We All Need Help to Study..

I got this prayer card from a priest back in high school (when I was form 5 or form 6, I don't really remember)- and I think this prayer is a big help for those Christians asking for guidance in study.

Prayer before Study (by St Thomas Aquinas)

Lord God Supreme, who out of the treasures of Thy Wisdom has set up three orders of angels to rule the heavens in sweet order and hast filled the earth with beauty and plenty; do Thou Fount of Light and wisdom and source of all life and goodness, graciously shed the radiance of Thine own brightness on the darkness of my mind and take from me the sin and ignorance in which I was born.

Thou who makest eloquent the tongue of little children, fashion my words and pour upon my lips the grace of Thy benediction. Grant me penetration to understand, capacity to retain, method and facility in study and abundant grace of expression. Order the beginning, direct the progress, perfect the achievement of my work, Thou who art true God and true Man and livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.

She's Legally 21...

Presenting you with the star of Legally 21..

Picture taken during the premiere of Legally 21.

She's hot, she's cool, she's all that...

Yes.. Who doesn't know her, she was the one starring in that Hollywood movie, err, err...

Okay, no more bluffing here.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, presenting you the BIRTHDAY GIRL *insert drum rolls*--> Stephanie Hermon.

She's our bestie.

Don't believe?

Look at this picture.

Front: From left,Me, Stephanie, Amanda.
Back: From left, Sally and Peter.

Okay, okay, so I was bluffing for portraying her like a celebrity earlier, but hey, it wasn't far from the truth as she will be the celebrated person of the day.

So dear Step,

Hope you have a blessed 21st birthday today. I know that I won't be able to celebrate it with you and them all namely Sally, Pamela, Amanda, Celestine, but my force will always be with you. *insert Star War song* And Clare, are you at Kuching or Singapore that time? If you're at Kuching, it will be merrier yeah~! ;)

Since you are the latest among us to reach 21 years old, there's 21 mad tips I am sharing with you on what you should do when you are 21.

1) Take 21 pictures of yourself with your cake from every angle during your birthday
Explanation: It's legal to be vain (with your birthday cake) on your birthday, girl.. ;)

2) Go clubbing

Explanation: Not that disco clubbing (kalau ada simpat duit, bolehlah.. hehe, tapi sebab aku yg lebih tua belum pernah pergi, berat hatilah nak suruh you all overtake me and pergi), but join more clubs.. heheh.. such as Yoga club, or sports club to broaden your knowledge and contacts..

3) Take care of your skin
Explanation: Yes, once you reach your 20's, your skin will be matured, and you have to take extra care. Well, my skin isn't getting any much better here.. Huhu..

4) Be prepared if someone is trying to propose you.
Explanation: Lol.. Okay, this one is coming soon I see. You have to answer according to situation, but whatever your decision is, I will always support you! ;)

5) Drive the car at 21 km/hour
Explanation: You have to let people see clearly the nice car that you are driving, dear.. hehe

6) Shop for formal clothes
Explanation: You will need this when you join the workforce later. ;)

7) Start blogging!
Explanation: Cause Amanda and Pam are doing it, so you better feel the peer pressure of being 21.

8) Smile in your sleep
Explanation: You are entering your legal age, so why not? ;)

9) Sleep at the library
Explanation: My challenge for you - cause I just did that today! (and not proud of it! Huhu~)

10) Start swimming yo~
Explanation: Cause swimming is good to keep fit (not that you need to keep fit that much) but it's a skill which can make you more independent at this legal age.

11) Explore somewhere you haven't been to at Kuching
Explanation: Cause now you can go to any place you can go. You're 21 girl. :)

12) Read all the books from your favourite authors
Explanation: Because it's better to read first then watch the movie, not watch first then read the book. Cause you will feel less clueless this way. ;)

13) Watch Michael Jackson movie!
Explanation: Cause I want to watch it but I couldn't so, let you watch on my behalf. Hehe.

14) Kiss each and everyone of your girlfriends who surprised you on your birthday! (Boys are excluded from this dare)
Explanation: Cause they're your girls! Simple as that. hehe..

15) Tell 21 truths about yourself in facebook and tag 21 friends.
Explanation: Cause it will be fun? heheh..

16) Call your mom and ask her what she did on her 21st birthday.
Explanation: It's sweet and you can know more about your beloved person in the family.

17) Dance to the Chicken dance tune.
Explanation: It's a healthy form of exercise. (Actually I got this idea when Hawa danced to the Chicken dance in front of me while blogging from DK foyer. heheh..)

18) Say "I am a confident person" in front of the mirror every morning for 21 days.
Explanation: This can build up your confidence. Heheh.

19) Laugh 21 times.
Explanation: Cause this is a mad tip.

20) Act like 16.
Explanation: To fool the juniors - lol, and let them feel guilty when they finally know that you are actually their senior. ;)

21) Last but not least, Tiup all the lilin and make 21 wishes.
Explanation: This is compulsory and making many wishes can increase the probability of your wish to come true. At least one wish from 21 wishes come true also means that your wish came true, right? heheh.. So merapu here.



Anyway, May God bless you abundantly throughout the year and hope you have the best birthday ever with your sisters out there - and last but not least, HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY!!

>--(*u*)--<

Tiba-tiba...

Interframe: The thoughts of celebrating Mel's birthday at Shakira's room kept popping in my mind. It was a memorable night, or dawn you may call it. All of us ELS students (namely http://kikirikira.blogspot.com/, Hawa, Kalai Vani, Aina, Bel ) and some of Mel's Restu friends were having so much fun.

Tiba-tiba aku ingin menulis entri blog ini dalam bahasa Melayu kerana aku sudah letih menulis segalanya dalam bahasa Inggeris dan bahasa Rojak. Pernah sekali aku menulis sebuah entri dalam bahasa Inggeris + bahasa Melayu Sarawak , tapi kali ini lain. Aku ingin menulis sepenuhnya dalam bahasa Melayu.. (yang bahagian interframe dalam bahasa Inggeris kat atas tu tak kira ya tuan-tuan dan puan-puan..) Sebelum merepek atau merapu dengan lebih lanjut, aku ingin mengucapkan selamat hari jadi sekali lagi kepada Melissa Ed. Semoga hari-harimu yang akan datang dicucuri rahmat. Semoga engkau mendapat keputusan yang cemerlang untuk peperiksaan akhir yang bakal bermula mulai minggu depan. Pam minyak, gadisku!!

Apabila menyentuh tentang peperiksaan, ketika jari-jemariku sibuk menaip benda-benda merapu di komputer ribaku di foyer DKU pada malam Rabu ini, aku mengenang kembali kerajinanku semasa berada di Tingkatan 3. Serius, pada masa itu, aku rajin. Aku sanggup korbankan MTV selama dua bulan dengan rela hati sebagai kompromi untuk mendapat 7A dalam PMR. Dan pengorbanan itu terbukti berbaloi. Syukur kepada Tuhan.

Bak kata kawanku, Hawa, dia juga lebih bermotivasi untuk belajar semasa di bangku sekolah menengah. Semasa dia masih berada dalam Tingkatan 1 dan Tingakatan 2, dia jarang (atau tidak pernah) menonton televisyen, maka apabila kawan-kawannya bercerita tentang drama bersiri malam semalam, salah seorang kawannya akan berkata "Tak payahlah tanya dia pasal drama tu, dia pasti tak tau punya." Tapi kalau nak dibandingkan dengan sekarang, Hawa memang tak dapat nak tahan diri daripada menonton drama Melayu seperti NurKasih dan macam-macam lagi filem yang dia dapat daripada kawan-kawan. hehe.. Maafkan daku, Hawa, aku bukan sengaja nak mengumpat pasal awak kat sini.. Heheh..

Di sini, aku ingin mengetengahkan kepelikan kisah diri aku sebagai pelajar universiti. Kenapa aku boleh hilang motivasi untuk belajar dengan tiba-tiba? Sebenarnya, aku memang malas sejak dari bangku sekolah menengah lagi, tapi tidak pernah semalas ini. Bukankah untuk menimba ilmu matlamat utama aku menjejakkan kaki di menara gading? Bukankah aku rasa bersyukur ketika mula-mula berada di universiti kerana aku hanya perlu risaukan pelajaran dan bukannya tentang pelajaran budak-budak sekolah seperti apa yang aku risaukan semasa menjadi guru sandaran? Bukankah ini yang aku harapkan dahulu dan mengapa kini aku berpaling tadah? Mengapa ya?

Aku berharap motivasi itu akan kembali. Aku berharap kesanggupan untuk berkorban itu kembali. Kerana jika aku berhenti sekarang, ini bermaksud pengorbanan aku ketika muda (tuakah aku sekarang?) dahulu adalah sia-sia. Memang sia-sia.

Aku tidak mahu menyesal di kemudian hari. Serius..

Of Empty Pocket & Empty Fuel Tank..

This is..... a true story.

Info: Pictures were included as proofs that all of the stated facts did happen.

One Saturday night, a group of friends, or 'family' they preferred to call it, were having an outing after church. The night was still young, just around 8 pm, and all were ready to do an important mission which was to jengjengjeng ---- EAT!! (Duh! What else could be more important?) The 'family' were using two cars for this outing, car number 1906 and car number 3872 --> The brand of the cars were not mentioned because this is not an advertisement, fyi. On the way to the open-air restaurant, which was suggested by the tall girl in red T, suddenly car number 3872 stopped at the side of the flyover. The passengers in car 1906 were worried and confused. The girl in white blouse from car 1906 called the girl with curly hair in flowery blouse in car 3872 to ask her what was wrong and their dialogue went like this:

Girl in white blouse: What happened? Why the car stopped?
Girl with curly hair in flowery blouse: Our fuel tank is empty.
Girl in white blouse: Ooops.. (unsur tokok tambah sebenarnya. Dalam dialog sebenar, ekspresi ini tidak digunakan. Ekspresi ini digunakan dalam penceritaan semula untuk menambahkan unsur dramatik.)
Girl with curly hair in flowery blouse: Urm, can you guys help to buy fuel in the nearest petrol station for us?
Girl in white blouse: Okay. Can~

Note: The more accurate version of this significant conversation can be found in this post.

Conversation ended. Note that girl in white blouse sounded cool all along because she is a cool person and whenever she encounters any situation like this, she will remain cool, because at the end of the day, she's not the hero nor the victim, she's the witness with the camera. Ahem. (Disclaimer: the writer is not bias towards the characters, fyi)

Some of the characters in this true story.
From left: Guy in black T, girl with checkered blouse, girl with curly hair in flowery blouse, girl in brown blouse (special appearance), girl in white sandal, and last but not least, the girl in white blouse.

After buying the fuel, the people from car 1906 went to help the victims of the situation in car 3872. The girl in white blouse was trying to capture the picture of the moment, but ended up scolded by the girl with curly hair in flowery blouse because she didn't want any chemical reaction due to the flashes from the camera. So, the photos during this situation were limited.

The activity of filling up a fuel tank could look interesting in times like this. Seriously. Everyone was paying full attention while the girl in checkered blouse, the girl with curly hair in flowery blouse and the tall girl in red T was busy trying to fill up the fuel tank. After a few minutes, the car was driven to the nearest petrol station to be filled with sufficient petrol. When the chaotic moment was finally over, the 'family' was ready to proceed to the next stop.

And, the next stop would be the stop the 'family' were waiting for.



Eating time, at an open-air restaurant located at somewhere near Queensbay. Everybody was smiling hungrily.
Clockwise from right - girl in checkered blouse, girl in black blouse, girl in white sandal, guy in short pants with new shoes, tall girl in red T, girl with curly hair and flowery blouse, girl with curly hair in jeans, (don't confuse these two curly-haired girls ya~) and finally the guy in black T.

Presenting all of you with the food at the open-air restaurant located somewhere near Queensbay. And again, the name of the open-air restaurant was not mention because this is not an advertisement. (Sebenarnya, cover line sebab tak tau nama tempat tu...)
And yeah, they were tasty. The total of the payment made for these food was RM100 - food which were sufficient enough to feed 9 people. Totally worth it.

After finishing the food, the 'family' asked the guy in the short pants with new shoes to bring the sparkling juice that they bought earlier from car 3872 - and guess what? When the guy in the short pants with new shoes brought the sparkling juice bottle, people from other table were looking at him - as if he was bringing an alcohol drink instead. Sparkling juice is not a wine, ok, people, though the bottle looked like wine. It's just like Shandy of wine. But in reality, we didn't bother to explain and let others made perception about us. After finishing their activity at the open-air restaurant which consists of ordering food, camwhoring, eating, drinking and paying the food, the 'family' planned to watch a movie at Queensbay cinema. The tall girl in red T went back to the hostel with her friend, so the rest of them continued with the activity for the night. The time was nearly 11 pm. The 'family' were buying movie tickets to watch Whiteout , a film starring Kate Beckinsale.

A view from the front. They were asking the guy in short pants with new shoes whom they called daddy to buy them drinks. And he did- due the muka kasihan they were putting on like in the picture above. ;)

The movie was okay - didn't leave you much impact, it was something you watch and forget later - but that was the girl in white blouse's subjective view. The girl in white sandal thought that it was stressful to watch that movie because it needed much thinking (suspense) and this statement was agreed by the girl in white blouse. The movie ended around 1 something in the morning. So, the outing finally came to an end. Everybody went back to their respective hostels and rented apartment in car 1906 and car 3872. Everybody were sent back safe and sound. The girl in white blouse went back to her hostel in car 1906 and reached her room at around 1.45 am. Though she felt kempunan earlier for not following the first phase of the outing, she was grateful because she realized that it was a blessing in disguise. If she had followed the earlier phase, she would ended up with hole in her pocket. The girl in the white blouse was happy at the end of the outing and this could be proven by the picture below.

Girl in white blouse: Yes, I am truly happy!! Though my pocket is empty, my bag isn't. ;P

= THE END=

the BIG sacrifice..

Written on Friday night, but due to the poor internet connection, I only get to publish them now.

The date was 23rd October 2009...

I was messaging my sister just now whether we are going to tomorrow's night Mass or on Sunday and she told me we are going for tomorrow's night Mass, but we will go earlier, like 11 am in the morning because she & the gang already rented a car to go for a karaoke and round-round and this will be our last big gathering before the exam. I was like, WHAT? I just promised my roommate to go to the library with her to have our own little study group around 10 am till noon. Hmmph~! The moral of the story is - DON'T GIVE ME SUCH A SHORT NOTICE - ESPECIALLY IF IT IS SOMETHING SPECIAL LIKE THIS. DON'T TAKE FOR GRANTED I AM FREE ON WEEKEND.

FEELING SUPER KEMPUNAN NOW. (T__T ) I wanted to go, but it's inappropriate for me to just cancel my date with my roommate just because I found something which is more tempting to do. (correction: anything can be more tempting than studying, e.g: sleeping) It's like principle versus desire. And principle had to win. And besides, I sayang my roommate very much, I don't want to let her down.

*recovering mode*

Now, talking about sacrifice and suffering, it reminds me of another thing which has nothing to do with the former situation. Well, maybe a little, cause I can start comparing here. Me being kempunan over not going to karaoke with my sisters and the gang (it feels hurt to say this again and again) is nothing compared to the suffering of the children in Sudan, or let's take somewhere nearer, like the Phillipines, and even in the rural area of our own beloved country Malaysia. Why did I suddenly brought this up? Well, it has everything to do with the CUS gathering that I went to yesterday.

We always take for granted our comfortable life. Even little thing such as walking to the top of hostel daily (ahem) could be a difficult task. Washing our own clothes felt damn torturing. But how about those who doesn't have feet, legs and even hands to even do these simple tasks? And how about those people who lived in the area where they do not have enough water supply for drinking, let alone bathing and washing their clothes? Let's take Labuan, for example. From this gathering, I began to feel the suffering of the people there because of the insufficient water supply. And yes, the people I mentioned here refer mainly to the students who might be our peers or even younger than us. What we took for granted in our daily lives here is such a big necessity for others. So, don't waste water. How not to waste water? Hehe. Easy. A piece of cake. Here's a few way:

1) Don't wash your clothes everyday. (This is the easiest among the tips, I suppose). Just wash it like, hmm, once in three days. Don't let the water tap run when you are still washing the clothes because usually the water would keep pouring out from the bucket when overloaded.

2) Don't bath using bath tub. At least, use shower, or better yet, use a bucket to bath. Make sure you shampoo your head to toe then use one bucket (or maximum two buckets) of water to rinse yourself, and voila, you are all clean. Besides saving water, you are saving your time. ;)

3) Try not to sweat so much. No, I am not teaching you how to save the water from your body, but I am saying that with not much sweat, you can reuse your clothes for the second time before laundry, so this will save quite a lot on water. ;)

4) Try not to be that talkative. Talkative people tend to drink more water (to replace the saliva in their mouth, perhaps?) So, I am not trying to encourage all of you to drink less water, just that I am trying to convey that since water is our crucial necessity, and we should drink 8 to 9 glasses of water perday, try not to drink more than that cause I think talkative people would actually exceed the recommended quantity.

Guess these are what I can share with all at the moment - cause I am damn sleepy and I have to get some beauty sleep cause if I am beautiful with less pimple, I can save the water by not washing my face with facial products ~ ZZzz..