overload

i signed up for my next semester classes and boy, am i pissed.

i cant take some of the classes coz theyre maxed out. they have this priority system where people on scholarships and advanced standing get to register first, but still, that should not take fill the MSE2001 class that i wanted to take. now, its gonna be two courses in my third semester thats going to be something of an intro class for two different majors. not to mention, ill also be taking statistics so that means on my third semester, ill have to decide between computer, industrial & systems or material science & engineering. thats gonna be tough.

i didnt get the psychology professor that i wanted either. instead, ive signed up for a class that didnt list any professor's name. thats going to be risky, i might end up with a bad professor. so now that i cant take MSE2001, im taking ECON2100 a semester early, which works out for me.

and guess what, all these while, the data online showed i had my MATH1501 credit listed as a free elective while i retook it here. and just last week, it vanished. so now i need to cover 4 hours somewhere, be it through japanese or some other foreign language that takes 4 hours. and they still have not registered my japanese credit i took. no wonder i was down in the pecking order, coz without the calc credit and japanese, i was considered a freshman. im supposed to be in sophomore standing by next semester.

whatever it is, im happy that i got the calc, eng and CS professors i wanted. you cant really ask for everything.

lately, ive been pondering to do a 6 months professional internship instead of co-op. then if i cram my semesters, which i am already going to anyway, i might get out in 3 years, but graduating in july instead. hmmm. gotta talk it out with some advisors before i look that up. co-op will be better, but i cant take it all at once.

after tomorrow, i can chill out a little. my english and material science papers are due tomorrow. its not well organized, but i think its good enough for now.

election day

i was surfing about and came across a weird ad saying 'muslims for nader' thats full of crap. i just chuckled at that to myself when i saw it. he's never gonna be a contender.

talking about elections, today is going to be very interesting. not only is the result going to be crucial, everyone's talking about it. its huge. can you believe theres gonna be parties around campus as the results are coming out? i personally think they'll try not to announce the results by tonight though, something like florida of 2000 might take place again. but people are going to be all over campus anyway.

heh, party to celebrate the election. thats weird, considering was previously living in a country where winning the election didnt mean jack.

anyway, some people has been gettin on my nerve recently. i try not to think about it, but it doesnt help that people come and go in my room. so what if i say something that someone dont agree with, that doesnt necessarily mean im wrong. dont make me sound as if it was so wrong for me to say what i said, you can just say that you dont agree and proceed to explain why you think im wrong. dont just tell me to shut the fuck up or fuck off. or did you say that coz you knew i was dead right. i wasnt trying to make it seem something demeaning, but i was just stating the obvious truth and if you dont like it, well, go fuck yourself. you think you can say shit to me coz i dont retaliate, and whenever i say something that offends you, i am automatically wrong? dont take my patience and good naturedness for granted. yeah, you go fuck yourself.

i apologize for the expletives. i just needed to get that out.

a rare weekend

this weekend would be something i wouldnt get in a long time, the kind of weekend i crave for.

i realized on sunday that for the longest time, that was probably one sunday where there wasnt anything for me to attend do. usually, i would be running off to delta sig for whatever reason after brunch, and then gotta handle the hall council meeting in the night, then read history text in preparation for the week.

yesterday, nothing. the only thing i had to handle was the costume contest for my halls, which barely took an hour. i thought i'll be having the judicial board meeting on sunday, only to realize that that was next week. so i was sitting down there, not knowing what to do. there was no hall council meeting due to halloween.

we all crave for free time. and when we suddenly get it, we dont know how to spend it, and we end up doing absolutely nothing. its ironic considering the fact that i was so mad busy, running from place to place throughout the week, and the weekend was suddenly so free, i was just sitting in my room most of the time, listening to quality music and watching really good movies. and i was truly a tech student for once, being oblivious to all the halloween parties and events happening around campus.

it began well, wit a nice jazz concert on friday night. that was a good way to unwind and not care about anything. and i saw that person again, but this time after a long time of not bumping into her. but somehow the impact had diminished. somehow or other, it feels like she's any other person now. just chilling and listening to good performance made me think of what it would be like if i had absolutely no obligation to anything. it would probably be nice for that time duration, but i know i cant stay being like that for too long.

and then i watched 'office space' that night. i didnt think that was a good movie at all, i still dont understand why so many people liked it. however, the 3 movies i was to watch later on were all excellent. i managed to get 'the abyss' from stephen, and watched it, as well as 'big fish' from dan and finally, 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.' those three movies made my weekend, really. 'the abyss' was mystical, and intriguing. and to quote dan's words about 'big fish,' it was sad, funny, happy all rolled into one. halfway through 'eternal sunshine' i thought that the movie was fucked up, but in the end, everything made so much sense, i was very impressed. my room mate liked it a lot, and i encouraged him to watch 'the butterfly effect' after that. he was glad he watched that later on, he seemed to like it a lot.

because i had caught 3 excellent movies in a row, i had a serious headache, mainly because i was thinking so hard while watching the events unfold during 'eternal sunshine.' but it was well worth it.

i wonder when ill have such a weekend where there wont be anything. i always think that i will do so many things when i have time, but this shows that nothing really gets done.

i downloaded bunch of jane monheit and other older jamie cullum songs, as well as some outstanding songs from 'garden state' soundtrack. frou frou's 'let go' and zero 7's 'in the waiting line' are my new favourite songs to listen to. oh, and i so knew i had heard 'high & dry' somewhere previously. when i heard that song at the jamie cullum concert, i knew it wasnt his, and i found out the answer; that it was by radiohead. i kind of like jamie's rearrangement of that track, but i was going crazy about the fact that i heard it before and wanted to find out.

'Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe in
What you see'

man, this song by zero 7 is awesome!

songs ringing in my head

'these are the days' by jamie cullum and 'baptized' by lenny kravitz (awesome, awesome song!) keeps running in my head.

its 4:26am on a saturday morning. i was watching the movie 'office space', something that has been mentioned quite a lot by my peers, so i thought i check it out. wasnt so bad, though i wouldnt say it was good in my eyes.

had another night of good jazz music, this time by former tech students who dub themselves as 'Style Points.' they were pretty good, but can't top jamie. im still reeling from last night's performance.

alright, better get to sleep. wonder what i'll be doing tomorrow...

'High-tech football'

For the 'Battle of the Techs' football game between Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech, ESPN ran a story about us in a way that makes us look real nerdy, but I couldn't agree more with what he had to say here. It's an interesting read, you'll understand how my university is like.

Here it is. 'Football as Rocket Science'

the jamie cullum gig... continued

i am still reeling from last night.

they say nothing will be as good as your first concert. for pamela, leisha and me, it was our first concert and it cant possibly get any better than the one we witnessed last night.

and for all that for US$20? to think that people will pay US$50 for the avril lavigne concert at the other end of atlanta, i thought this was definately value for money for real music.

the earlier part of the day was pretty draggy. i had my calc test, which should go fine, and then i had a run of classes til 12, and then another run from 1:30 til 4.

and then i was settling some stuff out when i got a surprise call from leisha and pamela that they were heading to tech. since tech and emory has a joint biomedical engineering program, theres a shuttle running from tech to emory daily, so they got on that.

they came at the right time to see tech at its best atmosphere as people were gearing themselves ready for the battle of the techs, a football game between virginia tech and ourselves - a game i had to miss due to the concert - but a game where we lost it all in the last quarter.

so i showed them around tech for a while and then had to leave for buckhead. to a place i wasnt quite sure where it was, so we had to leave a little early on. the online map said it was only about a mile from the lenox mall, which turned out to be quite inaccurate, we spent a good 30-40 minutes walking there, but i guess that was because we never went to the coca-cola roxy theatre before.

so there was a big sigh of relief when we finally found the place. there was a scare that we might not be able to get the tickets, but that was taken care of. i got myself a copy of his album with a signature for 10 bucks. the US release of 'twentysomething' is different from the one that my dad bought in singapore, plus it included his rendition of pharrell william's 'frontin'' (which he performed superbly later on in the concert) so i thought it was nice.

the theatre had this really old feel to it which made the concept of attending a jazz (well, supposedly) concert much better.

the introducing artist was this ukelele performer from hawaii named jake shimabukuro. he was just awesome strumming his ukelele, he was strumming so fast and with so much passion, you could feel the song. he's really talented with the acoustics of the ukelele, which made a great opening for what was to follow.

so we waited around 15 mins to a great cheering and applause as jamie cullum came on to play 'these are the days' which we went crazy to. and then he played my favourite at the moment, 'twentysomething' when he actually came down to the audience area and started walking around. since i was sitting on the centre aisle, he actually walked right infront of me and it was just awesome to see that while he was performing a song that ive been listening to for the past few days.

i cant recall the exact order of the songs he played, but every one of his performances were great. i truly enjoyed myself throughly and some of the things he did on the stage was just funny as hell.

during one of his songs, he was really getting into the song, he started playing the piano with all his might, then he started slamming his hands, then he took his stool and tried to play the piano with it, then he put that down and started sitting and jumping on it, we were all laughing so hard.

and at the end of one of his other songs ( i think it was what a difference a day made) where it got quite quiet, he started muttering the chorus section of christina aguilera's 'beautiful' in such a mock of the way the song goes, that really cracked everyone up.

there were tons more things that he did, which were all awesome. he would talk in between couple of songs and he was actually pretty funny. in another one of his songs, he came down to the audience area again and this time, i extended my hands out while he was walking and i actually got to shake his hand, which was pretty awesome.

alright, i gotta run to history, but whatever it is, it was clearly one of the best nights ive had in a long time. and to come at the end of a really rough week, it was very welcomed.

the jamie cullum gig

well, its quite late and im tired, but the jamie cullum concert was just excellent. i had so much fun and he is such a talented musician.

if his performances werent good enough, i actually got to shake his hand during one of his performances where he started walking around the audiences area.

so my dad was so made. its frankly the best thing that has happened in a long time.

more about the concert tomorrow.

request for help

im doing a paper for english on how the media is or has become unreliable concerning the elections, be it because they're too concerned with things they shouldn't be, or focused too much on statistics and whatnot.

if you guys have any blogs or articles you know that is of credible source, please leave a link in the comments. i have until next week to complete this paper.

the reason why im asking here is because this paper technically points finger at the media, so its very difficult getting resources from network pages or the news web, since they're essentially part of the media. there are some interesting articles ive found, but its biased, so its not that helpful in the end.

if anyone can help me find more articles, then your efforts will be appreciated.

rough week

this week, i have...

3 tests, 2 papers, 3 meetings, 1 event to carry out, a concert, tons of assignments to complete....

that's what im looking at. let's go..

the only good thing this week is that im attending the jamie cullum concert and that the daylight saving time ends on halloween.

day out in emory

i finally met up with leisha, who's studying in emory, after like 2 months of living in the same city.

i woke up early for team buzz, an annual campuswide community service which i talked about in an earlier post.

what i didnt mention, i got freaked out when i came back to my room. why? coz when i woke up this morning, i saw a red stain in the community toilet door. it didnt exactly seem like blood, more like pasta paste or a really bad case of vomiting, except that there werent any stench throughout the hallway. i was talking to tyler, joe and kyle this morning what the hell that was.

and then i come back to the room after team buzz and find the same kind of stain, but like a finger print, on the message board on my room door. at this moment, im thinking, what the heck. and then i open the door. and the first thing that i see is james' blankets and pillow on the floor. then i see the pillow.

the pillow had several stains of blood splattered over it.

i didnt know that it was james who was bleeding. i was awake when he came back from chi psi party drunk, but still sane and conscious of what he was doing. so i thought it couldnt be. just to make sure that he wasnt unconscious, i woke him up, he didnt respond for first couple times, but eventually he woke up so i was relieved. he doesnt seem to remember what happened at all. he tells me that daniel was there this morning when he went to the toilet. i go over to dan's room and find out he collapsed in the toilet cubicle. it scares the shit out of me coz i dont know the severity of his damage and the cause. james wakes up later and i see the scar on his head. he tells me it hurts a lot, and the gash looks real bad. i tell him to go check it up wit a doc, but he is fine for now, or thats what he says. he walks fine, knows what he's doing, but only problem is that he doesnt know how he got it. could have happened during the party, on the way back to our room, or maybe during that fall in the toilet.

what a scare in the morning.

anyway, i found out that number of my friends knew a person who was studying in emory, who is leisha, and we've been talking about meeting and all, but it never materialized til today. and another surprise? marc, as in marc irawan, has a cousin, pamela, in emory too, and she also knows leisha. so i got to meet two people yesterday.

we walked around for a while, talking partly about tech and emory, and then it was cool that another guy who was there, yong, intended to go to the jamie cullum concert too. so now i have at least a couple of people going for the concert, apart from gautam and gopi who expressed an interest, but yet to confirm, along wit some other people from the hall council.

we deliberated whether to watch 'the forgotten' or 'the grudge' which is the american version of 'ju-on', much like 'the ring.' ive seen the trailer of 'the forgotten' and thought it had a good storyline, but both movies had received a lukewarm review on CNN so i wasnt too keen on either. i would have watched garden state for the second time just for natalie portman. and i later found out this girl staying next to pamela in emory, has a sister who's the best friend of natalie portman as they practically grew up together. how coincidental is that. i am that close to potentially meeting natalie portman! (if, at all)

anyway, so we decided to watch 'the grudge' starring sarah michelle geller, and jason behr from roswell. i was ambivalent to either movies, so it didnt matter much. but i thought the movie was horrible. whenever someone remakes a movie, they always lose the touch of the original one. but i didnt complete watching the japanese ju-on, so i cant really comment on that. but i bet the japanese one was more freaky.

but yea, overall, horrible, dont waste your money on this. everything is so predictable, you know when theres a scary part, coz you can see the ghost or whatever that thing was for like a second or two before they kick in with that horrible sound, or you know whats going to happen for most of the time. and the ending was just awful.

so as i lamented having wasted money and time on this movie, the people at the theatre started giving away readmission tickets to all of us in that theatre. i thought they were compensating for us watching an horrible movie, but as i realized, they did not align the movie properly when screening, the top section of the movie was somewhat above the projected screen, causing us to not be able to see the entire screen.

but i guess that was good enough compensation for me. im gonna use that to watch some other good movie maybe a month down the road, or use it to watch 'the forgotten.'

well, i decided to go by to emory, coz i never did that before. i heard it was an awesome campus, and even though i only got to see a section of emory, it was pretty impressive enough. their dorm was very new, compared to mine being old, and almost everything about emory was modern, new and nice. but again, thats coming from a first time visit. i felt like that about tech when i came here, about their old looking buildings and whatnot. but i liked the quietness of their campus and how they were spread out. emory might be located in atlanta, but unlike tech, which is in the smack of the city, emory's located a little off city limits. so it was a nice change of scenary for the day.

we talked about nonsensical stuff, but it was very much welcomed, since i havent had that kind of talk with people who understood what they meant. i could relate to things in singapore with leisha and pamela would understand too, and i found out other things about marc from his very own cousin, which was interesting too.

if i had told my friends in tech that i was actually in emory, they'd kill me. which kind of was true when my friends called to ask where i was and when i was coming back, i'd tell them im at emory and the first thing they would say is, why didnt you tell me you'd be at emory? the sex ratio at tech's pretty bad, as i mentioned very long ago, and the guys at tech will jump at the opportunity to go to UGA or emory, coz there are more girls.

and i kinda understand why now. the girls that i met in emory and saw around campus, well, were commendable. and the ones i got to know through leisha and pamela, though i cant exactly remember their names, were very nice bunch of people too.

oh and i got to measure my weight for the first time since coming here. i was so afraid i had gained like 10 lbs, but as i found out, i actually lost weight. i lost weight in my freshman semester. how weird is that? all these talk go on about the effects of the 'freshman-15' but i actually lost like 5 lbs. with all my coins, ipod, shoes and wallet, i weighed 139.5 lbs. so i assume that my weight is 139 lbs. i was elated, coz i had feared for the worst, but i guess my lost apetite in brittain caused me some good.

well whatever is it, i had a really good time in emory and if time permits, i'd love to be there more often. its a change of surrouding for once and its like an extended network of friends over that provides a different sort of unwinding and relaxing from the rigours of the weekday.

also, red sox wins the first game of the world series. i still believe! take that josh!