I had sushi, vegetarian stir fry, curry chicken and coca-cola for my dinner today. It just goes to show what happens to my meals when I'm living down under in a country that contains a soup mix of races.
I also attended the University of Sydney open day today. This computer otaku was still indecisive about whether to pursue a Bachelor of Software Engineering in USyd or the University of New South Wales, so I headed over to the engineering faculty. The first thing I noticed? The engineering faculty had been lumped to a corner of the campus. Now, I know they probably didn't mean to do things that way, but it gave me a feeling similar to "out of sight, out of mind". The engineering buildings are also so...functional (in other words, dull) in comparison to the law and science buildings (a mixture of futuristic modern buildings with some brick ones that resemble cathedrals). Typical of engineers not to care about the aesthetic value of things.
My next thought? Man...Asians. Asians everywhere. Heck, I'm an Asian. I fit right in.
Okay, now here's the best bit - TOUCHSCREEN TABLES!!!!! *shrieks like a fan girl* OMG touchscreen tables are soo cool just like the screens in NCIS LA and they have this Blackhole program which you can activiate to clear up clutter whenever too many things are on the screen.
I had hopped on a tour of the IT labs and they gave us demo of the two touch tables that the university owns. Unfortunately, they only own two touch tables, and those touch tables don't even stay in one place. Sometimes they go traveling all the way to Melbourne for exhibition purposes. The worst part is that I can't even begin to work with them until I"m a third year Uni student. *sob sob*
They also demoed facial interaction programs and CT image reconstruction programming. I spoke to the professors who confirmed with me that I will be able to work on such projects even if I took up software engineering and not an IT degree. That means I will get an engineering accreditation AND get to work on cool stuff. WHOOO!!!
Next week is the Kogarah Bed Race (a charity event where a 5-man team consists of four people dashing around while dragging a bed with a person on it) and UNSW's open day. After my Bed Race (my team is sponsored by the Word of Mouth Dentistry) I'm going to head straight over and check them out for touchscreen tables! Boo to them if they don't have any; I'm going to USyd! XD Nah, I'm not going to be so frivolous. I think.
UNSW is supposed to have even more Asians than USyd. Either way, I'm going to feel right at home. XD
Cheers!
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Asian, Smasian
There's more to just being an "Asian" nowadays. Ever since the process of globalisation started making its way across the 7 continents, being multilingual is no longer something special. Nowadays, it takes more than being born of a certain race to be considered an "Asian" by society.
The three main stereotypical (and racist) representatives of the Asian race are the Japanese, the Koreans and the Chinese. That is, when ever people think of "Asian", they are generally referring to these races. When three big races coexist alongside each other in their fight for their positions in the world, cultures and backgrounds will eventually mix. Our interaction with each other has led to a complete disregard of racial and language boundaries. It's common practice to hear a Chinese suddenly belt out a Japanese or Korean song, and for Koreans or Japanese to speak Mandarin or Cantonese. Good news for the multilingual new generations - your future will be secure socially, internationally and most probably professionally. Bad news for the old monoglots or bilingual generation - you will have no idea what we are talking about. Haha...
Ahem. Sorry for that digression. (turns page)
The main point is, nowadays, to be considered truly Asian, one has to master the language of more than two Asian cultures. It is no longer enough to understand just Mandarin or just Japanese - further advancement in friendship bonding among Asian teenagers will be bared from you forever. And if you are an Asian yourself, woe be you should you fail to even understand one "Asian" language for you will be given the term "banana" and hence be left out of all conversations concerning drama and music. And teenage Asian girls being what they are, majority of our conversations will be focused on Asian drama and music.
Actually, majority of our conversations are about whatever topic comes to mind, which is usually a whole heap of airy, non-earth shattering matters. A great example would be this wearisomely verbose post concerning what it means to be "Asian".
Then there are the few of us who can't even master one Asian language, let alone two or three. People like us bring the definition of "multilingual" to a whole other level - we frequently switch between two or more languages in one sentence when our knowledge of a certain language fails in practice. Perhaps I should come up with a new category - Asians pretending to be "Asians"...that doesn't even make sense. An even better idea would be to do away with the whole idea of class differentiation completely and hence reduce this blog post into a bunch of meaningless words. As I have said before, globalisation has lead to constant interaction between different races, which has resulted in the blurring racial boundaries.
How I ramble on. Thank you.
Cheers!
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The three main stereotypical (and racist) representatives of the Asian race are the Japanese, the Koreans and the Chinese. That is, when ever people think of "Asian", they are generally referring to these races. When three big races coexist alongside each other in their fight for their positions in the world, cultures and backgrounds will eventually mix. Our interaction with each other has led to a complete disregard of racial and language boundaries. It's common practice to hear a Chinese suddenly belt out a Japanese or Korean song, and for Koreans or Japanese to speak Mandarin or Cantonese. Good news for the multilingual new generations - your future will be secure socially, internationally and most probably professionally. Bad news for the old monoglots or bilingual generation - you will have no idea what we are talking about. Haha...
Ahem. Sorry for that digression. (turns page)
The main point is, nowadays, to be considered truly Asian, one has to master the language of more than two Asian cultures. It is no longer enough to understand just Mandarin or just Japanese - further advancement in friendship bonding among Asian teenagers will be bared from you forever. And if you are an Asian yourself, woe be you should you fail to even understand one "Asian" language for you will be given the term "banana" and hence be left out of all conversations concerning drama and music. And teenage Asian girls being what they are, majority of our conversations will be focused on Asian drama and music.
Actually, majority of our conversations are about whatever topic comes to mind, which is usually a whole heap of airy, non-earth shattering matters. A great example would be this wearisomely verbose post concerning what it means to be "Asian".
Then there are the few of us who can't even master one Asian language, let alone two or three. People like us bring the definition of "multilingual" to a whole other level - we frequently switch between two or more languages in one sentence when our knowledge of a certain language fails in practice. Perhaps I should come up with a new category - Asians pretending to be "Asians"...that doesn't even make sense. An even better idea would be to do away with the whole idea of class differentiation completely and hence reduce this blog post into a bunch of meaningless words. As I have said before, globalisation has lead to constant interaction between different races, which has resulted in the blurring racial boundaries.
How I ramble on. Thank you.
Cheers!
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Sunday, August 8, 2010
How my "three step" marble cake gained a million steps
Sometimes, life can be very unforgiving, even when you're trying to do something as mundane as bake a marble cake.
I like to think that the first sign of trouble was when I found out I was about 20grams short of caster sugar. It's not actually a major problem because (the older generation of) my family thinks most recipes are too sweet anyway. I just added 10 grams of normal sugar (gasps from chefs around the world) and I was good to go.
I thought it was a good time to try out the brand new cake mixer (Mr Evil) that my parents had brought over from M'sia. I was happily taking off the plastic wrapper, putting away polystyrene packaging, assembling things together and just about to plug it in when...wth? Instead of a plug, my cake mixer's main wire ended with stripped brown and blue wires.
I figured that dad must have removed the M'sian plug head so we could attach an Australian plug head for future convenience. Having reattached plug heads sporadically over the past few years, I didn't think it would be too hard to attach yet another one. The problem was finding one. I am sincerely grateful to the person who invented step ladders because they enabled me to reach the "spares" appliance box located at the top of the laundry cupboard. What I wouldn't give to gain three extra inches.
Not that my search was fruitful. At the end of my ransacking expedition, I came to the conclusion that we were out of plugs.
Fine. There was still the hand mixer, which I would have originally used if not for the "convenience" of an actual cake mixer. I plugged it in...and it went crazy. I had absolutely no control over it - I wasn't pressing any buttons - and the motor just kept running. I was still being optimistic that I could use it like this, but the velocity wasn't constant and so bits of butter and sugar kept flying out of the mixing bowl whenever my wayward hand mixer became overexcited. At this point I lost it, wailed something about "This must be a sign, life is unfair, all I wanted to do was make cake, blah blah blah," and then left the war zone to take a long bath.
For me, baking is like playing the piano. It's a leisurely activity during which I can relax, and with baking, I get to eat my cake. That concept flew out of the window today and left me more frazzled than ever.
I decided I still wanted to eat my cake, so I ran down to the local hardware store, wet hair and all, whereupon this physics student made a complete fool of herself by having a ridiculous conversation with the hardware man who obviously knew his stuff.
Hardware man: May I help you?
Me: I need a plug.
Hardware man: A plug?
Me: You know, the thing at the end of electrical appliance wires which connects to the socket. (cue stupid hand motions - I was worried he might confuse my plug with a sink plug, which is something entirely different. And then, to make myself seem more stupid:) It's called a plug right?
As soon as I got my plug, I bailed out of there, trying to pretend I was going for a morning run at 10am. I got home, attached my plug and voila, the world was working right again. My cake mixer was mixing, nothing was flying out, and the neighbour gave me some Macedonian sweets. I finally reached "step 2" of my recipe; the marbling of my cake and placed it in the preheated oven (step 3). A few minutes later, lovely smells were coming from the kitchen oven and soon, I was eating cake. Just how I expected it to happen, only I had meant it to happen a couple of hours earlier.
Now that I'm happy, it's back to studying for my physics trials on Wednesday. I better know my stuff right or face repeating a similar episode of "the thing at the end of electrical appliance wires...".
Cheers!
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I like to think that the first sign of trouble was when I found out I was about 20grams short of caster sugar. It's not actually a major problem because (the older generation of) my family thinks most recipes are too sweet anyway. I just added 10 grams of normal sugar (gasps from chefs around the world) and I was good to go.
I thought it was a good time to try out the brand new cake mixer (Mr Evil) that my parents had brought over from M'sia. I was happily taking off the plastic wrapper, putting away polystyrene packaging, assembling things together and just about to plug it in when...wth? Instead of a plug, my cake mixer's main wire ended with stripped brown and blue wires.
I figured that dad must have removed the M'sian plug head so we could attach an Australian plug head for future convenience. Having reattached plug heads sporadically over the past few years, I didn't think it would be too hard to attach yet another one. The problem was finding one. I am sincerely grateful to the person who invented step ladders because they enabled me to reach the "spares" appliance box located at the top of the laundry cupboard. What I wouldn't give to gain three extra inches.
Not that my search was fruitful. At the end of my ransacking expedition, I came to the conclusion that we were out of plugs.
Fine. There was still the hand mixer, which I would have originally used if not for the "convenience" of an actual cake mixer. I plugged it in...and it went crazy. I had absolutely no control over it - I wasn't pressing any buttons - and the motor just kept running. I was still being optimistic that I could use it like this, but the velocity wasn't constant and so bits of butter and sugar kept flying out of the mixing bowl whenever my wayward hand mixer became overexcited. At this point I lost it, wailed something about "This must be a sign, life is unfair, all I wanted to do was make cake, blah blah blah," and then left the war zone to take a long bath.
For me, baking is like playing the piano. It's a leisurely activity during which I can relax, and with baking, I get to eat my cake. That concept flew out of the window today and left me more frazzled than ever.
I decided I still wanted to eat my cake, so I ran down to the local hardware store, wet hair and all, whereupon this physics student made a complete fool of herself by having a ridiculous conversation with the hardware man who obviously knew his stuff.
Hardware man: May I help you?
Me: I need a plug.
Hardware man: A plug?
Me: You know, the thing at the end of electrical appliance wires which connects to the socket. (cue stupid hand motions - I was worried he might confuse my plug with a sink plug, which is something entirely different. And then, to make myself seem more stupid:) It's called a plug right?
Hardware man: Yes, a plug.
As soon as I got my plug, I bailed out of there, trying to pretend I was going for a morning run at 10am. I got home, attached my plug and voila, the world was working right again. My cake mixer was mixing, nothing was flying out, and the neighbour gave me some Macedonian sweets. I finally reached "step 2" of my recipe; the marbling of my cake and placed it in the preheated oven (step 3). A few minutes later, lovely smells were coming from the kitchen oven and soon, I was eating cake. Just how I expected it to happen, only I had meant it to happen a couple of hours earlier.
Now that I'm happy, it's back to studying for my physics trials on Wednesday. I better know my stuff right or face repeating a similar episode of "the thing at the end of electrical appliance wires...".
Cheers!
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Wednesday, August 4, 2010
You know you're exhausted when...
You know you're exhausted when the thought of staying up to study for exams makes you weepy and teary.
You know you're exhausted when every song you play on the piano sounds depressed and tired.
You know you're exhausted when you fall asleep on the train standing up amidst the 50 other teenage bodies pressed against you in the tiny cabin.
You know you're exhausted when you look at food and it makes you nauseous.
You know you're exhausted when you fall asleep at the dining table.
You know you're exhausted when time passes you by like fog and everything you interact with fails to be processed mentally.
You know you're exhausted when your eyes twitch and spasm to the beat of a crazy disco song you can't hear.
You know you're exhausted when typing on the computer involves a gargantuan amount of effort.
You know you're in trouble when you wake up and have no orientation of your location and time.
Cheers!
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You know you're exhausted when every song you play on the piano sounds depressed and tired.
You know you're exhausted when you fall asleep on the train standing up amidst the 50 other teenage bodies pressed against you in the tiny cabin.
You know you're exhausted when you look at food and it makes you nauseous.
You know you're exhausted when you fall asleep at the dining table.
You know you're exhausted when time passes you by like fog and everything you interact with fails to be processed mentally.
You know you're exhausted when your eyes twitch and spasm to the beat of a crazy disco song you can't hear.
You know you're exhausted when typing on the computer involves a gargantuan amount of effort.
You know you're in trouble when you wake up and have no orientation of your location and time.
Cheers!
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Sunday, August 1, 2010
1st of August
It's the first day of the month. If I were in school, either Nic, K or Hibi would say something really fast and give me a punch. I have spent one and a half years of my life with them, and til this day I cannot remember what little ditty is it they chant...
At the moment, the first paper of my trials are over! Whew, only six left to go. I'm drawing up a list of trial commandments as I go. The first is:
Thou shalt not speaketh of any paper thee has finished.
That's a golden rule that can prevent depression and further sinking of marks. I think everyone should follow it. Because what is the point of comparing notes after the exam anyway? It's done and gone. *shrugs*
On another point: I woke up this morning and made brownies because I was craving chocolate. I forgot to reduce the sugar and ended up with sugar-high-inducing-brownies. The rest of the day was spent in a sugar filled delirium and time passed very, very slooowly. And while we're on the subject of food...
I'm participating in the 40 Hour Famine campaign again this year. I think the campaign exists in Malaysia although I've never personally participated in it over there. Anyway, it concerns the Global Food Crisis, which is currently in its third year. The best way to help out would be to raise donations by depriving yourself of something crucial for 40 hours. More can be found out here: http://www.worldvision.com.au/40HourFamine.aspx
I've decided to go without food this year. Lets see what happens when I deprive myself of sweets, protein and carbohydrate. I'd probably end up sleeping the whole time. XD So, please donate! I'm hoping to raise 100.00AUD this year, because everyone should shoot for the stars, and 100.00AUD is awesome enough for me. Here's my link: http://40hf.com/Donate2Didi-40hrfamine
Cheers!
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At the moment, the first paper of my trials are over! Whew, only six left to go. I'm drawing up a list of trial commandments as I go. The first is:
Thou shalt not speaketh of any paper thee has finished.
That's a golden rule that can prevent depression and further sinking of marks. I think everyone should follow it. Because what is the point of comparing notes after the exam anyway? It's done and gone. *shrugs*
On another point: I woke up this morning and made brownies because I was craving chocolate. I forgot to reduce the sugar and ended up with sugar-high-inducing-brownies. The rest of the day was spent in a sugar filled delirium and time passed very, very slooowly. And while we're on the subject of food...
I'm participating in the 40 Hour Famine campaign again this year. I think the campaign exists in Malaysia although I've never personally participated in it over there. Anyway, it concerns the Global Food Crisis, which is currently in its third year. The best way to help out would be to raise donations by depriving yourself of something crucial for 40 hours. More can be found out here: http://www.worldvision.com.au/40HourFamine.aspx
I've decided to go without food this year. Lets see what happens when I deprive myself of sweets, protein and carbohydrate. I'd probably end up sleeping the whole time. XD So, please donate! I'm hoping to raise 100.00AUD this year, because everyone should shoot for the stars, and 100.00AUD is awesome enough for me. Here's my link: http://40hf.com/Donate2Didi-40hrfamine
Cheers!
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