30 September 2010

I think I am sick.

From all the stresses, from all the pressures. Stressed because sometimes I can't understand the class, stress because the exams were difficult because of language, stress because the homeworks and books are in Korean.

So far 2 people had withdrawed from this university.

One in the third (or second?) year and one from my year. Imagine in a short span of time, there were people that did quit from this university. 10% had gave up.

Right now I had flu and feverish.

I do not know what makes me stay on. Is it worthwhile to continue?



Winterplay - Happy Bubble.

Walking on clouds

Autumn is here

Today, it was cold. 13 degrees celcious. Yesterday, it was more than 20 degrees. Korean weather is like Roulette, you place a bet, spin it, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. But usually, you lose. Korean weather is just unbearable.

Of all 4 seasons in Korea, I like spring and autumn. Spring is lively but irritating because that time, lots of pollens were around. Not a nice time for asthmatics. Autumn is dull, gloomy but it brings back nice wonderful memories.

For the moment, I am undecided whether to go back or not for CNY. Right now tickets back are so cheap (through Air Asia of course!) but I dislike the weather in Malaysia. I miss family and friends too. ya right. lol.

Of course I miss them.

Just now, went out with some group of foreign friends, I dunno why but sometimes when they badmouth the mainland chinese, I felt angry lah. I consider myself a Malaysian so I would usually ignore them. But deep inside, I felt hot. I am always wondering why I feel angry in situation like this... haiz... Lets don't talk about how "educated" they are. Post-grads yet so kaneneh racist.

hmmn. wadepak.

These 3 days. Okay la, last 3 days was a Korean public holiday - Chuseok or Korean thanksgiving. I hate it because I can't find any food stalls opening for businesses during that 3 days of holiday. With the exception of today for lunch, I was forced (well, that lady told me that I can only select a particular meal from that menu... again, wadepak!) to order the most expensive meal in her shop.

Only 3500 Won (around 3 USD), okay, cheap la. But come one la wei, I can go McD and buy a set meal with that money. I lost weight during that holiday. Usually, for students, most would resort to eating rameon noodles during these crisis but I don't take rameon. I think I make a pact with some gods not to ever touch rameon noodles. lol just kidding.

In Korea, I don't like or take rameon noodle. So I ate cereal + milk. breakfast and dinner :( lunch outside but not at McD but at Korean restaurant. :) After 2 days, my big box of Almond Cereal was nothing but an empty box. Therefore today, I had to eat at that old lady's place. Dinner was at friend's house.

Okay, time to get serious.

These days, in Malaysia, nothing is going right. Instead of discussing about how our the country should go forward. We fell back into the same pattern. We talk about race and politics. Talking about understanding each and every races is okay but when we are talking about one's racial "superiority", we tend to be emotional. We don't care about other, we hurt other's feeling.

I always ask, if we grow up in the same country. Shouldn't we all be given the same opportunities? Help the weak, yes but shouldn't we too help the weak that is from a different race/colour/religion? How about the rich people benefiting from certain clause allowing a percentage reduction in buying property. If you are a millionaire, does it make any sense that you deserve to be given a discount when buying a big house?

Poverty doesn't choose the people. Hard work is equally neccesary. Competition makes it possible to improve ourselves. If there is no competition, we will not be able to make international calls, we are not able to learn, see the stars, we do not know what is it like in the space. I always hope, one day, Malaysians can hold side by side, not feeling bad, not insisting that there must be 3 person from 3 different main ethnic groups. And still we would be proud eventhough they do not represent these 3 groups but yet we are proud of them/him/her. Not because they represent our country but because they are Malaysians.

Sometimes, I asked. What does it make a country great? I think the answer is the people. Not natural resources, not great history and certainly not the leaders. Plenty of natural resources usually makes no competitions/inovations, it makes everyone hoping for an easy money. We can see that most countries that have vast amount of natural resources, they tend not to be developed or wealthy.

History. Histories are created by victors. Losers are to be condemmed. No matter how impressive historical facts were been told, they tend to be ambiguous. Jet engines were made in Germany, at the time when Nazi government was in power. Most new inventions came from Germany at the time of WWII. Why? They compete and inovate because they need to compete with the other countries after WWI.

Leaders are the mold of the society and also the representative of the people. Leaders could not do much without the people. But if the people themselves are not acceptive of critisms, are not tolerant, how is the country going to be great? Are we going to wait? Are the others going to wait for us? and instead of going forward, we moved backwards?

We are not a great nation, we are not perfect. But do let us all make Malaysia, a nice warm fuzzy place to stay. A place we can really call it, no other places like home. I miss Malaysia.

15 September 2010

어떻게 하죠 우리는 서로
침묵하네요

멀어지네요

어쩌면 우린 운명이 아닌
우연이었을까요
아마도 우린 영원이 아닌
여기까진가봐요

14 September 2010

Ate Serunding, half the big pack. Bought it in Malaysia. Yummy. Plan to change my professor but the prof can't be found after running around the uni whole day just because of that prof. wtf. shibal.

Just what I think of

These days, everyone wants to get what he/she wants. Achievements are what that drive people to success. However, I can feel that those things are no longer what I will sweat for these days.



I find that there are more things to see as we grow old. It's not about aiming high but aiming right.

It started when I had the chance to go about representing my country in Singapore. This was my first experience in meeting with the brightest students of Asia. By the way, I am not, I am just a lucky guy being selected to represent the country. :)



Like every ordinary people, there would be moments when we were proud of ourselves. To me, that moment was not representing the country, getting good results, etc but instead one of those happy memories was actually entering Penang Free School.

Well, this is my dad's school so deep inside, naturally I would want to enter this school. Right?



I remembered that during the first day of my secondary schooling life, I woke up a little too early. That day, I was excited to start my secondary school life after spending 6 years of my primary school education. A new life, all new.

Since my school is an old one, it was the first english school to be established in south east asia (my school was establihed in 1816) so stories of secret tunnels, ghosts of former principals were commonly heard.

Those were the days. Therefore, I was always afraid of arriving to school early when I was in the first year. :(

After that, making new friends was a necessity. Of course, during our first few days of our school life, we would cling on with our primary school mates. In life, I think making friends is the primary step in schooling life and it outweighs studying.



Life is honestly lonely and unbearable without friends. I am glad until today I have friends that I can count on.



Few years passed and I am now in Korea. From growing up in a small and beautiful island of Penang to a city of Daegu. It's kinda unbelievable as I never thought of studying in Korea.

Anyway, my city is very similar to Daegu (minus the beaches because Daegu has no beach..) so its easy to get use to the tempo of the city life.



People always say that at the end of the journey, there are few things which are very important. Say, getting a house?

Stable income? ice kacang seller ;)

and finally... marriage???

Luckily most of us are not yet in this stage.

At this stage most of us would be studying hard, graduate, continue with studies or work. But I do not want to reach this part yet.. Is there any possibility to not find work so soon?



I am not a lazy person but I realised that once you are working, it would be almost impossible to travel and see the world.



The feeling of when travelling when we are young is totally different, those phases are indescribable. We are more adventerous, more energetic when we are young and I do not want to miss those opportunity now..



When we are old, usually we are less adventerous, prefering comfort over budget. Not willing to take risks and have more commitments.



I am trying my best to achieve academically as well as to travel while I can. This will be my last long pictorial post until winter. In life, we are all actors and actresses, at the end of day, we will have to remove our makeups.

PS. I will blog when I have the time but for now, I will study hard as to not fail. By the way, I have so few readers so it's really not important to blog I guess. :) Oh readers (if you are one), thank you for reading. ㅋㅋ 앞으로 다시 쓸게요...

5th September 2010

Today, as usual, I ate some Korean food (again). Ate Korean food 24/7 and this makes me sick of eating them anymore. Haiz. In Malaysia, I can't comprehend why so many people have that peculiar taste for Korean food. Well, at first it was delicious but after sometime, the taste becomes more and more apparent. I mean how long can you eat fermented soyabean? every week? It stinks wei...

I miss curry. I miss the comfort of spending my money on food whenever I want in Malaysia. I miss home. In Korea, you can, but nothing at night is really delicious. These days, nothing great, just being preoccupied with my work. My english class, hmmn, honestly, too easy, sometimes I felt like wasting my time there.

I make some stupid choices.

During my free time, I wrote a review, a movie review actually. I did that in a day after reading a movie review in the KNU english magazine about The Truman Show. Here's the review. This time it's The Expendables. I watched this movie with friends during my summer vacation in Malaysia.

The Expendables – Where guns meet martial arts.



Who doesn’t like watching a star-studded movie? From the likes of Sylvester Stallone to our very own Asian actor, Jet Li, this movie is sure to make our heads turn. Or does it not? With the cameo appearance of actor-turned-politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger, it makes us all wonder whether the sky’s the limit in acting.

The movie started out with a violent scene where a group of mercenaries headed by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) on a rescue mission to save hostages. During the rescue mission, there was a disagreement and in the end a member of the Expendables, Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) was discharged. Unsatisfied yet cool, he agreed to the decision but felt that the reason he was discharged was unjustified.

This action will shape the entire plot of the movie as time passes. Then, one day, the team received an offer to undertake a mission on a fictional island of Vilena. The mission was to overthrow the dictator, General Garza (David Zayas) of that small island. On a botched reconnaissance mission, the team somehow managed to learn on the real reasons behind this mission. There, Barney Ross left Sandra (Giselle Itié), his guide on her own while they returned back contemplating on quitting the mission.

Guilt got up to Barney Ross when he realized that he left Sandra to fend for herself, not being able to save her. So he again assembled his team to finish the mission and save Sandra at the same time. Nevertheless, even before he arrived at his destination, he was hunted down by a team of assassins. As expected in its predictable storyline, he and his sidekick, Yin Yang (Jet Li) managed to fend them off.

Finally, the Expendables arrived at Vilena on a rescue mission, a mission to save Sandra and to save the people of Vilena. Ultimately, this movie is more about friendship, through thick and thin, friends will always be there for each other like the team of the Expendables. Even when facing an army and outnumbered, they always stick together as a team.

In this world, nothing will last forever. Same goes to the dictators, one day they will be impeached by the people and evil wrongdoings will always be corrected and rectified. This movie did not come up to my expectation but I am neither terribly disappointed nor felt it was a waste of money. It was an entertaining, heart-pounding and mind-blowing movie. With great and well known actors, it is great to see them back in action on screen again.


Kyle Tan Jin Soon

:)

Tomorrow will be another week in school. Many new challenges to face, new things to be learned, new people to be met but the same smelly fermented soyabean paste nobody likes (I mean for a guy like me that eat that for a living everyday. lol. Just kidding. It's just smelly, you can neither find it being sold in Malaysia too at Korean restaurant)

왜 나는 수업에 가도 느낌이 안 좋다. 나는 이번 학기는 노력하고 싶은데 장애가 이렇게 많는다. 기다려도 못해.. 나는 이제도 내 실력이 모르고 찾을수없는 것 같다. Must prioritize what I need to do and not to. 혹시도 이렇게 빨리 실망 하지 말고 그냥 하루 하루 살기 바라.. 시간이 지나면 많이 지나면 멀어도 약속 때문에 기다리고 있어