An update from Melbourne

Okay, let me start with my journey on the flight. Honestly, although it's my first time siting on an airplane I did not took a lot of pictures. I myself don't know why maybe I was just lazy. The 8 hours long ride was great and occasionally bumpy . I spent my time watching Paranormal Activity on plane and some other movies. I slept a little while only as I found it hard to sleep on the plane, plus the coldness.

A historic moment, it should be noted down in the History book

Me and Calvin

Those siting the same row with me ( me, Calvin, Ainin and Po Hui)
We( th JPA scholars) did not sit together in the plane. Most of us were separated and the plane was full as well. I assumed many people is going back to Melbourne or going to Melbourne for their Chinese New Year holidays.

A picture of the inside of the plane

The mini television

Another picture inside the plane

I reached Melbourne at 8.30a.m. local time and I was excited. After getting down from the plane, I passed the immigration , grab m luggage and passed the customs. Afterward, I gathered with the rest who have applied the airport pickup in the uni website. Then a bus came along and dropped us to our destination.

Me in Melbourne airport

The amount of people waiting for their pickups


Chan smiling gracefully after stepping fot on Melbourne

Well the place I am currently staying is behind this house with three windows. Calvin and Jun Hao( Jun Kai's brother) are living in this three windowed house, as well as my senior Choon Seong.

Wanna see my room? I'm sharing a room with Ah Beng. It's quite small but it should be fine. I sleep on top of the bunker. It has two windows.

My striking red mattress

The cupboard that we are sharing

And finally this is my table. Haha. Messy ain't it? Don't complain :D

And today we ( the boys only) went to the bank in the morning to settle our banking accounts. Then we went to Melbourne Uni to look around. The uni is certainly a big place and lots of beautiful architecture can be found in it. Around 1 p.m. we all walked to the Queen Victoria's Market to look for some fruits. Apparently it closes at 2 today, and by the time we got there there were about to close. Is it cheap? Well, I don't know because I have nothing to compare to. but I bought three pack of strawberries for $4. It was supposed to be $2 per packs but few minutes before closing they decided to clear off the strawberries. Poor Ginger because the seller dropped the price few minutes after he bought his, so he bought two packs for $4. Besides, I also bought peaches worth $2 form two different stalls. However, sad to say the condition of the peaches were not so good. It looks like that they are going to be rotten any minute. sigh. There are tem more of them in my fridges. Guess I have to finish them off tomorrow during breakfast and lunch.
Anyway below are some pictures that I took in the Uni.

A wall sculpture in the Wilson Hall. Fascinating


The architecture in Wilson Hall


I found these majestic chairs outside the Wilson Hall. We dared not sit on them though :(


A sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike which means Victory and she i soften called as Winged Goddess of Victory. And only today I found out the meaning of Nike which is a popular sport brand around the world.


A different angle of this beautiful goddess.


As i said earlier, there are a lot of beautiful architecture around the uni and this is one of them.
Simply magnificent right?

This is the Building of Commerce where people in Uni refer it as the "Cow Building" due to the spots on the building which resembles those on cows. However, I find it does not look like cow in any part at all because the spots are in white whereas the spots on cow are black against a white background.

I haven't took much picture and I am so sorry. Ginger has been snapping a lot and I will take the pictures from him soon and I will try to upload them to my blog and Facebook as well. Tomorrow we will hunt for mobiles phone packages. I guess till here then.

*P.S: All the pictures above have been edited using Photoshop cs4

I have reached Melbourne!

Hey folks! I have finally reached Australia after a long 8 hour flight. Not going to say much right now cause I'm so freaking tired. Just to inform you all :p

All the best and Happy Chinese New Year!

Confirmed date of flying :14th FEB!

Hey guys, just want to inform you all that I'll be flying to Melbourne on the 14th. Yes, it's confirmed already. Night flight. Departure time is 2135 hours and I will be arriving in Melbourne airport at 0815 hours Melbourne time.

I'm about to start a new, exciting chapter of my life and I am looking forward to it! Oh ya remember i told you all that I wanted to take up Japanese when I'm in uni? I don't think i would anymore because if I take up Japanese then I have to study it for 3 years straight. Not that I don't want to study Japanese, I really want to but I would also would love to study other subjects other than language. Besides, I can learn Japanese on my own and that is what I have been doing for the past week.

I went through several websites and I even downloaded a very good program to learn Japanese : Rosetta Stone. Go and check it out if you want to learn any languages. Here is the link for the program :http://www.egydown.com/2219-rosetta-stone.html However, the languages CD will have to be downloaded separately. Here is the link for torrent download for Japanese :http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4847360/Rosetta_Stone_V3_-_Japanese_%28L1__L2__L3%29_%28ISO%29
If you are interested with other languages you can just search for it by just typing Rosetta Stone ( your language) download in Google.

This is a very good program!

The good thing about learning language by yourself is that you can learn and move forward at your own pace. Isn't that great! But of course one need to practice a lot to be fluent in it. So i will be joining the Japanese Club in my uni. :D

Hmmm what about my packing? Well, my mom has helped me packed most of the things and now just left a bit more things. We will finalize it on Friday. The reason why my mom helped me pack was because basically I am not a good packer haha. She can fit in more things in the luggage bag compared when I do the packing. By the way thanks mom!

I am flying on the first day of Chinese New Year and it's kind of sad you know, I can't meet up with my school mates for the last time before I fly because everyone will only be back only around Friday. Last time me and my friends even planned to visit my friends house for Chinese New Year but then... Well it's ok then. What to do. Maybe next time then. I'm sure we will have the chance to see each other again!

Anyway till here then folks! Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine's in advance! I think I won't be able to wish you guys on that day. Anyway keep visiting my blog and get to know my updates. I will try my very best to update at least once a week over there. Take care!

The Liar In Your Life

Have you encountered people who lie to you in your daily life? I am sure that you will recall experiences of where someone lied to you, subsequently struck an emotional or financial impact on you. Whenever we are asked about the event of being lied to or being deceived, we would vividly recall those that gave an emotional or financial impact on us. This is a fact. This is because most often these memories or events leave a deep scar in our lives. For example, you would remember the guy who ran away with your cash when you fall into his trap of investing in a fraud scheme better.

However, lies and deceit do not take only in that kind of form. In fact, all humans yes all humans, you and me alike lie and deceive all the time. It’s just that we don’t notice it. Now, it may strike your mind and wonder why do we all lie? Well, some experts believe that lying and deceit shown by humans are an evolutionary form of deception used by animals that brings benefit to themselves such as how possum plays dead when in danger, how tigers have stripes that matches the grasses to hide effectively during hunting as well as how some butterflies have big eyes pattern on their wings to scare off their predators. We, humans have been said to evolve and bring this form of deceit to a higher level compared to animals.

The first sign of deceit in humans is when babies fake cries or laughing to get attention. As they grow older, their form of deceit and lies often evolve into more complex form in which may also be used to manipulate or hide truths.

A research has been done where a five-year-old child was playing a game where he has to guess what toy is behind a friendly woman’s back who sat behind him. The first one was easy as the child knew it was a toy truck when he heard the sound of fire engine. The second sound was a recorded voice saying “To infinity and beyond!” and the child knew that this is the motto of Disney’s Buzz Lightyear. The sound of the third toy, though, left the child stumped. He couldn’t figure out what toy was it. Just as he was about to give up, the friendly woman said she need to go to the toilet and warned the boy not to peek what toy is behind his back. Guess what happened? The boy couldn’t resist the temptation and turned around to find that is it a Barney doll. As he heard the doorknob rattling he quickly turned around. When the woman asked him whether he had figured it out what the toy was, he happily blurted out that it was a Barney doll. He denied when she asked him whether he’d peeked.

This experiment was repeated with other children and most of them gave the same results. This shows that children already know how to lie in their early years.

Hence, the question here is not to know why we lie since it is innate in us but instead focuses more on how do we benefit from lying and how will it affect ourselves and the people around us.

What do we get when we lie or deceive others or in some case ourselves? Interestingly, the reason to why we deceive or tell lies varies between each individual, commonly to get away with something (mistakes, wrong doings, etc...) and to not hurt other feelings or what we call white lies (something we all do quite often in a day!) We can see how these two separate reasons can overlap; to get away with a mistake IS to not hurt the feelings the person we did mistake to. Hence, there is usually no one solitary reason to why we did it. In fact, to some lying is like a hobby to them, something they enjoy doing or in other words, they gain pleasure by deceiving people.

Apart from that, there are some who would not only deceive the rest around them but also themselves. This group of people deliberately tries to be someone else other than them. For example, a person may believe that he is a policeman where in reality he is not. He may then wear a uniform and carry a gun walking down the streets trying to be a policeman he thinks he is. This person is what we call the impersonator. There are many cases around the world where we often hear someone was caught impersonating someone other than themselves.

Lying and deceiving both are something that should be looked into further and to understand why does it comes in a package when we are born. Perhaps you should sit back and try to recall whether is there any day at all that gone by without you saying a lie? I guess the answer would be none!

Till here then folks!

All information was taken from The Liar In Your Life by Robert Feldman. This is a very good book, very insightful. It covers the topic with thorough explanation and real world examples.

Sorry to bother you all with such a long post. Hope you all enjoyed it ! :P

Summary of my 4th trip to Kay-Elle

I’m back from KL already. Missed me? Haha. I did my Grads card on the day I arrived. It was a prompt process and my card was ready in just five minutes. After that I went straight to BU. Nothing much happened on Thursday .

On Friday, I had dinner with Woei Song, Ginger, Ah Beng, Siao Fern and Chia Venn in Chilli’s, One Utama. After our dinner we went around helping Ginger searched for his pair of jeans. Then later at night around 10 we went for yum cha session with two of our juniors, Jia jun and Dao Zhen. We chatted and have fun till it was almost 12 and subsequently said our goodbyes as we were all very tired.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and bought breads and Oreo’s in 7 Eleven shop for breakfast. We then took a cab to Kelana Jaya where we took the LRT to Masjid Jamek before changing to StarLrt( not sure whether I’m correct with the name)and headed straight to PWTC where the hotel that the briefing will be held is just opposite the PWTC stop.

The briefing was nothing much, basically the same like any other briefings except this time HSBC bank representative gave a so not persuading talk to persuade us to apply for their services. However, I managed to make new friends or seniors I would say, who were the student volunteers for the briefing.

After the briefing me and my friends took the Starlrt again to Masjid Jamek where we have our lunch before we parted ways. They were going to Puduraya to buy their bus ticket while I need to be in KL Sentral to wait for my train which will be leaving at 6 pm. I reached Kl Sentral around 2 something and imagine me waiting for hours there. I’d bought a newspaper but I was so sleepy that I kep closing my eyes. I forced myself not to sleep for it would be dangerous for me( theft ,robbery or kidnapping). Hence, I made many trips to the toilet to freshen up, bought ice-cream and fruits. Besides, I also walk around just to stay awake and I managed to hold on to my drowsiness till I was on the train. And I slept through the journey when I was in the train :P

I safely reached home around 9 pm. I guess till here then! Have a great day!

Trips to Kay-Elle

Hey guys, it’s been some time since my last update. Honestly, I have been very busy completing forms, packing, buying stuffs and etc. that a student who will be studying overseas will be. I have been to KL thrice last week.

First journey was to attend the JPA briefing in my college last Tuesday. I got my 3 months allowances as well as a blazer (I paid RM400 for it). Besides that, the JPA officer’s gave a little talk on what to bring and what not, what to do there, what are our responsibilities as Malaysian students overseas and more. They also gave us a tentative date of when we will be flying. Mine would be probably on the 14^th. Ya you guessed it right, it’s on Chinese New Year. =.=

Anyway, the next trip was on last Friday. I t was a sudden decision made by my mom early in the morning. Our destination: Putrajaya. The main reason we went there was to hand in my passport as well as my E-visa. These two items were actually needed to be handed in during the JPA briefing but my E-visa wasn’t ready by then and since they wouldn’t accept a passport without the E-visa I need to send in both by hand to their department. (You can’t post passport by mail now don’t you?)

The most recent trip was on last Sunday where my parents and I went to KLCC to attend my university briefing. Ginger, Po hui, Nadira, Izzat, Nana and Jia Wern were there as well. The briefing was ok and quite enjoyable especially when the Malaysians students who are currently studying in Uni of Melbourne gave their speech. And after the briefing and the student speech, we ( the students who would enroll to the uni this coming sem) were divided into groups of the same course. So our course falls under the Land and Environment. The group consisted of all KBU students (names I mentioned above) and another 1 boy and 2 girls. However, both of them are not going to study in year 1. Two of them are doing year 3 while another girl will be doing year 2 as a transfer credit program. We then have a Q and A session with 2 seniors. It was incredibly fun. And I get to know new people too. Oh and by the way, I joined the Malaysians of Melbourne University club before I even stepped my foot in the university. You can go to their blog if you want to read more on them and their past events: http://momumomu.blogspot.com/

I need to remind you that all the trips above were all a day trip, so imagine the tiredness of me and my parents driving long distance without resting. Thanks to my mom especially for she drove me twice to KL last week.

And guess what? I’ll be going to KL again tomorrow by train this time to settle my application for Grad card by MAS airlines so that I can get an extra 10kg for my luggage limit instead of 20kg. Furthermore, I will have to attend the IDP briefing this coming Saturday as well (my agent that settles my application to study in Australia).

So many briefing right? Although some of them might tell the same things but I guess different briefing have their own benefits. It’s good to at least get some information, in this case briefings, before going to Australia so we would be exposed to what should we do and what should we not.

Another thing on a random note, I want to take up Japanese as my breadth subjects in Uni of Melbourne :P

Till here then!

Sayonara!

Accommodation found!

These few days i was busy finding accommodation in Melbourne.Thank God i got a help from my senior, Choon Seong. It makes my job a little easier. I'll be staying with Ah Beng as it's a twin sharing room.

The room is not that big from the picture i saw but well as long as i have a place to stay temporarily then it would be fine. I need to rent the room for at least 2 months. After that i can go and find other accommodation if I want.

Besides my senior's offer, i did find other room to rent just in case. there are some good offer out there but i guess the time is not right yet. My mom's advice was that in the early stage it is better to live together with bunch of friends. Safer that way.

I am now packing my stuff little by little. Bought few necessary things such as adapter.
I don't think i'm going to bring my guitar over. Speaking of guitar, it's been so long since I make songs and do a cover.( hey i just realized that this paragraph rhymes! Haha read again and see whether you notice it. lol looks like i still am in the song making industry!)

Anyway, I need to use my brain soon to study and everything. Hopefully my brain can function again.*Squeezing my brain juice!* LOL.
Till here then!
Cheers!