Of coffee, cards games, and writer's block.

Not that I'm being random. Just read on and you'll see that the title actually does make sense.
Chinese New Year has just come and gone. It's when cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma, moms, dads, and dog (yes, even DOG) come together to spend time, do absolutely nothing productive and just have a good time. And a good time we did have!
This year, I was the maid, barista, and kitchen assistant all rolled into one. But the responsibility of making sure everyone got their caffeine fix fell right onto my shoulders. But this time round, I have one more to add to my repertoire of drinks. Japanese rice cracker tea. I made quite a number of pots of that weird but pleasant tea, and the ones who drank it actually liked it! Can't say I've mastered the art, but at least it was a good attempt.
Making drinks wasn't all I did this Chinese New Year though. I played card games.. from Blackjack, to poker, to "in between" (I have no idea what it's official called). Although luck wasn't on my side, I had fun anyway :) Not forgetting, the red packets!! Money money money... when they say Gong Xi Fa Cai (it means "Congratulations, you're rich"), I think of all the kids and single people having all the extra cash, and all the married people being extra broke. I guess that greeting is only suited for singles like me huh.. lol.
Now that CNY holiday has come and gone (the real CNY isn't over yet), it's back to real life. Well, not just yet. I start work next week, but I need to get cracking on my conference paper. I've yet to send in my abstract, so I'm not sure if they'll accept it, but I need to at least make an effort to write the contents first. Starting with the methodology. And although the paper was based on my own research, somehow I'm struggling to write even the first paragraph. Has all the cookies from CNY cause a blockage in my brain?!! I'm excited yet nervous. My very first conference... well, if I get accepted.
So, I shall continue to daydream about the conference, and hopefully.. just hopefully, get some inspiration to write. Happy Lunar Year :)

Miss Monk

Don't worry, I'm not losing my religion. I love Jesus too much :)
Nor am I shaving my head anytime soon.
The person I'm turning into though, is perhaps the female version of Mr. Adrian Monk. Don't know who he is? Let me shed some light on who he is. Adrian Monk (from the tv series Monk) is a detective who developed OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) after the tragic death of his wife. He has an obsession with hygiene, fear of hugs, fear of handshakes, fear of.... well, 300+ other things. And everything has to be perfectly cleaned, not a crumb, not a dot of dust.. nothing.
Well, I'm not that bad, but I'm beginning to suspect I'm developing a mild OCD. I don't know, it's just a suspicion. Grace is still normal, you know (or so I think.... I hope).
As you know, I've been working in my boss' old office and my job is pretty much sitting in front of computer, typing stuff and searching for stuff. And then just today, I realized that I've been cleaning my work area (just where the computer is situated, and her desk) every once a week or whenever I see dust. I've been cleaning the table, the screen, the keyboard, the phone.. and whenever I leave, I need to put the chair back to the original position, facing the desk. And now, I've added another task.. clearing the waste paper basket! OH GOSH! I'm a freak!
But then again, when have I ever stopped being a freak? :p But if I get to be as cool a freak as Mr. Monk.. I don't mind. ;)

Krazy KL

I spent a weekend full of madness in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. But I just realized one fact, as much as KL is cool and home to loads of awesome concerts, it is also just home to the most massive traffic congestion in Malaysia. I wouldn't dare say it has the most world-class traffic congestion since I've been to Beijing, but KL wins hands down in that department when it comes to the country of Malaysia. Not that it's something to be proud of though.
Most of my time was spent in MidValley Mega Mall where my hotel is situated as well. And since it was as congested (if not more congested) on the inside of the mall as it is on the roads, I just stayed put. No point of having to go somewhere less congested, because chances are, it'll be just as bad.
I was actually hopeful. I wanted to watch a movie, have nice meals, buy nice things. But the minute I opened the door that connected my hotel to the mall, reality set in. There was massive lines of people everywhere. People queing up to get their cash from the atm machine, people standing in queue for a cup of coffee (that would be me as well), people standing in queue for almost everything and anything.
It was a culture shock for me; this place was in my own country, the people speak just the way I do, I could blend right into the crowd, but yet I felt like I didn't fit in - at all. So, I scrap plans of watching a movie, I hardly had a good meal due to the massive crowds in ALL of the good restaurants, I hardly got to sit down on the benches as well, since they were all occupied. It was a nightmare, I was missing Johor Bahru so badly. So JB is full of crime, so they say almost everything in JB is bad... so what? I'll go crazy if I had to go through those crowds and congestion day in and day out. GOSH!
So, that was the weekend spent. I'm glad I'm home, I'm glad I'm back in my JB, where it's not too busy and yet not too quiet. It's an imperfect city, and yet, it's where I truly belong :)

Mind your engrish

Perhaps a lot of you don't know, but I am truly fascinated by ungrammatical, and hilarious signboards. Honestly, if there's a job for that, I'll be the first in line. The first thing I'll do when I walk into a shop is to look at their notices to the customers (For example, "No smoking") and when it comes to restaurants, I will start picking out grammatical and spelling mistakes that I can spot from the menu. It's not that I'm doing it on purpose (Or maybe I am) but correcting people's grammatical and spelling mistake has somehow become second nature to me. I'm a language major, and if you're a true blue language major, that's probably what you do most of the time, right? And what's more, I have fun while at it ;)
So anyway, I was surfing a guy's blog, a blog belonging to a friend of a friend of a friend (complicated,innit?) and somehow saw the link to Engrish.com and thought I'd check it out. Turns out, there are many people who are like me, who love taking pictures of signboards, menus and what not! OMG! I'm not weird after all!! And I loved the site.. it's just so awesome. And did I mention hilarious?! So since they have all the copyright thing going on and stuff, I thought I'd just post my own photos.. not as intriguing as those on the site but cool enough I guess. And btw, if you think I'm laughing at the expense of others, maybe I am. So I dare you to try not to laugh ;)


#1. This was taken while breathlessly trying to climb the Great Wall. Now you know how passionate I am about this ;)




#2. This was taken at a budget store. Honestly? If I break anything I only have to consider buying? Wow, I'd probably NOT buy the broken piece of junk. :p



#3. I was at a restaurant when I saw this notice (the notice are posted in two separate photos). This isn't grammatically wrong, but it's just plain appalling. In an amusing way, of course :) Do I get a discount for being incredibly nice?









#4. This two banners were at a buffet place. And btw, I did not eat any of their prawns.










# 5. This was taken the same place as #2, except it's a water bottle. I know my photo taking skills are atrocious, but what the heck :p



Written on the bottle: "CONS TANT CREATIVE MAJOR IN THE OUTPACE LINE"........... whatever that means. And I'm not making this up, btw. Look closely if you don't believe me.


So there you have it. My share of photos. I am not into photo blogging, but I finally realized how fun it can be when the photos are just freakin' funny. It's been a blast :)

One for the new year

Happy new year! I know I'm a bit late, but what the heck :)
Well, it was 2008 when I fell asleep the night of the 31st Dec and I awoke to find that I'm in a whole new year. Year 2008 was like any other year.. joy, tears, hardship but most of all, a journey of self-discovery. I've learnt a lot about myself, about my weaknesses, my strengths, and I've accomplished things that I never thought I could or would do. I lost loved ones, and gain new friends; well, it's been a complicated year to say the least :)
I looked back and though I did regret somethings I did or did not do, all those little things had made me stronger. There were things that almost broke my spirit, but did not.. and that is why I'm here today, and I'm stronger than ever. I had realized certain things while going through those ordeal, and have come to the conclusion that life is for living, and if I don't live my life for myself and the ones around me, who would? After all, what/who doesn't break you (even if it almost did), only makes you stronger.
So here's to a good year ahead. A year of leisure and of toil, of sadness and of joy, a year of loss and of gain, a year of learning and of teaching, a year that will break me and build me up; a year that will make me who I am suppose to be eventually.

Are Coldplay the Plagiarists?

Plagiarism is when you steal the thoughts, ideas and words of another author and claim it as your own work. This includes anything from images, to even music because after all, they're all someone's spark of genius.

Just a day ago, award winning British band Coldplay was accused of plagiarism by guitarist Joe Satriani. At first I was pretty shocked, but it really sparked my interest. As you know (or maybe you don't know), I'm working on a research about plagiarism, and well, while I'm no expert, I have read enough to spot plagiarism when I see (or hear) one. And while the scope of my research is mainly plagiarism in academic writing, I did come across one journal article on hip hop sampling (reusing parts of a certain music piece into creating a new one) and how sampling isn't plagiarism. Therefore, did Coldplay's guitarist plagiarize?
well, if sampling isn't plagiarism, then what is the big deal about this lawsuit? Although sampling isn't plagiarism, there's a universal rule for reusing anything, from a paragraph to images to anything that isn't originally yours. In fact, it's simple. Just one word. RECOGNITION. Whatever you use, acknowledge your source. You could have reworded it or made it slightly different or turned a rock piece into some samba music. People have ears you know.. they know (especially if it was you who originally wrote that piece). Perhaps it was different for me, I've never heard of Joe Satriani. But the minute I heard his song on youtube, I immediately knew why he had accused Coldplay of stealing his song. It was similar. A bit too suspiciously similar. Not the whole song of course, but it was enough. There are much debate over this issue, and how melodies have often end up sounding the same.. blah blah blah. In that case, the same string of words and sentences can also somehow end up together and accidently and coincidentally looking like the original author's piece of work.
It's all an excuse. An excuse of a true plagiarist.

And even more disgustingly, Coldplay had this to say:

“We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original,” he notes. “I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists.” - Rolling Stone Magazine


wow, incredibly good plagiarists?? So now, being a good plagiarist is something to boast about?! Gosh. Go figure! With that statement itself, I really hope they lose the lawsuit.

And for your viewing pleasure, here's what I found. Some guy made a video to help you see the similarities between Coldplay's Viva La Vida and Joe Satriani's If I Could Fly. Now you can be the judge of whether they are the incredibly good plagiarists or just plain unoriginal losers who ran out of ideas for a good melody.

Seeing colors

According to people..

Pink is the new black..

Green is the new pink...


In that case, what color is the new green?

I think I'm becoming color blind.