New blog
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Hey there people. I have set up a new blog at http://caseyche.blogspot.com. Although I might continue updating this blog, all future updates will be at my new blog. Cheers. And may the Force be with you... |
Hey there people. I have set up a new blog at http://caseyche.blogspot.com. Although I might continue updating this blog, all future updates will be at my new blog. Cheers. And may the Force be with you... |
Flute
I took up the Chinese flute for my last elective. Things I learnt:
1. Playing the flute is not as easy as it looks.
2. I can't play the flute well.
3. The flute is not as elegant as it looks.
4. The way I play it, my flute sounds like a dying duck, on steroids.
5. Replacing the membrane is such a hassle.
This is how my first lesson went...
Instructor (Ins): *demonstrates how to hold flute* Ok, you put you fingers here, and here, and here, and here. Make sure you cover all the holes. Airtight, ok?
Me: *thinks* wtf? I need, like, rubber fingers to do what he is doing... nnnnggghhhhh, struggles to stretch fingers to cover the holes... Ah ow ow ow... cramp....
Ins: Ok? Let me see.... No no no, not like that. *grins* Like this *grabs my fingers and forcibly moves them into the right position*
Me: *grimaces, ow ow ow ow* wtf does he think he's trying to do? *pretends to look enlightened* Oh, ok, like that...
Ins: Now, put your lips to the mouthpiece and blow, like this. *wooooooooo.....* Looks easy right?
Me: *tries vainly* *whsssssshh...wshsssshhsssshh...shssshhwwssshhsssss...* Gah! Wtf?
Ins: No no no. Not like that. Must touch your lips to it exactly in the centre, see. Use you lips to feel the mouthpiece, right in the centre, then blow, smoothly.... *woooooooooo.....*
Me: *thinks* let's try that again. *feels for centre of mouthpiece with lower lip* ok... *wshhhsshhssssssss...shshhshwwsshshsshshhs...stupid flute... shshhshshhshshswonk!*
Ins: There! You got it.
Me: *shwshshhshshshhshssssWOOOOONNNNKKKKKshshhssww..* huh? how come your's went 'woooooooo' but mine goes 'woooonnnkkkkk', like a car horn???
Ins: Oh? I've been playing for 22 years.
Me: pbbth...What? You mean I need to play for 20 years to get the sound to be like yours!!!???
Ins: Errr, no lar, only abt 12 years. Don't worry, very fast one.
Me: *jaw drops, eyes bulge* *wtf , i just bought an instrument that's gonna take me 12 years to learn?* *turns pale*
Ins: hahhahahhahhaha, just kidding. Don't look so shocked. Your flute sounds like that coz the membrane not taut enough. Here, let me show you....
Me: *unclenches fist, exhales, takes deep breath.*
May the Force be with you.
Anger Anger consumes. Anger feeds hatred. Anger burns. Anger destroys. Anger leads to the Dark Side. Which is why I have to turn away from it. How does one deal with anger? How does one cool the fires of rage? How does one dampen this stream of flames which seem to feed of the very essence of hell? How does one confront anger? Many things make me angry, but recently, I've become increasingly edgy. It was alright when I had things to occupy myself with: the latest computer games, exams to worry about, work to catch up with, pals to hang around with. Back when the music seemed livelier and my friends friendlier. Back when most things were coming along smoothly and the world seemed the perfect place to be. Not anymore. Anger motivates but clouds judgement. Perhaps I can no longer think clearly. Perhaps it's just me. Perhaps the moon is made of swiss cheese. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps I can't trust the people I used to trust anymore. The people whom I thought would be there for me when I needed them most. The people I thought would support me when I required their help. The people I used to believed in. The people I once thought were my best friends The people I once considered the siblings I never had. The people who betrayed my trust and have hurt me more than they can possibly know. Well, this is a message to anyone who falls into the above categories: Fuck Off. Some of you claim to be God-fearing. Some of you claim to be kind. Some of you claim to be holy. Hypocrites. The Dark Side beckons. Do you turn away from it, face it, or embrace it? I pray for your souls. May the Force be with you. |
---message starts---
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Perhaps it's true that an idle mind is the devil's workshop. I have been oh-so-lazy since the holidays started and apart from the occasional outing to a shopping complex with a couple of friends to watch a movie, Ken's birthday party and the late-night mamak stall excursions, I haven't been doing much of anything else. My right index finger however, has been getting a lot of exercise from repeatedly clicking a mouse and my computer chair now has a permanent indentation which is approximately the same shape as my butt.
Yesterday began a little differently, because I had to wake up at 0700 in order to reach uni to attend a bloody meeting that was scheduled at 0900. I got there at 0845 and spent the next hour, yes, the next hour, leafing through a book I had brought to read. The meeting eventually started at nearly 1000 and once again, I'm appalled at the inconsiderate way people turn up late. You'd think that these medical students, who are supposedly intelligent, dilligent and conscientious would know better. This is in total mockery of IMU's 'caring doctors' maxim. Caring, ar-ai-gee-hedge-tee... IMO, these so called caring people only care about their oh-so-important selfish selves. I suppose most of them would graduate in the end to become doctors, but would they be 'good' doctors? Not unless there's a major attitude change.
One more thing to mention. IMU's official dress code implies that any student entering the university has to be dressed appropriately. For guys, that means a button-down shirt, trousers, and a tie. Apparently, you have to be dressed appropriately even if you want to use the washroom. I was there a couple of weeks ago to pay my fees, in a t-shirt and jeans, and the guards unsuccessfully tried to stop me from entering the university. What pisses me off is not the dress code, but the fact that absolutely nothing is done to enforce it. I see absolutely no reason to wear a shirt and a tie when 9 out of 10 students flaunt the dress code and are running around the campus dressed casually. If the university management has somehow gotten it into their heads that a campus full of formally dressed students would somehow encourage professionalism, then something is definitely lacking. In this case, intelligence. They are in management. (For more about dumb managers, click here.) All they've succeeded in doing is making themselves the laughing stock of the entire casually-dressed student body.
Oh, and by the way, the 'punishment' for not being casually dressed is a visit to the uni counsellor. What a laugh. Apparently, if you're caught flaunting the dress code 3 times in a row, you'd be sent to the dean... for more counselling. Ridiculous. Eventually however, they might expel you. Right, perhaps after they realise that 152 counselling sessions didn't do much at all, except waste time. It's not the sort of problem that where which counselling is usually employed, not like teen pregnancies and drug abuse. If they really want to enforce the dress code, they should threaten to bar the students from exams or something similar. Or even better, bar the rebellious student's friends from exams. That would be something to see.
IMU's admin department is NOT strong in the Force. Their koong-fu is no good
---message ends---
The haze is back, and according to the latest news report (as I type this, that is), this bloody unnatural phenomenon won’t end till some rains wash it away sometime in October. In fact, it is so bad that some schools are to be closed for till next week because the quality of the air is so very bad. For more information on the haze, try Dr. M. Vadivale’s site, which has some pretty good stuff on the haze and other medically related stuff.
It is unfortunate that I happen to live in Shah Alam, which is among the areas worst hit by the haze. The haze is so bad that I can even see it in my living room. Perhaps it is due to a ‘flaw’ in the design of my house; the second entrance into the living quarters can’t be completely shut. The entrance is guarded by a grille type sliding door with a wire mesh over it to keep the vermin out. Thus, air continuously flows through my house, with hot air escaping through the windows in the loft and cool air entering through the second entrance at the bottom of the house, making my abode naturally ventilated and it is usually very cool in the living room even during the so-called heat waves which come around once in a while. I can attest to the very true fact that wire netting keeps the vermin out, but haze particles, which are unfortunately on average less than 10 microns in diameter, laugh at the netting as though it is a feeble attempt to deter them and they maliciously pass through every room in my house not guarded by a closed door. Even my curtains have that evil smoky smell that accompanies the haze.
I usually practice my koong-fu in the ‘parking lot’ of my house, where there’s usually an open space, fresh air, and plenty of room to swing a sword, until the haze came, that is. Now, confined to a slightly smoky smelling room, I had to ditch my sword because I kept hitting things, like the door, the bed, and the closet. I haven’t hit myself yet though, unlike one of my seniors in tai-chi class, who gave himself a pretty hard knock in head with a wooden sword. It’s probably a good thing that he doesn’t own a sharp sword like I do or he’d have gone to the hospital with a third of his scalp on IMU’s floor and we’d still be ROTFL. Just kidding. We'd probably ROTFL after we've sent him to hospital and the doctor tells us how many stitches he had to put in. Anyway, confined to my thankfully air-conditioned room, practicing koong-fu is no longer so much fun. Besides, taking deep breaths of haze-particle laden air can’t be very good for anyone.
This brings me to... salt-crystal lamps. If you don’t know what one looks like, or what one does, just Google for it. If you don’t know what Google is, click here. Anyway, one of my dad’s friends had this great idea of purchasing a salt lamp online. He even took the trouble to sending my dad an e-mail regarding the 99 wonders of salt lamps. Which seems pretty coincidental, what with the haze and how negative ions supposedly improve the air quality.
Some knowledge I have acquired on salt lamps:
1. There are at least 450 000 websites with the words ‘salt’, ‘crystal’, and ‘lamp’.
2. two years ago, someone I know bought 2 salt lamps which cost him 200 MYR each.
3. Salt lamps are categorized by grade and weight. The highest grade I’ve seen so far is AAA. The heaviest one in my house weighs more than 16 kg.
4. Salt lamps are a lot cheaper when u bid for them on auction websites.
5. The proprietors of salt lamp shops who put them up for auction on the internet ‘buy’ their own lamps back if they can’t get a price of above 4 MYR a kilo for a lamp. Meaning that the proprietors will push the bid for the lamps up until the price is more than 4 MYR a kilo.
6. A salt lamp purchased online should not cost more than 5 MYR a kilo. If you’ve paid more than 5 MYR for a kilo, you’ve been had. A 10 kilo salt lamp should cost about 43 MYR.
7. Salt lamps do not glow or light up on their own. There’s a bulb in them and you have to plug it into a power socket. (I’m putting this down as one of my friends thought they glow on their own and was giving me stupid theories on how electron descent will give of photons of visible light bla bla bla. I told him that the lamp was radioactive and if he got too near it, it would make him sterile.)
8. If some scientist dude does some research and publishes an article about how salt lamps cause cancer, I’ll probably die of salt lamp induced cancer. The nearest salt lamp is a mere 2 feet away.
May the Force bring rains so heavy as to pound the haze to the ground and put out the fires in Indonesia
I'm bored. It's because I'm lazy. Period. I can think of at least 5 useful things to do in my free time but I'd rather lie on the couch with a good book, chocolate, and a tumbler of water.
A couple of years ago, on a whim, I bought a whole load of art paper, paints, brushes, whatnot because I was convinced that I was a genius who could give life to a blank piece of canvas and sell the bloody thing for a million dollars. Unfortunately, I was delusional, again. Besides, back in those days, I didn't have much time to fool around with paints and brushes and getting my hands dirty. Back in those days, I had a very clear idea of what good art is. Now that I'm in IMU, my perception of art has changed. A lot. Allow me to elaborate.
During last year's IMU art competition, my friends and I came across numerous paintings extolling the artistic genius of some of IMU's more gifted denizens. Some. Some of the paintings were no doubt amazing works of art, beautifully colored details abundant, abstract expressions of emotions and imagination, a palette of the minds of medical and pharmacy students.
Some paintings consisted of a bunch of sky-blue wavy lines. I'm serious. Yes. In fact, not too long ago, I saw an article in the papers regarding art done by animals. The piece of art done by a chimp showed more imagination. But, what matters is that that particular painting is now hung up on one of IMU's walls and in 200 years time, when the artist is dead and IMU's demolished, the painting will turn up at an auction somewhere and will fetch a couple of million dollars (assuming that a million bucks is still worth what it is today), along with a whole bunch of wavy-line paintings done by the same artist and his friends. *sigh* why didn't one of my ancestors think of that?
Anyway, the next art competition is coming up and I'm thinking of joining. The theme is "Colors of Life". I have a pretty good idea of what to paint.
A couple of wavy lines done in 7 different colors. Instant masterpiece! They might even hang it up next to the painting of sky-blue wavy lines.
Fact: Art is more valuable when the artist is dead. Its value increases ten-fold, regardless of how many wavy lines you paint. If you are ever afraid that your descendants might starve to death, you know what to do. May the Force be with you.
The Sem 3 exams are finally over and... I passed! Yay!. And, judging from the amount of work I put in, my results aren't too bad either. Congrats to the brats who got As and deserved it because they study ten times more than me and earned their results. For the brats who thought that they wouldn't pass, I congratulate all of you too for putting in the effort that earned the pass. For those who didn't do so well, well, you dudes and dudettes get a SECOND chance in September so please make full use of it. The Force is with us.
Hey there ppl. This blog will probably be a mirror of my pre-existing blog at www.xanga.com/casey_sentinel, where I do all my ranting, cursing and swearing. Cheers.
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