Yes. It has certainly been sometime. The assignment period kicked in and there were plenty of research and typing to be done. It hasn't ended yet. I foresee at least another 2 weeks before the assignment fever ends.

Just an update on what I have been doing...

Assignments... Sleep... Research... Movies...

Surprisingly, with the truck load of assignments I have, I still managed to; shall I say in management terms - gave myself "positive reinforcement" through movies... The key to all this? Plan plan plan... give yourself timelines... a PDA helps!

Anyway, the movies which I have watched in the past 3 weeks? (Not in any specific order)

• Guess Who?
  Hillarious... Ashton Kutcher has done it again...
  
  
• The Pacifier
  Vin Diesel... I've seen him with a belt of heavy machinery... but baby bottles?... Amazing..
  
  
• Samara
  Scarry girl comes out from some well... expect to see some "behind" the scenes...
  
  
• Sahara
  Interesting concept... I like the facility... what facility? You go watch the movie... it's somewhere at the end... :)
  
  
• xXx - The Next Level (no... its not porn)
  Interesting gadgets... I especially liked the flying 200+ Gigabyte capacity flying saucer...
  
  
• Divergence (Cantonese Movie)
  A little bit like Jiang Wu... not exactly my cup of tea but since it's actually got an ending which makes 'some' sense... its okaylah...
  

From entertainment... I musn't forget FOOD...

• Zen (Japanese)
  Nice Japanese food, great environment, pity they increased the price for my favourite sashimi set from RM 28 to RM 33 - approx. 18% increase but hey! They added loads more sashimi to the meal!
  
  
• Kim Gary
  Same ole' same ole'... I've got some pictures of this restaurant somewhere in this blog

That's pretty much what I think is worth mentioning...

My recent infatuations...

• Tiger (not the animal)
  The latest operating system from Apple... released yesterday...
  
  
• Skype
  It's nothing new. Just one of those days when you stare at your monitor aimlessly... then started clicking and you go "hey! let's start calling people!" - the sad bit? My contact list ain't that long... so CALL ME!
  
  Add me to your Skype list (whoever you are) - just key in the username "benjern"; if you don't have Skype, go download this revolutionary must-have piece of communication software.
  

Music... the rhythm which brings memories and lightens up your soul (for good memories of course)

I recently bought two albums...

• Jazz on the Vine (Jazz)
  Great music. Very good for relaxation... I use it when working on stressful work...
  
  
• Il Divo (Vocals)
  A bunch of guys handpicked by the infamous American Idol Judge, Simon Cowell. This is their very first album - if you are into Josh Groban, Charlotte Church or any music involving an emphasis on vocals, this is the album for you...
  

Okay, enough for the report... will be back with more when thoughts come around...

Meanwhile, celebrate life... when you are faced with difficulty, don't fret - there's this rock which my dad gave me - it's got a carved inscription which says...

Whether You Think You Can or You Can't You're Right

and ultimately... from the Bible - a verse which I live by...

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. In all ways acknowledge Him. Lean not in your own understanding and He will make your paths straight - Proverbs 3:5-6

It's been a long time since I've sat my foot on Petaling Street a.k.a Malaysia's very own China Town. Here you'll find everything from fresh fruits to imitation goods... hey they rhyme! :)

Anyway, it's one of those inpromptu trips. A friend of mine (Soo Jin - the guy in the rest of the pictures) decided to make a trip to a restaurant within the vicinity of Petaling Street; famous for it's "Lou Shee Fun" - noodles which looks like worms - I repeat... its LOOK not IS. Malaysian's don't exactly take worms as a delicacy.

The trip began from campus, took off from the car park and headed towards town at about 7 and due to the heavy down pour, we were stuck in traffic for a good 1 1/2 hours (it would usually take us less than 1/2 an hour).

We finally arrived... got our car parked and headed towards the restaurant.

I'll let the rest of the pictures speak for itself :)


Appetizer no. 1 - Chilli... nah.. just kidding...

Dish no. 1 - The main dish. worm like noodle (just flour actually) with minced pork, black sauce, topped up with an egg and garnished with spring onions.

Dish no. 2 - A pretty famous dish in Malaysia, "Sang Ha Mun Yee Meen" - direct translation - "Fresh Prawns cooked with Yee Mee Noodle"

Dish no. 3 - "Ha Kau" - Some sort of prawns, fried with some interesting batter and a hint of chilli...

Dish no. 4 - Pork cutlets in an extremely oily black sauce...

It's serving time!

The journey at Malaysia's China Town (Petaling Street) begins...

The infamous Air Mata Kucing - in direct translation, "Cat's tears". I have no idea why they name the drink after that but it sure tastes good... as long as I can remember, this store has been here ever since I had my first few steps in Petaling Street

Petaling Street with it's hustle and bustle... new roof... and a huge Malaysian flag...

At the end of Petaling Street

To finish off the trip...


Stella and I decided to drop by Koong Woh Tong, the infamous herbal tea-shop...

The Guai Leng Kao - bitter chinese herbal jelly with a hint of honey (in the yellow pot) said to reduce the heatiness in a person...

Opera
Opera has launched yet again another version - 8.0! Isn't that crazy? They've got more versions than the infamous Internet Explorer (which is just about to release version 7.0). This time around, the CEO promised the public that if their latest version of the browser achieve 1 million downloads in 4 days, he would swim from Norway to the US. Impossible? Perhaps not. Just 2 days after the launch, the figures have spiked up to 600,000 - just 400,000 to go! Mr. Jon S. von Tetzchner, get your swimming trunks ready!

Mozilla
Positioned as a super safe browser, Mozilla was recently slapped in the face with reports of security bugs. That's no good for the browser which has recently achieved over 50 million downloads. Any patches or fixes so far? Not that I can remember :(

The lesson? Go Microsoft... at least they provide updates the moment a bug hits... :)

Yay! It's a public holiday. The day is ALL MINE! I woke up during the wee hours of the morning (approximately 8:00am) and was planning to fetch Stella to work and wait till she finishes. The issue was that if I were to go, I will have to sit and wait for her at Starbucks for a good 6 hours.

Spend 6 hours in Starbucks? Instead, I decided to call it off and headed for the good ole' tele. Watched some cartoons, had some cereals and headed straight for the bed.

I decided to sleep till about 12. Woke up just as planned but the dream which I had during that couple hours of sleep didn't seem to finish. I set the alarm for another 1 hour and the dream continued. An hour later, I woke and again, it didn't seem like my dream had ended. Again, I extended for another hour.

It felt as though I was watching some addictive chinese serials. Everytime I slept, it felt like I watched another serial... it was a marathon. The marathon continued till about 2:30pm.

If you were to ask me what was the 'serial' all about? My answer - I cannot remember :)

It may not be productive but I sure had plenty of sleep and 'serial watching'... a perfect way to spend a public holiday... next stop? Straight to town to (maybe) pickup a gadget and head towards KLCC for a movie.

What a beautiful way to spend a public holiday eh?

It's Saturday (sorry, should have posted this yesterday). All I did was wake up pretty early to send Stella to work, went to a nearby nasi-lemak store and picked up some nasi-lemak and headed for home.

Ate we did and sleep I did... For some reason I was simply too tired. Instead on working on a presentation which is due on Monday, I continued sleeping... and sleeping... and sleeping... practically the entire day.

Woke up later in the evening to pick-up Stella from work (yes I think I slept for another 6 hours or so). It has been a busy busy week, so I decided to go watch a movie - for the plain idea of relaxation. 2 hours later, it was dinner with Soo Jin and friends followed by a movie - "the Pacifier" - GREAT MOVIE.. :)

I'll let the rest of the pictures speak for itself :)


Dinner at Laksa Shack was lovely... 3/4 dishes there were for Stella and I... the balance was Soo Jin's :) - Yes, we are hungry people...

Right after the movie... I took a peek from the entrance of the cinema and look! HUMANS!

It's April 14th (2 days ago from today's posting date). There were no more classes left to attend for the day. Stella and I were getting ready to leave the campus but the very heavy rain stopped us.

Since we parked our car, approximately 200-300 meters away from campus, running under the rain - towards the car wouldn't be a good idea.

Instead, we left for the main entrance and was hoping to find someone who is passing by or is willing to run to their car parked within the campus and give us a lift to where we parked the car.

We met a friend by the name of Hui Wen. Since it was raining, she wasn't ready to get wet and so, she was stuck within the covered area. Her car was parked merely, 20-30 meters away (she managed to get a carpark within the campus - still uncovered though). I gave her a deal and offered to make a quick run to her car and have it driven to the porch where she is, in return, she will have to drive Stella and I to our car parked outside the campus. She agreed and there I went.

It was a short run, I stepped through puddles of water, rushed towards the car and got myself in the warm and dry environment of the car within minutes.

I drove her car to the porch, Stella and Hui Wen entered and we left for the location where Stella and I left our car.

We finally got into the car and left for dinner followed by a movie at Sunway Pyramid. On the way there, I felt a little uneasy. That tingling feeling as though you have left something behind. True enough, my bluetooth handsfree was gone. The few possibilities were that :

1. I dropped it while running towards Hui Wen's car
2. I dropped it in Hui Wen's car
3. I dropped it while switching between the two cars

After much searching and making a few calls, it was confirmed that my beloved bluetooth handsfree was gone.

Well, my handsfree is gone but the entertainment and food must continue. So away we drove and as we were arriving at Sunway Pyramid, I caught this picture of a security guard controlling the traffic flow.

I'll let the rest of the pictures speak for itself :)

Woo... reminds me of a scene from the "Scarry Movie"


The infamous Kim Gary Restaurant...

The table...

The meal began with a "Yin-Yong" which is a combination of both tea and coffee for Stella and a pure "Cha" which is simply tea for myself.. oh yes, not forgetting the New Zealand Strawberry Yoghurt which came with my set...

The meal came with what they call "Borsch soup" - it's actually a very light tomato based soup with cuts of soft vegetables...

My very nice but fattening minced pork + white sauced + baked cheese with rice...

Stella's pork cutlet meal...

Busy munching on the pork cutlets...

A pose ... right after a lovely meal

and just yesterday... at the same place... a meet-up with Soo Jin (purple), his two lady friends, my old school mate since primary - who is coincidently Soo Jin's friend, Yew Wen (hidden behind Soo Jin) and my sayang..

Okay... gastronomic but not exactly cheap. It's been sometime since we visited the lovely Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel. Since we joined the Absolute Club by Sunway Resort Hotels, we were given a host of interesting priviledges, ranging from cheaper hotel stays to 1/2 priced meals in the any of the resort's many restaurants. Okay... now I sound like I'm promoting them.

Back to where I was... yes, it has been sometime and we felt that it would be nice to exercise those priviledges. We arrived at the hotel at approximately 7+, sat in the restaurant and before we even got seated properly, our kiasu selves (Stella and I) decided to move straight to the buffet spread.

Eat we did.. and plenty too.

At the end of the dinner, we decided to have a take-away for my sis who's studying at home. The take-away was for a pack of Hainanese Chicken Rice ... and not the usual one anyone would expect. The rest of the pictures explains it all..


The buffet spread... not bad. Huge array of appetizers, oysters, prawns, ginseng soup, cuts of both beef and lamb, fish, vege and loads more... ooh I must not forget the pretty nice spread of desserts... from ice-kacang to assorted pastries...

Nice display... great looking bread at the exit... only to be purchased and not part of the buffet...

Nice selection of deserts, near the cashier. Not part of the buffet of course :(

We decided to have a take-away... Hainanese Chicken Rice for my sis... (shown in the bill as "1 C RICE (STEAM) - 23.00"). I agree its a bit expensive. Perhaps the packaging and quality would justify it :)

By the way, the bill above does not reflect the discounts given. It came up to about RM 100 (take aways are given only a 30% discount).

Not bad eh?

The package... what's inside? view the next few photos...

Part 1... the chicken, sauces and veg...

Part 2... the rice...

Part 3... the soup...

The expensive... Hainanese Chicken Rice combo meal!

It looks and smells so good that my "girl girl" (yes! that's the official name of my dog - wasn't too creative - and yes! she's a girl) stays near..

It's 2pm, right after returning from the Cheng Ming activities. It's been a long and early morning. I told Stella, we are going to sleep for about 2 hours.

2:30pm, the sleeping activity began. The alarm was set to trigger at 4:30pm.

The alarm rang precisely at the time it was set
too sleepy-lah, let's sleep for another 1/2 hour

The alarm rang at 5pm
Just another... 1/2 hour

The alarm rang at 5:30pm
Just another 1/2 hour (Is this gonna stop?)

The alarm rang at 6pm
Guilt sets in... OKAY! It's time for assignments! We slept waaayyyy too much... :)

Sometimes, all it takes is a slight nudge... "just another..." and you'll be on your way to sleepy land...

Right across... the usual view of a cemetry...

It's the Cheng Ming celebration season. This is when the Chinese pay their respects to their ancestors by praying and bringing along food which the ancestors used to like.

This is also the time when relatives from all over the country come together in one place creating once again the feeling of togetherness as a family that seems to be fading away due to today's modern culture.

The day began for me at 5:15am - we are late! Alarm rang a number of times but Stella and I for some reason, ignored it and continued sleeping - we were eventually woken up by the sound of our dog's nails scratching the floor (she was probably trying to alert us - or she was just itchy.)

6am. Both Stella and I was prepared. We headed towards my grandma's place to pick her up and proceed to the first of the two stops - one in the heart of KL and the other in Nilai.

The KL one is where my great-grand parents are located and the Nilai one is where my grandfather (my dad's side) is located.

Following the phrase that "pictures speaks a thousand words" - I'll let the rest of the pictures posted here speak for itself...



1st stop, my great-grand parent's cemetry. This building is where the urns of the demised ashes are stored. Each floor contains hundreds of urns, each stored in their individual cubicles.

Offering of food to the demised. Each table here contains food which the demised used to like.

Burning here acts as a 'courier' service to send items to the demised...

The burning of boxes... inside these boxes are goodies in paper form. You'll find clothes, watches, mobile phones, money and loads of other stuff said to be used in the other world...

2nd major stop, arrival at my grandpa's cemetry - the Nilai Memorial Park

A first stop, prior to visiting my grandpa's place of rest...

Some traditional papers said burnt for the demised and is said to help the demised live a better life in the other world...

The modern cemetry... nothing eerie, infact it feels great and refreshing (if not for the really warm weather)

The prayers had begun... my grandpa's location is two rows from the bottom and the third column from the right...

Commercialization of the cemetry business has been a major hit in Malaysia. From resort styled cemetries to cemetries that look almost similar to a theme park. It's pretty amazing what people do. All in all, firstly, its to make money and secondly, it is to help remove the eerie associations of the graveyard making the graveyard a more scenic and relaxing environment where both the demised and the relatives of the demised can appreciate.

So there you go, this ends my Cheng Ming 2005 report...

Now, on to some sleep then WORK!

The stressful situation which I mentioned a couple of days earlier in my blog has returned. This time, its the stress of time.

There I was returning from my grandma's place earlier this evening. Stella was driving so I decided to go take a break lay comfy on the passenger seat for a while.

With no road to watch, no cars to watch and no paddles to meddle with, I decided to pickup my trustful Pocket PC and checked on the schedule of assignments for the next couple of weeks.

The check reminded me once more that I have got thousands and thousands of words worth of essays / reports to write alongside with the super tight datelines I will be facing in the next couple of weeks. With all that cramped into my head, feelings of distress overcame me. It was as though I was under tremendous amounts of pressure, it felt a bit warm and fuzzy inside coupled with anxiety and worries of not being able to complete my assignments on time.

Unlike earlier semesters, I actually had sufficient breaks between assignments so there was air to breathe. This semester was different.

Anyway, back to the situation in the car. I was on the passenger seat, took out my PDA, got a shock and depression was slowly settling in.

I finally arrived home, got straight into my room and started up my notebook which has an identical copy of the schedule of assignments in my PDA. I started rescheduling, this time, instead of just placing a dateline for each assignment, I decided to put in an additional entry which tells me exactly when I should begin and stop working on a particular assignment.

With all that set into the calendar, I ran through my schedule once more and this time, for some reason everything looked a bit more feasible... so all that depression in the car wasn't needed after all! I also discovered that the period of tight datelines will be over right after the 11th of May 2005 ... at least, that will be so until the time before the semester examination period begins.

Back to assignments, my next assignment is due exactly 7 days from today. So I thought to myself, it's 7 days. That's many many days. So why not just CHILL... RELAX...

What am I about to do next? Open up a bottle of Reisling wine! Ah... my favourite!

Cheers mate!

My first attempt into blogging was through www.blogger.com.

Since young, I wasn't really fascinated by the world of writing a daily journal, let alone blog on the internet.

A couple of years later, I found my self registering for another online blog service called theSpoke.NET created by Microsoft to create a blogging community among students and Microsoft enthusiasts.

One after another, the blogging followed. So much so that I completely forgot about blogger.com.

Today, I was going through my blog at theSpoke.NET and all of a sudden I was struck by the thought of having a short URL for my blog.

The issue was that everytime I am to refer a friend to my blog, I will have to provide them with an extremely long address :

http://www.thespoke.net/MyBlog/benjern/MyBlog.aspx

I thought to myself that it would be great to have something like http://benjern.thespoke.net.

Immediately, the URL http://benjern.blogspot.com which I reserved many years ago came to mind. I logged on, and true enough the account was still there.

It's official. I'm going double. I love the interface and the features which blogger.com provides and at the same time I would also like to be within the theSpoke.NET community, I'll be blogging at both places.

Although most of the content would be duplicated, there would be some posting (such as this one) which would be unique to each blogging site.

I am EXTREMELY stressed up. This is not a normal stress, this is a higher level stress, higher than anything that I have ever experienced before. To be really honest, I'm not sure if its stress or is it just pure anxiety.

The issues...

1. Assignments after assignments after assignments. Well, these are not the usual assignments. I'm in the Business in IT major and because its my final semester before I graduate, I have done all my core units. All I have now are electives. As I'm in Monash Malaysia, my elective options are not as many as some of my friends in the Australian campuses. The result? It's either accounting, management, law or marketing
   
   Personally, I don't like accounting, then I'm told that Law is super difficult, the options left? Marketing and Management! Being a Business IT Major, most of my assignments in the past were mostly research on IT related issues, working with the database, playing with some programming languages or meddling with websites - I love these stuff. Then comes Management and Marketing. Management can be boring... assignments are mainly theories related along with super long essays to write. Marketing is similar but in my opinion is more interesting.
   
   To sum it up, this semester is 1 IT unit (yes! I managed to get one elective on IT), 2 Marketing Units and 1 Management Unit. All these translates to loads and loads of lengthy essays. To make matters a teeny bit more stressful - SUPER TIGHT datelines. Imagine, I've got 3 assignments all due in the same week! Each essay averages out at about 1500-2000 words. That's approximately 5000 words in 1 week! (+/-) - let's not even start talking about the time it would take to do the research along with the proper citations and referencing.
   
   So there... assignment stress.
   
   
2. Another issue is my graduation; granted that I go through and pass all the examinations this semester. It's not like I am a bad student; its just that I am stressed. It's the expectations you get from your peers, your parents, your friends... its a whole load of stuff. Questions come in like "what if?" and "what then?" ... its really scarry.
   
   
3. Then comes another factor. This semester, if the temporary exam timetable is correct (yes, it's out - Monash releases a copy to the staff very early during the semester). My 1st paper begins early June and approximately a week later, it is followed by 3 consecutive papers running one day after another. That would mean literally no breaks in between. It's just constant reading and memorization and papers for 3 consecutive days.

So there, a short summary of how I'm feeling. It's really scarry. I'm feeling really stressed but I did catch a movie earlier this evening and I feel loads better. Now that I have let it all out, I feel much better. It doesn't look that bad after all does it?

The following lines from the Bible ALWAYS give me peace...

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. In all ways acknowledge Him. Lean not in your own understanding and He will make your paths straight.

Gmail has really gone mad. Or has it? I now have 1.5 Gigabyte of e-mail space... and it doesn't end there... Gmail has plans to increase to 2 Gigabyte and beyond!

Geez... how many Terrabytes of hard disk space do these guys have...

I'm not complaining... are you? :)

Source: New features on Gmail