At crossroads

I don't know what to do with my life. I really don't.

And I have to make a decision very soon.

Indecision. Noun, \ˌin-di-ˈsi-zhən\ A wavering between two or more possible courses of action.

I feel tired thinking and worrying about what I'm going to do in life. I know I'm not the only one. Every career has its pros and cons. And sometimes, interests and passions are put on the back burner as they are trumped by materialistic, physical factors e.g. money or academic qualifications. People tell me that I can change my job if I don't like what I'm doing. I wish I could do that. I applaud those who could and did. I really do, then I could just go into one of the courses and if I don't like it I just pack my stuff and go for the next one. They say it like it's so easy to do it.

I don't want to waste money. I don't come from a rich family, and to provide the financial means for my studies, my parents have to forego and sacrifice opportunities plus their time and effort by working extra hard. I don't want to make it any more troublesome for them than it already is. I'm blessed and thankful to have parents who are not forcing me to do things I don't want to do. Yes, they occasionally drop hints here and there, but they are allowing me to pursue my dream. I have friends whose parents aren't supportive at all of what they really desire to do in life and craft their own path for him. My parents may not be very enthusiastic, but at least they're not complaining heh. But the thing is, I don't know what my dream is.

Medicine. Dentistry. Pharmacy. Biomedical science. Those are the things that have been circling in my brain, more often that not for the past month. What do I want to do? Do I really want to look at people's teeth and mouth all day? Do I really want to stay in a lab the whole day with bacteria or the periodic table as my best friends? Honest answer: No. Answer with some more thinking and compromises: Yes. In one way or another, whatever we do in our daily lives require compromise. You can't escape it. And I'm thinking, if I compromise with myself and let go of my inhibitions, maybe I might grow to enjoy it. Scale new heights. Who knows.
I can rule out everything that is Maths-heavy because no way am I doing Maths my whole life. NO WAY. I would despise a life like that and just be digging my own grave. Besides, I'm no good in Maths. To obtain results I was okay with, I had to study like crazy. I had to do Maths every single day. I tried that, and I didn't like it at all. Maths, to me, is like kryptonite to Superman. Ha, I may be exaggerating but that's how I feel!

Most of the time, I'm not sure what I want... is what I really want, if you get what I mean. Is my heart just going with the flow as my brain is? Sometimes I think I'm on auto-pilot. I don't know. I think it's what I want. But is it? It's like there's another layer of what I'm thinking which reveals what I really really want. Mindception.

I don't see me doing any other stuff as a career in my life. I've been joining clubs and societies (that I'm interested in) and trying to get posts and do things that might add pages to my application to make them it look more appealing. I've been doing that since forever. I also do that in primary and secondary school. Trying my best. Participating in activities. Being involved. It's automatic. Sometimes I think I do it on auto-pilot, y'know.

Yes, art and music have a dear place in my heart in a way of its own. But it's not something I'd consider as a career. I hated drawing and colouring. I hated doing music theory during my piano lessons. That was a red light signal that art or music isn't something I'd like to do my whole life. As a hobby, sure... playing instruments, listening to music and making artsy fanart are my hobbies.

But with science or technology, it's different. I enjoyed learning about science. I find it fascinating. Of course it can get boring sometimes I have to admit, but they have their moments. Especially Biology omg, it's intriguing. I am amazed at how intricate and meticulous our God is when it comes to creation. How He can think of ways to make stuff like that... mind-blowing sometimes. Biology has to be my favourite subject, although it is not the subject I'm doing best in. In fact, among the 3 sciences, Biology was always my weakness. And if you know me, I love technology. I proclaim myself as a techno geek

Another thing I have to worry about is my horrible, horrible memory. God knows how I got As for my SPM when almost everyday I leave something I need at home even though I specifically told myself to get it the day before. I'm serious, I am expecting myself to end up having dementia or Alzheimer's when I grow old because it feels like I'm already having it now! How the hell am I going to do any of those jobs I just mentioned if I have horrible memory? I have to memorize tons and tons of facts and read the thickest books. If you know job zones, medicine/dentistry is one of the careers where you require the most intensive preparation/studying. I know myself. I'm not very disciplined when it comes to studying. Procrastination is a feat of mine. Well I will have to banish this feat of mine if I were to do whatever I want to do. Easier said than done though.

I understand the consequences and many disadvantages that comes with studying medicine/dentistry. I will have to dedicate all my time and give my all. Being lazy and procrastinating can no longer be an option. I've been reading people's experiences and opinions online and trust me, they're not pretty. But why do I still feel like I want to do it? I don't want to regret it and one day feel so depressed and drop out of the course because I can't take it anymore

Contrary to your opinions regarding myself and my hobby of watching TV shows and specifically Grey's Anatomy, I am not influenced by medical shows. Heck, if GA is influencing me on anything, it's how beautiful my fictional aspirational couple, Cristina and Owen's love story is and how much they have gone through and how the showrunner is giving us fans the very opposite of what we want to see and how their forever angsty relationship is falling apart and.... and how my unhealthy obsession needs to be toned down haha. Yeah obsessing over my favourite fictional couple, THAT I'm good at. If they had a job for that, I'd totally excel.

What I KNOW, is if I had the chance and the money, I would love to study overseas. No, not in Indonesia or Singapore... but in the UK or the US. US is an unrealistic dream with what I want to study I know, but UK is still available, although chances of that are extremely slim anyways. I am infected by wanderlust: a strong desire to travel. I would love to visit the Eiffel tower or the Arc de Triomph, walk around the Colosseum in Rome, inhale the fresh air of the Scottish highlands, watch a play at the West End and swim in the seas of the Carribean. Le sigh. May God help me.
Maybe I should just dig my nose and drink stuff all day on the the couch like this guy huh:
He knows what he's doing.

Holidays #1 + Adobe After Effects

Hey thereee :D

I am on my holidays right now which is almost ending, but I'm not those kind of people who despise holidays because they're so boring and they want to go back to school. Uh-uh not me. No matter how bored I am at home, I will find something to do... even if it's sleeping or just lying on my bed, staring at my ceiling. Because I prefer holidays than school. And that's technically still something to do.

The holidays are ending and I am so bummed I have to be swamped with homework and studies again. And since this is the 2nd semester, the road is going to get bumpier, challenges are getting harder, and the highs are getting higher. So much to study in so little time. Not looking forward to it.

But anyways, I'll talk about my holidays in another blog post I'll whip out later. Or tomorrow. Depending on how procrastinating I feel.

What I primarily want to share with everyone in this post is a 10second video I made in Adobe After Effects! This 10seconds video took me at least 3 hours. Non-stop. No toilet or water breaks. Crazy. But of course, I'm a total AE noob.

And my laptop only has 4GB RAM :'( Probably one of my biggest mistakes ever. Because it is impossible to RAM preview videos with video clips and photos in it. Therefore I made one with text. Text based on teens. Yeah it's random. It's suppose to be:

He sounded a similar call to young women. “As I contemplate all that you face in the world today,” he said, “One word comes to my mind. It describes an attribute needed by all of us but one which you—at this time of your life and in this world—will need particularly. That attribute is courage . . . courage to refrain from judging others . . . courage to be chaste and virtuous; and . . . courage to stand firm for truth and righteousness”

Yeah, the video didn't turn out to be the whole quote, just one sentence... HAHA I didn't realize it would take me so long okay! In the beginning of the video-making, I was quite motivated in that LET'S DO THIS mood. And then 3 hours later, I go... I NEED TO STOP FOR A WHILE. Yup.

I watched this kinetic and rhythmic typography thing last year and I was so interested in making one. So I tried Adobe After Effects, but SPM was just around the corner so I stopped practicing. Now that I'm on break and I'd like to do something productive, I tried After Effects again :)

But I'm glad I got to explore the possibilities of Adobe After Effects. You can make a lot of cool stuff with that. And I probably will! :)

I was just playing around with it, so don't mind the same words and whatever choppiness you see. Also, before you watch this, don't put your audio levels too high lol.

And maybe I'll try kinetic typography next. :)

Visit to the Planetarium!

On 31st March 2012, I celebrated Earth Hour at the National Planetarium :D

"What?! Since when did we have a national planetarium???"
That was my first response when I heard our astronomy club was planning to visit the national planetarium for Earth Hour Day :P I bet some of you also had that same response if you didn't know we had one...

But of course, our planetarium (unfortunately) isn't as fully equipped with high-end technology as the ones in other countries.

Cool side thing... my friend Nicola HAS BEAUTIFUL NAILS painted like the night sky and outer space!

The atmosphere was filled with excitement and enthusiasm by people with interests alike. Most of them were all there for one sole reason: to be amazed by Malaysia's starry night without the interference of light pollution. And to be around people who enjoy looking at God's creation in the sky too. But, we were too naive.

Anyways at 8.30pm, the planetarium turned off their lights to show their support for Earth hour. And they supplied their visitors with DIY lantern materials! But we didn't make a lantern. We took glow sticks instead.

When the lights turned off, you could hear the sounds of people ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the sight of colourful, glowing lanterns and glow sticks in the dark. I was probably one of them :)

Our surroundings were so dark, I didn't really get to see the planetarium as a whole. It had a huge dome on top and flights of stairs from the courtyard to the main entrance, but that's all I could make out in the dark.

They had telescopes set up for us visitors to look through. I saw the moon, Mars and supposedly Saturn.

But honestly, the people working there didn't even know their stuff. Liiyung saw a reddish bright dot in the sky, and told us it was Mars. She took her iPhone out and used some astronomy app to make sure. Yup, it was Mars. But the guy who handled the telescope, told it was Saturn o.O

We went for a night walk around the planetarium. The purpose of the night walk is to see KL in total darkness because all the lights were off during earth hour. Well, they were SUPPOSE to be off. Unfortunately, the night walk didn't meet its purpose (and it was really boring actually), because KL's skyline was still shining oh-so-brightly. All the buildings' and houses' lights were on. And the irony was... Tenaga Nasional Berhad's building was probably one of the buildings which shone the brightest that night LOL

And that was how naive we were, thinking that most people would turn off their lights for Earth Hour? *scoff*

So after the devastatingly boring night walk which did not live up to my expectations, we decided to go for the real thing. The Planetarium! It was like Petrosains (@ KLCC) inside. With the exhibitions and written information on the walls. They had this section with breathtaking pictures that photographers took of the sky, day and night. To be honest, astrophotography looks really interesting <3

We also went in this anti-gravity room! More like for children, but we went in anyways. Hey, you can't blame us, there was a slide :P!

Other interesting stuff:

Periodic table

Astronaut training

Nicola in her space pod

Sundial

Oops, forgot what this is. But looks interesting ;)

Taking a picture of the moon with a phone through a telescope

Here's a picture of the real moon that I took with my iPod with the aid of a telescope:

It's a beaut, eh? I couldn't believe my eyes at first :O I know, we've seen tons of pictures of the Moon on TV or the internet, but seeing it with your own eyes on a screen of your iPod, is a marvelous feeling. Not the type of feeling you can get by seeing pictures. This is the real thing!

We looked up in the sky, and saw two bright thick lines in the sky. It looked like spacecrafts! It was stationary, it didn't move and it just stayed there for a long time. We were really curious and asked around, but no one knew what it was either.

Freaky.

We didn't have much time, and we were in quite a rush, so we just passed through everything. Didn't really read through the information in detail.

In the end, the event was not even about Earth hour for me. It was mostly about how much more I knew about astronomy (which wasn't much anyways LOL) and it strengthened my interest for astronomy. :)

Okay I'm getting sleepy and trying to end this post quickly lol goodnightzz :D

Fried durian ice-cream thingy?

The snow shall stay. Because I'm too lazy to edit the HTML to take out the code -.-

Running on 3 hours of sleep last night and 5 hours on Tuesday night. Thanks to the Biology, Moral Studies and Chemistry tests. Feeling tired, but very awake at the same time :/

And CURSE my high tolerance for caffeine. Green tea, coffee, whatever with caffeine, you name it... I can drink it and still fall asleep.


Anyways, back to the title post...

I ate this wonderful delectable thingy which I don't know the name of... but I will call it fried durian ice-cream thingy. And what it is, is self-explanatory. It's a small block of durian ice-cream, bathed in thick batter and deep-fried till crispy and golden. It's like the deep fried Mars bar of Scotland. This is the deep fried durian ice-cream of Malaysia. IT TRULY IS THE SHIZZ.

You probably have seen it before, but I have not, so let me pointlessly convince you to try them :)

Let me show you some pictures so you can drool as I am now:

It's hot on the outside, cold on the inside... *cough*like some girls*cough*

Don't let its façade deceive you. One bite of this baby and you'll be begging for more.

It is a little too oily though. So remember to dab off the excess oil sticking to the fried batter :)

So, today I went for a repeat of a slice of heaven, and to my disappointment... it wasn't there.

It was like a magic thing which came out of nowhere last week and now it disappeared. :(

Yes. It was that good, I made a whole post about it.

P/S: Why can't I see fried ice-cream thingies around anymore? Craving...