Personality

Omg This Is So True About ME!~

Thanks Vin!~

Your Life Path Number Is 5

5 You are very versatile, adventurous, and progressive. With a 5 life path, you are one of those people who is always striving to find answers to the many questions that life poses. You want to be totally unrestrained, as this is the sign of freedom and independence. You abhor routine and boring work, and you are not very good at staying with everyday tasks that must be finished on time. You are, however, a good communicator, and you know how to motivate people around you, perhaps inclining you to be a teacher of some sort. A love of adventure may dominate your life. This may take the form of mental or physical manifestation, but in either case, you thrill to the chance for exploration and blazing new trails. You are apt to be multi-talented, but just as likely to suffer from some lack of direction, and there is often some confusion surrounding your ambition. On the average, the number 5 personality is rather happy-go-lucky; living for today, and not worrying too much about tomorrow. It is important for you to mix with people of a like mind, and try to avoid those that are too serious and demanding. It is also important for you to find a job that provides thought-provoking tasks rather than routine and redundant responsibilities. You do best dealing with people, but the important thing is that you have the freedom to express yourself at all times. You have an innate ability to think through complex matters and analyze them quickly, but then be off to something new. In the most negative application or use of the 5 energies, you could become very irresponsible in tasks and decisions concerning your home and business life. The total pursuit of sensation and adventure can result in your becoming self-indulgent and totally unaware of the feelings of those around you. In the worse case situations negative 5's are very undependable and self-serving.

What Is Your Life Path Number?

Boy meets Girl, Girl meets World.

Woo today I was called up for some meeting with my other friends who got into "US Top Universities". Sounded quite grandeur really...clash of the titans. Anyway, the meeting's purpose is to discuss with all of us about a plan, which is to put OUR pictures and profiles on the wall to serve as some sort of inspiration to the other students, and also remembrence ... cause we made it!

Those who deserved it are actually Nick (Harvard), Joyce (Yale), Vanessa (Berkeley), ChenYee (Caltech), Atiqah and Jianwei (Stanford). Its true, they ARE the ones who truly got into TOP universities. Somehow Zulie, Sin, JunXian and I got called up too :P. Some consolation at least although not the best universities out there :P. Dun play play its Northwestern wei. If you've never heard of it...its THE BEST SCHOOL IN THE MIDWEST! Hah now you know. Its excellent k....very the excellent. I'm proud even if i'm not there yet.

Nothing much to talk bout these days really. Just glad that they're putting me on their walls LOL.

Think I'm gonna be some celebrated legend when I come back?

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IF you're a girl, and even if you aren't, do you think that a girl who likes a guy should take the initiative instead of just waiting for the other party to move? First of all it is understood that if a guy likes a girl then most definitely he has to go first. But why not the other way around? Is it wrong if a girl chased a guy?

Old beliefs sux.

Lost my mood to write...lost to Zach in minesweeper....argh closest match ever!! Down to 2 spaces 1 mine left.........WAHHHH CANT BELIEVE IT!


/Skeith, done crapping

Trivial bumps in life

Ok I'm not gonna blog bout universities anymore. Could already imagine the looks on your face if I did.

Humid. The days are just darned hot, and this has been already going on for a long time. I sweat whenever I sleep in the hostel room, but thank god I've an aircond at home :P. So that's why I've been going home more often now...yea specifically FOR the aircond. It's probably become a necessity for me, can't survive in the heat really. I might melt.

Finals in 3 days.

Expensive. Ink catridges are just mini sized and expensive! Why the hell does 100ml of black ink cost me RM40? And why the hell does the same amount of brush ink cost me only RM5? Same thing what....black ma! The suppliers definitely think we're stupid and that we would buy it anyway because everyone else is doing it. Somehow they're right. I'm pissed cause my catridge dried in 5 sessions of printing. Someone remind me to invent cheaper conventional ink in the future.

Finals in 3 days.

Shower. I think the cat behind my house just busted my house pipes or something. The water is coming out so slow, its as if someone is pissing on my head when I'm bathing. This makes the process of cleaning up a very tiring and long process. Not only that, washing up after dinner is worst. The tap pees on ur plates and cups and I cannot take this any longer. Someone call the
Jabatan Air!~!~!

Finals in 3 days.

OMG yay Finals is finally coming. 3 days. Thats all there is left. It is freedom and peace all the way after that. Gotta do well for this one though.

Finals in 3 days.

What the hell am I still doing here?

P.S : Van what happened to ur blog? Now I've got nothing to read :(


/Skeith, dive into the books...or maybe later

My Dream... A Hellish Nightmare

Oh I've always boasted how CMU is my no.1 school, that I'll end up there even though I got accepted by MIT. Great academics, great city, great 4 years for my life. But days of reviews and comment reading has taught me otherwise. Most of them were negative statements on the university..but I find the one below most interesting. I immediately threw away my waiting list reply form when I read it.

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Here I am, studying since 8pm (it is now 6am) on a sunday during our "reading day" at a computer clusters studying for a final in 2 days. Many schools have reading WEEK, we get reading DAY, on a SUNDAY for that matter...as if they had a real choice to make sunday a free day. Actually they still have exams (programming masteries) on sunday so that shows how this school rips students off in terms of free time. To briefly introduce myself, I am currently a junior in one of the finest programs in CMU (Information Systems) and have experienced both the party and the studying side of this school. After being here for 3 years, me and my colleagues have all agreed on one thing...this school $uck$.

First of all, the people here are ugly. There are some real "freaks" in this school and if you're one of them, you'd find yourself with friends no matter how weird u think u are. Even if you dont shower and dress in rags, you will have no problem finding a peer who enjoy doing the same thing. Geeks dominate the population here; you will see more laptops, palm pilots and other fancy stuff that you only think rich executives have. You learn to live without talking here; icq, aim, email and other non vocal means of communication will take over your life. Computer gaming and other non social means of entertainment also thrive in this community. I personally have been part of the gaming scene just because of the fact that when you look for what to do out there that is worth the time and effort, there really is nothing.

Pittsburgh is by far one of the worst cities I have ever been to and i have been around the world a lot. Downtown consists of only commercial buildings and other garbage that isnt worth even considering for fun. My friend, whos currently also studying with me at this computer cluster at crazy hours, had tried hard looking for a nice place to eat in downtown Pittsburgh. Eventually he and his friend settled for McDonalds. Another thing to mention about this university is that it is located 10 mins walk away from the ghetto known as Oakland. It is not uncommmon for people to get mugged 5 minutes away from campus, another factor contributing to students not leaving the campus. After being here for 3 years so far, I only know of 2 places to go thats not within walking distance: monroeville mall and century 3 mall. Thats it, no where else. These 2 malls are low quality and do not even have popular stores like Banana Republic or J. Crew that exist in almost every other mall in the US (although they do have your standard sports stores, Structure and Victorias Secret). Instead they have some ghetto lamea$$ stores like Mo'Gear (like wtf is that sh1t, never even heard of it before i came here).

Student life here is horrible. I have never been this depressed and socially inadequate in my entire life. There is no chance of you finding any attractive girl on campus. The ratio is 2 to 1 and for most cases, i wouldnt even consider that 1 a female. Recently, I have thought about the statistics of it all. Given a population of 2000 females, i thought that having 1% of them being somewhat attractive wasnt too much to ask. 1% of 2000 is 20 girls, and to be honest i am having a lot of trouble counting to 5 (which is 0.5% for those who are bad at math). Next topic about student life is something very basic to human needs: sleep. All I ask is for a healthy 8 hours of sleep everyday here and that goal cannot be accomplished if you also plan on getting a good grade. Since the beginning of this semester, friday and saturday nights have been erased out of my weekend days for relaxation. I do not procrastinate and always start work early and even with that standard any possible free time i have earned is to catch up on lost sleep. I bought a pack of Vivarins (200mg of caffiene in each pill) and devoured that in under 2 months. I am almost always injected with caffiene from either soda or coffee. I also rarely ever skip class which makes the task of finding sleep even harder. I walk around campus and hardly ever see a smiling face. People here are very anti-social unless they are with their own cliques. I know many people on campus and i hardly say more than "hi how u doing?" to them. For some, they even ignore me after knowing them for 3 years. Next simple basic neccessity of life is food. Not only does the food here just suck, but its also expensive and they dont give u much either. Its bad enough that the quality is worse than my old high schools but having us pay $7 for 2 slices of grade d meat is plain unreasonable (this is exagerated but there is an element of truth within it).

Id like to also state that i am not a failing student, in fact i have been consistently getting As, and i also do try to have as much of a social life as possible given the limitations. Morale has never been this low for me as well as the people around me. The school does offer high standards in terms of academics and in terms of job offers, this school is awesome (specially for my major and other tech related majors). However, the workload we get in ratio to the recognition we get is horrendous. We arguably work harder than most ivey league schools but when we come out i guarantee u many people (the general public that is, not just the elite) will be like "Carne who?". I have heard from friends who have graduated that you will never work as hard as you did in CMU. Thats a thing worth thinking about...do YOU want to spend the BEST years of your life, where you have the freedom of an adult without the responsibility of one, in a school with an ugly enviroment, ugly people and no life whatsoever? Before I considered doing the accelerated masters program here at CMU, but after being here for a dreaded 3 years, i cannot stand it anymore and my only thought is "get the hell out of here quick". On a final thought, as a parent, i would only send my kid here as a punishment.

Note: this is NOT fabricated by any means and if given to another student at CMU to read, they will agree without a doubt. I am offering a true insiders view on a school whos academics i agree is unparalleled but social life is truly inept. There is always that person who says "oh how good the student life is only how good u make of it...blah blah blah" but they dont point out the fact that you can only be as free within the boundaries of your prison.

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It's ironic really, how a dream could instantly turn into a nightmare. I wish JunXian all the best~Someone tell Zulie to read this too. Also I really hope ChenYee could read this, cause Caltech would prolly be the same if not worse.

All doubts cleared. Now I can step foot into Northwestern U. with a smile.


/Skeith, decided.

Love is evil...for once

In the com lab now, and its the first time that I'm actually posting in a quiet, tranquil place like this. Back at home there's always the aircond and the mp3 to distract.

Nothing much is going on these days except that I have a C++ assignment to hand up, a calculus test to sit for, a presentation for ethics on cloning, a resource file to hand up, and a research paper to write. Life is still 'simple'. I don't wanna do any of this no more. But since next week is the last week of the semester, oh well :P. Exams in 2 weeks time. Must study.

Yeong is sitting next to me now doing the ethics presentation...while I'm typing this out. Sigh, I'm useless....


Oh and there's good news! For JPA scholars there's a rumor I heard about, that if your GPA for this semester is 3.0 and above, you have the option to completely SKIP ALL THE CLASSES in the third semester. How cool is that? No classes!! One more week of school!! 3 months of holidays!! So study harder for the finals and you're free. But dun get all jumpy yet...ITS A RUMOR which I have yet to confirm.

Surprisingly as our semester approches the end, more and more ppl seem to be coupling up. I've already lost another 2 of my friends to the evil that is love :( . So now I'm left with,....1 more to hang out with. So much for The Clique. Things are ironic, because after all the effort of helping them out, bringing them together, running for them all the way....they end up leaving us behind. It's been fun, and I'm glad they're together. But what about me?? Who's gonna talk to me and hang out with me now? They're all going off 1 by 1. And its saddening.


P.S : Read the papers and look out for the section on Harvard. My friend Nick in the papers... :P Hey at least I can say "I know this guy from Harvard and we used to play DotA together"

Ta for now...

/Skeith,

What I see in purple?

Universities application is a tough and rigorous process. But choosing 1 after admitted is even tougher, even if there are only 2 choices. Prestige or major? Big or small? Party or study? These factors come into consideration and sometimes even though you might already know which one you prefer, there will still be a little dilemma, a part in you that tells you that the other school is better than your choice. It is indeed hard to make a good choice, and although ppl tell you that you'll do fine in any universities. Of course, we want only the best for ourselves. Here's how I view it :

Size
Bigger school means more variety. You can always find someone of the same race, country or interest to hang out with. But it also means more competition. Professors will give less attention due to the large number. In other words, you'll be just another no. XXXXXX in a big school. Going to smaller school, although smaller community and less ppl to look at :P, often wields more attention for yourself. Personnally I prefer a smaller school where things DO come to you. That way I wouldn't have to locate everything for myself, unguided and unattended to. It makes life easier.

Prestige vs Major
This is the harder choice. Prestigious schools where job opportunities comes easily, or a school that is ranked high for your major, where the stuff that you learn there would really make you demanded in the future. But after some reading and questioning, I realized that prestige, at this stage, is what really matters. For my major Computer Science, job opportunities and research matters only when I reach graduate studies (Masters) . So the most important thing now is actually to get into a prestigious undergrad program and shine there...and ensure entrace to a 'better in major' graduate school. Basically career begins in grad, you only need to enjoy life during undergrad. Besides, if your major really suck in the prestigious school, you can always transfer out, or change major. But if you're looking for research, do choose major over school's name.

Party??
Yeah I've always wanted to go to a lively, party school. Can't imagine myself ending up in Caltech or CMU, after reading all those reviews about them >> "No social life, but students would prefer it that way." College is meant to be enjoyed, nuff said. With a little control, of course :P.


There are other factors of course, such as sports, girls, location, weather...but those didn't straight jacket me. Only those 3 above mattered most, at least for me.

SO, I've finally chosen Northwestern University, the school of purple which is DEFINITELY better than U of Chicago, over UIUC and perhaps even CMU. I wouldn't even want to fight that war anymore, cause I don't want to go there. IF I'm still interested in CS, and NU couldn't fulfill my needs, there is always a transfer that I could work towards. As of now, fly > study > enjoy > smile.

Good luck to the others choosing their unis!


/Skeith

The Series of Unfortunate Events

Congrats to Nick, ChenYee, Joyce, Vanessa, JianWei, Atiqah, Eswarie and Peter for not only making it, but acing it as well. Well done.

For the rest of us, we probably lost our mood to do anything else besides sleeping. While there is still hope for CheeYong, Sin, JunXian and myself, I can feel what Zain and PeiXin are feeling right now. We're all in same sinking boat, after all.



Judgment day was 1st April, and believe me its the worst April Fool's day I've had. No one pranked me. It was result day. I rushed to the cafe to check for my admission status, and then it started...the series of unfortunate events.

2 rejections came in first, Cornell (this was just surprising) and Harvard (while this was expected). Then it was followed by Yale, of course, another R. A minute later Joyce was jumping and shouting right beside me because she got accepted to Yale. Felt like piercing my heart into a spear then.

Next day at 6.30 am, Vanessa msged me. Stanford is out! I was reluctant to turn on my com however. So I had breakfast, went to the crematarium to pray for ChengMeng first, praying with whatever I had left that all will be well this time. Came home at noon, and was still too scared to open the mail. I sat on my bed looking at my idle com for a whole minute, blank, before I proceeded to open my Gmail.

*1 new mail*
Dear Eric,

I am sending you this email to let you know in advance of the official
letter you will receive shortly via postal mail that we are unable to offer
you admission to Stanford for fall 2005.
My staff and I appreciate the thought and effort ........

I closed the letter there. Went back to bed and sleep.


Later that evening (5pm) I checked CMU, and got a waitlist from them. Turned on MSN and saw Vanessa's MSN title which is intimidating.

I talked to mum bout this, about how I'm going to Illinois after all, bout all my friends who did well, bout how dreams will always be dreams.



She cried.



We googled Illinois throughout the night, looking for info that could help us.
I messaged some seniors, hoping that they could help me with waitlisted CMU.

Later last night my family and I went out for a movie Hitch. It was the first time in years since all of us went for a movie. They were trying to cheer me up I guess. We had such a great time. And it turns out that my parents are the best company I would ever want for any movie....ever.

Today my parents were telling me how much I will enjoy myself over at Illinois. They were telling me how lucky I am to study in the United States.


I couldn't agree less.



Life goes on.


/Skeith, loves mum and dad.