tsewei’s blog

Unsuspectingly, the dreaded subject registration period had sneaked up behind me to inflict more pain in my holidays.

There’s just something really wrong with NTU’s subject registration system. There’s never enough slots available for the subjects. 60 people fight over 20 (or less) places for a subject. And then subjects clash. I can’t A if I take B. And fastest fingers win. If your internet connection screws up, then you can kiss those highly popular subjects goodbye and resort to begging the lecturers to squeeze you in when school starts or take those crummy classes that you are not interested in.

Most of all, it’s highly stressful. Never have I seen people click so frantically at the library once the clock turns 3:00pm. I hear people going “oh shit” when their key in an index code and a window flashes “xxxxx has no available slots”. gargh. Exams aren’t even as stressful as that 2 minutes of frantic mouse-clicking.

This year I’m staying away from the library and registering right from home. Just pray TMnet doesn’t die on me at the crucial seconds. I’m not even asking for a 4-day week! I just want my Scriptwriting and Video/TV Production! Otherwise, I’d start wondering what I’m doing in the electronic broadcast division if I’m doing some other theoretical crap instead. ugh.

Was also sorely disappointed to find that the new School of Art, Design and Media will not be offering their subjects as general electives to non-Art students like me. I mean, 2D design and colour workshop just sounds so much more interesting than say, Air Quality Management. Sigh, guess I’ll stick to French 2 and try to audition for Percussions class.

Well, the battle begins next Monday. Quick, help me say a prayer for steady TMnet connection.

With the little culinary skills that I possessed, I managed to cook up a decent meal and enjoyed Ikea’s swedish meatballs right at home!

Was shopping in Malaysia’s Ikea yesterday when I saw that they sell pre-packaged and frozen meatballs along with packets of sauce in powder form. The instructions look easy enough. I cannot handle anything more than mixing a few things together and cooking them to a boil. “Just add water” is my favourite phrase on any food item. So I bought them.

It wasn’t too disasterous. Other than having to spend extra time mashing the sauce powder that coagulated coz I didn’t use a whisk, it was quite a success.

me: thank goodness it looks normal. hmm, and it smells normal too.
everyone else: tastes good! thank goodness!

I guess I might cook it again some time. But it is a bit pricy. RM15.90 for the meatballs (about 28 of them) and RM3.90 for the packet of sauce. Still cheaper than the actual meal sold at Ikea’s restaurant though. But for now, I still like eating at the restaurant and have other people cook my food for me.

oh but horrors! My trip to Ikea also made me realize that Ikea has stopped selling their famous hotdogs at their cafe!! eecks! They’re my all time favourite. I used to eat them pretty often. Can’t help it that I lived 10 minutes away from Singapore’s Ikea when I was studying in JC.

But now there isn’t anymore in Malaysia’s Ikea. Coz of some halal issues! Which wasn’t even Ikea’s fault and they got all the bad press for that. They were accused of selling non-halal sausages, and even had to shut down for a religious cleansing exercise. The press was all over them for this supposed wrongdoing of theirs. But in the end, it was proven that the media were wrong and that the sausages (them yummy sausages!) and their stupid casings were in fact halal! The only thing wrong was that their supplier had an expired halal license! It was clearly a case of utter irresponsibility by the media, blowing the story out of proportion and not doing the proper investigation before pointing fingers. Public perception was shaken, and my guess is Ikea’s management will not (or will never?!) be selling their yummy hotdogs for quite a while until people forget about this hoohah.

But I guess I should commend Ikea for being quick enough to put a change to the menu to replace the usual hotdog set. Now, they’re selling roti bakar! Soft toasted burger bread spreaded with generous serving of kaya and butter. slurp.

I’m getting fat.

so many thoughts running through my head
can’t chase them — it makes me dizzy, confused, lost
so many things in my heart
but can’t say them — there is a barrier
a barrier of differences:
mentality, perception,
words, emotions.

Plagued — am a victim of
prejudgment.
assumption.
distrust.
unawareness.
unwillingness to see beyond.

I remain silent
because tiredness now plagues me.

left at eighteen
back at twenty two and i’m fifteen again.

** my brain is not even working in sentences. %#@#$&.

I have to admit it. I think I might actually learn how to properly play a proper ball game. Well, in this case, I think I’m really going to love playing pool!

My first pool lesson with my great ’sifu’/mentor/boyfriend au yong was at Subang’s Kafe Rack yesterday. At first, my body was definitely not doing what my brain was telling it to. Angle all ‘cacat’, wrists moving instead of my elbow (or something). Basically, looking like a real retard.

But it turned out really fun. ‘Coz the game really requires mostly common sense. And getting some fluke shots once in a while makes it fun heehee. Like the time when he said he would gimme five bucks if I pocket that green striped one, and since it’s a bet I gladly took it up and whacked it, and instead of going into the top right pocket, it bounced and went straight down to the bottom right one. HAH! But someone doesn’t want to gimme the five bucks for that. hmph!

Best of all, besides fluke shots, I actually managed to get the pool balls to move in the directions that I want them to! It’s a big deal for me k..

And after ‘class’, we had yummy Ramly burgers at some mamak place in SS15. Juicy tender beef patty wrapped in egg and topped with melting cheese and soft burger bread.. *slurp* I’m salivating now.. teehee. ^_^

Can’t wait for my second lesson!! wheeee..

“I read once that, in Malaysia, they use kites to catch fish.”

(…) They tie a fishing line to it and fly it beyond the shallow waters so it doesn’t cast a shadow and scare the fish. (…)

REALLY?!?!

True, or otherwise, I usually get a teeeeny bit excited whenever I see my country’s name mentioned in some English novel. I dunno. I guess I don’t really think many people in the Western hemisphere know much about Southeast Asia, much less about a not-so-developed country like ours. And so whenever an author display a slight hint that he actually knows of our existance and mentions our name, I’ll go like “Heeyyy!!”

yeah, cheap thrill, I know. I get excited at all the little things.

Anyway, I found this “fishing with kite” thingy in a book that I was reading on my flight home — The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. I know John Grisham is another author who has mentioned Malaysia in his books (can’t remember which ones tho’). But as with many other examples that I’ve seen with some other Western authors whom I have also forgotten, the word “Malaysia” usually appears in very close proximity with other words such as “ smuggling “, “ forest “, “ tropical “, “ child labour ” etc. Basically words associated with underdevelopment, backwardness etc.

I guess it is true to some extent (the smuggling business is rather rampant here, and there ARE quite some tropical forest left even though we are busy wiping it out so that we can build more overcrowded housing areas). But sometimes I just wish people knew more about our country beyond this aspect.

But anyway, back to the book…
The Kite Runner was an engaging read for me. The story is set in Afghanistan, and spans from the days before the monarchy fell to the current post-Taliban days. Before you go thinking it’s some boring political commentary book, I’m telling you, it’s NOT. The political context is just the background and setup for the story of Amir, and the people around him. Their story of family, betrayal, honour, struggle, redemption and friendship was nicely interweaved with the conflict between the Pashtun and the Shi’a Hazaras, and the political and social oppression of the Afghanis.

I guess I liked it because it gave me a glimpse into Afghanistan. Previously, I’ve only read about it through political commentaries, news and textbooks, and seen it only from an academic perspective. I can’t tell how true the author’s portrayal of Afghanistan was, whether or not he romanticised the past, but what I appreciate is how he painted a picture of how life was in that country, that more things happen there beyond the wars and fighting that we always hear about.

Some parts of the book were painful to read, but that’s how the story is. For me, Hosseini has put a face and a life story to the average Afghani. They are more than just a bunch of people suffering through decades of violent conflicts, but people each with their own story of struggles.

I don’t quite know how to write a good book review. All I can say is that I enjoyed it thoroughly, and if you have some time to curl up in the evening with a book, I’d recommend this.

p/s: if you want to read a few pages to see what the book is like, hop on over to Amazon. Right. HERE .

I know this sounds evil, and I’m not trying to insult blondes, but I saw this and I was really amused.

Airports usually have those thingys where you can stand on and it moves automatically forward, sorta like an escalator that goes forward on flat ground instead of going upwards/downwards. I have no idea what it’s called, but if you’ve been to an airport, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The most accurate name I can think of now is “human conveyor belt”.

Anyway, with kids being kids, one little boy was having fun and decided to run on the belt, counter to the direction of the human conveyer belt. And so he happily ran from one end to the other end.

Right behind him was 2 blonde chicks. Obviously they wanted to get to the other end. But what they did was: looked at the boy, stood at the metal platform at the beginning of the same conveyer belt that he was running on (which was obviously in the wrong direction), and stared at the human conveyer belt.

They looked really confused, and they looked like they couldn’t decide if it’s safe to get on the conveyer belt that goes the opposite direction. They just stood there and stared at the beginning portion of the human conveyer belt, almost putting their feet on it.

They are either really stupid, or maybe they were contemplating a fun run on the airport human conveyer belt like the 5-year-old.

After ten seconds, their final assessment of the human conveyer belt was that it’s safer if they used the one next to it that is going in the direction that they are heading towards.

Bravo!

I’m finally back home in PJ, after over TWO days of flying. Yes, TWO fucking days. I hear you asking: “Why the heck do you need two days to fly from rural upstate New York to Singapore?” Well, why don’t you sit back and let me begin my rant about US air travel. (long post ahead, so bear with me).

1. Flight delayed.
My travel route was Ithaca-Philadelphia-Chicago-Hong Kong-Singapore. As you can see, that’s pretty much of a pain on its own with FOUR bloody transits (not my fault, but some stupid travel agent. More on that later).

So there I was, sitting on the carpeted floor (hmph, not enough seats) at Gate C10 of Chicago O’Hare Airport, very much resigned to my fate of 30-hour butt-hurting flight, when the people at the gate announced that instead of flying one hour late as scheduled, we will only fly on the NEXT MORNING!! Reason: something was wrong with the plane, it’s still stuck in the hangar, and they *somehow* cannot use the other plane that’s coming in from Tokyo.

Soon, people were forming queues to get their hotel and meal vouchers for the day. I found out that there’s a plane leaving Chicago for Singapore via Tokyo in about half an hour, so obviously I wanted to know if I can get on that. But NOOOOOOOO. No one wanted to help. All those people at the counter did not even want to bother to check and just simply replied to me “it’s a full flight”.

Worse, another told me “It’s gone. Left.” I was pissed at this fella alright. 1. Does he think I’m some Chinese who can’t understand English to have to use that kind of truncated sentence as a reply?!?! 2. The plane obviously hadn’t left ‘coz it left 20 minutes later than scheduled (yes, Au Yong was on the Internet finding out about flight info for me while I tried to get some attention from the United Airlines people to help me.) Sure, you probably can’t put me on the flight since it’s leaving soon, but can’t you at least put some effort to help, or at least have better attitude?? Not even a word of sorry from the lady who was yelling instructions on hotel vouchers etc through the announcement system. Ish.

So that’s how I ended up staying at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency for the night. Well, at least it’s a nice hotel, and I had a nice bath and an even nicer dinner.

But when I reached Hong Kong, there was no other UA flight going to Singapore until 7 hours later. So again, I walked aimlessly around the HKIA, bought another novel, ate more free food “courtesy” of United Airlines, and struggle to fight off sleep while I sat at the gate and rotted my way till 7.45pm. Whee.. what *fun*.

2. Lousy cabin crew.
This is not the first time. But with every UA flight that I have taken, not a single flight attendant will help me with my carry-on luggage.

Let me lay out the facts: I’m vertically challenged. I’m not really strong either, and my laptop bag weighs 3.4kg++. The overhead luggage compartment is high up, for me at least. And imagine, when a little girl of only 1.54m tries to haul a heavy bag over her head, there’s a good chance that she might fall backwards (and hurt other passengers), or the brick-laptop might fall off.

But it seems the flight attendents never ever notice. NEVER. I either have to do that myself, or usually other nice passengers lend me a hand. I didn’t pay through my nose for my air ticket so that other nice people (who paid as much) provide the service that flight attendents should. And this never happens whenever I fly MAS. United Airlines should really think about re-evaluating their service quality, and stop boasting about being the biggest (or something) air line flying international from the US.

3. Stupid travel agent
Stupid travel agent (whose service was procurred by a friend) booked tickets for us on TWO airlines. United Airlines for the international flights and US Airways for the last stretch to/from Ithaca on board a noisy 20-seat propeller plane. Travelling from Singapore to the States early this year was no problem ‘coz they gave us all the ticket at Changi. But flying back was a problem.

Both airlines don’t issue out tickets until the day of my flight at the airport. And Ithaca airport cannot provide me with UA tickets and they can’t check me in internationally either. So they tell me I need to get off the plane, run from Terminal F to Terminal D, get out, go to ticketing counter, get PHIL-SIN tickets, queue up again to check in internationally, go through security check again, run back and wait at the gate. All these to be done in 1 half hour.

Isn’t this stupid? When I am travelling, I want my travel plans to be as smooth as possible. I don’t need more running around unfamiliar airports to entertain myself. I want to get my tickets, get my passport stamped, get my luggage tagged, and sit in the plane and wait for in-flight entertainment. Not this kind of shit.

Which could have been well avoided IF the travel agent had booked me on UA all the way, which was very possible. UA might not have their planes in Ithaca, but they do code-sharing carrier business with US Airways. It’s the same bloody plane that I’ll be on. SO what’s wrong with getting a UA ticket instead of US Airways?

And why didn’t I get that? Well, ‘coz the travel agent is dumb. As a travel agency, it is their job to know about these kind of things, and it is their job to make their clients’ travel experience a smooth and comfortable one. Instead, I get stressed. *Great* job, I’d say.

4. Irritating-as-hell phone helplines.
Those airlines phone HELPlines are totally not helpful. It seems nowadays, not only do they make you listen to long lists of options and press buttons, they also make you TALK to the monotonous machine voice. They use this voice recognition technology shit and make you answer their questions instead of hitting buttons, which in my opinion, is hell lot more irritating. If I wanna use my vocal cords, I’d like to speak to a real human being, not some stupid tape-recorded voice.

So what I do is I purposely screw up the answers, and sure enough, after a few rounds, the machine gave up and transferred me to a human being. Wahaha, and I thought the problems are over.

But it seems, everytime I contact these helplines, everyone gives me different answers to my question. No one knows for sure how/where exactly do I collect my ticket, one says I will have ample time for transit another says I don’t. What the fuck is this?!?! I want my itenary confirmed, and my questions answered, and in return I get more things to worry about ‘coz it seems no one knows anything!

What the hell is wrong with these people? It’s a helpline, so for goodness sake, provide HELP and do your work properly.

In conclusion, this is all I have to say:
Grrrrghh all you dumb idiots!!!!
Thanks for wasting my time and bringing me 39.2 minutes closer to death.

I am only glad my trip back to PJ from Singapore went without a hitch.