"Friends call me Speed"

Very few knew how much I loved all the classic Disney movies. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Aladin, Beauty and the Beast, Pochohontas, to name a few, are my favorites. But I have yet to watch Swan Princess, until last night that is.

And in that show there's this turtle, of which character I love most. I dunno why, but I just loved how he said "Hi, friends call me Speed." : ) Guess it's because it's so paradoxical... you know, being a turtle named Speed. heh. And there's this part where Princess Odette asked Speed to try and make Jean-Bob the arrogant self-sufficient yet funny frog (who thinks he's a prince waiting for a kiss from a princess to be revealed his true identity) understand that she has to kiss the man she loves. To which Speed replied, in a very low deep voice, "I'm only a turtle."

Oh oh ohhhhh... and another part where Speed said "OUCH" when he's hurt, with a stoned expression only a turtle can manage. XD You've gotta watch it to know why I loved Speed and that scene.

And another funny part is when Odette asked Derek why he wants to marry her and he said "because you're beautiful", to which she replied "Thank you, but what else?" That prince, being a typical guy, looked soooo blur, said this: What else..... is there??? The blurrest prince ever. Later on, Lord Rogers, exclaimed in disbelief, "WHAT ELSE IS THERE? Is that all you can come up with? You should write a book: How To Offend A Woman in 5 Syllabus or Less.!!!!!!" I thought it was funny.

And Puffin! I love the name Puffin! If I'd have a pet in the future, (and it has to be something very extremely cute and tiny), I'd name it Puffin. =) Oh and for the record, I would really consider naming my future daughter (if I'm gonna have one) 'Odette'. Find it a very very nice name. : ) So to those who's reading this, DO NOT, even think of stealing my idea and name your daughter Odette, okayyy. I hereby claim it as my daughter's name. :P In fact, dont use it at all, regardless if you're gonna name your pet or car or laptop or washing machine. That would be an insult to my (yet-to-be-existing) daughter. *sticks tongue out*

Glory Road

Waking up in the morning to go to an 8 o'clock class just doesn't seem too appealing to some people, eh? But not today. I went to class - well apart from the fact that I missed the bus and had to walk so far to my class - with anticipation cuz today we were gonna watch a movie titled "Glory Road". =) Nothing beats getting to watch a movie in class in a morning class man! Especially for a movie buff like me. heh.

So what class is this you ask? It's my political science class - Intro to American Government. And in conjunction to the topic of civil rights movement, which involved racial issue - namely the strained relationship between the 'white' americans and the african americans, we get to watch this movie of 2006 production and look at the efforts of racial intergration back in the 1960s. This story, based on a true account in real life, tells about how a white basketball coach got a basketball team together and set their hearts on winning the game despite the disparity due to race, which revolutionize basketball and the country itself (to some extent).

In this show, not only were the basketball games exalting, you get to see the dynamics of the society as well as the team members, from how they found it absurd to be playing with 'colored' people for the same team, and later on accepting their differences. IMHO, it's a great movie, if you have time you guys should watch it, not just for basketball but to see how similar they can be when they have a common goal.

And so it just makes me wonder, when is Malaysia ever REALLY gonna accept the multiracial society, or are they gonna fuss over every single thing that can be deemed as racial discrimination? Someone once said, there is a difference between acceptance and tolerance; and we are just being 'tolerated'. Somethg needs to be changed...=P Now dont get me wrong, I love my country, but just cuz I love her doesnt mean I have to love evyerhg about that place. Right?

Anyways, I'm so tired I dunno what I'm typing now. So pardon moi if what I wrote doesnt make any sense to you and just look like a piece of junk, then.. just laugh and shrug it off and pretend that you never saw it before okay? (like just now I actually typed out a word called 'jubmunks' when what I really wanna say is 'junk'.) okay folks, nightie night y'all. =)

Mojave Part 3

Yay! And this was the 2nd morning! Despite only getting three hours of sleep, I felt energetic and refreshed. Must be the absence of neon lights, car honkings, phones ringing and TV! : ) Aaah let's stretch our limbs.. and fingers. heh. Was asking Paul to do the peace sign, commonly known to them as 'the asian thing'. Roy gave me a dirty look, disapproving me of doing that 'act cute' gesture. But my logic is, hey why not, its fun! and funny tooo! But most of all, if americans or westerners in general start doing that too then it wont be an asian thing anymore! It'll be a global thing!! =) Why do people always have to categorize every friggin' thing? Compartmentalize people according to their races or places of origin, to name a few. Why? See Paul did a good job with the peace sign, didnt he? And everyone laughed. :) I love listening to laughters. Warms my heart. :)
And how can we leave the place without any of these close-up smiling pictures??? I just realized we all have nice teeth, dont you think?!And this is Vincent, or Vicente in Spanish. Vinny for short. :) Isn't the name itself so adorable already? He's the fox with grey hair on his back. Lucky we got a good shot of him! Gotta get some unfinished business done before we left. Bury some stuff... No, it's not Vinny's leftover bones!! We werent so barbaric. It's some treasure thingy in a box for geo-caching purpose. Then we have to save the exact location of it, upload it to the web so that people can actually come and search for it. So cool eh. Global treasure hunt. :)
Then we drove to some volcanic site... Memory ain't serving me well and I just cant recall where was it anymore. But we did climb up a bit and then get back down to take this group photo! Can you spot me? I feel like everyone's just there as backdrop while the supermodel is Roy. Check out his pose!! The sole guy who stood out.. :P
Some cars couldnt drive all the way up some lava site, so we packed ourselves in this truck! :) Very fun.. and bumpy!
Oh look... it's cactus! Or not.. I don't really know but Roy told me it is. So cactus it is then! :) This is Richard, trying out the peace pose tooo!! See, now it aint so "asian" anymore, ay? ;)

Going in the lava underground hole, whatever you call it... But basically these are the routes where the hot volcanic magma rushed through and pushed itself out of the ground and came out as lava. That's me going in and Roy' s butt in front of me.. :P
The rays of sunlight shining in from one of the top holes...
The last group picture before we left the site. :) Everyone's happy. Yay.

Mojave Part 2

These people walked so damn fast... I lagged behind cuz I got distracted taking pictures. bleh.

They climbed up there already, when I walked to the foot of that rock-hill (whateva-you-might-callit). And now I have to make my way up there.. not easy for someone like me who never really exercise much let alone rock-climbing. Although to them it's like eating peanuts..they looked as if they glided up effortlessly okayyy. I felt like some clumsy kampung chicken among them. No wait... kampung chicken would be good at this, so I'm the clumsy home-reared chicken.

Zooming in.... we're got, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8..... * people almost up there and I'm still way down there.

Aaaahhh FINALLY. I'm up here! Looking down, far and away, ... enjoying the breeze and the view. See the small oasis-like area on the far upper right corner? That was where we started out at the resort. Walked so much!!

Heading back.... :) After that some of us took a nap while the rest of us played Cranium. A game with a mixture of spelling bee, charades, general knowledge questionaires etc etc.. a board game rolling dice taking turn to move, and see which team gets to the End Point first. My team rocked! whooo hoo we rocked! :) Dinner was fab, the cook prepared vegetarian lasagna, sausage, salad and baked a chocolate cake! And whoa was it huge! I had lots of it... since I walked so much and all... reckon I deserved it :P

Mojave National Preserve

It's about two hours' drive from Pomona to that place, which is somewhere near Baker and east of Barstow. You'd have absolutely no idea how arduous (for the car) the 4 miles of bumpy dirt road was! It was the only route to get to the desert studies center, and for me it was plain torturous. Well on normal circumstances it would've been fun, but it's just terribly wrong timing - for someone who needed to pee badly!!!! What can I say? Tough luck!

Aaaahh look! We're at the CSUC - BLM Desert Studies Center, located at the former Zzyzx Mineral Springs Resort. (CSUC = Cal. State Univ. Consortium; BLM = Bureau of Land Management) And no, the word Zzyzx is not a typo error, but a word this guy Curtis Howe Springer created in 1944, pronouncing it as /ˈzaɪˌzɪks/, as in "z-eye-ziks". Guess he must be feeling creative at that time, and now he's remembered as the guy who came up with the last word in English language! Sounds like something I'd do, maybe I'll come up with another word and make his become the second last word in English language!! heh. :P Anyway, he built and operated this Zzyzx Mineral Spring Resort illegally under mining claims and was later arrested. It was only in 1976 (2 yrs after he was arrested) that BLM allowed a consortium of CSUs to manage this land and turned it into Desert Studies Center. Cal Poly Pomona is one of them.

And that's me on the right with Leah on the left, swinging freely on a Saturday morning, basking ourselves in the California sun.
I just like the name of the streets... Castle Way and Boulevard of Dreams. :) We're in the Spring Resort now.. which were turned into dorm rooms for visitors to bunk in during the visit. Simple and nice, rooms are heated and will be air-conditioned during summer.
Ooooh... off we go on our first mission. Geo-caching. Something like treasure hunt, only we're not exactly hunting anythg... just using the GPS units to find the locations around that area.
Brian who looked like Indiana Jones with the hat, and me. :)

Universal Studios Pictures 29 Dec 06

Queen of Procrastination =P

Hi everybody!!! It's been sooooo long!!! How's everyone doing I hope evythg's great out there, wherever you're at. =)

Okay. So I know I'm never gonna get all my entries done cuz workload is starting to stack up higher and higher and what today is only the 3rd day of class?! I have SOOOO much to tell I don't even know where to begin. I wanna share bout evythg I saw in San Francisco; I wanna write a post specially dedicated to Chean my lovely friend; I wanna post up all the bimbotic pictures (as Chean called them) and the Abercrombie-style pics (as Sheena called them) up here; I wanna write bout out TPM juniors joining us on the 28th Dec, my one day trip to Universal Studios on the 29th Dec, and on the 30th Dec my outing with Paul Jess and Chean to LA how we got lost and ended up in some beach then headed to Hollywood to meet up Bee Shin and her friends and the fantastic dinner in Monterey Park with them and right after I got home 4 of us went to San Diego and spent our new yr's eve and 1st day of 2007 there.

And that's pretty much the summary of my last few days of holidays. It was crazy it was fun it was very spontaneous. :) And I just couldnt help but smiling when I thought of all these beautiful memories..

So wasssuupppp guys? what've you people been up to lately? I hope everyone's having a good time because there is no better time to enjoy life have fun live life to the fullest than now. NOW people! woohoooo! Happy New Year and all the best to everyone! (haha I bet you can sense the energy pumping out eh?! Guess it 'cause of the whole new yr thing n the illusion of a whole new beginning...heh.)

Ooops... I just realised how contradicting I am - my post titled 'Queen of Procrastination' yet I'm hollering out to people to live the moment. What irony.