Australia Soon

As you already know, I'll be going to Australia middle of next year to complete my degree. Performing this stunt requires 1 year's time, beginning from next July. Since I had some free time after work today, I decided to check out how Australia is like now. No serious research. Just some random google-ing.

The Great Barrier Reef! But of course, I won't be holidaying much :P

Very impressive indeed, provided you don't drown.

Now let's look at something more relevant. I'm not going to the Great Barrier Reef. I'm going to Perth, and that's where I'll be stuck until I graduate. I heard it's pretty boring there, but hey, I'm just going for a year, so why ask for so much?

Perth. Not bad, eh?

This photo looks oddly unnatural, but I hope Perth is this nice.

Curtin University! That's where I'm headed.

Australia looks great. I'll miss everything about home, but at least I'll get myself some nice scenery to enjoy. Of course, there's always the downside...

So staying alive in Australia requires much skill. Looks like I have half a year left to develop my survival techniques. Ah well, like they say... high risk, high return.

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone. Allow me to start by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope you had the chance to enjoy fireworks and participate in a countdown somewhere. Better still, to my Christian friends I hope you had a wonderful time having Christmas dinner with family.

Finally we can all get a well deserved holiday. Except Santa Claus of course. That guy only works once a year, so I see no point in pitying him. Yes he has to worry about delivering billions of presents within a single night, but still, he only freaking works ONCE a year! He doesn't even need to run his toy factory. The elves do that for him. I wish I get the chance to audit his factory one day. It's probably called something like Claus Industries Pte Ltd.

But enough of Santa. At least this year, those of us working get an extra day off. Monday's a replacement holiday because Christmas is on Sunday. Yayyyyyy... another chance to wake up late. That's a (lazy man's) luxury.

Oh, and while you're busy receiving this Christmas, don't forget to give too. There's much joy in making others happy. Enjoy yourselves :D

Carlyn's Birthday

I missed Carlyn's birthday last year, because I was wading through audit work papers. This year I chose a less stressful job and finally got the chance to wish her happy birthday personally. The celebration was in this place called Full House, in Penang Times Square. It's some kind of concept store, but I don't really understand the concept. All I know is that they have a restaurant and sofa downstairs, but a bed upstairs. Maybe you can spend the night there if you're lucky.

Staircase leading downstairs. Nice photo. But I'm not sure who took it.

Also found in the interior.

The atmosphere was nice and unique, no doubt. However, the food could use some work, especially to justify the price. You can pay for your lunch with 2 RM10 notes. It's not ridiculously pricey, considering the effort they put into the interior deco. But still, there's lots of room for improvement.

Meet the cake. Say hi.

Meet the birthday girl. Say hi again.

Great memories aren't complete without a group photo!

It's still a little early for me to go "ho ho ho Merry Christmas", so I'll just settle with wishing everyone a happy 冬至. Enjoy your 汤圆! Those little balls are actually one of my favourite desserts. So I tend to get fatter around this time of the year :P

Ming's MSI

This time, I'm showing off my bro's new laptop. Yeah it's not mine but I'm bragging anyway! It's an MSI FX420. MSI leh. Siao siao...

MSI's famous for their gaming laptops, but according to my bro, his is not a full fledged gaming one. More of an entertainment laptop. I didn't know much about MSI, so I just nodded my head dumbly.

The surface is scratch-proof. Definitely. I tried to scratch it but failed.

Opened up.

He got that for only RM1699. I believe it was a pretty good bargain. What really caught my attention is that this MSI had 4 USB ports, and 2 of them are USB 3.0. I could use some of that! The keyboard's a little small, so the typing experience isn't that good. However, overall this baby's a neat piece of work. A lot better than that desktop I use at work everyday, which possesses a maximum processing speed close to that of a sun-bathing dung beetle.

Short Update

During the first week into the job, I was lucky enough to participate in my department's Christmas dinner. We celebrated at Harvest Inn. Unfortunately, I do not have the photos of the dinner with me.

What I do have, are photos of the froggy alarm clock I got as a Christmas present!

This froggy!

It now sits permanently on my bedside table.

A very useful present indeed, from I don't know who. Everyone was required to purchase a present to be exchanged randomly during the event, so everybody gets a nicely wrapped gift... from they don't know who. That's to foster the spirit of giving perhaps. Haha

Movies

I had the luxury of going for 2 movies before starting my internship next week. The first one was about pale vampires and werewolves, the second about a cat with a sword.

Overrated, in my opinion.

Puss in Boots.

If you're not a fan of the Twilight series (like me), it's possible you won't understand many parts of the movie. I think they left out too much and explained too little for us non-followers. I had to refer to a friend after the movie to get a grasp on what I had watched. I don't think teenage girls will have any complains though. 5 minutes into the movie and we have Jacob running topless into the woods. Nice work.

Puss didn't hit the jackpot either, but for me it was a lot more entertaining than Twilight. Yeah great so now I prefer cartoons. The movie could have done better. I like the Puss from Shrek more, but this one ain't so bad. The animation had a fair share of laughs, and some scenes would have looked awesome in 3D. In short, cat-with-sword was worth the ticket price.

To all those who have completed SPM, happy holidays! As for me, I'm off to work. Hopefully the experience will be rewarding.