Firestarter - The Rants of a Pyrophile

well, for most people anyway. for me and ida, it was back to the lab once the poster exhibition is over. the day was tiring enough as it is, what with the standing and sitting around. but once we got to the lab, it was a whole new kind of tired. we'd left this carbon epoxy composite to cure overnight and somehow it got stuck on the table. and now we kinda have to do the damn wing all over again. that makes the score = Wing - 3, IdaKiren - 0.

i know murphy's law applies to each and everyone of us but i'm starting to think that it applies itself a little too well to our final year project. there was that wing thing. and then the other day it was the glue thing. nope, i didnt get my hand stuck on the table top with industrial glue although that option seems rather more enjoyable compared to having to do the wing again. i went and bought this glue after carefully reading the label which clearly says its foam safe. so what happened after i put the glue on the foam? it completely dissolved like a whole section of my wing of course. hah! i bet you didnt know that foam dissolves did you? and by foam i mean polystyrene foam, not shower foam because why on earth would you put glue on that kinda foam?

so back to the poster exhibition. the dude who was paid to evaluate us was from DCA (department of civil aviation). nothing went past him. you should've seen his face. he didnt just look at you. he was looking at your brain. like how your brain is functioning and your thought process. i was planning to just wing it (geddit? WING it? hahaha) but after i saw what happened to hadi and upin, i actually thought up a structured way of doing things.

the real fun of the day came, not from the exhibition itself (obviously), but from the final moments spent with my coursemates. thats it then you lot. i doubt i'd be seeing much of yous after this, which will take some getting used to after seeing you guys roughly everyday of every week for the past 3 years. remember, you guys are buying me lunch with your first paycheck. you'll definitely be missed (sounds morbidly like an obit eh?).

from left:- fizah, mai, fza, ida, sara, james aka cheong, upin, hadi

danny the movie star who wants to sell us bonds and give us his signature

pesot showing off the back of his poster which he tore off on purpose so that fza could win

anyways, congratulations to all those who are graduating. may you find jobs as soon as is possible.

jyajya~n!!


(in a tv-show-announcer-like-voice)
2nd from the left, standing 1.8m tall and weighing 95kg, its Nega Den-O!!! Next, its Kamen Rider Rising Ixa. With a punching power of 20tonnes and a kicking power of 12tonnes, this kamen rider will surely beat any fangire to pulp. and on the right, with a shiny gold armour and a maximum kicking power of 150tonnes (Emperor Moon Break), its Kiva's Emperor Form. oh yeah, and last but by no means least, its Negataros (far left), the imagin who wreaked havoc by teaming up with the fangires.

heheh. lookie look look! i used my raya money to get them. cool arent they? i personally like Kiva's emperor form the most. there's something really awesome about the whole regal look.

i kinda wonder about the target audience of kamen rider shows. i mean, i doubt that kids understand the plot. heck, i dont understand the plot sometimes. take kamen rider den-o for instance. it took me a looong time to process all that info what with the time being destroyed and then restored and the sister's fiance being zeronos and all. seriously, there's more drama in the last 15 episodes of den-o then the whole 90+ episodes of Bella (not that i was watching of course).

therefore, you guys should try watching kamen rider. the action sequence and the effects arent half bad either. but its the plot that would really keep you glued to your seats.

as some of you might have already known, i'm a bit of a stalker. not in a bad way of course. i just like to read people's blogs and make my own assumptions about what goes on in their heads. so there i was, reading people's blogs, when i noticed a massive difference between their posts and mine. other people's entries are always so deep. mine is shallower than the kiddy pool outside of klcc. so i thought to myself 'you've got to post something deep' and i started writing. to my huge disappointment, i never got further than two lines. guess you can't fake depth huh? gyahahaha!!

today we (042 aerospace students) went to wangsa maju for lunch. it was really rather impromptu and fizah ended up missing her last aircraft design class but it was well fun. somehow or other we ended up main teka-teki, like we did during our last outing. here's one. its from petet.

"there are 4 fish in a fish tank. one day, one of the fish dies. the next day, the owner of the fish tank found that the water in the tank was almost at the top. why?"

the other three fish were crying!!!

.
.
.

dont look at me. petet came up with the teka-teki...

(behold my drawing skills!!)

hello blog, hello people who read this blog (if there are any), been a while hasnt it?

selamat hari raya~

are you done stuffing your faces yet? i reckon the face stuffing gala is only just beginning. prepare your stomachs for more food cause i bet this weekend will bring you even more open houses. isnt raya great? (^_^)

i couldnt sleep two nights ago. it was horrible. i got back to my room from the lab sometime past 11pm. after settling down, i thought i'd catch up on a bit of naruto. after watching 2 one-hour episodes of naruto, i was still wide awake. it was past 2am by then. so i thought i'd just try and sleep but a few minutes of tossing and turning made me realise that my efforts are absolutely futile.

after a few more moments of wondering what i should do (none of which involved getting up and studying), i stumbled across a brilliant idea. baba toru and ookawa genki (yagyu and akaya from tenimyu) both came out with this cd where they count sheep. its called the hitsujide oyasumi series and its basically them counting sheep accompanied by soothing background music. i thought i'd give it a listen and see if it'll help...

baba toru: hitsuji ga ippiki (1 sheep), hitsuji ga niihiki (2 sheep), hitsuji ga sanbiki (3 sheep)...


(half an hour later)


baba toru: hitsuji ga sanbyakuniijuuhiki (320 sheep), hitsuji ga sanbyakuniijuuippiki (321 sheep)...


lets just say that all this would only have been useful if i were a farmer in japan who has 400 sheep.

hitsuji ga juuniihiki....

good day minna!!

if i read the writing correctly, it says that i last published a post in my blog more than 6 months ago. heheh. thats more than half a year ago for those who are mathematically challenged. its not my fault (it never is). i think i have blogger's block. i was this close to following the footsteps of kma and closing down the blog, being the waste of cyberspace it is. but i cant bring myself round to it. me sayang this blog. i wrote some weird stuff in here that i wanna look back at when i'm old. i wanna be able to show my grandkids that gramma was not always a grumpy old lady with no sense of humour.

anyhow, the new sem started (seems like whenever i blog, its always the start of the sem). my timetable is rather kosong this time around. its 2 classes a day. which so far has been a blessing since i have loadsa loose ends to tie up. i still havent got a place for my practical training and i have to get my exams sorted out. the exams are horrible though. its 3 papers in 3 days (decision science, marketing and english). but i guess i shouldnt be complaining. ii couldve been aircraft structures, flight mech and fdc. so yeah, i'm thankful.

anyways, thats it for now. dont wanna flood my own blog. heheh. take care kids. adios y hasta luego.

kiren 'blocked blogger' baharuddin

mor~ning everyone!!!

been in a really cheery mood lately. despite the horrid weather. minna minna wa?? probably has lots to do with me watching kiddy shows, which is taking up more and more of my time. its like an addiction. actually no, more like pringles come to think of it. once i pop...

i watched ultraman mebius the movie the other day. iya~. mecha mecha kakkoii!!! the ultra brothers were in it too. taro, ace and some other ones too old for me to even remember. the movie was to celebrate ultraman's 40 year's anniversary. watcing it made me start reminiscing...you know, of my youth. ahh yes. youth is wasted on the young. ah ah urotoraman!!! (song in the movie)

anyways, was lazing about at the grandparents' with atok and my sisters and cousins tonight, when suddenly, jeng jejeng!!! in flew this crazy flying buzzing creature and all the children (plus myself) went EEEEEE!!!!

cousin: ape tu??!!!
me: burung!!!
atok: kelawar tu...
little cousin: lastik karang...
paksu: riang riang la...

the arrival of the strange creature sort of put the occupants of the living room in a state of panic. or was it just me. either way, when it finally stopped being crazy and flying around the room and rested on the window.

atok: owh, kupu-kupu...
me (trying to make myself smaller, hence invisible to the kupu-kupu): EEEKKK!!!
dengki cousin: meh ana amek, kasi kat angah...
me: woih!!! baik jangan!!! (trying to sound threatening but failing miserably)
little cousin: lastik karang...
me: *runs off into grandparents' room*

five minutes later and the room was slightly calmer now that the kupu-kupu wasnt flying about maniacally. enter, nenek.

nenek: apehalnye??
cousins: kat lampu tu!!
nenek: owh belalang....
me (and possibly others in the living room): ???
atok: mane pulak belalang, nenek ni...
little cousin: lastik karang...

and there it was. an evening with the grandparents. some scenes have been altered due to the writer's bad memory...

i'll stop here for now. starting to get hungry so i better go to sleep (???). final exam in 4 days time. wish me luck!! gambarimasu!!! stay outta trouble. adios y hasta luego. ja!

khairun 'not-the-bravest-of-the-lot' baharuddin

buenas noches girls and boys!!!

i was very productive today. i woke up early (early by my standards anyway) and went to the bookfair. huwa~ so ramai the manusia. before that i went to klcc to buy tickets to see spiderman. it was 10.30 when i got there and the line was all the way until chili's. i almost lost 50 sen in a bet with dude about the amount of people that was gonna be lining up that early in the morning. we lined up for a bit but then thought that chances are we wouldnt be able to get tickets for today anyway, so we quit and made our way to the bookfair. it was fun. i got myself a book by neil gaiman (which i've started reading even though i still havent finished the other book by him and pratchett) and another one by dean koontz, which i found out, 5 seconds ago, dude already has. ah well. she has it in paperback. i bought a hard cover version.

anyhow, the short sem started. i've been to 3 classes. i dread going to the 4th. its so boring. the lecturer just reads from the slides whilst the rest of the class look on sedately at him (or rather, at the wall, shoelaces, writings on the desks, the door, the window, u catch my drift). whats worse is that half of us dont even understand him. now, i'm usually good at understanding people's accents but his is just on a whole other level. i got an insight of this in the first class when he asked fana a question.

lecturer: sister, can you name an electronic instrument?
fana: erm, resistor?
lecturer: no sister, a component...
fana: i'm not sure sir
lecturer: you know, instrument, like the ones you used in your matriculation. didnt you use any? you know, like full matter.

so lets stop there for a bit. at this point, me and fana were already looking at each other with severely confused expressions on our faces. we searched our brains and think back to roughly around 2 years ago when we did experiments in physics lab in matric. nope, never came across an instrument called full matter. sounds biological to me. anyways, here's the rest of it.

fana: i dont think we've ever used that sir.
lecturer: you've never used? even in high school? you've never used it in the lab?
fana: erm, no
lecturer: so you've never used it to measure the foltage?

now this is the funny bit. what everyday physical quantity rhymes with foltage? by the time we all realised that what he'd been trying to say was voltmeter, and not something biological at all, well, you can just imagine the decibel level which resulted in more than 20 people laughing. which i thought was mean. you shouldnt laugh at your lecturers. its bad karma. having said that, i really wish i could've seen my expression when i was holding back the laughter. probably looked slightly psychotic.

and so, a very interesting start to the class. a bit short lived though since all of the following classes have been tedious. but i guess i'll just have to bare with it and hope that there are loads more holidays coming in the next 2 months.

last sem was, i reckon, a good one. there were a lot of records set but at the end of the sem, it seemed like i did something right after all. which i thought was weird. for example, last sem was the sem that i skipped the most classes. and last sem's finals saw me work my way through 4 papers in 4 consecutive days with a 1 day gap followed by 2 papers in 2 days. but the hectic schedule did not deter me from watching kamen rider kabuto and the prince of tennis musicals. as i sat there watching 'the man who carries out the rule of the heavens', i thought to myself, 'your luck will surely run out now mate. you cant be watching kamen rider when you have BM tomorrow and aerodynamics the day after and control systems after that and ethics on sunday. you better prepare yourself for ayah's wrath'. even my roomate who had 4 day gap did more studying than me. thank god everything worked out alright in the end. i doubt my cgpa could drop any further.

i reckon thats it for now. i should get some sleep. there's class tomorrow. or i might just save all that sleeping for tomorrow's class. the amount of input wouldve been the same compared to when i'm awake anyway, what with the full matters and the sequits (thats circuits for those of you who are acccent-challenged). adios y hasta luego.

khairun 'lucky' baharuddin

minna!!! genki-desu ka??

iya~
long time no blog ne? havent had much to say. i still dont have anything to say to tell you the truth, but since today is a special day, i thought i'd update anyway. so what's so special about today i hear you say. well, on this very day, 30 years ago, karl fredrik ljungberg was born (joyous shouts and sprays of confetti). i havent been doing any fangirling over freddie in a long time and i kinda feel bad so, i thought i'd do something special. and here it is!! i'm updating!! (another round of joyous shouts and sprays of confetti)

right then, thats it from me. gosh it feels weird to update. heheh. catcha later boys and girls. adios y hasta luego.

khairun 'fangirl' baharuddin

afternoon all!!!

i dont really feel like blogging right now but i dont really have anything to do. my GEN class got cancelled. technically, not cancelled. dr abdi told us to go to the KERIE exhibition thingamagig. dont ask me what KERIE stands for because i dont have a single clue. so i went there for like 5 minutes to look around at the final projects and stuff and off i went (cukup syarat je).

i was reading blogs just now and apparently these short-posts-while-waiting-for-class are quite frequent occurrences. so i thought, might as well have a go. its better than doing zilch right? otherwise jadi macam devon sawa in 'idle hands' (hella funny movie). would've gone back to my room but theres no point really since there's nothing to amuse me anyway. i still havent 'hangkut' my stuff to uni. not even bed sheets and all those necessary stuff to make a room, well, a room.



and so the obsession escalates. i'm a few steps away from having his name tattoed on my _____ (fill in the blank). hahaha!!! listening to him right now actually. he's so hot. was watching alexander and lord of war a few nights ago and those films did nothing but fuel my obsession even further. wish they didnt cut some scenes from alexander though. killjoy.

anyways, thats all for now. wanna go fill in my empty and roaring tummy with some nice hot food. hasta luego boys and girls. stay outta trouble.

khairun 'obsessed' baharuddin

wats up everyone..

its me, ur resident pyrophile here. still alive, still on holiday, and still a pyrophile. i checked out the tagboard section and una says i've only got 1 post for the holiday. true that. sorry to make you tertunggu dear! i havent got anything to rant about. actually, thats not true. i have loads to rants about tapi when i get in front of the computer, i could never think of any.

you know that abba song 'thank you for the music'? well, if you dont, then your parents should. haha. usually, when i'm in a particularly stressful situation, i'd put my headphone on, turn the music up really loud and sing along. this usually happens in uni since there are way more stressful situations there than there are at home. so i guess, when faced with difficulty, i am really thankful for the music. however, i can think of quite a few people who probably wish that they'd never heard of music. or to be more precise, wish that I had never heard of music.

honestly, have you ever had the misfortune of listening to me sing at the top of my lungs? if you havent, lucky you. i mean, when i'm singing along with the headphone on, i cant really hear myself. so i never really knew the extent of my horrid singing, until one day, when my brilliant roomates decided to do a little bit of recording. when i first heard it, my initial reaction was 'are you sure thats me?'. yep, i was full of denial. but then, i thought, who else sings along to 30 seconds to mars? and then the sad truth struck me. and i was suddenly taken over by uncontrollable fits of laughter. i bet you've seen william hung's infamous audition footage right? well, thats comparable to my singing, minus the dance moves.

okay then. thats enough of making a complete fool out of myself for today. lets move on shall we? i was cleaning up my room this morning and i came across this article titled 'the school football bible'. so i reckon, instead of me ranting on about arsenal's current situation (rather pathetic, to put it lightly, lost the last 2 games against weaker opponents), i'll just share with you the article.

THE SCHOOL FOOTBALL BIBLE

Duration

Matches shall be played over three unequal period: two playtimes and a lunchtime

Each of these periods shall shortly after the ringing of a bell, and although a bell is also rung towards the end of these periods, play may continue for up to ten minutes afterwards, depending on the nihilism or "bottle" of the participants with regard to corporal punishment et out to latecomers back to the classroom.
In practice, there is a sliding scale of nihilism, from those who hasten to stand in line as soon as the bell rings, known as "poofs", through through those who will hang on until the time they estimate it takes the teachers to down the last of their gins and journey from the staffroom, known as "chancers" and finally to those who will hang on until a teacher actually has to physically retrieve them, known as "bampots".

This sliding scale is intended to radically alter the logistics of a match in progress, often having dramatic effects on the scoreline as the number of participants drops.

It is important, therefore, in picking the sides, to achieve a fair balance of poofs, chancers and bampots in order that the scoreline achieved over a sustained period of play - a lunchtime for instance - is not totally nullified by a five-minute-post-bell onslaught of five bampots against one.

The scoreline to be carried over from the previous period of the match is in the trust of the last bampots to leave the field of play, and maybe the matter of some debate. This must be resolved in one of the approved manners (see Adjudication).

-end of part one-

there's still a long way to go till we could khatam the school football bible. but i'll leave it till later coz you guys might get bored. honestly though, reading that brings me back to my childhood days when i sometimes go down to watch the guys i fancy play during lunchtime. those were the days. i remember fancying this prefect. his name's martin bell and he's a friend of my best friend's big brother. i reckon he was a good player. but he doesnt get to play all the time since he's a prefect and sometimes he has to do his rounds down the english corridor. he does modern dance too. i remember watching him dance about with a bunch of girls (he was the only guy) during the christmas concert. i also remember being unable to decide my feelings for him after watching the performance, coz frankly, it all seemed rather gay. ah yes, a trip down memory lane is always fun.

getting back to present times, people say you get your best ideas while in the shower. something to do with the amount of oxygen being higher and therefore more work in the brain or whatnot. whatever is the cause, i think it hella true. i get so many ideas on rants but they seem to get left behind in the shower when i'm done. its so weird. maybe next time i should bring the laptop with me. actually, thats not too smart is it? maybe just a permanent marker pen and a piece of waterproof paper.

anyways, lets forget about them silly ideas because i think i'm in love.*swoon* with jared leto.*double swoon*. i cant get enough of him. this other night, i was about to go to bed. but, out of nowhere, i thought about how gorgeous he was in 'from yesterday' and 'the kill' and i just had to turn my computer back on and watch it again. i ended up watching the video, the making and some live performances. well, lets just say i tak jadi go to bed anymore. its been that way for a couple of nights now. and as side effects, i've developed rather large dark circles around my eyes, more popularly known as eyebags. i'm not sure whether to do something about it or to just leave it because apparently, instead of looking like a raccoon, it looks like i applied some eyeshadow on.

well, i think i should be off now. thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening. nanti kene modem susah pulak. so stay outta trouble girlies and boys!! adios y hasta luego.

khairun 'chancer' baharuddin

ps: if you dont believe me about how goegeous jared leto is in 'from yesterday', take a look see yourself.

hello all...

missed me? heheh. bet you did. sorry for the long absence. had a pretty bad spell of writer's laziness. i had all these thoughts in my head that i'd love to blog down, but i never got round to it. i was never online anyway, and when i was actually on, i was busy (a) downloading bleach/supernatural/naruto, (b) updating myself on football issues or (c) looking up things that dont really have to be looked up, ie: the lyrics to 'a shoulder to cry on' by tommy page.

on holiday right now (big massive cheer accompanied by a spray of confetti). been looking forward to this. exams were nothing short of horrendous. so the 2-week holiday was really welcomed. even if it is really really (and i mean really) short. havent really done anything worth talking about so far. except for maybe the fact that i'm taking my driving lessons (finally). so watch out people! soon, i will be a driver on the road, instead of a pedestrian/passenger. honestly, i dont know what kind of a driver i'd be. a good, berhemat one i hope. i mean, i've listened enough to my parents (and recently, my big sis and friends) going on about how the road is full of moronic drivers (to put it lightly). hopefully i wont be referred to as one of those.*shudder* anyhow, driving is something i've dreamed of doing for so long. strangely enough, whenever i dream of driving, the car that i drive always happens to be a bmw. thats got to mean something right?


another thing that i always dream about is smoking. thats really weird since i consider it a really disgusting and nasty habit (no offense to those who smoke). think about it, smoking's harmful to your health and the smell sticks to everything (hair, clothes, curtains). anyways, i was really curious as to why i kept having dreams where i smoke and i thought that maybe i was meant to be a smoker otherwise i wont be having those dreams so often. so one fine day, i decided to satisfy my curiosity and try it myself. i bought a pack of salem lights and when i got home, i went straight to my room and hid it under my matress knowing full well that my parents would hit the roof if they ever found out.

over the next few days i kept looking for an opportunity to take a drag (that is the proper term isnt it?). and when the opportunity finally came, i hurried up and opened the cigarette pack excitedly. i took one out, lit it and, well, i started smoking. now, the thing that happened after i took my first drag was, to me, totally unexpected. soon as i inhaled that horrid cigarette smoke, i started coughing and sputtering. i began to wonder why it is that people smoke when, to me, smoking is comparable to licking the roadside. at least thats what i imagined the roadside to taste like anyway.


the next day i got a mild fever. hahah!! serves me right. i guess my whole body just went into shock from purposely inhaling lethal fumes. so i said to myself 'never again, mate, never again', without being too dramatic. i reckon those 5 something ringgit was the worst ever money spent. i still have the pack of salem lights. its still hiding under my matress. i dont want to throw it away for nostalgic reasons. haha. so after reading this, i hope none of you get the sudden urge to start smoking. its really really bad for you. nothing good ever comes out of smoking. this is a public service announcement.


i guess thats it for now. there's just so much you can write at 4.20 in the morning right? so i'll be back later with more rants. stay outta trouble kids. adios y hasta luego.

khairun 'driver-to-be' baharuddin

good evening all (its 7.30 right now)...

anyways, people have been telling me that i havent been updating my blog. sorry bout that. i have been a very very busy girl. haha. i see assignments everywhere i look, and they're not finished assignments either, which i really wouldnt mind seeing every now and again. and i've become a rather dull person (duller than i already was). cant be bothered to watch tv anymore, i have no idea what songs are hot and not and god knows how long i havent gone out. but like dr waqar said, and i quote, 'you have to leave the entertainment business, dont take interest in it, their main target is to corrupt you'. well said sir. couldnt have put it better if i tried. heheh.

the best thing that happened since the last update was the beginning of the football season. woo hoo!!! i luurrve football and i luurrve arsenal!! however, we have found ourselves in a very strange situation. heck, its downright unheard of. arsenal in the 17th spot? just outside the relegation zone? three games gone and no still no win?? what on earth is going on i hear you say. well, to tell you the truth, i've been asking that same question myself. but to their defence, i reckon its still early days. i mean, everyone else has a game in hand anyway (except wigan, newcastle and liverpool).

i was watching the arsenal-boro match on saturday. i felt so much frustration, that if i were on the 10th floor of a building, i definitely would've jumped off. so thank god that i wasnt watching that match on the 10th floor of some building. otherwise i'd expect there wont be anymore updates from me. the reason for this horrid frustration was the fact that arsenal played so well, and yet somehow we couldnt get them nice 3 points that we want oh so very badly. in fact, arsenal went one down before half time. and that goal was basically boro's 1 shot on goal. other than that lehmann was practically 'memakan gaji buta' (i think thats the right term anyway).

just before the 2nd half, the boro's captain boateng was sent off for tackling freddie. so a word of advice to other football players out there. dont even think about bringing freddie down, because you will suffer the consequences. dont say i didnt warn you. moving on, after half time, arsenal pressed harder and harder until finally eboue was brought down in the penalty area by downing and the ref pointed to the spot. henry steps up, and puts the ball away. thank god for henry. coz i reckon freddie wouldve missed. like he did in the internationals. did i tell you he's the swedish captain now? captain freddie. thats great that.

so post match interviews sees wenger blaming the grass at the emirates stadium. curious accusation that. poor grass havent got any means to defend themselves. but i suppose when you play at the level they do, the grass having a few millimetres extra would really affect the outcome of the passes they make. so damn you grass!!! and the other curious thing about that whole match was the fact that the announcer on the PA doesnt know how and when to shut up. especially in the second half. every 5 minutes his really irritating voice would come out on the speaker, annoying the snot out of me (by the end of the match, i was snotless. hahah). honestly, if anybody should makan gaji buta in that place, please let it be him.

last night was the champs league opener between arsenal and hamburg (i'm guessing thats where they make all the hamburgers??). 3-0 to us!! woo hoo!! didnt watch the match. wouldve caused grievous bodily harm to anyone for a chance to watch it. but there was no way. had parenting class last night until 10 and an 8.30 class this morning so i couldnt have gone home even if i wanted to.

oohh running late. gots to go. will update this weekend, i hope. adios y hasta luego.

khairun 'busy bee' baharuddin

hallo...

seems like i reverted to my old ways of not being able to keep a journal. last update, may 23rd. more than 2 months ago eh? heheh. all time record. cant help it that i'm lazy. i did try blogging sometime between the 2 month hiatus though. i started like 3 posts but never managed to finish any of them. to tell you the truth, this one has a high chance of not being posted too. lets see how this goes.

well, uni started. got some very interestingly quirky lecturers this time round. haha. theres dr qasim, who's the most sarcastic and self-loving lecturer i've ever had the chance to encounter. i mean, how many lecturers do you know who would go around saying 'i'm the most beautiful lecturer in uia, if not the world'. there's dr ashour, who was slightly boring at first but getting cuter and cuter (in an old people sort of way) as the sem goes on. you could really see how much into mechanical engineering he is when he starts drawing eyeballs as a circular body attached to a spring which is attached to a wall. and thats how he draws a head on shoulders too. and his impression of a stomach is basically a circle with 2 squiggly lines inside them, the lines being all the gaster juice things i assume. oh and there's my mechanics of materials tutor, alau, who's the most paranoid android i've ever met. he thinks all the conversations that goes on in class are about him. for example.

students: *whisperwhisperwhisper*
alau: can you please stop talking about me
student1: we're not talking about you
alau: i know you're talking about me, students always talk about me behind my back
student1: we're not talking about you, we're talking about food, we're hungry
student2: yeah, we dont talk about you in class, we only talk about you outside of class, we always say how kind you are (in the most butt-kissing+sarcastic tone you could imagine)
alau: i dont care what people say about me you know
student1: we're not talking about you!!!

and thats pretty much how it went throughout the whole tutorial session.

anyways, the workload is definitely increasing exponentially. not sure whether i feel that way because there are actually a lot of work, or because i hd gotten so used to the minimal assignments given during the short sem. either way, i'm developing severe eyebags and even went as far as bringing my assignments home for the weekend so i could do them. shocking? understatement. but thats the price you pay for being a uni student.

moving on. have you ever felt so scared that your whole body starts to shake? if you havent, lucky you. i had the misfortune of experiencing that last week. i'm not sure why i was so scared. it was around 330 on thursday and i'd just finished my gas assignment in ida's room. after that i had to go to the toilet cause i need to brush my teeth and all. anyways, while i was in the toilet, i started imagining all these scary stories in my head, you know, things like big scary hairy ugly figure appearing before me, or a 'lady' dressed in white with long hair and possibly the ugliest face you've seen. all these imaginations aren't abnormal when you're up at those early hours in the morning. i should know. i'd be up at 3 in the morning, 4 days out of the 5 that i stay in uni. and those imaginations never bothered me before. i usually just find some other thought to distract me. but for some odd reason that morning, i couldnt shake off the images of scary things, and the fear made me shake so badly.

but i went on about my business as usual, remembering how old people say that those 'things' whatever they may be, would usually appear to those who are really really scared. imagine taking wudhu' while your hands are so shaky that even turning on the tap seemed an impossible task. after i managed that, i virtually ran to my room, hoping that the fear will go away once i'm in the company of my roomies. but they were all fast asleep, lights out and everything. so i decided to pray isya', again hoping that would calm me down at least a little bit. even that didnt work. i was still shaking badly after the prayer. as a last resort, i woke kak ayu up, who asked me to wake her up around 3 something anyway. only after that did i start to feel better. even then, i still slept next to her the rest of the morning. all the while, i felt incredibly silly being scared like that. but what could i possibly have done?

writing all that is making me creeped out again. i'll stop now. okay. feeling better.

anyhow, i just wanna say thanks to all my mates who were resourceful enough to have pulled a surprise dinner for me on monday. muchas gracias amigos. had me conned until that cake bit. i honestly thought that we were only going to hs for dinner. but they went and reserved a place at thai house and had them switch off the lights so the candles on my cake would look better, much to the annoyance of other customers i think. but still, definitely on my list of things to remember for the rest of my life. so thanks a lot nad, una, faiz, fana, wani, red, anis, aiman, funan and pres!!! (in no particular order). love u guys lots!

well, other news include dude getting a job. woo hoo!! thats both good news and bad news for me. on one hand, i'm happy that she found something she enjoys doing and is very good at which generates income. but on the other hand, i cant just call her up to pick me up from uni anytime i want. haha. selfish me i know. she got a job at cosmotots. its a dream job, if you consider location. i mean, 3 minutes drive from home, and its situated right above mcdonalds. mmmm. i'd love to work there, if there werent all those kids around.

well, thats about all the time i'm willing to spend for now. so i'm off now. updates will come. but dont hold your breath though. blog is not dead! blog was just hibernating. long live blog. heheh. stay outta trouble amigos. adios y hasta luego.

khairun 'teen no more' baharuddin

and us at the spice garden

from left: fana, una, faiz, me, fahan

this is us at bukit bendera

hey everyone!!!

i'm back! not that i was ever gone. but still. saying that makes me feel as if i was away to fulfil some important mission or something. before i start ranting any further, i just wana say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!! not that mum reads my blog. i hope to god she doesnt actually. anyhow, yeah, its her birthday today and i came home so we could celebrate it. which is why i'm strangely updating my blog on a tuesday night.

okay, its a well known fact, at least to una anyway, that i am obsessed with the winchester brothers from supernatural, particularly dean. note how i say the winchester brothers and not jensen ackles and jared padalecki. hot as they are, i dont really know them. but after watching the entire season of supernatural, i feel like i really know dean and sammy, you know. like we really connected. call me delusional. because i really am.

back to the point. i never really fully understood the actual magnitude of my obsession with the show until this morning. i slept after i came back from my probability class. it was around 10 something. i dreamt that a couple moved into my neighbourhood (they looked like billie's parents from charmed). and they kept coming round asking to come in. and i kept politely telling them no because my parents werent in.

so one day, while me n my big sis (aka dude) was hosting a party for a bunch of middle aged people (god only knows why), they came again and asked to come in. so i thought, yea alright, since all these old people are here too, you might as well come in. so i invited them in. huge mistake! as soon as i did that, they came in and started feeding off of my guests. yep. they were vampires. so me and dude had to work out something quick. we went upstairs and started searching the stationary cabinet. and thank god we found wooden rulers. you know, the ones that are pretty useless since the straight lines you wana draw arent straight at all because they have really rough edges. anyway, we took one each and i sharpened one of the edges or my ruler with a swiss army knife.

with a finesse that wouldve made buffy proud, i staked the guy vampire real hard. the problem was, i staked him through the right part of his chest, which is totally the wrong part of the chest. and he fled along with his wife. so we went out of the house, and my sister got in my dad's car and started chasing them. at the same moment, this guy got out of his car and said 'here, use my car'. and i did. and what a sweet ride it was. it was a metallic blue bmw 7 series. i only had to tap the accelerator slightly and the engine roared and the car went from 0-100 (kmh that is) in no time. the rims were shiny chrome 18 inch ones. the meters were all digitalised and illuminated with cool colours. out of that whole dream, it was the car that i can remember most vividly. the car was lowered so i felt slightly vertically challenged driving it. but it was great nonetheless.

even though i had such a cool car, i didnt manage to catch the vampires. and then i woke up. and thats about as close as i'd get to driving a beemer. or to driving for that matter.

so thats about it. oh yeah, life is a pain after being on a tv show. so if the thought of doing something as stupid as that even cross your busy minds, u better shoot yourself first before that thought materialise. comprende? muy bien.

anyway. i reckon i've found my favourite type of music. i dont really know the name of the genre. from my observations, i have found that in order for me to really fall in love with a song, it has to have really heavy guitar riffs, a really deep, macho guy's voice, singable chorus and thats about it i think. i have no idea why i'm writing all this. its pretty useless facts. but then again, half of the things i write about are useless. so thats that.

right then. i best be off now. have to go to sleep. got class tomorrow. boohoo. dont really feel like going. theres only a limited amount of mathematical stuff you can absorb in the space of 4 weeks. after that your brain gets saturated and even though you try to cram more stuff in, the stuff will just get thrown back out. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of my short sem.

okay, now i'm really going. and i will leave you with the very profound words of dean winchester. "dude, u fugly".

khairun "vampire slayer" baharuddin

'i've always wanted to be a writer', kiren thought. that is why she blogs eventhough she's fully aware that the amount of people who read her posts comes up to be about 5. still. she does it anyway. it gives her an enormous sense of well being. when she was younger, she started writing a novel. it was about a guy and a girl in high school and it involves magic and time travel and juvenile romance. she used to watch buffy and stargate. she now wonders what happened to that novel.

kiren went home from uni last wednesday much to the surprise of her mother. kiren's mum did not ask why she had come home. when she did ask, however, it went something like 'did you come back just to watch football?'. kiren sat bewildered and slightly scared that her mum would tell her dad and her dad would, in turn, get mad at her and give her a long and painful lecture, if she were to say yes. but she said yes anyway, knowing she couldnt lie to her mum. and she was rewarded for telling the truth by not having to listen to her dad's painful lecture. at least not yet anyway.

so she came home for the sole purpose of watching arsenal triumph over barcelona in the champions league final. her trip home was only 50% worth it. she watched arsenal, thats for sure. but they didnt triumph over barcelona. they came close though considering the circumstances they were in. losing 2-1 to the spanish champions when they were 1 man down proved that they put up some serious resistance, however futile it seemed. kiren's thought pattern during the match went something like this.

1st minute: oohh kick off. where's freddie? there he is. how cute. wow, they started off well. good possession. the pace is great. keep this up and we'll win for sure. urgh, its so creepy down here all alone at this time of night. aiyo, hungry la pulak. just wait till half time.

in the following 15 minutes, similar thoughts flashed across her simple mind. complicated thoughts such as the probability that arsenal would go home with the champions league trophy never surfaced because she had to concentrate really hard on where the ball was as it traveled at different speeds from player to player. so she was completely settled on the sofa, feeling content at the way her boys was playing. that was until the around the 18th minute.

around 18th minute: shite! it went in. owh wait. good. the ref stopped the game. shite! not good. could be a yellow card and a penalty considering lehmann grabbed dat dude's ankle. wtf?? a red card?? he's got to be joking. y not let the goal stand and just let everything go. why ref why??? why would you sabotage all hope of arsenal winning this match?? this is unjust!! haha. emotional nye the commentator. must be an arsenal supporter. oh well. at least its not a penalty. come on almunia!! bring it on! hmm. pires is coming off. interesting.

and it pretty much went that way for another 20 minutes.

around 40th minute: yes! eboue is down! looks a bit dramatised. but nevermind. a free kick is a free kick. ref is dodgy. here comes the free kick. it went in! it went in!! yes! must not shout. one-nil to the arsenal! yes! i love sol campbell. just hold on till half time boys.

and they held on. as soon as dodgy ref blew the halftime whistle, kiren went into the kitchen to look for something edible. she opened the cupboard doors and saw a packet of chipsmore cookies. kiren didnt feel like having anything sweet. so she decided to have maggi instead. as kiren is writing all this down, she feels hungry.

at the start of the second half, kiren was happy that arsenal were one up and that she was no longer hungry after having eaten a bowl of nice hot maggi. for most of the second half, she just watched the ball (and the players) play the beautiful game as barcelona kept attacking harder. there were tonnes of alarming instances when she thought that barca would score. she then understood why doctors claim that watching football, particularly final matches, can be hazardous to one's health.

having a full tummy, kiren dozed off. barely 5 seconds after she did (or what she thought was 5 seconds), she heard the commentators' voices get all excited. and she woke up with a start. as she looked at the scoreboard, her heart sank. in the 77th minute, barca had equalised. she was sad. feeling that had she stay awake, arsenal would still have been in the lead. she made herself feel better thinking that the match outcome does not, in anyway, depend on her retained consciousness. so she hoped that arsenal would hold on until the final whistle so that the match would be decided on penalties.

however much she hoped, she was disappointed at last. barca scored again sometime near the 90th minute. and she knew it was all over. unless arsenal could score in the final 2 minutes or so, the trophy was barca's. kiren felt hopeless and depressed as the referree added 4 minutes of extra time and then finally blew the whistle. arsenal had lost the champions' league final. kiren felt teary eyed. it was so close. yet as she watched the arsenal players looked on as barca pranced in joy, she couldnt help but feel an immense sense of pride. they had come really far. losing to barca is nothing to be embarrassed about. they were the worthiest opponent. so she went upstairs and slept, in preparation of a whole day of taunts that will surely befall her the following day.

khairun 'third person' baharuddin

its heartbreaking when you see someone else living your dreams. as much as you want them to do well, there's still that small part of you that wonders, why him and why not me? (by you, i mean me). ah well. i'll get over it. i'm gonna have to get over it. its not as if i can do anything about it anyway.

khairun 'living my alternative dreams' baharuddin

goooooood moooooooorniiiiiiing!!!

and what a wonderful morning it is. heheh. AAAAARRSENAAALLLLLL!! yes. its 4.45 in the morning and i just finished watching arsenal took on villareal at highbury. the result? one niiilllll to the arsenal. although it really should've been 3 nil. stupid linespeople. they were so wrong. hahaha. not gonna count my chickens just yet though. its only the first leg. and its at home. so i'll just count my chickens next week.

highlights? obviously the goal by toure. erm, and the squirrel i guess. hahaha. so cute. early in the first half there was this squirrel on the pitch. and it stayed on for a while too. hahaha. the ref stopped the game for a bit. it wasnt that much of a nuisance. but i guess if the players were to step on it, the pitch would get very messy. haha. lets see. what else. hmm. forlan, in my opinion still looks very much like a ponce. and the goalie. barbosa. 4 words. pirates of the carribean!! hahaha. arrr! arsenal controlled most of the match. there were tons of chances. a bit unlucky i guess. oh yeah, 5 minutes of extra time at the end of the match? now i've seen everything.

anyhow. arsenal are currently 5th in the league. behind tottenham. horrorshow, i know, but its true. we do have a game in hand though (we've played 34, they already played 35) but even if we win that, we'd still be behind. so after doing a bit of maths, the best shot we have of finishing fourth to qualify for the champs league through the premier league, is if they lose all of their remaining games and we win all of ours. we play them next matchday. if i had to choose, i'd say that we'd win that match. hahaha. elsewhere, chelsea couldnt celebrate winning the title just yet since united beat tottenham so technically they're still in the race even though they're like 11 points behind. give it up united. its pointless. after only being beaten 3 times in 35 matches, do you actually think they'll lose the last 3? doubt it. save yourselves the trouble.

next up, trip to penang. last time i stopped at the first day of the trip. alrighty then, second day. we got hold of a car. big help. otherwise we wouldve had to take the bus everywhere. that would've been really inconvenient. so many thanks to fahan's uncle n aunt n cousin for lending it to us. it was a honda charade i think. modified. haha. u know, massive exhaust, lowered. kinda cute if you looked at it long an hard. grows on you i guess. anyways, early that thursday morning (okay, maybe not so early), we took the car to the beach. batu feringghi. dunno if i spelt that right. we drove to the ferry terminal and took a ferry across the river and from there we just followed the signs (road signs, not divine related or anything like that), designated driver, una!! thanx dear. she's great at it. drove like she knew her way round. didnt get lost once.

so the first part of the day was spent at the beach. love that salty, fishy smell. we did lots of things. well, the limited number of things that could be done at the beach anyway. we played tag in the sea (tiring), we drew our names on the sand, made hand prints and took pictures of it (will try to get hold of the pictures), we just sat there and had a competition to see who can resist the waves the best. all in all it was fun. first obstacle, however, came when we saw a lizard come up from the sea. gross. we all came up to the beach as fast as we could. but after the lizard left, we went back into the laut. the thing that really made us quit was the sighting of a jellyfish. in a scene straight out of jaws, we came up to the shore running and freaking out, like our very lives depended on getting out of the water. or was it just me? still. we were scared. after that we didnt go back into the water.

so after we were done with the beach. we had lunch and then we went to the spice garden. that was nice. it was like going into the forest minus all the trekking. we just walked on the pavements. saw lots of trees (obviously). and lots of spice plant things. half the things there i didnt know looked like that. get what i mean? highlight of that visit? all of us taking turns to go into the hammock. a bit like jakun la us. but we didnt care. there werent anyone else around. and there was this cool massive swing that could probably fit all five of us but being the law abiding citizens that we were, we only went on it two at a time since that was the limit. yeah, that was cool.

after that we went to georgetown. visited fort cornwallis. that was cool. they had them old school rifles/muskets. you know, the type that you can only fire once at a time and you have to stuff the bullets and the explosive through the muzzle into the barrel using them long sticks. so that was cool. loadsa cannons everywhere. i lost track of the times i went up to a cannon and started chanting 'AAAARSENAAALLL'. people probably thought i was a lunatic. i wouldve been an embarrassment to my parents. haha. anyhow, that place was really cool. there was supposed to be a moat around it but they had to bury it back in god knows when because there was a malaria outbreak. it was cool being there. total time warp. haha.

we didnt stay long there because it was closing. went to masjid kapitan keling (another historical site) for prayers and then went back to batu feringghi in search of dvds. it was real late by the time we got them. fahan got marah-ed at by her uncle for coming back so late. but i guess in a sense it was worth it. we went back using the penang bridge. pretty. liked it lots. an engineering marvel (geeky siot). so that was basically it for the 2nd day. i reckon i'll leave the third day for later.

you guys mustve noticed the skin change. for those of you like kma who were quick, you got to see the green one with the horrid arrangement where my post was way too low. wanted to fix it. couldnt be arsed. couldnt figure out how to change the size of my tagboard (yes, i am very much IT illiterate). so the best way is to change the skin completely. hahaha. didnt really like the green one anyway. reminded me of mouldy mould. so get use to this one folks. because the next change wont be for another long while. oh yeah, i reckon the woman in the pic is kinda cool.

neways, thats all for now folks. dah subuh dah pun. sleep is beckoning. oh yeah. watched supernatural a few nights ago. lets just say its the first tv show, or any show for that matter, that gave me nightmares. highly recommended. its coming on axn in may. yay!! jensen ackles = hot. right then. now i'm really going. stay outta trouble lads and lasses. adios y hasta luego.

khairun 'gooner' baharuddin