The pic and video that was requested.

I suppose this is TECHNICALLY an academic post.. but it's so much more fun to post pics and videos!!

So, this is me (in case there arent enough pics of me on this blog, and maybe you have short-term memory loss and just cannot remember what i look like) camwhoring outside the steamboat place where we had sin yee's birthday party.


This is well, me again, with mun yee this time!
Me and Mun Yee, we used to sit together in class and get into SO MUCH trouble cos we'd never EVER stop talking. We'd literally start when we saw each other in the morning and continue the whole day til it was time to go home. Man, our class teacher hated us so bad... she threatened to mark down my testimonial, and that scared the crap out of me. I never kissed ass so much and with so much enthusiasm as i did the couple of weeks before the testimonials were due to come out. Worked, though. My comments came out as 'seorang murid yang mesra' instead of 'seorang murid yang bercakap banyak dan tidak memberi perhatian di dalam kelas' which was what she said would come out.

heh heh. there are major benefits to ass-kissing, i tell you. hated every second of it, though.

Ooh, ooh, i really love this song! it's only the most romantic song ever. Listen to it! I defy you to tell me it's just blah.

3rd post! Another boring academic post (kidding! .... or am I? *mysterious music*)

"Hey, i dunno how to find lyrics online."
"Use a search engine, you dummy."
"Search engine? Whazzat?"

Unless you're as clueless as the dummy, you'd pretty much already know what is a search engine and its basic function - basically, to search. According to Wikipedia, 'a web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list, and are commonly known as 'hits'. The information may consist of webpages, images, information, and other types of files.'

A few of the numerous search engines available on the internet include mamma metasearch, yahoo! search, google scholar, and eric digest. As is obvious, they share similarities such as search capabilities, and all of them except for eric digest have a minimalist page (just a box to enter the search keywords, and a few tabs). Mamma Metasearch and Yahoo! search are both 'regular' search engines, which mean that they are used to search for general things, whereas Eric Digests and Google Scholar are specifically for academicia-related searches. Mamma and Yahoo! also have directory options, enabling the user to search for specific places.

Similarity-wise, Yahoo! and Mamma enable internet users to search the web, video, search for businesses and jobs, and make it easier for shoppers to compare prices. They differ on many points, for example, Yahoo! also has tabs for people to search for images, audio (songs, etc), answers (people post questions and other users may answer them. the answers are rated, based on how useful they are), and, most importantly, the directory that Yahoo! first started out as. It was the start of the Web search thing, when there were no bots to go around looking through websites and people actually went from site to site, categorizing them and posting their work on the Yahoo! directory. Mamma's unique feature is both the Yellow Pages, and the White Pages. The Yellow Pages is similar to Yahoo's 'Local' tab, which enables people to search for business, and the White Pages is used to search for people. Mamma also has a 'Travel' tab, which is useful for those who are about to travel. The tab makes it easy for people to compare prices between airlines, and search for rental car and hotel room availability, as well as book cruises.

Google Scholar and Eric Digests, are, as I mentioned earlier, more specific search sites - all academic stuff! So, compared to Mamma Metasearch and Yahoo! search, they have very limited search capabilities. However, they are very useful for researches and suchlike, as they both allow users to search for academic works. There are differences, though. Eric Digests only allow users to search for documents (reports, etc) that are produced by the former Eric Clearinghouse system. Google Scholar, however, searches journals, not reports like Eric Digest. More specifically, Eric Digests targets teachers, administrators etc, but is generally useful to the broad educational community. Google Scholar, while useful to educators and students, covers a broad spectrum of topics, and is not confined merely to education-related issues.

Oh, and there's a new search engine that is about to be launched, called Wolfram/Alpha. According to Information Week, Wolfram/Alpha is a computational knowledge engine. It is being designed by Stephen Wolfram, to answer any factual question; a breakthrough in technology with the potential to 'redefine the act of research itself.'. It uses semantic web technology, which is, according to Wikipedia (my favourite website! or maybe only til wolfram/alpha is launched), an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content. Cool stuff, huh. Imagine being able to type out 'when was the atom bomb created?' instead of typing out 'atom bomb' and having to sift through all the stuff you didn't ask for but are facts of the atom bomb. Research will be way faster!

Oh and by the way, researching this topic was mind-numbing. Can't wait for the Wolfram/Alpha launch. May, baby! Just a couple of months to go!

College Dinner!

MAP was pretty nice, corporate theme notwithstanding. I had my girls, so we entertained ourselves... though during the speeches (VERY pro-palapes) i though we'd pass out and die from boredom. sad, but true. anyhow, a couple of pics from the night, the rest i have to steal from chrissy's camera, and the pics from mine will have to come later cos i forgot to bring my cable.

From left: lisa, hani, me and gloria. Hani's hand is blocking my face, dammit, but its still a nice pic. taken during a group excursion to the ladies'. hehe. the toilet in panggung seni is way bigger and nicer than the ones in dectar! so we obviously had to take pics in there for, you know, memories. so we'd remember which side has the bigger and nicer toilet.

The ktho debate team that made it to semi finals (and almost had mental breakdowns in the process)!! first speaker (me), second speaker (hazel) and third speaker (hani bunny)... good times. some sore loser called us the 'bimbo ktho team'. well, the bimbos kicked your ass, boy, and don't you forget it!

What i'd like to think of as my 'demure pose'. ^.^

All in all, fun night. And omg, all the palapes dudes were HOT HOT HOT in suits. Abg wan in a suit!! There are perks to living in ktho after all! =D

2nd post! Blogs: A method of improvng one's english?

It is, theoretically, possible to improve one's language, and specifically, writing skills by blogging. However, it is imperative to have somebody with a high language proficiency level available to check what has been written. If not, the blogger will just keep making the same mistakes, and, worse, become set in his or her ways, making it even harder to be corrected once the mistakes have been - belatedly - discovered.

it may be best to join an english language blogging community, where there are many people with the same purpose - to improve their english. There, the community supports its members and it is easier to learn when there are people to correct one's mistakes and answer any questions that are posed. It is almost like a classroom, only a virtual one, and correction may not be immediate, depending on who's online. An example of english learning blog communities is the english blog. There are also bloggers who set up their own blogs, and ask for people to help them correct grammatical mistakes, etc. However, these aren't so successful, as people may or may not give helpful comments. For example, English learning blog is written by Emilio, who published posts, but never seemed to improve much. The motivation is very obvious, however, it just wasn't very effective without a constant group of people to help him out. The blog's last post is dated the 6th of December 2006, and his english still wasnt very good, which proves that he
a) gave up, and
b) didnt improve much.

The thing about blogging is that it is fun to read other blogs as well. Assuming they are all written in perfect english, reading other blogs is an entertaining way to learn improve one's grasp of english, subsequently improving one's writing skills (larger vocabulary, proper grammar, etc). An individual can then, with his or her new knowledge, write posts using what was learned, therefore practicing, and commiting the knowledge to memory. This is how writing skills are improved by blogging, in my humble opinion.

As a blogger of sorts, i have also found many blogs that i find extremely interesting and i visit them practically daily. Amongst them are Perez Hilton's celebrity gossip blog, and Katie Macalister's blog (one of my favourite authors).

And that's all for now! =D

Theme: Corporate. Grumble grumble, complain, whine.

I can't believe I have to wear CORPORATE WEAR to my college dinner. College dinner? Formal? Preferably gowns, etc? Nope, not ktho, home of the palapes. WE buck the trend. WE wear effing corporate-type clothes to dinner. WOW. The night every girl dreams of: looking like a cross-dresser. oh, and the night every guy dreams of: girls in shirts.

AND i was thinking about wearing this really cute yellow blouse that's sleeveless.. i mean, it's a dinner right? they might not mind the sleeveless.. after all, if the theme was different, i definitely wont be wearing anything with darned sleeves. but i talked to hani bunny about it.. and she was like 'nope, better not, abg wan will be there. after naik nafsu.' and i'm like 'oh, yeah! darn it! now my wardrobe choice is even more limited... cos the sight of my exposed upper arms might drive our ydp to depravity'. and the sad thing is? i wasnt even kidding. i hate ktho. if only moving out was a more popular option with my friends. argh.

but anyhow. still seriously considering the blouse. i mean, nobody is going to literally leap on me and wrestle me to the ground right? i should be bloody well able to wear what i want to the darn college dinner.

clarification: it's not just my upper arms that might cause the nafsu-ness. it's everybody's upper arms. nobody's safe!!

Eye candy of the day

Zac Efron is hot. Zac Efron in a leather jacket just blasts my thermometer into smithereens. Thank you, God!