GOT MY OWN DOMAIN!

Ladies & Gentlemen

Boys & Girls

… and others…

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been MIA for a bit. Actually, it’s because I finally got my own domain!

So, change your links/blog roll, I’m officially on

HTTP://WWW.XINCH.COM.MY

Project 365

Do you know what unemployed, bored as hell fresh grads do in their spare time?

[click here]

The Last Lap

Finally, after 3.5 years, I’m in the last leg of my degree. I’ve handed up all my assignments, presented in my last colloquium, and today at noon handed in my completed undergraduate thesis paper. The final lap of my Bachelor’s degree lasts for approximately 10 days and will be filled with 4 final papers and a thesis defense session. On April 22nd, 2009, at 2pm, I can call myself an unofficial graduate.

You’re probably wondering why I’m not poring over textbooks right now, considering the fact that my first paper is on Friday. Well, after only 4 plus hours of sleep (not to mention the stress that came with completing my thesis), I’ve decided to take a breather and tuck in early for the night… before I resume the final lap tomorrow morning.

But before I do that, I thought I’d give some thanks some people who went out on a limb to help me complete my thesis (either by helping me recruit participants, distributing my surveys for me, helping with data analysis, lab report etc. etc). I know I should be studying but, better now than never. After all, once I start procrastinating, I might never stop.

I want to give loads of thanks and IOUs to:

Matthew Lim, (Jason’s younger brother) to whom I owe lunch for rounding up as many teenage friends as possible on MSN before introducing me to…

Dianne Chan, who also recruited as many of her friends, who met the criteria of my target sample, as possible via MSN and who I later discovered was actually the daughter of a family friend.

Erik, who is so lucky to have a cousin like me who makes use of the fact that he and his friends meet the criteria of my target sample… and is so willing to drive to Subang and back multiple times for the responses. IOU in the form of… advice and guidance from an older cousin

Elvira, Kingsley, Kevin S., Priscilla Lim, Puveshni, Jasbir, Betsy & Angelreena who responded to my Facebook and real-life requests and helped me distribute my questionnaires to their teenage friends, students, church members and family members.

Kok Wui, who endured calls at all hours of the day (rush hours in particular) about statistics and SPSS questions… and demands, in addition to distributing questionnaires on my behalf.

Ivy and Konrad, who helped me review the discussion section of my lab report (even though it was actually Konrad who did it, Ivy was the one who sent it to him).

Wei Zhi, whose university database I owe 80% of the past research I used in my literature review in the first place. I still owe you lunch in Penang. I’ll probably do it in Perth then

Bee Sim, who answered my million questions, endured my million speculations and complaints about my thesis… and who printed it for me too. =]

May Leng, who owns the tuition center I obtained most of my participants from and who kindly went completely out of her way to collect them from me, distribute them for me, and return them to me.

Khai Lee who (spontaneously) gave me May Leng’s contact in the first place… and to whom I owe so many lobster thermidores I’ve lost count =P.

Dr. Liau, my supervisor, who has been extremely helpful and has provided me with constructive advice and unlike some supervisors, has not misled me or left me to fend for myself.

Most importantly, I owe immense gratitude to God for all his blessings in leading me to these people.

Thanks y’all.

Note: A friend of mine recently shared this blog post with me. I thought you guys would appreciate it too. =]

Good Friday

On this day, so many years ago, our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, took our sins and transgressions upon Himself and died on the cross to make us whole.

Have a Blessed Good Friday and a wonderful Easter.

SHE said

For all you Penangites or Hokkien speakers out there!

A med student friend named Chung Wei-Lyn wanted to ask if her patient, an old Chinese uncle, had bloody faeces (read: shit). So, she said:

Uncle, lu eh ka chui kang ho bo?

Literal translation: Uncle, how is your asshole?

ROTFL

HE said

He: i have a mancrush on takeshi kaneshiro and it’s been going on forever

Me: …………………..

He: i wanna take away his soul and replace it with mine, in that handsome vessel

o_O

This coming from the unlikeliest of sources.

AWESOME DAY

Just a quick update on WHY today was absolutely fantastic.

After one of the shittiest weeks of the year, today just kicked ass.

1. I awoke to an email from my uncle in Ohio saying that my Aunt Jen just went into labour and is being prepped to deliver my newest baby cousin.

Baby J!

Josephine Chung, you are probably one of the most loved babies in the world. Your birth has been much awaited and we here in Malaysia cannot wait to see you and get to know you.

2. We delivered a kick-ass presentation for this semester’s colloquium for our research on humour and relevance on brand and product recognition for our Cognitive Psychology module, despite being rather ill-prepared for the presentation and kena tembak-ing during mocks.

the winning team!

3. WE actually WON one of the two best presentation prizes yeehaw

and another one!

4. OMFG… xinch the lousiest presenter of the group actually won best presenter!

Jamie and I melansi-lansi with our prizes

It’s an amazing close to my degree. We’ve won best presentation twice, and xinch the lousiest speaker in the world actually got a best presenter prize today.

Fantastic close to the semester, amazing closure to the end of my Bachelor’s program.

3 weeks left and I’ll join legions of unemployed, jobless youths.

Don’t matter – today was fantastic!

hugs and kisses everyone! enjoy the pics =]

the awesome display on rosch's taxonomy that took us forever to complete

“]

The group with our counselling poster =

Perth

After years of talking, saving and planning for it, I’m finally going to Perth. Ever since we were children, Alexis and I have been writing to each other about how it would be so great if I got to head down to Perth for a visit. The same topics have translated from snail mail, to email, MSN, and most recently to Facebook messages/wall posts. Even when they finally came home last year that was one of the thing we talked about and it has been years.

Thanks to Air Asia, it’s completely possible now and I cannot wait! I got my tickets for only RM650 return (total inclusive of  baggage fees+taxes) and will be heading down south with my mum and grandmum. I know people say, “What’s there to do in Perth?” “Perth is boring!” but that truly does not faze me. This time ’round, it’s not just the city I’m going to visit, but the people too. =]

March Mayhem

March has been a very interesting month. I’ve played hard and worked even mega superbly harder this month and as it draws to a close, I cannot help but sit and gape in wonder at the speed that is time today. I can barely remember what it was like back in high school, waiting for time to pass and it seemed to crawl or slug on slower than a snail (ick) would. Since mid last year, the minutes, hours, days, weeks and months have flown by in an insane pace! I think I’m going to attribute that to the fact that – I AM HAPPY. I’ve always held the belief that when you’re having fun, time just flies. It’s because you’re not sitting there counting the minutes and seconds till each moment passes.

That aside, let me share with you some interesting things I did in March

1. Watched Jason Mraz in Stadium Negara with Edmund Kwok, Joanne and Khai Lee. Was late (as usual, considering who the person behind the wheel was ;P) but had amazing siew yoke meen afterwords. Too bad my batteries were confiscated at the entrance to the concert or you’d be attacked with pictures of Jason Mraz himself. He’s an amazing performer and very good at engaging the audience. I particularly liked the fact that instead of throwing sweaty (and disgusting clothes) to the audience as souvenirs, he pulled out a polaroid camera to camwhore on stage and immediately dished them out to the mosh pit!

2. Worked like a horse. In March, I discovered quite a number of nice places to work around the area I live! Funny that I’ve been here for 3 years already and until March, I’ve relegated myself to just McDs, the very expensive, occasional Starbucks, Old Town and Thyme in Aman Suria.

A little enclave stashed somewhere in BU

3. Had a scrumptious Japanese buffet supper with Khai Lee, Nads, Sam, Wari and Omar in Tenji@Solaris Mont Kiara. Starved ourselves till 9.30 and after letting loose at the buffet line, we discovered that manic eating wasn’t such a good idea after all. Despite that, food at Tenji rocked for only RM53/person (that’s inclusive of taxes and what not)

food, food, food (or what was left of it)

The very fresh oysters according to Wari (I wouldn't know, raw food isn't my thing)

Wari, Sam and Khailee (or the back of his head) after an overly satisfying meal

Sam, Wari and Nads testing out the latest fad - coconut boobies

4.  The Edmund Loh Makeover Project. I won’t bore you with the long story that led up to this but come last Sunday in Sunway Pyramid, Khai Lee and I met up with Edmund and spent a good 5 hours in Sunway Pyramid with 80% of the five hours dedicated to the purpose of shopping. Gotta agree, it’s mega fun shopping for someone else with someone else’s money. Anyone wants a makeover too? =] For those of you who are not aware of who Edmund L. is, he’s the one who has been providing me with the occasional freelance transcription work for the past… what, 1.5 years? Anyway, read Edmund’s take on it here.

Edmund before

Edmund after

Edmund with his shopping bags and his "Queer-Eye-for-the-Straight-Guy" man, Khai Lee.

The amazingest cutest shoes spotted by Queer-Eye himself in Onitsuka Tiger retailing at RM289! :'( Early birthday/christmas present for me, anyone? I'm a size 6 XD

That’s bout it folks, so far, for the craziness that’s been March. This month has been a fantastic month… 1 more left till the end of my degree so I’m gonna have to amp it up!

Photo-Whoring

I’m insatiable. When I’m swamped with work, all I want is a little peace and quiet. When I actually get my peace and quiet, all I want to do is work. How very humanly of me. I’ve been here on my laptop for a few hours already, surfing everything from YouTube music videos and short stories to how to conduct multiple regressions on SPSS.

On another note, some two years back, someone (let’s call him L) tried to pitch to me the idea of monetizing my blog (not that I hadn’t thought about it beforehand, genius). I did mention two big problems with that idea:

1. WordPress does not permit monetizing in any way (I tried, believe me).
2. My blog statistics are hardly spectacular. It can range from 300 visitors a day to a mere 40.

Of course (and very obviously), I could easily remedy those two problems, said L.

I could switch to a different blog hosting service such as Blogspot which does in fact allow ads, or just get my own domain name. Thing is, I’m quite attached to WordPress and getting a domain name isn’t exactly the cheapest thing around for a student who earns a fluctuating income on freelancing here and there.

Blog stats, on the other hand, can be easily boosted. This, I am quoting L. While not verbatim, the gist of it is there. Since I’m lucky enough to be born female with an uncringe-worthy face, all I have to do is plaster my blog with pictures of myself in order to generate higher stats. Even better, get a few professionally-taken shots of myself and it’s a done deal. Now this truly is an interesting train of thought.

When he said that, I thought to myself, “Am I prepared to whore my face out on the web for some cash?” Do I want weird, pimply teenage kids to be wanking to my blog photos? This is, of course, assuming my face would warrant such actions. The answer here is naturally, a resounding no. I am aware of several female bloggers (who do not need to be named) who do plaster their blogs with photos of themselves and I respect that as their prerogative. While I certainly do not mind blogging about my escapades with a series of photos (I have been known to indulge in such methods of blogging), I am not too keen on attempting to awaken my narcissistic/exhibitionist side by starting. That, and I’ve had pretty bad experiences with photos stolen from my Flickr account, mauled and attached to less-than-favourable images in an attempt to slander.

But the question here is – why do I blog? For what purpose does this blog exist? It is obviously not a diary since everyone knows that diaries contain sensitive and personal information – none of which appears on my blog. I enjoy keeping in touch with my friends who are now scattered in all corners of the world. I’m a lazy person. Put two and two together, you’ll realize that repetitive emails to different people are not exactly achievable.

• I enjoy writing. It is a favourite past time that comes second only to reading. While I have not written anything artistic/poetic in a while, all these musings and observations serve to satiate my need to write.
• The only part of me that is remotely exhibitionist is the opinionated side of me. I have a million opinions on social awareness, Malaysian politics, movies or other interesting international phenomena. I’m often not so verbal about these opinions however and I feel that I express myself best when I write about them instead.
• Personal gratification. I enjoy reading my old blog posts, deliberating the person I used to be, the opinions I used to have, and I most certainly enjoy reading comments that are not of the spamming type. I enjoy watching myself evolve and this is one way of ‘observing’ myself.

My point is, I’d like to think I am able to not resort to my feminine wiles in order to increase my readership and earn some extra cash. While L might not have meant what he said to be offensive, I’m afraid that the feminist part of me did, in fact, take some offense.

This blog is a part of me that is projected for the world to see and bimboticism and shallowness are the last two traits I would be proud of, or would like to showcase. I’d like my friends and whoever who follows my blog to think of me as a reasonably intelligent individual who does not have to sell-out just to get some extra money I do not need.

Would you photo-whore yourself out on your blog to earn a little extra every month or so?