Homeless, but not heartless

I,

used to have a home which perturbs me a great deal,

used to share a tiny dorm in a very small town,

now living in a small room surrounded by entirely strangers,

now still not having a home,

now still working on building my home.

How's everyone?

Life is good here,

my heart is beating strong,

studies is challenging as always and fruitful as usual,

winter is arriving in a blink of an eye,

I am loving the apple of my eye.

I'll be coming back more often to furnish up this space,

to retain my existence in your memory,

do keep in touch and drop me messages anytime.

I cannot always be around but this blog can be,

enjoy your stay and have a nice day!

15000km

If you poke a hole down your feet straight through the center of the Earth, you might see me!

Source: http://ukiahcommunityblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/obama-dig.jpg

Finally, I reached this new place called Troy in New York in 52 hours after I left Miri with all the flight time and waiting time included. The journey certainly did not start perfectly with with all the rushes and emotions that came along, a little bumpy in the middle and actually become worse towards the end, but I would say that everything went well. The flights did wear me out but it did not kill my spirit. Most importantly, I did not contract H1N1 XD.

The longest waiting was at KLIA where I had wait for 10 hours. The wifi there was very unstable and connection to windows live was banned, so I resorted to walking around the once world best airport. In the middle my exploration, I discovered the viewing area at a deserted part of the airport. It is a very quiet section of the airport in contrast to the departure area. From there, we could see planes taking off in a distance, MAS planes for local departure, the international aircrafts parked at the satellite building in a distance, the aerotrains and also, a number of people sleeping on the couch. If you have a long waiting time but cannot afford the lounge, this would be a good and quiet place to sleep through the wait!

MAS employed airbus A330 to fly from KLIA to Incheon, Seoul, Korea. In my disappointment, it is not a big plane with good in flight entertainments and the korean speaking air stewardesses were not attractive lol. Anyway, it's better than the Boeing 737 I usually take to commute between KL and Miri. Nothing much was interesting, so I just slept through the flight except waking up for MAS delicacies and the sunrise.

Incheon Airports was a great masterpiece of airports architechture, they sure have put in a lot of efforts and money into building it. It is uniquely situated on a isolated piece of island located 70km away from Seoul, or should I say two islands because the airport was actually built on a landfill that connects two separate smaller islands together. The aiport houses the plane terminals as well as a lot of shopping outlets along its stretchy hall. In contrary to my belief that things in the airport are more expensive than the shops outside, shopping seemed to be very popular there. There were a lot of people mostly shopping for the luxury or branded goods, mostly Koreans. It is either that the merchandise are really cheap or Korean people are very rich. Of course, I would not miss the chance to try out the reowned internet infrastructure in the country. The wifi at the airport had certainly impressed me after my agonizing experience with wifi in KLIA. I had enjoyed so much that I somehow lost my mind and unconsciously left my laptop behind when I left, oops. Thank God that it is still there when I went back to look for it. The security camera in the airport must have caught the images of me ransacking the airport anxiously.

Then finally it was time to leave Asia and head to the States. The long and seemingly unending flight was made pleasant thanks to the excellent service provided by the Korean Airlines. The boeing 747 was very similar to MAS's 747, the in flight entertainment equipments, schedule and even the catering service were almost the same, except the language. However, it is so sad that I was seated and sandwiched in the middle seats, rendered me unable to see the view outside the plane windows while we cruised through the continents. So I could only sleep and watch movies throughout the flights (short videos review: "ghosts of girfriends past" is nice to watch, "the international" was crappy, "more than blues" is fine and yo yo ma is an amazing cellist. The plane travelled towards the west making a turn through the artic. The flight time was rather fascinating becase we departed at 11++am in the morning and embarked at 11++am in the morning too, gained 12 hours for free. Also, due to the Earth's round shape, we got to experience two sunrises in one day.

Finally, arrival at the JFK New York was quite a disaster. The plan to stroll around the airports and take nice photos was spoiled by the immigration officers. I was pulled aside for an additional registration of the program called nseers. Basically it is one of the new security protocols introduced after the 911 attack to monitor the entry and exit of certain aliens with apprehensive background. I do feel sorry for the 911 lost but the procedure was so upsetting. I had to sit aside waiting patiently for the seemingly computer illiterate officers to gab around and take their sweet time to finish up the computerized registration with my transit time ticking nearer and nearer. Well, I could not complain because I did not want to jeopardize my entry into the States. So be careful, people around me, I am a potential threat with criminal look...

In the end, I had to rush through the terminals at JFK to board my transit flight to Albany. My last flight is a short 34 minutes flight in a small plane of Delta Airlines. So this is the my first travel with an US arlines. There was only one flight attendance whos a kind elderly lady, as expected in the land which rejects discriminative hiring policy unlike MAS or KE. I basically slept through the flight again as the long flights had already drained so much of my energy. The plane was pretty steady and the pilot did a good job to land me at my final destination, Albany.

So, here I am, safe and sound in the States. Thank you everyone back there for your prayers, blessings and wishes. I will definitely miss everyone and the food. Keep in touch please! All the best. Before I end, thank you for the company in flight and helpful local host for picking up my half dead body from the airport.

Up next, life in Troy.

Chasing Dream.

It has been a busy day for me due to my last minute working habits, I must apologize to myself for that. Today, woke up with luggages piling around, dashed to church, home, Miri airport and finally KLIA. Fortunately, everything went quite alright and I am now waiting to retrieve my passport with flights tickets then I can go off.

I must say thank you to my trusted friend for helping me to shop for some necessities in Kuala Lumpur as well as delivering them to me. Also, thank you to people who came to send me off at the airport. Thank you also for departing gift - boxers btw, I am taking with me part of every of you to the States.

33 hours mark.

Source: http://www.twainquotes.com/Revolution/liberty2.gif

Wait, take 3

3rd week in KL, been going around. I had to go down to Kelana Jaya last Monday to get my trumpet fixed due to a minor accident happened earlier. The mouthpiece got stuck when I unintentionally and carelessly let my trumpet slipped out of my hand and hit the carpeted floor. It took me one hour to reach the Yamaha Music there. It is quite a big building that incorporates its show room, music school and office.

This is part of the interior of the music centre.
Trumpets for sale. Their service center is situated at the rear of the building. After days of worries, my trumpet was fixed within minutes, for free yeah. They had this special equipment to unstuck the mouthpiece. It is just a simple tool used by exerting balanced pressure on the mouthpiece to pull the lead pipe out with minimal yet adequate force to minimize the side effect on the trumpet.


The most expensive grand piano in the showroom, drool @@


Can't afford the piano? Read this and DIY one.


Went to Serdang 2 days ago to get my meningitis vaccine injection. Spotted a souvenir shop selling this rubik's cube on the way - 'Broken' rubik's cube for sale. I bet the shop assistant didn't know that a 3x3 cube should have 27 fragments of cube.


Notice: Chilis in Suria KLCC is closed for renovation, spoiled my visit to suria yesterday..


Because Chilis was closed, my friend and I moved to Times Square instead to have our dinner. We went to this gas station to refill our gas tank after traveling all the way from KLCC to Times Square. +U cafe.

The front look of the restaurant. I'm not sure why is the dinosaur there. Probably paying tribute to them for their fossils which have contributed oil.


The interior look of the restaurant, very unique and Japanese-like. But, to be honest, it was a little bit hot and smelly inside there. I suspected that the smell came from the clothes used excessively to decorate the place or its carpet, wash please wash.


The restaurant offered a good variety of food and drinks with very competitive price at Times Square's standard, covering food from chinese cooking to western courses.


My black pepper butter lamb chop, came in reasonable portion and fine taste. The chips were normal, salad was given in generous portion and the lamb chop was well cooked.


Fruit smoothies with special names.

My virgin's honeymoon, orange flavored. Well, virginity tasted normal...

Ended the day with the movie Public Enemies by Michael Mann (The Insider, Collateral), starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as detective Melvin Purvis. It tells the true story of a bank robber named John Dillinger in the midwestern US during the great depression period. In his time, he was marked the nation's public enemy number 1 for the bank crimes he had committed.

The actors and scenes were great but the movie appeared somewhat boring to me. I wouldn't rate it as a great movie, maybe just interesting. The plot started with John Dillinger breaking out his inmates in the prison. After that, he robbed, fell for a girl, pursued by the federal bureau, got caught, got off every time, lived free (he could even walked in and out of the police station freely) and died out of a prostitute's betrayal. Every robbery scene looked almost the same, gun fights were boring with main characters being bullet proof all the time and small casts getting killed everytime, and love story was plain with cool looking villain dating a girl blindly in love.

Overall, the movie lacked depth. The characters in the movie just appeared out of no where as the story needed them and left when it was their time to go. It would be better if Michael Mann developed each character more, especially John Dillinger himself. For example, I'd like to know how did John Dillinger grow into such a person, the transition of him from an unemployed young man who robbed grocery store for $120 to a vicious interstate bank robber, and how did he meet and bonded with his robbing partners in the 12 years inprisoned for robbing $120.


Time is running, but everything else seems stagnant. I feel helpless for not being able to do anything but wait. But, I can choose to believe and be hopeful that everything will turn out fine. I shall do whatever I can work on for now - shop for my traveling necessities and enjoy Malaysia.

Over

So my family trip is officially over already, everyone got back safely and hopefully happily, with holes burned in the pockets and memories filled in the minds. Also, predeparture briefing and INTI are almost history now. Most importantly, the week long curfew is over~ Is it? Shouldn't be? Were the smses and call my illusion? I'll find out after waking up in the morning.

Anyway, let me update a little bit on the recent happenings. Before that, one thing I have learned and decided not to do in blogging is to cram a lot of unnecessary photos in a post, that is what facebook's photo album is for. So here are some entrancing encounters that I deem worth sharing.

Again, I stayed at the Tune Hotel, but this time at downtown KL. The rooms there are a little bit more spacious than the Tune at lcct. Other than that, everything is basically the same, clean and satisfactory. There were advertisements everywhere and this is the one in the elevator (Why purchase the chips when guests are not allowed to consume? =.= )

This is the Saturday morning at Petronas Twin Towers' lower ground floor. There were hundred over people of different nationalities including me queuing up to obtain the tickets to visit the twin towers skybridge. Nobody wore a mask despite the fact that h1n1 influenza is spreading like hot fire right now. I was there for almost 1 hour and I am not sure if I am still safe cause symptoms will only appear in a few days time? lol.

The engineering of the structure is certainly impressive but there is nothing really striking about the bridge's looks. One desperate foreigner in front of me even attempted and succeeded to cut queue. His actual nationality is unknown but really, shame on his country. Just for anyone's information, the ticketing counter opens at 8.30am but the queue started as early as 6++ am. Each visitor in the queue is allowed to take up to 5 tickets out of 1700 given out daily.


After the bridge visiting, we went to the Aquaria in KLCC as well. The ticket costed us RM28 per adult, which is not cheap but not too bad also for its educational value. For example, we get to see the sea creatures mating. Lol?

Interesting fact about some female moths.

Never knew this.

Angler fish. Please read the following photo for more info.

On Sunday morning, I traveled in the wrong direction on the monorail lrt and wasted 15 minutes walking to nowhere. Spotted a big and tall building named wisma KFC along the way tho, KFC's headquarter?

Up & Down

....
Another update on the run. I'll let the photos do the talk first, will come back for more details maybe, on my family trip to New York. NY? That was in my dream. I just went up and came down from Genting Highlands. It's really easy to go up there, just take this genting express bus at puduraya, kl sentral or terminal putra (gombak) in KL.

It was one misty afternoon, travelling in a cable car can extremely mystifying and intriguing, especially in one with records of accident.


Who would have thought of building hotels and resorts up on a highland in the middle of jungle for the monkeys, birds and insects? Well Lim Goh Tong did that, now his effort and innovation paid off well. What's next then, under the sea? Outerspace?

The main attraction up there is of course the casino, Genting casinos are the only place we can gamble legally in Malaysia, correct me if I'm wrong. It is also a discriminative place that commits prejudice on age. I am one of those who was victimized for being underaged, by 2 months! I wasn't too keen to enter anyway, since I was not able to find any patron or treasure chest to do my show hand.

Also, there are many other entertainment facilities available in the theme parks. Due to the slightly high average age of the participants involved, we didn't go for the theme parks. Instead, we went to other lighter recreational facilities such as the snow world, the one where i took the photo in snow above. The place is a big refrigerator cooled down to -4~5 celcius, fabricated with artificial snow. The cold is no kidding and has definitely intimidated me, snow = romancic + beautiful +++ wet + dirty + freezing + killing. Now I'm not sure if it's a good choice to go to New York, should have chosen California instead @@

And of course, none of them is free. Everything comes with a price, which is certainly not cheap. The unfortunately me even lost some tickets when I was walking around the park. Luckily I wasn't allowed to enter the casino, else I would have lost my cash also.

In short, Genting is a great vacation spot for its one of a kind weather and environment, but please make sure that you bring enough cash to really enjoy the stay, savor all the food and utillize all the facilities.

On the run

It has been a while, welcome back to me and everyone. I'm currently writing in the hotel's computer room right now, it actually feels fun to write while travelling because of the many things I encounter.

This is the second day of my family trip, a full member trip that we haven't had one for years alread. Spent 5 hours on public transportation yesterday, particularly on the trains and buses, which could really be cut down into 2 hours if I had a car. Anyway, there isn't anything much yesterday as well, picked them up at the airport and took them to INTI after that. Had a dinner of what I had been eating in the past 2 years. INTI still looks good, and deserted.

Pulled up a night at the Tune Hotel LCCT while waiting for my sister to fly in at the midnight. Let me warn you all not to be deceived by the photos on tune hotels website, as described, they operate at minimum cost and maximum utility. The rooms are extremely packed and you will be charged for anything extra like air conditioning and even hair dryer. However, they are clean and comfortable if you don't cram the room, reasonable at its price.

Received a terrible news at night - My I-20 which was supposed to be mailed to me 2 weeks ago does not even exist yet. Even though it is understandable that the counselor had a misfortune happening at home, I can't escape from being frustrated. Now my planning and schedule are all screwed, came to KL too early and the date to go back is .... Worse, there is no one to be blamed except the only one to be blamed but cannot be blamed, who is also the only to be depended upon. I pray to you, God @@

Slices of life

Miri is having cloudy skies lately, it rains almost everyday and probably also in the coming few days.

Tuesday, rained cats and dogs. Finally get to play basketball games in teams, thanks to chin itchy who drove all the way up there from his house and fetched all of us along. Took him almost 1 hour to reach there with a few minor delays in between, didn’t realized that the place is that far from his house. Anyway, one of us came without having breakfast and played with an empty stomach. Soon enough, the effect of starvation kicked in and began to take over his mind. He played like a barathrum with warpath on frenzy, dota players should know how crazy is that lol. So my friends, if you don’t want to get hurt in any game, please ask your friends to have proper meals before playing.

In the afternoon, I went out to take new passport photos which have become unnecessary expenditure now because my passport renewal has been postponed.. As I drove by a road, I saw the traffic police setting up a checking point at the opposite road, a well known spot for having traffic supervision. Experience told me that there would a scout nearby, probably at the roundabout not far ahead. At that point, there was certainly no reason for me to fall into that koopi-o trap. However, it turned out to be a bad traffic day after all, after the the driving test misfortune hehe.

Later on, I had to turn back because apparently the photo studio which I was heading to had moved away. Clueless on the road, I turned to my hand phone to look for help. I was so busy sms-ing when I was edging my way towards the ambush. By the time my senses came back to me, I was already turning out of the roundabout. To my horror, I was asked to pull up ahead.

“Boleh pegang handfon semasa bawa kereta ke uh?”

“Tak de lah tuan, handfon tu bunyi, saya tutup bunyi je.”

….

“Tolonglah tuan.”

“Tolong ape, tolong saman?”

Tricky old man, he kept pretending to be taking down the fine when he was actually just filling up some general space in the slip. For once, I thought he was asking for bribery – “Ade bawe uang untuk bayar saman sekarang?” It was undeniably tempting to just hand a RM50 note to him but I was not bold enough. In fact, the inexperienced me believed that he was testing me, trying to lure me into committing another offense. At the end of the day, thank God that he was kind enough to let me go for free. To show my gratitude, I stopped using hand phone while driving for the rest of the day, just that one day though.

Was he testing me or really trying to ask for kopi-o? I still don’t know but I am definitely glad that I had survived the day.

That’s the interesting Tuesday.

Of Studying and Living

Unrevealed : “How are your kids doing?”
Unnamed : “She got … place in class. Her sister got … place in class. Their average marks are well over 80. And the little one got 1st place in class.
Unrevealed : “They are doing great!”
--- end of conversation about the kids ---

Are they enthusiastically happy?
I don’t know.
Are they living their dreams?
I’m not sure.
Are they heading towards their desired destinations?
Yea straight A’s. Then?

Hello world

Nowadays, I have this chance to spend half a day everyday with a toddler,
to enjoy her naïve charm,
experience the long forgotten innocence,
remind myself the existence of chastity,
and to redefine and embrace life.

Whenever she is around,
I find myself needing more rest than ever,
which I can hardly get any,
due to her unending activities and unfading energy to explore the world,
I am old yeah,
biologically and mentally.

Her world is a big and fun playground,
my world comprises a to-do list to catch up with the frantically paced world,
everything is new and exciting for her,
I just want to get everything on the list done,
we are both not born with a list,
who gave me the awful list?

What and why are her never ending ammunition,
when we’re so sick of memorizing the laws and theories in sciences that explain the world;
new words and numbers are always fascinating for her,
while languages and mathematics are excruciating subjects to score for good grades for some of us;
why are we so worn-out of learning?

This morning,
we had time to just sit at the roadside,
study the buds of the hibiscus plant,
stare at the ants working,
and laugh at the stray dogs sneezing nearby,
trying to understand the world in the simplest way.

Don’t we live just to learn explore our world?
to learn and comprehend the world better?
so that we could appreciate and enjoy,
all these amusing creations of God?

Examination scheme is definitely wicked,
sacrificing education for its convenience,
the convenience that eventually produces dumber students,
but we must not be deceived and distracted,
because knowledge is what we seek for.

Good night.

Next Stop

Yesterday, someone asked me where I am heading to next, and so I just replied him frankly and unwarily, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York. Minutes later, I learned that he was having a conversation with others about me. It turned out that he made fun of my choice of university and even sneered at the university’s seemingly unconventional name, so much for the fake and sinister concern. With all due respect, have it his way. Anyway, he just reminded me that I ought to introduce the place a little bit.

Vorhees Computing Center, RPI

My next academic stop is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a private research university up north from New York City, in a mid-sized town named Troy. It is an old school and in fact, it is the oldest technological school in the English speaking world. That is probably why it has a rather unusual name of "polytechnic institute" instead of the typical “XXX Institute of Technology”. But be rest assure, it is a well recognized university offering bachelor, master and doctoral degrees. It may not be as perfect as MIT and ivies but it fits me well I guess, cause I ain’t got a prodigious mind.

It is a technical tech school and being technical probably makes it a boring school – less parties, higher male to female ratio(there goes my romance anticipation), more books, more time for computer and academic works. It is also a private school – a lot more expensive, small school size, better personal attention and smaller student body. The extreme weather of New York is making it even worse because people would rather stay at home than travelling through the freezing thick snows. Please pray that I’ll be geek enough to survive the life and at the same time, excel in computing studies.

Google Map

Words of Wisdom

Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It is never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

Life, update

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive” ~ Dr. Howard Thurman

Tanjung Lobang, Miri

This is the 8th week of my holidays, just how fast more can time slips through my fingers. Life has been somewhat inactive in the past 2 weeks, slacking with the absence of exciting events around - waking up at 7-8am, newspapers, nba playoff, babysit a bit, lunch, a little reading, online, minor exercise, dinner, a little bit of kiddie songs on the piano, online, doze off. In addition to the routinely activities, I enjoyed occasional outing with Mr.Whosetheboss who has not deserted me complete despite his hectic romance schedule nowadays, played basketball, played badminton, visited the library and swimming pool which cost me my swimming trunks.

Best Friends

On top of that, I have been pretty close with a very important person in my life hehe, to be completely honest. I guess I couldn’t help it as we had lost contact or we had not really been in contact for a long long period of time. Well, it’s nothing secretive or too personal to be discussed here. Instead of having restless tongues jittering endlessly and words being passed around uncontrollably, I think I might as well mention it here responsibly and open-mindedly, of how great she has been to me for the friendship and motivations she has brought to me. Like many people out here, we’re both arriving at one of the vital crossroads of our lives, trying hard to sort out our lives ahead. To all my friends, it won’t be easy certainly, but with enough zest and zeal, we will all discover our own paths ultimately! After all, we have all been blessed enough to meet and bond with each other in our lives. Let's work hard together, vamos a trabajar duro todos juntos.

Gang of US Invaders

In less than 4 weeks time, I’ll be leaving this city and in another 7 weeks time, I’ll probably be on my way getting out of this country. For those who are concerned enough, please do the calculation yourself alright? Hehe. My departure may not be something significant, for many have taken the same path. From the very beginning, everything came as a surprise. Escaping from the tyrannical rule at home was somewhat momentous for me. Now, I am given the ticket to the land of freedom and opportunity (which is also the land of prejudice and racism, pray for me lol), the country named the United States of America. I don’t have much idea about what’s gonna hit me over there and how well will I be able to cope. But it is my intention to confront the whole new land, cultural and people head to head in hoping that the cultural shock will be drastic enough to shatter my frame of reference tainted with unreasonable social conventions, reform the long list of social norms and expectations implanted in me and shake off the dreadful punishment oriented upbringing that is shackling me; So that I can finally explore and discover the possibilities in me, and return as a reborn person to live a better life of me, and you.

Freedom

College news and updates, please come to me faster.