Month: July 2002

First day of class

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I slept for a nice, solid 12 hours last night. I cast a resurrect spell on myself at
around 7:30 am and went to the halls dining room to grab some breakfast. It’s good to know that I
can barely finish two bacon and egg muffins and two hash browns. I used to be able to eat three of
each. Perhaps that is a sign of better things to come. I’m planning to go on a diet, coz my weight
is becoming atrocious. I dunno how much I weigh now, but I feel heavy. =D Well, I met Vivek in my
IT Project Management lecture, and he told me about this gym promotion where you can get a
membership for the price of a renewal if you register on the 5th of August. I’m planning to get a
membership coz the Clayton branch of the gym
[monash.edu.au] is just a 2 minute walk from my halls and I can also use the Caulfield branch if
I want. The gym is owned by Monash University’s Sports and Recreation
[monash.edu.au] department, but it’s pretty well equipped. Anyway, I went for my first lecture
today – the aforementioned IT Project Management. It seems to have a pretty aggressive
deliverables schedule. Starting from Week 5, there will be a part due every week. Nasty.

Outside the Cummings (I kid you not) lecture theater.

Margot Schuhmacher is the lecturer for this course.

Anyway, I only had one lecture today so I went to the bank after that to bank in my bank draft
(try saying that three times, fast). I also managed to pay my Optus bill at the post office. Good
thing I thought to bring it with me this morning. Went to the Asian grocery in the campus center
after that to get some much needed laundry detergent and also a box of Cola chicken wings with rice
to eat later. Pretty good stuff, it’s nice to see that the rice boxes in Frank and Lily Lee’s Asian
Grocery has been beefed up with new products.

Melbourne

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Melbourne again. GMT +10 again. I arrived at around 6:45 am but got delayed by a HORRENDOUS line
to the red exit. The red exit is for people who have stuff to declare. The line snaked all through
the baggage collection area. I was waiting there for half an hour and I had barely moved 10 meters
and the line in front of me was 50 meters at least. There was this one customs guy going through
the line to try to reduce the people going for the red exit. After a bit of questioning, some
people were directed to the green exit. Now, come my turn, I told the customs officer I was
carrying stuff for a friend and I’m not too sure what’s in there so I have to go through the red
exit. This revelation alarmed the customs occifer, I mean, officer, and he directed me RIGHT
THROUGH THE CROWD to the alternate red exit! Apparently, there are two red exits, the normal one
with a mini x ray machine and manual checks and the alternate one with an industrial sized x ray
machine and more stringent checking. There were only 4 or 5 people in the alternate red exit. The
only way to get to the alternate red exit is to bypass the cordon, and for that you must be
escorted by a customs officer. How nice indeed. I jumped the bulk of the queue just by saying that
I was carrying “unknown stuffs” (make a conspirational face while you say it) for someone
else. Oh what a tangled web we weave. Heh. Granted, the checking is more thorough, but hey, it
saves you from queuing up. So if anyone experiences a long red exit queue at Tullamarine airport,
it won’t hurt to try telling the customs officer that you’re “taking something for a
friend”. Heh. I was slightly worried coz I had a warez version of Photoshop 7 conveniently
concealed behind my legit Nikon View driver CD, but fortunately the customs guy did not care to
look through it. I’m starting to think that the intellectual property issue is becoming less
enforced nowadays. What of those horror stories about warez CD being fined A$1000 each?

Oh, something funny happened on the KL -> Melbourne flight. There I was, reading a newspaper
while an orange juice laid in the cup holder of my seat, conveniently within arms reach. Alas, I
accidentally tipped the nearly full cup with my newspaper and it poured unto the pants of the guy
sitting beside me! How embarrassing…I apologized and got the cabin attendant to bring us some
napkins. The guy was pretty cool about it, but I still felt bad coz it wet the whole left side of
his pants and I could see he was uncomfortable for he put napkins on his pants to try and absorb
the orange juice. Oh well, these things happen in sardine class. Speaking about fluids, the Sibu
-> Kuching and Kuching -> KL flight left me all st and uncomfortable due to the heat.

I finally caved in and paid RM 20 (!) for a private shower at the KLIA Airside Transit Hotel
[klia.com.my]. They give you a towel and you use the private toilet/sink/shower room. Bar soap
or liquid soap is provided in the shower. I still can’t believe I paid RM 20 (!!) for a shower,
but it sure felt good, coz I was st and uncomfortable by the time I reached KLIA. You know,
if you’re so inclined, you can actually bum a free shower if you want to. The hotel staff only
provides you with a towel and you leave the used towel in the shower, so if you bring your own
towel, I presume they won’t know either.

Well, I noticed that the in-flight entertainment system of Malaysia Airlines has improved. They
now have a larger library of games – even multiplayer games (chess, reversi, trivia) where you can
compete with other passengers. The trivia one is quite fun coz when the scores are tallied, it
displays all the current players and their seat number. But the best thing is that they have
Bejeweled! Apparently they have gotten a license from PopCap Games [popcap.com]. It’s not exactly easy to play
though, coz you have to manually move the square down the grid instead of using the mouse in the
PC version [popcap.com] and the Web version [zone.msn.com] or the stylus in the
Palm version [astraware.com]. Nevertheless,
it was very interesting to see it available in-flight.

PC Games on the in-flight entertainment system.

Bejeweled!

Ooh…

Dynasty Restaurant

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I spent the afternoon making buttermilk pancakes with my girlfriend. It was those instant
pancakes in a container that you just add water to. They are pretty fun to make and tasted good
too. Anyway, I’m suffering from a bout of INDIGESTION today due to eating my KFC lunch too quickly.
I have already expelled the watery feces in the late afternoon and I’ve needed to vacate my bowels
two times since then. I had an…uh, accident too. You know how it’s hard to distinguish
between the need to fart and liquid feces pressure on your sphincter when you’re having a
stomachache? Yeah, that’s what happened. Luckily, I didn’t get any on my briefs, I managed to wipe
myself down in the toilet in time. =D

From left: Lawrence, Auntie, Louisa, me.

I went out for dinner with my girlfriend and her mom tonight at the Dynasty Restaurant in town.
Lawrence (my girlfriend’s brother) joined us halfway through. I’m heading back to Melbourne
tomorrow afternoon. Sigh…it’s always depressing to go back. I’m gonna miss my girlfriend.

The Friday Five on Saturday

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I forgot to do the Friday Five [fridayfive.org] yesterday, so here it is – a
day late and none the worse for wear.

1. Where were you born? Sibu, Sarawak. Sarawak is in Malaysia.

2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don’t live there, do you
want to move back? Why or why not? Well, technically I live in Melbourne coz I spend most of my
time over there. That is because I’m enrolled in a university in Melbourne. I come back to Sibu every time my
semester break starts, so I spend a healthy chuck of my time in Sibu as well. After graduating,
I’m planning to do my post grad studies in the United States before coming back and working
either in KL or Singapore. Tentative plans of course, anything could change.

3. Where in the world do you feel the safest? I feel safe everywhere.

4. Do you feel you are well-traveled? I’ve been to Malaysia (obviously), Singapore, New
Zealand, Australia and Indonesia. That doesn’t qualify me as being well-traveled but I do love
traveling.

5. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been? Rotorua [naturalnz.co.nz] in the Bay of Plenty, New
Zealand. It’s like a hot springs resort town and the air permanently smells of sulfur. I went
there for my first landing in ’93. I had PR status in New Zealand. Me and my dad went to this
hot pool and there were pools going up to 50 degrees! Unfortunately, there was a sign there
saying that it’s not advisable for people under 13 to use the higher temperature hot pools. This
puzzled me slightly, until it was explained that high temperatures might arrest the growth of
the testes and probably kill a bucket load of sperm as well. The horror.

This picture was taken in ’93. I’m in the spa equipped in every room of the motel we stayed in
Rotorua. I was around 13 at that time.

Supper

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I was showing my girlfriend pictures of Melbourne that I took using a video out cable. Pretty
nifty, allows you to see the pictures on a large TV screen instead of the small inbuilt LCD screen.
Terrible refresh rates though. Anyway, I met up with Daniel, Johnny, May Ling and Susie at UCA
foodcourt at around 9:30 pm for supper.

From left: Daniel, Me, Johnny

From left: Me, May Ling, Susie

I had a steaming bowl of hot noodles. There was a lot of people there coz it is a Friday night.
Which reminds me, I only have two more days in Sibu before I have to head back again. I better turn
in now coz I’ve not been getting enough sleep these few days. I can’t even form concise sentences
because my brain is trying to quit on me even after helping myself to coffee just now. Heh.

Taman Selera Muhibah

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I had supper with Daniel and Yi Ching just now at Taman Selera Muhibah (aka Ching San) in
Pedada.

Yi Ching is going back tomorrow, the holidays have finally ended for all of us. Daniel is
leaving for Singapore on Sunday and I’m heading back to Melbourne next Monday. Anyway, we headed to
Wong Nai Siong Memorial Park after that. Interesting place, the courtyard and steps contains tufts
of real grass built into the stone.

Well, I have to choose my subjects for the next semester today. I’m still thinking about whether
I should repeat one of the programming subjects that I failed. Those are electives, so I don’t
really need to, but it will be good to have a programming specialization. I hear Allocate +, the
Monash University tutorial allocation system, goes online tomorrow morning as well. I better wake
up early before all the good time slots are taken.

Semester One Results 2002

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I had thought that the results will come out tomorrow instead of today. It seems that I have
gotten my internal clock jumbled up, because I only realized today was the 18th when I was woken up
by a call from my dad. Without any particular vigor, I pulled myself out of bed and logged online
to check my results.

Subject Grade Mark
CSE2200 C 68
CSE3208 P 50
CSE3400 N 9
CSE3420 N 7
CSE3510 P 50

C = Credit P = Pass N = Fail
I don’t know if I’m supposed to be happy or disappointed. At least I only failed two, which is
good. I was expecting to fail CSE3208 as well. But I’m puzzled at my dismal marks for CSE3510. I
was expecting more than just a bare pass. I’m sure I did well for my written exam and I couldn’t
have done that badly for my second assignment. Oh well. At least I got credit for my core subject.
The rest are electives. I took three cores last semester, so I only have one this semester. The
astoundingly mediocre marks for both CSE3420 and CSE3400 is a source of entertainment too. If
you’re gonna fail, you might as well do it right, neh? =D

3 AM supper run

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I was feeling particularly hungry just now, so I decided to head out to see if there are any
more food stalls open. It was already 2:45 am by that time so I wasn’t expecting the Pedada food
stalls to be still open. Pedada is the nearest place that I can get food, and sure enough, all the
shops were already closed when I got there.

I decided to head out to town since there are several kopitiams that are 24 hour operations in
town. I found one near the Pintu Gerbang roundabout.

It’s called Orient Canteen and in all these years, I’ve never eaten there before. I ordered some
fried noodles to go. Interestingly, there was a boy there washing the plates and glasses. He
couldn’t be more than 8 years old and he’s still wearing his school uniform. I wonder why he’s
still up at 3 am in the morning on a school day. At that time, there were only three other
customers, all sitting alone. One of them sat there eating his fried noodles without once ever
looking up. The other person is clearly demented, for he held an animated conversation (complete
with waving chopsticks) with thin air. In fact, he barely touched his food, and seemed to be more
content talking to nobody in particular. The third guy, which looks like an old gangster, was just
sitting there with a beverage, looking at the road. The 3 o’ clock crowd is not what one would call
pleasant dinner companions. Heh.

Counter-Strike

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I went out for some Counter-Strike [counter-strike.net] action with Chung
Hang and Johnny tonight. It seems that the game has lost much of it’s luster for me. I have
logged countless hours over this game and perhaps it’s time for me to move on. I’ll still play
every once in a while, but the game has lost much of it’s appeal to me. Oh well. Anyway, we
headed to the coffee shop beside the network gaming center for some food after our session and I
had some kampua mee. I love this stuff, and it can’t be found authentically outside of Sibu, so
I guess I’ll better eat up before I head back to Melbourne.

Which reminds me, the exam results for Monash University [monash.edu.au] is coming out on the 18th
of July. That’s just one and a half days away from today. I’m not looking forward to the results
at all, because I know I’m gonna fail at least two subjects. Booyah.

Pasar Malam and Sugarbun Gateway

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I went to the pasar malam [jfriends.com] again tonight with
Daniel, to get one last photo opportunity before it gets torn down to make way for more parking
space.

The food area of the pasar malam.

All sorts of stuff on display at a stall.

I saw this old woman who has been selling a type of appetizer there for at least several
decades. I remember buying food at her stall when I was in primary school. It seems kinda sad, but
interesting nevertheless. It was relatively cool tonight, and it rained just as we finished
covering the area. We then headed to the newly renovated and redesigned Sugarbun Gateway [sugarbun.com] at the town center. The
renovation must have just finished a couple of days ago, because they were still going at it
when I went on Saturday to attend the SUKMA athletes meet and greet
[sixthseal.com]. It’s one of the fastest renovation jobs ever, according to Daniel, who tends to
notice facts like this, being an architecture major. I think they just took a few days to
completely revamp the old Sugarbun layout.

The counter area of Sugarbun Gateway.

The al fresco dining area.

The air conditioned indoor dining area.

To my delight, their menu has been beefed up (no pun intended) significantly. In addition to the
usual fast food fare, there is now an assortment of pies and quiche (!) and also some Chinese food.
I had the claypot sweet and sour chicken “with long beans and carrots and served with a spicy
sauce” and an ice blended mocha.

For the life of me, I couldn’t find the long beans in the stew.

I like to eat spicy food, and my tolerance is reasonably high, but I still found the sauce
plenty hot. The chicken has a high proportion of breast meat though, which I rather dislike. I much
prefer bits of thigh and drumsticks. The ice blended mocha was pretty good though, very thick. Very
nice decor and it even has a balcony at the second floor for al fresco dining. The service has been
improved as well, heaps of Sugarbun people around and there is even someone to hold the door open
for you. =D

The view from the second floor al fresco area.

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