.teohcron

Asia 2011 - Singapore

2011-12-31T01:08:00.000+11:00

Singapore - 19th Nov - 24th Nov
Our first destination: Singapore! The tiny land of good food, funny accents, strict immigration and a whole lot of fun!

The first three nights were spent at 5footwayinn, a month old hostel that Amanda found on the internet. I was surprised at what a nice place it was. The rooms were definitely very small, but they provided big lockers under the bunk beds and there were nice facilities in the attic (internet, tv etc.). Wrote a review on tripadvisor on this LINK if you want to know more.

Anyway, it was right outside the Chinatown MRT which was really convenient. Chinatown was pretty ordinary in comparison to other countries, though I enjoyed watching other foreigners get chased by stall sales people all the time. I enjoyed the rest of Singpore's city, it seems a nice place to work and live in. Very clean, not too different from Melbourne (though obviously more Asian elements around). The food is definitely good, but not as cheap as other Asian places. We tried some famous chicken rice at one of the remaining hawker centers in Singapore though, that was yum! We didn't get to experience much else though, because our days were pretty packed with activities.

First up, Singapore Zoo & Night Safari. Definitely very fun! The zoo is based on a no barrier open plain concept, so you can view all the animals without any annoying fences blocking your view. They have a large variety of animals and you can feed a select few (like rhinos!) for 10 SGD each. We started off with a great sunny day, but then later got rained on. Amanda bought a adult poncho which seemed to be made for big big adults cause she was almost tripping in it haha. The Wildlife fights back show was pretty lame, definitely aimed at smaller kids. We missed out on seeing the elephant show cause of the rain. But we still had a good time!

We had a bit of dilemma, as it was still raining near the end of the day: the Night Safari is located right next to the Zoo and they are both quite far from the main city. So we weren't sure if we should stick around for 2 hours if the rain would ruin the whole thing. But we were already there and had bought the ticket, so we decided to go for it and play Mario Kart at the near by KFC until Night Safari started.

It was definitely worth it! The Safari is a bit different to the Zoo, as it is more based on sitting tram and going around the park while someone commentates. You get to see some awesome animals, some of them up close! Sustainability is really promoted here as well, which Amanda was especially pleased about. Although we took the tram a 2nd time and got a really lazy girl who didn't really bother to say much about it (angry Amanda after that...).

Sentosa island was the next day! Universal Studios (US) was our main reason to visit, although there were some smaller attractions to go see. We had heaps of fun going on the rides though! We were very lucky with the lines, because it seemed to be a really quiet day at US. All the rides had meters and meters of queue up room. It literally took us a few minutes to walk from the entrance to the actual ride for the Return of the Mummy attraction!! But it meant that we could go on the Battlestar Galactica rollercosters five times! They were seriously really good! The new Transformer ride was also a blast! We spent all day there and then walked around the island until the Crane show started at night (see above). That was definitely worth staying around for and then we had a nice walk back on the beautiful boardwalk bridge to Singapore island.

We then moved to Marina Bay Sands, the most expensive hotel in our trip. For those who don't know it, it's a five star hotel made up of three hotel towers, with a boat like structure on top. Beautiful views from the SkyDeck and there's an Infinity Pool at the top that is engineered to look like it just flows off the edge to 'infinity'.

It was definitely an experience and I loved it. Amanda called me a snob after our visit, but I loved the VIP treatment. Complimentary this & that, exclusive guest access to the pool, room was massive with an equally massive TV, hotel robes and slippers, it was soooo nice. We spent half a day just exploring, as there is a shopping center and a few other tourist attractions around it, including the original Merlion (symbol of Singapore? Mascot?). Worth the price? I would recommend to do it at least once in your life.

Caught up with my Singaporean buddies I had met on my Europe trip, Sarah & Milton. Delightful couple, so cute together, and so friendly. They made my trip in Europe and made my visit to Singapore as well! They took us out for dinner, had yummy seafood (cereal prawns and chili crab) and then took us for a drink afterwards. This is the only time through out the trip when I may have gotten slightly over my alcohol limit. But everyone had fun and made it back safe. Priceless night!

That's about all the highlights for Singpore. KL & Penang next!

Final 2011 words

2011-12-31T00:15:00.004+11:00

So it's been awhile, yes? I've been back from holidays for a few days, slowly returning to the normal routine life in Melbourne as the year 2011 comes to an end. I won't go on a huge reflection, but there a few things I want to end on.

There has been a change in my career path already. My previous post denotes my last working day at Civilex. Well, that has become my last working day for awhile at Civilex. A few days before the end of exams, I received an offer from Humes to be part of their graduate program for 2012. After considering many factors, I decided it was too good of an offer to refuse. So, starting 16th Jan, I will be working at Humes :) more details on them later.

Holiday in Asia was awesome. There were a few rough bumps i.e bad weather, getting tonsillitis, passport getting damaged AGAIN, but amanda & I still had an awesome time. I have put together a few photos for blog posting, so I will be doing that in the next few days.

Christmas was held at the Teoh's again this year, with a few absences due to unforeseen circumstances. However, it was still a solid effort by my mum & dad to host, as the very next day we had another 'boxing day' party with more family friends. Look at the huge leg of ham! We're still eating it..

I am also now looking for small studio apartments to rent, as I need to move closer to the west side, so I don't crash and die on the 1 hour drive on the M1.

Anyway, 2011 will be a memorable year for me. The year I turned 21 and tasted two great steaks in two days. The year of great travels, with Canberra, Europe and Asia having felt my presence, which I think is quite an achievement and still have money haha. It was also the year of easing into my profession while dealing with lots of stress at university. It was the sad ending of my time at the CSC, while graduating from university finally (and without failing a single unit!)!

And I am looking forward to 2012! There are many exciting things going for me and I can't wait to experience them all. Happy New Year everyone, have a safe celebration.

teoh,

unemployment or freedom?

2011-11-11T22:33:00.001+11:00

So yesterday I did my last day at Civilex for the year. It's a bit strange saying, see ya next year guys! and, have a good Christmas! in November, but there it is. I think I've made a good impression on the company for now and I'm grateful that I have a job secured for next year.

What this means is that I am technically unemployed for the next two months! Or I guess you could just say I'm on holidays for two months. Either way, I have not been without my own income since my first part time job at KFC, in year 10! Since then, I have smoothly transitioned into another job, one after another.

How has this affected my life? Well, for one thing, I should be pretty grateful for all the people who have helped me find employment. Credits go to: Amanda - KFC, Daniel Tung (Family friend) - Baker's Delight, my brother - CSC and finally David Blamey (Uni friend) - Civilex. And my parents for being my taxi driver for the first few jobs. It is both encouraging and discouraging, the former as it proves I have many good friends and family, the latter because I have yet to make it somewhere myself. I'm sure I will get there eventually.

This also means I have had my own income for the past couple of years. I have managed to save some money aside for whatever the future holds, while also spending it to go on amazing holidays and to experience many things. It has made me more responsible in some of my choices in life and given me a greater sense of independence. I believe it has also increased my appreciation of what money can buy and more importantly, what it can't.

I do think it also has had a negative impact on me as well though. My concept of money is limited to the number in my bank account and what I need/want in my life. I don't have a credit cards, I don't take loans, I have yet to make tens of thousands of dollars purchases. I'm not too sure I can handle being in debt for 20 years, because I will literally feel like I have to stay at home and not spend any money until it's paid off. My brother is currently freelancing over in the UK, surviving on whatever work he can get as a graphic designer. I find that way of living scary, but I know I shouldn't and it would definitely be a good experience.

teoh,

late night travel thoughts

2011-11-03T23:59:00.001+11:00

So after an exhausting day of exams (two exams in one day really is way too much..), I'm taking a short few days break from studying and looking at travel plans for the upcoming Asia trip. I've been travelling so much the past few years, that I've almost gotten use to the preparation part and actually kinda enjoy sorting everything out.

Looking back at my pre-Europe posts, I remembered I had those five goals of the holiday: 1. decrease anger, 2. decrease employment stress, 3. less worry, more fun, 4. make new friends, 5. new experiences. I never got to reflect on those when I got back (mainly because I've been too lazy to post my Europe adventures STILL). I think in all goals, I more or less succeeded during the trip. It was definitely a relaxing trip, had lots of fun, hardly thought about work/unemployment, made a few good friends and experienced wonderful Europe. What a great trip, hard to believe it was only a few months ago.

The Asia trip ahead is going to be the icing of my year. Everything seems to be concluding well coming the end of November and I'm glad I have this last chance to travel before the year is up. I think I'm going to focus on my career mostly next year and there will be many moving parts to keep me grounded in Australia for a few months at least (moving out, updating all my details as non-student, figuring out fees and covers etc.). So I see this as my last travels for at least a year (but who knows!). And I haven't been back to Malaysia for so long, I feel I should at least stop by and see some relatives.

The above combined with the fact I've always wanted to go to Hong Kong with Amanda makes me excited for this trip. Can't think of a better friend to spend a long holiday with than Amanda and I'm looking forward to all the fun we're going to have.

A part of me is a little nervous, as I've never really been comfortable travelling in Asia. In general, I guess all countries have their dangers (pickpocketers in Europe for example), but Asia just seems the most dodgy of all in my opinion. I also speak a next-to-nothing amount of Chinese (going to hold onto Amanda so much), which just makes my confidence drop so much. But I'm sure it will be OK!

teoh,

Google Extras

2011-10-31T22:25:00.000+11:00

Because of the new tab menu screen for Google Chrome, I decided to see what this Google App Store was about. My initial guess was that it was just a online store for apps that you can buy for your web browser. And it is. But much more!

They've actually bundled it all together with additional software, extensions and themes, which is really smart. One of the hardest things about using Chrome was figuring out how to put 'add-ons' or 'extensions'. It took me ages to find out how to do it, so I could have my mouse gestures (which incidentally is really useful: hold down right mouse button, make a shape/gesture and it does a function, such as go back a page, close a tab, refresh etc.). But now it's all in the AppStore, and you just need to click install and it does it all for you.

There are some really useful ones, like currency converters on the fly, games in browsers (Angry Birds), Google App tie ins (Calender, Reader, Gmal) and different themes that can be applied so easy. There isn't a huge range, as compared with Android or Itune stores, but I guess it's pretty early.

The only thing is, once the excitement and wonder had died down, I realised that I didn't quite like the whole idea. The one thing going for Google Chrome is that it's light (software wise). It's one of the, if not the most, fastest browsers on the market. It's simple and elegant. Adding all these extensions don't come without consequences, and the consequence is processing power. Obviously, some of these apps need to run in the background (e.g Gmail icon needs to constantly check if you have mail), so it's running even when you're not doing anything. Have a couple of these, and Chrome is suddenly slowing down not only itself, but your computer in general.

So I installed a few...and then uninstalled them when I saw them eating up my processing power. Maybe when I have settled down, and I have a monster PC, I will use them. But for the humble laptop, I can't afford it.

Still nice advancements. Also, using pictures on blogger is SO much easier now, thank god.

teoh,

P.S Good luck to everyone for exams.

VICTORY!

2011-10-24T20:24:00.000+11:00

Today is a day of victory! For I was able to win my car insurance liability dispute. Hurrah!

For those who might've not known, a quick summary of events: basically I had turned left into a Coles Express site, to be impact with another car who had gone onto the road shoulder to by pass the line to get to a slip-lane after the Coles Express store. What followed was about $4000 worth of damages for my poor SAM and insurance, while first inclined to not assign liabilities to me, then turned around and said that it was not completely clear and liability was currently sitting with me.

Not to go too deep into the debates and arguments, after about 6 weeks, the claim is finally resolved in my favour. This has been hanging over my head for so long, cause it's $900 excess that I cannot afford at this point after recently quitting the CSC and cutting back on work hours. Not to mention savings for my Asia holiday trip.

What I would like to record are the steps I took to win the argument, so that others may also learn from my Insurance Turnabout episode (I've also been recently playing Phoenix Wright Attorney on NDS emulator hehe OBJECTION!). Basically, here is what I've learnt:

At the scene
It is important to document as much as you can on the scene. Photos are the most valuable things you can get, so hopefully your phone can take photos. Take photos of 1. your car damages 2. other party's damages 3. location, specifically road markings. These photos will most likely only be used as evidence if the case goes to court, which is very unlikely. But they will help you remember the incident and what has happened as weeks go by (and insurance claims can take a very long time!).

Also, obviously take all the other parties details. Name, phone number, licence plate (take a photo too), address and insurer. Be polite and make sure the other is OK. It never hurts to be nice, as most of the arguing will be spent with insurance. Don't spend time arguing about who is right or not, as ultimately that is all decided by insurance. NEVER admit that you are in the wrong, even if you're pretty sure you are. Until you have thoroughly looked at the road situation, you may be in the right.

Witnesses are good to have. In my case, I did not have any, so I'm not too sure how involve they become in drawn out cases, but I'm pretty sure they would be very helpful. Most cars won't stop to help you, so if you know someone saw something, try and flag them down safely and grab their contact details at least.

Obviously if you're car is not drivable, you will need to contact off-road assistance. If people are hurt, I believe you need to call the police and obviously any medical assistance if required. This falls outside of my scope.

Notifying Insurance
From my experience and other's, it best to contact insurance as soon as possible. Get the ball rolling, especially if your car needs repairs. Before you call them, take a few minutes to collect yourself and prepare what your statement will be. The guy I spoke to in this incident was very helpful in phrasing what I want to say. Some insurance people may not be as good.

What is important is that your story matches 1. the evidence/damages and 2. road situation. Remember, the insurance was NOT with you at the time of accident. So while it may be obvious to you, keep in mind that these people may not even drive in your area. Keep it simple and to the facts. They do use Google maps, so have a look yourself before you call.

If you are not sure if you are at fault, another thing you can do to assert your position is call your local police station. They enforce all road rules, do NOT call VicRoads for clarification of road rules/markings. The police will have a traffic department that will confirm whether or not something is legal or not.

In the long run
Never give up. My friend William gave me this piece of advice: Insurance companies are bastards and will 90% try and take your money. Don't feel intimidate or flustered when they call you up to tell you are at liability. Simply ask the reasons why and logically dispute it. Don't get defensive, just point out the facts that you believe makes the other party liable and ask them to explain why this isn't valid.

Insurance companies expect people to dispute when they are at liability. I was told to fill in a mailed traffic diagram to explain what happened, which was good as I was able to more clearly explained what happened. I believe this is what tip the decision in my favour. I described a situation that clearly saw the other party's car leaving off the road, based on the evidence that the speed that the car hit me at (shown by the damages), it couldn't of been directly behind me. As the Coles Express entrance was only just after the single lane, the other party must've left the road and therefore illegally created their own lane. (TAKE THAT!)

Do everything and then forget about it
What I wasn't able to do. Dealing with insurance is stressful and requires a lot of patience. Whenever you are frustrated with the situation, just remember this: What can be done to see that the situation is turned out in your favour? Have you done it? If you have, you cannot do anymore, so forget about it.

This has turned into a very long post, so I will stop there. Goes without saying that I am very relieved and happy =]

teoh,

surviving the week

2011-09-30T19:24:00.000+10:00

I am digging blogger's new layout/theme. In fact, I am digging all of the google transformation.

I am not digging the new facebook's privacy invasion.

**

I have never really liked the phrase TGIF. But today, after surviving two weeks of home alone, week of uni, multiple stress events and three days of full time work in Hopper's so far away Crossing, T.G.I.F.

Today I came home to a letter addressed to my mum, naturally I opened it (don't worry, I have been instructed to open all mail, I'm not a freak). It was from the Metropolitan Police, apologising and sympathising that she had become a victim of crime.

Victim of crime? VICTIM OF CRIME!?

My first thought was, no kidding, was my mum attacked before she left and never told me about it? Then I realised it was the Metro Police in London, West End. Then I remembered my family telling me about how my mum lost her wallet in London and suspected someone taking it from her bag. But never fear, the Metro Police has offered support for any mental or physical trauma she might have incurred and some local information about how to be safer. How nice.

Have a good Grand Final weekend everyone (that's all they talk about at work).

teoh,

many many bytes..

2011-09-15T22:09:00.001+10:00

from whatsabyte.com:

Exabyte: An Exabyte is approximately 1,000 Petabytes. Another way to look at it is that an Exabyte is approximately one quintillion bytes or one billion Gigabytes. There is not much to compare an Exabyte to. It has been said that 5 Exabytes would be equal to all of the words ever spoken by mankind.

Yottabyte: A Yottabyte is approximately 1,000 Zettabytes. It would take approximately 11 trillion years to download a Yottabyte file from the Internet using high-power broadband. You can compare it to the World Wide Web as the entire Internet almost takes up about a Yottabyte.

hahaha, 11 trillion years to download a yottabyte! amusing.

teoh,

circular wounds

2011-09-13T22:48:00.003+10:00

here's a random post for you.

I cut myself with my razor the a few weeks ago, right in the corner of my mouth. It was only a small cut, but because it was in the corner of my mouth, it stretched every time I opened my mouth (to speak, eat, brush my teeth etc.). So it eventually became a circular wound.

Because of the constant flexing of my mouth, the wound would never really heal properly. The initial um, I dunno, regrowth of skin tissue would begin but then it would split again when I opened my mouth. It also hurt. I applied my usual treatment for cuts (aloe jelly), but to no avail.

Eventually, excess skin built up around the wound, creating a small mound of skin, making it look like a big pimple in the corner of my mouth. It took a weekend of not going out and not talking (no one at home to talk to anyway) for the skin tissue to finally stretch over the wound chasm and allow the wound underneath heal.

It made me think about something I read in a book about back in the olden times, if you got a wound from a spear, they would actually cut the wound bigger so it wasn't circular. This allowed it to heal faster apparently. Wondering if that would've helped, I googled it but alas found nothing.

It was a very frustrating wound. Doctor Marco, any advice (that's not sarcasm?)?

teoh,

leaving the csc

2011-09-09T22:35:00.004+10:00

It is with much sadness that I announce my resignation of my position at the CSC....is what I wrote in my resignation letter.

WOOHOO! Haha, well not really. I've decided to quit my three and half year old job due mostly to time issues. Had a huge week (gee it's been awhile since I've updated) involving large amount of uni reports due, construction work, Monash Pharm ball, and CSC shifts and it was just getting a bit too much. Money is not too much of an issue, as my construction job pays pretty well and I am doing 18 hours a week there anyway. Now that I've quit, I have forgotten what it's like to have nights and weekends free.

A rather blurry rotation shot of the CSC.

I will seriously miss the CSC. The job was easy and at times, fun. Mostly due to the amazing people that I've met there and I will hopefully try to maintain some good friendships that have come out of there. They gave me a nice send off, including a nice card and $100 chadstone gift card :) Thanks guys!

In other news, I was given a verbal job offer for full time position at Civilex next year! Yay! I guess I now have to believe that things do work out eventually (I feel a told you so from Tracy coming..). That being said, you also have to allow opportunities to happen (my being nice enough to fix someone's computer :D).

In other other news, me and Amanda have booked most of our accommodations and flights for our asia trip at the end of the year. I'm super excited; I've always wanted to go to Hong Kong with Amanda and now we're finally going to get the chance to go. Our travel plans are Singapore, KL, Penang, Langkawi and Hong Kong.

Even more exciting is that we moved our accommodations around so that we could stay at the Marina Bay Sands for two night! For those who don't know it, it's a 5 star hotel with a ship on top of three separate hotel 'columns'. I've read a few bad reviews about the service though, but hopefully it'll still be an experience !

That's all for now I think...til next time! Hopefully with this extra time I can make more blog post :P (doubt it).

teoh,

*sweatdrop

2011-08-15T21:39:00.003+10:00

Taking a break from stressing out.

Okay, back to it. There's too much to be done!

Dad's birthday

2011-08-13T14:26:00.004+10:00

Happy birthday dad! Getting older, but at least you're still very fit!

*BTW: see how magie's foot is just about to go into dad's green dessert? Just after this picture, she kicks it off the table hahaha. Luckily the glass didn't break and pudding just fell out intact!

We went to Wheeler's hill hotel bistro to eat. It was a very good dinner! I had the special steak and lobster for $29. Not a big fan of lobster, but it was nice. Steak was cooked quite well as well. Finally got my Heiniken (haven't had one since Amsterdam) and got another blue something for free with a newspaper coupon. We also got free calamari through coupons. Bless my mum for keeping coupons haha.

teoh,

Magical musicals

2011-08-07T22:29:00.006+10:00

Okay guys, I know I just did a post and the second post may be too much for you to handle, but I implore to my loyal readers, just bear with this unexpected but hopefully pleasant surprise. I was going to include this in my soon-to-be-but-forever-delayed London post, but I simply have to post something about it here.

I saw three musicals while I was in London, which were, in the order that I saw them in: Lion King, Wicked and Phantom of the Opera. Before I get into the actual musicals themselves, I will talk a little about musicals in London.

For those who don't know, London is littered with theatres. It's one of London's biggest revenues and there's a huge industry behind. Not like here, where

TicketTek (boooo) and TicketMaster (boooo) control most of the plays in Melbourne, there are literally dozens of outlets where you can buy tickets for shows. Most of them offer discounted tickets, in which they try and sell last minute tickets or restricted views. Seeing a show almost seems like seeing a movie over there, but no where near as cheap (or should I say 'cheap').

Official tickets range from 60 pounds to as much as 200 pounds. Discounted tickets can get as low as 20 pounds. Pounds = AUS, roughly 1.5x. Now, my opinion on show tickets is this: I hate discounted tickets. You don't know what you're really going to get, because the people sell them really well (or just blatantly lie in your face).

For Wicked, I bought one of these discounted tickets, in which the lady said they were midway, dress circle. For those who don't know, theatres usually go in the order: stalls, dress circle, grand circle, balcony - from ground up. So I thought, middle row, dress circle not bad for 30 pounds. Turns out the theatre for Wicked only has stalls and the dress circle. So I was pretty much up the back, which while it wasn't completely a show breaker, it was still annoying. Now why would you pay so little, and give up enjoyment for a show you obviously want to see (otherwise what are you doing there?). So I like to buy with having mind enjoying show the best way possible. Lion King, me and tracy paid 65 pounds for 2nd row dress circle, and it was awesome.

Anyway, enough about tickets. The shows themselves:

Lion King

Easily the best thing I've ever seen. The costumes themselves are beautiful, the masks that they use to portray the characters that they're playing are magnificent. The music, which we all know and love, is as great as ever and the extra pieces they added in a pretty good too (with a few exceptions in my opinion). The translation from movie to stage is excellent, it really is a different experience but the whole story line is still there. The whole thing is so good, by the end of the first scene, the epic Circle of Life, I was satisfied. 65 pounds well paid for one scene. In short, it was BRILLIANT. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Can't recommend enough. Stampede music and scene was my favourite, so epic.

Wicked

Had slightly distant seats as mentioned above, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this show. I had only very little idea of what it was about, and was really surprised at how much I loved the story. It relates to the behind the scene and is the prequel of the Wizard of Oz. The characters are cute and lovable, the songs are really nice and I've been singing along with them in my car for the past 2 weeks. People like Amanda will really love this show. Also highly recommend (and for the love of theatre, get good seats).

No picture =[

Phantom of the Opera

This one was slightly different in style, and an interesting deviation from the two above. Followed the storyline of the movie (from what I can remember anyway) pretty well and I did enjoy it. However, not sure if opera singing is my thing, cause I don't think I appreciated it as much. The songs in this one was very much more solo style, showing off some good talent. They had some nice special effects too, like fire balls (oooOOoo) and gunshots (everyone jumped, really unexpected). Recommend if you liked the movie and the songs. Theatre was kinda small though, my legs were pretty cramped.

So that's it. If you see a crazy asian boy driving, bopping his head and yelling out gibberish and bashing his wheel in some kinda of stampede pattern, that will be me. Makes the drive to Hopper's Crossing easier though =]

teoh,

Not convinced

2011-08-07T19:59:00.004+10:00

So I've finished two full time days at Civil EX and thought I'd just give my impressions of the place and what I do there.

Civil EX is a construction contractor company, that is fast expanding, getting more and more staff and projects. Basically I'm known there as an intern/student, just helping out my supervisor Matt in Estimating. Estimating is where clients send their initial tenders/plans to us and we estimate the amount of money and work that Civil EX would need to do to take upon the job. We then send back the numbers to the client, and if we're one of the lowest estimates, they will sign on with us (or maybe there's reputation also involved, I'm not entirely sure).

Matt's gotten me doing some document preparation, a LOT of printing and sorting into folders etc. I really hate printers now, I've had one jam on me a few times. The interesting things I got to do was actual estimating on some plans using a computer program and getting to know how the place works.

The people there are nice, but older than me obviously. I'm not too sure how much relationships I can establish being there only one or two days a week. It's too early to tell what future I have at Civil EX, but part time work is looking pretty good! The drive isn't as bad as I thought it would be either.

Captain America Movie

"I've just finished kicking Captain America's butt, here's the shield as proof"
Iron man still beats the crap out of any marvel movie I've seen.

Maybe I'm just too harsh, but this is another mediocre movie for me. In fact, it doesn't feel like a lot of effort was put into it (not to dismiss the work they probably actually DID put into it, but that's just the impression I get), an almost 'oh let's make captain america because we need him for the avengers movie' feel.

That's to say, it wasn't entirely not enjoyable. The beginning of the movie was enjoyable, a scene where bravery was demonstrated certainly made a good impression of character depth. I appreciated all the links to other movies, such as Stark appearances and the tie onwards to avengers. There was a sense of lacking during the 'putting together Captain America' for me, nothing like what Iron Man had when he was building his suit. No real exploration of his new found powers or anything like that. Besides becoming really buff, they didn't really show off his speed, his strength or shield in such a way that was a definite link to Captain America. Movies exaggerate men strength all the time! Show me that this is different!

Slight spoilers ahead

And then once Captain America is establish, it's all just explosions and gun shots (all which miss Captain America through terrible marksmanship) with no narrative. Character depth is all gone. All I know about the 'personal' squad that Captain America choose is they all like to drink and one's the token asian guy. No names or anything. The storyline is so terribly simple and predictable. There's a point in the movie where I wanted to stand up and scream ITS A TRAP in my best ackbar voice. A girl kisses the hero just as he prepares to jump on a plane to save the world; I'm thinking, what if the plane left while you did that? GG world for romance. But that would've been more entertaining than the completely anti climactic 'boss' fight.

AND BY THE WAY. How does Captain America know how to fight? He wasn't trained in combat, guns, flying ships, driving bikes or any of that. How does throw the shield so well and catch it so well?

Not too sure why people said it was on par with Iron Man - for me, definitely not. I know Xuan, Edward and Marco enjoyed it, but me and amanda remain unconvinced. But it was definitely better than Thor *snigger*.

teoh,

How things change

2011-08-02T19:53:00.003+10:00

I was watching the news today with my mum, and the weather report came on. Water storage levels are at an amazing 60%. Well, maybe it's not suppose to be amazing, but I'm sure for most of my friends it must sound amazing.

I'm referring to the times when we would open the herald sun in our free periods at school, to watch ling, sidney and matt tear through the brain teasers, but would first notice the little blue rectangle at the front (or was it the inside of the front page?) that would tell us our dire our water situation was today. 21.5%. 16%. Down down the levels went (just like prices are down at coles :D (we all hate that ad, mostly because there are giant hands pointing down all over at our workplace) anyway I digress).

And now, here we are, four odd years later and levels are back up. I have a feeling I'm more water conscience because of that water drought that I grew up. But the point is, how things change over time. Look at the graph above!

Anyway, I know I promised Europe posts, and I do have London almost done in a word doc. I want to photoshop some photos together though, cause blogger is really bad at showing photos.

In other news!

For those who don't know, I have gotten part time work at a civil construction firm! Hurray! The firm is called Civil EX, and unfortunately based in Hopper's Crossing. So yes, I will be making the long one hour and a bit trek across the west gate bridge to go there. Could be worse (like not having a job and staying at the call center forever worse!!!).

They pay pretty decently, 22 an hour, and the experience is worth way more than that. They have also mentioned full time work after uni, so it's something to fall back on! I've committed to every Thursday, and maybe Friday's when uni workload allows. I've also arranged to cut back on CSC hours to a mere 12 hours a week =] I start on Thursday, so I'll let you know how I go.

How I got the job? Well, it was (as is everything in my very early career life) by referral of course. My uni friend David Blamey mentioned me to one of the owner's of the company (there are three, and some history behind which I might share later) when he asked if he knew anyone who wanted to do part time work while studying. The funny thing is, we are not best pals or anything. I first met him in second year and helped him out with some computer stuff, so I'm good friends with him and his group. We help each other out with uni projects too. But I did not expect him to go out of his way to think of me when this opportunity came up. Just goes to show that if you treat your friends right, they will return it!

My dad mentioned that I have a pretty balanced life style now, and I have to agree. Hopefully badminton will continue to be regular on Sunday's and I'm sure I'll be able to cram more than one social event now and then. Things are looking pretty good.

teoh,

happy birthday mum

2011-07-21T13:26:00.002+10:00

and plus, happy birthday mum =] I appreciate you more every day.

the end to a long holiday

2011-07-21T12:31:00.002+10:00

So my long long holiday is finally over. And what a holiday it was.

I do have a draft post saved on blogger, with some quick notes about my days around Europe. I will probably refine them and put pictures with it in the next couple of days (hopefully). The holiday was awesome, so much more new experiences under my belt. I really enjoyed my time in London especially, seeing my sister and shopping around.

The snow trip was also great fun, another post to come. Unfortunately, I think the jet lag and large amount of exhaustion made me unfit for company with my good friends, as I slept most of the time when not out in the snow and probably seemed in a bad mood (actually I was so tired I felt very little).

The next couple of days will see some changes and some rejuvenation to my life. My brother has left for the UK, so I am officially the only sibling left in the house. I have some plans to move some things around, hopefully for the better. I also have some other things I want to bring back from my time in Europe and incorporate into my life.

But first, rest.

teoh,

In parii

2011-07-08T08:45:00.002+10:00

Greetings from Paris! I realized I havent been online for awhile , but I figured this is a good thing. There were a few opportunities to get online but I did want to go out of way to get on. Nice break from dependancy on the Internet. I gave in when my friend offered his iPad for me to use with the hotels free wifi. Pardon any grammar or typos for this post.

It's two days away from the end of the tour. I wont go into too much details, as I'm pretty tired and we're getting up early to go to the Lourve. but it has been really fun. As I type I'm sitting next to my new good friends, Jo and nardia and a singapore couple milton and Sarah, both who remind me of Jason a lot. I'm going to write out and post pictures when i get back to London of what I've been up to. But have been seeing many grand and historical things in Europe, it's amazing.

Mainly just wanting to say im alive and well, no dramas yet. Should be arriving back in London around 6pm on Saturday. Haven't done much shopping so that's what I'll be doing for the four days I'm in London.

Ciao,
Teoh

4 days on tour

2011-07-01T05:59:00.004+10:00

this was a photo that was sent from the heineken brewery and is the only photo I can currently access with ease.

so it's day..4? now on the tour. It's such a crazy tour that I don't even count the time passing by days, I count them by the cities I've been. So far I have covered the white dover cliffs of england, pass through france and Belgium, finally arriving at Amsterdam. From there, we went to Rhine Valley, and then onto Munich, where I am currently sitting in a stair well with a borrowed laptop, as the wifi doesn't get to my room.

I've done some wine tasting, beer drinking, sight seeing and sleeping on the coach. I didn't get to get any hashies in Amsterdam unfortunately. I chickened out the first time I saw a coffee shop, and then I didn't get a chance to go again. The Heinikin tour was really good though, I really enjoyed learning about the beer. Wine tasting at the Rhine Valley was quite nice too. Otherwise, it's been really great so far all the things I've seen. Amsterdam has a great bike riding system, something they need in Melbourne city. Rhine Valley is beautiful and now I know a tiny bit more about wine. Walked the same beer halls as Hilter and drank 1L of beer at once, and spent the rest of the city walk a bit tipsy, probably the most tipsy I've ever been with alcohol.

Let me tell you about my fellow tour travelers. A big chunk are Aussie, mostly from Melbourne or Brisbane. One or two Americans, some from Canada, a pair from Singapore. They're all around 21 - late 20's. There are hardly any guys on this tour! There's about 7 of us, 4 having partners, 2 guys traveling together, and me. This means I get a room to myself every hotel so far! Personally, I prefer it that way; I'm picky with my life style.

Now, being one of the few single males, you'd think that's good news for me. Unfortunately, it's much harder to join groups, as most of them are girl groups. Girls tend to stick to each other much harder, so I've had to spread my efforts around a bit. I've managed to make a few friends that I can hang out with on the tour, so all is well in that department. Chances don't look good on the romance side unfortunately.

Anyway, I'm going to try and make more friends. So I'll leave it at that. Just letting my loyal friends that read my blog that I'm alive and well. Haven't lost anything yet, and hopefully it will stay that way.

Again, hope everything is well back home =]

teoh,

whirlwind london

2011-06-27T01:43:00.002+10:00

just a keep post, before I need to go pack.

The past few days in London have been pretty fun. I must say, I'm pretty lucky that Tracy was also in London, as I would've not had half the amount of fun I've had with someone to share it with. Not only does it provide motivation, but also helps with picture taking and appreciation of what you're doing.

So I've seen more of local London, eating some pretty good food and drinking some unusual drinks (pimms & green is good smoothies). I've seen more famous landmarks, including the royal parks (got lost in hyde park cause it's that big), buckingham palace, pretty fountains etc. etc. Went to the British museum today, which had so much history, I couldn't keep my attention span long enough to appreciate it all.

The Tube system. I originally thought it was brilliant. Gives quite a bit of access to anywhere in central London, unlike our crappy City loop. Also, the Oyster card works quite well..in terms of performance. However, it's SO EXPENSIVE. I've already eaten through 30 pounds on my oyster card. Sadness.

Saw the LION KING MUSICAL yesterday. And man, it was worth the flight over. It was AWESOME. Brilliant. Best thing I've ever seen. Beautifully done. I can't really describe how good it was. After the first act, with all sorts of animals and the music coming together, I was so satisfied already by the end of Circle of Life.

Anyway, I've been so tired, I decided to take this afternoon off. But now my sister is making me go pack, for my whirlwind tour around Europe!

hope everyone is well back at home.

teoh,

I have arrived

2011-06-23T20:00:00.004+10:00

So I have arrived in London OK. No luggage lost, passport still on me, things are still good!

The flight and transit times are death though. I am already cringing at the thought of the return flight. My travels to London was broken into three sections: Melb to Brunei, Brunei to Dubai (which is catchy) and Dubai to London. Each transit was about 7-8 hours. Each.

The first flight was okay, as I had all three seats to myself. It still takes a lot of trial and error to find the best sleeping position though. Dad, I don't know what's so good about these new planes. They may be new, but they're using old entertainment equipment. No touchscreens, just tiny screens couples with the old handsets I remember from Malaysia airlines. The movies are not that recent, although I watched Unknown which was pretty good.

It was easy to know that I was in Brunei when I stepped off the plane (besides the captain telling us we had arrived in Brunei) because the humidity smacked me in the face as soon as I walked off the plane (and into the bus that then drove very slowly to the airport). I bought a magazine and read until it was time to get on another 'new' airplane (which had the exact same old equipment and movies, yay). The second and third part of the flight was pretty hard to take. I sat next to these nice Brits/Indians ladies, who had come back from a jungle trek in Malaysia.

I decided to try and talk to them, made some nice conversation and got some advice about London. One of the sisters was a underground attendant, and rewarded my slightly exaggerated enthusiasm for riding the Tube for the first time with a exclusive Oyster card, which was one of the 25000(?) made to commemorate Prince whatishisname and Kate's marriage. Pity it doesn't work. But apparently I can sell it for 45 quid (which apparently is slang for pounds) on ebay. At this point, I felt like I was in an RPG. Hit X to interact with the character next to you, and some NPCs may reward you with random loot. Yay for my video game training.

Anyway, I arrived at the airport, pretty scared as I had no idea what I was doing. I realised I had not written down Tracey's apartment address, just memorized the station I needed to get to (which was so (not) helpful). I bought a sim card from a VENDING MACHINE??? Did not realise it did not come with any credit and didn't see a convenient way to top up. So I called Tracey on at a payphone, and said to meet me at the station in however long it would take me to get there.

If you're thinking this sounds like a very vague plan, then you are correct. Luckily I managed to get to the station and Tracey was waiting for me and saved me. So now I'm in her apartment (after cooking and cleaning her breakfast!?), typing on her horrible ACER laptop, half deluded with lack of sleep / sleeping in a upright position during my TWENTY FOUR HOURS travel. Like really? People keep saying how it's a small world. LIES. Otherwise I would've arrived YESTERDAY.

Anyway, as you can see, no anger has left me yet. I might grab a nap and then plan with Tracey where we're going to go exploring. Yup.

teoh,

btw, my phone number is 07554615693. For all those who miss me so much. :D

my holiday aims

2011-06-20T23:00:00.002+10:00

so, two sleeps away from going to europe and these are my aims for my holiday.

1. decrease amount of anger inside of me.

2. decrease employment related stress

3. forget about worrying and focus on enjoying

4. make some new friends

5. experience as many new things as possible

if I can achieve these five things, this holiday will be a success.

teoh,

unshackle those chains

2011-06-12T11:50:00.003+10:00

Okay, so it's been a while. Let's update.

I am currently a free man, finished exams so early that almost none of my friends want to talk to me. That's cool guys, no hard feelings AT ALL (caps for emphasis, not subtle hate). What am I using this free time that would've otherwise been used to stress continuously for multiple exams over the next two weeks? Stressing out about other things of course!

At the current stage of my life, I have come to realise that there will always be something to stress about, plan about, something unknown to come. My carefree university life is rapidly coming to end (at least I hope so anyway) and the next step is into the bigger world of not just the workforce, but boundless opportunities of things to do. Move overseas? Travel overseas? Save for a house? Buy a new car (because I've once again scratched poor SAM on the right side bumper =( )? All of those things are now possible (technically), whereas I'm used to dusting my hands of the final assignment and settling in for some holiday fun.

These fairly mundane thoughts aside, I am actually just working a lot and planning for Europe/Snow. In case I have not mentioned this in the past few blog posts, I am actually leaving for Europe on the 22nd of June for around three weeks, flying back to arrive on the 16th July, and then heading off to the snow for three days on the 18th. Currently, I'm more excited for the snow, most likely cause it's with my close friends and I get to do snowboarding which I've never done before. Though I must say, booking accommodation and transport has been the bane of my life for the past few weeks. To prevent any misfortune on the actual trip however, I will wait until AFTER trip to write my displeasure.

But don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to Europe; I guess I'm getting pre-departure jitters as I usually do. Europe is such a far away country, it's almost more like a concept than a real thing to me. I'm a bit worried about how the tour will be, but I think as long as I'm open minded, I should have a blast. Seeing my sister will also be fun =] and LIOOOOOOON KING!! I've been sore about missing out this musical since I missed the high school excursion in year 9? And now I get to see it in the best place ever (well apparently LA was the best, butlookoverthere!).

Of course, I'm not sure if I'll survive 6 days straight of full time work. I think the greatest motivation of finding a job is so I can quit that place at the end of the year. Yes, the location is great, the job is pretty easy, the money is good, I understand all of that. But you don't understand the frustration, the crap that goes on, the way the place gets to you while you're there. I do not feel respected for my three years of loyalty, I do not feel valued by my employers. Please let me find a job soon. Otherwise I might strangle myself with my headset.

I've seen both X-men First Class and Super 8 since I've finished exams. I won't bother to do a proper review, bar saying that they were both entertaining and not too bad. But I bring it up because neither movie was worth the expensive tickets we paid. In fact, I'm pretty sure no movie will ever be worth the $15 dollar ticket we all pay at the movies now. Food, yes. Oil, yes. Why the heck are movie tickets going up for!? You are driving me into piracy or bankruptcy, either way we all lose. I'm thinking of creating Teoh Cinemas and bringing back old ticket prices and making a fortune. I'll set it up next to our hospital that we're going to make. And I'll sell pies for <$4.

I am sorry for the lack of exciting pictures.

teoh,

Friday Night Lights

2011-05-15T19:23:00.003+10:00

I need a break from FYP, so I'm going to blog a bit.

I've been using a TV show Friday Night Lights as my breaks/relaxation time during this busy period. And it's the best thing I've ever watched. Not that I should hype it up or anything, because to many people, it's going to be a pretty ordinary drama TV show. Based around a small town called Dillon and their strong community culture built up around their American Football team, the Dillion Panthers, the show follows primarily around the Taylor family. Coach Eric Taylor is the main star, trying to take the team to State Championship. But obviously some of the main players and their stories are also told. The drama tries to address real issues that are happening in America, such as drug use, racial issues, team spirit, believing in yourself, life in general etc.

So what's so good about it? I find it so inspiring and touching. I don't know if that's cause of the acting, the way they film it or what, but I have connected with so many of the characters, so easily. Their troubles also seem to remind me that things I get frustrated about are nothing compared to what's out there. Family and friends are the best thing in the world. The human conscience, the difference between heart and mind. It's sooo good.

When it comes down to it, it really is just another drama show. But I love it! Five seasons in total, although season 2 was chopped in half due to writer's strike at the time.

BTW, saw Thor yesterday with Amanda and Edward. It's very so so. Disappointed. And I had to pay extra to see it cause they cancelled the 2D session we were going to see.

teoh,

Mobile post

2011-05-07T23:46:00.001+10:00

And there you go. Blogger app :)

2011-05-07T23:27:00.003+10:00

So I'm using my new Google nexus phone to write this post.

After finally taking the plunge, I have a new phone! I got it on $29 cap with vodafone, for 2 years unfortunately. I'm not thrilled to be locked into such a disreputable company but there it is. So far, 3 has tried to overcharge my last bill and I'm expecting something to go wrong with my first bill. Telephone providers. What can you do?

But the phone itself is great. It's one of the newer phones and comes stock with the latest software to boot. Over the past week, I can say I am enjoying the phone immensely. No real faults with it so far and I am fast becoming comfortable with the style of integration of multiple services. The phone is very smooth despite being only one core lol, and android is very nice, once you get used to it. I have yet to root it (another form of jailbreak) but not sure I want to yet. I can't be bothered.

I think the feature I love the most is communication centralization. It allows me to have constant access to my multiple email accounts, which I am finding in these modern times, a crucial communication tool, especially at the moment with grad apps and project announcements at uni. It works great and easy to set up. I haven't noticed a huge drain in my data usage yet. Apps like WhatsApp, facebook, vodafone usage and dropbox all help keeping all the important things I constantly check on the one device. I think I've definitely noticed a drop in computer use, cause I no longer need to turn it on just to check things and then get distracted with other things!

If there was one thing I would share from this new phone experience, is this advice to new phone shoppers: don't over-research. You can constantly read reviews, get people opinions, test a phone for a few minutes and repeat over and over, but nothing will compare to actually getting the phone. There are features you're not going to like that you won't find out about until you actually use it, and vice versa. As long as the phone roughly fits your basic needs, just get the phone after a week or two of research.

teoh,

2011-04-30T20:30:00.002+10:00

It seems like everyone is feeling a bit of pressure at the moment. I think it's the stage in our lives where we are being forced to make a life changing decision and we're trying to find the right answer for ourselves. Life seems to be getting more difficult as it goes on.

I've written three or four paragraphs, and then deleted them after this. I just want to remember this point in this year, how bleak and hellish the next few weeks seem, and be able to look back and laugh. Or cry.

teoh,

easter break fun

2011-04-25T17:50:00.004+10:00

Happy Easter everyone, I hope you are all having a good long weekend.

I was feeling a little burnt out at the end of last week, so I decided that I would take Friday - Sunday off completely from any university related work. It was a good plan, I feel much better and have been smashing grad applications all day. I think my company count is up to 20's so hopefully one of them will want to hire me.

Amanda's birthday was last Friday, so happy birthday to my best friend (you are now older than me, hah!). It was a good night of old high school friends (+mich) and rounds of classic games of mafia and jin.

Went to Bright on a loooong family drive on the Saturday. 4 hour drives are killers. But I will always remember Bright for the gorgeous fresh air and the nice creek that I was dying to play in.

I'm feeling quite tired of social outings now actually. I'm so ready just to stay at home for the rest of the week. Have quite a bit of uni work to catch up on, so good timing!

teoh,

party all night long

2011-04-18T21:37:00.003+10:00

So last weekend was party after party after..nope, actually it was just those two. Cat's & Ann's 21st birthday parties were both on the same day, one after another.

Catherine's was a Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter high class tea party, located at One Tree Hill picnic grounds, a rather clever theme I thought. I was told to wear a touch of 'mad hatter'-ness or wacky, and my family helped my put together this strange costume with a bowler hat and giant gold ribbon as my bowtie. And then no one else dressed up =_= except tim and his polka dot shirt. Grr. Haha, but it was pretty fun.

Cat & Lauren put a lot of effort into setting everything up! It looked beauuutiful! The classy food was delish and the hot tea came in handy as it was quite cold up in the Dandenong ranges. We had a good time! Happy birthday tomorrow Cat!

And then it was on to Ann's birthday. Boy I was stressing out on this one, as I had a rather ambitious project to complete and it was all done rather last minute. I had recruited my brother to help me create a life size cut out of one of Ann's many Korean actor/singer idols, so I could present it to her as her boyfriend! It turned out very well thanks to my brother's high creative talent.

The party was held at Gertrude Hotel in Fitzroy, which was quite a nice venue. I'll be curious to know what the bill was, but it was well staffed and very neat. It was a very nice turn out and I enjoyed the night. Dave used his magical talents to make a fantastic performance with his guitar as usual. I wasn't very happy with my speech at all, but Kim Bum made up for it and saved my ass. Happy birthday Ann.

teoh,

To go or not to go!

2011-04-08T23:01:00.003+10:00

I am in the midst of planning my July holidays, and it's quite stressful/indecisive. When I found out we actually get four weeks of holidays, and I only had one exam (increasing chances of even more holidays), I was so determine to go over seas. No way I want to spend my last real holiday at home doing the usual, and especially not at work.

So since my sister is on her last year in the UK, I thought it'd be a good time to go to Europe! I haven't been before, and I'm quite eager to experience it. Since I'm not a big traveler, I'm aiming for about just over two weeks. I know it's not as long as most people do it, but I don't like to travel for too long!

Since I'm going alone, I was also thinking of doing a tour, Contiki or TopDeck. They have some nice ones that give me a taste of all over the place for about 12 days, for around 2k. Accommodation is hotels, which is nice and it contains most of the travel fees and some meals/activities. So I'm pretty happy with that.

HOWEVER. Now I'm having a financial crisis. Because flight tickets are ridiculously expensive. I was expecting around 2k, but the cheapest I can find at the moment is 2.6k with Singapore airlines. =_= what the hell. so that's like 4.8k together with the tour, and then +spending money, I'm looking at well over 6k.

I really want to go, but now I'm not sure if it's worth it/can afford it. On top of that, we're also going to the snow that holidays too. Eep.

Decision decisions. And prices only get higher from here on!

teoh,

=_=

2011-04-05T20:22:00.002+10:00

I have bitten off a bit more than I can chew at the moment.

Stress!

belated wishes

2011-03-22T23:18:00.008+11:00

So with all that's going on, I haven't had time to update a few birthday celebrations I've been attending.

First up, Jason Ling! Happy 21st birthday buddy. Even though you didn't have a birthday celebration, you still get a mention, cause you're that cool! Actually, cause you're such a close friend of mine, I do want to say something!

Thanks for your friendship since grade 7, it's been good times all the way. In fact, I cannot recall a time when we've been at odds with each other. That itself kinda tells what kind of friend you are: always supportive! We've shared many good memories together and you've also taught me many things on the way. The best thing about you is that you're the best kind of company anyone could want! It's no wonder you're really popular nowadays. All the best.

Secondly, Marco Kwok! Happy 21st birthday to you good sir. We all went to Langham hotel for lunch buffet, and I was very impressed. The service and presentation were all up to the price, so I was quite happy by the experience. Not somewhere I'll go often though!

Marco, you've been my longest friend to date now (you beat dave by a few months? or a year?)! Even back then you were smart, so I knew you were going to go to elite places in the future. Now look at you, Dr.Kwok! I think the most impressive thing about is how hard you work. Not just study wise though, but life in general. I think back to the quiet timid boy you were in year 7, to now the confident guy who unfortunately still stabs me in the back with sarcasm now and then, and I think of the effort you put in to change yourself for the better. I applaud you and to the result. Good on you. I also put up this terrible photo of you as revenge for all the times you've annoyed me. =]

Next is Willie's and Danny's 21st! Unfortunately I don't have a picture for either of their's, but they were good celebrations to catch up with their 'crew'. Danny's was near Crown Casino, and we had the honour of dining at Willie's family's little restaurant for his! Even though we are quite distant, I'm glad I went and refresh those old friendships. Some people should never be forgotten, and although there were times when it was rough, they were still my first group of friends in high school and included me. Cheers to our friendship! (even though they don't read here =])

And finally, last but not least, Sharon and Grace's birthday! I was quite swamped with work last week, so thankfully Amanda organised something for us to gather up and celebrate these two strong girls birthdays! They went to Zest at Glenny, and I joined later on. Each one I think has had struggles to deal with but has been given some much courage and strength to continue on. I admire both and glad we still all can keep in contact, even though these two girls are the most busiest of the group.

Happy birthday guys!

Whew. And there's more to come. Ann's, Amanda's and Cat's are all in April and quite close together. More fun ahead!

teoh,

wireless resolved.

2011-03-15T21:47:00.002+11:00

hey all,

man it's getting busy. Good thing I set myself up to have a less stress time at uni with subjects this semester. So many birthday parties as well. And so many career events to do. And so much work. I'm losing sleep over a few things as well, like final year projects and nightmares of unemployment next year.

One good piece of news, I've finally taken the bullet and bought a wireless USB dongle to see if it would help my terrible wireless capabilities of my laptop. So far, success! I have now have internet in extremities of my house.

This is excellent, as my brother has moved back home, but I love having my PC next to the router, cause I get super speeds =] So now I can leave it in there for leisure, and use the laptop for work when the PC isn't available. Although the 21 inch screen is so nice to work on.

The final test will be of course, at uni, but I have high hopes. I bought a TP-Link TL821N in case anyone was interested, $24 at MSY. Not a bad investment.

Stupid Toshiba and their lies. I disabled my wireless card on my laptop and tested it, and vice versa. It's clearly the card. ALSO, Toshiba has crap algorithms for their wireless status. It will read FULL bars when connected, but in reality it's like 2/5 (not to mention it'll drop out as well). TP-Link's connects with 2 bars and smooth surfing all the way.

Disappointed in Toshiba =[

teoh,

gasland

2011-03-12T17:39:00.004+11:00

hey guys,

I thought I would share a documentary that I've just finished watching. As I type this, the credits and banjo solo music accompanying it is playing in the background. I want to write up some of the strongest impressions and memorable parts of the documentary to share.

It's called Gasland, directed and produced by Josh Fox. I first heard of it during the Oscars, as it was nominated for best documentary. In summary, it investigates the natural gas mining method called hydraulic fracturing and it's environmental impact. It is a industry that is actually growing in size today.

Hydraulic Fracturing, or fracking, is a method of freeing up natural gases trapped within a formation of rock called shale. It uses deep core drilling to pump liquid at high pressure into the ground, to fracture the surrounding shale to free up the gas. It resembles a small earthquake.

The first issue is that out of the 1 - 7 millions of gallons of liquid that is pumped into the ground, about only half is recovered. This isn't too much of an issue if it was just water. But in fact, the fracking liquid that is used contains over 596 types of chemicals; drilling additives, anti-corrosives, acids etc. All of this goes straight into the environment, and because almost all of them are non-biodegradable, it's in there for good.

This kills local wildlife, poisons all the near by streams and rivers, goes into live stock's drinking water, decimates plant life. The list goes on. There was a sad part of the doco, where a lady had frozen multiple species of animals for proof. Rabbits, frogs, birds, even a baby doe. Fish get their gills eaten by chemicals and die.

It also goes into our groundwater and thus our drinking water. The scariest part was when a farmer filled a tub of water from the tap, and applied fire to it. You can actually SEE melted plastic forming on the surface of the water. That's how much poly-whatever is actually present in the water.

Another scene was when a man let his tap run for a few seconds, and then applied a fire. There was so much gas within the liquid, it lit on fire and burnt his arm hairs off.

Some communities are on this water right now, and suffer large amount of brain damage because of the chemicals. Most suffer headaches, lack of taste, lack of smell, unable to see clearly.

The documentary goes through interviews, investigations, researchers and even congress. It's a really good perspective. I really enjoyed this documentary and encourage anyone that interested to have a look. I have a copy if anyone wants it.

teoh,

super selling spree

2011-03-09T16:42:00.004+11:00

Hey guys,

My brother is moving out of his apartment, and has loads of furniture to give away and sell. Hit the link below to have a look!

http://oralli.blogspot.com/2011/03/for-sale.html

Marco, you might be interested?

teoh,

- blank -

2011-03-06T23:51:00.001+11:00

we humans are illogical creatures. sometimes it makes me sad. sometimes it brings me joy. all in all, i'm confused.

new phone

2011-02-25T22:58:00.005+11:00

It's about time I upgraded my phone. Not because I don't like it anymore..I don't think I'll be sick of the awesome black/gold combination! But unfortunately one drop too many has caused the speaker to become filled with static sometimes, making it hard to call my many many girlfriends (har har).

I have a few choices to make. The first thing I decided: I do not want an iphone. Yes you apple lovers, don't even bother! I actually do like the iphone itself; it has nice apps, runs okay, but it's everywhere and I hate that. Plus, Android is open source, making it more customizable than iphones (without jailbreaking it). Therefore, no iphone.

A few weeks ago, my workmate Steven told me about the Motorola Atrix (above). I was a bit skeptical, as Motorola isn't generally well known for good phones. However, the reviews look good and the hardware is impressive. It's the next generation phone, dual core (which means it's faster and will help battery usage decrease), graphics card/chip, nice resolution screen, next G enabled etc. It's basically a mini-computer. It ships in early March, but costs $900 outright as it won't be available here for awhile.

Another alternative, but by no means cheaper, is the Google Nexus S (above). Pretty much the Samsung Galaxy (it's also made by Samsung hardware), but with a few slight difference in software. It gets constant updates from Google, and it starts off with the new Andrew OS, Gingerbread. It's around $800.

But while looking at these two, I'm not sure if I want to spend so much on a phone. I have the funds, but will it really make a difference? I don't want to come off as one of those people who NEED the best (though I do like it =]) and often when I have given into that feeling, I've often regretted it.

So I might look into some other cheaper options. And I need to start looking for a better plan too.

Suggestions are welcomed.

teoh,

jump the sinking boat

2011-02-20T20:01:00.003+11:00

I've been really frustrated with work the past few weeks. The call center management is just becoming less and less respectful and caring towards it's staff. Maybe I don't see the full picture, working only part time, but from what I hear, it's worst during the day.

I won't go into too much detail here, I've already vented enough. In actual fact, it's pretty much the same for me in terms of working conditions. But somehow, it makes me really tired and sad to think about how bad the workplace has become.

if you don't look after us, then why should we care about you?

teoh,

to the mysterious ACT.

2011-02-06T23:48:00.005+11:00

So after much celebrating, I went to Canberra for a few days of chilling with my friends. It was really good to see Sarah, Ellen and Gen again.

I've never been to Canberra (or was too little to remember any of it), and it was a pretty chilled four days there. Just like Adelaide, it's not as boring as people make it to be. It's just not the huge place Melbourne is.

Ellen was a pretty good guide, despite not being use to driving around (everything is so close, everyone bikes about). We went to Black Mountain (a lookout), Na

tional Zoo/Aquarium, the National Gallery, Parliament House and a quick look at the War Memorial.

I actually quite enjoyed Parliament House, imagining all the powerful politicians that walked the same corridors that I did. We also swam in a local river, which was so nice. Brought back memories of the waterhole back in New Zealand. Other times, we just chilled out. It was blistering hot, except for the last night in which we ran through a storm.

I did get introduced to Zambrero, which is basically a Mexican Subway. Choose your filling in a burrito, add salad, guacamole and wrap it all up = yum. Unfortunately, they are not yet in Melbourne (coming soon though) but it's pretty awesome.

Fun times.

Also, this video, despite it being for a commercial, pictures my young dreams of star wars:

teoh,

twenty one - the man i am

2011-01-31T00:08:00.004+11:00

As my twenty first milestone in my life has arrived, I would like to write a little something.

To be honest, the reason I was not keen on celebrating my 21st was because I felt like I did not have much to celebrate. I like to think 21st as a time to celebrate the person's life up to now, and I did not think there was much in mine.

Amanda touched me when she mentioned about accomplishing a lot in my friends around me. It was really nice to know that I had made a positive difference in the people around me and made me feel a lot better about my 21st. Jason and Grace both reminded me of all the strong friendships I had in that room. And I was really surprised by the strongest speech coming from Tim, my past arch-nemesis haha, but really glad. After all, if I've turned my enemy into a really close friend, I can't have done much more. Those improv speeches really made my night. I was not kidding when I said they are half of my life.

Just as my friends mentioned my good character, I must credit a lot of my positive traits to my parents. I have both learnt and inherited my kindness from both of them; my generosity comes from my mother, who always gives to people and never expects much in return; my organising and social skills I must be grateful to my father.

I'd also like to say thanks to my brother and sister. Although my siblings are literally distances away, they have made the effort to come in and celebrate my 21st in their own way.

I really look forward to the my life ahead of me from the point of twenty one. Although I've been warned that it's all downhill, I hope I get to have a fun time rolling down it!

teoh,

my 21st birthday

2011-01-28T22:35:00.004+11:00

21ST BIRTHDAY POST.

Boy, have I had a great few days of celebrating.

I would like to thank everyone for all their birthday wishes, and everyone that made an effort to make these past few days special for me. I have had a WONDERFUL time and everything worked out great.

PreBirthday - 26th

Played 3 hours of badminton with dave, xuan, amanda and a new friend michelle. Was exhausted afterwards, slept at 8PM. Xuan bought me a new racket, adding to the one my dad bought me in malaysia =]

Birthday Day 1 - 27th my actual birthday

Star wars book I ordered arrived - perfect. Went to buy sowing machine with dave at target, later watched tennis and played monopoly deal at tim's house. Also played scrabble. FLAXEN for 36 point win!
Small group of close friends came over, played some games, ngs' made me cupcakes, ann bought me a cake, we all sang songs and ate =] GIN.

Birthday Day 2 (also my brother's) - 28th

Went to work for supervisor training (did I mention I put myself up for promotion?) and ended up having cake all day. Everyone at work sang happy birthday for me, had a great time.

Had an even better time as more workmates gathered for dinner at airstream. Also got me cake and sang happy birthday (third time this week!).

Birthday Day 3 - 29th

Had dinner with all my closest friends at Rare Steakhouse, on Little Collins street. I figured I would go ahead and try the prime Angus steak ($48 for a 400g porterhouse) and man it was good. Had some nice BBQ sauce that is apparently also called monkey glands in South Africa? to go with it. Everyone sang happy birthday once more. Amanda, Jason and Grace said some improvised speeches for me, which was really nice. Love all my friends.

Birthday Day 4 - 30th

Dinner at Rockpool at Crown with dad and brother. Had steak yet again - unbelievably, it was better than Rare's (still pricey $58). So soft and tender, full of flavour. Had some nice side dishes, roast pumpkin and sweet potatoe with burnt butter and garlic yoghurt was my favourite. Some great desserts followed, macaroon with banana ice cream and balsamic vinegar ice-cream on a strawberry tart. YUM.

Now off to canberra tomorrow to have some fun with my friends. BOOYAH.

teoh,

please help.

2011-01-14T00:49:00.004+11:00

I have been really touched/saddened by the QLD flood crisis that is going on at the moment. I have been watching the news coverage all day yesterday, and have spoken first-hand with queenslander at work about the unbelievable disaster that is still continuing up there. I can't even imagine getting flooded to that magnitude.

I would like to ask all of my readers (few as you are) to also support and donate to the relief fund as I have. They only need money, which is understandable seeing the amount of damage that is going to take so long to recover from.

My heart really goes out to everyone up there.

Flood Relief.

teoh,

whoa, where did I go

2011-01-09T22:45:00.002+11:00

All of a sudden, I feel like I just lost the past few days of my life. I can't remember specific dates or events, I suddenly had an overload amount of blog posts to catchup/skim through, youtube subscriptions went through the roof (crazy youtubers) and emails piled up on the side.

Where did I go?

Did my sub conscience superhero take over on some urgent top secret mission to save the country and did some awesome heroic deed that for unknown reasons must stay disclosed from the public, resulting in this missing past?

Or did I recently get blasted by some psychic power by an evil villain, who stole some innocent item from me that was actually the key to the ultimate power in the world, and my mind has been confuddled to prevent me from retrieving it?

Or was I possessed by a recently passed away boy, who used me to say a final tearful farewell to his family, while at the same time teaching me important life lessons and morals that will turn me into a better person?

Or was I recruited by some secret military branch since I was young to give me the chance to kill a dangerous terrorist organisation that killed my loved one, but then found out that it the was the military branch that killed my loved one, and used my anger to trick me into working for them, which then made me turn on them, resulting in me being overpowered by this unbelievable social evil people and being brainwashed and thus forgetting the past few days?

These were my ideas for national writer's month, that me and jason probably be too lazy to do in the end.

teoh,

merry christmas '10

2010-12-26T22:38:00.002+11:00

Merry Christmas from the Teoh Family!

teoh,

moving movies

2010-12-19T13:54:00.002+11:00

What makes a movie moving to you? What makes you love a movie so much, you watch over and over again, no matter how old it becomes?

As of late, the movies I've been seeing have failed to impress. Most recently, we saw Tron 3D. It was a good movie, and despite it being a Disney movie, it was very mature in terms of action and plot. But nothing was there that really moved me.

So what movies have moved me. I guess what I really love is epic/inspiration movies. You know, those final speeches given by leaders before leading all their men to death, or that final surprise that allows victory, with all the glorious soundtrack behind it. The rising feeling in your stomach as you watch the movie, wanting to stand up and join in, that's what I love.

Emotional scenes work too. I think the climax of Tron near the end (without spoilers) could've moved me more if there were tears shed or something. The animation Up was quite touching in some scenes.

I hope a new movie comes out soon that meets these expectations.

teoh,

the salmat christmas party

2010-12-12T23:20:00.010+11:00

Salmat Christmas Party

My company christmas party was last night, at the Jason Coleman's Ministry of Dance venue. Apparently Jason Coleman is some judge on Dancing with the Stars, and he was there, but I didn't take much notice (no offence mr.coleman :3 just not a fan)

This was one of those events where I umm's and err'd about going. I felt like it was going to turn out like clubbing events, and I had already made loose plans with friends. On the other hand, I recently felt like I wasn't so close with my workmates, so I wanted to go and connect with them more; there was also the slightest chance of meeting new people, a wish I always seem to have with these events. However, the environment of the party tended to reflect any attempt of meeting new people as hitting on the opposite sex. So I contented myself with the former reason.

In the end, I decided to go, and my friends were kind enough to accommodate my change of plans (half of it fell through anyway, not enough mah-jong players dammit!). And I was glad I did.

It was a good adventure. For one, I drove into the city, as the place was nowhere near a train station. It was an easy drive, and parking was sweet. The party started off slow as always, bit of standing around and talking and drinking. I almost was tricked into drinking an alcoholic drink, as they gave out ‘slurpees’ but they were clearly not after my first sip >=|

And then we ‘danced’. The girls did anyway. And so did of the smoother guys that ‘had it’. I just bopped around and made a fool of myself. But it was fun and no one made too much fun of me. There was a live band who were quite good, and I enjoyed myself immensely. The night ended at midnight and thank god my friends didn’t go to after party stuff (as I was driver for one of my friends, Lucky), cause my legs were killing me. Fun times!

next post: the forge and the dawn treader!

teoh,

Phillip island

2010-12-06T23:34:00.005+11:00

So on the 4th December, we disembarked on our first 'road trip'!

Phillip Island can't really be called a road trip I guess, since it's only one and a half hour drive. But it was the first time our group had gone away on a trip together since gold coast. I was so excited to have pulled off organizing it with amanda. In total, there were 8 of us: me, amanda, tangs x2, david ng, esther, edward, and sharon. We linked up with ling on both days, as he was down there for missionary work.

I think food was the hardest to decide. Buying for 8 people was slightly tough, and I'd like to

make a note here: 3x sausages, 1x meat pattie, 3x chicken wings and salad is a pretty good amount for each person. We did end up having leftovers, but we had a lot of it for breakfast on top of the bacon and eggs we bought. We did have a leftover bag of chicken wings though.

Anyway, we only had rough plans of what to do at Phillip Island, but due to the fact that most people had been to the place, we couldn't decide what to do. In the end, it didn't matter, cause the weather was SOOOO PERFECT. I was so scared that it would rain through out, but boy was I wrong. Even Sunday cleared up, as predicted by David's inner weather instincts.

So we spent both days at the beach. Frisbee, soccer, mucking aroun

d, splashing around. I don't know about the others, but I really enjoyed it. I love the beach, making stuff in the sand, wading in the water. It was awesome.

We also played some games at night: mafia, stupidhead, jenga, and one of jason's friends came over and taught us psychiatrist, in which one person left the room and the group would make up a rule such as: everyone is the person to the left of them. So any questions Julian would ask us, we would answer as if we were the person next to us. It was a loooong game, but entertaining (mostly).

It was also Janice's birthday on Sunday, which made it even more special of a trip. Happy birthday Janice! =] We surprised her with a cake. We failed to light a sparkler for her, lacking matches. We tried using the car cigarette lighter - it doesn't work hahahaha.

Thanks to everyone who came, it was goooood times~!

teoh,

one hundredth post

2010-12-02T22:41:00.003+11:00

so by now, facebook is probably being flooded by monash uni student updates about whether or not they have graduated/passed/repeating etc. I'm neutrally stating that I have passed all my units with distinctions. Once again, I am glad I have passed and disappointed that there were no HD's involved, yet with the same doubt if I deserved one or not. Whatever. Getting over results gets easier and easier as the years pass.

So me and amanda have organised a Phillip Island trip this weekend, which should be fun. Doubtful of the weather, but should be a good time anyway. I am looking forward to getting away, even for just the 2 days and spending it with good company.

I have recently shot off a resume to K-mart helpdesk upstairs (I am currently Colesgroup helpdesk), as I have become very frustrated at work. However, I believe the frustration is mainly due to the fact that I did not get vacation work and I'm very stressed about it. Still, a change of work environment would be welcomed. I hope I get the new position.

100th post, yet I am struggling to make this post interesting, if at all.

Christmas time is here, and it's time to think presents! My sister also coming back from living in the UK for a whole year! So there will be no doubt various family events in the next few weeks.

Also my 21st is coming up but I don't feel like doing anything. Jan + Feb seems very empty. I could possible go to Malaysia with my mum. Or Sydney.

Ok I give up.

Teoh,

harry potter and the movie review

2010-11-25T23:21:00.003+11:00

This is my 99th post on this blog =]

So it's been a long break between my posting. Exams, interviews, parties, holidays; all of the above have gone and past, except for the last which is thankfully still going. I'll have a brief overview of all of it later. What I want to talk about is.. HARRY POTTER!

First and foremost, in order to give a proper review for this movie, it is ASSUMED and critical that you have read the book. If you have not, then you will find the movie rubbish and have no idea what's going on at all.

Before we get to the movie...

Turning novels into books are always difficult. In the handful of such movies I've seen, I can barely think of any that have done a good job. I believe that these movies only have one purpose: bringing the book alive into imagery with all it's environments, characters and the emotional attachment readers associate with them. This is very dangerous, as a person's unique imagination as they read is far better than a director's vision of a cinematic production.

I would like these movies to simply guide you through the important parts of the plot, bringing the more iconic places alive as beautifully as possible, and having the characters' emit their personalities. So as you sit there watching it, you're drawn back into the story, remembering the adventure as you read it. The movie should definitely make you want to go read the book again after seeing it.

As a vivid Harry Potter reader since grade 4, I have read the books many times and know the plot quite well. That being said, most of the first four movies succeed quite well in turning the novels into films. The last three movies however, have had more difficult jobs, as the plots become more intense, complicated and longer. Breaking up the last book into two parts sounded like a good idea, as this would allow more detail that those last three movies lacked.

The movie (as none of my readers that I know of are HP fans (except for hong), there will be spoilers)
The plot of this book is very complicated, as it ties up a lot of loose ends of the whole series. The way some of it was communicated through the book is very hard to put on screen, such as Dumbledore's past which was pages and pages of a newspaper extract in the book. So hard, that even I had a hard time keeping track of the plot in the movie. There were flashbacks that probably made no sense to a lot of people out there. But as I've said, the movie is for Harry Potter fans, so most would've been OK. I was glad to see that most of the plot was the same as the story, with minor changes.

However, the actual movie wasn't executed very well. For starters, it was quite dull. Granted, there are not many action scenes in the first half of the book, but there were scenes which could've included much more special effects and action. I was especially disappointed with the Lovegood's house, which just ended up with a black shadows blowing up a house. People are correct in saying that they just walk around a lot - it doesn't even feel like the quest to kill Voldemort. It felt like camping in the woods, running away from people to kill us.

In fact, there were many scenes in which I felt had large potential to draw out emotion from the audience, but just wasn't. Rupert Grint(?) did the best job in keeping laughs through out most of the movie, but other than that I can't see why Hong was crying in the movie. Hermoine erasing her parents' memories could've been acted out much better with some tears, some actual memory flashes disappearing or something rather. Mad eye dying. Hedwig dying!? (c'mon that was so sad, but it was dealt so flippantly) Harry at his parents' grave and the destroyed house. Dobby dying was almost done so well, until (I thought) Daniel Radcliff's acting ruined it.

The Three Brother's story was indeed animated well. But it was an animation, so I don't give it any real credit as part of the movie. And as with the last Harry Potter scene, I cringe at all the pointless stuff they put in. Ginny needing her dress zipped up? Harry's dance with Hermione? None of that is needed to convey anything to the audience and just furthers frustrates me.

In conclusion, it was a weak movie. I am disappointed (but not by heaps) both as part of the audience and as a Harry Potter fan. And sadly, I can't help to think that the 2nd part won't be much better. Thanks to Sharlina for coming to watch it with me!

teoh,

friend hopping

2010-11-07T19:14:00.002+11:00

I've had the pleasure of making some new friends in the past few weeks of exam studying. First I started studying with Branavan, who I hadn't had the chance to work with through out the year, which introduced me to his group of friends, who I now enjoy the good company of when I study.

Although it's not the most efficient study group, as we all study different thing, it's a really nice group to hang out with and to have company of. I am grateful that they invited me to their little group during exams.

I should get back into social networking. I used to have 4 or 5 groups during high school I would catch up with. Now it's just my close group and one or two uni groups. Hopefully these holidays will allow me to do this.

On the note of social network, the movie was quite entertaining, though I'm not sure if it's worth seeing in the cinemas. But the way the story was presented was entertaining and drew me in. Interesting little back-story to the popular website most of the world now uses.

I have a pre-interview with a HR rep tomorrow for a potential vacation spot. Wish me luck.

teoh,

money ambitions

2010-10-29T20:42:00.002+11:00

It was perfect that I decided to watch 'the social network' after my exam today, because it's furthering my thoughts in my future career.

Mark Zuckerberg owns an online social network that is worth more than 25 billion dollars, that was built back in high school. Amazing. That's only 6 years after it was first launched back in 2004. I'm not sure how true the movie depicted the foundations, but it seems fairly accurate to the facts in wikipedia. The movie is a good watch for some college drama, but not too sure it's a blockbuster worth seeing in the cinema.

At the moment, I am studying engineering, a professional trade, in which I plan to take into the industry, and work my way up through the positions, hopefully ending up somewhere near a project management position. That's annual salary, increased through promotion.

The way Mark did it was to take an idea and explode it into money. Granted, it was one in a billion of an idea, but the concept is still there. But to explode that idea, he had to apply his insane programming skills and use his friends economics degree knowledge. Skills and experience.

Not that I'm saying I want to be a millionaire or anything. In my opinion, the more money you have, the more trouble comes with it, despite the obvious benefits. But I am curious about the different paths of earning money.

Then again, you also have the moral side of things. I remember a year or so back, a person tried to scam me and jason into joining pretty much a pyramid scheme (look it up, pretty common stuff). One of the excellent points that jason brought up was that the pyramid scheme was all about making more money; there was hardly any contributions to society in general. True, you can make lots of money and then use it to contribute that way, but come on (a point to be further discussed in the future maybe?)

Anyway, the whole point of this is not the money, but taking on a challenge and making it to your goal. Something I lack a lot in my life. I wish to think on this further, after exams (and during.).

teoh,

exam tomorrow!

2010-10-28T20:15:00.003+11:00

Pr(Exam tomorrow) = 1.

Magie is now almost back to her normal self, after 2 weeks of hardship. Thanks to everyone for called/texted me about her, your concern was greatly appreciated. She has a lot of patches of fur missing from all the tests that we did, but otherwise is eating lots more and acting like her old self more. Unfortunately, now my mum is sick! Haha! Nothing to serious though.

teoh,

looking ahead

2010-10-26T23:17:00.004+11:00

So I no longer want those depressing posts on my blog, so on we go. Had Andrew's 21st on Sunday night. I had a really good time hanging out with some of my favourite high school friends. It was a good night.

Magie is still sick, we just cannot find out what's wrong with her. She's had a pretty terrible week, in and out of the vet, hospitalized and had an ultrasound today (which turned up negative). She's really exhausted, but ate some chicken thanks to some drugs to make her feel better. As little as she means to my readers, I ask people to keep her in your thoughts and prayers, she means the world to me.

I am currently trying to figure out what I want to do with myself in the future (better late than never). Engineering sounds good, but I think want something more. My dad has given me some articles and magazines about young millionaires, and I'm wondering how to get ambitious. Not millionaire ambitious, but just ambitious.

I was watching some of The Apprentice, which is so much fun to watch people back stab and yell like children on television, finger pointing etc. I feel like tim watching it, laughing evilly as someone gets verbally bashed. Anyway, my point was, as a prize, project managers get to meet with CEOs etc. One of them said, all the most successful people in the world right now are breathing the same air you are.

So after reading some of the stuff my dad gave me, I figured to get ambitious, you have to be inspired or passionate. Since I don't have a strong passion towards anything particularly, I guess I have to go for inspired. So inspire me. I might look into reading some books later after exams.

I would also like to talk about bathroom conversations. There should be a rule that if you are in the bathroom, doing your business, no talking is allowed between fellow bathroomers. I mean, it's so awkward! And I do not want to be holding a conversation in a echo-y room, with flushing toilets, running water, really LOUD hand dryers. A friendly nod and a hi, OK fine acceptable. But that's it! Also they need to soundproof cubical.

Talking about work, I had a fun time getting to know two new people at work today (so much that I didn't do any study =_=) I think I enjoy getting to know people. There's a position at work for Cultural Committee (one person being a committee) that organises events and stuff for people. I think I might take it when I get back from work. I wouldn't mind organising a bowling night or something for everyone.

Good luck to all fellow students doing exams right now. All the best.

teoh.

that time of year

2010-10-19T21:59:00.004+11:00

it's been a continuously terrible, even though we're in the next week. just happens to be my life low for now.

magie has been sick for the past few days. Long story short, at first it was just her licking herself to the point of not being able to walk around properly, and now she seems to have digested something bad. She was doing a lot of crazy things, like eating grass (apparently dogs do that when they're stomachs hurt), not coming inside the whole night when it was freezing outside, vomiting etc. I was up all saturday night and had completely lost it by sunday morning and broke down; just didn't know how to help her anymore. Luckily my brother came from his place and helped me out.

Her conditions seems to have slightly improved today, even though we had been suggested to hospitalize her. She ate by herself tonight, which is good as she hasn't eaten since saturday. I pray she gets better soon. Nothing is OK until she is.

Still no calls on vacation work either. On the brink of giving up. Bad kick start to my career.

Even though all this bad stuff happens to you, it's amazing how life still goes on. You could have your arm amputated, but when you come home after surgery, you'd find bills and stuff in your letter box. The world doesn't stop because your suffering. You just have to troop on. I am struggling to follow this concept I admit. But one day I will look back on this post/time, and realised I survived through it.

teoh,

that time of year

2010-10-19T21:59:00.003+11:00

it's been a continuously terrible, even though we're in the next week. just happens to be my life low for now.

magie has been sick for the past few days. Long story short, at first it was just her licking herself to the point of not being able to walk around properly, and now she seems to have digested something bad. She was doing a lot of crazy things, like eating grass (apparently dogs do that when they're stomachs hurt), not coming inside the whole night when it was freezing outside, vomiting etc. I completely lost it sunday morning and broke down; just didn't know how to help her anymore. Luckily my brother came from his place and helped me out.

Her conditions seems to have slightly improved today, even though we had been suggested to hospitalize her. She ate by herself tonight, which is good as she hasn't eaten since saturday. I pray she gets better soon. Nothing is OK until she is.

Still no calls on vacation work either. On the brink of giving up. Bad kick start to my career.

teoh,

R.I.P Flora

2010-10-13T19:51:00.002+11:00

Sigh, this whole week is full of death and gloom.

My last fish Flora seems to have died from being a lone/depression, as I couldn't see anything wrong with the tank itself. It's saddening, but at the same time I'm sure 'she' would've rather not lingered around by herself all alone.

Ah, I can't wait for this week to be over..

inspire me.

2010-10-10T23:53:00.000+11:00

wants to read an inspiring engineer autobiography.

teoh,

R.I.P Rainbow

2010-10-06T23:52:00.003+11:00

my oldest fish, rainbow, passed away tonight.

rest in peace my friend. it was a good 10+ years of life. you taught me the responsibilities of keeping another life. thanks =[

teoh,

different minds

2010-10-05T23:01:00.004+11:00

let it be known that I owned myself in this post.

and you will never read it.

banned!

2010-10-03T23:53:00.005+11:00

These are dark days. The coming month looks very bleak at the moment. Mid-semester break was a joke.

We were talking about banned companies or brands the other day. Here is mine:

Sony VIAO - expensive, nothing more. First-hand experience.

HP / compaq - generally crap, terrible customer service.

Western Digital - passport harddrive cables seem to be a large problem nowadays

Apple - just kidding

Pets Paradise - horrible customer service

Telstra - nothing else needed to be said.

KFC - it's not worth it

I swear I had more, but I forget. I'll come back and edit when I remember.

teoh,

infinite abyss

2010-09-25T22:34:00.002+10:00

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

2010-09-18T18:19:00.003+10:00

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

2010-09-13T11:34:00.003+10:00

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.

2010-09-03T18:34:00.003+10:00

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

2010-09-02T19:13:00.002+10:00

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,

you have a virus!

2010-08-24T21:57:00.002+10:00

Boy I'm so out of it right now. Struggling to finish off this cover letter and then heading straight to bed.

Just something I forgot to post a week ago. A call for me came the other day, from some indian fellow who is part of some company that is with Microsoft. And he was there today to talk to me about my computer. Interesting. How did he get my name is a bit scary, but I suppose that kind of information is easily found nowadays.

He then proceeded to tell me about a malicious (nice word) virus had infected my PC. Zomg! However, I already knew this was a scam, and he was interrupting a movie I was watching, so I was a bit over aggressive with him. I demanded to know how he knew there was a virus on my PC, how I got it when I 'hadn't touched the computers for days', that I would know if I had a virus cause I'm actually an employee of Microsoft myself. At that point, he actually said I'm not putting up with this and hung up. Which I thought was a bit odd, as he was the scammer.

Anyway, I've researched this before, cause my friend Elisha told me she had the same kind of thing happen to her a few weeks ago. It's a known scam, and they try and instruct you to install some kind of program on your computer.

Sigh. So people, tell your parents, cause this is obviously targeted to people who have no idea about computers. Fact: no anti-virus company, Microsoft etc. will ever contact you directly unless you have first contacted their service desk.

I wish I had controlled my frustration and strung him out a little long for fun.

teoh,

this strange feeling...

2010-08-23T16:57:00.004+10:00

so I've been using a itrip that my friend greg at work gave me (so generous even if he doesn't use it anymore) and I use the station 99.9 cause it just looks cool on my radio. Niiiiinety nine, oh yeah. Kinda James Bond style. Maybe I should get some matching James Bond music...mmm.

Anyway, I've discovered a strange alien broadcast on 99.9 just past the stud road and high street intersection. I drive down stud road everyday to get to uni via ferntree gully, and without fail, my music starts to crackle and fizz, like you usually have when another device near by over rides yours. I guess the experience level of my itrip is not high enough. Maybe I need to equip it with better items (like, not my sister's old ipod?). Or maybe itrip is weak to belkin-type. I digress again.

So this particular area seems to have a broad cast on going all the time. I can hear the faint thump of drums and murmurs, but I can never quite hear what it is. Sounds alien like to me. Maybe they're not building houses in that construction lot at all. Maybe it's a government cover up for alien landing zones and you need the decryption to understand the broadcast.

So yeah, when you take a drive down to knox via stud road, switch your radio over to 99.9 and join the mystery fun.

(picture of starcraft 2 carrier unit =] may or may not be real.)

On a more realistic note, here's a fun fact: we're running out of helium (via gizmodo):

Apparently, the world is running out of helium. Robert Richardson, a Nobel Prizewinner, believes that helium supplies will run out in 25 years. And since no other substance has a lower boiling point than helium, this could be a problem.

I guess we’re wasting helium by throwing it into birthday balloons because Richardson thinks that “helium is far too cheap and is not treated as a precious resource.” And he’s right, when you inhale something for the sole purpose of talking in a funny voice, you’re not exactly treating it as a precious resource. Helium, because of its low boiling point, also makes for a great cooling source and is used to manufacture fibre optics and LCDs. So it’s actually kind of important.

Yeah I bet you regret those happy moments with those balloons that you probably accidentally let go of anyway and let it flew away. Now our children won't have floating balloon. sad. =[

teoh,

all in a day's work

2010-08-19T21:13:00.003+10:00

alright, update finally. today will be a general update, movie review and laptop review, so prepare yourself for a long-ish post.

For some reason, university has been quite light on work so far. Mind you, I'm not complaining, but I'm getting a little paranoid. Everyone else seems to have work, where's ours? It could be that they are giving us time to do our vacation work, but surely they can't be that considerate

I've been putting my free time to good use. I've done a lot of research for my dream job at GHD, and applied to a few other companies. Speaking of vacation work, congrats to Amanda, who secured a internship at KPMG, way to go. Proud of you.

I've also been dabbling in a bit of Starcraft 2 now and then, which has been good fun. I hope to get good enough to do a bit of competitive gaming, if time will allow. It's also a nice workout for my graphics card, which I haven't really used that much. A game review might be in order later on.

A few 21st coming up, September has always been a busy birthday period.

Work lately has become a bit dull, as a lot of the regulars have left, which is disappointing. Not as fun as it used to be, but I'm glad that my friends have moved on to new places. Good for them.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

For starters, this movie is based on comics, which is based on games. So it's obviously a nerdy movie, but oh it was so much fun to watch. The opening Universe logo was displayed in retro 32-bit graphics! How awesome.

The general plot is about a boy who falls in love with this girl, who has 7 evil ex-boyfriends he must defeat if he is to go out with her. There isn't a lot of reality in this movie, with characters suddenly gaining the ability to fight, surviving being thrown into a castle, coming back to life, pulling a sword out of your chest etc. But what reality was taken out, is replaced with sheer nerdy awesomeness. Watch the trailer, and you'll know what I mean.

As movies go, it was very enjoyable to watch and worth my money. The acting was nothing special, although the dialogue was quite entertaining. There were a few special effects that were very cool, but nothing Avatar-like. If you didn't like the trailer, chances are you won't like the movie.

Laptop: Toshiba T130-0E1

So that dead pixel I had awhile ago? The whole laptop was replaced thanks to my Dad, so this is officially my new laptop. Specs: 13", dual core 1.4, 4gb ram, onboard Intel graphics, 320gb harddrive. Nothing that wow, but the laptop itself is quite light (1.7kg I think) and quite portable.

The only faults I have with it are: glossy keys get dirty really fast and not sure if the wireless is slightly worse than normal. Seems to have a hard time picking up wireless signals unless close to the router. Otherwise, it's nice fit for my purposes, mainly doing work at university and work.

teoh,

Meat & Wine Co Review

2010-08-08T22:29:00.006+10:00

It is my dad's birthday on Tuesday, so we decided to go out to celebrate at a fancy place in the city.

Meat & Wine Co is located on Southbank, just near MacDonalds, on Queensbridge street. It is famous for it's wide combination of meat and wine. It features a restaurant with two levels, and a lounge bar which sometimes holds special events.

The Restaurant

I've actually been in this area a few times from crown, and was surprise to find it was not a fancy dress place. No one wore anything more fancy than my own outfit that you can see in the pictures, so it's a very casual restaurant. The restaurant itself is very nice, the bar is quite comfortable, dining tables are spacey enough. The restaurant actually extends out onto the footpath, but you wouldn't be able to tell thanks to tight plastic walls and heaters.
Make no mistake though, the prices are not casual. As you would expect from a meathouse, the prices range from entrée dishes for fifteen dollars to steak and chips for as much as fifty dollars. Sides extra four dollars. Not a place for the tight budget.

Service

The night started off terribly. My brother told them his name and the time he booked, and they could not find it. The lady then proceeded to tell my brother that it was booked for 6PM, not 730PM and quote "you must've misunderstood me". She then rudely gave us a look of 'you are so inconvenient' and told us to wait in the bar while she sorted something out. No apology. No when she'll come up and tell us. Just shoved us aside. I was ready to let loose some Teoh rage at her.

Thankfully, that was the end of bad service. 10 - 15 minutes later, we got a table, where we were served with one of the friendliest waitress I've met. She took care of us like a waitress should, inquiring if we were celebrating and arranged a birthday scoop of ice cream for my dad (then again this could've been a trap: see below). All waiters and waitresses were very polite, with sir's and lady's. Food came at a respectable duration of around 20 minutes.

The service at the table was very satisfactory. Front service, look out.

FoodThe prices drove my expectations quite high, and I can say that they were met in some regards. I had a rib platter ($50), containing beef, lamb and pork ribs and chips. It was huge. 1kg of meat. I managed to get t hrough most of it and it was delicious. The sauce was nice, and the meat was really tender; very easy to eat off the bone. However, it was a bit disappointing that salads were not included in my meal. I felt a bit sick after a while just devouring a whole plate of meat and fried potato chips.

My brother's steak was delicious, the meat was so tender and he got 600g of it. It also cost fifty dollars. I had a nice chunk of it and enjoyed tearing through it like an animal (I used my fingers cause they were already dirty from the ribs). Overall, I think my family was pleased with the food delivered.

The dessert was an apple and rhubarb crumble, which was satisfactory but not outstanding.

Verdict

I would like to re-experience this place again, maybe next year. There's no doubt it is expensive, but the food and nice table service makes up for it. However, the trap I mentioned before: the ice scoop that my dad got for his birthday surprise? They charged us for it, $3. That's just wrong in principle.

I will probably never take my high school friends, as they are both pov and not used to eating that western food. But my workmates might enjoy it. 21st possiblitiy? Only with a few people.

Recommend for steak enthusiasts and those who can afford a nice night out.

teoh,

undercover boss

2010-08-03T23:39:00.002+10:00

I have recently just watched episode 4 of undercover boss, and I must say, I really love it.

I know, it's mostly television-ised and there seems to be a lot of set up scenes and such in there. But a little part of me really hopes that some of it is true. Because I believe so much in the concept behind it.

I've only had 3 part time jobs in my life, but in all of those jobs I have experienced some awesome co-workers. The work environment is the easiest by far to make new friendships and become close with one another. You support and work together all the time, share the same issues, connect in a way unlike any other I have yet to experience. I have been lucky to have had 3 awesome part time jobs, and even luckier to meet the people that I have.

There are so many great people out there, and so many of them are found right down in the labor front lines. The positions don't have to be respectable or high class for people to be the same. The front line is one of the toughest positions there is and you have to work so hard to do your job well, and receive almost no recognition for it. The amazing people do it anyway.

My workplace is a good example. It doesn't take too much to do my job properly. As long as you meet certain targets, you're considered a good worker. However, I know many of my co-workers who go the extra extra mile. Will they get recognition for it? Not really. So why do they do it? Cause they're just decent people. You know who you are.

People like them deserve to be recognized and rewarded. I love watching the CEO meeting amazing people in their company, and then speak to them afterwards. I look forward to watching more of these inspiring stories.

Some day, if I'm ever a manager, or who knows, a top boss, I hope I will remember these stories.

teoh,

long and let live

2010-08-02T20:00:00.006+10:00

okay, time for an overdue update:

Mum's birthday

It was my mum's birthday last wednesday - happy birthday mum! my brother came home and we bought her a cake, magazine subscription, flowers and hairspray tickets. the cake was a hazelnut flourless cake and was quite nice!

Vacation Work

I've been stressing a bit about vacation work, cause I'm slowly coming to terms about how competitive it is out there. My top preference company (see I won't say due to paranoia that you will go apply - like it'll make a difference) is quite elite and I'm not really sure of my chances with pretty average marks like mine. Fingers crossed for me please! I'm doing quite a bit of preparation, even signing up for mock interviews and such, so I hope it pays off.

Technology

Currently in the market for a new laptop, and almost got one today! Toshiba T130 is quite suitable for my uses and it was on sale at harvey norman for 1000! Unfortunately I found a dead pixel on mine and it was the last one in stock. Ah well. Hunt continues.

Also quick review, I finally replaced my old harddrive with this! I do love my tech toys.

Lacie 500GB rugged, USB 3.0! For those who don't know, everyone is universally using USB 2.0, so this is the next gen stuff. My computer thankfully is next gen, so I already have a USB 3.0 slot. So testing it out, I get rough speeds of around 78MB/s, which is triple the usual speed. Nice! It did, however, cost me a little extra than usual ($210) and are only available online shops so far.

teoh,

going for office

2010-07-25T22:30:00.006+10:00

I just watched the most amount of television I've seen than in the holidays. Hurrah for MasterChef, good fun. Very pleased with the outcome.

The only thing the Great Debate gave me was confirmation that politician are so frustrating. Always dancing around the issue, repeating their slogans over and over and generally annoying me. Initially I wasn't going to vote Labor due to take over from Gillard, but Tony Abbott used the word 'fair dinkum' too many damn times, so he's lost my vote. Also, he hasn't got any charisma, do not like him at all.

Therefore we should all vote for me to be Prime Minister instead. I have past experience! Back in Primary school, when we were learning about Parliament, we set up a mock Government, and I was elected Prime Minister, no joke! As leader of our country, I would address the real issues of our country.

Teleportation would be the highest priority and my driving force for my election. With Teleportation, our country would both be more sustainable and boost our economy to make our country not only the strongest in the world, but in the galaxy (beat that Gillard). It will help decrease the cost of living, as there is no need to spend money on fuel, transportation for major companies will cut out, decreasing the price on goods and generally improve our lives. It will resolve the ridiculous Myki system and the coming waste of money on it.

This would also solve the boating problem, as a detention center with minimal space could be easily created within weeks (and in Australia, not in some unstable government place I've never heard of), by throwing people into a teleporter back to where they came from. Easy.

Teleportation will help create more jobs for people and emphasis education in the Mathematics field, which is lacking. I would personally supervise to ensure research is completed by 2020. That is my promise to YOU.

I respect the Australian electorates, and I think they will respect me as a fellow Australian. As a hard working student, I know many of the grits of life and the common problems in our lives. As Prime Minister, you can count on me to know the people of Australia and the important issues.

Vote for Teoh, and help me teleport Australia forward!

teoh,

back to mediocre

2010-07-18T17:24:00.005+10:00

so I'm sitting here, looking through my subject unit guide, getting a glimspe of the miserable semester ahead of me. A lot of constant assignment due every week, group formations of 3 only which means I get kicked out of my usual group of 4, tests/labs/reports/presentations, yuck! Back to the student life as my mum would say.

Things are getting pretty depressing at work too. A lot of my colleges that I have known pretty much since I've worked there are leaving. I'm happy for most of them, as there are a few people at work who deserve much better than a 1st level call center operator. But it makes work less enjoyable, though it is still a good job to have.

I am currently resisting getting a can of coke at work. I ate so much crap this holidays, probably causing all the pimples on my face =[ Instead, I'm drinking lots of tea. Which is making me go on personal breaks to the toliet alot.

I still have yet to write a melbourne post. And I think I'll make a new banner and layout too.

And that's all I want to write. Or complain. My friend sarah said I complain a lot. That's probably true. (but it was cold in adelaide) What a crap post.

teoh,

july trip - radelaide

2010-07-15T18:26:00.014+10:00

spent most of the day feeling that emptiness when you travel with friends for so long, and then suddenly they're gone =[ miss my friends already.

so on the 3rd of july, I left for Adelaide, flying solo with Tiger Airways. Tiger has a new check in process, where you can self check in online if you have no check in luggage, which I did. Surprisingly, it went quite smoothly, I was at my boarding gate within 2 minutes of arriving at the terminal 4 (aka the tin shed next to the airport).

I was reunited with an amazing five people at Adelaide: visiting with me was Sarah, looking pretty with straightened and dyed hair, Hao Zhe the magician who we were staying with, Nicolle, Kim and Adrianna. We also met a few of Nicolle's friends who entertained us to no end; Juliet, with a cool nickname Jet, the proper speaking Maria (hilarious accent) and various of Nicolle's boys =]

My first time being in Adelaide, I didn't have much expectations. People had always dubbed it as a hole, but I knew it couldn't be that bad. My first impressions were that it was less fast paced than Melbourne. There were less cars crowding the roads (road limits were mostly 60 zones too), the community felt closer at a bar we went to, no high rise buildings. It was quite nice actually, as a person who does not like crowds. I'd imagine I would feel more comfortable driving into Adelaide city than Melbourne.

Hao Zhe took us to Mt.Lofty, sort of a look out towards Adelaide, and it's very spread out. Reminds me of New Zealand a bit. Cleland Wildlife Park was pretty fun too, feeding kangaroos and wallabies (they're so cute!).

Me and Sarah had the chance to explore the city one day. I think we only went down a few well known streets, and it wasn't anything special, but a nice city to hang out in. That said, I'm not a city person, so I probably wouldn't appreciate the nice things about it anyway. It was definitely smaller than Melbourne, but not in a bad way.

Nicolle took us to the Adelaide Zoo (where we met up with Kim) and Victor Harbor. The Zoo was entertaining, but nothing that much different than any other zoo. Victor Harbor was quite beautiful, I wish I could've gone swimming. We went around Granite Island, which the high light of the day for me was sitting on this huge rock on the edge, close to the ocean. It would've been a favorite hang out spot for me, looking at the waves crash against the shore. Awesome.

Other than that, we hung out at Hao Zhe's and Nicolle's place. Hao Zhe's unit is quite amusing, his room has a hole in the roof where the room light should be and his car matches the unit (emergency brake light doesn't work, engine often dies, 20 km up a hill). Funny moments include (but not limited to) fail to see karate kid (Adelaide get their movies a week later than us), tiger in the bathroom and sarah's tassie devil enthusiasm born.

Absolutely great to catch up with them all in Adelaide. Hope to return there someday soon to visit. Thanks to Nicolle and HaoZhe for showing us around. Also interesting to see their houses and family =]

teoh,

that was heaps good.

2010-07-14T22:30:00.003+10:00

phwor, the end to an amazing 11 day holiday !

I'll probably write up a few specific posts about the past week and a half at work when I have time. For now, a few thoughts and feelings.

First feeling, dead tired. I usually take holidays pretty easy, but I've pretty much had something on every day, which is definitely a good thing. No time wasted doing unproductive things on the computer, or sleeping in so late I feel groggy the whole day. But I have absolutely no stamina, and I was pretty eager to have a 3 hour nap this afternoon.

I was also pretty surprised at how well the whole thing turned out, some sort of Mega Catch Up. To think that at New Zealand Airport, I felt like I would never see these guys for years, maybe even fade from memory. But I managed to see so many people this holidays, it was an awesome feeling, cause I missed them heaps.
At first, it was just Sarah coming down to Melbourne, then Genevieve and Ellen headed down too. Then I decided to go visit SA to catch up with HaoZhe, Adrianna, Nicolle and Kim, inviting Sarah to come along. And then Nicolle also decided to head over to Melbourne. Cass also made it down there and caught up with us twice, and Jarryd too.

The one thing I love about these close friends (I no longer think of them as ISV friends), is that they seem to push me to expand myself to places I wouldn't usually go. For example, everyone knows I suck at driving, especially to new places, but we went to quite a few these holidays. They're also different to my usual close group, and I love their different way of thinking (grandma is quite cynical), speech (nicolle has a funny SA accent) and weird little habits (ellen has stiff elbows).

From left to right at the back: Gen, Nicolle, Me, Sarah and Ellen sitting in front. Purposely made to look like a family photo hahaha.

It was fun having them at my house, like a little family. My parents were really good in letting them all stay, and everything went really smoothly. I was a little stressed out, cause I didn't know if they were going to have a fun time with me, but I think it turned out ok! We watched a lot of movies though haha.

Facebook has improved their photo uploader..I managed to upload all 170 photos within a few minutes. Nice.

Events and places we went to follow. Mt.Lofty, Cleland Park, Adelaide Zoo, Victor Harbor, Science Works, Dandenong ranges, Balacava, Movies, Healsville, Lygon street and random fun moments.

teoh,

off on holiday

2010-07-02T20:18:00.003+10:00

so 1st July was an awesome kick off to the holidays.

spent some time with a friend in the morning, going around to jells park and knox city. Then had a fight with telstra over our latest bill (which in hindsight seems correct, but still their fault for stuffing up the past ones, confusing me!!) and won, so I got a month of internet free. Then had a big catch up with glenny people, which turned out surprisingly well, despite some last minute organising (=P tim). Watch toy story 3, which I classify as a 'movie worth paying for'.

Awesome day.

Anyway, I'm really lacking sleep, and I'm heading off to Adelaide tomorrow! It came so soon, I haven't even packed yet. So adiós until next thursday. have fun in your HO HO HO HOOOOLIDAYS!!

teoh,

last few steps

2010-06-27T10:25:00.004+10:00

as always, i'm struggling to get through my last few days of studying T_T sorry urban water.

so instead, i've gone onto ebay and found the adidas star wars shoes that my brother showed me on facebook =] decided on a pair of x-wing sambas, but will probably buy another high-top shoe if this purchase turns out alright. original price is aorund $300 in the stores at melb central, but got these for $180. fingers crossed.

mmmm so cool. nice subtle new republic logo, not a fan of the x-wing word though. can't wait. nice present to come back to after adelaide.

dammit, i was suppose to be saving for my new laptop, which I'm having second thoughts about.

teoh,

out of the study box

2010-06-21T19:19:00.005+10:00

two down, two to go my friends.

I spent today mostly relaxing, sleeping and watching the news. I only just heard about the wild teenager running around with a shotgun in Richmond, crazy stuff. I also caught up with news about the oil spill - I'm interested to hear my friends reaction to this, as it's not really discussed in public. Frankly, it's pretty damn shocking, especially after you see the oil spilled covered birds and such.

At the moment, BP's got a cap sucking up more or less half of the leak, but there's still at least 25 000 barrels of oil being leaked every day. crazy. This is what the oil spill will look like soon, as ocean currents carry it to the Atlantic =[

there was an interesting article on ideas from the public of how to plug it and why they wouldn't work listed here. I personally like the epoxy warhead lol. Cause blowing stuff up always works. (yes, sarcasm)

In other news, the missing plane with 6 mining personnel in the western regions of Africa, including chairman on the company Sundance and a billionaire. Apparently flights in the mining industry are quite hazardously usually, I guess cause you go out to the rural areas for the mine. Poor families of those 6 people, I wish all the best with the search and rescue effort.

However! I was thinking. Strange timing for this to happen isn't it. With the whole Super-Profit Tax mining thing happening that I hear on the radio. You know what. I think it's CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME. Mind you, it's most likely full of holes, as I don't know much about the current mining tax or how mining works in Australia, but let's have fun anyway.

Looking at keepminingstrong.com.au, and doing a quick google, reveals that at least 4 of the missing personnel's have past ties to large mining companies, such as BP and Macarthur. Sundance is not listed under MCA (Mining Council of Australia), but I'm pretty sure they get effected by the tax too (although most of their mining is based in Africa, so I dunno how that works).

Anyway! Assuming all of that holds true, this could all be part of a big conspiracy to undermine mining companies so that the mining tax goes through. Imagine, you're a big CEO of Teoh Mining Co., earning billions about to get cut by 58% (I saw this figure on the website, not sure how it applies lol). Of course, you fight the tax. Then, after a dinner of watching the news, of a 'mysterious' explosion and then suddenly a missing plane full of CEO and billionaires, you start to think, hmm. Then, unknown to the public, you get a letter. IT COULD BE YOU NEXT. After a few sleepless nights, you decide to withdraw your support in the pention against the government.

Yeah, think about it. And think about investing in Teoh Mining Co. as well, their shares are well up (or will be when you give me money).

teoh,

begun, the exam war has.

2010-06-14T22:52:00.002+10:00

May the Force be with us all...

and all is still.

2010-06-11T23:22:00.003+10:00

a single moment can make everything ok. =]

art by greg martin

macho man

2010-06-08T22:24:00.003+10:00

Ever since my sister has left to UK, I never get to eat yummy cupcakes anymore. But my mum still likes to bake, so yesterday I decided to help my mum bake some stuff. We made a lemon meringue pudding and some apple cupcakes. The lemon pudding turned out quite nice, zesty and sour sweet, while the apple pies were a bit overcooked as I soon found out at work. Guess we should've kept an eye on the timer instead of watching masterchef haha.

And then at work, my workmate aunty nicky brought in her daughter's netball skirt to do some sewing. I teased her, which then prompted her to challenge me in a sewing match. After taking awhile to thread the needle, I actually did a decent job of sewing on a patch.

And then I realised I'm baking. And sewing. Some of the most manly chores in the world. Oops.
Haha, but I don't really mind. I figured I should learn how to do some of this stuff anyway. Mum's not going to sew my jeans back together forever. And cooking is always a good skill to have (although whether baking and cooking are the same thing is debatable). Still I wish I did more manly activities. Like gyming. Drinking gallons of alcohol. Beating people up. Yup, that's the life.

In other news, ling, xuan and I had a DDR session at our normal boxhill location. It's been way too long, and predictably sucked. Still, it's been awhile since I've done that much physical work (haha sad) it was pretty enjoyable. Wish my exam wasn't next tuesday, otherwise I would've went again. We gotta lift our game ling. Beat that Monster Battle Course (or whatever it was called).

Studying is a bit slow at the moment. Can't seem to pick up the pace. I'm sure after failing groundwater next week will prod me into action.

Good luck to all those with exams and curses to all those that don't.

teoh,

driving blind

2010-06-03T22:47:00.003+10:00

well, it's damn foggy out there at the moment isn't it? Or is it misty? Or cloudy? Interesting question, let's find out!

it all starts off with condensation nuclei which is basically a clump or form of dust, pollutants etc., nasty stuff hanging in the air and cold weather. so when things get really cold, usually around 4 degrees, water vapour in the air start to condensate, like the water on the side of your cold drinks. The water droplets that have condensed around the dusts and pollutants (hence the name nuclei), which is allows it to be visible as fog to us. Or mist. Or clouds? Which one!?

Well apparently, fog is when visibility is reduced to 1 km or less, and mist is when visibility is reduced between 1 km and 2km. Clouds are up in sky people, sorry, just like where your common sense is if you believed that was an option.

Oh yeah, you can also get flash fogs, where certain temperatures allow fog to gather and dissipate really fast. So don't worry, you aren't seeing ghosts. - curious teoh (source: wikipedia)

So yeah, I drove home from work today and it was really foggy. haha.

Sigh, this week has been quite messy. I gotta get my mind into studying mode asap. But it will be a memorable week I think. My head hurts.

My friend Henry Lim makes these awesoooome powerpoint presentation. Just looking at them makes me want to make one. He's got an eye for presentations I tell you. I'm really proud to present our Shang Hai Expo, everyone's all ooo and aaah. I'm half afraid that my presenting is actually not even important. But I still get a kick out of it anyway.

teoh,

sigh.

2010-06-02T21:14:00.006+10:00

to: sensible me.

it's not fair.

The past few days were pretty amazing and fun. I felt like I had found someone. And today was a milestone in my life. It could've gone far and I'm mainly posting this to remember it.

Now you've ruined it. I understand the reasons why you did it and you might be right, but that doesn't stop me from hating you. Dammit.

from: lonely me.

my gwad gumball!

2010-05-30T20:22:00.007+10:00

me eating a 10+ year old giant gumball. My brother got it when we visited some family friends up in queensland who owned a lolly shop and had kept it in this metal container ever since. He wanted the container, so I ate it...for a minute before getting sick. Thankfully it was soft, I can't imagine eating it properly...

so after doing some reading, apparently the 'theory' behind tony's new element is quite plausible. Using his home-built particle accelerator, charging whatever blue particles he had in there to high energy, and then fusing two elements that when combined together would add their atomic numbers together to the desired new element, yes it is quite plausible.

However, if any of my readers are highly qualified scientists (no, you're not marco (neither are you ling)), here are a few questions: what is the triangular case made of to withstand and capture the beams energy to fuse whatever elements are inside? how does the accelerated high energy beam held constantly when it was diverted from the accelerator? I would've thought it'd need to keep it's circular motion in order to sustain itself. And finally, how does Stark make it stable? If you can answer all of these, then please join my team in building an iron man suit, as I don't want radioactive poisoning when I wear mine either.

In other news!
I don't know why, but I've got a craving for watching digimon. ><>teoh,

the giants that will never fall

2010-05-28T22:07:00.004+10:00

I. Am. Sick. Of. Telstra.

You'd think changing to a newer more recent plan would be easy; especially when I already had all the per-requisites. But NOOO. Not so apparently. Telstra goes out of it's way to STUFF IT ALL UP. So bear with my rant, I do have a point to make.

First, the stupid store doesn't even put the order through properly. Then the deal doesn't apply within 3 days. THEN, they charge me the normal price instead of the discount special. THEN, the stupid operator who gave me my discount CHANGED my plan back to the normal one. Like double-yuu-tee-eff? So that means not only do I get charged for normal price, but I get double charged for the month remaining of my non-existent faster plan. And I'm pretty sure I didn't get my $30 discount either.

So now everything is confusing, I don't get any quotes so I'm pretty sure Telstra came out of this laughing it's multi-billion ass off.

Man. I hate it when big companies can get away with stuff like this. And there's nothing we little people can do about it. Banks, telecommunications, governments, they're all the same. We need a modern Robin Hood. Someone who will go past the law and sort these guys out, cause let's face it; what else is going to hurt them? A law suit is like throwing a rock at a steel building, and having it bounce back and hit you in the eye and kill you. I'm tempted to be that person and spend the rest of my life plotting to somehow make Telstra's stock fall to negative infinity.

Btw, call-operator Alan, from one operator to another. Saying "I'm juuuuust cheeecking" for like 2 minutes does not help my patience. How about you just check it faster instead of wasting your breath saying that phrase over and over? Or put me on hold dammit, that's what soothing music is for. I'd actually prefer you to actually fix my problem, but I know that's TOO MUCH to ask from Telstra.

angry teoh,

p.s hi stalker =]

the life of luxury

2010-05-25T21:45:00.011+10:00

so I went to see Iron Man 2 again...but this time in gold class! (note my lovely 2MP pictures above)

I went with my uni friend Linda, who actually works at the doncaster village as a waitress in gold class (free tickets =]). She hadn't been once herself, so when we talked about it, we decided to go. Linda hadn't seen iron man 2 and I didn't particularly mind watching it again. It was actually good, cause I could fully enjoy the experience, while not caring too much about missing out on stuff in the movie. Also, I don't spend too much time with Linda at uni as she's only in one of my classes, so it was fun to hang out.

Gold Class Experience.

As I open the heavy glass doors that lead into this fantasy world fit only for the wealthy, first thought is: I hope I'm dressed ok. I was wearing my 'good' clothes, but nothing fancy. Despite that, I immediately felt out of place. The nice carpet, the dim lighting, the fancy plush couches, the brightly lit bar with shining wine glasses, the uniformed waiters/waitresses; it felt only the red carpet was missing.

Linda had asked me to come half an hour early, which I thought meant we were going to eat first or something. Turns out, you use that time to not only order your food, but decide what time it comes! How bizarre. And yet strangely pleasing. Power over what and when? And since I had already seen iron man, my choc-mint choctop came exactly just before the exciting end =]
The food and drink prices were, of course, through the roof. At first, I saw meals at $10 - $12, and I thought, hey not bad. Then Linda explained that they were actually snack size stuff; 2-3 pieces each. The pizza, which wasn't that great, was $24. Luckily for me, having Linda with me slashed everything by 50%. But for a normal gold class experience, good luck you cheap asians.

And now, for the one thing I would pay $25 bucks for. The chair. Oh my god, the chair! It's so big! Respectful Red. So soft, yet firm enough at the same time; comfortable. Electric relining action (made me feel like iron man to see my legs brrrr up). A nice big compartment on the side for my jacket and things. A little table on the side for my food.
The cinema was quite small; two big chairs made up a 'table'. 4 by 4 of them gave it a capactiy of 32 people (yeah, that's why me engineer, I can maths! (the next tony stark)). Tonight, there were only 6 others in the cinema.

So once the glory of it all wore off, I started criticizing things in my head.

Having waiters come by every now and then was slightly annoying. I would rather it somehow be elevated up through my little table. Cause there weren't many people in the cinema, yeah I didn't notice it as much. But if it was a full house, I could imagine people going up and down delivering stuff. Yeah that could definitely ruin my movie.

Eating and drinking in the dark is not cool. I couldn't tell what I was dipping my fried calamari into, cause I couldn't see. Plus, trying to eat and drink while a movie is on...takes my concentration away from enjoying the movie. Instead I'm trying not to spill stuff on myself. And that takes a lot of effort.

The little call button next to me was too bright. Turn it down yo.

The atmosphere wasn't there. Even with a room of 32 people, I don't think that's enough of a crowd that's usual for a movie. There were some really amusing parts in Iron Man 2, as most of you should know, but I found that Linda and I were the only ones laughing about it. New reactor core tastes like coconut, that's worth at least a room of chuckles.

Linda said many people actually go to gold class...they even have regulars! Crazy. I'm not sure if I would prefer gold class or not. The chair is such a deal breaker. Wish it had one of those sliding tables like on airplanes, and then a decent laptop and oh boy.

Awesome to experience it for the first time. My thanks to Linda for taking me. Also, driving to Doncaster was an experience. It's actually not that far from my house, but took awhile from uni.

teoh,

p.s I am still NOT convinced about how tony makes his new elements. stand by for theory.

reading in the past

2010-05-24T16:09:00.002+10:00

this week isn't turning out too badly as expected, but hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.

I was cleaning up my hotmail inbox today...and it's actually pretty cool how I just left alot of old emails lying around. Because now when I looked through them, I got a nice self-reflection of myself and things that happened.

The history only went as far as first year...warren and tiff sending me stuff for uni, my excitement of meeting a particular female, first year stress, a few correspondents from online forums, Yoda's Yarn stuff (good old days), beach days in the summer, yearly carols by candlelight, all the oxygen and lifegroup invitations, Queensland organisation, parents forwarding me stuff, family emails when everyone is overseas, recent fights, old fights, old romances, new romances.

I wrote to one of my old correspondents, just cause we used to talk a lot, and while I was writing, I thought, what has changed since I last talked to him. I'm in university now...old and new friends..some new experiences. But other than that; I'm just the same?
I wonder if me being the same since three years ago is a good thing. Surely I should be changing as a person (hopefully for the better), but I don't think I have. Same interests, same kind of life style.

I did do a self-journey thing awhile back, made me more certain of where I was going and what I wanted to do. Coming up to graduation year is not to be taken lightly. Yet personal changes have never quite come around. I feel like I'm stuck in a black hole, unable to break free of being me.

teoh,

oh fritter.

2010-05-19T20:15:00.007+10:00

ingredients for a week of uni hell: 2 tests, 3 major assignments, 1 report and no motivation. Serve hot.

so my friend Long just got his new phone yesterday, the HTC Desire. It's pretty nice, the touchscreen responsiveness is about on par with iphones, and since smartphones are pretty much mini-computers nowadays, it's got a mini computer processor 1 GHZ which makes it run very smooth.

So tempting to get a new phone as I've been on an open contract for so long, but I'm also at debate with myself that I don't actually need one. But it'd be sooo nice to get one. HTC Evo has a bigger screen and coming out in July, but really expensive =[ But it runs so fast, and so many apps, first 4G phone, HTC aren't that common (among my friends anyway), oh so cool. But then, do I really need mobile internet? Just one more distraction, more time spent looking at a electronic device. But then it could be useful for like looking up things on the spot, GPS etc. But then money...

My friend simon bought an Ipad from eBay over seas. Very nice, so impressed with the touch interface. The screen is really clear and you can actually type notes onto 'Word' app pretty accurately. Wouldn't mind having one for lectures, make things a bit more interesting. But, with any new tech, I will wait for better generations (I remember buying first gen ipod 'nano', big brick compared to the new ones and no colour)

My mum told me a funny story today, how she had used compost and soil in a part of the garden a few weeks ago before she left for the UK/Malaysia. Then a creeper vine had grown around (not uncommon in our garden) so she pulled it all out...and out...and pop comes out:

aha so cool! Home grown rock melon. Well done mum.

And also, made banana/pineapple fritter tonight. Was a partial success, the batter turned out alright, but the fruit inside wasn't sweet. Had it with ice cream and wasn't too bad though. It's fun deep frying stuff =]

teoh,

p.s while looking at myself at my haircut today, i thought to myself: my face is fat. =[

night out with the guys

2010-05-16T22:46:00.004+10:00

so me and my two uni mates Henry (left) and Long (right) went out around the city on saturday night. Our other friend Wil was sick and also at work and missed out on a fun night. The idea was just to go around to a few pubs and just hang out. Me, being a city noob, was also interested in exploring the city a bit more. Here's a google map of our route, both for anyone interested, and myself to remember:

we met up at (A) melbourne central, and headed out to (B) stalactites, a greek souvlaki restaurant. I had a steak, which was cooked very well (very close to medium-rare as you can get), so overall a nice place. Typical melbourne city restaurant price though ~22 bucks for the meal.

we had slurpies straight after, which turned out to be a horrible idea haha. Headed over to (C) Red Hummingbird, which has a really nice open roof space. I could see a small 21st function there easily. Then off to melbourne central, to some bar I can't recall...had a nice open view of the state library. A quick drop by maccas for some chicken nuggets, and then to a bar called (D) Softbelly. Had some cool retro gametables, and a nice atmosphere. I was surprised to see a fair few asians hanging out at pubs, just drinking socially. Had some Lord of the Fries (well they did, I passed) after as well. I want to try their onion rings next time I go in.

And then of course, ended up at (E) galactic circus to show off some DDR skills lol. After that, was feeling pretty dead and sick. Then we ran for the (F) Flinders station for an 11:05pm train. Got there at 10:59, and then hung around for a minute talking about nothing, and then realised it was a 11:00pm train. GG, missed it. Ended up buying the Age and read for half an hour until the next one came.

GOOD FUN.

On another note, have finally obtained a copy of Mass Effect 2. Always respected Bioware's games, and Mass Effect 1 was damn good. About 2 hours into the game, and I'm already hooked with it. They've made some nice improvements (which I won't bother to list, since no one really cares :D), but most importantly they've reduced the amount of that far off distant motion blur. I think the remains of it might be cause my graphic card isn't up to scratch =[

Speaking of which, trying to bring my 'old' laptop out of retirement for uni. Will not install VLC or anything entertainment wise besides MusicBee (music player). Trying to put windows 7 on it, but it's putting up a fight at the moment..damn you vista.

next: new phone thoughts? ipad thoughts.

teoh,

optical illusion

2010-05-12T19:29:00.002+10:00

ACDC Vs Iron Man 2

Another clip I know, but this is pretty cool. Advance projectors play some cool features on the Rochester Castle in time with ACDC music. There's not that much Iron Man 2 in there, but seeing the castle crumble is pretty awesome. Take a look.

teoh,

talented youngesters performing classics

2010-05-10T20:37:00.005+10:00

These guys are pretty talented for a high school performance, and arranged by themselves. Brought back some nice memories of those ever lasting classics.

teoh,

presents from over seas!

2010-05-08T10:28:00.004+10:00

love it when family come back from overseas, i love opening up all the bags and boxes, looking for treasures and prizes! above are japanese figures luke and leia, who will now guard my computer for me.

behold the holocron mark II, my new usb 8 gig stick. mark I's plastic shell eventually crumbled to nothing, so this is the high tech replacement! awesome.

my sister loves cupcakes, so she saw this cute cupcake bib and bought it. I put it on mags for some highly amusing entertainment.

and my belated birthday present, flown across two countries to get to me, a stormtrooper jumper! thanks sis =] it's got a cool stormtrooper button on it as well, which I will rip off if I ever grow out of the jumper, cause it's that cool!

teoh,

we're back in hardware mode.

2010-05-03T19:04:00.004+10:00

Last week was a nice slow relaxed week. A nice change of pace.

Picked up an extra project for fun, and although it was not worth any marks, I quite enjoyed doing it; mainly cause it involved presenting. Had to do a presentation on Shang Hai Expo 2010, which is quite interesting by itself, and choose a structure to focus on. My friend Henry Lim does some pretty fantastic things with Office and made an awesome powerpoint that made my job really easy. We got invited to present again at a seminar at the end of the semester.

Got to floorwalk newbies at work, man that was more tiring than I expected. They aren't exceptionally good, and I had such high hopes for them, but it's only their first week on the phones, so hopefully they pick it up.
On another topic at the workplace, something big is going down, I can feel it. We've had supervisors leave and shuffle around, and they've been asking shift leaders what they think they can improve and such...something is definitely happening. Stay tuned for more news.

the fantastic adventures of crown continue, although nothing quite spectacular happened. Ann, Erica and me just did the usually catch up, drink (reached five in the Fibonacci rule) and I played a little bit of blackjack. The flame towers at crown have been cut back to being disappointing. No big flares anymore =[ we're thinking of going somewhere else next time. cya later crown.

Resistance - Muse, is a song that strangely touches me. The chorus depict, to me, the rush of rebellious love, wanting to be with someone despite good reasons not to, having self-doubt creep in, then resolving to erase the whole thing...and then wondering that it could've been right.

saw Iron Man 2 on friday with the uni boys. it was an okay movie, the usual hyped up sequel, but it had some really awesome moments as per usual. Man I love the whole idea of Iron Man. I actually hate the big boss fights at the end, they're really mediocre for me. The best part is the whole process of making Iron Man, being a super engineer. So awesome. The music is pretty dramatic too, listening to some of it now to motivate me to do my own work.

and a nice shout out to QBE Travel Insurance. Got my second cheque back today for a full refund of my replacement passport. Thinking back, QBE was actually very helpful and so easy to deal with. The only thing I can fault them is the waiting period can take awhile, and with no communication, it's a bit hard to know if your claim is actually being processed or not.

qantas on the other hand, can go stuff themselves and their *insert angry frustrate word here* helpdesks. Even I'm more helpful during a crabby mood.

need to have a productive week this week.

teoh,

edit: time for a new layout soon I think.

the next stage

2010-04-23T20:17:00.003+10:00

my god, I'm so glad this week is over.

It's been sooo busy, and I'm so glad I got through all my work. That said, I'm pretty sure I did not do very well in both of my tests, and our projects are hopefully up to scratch. Oh uni, it seems like I need to put so much more effort this year.

So, I figured out that we have 400% of work (100 marks for four subjects) this semester. 200% is roughly our exams, and the remaining 200% is coursework. We did 61% in ONE week. Kill me now.

The guys I hang around now, Henry, Long and Wil, are pretty good though. Pretty hardworking, with the right amount of procrastination in between for my liking. A bit of asian nerdism thrown in, with the computer geekness..they're a good bunch, and hopefully we can do some stuff outside of uni for once (Iron man 2 is the plan I think).

I also attended a funeral this morning, and although it made things a bit hectic (had an assignment and a test due today as well!), I was glad I could go to show support for my friend. Even though we weren't close, I'd like to think that I can be counted on when it matters. My thoughts are with my friend and his/her family.

Funerals have a weird effect on me. Even though I did not know the person who had passed away, the grief around me took over at one point, and I couldn't stop the tears. I guess it's sort of like an empathy of the people around you?
And they always put everything into perspective. Mysteries of Death. Your own funeral. Afterlife. People you care about the most. Self reflection. These are a few of the thoughts that I pondered today.

And everyone at uni thought I was a douche for showing up in a suit.

teoh,

expanding my interests

2010-04-19T22:31:00.002+10:00

my mainstream music stuff is slowly expanding out.

jay sean - war, lights out, fire
jason harwell - somewhere the sun, pray
muse - resistance, undisclosed desires
adam lambert - whataya want from me
living end - white noise
chris brown - forever
mika - happy ending
red hot shili peppers (found it in my harddrive) - snow hey oh, dani california
train - hey soul sister
taylor swift (lol) - you belong to me, love story
akon - beautiful
afterhouse - halfway gone

is something what my playlist is looking like at the moment =]

teoh,

oh my..

2010-04-17T01:48:00.003+10:00

My internet speeds have just kicked in. After years of mediocre internet services...wow.

I watched one movie...when I had finished watching it, I had two new movies. And a game. (all legally of course.)

Up In the Air is a very good movie.

This was such a bad time to god-like internet. I'm gonna have to remember that with great power, comes great responsibility haha. If I get capped on my first month, shame.

teoh,

intra-seeking

2010-04-11T20:05:00.006+10:00

first, a little daily update.

my dad has just left yesterday off to singapore, and my brother shall be making his way to the airport to japan soon. only myself and magie at home now, it's going to be lonely = my new strict wake up routine: wake up early, check if laundry needs to be done (if so, do it), take magie for a walk, hang out said laundry, eat breakfast while making lunch, decide what to have for dinner, and then go to uni/work. Wish all my family safe travels and have fun! Bring me back gifts =]

my internet will hopefully be upgraded in the next 24-48 hours to the new telstra super cable, which is apparently much faster than what we have, with double capacity (25gb cap) and it's 20 bucks cheaper (49.95) =]

also, went to a workmate's house yesterday and played poker (with a different group) surprisingly I almost won the pot ($120), and came 2nd in the tournament. Was able to win my buy in back, so no money loss, entertainment profit win!

also saw anthea today, she's such a lovely girl. love catching up with her and just talking about anything.

thoughts:

I have decided to begin a self discovery journey. I realised I no longer know who I am, despite this line being very cliche and dramatic. What I mean is that, I wouldn't know how to describe myself anymore. I don't know what kind of person I am, how I am acting, what I am doing. I have utterly lost myself, not in a depressing way, but certainly concerning.

this journey begins effectively immediately. I'm going to start thinking who I think I am, and who I want to be.

edit: I also realised some of my tags are severely lacking in posts. Will try and post more specific posts in the future, instead of a blind post dump.

teoh,

'night out.

2010-04-09T10:58:00.002+10:00

happy 21st amanda and sharon. it was a good night out. still tired, so will do this in dot points.

fun to catch up with quite a few people. jali is still strange and funny. sam is such a mother (sat behind me so she could keep an eye on my speedometer). tim is so fashionable. saw hong dance haha.

speeches went alright. some nice improv and some not so nice improve haha. dave smashed them all with a great singing voice and talented guitar playing. awesome.

missed out on cake. >.<>

venue was nice: Moroccan Lounge. I liked the nice big sofa/bed thing, though more softness required.

and finally. after a year. talked to grace.

feel it all wash away. thanks dave for the extra 10 minutes. I know it must've killed you.

teoh.

opening my eyes

2010-04-04T19:49:00.002+10:00

so the weekend is over, and carolyn is now in the safe hands of her mother and her friends. thankfully, nothing completely disastrous happened with her time with me, and I hope she had least had a good time.

thank you to all my friends who came over on friday night; I know I was probably a little stressed out, the whole day was just too crammed and I was way too nervous. She deemed you all 'lovely' (she loved tim's drama actions and story telling) and enjoyed your company, so thank you all for making it a good night for her...as opposed to my shocking performance in hats T_T

we ended up having a good time in the city, split up in two blocks of morning-early afternoon, and evening-late night, with a nap in the middle. I noticed she loved her naps in NZ, and it was no different in Melbourne haha which I thought was kind of amusing. We found some nice shops in little collins street, but hit the jackpot when we went to the book market at fed square, where she bought 8 books haha. Ling, you would've loved her choices.

comedy fest was awesome, arj barker was very good. His opening star wars joke sold it for me, along with some others. They weren't jokes you can simply tell, but needed good delivery, and he did it very well.

dandenong ranges was also quite good, the shops with little 'knick knacks' were right up her alley I guess, though the walk was kinda dull as I didn't really know where it led, so we just wandered around for abit. the tea house there was pretty good for breakfast too. *bookmarks in head*

So that was the weekend, and again I hope she had a great time.

the weekend kinda opened my eyes to what a city we have, the things we can do and to appreciate it a bit more than my usual 'meh, I don't really like the city' comment. I guess there is a bit more to the city, the culture and stuff, but I still don't...get into it. Not my thing or just pure ignorance?

also, carolyn kept asking me things like, did I know this artist, or this book, or this movie, or this place, or this thing, and I hardly could say affirmative to any of it. I'm SO BORING. My knowledge amounts to nothing. What do I have to offer to anyone!? Sometimes I'm so ashamed of myself and filled with much self-pity.

teoh,

and break!

2010-04-01T18:57:00.002+11:00

Wooo, I didn't realise I was looking so forward to easter break, but now that I'm on it, it's awesome!

I accidentally went on a splurge (apparently it's not according to hong) when I went to chadstone while waiting for hong to come out of uni. I had a vague idea of buying jeans, as my first pair that amanda bought me are ripping at the knee joint =[ anyway, I ended up buying some levi black jeans and a nice .yd shirt that I will wear to amanda's 21st and maybe ann's too. they each cost about 80 bucks each, the jeans were 25% so woo.

I would take pictures and pose (just cause I never get the chance) but I'll just save it for the parties.

I didn't do any April's fool jokes today! dammit, didn't remember until Hong reminded me. Looking forward to Blizzard's (computer game company), they always have good ones.

anyway, here's my reason for blogging:

most uncomfortable experience: wearing your underwear inside out....

... and backwards.

the things that happen when you don't get enough sleep and rush to uni.

teoh,