infinite abyss

currently still in a grouchy down mood during this past week. I don't know what's wrong, I'm suddenly really tired of everything, physically and mentally. I just deleted all the stuff that's bothering me, cause it was just a big whine list. Apologies to anyone who has interacted with me this past week.

I finally caught up with Lillian the other day, who told me that she was actually doing part-time uni studies. She's actually doing a lot with her spare time; she's picked up another job, doing some volunteer work down at a disable home, some church stuff and catching with friends. She seemed really happy with it, and it sounds well worth the extra few months added to her time at uni.

It got me thinking about the path I've always thought I wanted. While many people had dreams of successful jobs, travelling the world, going to [insert country] and doing [famous thing], I had pretty modest hopes of the future. A family, a house, a secure decent job, with the occasional holiday. For that to happen, it was a straight line through high school, onto university, out in the work force and just steadily build all of it up. Not that I've got any of it yet.

Now I'm wondering if that straight line is a terrible idea. New Zealand was definitely not in that straight line, but it changed my life for the better. Again, I keep thinking that I have no real deep passion for engineering (even though I do enjoy the course), I'm not sure if I can make it a big part of my life later. My straight line now seems so monotonous and boring.

I remember having this conversation with my friends, about the point of your life. In the big picture, what does it all mean. In 200 years, will anything you do survive the sands of time? But that's another topic, for another day.

and I will end my gloomy post. hopefully the next one will be cheerful.

teoh,

slightly down

my poor fish rainbow isn't looking very good at the moment =[ I'm a bit sad. It's sorta just floating around at the bottom of the tank, moving only so slightly. 'He' (as I like to think of him) has had a good life though, I've managed to keep him and his 'partner' Flora for a good 7 or 8 years. I'm quite proud of taking good care of them. Hope he passes along as peacefully as possible.

I bought some new seaweed and cleaned out the tank for him, which brings me to my second topic. Pet's Paradise is a horrible place. Terrible service, the staff don't seem to care about your needs at all. Terrible product, more than half of my sea weed is already browning and dying. The lady should have checked for me. They have lost me as a customer, never going back to them again. Sad for such a large franchise that deals with such cute puppies.

GHD interview is nearing, slightly nervous. I'm scared that the cognitive test is going to reveal me for the true retard I am haha. Hope I've kept my problem solving skills from high school. I shall be spending most of tomorrow preparing.

Had fun at tim's 21st yesterday, happy birthday tim. Hope you enjoy your new camera. Also hope I didn't base you too much in my speech. I actually did have some nice words in there, but I forgot to mention them up there. Whoops. You're a pretty fun guy, glad to have you as my friend. Looop buddy!

also, I've changed to Google Chrome. opera was doing something funny and I couldn't get it to stop. Plus I've been slightly frustrated with opera in that it doesn't support a few things that I use. I've discovered the Chrome has supported mouse gestures and shortcuts, so I'm all happy with it now =] I'm going to miss Speed Dial though.

teoh,

the world needs a slap in the face

It took me a long time to motivate myself to write a post. I had a few times when I would open up blogger, but then get distracted with starcraft 2 or just sleep.

Instead of an update post, this is about a tv show I watched on SBS the other day. It's called Insight, and the topic was global warming. They had a professor from harvard trying to pitch global warming to an audience of skeptics. It turned into a somewhat public debate forum.

At first, I was tempted just to switch it off. Having a professor rattle of research jargon to an audience isn't really going to help convince them; he just doesn't have the charisma to influence them positively. On the other hand, the skeptics just didn't seem to want to be convinced either. That just seems the way we are, once we get an idea into our head, it's very hard to change our mindsets. There was this one doctor, who was very aggressive, and even though the professor seem to address it very well, kept just shouting over him going "you're not answering the question!".

But then I realised the whole point wasn't turning people about, but more about getting people's opinions and concerns out there. Some of the skeptics had some very good point, in terms of questioning data and whether small changes would warrant a large economic change. It was good to get the other side's point of view. So it turned out to be an interesting show.

On the topic of global warming however, I still stand by my opinion (see what I mean about stubbornness?) . Global warming is definitely being caused by us; an interesting point someone made is that global warming is actually natural and all we're doing is accelerating it (which is also bad anyway). An economic pricing on it is not going to change people's lifestyle or opinion about it. It'll probably just spark more heated debate and it'll just go down hill from there. What we need is a global disaster which will wake up everyone to it. Even then, people will people argue the cause of the disaster and that it wasn't global warming.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I had a more structured post about this, but I've seemed to have lost it.

On another note, I had fun karaoking with ann and erica yesterday at my house, followed by lots of ice cream. hehe.

teoh

now that's service.

Remember that wireless problem I was having with my new laptop? Well it was starting to really annoy me, especially at university, so I decided to chuck it into the repair shop to see if they could do anything with it. Not only did they fix it, but they did it with perfect customer service!

I've put in my old sony vaio in for service a year or two ago, and it was a horrible experience. My dad had to go drop it off and pick it up from South Bank (?). They did not really resolve my issue and they also made my laptop dirty with stains. They also charged us and had minimal customer service. So when I went to Toshiba, I was expecting pretty much the same treatment. Boy was I wrong.

For one, the Toshiba repair shop is literally 2 minutes away from Monash University, Clayton. On the corner of Blackburn road and Ferntree gully, really easy to get to for me. And even if you don't live close, they offer free pick up and delivery services too!

The lady I spoke to was really polite and cheerful, listened to all my complaints and what I had done, and did not treat me like an IT dumbnut (it happens often in the IT industry, I would know lol). She even reassured me that it sounded like a simple problem, and would probably be resolved faster than the 7 - 10 working day estimate given to me. At the time I didn't believe her.

I got sms alerts that night, about the status of my laptop e.g waiting on spare parts, which I thought was pretty cool. No wondering what stage they were at, or if they had looked at it yet. Then today, I got a call from the technician himself, who explained what he had done, tested the wireless while on the phone with me (though I had to take his word for it) and asked if there was anything else I was concerned about. Wow! This was within two days of me dropping it off.

Picked it up a few hours later, and tested at home: I now have access downstairs! Which I previously did not, and was pretty upset about. Awesome! The final test will be on Monday at uni though.

But wow, that is the level of service I wish all companies had. I wrote them a nice e-mail about my appreciation, which I hope they actually read. Good on you Toshiba.

I was so happy, I decided to buy a webcam and mouse online for $40 =]

teoh,

when cooking

Teoh's cooking tip of the day:

When cooking and you suddenly find that your automatic salt shaker does not work, do not attempt to take it apart right there and then. Because it is most likely that there is a spring inside that shaker, which will most likely pop out when you take it apart. That spring has a high probability of bouncing around. Into your food. Specifically your shaker with your quiche mixture in it.

And springs don't float.

Not that it's happened before. But for future reference, okay guys?

teoh,