Melbourne Blues

Happy Birthday!

2007-11-10T22:44:00.000+11:00

Sorry for the long reply guys.. Exams have really been a disturbance in my current existence.. That said, my first exam, Materials was a bloody joke... I can't believe I spent so much time on an exam an 8 year old would have passed easily..

Heck, Ed and I took one whole afternoon studying it.. Just one whole afternoon, and it's a big possibility that we would get H1's. That's like an A1 in Malaysian standards.. Hah..

Well, like the title says, happy birthday to Haidee Cadd! We had a little 'party' on the roof today to celebrate Haidee's birthday.. We can't really say it's a party because all parties are banned during SWOT Vac.. Then again, it's not SWOT VAC anymore, and it was a study session! Heh..

Haidee, being her usual self, forgot to buy alcohol for the 'party', but we had Brendan from Medley saving the day with two bottles of SMIRNOFF. It was good to see the Medley boys again...

Lunch was actually pretty good today, with decent meat (chicken). Ed was kind enough to get me another piece during the show "Goal 2". Football! I miss that bloody game.. Haihz..

We then watched another show, "Superbad", which was a freakin awesome movie! I don't know whether it was because all of us were inebriated or due to its superior scriptwriting, but nonetheless, laughs were plentiful during the whole show. Hilarious indeed..

Well, that's it then.. Made two packets of IndoMie for supper... Given my current state, I guess it was understandable, the mess I made at the kitchenette...

Exam on Monday, Dynamics & Measurement Systems.. Probably the hardest subject... I don't think it's possible to do any work today, so I guess I'll slog it out tomorrow.. Haha.. Until then.. Adios my friends!

2007 ValeDICtory Dinner

2007-10-20T01:41:00.001+10:00

It's been a month since my last post, of which the sincerest of apologies will be given to everyone!

Today has been one action-packed day of insanity, shameless fun, and pure shock at the same time. Oh what a night!

It started lamely though, with the usual getting up late and missing breakfast routine, grabbing lunch and going to classes. I came back at around 4, watched an episode of Mythbusters and decided to catch a power nap. (Yes, I'm fatter if you have to ask, but I'm not a walking balloon yet!) Basically it was one of those lethargic days.Valedictory Dinner couldn't have come at a better time!

It was to be the last proper High Table function, as well as the last college party for the year 2007 in JCH. Though the usual High Table does have its sense of opulence, Valedictory Dinner was in a whole new level. With contrasting table cloths of blue and white canvassing the tables, and similarly-coloured balloons tied up at random spots, it turned out to be quite a spectacle. Tables were arranged so that a contiguous row of tables were put together in the middle. Students who were leaving took seat in the middle High Table, while the returning students (me included!) sat by the side.

Although the wine tasted as terrible as always, it was a welcoming moment to receive top-class cuisine again (Happened only once before if my memory serves me right). We gathered at the SCR (Senior Common Room), and bantered until we were told to enter the Dining Hall. It really is nice to see everyone dressed up as impeccably as possible, especially those who never dressed up before. I was actually stunned to see some girls I've never really noticed before appear in expensive dresses and looking dangerously beautiful. Such a bummer they are leaving.

And of course we could trust Dr Cameron to give a hilarious speech in honour of the departing students. Claire Weeden then orated a speech in honour of the returning students, and finally Olivia Jones with her general speech. The returning students then proceeded to the corridor connecting the Dining Hall to the SCR to become guards of honour to the departing students. It was pretty lame watching them past by under us until Rob started bashing the guys in the sensitive area as he walked past, only to be followed suit by BeerdEd (Edward Ellis). Will got hit the worst, and had to take a while off to recover. Hopefully his family jewels are still intact..

With that, we were off to the last JCH party of 2007! It took a while for people to trickle in as some were still conversing in the SCR, some were busy playing Halo and others were quietly waiting for booze to arrive. But it wasn'tlong before the party got started right! There are a few classics that absolutely has to be played in every party. They are:

500 Miles - The Proclaimers (It's such a great song to sing a long!)
Holy Grail - Hunters & Collectors (It's an Aussie thing)
Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi (Another great song considering its lyric's relevance to our lives)
The "Nakbush" Dance - Unknown ( I have absolutely no idea what's it's called, or who the artist is, but it's a song which everyone can dance to, since the steps are so easy to learn)
I Don't Feel Like Dancing - Scissor Sisters (As mentioned before, this is this year's fresher dance, and I STILL do not know the dance moves. It's so hard to watch people and follow the crowd, but it's still all great fun!)
Pump It - Black Eyed Peas (This is the Second Year Fresher Dance, and even harder than my year's dance)
Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry (Third Year Fresher Dance {I think}, pretty cool!)
Closing Time - Semisonic (A song to end all parties, with the relevance of its lyrics , and especially more poignant today, considering it, really, was, closing time..)

Lousy phone camera has no clarity whatsoever. From left: Erykah, Adam, and Tim

And so the party went off for over four hours, with almost everyone dishing it out in the JCR, and having fun as best as they could! I know I did! Of course I did not drink as much as I would have, as I didn't want to be drunk again (that's what they told me, but I disagree) like last time. But still, letting loose is such a liberating feeling, and is a must-do for everyone out there! You can only truly see who you really are when you let go of all the physical and mental inhibitions. Trust me on this!

Big Ed

Big Ed carrying Beerded Ed by the legs as he swung BeerdEd around ballet-style. Pretty cool actually.

(Oh, but I did learn a neat trick of sculling today, taught by the evergreen Rob and Ed. Here's how it goes. A bottle of anything is the ideal object of sculling in this situation, aptly called the Torpedo. First, a straw with a minute diameter is placed in the drink and aimed downwards. Then your index finger should hold it firmly in place, but not too hard that it blocks the straw passage. With that, you scull the drink. The objective of the straw is to remove all the air from the bottle during sculling, thereby sending a whole stream of unadulterated alcohol straight through your throat, instead of the usual gulping down of the drink with a usual scull. Twice the speed of sculling, twice the burn in your throat, but great fun all the same!)

I blame the phone again

Unfortunately, my camera was destroyed during a previous JCH party (Trivia Night to be exact), and I have not had a camera since. And phone cameras are possibly the worst cameras to use in a dark place. Thus, there are almost no pictures of this great night. Bummer.

Alison and Steph not sure where to look at since I was taking the picture in the dark, lol..

Of course, as trite as it sounds, good times have to end, and that's exactly what happened as the lights were turned on and that dreaded Vitamin C song being played. Everyone just started saying goodbye, and giving orgies of hugs to anyone in sight.. Sigh..

And more goodbyes..

With that, we were asked to leave the JCR so cleaning could commence. Almost everyone then crammed into the Baige to decide on the next plan of action. And boy oh boy was it a plan of action!

Just a random video of absolute randomness

As much as the balls-punching during Guards of Honour thing was considered an ungodly but neccessary and absolutely fun JCH tradition, the same went for the Nudie Run. Yes, a nude run across Royal Parade and into public areas. I'm totally not kidding! At first I thought it was a big joke, so I ran upstairs to grab my wallet and passport, thinking that we were going to a night club or something to continue the party, only to see people stripping their clothes off and running aimlessly into the streets, with the biggest grins in their faces.

Of course, at first, I thought it was down to underwears only, until I saw someone walk past stark naked, with a sheepish smile to make the whole situation even more absurd. As rightly stated in the rules of the Nudie Run, no cameras were allowed in this "to be one with nature" journey, so as to prevent perverts from doing anything untowards the videos/pictures as well as making sure that the police will not be able to identify the perpetrators if they were to be called. After all, it is illegal in pretty much almost everywhere! I shall also refrain from naming people, so as to respect their privacy (ironic indeed)

But I have no choice but to mention Edward Ellis. As mentioned before, I have repeatedly said that Ed is possibly one of the most incendiary person I've ever met, and he rightly justified that by baring all, strutting down the street in his naked glory. Where others would sheepishly cover their genitals with a sock or cowardly still keep their boxers on (I am ashamed to confess that I could not find the courage to let loose my boxers into the wilderness), Ed rode the street like he owned it, and had this apparently innocuous smile on his face.

Obviously, with naked guys and girls walking in the middle of a major street, you would expect us to be a major source of attention. Unfortunately, we finally realised that drivers at night are practically blind to everything except the road directly in front of them. For a while, no one even stole a look back. However, that all changed when we reached a traffic light. I could just imagine the looks on the drivers' faces as they witness a group of nature-loving nudes stroll down the road to Princess Park. And for all that effort we received a honk or two, thereby confirming the aphorism, "Honk If You're Horny".

At Princess Park, more people bared their souls to the world as the darkness concealed most body parts. We then sat around in a circle on the wet and obscenely cold grass. We tried to talk about philosophy, but everyone was too drunk to start any conversation with an ounce of intelligence in it. Jean then started playing Duck and Goose, but Alex didn't really continue the game, and it petered out. After a few freezing minutes, we decided it best to go home. And with that, we picked ourselves up and headed back home.

Ed then had this great idea of being a Road Guard to all of us. At the zebra crossing, he stood in front of cars and stuck his hand out, signalling the metaphorical "Stop" sign, while the headlights of the cars highlighted everything for the drivers to see. Hilarious stuff indeed. We actually got a few honks of this one truck. Further ahead, Ed thought it to be a great idea to see if he could grab a taxi back to JCH, even though JCH was only 10 meters away. The first few taxis just drove past, but finally one turned on its left signal and headed towards Ed. However, it just zoomed past the boys, but only to do a U-turn to head for the girls. Big surprise there. After a minute or two of intensive negotiations, Ed and his entourage managed to get the taxi to send their naked bums back to JCH. Best part was, he didn't charge them for it! I guess giving the excuse that you forgot your wallet is valid in this particular situation..

And so, here I am, blogging about this unforgettable night, still in my boxers alone, and feeling super cold. When I headed to my room, a portion of them decided to head off to the Newman College Chapel, still in their birthday suit. I'm not sure what they did exactly at the chapel, but desecration would probably be a good word to describe their actions. I guess we're all going to hell, but the important part is that we go to hell as a team!

Jokes and stunts aside, it has been a day surrounded by ambivalence, and perhaps a tinge of nostalgia. I remember not too long ago, I was waving goodbye to my friends as I entered the departure gates. I had just left all my friends behind to experience a whole new way of life in another country. I came to Melbourne Uni, and then JCH, not knowing what to expect. Though I met Sven in the first week of uni, life in JCH was hard at the start. Not knowing anyone was quite a blow to my already fragile mindset, and I wasn't really enjoying myself too much.

Then I started hanging out with Sven, who turned out to be a cool dude, as well as getting to know the JCH'ers one by one. Life got a whole lot better after that, and I could actually forget about trying to make friends, and start being a friend. Fast forward a few months later, and here I am at the crossroads again. This time, however, I shall be the one standing back and waving to those who will proceed with their lives. It seemed only a while ago when I met Sven, Ed, Adam, and many more, and now again I find myself saying those dreaded goodbyes to the departing people.

I guess it was a good lesson to learn, that life, as exciting as it is, is merely a transitional period between birth and death, and quite frankly, too short for comfort. I guess it was also a good lesson to everyone to appreciate your friends more, as they actually do come and go, hopefully only in the physical sense.

I guess that's the end of my protracted spiel (partly to make up for the long period of absence). To everyone who will be leaving, f*ck you for leaving, but thank you for the great moments that we've shared, however transient it may have been. It was an absolute pleasure sharing my life with you, as well as sharing your life with mine. To the best of luck in your future endeavours, I bid thee adieu...

Shit, morning duty tomorrow at 7, and it's already bloody 3:30 in the morning..

The Price of Growing Up

2007-09-30T00:58:00.000+10:00

I was just listening to my iPod while posting the previous post when I heard a familar song playing through the speakers. It was "You Got A Friend In Me" from the Toy Story movie. Nostalgia swept through me as I started thinking about how I used to love watching Toy Story, which then ramified to other cartoons, like the Disney classics (Alladin, Little Mermaid, etc)

Then I thought about everyone leaving for greener pastures in another country. I thought about how everyone is already planning on entering the working world, and worried about how much money they'll make when they get out of uni. I thought about how stability was lost when I left for Australia.. I thought about how difficult it would be to keep in touch with each other, now that our lives are intertwined no more..

Wasn't it just yesterday when I would look forward to watching Disney Channel and despise sleeping because I have to wake up early to go to school. Wasn't it just yesterday when I used to chase girls around, throwing these silly toys that explode after a few seconds? Wasn't it just yesterday when I would hang out with the boys under the tree, or the gutter in the foyer?
Wasn't it just yesterday when I found out what having a girlfriend meant? Wasn't it yesterday when I so wanted to be older so I could have the privileges only adults could have?

It wasn't?

Felt like it though..

And now the speakers sing again, this time with yet another poignant song..

"When they get to the part

Where he’s breakin’ her heart

It can really make me cry

Just like before

It’s yesterday once more

Lookin’ back on how it was

In years gone by

And the good times that I had

Makes today seem rather sad

So much has changed"

Sydney Paradise! Part I

2007-09-29T22:19:00.000+10:00

I see that everyone has left for some foreign country, so I would like to wish everyone good luck in their current hermitage, and hopefully they will fit in well etc...

As you all know, I'm back from Sydney! Sydney is pretty darn cool! Lotsa cool beaches, roads like Kuala Lumpur, and much better night clubs compared to Melbourne.

It started off badly enough.. Our plane to Sydney was to leave at 7.30am. Kristy, George, Ami and I were supposed to take a taxi to the airport at 4.15 am. Me being the lazy ass conveniently slept until I received a phone call at 4.30am, asking me where I was. Unfortunately it was too late for me to reach the taxi at Kristy's place, so I told them to head off by themselves. Then, Daniel went into superhuman mode and got everything ready with speed that would make Superman blush. 10 minutes later Daniel was outside JCH flagging down a taxi, who was more than happy to send me to the airport.

Obviously, I reached last, and was greeted by everyone warmly. A few were laughing at me for being late, but it was to be expected I guess. Heh. Anyways, had McD's (Aussies call it Macca's) for breakfast, and flew off to Sydney without further hitches. We immediately headed off for Maze, our Backpackers rooms. After placing our bags, we then headed to Hyde Park, since we couldn't check in until 1pm. We bought some food, and proceeded to eat it while sitting down on the green grass, with the sun shining down on our faces, a la Western style. It was a pretty soothing moment, and the two laziest people (Sven and I) tried sleeping, only to be awaken by the girls.

From left: Clemens, Sven

Enjoying time in the sun. From left: Ashwin(still don't know how it's spelled), me, Sven, and Clemens

Hyde Park

After a decent packed lunch, we headed to the Sydney Opera House, which I've actually seen before with my family, but what the heck. Still a beautiful spectacle. However, according to Clements, they sacrificed substance for style. It may look aesthetically pleasing, but the acoustics in the Opera House is allegedly pretty bad. The small stage inhibits bigger performances from being played as well. *Shrug*

On the way to Sydney Opera House

Having another lazy moment in the sun (on the Sydney Opera House footsteps!)

The whole gang. Clockwise from top left: Karmen., Ashwin, Sven, Yuka, Ami, Jarech (or Jaros, or Jaroslov), Kristi, George, me, and Clemens

Trying to act Japanese :) From left: Jaros, Ashwin, George, Clemens, me and Ami. Funny the real Japanese is missing

After lotsa picture taking, we headed off to the ferry area to check out the ferries moving about Sydney.

The docks

Me trying out Ashwin's glasses. Pretty cool eh? :)

On the ferry

Going under the awesome Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Quite ugly from far, the bridge's beauty only becomes clear when it is close.

An old ship (still operable I think)

Check out the submarine!

The myriad boats docked at Darling Harbour

Next stop was the Sydney Aquarium. The place wasn't too shabby, with some pretty cool creatures roaming around. Although I've seen them countless of times, it still didn't feel boring when I saw these huge sea creatures again.

Do you see that? Look closely, it's not seaweed.

If you haven't guessed it yet, it's an eel!

A close-up shot

This is probably one of the funniest thing I've seen. Don't worry, the turtle didn't break its neck swimming down or something. It was in this position the whole time I was there

Here's the turtle again.

Outside the Sydney Aquarium, we bought some delicious Gelato ice-cream (a unique Italian ice-cream made from natural products that produces a smooth and creamy texture) and sat down around the Harbour, silently lapping up our ice-cream while embracing the sweet radiance of the sun. Heavenly indeed.

After an hour or two, we headed off to Maze to check in. We ate at Chinatown, where I saw familiar food. There was Sizzling dishes, Laksa, Nasi Goreng Kambing and many others. I truly missed Asian food! After that, we headed to the first bar we visited in Sydney. Because we were given vouchers for free drinks in several bars and night clubs, we decided to check a few of them out. Scubar was quite disappointing, but a free drink's a free drink!

The next day, we decided to go off to Glebe Point to check out University of Sydney. And boy was I appalled at the condition of the uni.

Yeah, these ugly buildings are part of Sydney U

The only decent-looking building blighted by ongoing construction

Weather didn't help my view on Sydney U either

I'm not sure why people do this, but it's quite cool actually

Did a bit of shopping in Queen Victoria building

After profusely thanking God I'm in Melbourne U and not Sydney U (sorry all Sydney U students), we headed off to a Thai restaurant to eat some Thai food. The excellent food, plus a cute waitress made Glebe Point a worthwhile trip at least..

The second bar/night club we entered was Scary Canary and it was such a far cry from Scubar. Where Scubar was dinghy and empty, Scary Canary was brimming with life, and had a tasty interior to accompany the hustling people. Of course, the amount of hot women increased ten fold as well. But what I liked best about the place was the choice of music. Instead of playing music like any other night club, this one played House music WITH a live band, drums, guitar singer and all. The fusion was mind-blowing and really took my complete attention. The sizzling sexiness of the lead singer just made everything more pleasing.

The orange brackground masking her looks just made her that much more attractive.

I'm not sure what it is with Asian girls and tall blonde dudes but it was pretty interesting I have to say. Barely 5 minutes of dancing, Sven gets hit on by a not-too-beautiful-chick/slut and gets asked to head to the bathroom for some naughty time. However, Sven could only laugh at her, which offended her greatly, but it made a great story for Sven to tell. Half an hour later, he gets approached again, this time by a not-too-shabby Japanese chick. However, surprisingly, she left a few minutes later. It came to be that she noticed Sven since he came in but nothing materialised because Sven didn't come up to her. Poor Sven, he was thinking about the missed chance for a while.

To get his mind off the girl, we headed off to Star City to check out its casino. The entrance was mesmerizing, with a mini waterfall greeting us, as artificial rocks form a pool.

However, the casino itself was horrendous beyong words. The waiting list was a mile long, and according to the receptionist, we had to wait for at least 2 hours before we could find a seat. The problem was apparent when we looked around. There were only around 20 tables maximum at the casino, compared to Crown's 50 or more tables. The sad part was, they couldn't even find enough employees. There were poker tables left unhabited because they couldn't get a dealer. That was just disgusting, and made me lose my appetite for poker that night. The same problem was seen at all the other games, eg Blackjack, Roulette etc.

At home, the girls placing our passports together

Here we are at home, playing Bluff, Big 2, and Black Magic (and having lotsa fun in the process!)

The next day, we headed for the National Museum. We were greeted by a huge replica of Gigantosaur. Pity it wasn't real. I have always had this fascination with dinosaurs, and seeing them in their skeletal glory was a memorable moment for me. Malaysia really should find some dinosaurs soon.

Roar!

Some 'super smart' tourist took this picture, without realising the reason we took it in the first place. How can you miss the bloody dinosaur behind us? Lol..

A giraffe

From left: Mr Skeleton, his dog, cat at the back, mouse beside it, and Polly in its cage

The museum was interesting enough, giving me an insight into life in Africa, something which I've never really looked into. Also found out a few countries I never knew existed, like Lesotho and Eritrea. O.o . The bugs section was pretty cool too, considering I liked bugs too.

Afer that, we headed off to Bondi Beach. And what a beach it was! Sitting down in the cool sand while snacking on a McD's burger... Heaven!

From left: Karmen, Jaros, Yuka

Us trying to bury Sven.. In vain.. Have to find some other way to kill him ;P

View of the houses around Bondi Beach

From left: Yuka, Ami, Kristy, Karmen

.We went home exhausted, bus deeply satisfied with how the day went. Weather could have been better, but who cares? Later that day, we went to another night club near Darling Harbour. Pontoon was its name, and it was even more happening than Scary Canary! Only problem was they were playing contemporary R&B, which is not my taste at all. More hot chicks obviously! And again Sven was approached minutes into entering the night club. Because the girls were feeling tired, Jaros, George and I returned home with them while Ashwin, Clemens and Sven continued partying.

I'm not sure what happened that night but Sven told me a hilarious story about Ashwin. Now, Ashwin has always been an enigma to all of us; he was fun to have around, but we could never tell what was going through his head. So, according to Sven, here's what how Ashwin narrated his chance meeting with a girl in the club.

"So, I was dancing with this hot Indian chic, who has this huge set of boobs, and I was dancing with her. Then she took out her wallet to take some money, dropping a dollar coin. I picked it up.. And took it!" By which point he took out the fated coin and showed it to Sven and Clemens, grinning his usual grin. This was greeted by howls of laughter by Clemens and Sven. You would have expected him to give the coin back in exchange for a kiss or something, but NOO, he had to take it. Lol.. Typical Ashwin.. What's even funnier is his accent, which is a weird fusion between an Indian, Mauritian and French accent.

Girl's room. Yuka doing some weird thingy

Defeat and Triumph! And Defeat again..

2007-09-17T21:42:00.000+10:00

I remember mentioning about my trip to Crown's Casino again this Friday for a freeroll tournament. And boy oh boy, what a night! (Actually two; went back again on Saturday)

The day started off quite shitty, with me finishing up an assignment at 4 in the morning, and waking up not too long after to pass it up. All I could think about was the tournament, the torture was almost palpable.

I met up with Sven in the library so we could go to Crown's Casino together. Adam and Roo were supposed to come with us too, so we went back to JCH. I thought it would be a good idea to dress as well as possible, so I went for the grunge look again, this time with jeans instead of proper suited pants. And, seriously, the similarities between Roo and Amresh just keeps piling! We were to reach Crown's by 5.45 to register and such, but Roo just took his bloody sweet time, telling us that he'll be down in 5 minutes when it was more like 20. We had to practically drag his ass out of the college. Because of him we were late, and so we had to take a cab instead of the tram.

Me looking super-suave! Need to get a haircut though, ;P

Upon arrival, we met up with Kevin (Mauritius), and the newbies registered to receive their new, shiny Crown's Casino card. Estelle was nowhere to be seen, so we had no choice but to go down to the tournament to register. We all received a slip of paper each from the counter, indicating our table and seat position. After a hefty amount of Good Lucks and nervous handshakes, I was off to my table, table 31 to be exact.

Kevin and Sven. Dunno why I took the picture in the toilet

I was seated in the same table with Roo. Right beside him actually. Unfortunately, the manager spotted me talking to Roo like a friend would, and moved me to another table. To Sven's table to be exact. After a few pro forma checks and waits, we were off!

From left: Kevin, Sven, and Adam

My first hand was pretty decent, with a Queen and a King, offsuit. I limped in to the flop, and to my apparent luck, there was the Queen! The flop came out an 8, a Queen, and an Ace, 8QA. Wanting to make a statement to the rest of the players, I put in half of my chips, which was 500. To my absolute horror, the guy to my left followed, while everyone else folded. The turn came out as a 4, which we both checked, and lastly the river as a J. Knowing that I had no choice but to bluff my way out, I went all in, hoping to put enough doubt in his mind for him to fold. He took a while to decide, but he obliged, knowing that folding would effectively mean his removal from the tournament. And that's how my first tournament went! Getting kicked out on the first hand! How wonderful!

I gave a wry smile to Sven, and walked off in total embarassment. Who in the world would expect the guy in a suit and a purple shirt to get out so easily? It was just unbelievable... I then watched how Roo was doing from the railings. He turned out, and had a ludicrous look on his face when he saw me standing there behind him. Roo, being the amateur he is, was just being plain Amresh again, in terms of that infamous "Indian luck". With only one more hand to play before he runs out of chips, Roo decides to all in with a 6 and a 4, offsuit. The flop came out as Queen, Jack, and nine. I thought that Roo was a total goner, but the turn showed an 8, and the river was, you guessed it, a 10! With no one having a King, Roo manages to share the spoils and save his ass. And he just kept on playing weird hands like a 6 and a Jack or something to that extent..

Sven and Roo

After a while I just got sick of watching. It really sucks to get kicked out so fast when everyone else is still battling it out. Even Estelle managed to arrive and took her seat in Sven's table. So, what else could I do? Cash game! I registered for a $1/$2 No Limit table and changed $60 worth of chips, as last time. I then walked to the table, still looking considerably immaculate in my suit. I put the chips down and played on. And what do you know? Daniel still got the moves! Playing a Tight-Aggresive stance, I stuck to the strong hands to win me money, and it worked like a dream! With just two big wins, I managed to bring my total pot to $210! After losing a dollar here and there, I decided that enough money was won, and cashed out to see how everyone else was doing. I was greeted by Adam, Kevin and Estelle, who were knocked out while I was at the cash table.

As it turned out, Kevin also went to the cash table, but didn't do too well, losing $87 in the process. To mitigate his hurt, I offered him a drink of his choice during dinner. Anyways, would you believe it; the last table comprising of a bald dude who could do fancy moves with his chips, Sven, who plays quite often, and Roo! I mean, Roo! The luck he had was to the point of fantasy! I heard about how he didn't even know that he got a Flush and almost walked off.

A machine to test the amount of alcohol in your breath. Hilarious gadget, but absolutely essential in a place like this. Would have tried it if it wasn't for the $1 charge.

Roo then miraculously knocked out the other guy to go tete-a-tete with Sven. I totally expected Sven to steamroll Roo, but it wasn't to be. With the luck of the empyreans shining down on him, Roo won the showdown all-in in a 50-50 situation. The timer ran down to 0, and Roo was proclaimed the winner of the tournament, with Sven coming in second. It was just unbelievable.. Roo won a hefty sum of $250, and Sven winning a respectable $150. Overall, Roo, had one four-of-a-kind, 3 flushes, 2 straights, and lotsa of other crazy combinations. Of course, he still fully deserved his win with his 'risky' calls and unpredictable decisions. Kudos to him!

It was pretty much a great night overall, with three people winning big (me included!). Only Kevin didn't do too well, but the Scotch I bought for him cheered him up pretty quickly! We didn't do much, and went back home to sleep.

But that's not all! On our tickets, there was a promotion for the Mega Satellite tournament on Saturday. It is basically a preliminary round for a major tournament, and the best part was, it was free too! I got up at around 10, and had to rush to get ready. Roo, as usual, needed so much pushing to get moving. He obviously didn't learn his lesson from yesterday.. Sigh.. ;P Anyways, we met up with Sven there.

A view of the casino. This was taken during the tournament break. This was risky enough, and I got reprimanded by a dealer. Screw him!

This time round, the competition was way more intense. The first prize was a $16,00 prize, including air tickets, lodging and food to the next round, which was to be held in Moscow! This is one of those tournaments that gets you all the way to the finals in Las Vegas. The place is usually packed, but today was ridiculously suffocating, with hundreds of people lining up to try their luck for the $16,00 grand prize. We had to take a ticket from the ticket machine, and wait our turn, just like a clinic. After an hour or two of waiting, we finally got our seats. Tension thickened again, as the significance of the situation settled upon us.

The people at my table were a whole new breed altogether from yesterday's noob tournament. With much bigger prizes at stake, all the big guns came down. The seriousness in their faces was pretty terrifying indeed. However, as luck would have it, a girl was seated beside me. And boy was she a stunner! As pretty as an Asian can be, she had the looks of a model. She had straight black hair, and big smouldering eyes. Coupled with her flawless complexion, her poise and grace only added to the fluttery feeling inside me. Sven came over to talk to me, and the first thing he said was, "Wow!". Beautiful indeed..

Best thing was, she could actually play! She obviously knew her stuff, and was unlucky to go out. Unfortunately, she left before me, and thus made it impossible for me to try anything, if I had the guts to do so. Luck wasn't with me as well that day. Without a good hand for all my hands, my heart jumped a beat when I saw a pair Queens in my hand! Immediately I put in half of my chips, to lure in some money. Only two people called, which was ideal as the odds were on me. When the flop came out, all small values, I decided to go all in. One guy folded, but the last one called. With that we both opened our hands, with me showing my pair Queens, and him, a measly 6 and 7, offsuit. What the hell? He called $400 worth of chips with a 6 and a 7, pre-flop? On any other situation, he would have been eaten alive by me. But as luck would have it, a 3 came out on the river (5th card), giving him a fucking lucky straight.

Frustrated, I took a walk around. Not long after, Sven came out, with a shake of his head. Again, Roo came up tops from our group, and he deserves my congratulations again. We shouted to him that we were going to eat, and went to the food court. After talking for a while, we went to the casino again to try our luck on the cash games. To cut the story short, Sven won $150 while I lost $60. That brings my total net to a healthy positive $105. That's quite decent considering my experience in a casino.

Still giddy with poker mania, we headed to Estelle's house for, yes, another round of poker. But we also went to check up on PJ, who contracted a weird stomach virus, and had to be sent to the hospital. We ended up talking about everything under the sun, and left at around 4.50 in the morning. We met with Sandhya, Estelle's friend, a Singaporean of Indian-Swiss heritage.

Picture from Emma's birthday party, which was quite a while ago, 31st of August. The guy in the white shirt is PJ Roca (France), and the striped shirt dude is Adam (America).

And so ends Daniel's journey in the casino forever. Not! :)

The Breaking of the Fellowship

2007-09-17T17:15:00.000+10:00

And so the exodus begins...

After a crazy night out I took the liberty to check my e-mail. And boy was I shocked to read an e-mail from Tzun Tzin telling everyone that he has reached England safely. I knew this day was coming, but later rather than sooner.. I just called Amresh, and I was even more shocked to hear that so many people have left as well...

This of course brought a whole long nostalgic moment, with me reminiscing about how I was also about to go, and the feeling of doom when I was boarding the plane. I could still remember the promises of keeping in touch, the vain attempts to comfort by saying that "time flies". The poignant last moments of my life in Malaysia, and the ludicrous but terrifying notion that I might never see some of my friends again..

So what happens from here onwards? That's the fun part about being on your own. It's totally up to you! The whole world is in your hands! You will never imagine the countless of possibilities at your fingertips.. I honestly would never imagine doing all those things I've done since arriving here.

So, everyone out there, where ever you are, take care of yourself, and try to keep in touch, however cliche it may sound. I don't think I have to give out generic advises like getting your bank account up and running as fast as possible, look for the cheapest markets and go just before they close for maximum discounts etc because it's pretty much understandable. However, do try to ingratiate yourself with the locals. It's not only about having fun like they do or drinking excessively, but it'll bring a whole new perspective on life, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Personally, I can't wait to see what life dishes out for me next! Take care everyone!

When Will The Nightmare End?

2007-09-12T10:10:00.000+10:00

It's been a crazy week, or half-week, to say the least... I was practically working on a bloody assignment the whole of Sunday, working it out with Ed. We vacillated, worked out confusing aspects of the assignment, worked so hard on one part only to find evidence to discredit it later, zoned out for a while, ,etc..

This went on until 4 something in the morning of Monday, when i then knocked out on my bed, only to wake up 2 hours later to get ready for a basketball match against Queen's College. Ed as it turns out didn't even sleep, but he wasn't playing (crocked ankle from footie) so it didn't really count. As it turns out Queen's was one of the bigger colleges and thus had a bigger pool to choose their team from. One of the dude was taller than our tallest player, Felix, who isn't that short himself being 6-foot 4. We absolutely got smashed in the first half, with that tall ugly dude doing most of the damage. It really was quite demoralizing.. Queen's played like a district team, with almost flawless zonal defending and a good mix of pace, height and raw power. The only funny points were when Daniel Huang did some acrobatic jump and took down an opponenet, and Roo (Rushith) rolled the ball on the floor towards Felix, completely bamboozling everyone, including Felix!

As rightly said by Haidi, in JCH, sports isn't really about winning in our college, because we'll just get heartbroken at the end. It was more about coming together as a team and having fun, as well as post-game sculls! Will, who is our captain, didn't take the defeat well and was pretty deflated. Of course, this only provided a bigger impetus to all of us for the game against Whitley on Wednesday.

We went back to feast on a hearty breakfast, and I then headed back up to continue the bloody assignment. But the main focus on the day was about college. Monday was Changeover Dinner, where the old arms give up their positions to a new regime. It was a grand occasion indeed. With a special cuisine service employed, we could only expect opulent grandeur. All the guys were in their well-groomed suits, and looking pretty smart. The women obviously took out their expensive dresses. These coupled with free-flow of wine and waiters in their uniforms made it quite an ostentatious display. I decided to go a bit informal and went for the 'couldn't-care-less' look, wearing a suit but without a tie, and flipping up my shirt's collar over the suit, making the whole ensemble look 'mafia-like'. Sadly, it didn't occur to me to bring my camera down.. Sigh..

Anyways, the old horses stepped down, and were replaced by mostly first-years (I think). Hannah McNeill was crowned as President, and Olivia Jones as Vice. Of course, there were a few disappointed faces when the names were called, but the candidates who didn't win were encouraged to still stay in JCH next year. Obviously, since there are less boys in my college not many boys win. In fact only one did. Tim Earls as Treasurer! Tim is a guy who loves dancing, and he does ballroom and Latin, if I'm not mistaking. Funny thing is, because of two suspicious votes, all the winners had to have a margin of at least 3 votes to be considered valid. Unfortunately, the winner for Male Sports Rep. could not be confirmed. With that, nominations will open again soon. I'm not sure if Jean will run for Male Sports Rep again though. Jean's a girl by the way. :)

Anyways, Tuesday passed without much, except me passing up the assignment (at f*cking last!). And here I am, on a moody Wednesday, writing this post just after basketball. It was a closer game, and we really thought the game was ours before the match started. We saw these 3 fat guys in their team as well as 2 scrawny Asian dudes, and smiled in earnest. Unfortunately, it was all a big facade. The 3 'fat' guys were deceptively quick, running the court and looking as sharp as Kobe Bryant or something. Again, we gave away too many fouls, in which they duly converted. Overall, it was a pretty disappointing match, but that's JCH for you. We play for the team spirit, winning is just a bonus!

Well, hopefully the nightmare week will end soon. I still have another major assignment due on Friday, which I'm putting off now. Should go back to it soon.. There will be Trivia Night today, and my team will be going as the characters from Mario Party! It's gonna be a blast! I'm going to go as Bowser, the evil turtle dude. I'm definitely bringing my camera this time! On Friday I'll be heading to the Crown Casino for my first major poker tournament. Till then, wish me luck!

Random picture of the sunset from my window

Pounder Run!

2007-09-07T22:41:00.000+10:00

Yet another famous JCH tradition!

This event was organised almost impromptu on a Sunday evening, so we couldn't get as many people as we wanted. But that's alright!

Basically this is how Pounder Run works. Everyone orders a Pounder Large Set from McDonald's, or Mackers, as called by the Aussies. A pounder is essentially a quarter pounder, but FOUR times the meat, and FOUR times the cheese.

I think some of you already have an idea of what's going to come. The objective of Pounder Run is to down your burger as fast as possible, along with the large pack of chips and large Coke. But that's not all, once you're done with that, you have to sprint for at least a 100m to a finish line. Beautiful eh? Here are some pictures for all to see.. Too bad no one could take a video for us..

The guys getting pumped up as the food is distributed equally. Starting from extreme left in a clockwise direction : Tim, Andrews, Haid, Eamonn and Adam.

The epitome of gluttony!

The guy not in the previous picture with the colourful jersey is the infamous Ed, which you guys definitely remember from all the previous posts. One of the top people in JCH

Because Haidi wisely decided not to join the guys in Pounder Run, she volunteered to take a picture of us gorging ourselves with disgustingly greasy pieces of meat.

Turned out that I did quite well, coming in a decent second. Andrew won with almost unbelievable ease. He ate as if it was just a piece of cake, and looked on at everyone with a effortless shrug.

We decided that the best way to celebrate the night was to watch a damn good movie, and guess what just came out? The Bourne Ultimatum! We took a tram and proceeded to Melbourne Central, which is kinda like Mega Mall, but not as big obviously.

Before the movie started some of us had to go to the toilet to clear our aching bowels. Unfortunately for Eamonn, but oh so hilarious for all of us, he didn't realise that there was no toilet paper until it was too late! Haha!

We were pretty oblivious to the incident until Ed came out of the toilet laughing his head off. Between gasps of air, he told Haidi to grab a few rounds of toilet paper from the female toilet for Eamonn. We had a pretty good laugh right then. Of course, it got only worse when Eamonn came out with a sheepish look on his face. Good stuff!

Speaking about toilets, something in the toilet really perplexed me. While doing my usual routine, I noticed a metallic box fixed onto the wall. Upon closer inspection, it said "Syringe Disposal Services". What the heck? Who the hell provides a service to dispose of syringes? What does it even mean?

Perhaps they were implying something quite unknown to me, but still, if it is what I think it is used for, why the heck would you want to do that for? It reminds me of how the Malaysian government planned to tackle the problem of AIDS by providing free syringes and condoms to druggies and AIDS sufferers.. Totally twisted logic..

Overall, it was another typical Sunday evening in JCH, with me learning new things about Australia and its people all the time. Movie was just awesome, by the way..

Two days ago, I went for the JCH/Medley River Cruise, or affectionately called Booze Cruise by normal people, and it was mind-blowing. This, of course, is a story for next time... Till then!

The Darker Side of Melbourne Uni

2007-09-07T21:12:00.000+10:00

By the way I post I know that it seems that I have my head stuck in the heavens. That is not the case at all. I do have loads of work to do. It's just that I do not talk about how I go about my work, as it is just inane to do so.

If you do insist, just to make you feel better that I am not having fun ALL the time, I am currently neck high in assignments which I have to pass up next week. 4 to be exact. This week I just finished a mid-semester test that contributes 10% to my overall marks. I have finished around 8 or more assignments already, in total around 20% of my marks already being considered.

Hence the reason why I blog sporadically and a few at once. This is because I find that rare time when I actually have nothing to do (both good and bad things). In fact, I just got screwed over by one of my lecturers. This has been coming for me since a month ago...

For the first few assignments that I received, I thought it prudent to finish the assignments as quick as possible. With that, i actually finished it on the day I received it, and proceeded to the drop-off box in one of the buildings. Upon reaching the place I found out that there were like 20 slots, and no sign to show which one of them belonged to my subject. Thinking that inserting it into a random box would suffice I did so and felt glad that I was done.

Only afterwards did a friend mention that the labels are put up only a few days BEFORE the due date. And since I passed up WAY before the due date, I may have misplaced my assignment. Fearing for the worse, I sent an e-mail to my lecturer to clarify the issue and told him to help me check if my assignment reached him. After a curt reply that he'll look for it, I never heard from him again.

For a few weeks I forgot about the issue, and assumed that all was well. Then yesterday came. I received an e-mail from the lecturer warning me that if I do not pass up my assignment I would be failed. That was probably one of the most pissing off moment of my life. Immediately I sent an e-mail blasting them for not resolving the issue in the first place and for having an idiotic system in place, upon which they tried to blame ME for this debacle. Fuckers.

I'm going to fight all the way if I have to, and will get a legal advisor if I have to. So there you go. Not all rosy after all. Heh.. But hopefully it'll go off alright..

Anyways, let's get some levity into the post. Work is not all THAT bad. In fact, I had a really good time doing an assignment for my subject, Introduction to Civil Engineering. Basically, I had to build a bridge out of balsa wood and glue. Balsa wood is just about as thick as 10 A4 papers stuck together. Ridiculously thin.

So anyways, these pictures show my group mates and I working on our bridge.

Abraham working on the bridge. He's from Indonesia and would be able to click with Ian especially well, in terms of music. Lover of blues as well, he's a pretty wicked guitarist.

Our beautiful bridge on the brink of completion

My group, Group 8 posing with out bridge before load testing with a penetrometer. Starting from left : Kiew (Malaysia), Francis (Macao), Abraham (Indonesia), and fatty me (Jamaica).

Our bridge in place.

Unfortunately, I was the one who was on the penetrometer so I don't have the pictures during our testing. Might ask one of the others for it. And guess what? Daniel the genius (and his group of teammates, of course!) managed to pass the barrier of 800N and still be intact, and came in first in class! In fact, we beat the class before us as well, whose best performer had their bridge breaking at 800N.

WOOHOOOOO!

It was a great achievement, and received praises from the lecturer. He even told us that our bridge was to be displayed to the public during the Opening day of uni, which was only two days away from that day. Great day indeed. We then negotiated the day to bring our bridge to the lab for proper load testing, with the huge-ass machines connected to a computer recording all the data. Great times indeed!

Part of the lab where our bridge would be tested.

Posing before crunch time!

When our bridge finally failed.

A relatively panoramic view of the lab. Note the yellow crane at the top, used to carry down concrete and other materials from the top. It's in the basement after all.

Finally claiming the crown for best bridge of the semester, and possibly the year, heavy metal-aficionado Abraham proposed that we smash the bridge, as an emblem of triumph. And that we did! With gung-ho too!

Let's hope that my future projects will be as interesting as this! Signing out...

Priceless Words of Wisdom

2007-09-07T20:29:00.000+10:00

Right.. So many of you are going to fly off to a different side of the world come the end of this month. Excited? Scared? Not looking forward to it? Tacit indifference? All these emotions would be hitting you soon enough, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

As one of the first of our batch to be flying off somewhere, I just thought that I could somehow be of proper use at last and give some advice to you guys; on whether you take it as terrible or extremely hopeful is entirely up to you. :)

For those who are looking forward towards illicit advices, kindly leave me a private message. Hehe.. Anyways, let's start with still being at home...

Firstly, do start tying up loose ends. I can honestly tell you that the worst thing to do when you have hanging issues is to run away, be it on your own will or not. Get everything done and dusted, or remotely close to that as possible. And cut your hair before you leave. People overseas just don't get Mamak barbers. Sigh...

Now, about stuff to pack. I'm not going to talk about how many shirts or underwear to bring and all that, because that's entirely up to you. However, it would be prudent to say that bring at least a week's worth of clothing. That means that when your laundry basket is full you still have a week's amount of clothes to wear, underwear, socks and all. At least a week, no less! Also, bring at least 2 jackets or more if you're going to a cold country, more importantly with hoods (for rain protection). Bring at least 2 pairs of shoes, as well as slippers. Different shoes for sporting activities is recommended. Don't forget your formal clothings too - at least one. Bring at least 2 towels, and another smaller one.

Do bring medication along also. Plasters, ointments and such do really well here. Besides that, bring a helluva lot of moisturiser, especially in my case nonwithstanding. Bring a bag to keep your toiletries, from soap to shampoo. Also bring a smaller bag filled with smaller bottles of soap and shampoo. This is to be brought during trips to anywhere besides your future residence. Lip balms are a good idea too!

Okay, now time for electronics. Do bring a camera, and a multi-card reader. Get a MP3 player. Get a good portable speaker. Bring along empty CD's. Get at least two thumb drives. You'll find out soon enough. If it's possible get a decent laptop too.

Cutleries and potteries are up to you, but since they take up weight it's better to visit a cheap store wherever you're going to be (WYGTB) and buy these things.

Stationeries. There's the puncher (get a good quality one, mine broke down after 5 punches...), bring a stapler, long ruler, and bla bla bla... Push pins might be helpful. Cellophane tape too. Small note books also. And more bla bla bla.. Bring at least 2 small bags or more. One bag for uni, another for trips, and another one to carry your laundry back to your room. Oh yeah, get a laundry basket too. Again, it might be more convenient to get the basket from wherever you're going to be (WYGTB). Because the big folders are bulky it would be a better idea to purchase them WYGTB.

Oo, batteries are expensive, so bring some along. Get a few international adapters. Forget about dictionaries as it takes up loads of space. Use online dictionaries instead.

Bring along a few of your favourite or unread books, but not too many. In fact, I have only touched one, and that's not even finished. There's just so much to do that I haven't got to 'lepak'ing yet. The only time I read it is my toilet visits. Woops. ;P

Oo yeah, get heavy duty locks to lock up your luggages. Use one of them to keep your essentials, as in passport, banking documents and other important stuff. As you have noticed I'm just scouring my room and then writing down the first thing that catches my eye. Oo, buy washing powder WYGTB. Either go for a shopping spree WYGTB or bring a lot of plastic bags from home. These will be your dustbin liners, duh! Oh, get a dustbin WYGTB too, unless provided.

This is quite disturbing, but I have somehow started to suffer from stinky feet since I came over. Or maybe much earlier... Anyhow, buy shoe freshener, just in case. Umbrella, small preferable. Get a carabiner or something that is like a carabiner but I forgot its name so I don't know what to call it so I'm calling it a carabiner instead which is quite similar if you think about it. This is to fasten your key onto you so you don't lose the key because losing it is a very bad idea considering you're in the middle of an alien country and you have nowhere to run and no parents to ask for help if something happens to you.

What the? Sorry about that. Anyways, try to get a water filter cum jug. Water can actually be drank straight from the tap, but somehow the additives in it makes my throat hurt, and I have to use a filter before it tastes alright. A good brand would be BRITA, but it might not be available in WYGTB. That said, the weather will be dry, so it's a good idea to drink loads of water.

Bring your favourite cup or mug. Get some hangers too. Try and buy your text books in Malaysia. Bloody expensive WYGTB. However, I'm able to borrow any book I want from my college for the whole semester, so I don't really need to buy any books.

On a sentimental note, bring lotsa pictures, both printed and digital, as there will be nostalgic times that aren't really too nice.

Okay, this is a really long post, so do digest the Golden Words of Wisdom That Shall Not Be Repeated and remember any of your own predilections, like a soft toy. I shall leave advice on what you should do once you are at WYGTB for a later post.

Good night everyone, and enjoy your last few days of Malaysia! Muahahahaha!

Of The Beautiful Game, Belated Birthdays, Crown Casino and Women's Footy!

2007-09-01T10:45:00.000+10:00

Friday has proven to be an extremely gratifying night!

More importantly, it is the first time I've actually played football (soccer as the Aussies call it), since... Form 5? As in on a real pitch. Just the feeling of grass at the soles of your feet as you chase the ball invigorates my every body. We had around 18 people so a game of 9 against 9 commenced. Not even 5 minutes into the game, yours truly scored the first goal!

It was brilliant execution, where I closed down the defender with the ball and managed to get a lucky ricochet towards the goalie. With a side foot I managed to get it into the near post, with the keeper well beaten. It was a great goal, and a precursor of things to come!

My friend Sven(the tall blonde dude) was also playing as well and boy can he play! It seems that height is a huge advantage. But he can still punish any player with his deceptive pace and skilful play of the ball. The first match was close, with my team winning 4-2, with me scoring one goal (obviously) and Sven scoring a hattrick! His last goal was magic in itself, with a deft flick to take it past the keeper and a simple tap in with his weaker foot.

The second game was just pure ownage though. The two British dudes, Mike and Rich were on one team, and Sven and Clemens (Germans) were on another team. It became a reenactment of the England-Germany game just recently played.

All I can say is that we won 8-0. Without a doubt, whatever team I play in wins. Though I didn't score any goals in the second match, my contribution to the overall play was essential to us winning. ;P Sven scored another excellent goal, which was just insane!!!!!

As he was running towards goal, he was closed in by 3 defenders. With a nice flick, he brought it over one defender's head, then swivelled to the side a la Ronaldo to beat the second defender. Not to be outshone, he flicked the bloody ball over the third defender again, and then shot a grounder to beat the keeper. Just plain class.

Anyways, it ended just in time for dinner. A few of my friends came to my place to take a shower and have dinner. There was Sven, Kiew (Malaysia), and Kevin (Mauritius). It's a pretty good deal at $8 per meal considering that the average dinner outside would be $7, not counting the fact that in my place, food is served buffet style!

After dinner we took to a few games of ping pong and pool, as well as banging a few melodies on the piano to eat up time. Emma's (the small girl from England) birthday party was at 9. With that, we were off!

Because Emma was studying politics, most of her friends were from Europe.. Basically, I was spoilt for choice. There was this cute French girl who had jet black hair, and vaguely reminds me of Selma Hayek. Then there was this German girl, Liz who had hazel grey eyes. There was also Ina/Ena, who hails from England. The party was alright, but I did enjoy the drinking game, called Kings of Beer, or Rings of Fire.

In summary, this is how it works. A pile of cards is spread around the table face down. We then take turns to take one card, and depending on whichever card you pick, you are required to do something. I can't really remember how it went, but here's the gist of it:-

Ace - Shitmix (As it's aptly called, the first three people who took the Ace gets to pour anything they want inside a bowl. The last person drinks the whole thing)
2 - Scull a drink (bottoms-up)
3 - Put three fingers on your drink and drink that amount
4 - Put four fingers instead
5 - Choose someone to scull his/her drink with you
6 - Truth of Dare
7 - Mention something that you haven't done before. Anyone else who has actually did it has to drink (This one is quite hilarious, especially when it relates to sexual activities)
8 - Waterfall (The person who took the card drinks, and this is replicated by the person next to him/her and then the person next to that person and so on. Only when the person on your right stops drinking can you put down your drink
9 - Choose someone to scull a drink
10 - forgot
J - forgot as well
Q - Toilet card. Only the persons holding the Queen can go to the toilet. Everyone else can't. Shit.
K - Categories (The person picks any category, like flower for example, and everyone has to name a flower. The person who stutters has to drink)

At about 12am we received a warning from International House's (place where the party was held) tutors that we either shut up or move out. Obviously there was no way we were going to shut up so we were planning on going to a nearby pub. Then this crazy dude by the name of Chen said, "Why don't we go to the Crown Casino?" This brought huge cries of "Yeah!" and excited faces. About 10-15 of us then commenced our journey to possibly the most happening place in Melbourne!

Sven and I had to go get our passports so we took a cab and then proceeded to Crown Casino. We then met up with PJ (France), Chen(Malaysia), Derrick (Malaysia), and Estel (France). All I can say that it was mind-blowing! The first thing that gets stuck in your face is that bright yellowy-orange glow so prevalent in casinos. Then you notice the huge numbers on the slot machines, like "$45,698 to be won by you!". Moving on we saw roulette tables, exactly as how it is depicted in the movies. The blackjack tables were further on, with the typical stone-faced dealer showing fancy card work. The way they deal out the cards is really smooth; it's kinda like flicking the card to the person. This makes the card go straight to the person and that it almost never flips up. It also happens to be fast as well.

Anyways, we registered for our membership, and proceeded downstairs, where the REAL game begins. Upon descending the escalator, we were inundated with rows and rows of Poker tables, with hundreds of dome cameras eyeing the tables from above like hawks to their prey. You notice all kind of characters, from the pimple-faced adolescent (not me!), to the 60-year old Chinaman, to the crippled in a wheelchair. It was awesome, really. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn't want to be thrown out before I even got started!

The minimum buy-in was $60. After the buy-in you register for a table at the counter and wait for your name to 'blink', upon which you would be given a random table. This prevents friends from sitting on the same table and colluding. The palpable fear I felt when I sat down gave out a pretty good stink. I noticed the guys in suits around me licking their lips in anticipation, impatiently waiting to eat up my money. There's just something about the whole concept of a proper dealer, chips and security systems that makes it quite surreal.

To play I had to pay the casino a 'buy-in' which was $3 (Rm10!). With that I was on my way! Boy oh boy are casino players shit scary! Only in my first game, the guy with the biggest pile (probably around $500) put out $15 pre-flop. With my big blind already in and a decent high hand, I decided to follow him. The flop gave no indication that I would win whatsoever. And that was how I lost Rm45 in the first minute of sitting down. Yeah. F*cking shit.

With $45 to spare, I tried to soldie on, but somehow just kept getting swallowed by everyone. The different poker faces were as inscrutable as inscrutable will be. I was still pretty overwhelmed at this stage and didn't know how to get out of this shithole. When Adam and Roo came to check on how I was doing, I was down to $16 left, and not looking good at all. With sympathetic looks they told me Good Luck and went to search for the others.

Then suddenly it got to me. I have been playing defensive and 'pussified' this whole while, and that's exactly the right way to play; if I was interested in losing all my money. With that, I grew some balls and decided to bluff on the next game. I went in with a decent hand as well, and continued with the flop. When the Ace came out, I decided to go for the best and put down $10. Everyone was pretty shocked, which was amplified by the short silence. They were like ,"Shit, the Asian dude is raising, wtf man. He's been losing all this while, he probably has a good card. Screw it, I'm folding."

And with that, I won $15! Spurred on by my close call, I started playing more aggresively. Of course, luck came into play as well! With a pair fives in my hand, I earnestly prayed for another 5. And what do you know? It came out in the flop. But that's not the best part - it came out with an Ace and a King! I swear I could see the smirks on some of their faces when they saw those cards. Knowing I could lure them in, I raised $10 at the first river, upon which they duly replied, thinking that I was the fool in raising them!

When the final card came out I know there was no way I could lose this one, unless someone has a better Three of a Kind or a Full House, which was impossible. With that, I went all in, pushing my chips into the middle of the table, a la James Bond. Then I sat there staring at everyone as indifferently as possible, but with my heart thumping so hard it could burst. When people followed, I gave out a silent scream of joy, knowing that I pretty much got back my $60 and has even more than that! When I flipped my cards open the others just moaned and cursed, and threw their cards to the dealer. One for Daniel, zero for everyone else!

Daniel Craig, Daniel Chua, same thing!

Of course, it wasn't all rosy after that. It kinda went downhill after a few more rounds, so I decided to get out while I was still in the green. With $84 worth of chips in my hands, I went to the Chips Deposit counter and received my lovely extra $24!

The others didn't do too well though, save for Chen. Chen was quite the veteran in poker, and took home $40. He injected a bit of stratagem in his play. While I was playing the silent Asian kid, he played the funny Asian kid who needed money for his rent. Awesome! Sven lost $30, so he wasn't feeling too good. Estel lost all her chips in 10 minutes (o.O), and Derrick followed soon after. The worst hit though was PJ, who couldn't believe that he lost $60 and put in a further $90, which he unfortunately lost as well. He was understandably upset, and didn't speak much on the way home.

Well, that's my first experience ever in a casino and you know what? It felt bloody good! The rush of blood when you play with real chips and watching the security dudes walking around and serious faces on your table, you know you've witnessed the pinnacle of the poker lifestyle! Of course, I won't make this a habit. But I'll probably go for a tournament, as new members get free buy-in to win $250!!!

Till later.. And don't gamble! :)

Random Ramblings of a Restless Rover

2007-08-31T00:26:00.000+10:00

Poker night was held today instead of tomorrow due to Emma's belated birthday party set up for tomorrow. As by the bell graph of luck goes, I was the first to get kicked out. It was a painful exit though, losing to an Ace pair in the penultimate round and then losing to a straight when I had an Ace and a King pair. Shite.

It was another great round, with insane combos and Rob practically swiping the table clean. Ed then organised a 'visit' to a nearby pub, "Clyde's", which was closing down. It is actually the same one I had my footie scully at, so that plus 5 dollars a jug offer made it very enticing indeed.

Turns out, I didn't go at all. Felt kinda woozy after a couple of glasses of wine. This was because I was invited ot the High Table today, and the wine was better than the previous days. (For those in the dark, High Table is basically the table in the dining hall where the principal and the tutors sit. Students are chosen, apparently in turns at random, to join them at High Table, where we get served top-notch food and get treated quite nicely indeed.)

Anyways, I just remembered about this really interesting statistic that was brought up during a debate between the Juniors and the Seniors. Apparently, Janet Clarke Hall had a severe outbreak of chlamydia during the early 1980's. About 20% of its students contracted chlamydia. This wasn't refuted by the principal, so I would take it as a true stat.

So.. Question is.. What the hell? I really got to watch my step here... :)

I was also doing a bit of elementary maths, and came up with pretty bizzare results. There are about 92 students in JCH at the moment, and for the sake of convenience I would take this value as the average number of students in JCH. So, 20% of students equates to about 18 to 19 students. Because this used to be a women's only college, the amount of women are generally more than men, and thus a ratio of 2 guys for every 3 girls. That would mean that the number of men who contracted chlamydia is in the range of 7 to 9 (In all reality the number could unsurprisingly be significantly lower). That would mean about 10 or more girls contracted chlamydia.

Does this show that men are generally more promiscuous than women? Probably in JCH (then), but it serves no conclusive information for any other inferences to be derived. That's not all though. Let's just say that chlamydia is the most contagious of STDs (If you don't know what it means, you're better off not knowing), with its carriers infecting his or her partner/s 50% of the time. That would mean, at the worst case possible, about 36 students were sexually active during that mini outbreak. That would mean more than one student out of three is getting his or her 'fix'.

Wow.

Anyways, that's just a bit of food for thought for you guys. I really have no opinion on that morsel of information. All I can say is that it's.. interesting.

Oo, on another total bout of randomness, it's almost 1am here in Australia, so Happy Merdeka Malaysia!

Transcending Borders

2007-08-29T00:16:00.000+10:00

Woke up late again today, missing a Maths lecture on limits, which I've never learnt before. Even better, there's a test next week on you guess it, limits. It's 10% of my overall marks too. Great. That's not what this post is about though.

A little preamble before the main story. Today was the first day of the Festival of Nations, where a section of the university was set aside for various clubs to set up stalls to sell food. However, it ended up more like Festival of Asia. There were practically 3 to 4 stalls selling Malaysian and Indonesian food, with another stall by the Thailand Student's Club. The only non-Asian club that was present was
the French Club, which was selling nice-tasting crepes. Apparently,that is. Since I was a subcommittee in the International Engineering Students Society, I was helping out with the stall. We were selling Beef Rendang, Goreng Pisang (which the Aussies call Banana Fritters),and Fried Chicken. And I can tell you that handing out fliers to hundreds of people is NOT fun.

It's funny how you finally take pity on those poor souls who stood beside the escalator at a shopping mall, giving it out fliers with utter indifference. It's just so hard to smile and welcome everyone so
wholeheartedly when they :-
-Ignore you completely
-Shove the paper off
-Surprisingly decline with politeness
-Take the flier and throw it in the dustbin nearby
-Take the flier and walk to the wrong stall
-Lie that they've received one
-Generally treat you like you're a déclassé (which I confess was how I perceived them before I actually did it myself)

I now have a newfound respect for anyone who has the guts (or desperation) to give out fliers to everyone and take rejection in the face!

But of course, that's not the main story! I believe I haven't introduced you guys to my friend, Sven?

Possibly one of the worst pictures of Sven, ;P

In summary, he is a 6-feet something dude from Germany who likes girls with dark hair. He studies Politics and Economics, and is 22 or 21 I think. He recently broke up with his Indian girlfriend before coming to Australia, but not before giving her a farewell 'visit' in New Delhi on the way here. :)

Anyways, I felt kind of bad for missing his birthday party, as I was off with my sister in Phillips Island. She came over just under 2 weeks ago, but has since gone back. That's a story for another day. So we met up today for dinner at some generic Japanese-Chinese restaurant and caught up with current issues.

It turned out that he was present at the Festival of Nations, butsomehow we didn't see each other. With him being 6-feet and all it was quite a feat, but nonetheless totally useless information to inform anyone about. He then mentioned this girl he met, who was in the Malay Club (Yes, there's one, and it was just next to my club's stall), who was trying to get him to buy some food at her stall.

From some twist of twisted fate, she actually offers him free satay,and tells him that he could pay if he wanted to. He being his 'shy' self just smiles politely and starts eating the satay. She then walks back to her stall. Feeling guilty for being a scrooge, he goes after her and offers to pay for it, upon which she politely declines and makes a joke about it. Sven being his 'shy' self then says that he has to go and walks away. A few seconds after that, he looks back to see her disappear.

And that would be Sven's predicament of the day. According to him, she is a 8 out of 10 on the Beauty scale, and is quite smitten by her. I've actually seen her around before, as she has this conspicuous mole that he noticed as well, and I have to say she is quite the deal. Quite. She kinda looks like Ella when Ella was younger and in her prime.

It's still not over for dear Sven though! The Festival of Nations concludes on Wednesday, so he still has at least a day to talk to this girl and somehow find a way to get her to go out with him for coffee or dinner or whatever he's planning on asking her. Through a sudden burst of breathtaking intelligence, I somehow came up with this brilliant plan of teaching Sven Bahasa. He took to this idea immediately and took out his notebook quite earnestly (I'm not making this thing up!).

With that I started with the basic words and lines that he would need. First there's 'apa khabar'. Then there was 'Nama saya Sven'. It went on to more complex lines like 'kamu sangat cantik' or 'kamu sungguh menawan' depending on the situation.

When Sven got farely fluent with the essentials we went on to the crunch question. Knowing how atrocious my Bahasa is I struggled to construct a proper sentence to ask her out. I ended up with 'Andaikah kamu lapang malam ini?' I really do hope that my sentence was right.. Lol.. For all he knows I could have asked him to say "Would you let me spank your bottom?" or something to that extent (it was his words!)

Here's practice session number 1. (Stupid me forgot that I can't rotate videos like pictures can)

Of course, I couldn't stop there. Somehow 'kamu sungguh menawan' just doesn't cut it. I then proceeded to modify the sentence. It ended up like this..

'Kamu sungguh menawan, bagi bidadari dari syurga.' Haha! I know it's extremely corny. But then again, when uttered by a
towering German, who knows what could happen? So, with that sure-get-date line in place, we took another practice session, this time with some facial expressions and casual body signs.

Well, that's all Daniel the guru Bahasa Malaysia can do for his mate here. All the best to him tomorrow! Hopefully I'll be able to get it on video too! Haha..

Oh, food was good. :)

Uncanny Look-Alikes

2007-08-26T17:34:00.000+10:00

Being in Australia is a whole new ball game, but sometimes it doesn't feel too far at all!

For example, I am constantly being reminded of Lee Kian (not necessarily a good thing) because a dude in my college is EXACTLY like Lee Kian!

On one hand, we have Lee Kian. Gym junkie, does martial arts, watches a lot of action movies, and likes fighting. On the other hand , we have Mike Chong. Gym junkie, does martial arts, watches a lot of action movies, and likes fighting.

Lee Kian. Likes to threaten people, joking or not. Doesn't know how to be polite to girls, or just playing around. Breaks Daniel's racket during badminton. Mike Chong. Likes to threaten people, but mostly joking. Doesn't know how to be polite to girls, or just playing around. Breaks pool stick during a game of pool (breaks two actually - separate incidents).

Lee Kian. Massive Savage Garden fan. Mike Chong. Has been to a Savage Garden concert, and is obviously a fan.

Need I say more?

That's not it with the similarities though! There's another guy who reminds me of Amresh, to a certain extent at least.

Amresh Subramaniam. Slightly pudgy, Indian, can hold his liquor. Rushith Dissanayake. Slightly pudgy, Indian, can hold his liquor. Then again, all Indians can.

Amresh Subramaniam. Talks a lot, and gets made fun of a lot. Rushith Dissanayke. Talks a lot, and gets made fun of a lot.

Amresh Subramaniam. Deceptively good at basketball, but rubbish at poker. Rushith Dissanayake. Deceptively good at basketball, but rubbish at poker. ;P

So yeah, I haven't totally been isolated from Malaysia at all! And I'm sure there's one who would resemble Jeremy! Will update on next uncanny look-alike..

Note : This is just a random post so that I do not have to work on my assignment yet, which is due on Tuesday. Procrastination rocks!

Poker bonanza!

2007-08-25T00:35:00.000+10:00

Just finished a crazy game of Texas Hold'em, and I must say that it was the craziest ever!

It started at around 8, when Adam decided to bring his chip set down. This was just after the Halo party in the Baige, where almost 90% of the guys were battling it out on Halo, in which Ed (the crippled dude, ^.^ ) came out tops. Then again, he owns the bloody X-box so it's not too surprising.

Anyways, we couldn't find enough people so Adam and I had to hunt for a few dudes to fill the table up. First up was Ryan's room (the guy who kinda looks like Navin), but Ryan, Justin, Wally and Meg were playing Dota. On the second floor we came upon Ed's room, and asked if he would like to play a little bit of poker. He called down Tim and Carl (fatty), and we were off!

However, we didn't have enough chips, so Tim improvised and brought down his bucket of Lego. (Why would he have a bucket of Lego in his room anyway?) It was pretty offbeat, but great fun all the same.

It started out quite slowly, with a few beginners feeling their way into the game. You had the basic "I don't understand blinds" to dudes folding when they could check instead!It was pretty even until Damien came along, and sat down beside Carl (beginner).

He started wiping out people from left, right and center with Carl's money. He then took over Ed's place when Ed got wiped out, upon which Ed decided to get his stash of alcohol to further hypen up the atmosphere! Instead of using money to buy in again, the dudes offered shots from their stash of alcohol to the 'rich' people instead.

Alcohol and poker is possibly the best combination of fun bar a real party. Everyone was just laughing their heads off at the incredible combinations that came out. There was your "Four of a kind" hand, where Carl nicely kept inconspicuous throughout the whole round and then just wiped everyone out. Then there was Tim who didn't even know he had a bloody full house and wiped the pot clean. Then there was good ol' me who did a major last-card-fuck on Damien, and effectively ended his tenure on the table!

There was also the intense round between Ed (who bought in through Tim with a shot of Jim Beams) and me, where we poker-faced our way, not knowing that we had identical hands and thought we could fleece the other dude out of his money. We got such a great laugh when the hands were shown!

And of course there's Roo, possibly the biggest loser in Texas Hold'em, who bought in three times and lost everything! For the third buy in he gave a shot of Cowgirls to Tim. Essentially, Cowgirls is Bailey's but ten times more feminine! The colour of the content is bright pink, including the bottle as well, with the most girly font at the front saying "Cowgirls". It was just so gay, and Roo got a real good banging there.

Throughout the time people were just coming in and out, wondering what the hell are 8 crazy guys laughing and slamming the tables for! Anyways, so it all went down to three dudes. Ed, effectively coming back from the dead; Tim, who was hitherto the perennial winner; and ol' humble Daniel with quite a respectable hoard too.

Needless to say, the Chinaman prevailed and managed to wipe Ed and Tim out. The blinds were increased a few times to speed up the game, and boy did it go high! It went from one Lego brick for small blind to 10 Lego bricks for small. And apparently the smallest wager allowed has to at least be equal to the big blind. That would mean that I have been playing Texas Hold'em all wrong previously! Oh well..

I reigned as Poker champion of JCH at 12.30 am, an insane 4 hours of non-stop bluffing and all-inning and taking the piss off everyone! Though it still doesn't beat playing with real money it was pretty close I must say.

Well, that's all folks! The king must get his much-needed sleep. Have bloody duty to do in the morning. Don't wanna miss it and get fined for $50! Signing out!

The Culmination of Sacrifices

2007-08-20T17:43:00.001+10:00

It is the weekend (14th to the 15th) of our last match. Mathematically
speaking, if we managed to beat Trinity College by more than 200
points, then we would go through, but realistically speaking... Never
mind.

Anyways, training was on Saturday at 1400 hours. With not
much time left we decided to commence with a new training regime which
sadly, didn't go too well. Kinda confused us lot actually. But the
workout was much needed.

Somehow I didn't feel too sore after the training compared to my last outing. Daniel's on the way to his six packs! Haha..
I even had the liberty to play an hour or two of tennis with Paul,
Mike, and Janice. Since I haven't played tennis since I was 12 I
obviously sucked real bad. I did serve some great serves though, a la
AndyRoddick! ;P

The palpable tension on Sunday was quite
unnerving at times. Maybe I should elucidate on the importance of this
match. Janet Clarke Hall was owned by Trinity College when it was first
established by Lady Janet Clarke. You see, Janet Clarke Hall was the
original women-only college (not anymore la of course!) and Trinity
College was a men-only college. So basically Trinity College has been
stepping on us ever since we came to be. The day we became a sovereign
college was a proud day. Since then, loads of bloodshed has tainted our
unwritten history.

For example, since they own the gates from
uni to our college, they found it a good idea to lock the gates, making
us either climb over the 7-foot gate or take the long way along the
main road. Of course, we shall not be undermined by those misogynistic
bastards! One of us had the audacity (which we all are in awe of) to actually get a bolt cutter and break the f*cking lock off! Haha! Another triumphant day for JCH!
However, due to security reasons, and the plausible presence of Trinity
spies, the identity of the person has not been divulged yet. Not that
it matters anyway!

Moving back to footie, I find it pertinent
to mention that we actually beat Trinity last year! According to the
stories it was a majestic feeling and very memorable indeed to the
players and supporters. That got us all worked up and eager to bash
thoseoppressive yokels!

That
Sunday lunch we sat as a team and ate together, just as the men of 300
would. After the preliminary checks (gear, mouth guard,
water and so on), we then proceeded to a tutoring room to have a
tactical meeting. The boys from Medley (if I haven't mentioned it
before,JCH and Medley teamed up together to make a football team. We
are the smallest colleges on campus, so it was perfectly logical to put
us together. After all, the total amount of mates fromJCH and Medley
combined is not even as many as Trinity's) came soon after. Funnily,
the coach came in with a massive hangover, and couldn't even remember
his all-inspiring speeches! It didn't matter too much though, because
Ed (the co-head coach) laid out the basics for us. It's either we win
or we win.

After a half hour of that we gathered our stuff and
headed to the field. We reached a half hour early and proceeded with
warm-up training. Trinity had the bloody cockiness to not even show up
till 5 minutes before the match! That really made our blood boil.

Then crunch time
came. We huddled together, with our arms around our neighbour's
shoulders as Ed gave one last poignant message "Okay boys, this is what
we have been training for. All those waking up at 6.30 and running our
butts off is for this day. Trinity came up here thinking that they are
going to win easy. They're wrong. They might have the skills, but we
have the heart and the determination to give them a run for their
money. If we can keep the intensity up for the first 10 minutes, we
know that we can heap the pressure on them. This is it boys, this is
it. Okay, hands together now.. On the count of 3. 1, 2, 3, Allies!"

With
the visceral screams of Allies, we headed towards the field. A few of
us headed to the sub bench (no bench though, so we stood), including
me. The referee blew his whistle, and the game commenced. Immediately
we were on the offence. The game got messy for a while as Allies ran
for every ball and gave our everything. However, not too soon after,
Trinity drew first blood with a lucky goal from the middle. Not to be
undone, we scored our first proper goal of the tournament not too soon
after, courtesy of Reese's (I think that's how it's spelled) grounder
goal. Yells of triumph were heard as the boys congratulated Reese. The
screams of joy from the girls of Medley andJCH were heard from the
other end of the field. As the quarter wore on Trinity's class shown as
they managed to score another crappy goal or two.

The referee
then blew his whistle, signalling the end of the first quarter. I was a
bit disappointed that I haven't been on the field yet, but I knew that
I would get my chance. We didn't have much time, so the coach screamed
for us to huddle up quick, and gave us a few pointers. "Guys, I can see
you all doing your best out there, but all this would go to waste if
you can't do anything productive when the ball is in your possession.
We are beating them in terms of possession but we are not converting
them into any sort of real chances. Teamwork is very important in this
game". The boys then entered the second quarter with the same
conviction as the first.

After just a minute or two, Matey had
to be subbed out after getting a hit in the face, resulting in his nose
bleeding quite badly. Adam was sent on. Just a few minutes later I was
sent on after Brendan, who was playing as forward flank. I was joined
byRushith, who then played forward. The feeling that came over me when I stepped foot onto that ground was quite exhilarating
. Unfortunately, I didn't have the liberty of taking it all in as I had
to concentrate on the game. With that I was off! Most of the game was
spent in the middle and on the left flank, which left me isolated out
on the right. The opposition too noticed that I was not getting the
ball much and actually left me roaming around the top right corner of
the field (or maybe it was my great positional play). If someone
actually looked up and passed me the ball I would have had a clear-cut
chance at goal. Of course, it wasn't to be. The only time I was in
action was when I went after the ball at the same time with this bulky
dude from Trinity and had a very nice clash with him. Trust me, running
full speed into another person is NOT something I would do everyday.
That said, it did get the adrenaline going. The second most memorable
moment was when I had to dive for the ball. Upon reaching the ball I
was immediately engulfed with crazed players both teammates and
opposition. Beneath the squirming bodies I managed to flick the ball to
a teammate, and immediately got up to assist him.

That said, we
didn't do too well in the second quarter and were further behind by a
couple of goals. We can pretty much imagine how the coach is gonna be.
And
true enough, he gave us a good rollicking! The third quarter was more
of the same, which didn't bode well for our chances at winning the game.

The
last quarter was a whole different ballgame altogether. We were
galvanised by the powerful speech by Ed. Watching him run himself
ragged, as well as Will and Damien really got our blood pumping again.
It was a disastrous start to the quarter. Trinity scored a hell of a
scrappy goal almost immediately. Instead of killing us off it made us
even more pumped up, and we responded with a beautifulfree kick by
Andy. That provided the impetus for us to go for the impossible. Two
minutes later, we scored another goal! Cries of ecstasy erupted from
the boys, accompanied by wild cheers from our supporters. It became a
one-sided quarter, as we battered Trinity's defences from all sides of
the field. Next came David's attempt, which was flying for an agonizing
few seconds before hitting the inside of the post. Groans were heard as
it meant that we got only one point instead of 6. Of course, that
didn't stop us much!

Not too long after the goal I was given the
signal to replace Hugh, who was limping off with a slight twitch on his
hamstring. As Hugh played centre forward, I was in charge of fending
off a 6-feet player with the physique of a rugby player.Yay . I
couldn't let the team down though. I was quite proud when I managed to
punch a ball clear before he could reach for it. However, the final
nail into the coffin came a minute later as we saw our co-head coach go
down, and we had to substitute Ed. It was a massive blow for us, as he
was the one holding the team together and keeping the morale up. We
never really recovered after the injury, and Trinity scored a few more
lousy goals.

When the whistle blew, we could only look into
the sky and ponder, "What if?" With extreme reluctance we shook hands
with the Trinity players and mouth "Congrats" as sincerely as possible.
Then we huddled together for a debriefing. The coach went on about how
he was extremely proud to be coaching us, and that we played the best
we could, and that was all that mattered. Then he told us the bad news
that Ed was sent to the hospital with a suspected broken leg, and
Sammie with a suspected broken nose. Trinity made things worse by
singing cliched victory songs that made us sick to our stomach. At the
best, it was a Pyrrhic defeat, but knowing that I played with the best bunch of guys there is cheered me up a bit. I also spent a little bit of time reminiscing, realizing that this was probably my first and last footie game ever.

We walked to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to visit Ed and Sam. Unfortunately, we kinda became too noisy and were ushered out by the hospital guards. After the visit, we headed off to Pugg's (a pub) for footie sculls! As all footie sculls are, we were booted out for being too rowdy. So we headed to Clyde's instead. This time, we wisely decided to sit outside, away from the other customers.

With that, footie sculls began! Basically footie sculls consists of buying jugs of beer and singing drinking songs, upon which a certain group has to stand up and scull (bottoms-up) their glass of beer when they have to. For example, we sang about all the scorers during the game. The players who scored then have to stand up and down their beer while the song is going on. Then another group is called upon, like the forwards. Pretty soon everyone is sculling their beer. Some 'unlucky' ones may have to scull glasses of beers without stop. Lincoln, for example, sculled three times in a row for playing as a forward, a midfielder and was from Medley.

As time passed, people went off. With a smaller crowd we proceeded into the pub. Still in a competitive mode, someone decided to have a boat race between JCH and Medley, to which loud shouts of "Oi!" greeted it. A boat race we will have!

Basically this is how it works. Two groups of 6 sit opposite each other, in this case JCH being on one side and Medley the other. Everyone is to sit down with a glass of beer in front of them. The countdown starts by first asking everyone to put their thumbs on the table. Then they are to place their chins onto the table. Then off they go! The first person has to stand up and scull his beer as fast as possible, upon which he would then slam the glass onto the table, prompting the next person to then stand up and scull his beer. This goes on until the last persson sculls his beer and slams it on the table. This first team to finish sculling wins obviously.

The first time round I was the first person, which put a lot of pressure on me as I didn't really know how well I would do. As it turns out, I actually did quite well, finishing the same time as my opponent. It was pretty intense and hilarious as everyone spurred each other on to scull their beer. It was really neck-to-neck right to the end, and we actually had a tie, with both teams slamming their glasses down simultaneously (allegedly at least). With that, a second round was on to break the tie. This time I was in the middle. Unfortunately, we couldn't resist the sculling might of Medley and succumbed at the final hurdle. All in good fun though, and round up a truly memorable day.

Well, that's about it folks. That's my story on my first day of footie. It actually is a pretty cool game, both to watch and play. It's kinda sad to know that I won't be playing footie for quite a while, but then again, there is hockey and basketball to look forward to!

With that said, it was sad to lose Ed to some horrific injury, Thank God he didn't break his leg, just sprained a few ligaments. A really cool guy, and a great example of how to have fun (the same guy who we ties to a pillar and who waxed his chest). He went home for a week, but he's back in college now!

Heroes or Villains - You Decide!

2007-08-14T11:44:00.001+10:00

The next JCH party was an interesting one. I would have loved to find a costume and present myself properly for the party, but had to meet up with a few pals to start with our bridge-building assignment. (D-Day is this Friday)

Thus I came back without a costume and missing out on the commencement of the party. However, I decided to come down with my camera and take a few shots of the most dazzling costumes. Here are a few.

Adam doing a pretty good job impersonating Borat. His accent was pretty spot on too! "Make happy time with my sister!"

Adam (left) as Appleman and Ed (right) as one of the Spartans in 300.

Adam went as Bananaman last year so Appleman is his alter ego. Now he is a caped crusader (with his underpants on the outside) striving to rid the world of all banana-eaters! Lol! And Ed if you remember is the guy whom we tied to a pillar to. It would be pertinent to mention that a few days before the party I was going to the toilet when I saw Ed groaning and a few girls giggling quite happily. Upon closer inspection I noticed a big raw red patch from his upper chest to his lower abdomens. He bloody waxed off all his chest hair! You could see blood oozing out the lacerated pores, and a few hairs which escaped the waxing. Some people just never cease to amaze me. Then again, it turned out pretty darn good during the party!

The Spartans uttering a war cry before sculling their beer.

A little bit of dancing

Me with Emma (center) and Erykah (right). Erykah's horns actually emit light when turned on! (The horns I mean)

Try looking out for famous characters! Hint : There's the Powerpuff Girls, and maybe a witch or two.

Link is somewhere in there, Indiana Jones (maybe), Lara Croft and the infamous John Howard!

Rushith doing his thang! Haha.. Poor dude, I'm the only one who was able to guess which character he was dressing up as. Can you?

Check out Erykah's horns! Hint : Rushith's character's name starts with J. And I should get a haircut pretty soon

Jarrod as Terminator (duh!)

I kinda felt tired after awhile, so I went up to get a good night's sleep. Besides, didn't really fit into the party mood for lack of a good costume. Pity I missed the Fresher's Dance though. I will learn that dance someday!

The weekend will bring a whole lot more excitement and crazy events. Come Sunday will be the biggest showdown of the year! It's the day we play our dastardly rivals, Trinity College. May they shrivel up like prunes in hell! Also, it would be my first game of footie ever (Australian football), so however it goes, it should be a pretty interesting experience!

An Ideal Husband

2007-08-05T04:25:00.000+10:00

It's just been a crazy night/morning.. It's 4 am in the morning and here I am posting a post. What the hell am I rambling about? Well, today is just one of those days that must not go unsaid due to its sheer amount of crazy events... Not drunk by the way, just tipsy and in serious need of serious sleep, which I would do in a short while..

So, today started like a normal Saturday would. Miss breakfast, wake up just in time for lunch and so forth. Of course, during lunch I was dutily informed that I missed my kitchen duty, which was during Saturday morning and now I would have to pay a fine or make up for it. Damn.

At 1.40pm I got suited up and met up with the other guys at the foyer for footie practice. It's actually my first session considering I missed the last two because I overslept (what's new?). There really isn't much to say about the training, but if I don't become fit by the time this semester is over I would really really murder someone. Probably my footie coach, Ed, who is another story by himself.

So yeah.. Got back from practice at around 4, then I got ready for the JCH play, "An Ideal Husband" by the eminent Oscar Wilde. I was hugely impressed with the whole play, especially considering they only had 2 weeks to practice for this play. It was a full house today. Massive turnout. Although everyone did an excellent job with their characters the man who stood out is this cool dude called Damien, who played his character so well I actually imagined it as the real Damo (not very far off actually). The manner in which he portrayed Wilde's sardonic wit and sarcasm is just amazing. For such a small college without students in the drama field the play was an absolute success. Go JCH! Hehe.. Oo, kudos must also go to Jason Chin, who valiantly played the French maid, tight black leggings and white apron. Very interesting imagery right there. Too bad I couldn't bring my camera in..

Anyways, in all obviousness there was to be an after party to celebrate the success and conclusion of the play, so we headed off to Pugg's, a bar not too far off from JCH. The amount of alcohol drunk was just tremendous. In the first ten minutes of sitting down a girl already downed two huge glasses of Snake Bites (mixture of beer and cider saturated with raspberry essence). There's this awesome song where everyone would sing it and insert a person's name into one part, hereby obliging the person to basically down whatever he or she is holding! The term they use for 'downing the whole bottle' is a word that is kinda in between 'scald' and 'skull'.

Adam pretty much wasted

The games they played were so corny, but oh so effective when alcohol comes into the equation. Good ol Damo played a trick on Hannah(I think that's her name, and it's a different Hannah from previously mentioned) whereby if she said the word seventeen, she would have to buy him a drink and if she could withold the word, he would buy her two drinks. Basically it went like this,

"What's 2+2?"

"4?"

"Right you are. Okay, what's 4+4?"

"8"

"8+8?"

"16"

"16+14?"

"30"

"30+40?"

"...70?"

"Ahah, I got you!"

"But I thought you said seventeen!"

It was at that exact moment when everyone just burst into laughter! It was so funny.. at that time anyway.. To actually fall for that old trick.. Then again, alcohol does funny things.. :)

Rushith (greedy bugger) drinking a free Jim Beam's. It was free because some random came up to us, started being touchy feely, babbled about random nonsense, and gave us his just opened bottle of Jim Beam's as goodwill. Wow. Probably pissed in the bottle or something. o.0

Well, disappointingly the bar started closing at around 1 so we headed back home, albeit with frequent stops at eateries for food and restrooms. Not many of us were ready for sleep yet so we just ended up doing random stuff around the hall. Remember Ed? Well, he's back.

Somehow someone got this crazy idea of tying Ed to a column in the JCH front foyer, to which Ed so happily agreed to, in the name of fun. Thus, with duct tape and much mindless laughter, we got Ed nicely tied up like a Christmas tree. Not to be outdone, someone (I think it was Eamonn) then proposed pulling down Ed's pants, for all to see next morning when everyone comes down for breakfast. Of course, Ed being Ed, agreed wholeheartedly. This part is actually still alright, because what happens after that was just.. horrifically obscene.

Well, we all know that boxers aren't exactly the tightest things in the world. So.. during the process of de-pantsing, his boxers decided to follow suit and gave way, which gave all of us a very disturbing image. So there Ed was standing there with a big grin in his face with his family jewels exposed for all the world to see! It was especially funny when we had to lift the boxers up for him again as he couldn't do it himself! Omg.. Will probably haunt me for the rest of my life..

We then proceeded to hang out in Ed's room, where I was taught really cool drinking games, like Bunny and some complex card game. And he has a set of chess with shot glasses. Awesome stuff. Me being Malaysian was quite obliged to teach them Indian poker, to which received numerous amounts of "Wow!" and "we're playing this Thursday". Not even sure whether it was invented by Malaysians though.. Probably India (no shit Daniel) While all this was going on, there were a couple on the bed, under the blanket doing all the frisky stuff in the world. To me at least, having this occuring at early Sunday morning is understandable, but in front of everyone? Haha.. Alcohol really does wonders.. For obvious reasons I can't name the amorous couple, but it really opened up my eyes to how Australians party..

Ed's personal collection of booze. Notice the absinthe at the right hand corner. Don't think it's enough though..Probably would be gone in 2 months..

So, basically that's it.. I really have to sleep now.. Remind me to refrain myself from posting during moments of insufficient sobriety.. A good night to all!

The Gathering of MC Comrades

2007-07-30T22:59:00.000+10:00

Sunday started well enough, with me having a hearty breakfast once again. Having buffet everyday for every single meal, bar clubbers (supper) and afternoon tea, really makes you lose perspective on how much you actually can eat. Long gone are the days of eating set meals and then ordering dessert. Here, dessert comes first, then the main course followed up with the appetizer. The richness of food really gets to me sometimes.. Needless to say I am going to put on weight pretty soon. Which is why I have decided to join the hall's football team! (Aussie football) But this is a story for another day, since practice is tomorrow morning at 6.30am.. 0.o

Anyways, a group of us left the hall at around 11.00 am to go support our team's football team against the overwhelming favourites, St. Mary's. Totally sissy name for a football team, but nothing so sissified in the way they kicked our ass from all corners of the field. In this twisted amalgamation of rugby, soccer and American football emerges a totally vicious game. In short, you play with the intensity of American football's tackling and slamming minus the safety gears. Go figure.

Basically this is how the game works; there are two teams consisting of more than 10 players (dunno how many) wearing jerseys of contrasting colours so they can differentiate between allies and opponents. On two polar ends of this field that they play in is a set of 4 poles stuck into the ground which are roughly equidistant from each other. The center poles are taller than the other two. And they're white in colour. Anyways, the way to score a goal is to basically kick it through any of the poles. Getting the ball with a kick through the center poles gets you 6 points. Getting the ball with a kick through either side of the center poles earns you one point. Getting the ball with a kick anywhere else besides a teammate's arms gets you unadulterated profanity that would even shame Samuel Jackson. "Get that mother-f*cking ball through the mother-f*cking poles!"

Anyways, that's the gist of it. So how did our team do? Well, we lost by 100 something (lost count) to 1. We scored a miserable one off-target consolation goal. You would think if a team could score 2 decades of goals against us we would have been able to fluke at least one in. I sincerely believe we would have stood more of a chance if we blind-folded ourselves and kicked the ball at the relative direction of goal. Sigh...

The boys having an inspirational team talk before they got their asses whooped. Pardon my French.

Then again, who am I to complain so much? Judgement day comes in a fortnight's time, in which I would most probably play a part in. Then we'll see just how 'easy' it is to fluke one in. Hehe. I should stop before I embarrass myself further.

Well, the actual purpose of this post is to tell you guys that I have made contact with the other ex-MC inhabitants. We agreed to meet at Uni of Melb at 6 pm. It felt really good seeing everyone (in context) again and catching up with lost ground. There were 8 of us, Jonathan Yong, Jessy, Chiu Jin (or Chew Jin, not too sure), Wei Lynn, Tze Shin, Ben Shane, Melissa and me. We ate at some restaurant along a street renowned for its delicious food. Everyone is just as how they were when we left MC/WMS 2 years ago. Melissa still the evergreen blonde (to which she happily acknowledged to, until she realized it was about her). Jessy still the enigmatic chick. Jonathan still the same in most aspects, but obviously much much much more happy after he finally got Lee Na. Yeap, he got her, after 6 years of unrequited love and perpetual depression. Ben Shane is still.. Ben Shane. I didn't really know Wei Lynn and Chew/Chiu Jin so I can't really say how they were before this, but Tze Shin has changed considerably since she left for Australia in Form 4. And I am still hopefully the same Daniel from before.

Girl in white is C Jin, then there's Melissa (duh) and Jonathan.

Food-wise, it was excellent. Ben Shane and I shared this huge-ass 1kg steak which was unsurprisingly sumptuous. In total randomness from Ben Shane, "Hey, you know what, if I'm 50kg, and I eat 500g of steak, that means I will be 1% cow!" . Unbelievable. And he's wrong, because it's slightly less than 1%. I should shut up.

Ben Shane with the cap, and Jessy at the far end. Wei Lynn and Tze Shin were opposite me, but Wei Lynn didn't want her picture taken so she's not in the photo. 0.o

There was a sense of nostalgia as we started talking about MC/WMS (duh), and the hilarious stuff that happened during our tenure. There is one that still sticks in my mind. It was in form 1 (En Li, you should know this one), and we were having History class with Miss Hajah Ainon. For a reason that escapes me, she sent me and someone else (Clement I think) out of the class. 10 minutes later, she shouted, "Okay, monitor, please get those donkeys back into class!". After a few minutes of awkward silence from the class and Miss Hajah Ainon screaming for the monitor repeatedly in her scratchy husky voice, someone finally said, "Er madam.. The monitor is outside..."

It's funny how you remember random incidents that happened to you, significant or not.

Anyways, we departed the restaurant to Jonathan's house to 'lepak' some more. As the night wore on, we bade goodbye to Jessy, Tze Shin, Ben Shane and Melissa in tandem. Since it was really late at night, C Jin and I decided it would be a better idea to stay over at Jon's place instead of walking back to our homes. It was nice to be friends with C Jin after 5 years of only knowing of each other. For the next couple of hours we just did what most slumber parties would warrant. Mindless banter, philosophical spiel, intimate confessions, a good amount of insulting and bitching, uncontrollable laughter and lastly, Indian Poker.

It was quite a shock that Jon and C Jin never heard of Indian Poker, of which I was glad to teach them about. For those 'katak di bawah tempurung' Indian Poker is basically taking a card face-down and placing it on your forehead without seeing its value. Obviously you get to see everyone else's cards. So, by looking at the cards and reactions of the others, you have the choice of filling up a glass with any amount of alcohol. Usually there's a limit to how much alcohol you can pour in though. Everyone takes turns to fill the same glass. Then everyone has the opportunity to change their cards, again without looking at the card picked. This is followed by another round of alcohol pouring (and lots of guffawing and chortling). The person with the lowest denomination bottoms-ups the whole glass. A very simple game, but extremely entertaining!

Of course, we didn't want to get ourselves drunk on the same day we had uni, so we used water instead. I know it sounds pretty lame in comparison to alcohol, but after 5 huge glasses of pristine water I started to realize that water isn't much of pushover as I thought it was. By glass 10, everyone was pretty much 'drunk' and disoriented. Jon's toilet was practically our best friend that night.

Jon and C Jin resting momentarily.

So yeah, that's the story of our mini-gathering of the MC people. As trite as it was, I really enjoyed the company of friends, both new and old. Maybe it's the connection to Malaysia, or maybe it's the ease in which we communicated, but whatever it is, it really showed me how much I miss having me close buds around. Ah well.. Looking forward to more gatherings then!

The freedom that I possess is really quite exciting and intimidating at the same time. Can anyone imagine Daniel making impulsive decisions to sleep in people's houses and waking up one hour before class to go back to his own home for lunch and a well-needed bath? The same Daniel who couldn't go out with his friends because he had to be back before 9 by LRT or didn't obtain permission from his parents. Hehe, how life has changed..

I have to go sleep now, got football practice tomorrow, so goodnight peeps, and see you guys around!

An Eulogy to the Harry Potter series

2007-07-23T23:04:00.000+10:00

Before you guys start crying and remonstrating note that I said Harry Potter series as in the end of the story, not the person.

I must say, that I am truly impressed with the last book. A fitting end, and magnificently written indeed. Needless too say Rowling has sent all her detractors into hiding with their tails between their legs (never saw the sense in the idiom, but who cares).

I can truly say that Rowling has outshone herself in 'the Deathly Hallows'. Even with the breathless pace the story was unraveling itself Rowling has managed to intertwine the plot together quite beautifully. I really enjoyed how she seamlessly brought back incidents from the past books into the fray, which evoked nostalgia and furtive smiles of recognition.

I was also satisfied with the way she handled the controversial scenes, always letting the sinking feeling settle but never over-sensationalizing the episode. Pretty brilliant in my opinion. In retrospect, I now understand how the precursors of 'the Deathly Hallows' worked to set up a veritably grand finale. All of my dissapointment towards the 5th and 6th book disappeared completely upon the realization of the part they played in this wonderful journey Rowling has taken me.

And so the fairytale comes to a close; that much I can divulge. A big thank you to JK Rowling for a wonderful adventure into the realm of mysticism and magic, as well as being a substantial part of my childhood. I can never forget the amount of happiness as well as 'sorrow' it caused to some of us, most notably when someone shouted the ending of book 6 to my ex-classmates, which made quite a few people burst into tears. En Li and Shannon sure know what I'm talking about, :) .

To acknowledge a true icon in the literary world, I hereby toast The Boy Who Lived!

The Deliquescing of Memories

2007-07-19T23:55:00.000+10:00

I've always had this fear that as the days go by I will lose hold of the memories I have of everyone, as if time is slowly shredding them into oblivion.

Isn't it sad? To slowly lose the only connection between recognition and acknowledgement. I truly fear the day the faces of my dearest friends start to blur and fade away.. I wonder, does anyone truly remember the way I look or is it just a vague silhouette that resembles me?

Close your eyes for a moment and try to recall the face of that once-thin-now-pudgy guy who has left Malaysia not too long ago.. Scary isn't it?

I believe that this poem embodies the trepidation I feel about the path that I am travelling on.

There to Here
by Lauriel Mariondatter

You ask me how we got from there to here,
And you tell me you can't remember,
And so I'll answer it for you,
Though perhaps not the way you want me to.

We got from here to there on the back of a unicorn racing through our dreams,
We got from here to there when night's silence thundered between us,
We got from here to there believing a song to be stronger than the worlds pulling us apart.

And we were right.

We stood in good relation to the earth,
We stood in good relation to the gods,
We stood in good relation to all that was beautiful,
You see, we were Alive

We got from there to here when we believed reality to be stronger than love,
We got from there to here when we forgot to look up and believe that gravity held no hold on our souls,
We got from there to here when we left our storybooks for some other distracting play,

And now I do not know my world,
And I cannot find my God,
And beauty dies,
Shut out in the cold.

And I believe we can get from here to there if we just believe,
And I believe we can get from here to there if you'll take my hand,
And I believe we can get from here to there - if only in our dreams,

And when you're dancing across the sky,
Somewhere between the stars and the moon,
Look for me by your side, I'll meet you with hands outstretched,
We'll go - from here to there, there to here, and back again.

Statuesque Beauty

2007-07-19T21:54:00.000+10:00

Hello there everyone!

En Li gave me a good idea about starting a blog. Though I'm not really a blog person I guess there's always a start to everything right?

So.. I did mention about my Dad's friend's daughter right? Well, in all honesty she does closely resemble to my description of her. Of course I'm not saying that she's the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn but she is undeniably attractive. I would really love to post a picture of her but unfortunately it is not in my possession at the moment. However, my dad brought a camera over that day so the pictures are with him. Would probably ask him to send some pictures over. =)

She got her eyes from her mother (obviously) who is a very genial person herself. Instead of having the generic sharp features of a Caucasian the Chinese blood in her gives her a more mellow face shape. Kinda difficult to describe actually. Plus she has a great smile too. But, we all know that Daniel won't fall for that kind of superficial stuff. Hannah (her name duh) has a really good character as well!

Unlike the typical obnoxious Australian teenager I would say that I'm quite impressed in the manner that the whole family has been brought up in. Needless to say Asian values are still better (in certain issues anyway). My parents have actually met up with them few years back when my sister came to Australia and they have been raving about her since then. They were hugely impressed by Hannah, especially when they saw her helping her mother get ready dinner, setting the table and tending to the dog and such. The family as a whole is really good-mannered, and it really feels genuine, ostensibly or not. For example the children (4 of them) will sit in the living room while the grown-ups sat on the dinner table. During dessert a few of us tried to ask them to join us but they politely declined.

So, Hannah's beautiful and well-mannered. I'm not done yet though. She is really good in sports too! She is in the school sprinting team, and plays basketball as well. That said she doesn't really have a figure to die for. More of a slim build, but I'm definitely not complaining! But the best part about her is that she's shorter than me! Buahaha! She might still grow though, being only 16 and all.. (I'm not a paedophile!)

For the girls, you can stop rolling your eyes. Her brother is good-looking as well, having similar features to her. At 14, he's already as tall as me, and will definitely tower over me in the coming years. His name is Tom I think. The even younger brother is Nicholas, and the last one I forgot.

Well, she's finishing high school this year. Her father graduated from Melbourne University so hopefully she will take her foundation studies in Trinity College, which is 5 minutes away from where I currently live! Haha.. Wishful thinking is quite satisfying..

At the moment they live in the suburbs of Melbourne, so it is quite troublesome to visit them. Besides, who the heck visits other people for no reason? Or reasons that cannot be evident to the parents of certain people?

On an unrelated issue, I doubt I will be able to log on to MSN much. Janet Clarke Hall (my residence) conveniently failed to expand on details regarding internet access on their website. And so me being the typical Malaysian expected unlimited internet access when they posted "Internet access available in all rooms and around the hall" or something remotely close to that at least. Instead I get a limit of 1GB per SEMESTER! What the hell man! This is actually one of the worst deals ever.. People like Jonathan and Jessy (from WMS) pay around $80 a month for a limit of 40GB a month. That's still expensive but reasonable. I, on the other hand, managed to find a residence hall that has internet technology as old as the hall itself, which is pretty old considering it is a national heritage building!

I think I've already used a few percent of it writing some e-mails and this blog. MSN would just eat the 1GB up like En Li to Snow White Prawns. Heck, I can't even click on the back button without feeling the pinch. Instead I have to resort to typing down the desired website's URL. Life's really tough in Melbourne man.. Internet cafes charge like $6 an hour, so it's not much of a help either. However, there are computer labs everywhere in the campus which is free of charge, at the price of privacy and spyware.

Well, that's it for my first post. The cold is really getting to me now. Have to go sleep; got loads of stuff to do tomorrow! I'll talk more about Janet Clarke Hall and the unfortunate incident in the co-de toilet next post.. Signing out!

Oh, do check out my future girlfriend! ;P