A little whisper in the dark

What it means to be a student

- Late nights
- Sleep is a luxury
- Gallons of coffee
- Tin cans and vacuum dried noodles are your best friends
- Quizzes and deadlines, rinse and repeat
- Exams loom like the Biblical Valley in the shadow of Death
- Lecturers with funny accents
- Procrastination becomes an art form
- Resorting to memorizing when understanding fails
- Bribing and coercion are justifiable in the face of overwhelming odds
- Dumping the laptop in water becomes a viable reason to ask for an extension
- Preparing a list of excuses to ask for an extension
- Using up reams of paper writing papers on protecting the rainforest
- Typing up this list when a 3000 word report due in 30-odd hours is yet to be done

posted by Chung Leong @ 2:16 AM 1 comments

Seven-point-Oh

By now, about 80% of the people on my MSN list has upgraded their MSN Messenger to the latest 7.0 version for various reasons: a hard disk format, patching up in order to play with the new icons and smileys that make instant messaging fun, well the list goes on. Those were the good things.

It didn't take me long to realize that MSN now automatically blocks most forms of sound file from being transmitted through it, .wav, .mp3, .wma and such. Seven-point-oh calls it potentially dangerous.

Yeah, right. There's ways around it though. But that's not my point. Its not politically correct to support or encourage piracy these days, so I won't.

What's more important is the "What am I listening to" feature that more than a few of us are using - it sure isn't a passive thing, it gets broadcast right across the internet to your friends and God-knows-who-else. And just how many legal MP3s are floating around your own computer anyway?

The conspiracy theorist in me would say that someone or some computer out there is quietly collecting the list of songs you're happily broadcasting just so your friends know you're listening to the cool songs. No one has to dig into your computer to find the incriminating data; you're advertising the fact. Not all of you have to be caught, just a few is enough to warn the many, so much so that there are no longer MP3 serving channels in Singaporean internet relay chat channels, and I personally know someone who had been taken to task by RIAA (this, dear friends, is an American agency that protects the media industry's copyright), just so you know the arm of the law is long enough.

Just be careful out there.

posted by Chung Leong @ 1:29 PM 0 comments

Where's the Holy Grail?

I recently finished reading a book, actually this is a rather hyped-up book from a couple of years back, but me being the niche reader that I am, did not pick it up. I've not bought a novel since I was a teenager, and since popular titles are invariably on loan at the public library, it simply slipped off the list of books to read.

Anyway, it still is a pretty hot book, for, having been provided with the e-book version of it (this is just a large text file of the novel - I wonder who had the time to transcribe all of it?) and doing one chapter, I was hooked enough to try to find it again in the library. The Da Vinci Code is about as elusive as the Grail, for two public libraries, three university libraries later, I resort to continuing the story on the electronic version. Its as controversial as it is realistic, and at the end of the day, whence the reader is cliffhanging on just what the Grail really is, the story ends. Right there.

I felt miffed at first, but the moral of the story as I see it is that it's not the success or failure of the quest but the quest itself. Its not the find, but rather the search. Its a journey of self discovery, and that should be what Life is to us. The trip, not the destination.

But we need to decide a destination to aim for, in order to get going on the trip. Without a destination, we go nowhere. And all too often as in this case, the destination might not even be a good thing for us, but we are often too clueless to realize that.

So we spend our time searching for a destination worthy of being pursued, so that we can begin the trip.

But can we find it ?

Or is our search for a destination in itself the quest for the Holy Grail?

posted by Chung Leong @ 9:59 PM 0 comments

Winter's coming, how do we know?

Well, one way of knowing is that the old cars in my social circle have all begun acting up within days of each other. I get a call on Sunday morning, hey, my car's dead, do you have a jumper cable so we can jumpstart the car? I duly locate a jumper cable, load up my car, put on my best RACQ (that's the local vehicle recovery people) face, and set out to rescue my friends. Turn the ignition key...... nothing.

What's the chances of two cars' batteries failing on the same morning? Take the chances of the average car's battery failing and square that. I don't have a specific number but I'd wager its microscopic. Two days later, yet another car fails, battery fault again......

Some kind of pattern going on here, maybe it's the weather. And we've not really seen the worst of winter yet. I'm having to put money into the car, now and then, just to keep it running. Since purchase, its required a new water pump, belt tensioner and battery, it still needs an engine mount, door switch, sorting of its aircon, there's a vacuum leak somewhere, and the timing's out by 7 degrees. I'm asked why I bought a car with so much problems, but let's be realistic - a 16 year old car with 208,000kms on the clock isn't going to be purring like one that's just rolled off the production line last month, but it sure wouldn't cost the same either. Keeping it running is going to cost a bit of money, a bit of time, and a bit of love now and then. Like relationships I suppose.

You neglect it, and it'll bite you back soon enough. Miss your 100,000km service, ignore the rising engine temps, and you'll be looking at a costy repair job. Miss your partner's birthday and you're looking at a big fence-mending job, too. So as time goes by, that little red rocket shows its problems, I fix them, it serves me, I learn its little idiosyncrasies, I don't crunch the gears that much now, and stall the car less. Demands attention still, and a oil change which I keep putting off.

But the car itself was an irony - I spent the better part of a month looking for a suitable car (by that I mean one that I can afford and isn't falling apart) sending out email, calling people, getting dicked around by sellers who pull out at the last minute, have all but given up, and then one of those emails I sent came back belatedly.

Some things happen when you least expect it. But try to be prepared for it, especially when it involves cars. What could go wrong anyway, right? (everything could, actually)

posted by Chung Leong @ 2:31 AM 0 comments

What can I do for you, officer?

I suppose I was driving suspiciously. How the heck does one drive casual anyway? I was on my way back home from Gatton today, passed a police car going the opposite way, and got pulled over 5 minutes later.

All of a sudden the big white Holden is on my arse, I check the speedo - 60km/h, I'm doing fine. The lights flash, a brief siren, and I dutifully pull over. Did anyone ever tell you, it seems like an eternity while you wait for the cop to stroll over and read the rap list of all the undesirable crimes you have committed on your 4 wheeled chariot?

They're right, its an eternity. I stay in the car and wait.

Turns out its a routine driver's licence check, yes officer, that is a Singapore driver's licence, yes I am an international student, yes I own this car I am driving.

He brings the licence back and runs a check on his computer or maybe to put me on file, then sends me on my way with an admonishment to "drive safely". Yup, like I was swerving all over the road like a boozed up bogan.

posted by Chung Leong @ 1:17 AM 0 comments