slight dizzy spell...

It's not too bad. I think it's just me sleeping too much. :P Or that stress is catching up. Ah well.

Anyway, anotehr VERY low energy day, can't get much done, but I'll try...

meh.

Hmmm... Chocolate....

Right now I'm munching on the new Wonka Bar. It's SOOOOOO nice.... almost heavenly really. I didn't really expect it to be that good. I thought it'll just be like one of those movie chocolate.

Anyway

I'm still really tired at the moment, but it's getting better. I'm just hoping to get the presentation sorted, then I'll just spend the rest of the time getting the report done. Ironically my supervisor wants to schedule the presentation/advisory committee meeting JUST before my first session with the uni councellor. I don't know about you but I still think it's a conspiracy. If they delayed it to the afternoon I WILL throw a fit.

Chocolate is still very good...

Anyway, I'll try to get something done. I just cleaned up the presentation so I'm just gonna time it now I think. Hopefully it'd be finished by end of today. :)

One down, God-knows-how-many to go

Just sent in my scholarship application today. I'm almost tired of it now really.

I didn't do anything on my report today, mainly because yes, I'm just damned tired. I have done a bit on my presentation for the optometrist though, and my second supervisor sent in some slides I can use for my presentation, and that is VERY good indeed.

I can't wait til I can finish my first year crap and go away with Petey... Man it just seems to drag on...

Mainstream Banana

Before anything: HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETEY~! :D *bounce*

Anyway

I've been wondering, while I'm walking through the university cafe, then whether bananas are slowly becoming mainstream. I know it's still a VERY long way to go. And just because a Chiense is going out with someone non-Chinese does not automatically become a banana (I know st least one somewhat traditional Chinese going out with a white boy, and a banana going out with a Chinese... anyway) But there are more and more couple where the two of them are from different culture. (I don't even know WHY I'm trying to be PC on my own blog...) That on its own isn't that surprising, I guess. But somehow I just can't help but to think whether there would be one day where banana will be the norm. Well it's just that especially in NZ the cultural boundary is blurring... heck globally it's blurring already thanks to the internet (and Sony inventing SingStar. But let's not dwell on it shall we?) .

Not that I don't want the Chinese culture to die. I mean, we do have... what.. 5000 years of history? Or is it just 3000? ANYWAY, the point is that I wonder if one day in NZ the Chinese would actually understand the Kiwi culture as well as the Chinese one (Even adopt it a little, and slowly evolve into a banana :P). Admittedly I'm not the best person to talk. My Chinese is so broken that I would have problem trying to carry out a conversation without turning it into English after a while. (Stevie was almost confused when he realised we've been conversing in English. But meh) Plus my knowledge of the Chinese/HongKong culture knowledge stopped at around the 90s (when I came to NZ). And I'm not that big on rugby (Then again I'm a JAFA :P And the Rock has shown Auckland girls in general just not as into rubgy as, say, our Canterbury counterpart.) Still, I guess I'm a banana, and proud of it.

Eventually though I think I want to actually be better than a banana and actually accept the fact that I'm also Chinese. Heck I almost agreed with Nghiep when he said All of the Chinese looks alike... I think if you ask me I'll still say I identify myself as a Chinese, but really in all respect I'm so westernised I don't know how much Chinese is left in me sometimes. *sigh*

Well, I guess at least I still eat disgusting things like chicken feet...

Stressful lazy Friday

It may sound like an oxymoron, probably becasue it is, but that's how I'm feeling right now. I can't quite pin point WHY I'm so stressed out, seeing everything seems to be going just peachy at the moment. But my anxiety attacks are still here. I think I just need a proper break. I haven't have a break longer than a long weekend since I was in England. I don't feel like doing any work, but I'm just stressed out. :(

I went to lunch with my bro today and he treated me to lunch on the count that he gets his card stamped so he's one step further towards his free meal. PLus he heard how much I have to pay for the car's excess and he knows I'm kinda, if not very, broke. It's great though. I get my pork katsu curry rice, and I actually finished the whole thing! It's quite a feat coming from me. I don't normally finish my meals.

Anyways, I'm gonna try to get somethign done. I can't guarentee it though. I'll get there eventually...

Destruction of the Universe Through Use of Chickens

How you ask? I don't know. That's what written on the white board in the research common room today, under the heading "Meeting Notes". That was the first item of the agenda.

I wouldn't think it's the robotics guys that wrote that: they already have their army of robots, and us sig pro people can very peace loving and timid kind so it won't be any of us. Same with the embedded systems. That leaves... lets see.... Radio, Power electronics, and control systems. Possibly software. I'm tempted to point the fingers at the control systems people, since they're the only ones doing more maths than us and that's gotta do something to their heads. But I don't have proofs, of course.

Anyway, my anxiety attacks seems to be getting worse and I don't know why. I've got A LOT of crap to be done this week. And not pleasant crap either. I just got my proposal back from my supervisor with the recommended changes, and I just gone through those, besides I need to find a few different references. D'oh. But that's okay, I'll get there.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH

Okay much better now. *ahem*

I always managed to bug Baggy to update his blog, and he actually did. :P I'd be happier if it's a happy entry but hey.

I just realise there's MSG in my chips. o_O

ANYWAY, I'll head back to work now. I might even get my car back today. Don't know yet but I hope so. Meanwhile, gotta get this work thing done...

PIE!

Wow, they finally change my post counts on the blogger dashboard (where you log in and stuff). Apparently I have 270 something odd enteries. Well it'd be one more if they didn't delete one of my entries a while ago. o_O

(That's not really true, since I wrote an extra one the next day complaining about it)

I'm in a better mood today, partly coz the panelbeater called and say I can have my car back soon, partly becasue I had a nice cooked breakfast for once, partly coz I cooked that nice cooked breakfast and remembered how I actually LIKE cooking, and msotly because Petey came and pick me up so I got to see him this morning :D (And he get a nice cooked breakfast too. :P)

I still haven't have lunch yet, still waiting for the nice cooked breakfast to settle first. Plus since the undergrads are back in uni there's probably gonna be a long line at the sushi place. I might walk a little further and get my pie from the cafe next to vol 1.

Mmm.. pie.

Anyway, I probably should get this report thingy done. I'm hoping to get it done before end of the month. And it's looking quite possible. Yay me.

Think I'll set off to my quest for pie now. :)

Interesting start of the day

For those who actually read this regularly (probably the grand total of 3 of you out there), I was gonna write something yesterday, but I got sidetracked when one of my best bud come back to the country and wanna catch up for lunch. Lunch turns into afternoon tea and before I knew it it's time for me to go home. :P

ANYWAY.

This morning was interesting. We left home at around 8:30 and there's this traffic jam when we turn off Ti Rakau Dr into the bridge. Then we realise what causes it: they're putting traffic cones on the side of the road, and instead of having people putting it there, they drove a big truck and put the cones on the side of the road from the truck. I think everyone was pissed off.

Then I got into uni, and when I plug my laptop in there was a spark, and the whole lab's power were then gone. :| I still dunno HOW that happens, at last we got the technical manager to fix it, and they're gonan check my laptop to make sure it's safe.

So hopefully that's all the problems I'll be having for the day. I'll have to get back to writing my report now. *sigh*. That's great....

Sad world

Another sad story from fark: Father, thinking his three-year-old son might be "a sissy," beats him to death in attempt to teach him to fight.

As expected lots of comments on the forum. Mostly from people who hope the "father" get to learn what it's like to be a "sissy" in prison.

What striked me the most is the fact that the said "father" (in quote, since I'm not too sure whether he's being a father at all) actually attends to a bible study group. (His freind from the bible study group testified)

I really don't recall anything in the bible that says it's okay to beat your son to death.

In fact I still don't recall where it says gays are evil. (In case you didn't read the article, the sister-in-law testified that the guy was worried that the 3-year-old son might be gay. o_O)

It's stories like this that makes me sad. I thought the whole message Jesus tried to teach us is one of Love. But some people, even those who studies his words, seems to keep missing it.

Sometimes, just looking at people in this world is enough to confuse me.

SUSHI!!

I just felt like writing that. There's a certain sense of comfort when I sit back in my office with my sushi lunch. It's hard to explain. :P

Spending the day going over the proposal, with all the changes Pete made. Pete, you'd be proud to know you didn't change too much of the theory part. :P I thought I can finish it before lunch, but looks like I might have to spend the whole day on it now...

Not to mention I also have to make some pretty graphs. :P

Anyway, at least I got LaTeX going at the end, and make the formate as pretty as I want it. That helps. It's sitll on the long side but I can cut it down a little more later, I hope.

Now... onto my sushis!! :D

Typesetting Mania

It's times like these I reallystart to appreciate what Petey does for a living. Whatever I do the page just doesn't look right. *sigh* Stupid LaTeX. (It's still better than MS Word though, of course)

So, keeping this nice and short. I'll have to get this proposal formatted today. Wish me luck. o_O

Otaku

Read on fark that a magazine in Japan now has a test to let otaku get a proper grades for their "otaku-ness" (in lack of a better word)

The forum on fark has a lot of people asking what otaku is, and a lot of people explaining what otaku is. The one that stood up for me is the one that said "otaku are sad people who shut themselves in and don't socialise"

I've never have a long enough attention span to be obsessed with anything enough to be a fanatic, let along an otaku. I watch anime, and I "cosplay" whenever I can at costume party (possibly stretching the meaning of cosplay a little, I know. But in a sense dressing up as Catwoman or Lara Croft kinda qualifies :P). I never really get to an otaku stage though.

I guess, used in its normal sense, I wouldn't really count them as sad. Having an obsession with a hobby isn't really sad. Heck I would like to have found a passion like that too. Not knowing how to interact with people isn't sad. If anything it's a product of society. I know I lost my ability to interact with people for a while after I came to NZ because I was being picked on all the time, and after a whiel you just learn to not tlak to people, and I read all the tintin comics there were in the library. Mind you it's not like I'm like that to start with. It was particularly hard I suppose to go from being one of the popular kid and straight to the one constantly being picked on just because I moved into another country that speaks another language.

People don't just "not have people interaction skill". They normally "lost" in somewhere along the line, and it's a vicious cycle. The most you retrieve, the more people gonna label you as a "freak" and treat you even worse. And then everyone goes around and point the finger at them saying they are "sad" and just not trying hard enough. To me by labelling them "sad" and "disturbed" is probably what caused it in the first place.

I suppsoe I'd be labelled as a geek. I'm damned proud of it. I think I've come into terms with people thinking I'm strange, just because I tell maths jokes. I'm glad that geeks everywhere seems to start to be proud of their geekdom. It's not about being strange, it's about being who they are, and proud of it.

Now I'm just gonna wait til the rest of the world to catch on.

\Then again, geeks are taking over the world anyway. So there. :P

"I can tell you, but then I'd have to kill you"

Supervisor is actually happy with my progress so much that I'm now forbidden to talk to anyone about it. :P Oops.

Well I can still write about how well (or badly) it's going, of course. Otherwise my blog with be just about my lunch. (It's wedges with cheese sauce today)

Anyway, it's all good news, except maybe that I'd be busy for a while. But that's okay. Hopefully I can finish my proposal by end of this week and everything would be nice and peachy.

Back to work. :)

An eye for an eye

The usual "good night" txt from Pete last night was not quit "usual". It basically said "London got bombed, call you when you're free to fill you in"

We talked on the phone for about an hour, where he logged online and check all the major news sources, and relay that to me, already in my nightie and in bed.

Luckily, none of our friends and family were involved, but it still gives us a tremendous sense of sadness. Both because of all those innocent lives, and because of the human race.

I can't say I understant the mind set of the terrorist. I've never been through what they've been through. I've never been in a country that's been invaded, and I don't think I'd understand they're anger without going through what they have gone through.

What I found particularly confuse, though, is the fact that the voices most actively condemning there people are the same ones who says "we'll revenge and bomb THEIR home", and claim they're "just".

I can't tell people what is just, because (as Nadesico pointed out) there is no ubiquitous justice. But what I have against people claiming they are being just by doing exactly what was done to them. To me, that's not just. That's revenge. That's just putting themselves to the same level as the people who committed the "unspeakable crimes" in the first place.

I would like to think there is a better way, and they probably is, but it'll involve more or less getting everyone to see the bigger picture, to see that violence doesn't solve anything, and it only generate more anger and continue this vicious cycle. But then, I thought that's what Christianity teaches, and the same people who "bring justice" by bombing the hell out of another country are the ones who said they work on Christian values.

Go figure.

Shocking weather

Well, probably not that shocking considering I'm sitll in Auckland. And at least I managed to go grab my lunch before it was pouring with rain. But rain always depress me for some reason.

Lost finale was last night, and it was one of those "non-ending". I had very high hopes for that series, and it'd be a shame if they're going to keep going and keep making squeals until it's bad. o_O I hope they'll have more sense than that.

Anyway, sushi for lunch today again, since last time I ventured into the realm of pie that was very disappointing. Quite a bit of work to do before tomorrow, that should keep me busy. Still not really important work but I think at least it's something.

*sigh*.

Progress

The research seems to be making progress, and work said that I can meet with my 2nd supervisor this friday coz she's in town, so Yay!

Anyway, I'm emotionally more stable. Still a long roud but it's getting better. Fingers crossed it won't last much longer.

P.S.

I lost my Monday blog. Dunno where it's gone but it's not here anymore. Grrr! o_O

Ah well, you didn't miss much. :P

Slow recovery

I'm trying to convince myself that I'm slowly recovering. (Actually, Pete's trying to convince me that). I think I'm slowly recovering. I still haven't got my appetite back, but it might have more to do with the fact that I had coffee and a nice chocolate muffin for breakfast. But yeah, still can't eat.

I bump into my old boss in the cafe when I was having breakfast. It's actually good to catch up with her and somehow I do feel a bit better. Tomorrow should be fun, I might have to drive. Yikes.

Anyway, I might go for a walk and at least buy something and TRY to eat... :\

Not a good day.

Well, I think the depression and stress got the better of me. Crashed my car again today, and even though everyone's been telling me it's normal and all but it just doesn't help. Well, Petey being there helps. And that's good.

Seriously thinking I need to go into the counsellor in uni, if not just to see whether they can help a bit. I don't know if I need an extension yet. Hopefully I won't.

Anyhow. Trying my best not to think about things now.