Future for Thought

I'm gonna be having a mid term exam in 6 hours time... but yet I'm blogging, man, I just love myself... haha. So I went to the supermarket this morning to get some milk for my breakfast. And guess what?? All I saw along the whole row of 'Dutch Lady' milk.... was a stretch of PINK!!


So today ended up being the very first time in my life... I had a bowl of Kellogg's Cornflakes with STRAWBERRY MILK!!! XO

A Bowl of Cornflakes in Strawberry Milk....

How gay...

On another note... the Semester is coming to an end.... in like... 2 months time O_O and I'm getting closer and closer to that uncertain and pitch black future of mine. As some of you may already know, I have of not the slightest most faintest minuscule idea whatsoever of what lies in store for me once I finish my studies...

Work? Sheez, I despise work... especially office jobs. I can NOT imagine.... sitting at a cubicle, 8 hours a day, wasting my life to the air-conditioners and paperwork around me. What would be my contribution to the society?? What would be my motive?? I would seriously lose track of all that.

There are Soo SOO SOoooOoo MANY jobs out there.... and in fact, I'm pretty versatile... that I believe I could do anything from being a Pâtissier (that's something like a bakery chef), to being a wandering Photographer, and I don't think I will feel bored.... anything BUT the dreadful Office. I can't help but wonder how some people manage to drag themselves to the office every 8 in the morning, and drag themselves home later at 5 in the evening.... on a DAILY Basis...

However, in the end, I guess we all still come down to one very important thing to consider.... the Tunku Abdul Rahmans.... in other words.... the Paycheck =.=".....

Hell, I don't mind being a construction site worker if they gave me a paycheck as fat as the one sitting in the office gave me; Neither would I mind dealing in drugs, but then I have the Law to worry about, and the thought of ruining someone else's life is abit.... pitiful, so that might be out of the question; or if things couldn't go worse.... you could always turn south and provide services for.... uh.... erm.... for.... *ahem*... yea, that's the one... but to me that's a long throw of my pride and dignity, I don't see that happening anytime within the realm of a hundred years to me.

It's not that I'm obsessed with money... but all I want is, to be able to live a comfortable, if not luxurious, life, where I won't have to worry about balancing my accounts just to pay the water bill next month. But at the same time.... be able to do the things I want to.... and buy the things I want, and enjoy living a life that I love.

The Future eh?.... Right now it's still a pitch black for me.... There may be monsters.... yet....

*Sigh* "I want a Time Machine..."

Thermite: Could've changed my Life

This post is about a slice of my life that I've told nobody about. But for some reason, I felt like making it a part of my blog for record ^_^ Nothing personal to it, so I don't mind telling it to the world.


About 6 years ago, in 2004. I was still a secondary school student, searching for the horizons, and at the same time, experimenting with Pyrotechnics, the art of making incendiaries, fireworks, and at it's most destructive state, explosives. Simply put, playing with fire.

I was a kind of kid who had no fears (except the fear for cockroaches I suppose), and Fire.... was my favourite subject at that time. It always kept me intrigued..... a flame.... it felt just like a living thing... like a monster, that, when you feed it, it grows. And it constantly needs food, you have to keep feeding it to keep it alive.... but feed it too much, and it becomes uncontrollable.... too little and it dies....

Then it moved along to explosives.... the coolest destructive technology up till today, of course that ignores the sci-fi vaporization technology and cryonics which is capable of freezing people within seconds, that's another story altogether. I spent tonnes of hours and money researching and experimenting... and the materials weren't cheap either.... but I still kept at it.


Well, soon enough, I was notorious in my school for playing with fire and setting of smoke screens from the classroom. Most people didn't know it was me, but heard of the incident when a classroom suddenly burst out in smoke after school. I was in Junior 3 back that. And it was fun ^_^


2 years later though. A group of people came in contact with me. For a job for me. To make things simple. Lets just say there was this store they'd been eye-ing. It sold pretty valuable stuff, what the stuff was I won't say =) you can keep guessing.

The shop however, had a metal grill that locked down the shop every night when it was closed. And they needed me to find a way to get rid of that troublesome thingy. They thought of blasting it wide, but I told them blasting it would make everyone think New Year arrived early. So I came up with the alternative method.

Thermite.

Thermite is a basically a mixture of a powdered metal and a metal oxide put together. The most common and easily obtainable combination is Aluminium and Iron Feroxide.... in other words... rust, yea... the brownish coloured flakes that peels off your car when you leave it for a month beside the sea =)

With the right proportions of Aluminium powder and Iron Feroxide mixed together, you now have a compound that when ignited, burns at temperatures up to 2500 degrees Celsius, can melt nearly ANYTHING from steel all the way to concrete.... given enough time, that is... And it also burned as bright as the SUN! (Assuming the sun was the size of your fist that is....)

However, obtaining the material was expensive. I couldn't just take some junk car left to rust and scrape all the Iron Feroxide I needed (besides, normal rust and Iron Feroxide is a tad different, but lets not get technical); nor could I get aluminium powder by what? grinding coke cans???

But there was another problem. Setting a compound that burns at 2500 degrees isn't just a let's-strike-a-match-and-throw procedure. It required something HOT enough to start the reaction.... which brings us to the introduction of Magnesium ^_^ So Magnesium is a soft metal, with ignition point 630 degrees... blar ... blar .... .... (Okay... this accidentally turned into a God damn chemistry class =.=")

Then, we come back to the question of 'expensive'. So this group of people.... offers to pay for all the materials I need to prepare them the perfect formula and everything, and of course I had to be their partner in crime since no one else would be able to handle the stuff I came up with ~.~....

Summarizing, they were inviting me to help them out in a theft, where I was to use my knowledge in pyrotech to melt down some padlocked iron grilling that's in their way. And I get a split of share in the end.

I was in a dilemma.

I was short on cash. But then again, I hadn't had a mind so corrupted to do such evil deeds.... yet.... So I contemplated the situation.... and thought it over and over. "What would I do with the money? How much could I get? What could go wrong? What if something went wrong? Am I sure about this? Do I really need the money?" And worst of all.... "What if I got caught??"

So after serious consideration, and looking at the fact that the group of people seemed pretty half-arsed and wasn't 100% sure in what they were doing.

I declined.

They wanted all the information I knew about how to come up with the thermite formula. I told them they needed aluminium powder and rust, and that's all I knew. I lied. But, it could all be found on the internet, so don't blame me if you didn't search hard enough.


But after that day.... questions kinda popped into my mind once in a while.



"What if I had done it?"

"Where would I be today if I had chosen to do it?"



I will never know the answer.

Ever.

_

Memento Vivere

"Remember that you have to Live" it means in Latin.

So life has given me a week of tuition free week to allow me to catch up with my life's pace and events. Life has been going by so fast lately.... to the point that I can't keep track of what I have to do and what I should do. Or maybe I'm just not ready for all of it.... yet...


With projects in queue, assignments on demand, studies on hold, and me emotionally frustrated about everything adds up to a single attitude which most of us refer to as "Emo".

Yet, unfortunately for me, you, and everyone out there, being emo doesn't seem to solve anything. Although for me, I somehow love to spend myself being emo and helpless =) I don't mind being emo forever if I had all the time in the world and didn't have to worry about money, haha. However, as time passes, it seems, I may not have the luxury to continue doing so anymore.

Then again, sometimes in life, many times in fact... I get soOooOo emo, when I get the feeling.... of giving up... so many times I wish I could just abandon everything and disappear into thin air.... but... I realised that... given the chance to even try... is already an opportunity itself.... to put the effort into something, you should be lucky to already do that.

There are times when you feel that.... giving up seems to be the only way. Is there such a thing where giving up is the only option, the only way out? Maybe there are times like that... but not now... not here.... to me, even if the whole world says 'give up', even if everybody disagrees with what I do, there's only one thing I trust more than my own sense of logic in this world. And that would be my instincts... or so to say, my heart, and standing by that, is what I will do throughout this life.

I remember one of the boldest things I ever said to my mom was "I'm going, whether you like it or not."... .... when she forbade me from staying over at a friend's house. Apparently I'm still the same guy who said those words, haha... and ever since then... she always acknowledged the decisions I made on my own.


Memento Vivere. Remember to Live. No matter what life throws at you, the one and only thing you have to remember is.... to live. Giving up is always easy.... just like dying... you can choose the easy way out anytime you please.

Killing oneself is just a matter of slashing your wrist, or jumping of the building, or the most painless method which is an overdose of drugs or medication. But will death solve matters? Maybe for you, it will. But just like I said.... giving up is the easy way out. Choosing to Live on, choosing NOT to give up, is the greater challenge, and requires all the courage and determination you could ever have and need.

So, however hard it is. Life has to go on. And at the same time... some things... are never worth giving up.

Life is Full of Interesting People

This topic is a tag by the *reknowned* Siaunee Dana Mogunsal who's currently living right about 50 meters to the left of my house in Miri. I wanted to write this earlier, but there's just so much to write about that I never really had the time and mood to do so.

Life, is something that, up till today, I still have no idea what we are doing here on this planet called Earth. I mean.... I don't find the point of being born, growing old, and going back into the dust. Pathetic eh?

But to me, one of the things that makes life oh so meaningful.... are the people that we come across in it... the people that make us us.... the people that brought us life.... also the people who allowed us to be where each and every one of us are today. Of course, I personally believe, that no two people are the same. And that brings about the subject of "Interesting People".

Actually, at first.... I didn't really wanna write about this topic because.... to be honest to myself.... I find nearly everybody interesting... And throughout my years.... I've witnessed.... though not much, quite a bit of the 'variety' of people available. But in the end, I found it an interesting topic to write about and..... here goes.

Siaunee asked to write about 3 people.... but I might write about more... ^_^

This is gonna be a long post.... and a nearly 'All text' one... which I haven't had in a while...

You have been warned~! Press Alt + F4 if you do not wish to proceed.

**********

In year 200X, I got to know this guy, we shall call him X for anonymity purposes =) There were 3

main factors which lead to me getting to know this guy.

1. I was in the same Club with him.

2. He liked Guns.... and I like Guns... yes, *bang bang* guns...

3. One day during a mixed class examination (where students from different classes were put in the same exam room due to lack of room during exams) he was sitting beside me, so naturally, I said "Hi~", and he replied with a nod.

Yea... that lifeless looking thing is him.

So, X didn't talk much. In fact I thought he was suffering from depression. He never talked to many people.... I was an exception 0_0... But he was a fun guy ^_^ I've tried talking about bombs and guns with other people.... and they'd just shrug me off.

But X, he listened, and in fact, he had his own ideas! He studied about weaponry on his own, owned plastic BB Guns which could give you a blue-black if someone shot you with it @_@ ouch... and he lead me on with my idea of building home made bombs =) which eventually lead to the production of my infamous Smoke Bombs... which... kinda looked like Smoke Brownies =.=" for those of you who've seen it....

However, as years went by, he turned out to be a good, and at the same time... Interesting... friend.

- He's the only guy I know who has a FULL-SCALE MG42 BB Machine Gun in their home.... ..... .... and that thing weighs like.... 6 kg's??

- X can sleep anywhere! And literally, ANYWHERE. Just look at the photo above and you get what I mean.

- He carries a wooden katana around when he goes for class trips or when he goes out with us.

Those are just a few, I'd like to list more... but there's just too much to say. The people who know him would agree that X is one outstandingly UNIQUE person though... haha.

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

Next, there's this girl who.... is the BEST storyteller I think I'd ever know.

Don't you get bored listening to people talking about what they had for lunch.... the guy they met yesterday.... the lecture they got from their mother.... or even how long they waited at the immigration office to get their passport done??

Well, this girl I know.... no matter HOW boring the story is... or even how normal it is... she's just so good at telling it, that it totally spices everything up! She could literally turn her 'just-another-day-at-work' life story into a full blown drama series which even comes with a continuing episode if you're lucky. Everytime she talks... I seriously listen with ears wide open (if that is even possible) and feel like a little kid listening to the story of Peter Pan.

Or if I'm feeling down that day... just talking to her could make everything seem so far away and you totally forget all your worries. Speak of good charisma eh? Lol

And for all I know, there ain't many people like her out there. She's the only one so far I've met... and I'm really thankful for having you as a friend, hahaha... you're one in a million ^_^

***********

Lastly is a guy I shall refer to as L

I've known L since.... .... kindergarten.... though I don't actually remember knowing him then =.=" because I was still very young... and he's basically the person I've known the longest. I've been in the same class as him since kindergarten, and then primary school for 6 years, and all the way up to another 6 years in secondary.

Unfortunately though, I haven't been in touch with him a lot recently, and it seems I don't know him as well anymore.... but nevertheless, this topic still reminded me of him.... for a few reasons....

Firstly.... he's Hyperactive. He never sits still. NEVER.... Do you remember the times in secondary schools when everybody had their designated seats and everybody sat quietly in their own seat during class. But him! he'll be walking around... and picking up stuff from people's table... putting it on other people's... and playing with friends.... and even patting the teacher on his/her shoulder if he could!! Even in the worst case where the teacher forced him to stay put in his seat.... he'll be tilting his chair forwards and backwards (摇椅子).... and trying to make it stand on one leg =.=".... and the sort....

And then, he's playful. He might take your eraser.... put it on your head.... or in your pocket, and then ask you where's your eraser ~.~.... or just bump into you for the pure fun of it..... He had the mentality of a 7 year old at the age of 17.... XP

Besides all that.... L barely stuck to rules.... had like the coolest and longest hair you could have in a private sector secondary school.... and always evaded getting caught by prefects and during spot checks~! Cheeky bastard =)

Having said so much about him.... he was already interesting enough in my 'list of interesting people'.... but to top it all off..... He's currently studying.... Nursing... ....... .....

Male Nurse + Hyperactive + Playful + doesn't stick to Rules + Cheeky = A very good formula for higher Mortality rate.

**********

Life is actually full of interesting people.... both the good and the bad kinds.... haha. But to list them all down would really be too much. It's really just a matter of how much we realise about the people around us... to name a few....

A guy who doesn't kill anything living..... except mosquitoes....
Someone who's slow at doing everything.... everytime he talks... we always say "Get to the point!"
Some person who turned from meat eating to vegetarian for some reason even I don't understand....
A girl who has 'open topic' conversations with me.... yes... 'open topic'...
A friend who grew up never playing with toys.... but instead with books to read and a horse to ride.
A teacher who once burst out with the word "KURANG AJAR!!" in class. He turned out to be a good teacher ^_^
A girl who's more 'man' than all the guys in my class!! LOL
A millionaire who wears flip-flops and moth-bitten T-shirts to a 5-star hotel restaurant.
A 20 year old who has the "taste" of a 40 year old uncle...
A 21 year old who graduated along with me in secondary school.... but is still undecided whether to study in Taiwan, KL, Perth, Melbourne, UK, or India.... ....
People who go back to sleep after waking up.... and not knowing they'd woken up before...

And lastly, this girl that could 放飞机 at a moment's notice, donates uneaten foods and vegetables to the grass outside her house.... she calls it "捐给土地" =.="... surfs AirAsia.com 10 times a day, yet never checks Facebook @_@ (yes, this is weird.... to me... for someone our age... ).... and does many more weird and wonderful stuff.... I am seriously amazed by her nearly every day.... lol

You know who you are.

Well.... that's all for this post. It's been a long one.

Till next time.

Redondo and Choki Choki

Sem break is over, and without realizing it, I'm gonna be taking my last semester in University and gonna be stepping out into society before I even manage to say "I'm not ready~!"

But as time flies.... you soon find yourself sitting on a jet plane once again, en route to my last chapter of uni life.

This time around however, I'd gotten my international passport done ^_^ and was all set and ready for a trip to eat the overly advertised "Excapade Sushi" in Brunei~

So... one fine day

one fine... HOT day....

13 of us got into 3 cars and drove our way to Brunei. And me... with Ringgit Malaysia 186.80, had 0.00 Brunei Dollars and was planning on not spending a cent in Brunei =.="... cheap ain't I?

Upon arriving, our first destination was the all the uni student's beloved Sushi restaurant: "Excapade Sushi"

Somehow I really wonder how those arabic words are read.... and how the words "Sushi" made it into their glossary... but anyway.... to cut the longs story short. We went in, we sat, and we ordered. And when the food came.... ^_^

This is what they called.... .... .... what was it again...? Fire Cheese Salmon??? It's made with a slab of rice below, topped with a generous slice of Half-cooked salmon, followed by another slice of melted cheese on the top of it, to go with it was mayonnaise and some other sauces on top =) The taste?.... Absolutely Delicious *slurp*

One thing to know when going to a Sushi Restaurant. You NEVER leave without trying their Sashimi! And at Excapade sushi, they provide like... the most Beautiful and THICKEST slices of Sashimi I've seen in my history of japanese food.

Getting good sashimi is one thing, getting a LOT of it is another. But you know, the best thing about this place is, you get a good, generous amount, for a very very cheap price @_@

And if you're a freak at raw meat foods. You could always treat yourself to their King size portion of sashimi =.="

Which.... proudly consists of 48 pieces of mixed sushi and sashimi. Where only 8 pieces are NOT made up of raw meat =)

Sadly though, I couldn't be bothered taking any nice photographs of the food that day because my stomach was urging me to put down the camera. And they kept ordering dish after dish after dish of a variety of different sushi's, which was one thing I liked about this restaurant too.... it was full of new flavours.... hehe

And by the end of the day....

But of course... this not even half of what we ate =) and the total price of my table.... $86.70 Brunei Dollars. Divided by 6 people paying (but 7 eating... yea... that extra one was Me XP) $14.50 per person ^_^

For RM30++ we got to try a variety of weird and wonderful new Sushis.... and had a stomach full of raw fish when we stepped out the door of Excapade. Totally worth it =)


And the one more thing every Curtin student does when they go to Brunei... ...

Redondo ^_^

(I bought the Choki Choki's just to reminiscent the childhood days when we bought those sticks for 20 cents and sucked on them in class, hehe)

On a random note. I saw this quote a friend's blog and truly agree with it. So I just decided to share it here.

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” -William Arthur Ward

And I believe the same applies to every other emotion in life.

_

Monday, 19th July 2010

I didn't put the day and date because something memorable happened, I didn't use it because I wanted it to look cool, but just because, I didn't know what other title to put.

It's been a while since I last updated. It seems my passion for blogging is dying once again.... or maybe it's because I've dedicated too much time to this virtual video animated game called "MapleStory" again =.="


Anyway, it's been holidays for me, and without knowing it, it's nearly coming to an end!! With 2 more weeks to spare, I'm trying my best to enjoy my last days of being able to eat home cooked food and just sit around while my mom does all the housework, heheh *evil smile* coz I have to do everything myself when I go back to miri.

But then again, being in KK, without enough Ringgit Malaysia's so spend, and nothing much to do, is actually pretty dull. So dull that I even spent time to scrutinize the potted plants that's been sitting outside on my balcony for 1 1/2 years..... And guess what? I found this~!

A green creepy crawler eating up all the young shoots off the tip of the plant!!

Upon informing my mom about it, she made the decision to throw it as far as it could fly. But then, me.... having nothing better to do, came up with the idea to let it live and see what becomes of it ^_^

Kinda scary eh... when you look at it closely.... reminds me of Pokemon Caterpie...

So having a fried computer, for those of you who knew, yes, my lappy got fried due to malfunction of the cooling fan... or something.... and I had 1 week with virtually NOTHING to do.... anyway, so having a fried computer and nothing much to do, I inspected the plant and the crawler on it every few hours.... and the very next day, I found it'd moved and gone to the bottom to get some shade.

A night later... while I was sound asleep... it turned into...

PUPA~

Too bad I wasn't around to see it spin it out. I never thought that he'd be doing it during Midnight~!!


Then slowly.... 2 days passed... nothing happened... 5 days, not much change. A week of uneventful happenings for the pupa went pass, while I had already gone for a couple of rounds of Call of Duty, had BBQ fish with friends, and even got my computer repaired.

Then somewhere around day 9, the colour of the pupa changed a bit.

It looked.... darker and.... drier... 0_0 and I thought it was a long way more to until... on the 10th Midnight... I was about to do a quick checkup on it's progress and saw.... ....

It was OUT~

And it was BIG~! Here's a 'Plant to Butterfly' ratio photo for your viewing. Basically, the wings were about as big as the palm of my hand.

And gosh... this is actually the first time I had a close look at a REAL BUTTERFLY.

Just look at those eyes.... and the tongue to go with... or proboscis... or whatever that's called =.=

Another pic... ^_^

10 Days. The amount of time it took to turn from a scary looking greenish trailer-like bug, into a huge (well, I think it's huge), colourful and amusing piece of artwork.

Somehow, I'm happy with the decision of not throwing it out the window. ^_^