Harry Potter book cover

I would never have looked so closely at a book cover...
Judging a book by its cover

I wanna read the book!

Riddle - do you know your gems?

I don't :P I only got three.

If you like pretty gems that sparkle and shine,
I invite you to dig in my virtual mine.
My first is purple, fit for a king,
My second is green where Dorothy did her thing.
My third is red, July's birthstone as well,
My fourth is seen in strings and is found inside a shell.
My fifth is hard, pure Carbon and expensive to buy,
My sixth is Crocidolite, striped like the big cat's eye.
Seventh is two words, a man-made fake of April's stone,
Eighth is very dark and found at Lightning Ridge alone.
Now take from each gem, one letter in its turn,
And you will find the stuff for which even the gods yearn.


_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_.-:*'``'*:-.,_


Answer:

The gems are
Amethyst
Emerald (Emerald city - Wizard of OZ)
Ruby
Pearl (From inside oyster shell)
Diamond
Tiger's eye
Cubic Zirconium (Fake diamond)
Black Opal
Taking the first letter of Amethyst, second of Emerald, etcetera gives
Ambrosia - The food of the gods.

I've been tagged...again

I just had a Maths test yesterday and a Physics practical (test) today, and now I have only 2 days (or 1 and a half day of classes) to go before having 2 weeks of holidays! So it's a good time as any to reply to tags. This time it's from Casper...a kind of "getting to know someone" thingy. I won't be answering all the questions, though, since some are a bit too weird...

LAYER 1: ON THE OUTSIDE.
Name: (for privacy's sake, I'm not putting it in such an obvious place, if you come here, you should know it already!)
Birth Date: 22nd December 1985
Current Status: single (JPA's not gonna let me get married right? :P)
Eye Colour: brown/black
Hair Colour: black
Righty or Lefty: righty

LAYER 2: ON THE INSIDE.
My Heritage : Chinese - Hokkien
My Fears : no idea, either too many or none
My Perfect Pizza : er...not sure...definitely hot (I mean temperature, though spiciness would be welcome as well) without any smelly cheese :P

LAYER 3: YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW.
My Thoughts First Waking Up : What time is it?
My Bedtime : around 11pm (or at least I try)
My Most Missed Memory: no idea, they come and go (maybe...being a little carefree kid? :P)

LAYER 4: MY PICK.
Pepsi or Coke: don't like either
McDonald's or Burger King: not very sure, McDonald's, I guess, since I'm missing fried chicken right now...(I still prefer KFC though :P)
Single or Group Dates: depends
Adidas or Nike: dunno, both are too expensive anyway
Tea or Nestea: depends
Chocolate or Vanilla: depends
Cappuccino or Coffee: cappuccino

LAYER 5: DO YOU...
Smoke: no
Curse: ahem, you won't hear me
Take a Shower: sure I do!
Have a Crush: hmm...
Think You've Been In Love: with who? what?
Go To School: yeah
Want To Get Married: no, certainly not for now
Believe In Yourself: yeah, I guess
Think You're A Health Freak: no

LAYER 6: IN THE PAST.
Drank Alcohol: no
Gone To The Mall : sometimes
Been On Stage: er, in primary school, does that count? (yes? wowee, I'm a star! lol)
Eaten Sushi: yup
Dyed Your Hair: no

LAYER 7: HAVE YOU EVER...
Played A Stripping Game: no
Changed Who You Were To Fit In: don't think so, but if I did it was for the better, 'cos I don't have any regrets right now...

LAYER 8: AGE YOU'RE HOPING...
To Be Married: dunno

LAYER 9: IN A GUY...
Best Eye Colour: don't care
Best Hair Colour: don't care
Short Hair or Long Hair: short. Definitely short. (so I can see his face...hehe)

LAYER 10: WHAT WERE YOU DOING...
A Minute Ago: typing these answers la!
An Hour Ago: preparing my Maths
4.5 Hours Ago: preparing or eating my dinner
1 Month Ago: just re-started classes after the winter hols
1 Year Ago: 2nd sem of first year INSA

LAYER 11: FINISH THE SENTENCES...
I love: lots of stuff
I hate: everything! (muahaha)
I hide: under my blanket lol!
I miss: *sniff* *sniff* now you've made me sad thinking of all the things I miss...horrible Casper :P
I need: lots of things, but I want more (haha)

There you go. This time it's tag 6 more people and leave them comments on their blogs telling them about it. So I'm gonna tag Ai Leen (we must return gifts :P), Alex, and Lionel (those who haven't shown any signs of life since my last tag). And anyone else who might like to reply (I'm skeptical :P), since I still have 3 spaces left.

What's my true talent?

I just did a “true talent” test on Tickle, and they told me that my primary talent is abstract reasoning. Then they gave me a list of careers based on my test results (there were scores for other “talents” as well), and here it is:

Since I have to choose which branch of engineering to specialise in next year, I took a good look at the list they gave me. For now I’ve narrowed it down to 2 choices: electrical engineering (most likely) or energetic (and environmental) engineering. I considered doing materials stuff as well, or even mechanical, but after looking through what they do, I felt that they were too “exclusively” mechanical. At least if I do electrical/energetic I’ll be doing a bit of mechanical as well, since it’s everywhere... And *blam!* there it is in the list: “electrical engineer”. No more, no less. Is it a sign? :P

Note that “computer programmer” is in the list as well... I kinda like programming, but then I really hate going through a programme to “kill” all the bugs...and I like to be able to give up when I’m tired of not being able to think of a solution :P (‘cos the problems aren’t always interesting...) So...no, I’m not doing that.

If you want to try the test, go here. For the moment (I don't know for how long) the test results are free, which is great because you get a report with all your answers and the right answers. Usually they will give you the general result and if you want to know more you have to buy the report.

Do you study law? :P

>Title : Why British think 80% of M'sians coming to UK to study law?
>
>
>UK Immigration Officer: Purpose of visit?
>
>Visitor: I'm here to study law, sir.
>
>Officer: You know, you must have a lot of lawyers in Malaysia .
>
>Visitor: Why do you say that?
>
>Officer: Well, i've been here for a good twenty years, and I'd say 80% of
>Malaysians I see here say they're here to read law.
>
>Visitor: Oh, really? That's really something i never knew. Hard to believe
>in fact.
>
>Officer: Just you watch, then. You just stand here until the next
Malaysian
>comes along, and I'll bet he's here to read law.
>
>*Visitor waits for 5 mins, Ah Chong from Malaysia comes to immigration
>counter*
>
>Officer: Mr. Ah Chong, purpose of visit?
>
>Ah Chong: Study lorr...

[Thanks to Geok Ching]

CNY celebration in Tours

A video of the cny celebration in Tours earlier this year. It last about 20 minutes. I wasn't there, but for Kuantan people, do look out for an ex-SABS-ian! ;)
(Of course, INTEC people can look for ex-INTEC-ians... :P)

Of who and that

What happened to using “who” to talk about a person? I’m hearing very often “That’s the person that...”. Isn’t it supposed to be “That’s the person who...”? I find it pretty disrespectful to turn a person into a thing... (it doesn't seem to bother anyone else, which is rather weird)

What you find out from reading blogs

First I saw this, thanks to Casper: What people say in court
I've read these jokes before, but it still made me crack up with laughter :D So I guess it's worth sharing ^_^ (even though I might have shared it before :P)

Then thanks to Alex's blog I found out that the French "spiderman" has tried to climb the twin towers again... and going to the Star's page I saw another article about a solar halo.


Not bad for gathering information, huh? :P

Kejamnya!

Okay, this video is funny...but *sniff* they mistreat Pikachu so!

note: kejamnya! ~ so cruel!

silversphere

Check out this game: silversphere

It's a bit like Chip's Challenge, if you know the game ;) But here there are only 25 levels, so it's better, at least we're able to finish it. I've finished it, with a little help on two levels...:P

Edit: Anyway here are the passwords for the last few levels...I don't have those for the earlier levels any more, but I really didn't feel like throwing these away! :P
20 : tunnel
21 : traverse
22 : stampede
23 : pressure
24 : accuracy
25 : labyrinth

anh se ve som thoi (Vietnamese song)

It's a nice song! And the performers aren't too bad either, eh? They really have style! Guess what, this video was done last year, in our INSA hostel.(those are my batchmates) I just found out that quite a lot of INSA students make youtube videos. Thanks Marc and Hélène for telling me that, and of course, a special thanks to the stars of the video! :D

It's lip-synching, okay, but it's really well done!

I've been tagged!

Not having been tagged before, I haven't got a more original title for this post :P So what's this tagging thing? It seems that if you're tagged, you have to answer 3 questions:

Q1: Who is the most wanted blogger you want to meet?
Q2: Who is the group of blogger you most wanted to meet?

Q3: Who is the “I can meet, want to meet but somehow never get to meet blogger’?
and then tell everyone about 3 weird things you do. Then at the end, you're supposed to tag 5 other people (bloggers). It seems that this lets people discover new, lesser-known blogs.
My cousin, Ai Leen got tagged, and she in turn tagged me. Sorry it took so long for me to post my reply...but better late than never, right? ;) (and I had my other post to write...which was way overdue as well!)

Well, so let's go...
Q1: I don't really get the meaning of the question either...or is it a distortion of "Who is the blogger you most want to meet?"? To go with Ai Leen's interpretation (famous), I'm not sure...I do visit Kenny Sia's blog, it's funny, interesting, etc...but I can't really say that I want to meet him. It hasn't got that far. (lol!) So I think I'll choose Xeus instead. Though I have to say that it's more for the sake of choosing someone!

Q2: I don't know any :P Is there such a thing as a group of bloggers? Someone let me know...

Q3: Hmm...I don't think there's anyone. Let's just say that if I hadn't met Alex before, it'd be him, since he's also studying in France and we could meet up if we really wanted to. But since I have met him, I can't say that any more...

Now, on to the three weird things. At first I couldn't think of any, but since then I've had time to think!
Weird thing #1:
I don't like cold plain water. Don't get me wrong, I like cold drinks well enough, but not plain water. Plain water is best at room temperature. Don't ask me why... Even in France where we can drink water straight from the tap, I fill a bottle and leave it aside so that it'll be at room temperature when I drink it! (water from the tap is warm or cold depending on which tap you choose, but NEVER at room temperature) Most of my friends fill bottles to put into the fridge, otherwise they'd just fill a cup and drink!

Weird thing #2:
I need to be able to know the time at any time of the day. It really bothers me when I feel like knowing the time but can't. So every time I go out, I musn't forget my watch. This is from a long time ago...I still remember once when I forgot to wear my watch to school (in primary school!) and the whole day I looked at my wrist for goodness knows how many times... Now if I ever forget my watch I will go back and get it even if I'm already at the bottom floor (I'm on the 7th floor now, luckily it hasn't happened since I moved here), as long as that won't make me late for class, of course ;)

Weird thing #3:
Okay, this will probably surprise you. But then again, it shouldn't (see sidebar). I have a no-links policy for my blog. The thing is, if people link to my blog, I'll end up not knowing who's visiting my blog, and there could be perfect strangers coming and reading what I write. There's very little chance of that happening, of course, it's not like my blog is that interesting (see the title?) But then again, it could happen... for this tagging business I've decided not to spoil the fun and leave the tags for a while...then after a bit I'll have to go around clearing them up. In the meantime I'll have to think about whether to change my policy and allow links after all...but then I'll have to be more careful about what I write...

So now it's my turn to tag someone... hmm...I don't have that many friends who blog often, and I don't even know whether they read mine, so here goes:
I tag Alex, Chee Chung, Hung Jen and See Hua (killing two birds with one stone :P), and Lionel.
Of course, if any of you have a no-links policy like I do, just let me know and I'll remove the link right away. (but I rather doubt that you have...)

Edit: So it seems that I'm not the only weird one! Alex doesn't want links to his blog either...

My trip to the UK

I've taken my time, but finally I'm going to write about my trip to the UK :P

I went there for almost a week, leaving Lyon on Tuesday and coming back on Sunday. However, the last day was mainly spent in the airport, so that doesn't really count...so we could call it a 5-day trip.

First I went to London (I took a flight from Lyon) The first day there I didn't really see much; for one thing I didn't really know what I wanted to see (sad, but true...lol), and which places were close together (so that I could visit them together...I wasn't going to go from one end of London to the other and then back again, right? Even if I had bought a day ticket...) It also rained (actually it rained every single day I was in the UK, just a little more or a little less (or a little earlier or a little later :P)) so I took shelter in the National Gallery for some time :P So for the first day I went to the tourism office, and that night I went through the brochures and made plans for the next day! Luckily it was pretty sunny on Wednesday (a little rain, but only for a moment) so I could go around easily, and get some pretty nice photos :)

The Buckingham Palace was a must, of course, and I got lucky: I didn't even know at what time was the changing of guards (I didn't even think of it!), but when I arrived there were already quite a lot of people waiting for it, so I decided to wait as well. There is a downside to it, though: I believe it was there that I used up most of my camera batteries' power, so at the end of the day (luckily it wasn't earlier) my batteries died out on me. But then the best photos were already taken, so it wasn't that bad :)

And an extra: For anyone who's going to London, I have something to recommend: Brazilian cheese bread! It's warm and...uh, nice :P Well, in any case, I liked it. It's like a bun...a bit oily, though :P (It costs 1 pound) Hehe, I'm sure you're wondering how on earth I managed to stumble upon Brazilian stuff in London. On the flight I looked through the flight magazine, and it recommended several restaurants for several towns. So I checked out London, and noted this one:
Brasil by Kilo
17 Oxford Street, W1
It's actually a buffet-style restaurant (they called it buffet-style, but in Malaysia we'd call it mixed rice ;) ), the difference is that you pay by weight. So if you don't eat a lot, you can just take a little and pay for that (and not for a ready-made portion that you can't finish...) But besides the cheese bread, I didn't find it very special... And oh yeah, if you go looking for it you'll have to look carefully...it's above a telephone shop, so there's just a small sign at the bottom of the stairs.

On Thursday I flew to Edinburgh. When I reached there, Wei-Iou (a Kuantan friend who's studying in Edinburgh) had class, so I spent some time walking around by myself first. I like Edinburgh, it reminds me of Angoulême! :D Then when Wei-Iou got back we walked around a bit more before it got dark, we walked up to the Edinburgh castle, but didn't go in. That night she took me to try haggis, a Scottish dish (hehe, heard of it before?), I found it nice! ;)

The next day Wei-Iou had class, and I went to Glasgow. I went first to the Botanic Gardens, the greenhouses were nice, but since it was winter there wasn't mush to see outside. Then I went to the Tall Ship, which is an actual ship that was used before, it's now open to the public, we can go into the ship to look around (there's an entrance fee, though :P) After that I went to the Museum of Transport. One notable thing there was that they had recreated an actual street in a corridor, there were cars parked on the side, displays in shop windows, and we could even go into the "cinema". At the end of the corridor there's a painted wall that gives the illusion that the street goes on...

A few hours before returning to Edinburgh, I met up with an online friend who lives in Stirling and we walked about in the town of Glasgow. (the places I mentioned earlier were a bit further from town, I had to take the subway to get to each place...and walk a bit from each subway station!) He made me try a Scottish soft drink called Irn Bru (read "iron brew"), supposedly only found in Scotland...but somehow it reminded me of something, only I can't figure out what.

On Saturday I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh with Wei-Iou, we also went to the Museum of Childhood, and to a shopping complex called Ocean Terminal (beside the sea...or ocean :P) Another Scottish speciality I tried was fried Mars bar, it's a Mars bar dipped in batter and deep-fried. I don't specially like Mars bars, but the fried one was great! (hmm...now who's gonna fry one for me? :P)

That night I met up with Hanaë, a friend from my first year in INSA who's also studying in Edinburgh. We chatted over dinner, exchanging news.

Sunday I had to get back to Lyon...I had class on Monday! I left Edinburgh early in the morning, but only to reach Stansted airport in London at about 10am, where I had to wait 8 hours for my next flight to Lyon! I spent that time mostly reading...I finished reading all the issues of Newsweek that I hadn't had time to read (there was the current issue and a special issue that I had put off reading for some time...), and when I had finished, I went into a bookshop and stood there for almost 2 hours reading an Agatha Christie book. I wasn't sure whether we were allowed to read there, so each time someone came by, I had to pretend I wasn't really reading the book, that I was just looking at a few pages... but in the end I managed to finish it! :D (it was a book of short stories on Miss Marple)

So now that my text report is written, let's move on to the photos! :D There aren't many special ones, though, especially since London stuff are pretty much well-known...you've probably seen all of them before.

Trafalgar Square, taken from the National Gallery

London Eye

Big Ben and Westminster Hall, taken from across the Thames (from the London Eye’s side)

Temple Church (I read Da Vinci Code, so I decided to go and take a look. I couldn't go in, though, there was a concert)

Tower Bridge

the Tall Ship

the recreated street in the Museum of Transport

Edinburgh Castle

haggis, potatoes and turnips

Palace of Holyroodhouse (I didn’t want to pay to go in, so I had to take photos from between the bars of the gate; it didn't turn out too bad, though)

Actual statements found on insurance forms

The following are actual statements found on insurance forms where car drivers attempted to summarize the detail of an accident in the fewest words possible. The instances of faulty writing serve to confirm that even incompetent writing may be highly entertaining:

• Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.


• The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intentions.


• I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head through it.


• I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.


• A truck backed through my windsheld into my wife's face.


• The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.


• I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.


• In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.


• I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.


• I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident.


• I had been driving for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.


• My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vwehicle.


• The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him.


• A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.


• As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.


• I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him.


• I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounded off the roof of my car.


• I told police that I was not injured but on removing my hat found that I had a fractured skull.


• The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.


• I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.


• The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of its way, when it struck the front end.

[Taken from e-laughs, I just discovered it and added it to my links ^_^]

Chap Goh Meh's eve (Part 2)

I wrote the previous post last night...quickly, before I forgot :P I hope it's comprehensible...if it isn't give me comments and I'll edit it. I'm not going to edit it if everyone understands it, right?

Anyway last night we had dinner together...we had 3 dishes of chicken! (which made us call it a chicken buffet...lol) There was roast chicken, "pek cham kei" and red chicken wings (okay, I invented this name since I don't know what to call it!) We also had soup, some kind of wantan, chicken rice, and um...cucumber and tomatoes, salad...

Then for dessert we first had kuih sagu (which I made...with my mother's recipe!), then cheesecake topped with chocolate mousse! (which Goh made...it was very good! he even decorated it with strawberries...or was it him? :P)


Anyway, it was after our first round of dessert that we started "gambling"...since we were quite full and couldn't really eat dessert. After a first round of bankruptcy, we had the cheesecake and continued with the game I mentioned in the last post.

Chap Goh Meh's eve

This is so crazy I have to write about it... We were, ahem, gambling...with paper money...and I mean really paper money! As opposed to real paper money ;)

Then we decided to play a game where we each start with 5 cards, with the person who starts having 6 cards. We have to get 3 pairs to win. The person who starts discards a card and the player beside him can choose to take the card or take a new one from the pile, then in turn discards one to the player on the other side of him. And so on till someone gets 3 pairs. But if we already have 2 pairs, we can "potong jalan" and take a card discarded by anyone to win.

And here's what happened: We had a few "uneventful" games, and at the start of a game, the first card discarded was picked up to win the game. (meaning the game ends at once, see?) Then in the very next game, the person who was supposed to start discovered that his 3 cards made up 3 pairs exactly. And the next game yet: it seemed to start normally, the person who started had 2 pairs, discarded one card, and would you have guessed it, the next player discarded the card the first player needed to win!

[for the purpose of future reference:
first game: Reen started, Xin Zhu won
2nd game: Ping Tarng's "winning start" :P
3rd game: I started and won! muahaha ]