How to use a clicky pencil

Hehe, my friend did this, check it out: How to : Use a clicky pencil It's pretty cute :D And we can try not wasting lead! ;)

Wanna play chess?

Someone recommended me a site to play chess online: GameKnot.

The good thing about it is that it's not real time, you have up to 3 days (or more) to make a move. My username there is wpyeoh if you'd like to search for me after registering (if you register :P)

I hadn't been playing for about, what, 4 years? and this has made me rediscover the joys of playing (to put it a little, uh, formally lol), so I suppose I have the person who recommended the site to thank. ^_^

14 degrees?!

I couldn't believe it when I looked at the weather report and saw that it was 14°C outside! But it was really sunny, so I opened my window to feel the temperature outside...and it was really...not that cold! After the past few days of super cold weather, I must say I wasn't expecting this! Well, I'll take advantage of the moment and open my window for a while... :)

The good old days in Angoulême...

I miss those days!
When holidays were just holidays, with no work to do...
When it was so easy to find "the others", just a few steps away, no need to even go out of the building!
When we lepak-ed quite often in our class... (okay, at every "pause"!)
When we could recognise each and every one of us only by our shoes...haha

Actually I just re-stumbled onto Firdaus' old blog, and oh my, is it a memory chest! (as in treasure chest, get it?)
21 June 2004, fête de la musique, the first time since a very long time that I had cotton candy! (and I just had it again in Lyon...already missed it :P)

2 links :)

Calvin's Art of the Snowman
I've posted some of these before, but here's the whole works! :P

and some interesting (?) things to think about...

Cutting down 3 hours of class to 1 hour

Oh yeah, holidays are here!

This afternoon, we were supposed to have one hour of Maths, and two hours of Chemistry. But we ended up with half an hour of Maths, and half an hour of Chemistry! Even our one hour of Maths lecture earlier ended 10 minutes early. Everyone's in holiday mood, the teachers just know that they can't manage to teach us much :P

Coincidences

Here are a few coincidences if you like reading about them ;)

(Thanks to Casper)

I got a 53!

I haven't been playing minesweeper a lot for some time, and when I do play, I haven't been playing very well! Then lately I managed to play slightly better on intermediate, and yesterday I beat my "speed" record on that level. However, my expert game was lamentably slow and clumsy...(more clumsy than slow, actually)

So today I've been playing expert, and guess what?! I got myself a 53! My previous was a 55, done in May! So hey, I'm happy! Yippee! :D

Here's the video!

Événements ralentis!

Wow

(Slow-motion photos, really amazing! The comments are in French though.)

Unique chicken rice stall

Here's an interesting article :P It seems that there's a chicken rice stall in Kuching where there are no tables, no chairs, but they actually use plates and spoons and forks!

I'm just wondering though: why don't they just sell ta pau chicken rice?

The chicken rice looks good though...I want some!!! *sniff*

Foire aux interros!

I have two tests this week and two next week. But when you look closely, there are actually four tests in a week (exactly, counting the hours!)

Wednesday 13th Dec: Computer Science (10am-12pm)
Friday 15th Dec: Maths
Monday 18th Dec: Physics
Wednesday 20th Dec: Chemistry (8.30-10am)

So you see, in 7 x 24 hours we have four tests.

Then we'll have two weeks Christmas holidays, then a test-free week, then a Mechanics test.

Title: Test fair (literally)

Trop bien ce prof!

This happened last Friday. Don’t know why I didn’t write about it earlier, though.

This year we have a great Chemistry teacher (and by that I mean the teacher for our group) We have a teacher for lectures, and depending on our group, we might have the same teacher or a different one for when we do exercises.

This teacher explains really well, of course, without which he wouldn't be a good teacher at all. But what makes him so great (to me, at least) is that he has a sense of humour I totally agree with. He manages to say the most dictatorial things, with an absolutely straight face, yet not seem like a total rogue (or the wicked witch from the west, an expression which comes to mind :P) I don't know how he does it. (okay, maybe it's with that little smile at the corner of his mouth...)

For example, last week he had given us some exercises to prepare (he does that every week) but there was a change in our time-table and we didn't have our usual Chemistry lecture. So we hadn't learnt what we needed to do the exercises. When we told him that, he asked us whether we had seen certain things, and it went something like this:

him: Have you seen [something]?
us: No
him: It's okay, you don't need it. And have you seen this?
us: No, we've only seen [another something]
him: Oh, that's enough! You've seen this formula? [he gives us a formula, THE formula we were going to use]
us: No
him: Well, now you've seen it.

And here I just cracked up with laughter (inwardly, though ;) ) It might not be so funny written down, but each and every one of his replies were just so calm and unperturbed, he was calmly telling us that no way were we going to get away, we were going to do the exercises!

Oh yeah, and another thing I love about this teacher is that he does mental arithmetic! If he's solving a problem on the board, when there's a sum or a difference (or a multiplication or a division, okay, you get the idea) that we can solve without using a calculator, he does it! Up till now the teachers always ask us for the values...

The one thing I don't like about him is that he corrects test questions on the board before giving us back our papers, and I do not like that! He's only done it once, since we've only had one test, and I hope he won't do it again, but I somehow doubt it... :/

The title means "this teacher is so great!"

For French-speakers, I'll put a little "original quotes" here for the end of the dialogue:
le prof: Vous avez vu cette formule?
nous: Non
le prof: Ben maintenant vous l'avez vue.

[I thank my teacher, S.P., without whom this post wouldn't have been possible ;) ]

Megapixels

Here's an article I found interesting: The myth of maximum megapixels

Aha! I thought so! (okay, well, I just thought that I didn't need that many megapixels, since my camera seems okay to me...:P)

Courtesy of Casper the friendly ghost (hehe, I didn't know ghosts took photos)

Friend quote

My mother sent me this quote. I wondered where to put it, and why not here?

A true friend is not like rain that pours and goes. It's more like the air,
sometimes keeping quiet but is always there, constantly being around.

Yum yum!

Imagine that you are in France, and you haven't eaten any of the Malaysian kuih-muih in months...then one day you come across...sagu! That makes you think of kuih sagu, and you suddenly remember that your mother had made it before! So you ask her for the recipe, and one day when you finally get all the ingredients you try making it...and ta-da!


Unfortunately I had to use dessicated coconut instead of freshly grated coconut...but I guess it's good enough when you're not in Malaysia! Actually it gives a bit of "crunch" to the kuih...but then that's not what we're looking for...:/

Which way is the wind coming from?

We did this in Fabrication (it’s a subject ;) ) We had to cut out the pieces of metal, solder a few together, drill holes, roll them up or “fold” them (all with machines, of course!) I must say that I like the drilling part best :) I don’t like soldering (the tail was done by the teacher, he did it for everyone) ‘cos I can’t solder :P I just can’t do a straight line, and when I do, it doesn’t work either ‘cos I didn’t heat the metal long enough, bla bla bla... :/ But this time I managed it! Hehe, it was because we only had to solder a few points (or dots), and I didn’t even do that very well, it looked totally awful when I was done! But at least the pieces of metal stick together! :P And we don’t even see it because the rolled-up piece hides the, um, ugliness :P

Now I have to find a place to put my fish (no, not in water!) I would have liked putting it outside my window, but I can’t ‘cos there’s no flat surface...there’s a slanting window ledge and even if I managed to put it there it’s too narrow to let the fish turn.

Moonlight

Some nights ago it was the full moon. Each time I thought of writing this it was at night, when I had already switched off my computer, and by the next morning I had forgotten. (you'll find out why I only think of it at night :P)

In books we find a lot of references to the moonlight. But I had never actually seen moonlight before. (have you?) I've seen the moon, of course, but the light was never bright enough to actually be seen. I think that one of the reasons might be that in M'sia, when we're outside and see the moon, there are streetlights that drown out the moonlight. And at home, I never see the moon from the window since it is, uh, blocked :P

When I was in Angouleme I never saw moonlight either, though now when I think of it, it might have been possible from a higher floor. I was on the first floor, and there was a streetlight just across the street from my window, so every night I had the light from the streetlight streaming into my room. That would probably drown out the moonlight as well. (and maybe the moonlight was blocked by other buildings across the street...who knows?)

It was last year, when I was staying in INSA that I finally realised that all I had read in books were true, that moonlight can actually be bright enough to see things! lol One night I came back to my (usually) dark room (I think it was after playing badminton or table-tennis) and when I opened the door, instead of a dark room there was a light coming in through the window (I had windows stretching across one side of the room, so there was a lot of space for the light to pass through!) I was on the fourth floor, so this time there were no streetlights, and it took me a moment to realise that it was the moonlight (of course, I've gotten used to that by now :P)

Now I'm on the seventh floor, and the moonlight was quite bright these past few nights, which is why I thought of writing this! :P

Do not confuse speed with haste

A golden example!

It's a new minesweeper record in the non-flagging (NF) arena (45 seconds), by Roman Gammel from Russia. Played really calmly, and quickly as well, he certainly manages not to confuse speed with haste!

A change to adapt to

I just came back from playing badminton. In the club, we just play for fun, but sometimes we play a few matches (matches are fun ;) ), and today we played using the new scoring system. I had never used that before, so it felt weird...I kept forgetting that every point counted, and we seemed to lose points really quickly, and then catch up pretty quickly as well! It’s kinda dangerous, I guess :P Maybe I should be used to this kind of system since it is really similar to the table-tennis scoring system (duh, first table-tennis changes from 21 points to 11, then badminton decides to copy it’s old scoring system! Okay, not exactly...) but then when I think badminton I think a different scoring system! lol

(If you want to know more about the scoring system, I suggest you take a look at Wikipedia, I took a look at the article to understand the system, since I didn't quite understand it while playing earlier :P)

PS: I really think it's crazy to change the scoring system this way...it kills traditional badminton! I mean, the game is hardly the same any more! At least in table-tennis the change only shortened the game and nothing else... anyway, whatever. It's not like I have a say in it :/

A little experiment

Check this out:

A man in a restaurant asked a waiter for a juice glass,
a dinner plate, water, a match, and a lemon wedge. The
man poured enough water onto the plate to cover it.

"If you can get the water on the plate into this glass
without touching or moving this plate, I will give you
$100," the man said. "You can use the match and lemon to
do this."

A few minutes later, the waiter walked away with $100 in
his pocket. How did the waiter get the water into the
glass?


Answer:

First, the waiter stuck the match into the lemon wedge,
so that it would stand straight. Then he lit the match,
and put it in the middle of the plate with the lemon.
Then, he placed the glass upside-down over the match.
As the flame used up the oxygen in the glass, it created
a small vacuum, which sucked in the water through the
space between the glass and the plate. Thus, the waiter
got the water into the glass without touching or moving
the plate.

You can try this experiment at home!

Hmm...can we really try it? I'd like to...but I don't have matches! lol
I'm a bit skeptical... is the vacuum really strong enough to suck in the water? Let me know if you try it!

Brazilian-style!

Here's a Brazilian-style grilled chicken recipe I found on the internet, it's really simple and good too! All you have to do is marinate chicken (or some other meat) in olive oil and chopped garlic (and salt, of course) for at least 2 hours (maybe less would work fine as well), then grill the meat.

Flash games online

A site with flash games, to play online when you’re bored! (or when you’re not...) I think it's even better than the Bored? link that leads to bored.com ;)

Orisinal

I've only tried two games though, it's not like I have that much free time on my hands...and when I do, there are other things to do as well!

Oh well, that was amusing

Argh, I can't download next week's time-table...I get an error page! And what's more, besides the error message, there is this error message: (Also, an error occurred while attempting to render the standard error message.) :P

Anyway, the main reason I'm posting is because I noticed this tip in the "l'astuce du jour" (tip of the day) column:
Vous cherchez quelque chose ? pensez à l'outil de recherche en haut à droite... Il trouvera tout, mais peut-être l'accès à certains documents vous sera interdit...
(Looking for something? Try the search engine above... It will find anything, but you might not be authorised to access certain documents...)

Hehe...they were probably thinking of the answers for future tests? lol

Try solving it ;)

This riddle is really neat (not easy, but the clues really "fit"!)

I'm a ten-letter word, but when I am heard,
I have only four, not one letter more.

My first two sounds are neat; a kind of sheet,
That starts with spread, not the kind on a bed.

Of my sounds, the third is what will be heard,
alphabetically, in the middle of modus operandi.

If you want to hear more, then like the shore,
I end at the sea, that's a hint, you see.

What word am I?

HINT:
There are four letters that sound just like a word of ten
letters. The word is a title of honour given to certain
high officials.

Answer: Excellency (XLNC)

The four letters, XLNC, sound just like the ten-letter word
excellency.

The first two sounds (XL) are the name of a spreadsheet program.

If you arrange the letters in modus operandi alphabetically
(addeimNooprsu), the letter N is the middle letter. Also, modus
operandi is usually written as an abbreviation, MO, which in the
alphabet, would have an N in the middle.

The final letter (C) sounds like sea. Do you see?

Partner from hell

(I wrote this last night but I couldn't connect to the Internet, so I'm posting it now...)

STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! (me, I mean) How could I not have seen it coming? I was at table-tennis training (this year I’m playing in a club and sometimes we have competitions) and we’ll be having a competition this Thursday in teams of two (each person plays a single and we play a double together, I guess), so we had to sign up in pairs. And I didn’t see it coming, STUPID! I let others sign up first, etc, etc, and then I got stuck with him...I SHOULD have seen it coming!!! I SHOULD have quickly grabbed another partner while I could! But noooo...I was so dumb I ended up with that guy...

So why exactly am I complaining? Actually the guy’s a pretty good player, but I’ve got to say that I AM SICK OF HIM!!! I’ll give one example that just happened today: after we had signed up, he asked me if I would like to play doubles, to train (or try, I think he said) a bit. I thought he just wanted to get used to playing together. So he went and asked the teacher in charge whether we could play doubles, and of course the teacher said yes, he even explained the rules to us briefly. And then, just when we were about to start playing, what do you think he did? Aaaaargh, I totally felt like killing him when he said that to me!!! And what did he say? Try guessing, you won’t get it, it was simply an ATROCITY, one of the worst ever! He turned to me and said “don’t worry, you’ll learn quickly” (I’m not sure whether he said the “don’t worry”, but it was in his tone...) I was like, WHAT?! HEY, I KNOW HOW TO PLAY, YOU FOOL!!! YOU DIDN’T EVEN ASK ME, YOU JUST ASSUMED THAT I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO PLAY? YOU THINK YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME? Hey, the two guys who were opposite us needed his words more than I did! And that’s not the first time he’s done something like that...he’s done it so many times before, in different things, I was already sick of him, and now I’m stuck with him for a partner!!! :((

Another thing is that he likes to comment when we’re playing... Look here, I know he’s a better player, and I’m sure he can give pretty good advice sometimes, but it’s the way he gives it that gets on my nerves! He sounds sooo condescending! And here’s something (for those who have played ping pong with me you’ll understand...): I can smash. I really can. I might not succeed every time (who does?) and sometimes my smashes aren’t that good, but I CAN smash and sometimes I do some really good ones. But when I do a good smash (or even a mediocre) this guy just goes “gooooood!” as if I had done something really really good for my level. As I said, it’s not what he says that’s the problem, it’s how he says it! The way he says it is just like “hey, I can’t believe you actually did that, I would never have thought you capable” or even “oh, I’m so proud of you!” (argh, like I care what you think). I don’t care if it sounds conceited but it’s true: I’ve done hundreds (maybe even thousands) of good smashes before, it’s one of my strongest points, all I need is a good chance. (I admit that I’ve done a lot of bad smashes as well :P) So don’t come telling me “gooooood!” when I know it already, and especially when I’ve done much better!!

To be fair, he’s an okay guy, he just gets on my nerves (there are a lot of other instances...this isn’t all...I wish it were :/ ) If someone thinks he’s great, it doesn’t bother me that much, it’s when people look down to others (me, for example) that I FEEL SICK! Ugh...*gone to barf*

Simple and delicious...lol

Hehe, it's nothing really, just stir-fried some stuff in tom yam paste (from Malaysia ;) ) But it looked so nice I just had to take a photo (the colours maybe? I seldom put tomatoes but I happened to have some...) It's a pity the plate is a bit smeared with the sauce though...

Wanna go to Hell?

Unfortunately (or fortunately :P) it's not that easy...it's in New Zealand! Check this out: Welcome to Hell (by Kenny Sia) The last photo is a nice touch, what with the "chopsticks" and "tissue paper"... :P

And here's another article from his blog, on the Bahasa police! lol (ceh, sendiri jadi polis! :P)

Last stop: Le Mans

To go back to Lyon from Rennes I sort of pass through (or pass by, depending on which train I take) Le Mans, where two of my batch are studying. So I suggested going there to see their place...and our whole rombongan of seven people went! Here's a photo of us at a kebab restaurant (our favourite hangout lol) with our hosts...thanks for the kebab (or nuggets :P) Fairuz! :D (okay, the food hadn't arrived yet when I took the photo...)

Our rombongan members (er, the bronze head in the middle isn't one of us...lol)

The others striking "cool" poses (argh, I didn't notice those two bags when I was taking the photo, they spoil it :/ )

Rennes

After going to Angouleme, seven of us who were there went to Rennes together. Two are studying there; the rest of us just went along with them...I had never been to Rennes before, so since I was already in Angouleme, it was a good time as any to visit it! (both towns are in the western part of France, whereas Lyon is more to the east)

I'm not posting any photos of buildings because I didn't get any good ones...the buildings were too close to get a whole shot! So I'll post mainly photos of us :P

Here's one in front of their uni there...(it's a "school of Chemistry")

And at night we went to a restaurant to eat...dessert time! (My place is on the left side right at the end, you can see my plate)

Ah, the chemist!

A physicist, biologist and a chemist were going to the ocean for the first time. The physicist saw the ocean and was fascinated by the waves. He said he wanted to do some research on the fluid dynamics of the waves and walked into the ocean. Obviously, he was drowned and never returned. The biologist said he wanted to do research on the flora and fauna inside the ocean and walked inside the ocean. He too, never returned. The chemist waited for a long time and afterwards, wrote the observation, "The physicist and the biologist are soluble in ocean water".

Thanks to Mai...I copied it from her blog :P

Raya gathering in Angouleme

The Angoumoisins gathering was only for those who had studied in Angouleme, since it was the teachers who organised it. But since this is also the first school holiday after Hari Raya, the students in Angouleme organised another gathering to celebrate Raya. For this one I’ll just post a group photo, a photo of the food, and another photo which we took in one of their rooms (where we stayed) I think you will have no problem figuring out which is which... :P

Their rooms are so much nicer than ours last time! They just moved into these new buildings in September, and for the same price, they have double, triple the space... Actually these buildings were in construction at the end of our stay there, we were wondering how the buildings would be...didn’t expect to actually stay in them though.

Réunion Angoumoisins

So here I am, back from my travels... :P

Angoumoisins means people who live in Angouleme...so I'm considered an "ancienne Angoumoisine" since I lived there for some time before. Our teachers organised a gathering for us "anciens" (I think you can guess that this word roughly means "ancient", even though it's not exactly the same thing) to meet with the students who are there now (there was another batch there before us, and those who are there now are the 3rd Angouleme batch) It was a pity that only a few teachers came...and the old students weren't much better! :(

I'm not going to write a lot because I'm tired (5 days on the go, and in the next 4 days I have to finish doing all my holiday work and revise for my Chemistry test after the holidays) I have to post this now though, otherwise it might be several days later before I do it. But I won't be posting the photos of Rennes and Le Mans for the moment...for those it's harder to choose which photos to post.

Here you have
1. the photo of those of my batch with our teachers (plus the teacher who planned this gathering; she taught the other two batches but not us)

2. all the "anciens" with the teachers

3. everyone who was there (maybe minus a few...I'm not sure whether some left early...)

Thanks Claudia and M. Zeghloul! :) (for organising the gathering)

Argh, it took a long time to upload the photos, so the next post will have to wait till tomorrow, 'cos there are a few photos to go with it! And I want to sleep...zzz

Recette de lapin

Voici une bonne recette de lapin! :D
(y a plein de fautes par contre... :/ )

Actually the recipe is simple...it says (and here I'll put it in tiny font so as not to spoil the effect for those who read French): Take the rabbit out of the plate and caress it...whisper in its ear that it's just a for joke...that we'd never hurt him, he's part of the family!

You can always go to the page and see the photos ;)

For car lovers

Here's a website where you can find car wallpapers There are also bikes, movies, and...ahem...babes. Why aren't there any guys? Not fair! :P

Holidays are here

Okay, finally the holidays are here... we had moved our 4-6pm class to Wednesday afternoon, and our 3-4pm class was cancelled, so we finished at 3pm.

Actually the only thing we had this afternoon was a Maths test from 1.30 to 3pm (Actually that was the reason why our 3-4 class was cancelled, it was supposed to be Maths but the teacher said that he knew we wouldn't be in a very, uh, good shape :P after the test, so he gave us something to do at home instead) The test didn't go very well, though...it was HARD! And what's more, I don't know what happened to my mind, it just "slipped" on the last question, I had thought of a method to solve it but somehow I thought that I couldn't use it (lol, this gets a bit hard to understand since it's out of context...don't mind me, I'm just complaining), and I didn't see it till it was nearing the end :( Well, at least I managed to start doing it a bit...hope to scrape a few points there.

My teachers in Angouleme have planned a gathering for all the Malaysian students who were there, so I will be going to Angouleme! (it's been 15 months...yes, I counted :P) Then, since I would be already in the west of France, I'll be going to Rennes (where a few of my friends are studying) and on the way back to Lyon I'll be passing through Le Mans where two of my friends are. So half of my one-week holiday is filled with train rides all over France (okay, maybe just the northern part :P) I hope I'll get a few good photos worth posting ^_^

Oh yeah, and the juniors who are studying in Angouleme now are also planning a Raya gathering, which will be on Sunday (the Angoumoisins (as in Angouleme people) gathering is on Saturday)

An so tomorrow I'll have to wake up early...my train's before seven! *yawn*

Slow Dance

This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital.

SLOW DANCE


Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.


Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask How are you?

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.


Ever told your child,

We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call and say,"Hi"

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift....

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

(thanks to Geok Ching)

STUPID FRANCE TELECOM!!!

Quand je suis allée à France Telecom pour ouvrir ma ligne fixe, j’ai signé une feuille pour autoriser le prélèvement automatique, J’EN SUIS SURE ET CERTAINE ! Je leur ai même laissé un RIB, mais non, maintenant on me dit qu’ils ont rien eu, que je suis pas en prélèvement, et je dois refaire la demande ! Et c’est pas tout, avec ma facture il y a justement une feuille pour autoriser le prélèvement, cette feuille était à renvoyer avec la facture, mais maintenant que j’ai appelé pour demander le prélèvement, on me dit que je recevrais une autre feuille (qui est aussi une autorisation de prélèvement), mais cette fois il faut l’envoyer à la banque ! Là ça va encore, mais quand j’ai demandé pourquoi les deux feuilles (qui sont sensiblement les mêmes) sont pas à envoyer au même endroit (si on devait envoyer les deux j’aurais compris, mais si on doit en envoyer une seule, c’est pas plus raisonnable que ce soit à la même adresse ?) on m’a dit que je pouvais pas utiliser la feuille qui était avec ma facture puisque j’étais pas en prélèvement...MAIS JE SAIS QUE JE SUIS PAS EN PRELEVEMENT, C’EST POUR CA QU’ON M’A MIS UNE FEUILLE POUR LE DEMANDER !!! VOUS PENSEZ QUE JE SUIS CONNE ? C’EST VOUS LA CONNE QUI A PAS COMPRIS QUE LA FEUILLE ETAIT JUSTEMENT POUR CEUX QUI NE SONT PAS EN PRELEVEMENT !!! On m’a dit que la feulle était à jeter...alors vous êtes une bande de fous qui nous envoient des trucs dont on a pas besoin ? Bravo, c’est exactement ce qu’on attend de vous ! Stupid France Telecom... J’avais aussi demandé d’être abonnée à l’internet en accès libre, mais je suis sûre que la fille qui m’a ouvert le compte l’autre jour l’a pas fait non plus ! Vu qu’elle m’a aussi dit que les frais de mise en service de ma ligne serait de 23 euros alors qu’en réalité c’est de 27€50... STUPID FRANCE TELECOM ! Can’t you get some competent personnel ?!!!

Whew, that does feel good.

Si ma demande de prélèvement ne se passe pas bien, je fais une scène.

(Je peux trouver bien des raisons pourquoi les feuilles d'autorisation de prélèvement étaient pas à envoyer au même endroit, mais si elle a pas pu me l'expliquer, elle est conne!!)

Edit: Ok, faut quand même dire qu’à Angoulême, tout s’était bien passé... Vive Angoulême, bas à Lyon et ses environs ! (avec son temps de merde...)

Stupid, stupid, so stupid fwd

This is a fwd I got... How on earth could anyone believe this? (my comments in blue)

*****************************
Ok guys, this truly is freaky, the phone literally rang as soon as I read the last word of this email!!!!! [okay...let’s say that’s true...]

I am taking the bait - what do I have to lose right? Hope it works! [hey, wasn’t he supposed to have ALREADY tried it?]

[then they tell us stories of those who sent the mail and had their dreams come true...bla bla bla...but if they had already sent the mail how on earth could they have written on it?]

If you send this to 10 more people, other than the 5 that you already have to send to, something major that you've been wanting will happen.

Message: This is scary!

The phone will ring right after you do this! [hmm...so I reached the end of the e-mail, I’ve read the last word, but NOTHING HAPPENED! That means the first line was lying. So why on earth should I send this on?]

*****************************
Duh, if you want to write a chain mail, at least make it credible!! (but then there are still people who send this on..WHY?!)

So cute!

Hehe...

L'orthographe est importante!

This post comes from a sentence is in my Chemistry book, which is in French, so I'm gonna write in French...basically it's just that a missing accent can change the whole meaning of a sentence!

J'ai trouvé cette phrase dans mon poly de Chimie:
Un constituant donné à la meme solubilité dans tous les solvants avec lesquels il forme un mélange liquide idéal.

J'ai du la lire plusieurs fois avant de comprendre...et pourquoi? Tout simplement parce qu'il y a à à la place de a! C'est la preuve absolue que l'orthographe est importante... ici ce n'est meme pas une phrase complete; il n'y a pas de sens!

(oui je sais qu'il y a des accents que j'ai pas mis...par exemple le chapeau sur le e dans meme...mais c'est parce que j'ai la flemme d'aller chercher dans Word...j'ai des raccourcis plus accessibles pour les accents qui sont plus souvent utilisés ;) )

Free phone calls!

Mainly for those who don't use dial-up though...'cos you need to use your own phone at the same time...

WebCallDirect lets us call fixed lines in several countries for free, among which Malaysia! :D We enter our phone number and the number we want to call, then when our phone rings and we pick it up, the other number is dialled. We can try it for 3 minutes if we're not registered. I've tried it; it's really not bad! I don't really know how it works when we've registered, though...it says that each call costs 3 Euro cents (and then tariffs apply, which means free for Malaysia), but I don't see how we pay...

But whatever...I find it useful :) And it costs nothing to try ;)

Sunset...again!

Well, what did you expect? The sun sets every day, doesn't it? :P

Doctors write better than teachers!

Here's the proof:



Try reading what's written...which is easier? (of course, it'd be easier to read if you know French)

I couldn't read the 2nd line of what the teacher wrote (the last word, actually), but one of my friends surprised me by reading it straight off when I asked him to. So now at least I know what it says...

Edit (12 Feb 2012): Re-reading this post, I had difficulty deciphering the lines in the first photo. :P So after a few painstaking minutes, here's what it says: Schéma du montage expérimental? Compte rendu satisfaisant. Whew! lol

I present you...my room!

You've already seen a bit of my room...and as I promised, here are some photos of my room, just to show you my "living quarters" :P

Tech Support Nightmare

I don't know whether to believe it or not...

*Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee
with a caller:*

Tech Support: "Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"

Customer: "Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."

Tech Support: "What sort of trouble?"

Customer: "Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the
words went away."

Tech Support: "Went away?"

Customer: "They disappeared."

Tech Support: "Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"

Customer: "Nothing."

Tech Support: "Nothing?"

Customer: "It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."

Tech Support: "Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"

Customer: "How do I tell?"

Tech Support: "Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"

Customer: "What's a sea-prompt?"

Tech Support: "Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"

Customer: "There isn't any cursor, I told you, it won't accept anything I
type."

Tech Support: "Does your monitor have a power indicator?"

Customer: "What's a monitor?"

Tech Support: "It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a
TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"

Customer: "I don't know."

Tech Support: "Well then, look on the back of the monitor and find
where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"

Customer: "Yes, I think so."

Tech Support: "Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if
it's plugged into the wall."

Customer: "Yes, it is."

Tech Support: "When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that
there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"

Customer: "No."

Tech Support: "Well, there are. I need you to look back there again
and find the other cable."

Customer: "Okay, here it is."

Tech Support: "Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely
into the back of your computer."

Customer: "I can't reach."

Tech Support: "Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"

Customer: "No."

Tech Support: "Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way
over?"

Customer: "Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's
because it's dark."

Tech Support: "Dark?"

Customer: "Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is
coming in from the window."

Tech Support: "Well, turn on the office light then."

Customer: "I can't."

Tech Support: "No? Why not?"

Customer: "Because there's a power outage."

Tech Support: "A power... A power outage?!? Ah, okay, we've got it
licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff
your computer came in?"

Customer: "Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."

Tech Support: "Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it
up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store
you bought it from."

Customer: "Really? Is it that bad?"

Tech Support: "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

Customer: "Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"

Tech Support: "Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."

It said a former employee...do you suppose he got sacked? lol

SMS - be careful

A true story:
A lady's handbag, which contained her mobile, credit card, purse..etc, was stolen.

Twenty minutes later, when she called her hubby, telling him what had happened, the hubby says "I've just received your SMS asking about our PIN number, and I've replied a little while ago."

Shocked, they rushed down to the bank only to be told by the bank staff that all their money was already withdrawn! The pickpocket had actually used the stolen handphone to SMS "hubby" in the contact list and got hold of the PIN number. Within 20 minutes, he had withdrawn all the money from the bank account.

Lesson to be learnt:
Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mum, etc.... and very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through SMS, confirm by CALLING BACK!

[I have no confirmation that this is true, but it might very well be, and if no thief has had this idea before, they will have.]

That's the way I teach my son

> Seorang Guru Tadika bertanya kepada anak muridnya... [A kindergarten teacher asks the students...]
>
> Guru : Siapa didalam kelas ini yang mengenal nombor? [Who knows numbers?]
>
> Razif : Saya Cikgu [I do, teacher.]
>
> Guru : Apa betul awak kenal nombor-nombor? [Really?]
>
> Razif : Ya Cikgu.. Saya telah belajar dengan ayah [Yes, my father taught me.]
>
> Guru : Baiklah.. mari kita lihat...selepas 3.. [Okay, so what comes after 3?]
>
> Razif : 4
>
> Guru : Bagus... Selepas 6? [Good...and after 6?]
>
> Razif : 7
>
> Guru : Ya.. Bagus.. selepas 9? [Yes...Good...and after 9?]
>
> Razif : 10
>
> Guru : Ya.. Bagus sekali... nampaknya ayahmu benar-benar
> mengambil berat tentang pelajaran kamu.. Okeylah.. Akhir sekali..
> selepas sepuluh..berapa? [Very good..and after 10?]
>
> Razif : Jack, Queen, King

Haha...good one :D (thanks to Geok Ching...and for the earlier one as well :P)
[I've added a loose translation]

Sin Ga Po Story

Two stories for you... (received through e-mail)

>> The Titanic was sinking and there weren't enough lifeboats.
>> So the captain had to persuade male passengers to jump into the icy
>> water to make room for women and children.
>> To the British he said, "You
>> must act like gentlemen." They jumped.
>> To the Americans he said, "You
>> can be heroes." They complied.
>> To the Germans he said, "It's the rule."
>> They obeyed.
>> To the Japanese he said," It's the consensus." They
>> obliged.
>> Then came the Singaporean and they just weren't budging until
>> he came up with the appeal: "Free life jackets for those who
>> jumped."

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

>> One
>> day, there were an American, one Italian, a Singaporean and Bangladeshi
>> traveled around on a private helicopter.
>> After about one hour of
>> travelling, the American took out his cigarette (Dunhill), lighted it up
>> and started smoking after two sip, he threw the balance of the cigarette.
>> The
>> other three persons were surprised and asked "Why didn't you finish-up the
>> cigarette before throwing?"
>> He replied arrogantly, "There are a lot of
>> cigarettes in my country."
>> Half an hour later, the Italian took out a
>> bottle of branded perfume and applied on him and the rest he threw out of
>> the window.
>> The
>> other three persons were surprised and asked, "Why did you throw away the
>> perfume?"
>> The Italian replied also, "There is a lot of perfume in my
>> country."
>> The Singaporean didn't know what to do & suddenly pushed
>> that Bangladeshi out of the helicopter.
>> The other two persons shouted
>> crazyly, "Why did you push him!!!!!!!??????"
>> The Singaporean said
>> slowly, "There are a lot of Bangladeshi in my country."
>> Everybody kept
>> quiet and stayed away from the Singaporean.

21st century version of love pledges

Hehe...got this from recom...

January to december
sunday to saturday
Am to Pm
My feelings for u have never changed.......
u....
R....
always....

a HEADACHE to me !!!!

********************************

When u feel lonely and alone & cannot see any one around you,
the world seems to be fading away,
come along with me
i'll take u to an eye specialist !!

********************************

Just close ur eyes and think of urself for 10 seconds......
Open ur eyes !
Now you will realize that u have wasted 10 sec in thinking of a
fool............

********************************

I wrote ur name on the sands.............
it got washed away,
I wrote ur name in air..........................
it got blown away,
So i wrote ur name in my heart.............
i got a HEART ATTACK

********************************

LOVE is like a CIGAR
It starts with a fire..... continues with smoke.....and ends in ashes...
But dont worry - we are chain smokers

********************************

ur smile can be compared to a flower
ur voice can be compared to a cuckoo
ur innocence to a child
but in stupidity
u have no comparison
u r the best

********************************

True love is like a pillow
u can hug when u r in trouble
u can cry on when u r in pain & u can embrace when u r happy
so when u need true love
spend RM50/-Buy a pillow

********************************

Dear Friend,
when i ask u flower,
u give me bouquet
when i ask u a stone
u give me a statue
when i ask u a feather
u give me peacock

ARE U REALLY DEAF ?

********************************

when i call u;
1 ring means i'm thinking of u;
2 ring means i like u;
3 means i miss u;
4 means .........pick up d phone idiot

********************************

The human brain is most outstanding thing.......
it functions 24hrs 365 days.....
it functions right from the time u r Born....until you fall in love

********************************

SMILE - is a language of love
SMILE - is a source to win hearts...
SMILE - creates greatness in ur personality
SO....
Brush ur Teeth today onwards

Discovery!

You know, another bright side (hmm...if there are two bright sides, doesn’t that make it bright all around? Maybe we’d need six bright sides (like for a cube)...but how many sides do we have anyway? :P) about having seniors is that they can make you discover things :P In the photo I posted earlier the window was a bit open (take a look at the previous post), and last night I just found out that it can be opened in another way...like this!

Hehe, I couldn’t have figured it out on my own, could I? When a window opens you’d expect it to always open that way. :P But then one of the seniors is staying in the same building as I am now, so he knows about it (but then I don't know how he found out :P) Well, so...thanks Teik Siang! ^_^

(I was going to post this earlier but I couldn’t because when I tried taking a photo of my window, the light outside was so bright that the window frame was too dark.)

Mooncake Festival in Lyon!

A few of us Malaysians in Lyon had a little gathering yesterday "sempena" the Mooncake Festival (lol it's been a long time since I used "sempena"! :P) Unfortunately we couldn't get everyone to come, but it was still quite a gathering!

(that's in my room, by the way)

We even had four mooncakes (from Malaysia ;) ) thanks to two of the seniors (hehe, my seniors, at any rate)

Oh yeah, and I should mention that one of them isn't studying in Lyon, he came from Grenoble (you see, people come from Grenoble to celebrate the Mooncake Festival in Lyon! Shows how famous Lyon is for its Mooncake Festival...hahaha..)

(For those who don't know Malay: "sempena" is something like "in the occasion of"; in this case "to celebrate" would replace it very well)

Sunsets from my window

My window is facing west (this is the first room I've got with a window facing west, I hoped to have it facing east but it was not to be...), and for now the sun sets at about 7pm (I think) so usually I'm home when it sets! I've taken 2 photos of sunsets from my windows, here's the first one:



I took it because of the rays of light coming out of the clouds...I cut that part out of the photo because the rest of it is nothing special...there aren't that many views from my window...and I can't even zoom! (my camera zooms in by enlarging the photo, so it comes out as little squares...hey, I can do that myself when I've transferred the photo to my computer, thank you very much!)

So here's the second sunset, orange this time! lol It's taken from the same angle as the earlier one (you see why it was pointless to leave the whole photo?), straight out of my window.



Hope you like them! ;)

Now did you think of doing that?

Wanna know what minesweeper enthusiasts can come up with? There are too many ideas to tell you about every one of them (and I might not know all of them, either! :P) but here’s one: non-flagging no-numbers minesweeper!

I chose it because you can actually take a look at it yourselves ^_^ You can watch the video here, it’s on YouTube, and there are lots of other (normal :P) minesweeper videos as well, in this format, so you don’t have to download Minesweeper Clone to watch them. But if you want to play minesweeper, it would still be best to download it :P (link's on the sidebar ;) )

I don’t think I’ll be able to play in this mode, though; while watching the video (it’s the first time I’ve seen a no-numbers game) I was quite lost; the only numbers I knew were the 1, 2 and 3, and I had some help since they were being solved! For the other less common numbers, I really had to think a bit, and he solved them before I managed to figure out the number! (which means I figured it out from the pattern he uncovered :P)

Hehe, if you don’t know the colour of minesweeper numbers very well, it’d be best to take a look at some other videos ;)

Edit: Someone suggested to me to embed the video here, so here it is. (I hope it works) The someone happens to be the person who thought of putting these videos on YouTube (Thanks Schu ;))

Sketch Swap

Sketch Swap is a site where you can sketch something, then get someone's sketch in return. And you don't just get the "finished product", you get to see each line drawn out! (don't worry, it's speeded up so that it gets finished pretty quickly) Sometimes the sketches are really intricate, but there are also some simple ones! Hehe, I do wonder whether my sketches will be seen by anyone else...

The site even had a button for us, so I'm going to try to put it here...and I'll try to put it under links on the sidebar as well. (hope it works! :P)

Hello Kitty handphone!

I forgot to mention it, but when I went to France Telecom to get a fixed line, I saw a Hello Kitty handphone. It’s, well, cute to say the least. :P I did a search for it on the Internet and found these photos:


Well, so there ya go ^_^ Anyone interested?

Saved by...three girls :D

I just had my first sports class, and we were choosing the packages of sports that we would be doing this year. I chose volleyball, archery and combat, which means that I'll be doing each of them for one-third of the year. I wanted to do archery last year, but I think I didn't choose it because of another sport that has to go with it. So this year, seeing that the sports that go with it were okay, I decided to grab my chance (I did volleyball last year and I was completely lousy, but it was kinda fun as well :P)

But it wasn't that easy to grab the chance; there were too many people who wanted this package as well. Only 22 people were allowed, and there were 25 of us. One first-year girl was sent to another group (they said that since she was in first year she'd still have time to try these sports... ouch, that must hurt) but there were still too many of us (and all in 2nd year, so no excuse to send us away), and since no one wanted to leave, the teacher said that we would draw lots, and someone (who was it? I wanna kill him...grr...) suggested that we race instead. And the teacher agreed! (Hey, I did running as a sport last year, and I was always the last!) I knew I'd be gone if they did that (short of a miracle), but thankfully a few girls decided to go to another group, and save us the running. Whew!

Lighting up my life

I just bought myself a table lamp. I can’t seem to find the kind I had bought when I was in Angouleme, so in the end I bought one which didn’t have a bulb included (have to buy one of those screw-in bulbs ourselves) The one I had in Angouleme had a tiny bulb in it, and stupid me, I didn’t think of changing the bulb when it burnt out (I thought we couldn’t buy that kind of bulb, and I didn’t need the lamp any more at the time... :/ )

Anyway, I needed this table lamp because when I work at the table at night, the room light throws a shadow just in front of me, right on what I’m working on! So I have to twist myself here and there, and that really doesn’t work very well. Later I chose the alternative of sitting at another side of the table, but it was further away from the light, so it’s not that great either... Tonight I shall try out the lamp, and hopefully it will work fine.

Besides, I also got myself a fixed telephone line in my room (now you can call me! lol) The line isn’t activated yet though, it will be in under 48 hours, so I should have the line this weekend. Hehe, if you want the number, just ask! :P

English? Yes? No?

I had my first English class today. At first I wanted to ask whether I could do another language instead of English, but after this class, I’m having second thoughts. This teacher is really great, and I’ve got a feeling that this could be a fun year after all (last year was rather boring) However, I’m not 100% sure that it will last, so I’m also worrying about regretting it if I choose to stay in English even if they let me choose another language.

The thing is that if I don’t do English, I would choose Spanish. But I’m not that keen on learning a new language either, and English classes would be rather relaxed. I’m just afraid of being bored to death...:/ But this teacher has a great sense of humour, and I just can’t imagine him being boring!

Today he was talking about prepositions at the end of sentences, and he gave us a wonderful sentence, with FIVE prepositions at the end! Here it is:
What did you bring that book that I don't like being read to out of up for?
Hehe, I’m going to really treasure this sentence...:P

Well, about the language-choosing bit, I’ll wait and see whether it’s possible before I start trying to make decisions. Who knows, they might not even let me leave the English class.

Test your flower knowledge :P

I admit that it's not exactly flower knowledge that is needed, but it does help! Otherwise you won't know even if you get a right answer.

Each of the clues make up a type of flower, for example
"small container + to allow" would be "vial + let", or
"violet."

Can you figure out these five?

1. an implement + flesh around mouth
2. foppish + a large carnivorous wildcat
3. to wed + a soft yellow element
4. a false statement + be deficient in
5. indicates an alternative + child

Answers further below...

1. Tulip (tool + lip)
2. Dandelion (dandy + lion)
3. Marigold (marry + gold)
4. Lilac (lie + lack)
5. Orchid (or + kid)

I got them all! :D (but okay, I cheated for the first one, I got the flower without getting the tool)

Yay, I got my furniture!

Well, well, well, so I got my furniture in a week! You know, I think this is one of their tricks. They tell you that they will send it in 2 or 3 weeks (someone even said 4-5 weeks, and then another person told me that it was the maximum) then they send it in a week and you're not complaining! But if they tell you that they will send it in a few days, you start complaining when it arrives in a week!

So now I've got a bed (with a mattress, of course) and a rack. The bed especially was NOT easy to put together...thankfully my friend was there to help me (again, thanks Romain!) So in this next few days I shall try my best to put some order to my room...wish me luck!

What a wonderful welcome-back meal! haha

My classes have just started today, and I decided to go and eat in the INSA restaurant with my friends (too lazy to start cooking yet :P) So what did my welcome-back meal consist of? A raw-but-burnt-on-the-outside steak (seeing that it was burnt, I thought that this time at least it would be cooked, but no, no such luck), some overcooked cauliflower (okay, cauliflower is always overcooked in France, and even more so in INSA, I suppose they want to make sure they kill all the bacteria lol), and undercooked pasta (some parts were still hard...but that, at least, doesn't happen that often)

After having to endure that food for a whole year last year, now I'm only going there when I don't have the time to eat at home. But then again, I might just bring sandwiches ;)

Anyway I still don't have a bed in my room, I bought one but have to wait at least two weeks for the delivery :( Thankfully a friend of mine who stays in the same building lent me an extra mattress he had. I was going to use my comforter as a temporary mattress for a few days, but two weeks is LONG! And it might be delayed...you never know with these deliveries... (Merci Romain! :D )

Hehe, I certainly will NOT post any photos of my room until it's furnished, so you guys are in for a long wait :P

Back in France

I got back to France 2 days ago. Let's see: how long was I travelling?

before 5pm: left house in Kuantan
6pm: flight from Kuantan to KL
6.40pm: reached KL
11.10pm: left KL
approx. 6.40am (12.40pm of the next day in M'sia): reached Paris, got my luggage, took bus to the train station
9.45am (3.45pm M'sia time): took train to Lyon
11.50am (5.50pm M'sia time): reached Lyon
and about another half an hour to reach my unfurnished room.

That makes more than 24 hours...but it still doesn't beat when I went back to Malaysia the other day. After finishing my practical I had come back to Lyon to stay there less than 24 hours before leaving for my friends' place in Rouen, then directly leaving for my flight in Paris. But then that's too long ago to write down the schedule. :P

Anyway the long wait at the airport was made bearable by Hung Jen who came to see me! (she even brought a bodyguard, wise decision :P) Here's a photo (hey, the bodyguard doubles as a photographer! Hung Jen, hope your friend won't get mad about my joking... :P)


Well, classes are starting tomorrow, but we have a pretty easy schedule for the first week, thankfully! We'll have time to adapt from holiday mode to study mode ;)

Punctuation... what, they're not always the same?

You know what I found out when I was writing out my internship report? It seems that in French, there is a space before : , whereas in English, there isn’t! And in French there is also a space before ! and ? (and goodness knows what else) Anyway I’ll stick to what I’m used to when I type normally...when I write reports I guess I’ll have to be careful!

Thanks to Elodie for pointing this out to me ;)

Argh...mosquitoes!

Be off, mosquitoes! I am on a roll! 4 dead mosquitoes in a day, that’s gotta be a record (for these holidays at least, I’m sure :P)

I’m sick of mosquitoes. I must have gotten a hundred mosquito bites in my 2 months here (less than two months, actually) One positive point about France is that there are a lot less mosquitoes...

Anyway after enduring these attacks for some time (there are the most mosquitoes under the table where I’m typing now, which means each time I use my computer I am offering them fresh blood...yummy! - at least that’s what I guess it is for them) I got out a mosquito (or fly)-electrocuting racquette a few days ago. So now here’s what I do: while sitting at the table, whenever I sense something near my legs, I’ll grab the racquette, leap (or move slowly, depending on how many invaders there are) up and start whacking away. It doesn’t always work very well, but today I managed to kill 4 mosquitoes (okay, so now I’m a mass murderer, I’ll try becoming a serial killer in the next few days) and that, I hope, is a lesson for those blood-thirsty pests! (yeah, like they’ll get the point)

I’ll keep you posted on my mosquito-killing spree (that is, if I achieve any more outstanding daily figures – lol!)

PS: by “daily figures” I mean the number of mosquitoes killed in a day ;)

Forwarding e-mails

Hey there, I know I forward quite a lot of e-mails, and I don't really know whether you like them. Of course, I've told you a few times that if you don't want them, you can let me know and I'll try to remember not to send any more to you...but then, I'd really like to know whether you like them or whether you just put up with them :P

But one thing I don't understand about some people forwarding e-mails is who they forward them to. Sometimes I get a fwd from a friend, and a few days later, I get the exact same thing from another friend who had received the fwd with me! I mean, we get the same fwd, we can see that the other has received it, what's the point of sending it to someone who has already seen it? It's really...well, useless. So just think a bit before sending out that fwd...

And if you have a little more time on your hands, you can even check out the truth of some forwarded e-mails on this site. ;)

The countdown has started...

My flight back to France is on the 14th Sept... so now I've entered into the single-digits of the countdown... Now I have to start thinking of how I'm going to clear up my apartment when I get back... :/

Moving sucks...each time I move my stuff gets more messed up...it's time to put some order into things...and try not to move any more for the next four years!

Brain teaser

Here goes, try solving this ;)

A robbery occurred at a bank in a prestigious neighborhood
late one night. After a thorough investigation the police
came up with a suspect and went to question him on March 26.
However, when they asked the man where he had been on the
28th of the previous month he said his mother had died and
he was out of town making funeral arrangements and attending
her funeral. He said he left on the 27th and returned on the
30th so he couldn't possibly have committed the robbery. How
did the police officer know he was lying?

(answer further below)














The police visited him in March, so the previous month was
February. Since February only has 28 or 29 days he couldn't
possibly have returned on the 30th.

I can't believe I didn't see that! Did you?

Broken? Smashed?

Here's a funny site about "broken" stuff: This is Broken

I'll be adding it to the links on the sidebar ;)

Save BM!

When I came back during last year's summer holidays, I saw the word "bajet" for the first time on TV. I went like "What on earth is that?", then realised later that it was meant to be "budget" in BM. But I still thought that it sounded awful...why not use "belanjawan"?

Then this year, to my horror I saw two other "hybrids" of Malay and English. In a parking place I saw a sign saying "reseb". Now what on earth is that? Do you know? However, this time I found out immediately what it meant, since on the same sign, just below the horrible "reseb", was written "reserved" in English. Ouch! Isn't there a word for "reserved" in BM? "Dikhaskan", or simply "khas" would have done just as well.

The second one was "lorong sikal". So since "bicycle" translates as "basikal", someone thought that "cycle" should translate as "sikal"? Why not "lorong kayuh"? (okay, I admit that it doesn't sound much better, but at least it uses BM!)

But then, whatever. It's not like I have a say in this :/

3 Ghost Stories

Haha, this is to show that ghostly happenings can have logical explanations! :D
(thanks to Geok Ching for sending me this :P)

PS. The stories are really good! lol

Ghost Story #1
---

When I was young, I lived in a deserted kampong deep in the
jungle. Every night, my mother would ask me not to go home
too late as there won't be any transportation after a
certain time.
One night, before going home, I ta pao a kueh teow soup for
supper. I was late and I waited for the taxi/bus but there
was none. I was getting worried as the night was getting
darker and darker. So I tried to flag down private vehicles
to take me home.
There was no one stopping for me, till one motorcyclist took
compensation on me and stopped to give me a lift. He was a
man with a kind face. I accepted his offer and got onto his
motorbike.
On the way home, we would pass by a temple. At night, the
temple would look eerily spooky with the dim lights from the
candles.
At first,
the motorcyclist was warm and friendly. When the temple was
approaching, the motorcyclist eyes grown bigger and bigger.
His kind face turned to a face of anger. He was muttering
something loud but was not audible to me. I was so scared
that I closed my eyes in order not to see his angry face.
Then, the motorcylist stopped in front of the temple and
then yelled at me.
"Your kueh teow soup is so hot!! It is burning my thigh! Can
you please move it away???"


Ghost Story #2
---

When I was young, I have two friends who were very close to
each other. They played with each other everyday. It was
like, if you see A, you would see B next to him. They were
always together.
A loved fried eggs. Whenever he went out for lunch or dinner
, without fail, he would ask for fried egg on top of his
noodles, fried rice, etc.
One day, A involved in an accident and died.
B was devastated. B went to the cemetery to pray everyday.
He would go
to the nearest restaurant and ta pao a box of fried rice
with an egg on top to be offered to A when he went to pray
to him.
The next day, he opened the box and there was no egg inside!
B was petrified. He thought, must be A who came and took the
fried egg away.
The same thing happened the next day and the day after that.
B was confused. So, one day, he asked the chef to make the
same fried rice with a fried egg again. Then, he went to the
cemetery to offer it to A. Curious, he opened the box to
check for the egg. He was angry to find that, there was no
fried egg in the box after all.
Feeling that he had been cheated, he went back to the
restaurant and demanded to see the Chef. "Where is the fried
egg?? I told you there must be a fried egg inside!! You have
cheated me for a few days now! Gimme back my money!!"
Then, the Chef got really angry and opened the box - the
fried egg was inside the box.
The
Chef said, "Stupid! You open the box upside down. No wonder
you cannot see the egg!!"


Ghost Story #3
---

When I was young, I went to town to work with a group of
friends during our summer holidays of two months. Being
young and away from home for the first time, we drank and
smoke like nobody's business.
One night, we were pissed drunk and flagged the last bus
down to go home.
Being tired, we slept in the bus.
It had been awhile that I fell asleep. I was awake by the
chilly wind. I was shocked to find that there was no one in
the bus, and I was the last passenger. I looked in front to
check out for the driver. But the driver was no where in
sight. Yet, the bus was moving.
I panicked shitless. I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I
was not dreaming. The night was dark and cold.
I hysterically jumped out from the bus and tried to run as
hard as I could to get away.
Then I heard someone yelled at me from
behind the bus.
"Hey! Don't run away! Come over here and help to push the
bus!" yelled the bus driver.
I saw my other friends helping to push the bus, which broke
down while I was asleep.

I'm baaack!

Hey hey...it's been a long time since I last posted. I'm now back in Malaysia for the summer holidays after my practical. I don't know whether I'll be writing much about it, though. It seems to be stale news...:P

My flight back to France is on the 14th of Sept, classes are starting on the 18th. Hopefully I'll be able to catch some of you in Kuantan! :)

Smileys

I don't know why I suddenly thought of this, but I've come to a decision. (lol, don't worry, it's nothing serious) I've decided to stop using the "-" when I type smileys. Up till now I often type :-) ;-) :-P etc... now I've decided that I'll stop doing that; I'll start using :) ;) :P or maybe :p. After all, it's the same thing ;)

Hmm...I don't know how long it'll take for me to get used to it, though (haha)

Anyway tomorrow is my last day of exams, only Physics left to go! At 5pm tomorrow I'll be on holiday! (if you don't count my one-month practical...) So tomorrow night we'll be having a barbecue to celebrate! :)

The Service des stages (the office taking care of our contracts for the practical) here is terrible in organising, though. I mean, I'm starting my practical on Monday, and they say they will give us our contracts tomorrow (Thursday) For those who are starting later, it's okay, but if we're starting next Monday, we hardly have enough time to contact the company and ask what time we start, etc... And they didn't even tell us that they would give us the contracts right after our test (we found out only because we went to ask), some people might be going home right after the test, maybe take their train at 6pm, and they wouldn't have time to hang around after the test! Duh...lousy organising, I call it. :-/

Blunders...

Here are a few real quotes I came across, enjoy! ;-)
(the remarks between [...] are from me :-P)

"Smoking kills, and if you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
-Anti-smoking spokesperson Brooke Shields
[Agreed!]

"Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas"
-Former Australian cabinet minister Keppel Enderbery
[Yes, that sounds logical to me.]

"They're multipurpose. Not only do they put the clips on, but they take them off."
-Pratt & Whitney spokesperson explaining why the company charged the Air Force nearly $1000 for an ordinary pair of pliers.
[Oh, that's wonderful! What I wouldn't give to be able to put on clips and take them off!]

"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it."
-A congressional candidate in Texas
[Go ahead, it's nice to see a jackass so enthusiastic for the job.]

rotfl :-D

After ten 15s...

I got a 14! While listening to Robbie Williams' Something Beautiful. It is something beautiful :-P

A little trivia

Did you know that the sum of the first n odd numbers equals n squared (n²)?

Examples:
1+3 = 4 = 2²
1+3+5 = 9 = 3²

It's just something I came across while revising (a part of a programmation question) Interesting, huh? ;-)

Exam week!

Here we go, it's exam week! One test a day, for 4 days, then it'll be over! After that I'll be moving into my new apartment (hehe, rented, not bought :-P) and Monday I'll be starting my practical. During that time I don't know whether I'll have internet access, so who knows, my blog might go into hibernation. But then, if I have internet access, I might just write a whole lot :-P

I must say that writing that "about me" post did me some good, it was nice to put everything down in words. And it allows me to put a permanent link in my profile ^_^

About me?

I didn't know what to write in the "about me" part in my profile. The thing is, I can't be summarized in a few words. I'm a complicated person, I guess. But then, I'm also quite simple. (get ready for paradoxes, there just might be more to come)

Actually I feel that there is no one in the world who really knows me. Some people know me better than others, of course. But there are just some sides of me that show more when I'm with certain people. I don't try to be that way, it's just, well, that way.

So I decided to write a post about me. It'll be a post that I can edit and add to from time to time, 'cos I'm sure that I won't be able to put everything down in one sitting (there'll surely be stuff I haven't thought of) I just hope that in the end it won't get too long :-P

(okay, it turned out to be quite long, read it if you like, haha)

Where shall I start? My blog, I guess. It's as good a place as any. I kinda like writing. I like putting my thoughts into words. But then here comes the paradox (again; I warned you! :-P): with a blog I could put all my thoughts into words, honestly, without holding back. But do I really want people to read all my thoughts? The problem rests here: some of my thoughts are okay to be shared with certain people, but not others, especially when it concerns them. You could say that a blog can serve as a site to vent anger on. (haha, now you'll say that I never get angry anyway) But when you're angry at someone, are you going to yell it on your blog so that that person can see it? I don't know, but I don't think I can do it. I am honest on my blog, but I also keep it slightly toned down, so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. So, whatever you read, don't take offense.

That brings me to another point. I'm too good for my own good. Not all the time, but still a bit too often. Take the getting angry part. I seldom show my emotions, and that means anger included. That's why quite a lot of my friends would say that they have never seen me angry. (not my family, though! lol) But there have been several instances when I have been boiling mad at someone, but I didn't show it. Sometimes I get mad over little things. But being logical, I know that they are little things, and so I don't make a fuss. And that's also why no one know's that I'm angry.

Now, logic. That's one of my most prized possessions. (lol) I have a very logical mind (at least, I think so) Logic helps me get through a lot of things, including my studies (or should I say, especially my studies?) Anyway, there you go, it's one of my most prized possessions ;-)

I am maybe slightly weird. Normal, but weird (I told you to get ready for paradoxes, remember?) I have a weird sense of humour, for one. I don't know of anyone else who really shares my sense of humour. I don't even know how to describe it. One of the things I like is wordplay. I like playing with words, twisting them so that they can have two different meanings (or more!). That's why I also like paradoxes :-)

I am also particular. Only in certain things, though. I am very particular about language and spelling. (hehe, in this case I know of at least one other person who's like me, though I don't know if it extends to all languages :-P) To me, a word is unique because of its spelling. I can understand that sometimes typos happen, but there shouldn't be too many either. I'm also particular about using capital letters for names. Most of the time I try to use capital letters for proper nouns, but sometimes I get lazy and put them all in small letters. But I am very very particular about NAMES. The name of a person is a proper noun. If you write it in small letters, you are reducing the person to a common noun. And that's not very nice, is it? (you'll say that I'm exaggerating, but then, that's me!) That's also why I put WP as my name on my blog, instead of my whole name. It's because I had already seen that in comments, the name always comes out in small letters. And I don't want my name in small letters. That shows you how particular I am. (wp is still acceptable) Also about language, I like originals. I prefer books and films in their original language. Of course, for books, a translation is acceptable if i don't understand the original language. For films, well...I would try my best to see the original (subtitled, yes, but not dubbed!)

Another thing is that I don't really like "needless" abbreviations. I feel that if a word is short enough (by my standards lol) then there should be no reason to use an abbreviation. Which is why I don't use abbreviations for "got to go" and "be right back" but I use "lol" :P Maybe it's weird, but that's the way it is. [Paragraph added 30th Dec 2006]

So here comes the next thing (or actually the same thing, in different words): I'm a stickler for details. Spelling and grammar, as you have already seen. But there are other things as well. I can't really think of any right now, though. Oh yeah, I just thought of one: in my pencil-case all pencils and pens have their points facing the same way. A negligible detail for those who don't know. ;-)

And here you go: I am proud. I am extremely proud (but I can listen to reason as well, and I'm proud of that – go figure! lol) As I said in my quotables, pride is a virtue, excessive pride is not. ;-) I am proud of who I am. And it brings me to: who am I? I am the result of my parents' upbringing, first and foremost. I believe that one's childhood is one's basic formation, you can't take that away. However, I read a lot, and from reading, I have formed thoughts and opinions, and that is who I am today.

Now this is for all of you who already know me and have formed an opinion about me. I don't know whether your perception will change with this blog. I would just like you to know that this blog reflects me. The "me" that you know is also me. I am exactly as you know me (note that I said know me, and not think), yet here, you might find some aspects of me that you didn't know. (but don't worry too much about my particularities, if we got along till now I don't see why we can't go on getting along :-P)

So you see, I can't be summed up in a few words. :-P

Oh yeah, I also place a lot of importance on loyalty and trust. [added 12th June; the post is labeled 12th June as well, but that was last night...]

I've got a soft spot for cute and cuddlies...:P [added 31st Dec 2006]

I’m more of a listener, not a talker. I don’t like interrupting, so I only talk when no one else is (and when I have something to say, of course) Which probably explains why I am more lively online. [added 5th Jan 2007]
To quote from my quotables: I don't talk, I write. ;) [added 24th April 2008]

An egg. Hard shell, tender yolk. But it’s gonna be hard to break through that hard shell and get to that tender yolk.