meandering thoughts

Trilogy plus one

2008-11-19T20:35:00.022+08:00

Just finished Brisingr this afternoon. I'm still experiencing the out-of-this-world, my-head's-in-the-clouds, can't-seem-to-connect-with-reality kind of feeling... That have always been a sign of a good book. Or a good movie.

Only after finishing the book can I truly appreciate the title. Brisingr! The first book can't help but to be named after the principal character. The second book... urmm... I don't really get it. Does Eldest refers to Murtagh being the elder son or Oromis & Glaedr being the oldest surviving Dragon and Rider or something else?

I thought the 'Inheritance' series was supposed to be a trilogy. I'm positive I've read somewhere that Brisingr would be the third and last book of the series. So imagine my surprise when the last page was turned and there it said...

"Here ends the third book

of the Inheritance Cycle.

The story will continue and conclude

in book four."

Yay! There will be another book. My journey into Alagaësia doesn't end just yet, with so many plots to contemplate and new facts to discover and look forward to.

Boo! There will be another book. So much Q's still unanswered. The suspense is killing me. My agony gets to be prolonged another year or so until the fourth book is released. God knows when will that be.

I was a big fan of L. J. Smith back when I was in secondary school. Still am actually. I used to collect her works. The Secret Circle trilogy, Dark Visions trilogy, The Forbidden Game trilogy and Night World series.

The last book I bought was the ninth book of the Night World series, Witchlight, in 1998. The 10th book, Strange Fate, was supposed to come out shortly after. Now, ten years later, I'm still waiting for it to see the light of day.

Even the gap between the fourth and fifth Harry Potter book was quite considerable. Three years if I'm not mistaken, compared to the yearly release of the previous books. I do hope Christopher Paolini won't take too long to release his.

When Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows was released, I was elated and sad at the same time. All the burning questions was finally laid to rest but there was also a sense of loss. Like parting with an old and dear friend, knowing that things won't be the same again. Maybe as a way to cope with the feelings, I kept re-reading the whole series over and over again. I've been following the series for almost over 10 years, Harry Potter and his friends have influenced me like no other fictional character ever had.

Maybe the end of the Inheritance Cycle will not affect me to that extent. But still, it's quite a melancholy feeling when the last sentence on the last page is read, knowing there won't be any more to follow.

There and Back Again

2008-10-19T19:15:00.011+08:00

Although this post is titled as such, this is no hobbit's tale. No hobbits here, ma'am...

I've been on a hiatus. It's been almost two months since my last entry. It's not because I don't have the time. Oh, I have plenty of those on my hands. Mmm... Would it be awful of me if I said I had better things to do? Stuff like going home, playing with little tykes all day, stuffing my face with food that I don't get to eat for most of the year...

With so many "demanding" activities, even my mind went on a hiatus. In its place was just bits of fluffy cotton wool.

I'm starting my 10-weeks stint in the paediatrics department tomorrow, the first of many departments that I have to go through to graduate. It's arguably the most taxing and horrifying. Hey, I didn't made that up, a lot of my senpais had attested to it.

After harbouring fluff in my head for so long, it's a bit difficult to get the machine whirring again.

Oh woe... what will become of me?

Word play

2008-08-24T21:38:00.001+08:00

I always thought the two different spellings of center and centre are two different words with two different meanings. Somehow I got the picture that center meant the middle part of something while centre referred to a place or a building. Hahaha... I wonder how many times I've made a fool of myself over this.

Those two words are actually the same, with the former being the American spelling and the latter is the Queen's English.

In a griping mood

2008-08-22T17:54:00.000+08:00

KKN is finally over... thank god!

Around this time, other people most probably would still be reminiscing & gushing about their KKN experience. Memories painted prettier than they actually are. Or that's just me being a sour grape. Whaaaaatever...

For me, KKN has certainly been one hell of an experience. "One part best, three parts stress". Think I'm being melodramtic? Again, whaaaaatever...

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Looks like you didn't embrace your KKNship. Why so negative? You have to open up to new experiences, adapt to new situations, mix with the locals, and the most important thing of all... be sincere in what ever you do...

Oh please, if only it were that easy.

Again, for the third time, whaaaaateveeerrrr.....

I need to work off this bad energy first before I can start my own reminiscence. Maybe I'll tweak the layout a bit. Change a few colours, add new widgets. I've been meaning to but had to put it on hold due to... KKN! (humph! more trouble than its worth).

Ooohh... too much Yin energy in me. Must find my center, create a balance...
Breathe in... breathe out...
Breathe in... breathe out...

Zen.

I've been tagged!

2008-06-13T15:30:00.008+08:00

Tagged by: Badrul Aini >> Nurul Iman >> Maimanah

I've watched a programme at astro where a research has been done to see some habits of university students and here are the top 10:

sleep
makan maggi
stay up
last minute assignment
dating
main game
tgk movie
afraid of seeing the lecturer for CH
lazy to wake from sleep
last minute study

********************************

1. sleep
Klu hari yg ade kat bilik, lps lunch mesti siesta. Tp orang siesta kejap je, kite ni sampai ke petang. Mana x gemuk.... haih...

2. makan maggi
Suka. Sgt suka. Masa kat UKM dulu boleh dikatakan staple food. Now kat Makassar, xde Maggi kat sini. Yg adenye Indomie, tp kite prefer Kare, enak sih. Indomie yang best nye mi goreng die... and iklan die

Paling suke yg part org Bali nyanyi.
"dados manten i rage malenan..."

3. stay up
X suka stay up & mmg x berbakat pun. Masa matrik selalu tido awal, menyebabkan asik ketinggalan dgn gossip2 terkini yg hangat. Skrg ni pun selalu tido awal

4. last minute assignment
Time-time last minute la paling byk idea bernas. Klu buat awal-awal, kurang "omph"!

5. dating
Oh, selalu! Kadang-kadang date dgn Zoro si rambut ijau, kadang-kadang ngan nakama die yg nama Franky si rambut biru. Baru-baru ni asik dating dgn Tamaki Hiroshi. Sebelum tu dgn Tamayama Tetsuji

6. main game
The Sims! Addictive & memberat kan computer

7. tengok movie
Kalau Cinema 21 ada club, dah lama jadi ahli. Time UKM dulu pun selalu menyalahgunakan student card utk dptkan discount kat GSC & TGV. Hehee =D =D =D =D
Klu malas nak kuar jauh-jauh, no problem. Ada Cinema D312, dgn surround sound system ;P

8. afraid of seing the lecturer for CH
Uhm... watzat?

9. lazy to wake from sleep

Biase lps subuh tido balik. Klu hari yg ade class kul 7.30, set jam kul 6 tp nak bangun liat nak mampos. Hari yg xde class pagi, x set jam tapi automatic bangun kul 6 & x dpt tido balik. Haih...

10. last minute study
Lagi lambat study, lagi fresh. Tak ke?

********************************

Yay! 8 out of 10.
Now, tag org lain plk. But who? Most of my friends have already finished studying. They are too busy with work, family or kids to maintain a blog or read blogs.

Emmm... emmm... emmm...
Ok lah. I tag...

Aishah
Nadiah Alwi
Noriza
Hasmin
Miza

Happy Tagging!

Thinking Aloud...

2008-06-12T19:58:00.000+08:00

It's not even been a month yet, and I've already gotten tired of this layout. Oh, fickle, fickle me.

This is not my 1st choice template. I only settled on it because I couldn't find anything better. I'm searching for something more. So right now I'm going "template shopping" again. Don't be surprised if things are a little bit different the next time you drop by. I've already changed my layout twice this past month. Same goes for the blog title. Can't seem to find anything that truly reflects this blog.

Ooh... but this is bad, baaaaddd... I shouldn't be doing this right now. I should be studying! There are exams just around the corner.

No! Stop! DON'T!
Pull yourself together man, you have to resist!

Ooooooh... but the computer is calling me. Calling meeeee........

Greek Coffee

2008-06-09T23:50:00.000+08:00

I went to Dhita's room today. She's a classmate who's also staying in Rusun, one floor beneath me. We were holed up for hours in her room together with another member of our group, Lita, to finish our assignment; making a flipchart on coronary heart disease.

I knew that Dhita is very well off and she travels a lot. But it never really sank in until today.

I was working with Lita at her laptop while Dhita was at her own computer, hooking up to the internet to search for materials. At one time, she started reading out loud from a site she’s visiting. A Hi5 profile page I think. I looked at the screen where she was pointing, indicating the thing she was reading. My mind went blank for a second. Are those even words? Then I realized I was looking at sigmas, lambdas and omegas. Whoa, Greek!

Turned out, she was in Greece a few months back, and she can read and speak Greek fluently. I was very impressed. She already knew Greek well before the trip, but didn’t they say that Greek is one of the most difficult languages to learn?

She became very animated then, telling stories of Greece and showing pictures of the local attractions.

“Cantik sekali! Pokoknya, kamu harus ke sana satu kali sebelum mati, lho,” she gushed.

To complete the Greek experience, she served me a cup of Greek coffee and some sort of Greek baguette or hard bread. It was quite nice actually (and quite strong. I’ve become an owl, so I’m writing this until I get sleepy).

Oh, how wonderful it is to be able to travel all around the world and immerse yourself in new cultures and surroundings.

“Hek eleh… nak travel jauh-jauh belajar culture orang konon. Mau belajar budaya Indonesia aja belum bisa!” the devil inside me whispered.

So far, the furthest I’ve been away from home is here in Makassar, and I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t exactly embraced or made an effort to get to know the local culture better. The only Bahasa Makassar that I know is “Lekba mako ngandre?” and I’m supposed to mingle with the locals throughout my clinical years.

That few hours with Dhita today sudah bikin aku semangat lagi! I should work on my Indonesian tongue, and brush up the other languages that I’ve learnt while I’m at it.

Before returning to my own room after finishing the assignment, I requested the Greeks songs Dhita played for us earlier.

“Hahaha! Sudah ku bilang pada mu, Juliet! I will turn everybody Greek!” said Dhita gleefully to Lita .

Lessons in the lab

2008-05-30T18:20:00.000+08:00

It was humid.

Like an underground parking lot full of cars on a rainy day kind of humid.

That was what you get when you put more than 100 sweaty students in a poorly ventilated space. One side of the lab was lined with big glass windows that were left unopened. Nobody bothered to switch on the ventilation fans either. It didn't help that we had to put on the compulsory white lab coat which was akin to a winter jacket on that hot afternoon.

Despite the heat, almost everybody was working diligently; bending over the microscopes, trying to make out the specimens underneath and comparing notes. I was surprised to find myself eagerly following in their suit. Mind you, I had expected it to be a tedious bore but instead it was quite interesting.

The lab session was for parasitology. Over 90 specimens to identify and their characteristics remembered. Specimen no.32, the Ancylostoma duodenale had a pair of ventral plates, each with two large menacing looking teeth. It looked like the big worm in the subway tunnel that Will Smith encountered in Men In Black. Specimens no.21 & 22, the Ascaris lumbricoides reminded me of overcooked spaghetti.

I even had the pleasure of meeting Cyclops, the hunky member of X-Men, somehow a bit deformed and grotesque looking under the microscope. This particular cyclops was actually a marine copepod crustacean, like the character Plankton in SpongeBob SquarePants. Like its namesake, the single-eyed giant of the Greek myth, it too possesses only one eye.

The lab session for microbiology was just as amusing. It was like a masquerade. A fungus pretending to be a serpent-haired Greek deity was there. Aspergillus was awesome as Medusa. And I thought I saw a celebrity chef/pirate there too. I tried to take a picture as proof, but only managed to get one of his eyebrows. It was proof enough for me, though the others only saw it as a picture of Trichophyton mentagrophytes.

Instead of memorizing plain boring bacteria, fungi, helminthes and all those things, I was memorizing famous bacteria, fungi, helminthes and celebrities. Thankfully, I got through the practical examination in one piece. One piece, get it? Haha...

The theoretical examination, now that's another story. Like Aslan said, "Things never happen the same way twice". And what's more, the examination should have taken place weeks ago. Each time the day drew near, the examination was postponed. Up until now, it has already been postponed thrice. At this rate, I'll end up forgetting all the stuff that I've learnt and left only with cartoons in my head.

A new chapter

2008-05-22T21:36:00.000+08:00

Hi there!

From now on, I will be posting my blog here instead. For those of you who wants to read my old posts, they are still available at my Friendster blog.

I'm a not serious writer, not even a writer actually. Sometimes when the mood strikes me, I might jot something down. Mostly nonsensical stuff. I didn't write regularly and don't intend to. Up until now, I've been quite contented just using my old blog.

Some of my friends also keep blogs, they are the serious writers. Someday maybe they'll even write something that would bring revolution to the world. Who knows! And serious writers use serious blog hosts. Some signed up with Wordpress, others with LiveJournal, Blogger, etc. etc. etc.

Their blogs looked so cool, with customized looks, musics and various other gadgets. I got jealous. Mine was bare in comparison with no extra applications. I couldn't even change my blog layout freely.

So now you know why I opened a Blogger account, even if I don't intend to write much.

Purely for aesthetic reasons!
Hehee...