75. SURFIN' USA

Bringing back the funny-cute songs, for Suzzane! (Click to play)

Oh yeah honey! I'm officially FREE!!

... No, I don't mean that I'm selling myself and I'm going for free. What kind of a cheap bstrd do you think I am? Heh. I mean free as in having no obligations or commitments to work! Nyahhhahaha! The 2nd semester exams are finally over and now I don't have to feel guilty about not studying while I have my daily doses of the Simpsons and Futurama!

xD

In the past few days I've been hanging around and have observed the people around me, both friends and acquaintances. As a part of the Ong family, I have been, and proudly am, brought up by my wonderful parents who have taught us to live life with much charity and humility; to be generous, modest, and humble wherever appropriate and possible. It was instilled in us to never boast, take pleasure in seeing others being brought low, or to have a towering ego. I never thought I'd see the day where I would meet people whose etiquettes were in complete contrast to mine. But I did, and it was horrible. I wanted to shout, scream and bash the person up for being so rude! For example, when you're invited to a party, I think it's common courtesy to bring something along (a bottle of wine is good) and to ask the host if there is anything in particular he/she requires. Some moron came empty handed after he was politely asked if he could buy some paper plates and plastic forks. I mean, how much could that be? 5 bucks at most?! Please lah! Do you really think that the dinner is free? The ingredients cost over a hundred bux, forked out among 6 people and you're not one of them! I'm not trying to be calculative, I'm trying to prove how sickeningly ill-mannered this person is.

And then there's this other person. When someone starts flattering you, the best response would be to be humble and modest about it, right?! Right! I mean, if someone started buttering me up, my immediate reaction would be something like, "No lah. You're also doing good yourself what!", and quickly find their good-points, blessings, or fortunes to prove to them that we're all equal. What annoyed me was that this person felt at the top of the world and took pride in being praised and envied by others, and showed it! While this bloody goon was being flattered, (s)he held one's nose high, laughed, and said "Yeah!" in agreement. I was like, WTF?!

Next.. Come on! The simple and usual etiquettes people! A guy should always hold the door for the girls; don't interrupt while someone else is speaking; don't shake your legs (Geezers that's irritating!); always respect elders no matter how naggy they can get sometimes; shut-up in the library area (OMG, how can some people NOT know this?!); no public display of affection! (Get a room!); Be punctual for meetings or social gatherings; Spit your phlegm onto a hanky or tissue paper (D-uh!); And.. If you have nothing good to say, don't open your mouth! Of course, there is an elaborate list of the routine and common manners we should know and practice!

This makes me feel extremely grateful that my parents raised me up to be able to distinguish what's well-mannered (in a standard of appropriateness for a social or professional setting) and what's not, and I'm dead sure that most of you are too, but it's our decision whether we want to use it or not. That's what separates gentlemen and ladies from cads! Of course, there were many nice people whom I met; nice, friendly, polite, and funny people. A worthwhile company.

Gosh, I've been rather 'cheong-hei' today, haven't I? Ehe. This afternoon, I went to Secret Harbour beach with Jin, Joe, and another guy whose name I forgot, for an intended activity of surfing! The beach was fantastic! The sand was powder-fine, and the water was unpolluted and had a low salinity level (I was quite surprised). There weren't many people there, less than 20, as it was rather windy and the waves were quite rough. According to Joe it wasn't a good weather to surf. There were 2 pro surfers and 2 kite-surfers. The kite-surfers were cool. I've never seen those before. The kites looked like those jet-ski parachute thingy, and they used them to maneuver the surfboard while they rode the waves. Anyway, the first challenge (for me) was to get out into the sea with the surfboard! It's not easy! The deeper it got, the harder it was! The waves were big, and everytime I let my guard down, I would be swept several meters back towards shore for not "pushing" over the waves. After we were considerably deep enough, we started with the basics: body-surfing.. and I had beginner's luck! I caught a wave on my first try! It was so fun riding the wave back to the beach, which took like 15 seconds (compared to the 10 minutes of hard work to get out there! OMG!). That was like my best attempt at catching a wave. When you fail to catch a wave, it's a big disappointment (not to mention the embarrassment!) PLUS you get pushed like 10-20 meters closer to the beach! Gahh!! I just stayed at where the wave left me and waited for the next one, resulting in a much shorter distance from the beach. Tiring leh! That's the second challenge; to know when's the right time to catch the wave! Then came the real juice of 'surfing': SURFING! It's a hell lot harder than it looks! First you have to catch a wave and body-surf, then jump up and stand on the board while maintaining your balance. I never managed to do this.

Catching a wave - PASS
Body-surf - PASS
Jump - PASS!!

After jumping, that's it; the board just speeds away from under my feet and I'll look like a moron ninja trying to walk on water. Or if my feet are ever lucky enough to touch the board, I'll lose balance after half a second of joy and fall over. Peh! It was fun, though. Heaps of fun! Will definitely go try it out again sometime.

xD

After surfing we had an early dinner at Hungry Jacks' (similar to Burger King). The other 3 guys had triple cheeseburgers, while I settled for a veggie baguette. Geezers, I thought cheeseburgers only had doubles! Triple's a little too overwhelming, don't you agree? Ah yes, and if you didn't know, I'm vegetarian now! LOL~ It's only temporary of course, though I haven't really decided when to stop yet. Umm... Don't ask me why, I don't quite know myself. Personal preference. I just hadn't had a craving for meat and I don't want to eat it just for the sake of eating it. Eurrghhh.. It's complicated! But I'm fine, don't worry! I'm still eating a lot of veggies, rice, eggs, dairy products, and tofu! Hehe~

The weekend before the study break, I joined this global warming awareness cause called the 'Walk Against Warming', as encouraged by my Environmental Science coordinator, and we paraded around the streets of Fremantle! Divya and Mimi went as well and it was just awesome! It was estimated that there were over 7,000 participants, a lot less than what I had expected. Global warming is a big deal, and it's not something we can just shrug off now and expect "our future generations" to deal with it. If climate change and global warming is not taken seriously, there wouldn't even be a "future generation". *Wonders what Malaysia is doing to help tackle global warming*... Malaysia doesn't even have a proper recycling system. Don't come bragging or arguing to me that there are recycling bins at "strategic" locations for central collection. It was mentioned by a lecturer that Australia has done the exact same thing in the past, and found that it was very ineffective as people found it inconvenient! Take that! *wuh-pah!* Thus, almost every house in WA have their own recycling bins now! Isn't that great?! I hope that Malaysia does something similar in the near future..

Someone pasted a sticker on my back! So nice! I likey!

And off we went! I was right up the front with a local jazz band, 'The Chameleon Brass Band'. They were sensational! *click* Their MySpace site has a media player with a few of their works. (Listen to Funky Toes!)

Then of course, were the exams. It went well, thankfully. The VET107 (Principles of Vertebrate Physiology) exam included an open book exam on the lab sessions, but we were only allowed to take our lab books with us and the paper was only an hour, so that we can't spend too much time flipping through the pages during the exam. Then hor, I was so kiasu.. To save time flipping through the pages of the lab manual to search for the specific topics and chapters, look what I did!

----

Index labelling/bookmarking. Haha. You can never get lost in the pages with those!

So yeah, open book exams are cool! Then came the last paper, Cell Biology. In the middle of the exam, this guy suddenly started whispering to himself and all attention in the exam hall was diverted to him. He was on the fuggin' phone! Can you believe that?! The invigilator started shouting at him and he said that it was his friend who was supposed to be at that very exam, but overslept and... shit happened. How retarded is that? First dummy, the absent friend should know that the exam is in progress and not call your friend who is in the exam hall. Second (and also the biggest) dummy, the idiot to actually answer the call despite the exam rules clearly written and mentioned countless times that all mobiles be switched-off and left in the bags. Wahlau!! So dumb also can one ah?! (Lol, whaaat? I miss Manglish)

Overall, I think Cell Biology was the most difficult, followed by the VET unit, Environmental Science, and finally Principles of Management. The management paper was surprisingly very manageable (pun not intended). Hope all's well and that I did fine for all of them. Ekk..
Study hard, play harder, pray hardest!
xD


On Saturday, Mimi and I went to the city to meet Elaine, Mathana, and Suja for lunch. Then we went for a long walk in Harbour Town, which is a factory outlet mall, where we saw this guy painting there!

Isn't that amazing?! I was awed!

Rushed home in the evening just in time for another outing. Niki invited me to his thanksgiving dinner at an apartment unit which he rented for the week (Jin's colleague). Jin made the turkey and lasagna while Jessica made ricotta & spinach canneloni. Jin was so nice.. He made a vegetarian lasagna so I could eat. Hahah. I was expecting eggplant to replace the beef, but he used corn instead. Hilarious!

Jin massaging the bird

Jin stuffing stuffing up the bird's butt. At first they didn't have the herb-bread stuffing, so Esmond suggested that they stuff the turkey with another bird (chicken?), so it would seem as though the turkey is preggies, and kept on saying things like "A bird in a bird!" and that it was a good idea. Hahah. Esmond talks a lot of funny crap. Like the fifth episode of Star Wars was on TV and he said he never watched any of it before. Ken was explaining to him why Han Solo was frozen and presented as a gift to Jabba the Hutt, and after he finished, Esmond was like, "Huh? Who's Baba Hutt?"
=.="

Anyway, it has been an awesome 2 days after the exams and I have only 5 more days to go before my flight home on Saturday! Woohoo! Hope to see everyone back home really soon! Holidays are so fun. We get to either laze around at home or go out all day and don't have to feel bad about it! I likey~