My phones

Since I am rather bored and I am really tempted to get a new phone, I shall 'crap' about the history of phones that I used to own. Lol..

Nokia 3350

This is my first phone. I bought it in  May (or June) 2002 after I completed my junior high school. The price was slightly less than Rp 1.500.000,- (about less than S$ 250 at current exchange rate). Not too fantastic but I don't hate it either. I like the blue case colour (as compared to metallic grey 3310/3330 which was very popular at that time). The highlight of this phone is the backlight which can flicker according to the ringtones, something which was very new and exciting at that time. Ah the vibration varies according to the ringtones too. The vibration and backlight are not monotonous. They literally vary differently for different songs! Other than that, the rest is the same with other phones at that time: black writing + yellow light, 12 inbox + 12 outbox + 9 picture messages, snake + pinball + spaceship shooting games, music composer, notes, alarm, calculator etc. Haha I mention the things that I can remember or features that I often use.

I used the phone for 4+ years before the battery failed. Too bad by that time, Nokia was not even selling the original battery. I used a fake battery which only lasted for 3 days. Lol.. Anyway, as it was dying, its capability started to diminish from: can only be used to sms (for phone calls, the phone had to be charged at the same time) and as alarm until it cannot be used to make calls at all and it did not even have the power to ring the alarm. Before it rested in peace, I changed the casing to Mickey Mouse in the hope of making it more loveable. Anyway since I have 2 sim cards in Singapore, I kept this phone for my spare sim card. I kept this phone until this year (when I got a new phone) and then I shipped this back to my parents for them to do whatever they deem fit. Lol..

Overall, I am fine with this phone. My only unhappiness was: the original casing glitter flaked off, the print on the keypad faded, and the screen became 'cloudy' even with a screen protector. But in all, I am satisfied :D

Sony Ericsson K800i

My second phone which also happens to be my FAVOURITE phone. I bought it in  Feb 2007, right before I had to go back to Singapore to collect my A level results. I bought it not too long after its release so it was quite expensive. Rp. 3.200.000,- (about S$ 500 at current exchange rate). It was considered expensive and my dad refused to pay for it. My mum bought it for me.

Since I had no digital camera, I always wanted a phone with a nice camera. At that time, this 3.2MP camera phone was the best (although unfortunately a few months later, there was another K series with 5MP camera)! Everyone in my house mocked this phone as a 'brick' since it is quite bulky and thick.

Anyway, I love it so much. This is considered a flagship phone by Sony Ericsson at that time and thus every aspect of it is damn good. I love the camera, it has lens cover, the alarm has auto snooze, the speaker is not too bad, the tennis + golf + diving games are good time killers (even up to now!), I downloaded many themes to make the phone even more loveable, and many other things. I know it is not fair to compare it with my previous phone (the technology was too wide in gap) but the vast upgrade from earlier generation really makes this phone a 'part of my life'. I use almost every feature in this phone, except the video call. Lol. Waste money in my opinion. The camera is so good that I brought it to Australia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Korea as a substitute for a digicam which I never have.

Still, I have a few complaints haha.. After a few years, the rubber parts sort of 'died'. They become very sticky and dust loves to adhere to it. The camera is terrible in low light (my expectation is too high I guess,. Come on, it's a phone! not a camera, what do I expect?!). And the joypad was kinda spoilt after few months, although that was partly because I was a hardcore gamer for the first few months. Lol. But after all I am very very satisfied with this. After 3 years, it is still up and running well, although now it becomes my 'spare' phone. I still used it to listen to music and the alarm. In these 2 aspects, this K800i is even better than my current phone! Unbeliavable right..

Although the battery life starts to decrease, it is still doing well. And the best part is: even now Sony Ericsson is still producing the battery (and it is still costly at $$70+ each). I guess this phone still has a long way to go ^o^

Nokia C6

July 2010. My most 'memorable' phone. It lasted LESS THAN 12hours for me! Gosh..  Record breaking. People always say Nokia is lousy when you see how their service centre is always crowded everyday. I decided to give it a try.. I tried my luck and it was bad luck.. In the 3G era, most phones go for the touch screen etc. Unfortunately, I am still old fashioned. Haha.. I use my phone primarily for sms and there is no way I can survive with touch screen. That's why I got hooked to this phone. It has touch screen and keyboard. Nokia's touch screen is good and sensitive (that's a good point!). And this was cheaper than other phones with sliding keyboard (only S$ 98 with contract).

Too bad this is a piece of junk to me. It could not even perform as a phone for me. I don't know whether I was unlucky to get a faulty set or Nokia just sucks. Firstly, its reception is poor. Other phones are doing well in my room but not this one. The speaker is terrible. Even with a full signal, I could not hear what the other person was talking about. With that, don't even talk about 'smartphone' capability, this phone cannot even perform as a phone i.e to make phone calls! In addition, the phone is very laggy. It takes forever to display photos and messages (gosh I could not take it!). And the QWERTY keyboard is poorly designed. The first row is too close to the screen part that when you are typing, your fingers are obstructed by the other half of the phone.

The only thing I can praise is the feature to customise the desktop with various icons and shortcuts (though I was super pissed that the phone always automatically connected to GPRS when any internet related shortcuts are put on the standby). I exchanged the phone to other model.. I just don't dare to take the risk (after all the bad experiences my friends have with various Nokia phones). So yeah, now I am done with Nokia too although (again I repeat) I don't know whether I was unlucky to get a faulty set.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro

Should I consider this my 4th or 3rd phone?? Hmm... Anyway this replaced the stupid Nokia C6. The same reasoning applies, I need to sms so I need a keyboard since I cannot 'tahan' touch screen. This cost me S$198 (with contract). The camera is 5MP so it is an upgrade from my previous K800i :D For the sake of keyboard, I sacrificed an extra 3MP camera capability (Sony Ericsson Vivaz has no keyboard but it boasts 8MP camera!).

To be honest, other than the camera (well, as expected from Sony, good cameras ^^) , I don't quite like this phone. It is Symbian and guess who made Symbian? Yeah, that sucky Nokia -_-" I hated the menu etc. I owned this phone for less than 6 months and it hang for more times than my 3.5 years old K800i. Thanks to Symbian. The media (photo viewing) load time is fast. And that's all the good thing about it.

So what are my complaints? Firstly, it has no lens cover and it has a poor positioning of the lens. It is unnatural for me to hold it in such a way so as not to touch the lens (lousy deign!). So for normal usages, it is inconvenient! Secondly, its display of portrait and landscape pictures sucks! Too hard to describe. But when you hold the phone in a portrait manner, it will display all the pictures as portrait, even for landscape pictures. Thus you will see only the middle part of the landscape pictures. When you hold the phone in landscape manner, the portrait pictures are 90degrees slanted. Gosh. Terrible. Thirdly, the speakers (referring to songs, not to phone calls) suck. Forthly, the back cover is made of flimsy plastic material. It makes the phone feels cheap.. And it feels that it can snap anytime everytime I take off the back cover. Gosh.. Lastly, the battery kinda sucks. I gotta charge it once every 3 days and I don't go online/wireless/bluetooth etc. Bah.. I had no idea why it has a green light which is always flickering and maybe that sucks the battery! Oh don't forget, my unhappiness about Symbian is in the previous paragraph. Lol.

In all, this phone, at best, is just a phone for me. Make calls, send sms-es, take photos, and that's it. In fact, it is still quite inconvenient for a normal phone since I have to take special care in order not to touch the lens. For alarm, notes, and any other things, ironically I am still using my K800i. I guess that really highlights the difference between FLAGSHIP and non-flagship phones ba.. The company really put effort for flagship phones in a way that they are 'perfect' in every aspect.. Unfortunately, nowadays companies hardly have flagship phones. They just release phones in many types to satisfy wide range of needs and prices bla bla bla..

Therefore, I am not quite satisfied with my current phone. Hence, I wanna get a new phone. Lol.. But I think I learnt my lessons ba. The most important thing for a phone is the convenience to sms and make phone calls. Other things (erm... except camera perhaps LOL) are secondary. So next time I will find something which is convenient to use/hold as a phone for daily usages as the main criteria to buy a phone. Well, at least I am grateful that I insisted on something with a keyboard. I will just die if I chose a phone which is totally touch screen. Haha..

So what's next??

Grr I am emo again. I am just back from Coffee Beans. I am too distracted to my own room that I have to go out if I wanna concentrate to study (or in this case is to prepare for my experiments). It is so ironice. The last time I went there was when I read my FYP articles for the first time. And today I was back there for my FYP again.. Before I emo, I will write about the Holiday Special drink that I bought today. Haha.. It was called Dark Chocolate Orange Ice Blended. The citrus flavour was nice (not too overpowering) but the chocolate was too sweet for me.. I am not a fan.. It tasted more like a melted orange-flavoured chocolate bar than a drink. Haha.. Ok, now comes the emo part.

I am emo because my project seems to be hopeless.. I am in big dilemma. I have planned everything to best that I can do, up to the amount of ingredients. Then I started to get emo as I was contemplating about the amount. If I use too little (to save), I am worried that for subsequent steps, the things would be too little to even be detected or measured. Worse, when I need to repeat the step, or re-do the step with few modifications, I need to waste at least 48hours to re-synthesise the whole stuff. However if I use too much, my materials will not last long. And what if I fail?

It sucks!! I feel very sucky :( Seriously the main thing which inhibit my progress is my limited materials :'( Well time is also limited but that one is less crucial. How am I supposed to work with amount like 0.1 or 0.2 mg?? Even the weighing machine is not up to that level of precision.. At zero-point-something decimal point, the number keeps flickering so there is no way I know the number is due to fluctuation or what..

Oh God.. I can't do it alone.. I need You!! :( But I know You won't help me.. Just like how You did not help me for my exams.. Damn :'( Call it blasphemy or whatever but currently this is what I feel towards Him..

At least I gotta thank Him for the 'enthuasiasm' to plan my experiments (it happened!) and to go early tomorrow (I hope it's gonna happen! Not only for tomorrow but throughout the whole month).

Air ^o^

I think this is the most uploaded picture in my blog haha..

Aaa~~h I am so ecstatic. After waiting and hunting down the book for YEARS (the book was out in 1999), I ordered the book on ebay and finally it came yesterday! I did not expect it to arrive so quickly so I was so delighted when I checked my mail yesterday.

The book is not perfect. Well considering it is at least 10 years old, I can forgive a bit of imperfections ba. Overall, I rate the condition as 90%. I am still satisfied. The content is fantastic! Really worth all my effort and frustration to get it. Lol.. Worth the price too haha.. There are 104 pages and only the last 8 pages are black and white!! Woohoo!! There are quite a lot of pictures which I never see before, not from the manga illustrations. So it is very exciting. And since the manga is not made into anime, all the pictures are hand-drawn. Pencil, ink, colour pencil, crayon.. OMG T_T Drool... Perhaps a decade ago, computer graphic was still unusual for many mangakas..

The only regrettable thing for me is that the mangaka chose to focus more on Naruse, Sawamura, Sakurai, and Kobayashi. With so many characters in the manga, she could draw more of the other people ma.. Anyway the other people are equally good looking too.. And where are the female characters?? I thought basketball mangas are for guys.. So shouldn't it have more drawings of the females? Haha.. Oh well, since the mangaka is a female, what to do.. But still, I LOVE THE BOOK! Lol..

So happy ^o^ Anyway my next hunt will be Weiss Kreuz books.. I am aiming for 4 books worth >US$100 (inclusive shipping cost). Actually there are still 2 books but I decided not to buy since they are more like manga (black and white pages). I prefer illustration books. And aaah.. that will complete everything from my childhood memories :D

Weiss Kreuz

Thanksgiving

It is the second day and I have not yet rebounded from my emo and self-pity. One big B- or C+ is coming and that is just gonna ruin my whole university results transcript. I wonder how long I need to forget about this. Sigh.. Sometimes I feel angry, what's the point of all the results so far :( Might as well that I am not doing well from the start.. But haiz putting things into perspective, I think right from the start I am not that smart as a person. I am "smart" rather than smart. Last time, I was "good" because I always hunted for test questions from my friends in other class beforehand lol. Even when a teacher knew about this, I did not care. I did no wrong ma. That was my benefit for having the test later than other people. If the teacher wanted to prevent this, then jolly well change the questions lor. Aaa~h those are my days in Indo. No wonder ever since I came here, I have been doing worse in school. Bleah.. But seriously yesterday paper was the worst T_T That just shows how stupid I am. Cant survive without tips :'(

I watched Harry Potter yesterday. I expected to be disappointed but I did not expect to be THAT disappointed. The movie is the WORST among all Harry Potter movies! I always think that I used to be disappointed because I knew the book. Thus I would be disappointed for things which were left out. But for this one, I read the book 3 years ago and I hardly can recall the story now. That puts me as a non-reader who watched the movie and it was a much worse experience. The action scenes were few. And the things happened to fast before I could catch what going on on screen. The 'vision' scenes came in flashes.. way too quickly for us to know what's going on. Plus the people spoke damn fast in thick UK accent.. Bleah.. And so many unusual names that I could hardly follow. Nightmare! Oh well, the only thing worth seeing is Hermione ba. Haha.. I see that as the guys grow up, they become uglier and wider. Lol.. Only Hermione becomes prettier and slimmer. I wonder whether such person exists in real life: pretty, tall, slim, and smart.. And here is an ugly, short, fat, and stupid boy writing..

Today life went on as usual. I did my laundry and read newspaper. I found out about SITEX (computer exhibition) which is currently running and I wanted to buy a netbook! Lol.. It is very 'easy' to buy netbook. Many have exactly the same specs.. And the price hardly differs.. Looks like I gotta choose based on colour and costumer care experience ba. But oh well, come to think of it, I do not need a netbook that urgently yet. I decided not to buy haha.. That was as quick as the initial urge to buy one :p

I am more inclined to buy an LG flip phone. The price was still 300+ without contract. Ouch.. I could get if for $0 with contract last time. But thanks to my stupid choice of Nokia, I could downgrade to a cheaper phone. Actually nothing fanciful about the phone in terms of specs. I just want to experience a flip phone.. and this one is kinda cute too LOL. I kinda 'hate' my current phone. Because it has no lens cover, I always have to take extra caution in holding it so that I do not touch/smudge/scratch the lens. It's 5MP le! Haha.. I even need a pouch to put it in my pocket. Grr.. So troublesome.. Well the LG also has no lens cover. But since I am not buying it for the camera, who cares about the lens! Lol.. I wonder how many more months to go before it becomes below $100. Only then I will buy haha.. It was released in January for $428.. It was $0 with contract in July. How come I saw it being sold for $350+ in a shop yesterday? Bleah.. Why must the LG shop at Vivo close?!

Cute right? Haha.. Oh well, apparently they come in green and red too but I have never seen them. I would like to have the green one! Lol.. But heck, I will do fine with the blue one! Black looks good but my phones have always been black so it is time for variation ba haha...

And how ironic my life is. It is Thanksgiving Day and I had nothing to be grateful of :'(

PR 4103: Research Methodology

Fucked up module..
Fucked up paper..
And it fucked up my honour and my life..

Perhaps the paper was not that hard.. I am the one to blame. I am just too stupid..
Fuck me..

Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce

Based loosely on Chinese novel: Romance of the Three Kingdom, choose a hero and pledge your allegiance to Kingdom Shu, Wei, or Wu, to unite ancient China under one rule.

  

Graphics

Zhao Yun (in Fury Mode) from the opening cutscene

The opening cutscene is exciting and that is as far as it goes. Throughout the game, it is just normal in-game graphics. Cutscenes are limited to in-between chapters summary. Unfortunately, for each Kingdom, there is only ONE cutscene differing only in narrations for different chapters. And these cutscenes are in sephia, not full color -_-". The only cutscenes worth mentioning are the final cutscenes for each Kingdom where the officers are gathered to celebrate their victory in uniting the 3 Kingdoms. And thank goodness they are colored!

The background looks 'dead'

Many stages share the same backgrounds (eg: city, fortress, swamps, etc) and the colours used are rather dull. The mythical beasts look majestic but they also point out the poor layerings, especially when the character have to climb to the body of the beasts to whack them. The layering issue is worsened with poor camera positioning sometimes which make the enemies or the character we control disappear from our screen. The 'chi' equip also looks akward to me. It is as if the people are wearing huge colorful bracelets and socks.

Character Status Menu with Fury Mode outfit

The only treat for the eyes is the characters status menu. The different outfits do not really matter as often they are just different colour palletes. The Fury mode animation is quite refreshing and detailed in colours though. Other than that, the only positive thing about the graphics would be the weapons. Every single one of them looks different from another and the differences are not just in colours. This includes how Sword A differs from Sword B and Sword C etc. Considering there are many weapon classes (i.e bows, sword, double-handed sword, staff, pike, fans, etc) and many weapons within each class, I find it refreshing to see various weapons.


Gameplay/Features
I had fun playing the Dynasty Warriors GBA version (I can't recall the exact title) and I am utterly disappointed with this game. The developer decided to remove the strategy part of the game and replace it with the 'multiplayer' and 'fury' component. Since I am solo-ing most of the time, this game becomes purely a hack and slash game. It becomes very brain-less, and it has a HUGE tendency to get boring very fast. I no longer get the feeling of Kingdom vs Kingdom or Army vs Army kind of fights as it becomes one person to fight all the enemies.

All the missions are very linear. For each mission, there is 1 main objective to clear the mission, and there maybe 1 or 2 side objectives to get extra cash. Sometimes the side objectives are not related to the story at all. It can be as lame as "kill a butterfly". The maps are rather small and simple. Boring...

The AI for the enemies is also quite dumb. Most of them just stand stationary waiting for the player to kill them. They are quite easy to kill or in fact, players can choose to skip them altogether. Unfortunately, the bosses are meant for multiplayer. It is ridiculously hard to solo them (the good  news is: it is still POSSIBLE to beat the game by solo-ing). That makes level grinding compulsory and makes the whole game quite stressful to be played alone. Even with hours of grinding and leveling, some of the bosses are still too hard. And worse, some stages have multiple bosses.

Imagine being gang-banged by Phoenix, Cao Pi, Cao Ren, Zhang Liao, and Xu Huang

There is a nice attempt to put the city upgrade feature. Now weapons, items, orbs, chi, are obtained from the city (sounds more like RPG eh?). During the missions, players just collect money and materials to assemble equipments. The city is upgraded at certain rate depends on the officers (in terms of officer cards) that player collects throughout. However, the methods of collecting cards and upgrading the city are too slow. It can be easily abused by starting and quitting missions repeatedly (after starting and quitting a mission, the city will gain "experience" and there is a chance of meeting a new officer who gives officer cards when we return to the city). To me, it is a nice feature turned ugly..

There is also a nice attempt to costumise the equipments with orbs and chi.  Most of them are effectively useless. Only towards the end that the higher level chi powers are more interesting and useful. Unfortunately, there are a few Chi combinations which effectively makes the character immortal. With these few combinations, the game becomes very easy. Even those hardcore bosses become a piece of cake. This takes out the challenge of the game and why bother offering so many things while there are a few sure-win combinations that everyone will use

Each character has 1 main and 1 subweapon. Only the subweapon is customisable to any weapon types. The weapon system is supposedly pretty good with 'vulnerability' system. For example, bows and tech are good  (5 stars) against wizards but weak (1 star) towards machines, staff is good (5 stars) against heavy machines, while spear is relatively good (3 stars) against everything, etc. Unfortunately, only the wizards are annoying enough to make bow or tech a necessity. Equip spear + bow/tech will ensure a pretty easy gameplay. This makes all the attempt for customisation useless altogether. For each weapon type, there is a separate speciality point system. The system is a failure because for the type of weapon that we use, a random  (rather than based on frequency of usage of that weapon) 1 to 3 speciality points are awarded after every completed mission. Grinding for weapon point is even more tedious and time consuming than grinding level -_-"

Most characters share the same movesets, particularly because the movesets are based on the weapons. As the specialty for one weapon goes up, the moveset evolves with more hits and better combos.  Thank goodness the combos are fluid, elegant, easy to execute, and enjoyable to perform. Perhaps the combo is the only thing which salvage the gameplay of this game.

Another good thing is the movesets for different weapon types are vastly different. It makes the game less dull and more challenging. For example: using bow normal attack cannot cause the enemy to fall/fly/etc. The enemy still can attack while  being shot with arrows. Thus using bow poses a challenge to constantly moving to avoid enemies attack. In contrast, other weapon types can stagger, knock down enemies, etc, basically disabling them from attacking so we can just happily whack them. Some weapons can cover your backside too while some are only useful for frontal attacks.

The collectibles are lame since there is no way a player can have 100% completion using 1 save file. So what is the point of showing a percentage? Seriously! I think this is plain stupid.

To add on players agony, the 6th chapter is a bonus chapter. In this chapter, we get to play ALL missions (right from chapter 1) with a 5 star difficulty. Wow.. how "exciting" is that? I am being sarcastic here!! Haha.. By the time you reach this part, your character will be too strong to notice any difference between 1/2 star vs 5 star mission. You will be too sick of the game to even bother trying as well. :p

What make this game different from other Dynasty Warriors games are Multiplayer and Fury Mode. To be honest, there is nothing spectacular with Multiplayer. I agree that multiplayer is fun but any game is fun when played with other people right? Some people call Fury Mode as "super saiyan mode". Other than the cosmetic issues, I also see nothing special in this feature. The character will be stronger for a shortwhile but the extra boost makes no difference. The normal enemies are too weak (no need to activate the Fury mode to beat them) while the bosses are still too difficult to solo even in Fury mode. Seriously, no big deal with the Fury mode.

Fury Mode adds more colour to the otherwise dull background

Multiplayer Mode makes it more 'war-like' with more people fighting

There is too much exaggeration that makes me wanna puke. Come on, if it is based (albeit LOOSELY) on ancient history, can't we be a bit more realistic here? I don't think in ancient times there were bladecarts, which shoot electric sparks, flying robots which shoot beams, giant monsters, etc. These are too over the top for me. And just to quote someone's comment on youtube: China would already be destroyed if these things were present in those times.

Bi Xie - Lu Bu's giant pet tiger

Wei's Guardian - Phoenix

No idea who/what the hell this Tian Lu is

Replayability
This will depend on how you wanna the view the game. If you just wanna have fun and play a hack and slash game, I guess this game can just be replayed for as long as you wish.

But if you wanna play it as a strategy or RPG, then this game has no replayability value. It does not matter which character you pick since most share the same movesets. The movesets are based on the equipments rather than the characters. Anyway, just make sure you have a spear/bow/tech + wood element + chi combination which makes you invincible and that's it! I doubt you even wanna clear the game because the storyline is kinda expected with your Kingdom will reign over China eventually.

Storyline
The first 2 chapters are the same for all 3 Kingdoms. It is about the Yellow Turban and Dong Zhuo. The subsequent chapters differ with how the each Kingdom acquired their territories and the officers which eventually join them. The last few chapters are purely fictional  (since in the real thing, all 3 Kingdoms were no more. Sima Yi united the whole thing under Jin Dynasty) on how your Kingdom beat the other 2 Kingdoms. Nothing special but I like the parts where they show how each character joins their respective Kingdoms. But even this is ruined by the fact that we can choose any character at the start even before missions where they historically join the Kingdom. Worse, we need to fight 'ourselves' during the missions. I am speechless..

Overall
The only thing that make me play this game is the hack and slash aspect to channel away my stress. After all, the battle system is really damn good. It is comparable to a fighting game, perhaps even better than some fighting games. The multi hit combos can be executed smoothly.. Switching weapons in the middle of combos is even possible. Add in the jumps (or double jump and even triple jump), dash, fly, etc and your character can literally dance and go on an endless rampage in the battlefield. Lol.

But then, there are nicer (nicer in the sense of a more whole-some gaming experience) hack and slash games out there ^^ so seriously, why bother about this game? :)

PR 4101: Pharmacotherapy II

It is now 5 hours after the paper and I had my afternoon nap. I still can't help myself from feeling tired, emo, and sad over the paper. I ran out of luck and did not spot the right topic for the writing parts so I am pretty much doomed.

The MCQs are very lengthy. 1 minute for 1 question is definitely not enough. Overall, I felt okay about the MCQ. But seriously, I don't know whether the questions are just factual or they are tricky. If they are tricky, then most likely I have fallen to the traps for many times. Because I actually did not find many tricky questions.

SOAP was terrible. At the start, when I read the first line, I was relieved to see "bla bla bla is being treated for heart failure". But when I flipped to the instruction, I nearly fainted, the SOAP case was thrombosis omg!! Grr.. I totally did not expect that! Anyway my mind just went blank and wrote whatever crap that I could throw.

The short answer section was 50:50. The first question about antimicrobial resistance was ok for me. I actually spent pretty much time trying to memorise those 3 slides. Unfortunately, I am just too stupid. I could only recall the first slide.. Sigh.. For the rest, I just wrote Beta Lactams for everything sigh.. The second question killed me -_-" I had no idea what to write. I even forgot the proper term "proactive"' and "reactive" cycling. Well, those terms came to my mind but I was not sure whether it was "proactive/reactive" or "prospective/restrospective". So I left them out at all. And by the handwriting, I think the lecturer can tell that I was just crapping. So much different from my answer for the first question.

Anyway I hate that particular lecturer la. I am so pissed that he keeps asking stupid questions.. Last time he asked about the various bacteria.. I tried to memorise them well now and guess what this time he threw in VIRUSES. So yeah I died again :( And the best is yet to be.. From 6 slides, now he expects me to write 30mins worth of essay. Oh yeah -_-"

In conclusion, it is a goner for me.. I am officially one class down now. A part of me feels happy and relieved actually. Since with that, I am no longer in borderline. It is unlikely to fall to 2nd lower so no need to be stressed over studies anymore. Another part of me feels sad.. All the effort and stress for the past years just goes to a waste T_T And why bother doing FYP anymore.. Haiz...

A study week full of distraction

The trailer for BOTH parts. I am sure the Part 1 is not this exciting :p

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 came out today! Aaah.. I was already getting distracted from few days ago from the trailer. Haha.. Based on my previous experiences with every Harry Potter movie, the trailers always looked awesome but I came out disappointed out of the movie hall. Still, WHO CARES?? I still wanna watch! I am very sad that Lido Shaw House (my favourite cinema) is closed for renovation. Other cinemas are not as good as Lido. Where else can I enjoy a large, cold, empty, digital, and relatively queue-free cinemal hall? I tried to check out other cinemas thru the net but mostly they are small halls and for the first few days, most of the seats were sold out. Perhaps that is a good thing. At least I am not that distracted to watch (since I cannot get a seat even if I want to lol). Anyway from the trailer alone, I have forgotten a lot about the story. Why is there a huge dragon? Haha.. Maybe I should read the book again :D Thank God my book is in Indo.. If it is with me here, oooh... Ah, one last thing, I think the music in the trailer is GREAT!

The weather has been kind lately. In fact, it is sleep inducing. I don't know why but I keep feeling tired.. and unmotivated. Even though I have more than enough sleep daily, I still can't help but to feel tired, especially when I start to read notes. Bleah.. I can just read my notes for 30 mins and I get very sleepy. When I decided to take a short break (playing games), my eyes will suddenly open. The best part is my short break is LONGER than my study time -__-"

Oh well, I am too tired to write more things.. I still wanna complain about lots of things.. my ugly hair.. my pimples.. my fat.. and my project.. T_T

Anime Festival Asia (AFAX)

I was not too eager or excited to attend the event as I don't really like cosplay and I don't want to see real humans ruin my 2D imaginations :p It was more of curiosity that drove me to go since this was my first time attending this kind of anime event. The entrance fee was $8. Add another $7 for the stage access. The event list was pretty ambiguous so I was not too eager for the other events too. In the evening, there was a concert and the ticket started with $55 for standing audience. I was not bothered about it because I thought the singers were not famous. Actually the singers were quite popular le lol...

To be frank, I was pretty disappointed. The exhibition hall was quite 'empty' meaning that there were not that many people rent the space. Considering that I hardly have time to follow the latest anime, I expected that there would be not many things I would find interesting and I would go home empty handed. When I attended this kind of event, I would always want to come back with something le :( In the end I only bought $8 worth of Saint Seiya Zodiac "coins". I was so happy.. but when I came back to open the thing, they are actually not COINS. They are just some lame plastic stuff... I don't even know what it is meant to be or how I can display it. Grr...

The entrance ticket and the 'wrist band' for stage access

The sign for Cancer is 69? How does 69 represent a crab? Haha..

There was one cute cat hat which I wanted to buy. I decided to look around for more interesting thing. There was nothing else interesting and when I returned to the cat hat shop, it was all gone :( Bleah. 

Below are some interesting displays that I took photos :)

Chopper. My friend's favourite!

Cool car with the AFA mascot

Saint Seiya Collection. $80+ per piece. Would love to have them all if I also can get the display case and diorama

More Saint Seiya stuff to drool on

Let's talk about cosplay. Honestly I am not a fan of cosplay but I have to applaud these "crazy" people for really putting so much effort for their hobbies. "Crazy" in a good way because the things which they created really made those props during Rag day seem trivial. I surprisingly find the cosplay competition quite entertaining to watch. Unfortunately, the audience was not really 'high' to spice up the atmospehere. Anyway I think it is very cool for these people to be able to go overseas, compete and win competitions etc just from their hobbies. Not to mention that many of them were very confident in posing and acting as their characters also up to the point of letting strangers even took photo of them. That was amazing!

My stand is still: some things are better left to imagination. Haha that's why I think my favourite cosplayers were the Red and Green Power Rangers. Lol.. It was because they wore a mask.. But after I saw that they got a bit of flab and when they turned around, the underwear mark was seen, it was quite disgusting and ruined my childhood memories haha

But the most shocking discovery today was that there were many guys cosplaying as FEMALES! They wore dress, wig, fake boobs etc, but they forgot one thing: their face! Gosh.. Seriously although there is term "crossplay" to describe cosplaying of character of an opposite gender, to me guys dressing as girls will always be CROSS-DRESS! Bleah.. There were quite a lot of them that by the end of the day, before saying this girl is chio or not, I would be more careful. Never know that they would be guys LOL.. Now I honestly doubt my ability to distinguish guys and girls hahaha...

In conclusion, I have answered my curiosity. Just some pointers for this kind of events in the future:

1) Come in the morning since there would be less crowd. You will have more chance to take photos and to shop. I was surprised that by lunch hour, many things were already sold out :( including the stuff I wanted haiz

2) Act like tourist. Lol! Just be thick skinned and take photos of the things you like

3) Don't think too much. When you see something nice, just buy before they are sold out.

4) Don't wear too nice unless you are cosplaying.

The last one is very personal. I still have 3 vests from Korea that I had no chance to wear so I decided to wear today. I bumped into 3 friends there and the first thing they asked me was "Are you cosplaying?". I was like -_- I thought I was wearing something normal. Haha.. Oh well actually on the way out, I saw someone wearing something like I wore, but he wore blond spiky wig ba haha..

Overall it was a pretty interesting day. For sure, I don't expect that there are that many otakus here. I think it's the event organisers who earned the most from the entrance fee. But the way these fans bought the souvenirs were also rather scary. And in the end, I still cannot decide, which is crazier: screaming fans over some boybands or cosplayers??

The big question is: Will be back next year or for similar event? Lol to be honest, the pulling factor for me to attend is the merchandise. Unfortunately, since I hardly have the time to follow the latest manga and anime, there would not be anything interesting for me :( So it will depend on my mood :p

I don't normally put my pictures here but well, it's a bonus for today :p

Pre-exam break

The end of semester and the end of the year is finally here but I am not excited at all. It is kinda ironic. I only have 2 examinable modules and for each paper, I have 1 week each to study. Yeah, it's all thanks to FYP. It really makes me feel there is no holiday, no break, and basically no life -_-". And I don't know whether NUS is too crowded or the new students are just too kiasu. Even in the last DAY of the semester, the canteen is still full house at lunch time. From my experiences for the past 3 years, usually 2 weeks before exam, the canteen crowd was thinning.. In some semesters, it was obviously that people were already start ponning even by mid-sem break..

My project is showing no signs of hope. And I am feeling down after the latest meeting. My friend was praised for being hardworking, being always in the lab, and successfully completing the most challenging part of the project. That means I am lazy and my project is chui ba haiz.. Perhaps I am being too sensitive :( But oh well, my stuff really needs like 24hours so of course I go home ma.. And to make things worse, everytime my supervisor sees me in lab, I am either falling asleep while waiting for stuff or I am leaving the lab. Sigh.. Oh well.. I think really cannot compare.. My steps really take 24 hours kind of thing.. To proof success or failure, usually it takes me 1-2weeks (including the TEM etc).. So everytime I fail, it is really a waste of WEEKS! It is not hours, not days, it's WEEKS!! Grr...

I know it is a wrong time to pick up a game but the game which I thought would not be too fun/addictive, turned out to be damn fun!! Not to mention that I will have fingers osteoarthritis soon at this rate haha. OMG! Haha.. I have problem stopping now :p Well, Dynasty Warriors Vol 2 really reminds me the Dynasty Warriors game that I played on GBA last time.  Whee.. Nice stuff.. Much better.. especially after I got so irritated with the Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce. Haha.. But well, it is quite nice to play the Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce with a friend.. Still, the Dynasty Warriors Vol 2 is better than playing the Strikeforce multiplayer LOL

Last week I also watched Megamind. Haha.. A friend of mine said that the guy looks like one of my lecturers! The clue is the HEAD. Hahaha.. I really find it damn hilarious imagining my lecturer doing things that Megamind does in the movie. It is a brainless kind of movie so just watch for fun ba. It seems that times and era have changed. Nowadays, the main characters in kid cartoons are always anti-heroes/villains.. I really wonder why. Lol.. Last time Despicable Me is about a thief. Even though in the end this villains turn good, I stil find it weird that the movies for kids nowadays are like this ba..

Today I went to AFAX (Anime Festival Asia) at Suntec. I will write a separate post on that ba.. Will be quite long :p I also went for a mass at Risen Christ. Woa it really felt weird that I did not feel "at home". And that supposedly is my parish le haha. The last time I was there was about a year ago I think. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised. Sunday evening mass used to be the most sucky and boring. But now they have a very good organist (not to mention that the chapel organ sounds fantastic anyway) and better/louder/more solid choir.

Ah that's all I guess.. I am sleep-deprived and I hope I can start mugging tomorrow ba

Setback.. again

I am getting tired.. pissed off.. and frustrated with my project.. again and again. I did my TEM imaging and again I did not get what I wanted to get. I felt super irritated during the process. My eyes were tired in focussing. When I observed things, I could not tell for sure whether what I saw was the reality or just a figment of my imagination. After all, you see what you perceive. Haiz.. Amazingly, I only found like 5 tubes in my whole copper grid.. This can be good or bad thing. The good thing is: perhaps if I re-do with another sample, I may get more tubes and can find the successful ones. The bad thing is: when I repeat and I get the same results, it means I have failed and wasted my time..

Emo emo.. So I took a break (again!) from lab. Thank goodness this time I rebound quite quickly. Tomorrow I will go back to do other stuff. Bah!

My braces would be removed soon. Yay! I don't think my teeth are 100% perfect though. Haiz but I guess I shall focus more on 'health' rather than 'beauty'. If I wanna get 100% pefect, maybe I will die with my braces ba..

Yesterday I also went shopping hehe.. And I found the continuation of the manga Messiah! Cool! The title is Metamorphosis. I honestly could not tell which books the stories are from. My guess was Book of Apocalypse. It turned out to be from the Acts of the Apostles. I prefer Messiah. Messiah is based on  Jesus' life in the 4 Gospels. So it feels more like a story. Metamorphosis seems choppy.. and really it's like collection of separate stories from the Acts.. I guess it is because the Acts is that way ba.. And maybe I am also biased in my preference since I enjoy reading Gospels more than the Acts haha.. No offense to St. Luke okay.

I wiki-ed and found out that the series will have 3 more manga to go based on the Old Testaments. They are not released yet but the projected titles are Mutiny, Melech, and Messengers. My guess is: Messengers => Life of prophets, Melech => Kings, Mutiny => I have no idea seriously hahaha... From the first 5 books of the Bible perhaps? And as expected from a bible related items, there are some criticisms. Well, my stand is: this is a bible-based manga, for God's sake! It is not meant to be a graphical representation of the Bible or anything like that. As a manga, I see no harm that some things are not 100% the same as the bible or with the infusion of some jokes to lighten the mood. I personally feel that the disciples here are more like school students and sometimes they are quite 'naughty' and 'playful' to one another and to their teacher a.k.a Jesus. And I am find with that. In fact by reading this, I often feel like "Eh got such thing in the Gospel meh?". Then I would actually open my Bible to clarify (at the bottom of each page, there is a reference from which Gospel reading the story is taken from.. cool eh?). So this manga has been sort of a blessing to me. I highly recommend :)

I finished my dvd hunting and I decided that I Not Stupid Too TV series is already extinct in Singapore. Gah.. And yesterday I had to go back to Jurong Point because the shop at PlaSing did not have the same offer as the Jurong Point branch. Haha.. I still managed to snatch the $5 Godhand Teru. Lol.. No time to watch though

Nice break

Thank God for the good-timed Deepavali holiday. I really need a BREAK! Gosh.. And this time I really used the break wisely. I slept thru more than half of the holiday. Haha.. No gaming no internet-ing etc. Really pure break: sleep. In the evening, I watched a few episodes of Desperate Housewives and that's it. Oh wait, I ran at night too! Haha.. That was my first ever since the Chinese 7th month. It felt kinda different though. Haha maybe it was placebo effect that it felt scarier to run during the 7th month. Lol. But I sucked ba.. I stopped after 10-15mins. Sigh.. Last time I could survive for 25-30mins leh! No wonder I am getting fatter again T_T

Yesterday I finally decided to go out and meet my Indonesian friend who moved here a few months ago to start working. I thought we could go to Marina Bay Sands but aah she went there already. As a good "host" (since I have been here for many many years), I asked her to choose a place and she chose Science Centre. Haha.. OMG! Oh well, I thought I had never been inside. After I saw the Tesla Coil thingy, I suddenly remembered that I had been inside! I forgot on what occasion. Actually Science Centre is not too bad ba. There are still many interesting things even for older people like me. In fact, some of the things would be too cheem for the kids I guess. The most interesting place, in my opinion, is the iSpace exhibition. It has all the futuristic stuff. Haha.. The home entertainment set was fantastic (I chose the Singapore Symphonic Orchestra). There are many wireless computer system so just use hand to play games, drag/click files etc. To be honest, I hope things remain as they are right now. It just feels weird to wave my hands/arms in the air trying to click/drag those damn files and cursors. Haha...

After that we had lunch at Jurong Point. I decided to try something I never had before from Swensens: the  apricot mayo fish thingy. It sucked. I could not taste the apricot mayo. It was not filling too. Oh wells =x Decided to get Wendys for dinner. Haha for the first time! Wendys menu has very little variety ba. Not really appealing to me. Lol. Taste-wise.. hem.. oh well, cannot expect much eh? After all, how much can burgers taste differently right?

I checked out CD stores and as expected, I Not Stupid Too is way too old. Sigh.. I think I won't be able to get the DVD eh? Sad.. Anyway there were a few Japanese series getting discounted to $5! Woohoo! I wanted to buy Godhand Teru but the shop only had 1 last set. I guess I will wait until tomorrow to get it from Plaza Singapura branch ba. I was still undecided to get Last Friends. The synopsis isn't too appealing but many reviews say that it is a good show! Ahh since it is also $5, I guess no harm giving it a try :D

I had another dream message yesterday and this time I hope that it will come true. I had a bad day yesterday. The machine that I was using was stopped halfway. It seems that the one who switched off was the prof who owned the machine. So I did not even dare to ask him what time he switched it off (I need my experiment to run for 24hours). I think my experiment failed so I was deciding to just sleep off and do not go back to the lab. But suddenly I got the message "Quickly wake up! Your experiment is successful!". That really gave me the enthusiasm to rush to the lab. Sigh.. Lets see what happen under the TEM next monday.

I am honestly damn pissed with what happened yesterday. I know that it is not my machine so I had to share bla bla bla.. but I think that really cost me another week. My mentor suggested me to use 500rpm but when I wanted to start mine, the machine was already being used with 800rpm. And with that speed, my sample sedimented very quickly. Sigh.. I totally did not expect that and I think that would contribute more to my failure on top of the dubious duration of time it was being shaken. Haiz.. Wanted to be a bit optimistic but then... Grr...

Today drug quiz was bad. Much worse than the first one. I came late! I was damn stressed but lucky the room was too small that when I came, they were still busy allocating and arranging seats. But tsk tsk tsk.. out of 20 questions, I was only sure for FOUR questions! The rest I completely tikam-ed. Looks like single digit is a sure thing.. But to be honest, even if I were given an extra week to prepare for the test, I would still do equally badly. There is no way I can remember every single details ba.

This evening I just had a Korean buffet with a few friends. Well, it was not as fantastic as my imagination ba. Perhaps my expectations were too high? Haha.. Of course cannot get authentic Korean taste outside Korea ma. I think among all, only the kimchi pancake is nice. Lol.. That's the purpose of me going so I guess I am pretty satisfied. Many of my friends did not eat beef so near the end of the meal, I had to finish 2 plates of the beef!! I would not be surprised if I start MOO-ing tomorrow! Overall, I felt pretty ok. I was full but not too full to the point of going to puke anytime. Hmm.. perhaps the trick  (do small jumps on the chair to push the food down) I learnt from Japanese TV show worked? Lol..

The worst thing that happened tonight was that I got molested by this small kid. OMG! After I took a photo, this boy suddenly just hugged me from behind. And due to his height, his hand was just nice grabbing my ehem ehem.. The kid looked pretty bratty oso so I just grabbed his arm and left him there. Siao! I had no idea how my friend ended up 'playing' with him and got beaten up -_-" Kids nowadays...

And the worse thing than the worst thing is that I LOOK DAMN UGLY IN ALL THE PHOTOS TAKEN TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Zz...

Bad boy

I hate hierarchy, seniority, experience-based stuff etc. Unfortunately, I can be quite hypocritical in this case. As much as I put conscious effort being a good senior, sometimes circumstances do not allow me to do so. At my workplace, I had always been in a bad mood for the past few events and unconsciously I became very nasty to newbies. In a crunch, I think my 'stern' became 'angry'. Bleah.. I kinda regret it and will pay better attention next time.

Anyway last Saturday event was quite crazy. I was given the drama script to give the cue! OMG! I am lazy to go to the details but throughout the thing I had to read the script and sometimes it was hard not to get lost since  they did not follow the thing 100%. During the songs, sometimes could not gauge the tempo of the song.. So when I went back from giving message in between the door (I was told that I was a bit loud), I lost the parts already. I think I was stressed because at the start, I was frantically searching where the play was at. I discovered that they were already at the 3rd page and the play just started! Haha.. To makes things worse, I had a newbie with me and a newbie on the door. Had to look after them and could not really rely on them for help. But thank goodness it did not go disastrous ba.

Yesterday's All Saints Day mass was pretty interesting. Haha ok I am being bad again here. I can imagine how embarassing it was for the choir to be stopped halfway because they sang wrongly. Lol. But even I never know that Litany of Saints for Easter and for All Saints Day are different! Oh well, but the choir yesterday was quite chui ba. More of being unprepared. The cantors kept going off tune, had difficult pronouncing names, kinda forgot the tune of the song, and the best was: the guy stopped for quite a long time in the middle of the song -_-" Well but I think the pianist was quite bad too la. Dunno why played so low and could not really tell the transition between parts and notes. Damn confusing..

My FYP finally can move one step. I am really praying hard so that God would just push those darn nanoparticles into the tubes :( Please don't let me repeat again T_T

And talking about God, this reminds me of the nightmare I had last night. It began with me seeing a beautiful beach and a white seagull flying. I forgot the name of the town/beach! Lol. Ok the nightmare comes after this part. I had no idea how suddenly it became tsunami -_-" For the first 2 waves, I survived because I hung on to lamp post. After that I had no idea how my friend could break the lamp post. Then it came the third wave. A very HUGE and TALL wave. Since my lamp post already broke, I tried to climb a tree but I could not because the tree trunks pricked my legs. Such a vivid feeling, I am really interested in what actually pricked my legs. I am pretty sure the lamp post that I hugged is my bolster :p Ok come back to that HUGE and TALL wave, I was just helpless and got washed with the wave. After a few moments holding my breath, I just lost and I died (I woke up) before saying "Oh God forgive my sins and let me enter your Kingdom".

Oh my God!! I am actually praying in my sleep!! and not when I am awake -_-" What's the matter with me!!!!!

Videos..

My days have turned into nights and vice versa. Haha.. I know it is time to study as exam is very very near. But the temptation to start a new game or a new drama is just too huge. Grrr.. Anyway I spent most of past 2 weeks watching various stuff online. It all started from random clips in Youtube. There were missing parts of 1 show (NEWS 24 hour TV). It was a very good and touching show (I had a good cry). Well unfortunately, I could found one part only (Yamapi went scuba diving with his paralysed friend). I still cannot find the part where one member actually did synchronised swimming with a wheelchair bound boy.

 

Gosh.. I think I just have a soft spot for the disabled  people and community service stuff :(

 

Did not make me cry but I find the instrument very interesting.. Never imagine that there can be a drum-like instrument which has distinct CDEFGABC kind of notes!

But guess what, Veoh has so many things and I don't know how many episodes of Japanese variety shows I have watched since. I am done with all the videos (which have English subtitles) from at 2 different shows at least.

I am tempted to watch Nobuta Wo Produce but I decide that it is not a wise thing to start a show now haha.. Thus I decided to watch my Desperate Housewives DVD. I thought since it is a comedy show, I could watch a few episodes, had a good laugh, and stopped. Guess what? It was too addictive (in a good way) and I stopped only at 5am. Haha.

Well I did not continue on that the following day (not so addictive rite? haha). But from some lame videos that my friend showed me, I kept on clicking "related videos" until somehow I managed to find I Not Stupid TV series. OMG! Too bad the TV series is just a repeat of the movie so I am not interested. But guess what: I Not Stupid Too TV series is a continuation from the movie. OMG! Haha.. And that's how I repeat another feat of sleeping at 5am again for 2 consecutive days. Haha.. The uploader is from China (I think) since all the title and description is in Chinese characters. I am amazed  thatI can find. There is no way I can ever generate the files even if I deliberately search using the English title haha..

Actually I Not Stupid is a better movie (I can still remember it while I cannot recally anything from I Not Stupid Too). Surprisingly, the I Not Stupid Too TV got more comedy than its movie. I had a good laugh and finished it already. It was sort of reminding me of my childhood naughtiness ba: quarrelling with parents, fighting with siblings over simple things like toilet, the fascination towards 3G phones few years back, problems with phone bills, what happened when maid balik kampung, lame schoolboys gay and sissy taunts etc etc. But I am honestly surprised that there is a Singapore production which I find pretty good XD But perhaps I find it good because it is funny. I think the scriptwriter is pretty smart ba.  

The best joke (to me) is that when the maid (her name is Yati) went to her hometown. The younger son said "now it is Ma and Yati" meaning the mum had to take over the maid's chores. The elder son joked "then it becomes Ma-Ti right?". Mati means "die". And it's true. The mother is always the first to die when maid is away haha..

Ironically.. from listening to Mandarin for these few hours, the only new thing I learn is "fei hua" which mean talking crap/bullshit/nonsense. Perhaps that word was used too much in the show haha..