Ray’s

Yeah, I moved again. Well, not exactly. I just changed my blog’s URL. It’s here now Drop by and say hello when you can!

UPDATE 2: Blog is up and running

I know, this is probably one of the most ridiculous thing I am going to announce. It’s not even 2 months, and I’m bidding goodbye to this blog of mine. I’ll be moving to Blogger and it seemed to be the wisest decision that I’ve made, and I’m sure I’ll be happy ranting there.

I’m moving to here. For some reasons, I just felt the need to get a new blog elsewhere. Friendster blog has too much limitations for me (50 pics/month, no html codes, no nothing). I even considered getting my own domain a while ago, but I just couldn’t imagine the hassle I’ll have to go through. Besides, I’m still pretty new with this blog thing, and there’s just not much sense paying just to type my rants when I can get it for free

Whatever it is, I’m already typing My Virgin Post in my new blog. Do pay a visit when you are dead bored.

Ray~

UPDATE: According to Andrew, I don’t have a Hay fever because I don’t have puffy eyes. So I guess I’m sick due to the change of weather then.

Sorethroat, cough, running nose with occasional bleeding, itching/dry throat, sneezing. Is it Hay Fever? Is it the weather changes? Or is it just me? *cough* It seems to be getting worse day by day. When can I eat all the unhealthy food again? Then again, I’ve not stopped eating them

Ray~

UPDATE: Chariots of Fire blogged here

Ahh, so I finally managed to access Friendster from college computers, after almost a year seeking ways to somehow bypass the high restriction of sites. Thanks to Website Unblocker  and Phonefox, I can access both Friendster and MSN messenger. So, those out there who are having a tight-arsed situation like students here might want to check those sites out
So, why am I here, assessing Friendster from college computers and not at the recreation centre playing badminton? Well, thanks to the Chariots of Fire that the college organises (which of all the days, will be held tomorrow) annually, Andrew has gone to set some things up for tomorrow. The Chariots of Fire is actually a day of fun, more like family day or something. There will be music, tug of war between students and teachers, sack races, accompanied by selling of hot-dogs (they call it sausage sizzle here) and pizzas. Then again, it’s not that any of the players nor I care. Technically, this is the last week of classes. After Friday, holiday study break for two weeks will begin, and right after the two weeks, semester two examinations will commence, followed by the final examination for all international students, the WAUFP (Western Australia University Foundation Program).

Ray~

This entry didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to be. Oh well, too bad this subject gets on my nerves everytime I think about it. Sorry if you do happen to click on my URL and landed yourself into a pile of rants.

Before I begin my rant, I would just like to give credit to David Teoh aka The Katana for the entry that sparked me to write on something which is similar to what I have been wanting to write on.
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Kudos to David Teoh (The Katana)  for touching on the subject of having the Internet to govern our friendships. His entry, ‘On Friendship’ has certainly brought the subject matter to a whole new light (to me, at least). I liked his frankness, and the touch on the subject matter in his own perspective. Frankly speaking, I myself would probably be no shorter than a hundred dollars, with all those invitations to join some random ‘Friendster-like’ services via email.

Personally, I don’t really know why people would want to have all these different accounts. And just when I thought Friendster alone is keeping me busy enough, more invitations to join various services arrive in my email inbox, seemingly happy to land itself into my inbox to get deleted the next minute. So why would one want to have 27 different ‘Friendster-like’ accounts when one is more than enough for many? This is stupid. It’s akin having two (or more, if you like) asses to worry about after shitting (and here I am, gorging my Seafood Chilli Combination).

I have made it pretty clear to some of my fellow mates about the sending of various junk mails and what-nots. I have even copied and pasted the email that I sent to the selected few on my recent entry, Random Thoughts.Then again, some just don’t seem to get the message. Others, fortunately, understood the trouble I had to go through to delete those emails junks (and I thank you all for that). I’m currently having a virtually junk-free inbox, except for the occasional ‘Penis enlargement’ and ‘Free Viagra’ junks, which have never failed to find its way to somehow bypass the junk-mail filter into my inbox.

Notwithstanding all that, Friendster itself is not bad a place for these ‘junk-junkies’ (pun intended) to forward the junks. Enough about all the ‘Frienster is closing’ and ‘Forward this if you are my friend’ and ‘Touching story’ and ‘I care..Do You?’ junks. Those messages are sent countless times, and I just don’t read them. Enough is enough.

If you (yes, you) think you want to keep in touch with your friends via the Internet, but do not know the ways to even write a plain ‘Hi, how are you’ type of email, I guess you shouldn’t even think of forwarding all those junks that you received from your other friends just for the sake of sending something to have me entertained. I find more pleasure clicking the ‘Select all’ and ‘Delete’ button rather than to open the junks one by one to find myself wasting another precious minute of my life. Seriously speaking, I don’t appreciate any junks at all. Even those religious junks. As far as I know, Jesus never said anything that resembled "Forward this email and you will enter heaven", nor has that phrase been stated anywhere in the Bible. If you do find that phrase, maybe you can then tell me.

NO, I don’t remember you or think of you more based on the amount of junks you send me. I only remember those email addresses that I received those junks from, and I think I can almost expect the junks to appear and reappear in my inbox again and again after I click the delete button. Sometimes, I wonder if the ‘Delete’ button is faulty. What makes things worse is the fact that not one, not two, but three [and sometimes more (depending on sender's mood)] bloody junks by the same person on the same day. It’s akin getting my corpse chopped up to pieces and fed to dogs after having me fired by a firing squad.

I would just make an ultimatum to those who are persistent to sending more of those junks to me. I am considering marking you junk-junkies’ email addresses as ‘junks’, since there isn’t any point for me to allow others to continually piss me off or to have my day spoilt just because of the junks. This subject has been mentioned by countless people, but I would just want to emphasise this to my group of friends. Please, put yourself in my shoes. I am not you.

Have a nice day.

UPDATE: I got back my papers today (25th). I got the marks I wanted, but I didn’t get full marks for my references. How stupid can I be? How can I not know I have to reference my quotes? And my overall dropped again, thanks to my below average oral presentation as well. D-A-M-N.

For my ELACS research essay today, I think I managed to write one of my personal best essay again - at least I thought it was one of my personal best. Then again, I mightn’t have done adequate research for the topic, hence the seemingly lack of structure throughout the essay. I even wrote a huge chunk of my conclusion in my essay from Random Thoughts that I had written on Tuesday. The bullet bit were the bit that I copied and pasted, and although I know I might’ve digressed a little from my chemical/biological weapons topic, I really wanted to write it in my essay. Maybe I thought it was cool to have a whole huge paragraph of opinions as conclusion. Oh well, it’s over. Now I’m hoping for an excellent score since I’ve only gotten above half the full marks for the oral presentation. No doubt, I’m expecting for a perfect score. Ambitious? Maybe. Impossible? Nothing is.

We all know how lethal a single bullet can be, how a bomb can lead to destruction of thousands of lives in a split second. We believe things that we don’t see. We believe things that we don’t feel or touch, and we can almost feel the pain that the victims of those who were shot or bombed felt. Why is that so? Is it because we are mere humans, with emotions, with feelings? Can this justify to the fact that we can really feel those pains that those victims endured until their last breath? This thought occured to me earlier this morning, whilst researching on chemical/biological weapons for ELACS report this Thursday.
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Since my Word document file is in college’s library, I guess I will just type out some random thoughts that have been popping out from my head these past few days, that is, if I can remember every single one of them. I think I’ve become somewhat more impulsive recently. I get annoyed rather quickly, stressed up for no obvious reasons. Probably I haven’t been doing well in studies. Probably it’s the pre-exams stress. Probably it’s due to the fact that I’ve been thinking a lot more since bro left to Queensland on Saturday night (he’ll be back tonight though).

It was on the same night that I got rather annoyed with all the forwarded/chain/junk/meme emails that have been flooding my email inbox. I don’t know why, but for the past 2 months, more and more such emails seemed to be happily forwarded by friends. I’m not anti-forwarded emails, but too much of one thing makes me sick after some time. I hate those "Send this to 5 people and your wish will come true in 5 days, send this to 10 people and it will come true in 2 days.." bullshit. All but a load of faeces used to deceive innocent friends of mine to forward it to all their contact list so that their wishes would come true in a second. I know, receiving an average of two to three such emails a day is not bad at all compared to many, but I am used to not having even one forwarded emails. So, I sent the following email to the people that may or may not have forwarded me those forwarded mails:

It was a rather long Friday. Got back my History results for oral presentation. Sadly, I didn’t do as well as I thought I did. Probably due to the fact that I only managed slightly past the minimum time. Enough about that.

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Friday was the river cruise night. I was supposed to give Ryan a ride down to the city, but since he was in Derek’s place, I had to pick him up from his place. However, I didn’t know where the place is, although it’s supposed to be a three minutes’ drive from college. I ended up driving all the way to Victoria Park, where I had to stop and ask strangers the way back to college. After about half an hour wandering aimlessly in Victoria Park, I managed to get closer to college - I was lost, once again in Como. It’s surprisingly a big place, and it’s just near college. After some time being stuck in the traffic jam, I finally saw a sign that shows the direction to college. Being stuck on the different lane of the road, I had to turn the opposing direction, which led me to the freeway - I was heading to the city.

The traffic was bad. Cars from everywhere just appeared out of nowhere. It was the peak hour, and it was almost impossible for me to find a way to turn back to college, so I decided that I should just go ahead to Barrack St. Jetty myself. I was like a black sheep lost amongst the white sheeps, driving without directions, like a drunk fish swimming in a huge sea. It was the first time I’m driving to the city. After I got out of the freeway, I was once again stuck in bad traffic in the core of the city. I didn’t know how to get to the Bell Tower, which is located right in front of Barrack St. So I ended up using my wind-down-window-and-ask-cars-next-to-me skill. I had to ask three different cars that are unlucky enough to stop next to mine - an absolutely stunning convertible (Audi), a holden, and a local cab. Good thing they were helpful enough to shout me the direction. So, in no time, my car was already parked in the parking lot.

The evening turned out pretty well, with all those dancing in the not-so-big cruise, and seeing all the chickas showing their dance moves definitely is somewhat interesting. Here are some photos from the night:

7+ pm. Most people still chilling. Boat has yet to move.

Boat departed. Bad photo. I wanted to take the chickas behind, but the old lady somehow managed to get into my photo with her dancing skills.

Reno showing his moves as the rest looked on. Skillful

A couple of chickas decided to show their moves as well. Somehow I don’t like their taste in clothings. They looked like.. oh, nevermind.

Party getting more hyped up as DJ continues to play hits back to back.

And that idiotic looking guy is Ryan, and Natasha.

Caught the cupid red-handed. What are you doing in a place like this? Well, I guess she’s just doing her job.

Nathan and Reno stole the cheerleader’s pom poms and seemed to be having a fun time with the pom poms.

Stopped at Fremantle, took the pizzas and off we go. These are just one fifth of all the pizzas. Drooling already? Good.

Eline, Yee Teng, Reno, Madelaine, and William (don’t ask me what he was trying to do).

Party starts again after the pizzas, as I..

..searched for the cupid! Man, she seemed to be radiating.

The two seemed to be happy to pose again ‘cos I didn’t get the first one right.

All that fun, and all hell broke loose (it’s Chee Rong with his lighter, by the way).

Some things went missing, and some girls seemed to be the culprit (Pizzas excluded).

Scene of crime.
A few things were recovered (phone, camera), but some things weren’t (phone, cash from wallet, heartache).

In the end, life goes on, and I’ve finished my 50 photos per month limit on this blog. Thanks for reading  

Today, I got back a rather disappointing ELACS marks, but I won’t go into that.
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Rant of the Day:
Changes in me.

I was having my shower a while ago, and I was contemplating on how much I’ve changed this year. This is probably the year that I’ve changed dramatically, and the results seemed rather drastic - both for myself and those around me. I counted, and recounted again and again. This is probably the third time I’ve changed this year. In the process, I’ve lost and gained friends, I’ve had my ups and downs, I’ve gone through ecstatic and depressed periods. But overall, I still feel that I’ve not changed much in some ways. Somehow, I cant really see the change. Thanks to the people around me, that I really know that I’ve changed so much this year. So, I’ve changed; that’s a fact. For the better, or for the worse? That, I honestly do not know.

A classmate of mine, *Isabelle had a small talk with me this afternoon before a class. She was pretty straight-forward, and I had expected her confrontation. The conversation went pretty much like this:

Isabelle: Ray, what are you trying to hide from us?
Ray: Huh? Nothing. What is there to hide?
Isabelle: Then why are you behaving differently lately?
Ray: In what way? I’m still the same, and there are nothing that I am hiding from anyone.
Isabelle: Did me or *Joanne said anything wrong that made you change?
…and it goes on until I excused myself to class.

Actually, I didn’t know how to answer her. I tried my best to find words to convince her that I’m still me, and that I just want to be comfortable, but to no avail. Maybe I should have just told her that I don’t want to mix with her. That will probably send a good kick at my groin.

It is obvious that she was concerned. But it is even more obvious that I have changed. I must admit, I have been trying not to be involved too much with people I don’t want to be associated with, and she is one of those people. Honestly, I feel that I am not in that same group of people, where I have my own way of thinking and they have got their own set of minds as well. Of course, everyone is different. I’m sure some of you have had this feeling where you just know you and a person is akin magnets with the same poles. Well, THAT is precisely what I mean. Probably in a whole different level, as I seem to have experience this a lot this year. Maybe, maybe this is due to the change of environment and the workload in school definitely didn’t help much.

I still don’t know in what way and how much I’ve changed this time. I can be sure to say that I am currently addicted to badminton when I should be concentrating in my studies at this time of the year. But right now, I’m happy with my group of badminton friends. Really am. So please don’t tell me that I’ve changed, and that I am hiding things from anyone. I’m not hiding anything. I’m probably being very selfish, by abandoning my friends without any reasons. I’m probably at the stage where I just want to do whatever I want to now. I want more time for myself, and I don’t really want to be involved too much with any particular friends and what-not at this time, except for school and badminton and work. There’s so little time now, and I really shouldn’t be worried about this too much.

-END of Rant-

This Friday is the River Cruise night. I still haven’t got my ticket, and am still thinking if I should go or not albeit the fact that the tickets are probably sold out already by now. I am not working this Friday night, and I thought I could follow Ryan and the rest to Como for the badminton games. I better check if they are going for the River Cruise instead. Sigh, just when I get the chance to go to Como. Oh, this is becoming yet another rant of mind. Sorry, this whole entry is a rant. But it’s okay though, nothing out of the ordinary from Ray. Always the same old stories, ranting over and over everytime I’m here.

Looking forward to tomorrow morning’s hot chocolate with marshmellows, and also the Salmon patty that I had last week in Angazi

Ray~

*name changed for privacy purposes

After procrastinating for the whole night, I’m finally here again, trying to recapture what I wanted to blog. I have to start from Thursday morning.

Instead of the mundane me-waiting-in-front-of-the-library routine every morning, I decided to head to Curtin. It was too cold a morning to sit on the floor, so I just decided to buy myself a cup of hot chocolate in the Concept Store. According to Wikipedia, they serve the best espresso in campus. Then again, once there, I realised that they only open at 8.30am, and it was only ~7.30am. So, I decided to walk around, see if I could find a place to sit down and try to finish my History oral preparation for the next day. After walking for about ten minutes or so, I spotted a Café Angazi (inset) which is interconnected with the BankWest building. Happily, I was almost trotting whilst walking towards the cafe. I ordered a cup of hot chocolate, which costed me ~$3. It was a value for money though, because it was one of the tastiest hot chocolate I’ve drunk

I was really hoping that I could snap the nice ambience in the cafe and post it here, but too bad I have yet to finish my 25 hours log book. Once I get it done, I’ll hopefully be able to buy the phone that I’ve been checking out, Nokia N73. I was comparing the reviews between Sony Ericsson K800i and Nokia N73 the other day, but at the end of the day, I reckoned Nokia is perhaps the better one, with the slight pros and cons in both devices.

When it was almost time for applicable mathematics class to start, I decided to bid goodbye to the new found hang-out place that I would probably be every morning until I acquire my licence. I was walking towards class, and just outside Vickery House number 21, I noticed a striking red book on the grass. I picked it up, and read the cover "Diary 2006" with a heart shaped background. Being the curious person that I am, I flipped open the diary and realised that it is used as a planner. So, being disappointed, I flipped back to the first page to find the owner’s details. Her name was Michelle Simpson. I called her, but to no avail. So, I left her a text instead. We agreed to meet up by lunch.

During mathematics lesson, I had to excuse myself to the restroom. After I half trotted to the cubicle, I realised something. My zip was unzipped! Imagine the embarrassment if my friends were to start pointing at my crotch in the middle of class when they find out. Of course, that didn’t happen. *coughs*

After meeting the girl and her boyfriend (darn), I was told that her bag were stolen the night of Wednesday. This is really not the first case in my college. Perhaps I should be more wary when I nonchalantly leave my bag next time.

The day progressed as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. The only interesting fact that I found out was probably the fact that the wondrous colours emitting out of television sets are only made out of three colours - Red, Green, and Blue. Interesting right?

Rant of the Day:
WARNING: Not suitable for people who constantly ask for money from strangers on the street. May contain laziness theme in this section. Children should be accompanied by an adult when reading this section.

After school was over, I took two buses in order to get home. Whilst I was walking towards home, a man nonchalantly asked me to spare some change for him. Being the person that I am, I just cannot comprehend being asked for money. I feel that I will not help the person at all by giving him money, instead, I will be encouraging the person to go on ‘asking’ for strangers to spare some change. I just don’t know why cant they work on their own without relying on others’ help. They have got perfect limbs, but still, they choose the easy way out. They got to understand that they have to work hard in order to survive in the society today. No easy way out. Only idiots would give them money, which would motivate the person to think that it’s perfectly okay to ‘ask’ for money from strangers. Where are their senses? Have they got no pride of their own? I even encountered a situation where a guy was walking with his girlfriend, and suddenly stopped to ask for $2 from me. I was really trying hard to put myself in his girlfriend’s shoes, but I really cannot imagine a lady to have a boyfriend such as that. It’s not that I hate these people. I pity them, really. To be put into such a ridiculous situation in life, it must be hard. But still, my principle would never allow me to give these people money no matter what.

-END OF RANT-

I shall stop here whilst I go and get my brother two Lo Mai Kai, two Char Siew buns, roti pratha, century egg porridge, two curry puffs and four Siew Paus, and some food for myself as well WIll update later tonight, hopefully.