the verdict of a nerdette

well.. there's nothing really to do except to clean my room so that it's spic'n'span to greet my parents with when they come up here later next week. decided to gush about the new phone in the meantime. it was shipped off from sg friday morning and by noon on monday, it was at the office waiting for me to pick it up. *jaw drops* talk about efficiency! needless to say, it made my day. i paid a hundred aussie bucks less than the advertized prices here, shipping costs inclusive and i got it in my grubby little hands three days before another model hit aussie shores. official launch was today over here. the guy at telstra's never even heard of it when i went to ask last week. it's nice to be able to play the "i need to have the latest gadget on the market in my region" game for once but seriously, this one's a keeper so i splurged with this investment.

it's still growing on me. i still miss my old phone and i'm almost embarrased to have it in the same field of vision as the new phone. i feel like i'm making it feel bad by letting it see a newer counterpart. things have feelings too, y'know! just ask those guys from toy story!

this is my first photoshoot of any phone i've owned. shhh, don't let my old phone see this. i don't wanna make him feel worse ~ planning to get him fixed tho so i can retrieve data and numbers stored in there. nothing was stored on the sim card and i've learnt my lesson lol. backed up everything to sim AND computer now.

anyway, here it is, complete with a running commentary. feel free to imagine whatever tone of narration you wish, be it alvin the chipmunk or darth vader.


well, let's start with some positives. it reeks of new! still haven't taken the plastic protective sheet off yet so you might see a transparent tab peeking from the edge of the screen in some of the pics. being an adamant nokia user, i was kinda worried that the switch to sony ericsson would be a rough transition. it wasn't that hard to get used to, unlike most of the motorola phones where the call and hang up buttons are in opposite positions than those on nokias.


it lies at four triangular paper clips long and bout 2 wide. starting from the top of the phone ~ power-on/off button's at the top, a petite little circular button. easy to push, not so easy to accidentally push. yay! there's also the infrared receiver (and bluetooth too, i'm assuming) at the top of the phone. moving a tad down, there's a media button on the left side and volume buttons (+/-) that double as the camera's zoom control on the right side of the phone. facing you would be the huge screen in the middle of these two buttons. huge screen gets two thumbs and a toe up from me. it's bright, u can adjust the brightness level and you don't need to be at certain angles to read it.


right below the screen are a row of 3 multi-purpose buttons, then a row containing a "back" button, a joystick (which is relatively comfy) and a "cancel" button. then comes the keypad under all that. all of it's illuminated by white backlight. my only gripe about the keypad would be the number "2" ~ it's smaller than all the others due the joystick. with my pudgy fingers, i'm always cautious to not push the joystick upwards when i'm reaching for the "2" button. OOooo... and it also takes a bit of time to learn how to send text msgs again with spaces between words. the nokias have the spacebar button as "0" while the sony ericsson has it as the "pound" button at the bottom right corner of the keypad, so i'm still getting used it. i end up needing to squish my thumb so it can reach into that corner where sun doesn't shine just to use the spacebar, it'd be much easier if i was left-handed...


below all that is the port where you connect "QuickShare" (whatever that may be. i'm assuming it's some form of plug and play) and also plug your recharging cord. you also have a little slot for your memory stick duo, sealed by a tight rubber flap. flip the phone over and you get a 2.0 megapixel camera at your disposal. all you gotta do is open the lens cover to start snapping away ~ very convinient. that was one bonus with the overall design, that lens cover. i'm a klutz when it comes to keeping things in mint condition! the second little bit i squealed over was the led light at the top of the camera side that acts as a flash for your camera and doubles as a flashlight. you even have the option of having it automatically turn off after a minute or blink out an SOS message =)

in terms of "software" and interface, the k750i's got the standard menu represented by icons that magnify (or "do that zoom thing" according to flickr organizer) when you select it with the joystick. it usually loads with a hairsplit-second delay ~ a tad slower than my old nokia but definitely much faster than some of the motorolas when they need a reboot. setting up the phone was a cinch.. it's practically dummy-proof when the first thing you see after turning the phone on and oogling at the pretty startup sequence would be a demo tour of the phone. that includes telling you about the buttons on the phone and gets you to set date, time and ringtone.

the camera's just as dummy-proof to use.. you open the lens cover, the screen automatically becomes your viewfinder and there are various camera settings you can choose. things like effects (off, b&w, negative, sepia, solarize), white balance, picture quality and size, self-timer, turn on macro/night mode and light and a whole slew of other settings. i like =)


my only other complaint (and main factor in reluctance to pull that plastic protective sheet off) would be that it's a fingerprint magnet! the first row of buttons under the screen constantly have my prints on them... you can blame me for oily fingers but i blame the buttons for being lipophilic! if the buttons are like that, i can't imagine how fast the screen itself will get dirty. bleah. there's a whole buncha other aspects of the phone that i haven't mentioned, but hey! i'm still trying to break it in. not literally of course. that was the whole reason i got this phone in the first place. things like the media player, video recorder, all the games and picture/video editors, calendar, alarm, speakerphone, voice dialling, bluetooth, etc.... my fingers are cramping from all the typing and writing i've been doing so if you're reaaally interested, you can go to the sony site and read the phone stats for yourself =) verdict so far? i'm getting to like the phone more and more every day *beams* i've already started to customize it... at this rate, i'll be loving it by the end of the week!

it's all done

finito. *sigh* the last paper was this morning. by 11.30am, i was in the foyer of the Great Hall laughing deliriously. not with happiness mind you. rather, it was with incredulous "omg i can't believe i'm done. shit!"ness that i concluded my round of exams.

i was much happier with my 4th year exams. blissfully unaware of mistakes, but happier nonetheless. the OSCAs yesterday meant for 3rd year was a nightmare. we had a wet specimen of a leg, we had a picture of the medial aspect of the foot, we had bones to pick both for the exam and with the exam, we got biochem results to analyze, inflammatory granulomatous langheran giant cells to diagram, ecgs to interpret, lung function tests to pour over... three whole hours of pure torture. 10 stations, 3 marks each. that didn't mean that each station had 3 questions, 1 mark each... oh no! it meant that each station had 3 questions for one mark each with anywhere from 2 - 4 parts per question ~ one! one mark!

anything after that would seem better i suppose. i don't know what to make of this last mcq paper we had. random stuff thrown in from everywhere but the notes and books i've studied. welcome to my world ~ that seems to be the norm. *sigh*

all that can be done now is maybe take up a new religion or two.. or five.. and pray and hope that i'll pass something this time around. will be leaving for sydney for the amsa developing world conference on friday and staying on in sydney til the end of next week. the 'rents are flying in for their annual visit over here and really, it's a crappy time. they'll be here when my results come out. that's the last thing i want, to log onto the university webby, drench myself with nervous sweat waiting for the results to load and have my parents waiting back at the room to scrutinize my reaction. or worse.. to have them peering over my shoulder as the page loads.

no posts for a while.. i'll either be busy getting ready to do pediatrics/obs/gyn or packing up my stuff for taiwan. crossing fingers it won't be the latter.

muted

a collection of random musings really. some are directed at certain people, others are just plain random. sorry if i scare anyone, i just really needed to vent. i had my icq and msn lists open. i couldn't click on anyone in particular, not because i didn't feel comfortable but because i felt it unfair to unload my troubles onto an unsuspecting friend. so here it is instead, set loose on nobody and everybody.

remember how you laughed when i said i don't go through pms? you were right to laugh, i think i do now. maybe it's just a culmination of everything that's been happening since the end of last year. maybe the dam i've built is starting to crack only now.

i really want you to be happy. seeing you miserable makes me miserable, yet i don't like prying. if there's something you feel like sharing, i'll let you share it when you feel the time's right. in the meantime, i hope you know that i'm here. i wish we could do our mini get-away again... to be free of academic shadows and roam the streets of sydney with a gleam in our eyes, to shop, to marvel, to sail with the dolphins, to gush over random guys, to be absolutely ditzy and feel free ~

you surprised me with your reaction when you found out about the monster. i thought it was kinda sweet back then. how things have changed.. you ask me why. i'll tell you why. i wish i could tell you this in person. you've become the very monster you vowed to bash up all those years ago. no, you're much worse. the monster became but a faded nightmare. you, on the other hand, became my living nightmare. happy now?

i'm tired, i really am. i want to believe that things will end well. it's hard enough trying to do that for myself, yet i can't help but try to keep believing that things will end well for you too. i know you didn't ask for me to, i know you say you know better than to play this self-delusional game but it doesn't stop me from worrying about both our futures. it's depressing to hear you give up now... i miss that fighting spirit of yours.

friggin template's bugging the hell out of me. so is msn not working. it's averaging about 1 out of 20 msgs getting through. net fart, he calls it. glass ceiling, it feels like. guess you could say i lean towards the perfectionist. with how things are at the moment, i feel like just abandoning the whole thing and start anew. the problem is, i don't know if i have the energy to start again. everything is about starting over. i've pulled up my roots every time i leave a country. i've had to ditch my pride when i no longer met my own expectations. i've even lowered my expectations. i'm jealous of the girl i once was. i can't see the person i now am. as for the person i will be... i used to have a clear picture. there's nothing but smog i see instead.

so many people who care =) i love hearing about your adventures, i love hearing you gush about your latest crush. i love making you smile, i love your little quirks. i love the way we click, i love the shared laughs. thank you, sincerely.. thank you. i don't want sympathy. i just want basic courtesy and respect. i just want people who matter to me to be happy. that'll do the trick =)

i dont need help, i really don't. it's easy to say i might be suffering from depression but that's not it. i haven't been depressed for the past 2 weeks or more, i haven't lost interest in things. i don't suffer from weight loss or insomnia. i've never felt worthless, but i question why i'm here sometimes. i don't have a suicide plan, but i've contemplated various ways to die before.. especially before exams, especially during study groups. i have problems with thought form more than content ~ i'm prone to flight of ideas and word salads. i've also got skeletons in my closet that i want to throw away, but i never seem to have the courage to open the closet door. i don't quite feel like atlas per se, just the atlas that holds up my world.

really off with the faeries

not sure why blogger template's messing up and i'm ending up with the massive expanse of white space between post title and actual post. ran outta brain cells to figure out what's wrong, bleah.

edit: i killed squishii. i feel a revamp coming up soon.. arghh.

off with the faeries

triple episode of the aussie queer eye tonight. *cringes* gimme the original version any day! man, the things they show to fill up slots when they're not showing the 53rd rerun of some adam sandler movie. anyway, i'm delirious i think. no, i'm not stripping nor am i hurtling any sort of abuse at anyone unlike the 78yo lady who presented 48hrs ago with cellulitis in the medicine paper.


the paper went ... well, i don't quite know what to make of it. i thought last year was bad. i walked out of the mcq paper whining that i wasted the past 2 weeks doing past papers when i should've been memorizing kumar & clark. this year, i walked out of the saq paper whining that all the past couple weeks' worth of studying i did was utterly useless. i used common sense to come up with my answers for this paper. arggghhhhhh, die liao. *slaps hand over mouth and hugs a tree* no cursing myself. bad amy! a new beginning perhaps? just like the little viola sprouts from the can M sent over? (they look awfully similar to alfalfa right now. i'm convinced they put in the wrong type of seed in the can. still waiting for pretty flowers to bloom)


so one down, two more to go. tuesday noon. weds morning. i'll be done by noon on weds! *jumps around and starts a local earthquake* take that, noisy elephant neighbor! i can't wait =) i also can't wait for my phone to arrive. muchos muchos muy muy muy muchos gracias to the big softie who got me the phone and shipped it over. *big beams* hopefully, it'll take 2, not 3 working days to get here as promised... thanks for the opinions on phones. i would've never even looked at the sony ericsson k750i if not for the 3 votes bringing it to my attention. i stuck it in my list because it had the 2mpx camera + flash, had candybar form factor and was relatively lighter and thinner than other models with only 1.3mpx cams. now, that's gonna hopefully be my new phone if customs doesn't get its hands on it for too long. one reason i can't wait for exams to be done... so i can fiddle with the new toy =)

another reason would be my insane diet at the moment. i can't wait for exams to be over so i'll be in the mood to cook and eat properly. right now, i've been addicted to those little puny clementine mandarins that's akin to ambrosia. i get my dose of vitamin c, fulfill my daily servings of fruit, quench my thirst and fill up all at once. how handy is that! i'm kinda worried i'm getting addicted to them tho. can one be addicted to oranges? *worried look* i buy like 10 - 15 of them at a time and they never make it through the night. i've gone and restocked 3 times since discovering them on tuesday. my other current addiction would be chocolate but as J asks... "since when weren't you a chocoholic??" woolies had those fun sized bags of mini boost, kitkats, timeouts and more on sale. 2 for six bucks. i've restocked my two bags worth along with my oranges. gone through 64 mini boost bars since tuesday. i've just started on the kitkats today. *feeble grin* then there's the cranberry juice, bananas and microwave meals saved especially for defrosting as the "night before" meal before the actual exam itself. 3 frozen dinners, 1 gobbled up. 2 still sitting snugly in my freezer hehe.

the third reason i can't wait for exams to be over would be so that i can go snappy happy again ~ so many pretty snapshots just waiting to be captured =) i'll leave you with a view from my window ~

help me!

'twas last episode of tru calling tonight. i know, it was shown in north america a while back but we're not in north america here are we? *sigh* not happy that it was cancelled. it was one of the more interesting show concepts currently out there. it appealed to my fascination with karma, the afterlife, life and death, rebirth, reincarnation, time travel, what-ifs and things along that vein.

bah. here's a help me! of my own. something flippant when placed next to a much bigger priority but like i was telling A earlier this evening, i'm nonchalant about thursday only because i truly and sincerely fear a mental breakdown if i let myself process and fully comprehend my situation right now. i've always been one to run away. i do that a lot. i don't run away from obligations, i don't run away from things i believe in. quite the contrary. that's exactly when you see the other side of me. like how i made a classmate gasp in shock during one english class in junior college... "wow, she speaks. i didn't understand some bits of her train of thought, but wow, she speaks. and she has so much to say!" what i run away from things i usually have no control over. or things i no longer have control over. a few of you might've even found yourself thrown a line of "i siammed again" in the middle of conversations o.0 do i sound like a control freak? *whistles and looks around the room*

anyway, enough rambling. like i said, this isn't a burning question i absolutely need opinions on. i just wanted an excuse to try blogpolling.com so here's my very first poll. i would appreciate any opinions you might have though =)

::edit:: blogger won't let me post javascript tags in the post itself so i'm forced to put it in the sidebar. *grumbles* here's a list of phones for those more visually inclined ~

• nokia n70
• nokia n90
• nokia 6270
• nokia 6680
• motorola a1000
• motorola a1010
• sonyericsson s600i
• sonyericsson k750i
• sonyericsson z800i

you give some, you take some

i can't believe i broke my phone.
i've been swearing at the indestructability of all nokias ~ i've dropped all 3 models i've owned before more than just a smattering of times, more than just an oopsies!. think kamikaze phones to match my kamikaze chai. they've been catapulted from open bags, they've been dropped on blazing hot parking lot cement, they've sploshed in millimeter-high puddles and been splashed with gastronomical concoctions. yet, they somehow made it through. i applaud their ruggedness despite lacking rubber paddings, but 'tis also a reflection of how much of a klutz i really am. *hangs head in shame*

as of 7pm aest, my spotless record of my phones outliving me was tarnished. *splat* went the first phone i've outlived. my ringtones! my customized wallpaper! my unfinished games! my phone numbers! (can't you see where my priorities lie? hee) they're all gone *bawls* this will be the 2nd time i need a new phone out of necessity. i started out with what A calls "The Brick" ~ the nokia 5100 before they revamped and rubberized it. stupid me.. i thought the higher the number, the more recent the model. ah-huh.

i can't believe i sold my phone.
i picked up a white nokia 3300 when i was in singapore the following week. i was so happy with it i swore i'd never get another phone unless it broke. i really couldn't imagine a nokia breaking... i was already picturing it at my wedding day, at my golden anniversary... no, i'm not that loony. but i seriously thought it'd see me through the rest of my degree. and then it got stolen at sydney airport. the chick that picked it up even called up nuls to ask if she knew the owner of the phone. but the chick never called me even though nuls gave her my number [insert a buncha grunts and death stares]

i can't believe i lost my phone.
with my baby stolen (hey, i had glued little sparklies and stuff on it and twas fully customized with a reverse blue/white screen, glow in the dark translucent baby blue cover and all.. bah!), i had to get a replacement asap because a very important call was expected to be directed to that very phone i had just lost. long story short: long lost brother of 40 yrs to my dad's friend was just located after this friend arrived with my parents in sydney. aforementioned long lost brother of 40 years was meant to call back after he knocked off from work so the siblings could arrange a time and place to meet up that night. i needed a phone. nobody else had one, the group was checking outta current sydney hotel that day. amazingly, things worked out and we managed to get my temporary number passed to the brother.

and so, i came into possession of my blue nokia 3100. i once again swore that i'd use it 'til it gave out on me. i never thought the day would come so soon. on hindsight, i see a trend here. maybe i should stop swearing to never buy another phone as soon as i get a new one.

i can't believe i broke my phone.
waiting for takeout at the noodle box (salty expensive fake chinese takeaway. supposedly healthy. very cute logo. very bright red. it satisfied my junk food craving so it must've not have been as healthy as advertized.).. waiting waiting waiting... and *plonk* went my phone. "what kinda special noodlebox floor did they put in there?!" a voice in my head screamed. a little voice answered the other voice in my head with "the kind that breaks phones amy.. the kind that breaks phones." i picked it up, surprised to see a blank screen. hmmm odd.. so i turn it on. started up fine and then it hung. switched it off. switched it on again. it flickered at me and then died. i've been periodically trying to turn it on all night to see if this is some bad joke gone on for too long. my poor phone had enough and wouldn't even flicker it's little white light to say hi by midnight. i tried connecting the pc cable to extract my numbers ~ they weren't stored on the sim card. as luck would have it, i didn't reinstall the nokia proggie after my harddisk died on me a few months back. now i can't find the installation cd. fun fun. *takes out cardboard box and shovel. will look for nice grassy patch tomorrow*

sigh. now tell me... is this an omen telling me that i should be packing up and heading back to taiwan? my bank funds are depleted, my phone died on me. well ok, the reasons seemed more compelling as they ran through my head. in print, they're just a lousy list of two.

ah well..
thank you guys for all the gambatte!s and well wishes for my exams. i'm not going to bother with politeness on this occasion ~ i'll be hoarding all the luck, rainbows and pots of gold thrown my way! and the point of the post... for those of you with my cell phone number, i'm obviously not going to be answering any calls until i can get a new phone. get me through my landline =)

mind-reading

i couldn't resist... 'twas going through some old ophthalmology papers and found this gem. i needed to immortalize this in print somewhere other than its original place of print. hoping to compile a list of some of the better student comments during the annual review of exam papers later on.. here's this one as an appetizer.. word for word, spelling, grammatical and all sorts of other mistakes in their birthday suit.

Q: A 70 year old woman presents with vomiting and a left red eye. She is so distressed that she cannot give a satisfactory history. Her relative says she does use a green topped eye drop, but ran out recently.

a) What is the drug in the green topped bottle?

A: a) pilocarpine

***

scribbled at the bottom of the page as students' feedback to the question:

If you are going to refer to the colour of an eye drop bottle, could this please be stressed in the lectures as required knowledge (fair enough a comment eh?)

I have a green white top jar in the fridge at home. is it a) mayonnaise b) olives? (hee, this was the comment that inspired this post!)

kinda reminded me of my OSCA station last year where they were talking about their blue and brown inhalers for asthma. i understand the validity of knowing your colors ~ met a couple of patients who couldn't remember what inhalers they were on. all they could tell me was that they decided to stop their blue one, but kept the green.. and the purple one was making them sick and they've never heard of the brown one. the hell if i know which inhaler they're talking about! especially if their idea of blue is more of a green and brown is actually orange. in the real world, you'd just grab a whole buncha samples the drug rep gave you and ask your patient to pick out the puffer they had at home.. or look up their medication history on Medical Director, as most GPs seem to be using nowadays.

chai-ed

i bought my most expensive cup of chai ever from gloria jeans. never again, will i be buying drinks to take up to the john as brekkie. (no, not the bathroom. the john, as in john hunter hospital... although there are some striking similarities o.0)

thought i would be indulgent and pick up some blueberry teatime + chai tea + hot chocolate on the way to our study session at the john yesterday. smartie me.. i even asked for their little tray to carry the 2 steaming hot drinks in. total tab thus far: $5-something + $8.60 for the drinks.

halfway up the blasted hill to the hospital, my chai kamikazied when the traffic light turned green and i was ready to zoom up the hill. my little cup of chai ejected itself from it's snug little cardboard holder and dove head first under my passenger seat. it's friend, the hot chocolate, tried to follow... but being frumpier with a couple marshmallows, it didn't manage to free itself from it's cardboard confines. at least not fast enough.. i already had one hand on it's naughty little lid by then. other hand was on steering wheel, body was sprawled across the passenger seat, no eyes were on the road and foot was on the accelerator. thank goodness it was a straight stretch of hill at that point..

5 minutes later, after pulling into a parking space (i assumed the chai had emptied itself all over my car's floor carpet anyway... might as well find a decent parking space and park properly. 10 more seconds won't kill my already dead carpet).. i jumped out, opened the passengers' side door to inspect the damage. no sign of chai.. all of it was very happily meshed into the soaking wet floor. what surprised me was how much of it had remained in the cup.. a good two inches worth left =)

lucky me, 'twas the long weekend. meant nothing was open. ended up getting a mini detail at my usual carwash, it being the only place that was open on a saturday. even then, they were gonna close in 45 mins ~ the visit almost ended in a nightmare. the guy had my keys in his hand, was talking to another customer, left my keys in her car and she drove off. a very harrowing 15 minutes later, she drove back to return the keys. *phew!!*

other than the little booboo, the visit 'twas a good thing ~ been meaning to wash my car for months... and most importantly, it'd mean there wouldn't be foul off-milk smells by tuesday when everything was open again. my tab increased by $40 tho. *sigh* fair enough, i thought. well worth having a clean, nice smelling interior with spotless exterior. and no more brake dust on my alloys!

seems like things weren't meant to be. it started raining cats and dogs an hour later...
*glares at the evul chai tea that started it all* my only consolation was that i had 2 inches worth of it sloshing around in my tummy at the end of the day *beams*

people people people!

i had a lot to say.. i always seem to. but it's 1am in the morning and im pooped.


came back from nul's bdae sugar-indulgance party ~ she had the works. trifle, coffee cake, ice cream, tiramisu, cheesecake, chocolate, key lime pie, custard, indian desserts, more chocolate, pudding... the mad hatter would've been put to shame. would've put up pix. they were crappy. bahhh... here's one with my contribution to the sugarfest instead ~ made it up. i didn't know what to bring! the shell's actually baked egg pasty squares dusted in cinnamon sugar and placed in a mini muffin tray, baked for 5 mins or until golden brown. filling is just plain custard + random berry from my mixed frozen berry pack. sprinkle vanillin sugar on top and there you have it ~


managed to stop by laksh's to cram in a mini-study session after the party. there, we worked out the source of all evil, body-wise. everything can be attributed to constipation! *sigh* we've gone mad... if that's even possible, to be madder than i already am. or mebbe it was the sugar.

what i had wanted to muse about was sparked off by a late nite conversation via icq last night... i've always thought that i was had a good memory for people i've crossed paths with. i kinda prided myself with my "memory of an elephant" as someone once called it. the uncanny ability to remember the most inconsequential details of some snippet of daily life years ago with utmost accuracy. well, apparently i think too highly of myself... i can't believe i can't remember a single thing about my alto assistant sectional leader from chorale days in jc. i saw her at least once a week for a whole year. she was also the chorale librarian before me. we must've talked. i can't, for the life of me, remember what she looks like, what she sounds like.. her name rings a very faint bell. 'twas she that i had that late nite conversation with. like i mentioned in the convo.. i don't know what's more bizzarely odd ~ the catching-up-with-your-senior bit or speaking to a complete stranger with a common past. "so, what have you been up to since jc days? working?" seems a tad too friendly, considering that we were oblivious to each other's existance just 5 minutes before. "so, intro please?" sounds too distant and very very irc-ish. and only buayas use that line! *scratches head* how do you ask a question without really asking? how does one find out about a past one's supposedly been through? um i think im just rambling at this point but if it doesn't make sense to you, just imagine how much sense it's making to me. all those random thoughts whizzing back and forth within the hollow space i call my head.

moving along the people theme ~ i still marvel now and then at how mindboggling technology can be. one day, a friend is msging me from singapore. the next day, he's msging me from the same device from sydney. here today, gone tomorrow. others are less fortunate and have things the other way around.. here tomorrow, gone today. *blink*

and one last random thought ~ i love how you instantly click, how the conversations start where they left off with certain people even though the last encounter of any kind you've had might've been 5 weeks or 5 years ago. i love how time doesn't seem to change the relationship. then again, i love how time changes other relationships, for better rather than worse hopefully.

and then on to time... other than the fact that i'm running out of it really fast. one particular poster sitting above a lonely clock on the wall of a classroom of james monroe high in socal was permanently etched in my memory for some unknown reason. i think it could be due to the fact that it was the first thing i saw when i looked up from being stuck on certain questions on the chinese exams during chinese school days there. anyway, the poster says "time will pass, will you?" how mean is that.. to put it in a classroom!! i know the intention might've been motivational, but to any student faced with the distinct possiblity of failing.. a poster like that sure breaks one's spirit. 10 odd years later, that poster keeps haunting me before every single exam i have. grrrrr

another flyaway thought ~ what is it with fridays and crazy drivers. met another set of 'em driving to and back from tutorials today. people who speed up and slow down as if they've forgotten that there's such a pedal as the accelerator (it was as if the guy was stepping on his accelerator whenever he remembered and letting the car roll along until he realized that he was slowing down before putting those quads of his to work again to step on the accelerator)::insert various synonymns of idiot here:: and then there's the dude that just likes my lane too much. drives 10kph below the speed limit, i change lanes, he speeds up and gets in my lane and resumes previous snail pace. repeat process. wanker!! and of course, there's the dude that can't make up his mind and hogs up two lanes at once. bahhh..

now on the topic of gripes..
i hate the lack of respect. i've mentioned before how respect is a huge deal to me. any form of respect. respect for your elders, respect for the dead, respect for living things, respect for a book, respect for your frigging neighbors!!! maaaaaaaaaaan.... sometimes, i think i might be better off with some frontal lobe damage so that im uninhibited and can charge right up to the bastards noisy neighbors to tell them to shut up. nobody seems to be putting themselves in other people's places. it ... argh. i almost sent off this email to our mother hen of all RAs over here. i didn't in the end..

hi stacy ~

how're things? haven't had much chance to catch up with you ~ everytime i see you, im rushing off to class!

just wanted to get something off my chest actually. it's almost 2 in the morning and there are still people yelling and shouting from across the bara courtyard (well, only 2 of them it sounds like). it's really their lack of respect for the rest of the building that bugs me more than the actual noise itself, although i could do with a bit less of that too. most people should be sound asleep at this time but i'm sitting here trying to study for exams in less than 2 weeks' time and their "AAaahhhhh!"s aren't helping. i was this close *measures out 1 inch with fingers* to going outside to tell them to tone it down (i wouldn't do that, really. i wish i could lol) but someone apparently beat me to it. they got yelled at to "stop talking through the whole night, you f*wits"... they toned it down for all of 2 seconds.

i was wondering when the exam "quiet period" will start so i can look foward to some peace and quiet :p

i hate the fact that it seems like we only talk when i've got something to whinge about ~ definitely would like to organize a dinner/movie thing later this year with anj, rachel, jamie, kevin and the rest.

is it too much to ask for some peace and quiet around here?! being 20 is not an excuse. *fumes*

human hydroponics

i couldn't help myself...
here's what the rªjª sent over via msn:

Race is on ... babies compete during a baby swimming contest in Zhengzhou, central China. 102 children under one year old took part in the competition. Photo: Reuters

cute.. but i don't get it. how is that swimming and what's the competitions about? which baby looks more like a raisin in the end or which one cries first... that's a human hydroponic plant i tell you!!

hail the pop princess

as a personal default, i take anything reported by the media with a pinch of salt. it's a matter of how large that pinch will be, depending on the article in question.

i'm sure there are those with previous media dealings who would agree that one's words tended to get tweaked, poked, prodded and reassembled at times to fit the context of the story ~ the coverage of the northridge quake of '94 was my eye-opener. yes, there were casualties. yes, there was damage. no, it wasn't as grim as the media made it out to be. my first exposure to sensationalism. reports made afterwards tended to be more muted with less eyecatching headlines. what a difference hindsight can make...

there are way too many stories of late that are circulating around australia.. from the recent mysterious package sent to parliament house in canberra to the whole corby trial and the propagation of mass hysteria with superbugs threatening to kill us all. *rolls eyes* yes, these are problems with potential adverse consequences. no, it's not the end of the world.

the one that irked me the most, due to the high absurdity score, would be the story of kylie minogue's brush with breast cancer. whoopdeedoo ~ she's got breast cancer. early onset at age 36. i don't mean to sound callous, but what makes her special enough to have the announcement plastered on all the headlines and news reports? (while we're on this note, what was with the coverage of delta goodrem's stint with non-hodgkins lymphoma.. of all the hematological diseases she could've gotten, non-hodgkins was prolly the least serious of them all) what about all the other people who are afflicted with breast cancer of various stages? what about those in their 20s who have breast cancer? do i hear any news coverage about them? why aren't they allowed a whole hospital wing to themselves as they recover from their cancer treatment... in the cardiology ward no less. mebbe it was for the publicity.

ah-ha! you say.. she's famous and the rest of the people aren't! well does being famous warrant the application of a different set of rules to be applied? a little voice tells me yes for some reason... but but but! "with great power, there must also come great responsibility..." says spidey's uncle ben. giving her the benefit of doubt that she was feeling pretty ill right up to her surgery, and worse afterwards... one can easily say she had no idea a whole ward was cleared for her, right? then again, what are private patient rooms for?

this whole thing might seem like a case of sour grapes. mebbe it is... all i know is that seeing headlines of well-known people with health problems.. well, it's actually the public reaction and flock mentality the fawning and well-wishers portray that irk me the most. (that being said, i must confess that i'm a sucker for pink ribbons. i'll buy 'em all if you put some in my path. hail commercialism!) the only good thing outta the whole kylie newsflash, other than her being well on the road to recovery, would probably be a greater exposure of the cancer council to the public eye. there are so many other people out there with similar or more serious health problems that nobody knows about. do they blame their unlucky stars that they're just not famous enough to warrant the attention? those who are a bit luckier have the support of friends and family. ever think about those who don't have the friends and family to do so? or those without the financial capabilities to afford treatment? who is rallying to their cause?

i don't know what the point of this rant was.. but then again, i guess that's what rants are like ~ needed to get it off my chest. i think it's just another manifestation of pre-exam jitters.