This is a short one. My attention span isn't what it used to be. I really want to spill and lay myself bare about all the frustration and anxiety I'm feeling right now but if I do, I'm afraid it might explode all too soon and quick for me to realize the impact.
Management is at an all time down period for me. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I'm so glad today was the last Management tutorial before the final next week. I can't even express how relieved I really am feeling and relishing now. I just want to forget that this whole nightmarish subject, lecturer and tutor, tutorials and lectures ever happened this past seven to eight weeks.
I've been feeling a pang of jealousy towards someone I won't mention here. I feel bad and evil for doing that. This is in no way insulting or intending to offend you. I just need to say this or not I'd go mad sooner or later. Why did things have to turn out this way? I always seem to be the person in last place next to everyone else when we all did the same things and worked just as hard.
I'm starting to give up. There's no point in me fighting this anymore. I just have to take it as it goes and let everything happen as God intended them to be so. I retreat. The white flag is up and resignation couldn't come at a better time.
Today and yesterday were two days of rejoicing.
There was supposed to be another 3-hour law lecture this afternoon after the morning one but the lecturer finished all the things that we need to know today and so we were freed from our entrapment in the hall. Either she has confidence that we are prepared enough for the finals or that we are just too far gone in the ville of abismal law knowledge that any help would just be too late. I'm hoping that it's the former reason.
After much anticipation and waiting and some moaning, I managed to finally watch the fourth HP book materialize on the big screen yesterday afternoon. Coming away from it, I have only one conclusion to make. I absolutely cannot watch a book-to-movie adaptation without having to point out the slightest mistake or grievances and grimace every time I think something is just not right. It's been that way since LOTR and have not stopped since. Not that there were a whole lot of page-to-screen adaptations being produced but I just seem to manage to spoil the whole experience for myself because of my own fault which is being finicky about the details of what got translated on screen. I simply rob myself of the joy and usual excitement that I normally savour when watching other types of movies. Now, I shudder at the thought of watching future book adaptation movies for fear that I might ruin them myself. This mildly irritating situation totally sucks.
As for the review of the movie, it's still new and fresh so I don't want to spoil anything. Better to watch it yourself than have someone dish the interesting bits out to you. I still don't know if I liked this one better than the third one but it was definitely more intense and just slightly scarier than your usual preteen and adolescent movie fare. Oddly enough, all the stuff in the book that I liked, I didn't like very much in the movie, but the rest of the stuff in the movie that I liked, I didn't enjoy reading about in the book. Just a weird occurrence to me. Some people can't stand or don't generally enjoy listening to people with that awkward British slang and accent but I think I'm starting to like the slang part of it. Yeah, they tend to swear a lot and use lots of offensive language but they just sound so much more profound and weirdly classy.
What I found most missing from the HP books and the movie was the lack of foul language which most British people have a tendency to utter in their daily lives. I'm not encouraging Rowling to insert fuck or bitch into her last book in the series but just that it doesn't have that whole English feel to it. This is by no means a stab as well towards England being this crude and rude country with obscene behaviour but more like an observation. I don't expect the books to contain these profanities any time this century either because even though the characters are growing up, the books are still meant for very impressionable and seemingly innocent children.
The end of the semester feeling has finally hit its high note and me too. It doesn't seem like a real semester at all. More like a crash course in Management and Business Law. Guess that's how a summer semester feels. A bit like summer vacation but not quite it.
I was so close to getting my awaited iPod but it had to be delayed yet again. The U2 iPod is not being sold anymore as production has stopped so I have to turn to the new 30GB one. Went to 1U to check it out but it was sold out, didn't even have a demo to show the actual thing and there's a two-weeks waiting list to get it. Sigh. Postponement this time because of a technicality and not because I was procrastinating or deliberating whether to spend the bulk of my savings this year on that acclaimed player. I feel kind of sad. I suppose anyone would. Any sane music loving person specifically.
Oh, did I mention that my notebook's fixed and well again. My dad brought it home last night and in good working condition with nothing tampered or deleted. The broken hinge is no longer broken and the wireless connection is faster than ever. I'm loving my little notebook more than ever now. It's served me faithfully for more than a year now and I don't feel the need to change it anytime soon. Unless something really unfortunate happen to it then I might make the transition to an iMac or iBook.
I feel strangely liberated from the wired and tangled web of dial-up. It feels wonderful to be back to downloading music any time I want and high-speed web-surfing. If I were made Prime Minister or even just Minister for Communications (if there is such a post), I'd make it almost compulsory for all to connect using wifi and remove all the clutter that is wires in the country. Think of the fast-paceness that businesses, governments, and various and multiple organisations will be able to access and enable greater efficiency in the workplace.
Damn it. I'm beginning to sound like a corporate lemur. Save me from this reality and throw me back to my little own fantasy world of superheroes, magical movies, foodie programs and music played 24/7.
Behind too much and too long. For those who wondered where I vanished to again, blame the due dates of assignments and coming finals. For those who didn't notice, well, you didn't miss much. No worries.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the sudden explosion of places that I need go to or hooking up with anyone or doing anything special or abruptly planning something unexpectedly. It was just as ordinary as assignment with scarcely a reliable guide or plan to base on and sometimes (but mostly not) zealous reading of Management text book. My finals are incredibly close. Imagine two weeks close. Yep. The only two things on my mind now are Business Law and how am I going to pass Management. It's getting amazingly terrifying, ashamed as I am to admit it.
Haven't heard a blip from the three universities I applied to, except from IDP requesting that I resend my certified photocopied transcripts again to USyd because they apparently lost mine when they were here. How convenient. So, all I have now is this photocopy of my conditional offer at USyd which doesn't really say anything or comfirm much at all. Oh yeah, the anxiety over this issue is also another thing on my mind now.
Also, I'll be without my notebook too from Monday onwards till, my dad only knows when, because I desperately need to get my wireless internet connection working again. I think I'll go crazy soon if I don't get back up to my usual speed of broadband on the notebook. I'm bored with the PC my mother uses. It's just too darn boring. Minus the privacy too.
Friends who know about that trip overseas are trying to convince me that Shanghai isn't as bad as it seems. Well, hopefully when I do get there my perception of China will have changed and being surrounded by people who won't be able to understand what I say as I speak neither Mandarin or Cantonese or Hokkien or whatever dialect will make me want to rethink actually learning my so-called mother tongue. My 'banana' status has caused me some pretty embarrassing moments but nothing too harsh that I will resort to learning Mandarin in 72 hours.
Anyway, wish me luck on my finals because I'm going to need lots of it. See you in the tagboards.
One week breaks come as fast and go just the same. Back to the grind, back to facing boring and sometimes not that boring lectures and tutorials. Time to get my ass working again.
Baked another banana bread/loaf/cake on Saturday. The muffins I attempted to make on Friday turned out, to put it quite bluntly, horrible. Tossed them away and reverted to the fail-safe recipe. Looked nicer than last week's one but a little too compact and moist. Not the fluffy texture that I wanted to get. Could see that the mashed bananas sank to the base of the loaf. Fortunately, the taste and smell are distinctly banana-ish. Ah, well, practice makes perfect. Just need to find more mouths to test and feed my goods to. Friends commented on my cake and one even said it looked like fried carrot cake instead of banana cake. Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good response. Need to try to bake the muffins again. Must get it right next time.
It's about another month before my shortest semester yet ends. Can't wait. Directly the day after the last day of the semester, the family and a whole bunch of relatives and cousins will be taking a holiday to Shanghai, China. It's not that I don't like China specifically, but the country just never reflected that well on me. Probably because I think it's always the ideal holiday destination for old creeky folks to go to and reminiscence about their "kampung". So, it's given me this impression of ancient huts and straw houses with nary a slight acknowledgment of proper plumbing facilities. But yes, as this is a big family trip, each one of us are compelled to go with despite me secretly not really anticipating this vacation. Not to say that I'm not grateful for the trip away from home, but give me Singapore or Kyoto anytime, please.
HP: GOF is hitting cinemas next week. I'm actually getting all excited for this movie like I did for the previous LOTR movies. All three of them. Somehow, I have a good feeling that this one will be the best one out of all the four yet.
I have an assignment due this Friday and another one the following week. Almost done with the first one. Hardly done with the second.
A change of pace would be good now. It's getting awfully boring having to go through the same routine day after day for so long. The wait to fly the coop is almost unbearable. Anxiously waiting for acceptance letters are not nice at all. It would also be terribly embarrassing if after waiting for more than a month and nothing arrives in the end. Embarrassing and bad, because that would mean another year in this crap-hole. I don't understand why I keep insulting my own home. I think it's just myself getting tired of the same environment for almost twenty years of my life already. Got to stop being so negative.
Everyone's favourite OCD detective, Monk is back on Starworld. Right after Numb3rs, that is. I think I'm watching a bit too much night-time television. But it's not entirely my fault that I like these shows. Is it?
In any case, going off now. Sorry for the slow news week. I do apologize for the lacklustre recent entries but that's just how it is.
It's been a pretty slow past few days so to start off the new month, here are some photos I said that I would take of the banana loaf I baked last weekend snapped by my oh-so-trusty camera-phone.
My first and successful attempt at baking anything bread loaf! I felt really happy and chuffed with myself because it came out really well and not filled with holes and didn't explode in the oven. The last things I baked were some weird looking and shaped cookie things which didn't turn out too well because it was too sweet.
My mom even suggested baking another loaf this weekend to be shared with my grandmother and my little cousin's family. The only peeve she noted was that there not enough mashed bananas in them and it was not sweet enough. Well, I did substitute white castor sugar with brown sugar but I thought the sweet level was alright. I was thinking of making banana cake and banana chocolate chip muffins. 
A close-up of the chocolate chip portion of the banana cake. Since my mom and dad don't like it too sweet, and my brothers have officially abstained from anything made by my own two hands, I had to quickly embellish some chocolate chips into the batter as I spooned them into the loaf tin to be put into the oven. And it tasted so good! Yum! My next culinary experiments will be freshly kneaded and baked bread followed by cheesecakes and pies.
Law assignment is going well and not going so well at the same time. I'm more than half way finished with the first write-up. Just got to start editting it soon and tie up a few loose ends. The writing the stuff down and rewording some phrases here and there is going fine but the finding of cases for examples is tough. And don't get me started on management because I have yet to start on it even.
Went on a random shopping trip to Mid Valley with mom today. Lots of people mingling around vacantly on their day off. Me included. I think I was being greedy again because I managed to squirm my way around to getting two pairs of shoes from Vincci. Hah! One was a simple sandles because my old ones are really, well, old and dirty. I couldn't find that pair of wedges I was eyeing at 1U because my shoe size was unavailable but I consoled myself with a pair of black mary janes or 'ballet' shoes with short heels, however you want to call them. I have to admit and say that I do like them but my problem with them is that I don't know how and what to wear them with. I don't want to end up looking like a fashion disaster wearing some aunty-looking shoes. Not to say that they're aunty-looking but I don't want to appear frumpy and all slipping into them when I go out. It's all suede and so comfortable. I'm becoming such a shoe-whore. Oh, and sort of accidentally bought a TopShop halter top which I was not looking for nor intending to buy at all. It was their fault because it was half off and fitted so well. Stop making me feel guilty! The temptation not to buy was wasted on me. I didn't even bother to stop myself and say, "No, that's enough!".
It's my que to log off now. House is coming up soon. Yay for unrepresented cranky doctors around the world! It's a reason for them to not feel so bad when they get a little agitated in the morning without their coffee. They'll always know that they're not alone. The next time I see a cranky and addict doctor, I'll try to be more patient and not irritate them too much any more than they already are.
