Time Really Flies Like Superman

What can I say, our last semester as a biotech student is coming to an end coz EXAM timetable for this sem is OUT! What will happen to us next time I often asked, what will happen to Sam, Kh, Ivan and me? Probably, in the next 2 years Ivan will send an invitation card for us to attend his wedding. I do not know but I am curious. Maybe Sam will become an actor in Malaysia where he acts as a Loan Shark, maybe Kh will work in a bakery next time baking cheese cakes. Who knows what will happen to us? But look at the bright side, no more lab reports and assignments to do anymore, YES! just the thought of it makes me float in the air coz you guys might not know the trouble we go through to complete the lab reports or assignments. I remember vividly the past few days where I need to hand up my sci2010 assignment, it was only a 3 paged assignment but we need to read over 10 journals and half of it I couldnt understand a single thing that the journal is trying to tell me. It is as if that the journals have some reflective powers that whenever I read it, it just got reflected back CRAP! that was mental torturing and not to mention the genetics essay that we just handed up today.

Speaking of the genetics essay, today me and ivan went to school at around 12pm and we sat in the com lab altering and improving our essays and we decided to hand it up at 2pm. To make things worse, our final exam timetable is OUT! Wootz, so excited, wah can score high, wah can excel this time (Only Applicable to Kok Leong and Leang Chong here). For the four of us, this is the time where we panic and go blur. That time it was bioactive lecture, the four of us will normally sit at the back of the class except for kh that day he came in late I think (too busy baking cheese cakes). So when felix came in and sat with us, he started screaming 'EH EH EH EH, EXAM TIMETABLE IS OUT ADY' with his distinctive high pitch sound. So as usual, Sam got panicked first, Ivan will be there putting his hands together to pray that God will save him one day. As for me, I was in there mummering crap crap zia lat liao, sei cho ady this time, tua ki ady this time, mampus ady this time. How encouraging right the 3 of us, so Sam started asking Felix with his eyes wide opened hoping that Felix will tell him the good news of the timetable. Unfortunately, it was short lived Felix said this sem's exam will be very near to each other. Then suddenly Mira uttered a prophetic word from 2 rows in front, she said 'U know what, bioactive and sci2010 are on the same day' talking bout adding salt to the wound. At that point of time, you could basically see sam's face turning pale as for me as usual la RED. As for Ivan, he is still in denial that this wouldnt be true.

The horror of having 2 papers on the same day is equivalent to like having a pregnant dog chasing behind you. Besides that, Sam's body is too weak to take this kind of pressure and I am concerned about him that he will purge during exam because of insufficient meals in between. Imagine those people sitting behind him LOL. The three of us were there complaining and mummering bout our misfortunes but for Felix, he just shouted DOTA DOTA DOTA, we play DOTA 1st, worry later. Sometimes, I just want to pay my utmost respect to Felix for being such an encouraging friend.

But it turned out to be ok after all, we only had papers on the 15,18,19 and 21. But if we were to compare to last semester this semester's exam timetable will be far terrible than last sem. We will have to finish all the papers in one week's time,haihz basically means studying early. But when I want to start studying early, we will normally end up in Blueserver not sharing our knowledge on genetics, bioactive or other subjects but rather on how we should kill steal. U might wonder why do we always play dota and nothing else, but let me tell u the truth, all of us do not have a clue to that also haha. But i believe in striking a balance in life, doing everything in proportionate and not to indulge in one thing only. That is my principle of life.

Hopefully, once we graduated we can still mingle around and spend time together. If not, at least we meet in blueserver playing dota haha. One and a half month before the finals friends, let us get ready for it and let us celebrate as a biotech graduate who earns RM1500, can i hear a loud YES? Crap i only heard cricket sound.

SIEN OH SIEN.........

Its 3.00 am now...i cant sleep d...and i am doing my genetics essay.....i am seriously drained now..I'm seriously fed up with the amount of work i have to do....Last week i have to do two assignments...lab managemnt and application of science...Then this weeks is this dumb essay...SIEN OH!!!!!!! Anyway on a lighter note, before we hand up the SCI2010 assignment...we are supposed to pass it up thru a programme called turnitit (www.turnitin.com) to detect whether we plagiarized any journal articles we used for the asgnment. I got 20%, colin got 17%,felix got 26%...but after minusing the references....all of us got less than 10%....all except KIAN TAT....BTW...a lil intro...Kian tat is kian huei's older brother....although i still can't see the resemblance...lolz...And he always seats in front during lecture...if u thought kok leong is the only one who seats in front, u r horribly mistaken...This guy...man..he OWNS the front bench...more 'terror' than kok leong...sorry kok leong...and the other place he goes in uni is the library.....wow....this guy...totally puts his brother to shame....Yeah..u heard that kh...u are a disgrace...haha

Anyway.....kian tat passed up his assgnment thru turnitin and guess how much he got for plagiarism? it was 84%!!!!!!!! I didn't know it until kh told me on msn...Me, colin, ivan and felix were laughing like mad when i told them about the 84%....WHOA.. dude.....even if u cut off the references u won't go lower than 70%....Kian tat...if u are reading this post....u deserve my utmost respect for your courage in copying the journals word for word. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.. Anyway....kian tat told me in the end...the plagiarism was 2%...Now, i seriously dont' know who to believe coz from 84% suddenly jump to 2%...lolz...Maybe u can ask both of them when u see them..

Now comes the sad, morbid part.....(funeral anthem please)...Our mid term exam lasts for only a week....ONE FREAKING WEEK!!!! My goodness.....when felix told me the news during bioactive chem lec...i almost blacked out...Colin started mumbling senselessly like some monk...Ivan was holding his hands in deep prayer like some voodoo fella.... I thought he was joking...until Mira said something more disturbing....that bioactive chem and application of science falls on the SAME day!!! OMG!!!! That time....it was like one scene in armageddon...can literally see the world collapsing over us....All of us were really panicking...and then when class ended...we ran straight to com lab to check the timetable....it turned out that they were not on the same day...phew...(Mira...dont' scare us again man...can die one u know) but was next to each other ...nutzz...So the exam for me starts on 15 (genetics), 18 (application of science), 19 (bioactive chem) and 21 (lab mgment).....Man....this is the first time in uni i would have to seat for the finals for only a week... i know that the business students all finish it in a week...but they dont' have to go thru tons and tons of lecture notes with whatever promoter, transcription factor, nucleophilic substitution to digest....sigh....

Oklah...back to work d....need to continue with my genetics essay.....at least i let some steam off here....hopefully i won't drop dead tomorrow....Anyway...gambate to all my frens who are taking the same papers with me....No choice but to study ASAP.....sienzzzzzzz

Story Telling

Ok, as day passes I found that all the bloggers are getting lazier and lazier to blog. Needless to say, I knew that all of them would just log in to this website to find any new post, leave some comment and it ends there, full stop. I can’t complain much since that’s what I did. Just when I feel like giving up in this blogging thing to ,kh came upon me and remind me about this blog thing and I finally made up my decision to blog as I see it as a way to distress since I juz took my mid sem Marketing paper and is suffering from post exam syndrome now. See guyz? I still blog when our essay is due on Friday dun say as if I study and do my assignment whenever I am at home lol. When I told kh that I am gonna write something, he predicted that I would write about my exam but I am not gonna do that haha.

Just as I started to build the tempo to blog, I suddenly run out of idea on what to blog. Ok since this blog is getting more n more dead I decided to write about something even its bullshit haha. On last Friday, me.kh and sam went to the PC fair to get some of the computer stuff where at the end of the day, I bought a modem router (using kh modem to on9 now haha) and a 2gb pen drive. On the following day, I connect the router and tried to configure the modem but it does not work well. Then, I reconnect everything to the old modem hoping to restore my connection. To my dismay, I cant even online with my old modem where the local area connection shows ‘limited connectivity’. After trying and trying for few hours, I finally came up with the conclusion that my LAN card was faulty. Then on Tuesday, me, kh , sam and colin went to pyramid since the red faced guy wanted to get a 2gb pen drive initially. There, we survey for the prices for external hard disk and pen drive and we actually found that the price in PC fair and the price offered by the seller in Pyramid does not differ much. Yeah, remember to add up the petrol, parking, and time as the cost too if you were to go to KLCC for the PC fair. Ok after buying a LAN card from pyramid, I decided to replace my LAN card with the newly bough one today. As I plugged the new card in, I was able to online using the old modem.

Curious if the new card will work with my new router modem, I reconnect everything to the new modem but to my dismay I am not able to on9 again. Then, I replugged it back to my old modem and found that I fail to get a connection. There are saying that ‘curiosity kills a cat’ and now I understand it clearly. After some magic trick, I finally able to online using the old modem. Heck, I told myself that I am not gonna touch anything on my internet connection till the end of this semester. As I wrote all the crap till here, I can feel that the post exam syndrome is started to disappear and hence I shall stop my crap now. So before I end this blog, I shall say this “NEVER EVER PLAY WITH UR CONNECTION WHEN THERE IS ASSIGNMENT/REPORT TO BE HANDED IN”. Okay since I am so kind to tell you guyz a story together with the moral of the story, I expect you guyz to give me something in return such as treating me for lunch. Ok till then.

The Chronicles of a Cheesecake Baker Wannabe: Male by Birth, Baker by Choice

Since the title of this post is self-explanatory, I shall proceed with the events which occurred in the build up to the day on which the cheesecake was born.

7th of March
Life was pretty monotonous and uninspiring, no thanks to the reports and assignments our uni bestowed us with. So I came up with what initially was an out-of-this-world idea (to me at least); making a cake. No, not just any Tom-and-Dick nor Betty-and-Mary cake, it’s a cheesecake. Just hearing this word alone is sufficient to tantalize your emotions to that of orgasmic proportion, let alone sinking your teeth onto it, never wanting to let go, and exploring its undisturbed chastity with every single taste bud on your tongue. I’m not being explicit here; it’s just that cheesecake invokes superlatives. Of course, do have a glass of water beside you to ease its movement down your throat amidst that euphoric indulgence. I think I got carried away crap…

11th of April
After weeks of dilly-dallying, it was time I went seeking for the ingredients; eggs, butter, vanilla, sour cream so on and so forth. Why the procrastination? It was because I spent most of my time asking friends (who know and have tried baking, of course) where I could get the ingredients since I hardly do grocery. Also, I spent quite some time battering them with questions regarding the finer details of the recipe and instructions sourced from websites. Shoor Bing (an A-Levels friend) suggested that 1 cup in the recipe basically referred to 180mL while Yea Lee (friends since 13) insisted that it was 250mL. So much for trying to erase my confusion about the recipe haha. Anyway it is anyone’s guess as to whose measurement I followed in the end LOL. But I must thank both of you for been such a great sport, tolerating my non existent culinary knowhow. After much thinking, I came to a conclusion that when the Ang Mohs mention sugar, they are referring to castor or granulated sugar, only powder sugar refers to icing sugar. To think I actually contemplated using icing sugar to make the batter LOL, luckily I read the recipe carefully. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

With much confidence now, I headed to Tesco Puchong to get the materials specified in the recipe. Not all the stuffs were easily available such as Graham cracker crumb and sour cream. For the former, I substituted it with shortbread and digestives. Speaking about the latter, I asked one of the store attendants for its whereabouts but ended up with something else.

Me: Tumpang tanya di sini ada ‘sour cream’ ar?
Lady: Oh itu, ada ada, awak jalan ke lorong itu, finger pointing at a particular direction
Me: Oh okay thanks
So I headed to that particular lane but there was only one type of cream available on the shelves; shower cream. She must have misheard sour cream as shower cream. Should have just said krim masam instead. Asked other staff, some said it was available but some said no. So I decided to hunt for it myself, pretty much like a blind man navigating his directions without his walking stick. After almost an hour walking through a labyrinth of shelves to no avail, I decided to hit the road home. Now all I needed was just that sour cream.

At night, as I ironed out the finer details of baking by enquiring around, I realized I still haven’t comprehended the meaning of the word ‘cup’, so often used in the baking fraternity. What kind of cup? 180mL cup? 250mL cup? World cup? Or my Ikea mug? Luckily help arrived in the form of Yuan Ni (my training workplace colleague) who cleared my doubts regarding ‘cup’. Thanks a lot dudette. And also, you were right, Yea Lee…you know what I mean LOL. By then, it was 3.00a.m. already, felt like I just completed a lab report, time I hit the bed.

12th of April
The time was 830a.m., was still groggy but guessed the enthusiasm due to the novelty of this day kept me awake. Yes, it’s baking day! Took quite some time to gather the stuff I bought the previous day which were strewn all over the kitchen. All I needed was still the shower cream, erm, sour cream. Having no sour cream would have defeated the purpose of this day, wouldn’t it? So I set off my journey to Ivan’s place since he agreed to accompany me to Chloe’s (another coursemate of mine) house in Cheras. Thankfully this dudette agreed to let me use her kitchen since mine was ill-equipped. 15 minutes into the journey and I was still stuck at the road outside my housing area -_- only god knew what caused this massive traffic at 930a.m. It was close to 11 something by the time I picked Ivan. Off we went in search for the holy-grail-with-sour-cream in it and our first stop was King’s Confectionery in Sri Petaling. Asked the staff if they could sell me sour cream and the answer was a blank stare from them; that was so embarrassing and at that very moment I wished the earth would open up and swallow me LOL. Next stop, The Store and it turned out they ran out of supply. Darn, this cream was proving to be elusive indeed. Third stop: Carrefour and luckily there were 3 tubes left in the cold storage!

Reached Chloe’s house at 12 something and our arrival was greeted by 2 over-hyperactive dogs. One looked like Furby and another resembled a miniature imperial guardian lion from China. Good thing they didn’t bite or chew my foot, phew; I have a mild dog-phobia. Finally we started preparing the crumbs and the batter for the first trial cake. Ivan, who brought his marketing textbook to prepare for his test next week, helped a bit but mostly ‘supervised’ us LOL. Due to my non-existent dexterity in making cakes, Chloe’s presence did a world of good to the cake haha.

The compressed shortbread and digestives crumbs for the base of the cake

Pouring the batter onto the crumbs

One thing I must admit is I was put off by the preparation process; the amount of sugar and butter needed…can last a malnourished guy like me for almost 2 weeks, LOL. The first cake was disastrous; we removed it from the springform pan while it was still piping hot and the result was this:

But it tasted fine, success! So we adhered to the recipe and proceeded with the second cake. This time, learnt our lesson and the second cake was stored in the refrigerator overnight after cooling down. Came to collect it the next day and it turned out fine. Happiness and euphoria summed up my feeling just by the sight of it.

Once again, many thanks to everyone who made this seemingly wacky and cheesy dream of mine materialize. Now I dare say impossible is nothing; making cheesecake, I mean...

Say Cheessseeee!

A Pointless Post

Few days ago, Ivan mentioned that this blog looked dull; basically everybody is waiting for each other to make a post..yeah we are all lazy bones, uninitiated and simply put, we just don't care. Therefore, at this moment, i've decided to share with you a highly interesting day i have had in uni. As i gathered my thoughts into coherent sentences; this task simply became a herculean feat. A combination of flu, sore throat and cough has rendered me a sick man and my whole body feels like tofu as of now. Therefore, i'm left with no choice but to end what could otherwise have been a highly interesting post.

Look, i tried......


Am looking forward to next week and will embark on something i've never done before all my life. I shall reveal more when i think i'm successful; heck, failure ain't an option LOL