My 2010

Yeah it's that time of year that I should wrap up my 2010, so here it goes.

The first half of 2010 has been a total drama for me. Tumbling into Adelaide hoping for a quieter life but obviously got quite the opposite. I moved as much as I did three years in Melbourne three months into Adelaide. I had a short relationship which was a total disaster giving me all sorts of troubles which lasted all the way to August. But I was lucky to have met quite a few people that helped me survive the situation and I would love to thank them dearly. Thank you Heather, Christina, Tim, Ben and Matt. I think I grew up a lot from what had happened during that as well, especially getting to know that man doesn't change and I should give up any expectation to change them at all.

The lab crew I was doing my honours project with was absolutely amazing and although I have finished the project I would always remember you guys.

And then in late April I finally settled down in my current place and things are starting to change for the better. I got to know a few loyal friends and started a sweet relationship via one of them. Although of course there are still a few dramas but now I have nothing to complain about this year.

I am gonna be greedy and start hoping for a better 2011, I know it would be hard for 2011 to be overly good because my current relationship is destined to end this year and I would also be struggling to find a job and start my new life not as a student in Australia. I do not know what's out there but hopefully I'm not afraid of it.

Happy New Year!

Display

I have noticed that whenever the weather gets hot my computer screen would keep flashing. I don't really know why but that is certainly not something that I'd appreciate. I have made up many causes for that but it seems none of them are correct. When it first happened last year I did not link it to the hot weather, instead I blamed the power source thinking that it might be not enough power, but it does that again when I moved which eliminated that assumption. Then I couldn't live with it anymore because it's just annoying to see the screen go black for a second or two every twenty seconds. I checked all the possible settings I get access to and found that the Catalyst control centre offers an 'alternative DVI mode' switch which seemed to work, but not every time though. Then I thought the problem might lay with the fact that the cable's not properly transferring data as it should as it was a cheap ass HDMI cable that I had, then I spent quite a bit of money and bought a proper DVI-HDMI cable instead of using the converter supplied with the graphic card (there was only two DVI sockets and an S-Video/S-PDIF outlet on the Radeon HD4850, and I used a 22" Samsung TV which only has HDMI or VGA to connect to computers), nope none of them helped.

And here I am now thinking the problem is gone, simply by switching back to good old VGA (still requires a converter) instead of HDMI connection, and the problem seems to be gone. Only thing is that after being so spoiled by the HDMI I could surely notice inferior graphics that VGA offered which I wasn't aware before. But well, having a slightly worse graphics is still way better than that annoying flashing screen.

Internet Security

I have never been that cautious about my internet security, until around midday yesterday.

My housemate called and told me I'd been sending advertisement emails to him with my Gmail account which I obviously hadn't. I checked my inbox immediately and found a few 'refused to deliver' notifications and in the sent mail was a lot of spams I did not authorize sending. I acted fast and changed my Gmail password immediately but harm's already done so I had to also post an update on facebook apologizing to whoever that might be affected for something that is not really my fault.

While running on a full system virus scan I checked the Gmail access history. There was one log in from Henan province, China which I do not recognize. That's it. My Gmail password was compromised and started embarrassing me and all whomever I have contacted during the years. I feel deeply sorry for what happened but turned out my computer was not infected with virus or Trojan to the best knowledge of AntiVir. I do not know how my account info could be leaked to some random people in China, but this had raised deep concerns. My Gmail account is like the most important account to me on the internet for my youtube, google services, blogger, facebook login etc, plus bills and receipts from mobile provider, online shops... I do not know whether the intruders have accessed those but I'd be deeply worried if they did.

At least for now the account seems safe and no further spams were seen sending out of it, I do need to be way more careful from now on to protect my password and stuff, and probably create more weird and hard to remember passwords for myself :S

The attack also brought some surprise. It seems that even if I deleted some of the contacts and their messages completely those people were still able to receive those spams, of course they are not very welcomed in my life and they obviously knew it. I started receiving hate mails which I did not know whether they directing at me or the spam, but whichever I chose to ignore. They are out of my life and they had better stay that way. I am happy with what I turned out to be at the moment, without them.

Summer

The weather's getting hot in Adelaide, and it's gonna officially be summer in 10 days.

As for me, thesis done and waiting to be bounded, IELTS test taken waiting for the results, a job is still waiting for me somewhere to be found. Other than that my summer's pretty much not planned at all. Of course I'll take some time to get stuff ready for my temporary residence visa and stuff. I will also have to plan a trip back to Melbourne with my partner, not totally sure when but most probably some time in January. I couldn't wait to be frank. I haven't seen all my friends back in Melbourne for a whole year! I myself did not expect I didn't get to go back during the year. But well intensity is what this honours year is about.

I decided to stay in the current house instead of moving in with a friend, only because I don't even know how long will I still be in Adelaide and I don't want the fuss having to move yet again if I decided to leave (I've already moved too many times in Adelaide in one year per say). I do love my current house more even if that means I couldn't have my partner over. I could still stay over his place, just not as often. And that is almost the only reason that I wanted to move. When it's gone, the move is scrapped.

I have thought of trying to get a scholarship in another country to continue on a PhD if I couldn't find a job anywhere in Australia. My family opposed this idea and told me that I should focus on getting 'rooted' in Australia before any further move. The thing is, if I aim to get an Australian citizenship I would've been 30 by then under the most optimistic conditions. I mean what's the point? But after talking to a friend in the US I guess staying in Australia is probably still an easier choice for me. I would never give up my crave of moving to Europe but for the foreseeable future I guess I'll have to stay here. Of course the point's still not there but I don't seem to have a choice if I would ever want to escape from the grip of China and dump that dodgy citizenship that I didn't choose to own.

More beach, more time being with my partner and more going around, I hope I would enjoy this summer.

On Equality

We are not born equal, admit it.

Of course, equal opportunities and stuff are stated in laws, but law does not change the nature of inequality in this world. Imagine an equal world, could you? The equal world I know of is the end of universe: entropy=max, in other words, heat death. Think of it this way, it is actually the inequality that created all the diversity this world has to offer, so that at least I am myself and you are yourself, we are not equal.

Equal opportunity is a vague theory and could not be proven. That's why politicians use it for their blatant lies. Legal enforcement of things like a certain proportion of minor races in universities/companies sounds very politically correct, however unless the true ratio of minor races applicants could be qualified to get the position is exactly the same as legislated, in which case such legislation becomes fudge, there will either be sub-par minor race getting in leaving qualified major race out, or sub-par major race getting in leaving qualified minor race out, which is unfair either way.

In terms of religions, there is no equality amongst them. For example Muslims appraises extermination of all pagans, while modern Christianity does not appreciate that and calls for tolerance to other religions its followers are only going to become victims of Muslims if both religions were treated equally (Muslims are already invading traditional Christian countries, building mosques all over Europe while you would never see a church in Muslim states). The same is with intolerance of atheists towards religious people and such. You just can't make things equal sometimes.

Equality is a good as a slogan, and it better stay that way because you will never achieve it.

Phew~

Finally, it's over.

My honours was not as hard as I imagined, or, maybe I just didn't work hard enough? I am quite sure that I am the only honours student that was still working in the lab this morning 8 hours before the thesis due, which does not mean that I work hard, quite the contrary, that I left all the work to the last minute. I handed in the thesis quite early, not because I finished it early, but because I don't wanna even look at it anymore.

They say honours is the most challenging yet fulfilling year in uni and I only have to agree. I have learnt quite a bit and in the middle of the year I actually had the urge of updating my resume because there had suddenly been so much more to write about myself.

Of course through this year I got to know a lot of great people that I wouldn't have had I not chosen to do my honours project. I can't be thankful enough for them and I wish I would do them proud.

Of course there are still a lot lying ahead. I'll need to sit an IELTS test again, get another visa in order to stay in Australia and most importantly find a job and afford myself. Hopefully it would not be too hard for me...

Wish me luck.

A New Beginning?

This is different from anything else I've ever had. This time I got to see an end before it even started. And let's hope it ends in the way it was expected. I know it might've been a mistake from the start but I say go for it, none of them before lasted that long anyways. And this time is probably a chance for me to really appreciate every minute we spend together because we both know that there is an end however well we go on and we know it's approaching, and we have agreed no long distance this time.

This is no love at first sight, not for you anyways. I've already told myself to give up quite a few times but I kept acting differently, and this is how we suddenly ended up and I am happy with it. Something that didn't come that easy is always more precious :)

I love you.

Tom Milsom

I've grown a love to some quite different music these days, such as, Tom Milsom.

Young, cute smile, emo but not always dark hair, bad teeth, debuted from youtube, never officially released a physical CD. Tom Milsom looks no where near my taste of music (which has come all the way from J-Pop to trance to Baroque with a bit of side tracks into easy listening and pop-rocks). However he has that wicked modern simplicity and care-free attitude and of course sweet voice and dazzling talent. He's eager to try new stuff (such as the free download Geology EP which when I first listened to I thought the files I downloaded was broken because it's like a monotonal beep all the way, but after reading his notes to those tracks they start to make sense to me and I started accepting them although they are definitely not my favourites) but still keeps his unique style.

Well I'm probably quite slow in terms of even getting to know such a person exist as Tom Milsom's obviously been around for quite a while now and I remember seeing it on my iTunes genius (the cover of 'painfully mainstream' doesn't really represent his style although cool that cover suggested he's following Lady GaGa's big shade) so I didn't even bother checking out then. But anyways I'm glad now I have something new to listen to :)

Where are you now?

I knew you are not easy to be found. I have been looking for you. I have never found you. I have never had a plan to give up. But now I even doubt your very existence.

You are not there on my chair in the dorm. You are not there on the pitch black playground. You are not there in the hanging curtains of Ikea. You are not there in the corner of the elevator. You are not there in the front row seat of the cinema. You are not there in the library. You are not there in the dance floor. You are not there at the bus stop. You are not there in front of the computer. You are not there in the driver seat. You are not there on the couch in front of the telly. You are not there across the table. You are not there in the rose garden. You are not there in the sweat. You are not there in the pain.

Where are you now?

Technology

Was in Woolworths one day with a friend and I used the automatic checkout service. My friend criticized me saying that using these machines cost the jobs of cashiers. I never thought of that and was like ooh I didn't realize that I won't use it in the future if that is the case.

That is probably the case, however, thinking back I do wonder if new technology brings us convenience, why should we avoid it? There used to be days that every single person has to grow or hunt for their own food and make there own clothes, in modern words everyone's involved in the primary industry, no existence of secondary or tertiary industry at all. Would one say the industrial revolution cost the agricultural people's jobs? It's more like freeing more people from the farms and the wild into factories, where their labour resource was used more efficiently, and increasing local productions by further processing of products from the primary industry. The workers are in turn paid for their own living.

I tend to think the same in terms of adopting new technologies. The automatic checkout machines are more likely freeing cashiers into doing something more productive and something can't be replaced by machines at this stage. And I do believe we have the resource required to train those people to make them fit for the job.

Unemployment is possibly also an indication of development, not to be rude. I suspect the unemployment rate is 0 in a pure primary industry society because anyone who doesn't work dies of starvation. Unemployment simply means someone does not have to work to stay alive with the excess resources produced by the society. Also, the excessive production also allows more education of people and research.

I don't think I need to feel guilty using those automatic checkouts anymore :) The advance of technology is not a crime after all.

Thoughts on Islam

I did not have a clear idea about the Islam when I was young. I do remember when I was small there was one mosque in my city called 'smooth tower', like in contrast to other Buddhist/Taoist towers which has multiple levels, balconies, lots of decoration and stuff. I do remember I have a classmate in middle school who is Hui (a variation of Muslim widespread in China), but she does not distinguish in any obvious way among us. We speak the same language, eat the same food (yes including pork, she did say in her family they are not supposed to but they didn't bother) and basically lead a same life as the Han Chinese people.

The first time Muslims really surprised me was when I was in Melbourne and working part time in the market. I was working with a few Muslims from Indonesia. They had to do their salah before starting their work, which just at the time salah is supposed to be performed. What this guy did is he brought all his gadgets required for the salah to work, then quietly spread a blanket on the floor, removed his shoes and then knelt down kowtowing towards Mecca(?). This goes on for like 5 minutes and then we can start our work. Muslims have to do this five times every day but well we all respect that it is their tradition and culture we should not say anything about them but when I read off news that the Muslim astronaut whom goes around the earth 16 times a day had to pray 80 times per day in theory it just cracked me up, like more than a quarter of his time spent in the international space station was praying if each one takes five minutes. Every university that I know of (I'm not sure about other places) in Australia have some sort of praying facilities dedicated to their Muslim students, which does show how tolerate the Australians towards other cultures. Muslims are allowed to build Mosques in Australia and most of other Western countries (even on ground zero NYC), Muslim woman are even allowed to wear their burqa in public and even on ID photos in some countries, which just goes beyond the line.

Can we expect the same in return from Muslims? I don't think so. The most basic fact is there is no Christianity churches in any Islam countries are allowed to be built, other than that, Islam just do not have any tolerance towards other cultures and religions. They might appear nice and talk to you about all those equality and tolerance and whatever to create the illusion that they are friendly, but once they get what they want initially they ask for more and more, until it becomes irreversible that the Muslims rule in the country. Some of the Europeans have realized a quarter of their population is becoming Muslim and they are the fastest growing in the country as Caucasians tends to have less or no children these days. It is impossible as many people thought that they can convert/influence the Muslim population given that they live long enough on the land of Christianity, they believe in the other way around and they are in no way to be changed seldom get into contact with people other than Muslims. There is a possibility that Muslims born in Western countries be converted through education in schools with children from other cultural backgrounds, but a ban of singing the national anthem of Australia in a primary school in Queensland because of Muslim parents' protests on the news late last year was just makes me rethink this possibility.

In a word, they talk about equality when they build their mosque in your country, and they talk about cultural discrimination when you ask them to lift the burqa. Treat them as is will leave your own country discriminated by Muslims in the end and they will probably celebrating their victory of another jehad against the evil Christians.

Memoir (Elementary School)

Let me continue my story.

Immediately after I entered elementary school I stopped all my acting jobs, partly because it wasn't that exciting anymore and partly because my family didn't want me to continue on, they want me to focus on study.

I was like a good for everything kid when I first entered my elementary school. I love all the teachers in my class and they obviously loves me too. I feel like I got some sort of previlage and extremely honours when my Year 1 maths teacher gave me some pictured story books privately and exclusively for me to read. I got full marks on like every subject. I was selected into the choir and the athlete's team (I know). I sang solo in front of the school...

Until like Year 3 things changed. I quitted the athlete's team because I'm not performing well (expected :P), I don't like the new Chinese teacher (which I think it's only because the first one was too good, and thinking back, she did actually pay a lot of attention to me and gave me enough effort) and I even started a fight with her at Year 4. I quitted doing homework at some point, from when she had to take me to her place after school and I had to finish my homework there before allowed to go home. I start fights with like every single classmate back then, and some of them actually went quite violent and caused injury to another kid when I was Year 5.

Back home I was changing too. I do remember we used to have a fold up dinner table in my grandfather's house, and that table was for me to study before dinner, quite a slippy surface and I usually place two sheets of newspaper on the table while I　was studying. And gradually I actually started reading the newspaper when I'm bored of the homework, and I love tearing it after reading too, pinning the paper with my finger nail and rip it so the bit of paper folds back beautifully under it while tearing away.

Back in those days there was so many 'game houses' around where arcade games are available, and they were described as the place where all evil incubates. While we were warned strictly never to enter those places I started playing them anyways when I was Year 4, but stopped at Year 6. Samurai Showdown IV was my absolute favourite back in those days and I later become quite good at it attracting other people in there watching me play. I still play a bit of it sometimes on the emulator in my computer. My grandfather started tracking me down those places and if he found me there he'd be absolutely furious. Once I was caught in a game house and on that day the dinner was my favourite steamed pork ribs, my grandfather didn't shout at me but he just keep taking all the ribs from the dish and I had to do the same to protect my share, the result is the rest of the family just watched us and there hadn't been any left for them as we took all of them within 1 minute, including the juice.

In contrast with my athlete's adventure me in the choir actually went quite well and the music teacher actually referenced me for a place in the "youth's palace" choir of the city, which is quite an honour given that there was only two people in my school selected in. What I did quite wrong that I still regret was that after I was selected into the youth's palace choir I stopped going to the training in the school choir, throwing an attitude on it which made my music teacher quite sad. After I graduated I had visited the school once but I didn't see that teacher and failed to say all those thank you's and sorry's. I started learning piano when I was year 2 too, not being exceptionally good and eventually dropped it when I was in middle school, focusing back on the choir.

soccer was the favourite game amongst the boys back in those days. As we have an early finish every friday the gang would head to a lawn in a nearby museum and kick it off. We don't have a proper field or even a proper ball. An empty bottle is out ball and two bags laying on the ground indicates the goal. That lawn is actually overly grown for our purpose as soccer but we had heaps of fun until dark or the security kicks us out, whichever comes first. I usually don't need to do much as I am just at the back, mostly chatting to the goalkeeper and when the ball comes about kick it out. Seems like we won most of the time against another class.

Later there was a hype in table tennis and we are all crazy of it. While I don't have those quite expensive bats and stuff and I actually played quite crappy. There was a guy in other class though, quite good at this and actually won a few tournaments in the city level. He taught me some of the tricks and I got a bit better, but only at serving. Eventually table tennis didn't get to me that much.

Back like 30 years my father was actually a traner in badminton so I actually played quite good badminton under his training, sometimes on the weekends we go out to rent a real badminton field in the Sports University where my other grandparents live. I still have the bat with me which is more than 10 years old now but I haven't been playing it for a while.

Sex started to become the topic of our talks around Year 5 but back then no one actually knows what happens, we are just all curious and tend to laugh at funny names relating to sex. Rumours are around that this guy is going out with that girl and stuff and they do admit it, just not that sort of going out though. I myself didn't have an "official" "girlfriend" back then but rumours are out there anyway and my friends actually know that there was a girl that I've been getting on well with in the class for years. And my friends are like quite happy for me when that girl was randomly selected to sit beside me by the supervisor of the class. Nothing happened between us though, but I do steal money from home and buy her birthday presents back in those days.

Today is her birthday.

Untitled

Don't know what exactly to say really, just been a while and think I should post something on here.

Study's become quite stressful, and obviously my assignment is going too slow, hope I'll get over it eventually, but obviously after the assignment there is more experiments and the final thesis ahead.

I realized I'm probably consuming too much sugar in my breakfasts. I used to have muesli+natural yoghurt+juice which had worked quite well for me cos the natural yoghurt does not contain sugar. I switched to Moo recently which is undeniably yum but obviously a lot sweeter, and adding juice on top of that makes my breakfast a pretty sugary one. I'm thinking of something without the sugar to replace my juice if possible, or i'll have to buy natural yoghurt anyway just for breakfast and the Moo would be only for snack...

Another thing is, I think I should avoid showing up in some places at the wrong time which might send out the wrong messages. And 'assume nothing, expect everything' should become my motto from this day on.

Wish me luck.

My 4th June, Bits and Pieces

Today is the 21st anniversary of the massacre in Beijing (opposing to genuine thoughts, accumulating evidences support that massive proportion of the massacre took place all around Tiananmen square not actually within the square, hence it shouldn't be called massacre in Tiananmen square) 1989.

I was not even four in June 1989, attending kindergarten in Guangzhou thousands of kilometres away from Beijing. The only thing I remember regarding to this massive political movement was its very beginning, which was the first funeral I've ever seen - the funeral of former president of China Hu Yaobang broadcasted on TV one morning (22nd April 1989 to be precise) when all of us kids and nurses were made to watch in the classroom. My memory after that funeral is faded and I don't have an idea of what people were talking about what happened after it in my city those days.

Back in those days there was a VCR player in my grandpa's house and there was one Karaoke tape of the pop songs then which I soon learnt to sing all the songs in from my aunt. The first song was called 'bloodstained glory'. I did notice that this song was quite different from every other songs in that tape which were all love songs, it was talking about the country but different again from the 'mainstream' communist march themes that we often hear on national events.

No information goes my way about that political movement for a very long time, until close to my graduation of elementary school that I heard the term '4th of June' being mysteriously spread amongst our classmates but nobody could tell for sure what that means. I went home and asked dad, 'a group of college students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square trying to overturn the communist government and establish capitalism in China' was the only and overly cautious answer I got.

During those days when a computer is rare and nobody knows what internet is in China, I can do nothing to find out for myself (I was not allowed in public libraries because I am under 16, weird rules in China I know).

I finally got internet access at home when I was in high school, not long before I discovered torrents and eMule. While most of the political websites were blocked by the prototype GFW without me even knowing there was no way to block the P2P searches (even now I think). There was one day that I subconsciously searched the term '4th June' and there it was a whole new world for me. I watched a lot of footages about that movement and I finally have an idea about what it is about. I got angry that the government fired towards its own citizens, the validity of this communist government was also highly questioned, my consciousness told me that opening fire on its citizen is wrong and cowardice. A democratic leader in such situation would've stepped down because there is no point staying in that position given the fact that he had already lost his support from his people, which is the legal ground of his position.

Deng Xiaoping had stated during the massacre 'kill 200 thousand to get 20 years of peace of mind', I don't think the death toll in the 1989 massacre was that high but that government survived 21 years after the movement. Look at China now, a house is worth 100 years of salary of a normal worker, foods rising dramatically in price, not any form of medical insurance for people in the countrysides, ridiculous difference of income between the rich and poor... Any second thoughts of the government would be jailed or even locked in the lunatic asylum, violent and unruly use of force to break down private properties for the benefits of the people in the government and real estate giants, even forcing people to burn themselves. All of these needs to be covered from the general population and the cost of such concealment is at the rise as they happen increasingly frequently. It's a matter of time that the communist government collapse, but time is a serious matter. Chinese people don't want to be helped, they are unacknowledged of and uninterested in questioning their government, that is exactly what the government want them to do so that the communist government can survive. Unless there is no more room for even food and shelter for a large proportion of people who would finally stand up.

Stupid Ideas

Online shopping?
If you see a space asking for coupon code, google it before you check out.

Rent or buy? (When you have the choice of course)
Before you buy, estimate the life span of this item and the time period of you willing to use it, divide the price of this item by whichever time is less. If it turns out more expensive than renting, rent.

Credit card, savings or cash?
Cash is preferred for grocery and everyday shopping if you feel like you are spending too much, as you don't see the money gone if you are using a card, you hand that card out, signed your name/keyed the pin and the card came back with one more receipt! When buying something big though, you might want to use the credit card to avoid seeing your money go.

Assignment due days...
Divide the word count by the number of days left til the due day, and aim at writing that much per day. If it's tomorrow, ask for extension...

Planning ahead?
In my case this never worked. If a plan is made to be broken why even waste time on it?

Making your bed?
Waste of time! It's gonna get messy anyway when you get back on it tonight.

Laptop

My laptop is failing.

It'd been through a lot with me, and I liked it a lot and at the moment I was running Ubuntu on it and it is jut kept in the lab as I've already got a desktop for my gaming and multimedia needs. After three years of my intensive use it's actually about time that this Dell XPS M1210 retire. The graphics had failed before but I was under warranty so I was able to change the motherboard. Now I can't seem to do anything to it and in fact I don't actually know where the exact problem is. It might be the graphics or the cables that connects the screen and the motherboard. The display is either running at normal colour depth but very shaky or it downgrade to the ugly 256 colours. Switching off special effects worked for 10 minutes and the problem returns. More problems are following up in this old machine and the network proxy suddenly stopped working and I lost access outside of the uni website. I need to replace it.

I knew I don't need much of computing power and I know I am after a cheap stuff. All I require it to do are processing spreadsheets, writing reports, showing presentations and surfing the internet. A netbook is the first choice although I also considered an iPad. The iPad would've been too late given that it wasn't even accepting pre-orders in Australia when I had to make a decision.

There are worries about netbooks, most notably being too low of a resolution for those small screens will cause hardship browsing the internet, and in my case, also affects the powerpoint slides as I've noticed before unless I set it prior.

i've seen those 1024x600 screens, awful. There are only two HD screen (1366x768) model available for 10" netbooks, one from HP which I can't even see the full specification in their crappy internet store so I went for the Dell Mini 10z (Yes Dell again). I don't expect much from it but the review looks quite good, and 10hr battery life is just an extra that I would gladly accept although I'll almost always plug it in in the lab anyway :P The choice between mobile broadband compatibility and TV tuner actually took me a while to decide. I chose TV tuner but still a bit nervous not knowing if I should. It didn't matter that much actually cos I am using mobile broadband on a USB 3G modem and my desktop uses a TV as monitor. The justification that I gave myself for choosing TV tuner is that if I am away from home, I can always take my USB 3G modem but the TV is not so easy to carry... I don't actually watch TV btw... The colour is another thing that is too hard to choose, definitely not purple or pink, red is not bad, I got too many black stuff, I don't like blue, green is nice and so is white... I got white at last, and I'm actually thinking of getting a skin for it anyways :)

Now all I have to do is wait, and track online occasionally to see how are they working with it before it reaches me.

Hmm

I think I'm just too bored at this time that I started writing this thing... I moved my house again today. Hopefully no more drama this time...

After all these had happened, I couldn't help but thinking of how life was like in Melbourne and I know I miss it. Adelaide was way different than I thought, and not in a good way. I was quite prepared to get used to a quiet place before I came but not a shit hole. It is ridiculous more bad stuff happened to me within this three months I was in Adelaide than the whole three years I was in Melbourne.

Thinking about the good side of it, I started to make a new bunch of lovely friends here, my study was going slow but smoothly so far and hopefully a better career prospect afterwards, I was lucky that I met these people who are able to help just when I needed it most, without whom I would've been all pathetic living on the streets now. I am glad after all, and things are looking up.

Impress me Adelaide, if you please.

Dramas

And yes, I did realized this might happen since the day you came back. You just don't look right. It still happened a bit enexpectedly.

You make too many promises that you don't keep, you told me this is sort of his family tradition, I don't think so after meeting your family (without whom I wouldn't know where I'd end up). He's just too good at lying. I was to stay because of the place, thinking that you might get a bit better after all those, you have left me with no choice and seemingly acted faster than I did.

I would consider myself reasonable to you by all means, I tend to think Cancers are all like that, I could be quite soft but not when things go bad enough for me to having to turn my back on you, once you made me make that decision it's irreversible. I don't have tolerance on those stuff I think you have noticed. I would not let myself be fooled again.

It is a difficult choice but I made it. The bad has outweighed the good. It will cost me a bit but yes this is my hard earned lesson. Waking up in the morning not knowing where I am is not a good feeling, but at least I don't have to worry about anything else.

You are just hopeless. Men just wouldn't change. I think I learnt that better over all these days.

Sam, Misha and me

Suddenly the house was all empty and I'm all alone.

Sam is my recent housemate and Misha is his old cat.

As Sam will not be in this house for quite a while I had been feeding Misha and playing with her. She is all black and 14 years old, very decent and friendly I would say, and it is the first time ever I sort of own a mammal as a pet. (I've had ducklings that were dead overnight, fishes that reproduces way too much and birds that found their own way out of the cage before) I started to grow quite close to Misha since Sam had been away, lying on the same bed with her and letting her claw dig into my hand, looking her deep in the eyes, scratching her neck and caressing her fur and feel the warmth of her.

Until last night.

I fed Misha 5PM sharp as usual and she did not finish the food as usual. I let her out to play around 7PM and started playing a bit with my computer cos it had been such a shit day for me, I had screwed up everything that I possibly could. I will know Misha wants to come in if she scratches the door.

It was just before 11PM that the neighbour knocked at the door and said she thinks Misha was hit by a car and probably dead. I rushed out with her and found Misha on the edge of the road, somebody might have moved her but she is still warm. It was very dark there. I couldn't think. The girl next door fetched me a shoe box and a pair of disposable gloves while I just stood outside and looked at the lights through the window, then we went back to Misha and I picked her up, squashed her a bit into the shoe box. I was sure it's Misha only then, with her purple collar and the bell that always informing that she's around.

Back to the house I had a closer look of her, she had ants all over her expecially around the head. I called up Sam's mother and she was about to go to sleep, but she popped in immediately. I don't know how to tell Sam about this I hope his mother will do that for me. I thought I felt some sort of shriver when I touched Misha again but it turns out it was just myself. Sam's mother sprayed some fly spray to get rid of the ants and took Misha with a few towels, leaving the shoe box.

When I looked into the shoe box today there was Misha's blood, sort of gel like inside the box. And there's a few dead ants.

I left the box there.

I can't remember exactly where on the road she was, some blood stains indicated for me.

I tipped Misha's bowl where her leftover food started to stick onto.

I brushed the cat food stain on the kitchen floor.

I left the door open.

It all turned silent.

Adelaide Complains

Not a very exciting place I would say, not much night life going on around, and you will have to shop early or the shops are closed. You could count on the buses being late, they are never on time anyway. Train service looks nice as they are fast and punctural, but there are not many of them around. But this Belair line is such a joke that goes like a huge loop way outside of the city around the hills. What's the point?

The Day of Drama

I finally had a chance to update my blog (Well it's not the first chance but I've been slack...) and I always wanted to talk a bit about Adelaide, but no I'll leave that for the next one so this one's about my last day in Melbourne, 1st Feb 2010. The big drama day.

As my flight is leaving like 5:35pm for Adelaide I booked my taxi on 4pm (bit stress in the first place I might not do that again), and I handed over my keys to my housemate cos I am no longer renting the place. And they are all at work.

I went out to tip the last bit of my rubbish out at 3:45, made sure that the door was not locked when I leave, but it's locked when I came back. So I have a flight to catch, and all of my stuff was locked in the house. I asked the neighbour for help and they are calmer than I am and decided to drive me and pick up a spare key in the real estate agent after calling them.

At 4pm we are about to set out to the office and I saw the taxi just outside of my place. I went to talk to the driver explaining the situation and asked if he could wait up for a bit and he agreed. The traffic is starting to get busy on our way to the agent and Carmen gets quite angry at the drivers ahead. There was two locks on the door and they only gave us one, I was hoping that it was the right key because one of the locks is not locked.

Not quite 4:20pm we are back and I could see the taxi still waiting. I rushed up and tried the keys and it was not the right one! Carmen's boyfriend started try to bust the lock and it didn't seem all that easy although he told me that he was a locksmith for some time. I tried to call my housemate but somehow he exchanged his SIM card with his cousin and I didn't mark down his new number right.

4:35pm I start to think that it's over that I would not make it to Adelaide today that my housemate comes back home from work and opened the door for me. And he drove me to the airport, we arrived at 4:55pm

Collecting my boarding pass and waiting to drop my bag and it says the plane is already boarding, so I was on the fast track. Then I was not able to check in my backpack because my suitcase is too heavy, I was fiven a choice either pay $50 to check it in or take it onboard. I'm not paying obviously but I was a bit worried that there might be something that I couldn't take onboard with in that backpack because I was planning to check it in.

And there was. I spent some 5 minutes at the security gate because they found a knife inside the bag but could not find it. It was my first Swiss Army Knife and I had to throw it away because there is no time for me to get back to the check in and put it in the suitcase. When I am finally inside the gate, I heard my name called and it was the final call for boarding.

And this is it, my eventful adeventure towards Adelaide.

Last Day in Melbourne

Sunny outside, shutters shut, and I am sitting in front of a quite empty now room staring at the sheets of sunshine escaping through the slits of the shutter, swaying as it breezes.

The jeans that hadn't been worn for ages, trashed. Socks that are bit worn, trashed. dustbin itself, to be determined but I'm not taking it. Rents, cleared. All packed up. Keys, handed over. I only just realized how rusted my keyring had become.

Almost three years now, about time to leave, about time for a change. Am I ready for that though? What is so wrong with my current life in Melbourne? I never felt this way towards Melbourne before. Nasty weathers, annoying flies, what is so good about it?

(2 hrs Later)

Had some dumplings for brunch, nice. The sun's still bright, but went past my window. called for the cab to pick me up at 4pm, should be alright. Not wanna turn off the computer yet but still have to dump the trash first. Opened the lid and saw the shoes I dumped yesterday was still there, I hate this pair too much that I would swear never to buy a Converse again, ever.

Time to go.

Google Pulling Out of China?

I made a statement on Facebook yesterday that if Google pulled out of China I am not going back either, I meant it.

Well, Google is the first search engine I had ever known, and I could not imagine a life without Google now. Although I had only been out of China in the recent years Google had been part of my life way longer before that. Opening my browser when I wake up in the morning my homepage is iGoogle, then the first thing I would check is Gmail, following by Facebook, website of my uni etc., and I am obviously using Blogger, Google Earth/Maps, Youtube, Docs, Picasa, Wave... The list goes on. I wouldn't deny that I am a fan of Google that I might use more services from Google than many others, thing is it is almost certain that all people who have access to the Internet are using some services provided by Google.

What had enraged Google to have threatened to leave China was that it had found on its servers attacks from China attempting to access Chinese human rights activists' Gmail account. I'm not going to repeat the story so just see here.

It is not just about human rights, it is not just about Google China's proportion in the market did not meet the expectation of the company (It is still substantially profiting), it is more about the conscience of the company, realizing that it is no longer possible to and feasible to cooperate with the Communist government and help them with their censorship while in the end compromising its own users' privacy and rights of speech. Ever since the launch of Google.cn, the company had been through animadvers and pressures from the government, increasing by the year. And many of them are actually traps planted by government and government-run media aiming at detrimenting the public image of Google, Google did nothing and just continue what it was supposed to do. This time however, the Chinese goernment had broken the bottomline of the company.

Towards Chinese people the government is obviously lying again saying human rights was an excuse Google use for leaving China with bad business in a cover, or stating giving up China is giving up half of the world. Well, from what I have seen on the blogs and forums, complains are dominant, mourning that they have to use alternative ways to go around the GFW and continue using Google service, as Google.com will definitely be blocked once Google.cn pulls out of China, alongside with all of the Google services (although many of them are already blocked, such as Youtube and Picasa), and that Baidu will take over the place where Google used to be in. (Well I myself only get on Baidu for free music downloads back in the time, and now I buy CD's or if I really can't find the CD, iTunes. Baidu is a disgustingly greedy company anyway forcing companies to auction on the placement in search results or they would be taken out of the search literally by placement tens of pages back no matter how relevant the content actually is)

Is it China's or Google's loss if Google do pull out from China? The Chinese government would not mind Google pulling out, they might actually be happy 'one less naughty boy' in the country. For the people however, the loss of Google is more than one less search engine, instead it would mean a significant tightening of the internet environment within China, rumours are are already everywhere saying that the Chinese government is planning to switch from a 'blacklist' policy on the Internet, which blocks the blacklisted websites etc., to a 'whitelist' policy which blocks anything that is not registered with the government. I honestly can't imagine internet looking like that, with no voice from outside of the government at all, not even personal websites. It is matter of time that China will cut its internet communication from other countries and be isolated from the rest of the world fearing any criticism of its illegal regime in the first place.

This statement was found on the internet: It is not that Google had given up on China, China had given up the world.

Interesting Shift

I realized this only after I watched 'the Lovely Bones', there is something different from most of the other movies these days: there is no 'politically correct' African background part in this film, instead, they put an Asian girl in as Susie's guide to paradise.

And I do realize there are more movies like this thinking back, 'Eating Out: All You Can Eat', those two illegal immigrants from Vietnam(?) working in Tiffany's nailing salon and Tandy obviously, no African background casts again. I'm sure there's more but I'll stop here.

It is quite obvious that most of such parts given to minors in the movies and TV shows are not necessarily ethnically specific (well illegal immigrants maybe) and sometimes even inappropriate (The one popped right into my head was Gwen in the BBC TV series Merlin because there would have been very rare case of African people 'in the land of myth and the days of magic' let alone being a royal servant and probably Queen later). They only serve as 'politically correct' disclaimer.

My point here is, is there a shifting in terms of 'politically correctness' from African population towards Asian population? If so, does this mean a realization of racism had turned from towards Africans to towards Asians? Or, does it mean Asian immigrants in the Western world are playing a bigger role by the date in the community comparing to Africans?

I am not going to answer these questions because I don't think I know the answer. What I do know is, African people are affecting the culture of Western countries in a deeper way than Asian people do. For example there's Eminem and there's Whitney Houston. But there's no white J-Pop star or Manga artists and there's no mainstream Asian artists in Western countries either, at least none as big as Whitney Houston.

Well, maybe it takes time?

Google Wave

Quite by chance that I got an invitation from a friend on facebook and laid my hands on this thing. I didn't quite understand the concept that I only heard about some friends mentioning it to be quite nice and stuff, I didn't expect much either. But well anyway I went ahead with it and watched like a third of that hour-and-a-half long video. (the length is putting me into sleep but the idea actually quite exciting, that you could do things that are very different and you could actually see a lot of potentials out of Google Wave)

Well I got excited obviously and then I found a big problem here, one that didn't come with gmail when I got the test account: I don't actually have friends to wave with except the guy that invited me and two magically added contact within my I think gmail contact list that had never showed up. It hadn't been a problem in gmail because it's only an email account that you could start sending any email to any people with email addresses, but with google wave, you don't actually have heaps of people to start with because it is a social network and it is invite only... Well like a day and a half after activating you do get a new wave saying that you are now able to invite people, well, 8 people. That's better than nothing but far from satisfying I would have to say, yes I do reckon I will get more invites later but Google Wave is still considered a social tool, and quite dependant on a social network.

In a word I am satisfied with the idea and stuff that come with Google Wave, but not the way that they open for testing like this. I do understand that resources are limited but 'by-invitation' should not be the mode one social network builds up. Facebook did not limit their access by 'invite only', they purchase new resources when it is used up, and btw what is facebook when it gets to the benchmark of 50,000 users? As a giant like Google, Wave should get more resources and open for public testing IMBO.

Well I bet this thing will be banned in China, with its powerfulness that fears its miserable government with potentials way more powerful than current social networks and wikipedia and youtube conbined, literally.