us. I was the last one to notice because I was sitting at the furthest edge. I thought it funny how Karol kept her back to the other side until I saw the oggling boys behind her.

I noticed the boys looking at our direction for a long time, but I thought it was something else beyond our table that caught their attention. When I really noticed, I asked Me how long have they been staring. She said a little after all of us had settled in our seats.

Bastards.

After everyone had finished eating we left. One of the braver ones even had the nerve to ask Karol for a picture.

I guess because she was the smallest one and carrying the biggest bag, they picked on her.

Seriously, these bastards are seriously tarnishing the image of Kuching people.

But after that, we made for Bing and it was all peace and quiet. I suppose the staffs there are used to foreigners.

Me was abusing the wireless connection there. Poor thing. There’s no Internet connection at Telaga Air you see.

It was a bit dark as it was raining outside. Anyway, after the annoying encounter at TJ, it was all peace and quiet at Bing.

Though it was a bit sad that I had to leave that day. But oh well.

Here’s Atziluth, signing off!

Ta’ra!

I had fun today. I hadn’t had so much fun in a long time.

Let me tell you about my day.

It started yesterday.

Yesterday was my go-out-and-visit-people-day. It was the sixth day of raya.

I already ‘booked’ my friends and told them we’re going to Telaga Air to visit Me and her friends. If not now, when?

Our date at Telaga Air was set for noon, so we visited two friends’ houses prior to that. Motherhood was nice enough to ‘lead’ the way with our driver on another car. So they led us, and we only made a wrong turn once, and it was very close to the village already.

When we arrived, my mom promptly went home coz she had things to do and I stayed there for the rest of the day. Me’s cousin cooked us food. ‘She’ is a very good cook. ‘She’ works at Normah as an assistant cook.

Me and her friends greeted us. In the middle of the village in the middle of nowhere, they looked like displaced tourists.

But they were nice and made us comfortable, even though I was practically melting because it was so hot. I hope I didn’t go overboard in my ‘hotness’.

Before we ate I raided their rooms, and found them covered in posters. I wished I could do the same to my room, but that’s impossible. Karoline showed me her games collection, which was in a huge four-pocket-per-page CD album. I shall remember to borrow her FFXII before mine arrives from the US.

Anyway, we stayed and talked, and I introduced my two friends. They got along well. I am glad. And we took lots of pictures. Me and Karol are like papparazzis with their humongous SLRs. But I am not one to complain when people take my pictures willingly.

We stayed until about 6, where by that time I had said ‘we have to go’ three times already. But at 6 there was no more delays because I have to get out of the area before dark since the kampung has no street lights.

We had met for Bing the day before and decided to make plans for Friday. So on that day, Thursday, we decided to go to the cultural village on Friday. I suggested we take my car because it’s bigger, and more convenient. They only had a battered little Kancil and could barely fit four big people.

We decided to go for the cultural village in the morning and leave the rest of the day open for whatever. Even if we have to cut the day short, we still have to eat together.

One of my friends wanted to come along to the cultural village. My other friend couldn’t make it. Honestly, I did not invite, because I already practically ‘forced’ them to come along on the trip to Telaga Air, so I guess I have no right. But one of them wanted to come, so I said okay. Besides, he seems to be getting along great with Nadja.

Nad was envious he could speak Japanese/Chinese/German/Arabic while she was half Egyptian and barely spoke Arabic.

So today. We are finally at today.

They arrived at my house early. Our date was set at 10 am, and they arrived some time before 10. Me’s cousin couldn’t make it because ’she’ had some problems with them family people.

They came bringing extra clothes for swimming. I raised my brow. Trine and Karol were planning to go for a dip somewhere near the cultural village. I had told them there was a jungle pool at camp permai since they said the beach was too hot last time they came.

I guess they remembered.

After a brief detour, we arrived at the cultural village at 11. The cultural show was at 11:30 so we wandered around in the souvenir shop because it was air conditioned.

We sat at the front row because my friend wanted to. The order was: Karol, Myself, Me, My friend, Trine and Nad.

Even before the show started those three papparazzis were already flashing their SLRs onto the dark stage. I don’t know what they are taking pictures of.

When the crazy orang Ulu with his blowpipe appeared on stage, it was routine for him to tease the audiences with his blowpipe, looking incredulously at the cameras pointed at him, and pretending they were fair game.

In the end, Karol was invited on stage, because she was a hardy photographer and remained pointing her big lense at him, even as he was pointing the blowpipe to her face.

When he gave her the blowpipe, he told her to shoot at me. Of course, he was kidding. But later Karol told me she really was thinking of shooting me.

I told her if she did, that dart would stick on me, wherever it may land. The point might look blunt, but if enough force is applied in the blow, it will stick.

I shudder.

We left the cultural village in the crack of day, and they decided to go to that jungle pool to cool off. So we went to camp permai and hiked up the trail to the junlge pool. There was nobody there so we had the pool all to ourselves. Karol and Trine went swimming while the rest of us just dipped our feet. I went down to the beach for a while, but it was too hot, so we didn’t stay long.

At 5, we left camp permai and back to civilization because everyone was hungry.

Trine kept wanting spaghetti and Nad kept craving Japanese food and niku.

It was one hell of a ride home.

After a last minute decision, we decided to eat at the food court at TJ. I had sizzling mee. It has been a long time since I had one. I finished it, but I was still hungry. Then suddenly, Karol and Trine said we should go eat brownies at Bing. I never thought of that. I debated for a while if I should order Japanese food or eat lamb panini at Bing. I later succumbed to panini.

So we went to Bing. Everyone except my friend and I had brownies because I prefer their mars bar cheesecake and lamb panini. But tonight they didn’t have mars bar, so I had panini and strawberry smoothie. We talked again and I learned how to say ‘Where is the toilet’ in Norwegian.

‘Voov arkh tuelette’ or something.

I used that phrase when we were at my friend’s house. I asked them to stop over at his house for a raya visit and to try the cookies he baked himself. I intentionally suggested it so that he could show off his friends to his family. And also so they won’t wonder where he’d gone all day. I supposed he scored some brownie points as his brother was home, with a friend.

I could tell his bro was almost ‘culture shock’d because by this time, these girls were speaking to my friend like old friends, and whoever his friends were their friends too. So his home was their home too I suppose hehehe. His bro had to quickly adjust himself to these foreigners because they were way past the ’shy new friends’ phase (if there ever was one). But soon he was taking out his camera and trying his best to match the girls’ ‘comfort zone’.

Because honestly, they looked more comfortable in his house than he was.

We stayed for about an hour where Me and Karol were transferring pictures from their cameras to my friend’s laptop. I will ask for them later.

Me and gang only went back after that, when I dropped them off at my house, where their car was parked. But not before they booked me for another brownie meeting tomorrow.

These girls are seriously addicted to the brownies at Bing.

And yes, tomorrow is the same day I am leaving for KL. Hopefully I will have pictures after this. I am thinking of taking Kujong with me to KL, because I am not sure how long I will stay back after my final exams.

But we’ll see, I suppose.

I am tired. Tomorrow I need to exercise.

Ta’ra!

It’s funny how your day could start out so bright, then took a huge downturn that just leaves you emotionally bruised for the rest of the day. And then, I look at my green raya card, at that blown up picture of Aoi, and found myself drawn to it like a beacon of light in my sea of despair. I feel pathetic at myself for a while, but then realized, that even in my slowly turning into an ‘I-DONT-CARE’ world, there is still light at the end of the tunnel.

But this is about raya. Let’s leave all the sad stuff behind.

First day, was very ‘ritualistic’. We went to all the ‘compulsary houses’, which are of course, families and uncles and aunts of my parents. However, I managed to squeeze in two friends’ house at the end of the day. I was so tired at the end of the day I was glad we didn’t have that much to do that night. Though I still feel kesian that my mom and house maid had a lot of cooking to do.

I cannot cook :/.

My dad roused us out of bed early the next morning. He rubbed me the wrong way yesterday so I promptly went back to bed after I answered the door, pretending I was awake :P. I woke up about half past eight, and was surprised to hear my sisters’ voice downstairs. I thought it would be unfair to leave the work to them, so, fresh from sleep, I gingerly made my way to the kitchen. I can’t quite remember what I did there, but later on I made myself useful in the garden terrace, where the guests will be. I took a wet towel and wiped clean all seat-able surfaces, from chairs, to benches, to the fountain edges.

I know the others took for granted that these surfaces are clean. But after one whole year of neglect, they have gathered quite a bit of dust, though not very obvious. But don’t worry all of you who came. The chairs were all clean, and I continued cleaning them throughout the day :D. I am proud of my handy work.

That morning, I purposely made myself look busy so that I won’t be told to do anything else.

People take really little attention to the micro condition of the garden. It’s my post for the whole day, so I am keen on them. *am proud*

You see, our open house is ran almost at military efficency. Everybody has a clearly defined role. So everyone knows what to do. This has been briefed a few days before raya. Yes, we have a briefing. But the problem with our system is that, when one person messes up, almost the whole thing could collapse. That’s why it is important sometimes to just shut up and put up, and for someone else to jump into another’s shoes. Quickly. Argue when there are no guests around and whip the lazy ones back to work or answer to the boss.

The best part is that, nobody argues back. And when your hands are tied, you can just tell those on ’stand by’ to do just about anything XD. Like sweep the floors or pick up rubbish.

This open house is huge. It’s bigger than any of us. We even have people over helping out with the dishes and all the behind the scene work, while we, the family members, concentrate on the guests. We even wore identical clothes yesterday so people could tell us apart from the crowd XD.

Even during my busy state, I managed to squeeze in a few conversations with the children of the guests. Those my age, of course. I even got one phone number. I am impressed by my pick up skillz.

I wanted to ask for the number of one of my second cousins. It wouldn’t have been weird because I have talked to him before, and had talked to him again that day. And besides, I am always keen on staying connected with family members.

But then again, what am I going to do with it? Call and say hi? and then what? Hang out? So I thought, well we’ll see each other again next year. It’s less awkward when you are established as friends.

Anyway, I didn’t ask. If we see each other again, we will, if not, then there’s always the next year XD. So mafan.

The thing with raya ‘ang paus’ is that, the job of giving them out is divided between my sisters. Most people (kids, mostly) make the mistake of looking out for the sizes of the angpau packets, thinking different sizes have different amounts. Although it is partly true, it’s actually the one giving them out that they should look out for. The older that person is, the higher the amount XD.

Luckily, I was the one handing out the most angpau that day, not my younger sister, and my elder sis only gave to the ’special’ ones. She is our Mistress of Finance.

Second day ended funnily, because we’re so used to having regulars coming over year after year, most of them we don’t know with them usually coming in the day. Then this one family showed up at night. We all glanced at each other and shrugged because we have no idea who they were!

But for the sake of being polite, my parents just talked about random things with them until they left. Usually guests who come at night get special treatment because there are less people and they get more attention. But that family was just…odd. Coz none of us knew who they were.

Oh screw it. It’s raya. Anything goes.

Third day I have an open house especially for friends. People ask why I don’t go out. I told them, once I go out I don’t stay home. I hold an extra open house on the third day so people could come visit me (I like having guests at home :D). After that, on the fourth day onwards, I’ll be out visiting people. I will start by visiting those whom had visited me, to return the favour. It matters not if their houses clash direction.

I was quite happy with the number of turnouts today. Me came with her Northern friends! One of her friends remarked how funny it was to finally see me after talking to me online for so long! And she said it several times. They even volunteered information about themselves, which spares me the trouble of asking. We even made plans before they left hehehe. I gave the nod for Bing, but would have to consider the cultural village trip. It’s easy for them coz they have a student card. Me??? My student card is in KL!!

Most of the food is finished today. I’m so happy, coz I made most of them myself, see (Meatloaf, spaghetti, and baked potatoes). I didn’t make a lot, knowing how unpredictable the turnout is. But I made sure it was sufficient.

Tomorrow! Is the day I go out! I have two open houses to attend tomorrow :D. Get ready world! I’ve been itching to go! Wheeeee!!!

Ta’ra!

p/s during raya my priority has been to sleep early coz I have to wake up early. Now I could finally get the most sleep in my three days of raya.

p/s/s I would post up pictures if I could connect Sasarai to Towers. But Towers is cold to Sasarai. He is still saddened by Katan’s voyage. Sorry Towers…:/

Is the busiest day of the year for us. Our open house is on the second day, but we are busying ourselves early so we can spend the whole day away on the first day.

Let’s see at what I did today. I made a batch of cheese biscuits. My best yet. This time, all of them came out the oven in perfect condition! Normally I’d burn half of the first tray going into the oven. But not this time. I started with low heat and let it slowly progress until I adjusted it just right.

And then, I made meatloaf to prepare for the third day. This is the first time I make them, but it still looks pretty good :D. Very cheesy this one, because I shredded slightly more than half a brick. Now that I think about it, I may need to do one more to even out the amount of sauce. Hmmmm.

My sisters were busy cleaning the house and stuff while I ironed out my clothes for raya :D.

So cannot wait for tomorrow morning.

Ta’ra!

I don’t like them. But I have no choice. I am stomped with them.

From coordinating the hanging of various framed puzzles, to cleaning giant pots and dishes, to stuffing ang pau packets. I have a lot of chores to do. Gone are my thoughts of playing some game. But gone are my guilt, as well.

Other things in my list of chores include a house-wide clean up and baking cookies. Though I may be lacking in the cleaning department, my ‘housewife’ing experiences in KL taught me some things. Although my perception of ‘clean’ may still be messy to some people. But you learn, you know.

On the topic of learning, I’d like to point out one thing: people who are not business-inclined should just not do business.

People take for granted that ‘anybody can do business’. That was why I was frowned upon a lot during high school when I decided to pursue business management in college. They say ‘anyone’ can do business, so why learn a course that’s so general? Man how they are wrong.

There are more things that go into doing a business than to count your profit and loss. You have to have a business plan, which includes all the nitty gritty stuff that would entail your target market, your projected income, how is your product/services going to serve the market, who are your competitions, how is your location relevant to your business and target market, and even (if applicable) your exit strategies, among other things. And no, I didn’t learn all that from my dad. Contrary to popular beliefs, my dad taught me very little about the technical side of business. He taught me the fundamentals, and some principles to stick by. And that’s it. He doesn’t want me to dive into a business without fully learning about it first.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to teach you business and pretend like I know everything. I just want to caution people not to take doing business lightly. The money-making prospects of doing a business could blind the greedy that it’s ‘easy’. Even if it was just an MLM.

If it was that easy why would I even be studying right now??

But one thing I could share with you is to keep on learning. Perhaps because I have been put in situations where I needed to mentally prepare myself and learn very quickly that the prospects of it doesn’t daunt me as much. But I could not impose any more on how important it is to keep on learning. After you graduate, you might not even land a job that’s relevant to your degree, but if you remain flexible and learn on the job, you can still be succesful. Don’t sigh and give up, but channel that energy to learn.

Employers like hardworking people. People who could adapt.

For most of you out there this is the first or second year of your degree. For myself its second. And already I hear people sighing and panicking that they might even be in the wrong course for them. They may have the capacity for it, but their heart’s not in it. Mostly its because their parents or family who pushed them into these courses. When they come to me, the first thing I asked them was: "If not this course, what?"

Most of the time, the answer I received is: "I don’t know."

My first instinct was to choke them to death, like someone possessed.

But I refrained, regardless of how tempting it may be. But to compensate, I gave them this instead:

"W! T! F! YOU ARE ALREADY 20 YEARS OLD AND WELL INTO YOUR UNIVERSITY EDUCATION BUT YOU STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!? WHAT YOU WANNA WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO HAND IT OVER TO YOU ON A GOLDEN PLATE ONLY THEN WILL YOU DECIDE THAT ITS WHAT YOU WANT IS IT?!"

Or something along that line, only more sinister.

After I’ve had my rants (which these people deserve, of course) I told them what I think. I can’t offer them golden advices like Cekgu Sabri but the least I could do is tell them what I think.

What I think is that, if they can’t or don’t want, to change course, they should just stick to what they are currently doing. I don’t want some mad parent calling me up in the middle of the night saying I’ve poisoned the mind of his child into quitting uni and joining some dodgy MLM at some dodgy convention.

Anyway, from here they have two options. 1) slowly learn about their chosen course. Say, they are in engineering, but would rather do business instead, so while they are studying engineering for the degree, they could read up on business on the side. It’s really cool to learn things on your own. I did the same after high school. I read a lot on business before I entered university. So by then I was all ready for it. The reason for doing this is two-fold: one, they could sharpen their knowledge on their selected areas of interest, and two, they could decide if, after a while of reading, they are still interested in that subject or not. People’s interest can change, after all, so it’s important to be flexible.

2) For those who are stuck in the wrong course but don’t know where their real interest lies, they would need to do some soul-searching. Be forewarned that this could take years. Stick to the same advice: be flexible and don’t be afraid to try new things. Read on things that intrigue you. If you like arts, try doing some art projects, like drawing or something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it’s what you like, so screw the critics.

My ’soul-searching’ took about a year. It started when I called up my friend in my panic that I may end up in the wrong class and would be completely clueless about my future. At that time I was told that civil engineers have better work prospects than business graduates so I was scared and told myself I needed to be a civil engineer (can you imagine that? ME? An engineer? Hah!).

But anyway, luckily for me, I found my interest. However, some people might not even find it until very late in life. Honestly, just do what your gut tells you. Do what you want. Not what other people want you to do.

And most importantly, don’t stop learning. You might be in the wrong course, and then told to do something that’s not even relevant to you, like say, accounting (if you course is not accounting and you don’t like it). If there’s no way out of it, just shut up and put up. There’s no harm in learning to do accounting even if you won’t end up a wizard of it. After all, it’s better to be a jack of all trades, but master of none, than be a jack of no trade at all.

And words cannot describe how much I hate people who say ‘I don’t know’ constantly. I am tempted to tell these people they are just wasting oxygen.

I’ve said a lot of stuff, but I’m no sage. I am still learning as well. You learn all your life. Formal or informal things, learning is learning. In my college I learned a very important lesson in life, something that no other univeristy (except mine) teach. It is called Idiot management. No university offers courses in dealing with idiots so I am lucky to be having this education for free.

My motto is "people are unreliable. people can be mafan. Don’t rely on people". It taught me to be more dependable so I won’t exasperate the people around me. I like to be the one people turn to for their troubles, but I don’t want that person to hang on to me like some excess baggage.

Be dependant damnit!

Ta’ra.