Perception of new-ness..

So I got this John Mayer album yesterday which I was convinced just came out as I haven't seen it in stores prior to this. There’s this certain excitement of knowing you’re listening to something new, possibly ahead of everyone else.

Well, a quick check in Wikipedia put a damper to that. Release date: November 2009.

Still wasn’t the worst case I’ve experienced, though. A conversation with Sarah a couple of weeks back:


CM: hey mun
Sarah: heys meng
CM: I have in my hands the new killers’ album! =D
Sarah: day and age?
CM: day & age, yeah
CM: I like it better than hot fuss somehow
Sarah: ah, i see haha, made me so excited for nothing
CM: well, it’s new to me!
Sarah: hehe


Well, I knew the album wasn’t as new as I thought but I had no idea. A quick check in Wikipedia revealed:

Release date: November 2008

Finger. On. The. Pulse.


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I also signed up for the UNICEF monthly contribution thing. Ooh, look at me, I do charity work. Nah, this isn’t about that. What I want to talk about is the fundraiser manning the booth who was a ridiculously enthusiastic hard-sell.

Among the things he said that pissed me off a little was when he used the break down to daily cost thing.

“RM 1.26 per day only. I bet that *points to my boost juice drink <which is awesome btw>* costs more than RM 1.26, right?*

Of course I realize he’s trying to put the costs in perspective but the problem I had with it was that he was putting you in a spot. It’s rude. If he compared the costs to a general glass of teh tarik, he would be saying: “The daily cost is RM1.26 which is about the cost of a teh tarik; not a lot as you can see”

When he makes a reference to something I’ve bought however, it gets a bit more personal. It’s saying “What, you can spend so much on that particular drink but you can’t contribute to our charity?”

He hardly ever touched on what is it UNICEF actually does with my money or how much of the RM38/month I’m paying is going to trickle down to the children, just about how easy it was to contribute and how little the amount was. When you strip it down, he’s getting people to sign up more through guilt than the understanding that they’re doing something meaningful.

Maybe that’s the whole idea but I just found it very off-putting. I’ve been wanting to sign up for this for a while now even before he approached me however, so I was going for it regardless of what he did or didn’t say which was kind of bad because I was validating his cheese-ball fishing tactics.

Things I dislike during a haircut..

1) Awkward conversations with the shampoo girls. With this, it really doesn’t matter how hot they are. I realized the conversations were pointless after the first 3 visits. Well, not to say there had to be a “point” (ie getting her number and getting laid), just that it annoys me to have to answer the same set of questions every time I visit the salon.

For some quirky reason, the hairstylist remembers what I said the previous visit but not the shampoo girls. So, every time it’s the same thing:

a) So, are you still studying?

b) Oh, where do you study/work?

c) Is this your first time here?

d) Do you live around here?

So these days, I just dive straight for the magazine, be engrossed in whatever I’m reading and meet any questions with one-worded replies.



2) Weak neck/scalp massages. I remember very distinctly 2 years ago when this shampoo girl gave me a neck massage that felt like it would never end. It wasn’t really a massage, more like a half-hearted caress or something. I mean, I don’t hate it but it just felt weird, plus if you’re gonna get shampoo lather on my neck, please make it count.


3) Weak neck/scalp massages from shampoo guys. Yeah, what I just said but add a very significant amount of awkward. It happened last month, lasted about 10 minutes and I actually got up when he was dispensing the extra shampoo lather in the sink (he still wasn’t done yet?! what?!) and pretended I thought it was over.

Awkward.


4) The styling that they do for you after the haircut. Usually after a haircut, the stylist will do your hair up for you with wax or whatever but they usually do it in a particularly funky manner that they think looks good but you find weird: the Dragonball hair tousle. And because they don’t put enough wax on it or whatever, it remains standing for about 5 seconds after you leave the salon and you’re left with a flat hair and about 5-10 strands standing, which if you can imagine, looks very stupid.

These days, I’d just say it’s alright because I’d wash it off when I get home anyway. And they happily oblige because they save on time and hair products.




Other than these occasional peeves though, Thomas & Guys SS2: awesome place.




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I remember doing a post a few months back about sending 6 year old me a letter to warn him of future happenings, and wondering how cool it would be. Well, a reverse of it actually happened, sort of, if I stretch it a bit.

In my Windows Live Writer, there’s a draft folder and there are posts in there which I never published either because a) I lost interest in the topic halfway through or b) I didn’t want someone I didn’t want reading the post to be, well, reading the post, and though I tried to make it cryptic for the sake of ranting, it felt pointless in the end so I stopped.

Anyway, in a convoluted and probably inaccurate way of looking at it, in that drafts folder, January CM did send March CM a letter with a very specific set of instructions and the consequences if they were ignored. I guess it can be deduced by the very fact that this post is here that March CM ignored them.

Well, sorry January CM, turns out you were right after all (wrong about the 10 other things you said in the past though) and I really should have known better. I do now. Yes, I realize the post is cryptic, contradicting what I said 2 paragraphs ago but I wanna vent and it feels kinda relieving. Hmm, maybe I should consider publishing all the posts sitting in the drafts folder. *takes a look at posts in there* Okay, maybe not..

It’s the simple things in life..

I don’t know, maybe I’m a person who’s easily pleased but I find that a lot of simple gestures/events/gifts/purchases …


Like finding a bonus curly fry among your normal, boring fries.

Like buying a really good music album.

Like receiving a call from an old friend.

Like replacing a burned light bulb or refilling the windscreen cleaning fluid on my own.

Like refusing a plastic bag at the sales counter.

Or maybe purchasing something that may seem ordinary, like an external hard disk.

… are enough to lift my spirits. Kinda like this guy..

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Things I’ve learned after completing the review paper..

1) The only way you can beat procrastination is to fight fire with fire. Procrastinate hard enough until you’re so sick of wasting time that you’ll eventually get to work.


2) Following up on procrastination, I find that I feel a general sense of accomplishment after finishing minor tasks which really hinders my work progress. For example, I always feel like I deserve a rest despite only finishing 2 paragraphs of text/reading 1 article.

If only there’s a progress bar that updates itself as I go along to indicate how much of work that has actually been completed.


3) It’s amazing what you can accomplish once a rigid deadline has been set. I have never finished more than 5 articles a day prior to the Dec 15 deadline. In the 5 days leading up to Dec 15, I completed about 50-55, averaging approx. 10 a day.


4) Friends in need are friends indeed.


5) Working on the bed never works.


6) Synctoy is an awesome program for backing up/syncing files between different computers


7) Chemistry is actually a pretty fun subject to learn. If only I’d known this during my SPM years.


8) Contrary to what I thought before, it *is* necessary to print out all those articles despite being able to read them from a screen. The ability to highlight/scribble notes next to the blocks of text is very, very useful.


9) I hated it (still do, actually) when I came across articles filled with pointlessly long and over-conjoined sentences using words that were picked from a thesaurus and yet, when I started writing my review paper, I found myself doing the same because doing otherwise somehow made my paper look elementary.


10) Wikipedia is a life-saver. Donated $10. Only $10? Well yeah, that’s $10 more than most of the Malaysian students would have contributed, I’m sure!


11) I love stocking up on books borrowed from the library and not reading them.


12) I’m so sick of Mcdonald’s. Because I tend to work till late or go to work after everyone had had lunch, eating in the car after passing the Mcdonald’s Drive-Thru was the easiest and most efficient way to fill up. (45 mins drive after all)

Hence, Mcdonald’s almost every other day. Ugh, absolutely sick of it.


13) The working habit that took almost 1.5 months to put into routine took only 1.5 days to get rid of. Back to bumming for me.


14) When in the world have sticky notes urging you to “concentrate!” and “work hard, don’t procrastinate!” ever work? They’re like a nagging mother, I tune them out after 5 seconds.


15) Authors who don’t put the title of the articles cited in the references section can fuck right off.


16) There is no 16, actually. That is all.

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Review Paper >>>>> Me

The good news is the set in stone deadline is December 15, which means, complete or not, my work will end then. The bad news is, I’m getting absolutely bum-raped by this review work.

It was something I expected to have finished by early November. I really upped the effort during mid-October and it’s now December but I’m still no closer to finishing it!

I’m just being asked to learn too many things too soon. There are loads of biological terminology and concepts in there that I’ve no complete grasp of; understandable given my last encounter with it was during SPM. I had to wiki biological terms every odd sentence!

Add Chemistry into the mix as well, and I’m really struggling. I bought an A-Levels Chemistry book a couple of weeks ago and that really helped me understand the concepts but still, most of the chemistry involved in the papers I’m reading are really high level stuff.

It would be alright if I was just absorbing stuff off it but no, I was asked to review it, meaning providing critical commentary on something I didn’t really have a clue about! All these contributed to my slow progress as I had to do a lot of side reading on top of going through all the articles AND summarizing them into a cohesive paper, which is a lot harder than it sounds.

Strange to say, though, I’m kind of enjoying being thrown into the deep end and being forced to sink or swim. At least once I survive this (if, actually), I’ll have a fairly high understanding on my field. Doing a doctorate was never supposed to be easy anyway.

Oh, and Windows Live Writer rocks! This rant was a bit of an excuse to test out this Microsoft offering actually and I have to say, it’s made me want to blog a bit more. It' just makes things so easy.

Not kidding about the work stress, though. I can’t wait for December 15 to come!

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=D

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I got my first birthday card..

... this year!!

Yes, it's by Domino's Pizza but I don't really care. They have a gift for me as well. Get a 2nd Regular Pizza within the same order at only RM3! I really love Domino's New York Crust pizza so this will come in really handy.

Thanks guys. I mean, you even sent it early presumably after considering that my birthday's at the end of the month so I'll have time to make full use of the offer. It's a little early but I think I can safely say that this might just be the most useful present I'll receive this year. I can do nothing more other than express my sincere grati....... waiiiiit a minute...

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

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