fallen sick

i should have known better before gulping down an orange juice.

from what i observed so far, it was only in very humid places, i.e., singapore, that if i were to drink an orange juice, within a couple of days, i will develop a really dry throat, which leads to pain in the joints, and subsequently, to a cold.

during my 4 month stay in naperville earlier this year, i tried couple of orange juices and that did not seem to happen anymore, so i was really happy.

until couple of days ago.

i guess it depends on exactly what type of orange juice i drink. but whatever it is, it seems like i have some sort of an allergy with orange juice. this sucks.

or, it could be that i got the cold that my brother has been having for the past few days. but the orange juice is too coincidental. almost everytime i get the cold, i can trace it back to an orange juice.

sigh, i thought that here, i could drink it, i guess i gotta stay away from them for good.

at least it happened during the holidays, and not during the semester. the pain in the joints would have fucked me over since i have to walk a lot around campus. plus no work for now, so i can just sleep, rest, recover, and maybe cram in couple of movies along the way.

i watched three movies last night, 'fargo' a very interesting movie. (you just get so sick of the minnesotan 'yeah?' by the end of the movie) i finally watched 'the shawshank redemption' a favorite for many of my delta sig friends and a relatively unknown movie for many that sits pretty at the no. 3 throne of the top 250 all time list in IMDB. i agree, it was a good movie with some fine acting, but i couldnt shrug the feeling that the whole thing came to me as just another average movie that is better than others. i guess its after couple of viewings and really following the events that you appreciate the movie, like how my delta sig friends do.

and then i watched 'american history x.' boy, that was really extreme, a white power fanatic movie. obviously, i disagreed with a lot of things these guys mentioned along the way, about how they never did anything to make their own lives better before blaming the non-white races and that 90% of the followers dont even know the true cause for their neo-nazi movement, and treats it as a cult, and i was surprised that i was spot on on those two points later in the movie. but it was a really strong movie and i guess this needs to be shown to most high school kids for history lesson. thought provocative.

i tried to go to sleep, but i have such bad headache that i cant. this sucks. maybe i should try to fall asleep watching a bad movie instead. nah, no matter how bad it is, im the kind of person that must watch it til the end. might as well watch a good one then.

How much does life weigh?

indeed, how much does life weigh?

that is the question presented in the movie '21 Grams,' another one of Alejandro González Iñárritu's wonderful creations.

and its said at the end, that a human body loses 21 grams when they die, is a really interesting fact to know.

i think this movie was one of the finest performances by the people involved. sean penn, naomi watts and benicio del toro. truly amazing. and the pace of the story (well, the story doesnt flow, its kinda like 'pulp fiction' and 'memento,' where the story is bits and pieces and you eventually figure out what the whole story is about, amazing technique) was just perfect, and because of that, the audience (should) develop some attachment to the characters involved because of it.

i was really blown away after watching it, i think it became one of my tops.

i watched 'girl, interrupted' after that, i guess i must have been really tired and sleepy, but i didnt think that the movie was that great, though interesting, it didnt really have much to present, just another experience by some author.

the past few movies ive been watching has been great, i hope this continues with the right selection of movies that i have stored in my powerbook.

the 'closer' trailer

so i watched 'adaptation' and thought it was really interesting, but maybe a tad too complex for my analysis. if any of you have watched it, feel free to leave your comments about it, im rather curious what others think about it, as ive seen so far around the message boards, its of mixed opinions.

im rather shocked that 'dogville' was one of the dishonorable mentions for the year's worst list. i thought that the concept of just using theatre perspective and dotted lines to represnt houses and whatnot were very creative, but apparantly, people in msn dont share that view. oh, but the rest that were mentioned were number of movies i agree was pretty horrible. 'chronicles of riddick' got the dishonarable no.1 nod, and among the list were 'whole ten yards,' 'resident evil: apocalypse' and 'dodgeball.' im surprised 'the grudge' wasnt listed, though. there were tons more listed, but since i already knew that they were gonna be bad, i didnt watch them, so i guess i dont qualify to comment on those.

'saw,' 'the village,' 'the butterfly effect' and 'a very long engagement' certainly does not deserve to be there, in my opinion.

but among the best that were listed was

lately, ive been continually watching the trailer for the movie 'closer.' i cant seem to stop looking at it, the music, the selected scenes from the movie are very impressive, even though ive already watched the movie. i remember the first time i watched the trailer before 'garden state' and was left with the very mysterious, yet convincing promises for the movie. its just the things mentioned in the trailer, with the perfect music (suzanne vega's 'caramel' always plays in my head nowadays), that keeps me looking at it. oh, and the lines mentioned, which i quote;

"Love is an accident waiting to happen,
Desire is a stranger you think you know,
Intimacy is a lie we tell ourselves,
Truth is a game you play to win,
If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking."

its only after you watch the movie you can really understand what that last sentence truly means.

'Being John Malkovich'

i finally finished 'riven' and boy, was it a ride. there were 2 unsolvable puzzles, so i had to consult the guide, but man, it was a completely different experience playing a really complex game all on your own. so it was a really nice experience.

started playing 'myst iii' but the new free 360 degree feature makes me dizzy. never been a fan of free rotating first person game so this might present a problem.

since i wasnt feeling too comfortable with it and i needed a break anyway, plus my brother insisted we watch some movie, we decided to watch '12 monkeys.' that was pretty interesting.

ive been watching couple of movies for the past few days, such as 'the others,' 'akira,' 'man in the iron mask,' 'full metal jacket' and 'being john malkovich.'

and my, BJM is a freaking awesome movie! ive been dying to catch it for a long time and i cant believe i hadnt watched that show sooner! truly entertaining, and it has that little mind twisting bit to it that i just love. guess what, the writer was the same one for 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind' and also 'adaptation,' which i am going to catch tomorrow.

im still reeling from the effects after watching BJM, it was a refreshing change to some of the movies ive been watching so far.

white christmas

finally. it has snowed. its not much, but its fitting to call today a white christmas.

there's a town in texas, which is right next to the gulf, that has not had a white christmas since 1918 til today... after some 86 years!

'Dumbfuckistan'

i stumbled upon this pic which cracked me up so bad i just had to post it here

done part ii

phew... and im more or less done sending emails to the people that ive wanted to. thats another 2 hours worth of work right there.

woo wheee...

theres a wind chill warning out now. says it could go as low as -20 degrees fahrenheit. now that's scary.

drove for what seemed like a really long time today. probably the most ive driven today. illinois route 59 doesnt seem that intimidating anymore. next step: getting used to interstate driving. i wonder if that will take place at all, since so many cars are flipping and sliding due to the icy roads, but we'll see.

okay, what more is there to do before i head back.... clean ipod off the songs i dont listen to.... finish a novel... start playing riven.... is that it?

im missing something, as usual...

writing emails to the music of travis, chantal kreviazuk, damien rice and jamie cullum was really relaxing. i should do this more often.

done

pheeewww...

i'm finally done with my college record blog for this semester. boy that took a lot of work copying and pasting and hyperlinking and making sure that paragraphing was right and bolding some text and italicking some texts and so on and so on... it wasnt just a mere simple case of cut and paste, mind you.

but whatever it is, its done. you guys can view it here. check out the MSE1001 Final Report and the GT1000 Career Research Report, its by far the most extensive work so far.

it has been like 3 hours of work, im gonna take some break and continue with some other work later...

a nice dream interrupted

i was having a rather pleasant dream for once, and it had to be ruined. and i dont mean by someone waking me up, but by an individual in the same dream. i swear i knew who it was while dreaming, when i suddenly woke up, i was like, god damn, who was that guy? if i could go back to sleep and continue with the same dream, i swear i would have murdered that guy. how could he even... well, lets not go into the details, its rather personal.

but most of it was good, i was meeting bunch of people i havent seen in a long time, mainly from my middle and high school.

ah well.

i finished 'myst' last night and feel pretty good about it. it was pretty tough and i cant imagine playing it without the guide that was available online. i mean, some of the puzzles are really really hard. the second puzzle of the game is enough to make one stop and the puzzle that i was stuck on last night supposedly made tons of people quit the game. but then that was when internet wasnt that developed and all these guides available. the game was released back in 93 or 94, and i remember seeing this game on sale around 96 or 97 and really wanted to try it, but it was expensive and i wasnt sure if it was worth buying. i remember that much. now that i think about it, im lucky to have tried it now, i would have gone insane if i had bought and tried it and found that i was unable to proceed with the game after only 20 minutes back in 96.

alright, got tons of stuff to settle before i can start playing the sequel, riven.

happy holidays, merry christmas everyone. it still hasnt snowed in chicago yet, but whatever.

a little change

ive made couple of changes to this template, as opposed to scrapping and changing to a new template altogether. the other template i was thinking of implimenting was completely dark blue, but i kinda favored the difference in tone and the lighter touch of the current template.

as it can be obviously seen, i removed my tag board. its for couple of reasons, one big reason being this will prevent any other regular anonymous users to just leave some random tags, and if needed, visitors can leave me messages at the end of each post. most people have blogger accounts, so they should have no problem leaving me messages there, and even if they dont, they're still able to leave me messages there anyway. plus it saves everyone the trouble whenever tag boards are down, which kinda screws up the whole page. and if anyone needs me, isnt there always email? im checking my email all the time, so if you mail me at gtg007w[at]gatech[dot]edu, its all fine.

i also added a sports section which i should be updating every now and then, for now, its just the basic teams, newcastle, GT basketball and football. i dont have any plans to increase the number of teams, as handling 3 is a task enough.

i guess im set with the simplicity of the current template without having the need to add extragavant features.

i need to do a couple of things in few days time, namely compiling all my typed reports and works of my first semester and put it up as a record, erasing all unnecessary tracks on my ipod, watch whatever movies i have in my laptop. i bought 'Myst' yesterday, it was on sale for 20 bucks, and it also included riven and myst iii, i thought it was a good deal, and since i havent played much video game for a while, i thought, why not some visually and mentally stimulating game? its been pretty great so far, but i get really frustrated when i get stuck at solving some clues at times, but that's the beauty of the game really.

and since we also got a router, im able to roam about my house freely with my powerbook and surf whenever wherever. while hasib was on his desktop, we had to unplug the ethernet cable every now and then to surf the net or whatever, but that solves the problem now. that was for 70 bucks, but with a rebate of 50 bucks which i need to send, so technically, a reliable router for 20 bucks. so i got 3 games and a router for 40 bucks. really good deal.

and the georgia tech football team spanked the hell out of syracuse last night, 51-14 to win the champs sport bowl, formerly known as the florida citrus bowl, to make it 8 bowl appearance in a row, and probably the best consecutive bowl record around too. if only we could be ranked, play better and play in better bowls. hopefully that happens, ball is only a sophomore and calvin johnson is still a freshman, it might look pretty good.

alright, off for dinner, and make couple more changes to the codes of the template later on.

freezing

god damn, it was -10 degrees celcius yesterday. today was slightly better, but its still very cold. and im surprised snow hasnt stacked up yet, it almost seems its a snowless december. projections state it will snow this week, hopefully that's true, and on friday, it'll be sub-zero fehrenheit, which is a big deal, it's gonna be like -20 degrees celcius. man...

off to continue watching 'trainspotting.' ive been watching quality movies recently after watching 3 horrible movies that were recommended to me by my peers. no more dumb college movies for me. its just a plain waste of time.

i've been driving around, after about 7 months of not driving. i havent really lost the hang of it and im starting to enjoy cruising around.

'Cannonball'

"There’s still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
There’s still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
It’s still a little hard to say what's going on

There’s still a little bit of your ghost your witness
There’s still a little bit of your face I haven't kissed
You step a little closer each day
That I can’t say what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life, it taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball

There’s still a little bit of your song in my ear
There’s still a little bit of your words I long to hear
You step a little closer to me
So close that I can't see what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love, it taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannon...

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to cry
So come on courage
Teach me to be shy
'Cause it's not hard to fall
And I don't wanna scare her
It's not hard to fall
And I don't wanna lose
It's not hard to grow
When you know that you just don't know"

back in naperville

here i am, back in naperville for the winter break. will be staying for approx. 1 month before heading back for the spring term.

the days that led to the departure was eventful. i went to my grand-aunt's place, and found out we are related by two ways. she's my maternal grandma's cousin, so she's my grand-aunt, but one of her cousins married my cousin from my dad's side, so we're technically cousins as well. how weird is that, jump of two generations. i mostly spent time talking with her daughter who's thinking of coming to tech, so it was basically uni talk, telling her about how things are in tech and clarifying the stereotypes and whatnot.

on monday, i sold off whatever remaining texts for a measely sum of $13. i swear i spent like $50 on those books and i only got back that much. no wonder book stores make so much money. james sold his chemistry text which he bought for like over $100 and got back only $30. and what sucks is that the used text will be resold for like $70 at least.

then we totally rearranged our room. we planned it for couple of weeks. and it took a lot of work, but the new arrangement looks pretty nice, the room looks twice as big as it used to, since we bunked the beds and made a big enough space to put a couch there. we'll settle the couch next semester, but for now, we gotta get used to the new arrangement.

we watched 'the professional' and 'the terminal' that night. and i was surprised as there were scenes i never saw in the 'the professional' that james downloaded. all these while, i was deprieved of the missing scenes in singapore, and i am pissed coz the scenes enhance the relationship between mathilde and leon so much and makes the movie seem so much better. it remains my favorite movie of all time though. and i really liked 'the terminal' so i dont understand how it got such bad reviews. sure, there were plotholes, but dont every movie have them? what they showed is pretty realistic and i thought it was really interesting the way the characters revolved. everyone might need to remind themselves that movies are fictional entertainment afterall, and seeking perfection in something can never happen. so we should just take movies for what they are, instead of spotting mistakes. sure, i am uneasy about how he got out of the airport, since it doesnt make sense, but that didnt make the movie bad at all.

i woke up pretty early, and left for the airport, only to realize that my departure had been pushed back 2 hours all the way back in august and was never notified, or even if i were, i didnt notice it at all, since it was done so in august. it gave me enough time to squeeze watching a movie on my laptop, and while i left to go get lunch, i realized all my things were missing. i found it in a smoking area, and whoever it was working for the airport told me to go back to security coz i left my bags unattended. i wasnt even 50 meters away from my bags, but since i had 3 hours, i just complied quietly, telling myself that it was such a gay thing for me to walk back all the way to security, and walk back to the exact same place just because i got myself lunch.

i watched one of those college movies, 'road trip.' it was alright, but it is ultimately a bad movie. i followed that up the night i got back in naperville with 'orgazmo,' a horrible movie that borders on porn. i have no idea how james thought it was a funny movie. it was an hour and a half (and 3 hours if i add 'road trip') i could have used to watch better movies i have in my laptop.

well, i got back to naperville around 6, unloaded my bags and got straight down to emailing my professors and TAs to consider re-grading my paper. my chances are slim, and i kinda expect them to tell me that its too late to change my grades, if there is any change at all, but im gonna give it a shot anyway. im just gonna take it easy and go all out on the next semester.

i have about a month here, and i'll try not to waste it like i did in the 4 months i stayed here earlier this year. im gonna map out what courses im gonna take til graduation and decide on what i should do, plans, and general re-organization of everything. ive more or less given up on computer engineering, which makes my choices easier. if i am to be an industrial engineer, i'll stay in georgia tech, and if i decide to be a material science engineer, i'll head back to illinois to enroll as a transfer student in urbana-champaign. seems pretty clear enough. another thing i need to do is start working on my internship/co-op position, i need to decide if i really need that at all, as if i do away with it, i could graduate in 2 years from now on, which isnt a long time at all. i could do with just a simple 6 months internship and still graduate in 3 years, which will also be pretty good. but those are the things i can keep in mind, but not decide on until later next semester.

its 0 degrees celcius right now, and its only gonna get worse. but if i think about it, its only about 4 weeks til i get back to atlanta. and somehow, i cant stay doing nothing at all. i wanna be back in tech and get down to business soon. but i guess i deserve a well needed mental and physical break for now.

off to catch one of the many movies i have in my laptop...

final grades

urgh, FUCK! got a B on calculus! it came as a big shock! i must have gotten too cocky on the finals, i dont believe i did so badly.

gotta settle for a 3.0 instead of a 3.3... god dammit...

im going ballistic next semester.

anyway, rearranged my room for the most of today, room looks pretty nice now.

just gonna hav a nice dinner, watch movie, and sleep.

my flight back to chicago is at 1pm, so i'll blog after i get there.

movie marathon

since it was the end of semester, i thought i go on some really fun stuff. it so happened that pamela also finished her exams, so we agreed to go on a movie marathon. the only difference, we buy one ticket, watch three movies.

the screenings are held differently here as compared to singapore. in singapore, you show the ticket right before walking into the respective theatre. here, you show your tickets, and then there's this open section where people buy their food, sit down, go to the toilet, or kids playing some video games. and each theatre is designated a single movie, so you know what is being shown in each theatre.

so we took full advantage of that opportunity, and did some research on each screenings for that day the night before. pamela wanted to catch 'ocean's 12' and i wanted to catch 'sideways.' a week earlier, we agreed to catch 'finding neverland' but neither of us were really keen to catch that, so we decided to watch 'spanglish' instead. i looked up each timing and came up wit the most suitable order, the final decision was in the order of 'ocean's 12' at 1330, 'sideways' at 1610 and 'spanglish' at 1900. all set.

and it was quite fun too. the only downside was waking up rather early on a saturday, and since whoever left in my section was happily drinking, it was rather noisy. but it didnt really matter much. the dining hall closed for the winter, so i had to get food on my own somehow. i did the easy way out by just ordering chinese, while joe t. and i started watching 'amelie.' i can watch that movie anytime and be continually amused. and this time, i realized i never saw certain scenes, which needless to say, was censored by singapore censor board. the cut scenes kinda enhanced that point in the movie, but gotta do whats gotta be done, right?

so the next morning, i woke up a little earlier, took a shower, went to withdraw some money and left. since i didnt have $5 notes and all, i had to use $10 to exchange for train tokens.

i guess i reached a little early, so i headed to the bookstore to kill some time, and while doing so, i came across really interesting books. ive been reading nothing but academic texts all semester, and since i have the whole winter in chicago, i thought i might as well get something interesting to read while in chicago. i'll do some more research and will buy in the next couple of days or so.

so we got the tickets for 'ocean's 12,' got our lunch, and went into the theatre. 'ocean's 12' was alright, but i must saw it fell below my expectation. its not bad at all, but i expected a greater entertainment than that of 11, but that was not to be. there's more comedy involved, and when you find out what actually took place, i felt kinda cheated, of the plot. a sequel to a remake of an older movie, can't exactly go right with that setting, but i guess its good enough.

next was one of my kind of movies, if many will consider boring. 'sideways' was a simple tale of two ex-college room mates going on a wine tasting trip a week before one of them got married. while tasting different types of wine and coming across numerious people, well, things happen, i dont wanna spoil the movie. i really enjoyed the simpleness but casual style of the movie. i kinda understand why it was listed among the top 5 movies to catch as suggested by the film institute.

i didnt really expect 'spanglish' to be that good, since it was another one of those adam sandler comedies, but it turned out to be really really good. it was very funny at most scenes and i guess they showed how flore struggled with the cultural difference very well. and she was pretty hot too, not to forget the hispanic accent while she tried to speak english. so i guess it was good exchange for 'finding neverland.'

pamela had to catch her shuttle to emory after that, so after meeting leisha and greg, we rushed back to lenox to get her shuttle.

back in tech, the PLs were going to the infamous Varsity for dinner, and since i didnt have dinner yet, i tagged along with them and also joe cole. i remember my delta sig brothers telling me to go to varsity only once a year, and i guess they're right in saying that. they're the world's largest drive through restaurant, but my, the food was rather measely. but their fries were good, i give them that.

we headed back and watched 'dodgeball' which was really lame, but something i needed after a tiring semester.

somewhere along the way, i started feeling some irritation in my right shoulder. i knew what it was, that particular irritating that grows into pain if i stayed still. so obviously, i couldnt go to sleep, coz i had to keep moving to keep the pain away and if i didnt, it was a torture. i figured out later that if i slept vertically, meaning, by sitting, the pain wasnt as bad. so i got down to my desk area, got the movie chair, and tried to sleep. that was already 8 something. i got about 2 hours of interrupted sleep, but felt so much better after that.

tech is closing brittain rec for maintenance tomorrow, so here i am, doing laundry on a sunday afternoon. how interesting. but i have no choice. my flight's on tuesday, so gotta clean them up and start packing.

if i still have time after settling with the clothes, then i might rearrange my room, like james and i planned. but i doubt that might happen, as i gotta get ready to visit my grand-aunt's place in lilburn. luckily, james is giving me a ride there. but i guess that will be fun.

ive never had breakfast since last monday at all. i've either been on a one meal or two meal per day since then, and i dont feel that hungry for some reason. i settle it with a late brunch, and an even late dinner. sometimes none at all. and it doesnt help now that the dining hall is closed. i dont feel like spending money on food, coz it can get very costly.

the dorm's practically empty except for me and my PLs, who will leave tomorrow. i'll probably head to sell my books for this semester, close my band of america account, exchange remaining singapore dollars i have in my possession and pack tomorrow. and yeah, rearrange our room setttings.

im gonna go grab something to eat. its about time.

end of semester!

wheeey... my exam's are done!

and i think i nailed the calculus exam. i studied the 6 exams i took so far so much that just by glancing at the questions in the final, i knew what to do. i didnt answer one question, coz i really had no idea what to do, it was one of the three new questions, but if i had done everything right for the ones i did, i should get 140 out of 150.

i received three final grades so far, GT1000, History and Health, in the order of A, B and C respectively. i'm pretty sure i'll get an A for math, probable B for English and Intro to Engineering, so my GPA should sit at 3.28 or something. i guess that's alright for first semester.

but next semester's gonna be real tough. 19 hours, totally new subjects. im kinda scared already.

and its also next semester that i have to make a decision on a lot of many things, among them, my major, and how fast i wanna finish. if i am to go ballistic and take every single semester from now, i could be graduating this time only 2 years from now. but im not sure if i have the mental endurance to do that. i might squeeze in an internship just to boost my chances of employment, but i guess i gotta talk to some people in the school for that.

im gonna schedule for some diagnostic test to see what kind of major and career im most suited for, just as a measure. ive been taking online IQ tests recently, as well as those personality tests, to pass time in between studying, and the results are somewhat surprising. i know better than to trust one score, so i took like 3 or 4 of them, and my average was 127, which borders on the 'genius' category. i know it isnt true, some free, 15 minute online test is not gonna reflect accurately, these are just gimmicks to make people feel happy, so i got kinda fed up, coz it was a waste of time in the end. but some of the other tests reflected pretty well, i need some work that will allow me to manage my own way and such. sounds like my perception of ISyE so far. i guess i will find out next semester.

been watching tons of movies too, during late night, when its almost impossible to study coz of all the guys making noise. i cant even recall how many ive been so far, but 'saw', 'city of god' and '28 days later' and number of others i cant recall. 'city of god' was pretty awesome, and i couldnt believe that it was based on a true story.

yeah well, im just gonna take the next couple of days to go around, watch more movies and not have to worry about anything until january.

probably the only thing i need to worry about it getting my ass frozen in chicago.

in preparation for calculus

i have two and a half days to nick the calculus paper, ive done quite a bit in the last couple of days, so its been good.

what im surprised is that the finals consist mainly questions from the 6 exams we had through this semester and the questions that are taken from these exams are carbon copy of the ones we took.

i ask, what's the point of having exams then? at least change the figures or the style of question? but then again, it works for me, i can just review the 6 exams and make sure i dont make the same stupid mistake i've made in them.

so that leaves me with just one test and chapter 8 to review. presented with this kind of opportunity, i have to nick it.

my TA was saying there might be a curve of 5 or 6 marks. in that case, i might just need to score anywhere above 70 to get A, but im not going to bank on that. im going for the A, which means a 90.

and since the questions are carbon copy, i dont see how that's difficult at all...

out of words

when things screw up on me, especially for something that is out of my hands, the last thing i need is the very people whom i consider to be my 'friends' making it tougher for me. it should be the other way round.

quote

Alice's (Natalie Portman) response to Dan (Jude Law) in 'Closer.'

"Where is this love? I can't see it, I can't touch it, I can't feel it. I can hear some words, but I can't do anything with your easy words."

i can't take my mind off of you...

The past couple of days has been filled with late night movie watching, and some really great ones, I could perhaps say that one of the best collections of movies I’ve ever seen. It all started with ‘dirty pretty things’ and ‘lost in translation.’ Soon enough, I was browsing through the best movie database website, imDB, and looking through recommended films that are similar to my favorite ones, or looking and making a list of whatever I have not seen in the all time top 250 listed by users, and boy, how beneficial that turned out to be. I downloaded a bunch of them and started watching them.

One of them was ‘memento,’ a movie that was very interesting, coz one story moved from the end backward every now and then, and in between each segment, the same story was moving forward from the beginning. I thought it was a very clever way to break the story down, and I was very impressed.

I watched traffic purely because I’ve always seen the DVD in serene centre and never got to watch it. Some fine acting, but I thought the story was kinda left messy, as three independent stories didn’t come together in the end. But it was alright.

I watched those on Friday, and on that day, the school had this all night games event named ‘one night stand’ and we were to play dodgeball, starting at 2am in the morning. How weird. But the reason why we even considered playing was because one half of the section signed up without even informing us, and soon enough, we came up with the anti-team of whatever that remained in the other half. Our sole intent was to beat that other team, and after some talking to to the officials, we made that happen, we were to play that. Regardless of whether we won or not, we would leave the tournament. We played around 3:30-ish. Until then, we watched the other matches, and since the place where we played was an indoor soccer court, we kept banging on glasses like mad south American soccer fans, chanting ‘you suck’ and just cheering, shouting at anything that happened. We were having so much fun. We finally played, I was the second last to get out, primarily because I dodged all the balls, but never got the ball coz my team mates kept taking the ball when I wanted it. Not like I would have gotten anyone out anyway. But in the end, it was a sole battle between james in my team and hunter from the other team. Since both hit eachother at the same time, it was left as a sudden death match, which james narrowly lost. We created so much entertainment, there could not have been anything better. But the officials changed the rules after that to cut on time, so the rest ended up being real messy and just a crazed meelee.

So we went back to our dorms, adrenaline pumping through our body, all excited and laughing like lunatics. While on the way back, james and I kind of straightened certain things out, which I guess worked well for the both of us, as the next day would prove. We couldn’t get to sleep, so james and I decided to watch a movie that was good and one that neither of us watched. Since I was looking through the top 250 list, I thought we watched ‘american beauty.’

The movie was very interesting, how they portrayed each characters and a very simple storyline. But these didn’t compare to what was coming in the next day.

But if there’s anything to be learnt from the movie, then it was mena suvari’s character mentioning she’s afraid to be just normal. I kinda realized there was a grave reverse psychology in our lives. We are all born technically born different. But everyone seems to think we’re all the same. And as a result, some people do different things, in order to be different, like being really popular, doing something unusual, and such, but by doing that, we actually are conforming to some style, that can be categorized, which means that that very thing that we’re doing to be different is actually making us the same as anyone else. I don’t think I expressed this right, but instead of being different, we’re all homogenizing. Like some people drink and do drugs to be different, but in the end, so are other people, which renders their actions useless… and such. I’m not sure how I’m trying to convey my point, but I thought that was extremely ironic.

Since the new Natalie Portman movie ‘closer’ had opened on Friday, I got couple of people to watch. Dan was definitely one that wanted to watch it, since he appreciates Natalie as much as I do. We were all excited when we read the review on CNN, that it was going to be one of the 5 movies to catch this season as recommended by the film institute (the rest consisting of ‘Finding Neverland, which I’ll watch with Pamela next week, and the much anticipated ‘Aviator’, and Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and ‘Sideways.’) but there was this segment that mentioned a scene where Natalie Portman is in a strip joint wearing only a bra and a G-string. We wondered how that would be like, since she never does roles like that.

So James and I went to sleep around 6:30am, after watching ‘American Beauty’ and I woke up around 11-ish, reeling from lack of sleep, but fine nonetheless. Tom and Dan decided to come with us, James preferring to stay in bed to catch up on sleep. Pam, Leisha and Adina joined us for the movie, and wow, how that turned out to be.

I was left speechless at the end, because it was so explicit, yet speaks so true of how we handle relationships. Most people would probably walk out of the theatre thinking it was fucked up or ‘perverted’ as tom described, I think it was a very accurate portrayal of how human handle relationships and sexuality in modern times. I should probably admit that none of us were qualified to truly appreciate the depth of the movie since we were all young and haven’t exactly gotten to that stage in our lifetime, but we could tell the seriousness and the honestly expressed in the movie.

I felt really weird after that, and I guess that kind of explained for the reason why I was feeling so out of place. The movie made me think about so many things, that I should be aware of as I grow older. Basically, to never take anyone for granted and all. Well, in the end, both Dan and I agreed that if you ever have Natalie Portman, you don’t fuck around. Simple as that.

The movie was probably the most provocative as well as R-rated movie I’ve ever seen, I guess. But I’m not really bothered about that. It made me feel real uneasy to watch parts of it, where couples were questioning eachother so furiously and explicitly. But clive owen was such a terrific actor in that movie. I don’t understand how the people behind this movie is going to push for Julia Roberts and jude law as the main actor/actress if ever nominated for awards (which it probably will be) and put clive owen and Natalie Portman as supporting actor/actress category as the ‘supporting’ characters totally overshadowed the more well known casts.

While getting dinner and walking around later on to look for tom and dan, I felt like Scarlet Johansson (I found out she’s only few months younger than I am) in ‘lost in translation’ I felt really out of place, like I described in my earlier entries. It felt like a slow motion walk, while things around me seemed to move faster and continuing, as if I wasn’t there at all. It was a weird moment. It kind of tied into the feeling I got after the movie, a sad realization of how life actually is.

It got worse after I came back. James and I decided to watch ‘road to perdition’ which we didn’t really enjoy for some reason. Slow, with not much substance to boot. We were really disappointed. And james suggested we watch ‘requiem for a dream.’ We got dan to come over and watch it, and boy, was that really intense too. It was all about drugs and what it does, but it was enough to make one stay off drugs for a lifetime. Education should not spend any money on posters and programs about anti drug whatever and just make students watch this, it’ll do a much better job of making people aware of what it can do and how it fucks people up than those informational flyers and workshops ever will.

So technically I had watched two very intense movies that day and I really felt awkward. We went to sleep at 4 am and woke up around 3pm, only to wake up feeling worse. Dan shared the same opinion. To complete this messed up feeling, I guess I might as well download ‘saw’ and make myself feel worse. I guess the two grave human errors from ‘closer’ and ‘requiem for a dream’ are ‘lust’ and ‘temptation.’ I wonder what saw will add. I feel like watching that in theatres, but I guess I can’t wait for it.

I have two new songs to add to my list. These were two songs that were played during ‘closer’ which deserves so much more attention. I looked around and found the song last night, and I cant believe I didn’t come across this beautifully crafted song before. I guess with it being featured in ‘closer’ Damien Rice will get more exposure. His song ‘The Blower’s Daughter’ is somewhat the main song for the movie and is featured prominently in the beginning and the end, and also couple of times in between, but it totally absorbs the intensity of the movie so well. And one of the lighter jazz songs by Suzanne Vega ‘Caramel’ is also very nice, I have to give credit to James for taking note of that one.

We both have been playing that on repeat, but its so nice, we just want to hear it again. Damien’s style reminds me a lot of Tracy Chapman’s simple folk guitar song, but its very different at the same time.

I should probably head back to studying for my finals, just thought I take a break, and write a summary of what’s been going on in the past few days. I feel terrible with these movies, but at the same time, im really glad that I saw them. I rather face reality than fictionalized content.

Just one more week, and im done.

Oh, there was another weird encounter on Friday night, or should I say Saturday morning. Its not the first time that happened, but the stare each of us gave…. I can’t find the words to describe… as if its like.. never mind. Sometimes time moves slow enough it feels like there’s something to it. I’m probably wrong.

God dammit, I might end up watching ‘saw’ tonight. Just to satisfy myself.

I can't stop playing this song... it's too beautiful...

'The Blower's Daughter' by Damien Rice

"And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new"

'Dirty Pretty Things' and 'Lost In Translation'

for the whole of yesterday, be it during class, or while walking to class, or even when i was in my room, i couldnt stop thinking about the events that took place in the movie 'Dirty Pretty Things.'

it was marvelously crafted, if you ask me. and at the end of the movie, it kinda leaves you feeling empty, somewhat guilty and vowing to yourself that you really want to be a better person than you are now. it was somewhat similar to my all-time favourite movie 'The Professional' in a sense that the guy, who's doing a dirty job, but ultimately has a real good heart, goes through so much to save the innocent girl, but they dont even up together.

yeah, it has the same effect on me whenever i watch 'the professional.' and its pretty sad at the last part, coz the two have to separate, never meeting eachother again. its a sad truth about how things end up.

'lost in translation' was something like that, but the stereotypes of the modern japanese society was a little far fetched. the japanese knows that foreigners arent likely to understand japanese by just talking to them in japanese, but other things that were portrayed in the movie was somewhat true, and fond memories of my time in japan began to resurface.

watching that movie reignited my desire that i might want to move to japan sometime early in my working career. i wouldnt wanna be dating someone or married by then, coz i wouldnt want her to be going through what scarlett johansson went through, alone, out of place and confused. but its certainly something i can imagine myself doing.

and that translator in the movie was horrible. i can definately do a much better job than that. i should really just become a translator. i can tell him exactly what the director was trying to convey to bill murray, but i guess that's the exaclt point sofia coppola was trying to convey in the movie.

those two movies are pretty good, i enjoyed it, both ending with similar endings, and it kinda came at the right time when i've been thinking about such things since thanksgiving.

somehow i feel like scarlett johansson in atlanta. i have friends, i know the place, and i am not at all confused about how people do things here, but i feel out of place somehow, alone, and just trying to put the pieces together myself... i begin to think about the good moments i had, not too long ago, and agonise over what it could have been, but didnt exactly ignite. but that's the same with everything. somethings just dont happen, we move on to different things, and the cycle repeats.

i'm just one class away from ending for the semester. it wont be that long if we dont have questions. then, its study mode. the first two wont be much, and i just need to make sure i dont make dumb mistakes for calculus. i need to score 90 to secure an A automatically, without curve, and considering majority of the questions will be taken out of the 6 exams we took, i dont think that will be much of a problem.

i was surfing through the imDB website and i was glad to come across various ranking of movies, of which, i made a shortlist and will start downloading them before i head back to naperville. i wish they had a list of the really good foreign language films. amelie ranks like 27th in the all time best list, which i think is really deserved. screening for andrey tautou's latest film 'a very long engagement' is only in selected theatres, so it kinda sucks, but natalie portman's anticipated 'closer' opens today. i wonder if i should catch it tonight or even tomorrow.

i still am thinking about 'dirty pretty things.' and it doesnt help that audrey tautou always seems to play that innocent girl role so well in all 4 films i've seen her in.

its a sad realization, as portrayed in the film, that good hearted people have to go through so much just to make a simple living. just because they're not from a modern developed country doesnt neccesarily have to make them go through such ordeal, when others are getting away with grave mistakes. that's the thing that evokes so much emotion out of me from that movie.

this warrants for more dido and zero 7...

Honestly OK

"I just want to feel,
Safe in my own skin
I just want to be,
Happy again
I just want to feel,
Deep in my own world

But I'm so lonely
I don't even want to be with myself anymore

On a different day,
If I was safe in my own skin
Then I wouldn't feel lost
and so frightened

But this is today
and I'm lost in my own skin

And I'm so lonely
I don't even want to be with myself anymore

I just want to feel,
Safe in my own skin
I just want to be,
Happy again."

i'm done biatch!

phewww...

im finally done with the english blogging assignment... 16 entries in 3 days... was tough... really tough...

i couldnt really get down to doing it today, since i was so tired, so i took a much needed nap in the afternoon, and got down to doing it. and i just finished. god it feels so good.

as i was talking to Junwen the other day, after i'm done with finals, i'm probably going to gather all the writing work i've done this semester and compile it into a separate blog, something i've been thinking of doing, and will continue to do for the rest of my academic life in georgia tech, as some sort of a record. it'll be interesting how that sums up.

im done, and i can either cool down for the rest of the week, or start right ahead in preparation for history finals. guess it'll be the latter.

oh, and i got a C for health. bleah. never mind. at least i didnt get a D. the best is a 3.43 for GPA now. isnt too bad i guess.

for now, im gonna take a real good shower, and ogle at audrey tautou in 'dirty little things' before going to sleep.

dead week

they call the last academic week 'dead week' for a reason. i so dead tired. ive been trying to finish off whatever that's required for the semester. and i guess i've been doing it a little too much, but its something that has to be done, if you ask me.

for english, im supposed to have 15 blog entries, reviewing editorials from newspapers or commenting on issues, and 6 more for a group entry. techincally, we should have been doing 2, at least 1 every week. each entry is a minimum of 250 words. i remember early in this semester, i was thinking, well, that isnt much, i should be doing consistently, and when the professor said that he expected people to rush in the last week, i thought i wouldnt be doing that.

since i got so involved on campus, the latter happened to be true. thankfully i had done couple over the semester, but im rushing so many entries now. i did 5 entries on monday, and 7 yesterday. and i spent practically the whole day doing that, so much that my eyes are sore from looking at the powerbook screen. i only have 5 more to go for today, which i will hopefully complete. 250 words isnt much, true, but when its added up, its something. i must have written 3500 words of analysis in the past 2 days. plus, on monday, i was finishing off my history text, and i managed to read 100 pages of that, play a soccer match (which we lost) and do 5 entries.

couple of the guys in my section of the dorm was drinking... on monday night! so i couldnt really sleep in peace coz there was so much noise outside. i wonder if the noise issue is better in west campus at all. last night was another case, i was doing work til 12 plus, unable to take it anymore, went to sleep, tried hard to sleep, but couldnt sleep.

this sucks. but i know, by end of today, i will have a relaxing thursday and friday. its worth being tired for. and i can even start my history revision early.

i found out last night that i have another final: intro to engineering. i was shocked, coz there isnt anything to test at all. but its basically an one hour paper with really straightforward questions. i just need to look through the topics covered briefly. i thought the grade would have been decided by our group project paper.

im going to find out my health grade today. its nerve wrecking, coz the last exam was alright, but i need to do well to get a B, since my first two fucked up.

if everything goes better than expected, i could end up with a GPA of 3.6, which is excellent, ill get a 2.8 in the worst case scenario, which i really hope wont take place.

gosh im so tired... but somehow, im able to pay attention in lectures.

we watched 'super size me' for health class on monday, since we're done with the syllabus. its a pretty shocking revelation of the fast food industry, directed specially to macdonalds, and i thought it was a pretty entertaining documentary.

i managed to get hold on two movies ive been wanting to watch 'dirty pretty things' and 'lost in translation.' when im finally done with my english assignment tonight, im gonna treat myself to the lovely audrey tautou in 'dirty pretty things.' thankfully, its not in french, so i wont need subtitles. i read yesterday on CNN that the director of amelie and andrey tautou collaborated on another film which will be similar to the theme of amelie, but it'll be set in the world war 2 era, so i'll be pretty excited to catch that, whenever it may be.

been listening to way too much dido recently... but her voice and background music blends well, so im not complaning. its pretty good music...

alright, time to leave for history...

Thanksgiving break at Naperville, IL

that was a great weekend. i got to see my dad after almost 4 months, and one of my cousins after like 8 years or something. the weather was horrible though, my flight was delayed for 3 hours. wednesday was mad, everyone scrambling to get home for thanksgiving. there was enough frustration in everyone to just stand up and scream. when we finally left atlanta, people started clapping in the plane. when we landed, the captain offered a scant word of consolation, stating 'we just flew from one of the most busiet airport in the world to another equally busy one in the most treacherous of conditions.' in my 5 days in chicagoland, i saw 3 very different weathers. my other cousin took 3 hours just to get from the airport to my place, since he was new to chicago. wednesday night was a snow storm, the snow stacked up to my ankle height. and then in 2 days, it was pouring really heavily. the last day, the sky cleared up and the sun was really warming up the place like atlanta.

i found out that thanksgiving wasnt a christian custom that americans practiced but its origins were that of the native americans and the europeans getting together. it seems like from now on, thanksgiving will be my annual getting together with my other family members. so it was my whole family, my two cousins from my dad's side, my uncle and his wife for the weekend, so it was pretty awesome.

we also went to couple of people's place during that time. the most interesting was when my dad went to visit his dorm friend from his university days. they finally met after 23 years. it was amazing how those two still kept in touch and he coincidentally happened to live near us. looking at them and thinking how i will be interacting with people i know now, i cant picture how it will turn out.

we went to watch 'alexander' which was like a bad version of lord of the rings. some of the scenes showed really homosexual scenes that was just bad. i mean i knew alexander was bisexual, but they could have portrayed his other parts of life in a better way. it is indeed a flop of the year. all the 3 movies that had kings and knights as their main theme flopped (troy, king arthur and of course, alexander) which is really disappointing coz i just love the medieval era.

oh, and i also went to the top (well, not really) of the world's tallest building, the SEARS Tower in chicago. i drove past it this spring, but didnt get to go up. it was a fascinating sight from all four directions and you could technically see michigan, wisconsin and indiana.

since i'll be heading back to chicago after my finals, i didnt really feel so bad about leaving, but im definately looking forward to being there for the winter. well, save for the sub zero temperature (it was like 28-36 when i was there... about -2 to 5 degrees celcius)

surprisingly my flight back to atlanta wasnt delayed, which was a welcome. i got back in good time, enough to get a good dinner at moe's and read my history text. i just gotta read 40 more pages for the semester.

it was another case of my alienated presence at the airport. i dont think ill go deep into it, but it was one of those times where it was just depressing, like how i wanted to blog about this some time ago, about how two people can come together and leave without a word. she was sitting right infront of my seat during the flight, in the next cabin on the train ride back to north avenue, but all we did was just glance at eachother time to time, to cross our eyes and quickly look elsewhere. listening to zero 7 and dido in the train made me feel worse, but somehow their tune was just the antidote i needed to get through it.

when am i gonna do something about this? it just keeps happening...

birthdays

due to lack of updates, i didnt get to dedicate birthday messages to a number of people.

so, happy belated birthday to chahat, denise and lem!

mahjong is awesome!

good deal, there werent enough players for the opponents, so they forfeited, and we advance to the next round of the playoffs, which will be played next monday.

just before we left for the match, scott, ray and kim taught me how to play mahjong. i know most of my friends played back in singapore, but for some reason, i never got to play, let alone learn it.

i didnt feel like playing soccer, so when the referee told us it was forfeited, i was really excited to head back and continue playing.

i guess i got the hang of the game, i just came back from playing for like 3 hours. its awesome, i didnt realize it was this fun, its my kind, combination, probability and all.

good lord, that was a good night spent. im off to bed, not sure if i should attend calculus tomorrow i could squeeze in 2 more hours of sleep if i skip it. i know im going for history.

i just realized i had two chicken sandwiches and a thai pad chicken for the whole of today. no wonder my stomach hurts like mad, im so freaking hungry.

lets see if anyone has some food around...

SAACURH at Louisville, KY

it was a totally wasted weekend. i didnt like the conference at all, and even according to some of the people who had gone to the conference last year, it was pretty bad. if you guys are wondering, then SAACURH stands for 'South Atlantic Affiliate of College & University Residence Halls.' so basically its the governing body for the residence hall associations in the southeast america region. it consisted of kentucky, who were the hosts, mississippi, north carolina, south carolina, georgia, louisiana, arkansas, virginia, florida, and of course, us, georgia, or as typical southern people would pronounce it as 'gee-or-gia.'

i personally thought the whole thing was pretty awful. i could hav spent a good time back in atlanta going for the basketball game, the football game, getting plenty of sleep and preparing for my health and calculus tests. honestly, i think most of the schools went there to just have fun. because louisville was such a place that we needed to get chartered bus rides from place to place, and with that, there's the inevitability of delays, we had to wait for most of the people to get to the place to begin. so they'll start playing music, and since its the south, they play some real hiphop music, and most of the students there were african americans, so they'll start dancing super seriously. it got to a stage that people started getting on the stage in numbers and it grew to an unimaginable partying scene.

us being typical tech people, save for erika, who joined the others in dancing, we just sat there, wasting time, and just getting some sleep. i did not get the whole thing. i didnt want to be a party spoiler, but i simply could not comprehend why all these students were cheering about the conference and getting so excited over music when the conference hadnt even started. i just sat there, startled. quite simply, i detest hiphop now. all people do is raise their hands and wave them up and down, the girls swing their heads and just move their hips. there's no variation, and believe me when i say this, coz i saw it throughout the conference and more at tech, that's all there is. everyone's moves are the same. i conclude, its a fad. everyone's into it coz everyone portray it as being cool, what everyone else does. hiphop has degenerated badly in the recent times. i am digusted by most of the songs. i find it hard to accept that some people get rich by just simply counting in what they supposedly call 'songs.' i was telling most of the people in my dorm prior to this, but just by counting from 1 to 5, they get like millions, while we people here, can go on to count til a trillion, and would not get the same amount of money. and all these slangs, 'herre,' 'e'rbody,' and whatever you can come up with, its just a sing of illiteracy spreading. i happened to bump into someone's blog, whom i happened to be in the same class in tech, and realized that as well, the words are transcending into actual use.

anyway, you get the point. so i just sat there not in the conference mood. it could be because there was very little interaction among the other 9 members i went to the conference with. plus the fact that we were one of the few rich schools whose residence hall association paid for our flight. most of the other students drove some 8, 9 hours to louisville, and spending that much time in such a small space can do both good and bad. i guess for most people there, it worked for the good.

i tried to make myself think that we went there for the sole reason to present our bid for the S.A.L.T. (student award for leadership training) award. we presented about the retreat that we had after our elections to get trained into being officers of the hall council. and i think we did well, coz we won. and the only cheer we did was something so utterly nerdy, yet something only we could do it. wanna know how the cheer goes? be my guest.


'e to the power of x, dy/dx,
e to the x, dy/dx,
secant, tangent, cosine, sine,
3.14159,
square root, cube root, poisson, bracket,
disintegrate...
yellow jackets!'

yes, you read that right. that was our cheer. and we consolidated the public perception that we indeed are a nerdy school. i think only MIT, CalTech and ourselves can lay claim to using that cheer. but to our surprise, LSU (lousiana state university) and some others liked it, thought it was hilarious. well, it is, but my god...

we got what we wanted, so it was all right with me. some of the things i noticed were shocking, like how dumb and ignorant some people can be. and all of you would have heard about the blonde jokes. and for one particular person there, it was so fitting. this blonde, personifies probably all the blonde stereotypes ive heard of, so much that this other tech student, chris, and i were looking at eachother with our mouth wide open, trying to comprehend that it was indeed what we saw. im not sure about the other states, but we kinda realized most of the other georgian university students arent that bright. im sorry, i just had to say it, coz it was so apparant. i would have preferred not to mention it, but there were so many incidents it was not funny anymore. i know, its not fair to make judgement on intellect, but you'd think that for lack of intellect, they'll be better in certain things that us, but that wasn't to be.

and someone had to nerve to say that they thought georgia tech was one of those universities advertised on tv, like a certain ITT-Tech, which is a huge insult to us. but of course, we can't brag about our academic reputation, so we just kept quiet.

at the end of the last night, we traded some of our university merchandise for other universities, and i got couple of stuff from LSU, Virginia Tech and Western Kentucky. our mascot buzz was a very popular figure, that we practically held a ransom and they gave it, coz they really wanted it. john got a bag full fo tennessee stuff and i got tons of LSU stuff. and Chris traded with our beloved UGA for the feelers we had on our heads throughout the conference with our buzz for their mascot, the bulldog. we took that around, pretended to hang it on a noose, and while i had my buzz, i poked the bulldog's butt with the buzz's sting right infront of the UGA students. obviously that didnt go well with them, but its all in the name of fun. we intend to have an effigy of that bulldog sometime in the future.

on sunday morning, we went downtown to have breakfast at macdonalds and the most random thing happened. while we were eating, some middle aged man came over, stood behind Laura, and took her ponytails into his hands. we were just staring at him, i swear, for a minimum of 5 seconds, just thinking, 'what the hell is going on?' i dont know how long it took, but suddenly the man said 'oh my god, i thought you were my daughter! i swear she looks just like you!' and we were shocked yet again. i thought it was some weirdo trying to do something to Laura. if could take the pictures of everyone's face during that 5 seconds, it would be pretty hilarious. the man recovered well from that embarrassment, but we were determined to find out if the man was speaking the truth, or if he was lying. true enough, about 10, 15 minutes later, a girl walked in, and the man took her in his arms and walked over to us, and told us it was her daughter. all of us started laughing because the man's daughter indeed looked very much like Laura! how coincidental eh? but the whole 5 seconds deal was so hilarious, we talked about it over and over again. weird things just happens at times.

other than that, louisville was a better place than i had expected. i didnt exactly 'get lucky in kentucky' as the famous saying goes, but it was alright. just save for the whole conference. veterans tell me that the NACURH (national affiliate of blah blah blah, you can figure it out) is going to be much better, but it'll be in the summer, which im not sure if i'll be serving internship or not, plus, with the way this conference went, im not exactly sure if i wanna go for this kinda thing ever again.

i went to sleep at like 3 every night since thursday, so i was really really tired when i got back. i tried to get some sleep on saturday night. around 3 something, i noticed some girl jumping up and down on top of me, asking 'why i was sleeping.' what do you think im sleeping, its fucking 3! she said that she needs to leave in about 30 minutes and she's still awake. well, if you're leaving in 30 minutes in the middle of the wee hours of the morning, she's fucking right, she better be awake to get ready! i was so pissed off, but so tired, i just stared at whoever she was, and Jeff, who I assume was the one who let her into the room. you never disturb a sleeping person for whatever reason except for emergency. and that was not. i dont care if you have to start heading back at 4 in the morning, it is none of my concern, and i didnt even know the freaking person for crying our loud. she covered my head with the hooded jacked i was wearing, and covered me in the comforter. first you wake me up, and now what, you're trying to suffocate me? that really ticked me off. they could have left to go to the lounge to talk, but no, they were talking oh so obviously in the hotel room while i was trying to get to sleep. talk about being sensitive to others.

i came back to atlanta, feeling so glad to be back, but with our flight delayed for about an hour coz it was raining pretty heavily in atlanta. i had a judicial board meeting that night, and still had to cram in some study time for my final health test, so i was hoping i'd get some sleep, but that didnt happen.

the case for this week was weird. i dont think im at the liberty to discuss it, but it was one of those weird pranks. the guy being present in the questioning was frowning time to time and i can't blame him.

i tried to do the best i could for the preparation for my health test. i think i did alright. in order for me to get a B (if i calculated correctly), then i need to score 78 or 79 to secure a B grade. and if, for some reason, i happened to get A in English and make sure i cement my A for calculus, then i might end up this semester with a 3.3, which would be good.

i had a calculus test this morning, which i thought went so much better than the last one. it was something like that test 3, which was on differentiation. i better get an A on this. i need to score 94 for this and the final exam in order to get an A without curving, but with so many people doing so badly, i think a curve is a certain possibility, but im not going to depend on that. but then, with that said, i probably shouldnt talk that way, its been pretty apparant since my middle school days, when i think i did well, it turns out the other way round.

so i have to finish off numerous english blog entries, read the rest of the history test, which i think will be done during the flight to naperville tomorrow, and just revise for calculus for this semester to be over. good deal. its fast ending. i cant wait to get back home to naperville tomorrow.

i could have actually left today. after 10am, which was after the test, i was done. my english and health class were cancelled, and i could skip the calculus and histroy lecture tomorrow and it wont hurt at all, so i thought i could do away. but orbitz wouldnt pick up the phone for operator support, so i could not change my flight schedule. but i dont think i would have changed anyway, i would have had to pay US$150 for the change plus whatever the difference in the flight ticket. i can take my time to relax, catch up on some sleep.

we played our last group stage match for the intramural soccer in the heavy rain last night. it was warmer than we thought, but we escaped with a solitary goal. so we won all of our 4 matches, and sadly, we ended up being ranked 7th, so we have to play again tonight for the playoffs. we didnt really interact with the referees last night, but somehow we got a sportsmanship rating of 3.0, which i thought was ridiculous considering we'd been so much harsher on the referees in our past 3 games and still got a 4.0 and 3.5 on them. and the fact that they failed to see an obvious infringement in the rules of soccer. its debatable if its a tackle not noticed, but for a goalkeeper to be out of boundaries and using his hands, that's not contestable. its an automatic redcard in soccer and ive seen it happen, both at a professional and amateur level. but i dont think it would have helped much anyway. we would have ended 6th at the most, and for us to skip tonight's match and be seeded automatically to the second round, we had to be ranked in the top 5.

i hope that we dont play tonight. most people have left home for thanksgiving and i hope that the opponents wont have enough players so that the match will be forfeited. i dont feel like playing in the rain like last night. not only cant you run properly, but ball control becomes a totally different problem.

alright, i guess im done for this entry. oh, before i leave, i saw this written on someone's bag at we were on our way heading out of Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

" ''Fo shizzle my nizzle' is a bastardization of 'for sure, my nigger' which is a bastardization of 'i agree with you whole-heartedly, my african american brother'."

i chuckled to myself silently.

4 papers and a history text

i did it...

i finished 4 paper (well, i didnt really do much to one of them) and managed to read 250 pages of history text in 2 days...!

im seriously burnt out. im gonna take an early night after i finish blogging. but last 2 nights have been such that i wake up half asleep, going to lessons and dont feel like going on by 12. last few nights ive gone to sleep at 3 and whatnot, while going to classes and doing work, so its intense.

but im glad that its done. i had a finals material science paper, a GT1000 report about my possible major, edit my english test, and write a book review on the history text that i had to finish.

and im not sure if the housing association conference im leaving for tomorrow is a good thing or not. id rather take the whole weekend off and rest, but this is gonna be pretty fun, hopefully. it'll be my first time in louisville, kentucky.

ok, im losing my chain of thought. lets see...

on wednesday, i was too tired to go to calculus lecture, so i stayed in bed to get 2 extra hours of sleep. james woke up and when he opened the door, he found a big couch resting vertically against the door. everyone came by through the day and asked what that was about. and then i got a weird call at 2am from a resident who seemed to be pissed with some incident, but i really think it was a prank. the hating doesnt stop wherever i go for some reason, i always seem to get some stick from someone.

anyway, GT1000 is done, MSE1001 will be done, so im only left with health, which will be over next week. after that, i gotta cram for english, history and calculus. i need to get like 80 on the last test to secure a B. i hope thats possible. and make sure that i ace my calculus test and finals exam. 3.2 baby, 3.2! im gonna get it!

there was a majors fair today, i went for it, and it proved somewhat useful. i think computer engineering is off for me. it sounds like a very static job, and once you're in the industry, you're such an expendible asset. so its more or less between ISyE and MSE, but i'll still give CmpE is like for ECE2030 on 3rd semester. either way, it will be a good choice, if i want to do ISyE, then i'll stay at tech since tech has the best program, and if its either CmpE or MSE, i'll head to illinois, since its gonna be cheaper and they'll have a slighter better program than tech. works either way.

semester's fast ending... it somehow feels good. okay, ive lost of chain of thought, so im just gonna leave it at this. im gonna head for louisville tomorrow and will be back on sunday, where i'll have a meeting to chair after another judicial case to review, and somehow study for the health test.

'Una Palabra'

i finally got hold of the song that i first heard it on one of the BMW short films (Power Keg, to be specific) by a director named Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

i remember when i was spreading the awesomeness of those films to the guys here at tech and i remember vividly when daniel told me that that was a very beautiful song. he couldnt translate it completely, since his spanish is probably like my japanese, but he said that its an outstanding song.

while watching 'Man On Fire,' i heard the song again. this time, i could find the song in the credits, unlike the BMW film, so i was super excited when i got hold of the song.

its by a Cuban singer/songwriter named Carlos Varela. and i also happened to get hold of the translated lyrics.

oh, and 'Una Palabra' means 'One Word.'

"A word says nothing
And at the same time it hides everything
Just as the wind that hides the water
Like the flowers that hide the mud.

A glance says nothing
And at the same time it says everything
Like the rain on your face
Or an old treasure map.

A truth says nothing
And at the same time it hides everything
Like a bonfire that does not go out
Like a stone that is born dust.

If one day I'm without you, I will be nothing
And at the same time I will be everything
Because in your eyes are my wings
And the shore where I drown,
Because in your eyes are my wings
And the shore where I drown."

and the Spanish version...

"Una palabra no dice nada
y al mismo tiempo lo esconde todo
igual que el viento que esconde el agua
como las flores que esconde el lodo.

Una mirada no dice nada
y al mismo tiempo lo dice todo
como la lluvia sobre tu cara
o el viejo mapa de algún tesoro.

Una verdad no dice nada
y al mismo tiempo lo esconde todo
como una hoguera que no se apaga
como una piedra que nace polvo.

Si un día me faltas no seré nada
y al mismo tiempo lo seré todo
porque en tus ojos están mis alas
y está la orilla donde me ahogo,
porque en tus ojos están mis alas
y está la orilla donde me ahogo."

eid weekend

this weekend has pretty entertaining. james and i planned to catch the movie 'the incredibles' on friday. as i did my laundry, like any other friday afternoon, i checked the timings out, they were to screen at 4, 4:45, 7 and 7:45. i didnt think we'd wanna go around 4 or 5, so i decided that it'll be a 7 show for us. i managed to get gautam and gopi to come with us, and we made it in good time. along the way, i got a sweatshirt, since its getting much colder. luckily, they had a S size for the one i wanted, albeit of slightly different color. but i finally got it anyway. we went to the phipps mall AMC theatre to find out all shows for 7 and 8 had been sold out, due to it being friday night. the next timing we could find was at 9:55, which was like a full 2 hours away, but since we werent in a hurry to do anything at all, we decided to get the tickets and hang around somewhere. we sat and talked about things at phipps mall for a while, looking at middle and high school kids all trying to be cool and wannabes. someone i dont recall being like that anymore, when i know i used to be just like that in singapore at lido when i went out. i realize how much different ive become.

since target was nearby and james wanted to get some posters, and it was so nearby, we left there, still having a lot more than an hour to waste. we got some stuff from there, but nothing much in general. we went back to phipps, wanting to go over to lenox, but knowing that most of lenox would have closed by then. we went back to joke about other things yet again til the time came.

i must say that i enjoyed 'the incredibles' even though im not a big fan of animated movies. and i dont think i laughed like that in a theatre since i saw 'rat race' or 'mean girls.' i thought that the graphics were flawless and the storyline was pretty impressive for an animated show, and walked away, not minding to pay to watch again. there were a lot of funny parts in the show, and like after any other movie, we were talking non stop about it on the way back to tech.

tech was having some event in the student center, which was running til 2am, so since having nothing much to do, we decided to go down to check it out. it wasnt much, since we came a little late, but it seemed that everyone was having fun. we played air hockey for a while and left the place, too tired for anything else. i cant recall wat time we went to sleep that night, i could hav been up til 3 or 4.

i woke up at 11 the next day, since it was GT vs UConn gameday. i was expecting leisha and greg to come by around 12, so i decided i settle some work stuff before that. they came around 12 plus, so i went over to pike house where they were and led them to the bobby dodd stadium. it was good that greg was a football fan, so for him to be attending a GT game was entertaining enough for him. there werent that many people attending that day since UConn was no match to us. we won 30-10, leisha and greg left by third quarter, since they had things to attend to. the tempo of the game had died down by half time, so james and i started going up to the highest point of the stands in the stadium. it was so high, we got a pretty good view of atlanta from there.

we hanged around for a while before i left, yet again, to attend an NBA match. it was a match between atlanta hawks and san antonio spurs. i got to see tim duncun and kenny anderson, and the neat surprise for the night was that i found out that this player i supported, antoine walker, who used to play for the celtics, now plays for atlanta, so i got to see him in action as well. since spurs are a pretty good team and hawks are horrible, the hawks lost, but just being in the massive philips arena was cool. it was such a big place, the moment i walked into the stadium, i could not stop being amazed by the sheer atmosphere. imagine how that would have been like it the stadium was actually full. i gotta attend concerts in the arena one of these days.

i went back, and contemplated if i wanted to watch any movie for a while, before finding out that there were like dozen of people in my room gearing for a massive halo 2 playout. i knew that tech was notoriously full of gaming nerds, but i got to see that infront of my very own eyes that nights. i was tired, but it was apparant that i was never gonna get any sleep anytime soon. i decided to get the 'man on fire' dvd from paul and watch it on my powerbook while making myself comfortable and warm up in my bed. from time to time, the guys will start jumping and screaming about who they killed or who killed them, and i was amazed by how these guys were so completely absorbed into the game.

i personally thought 'man on fire' was superb. denzel washington's acting is always impressive and in this film, he justified why he is who he is. i liked how the story progressed and how he went about taking revenge on the kidnappers. i think its somewhat similar to 'the professional,' which might be some reason why i liked it so much.

by the time i finished and got to sleep, while they guys went out of the room to start drinking at someone else's place, it was around 4:30am. needless to say, i woke up near 2, having couple of phone calls in the morning by people who wished me an eid that i wasnt getting to celebrate for the firs time in a long time. my family's away in three different places this time round.

i woke up, and started calling my relatives to wish them a happy eid. james and i left for the GT basketball exhibition match that had already started. we went in for the second half and witnessed our basketball team rip apart LeMoyne 103-66. this basketball season's gonna be pretty interesting.

bunch of us had lunch/dinner at moe's, preferring some real food for once over brittain food.

i had my first judicial board hearing later on, so i read some of the university's policy and guidelines for a while, and then just rested for a while before i had to leave for the hearing. the case wasnt a big deal and we settled it pretty easily, since there wasnt much to deliberate and everyone was pretty much in agreement.

even though i finished early, i let stephen chair the hall council meeting that night, and for the firs time, witnessed my own hall council meeting from the side of the room.

the weekend was coming to yet another end for me. i made my room mate watch 'the beautiful mind' which he thoroughly enjoyed, before slipping to sleep.

i will be out of atlanta the next two weekends, since im going for the regional housing conference in kentucky next weekend, and then making my way 'home' for thanksgiving on the following wednesday, which is going to be awesome. i might drop by my relative's place the weekend after that, and the following week will be the end of the semester, which im just gonna spent it going around atlanta before leaving for illinois for december.

the semester's coming close to an end. and i still have tons of work to tie up before that. sadly, i have only 4 days this week to tie things up for numerous things... i wonder if im gonna be able to finish everything.

locked out

i did something i never do yesterday.

i left my keys in my room, which meant i locked myself out. and its the university system of georgia rule that we cant duplicate our keys, due to obviously security reasons.

and the worst part? i had a test in about 40 minutes.

i couldnt call the people who are supposed to help you out in situations like this, primarily because once i go out, i can't get back in, since i dont have the keys, and how am i supposed to call the numbers, when the emergency phone booth is located far away, and i cant possibly remember 9 digit numbers. not to mention, i was wearing a single layer of clothing, and its freaking cold in the morning nowadays.

i didnt freak out, my room mate comes back after his class (the session before mine) i decided to rely on the possibility that he will come back and open the door. as for the test, for my calculus class, we have 6 tests throughout the semester, and we can drop the lowest one. i already knew that the test that i was going to have was gonna be my worst one,regarding volumes of revolutions, with things ive never learnt even in JC. so it didnt quite matter whether i was there on time or not. in the end, my room mate returned, and i changed, got my stuff, and left for the test, bowing never to leave my keys again. i went to the test 20 minutes late, but i had prepared myself mentally, and honestly, even if i was there 20 minutes earlier, it wouldnt have made much difference, coz the wording in questions were ambiguous. i did couple of questions, took my time, and just submitted it. since its not gonna matter. i know the next test it based on logarithm and exponential, which is pretty straight forward, so i just have to ace that one, and make sure i do well for the finals.

and i am so glad that i carry my powerbook everywhere. for some reason, my energy for the rest of the day died down, so i could not pay much attention to my lectures. so ill just use my powerbook, and since theres wireless access everywhere in campus, i just did my own thing, and time passes so fast when youre doing your own thing.

the weather's been really cold recently. it was about 10 degrees celcius for the better part of yesterday. and whats worse, i have to play intramural soccer in this weather at 7PM. its too cold for my liking, so much that during second half, my legs are no longer able to move the way i intend them to. plus the fact that ive lost fitness, which is slowly being regained, since i run a lot during the game, though im not entirely happy that im not getting much ball action. the thing was that i had to play 2 games in successive days. its good that we won both games (we are currently unbeaten, but we need to score more goals) but its the weather that just kills me.

i was really unhappy on wednesday. the opponents were really physical and the fact that the referees didnt do a good job didnt make it better. i was on the receiving end of 3 harsh tackles and that referee didnt give a single foul. one of them was so bad, i took the ball, passed it to my team mate immediately, and it was like a full second later that this guy came running into my leg and took me on the ground. i looked at the referee for such a late foul and she didnt even indicate anything. someone else jammed at my toes sometime later and still no foul. even my peer leader, scott was displeased, and he actually asked whether she was paying attention to the game at all or not. she just stared back at him like what he said was wrong, which so wasn't. my knee still hurts when i walk from that tackle, but what made me pissed is that the opponents got away unpunished.

other than that, all's good. this weekend will be interesing, weekend full of watching sports. on saturday, its the Georgia Tech vs UConn football match. I've invited Leisha and her friend from Emory to catch the game since Emory dont have a NCAA Division 1 sporting team. After that, I'm going to catch the Atlanta Hawks vs. San Antonia Spurs NBA match. I'll get to see Tim Duncan! and on sunday, its another GT Basketball exhibition match. later on, ill have my first hearing as the judge of the judicial board, which will be interesting.

its also the eid, but since im so far away from everyone, i wont get to celebrate. my mom has an aunt about 20 minutes from tech, in a place named Lilburn. Since i dont have modes of transport, im not sure how this will work out, but ill call her later on today to see what can be done, whether i'll be able to go join them or not. its times like these that you really miss your family. if my cousin had still stayed in UGA, we probably would have met up and spent some good time.

my schedule for next semester's all fine. im pushing myself with 19 hours, but it'll most probably be 17 after the first week. im taking a junior level course to see how its like, so that i know what ill be taking later on. im a sophomore by next semester, so looking at the schedule, i guess i shouldnt be surprised that im taking a lot of sophomore/junior/senior level courses. So i'll be taking MATH1502 (calc II), CS1371 (intro computing for engineers), ECON2100 (policies), MSE2001 (materials applications), ECE3710 (circuits), JAPN4813 (japanese business translation) and ISYE4991 (environmental sustainability).

i decided to take ENGL1102 and PSYC1101 for later, since these are the courses i need to take, that is more important, since those two classes are just requirements and not prerequisites or special topics.

alright.. im off to my last class for the week...

over the weekend

this weekend was a mix of good and bad. usually, i spend my weekend pretty happily, doing things with no pressure and such, but sunday was really bad.

i went to watch a GT basketball exhibition match on saturday, which was pretty awesome. i mean, getting to see the team that was the national runner up last season, play against a local team, which was the champion for Division 2 last season. since it was just exhibition match, there wasnt much tempo to the game, but it was nice to see them pull of couple of nice shots and plays.

and then i realized that there was a play going on, which was written by steve martin (yes, THE steve martin.) i initially thought that steve martin was going to be in it, but it was obviously not the case. but the play was pretty interesting, and the fact that it was done by our own students was pretty impressive. it was about a fictional meeting of einstein and picasso, and certain aspects of their conversation was comical, yet interesting.

since it was late, dan, tom, chris and i ended up ordering chinese food, which was very good. we watched 'patriot games' later on, but i didnt quite like that movie for some reason. we ended around 2, and i just went back to my room to get some sleep.

when i woke up around 11 the next day, i went to the toilet with shock. the hallway was smeared with white powders on the carpet. i couldnt tell what it was, but later i found out that someone had played a prank, ran all over the second floor with a fire extinguisher, which left that mess. i was pretty darn pissed that someone was that stupid and childish to pull off that prank, coz our carpets were cleaned earlier in the week. luckily, this could be just vacuumed off, but still. and the worst part is, if no one owns up or points to the guy, then everyone in the hall is getting charged for property damages, which is ridiculous. i sent out an email to everyone in the hall, and it doesnt help that some thought my tone was offensive. when it happens right infront of your place, and although i did not suffer from this, couple of my friends had to clean off their utencils and TV coz there was a powder layer on them, which is obviously inconvenience, and coupled with the fact that you'll be charged for someone else's stupidity, how can you not be angry? im lucky that my section of the hall wasnt flooding like the other end of glenn. had that happened, i would have been really frustrated.

why would anyone want to do that? if i had the means, ill find out who did it, get an extinguisher of my own, spray it all over his room, and if he even dares ask me why i did it, ill spray him all over and ask if he thinks thats fun. and im not the only person who wants to do that. some are thinking of putting it up his ass.

aside from that, had my first judicial board meeting yesterday, i think thats going to be pretty interesting, but i wont know til wednesday if we'll be having our first hearing.

my mom told me that she has an aunt in georgia, although its a little far away from tech. the problem is, even if i want to go over to meet them, i might not be able to, if i have that judicial board hearing. i can pass my hall council to my vice president for a week, but i cant do that for j-board. and saturday's an ultimate game day with GT vs UConn and hawks vs spurs NBA game later on in the evening.

well, as usual, i have tons i have on my mind... but ill handle them as i go along.

james told me just now that he's going to keep himself away from poker for 3 weeks. lets see how that goes.

Vanilla Sky

ive always wanted to catch this film, even before the american version came out. ive heard that the spanish version is better, but i got hold of the new version on i2hub, so i downloaded it. and i just watched it. man, its amazing. half way through the movie, i thought there wasnt much point to the movie, but the last 30 minutes really turned the whole movie around. another one of those 'mind' movies ive been watching lately.

and of course, got to see penelope cruz from all angles of her beauty. so that was an additional bonus.

im in that mood where i just wanna be away from everything. just me, my music and my own free time, not be bothered by anything else. i guess i'll be listening to more of jaime cullum, coldplay, zero 7, maxwell and norah jones for tonight...

dear OSCAR

dear OSCAR,

i took the credit-by-examination for JAPN 3001 and 3002 on Sept. 14th. and the credits ive gained still does not show on OSCAR. I need those keyed in to sign up for JAPN4813 class, as JAPN 3002 is a prerequisite for it. and Since its a special topics paper, i might not be able to take it next semester.

please register my credit as soon as possible. after all, you took my MATH1501 credit after 10 weeks of making me think that that counted as a free elective credit, its the least you can do.

thank you,

Walid Neaz

at the laundry...

im over for this week. the main thing with this week was that i had to submit two papers, one for english, the one that discussed that the media is biased and unreliable, and the other one for material science, which was a collaborative project. looking over two 1500 word papers are no joke.

but im glad that thats done and over with. that more or less sums up the two classes for this semester, i just need to complete blog entries for english on articles.

on the other hand, im really switching my classes up for next semester. i decided to drop english II and postpone it to some other semester, since thats only a prerequisite for LCC, and take up the special topics classes for ISyE and JAPN which isnt offered every semester. and as my peer leader suggested, i took as many classes as i can to survey what the class is like, and then drop it at the end of the semester. my JAPN isnt settled right now, but when it is, i would have signed up for 19 semesters. can i go on with that? likely not. its a big difference from 14 hours i signed up for this semester. i knew i shouldnt have dropped psychology. if i had kept it, then it would have made scheduling so much easier. dang.

but assuming i can go on, then it will go a long way. im requesting overload for MSE2001 directly to the professor, which will mean i must change something again, probably drop the ECE2710 and retain ECON2100. I might have to request overload for ENGL1102 to replace ECON2100 coz i will have too much reading between ECON and PSYC1101. oh man, what am i getting myself into....

another dent in my plans is that it does not seem possible for me to be an officer in RHA if i am not there for the whole duration of the elected term. in another words it means i have to be there studying in tech for 2 successive terms, or i can be studying in one semester and be working in atlanta area for the other. since my current situation is such that i might be moving off to midwest area for my co-op, its not a good news for me. i dont even know if i can be a hall council officer next year. if thats the case, then my only way of being involved might be through fraternities or small societies. hell, i might even join the japan club or the singaporean association for that matter. there's this thing like friendster, which is named thefacebook, which is only open to selected university students and what i notice is there are so many people involved in so many things, and sometimes i wonder how they do it. just gotta juggle time properly, i guess. if they can do it, so can i.

so yeah, thats the situation im in now. i wont know about toyota til next semester, so theres more time to work things out. i also got an email from applied materials and just this morning, i received a letter from kyocera, which surprised me a little that they are considering me for something, if i match any of the openings. so 3 companies, thats always good to know.

alright, laundry's in the drier, its going to be another hour before that's done, so im heading for lunch...