Eight

"Since then, Snow White married the prince and they live together happily ever after."
As always, it's a wonderful happy ending for a fairy tale. But, what if a funeral ensued after this 'happily-ever-after-ending'? What if it's a funeral of Snow White's newly-born baby?

Few days ago, I received a harrowing news-A baby who wasn't even 2 months old choked to death while drinking milk. [Indeed, it caused a paroxysms of misery.] A day before that day, I saw a kitten laid dying in the middle of the road when I was on the way to the college. About two weeks before that, my uncle who had been 'always healthy' died of a sudden heart attack in his dreams. Five years ago, the brother of my just died uncle(who happened to be my uncle also) succumbed to colon cancer and made his wife widow.

Death occurs everyday. I then see that life is fragile. Looking back at all the things that I've done and whined about, I realize how greedy and immature I am in these 18 years. So, besides starting to appreciate every single person that I've met so far, I decided to confront my phobia and make a change in myself. I don't want to be a compliant girl anymore. That's the reason why I refused to give in today. [Syireen tried to 'reserve' a seat(the one which I usually sit at) for Atiqah who hadn't entered the class but I insisted to sit there no matter what.] Believe it or not, it was the first time for me for being so rude...no, let's call it 'indomitable', as to fight for ...my seat(first come first get basic) which I consider it as my right! I'm sorry for being rude anyway...It's just that I should learn how to say 'no' instead of nodding my head all the time, I think.

Life's short and unpredictable. The next thing I have in my mind is to tell my parents I love them and show them my concern and love. Although Tachibanna says it's not true when we say it out, we should tell them at least once. For instance, during our own birthday. If we can confess to a guy/girl who we have a crush on, why can't we say it to these two persons who top the list of dignitaries in our life?

I could never really believe that I sound like preaching in my academic blog... Let's say this is what I've learned this week. In short, be content.

Lastly, I would like to express my condolence to what happened to the Snow White. Perhaps the baby had been taken away much too early but I believe that God has a reason for it... I could never fathom how the Snow White feels like, as the truth is cruel enough to upset an outsider like me. I sincerely pray that she'll be alright.

Seven

Again, it's Friday. My mom said something like this when she first taught me the names of the seven days in a week. Every Day came with its owning meaning along with its name. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember most of them except for "Friday". "Friday is called "Friday" because it's the day to 'fly away'",quoted from my mom who was talking to her five/six-year-old daughter. She was right as Fridays used to be the days I yearned for. It is only when I was told to create an academic blog that I started to loathe Fridays. It's something akin to the condition when you are suffering from gastric pain- you vomit even though you didn't eat anything and you have your face on top of the toilet bow for hours and at last all that come out from your mouth are the yellowish liquid.

Again, I have to clarify that this is only my personal opinion about this...blogging stuff. Anyway, three good things happened today(which is Friday). Firstly, we were encouraged to voice up our dissatisfaction regarding to palpable injustice in the arrangement of our timetable. Why do architecture students get afternoon classes always and what privilege do the engineering students possess to have their classes in the morning and then spend the rest of the day happily at home? Please do not tell me that it is fair as all of us have the same length of studying in the college. It is an indisputable fact that engineering students have more time to study or to do homework or for whatsoever things they want to do compared to architecture students who have to attend classes at the afternoon.

Normal human beings sleep at night and work during the day. We(architecture students) have to stay up late night and wake up early in the morning to do our homework and revision as well whereas the engineering students live a normal and healthy lifestyle as they are all given 6-hour-daytime to complete everything they have to. You may suggest a healthy lifestyle practice for the architecture students.For example, sleep at 12am and wake up at 7am to set off the day. If all of us were to practise this so-called 'healthy lifestyle', the lecturers could probably expect the students to sleep during their lessons. This will eventually influence our studies as we could not concentrate at all. How to focus when you feel drowsy? The only way to cure drowsiness is to close your eyes and sleep, isn't it? That's why when I first looked at my Ausmat timetable I've already felt a great dislike to it. Now, although it is stated that 'the voice of the students is more powerful', I don't think the college authority could make any differences either. That's life. Life's meant to be mean.

Back to the three good things that happened today. The second thing was that we were asked if we needed any transportation from our student houses to the college. It's so touching that they finally take heed of the existence of the architecture students who are in the afternoon session after the seven weeks of the course commencement. They provide shuttle vans scheduled 8.30am, 1.00pm, and 5.30pm for the students before this. Thank to them that most of the architecture students have to wake up as early as that of the engineering students even though their classes start at 1pm. [Bear in mind that the vans refused to send the students from student house to college at 1pm as they only provide the 'college-to-houses' service at that time.] Again, architecture students have been put in the state of oblivion. Do you know how each of us[girls in particular] risks our lives as we cycled to college under the blazing sun with no signs of human beings except the construction workers who look at us in an offensive way? In fact, if you have ever tried to cycle from BU6 to the college, you'll know how energy-consuming it is that you lose all your strength when you reach your destination and as a result, you will be too exhausted for the lessons! It's great that they show their concern at last.

Well, the last thing is nothing more than my personal stuff. I could only say that I would try harder.

Again and again, I have to clarify that I bear no means of condemning any parties. Till then.

Six

This entry is post for sheer sharing purpose.

It's Valentine's Day. I switched on the television while holding my teddy bear in my arm. Then, I heard a wedding music before I saw the pictures. The music ensued with a narrative which made me burst into laughter. It was something like this-

"After the 308 tsunami, PAS, DAP and Keadilan registered and married as Pakatan Rakyat and were expected to lead a happy ever after life together. However, a crack has slowly surfaced in their relationship due to the skin-deep understanding between each others before their marriage. As a results, bickers and arguments happened almost every day in their life. On the other hand, they have five children(which are named as Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, Perak and Selangor) to take care of. Unfortunately, one of them has been kidnapped because of their ignorance and the lack of concern."

The narrative was then followed with an interview of the host with two guests. It is actually ntv7's latest Chinese offering entitled "Editor's Time" and it's aired on every Saturday at 6.00pm. Basically, "Editor's Time" is a talk show revolving the latest and hottest affairs of the week in the country. Together with the guests they will delve in that particular topic with in-depth analysis and debate over the issue. Well, I love politics. That's the reason why I spent 30 minutes watching it. (Time has become a scarcity since I came to KBU...) Furthermore, the show ended with a love song in conjunction with the Valentine's Day. It was really amusing when it suggested some flowers-dedication to somebody by somebody. Now I know that 13-stick of flowers represents 'I'm sorry' while 19 means patience and expectation. (I'm not sure if 'stick' is the appropriate word. Usually we say 'a bouquet of flowers', ain't we?)

I personally admire the producers' creativity in describing the relationship between the three political parties and the way they present their opinions in such a marvelous manner. Although it is a political issue, they managed to bind it to the valentine's moods. I seriously adore this episode and I bet it would be able to catch your attention as well with its extraordinary and interesting opening credit even if you were apolitical.

Last but not least, valentine's day is S.A.D at which it stands for Single Awareness Day.(As quoted from my friend) Happy S.A.D!

Five

I should't have prepared for the essay. I spent 3-day-time to memorize the themes, the main ideas, the key points, the examples and so forth but only to have all my budding hopes of getting a slightly better score squashed as a piece of hogwash was all that I managed to hand in today. Frankly speaking, I've known the question beforehand. Troublesome is my pieces of writing can never be any good whenever I am in the examination condition.

It's disheartening when this happens. "When you tried your best but you don't succeed...Could it be worse...~" quoted from the lyrics of the song "Fix You" sang by Coldplay. True enough, it sings my thoughts. What's worse is lecturer assume all of his students to have reached some kind of level in essay-writing and obviously I am not one of them. What happens when your hardwork doesn't pay off? Nothing.

On the other hand, lecturers are truly different from teachers. Not only in terms of how they are being called but also the way they teach. Despite the freedom of speech, I decide that I shouldn't elaborate my point of view about how they are different from each other. Also, studying in college is contradict to that of what we called "school life". In fact, I find myself hard to cope in this 'not-so-new' environment. People at here don't seem to have the gumption to do things(which are considered quite important as marks are counted in) and they are like...letting up... This is really difficult for me as I am actually a perfectionist(even though so far nothing perfect has been done) and I have no idea what is in their mind. There's no point for me to go against them either. I'm just an ordinary student in KBU and listening to me would be ludicrous.

This is supposed to be an academic blog but somehow I sound like kvetching about my personal stuff. I guess I shouldn't be blogging when I'm moody. So, as a whole,this is my thoughts about the test and the assignments. Till then.

Four

The seconds ticked by while we were floundering helplessly. We started our work at 8.30pm and we spent the following four hours to explore the newly introduced software on how to edit a video. We tried on each of its features such as audio editing, color correction, playback speed and so forth. What's more was that we had to squeeze everything to become a 30-second trailer and I guess that was the hardest part of the whole stuff. On top of that, searching for appropriate 'soundtrack' for the trailer was also a hard nut to crack. Above all, hanging out with IT is not a forte for all of us. That was why we were all in limbo at the very outset of our project.

However, all of us dug in as we wanted to complete it by tonight. Slowly and slowly, we became a dab hand at editing the video.(I am not trying to vaunt as it's just that I get a little bit exhilarated with our recently-acquired-skill) The greatest thing was to have learned how to cut scene. On the other hand, it took "kung fu" as well when it came to adjusting and matching the scenes with the music.

Apparently we started our work at 8.30pm. Nonetheless, it was only after 12.00am that we realized how a trailer is supposed to be after all. As we have never seen trailer of a documentary, the movie "Twilight" served as our inspiration as well as our reference point. Through it we decided that we should add in more words like "This Summer" and blah blah blah. Besides that, we came out with a lot of brilliant ideas which were easy to imagine(as quoted from Sarah) but almost impossible to get it done. We wanted to make it this way and that way and like this and like that but in the end there was only a small proportional of our splendid ideas were fulfilled.Well, what do you expect from a brunch of "almost IT retarded" teenagers who were exhausted and feeling superbly sleepy at the meanwhile?

Despite hitting the snag over and over again, I did enjoy myself. We laughed with a supremely great level of amplitude when we watched the 'video-in-process'(which we thought it is funny) and we sighed together when the outcome of the video did not reach our expectation. We redid part of it over and over again, searched for the music with intolerably slow connection and learned from our mistakes of course. (For example, you cannot transfer the "readily made scene" from this laptop to another laptop. You have to either do it in the same laptop or convert the "readily made scene" into video form first before you transfer it to another laptop.) Also, we learned not to be too demanding and practise the culture of 'letting go when it's the right time' when our attempt to delete the 'extra noise' was in vain.

We completed our trailer before three in the morning. We then went home and caught up our lost sleep in the early morning. That's a day.

Three

Yesterday, which was 5th of February, was the birthday of Shun Ling! Apparently, we (Ainin, Chia Venn, Fern, Hooi Ying, Jaevon and me) only wished her "happy birthday" and showed no signs of having a celebration for her. On the other hand, all of us were sticking closely with the brainchild which had been designed beforehand by Ainin and Hooi Ying.

Well, the party planning was kept under wraps. Lots of white lies had been told and not forgotten all the funny things happened throughout. For instance, initially, Ainin and Hooi Ying was meant to buy an eyeliner to her. They pretended as if it was Hooi Ying who wanted to buy one and asked Shun Ling to choose for her.(So they went to 1U) Thing turned out to be Shun Ling herself wanted to buy on the spot as well. Neither of them bought eyeliner eventually as they couldn't find the brand they wanted. What's more was Shun Ling wondered if Hooi Ying wanted her to buy her one in Ipoh.

Things went smooth and the big day came at last. Ainin and Hooi Ying bought a jelly cake for Shun Ling. The reason for buying a jelly cake was simply because it contains lower cholesterol level compared to that of the other "ordinary" cakes. With a superbly lame excuse-to buy a bleach for her tainted shirt, in which the actual case was she has already bought one, Ainin successfully cheated Shun Ling out(to the Centrepoint) for about 20 minutes so that we could manage to get things done and hence to achieve our ultimate aim for the whole event-SURPRISE! Swiftly, we divided the jobs and worked out (get the cake placed parallel to the door of our room). When everything was done, we waited for their return with bated breath.

We text messages Ainin in order to get the latest update of their location. When a message telling that she and Shun Ling were within the vicinity of BU6, we switched off the light, lighted up the candles, and locked the door. [Thanks to all my housemates for their tolerance and allowing me to turn off the first floor's light.] Hearing the footsteps of theirs, all of us got ourselves hidden in the room except Hooi Ying who had to stand behind the door to lock the door when Shun Ling tried to open it. [I don't fathom what's the point of doing that, though] She did that for several times as planned until we heard these words came out from Shun Ling's mouth: Open the door now! I knew what you guys are trying to do already. Hooi Ying finally gave in and let the birthday aunty in. [I have to clarify that we are actually practising a culture of calling the girl "aunty" when she reaches the age of 18+1.]

There we sang her birthday song and let the scheme unveiled. I bet she was happy, by reading her facial expression at that very fleeting moment when she opened the door. Well, here came the climax of the day. Shun Ling gave Ming Chai a piece of cake! OK. A little bit of introduction should not be neglected. Ming Chai is our friend, a male friend, who lives next to our house and sponsored us 6 cans of Shandy [God knows what's his intention for sponsoring alcoholic drinks]. Jaevon, our photographer, who happens to be a novice in video recording, recorded the almost complete process of Shun Ling giving Ming Chai the very small piece of jelly cake. It was such a shame that the camera ran out of battery in the end and thus the farewell part between she and he failed to be recorded. Nevertheless, it was still a precious recording.

Meanwhile, it is almost impossible for me to talk about Ainin without a snicker on my face. Actually, a few days before Shun Ling's birthday, she had been to Centrepoint in search of her brand of bleach. However, her attempt came to a halt as the brand wasn't available there and so she bought one at 1U instead. As she deceived Shun Ling out with that reason, she didn't expect that the brand was in store that day. She even asked her to help to look for that particular brand and there Shun Ling found it! In order to protect our top secret, she forked out RM7 odd to purchase that silly bleach.

The night ended with something more interesting during the late hours but it's better to keep it to ourselves, I think. Well, all that I could say is that I do cherish my new circle of friends. I love them all.

Two

You know what, I love blogging because I can backspace words and that was exactly what I did for half an hour before I wrote the first sentence here.

So, basically, we learned some components of literature this week. We discussed on the Key Literary Terms such as critical appreciation, metaphor, personification and blah blah blah...(Everybody knows that. What's the point of typing it here?) On the other hand, almost all Architecture students went for the Wayang Kata(as encouraged by lecturers) so let's give a big applause for our obedience to lecturers!!!

Perhaps you'll wonder why do we deserve such an ovation. First of all, Architecture students finish their(Am I shifting? Mrs Lee would probably say this:shift like mad) classes at 5.30pm and their were told to gather at Central Market LRT at 7.50pm, by hook or by crook. There were so much to do, yet so little time. I and Chia Venn, for instance, eating our catered dinner at bus stop while trying to get a taxi. Well, do imagine a scene in which 2 girls who look as if they have been starving for ages gulping their food at the bus stop, with motorcars traveling to and forth, emitting carbon monoxide,also, dust and dirts...

Next,as known by all and sundry, there's always a room(master bedroom) for improvement in our public transport system. This was another problem for the students to deal with. Even after they caught a taxi, they had to endure the snarl up as it was the peak hour when everybody calls it a day and goes home. After that, they had to squeeze with people in the LRT. As the passengers were packed to brim,it was amazing how they managed to breathe as if the pervasive odd, foul odor was not inhaled or smelled. Last but not least, they reached their destination promptly(some were even earlier) and did not kvetch a word.

Set aside the very challenging intinerary from BU to Central Market, the students had to wade through tuckload of homework at the midnight...Again, I feel like granting all of us The Best College's Students Award...Hehe..

Well, the best thing happened was to have a handshake with the Britain's renowned spoken word artist, Steven Camden a.k.a Polar bear. I won't forget the way he read his poem but I don't remember a single word that he said either. Those words produced by his larynx were like moving at a phenomenally high speed akin to that of light. They entered through my left ear and then disappeared somewhere in the middle before they get to leave via my right ear. One thing for sure was that they were not absorbed by my central nervous system. Anyway, thank to Mr.Derick for leading us to the venue.

It seems like I've been writing on an outing journey instead of a learning log. Actually, I am in daze. How does it have to be as an academic blog? Write stuff related with things we learned in college? Difficulties in learning process?Something formal? Or to blog like personal blogging such as things related with friends(as given in the paper)? Autobiography? [Yeah, now i can differentiate between biography and autobiography.]

Whatever it is, an error-free entry is my target. I'm slogging for it.