Saturday, July 30, 2005 | 11:52
Bye Laine.
But not forever. At least I hope and don't think so. Though if you do decide to remain in the States, that's cool as then I'd have a place to crash in when I decide to visit NY. Hee.

It's an odd and awkward feeling for me saying goodbye to Laine. There'll be no one willing enough to go with me on random artsy fartsy expeditions anymore. Or to let me sample or recommend new songs and bands and movies and shows to me. And I never got that ride in the end. But at least the random pokings in the arm is gone. Even for a while.

I'll most probably and likely not be seeing her for the rest of the year and probably until next year only when she allegedly plans to visit Australia and crash my place when and if I do go there. Other than that, communication is solely based on overseas rate text messaging and online messages through blogs or whatever means of communication there is.

Okay, I'm getting a bit too emotional here. I have difficulty saying goodbye but I'm gonna try my best. I'd post a pic of the girl here but I wouldn't want to embarrass her. Oh, but I did get permission from her that I can raid her collection of books she left behind to collect dust now that she's not there to read it from time to time. Only when I've run out of good reading material in my own room of course.

I wonder how my farewell will be next year. Assuming that I do get the transfer. Gosh, please let me get away from this hell-hole. Not that I hate this place in totality but only some things that I can definitely live without for the next hundred years or so. I hope that whole packing and repacking thing won't be as haphazard and chaotic as most people leaving to study make it out to be. It'll be a bit difficult to pack my whole life with me to take it over there. But I can always try when the time comes.

So, yes. Good luck and you damn well better have good pictures of yourself and not just a strand of hair or arm in it to show us.
Jill |

Wednesday, July 27, 2005 | 21:32
living in techni-colour
I feel like such a good samaritan today. Or maybe just a really good friend. Either way, I also feel pretty smug about myself too. I think it's a bit weird that I'm one of the rare few people who actually understands and knows how to use the "IF" function of the Excel spreadsheet thing. I mean, I was in the dark and groping my way around aimlessly for a while before the light hit me but, I really don't think it's that hard to get. Or maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself here and giving myself too much credit. It's like, I feel like I should be proud of my accomplishment here but I actually feel strangely guilty for feeling that way. I seem to have this void or space that it's blocking me from getting there and fully relishing the achievement I succeeded at what most people would just look at me and go, "Huh?".

I so need to get over this big-headedness of myself.

Just finished watching Episode 8 of Nip/Tuck of Season 1 this evening and to sum up my joy from watching this amazing series as in the words of Christian, "Damn, it's good to be back!". Tonight's CSI episode is the season finale directed by Tarantino. But most of us probably know that by now as evidenced by the heavily advertised promos running on Astro since two weeks ago. But I'm not complaining. It's a bloody good show and it's just barely topping my list of most favourite series with Nip/Tuck. Monday's Boston Public episode was one of their best episodes to date. I almost cried towards the ending though I did shed a tear or two. Accept my apologies, Desperate Housewives fans, but I'm just not getting that show. Somehow, I can't seem to enjoy it as much as I think I should. Everyone is raving and going on and on about it but I'm brushing it off as just another TV series. So what, if it's won awards and stuff like that. That doesn't relinquish the fact that not everyone loves it. I kinda like it but not that much. It's just a time filler for my Tuesday nights. Missing it wouldn't make the world gravitate towards the sun. And I'm getting shamelessly addicted to Lost. Not good.

Well, time to burn my eyes out from staring too much at the television and the notebook screen.
Jill |

Sunday, July 24, 2005 | 22:34
mini mates
Indulged in the 'Elvis' today. What's an 'Elvis'? Simply put it's a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Mine wasn't fried but actually toasted. And the bananas were sliced and not mashed. Nevertheless, it tasted so good. Yum. I've got to try making one true authentic Elvis one day soon.

Today's rest of the post will be about the five mini Penguin books I bought today at Times KLCC. It's only RM 9.90 each so it's really quite a buy for me. The covers were what attracted me to them in the first place but of course I looked for substance as well as appearance. I was supposed to get Daniel Keyes' 'Flowers for Algernon' but after searching for it at Kinokuniya and Times to no avail, I got myself these books instead to compensate for that loss. Pretty good trade I should think so.



Mmm. Nick Hornby. The 'Otherwise Pandemonium'. He's the author of 'About a Boy' which was made into a movie staring Hugh Grant which I love and have already watched about five times, all of which was on Astro. So, this should be good considering I can't find 'About a Boy' just yet so this shall have to tide me over for now.









This was a delicious looking cover. 'In Defence of English Cooking' by George Orwell. The title itself was intriguing enough plus a known author whose books I've read and loved just made this a must-have.













This is by far the most boring looking cover but considering it's by Vladimir Nabokov who wrote 'Lolita', it can't be too bad. Not that I've read 'Lolita' as well but I've heard good things about it. 'Cloud, Castle, Lake' sounds like a good read.










Yes, a H.G. Wells novel. 'The Country of the Blind' is its title. I don't think this has any relation whatsoever with science fiction and aliens or time travel like that. Hopefully not.













My favourite cover so far. Reminds me a bit of Moulin Rouge with all its glitz and glamour part and diamonds as well. Heck, the title; 'The Diamond as Big as the Ritz' even sounds very glitterati.






Thus, ends the preview of my five mini books. These books should come in really handy for long car rides and plane trips. They're lightweight, small, compact, and easy to carry around. The perfect traveling mate.
Jill |

| 01:39
kids
One week has passed since the advent and leaving of HP6. Time to return to normal and daily goings-on now.

I actually worked my first job ever today. It's something as what my cousin put it, 'camp counsellor' though I don't really see it that way but that would be a good way of summing it up. There were probably about twenty part-timers during the LESCA camp thing at the Sunway Petting Zoo with about 400 plus children aged 7 to 10, I suppose. Let me just say that I never expected the task to be that daunting and scary as I made it out to be. I thought it would be quite a breeze or maybe a zephyr in the park but not so much as a hurricane or a storm as I experienced first-hand today. I guess my perspective of children has been distorted somewhat and have just been put off from getting ideas of adopting kids or having kids or anything like that, God forbid.

The most difficult part of it all was trying to get them to just sit down and listen calmly and attentively to the two main instructors on the stage entertaining them. Children do not go well with 'calm' and 'attentively' at all. They can't even coexist in the same sentence together. Another damper to my ego was that the majority of the kids was Mandarin-speaking children so I had no idea what they were trying to tell me most of the time when I tried my hardest to help them with moulding their plaster of paris into some corrigible shape without messing their hands. So, I just tried to stick with the BM-speaking kids as they turned out to be a bit better behaved than the other little monsters. Their screams and cries of calling out for you when you try to distribute materials as nicely and orderly as possible still rings in my head. Plus with the horrible arrangement of chairs and tables in the open-air cafeteria place and lack of air circulation within the compound, probably added even more annoyance and irritance to an already frustrated me.

At the end of the day at 5 pm, packed up and ready to leave, we got sixty ringgit for the hard day's work. Thank goodness for the relatively good pay or not I'd've quit two hours into it already. I just hope the next job won't be as hectic and chaotic as this one was. 400 is too much. 20 would be just right.

Just feeling really quite tired and exhausted now after a rather larger dinner ending with an equally large dessert. Yikes. Oh, and I'm relishing in my acquiring of the Nip/Tuck DVDs as of now. I'm feeling so thankful for professional pirating and excellent DVD quality considering it's actually not legal here but they do come with cool deleted scenes from the original episodes on TV, so no complaints here.

Oh, go watch 'Batman Begins' if you haven't. Honestly, I think it's definitely the better if not best Bats movie made yet. Just thinking and watching the previous Batman movies with Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and George Clooney just makes me reel with slight nausea now. Bale may not be the best looking guy ever but at least he portrays the most accurate Bruce Wayne I've ever seen so far. Not including the animated Batman of course. Kevin Conroy, who voices the animated Batman just does it so flawlessly it's almost impossible to think who else could fill his wings when he can't do it anymore. My only peeve I have is that whole voice-changing thing he does whenever he switches into Batman. It's just too creepy for me to fathom how anyone would want to do that. And Sirius, oops, I mean Gary Oldman, plays a very good Gordon too. Now I just can't wait for the next Bale as Batman movie with the Joker as the main villain this time. And hopefully they'll throw in Harlequinn for good measure and fun too. A solid 8.8 out of 10.

Did I mention how much I am this close to sending Microsoft a potentially lethal virus to shut down their entire megaglomerate corporation and putting Bill Gates on the streets for creating such a pissy Excel application. If I can't even work out how a simple division function can give me stupid answers that even a 10-year-old could work out correctly for the simplest accounting equation, think how insane businessmen would be when they're trying to figure out even more complicated formulas. If Mozilla actually came up with a freeware application such as Excel I'd use it in a flash and dump MS like it was poisoned. Oh wait, it already is.
Jill |

Sunday, July 17, 2005 | 02:10
it's over!
Now I can resume my normal life as it was before HP invaded my space and changed it for good. It's going to be another two or three years before this adrenaline and exhilaration of waiting for a 600+ pages book takes over me again. For now till then, I can rest and wait in gentle peace before that time comes.

Proceed to read and highlight the blanks at your own risk and discretion for spoilers of 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' will be revealed if you do so.

Oh, bloody hell. Anyone who did not read the book yet would not know how I feel right now. Honestly. I just put down the book a few minutes ago which I took approximately 10 hours to read with timed periods of toilet breaks, a cool shower and in between bites to build up my strength to continue reading it. I'm feeling all giddy as a schoolgirl but I can't help myself from not feeling this way. I really just want to spill everything here right now but I would be doing a discredit to the community, whether you're a HP reader or not, by providing essential plot points explicitly and unashamedly. So, here goes.
  • I can't believe that Snape is the HBP.
  • The best part in the entire book was when Draco had a leg-up on Harry on the train. It's about time that Draco got his revenge even if it is short-lived and Harry probably didn't really deserve it.
  • Dumbledore is dead! But I won't say who killed him.
  • Ginny and Harry dated for a brief bit towards the end of the book before he had to break it off for "noble" reasons.
  • Snape takes over the DADA position.
  • It's really a much darker book than the rest of the five books before this combined. I love it.
  • One scene in the book stood out as the scene that just shocked me beyond reason. I honestly thought Draco was going to die after what Harry did.
  • The little scenes between Ron and Lavender made me want to puke repulsively yet was mildly amused by it.
  • I hated to see Malfoy acting so non-existent throughout three quarters of the book before making a big splash at the last few chapters. I missed reading about Draco's Harry-ribbings and torments in Snape's Potions classes and in the corridors.
  • I actually like Draco more now after this book. I hated him as a total prat and annoyance in the previous five books but now after all that secrecy thing, he seems more like a threat than anything else so that ups his credibility as a major antagonist in the last book whom Harry will have to face.
  • The characters have definitely matured quite a lot in this book. So not for younger children who may not get the implied connotations in some scenes.
  • I was annoyed again at the ever present Voldemort yet non-tangible presence of him throughout the book. He's like "there" but not "there". It's just a real pittance that he can't just come out and be wholly there just yet.
  • I feel so dumb and ignorant for not recognising a clue about the story right under my nose from the very beginning.
  • I have some, if not several, criticisms about the book but I'll save that for later after I've read it again, maybe twice or thrice more. I can't say it's my favourite book or not because I've only read it once and will need several re-reads to confirm on that. So, as of this moment, POA is still my fave book of the series so far, including HBP.
  • I like this sixth book a lot more than the previous one.

That's done. Don't come throwing lawsuits in my face or anything like that now if you've gone ahead and highlighted the blanks which contains spoilers. I know my rights and I'm not afraid to exercise them. Well, look at me here running my mouth off like some crazed HP fanatic when I know I'm not like those fanatics. I am not. Really. I like to call myself a misunderstood and sometimes overly engrossed fan who simply likes the pure joy of reading.
Jill |

Saturday, July 16, 2005 | 14:46
it's here!

Will be back with a full review in a day or two.
Jill |

Thursday, July 14, 2005 | 21:57
worlds apart
Well, today was a rather fruitful day. Not very but rather. I'm feeling quite shopped out considering I got not one, not two, but three on-sale tops from MNG in less than one week. All bought on separate occasions of course. And I'm quite happy with procuring that high-tops I've been secretly desiring for some time now yesterday. It's all white with little flower and strawberry detail prints on it! I'm sounding like a total school girl now but I can't help gushing over new stuff. I'm so glad I waited for the sale or I'd be strangling myself for getting it at retail price back then instead of the discounted one now.

Visited the new GSC place at the new wing at 1Utama and it looked so cool. It was so new and spick and span and shiny. The seating was even better with more leg room, comfy cushioned seats and wider screen. I'm never going back to TGV now with GSC's presence there now.

Finally managed to watch WOW today with two college mates. One wasn't too pleased with the ending but the other one and I were quite okay with it. It's not fair too since I actually know how it's going to end but it was quite nice to watch it in that whole cinematic environment and the setting and characters being all quite different. Surprisingly, me being all "Oh, I'm not going to get scared and frightened out of my wits," actually got quite several a few shocks during the movie. It's definitely very unlike the 1950-something movie I watched a few months ago, reviewed in a previous post. This one was very different in terms of special effects, characters, mood, setting, and the aliens too. I just realised that throughout the entire movie itself, the word 'alien' never popped out once. Not once at all. There were a few scenes which I shamely admit got me gripping the edge of my seat. It wasn't all horror-type scary but more like shock-type scary.

I remembered thinking the other day too that if I hear or watch even one more interview or show or making-of of Tom Cruise, I swear I wouldn't watch it at all. Not even if it kills me. It's got to the point that I can't even bear to listen to his voice anymore. Now, when I even get any warning whatsoever of a Cruise interview or whatnot I just switch the channel to something more palatable for my stomach and me. Thankfully, he didn't ruin the show for me as much as I thought he would. Though there were two scenes which I thought was overdoing it, playing him up as some local hero of sorts. Not that he was celebrated of course but very narrowly still. I'd give the movie a 7.5 out of 10 for acting, story, and being able to actually scare me as I hate to think I scare easily.

48 hours from now, I'll be snug as a bug in my room, reading HBP vicariously and shutting myself off from civilisation until I finish it. I try not thinking about it but I can't. I'm getting giddy just thinking about the moment when the book touches my hands and breathing in that new book smell. Don't you just love the smell of new things?

Oh wow, I'm actually done. Usually I'd want to say more than what I can say but I seem quite satiated tonight. 'Lost' is on later and I've got some short stories to read and finish by Saturday afternoon. Ta for now.
Jill |

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 | 22:18
a quiz post
A post where I can dump record all the quizzes I've ever done. Here. As so far as I've been online. Will be updated as I go along doing quizzes, so check back here as often as you like.



The University of Blogging

Presents to
nicknacksnak

An Honorary
Bachelor of
Color Bars

Majoring in
Non Sequiturs
Signed
Dr. GoQuiz.com		®

Username:

Blogging Degree
From Go-Quiz.com


You Are a Snarky Blogger!



You've got a razor sharp wit that bloggers are secretly scared of. And that's why they read your posts as often as they can!
  • What kind of blogger are you?



    • Medical Killing
    You will be Killed in the hospital =D
    Yami no Matsuei: What way would Muraki murder you?
    brought to you by Quizilla





    Your Birthdate: February 12
    Being born on the 12th day of the month (3 energy) is likely to add a good bit of vitality to your life.

    The energy of 3 allows you bounce back rapidly from setbacks, physical or mental.

    There is a restlessness in your nature, but you seem to be able to portray an easygoing, sometimes "couldn't care less" attitude.

    You have a natural ability to express yourself in public, and you always make a very good impression.

    Good with words, you excel in writing, speaking, and possibly singing.

    You are energetic and always a good conversationalist.

    You have a keen imagination, but you tend to scatter your energies and become involved with too may superficial matters.

    Your mind is practical and rational despite this tendency to jump about.

    You are affectionate and loving - but very sensitive.

    You are subject to rapid ups and downs.




    Assassin


    You are an assassin.
    That means you are a proffessional and do your
    job without mixing any emotions in it. In your
    life you have probably been hurt many times and
    have gotten some mental scars. This results in
    you being distant from people. Though many
    think that you are evil, you are not. What you
    really are is a person, trying to forget your
    pain and past. You are the person who never
    seems to care and that is why being an assassin
    fits you good. Atleast, that's what people
    think. Even if you don't care that much for
    your victims, you still have the ability to
    care and to generally feel. It is not lost,
    just a little forgotten. In crowds you tend to
    not get to noticed, and dress in black or other
    discrete colours. You don't being in the
    spotlight and wish people would just leave you
    alone. But once you do get close to someone you
    have a hard time letting go and get real down
    if you loose him/her.

    Main weapon: Sniper
    Quote: "The walls we build around
    us to keep out the sadness also keep out the
    joy" -Jim Rohn
    Facial expression: Narrowed eyes

    What Type of Killer Are You? [cool pictures]
    brought to you by Quizilla



    English Genius
    You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 86% Expert! You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly!
    Way to go!


    Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!


    For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog.


    My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender.

    You scored higher than 74% on Beginner

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    free online datingYou scored higher than 63% on Intermediate

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    free online datingYou scored higher than 88% on Advanced

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    free online datingYou scored higher than 85% on Expert
    Link: The Commonly Confused Words Test written by shortredhead78 on OkCupid Free Online Dating



    The Poser Geek
    You answered 61% of the questions as a geek truly would.
    As a poser geek, you're trying too damned hard. There's a strong
    possibility that you think you're a geek because you own your own
    computer, however you're truly missing the bigger picture. You
    aspirations of being a geek mainly come from your friends, who are
    probably slightly cooler.


    Get rid of those thick black-rimmed glasses. Being a geek isn't about style, it's about substance!

    So what's this all mean? It means you're probably a pretty cool
    person. You've probably got social graces and are well liked by many
    people. While not a complete conformist, you do prefer to follow along
    with popular culture. True geeks probably laugh at you behind your
    back.


    In a nutshell, you answered most question how you thought a geek
    WOULD answer, but your misconceptions deceived you. Truth is, 60% of
    people are geekier than you.



    My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:


    free online datingfree online dating


    You scored higher than 56% on geekness The True Geek Test written by ambientred on Ok Cupid
    Link:
    Jill |

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