May 3, 2002

Screw this week.

I managed to ruin my Maths mid-term exam by not studying at all, never coming to lectures, never doing the exercise sheets, and worst of all, waking up kind of late for the exam. I arrived on time, but I had to rush. I did the questions hastily and carelessly, and when I read the last question, which was more involved than the others, I scribbled some gibberish and then wrote to my tutor (who's marking my test) that I gave up. The result? 18 out of 24. Which is 75%. Sheet.

The second hit came from the news that the apartment I was planning to move into was taken. Somehow. I had confirmed that I was renting that apartment, and that I was going to move in, but a friend of mine, whose apartment is right next to the one I want, decided he would have the apartment as well to accomodate his many cousins. Anyway, the detail's not important. Point is, now I have to look for *another* apartment that is big enough for four people, has at least three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and is in the city. Which, by the way, happens to be NOT EASY.

And of course, me being my usual self, I felt so helpless after hearing the news that I had to find a suitable apartment in less than a month, that I didn't care I was having another mid-term exam this morning. I ended up screwing that exam as well, though it was actually very easy. Oh well. Fook it, I don't friggin' care.

If you're wondering, no, it's not like I've lost the will to life or anything... it's just that I need to spit it all out before my brain can resume to function normally. To sum everything up: $%To ^&*@$(*@#&(^&*(@&%!(*!$*( with it.

08:27 PM

May 6, 2002

I just had the most amusing day of my university life so far. The reason for that is quite long, really, but if you just bear with me, you'll understand, though I have no idea why you would want to.

So. Today I woke up feeling rather blunt, probably from the excessive dose of sleep I had (12:00~10:00 AM). Skipping the first class in the morning as usual (Maths lecture, which is at 11 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday), I went to the university hoping to find some brain refreshment at the programming practical class in the computer lab. I knew we were supposed to work on a project, yet I didn't bother reading what the project was all about beforehand, simply because yesterday (as in Sunday) was so NOT the time to think about schoolwork. Anyway. I came to the lab, sat down, and stared at the project description for about half an hour, all the while wondering whether the project really was difficult or it was just my brain slowly deteriorating. I was lucky to have my very, very nice lab demonstrator to help me out as usual, but I guess he was just as stunned as I was to see how unbearably and unusually stupid and slow I worked. He constantly checked on my work to see how I was doing, but in the end, exasperated and desperate, he told me to take a little break, maybe for a day or two, and then try working on the project again. So I did. I had a class after the lab session, anyway, so I finally left, puzzled and trying to figure out just what I'd done to make myself so unable to think clearly. So for the rest of the day, I just kinda stared at the lecturers and tutors. Wasn't the most cheerful moment of my life, I'd say.

So I went home after my last class was over, which was at 5:15, and grabbed a 6-inch seafood Subway on the way home. Mmmm. Subway can make any day feels good :D~ Anyway. Then I sat on my trusty computer chair and looked at the bunch of different Post-It notes hanging from my desk shelf, stared at them for a minute or two, and decided to do what I had to do: I started calling people I had to call and doing the stuff I was supposed to do. I called HSBC head office in Sydney, spoke to this very friendly person about how I was being rudely dismissed when trying to apply for a credit card because I was a student (though I already had a Visa from HSBC Indonesia), and guess what? The guy told me he'll contact the head manager of the HSBC branch I go to, and told me that he'll arrange everything and that I'll get a Visa if I put a AU$2,000 deposit (in a bank account) as long as I keep the card. I was estatic, because having an AUD credit card means I can start doing some online shopping without worrying about the loss of money from the constant currency conversions, as is the case when I use my IDR card. Finally I can get my PayPal account verified, too -- meaning faster and safer art auctions~!

That wasn't all. When I called the lady that has been handling the apartment my parents and I were originally planning to buy to tell her that we changed our mind and would try and find an apartment for rent instead, she responded very kindly. What's more, she even told me that there was an apartment for rent coming up in the same building the apartment we had been going to buy was in (which, by the way, is very, VERY nice). It was like all my prayers have been answered. I would probably be able to check out the apartment tomorrow or so; I hope it's just as nice as the one for sale. Anything better is also accepted. After hanging up, I made it my first priority to call my mum and let her know about these two very good news, and she couldn't be happier to hear them. I felt so good.

Just to make everything more amusing, I got my second Klez virus in three days. By now I'm already more or less an expert on the matter of removing the thing before it gets a chance to infect my computer in any way, but it's starting to get annoying. The ugly thing is that the two mails that contained the virus I got were both sent by the listmasters of University of Melbourne. And here I was thinking that school was bad :P Dang those people. I swear I'm gonna get myself enrolled in engineering/computer subjects only next semester -- at least the people there knows their IT.

There. I'm done. I know it's long, but I tried, okay? Now shoo.

11:45 PM

May 10, 2002

Okay guys and girls, six days till Star Wars: Episode II comes out, and seven days till GameCube is released. Sorry, but you just ought to watch my excitement grow in a terribly dim-witted way, being the manic fans of both that I am.

Anyway... I was wondering today how many people actually read this journal. Since I have yet to install any commenting system, I wouldn't know. I kind of write every single thing that comes to my mind (that I remember to write) here, so basically if you've been a faithful reader, you practically know how I truly am. As a friend said, it truly reflected my real life, which, I guess, is the sole purpose of journals. Hm.

04:23 PM

May 11, 2002

Oog. Ramali.com is now available for sale. I guess it expired or something, and the guy who bought it before didn't put it to any good use anyway. Should I buy it? Should I not? I don't know what's it gonna be used for if I do, though... but... I feel compelled to...

04:28 PM

Have I mentioned that I love Darren Hayes' first album, Spin, to death? It's awesome. Not Savage Garden-ish awesome; more like Darren Hayes-ish awesome. Anyway. It kicks some serious @$$.

Somehow whenever I hear Darren Hayes' voice, I'm always reminded of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles... not only because of the obvious "Savage Garden" thingie. Something in his voice and lyrics are so... vampiric. I wuv.

05:30 PM

May 14, 2002

I've become severely attached to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles~ this is not good O_o;;; I mean, I finished Interview With The Vampire in about a month's time, barely reading three pages every day. Then came The Vampire Lestat, which I finished reading in two weeks or so. The Queen of The Damned I finished in a week, probably less. Running out of books to read, yesterday I bought The Tale of The Body Thief, and finished it in one reading last night. Yeah, I know it's unholy, but I finished Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in a night, too, so there. Anyway... I find Marius particularly charming, beside Lestat himself. I like the way he's such a great figure, a teacher, to the fearless Lestat, daring to condemn Lestat in punishment even though he feels great love and protectiveness towards him.

On another note, final exams are only a month away now, it's really time to get my lazy butt off the couch (or more precisely off the computer chair or bed), but... I can't. I just can't start studying NOW. As I've said countless times before, I need to be desperate to actually start doing something so serious like studying. I can't even will myself to come to the 11:00 AM Maths lectures every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, mainly due to the fear of falling asleep and/or utter confusion and boredom. For those of you who are in the dark, my Maths lecturer is a Russian guy, with a very unintelligible English accent, who loves to try and read most of the stuff that's already there in the lecture notes for us. In addition, I have yet to finish the programming project (for which I've done 3 out of 5 stages) nor the various art projects I'm supposed to be doing -- not that they have anything to do with school, but still, finishing them means less work in the queue.

04:00 PM

May 17, 2002

Tomorrow: I shall see Star Wars. I shall get a GameCube. AND I SHALL RULE THE WORLD!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!

01:04 AM

May 18, 2002

I SAW STAR WARS: EPISODE II. I just friggin' did. And here is what I have to say about the movie. Minor spoilers ahead; but if you were an avid fan who didn't want the experience to be spoiled, you should either (a) have seen the movie already, or (b) pretty much know everything about it. As was in my case. Of course, there were some nice little plot surprises, but mostly there's nothing I've not heard of. Anyway. On with the report; you've been warned.

No movie would be complete without its sheetload of ads, extras and whatnots. Not even a Star Wars movie can escape this fate. I usually just sat through them, wowing now and then at byootiful trailers (Spider-Man)... but one of them caught my eye this time: the GameCube ad. As you might/might not know, Nintendo GameCube's released today in Australia, and I am SO going to get it.

Oh yea, Star Wars. Um. When the title screen comes up, my heart was overflooded with joy. I was so, oh my goog, I'm watching Star Wars. I was grinning like a total fool throughout the whole title sequence, I'm telling you. As for the movie itself, well, all the romance thingy going on made it feel less of a Star Wars movie. Nonetheless, it was good (and good goog, it was LONG. Not that I mind XP). All the lightsabers flashing around (Mace Windu's is PURPLE! Purple, dear me, purple!), the fights, the graphics, the clones, Jango friggin' Fett, and of course, the one and only, Boba Fett. I wouldn't imagine him as any other kind of kid, and that last scene... says so much about him. Hayden Christensen is surprisingly good as Anakin -- he fits the role perfectly. His eyes are just... so... gwah... they say so many things at once. The biggest shock in the last three years in my life comes from Yoda though. I went @__@ for the whole fight scene; the three (? seems like half an hour to me) minutes changed all the previous perceptions I held of Yoda. Oh, and by the way, the sight of Death Star had me gasping for breath. The thing just means soooo much in the series and it was in the process of being BUILT then. Now, I know it's really nothing to go gaga about, but I'm such a huge fan of Star Wars (I can tell you what happens after Boba Fett fell into the pit of Sarlacc --in great detail, or who Qui-Gon Jinn's archenemy was -- one cool dude, by the way) that when the movie ended, I was so mesmerised I didn't feel like moving from the theatre chair for such a long time, grinning like I did in the start of the movie.

Christopher Lee is one heck of a lucky guy, I'm telling you. He gets to be in Star Wars AND Lord of the Rings. If he gets any luckier (star in a Harry Potter role perhaps? Or maybe a Vampire Chronicles movie?), I swear I shall apply for the position of president of the Unfairness of Life Association. Over and out.

01:10 AM

May 19, 2002

I met Guy Pearce, Joel Edgerton, Robert Taylor and Rachel Griffith~! XD XD XD~! Tonight is the premiere of their new flick The Hard Word (which basically translates to f*@# off), and I happened to be passing by the city cinema when I noticed the red carpet and the huge bunch of cameras flashing about. Okay, so I had to wait for quite some time, looking at lots of people I didn't know got their photographs taken and interviewed, but the long wait paid off~ I got to see Guy Pearce and Joel Edgerton~! Guy Pearce is such a cutie >D~ By sheer chance he (and Joel and Robert) happened to have to stand right in front of my friends and me while they got their photographs taken, and looking at us (well, me actually, I was the one up front), he asked whether we were going to see the movie tonight. I was like, *grin* "Maybe" *some more grin*; and he grinned back and said, "Oh, next week then, maybe?". He's so CUTE~!! =^.^=

Oh, and by the way, some fangirls happened to bring notebooks and pens, and asked around (kinda noisily and embarassingly, I think) for autographs. Since the stars were all in a rush (the guys arrived kind of, gee, LATE), they didn't really pay attention to the fangirls. Joel Edgerton, though, was very nice and spared some time to give a couple of autographs. He was the only one who did, and even then it was only to give three or four. Well, his autograph might actually worth the most, since he starred in Star Wars: Episode II. Anybody who gets a role in a movie like Star Wars gets his autograph value multiplied by ten. No, make that a hundred. And all the while all I could do was stare at his face and eyes (very, very pretty clear blue eyes, BTW) thinking why the heck couldn't I have brought a piece of paper and a pen with me. Oh well... it was a treasured moment anyhow... though the only question that I really wanted to ask Joel was, "How did it feel like working with George Lucas?" >:D~

08:52 PM

May 23, 2002

Woohooo~~ Had a very nice birthday, I did ^^ My mom and aunt are both here to help us look for a new apartment, and yeah, they deliberately scheduled it so that I would be having my birthday while they were here. Anyway.

At 12:01 AM, my cousin and aunt came into my room where my mom and I had been chatting in, presenting a very nice tiramisu birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday and got me to make a wish and blow out the candles. We took a couple of photos of me blowing the candles out and cutting the cake and all that, and then we had a tiramisu cake supper. And I thought, well, this certainly is a very nice birthday. I mean, I didn't dream my mom could be around for my birthday~! But the surprises didn't end there.

The real shock came much later. I spent the whole day seeing one inner city apartment after another, one real estate agent after another, with my mom and aunt. BY FOOT. My cousin were nowhere to be seen. By 6 PM I was so exhausted I thought my legs were going to give way, hungry and cold and wet and just plain tired. So I proposed that we go home, not even bothering about food, much less any birthday dinner whatsoever. So after much arguing (my mom and aunt were strangely reluctant to go home), we trodded our way back. I got to the door, opened the lock and swung the door open just to find, to my amazement, that the apartment was pitch black. My cousin was supposed to be home, so it was odd -- I happened to have the split second to ponder on the thought. The next split second, to my surprise, my cousin and a whole bunch of my friends jumped out of her bedroom and yelled, "SURPRISE!!!!!", clicked the light on and I saw that there were a big dinner laid on the dining table and a taro birthday cake (very nice!) on the coffee table. I was so astounded I couldn't say anything~! It was certainly a very pleasant surprise -- we then had dinner together, had the taro cake, watched Charmed and Rove Live, in which Rove interviewed THE Jedi-in-training Hayden Christensen himself, and I was super-stuffed and happy by the end of the night.

Heh. Now I feel foolish remembering that I thought birthdays away from my home country and family were all going to be dull and boring :P

02:36 AM

May 25, 2002

which Episode II character are you?

Probably the greatest Jedi Knight of all. Like Obi Wan, you are wise and keep your feet on the ground at all times. You will not be outsmarted by anyone. You are always faithful to your friends. Be careful though, danger lurks around every corner - you could even be betrayed by those closest to you.

11:10 AM

May 28, 2002

@_@;; I feel so stupid. Yesterday after school, I decided to drop by the library to borrow some books that I can probably spend my holiday mulling over, because otherwise I'd have absolutely nothing to do during the break. So. I searched the library for some decent books, going back and forth between the online catalogue and the rows of shelves and holding shelves. Mostly old, they-should-be-in-a-museum books... but then I found a couple of books about JavaScript and Flash that were worth looking at. FYI, they don't teach us those stuff at school, you've gotta learn those yourself. Anyway. So I picked those two books up, and continued my tedious search around the library, all the while carrying the (dammit) heavy hard-cover books. When I could find nothing more, I decided that those two would be enough, so I proceeded to the ground floor of the library to check out. Putting the books next to the check-out machine, I took out my purse and was going to take out my student card, which was needed for checking out, and found THAT IT WAS NOT IN THE PURSE. WTF?!?!!? My first thought was, "Where the heck could it be?? I never let the card out of my purse except for the few minutes it is needed," but my second, and ultimately only, thought was, #%(*!#)(*!%^#@)(*! screw it. I put the books somewhere in the ground floor, and left, partly because I was worried about my student card's whereabouts (heck, I need the card to take the exams), and partly because I was just so tired after running around the multi-level library for nothing. I know I could've just asked the loan desk to hold the books for me or something, but I was just so concerned I couldn't care less about the books.

I did find my student card, fortunately; it was slipped between the pages of my passport -- apparently, my mom had taken it along with the passport when she needed my IDs for apartment rental purposes, and had returned it to me that way. Oh well... I can get some other books next week or something I guess... at least my student card's been found ^^;;;

11:32 AM

May 29, 2002

Oh GUH-ROSS. Today I noticed that Farrago, Melbourne University's student magazine, has come out, and proceeded to take one copy from the stack outside the lecture theatre I was going to. I like the magazine, really, but when I saw the thing on this month's issue's cover, I lost all intention of reading it. Heck, I didn't even feel like HOLDING the mag, it was THAT disgusting. The thing in question is a TOE. Some genius thought a TOE would be the perfect artistic thing to be put on the cover of a magazine, and I must tell you that it is simply NOT. Granted, it's not the prettiest toe I've ever seen (gawd... it's disgusting, really), but even if it was, I still wouldn't want to see a TOE on the cover of a magazine I'll be holding and reading for quite a while. I mean, ewwwww. A toe?!?? Good gawd.

08:13 PM

May 30, 2002

Right. After a lot of tweaking, I finally got the commenting system working, and managed to make it look slightly more tolerable than the default template. I still do plan to dump Blogger and switch to GreyMatter soon (that is, in the next revamp... which can be months away XP), so I don't know whether it was worth it or not, but for now, I think it'll do.

01:47 AM