The Government is determined to eradicate hardcore poverty in two years despite the current austerity drive.

That’s what the they said.

Well, that’s also what they said 4 years ago. But it seems that everyone is getting poorer instead. The only people getting richer are the already rich.

For the past few months, I’ve been eating really cheap and lousy economy food in my canteen. Sometimes even just drinking some cereals for lunch and even skipping dinner. I used to pinch my wallet so that I could buy a new hardware or a new pair of shoes. Now, I have to pinch my wallet and even tie my stomach so that I can service my car! Already “ubah gaya hidup” mah.

As I look at the RM625 I got from the post office as rebate for the fuel subsidy, I can’t help but think how fast this stack of money is going to be spent. It’s only going to last me 7 times to the petrol station. That’s only 2 months!

I went for grocery shopping last weekend and the price of Tesco Value instant noodles has been replaced with what Cintan or Maggi used to cost. Wholemeal bread now costs RM3 instead of RM2. When the government asked us to “Ubah Gaya Hidup” during the last fuel hike, I supposed they were talking about our television usage, luxury food consumption, etc… I never know they were actually asking us to die of hunger.

More things to cut? Perhaps if I cut my hair BOTAK each time, I get to save more on haircut bills.

MyVi’s fuel tank capacity is 40 litres. In fact, if you’re a MyVi driver, most probably you’ll be spending about RM60 everytime you refuel your car in the petrol station. That’s because the last bar when the fuel gauge meter starts blinking, you’d actually still have about slightly less then 10 litres left but no one dares takes the risk to go anywhere far with that blinking warning.

So, the previous price of RON97 petrol costs RM1.92 per litre. The last increase of 30 cents have already costs the price of everything to increase madly and the most affected people are THE POOR. The richer class of people probably have little impact to their salary, some have subsidised from their company, some businessmen actually earns more by increasing the price of everything in their shops.

In my case, my car is MyVi and previously, I’m spending about RM60 everytime I refuel. Now I need to spend about RM90 everytime I go to the petrol station. That means I’m pumping about 30 litres of petrol everytime. 30 litres multiplied by RM2.70 is RM81. ARGHHHh~!~!~!

Die la… I’m already eating cheap cereal for lunch only. Now eat what ah? Grass?

Just about a month, I confessed my feelings to a girl. Although not directly but I was happy she got the message. However, things were complicated as mentioned in this poem. Although after the fog had clear, I had not really officially asked her the question yet.

This can be considered a continuation of the poem previously written.

Deary, I’ve been wondering.
Will I still be dreaming.
You by my side and we’re hugging.
Be comfortable, be joyful, be happy.
My heart beats like in a hurry.
Girlfriend I wish you are to me.

Her reply >>>

Deary, you are the one shine
I mentioned before time
Do is what I have for thee

Deary don’t give up on me
I will always be there for thee
Love and cherish your kisses
You have melt me to cheeses…

I had been waiting for a reply with my heart thumping hard. My Reply >>>

Deary,
You have made me worry,
made my heart beat in a hurry.
The faces you made when you made me wait
Waiting for you to decide our fate

Worth the time I’ve wait with mind blurry
It was a simple yet wonderful poetry
I was touched and very happy
Am I stupid to be so worried?
Happy after your reply I see.

I’m nearing the final year for my course. Luckily, I made it through so far without much unwanted incident. Of course, there were horrible management in the admin department, lousy lecturers who come and go. Some temporary replacement tutors who come in in the middle of our course and also extremely lousy plan for the students to actually learn much of anything before taking on any exams.

Thus, to keep pushing myself to do better then pass and with lots of help from friends, good lecturers and of course, with lots of help and support from my lovely girlfriend, I am able to make it this far without much problems with my results. I do hope it’s better though but I know my own standards. I’m still happy for at least it’s still relatively better then most of the other students.

So now, it’s time to plan for a project which I can make for my final year’s project. Something which can “Wow” the invigilators and taken over to Degree level. Something which we needed to start planing on now instead of waiting for the stupid admin to announce it first.

It would probably sound like this:

Admin: Hi students, you’ll need to start on your FYP now. Here are the topics and your lecturers.
Student: When is the due date?
Admin: Oh… 1 week from now. You need to do the work of at least 1 year though. Try to cope! Or you’ll need to pay for a re-sit.
Student: *Blames PSDC*
PSDC: *Blames tutors*

So anyway. to start thinking of our own FYP isn’t a bad idea now since we have some free time before our next assignment or exam. My girlfriend suggested Artificial Neural Network, or at least the AI part of it. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Sounds like it can really impress. We found a book about the fundamentals of Neural Network which only costs around RM50. If it’s too complicated then we probably can opt for some simpler alternative such as Fuzzy Logic with some advance AI.

Then maybe if it’s still not acceptable, then we could always just make a humanoid robot like Iron Man.

A guy met a girl in class,
Then, he was too shy to ask,
so he just admire her from far,
about the girl who shines like a star.

Those who made it pass a semester,
she was one of the most popular.
Another guy seems to like her,
but it all sounded like a rumor.

Until the day he saw them holding hands,
that’s when his hopes turns to sand.
but he still is happy together with them,
as he and her still remain as friends.

For one year he watched and waited,
for one year he remained silent.
Thinking his miserable love life is fated,
to wait but not get the love he wanted.

There is no blood but tears,
there was no hate but fears.
Seeing them together makes him jealous,
seeing him mistreating her makes him angers.

“But who am I to interfere?”
She probably loves him so dear.
he tries to keep himself occupied
with work and games and silent cheers.

But it made him feels more lonely
it made him feels so sad.
Sad enough to do something mad,
mad enough to find another lad.

The lad was tall and pretty,
but he still misses her like crazy.
When she said she won’t disturb,
he snaps and finds himself in dirt.

Feeling like a piece of trash,
feeling his heart burnt to ash.
Quickly he broke up with the lad,
who was also kind of mad.

He realized how much he had fell,
for the girl he now know quite well.
But there are so much more he wants to know,
About the girl he knew few years ago.

So he wrote his feelings somewhere,
thought that no one will read it there.
Surprised on the next day,
to hear what she had to say.

She had read what he wrote,
and she waited for him to spoke.
One ice cream, one dinner and a few chokes,
he still has no courage to tell what he had wrote.

She said it’s touching, without being asked,
the whole story finally unmasked.
but it would have been a lot better,
if only he was a little earlier.

He made a mistake by waiting too much,
as she had feelings for him just as much.
but now there is another guy,
who seems to always makes her cry.

*

The story stops here for now
as it is an ongoing tale.
I hope and I pray as I follow the trail,
that it’ll be you I see at the end of the vale.
that it’ll be you I see when I remove the vile.
that it’ll be you I hug, so I must prevail!

Events are usually the only time PISA will fully utilize their car park space. Even if PISA becomes a venue for an Olympics event, I don’t think the car park will ever be full.

Anyway, there are 3 different car parks in PISA. Outdoor, Multi-story and Basement. Out of the 3 car parks, the basement car park has got to be the the car park with the most pillars in the whole of Penang. So there, you’ll find people simply parking their cars wherever there’s a “hole” which their car can fit into without considering if they’ll be blocking anyone or even themselves.

So today, I parked normally in one of the parking lot at the basement car park. There was already a car inside which could not get out after I park but since he himself is parking at the wrong spot and the other car blocking him was also at wrong, I didn’t care. I paid for parking, I found my own spot, and it’s a legal parking spot.

What do I get after walking for 1 hour? An announcement from the PA system that my car was blocking the TRAFFIC! What a load of crap! They expect the one following all the rules laid out by the building management to make way for those who are at wrong?

I moved my car anyway. I didn’t mind since it was time for me to go back to the office anyway. When I arrived at my car, there was no one there standing by their car. The car which was blocked is still there and no one standing by their car to get out. So I just drove away… And someone else parked back at my spot blocking that car again…

MUAHAHAHA!!! Now I would have loved to stay and look at the guy’s expression when he comes back to see another car blocking his way and will have to go back to the announcer to make another announcement. Hehe…

Been working hard in the office lately. Eating in all the time even on Fridays. That’s because there has been a lot of work and even now, still more work. I missed the deadline for one of the test I’ve been doing by nearly a whole month. If that product is a selling product, we would have lost millions. But fortunately, that product was still a prototype and everything was falling apart. So if my manager writes my review, I wonder if I’ll be given a bad review or written as a hero trying to test the damn product manually instead of using the Automated system.

Been working hard at night. No, not working in the bedroom. I’m a student, and part time students usually studies at night and over the weekends. We don’t have holidays or semester breaks. We have assignments and lecturers who thinks we have all the time in the world to complete whatever they give us. The lecturers might think we don’t have to work during the day. They might think we don’t have family events to tend to and they might think we can just survive doing a 9 to 5 day job and study at night. Then expect us to pass with at least a merit and for some, distinction.

I don’t know how I’ll do in the exam because frankly, this is the first time we have no idea what’s coming out in the exam. The notes our lecturer gave us are not really like the one in our text books. Can we consider that we’re actually not studying the proper syllabus?

Anyway, the students will of course study what’s given in the notes. Since the lecturer knows what the students is supposed to know in order to pass the exams right? How much of these formulas and problem solving methods can we cramp inside our head is another question.

All I want to think about is after the exam. I’ll have work to do. But looking at how stable my last release is for the project, it doesn’t seems like there’s much to worry about for the time being. There’s also some things my friend said which had encouraged me, and made me feel a little better since a few days ago.

After the exam, I guess it’s time for a hair cut, a nice massage, and to schedule some time for jogging in the park once a week.

Things to look forward to in this month.

• Having lots of extra meetings to complete projects. Probably having lunch meetings so we can’t go out on Fridays.
• Having lots of course assignments to do. At least to complete 1 per week.
• Need to study 8 different complicated topics in less then 6 days (From Today).
• Endure a few urges. (Nothing dirty, just plain criminal)
• ZERO time for movies.
• ZERO time for car wash.
• ZERO time for PC fair and
• ZERO time for relaxation.
• 1st of May is labor day. It’s the only thing looking nice to look forward to at the moment. No plans yet. No authority to make plans over my own life at the moment.

*Warning: This is a Nerd post! it’s about programming and just a random rant. Hahaha*

As a programmer, one of my job function is to debug anything which is not working properly, or not working at all.

Of course, most big software companies will have at least a few people in a group working on only one feature and another group working to integrate all the features and code. Being in a small department, we are put in charge to program a small program all by ourselves. Of course it’s possible to make small simple programs alone but sometimes, it’s stressful when they expect results and full working programs in less then a week or two. One may be able to complete a working draft program for a simple box test (Alpha test) or a simple working system with everything looking like it’s falling apart. Instead, we are expected to produce a fully working system or at least a pre-release beta at that given time frame. That leaves us no time to even properly test the program and tweak the performance or correct any wrong calculations in the algorithm.

Okay, so now I managed to complete a program with good stable working results but with only one feature left until I can release the program for pre-release beta (Release Candidate). Everything in the code seems correct. There was no error. But it doesn’t seem to do anything. O.o

Hmm… Something must be wrong with the calculations or there must be some variable somewhere which I need to define. *Scratch itchy head*

Out of the hundreds or thousands of people we meet in our lives, there are a lot you will like. There are also some who would just makes you think “Oh, How nice if I have a girlfriend like her.” There are some who would just makes you wanna have wild moments with her but you won’t stand her when she’s serious.

Out of those hundreds of people, you might only get to know a handful. Some just as friends, some as close friends. And sometimes, maybe just together as a nice relationship. And of the few of those, there’s probably only 1 or 2 who you will fall for. And when you do, it’s probably already too late. She’s already taken.

And you start blaming yourself, asking yourself, why didn’t these feelings come earlier? Why didn’t you took action earlier? Why must you wait until now only to be sad whenever you think about not being with her?

It was a simple liking at first. You look at her and you think that she got style, you see her beauty and she just makes you feel happy being around. Then next, you want to be close to her, you just want her to notice you, talk to you and laugh with you, and also think of her once in awhile just for fun. Finally, you can’t stop thinking about her. You think about her before you go to sleep, you think about her when you’re talking to your friends, you think about her when you’re working or studying. Even when you try not to think about it, the feeling just makes you feel horrible. Horrible because you were too coward to go after her when you were just simply liking her. Horrible because you don’t know if you should go after her now that she has a guy. And even more horrible because that guy is also your friend. And sometimes, you get angry because he isn’t doing enough to comfort her when she is not well. And jealous when she still holds his hand after that.

You try to think of the possible reasons for your own feelings. Maybe because you are stressed? Or perhaps because she helped you a lot? Maybe if you go after another girl, you can stop thinking about her. But what if you still think about her when you’re with another girl?

What should you do now? Do you stay quiet and wait? Or do you confess? Breaking up a couple is not a good thing to do. It’ll hurt not only the guy but also the girl you fell for. And what if you waited and the chance never come? Will you endure this pain forever?

I’ve always thought falling in love was just simply liking someone a lot. And I thought those things about not able to loose someone was only something made up by Hollywood. Now I know, that loosing someone or not having to be able to hug them and have them hug you in return, is so sad.

Perhaps I’ll just keep staying by her side as a friend. And keep waiting.

*
Exam will be on next week. We have a very lazy lecturer and he hasn’t been teaching the class well enough. Everyone is complaining and yet he hasn’t given us any tips yet on what to focus our studies or revision on. I need to concentrate, I need to discipline myself to study. I can not keep thinking about her… Not now, at this time anyway…